High Level Feats (especially) for Fighters

[Arcane Runes Press]

Purchased. Thanks for the link!

One quick question, though: How is Masterful Expertise supposed to work? In particular, what does "–10 on your attack roll and add 1 and _ times that number" mean? I presume this is a number that's left out....

Man Thing already covered it, but yes, it should read as 1 and 1/2 times (to a maximum of 15). It's a feat I've used for a while in my home games, and it's seen some good use.


Roman: Well, the issue in my groups hasn't been that fighters are underpowered, per se, it's more an issue of 2 things:

1) At high level, other classes tend to get access to really interesting special abilities (changing into an elemental, rogue special abilities, etc) or really interesting spells (shapechange and the like), while the fighter gets... more feats.

2) Tying into #1, the lack of high level feats means a fighter (who gets on the order of 15 - 16 feats) ends up going back and collecting multiple feat chains that don't necessarily fit the character concept, because there aren't any other options. Say, for example, you've got a fighter going after the Whirlwind Attack chain. Well, he's going to hit the end of that chain by the time he hits mid levels of play, and still have feats left over to pick up the mandatory feats (Weapon Focus, Specialization, and so on). And while there are still lots of feats available, many players end up feeling a bit let down - they hit their main goal early, so further levels in the fighter class can feel anticlimactic. Contrast this with the barbarian, for example, who continues to progress in rage benefits all the way to the end of his standard progression.

I think the key to high level fighter feats is to mix up requirements. Mandate fighter levels in the case of feats which build on Weapon Focus or Specialization, but also have larger requirement lists, so as to highlight the strength of the fighter class.

Done this way, other warriors can gain access to a high level feat if they really want to focus on it, but it's still going to be the fighter who shines, and it's going to be the fighter player who feels satisfied that sticking with a class whose only benefit is bonus feats was worth it.

Patrick Y.

 

[Man-thing]

Off topic

Hey Patrick,

What was your last Mongoose Book.

 

[Particle_Man]

Here's a nice one:

Kill every M.F. in the room!

Prerequisite: Great Cleave, Whirlwind Attack, Fighter level 16th.

You get one attack at your highest BAB against every opponent within a number of feet equal to double your movement rate. Thus you are effectively in the centre of a circle with a radius equal to double your movement rate and can attack everyone in this circle. You may choose whom you attack. If you gain a Cleave, you may use that Cleave against anyone else within that circle (specifically an exception to the rule that you cannot mix Cleave and Whirlwind attack) even if they are on opposite sides of the circle. Obstacles, other creatures, etc., in no way hamper your ability to attack every opponent within your circle or to cleave to attack other opponents in that circle.


Or this:

Death Crit.

Prerequisite: Improved Crit, Power Crit., Fighter level 20th.

Any creature whom you score a critical hit against must make a fort save equal to the damage you do or die.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Hey Patrick,

What was your last Mongoose Book.

It was either Barbarian II, or Ranger II. I don't know which was released last, though I think it was Ranger II.

 

[Sejs]

Iron-Breaker [Fighter]

Your forceful parries and blocks can easily shatter the weapons of your foes.

Prerequisites: Str 13+, Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Int 13+, Combat Expertise, BA +10.

Benefit: When an opponent misses you because of the increase in AC gained from the use of the Combat Expertise feat you may make a free sunder attempt against the weapon they used to strike at you. All the normal benefits of your Improved Sunder feat apply to this attempt.




This is just an example I came up with off the top of my head. I've always been of the oppinion that, yeah there need to be more higher-level (with commensurately high pre-reqs) fighter feats, and that ideally they should build off of previous feat chains, sometimes combining them like Iron-Breaker, above.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Damn, I keep trying to catch those. I'm gonna have to set a day the end of this month to make revisions/corrections to a bunch of PDFs. As always, revised editions are free to those that have already purchased them.

Sorry for the brief hijack.

Phil, I've noticed that when I go from Word to PDF, by way of the Print command and choosing Adobe Acrobat as my printer, I often lose special characters.

However, when I just click the PDF button from the toolbar in Word, presto!, no problems.

Not sure if that helps you or not, but it's worked for me...

Wulf

 

[philreed]

Sorry for the brief hijack.

Phil, I've noticed that when I go from Word to PDF, by way of the Print command and choosing Adobe Acrobat as my printer, I often lose special characters.

However, when I just click the PDF button from the toolbar in Word, presto!, no problems.

Not sure if that helps you or not, but it's worked for me...

Wulf

The problem seems to be that I'm on a Mac and importing the text into Quark.

Thanks, though. I'll poke around and see what features I can find in Word.

 

[jmucchiello]

Well, if everyone else is doing it, there are about a half dozen really high level feats in the 7-8 pages of feats in Character Customization. Granted it is still only 3E compatible but that only really applies to the first chapter and not the feats and other stuff in that book. Certainly not a short PDF, but not a large PDF of feats either.

 

[the Jester]

I think the solution is more (and more interesting, high-level-fighter only) feats. New chains, chains that build off of old chains, extensions of existing chains... more feats, more feats, more feats. Ones to make lame feats better. Ones to expand on cool ideas. Got some imc.

 

[Roman]

I think you will find that this is quite a popular opinion not just in your wargamers club.

Fair enough - the notion is pretty universal in our wargamers club, so there must be at least some basis to it.

I think the cause of the discrepancy is because most board posters don't actually play by most of the rules of DnD, if they play at all. They insert a lot of house rules into their game to enhance roleplaying. However these house rules tend to enhance arcane spellcasters but they blame the system rather than looking at their gaming style.

I am not sure about that. I think they simply play the game at higher levels and we play at lower levels.