Initiative-Affecting Feats

[the Jester]

What do you think of these? One of these is actually a feat I've had for forever, a couple are new.

SAFE & SLOW [General]
You move slowly and cautiously.

Benefit: At the start of your turn you may declare that you are moving Safe and Slow. You may move only half your normal speed that round, and your initiative shifts downward two points at the end of the round. Until the start of your next turn you gain a +1 dodge bonus to your AC. You may not declare Safe & Slow in a round in which you charge, make a full attack, bull rush or overrun.



SLOW & STEADY (General, Fighter)
When using a pole arm, you move deliberately, sacrificing speed for accuracy.

Prerequisite: Weapon Focus (any pole arm)

Benefit: When using a pole arm you have weapon focus in, you may choose to shift your initiative down two, four or six and gain a competence bonus to attack rolls equal to half that (+1, 2 or 3). You cannot shift your initiative below 0 with this feat.



SWIFT ACTIONS [General]
You move rapidly in combat, improving your initiative each round.

Prerequisites: Dex 15+, Improved Initiative

Benefit: Each round in combat, your initiative shifts up one point. If this shifts it up to equal to another combatant’s, whoever has the higher dex goes first. You also gain a +1 bonus to initiative that stacks with that from Improved Initiative.

 

[Crothian]

These are really cool Jester, great ideas here.

 

[Jeph]

I agree with Crothian. However, my only question is, why is slow and steady only for pole arms (aside from flavor reasons)?

 

[Geoff Watson]

I don't like them.
It makes initiative more complicated (requires keeping track of the numbers, rather than just the order).

Safe and Slow seems OK. +1 AC for a feat with a movement penalty.

Slow and Steady doesn't seem like much of a limitation. +3 to hit, but you have to remember to Refocus a lot. Why only polearms?

I'm not sure about Swift Actions.

Geoff.

 

[Nail]

FWIW, I like 'em.

But..... (oh lord...)

Safe and Slow has a penalty for use tat's nearly meaningless for the up-front meat-sheilds. They're unlikely to move, as they'll do a Full Attack Action.

Slow and Steady might be balanced...a 4 out of 5, but the name doesn't really help you remember the power, and the disadvantage requires some cumbersome extra book keeping. Change the name, and all will be right in th' world.....

Swift Action is neat, but again it requires extra book keeping...still, the coolest of the bunch!

 

[Maximillian]

I don't think I've kept track of numbers on initiative for more than a year now. I realized that it didn't make a difference. The order is the same every round, and durations all occur on the initiative of their initiators.

I think the first feat is underpowered. If I am human, and I move 30' normally, I move fifteen while moving Safe and Slow. If I make a double move of 30', that's my whole turn, and I get a +1 to AC. Notice that Full Defense lets me move 30' as a move equivalent action and get a +4 to my AC as a standard action, more with tumble, and that's without either spending a feat, or slowing my initiative.

The second one is better. In my game, it wouldn't work. Even if I did track initiative numbers, we have a traditional system of having a player track initiative where everyone can see it. (generally referred to as "Initiative Monkey.") I'd have so many players min-maxing their Slow and Steady to keep from being one-upped by the next enemy in the list. But if you track them, they wouldn't have any idea. That would be alright. Jeph said it best though. Why not with any melee?

The last one is a-ok with me, but I wouldn't allow it for the bookkeeping.

 

[ichabod]

I think the first two are kind of weak, but I really like the last one. In terms of book keeping, you do need to watch out for feats and stuff that make game play more complicated. Me, I don't have a problem with it, because I keep track of initiatives on a computer. OTOH, I disallow Evard's Black Tentacles because it's such a pain to deal with.

 

[the Jester]

Wow, thanks for the feedback!

Slow and Steady is polearms-only because polearms deserve some feats. It's basically a flavor thing.

I could open it up, but I really do like the idea of a polearm feat chain.

Nail, you can't use Safe and Slow when you full attack. Check the last bit of the description.

Maximillion, the advantage to Safe and Slow is that you can move a little and attack with a +1 AC bonus. Generally, you can't attack while in total defense mode.

The thing about Safe and Slow is, it gives you a bonus when you're already in a subopitmal position- you can't charge or full attack, you can only get in one attack, and you're almost close enough to full attack anyway.

About book keeping nightmares: I agree that this can be a problem, and if I try these out and it's too much of a headache, I'll rework them. Initiatives in my campaign are sometimes a bookeeping nightmare anyhow, if different groups enter the combat on different rounds. In a recent 21-round combat (!) imc, the number of creatures on the initiative list changed something like six or eight times, and I think there was a little delaying and readying at such. I write everybody's action for the round down anyway for my story hour and with high level pcs and such it generally takes one line per character per round these days so I rewrite the initiative order each round anyway as it shifts around.

The thing about feats affecting initiative is that it's an underexploited area of potential for feats. Only Improved Initiative does anything for you there (and a couple of FR regional feats?)

About Swift Actions: I'm glad you guys like it! I'm using it as a prereq for a chronomancer prestige class I'm making up for a nigh-epic level villain, so I'll post to this thread when I see how much of a pain in the ass it is.

 

[Nail]

Nail, you can't use Safe and Slow when you full attack. Check the last bit of the description.

...oh, you mean read the whole feat description? All at once? Together? Before commenting on it?

Don't be silly.

Given that, I'd increase the dodge bonus to +2, at least. This is a feat, after all, not something that any ole person can do.

 

[the Jester]

You don't think +2 for Safe and Slow is too much?