An anti-dump stat CHA feat chain

[Spenser]

Inspired by hong's combat-oriented Charisma feats, here are some more feats intended to decrease the "dump factor". Comments are welcome and appreciated.

Call to Battle [General, Fighter]
Your heroic fighting spirit spurs your comrades to action.
Prerequisites: BAB +1, Cha 13+
Benefit: At the start of battle, you and any allies who are within 30 feet of you and can see you gain a +1 morale bonus to their initiative roll. This benefit is lost if you are stunned, helpless, unconscious, or under the influence of a fear effect.

Call to Glory [General, Fighter]
Your heroic fighting spirit encourages your comrades to make daring, risky attacks.
Prerequisites: BAB +4, Cha 13+, Call to Battle
Benefit: You and any allies who are within 30 feet of you and can see you may choose to subtract a number from their armor class and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your Charisma modifier. The penalty on armor class and bonus on damage applies until the character's next action. This benefit is lost if you are stunned, helpless, unconscious, or under the influence of a fear effect.

Call to Sacrifice [General, Fighter]
Your heroic fighting spirit inspires your comrades to fight as a team.
Prerequisites: BAB +4, Cha 13+, Call to Battle
Benefit: You and any allies who are within 30 feet of you and can see you may ignore the "to hit" roll required when using the "aid another" action. This benefit is lost if you are stunned, helpless, unconscious, or under the influence of a fear effect.

Call to Victory [General, Fighter]
Your heroic fighting spirit inspires your comrades to fight with divinely inspired battle prowess.
Prerequisites: BAB +8, Cha 15+, Call to Battle, Call to Glory, Call to Sacrifice
Benefit: You and any allies who are within 30 feet of you and can see you gain a morale bonus of +1 on their attack rolls and a morale bonus of +1 on saving throws against fear effects. This benefit is lost if you are stunned, helpless, unconscious, or under the influence of a fear effect.

 

[gamecat]

I like these! A Purple Dragon Knight could become quite the leader with these and the PDK PrC.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A limit to how often you can use such abilities might be in order.
Call to Victory seems like a minor ability (similar to Bless or 1st level Bardic music) for the pre-reqs.

...

CHA-based feats are a subject that has come up before.... here are some more:

Weapon Display
You can impress opponents and bystanders with your fancy moves.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, BAB 1+, CHA 13+, 3+ Ranks of Perform
Benefits: You can draw, twirl, move and otherwise show off with your chosen weapon, giving the impression of being much more skilled than you actually are. Make a Perform Check on your first round of combat, anyone witnessing you fight durring that combat must beat your result with a Sense Motive check or they will estimate your BAB at about 5 higher than it really is (as if you had an extra 5 fighter levels). If this puts your actual level above thier level (or CR), they are /Shaken/.
Special: If you have 5 ranks of Intimidate you can add a +2 Synergy bonus to your perform check. Alternately, if you perform a weapon display when attempting to intimidate (no roll required) you gain a +2 Synergy bonus to your Intimidate attempt.

Spectacular Strike
Your forcefulness and showmanship make your attacks more telling, allowing you to dominate by force of personality as well as prowess, in combat.
Prerequisites: Weapon Display, BAB 6+
Benefits: You can set up and make a spectacular attack as a Full Round Action (preculding your itterative attacks for high BAB, but not the off-hand attack from TWF). You may add your CHA bonus to both attack and damage with the first such attack. Each subsequent attack in the same combat gains one less bonus (this includes, for instance, a second attack in the same round, with an off-hand weapon).
Special: You may combine this feat with other attack feats that require a full attack action (and don't include more than 5' of movement), like Ambi/TWF, Circle Kick or Dirty Fighting.

Contemptuous Ease
You can strike down lesser foes effortlessly and without breaking stride.
Prerequisites: Spectacular Strike, CHA 15+, BAB 10+
Benefits: Once per round, when you succeed completely with an attack action (attack and drop an opponent, attack and score a confirmed critical, trip or disarm successfully, etc), you ‘get back’ the action you used. The attack effectively becomes a Free Action, and you may continue to act as if you had not attacked.
Special: If you also have Cleave you may choose whether to count dropping a given opponent as a use of Cleave or of Contemptuous Ease. If you have Whirlwind Attack, you may count the entire Whirlwind as a free action if you drop all the enemies you targeted with it.

 

[Spenser]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

gamecat - Thanks! I'm not sure what the Purple Dragon Knight PrC is, but I assume it's leadership-oriented?

Tony Vargas - Call to Victory is, in fact, exactly like Bless (except the radius is smaller). Do you think that the feats are overpowered... and if so, why? As for the other CHA feats you listed... they are interesting, certainly... as are the other CHA combat feats I've seen. I'm just trying a different approach where Charisma helps you and your allies, rather than just you.

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

Well, I showed these to some friends, and we'd like to use them. However, we're looking at the following changes:

Call to Battle
BAB +4

This gives the Feat (and this chain) more of a "veteran" combatant feeling.

Call to Glory and Call to Sacrifice
BAB +6 each

Call to Victory
Add Leadership to Prereqs

As our setting is online, I'd like to post these. E-mail me if you're good with it.

TV: What would be your limit to times used per day?

I like Weapons Display and Spectacular Strike. I have to question Contemptous Ease, however: How is that a Charisma Feat? Or is it just an evolution of Spectacular Strike?

 

[Spenser]

Jerrid,

Glad you like the "Call" chain, and feel free to use them or post them online with whatever modifications you feel are appropriate for your campaign.

Your idea to bump up of the BABs certainly makes sense. I thought about making these feats harder to qualify for -- even making Leadership a prereq for all of them. However, the reason I kept the requirements somewhat lower is because I wanted characters to start working on the chain at a lower level. After all, the other combat feat chains are wide open at first level.

How about this idea: For a more "veteran" feel, add all the restrictions you mentioned, but only bump the BAB requirement for Call to Battle to +2. That way, a fighter can get started on this chain with their 2nd level feat, and clerics, bards, and others can get it with their 3rd level feat. 2nd-3rd level is reasonably veteran -- in my campaign, that would equate to a "sergeant" at least.

I've been thinking a bit more about Tony Vargas's suggestion for adding a limit to the number of times per day you can use these abilities. Currently I would prefer to keep things simple and say that they abilities are just always on. However, if I was convinced that the feats needed toning down, then I think the logical limit per day would be your CHA modifier.

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

Well, Call to Battle has a few things against it. It is essentially like Bless, but at the shorter range as mentioned. Thus, I determined that a few things needed to be done. We tossed a few possibilities around, which included:

Range: 5' x Cha Modifier
Higher Charisma Prereq
Higher BAB Prereq

Tony's suggestion for times-per-day wasn't posted yet, and we hadn't thought of it. It's a valid call though.

Personally (and of course, this is in my game, YMMV), I'd be inclined to keep the BAB at +4 or go with BAB +2 and X-times-per-day or BAB +2 and scaled range. Both the X-times-per-day and scaled range give reason to improve Charisma with Level Gain as well.

Also, how should I give credit for these ("Originally written by Spenser from ENWorld" ?).

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

Ah, screw it...

>These feats on The Reprieve<

Thanks much.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't find the feats overpowered, but, since they affect others, and are comparable to Bardic music, I'd think uses/day would be apropriate - a bonus that you always give isn't going to be apreciated, or even much noticed, and would make the feats less interesting.

I'd say 1/day/level or 1/day/BAB - not a big limit, but a limit.

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

I'm not sure what the Purple Dragon Knight PrC is, but I assume it's leadership-oriented?

Oh, this one slipped through the cracks: It's a Fighter/Paladin oriented PClass in FRCS.