New Feat: Eilistraee's Evasion

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Here is a Forgotten Realms specific feat which I made for my female drow ranger (not a Drizzt clone).

EILISTRAEE'S EVASION [Special]
You have mastered a fighting style practiced amongst the faithful of Eilistraee which allows you to take advantage of an opponent's armor.
Prerequisites: Dex 15+ and Int 13+.
Benefit: You gain a dodge bonus to AC equal to the armor check penalty (if any) of the opponent striking you. You must be wearing no or light armor to receive the AC bonus, and you must have at least one hand free (buckler allowed though). Note: A condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class also makes you lose dodge bonuses.
Special: Can only be taken during character creation. The few who master this art are dedicated to Eilistraee, and the fighting style must be learned from them. Teaching this feat to someone who does not have Eilistraee as patron deity is considered a grave crime amongst her worshippers.

I wanted to tie the feat in with my character's background. You could easily make it a normal feat (to be taken at any level) and add Expertise as a prerequisite. The reason it must be taken at
character creation is because of the huge amount of time necessary to master the style. One could not simply pick it when 3rd level is reached after a dungeon-crawl.

The ability itself is a copy of Moving With Shadows from Oriental Adventures, where it is an ability of a prestige class. I thought it was cool because it could give the intelligent, expertise-type fighter an edge.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Hmmm... how about removing the light armor or less restriction and subtracting your own armor check penalty from the dodge bonus?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

good idea!
consider it done.

 

[Acmite]

You're a Ranger, right?

Kinda sucks for Rangers, though, since you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting with it.

But, with the changes, it seems balanced.

 

[Magus Darkholme]

How about adding to the Prerequisites, like the character must have Eilistraee as their patron deity or they must be a drow of good alignment. Just my humble opinion though.

 

[Ravellion]

I find this a bit powerful, compared to feats such as twin sword style or Psionic Dodge.

I would delay this rather than demand this at first level, and probably add Dodge as a requisite, as well as weapon focus: Bastard Sword (Which is Eilistraee's favoured weapon IIRC)

Rav

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Actually, this feat is incredibly powerful. Against opponents in heavy armor, this will usually translate into a +5 to +7 dodge bonus (which stacks with everything) to your armor class.

Compared to the dodge feat: +1 bonus versus one opponent, it is so much better as to be incomparable.

The only feats I can think of which come close to this are:
Expertise (you suffer a large penalty to your attacks)
and
Shield Expert (you need to buy a highly enchanted shield for it to get this good and even then, it only gives you the bonus when you attack with the shield--the rest of the time, you'd have it anyway)
and
Holy Shield (you need an insanely high charisma for it to be this good, it costs a turning attempt and it's at the end of a fairly long chain of feats which means that it has a very high opportunity cost for paladins and clerics--the only people who can benefit from it).

This would probably be better if it granted a flat dodge bonus to AC.
+1 if your opponent is wearing light armor
+2 if your opponent is wearing medium armor
+3 if your opponent is wearing heavy armor

The feat would still be almost a must have feat for rogues, bards, and wizards but the fact that it doesn't contribute to any feat chains (dodge contributes to spring attack and whirlwind attack) and that it is only usable against creatures which wear armor would give reasons to choose other feats.

As it's written, I can't imagine any character not wanting it.

 

[Impeesa]

Actually, this feat is incredibly powerful. Against opponents in heavy armor, this will usually translate into a +5 to +7 dodge bonus (which stacks with everything) to your armor class.

Also useless against roughly 400 of the monsters in the MM.

--Impeesa--

 

[Forrester]

This feat is reason #452 why wearing heavy armor is a bad idea in 3E.

I don't think we need to give the lightly armored dextrous folks MORE advantages against those with heavy armor, do we?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

How about adding Expertise, Dodge, and Mobility as prerequisites?