Half swording

[yoippari]

I'm not sure if this should be a skill or just another attack like trip or sunder. The idea is that since in real life a sword is pretty much useless for bashing against plate I would try and include that in my own game. Historicly when two fighter wearing plate and armed only with swords they would try to manuver the tip to a gap or some other vulnerable spot in the plates and push the tip through and into their opponent.

This is what I have so far. I have it writen as a feat but it as I said, it might belong with special attacks or perhaps tactics like in Complete Warrior.

Feat: Half Swording [General]
By holding a long sword (rapier, longsword, bastard sword, twohanded sword, or greatsword) with one hand on the hilt and the other on the blade you can more easily find gaps in medium and heavy armor. When using this attack your attack bonus increases by two when attacking a medium or heavily armored opponent. The weapon is considered a piercing weapon for the purposes of this attack and due to the loss of reach your AC decreases by one until your next turn.

EDIT: forgot to say that I am asking for input on balancing and choosing how to classify this.

 

[Psimancer]

You might want to check out the Deft Strike feat in Complete Adventurer. It does however have a prerequisite of Sneak Attack, for which you may want to find a substitute...

 

[Telas]

Interesting. When I read the title, I was prepared to not like the idea, but that's a good way to handle it.

I haven't seen Deft Strike, but if it's a good substitution, you may want to use a minimum BAB and Proficiency (Heavy Armor) as prereq's, instead of using Sneak Attack.

If you don't use Deft Strike, those make good, logical prereq's, IMHO. You need some combat proficiency to pull it off, and you need the knowledge of how heavy armor works, and where its weaknesses are.

In addition, this limits the feat to mostly Fighters, who can always use some lovin'.

Telas

 

[Coredump]

I am not sure if I agree with the logic...but maybe...

anyway, the mechanics seem fine. +2 to hit, -1 AC, for a limited number of opponents. Seems about fair.

 

[yoippari]

I don't have access to complete adventurer so I don't know how this compares to deft strike. And you ar right, this probably would only be a bonus to fighters for one of their bonus feats. Perhaps a heavy armor prereq would make sense. I mean if you don't wear plate then how would you know where the weak spots are?

 

[exempt]

From what I understand, having a hand on the blade wasn't such an exotic use of the sword in medieval Europe. See here (http://www.thearma.org/essays/knightvs.htm) if curious. Game-wise, why just a -1 AC balanced by a +2 attack? Maybe that's OK, since this is a feat and you have to "pay" thereby to get it.

 

[Thurbane]

Maybe it should require a touch attack to initiate, then the normal attack roll (with bonus) to pierce the chink in the armor, although this might nerf it too much...

 

[IceFractal]

Looks balanced fine - +1 attack for -1 AC is a fair trade-off, and the other +1 is equivalent to Weapon Focus, except determined by the type of opponent instead of the weapon. Obviously a feat for campaigns where you fight more humanoids than big scaly creatures, but in that context it works.

Given it's not as strong as Deft Strike, I don't think it needs as heavy prerequisites.
Dex 13+ and either Heavy Armor Proficiency or Craft(Armorsmith) 4 ranks (so that a light-armor duelist type could use it).

 

[exempt]

On further consideration, I think widening the scope of the feat would be more in line with standard feats unless you really like weapon-specific feats with "detail." That is, make it the exact opposite of Combat Expertise (tade AC for attack bonus, but AC --> AB instead of the other way). I'd also widen the scope to all weapons -- it lets a character ignore defense to gain a better shot, which is something I can picture anyone doing, whether they're using a sword or not.

Just my 2cp.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Umm, we already have this feat, Power Attack.

Using a sword 2handed adds damage, using Power Attack with a weapon 2handed does even more damage. Where your hands are holding the sword is just flavor. Jabbing the blade like a spear through his visor for an extra +12 points of damage sure sounds like the feel you're trying to capture. And it's harder to do, hence the -6 attack penalty (or -1, -2, -15, whatever).