Please review these feats for balance

[Kershek]

Please take a look at the following feats and tell me if you think they are balanced enough for play and interesting enough for characters to want to take.

The first two are Druid-only partly for color and partly because the Druid's Wilderness Lore is cross-class, making it less chance to abuse.

#1: Wilderness Awareness (Druid only): +2 plus half of Wilderness Lore skill to listen and spot only while in the wilderness.

#2: Wilderness Stealth (Druid only): +2 plus half of Wilderness Lore skill to move silently and hide only while in the wilderness.

#3: Offensive Strike: Take a Dex AC penalty (up to –5 AC without reducing your Dex below 1) and get your melee to hit bonus in equal amount. Like ‘power attack’ the Dex AC penalty last for a full round and affects all Dex based actions; REF saves, AoO, etc. Prereq: Dex 13+.

#4: Block / Parry: You can use a full attack option to “set” yourself in defense vs one picked opponent. When the opponent makes a melee attack role against you, you get a block/parry roll. The blocking weapon must be not be more then one size smaller than the weapon blocked. If you succeed at an opposed attack roll, then your opponent’s attack was blocked. If you won the block roll by 10 points or more, then you get an attack of opportunity. If you fail by 10 points or more, you drop your weapon (and the attack may still hit you if the opponent's attack roll beats your AC). Prereq: “Expertise”, “Combat Reflexes”, weapon proficiency with weapon, and BAB +3.

#5: Focused Shot: As a full round action, make a concentration roll vs. DC 10 + 1 per 10 feet of distance from the target. If the roll is successful then the crit threat range is doubled (stacks with keen and improved crit). Target must not move more then 5’ during that round or the bonus is lost. Prereq: “sharp shooting”.

 

[Crothian]

Wilderness Awreness and Wilderness Stealth: They are very similiar so I grouped them together. Is it the total bonus for Wilderness lore that is halved or only the ranks? Either way that is very powerful. I think it would be better just to give these skills to Druids as class skills. By doing this, they will get great bonuses and need to never spend any skill points on them. For two feats I can have the equivinet of max ranks in 4 skills without spending any skill points on those four skills, just have to keepo Wilderness lore maxed which Druids do anyway.


Offensive Strike is interesting. Since it is a penalty to Dex, if a character has an odd dex number, he can just have a -1 and recieve no neagtive effect. Or does it lower the dex modifier by that amount? By your wording I'm not sure which it is.

Block/Parry is interesting. I can see why you have size restriction, but in some cases sizes doesn't matter. I've blocked claymores with darrers in sparing practice. I'm in favor of Parrying rules, so it seems like a good idea.

Focused Shot: What's Sharpshooting? It seems pretty good. Deadly for sneak attacking archers in an ambush. I support finding new non magic ways to use concentration. Good Job!!

 

[Kershek]

Wilderness Awreness and Wilderness Stealth: They are very similiar so I grouped them together. Is it the total bonus for Wilderness lore that is halved or only the ranks? Either way that is very powerful. I think it would be better just to give these skills to Druids as class skills. By doing this, they will get great bonuses and need to never spend any skill points on them. For two feats I can have the equivinet of max ranks in 4 skills without spending any skill points on those four skills, just have to keepo Wilderness lore maxed which Druids do anyway.

Total skill bonus, not skill ranks (though that's an interesting idea). Remember that these two feats only work in the wilderness, so there is a limiting factor there (no bonus for the dungeon, the city, etc.)

Offensive Strike is interesting. Since it is a penalty to Dex, if a character has an odd dex number, he can just have a -1 and recieve no neagtive effect. Or does it lower the dex modifier by that amount? By your wording I'm not sure which it is.

Actually, it uses the amount you changed with the dex modifier to add to your hit bonus. For instance, at Dex 15, your modifier is +2. If you lower your Dex by 1, your modifier is still +2, so it doesn't help your hit bonus. If you lower it by 2, your dex goes down to 13 lowering your modifier and giving you +1 to hit. And, all dex-based actions and skills suffer during that time.

Block/Parry is interesting. I can see why you have size restriction, but in some cases sizes doesn't matter. I've blocked claymores with darrers in sparing practice. I'm in favor of Parrying rules, so it seems like a good idea.

Actually, that addition was inspired by the Off-Hand Parry in Song & Silence. I didn't want a dagger blocking a Gargantuan Greatsword

Focused Shot: What's Sharpshooting? It seems pretty good. Deadly for sneak attacking archers in an ambush. I support finding new non magic ways to use concentration. Good Job!!

Sharpshooting is from Sword & Fist. It requires Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. It negates ranged attack penalties due to cover.

Thanks for the comments. Looking for more opinions on game balance.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Wilderness Awareness/Stealth: Wilderness Lore is NOT cross-class for a Druid. These feats are way too strong. I suggest reducing the bonuses to +3. Better than Alertness or Stealthy, but only in wilderness.

Offensive Strike is a too good, as well as unclearly written (changes Dex, or Dex modifier?). There are many cases where reducing your AC won't matter (fighting spellcasters etc).

Block/Parry is odd. What's wrong with Full Defence or Expertise?

Focused Shot: Does the bonus only apply for one shot, or all attacks against that opponent?

Geoff.

 

[Kershek]

Wilderness Awareness/Stealth: Wilderness Lore is NOT cross-class for a Druid. These feats are way too strong. I suggest reducing the bonuses to +3. Better than Alertness or Stealthy, but only in wilderness.

Apologies - Wilderness Lore isn't cross-classed, but listen, spot, move silently, and hide are. All of those should be more effective in the forest for wilderness-type characters. The problem is that Rangers have those in class, so this would be too powerful. Therefore, only Druids get them.

Perhaps I should just let Druids get listen, spot, move silently, and hide as cross-class skills instead.

Offensive Strike is a too good, as well as unclearly written (changes Dex, or Dex modifier?). There are many cases where reducing your AC won't matter (fighting spellcasters etc).

Yes, it needs to be written better. For your second statement, there are cases where reducing your to-hit doesn't matter for Power Attack (a high level fighter hitting a low AC creature). I don't see how that's a reason it would be unbalanced (unless you think Power Attack is unbalanced).

Block/Parry is odd. What's wrong with Full Defence or Expertise?

Those don't allow you to block their attack with an opposed attack roll and possibly get an AoO in return. It's a common move for a fighter to wait for the other to open up with an attack and then take advantage of that opening.

Focused Shot: Does the bonus only apply for one shot, or all attacks against that opponent?

Geoff.

Since it's a full round action, you only get one attack. Remember, as a full round action, you won't actually let your shot off until the beginning of your next action in the next round. This is why it's important that, when the opponent goes, he doesn't move anywhere. It's good for opening-round attacks.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Thought about submitting these to the NetBook of Feats at the FaNCC all the netbooks have a team of reviewers who go over the feats to ensure they are balanced

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

#1: Wilderness Awareness (Druid only): +2 plus half of Wilderness Lore skill to listen and spot only while in the wilderness.

#2: Wilderness Stealth (Druid only): +2 plus half of Wilderness Lore skill to move silently and hide only while in the wilderness.

If, at all, only add skill ranks. But I think it is to powerful.

Another option (think of Combat Casting):
Wilderness Awareness:
Prerequisite: 5+ ranks in Wilderness Lore
Add +3 competence bonus on all listen and spot checks in wilderness only.

Wilderness Stealth:
Prerequisite: 5+ ranks in Wilderness Lore
Add +3 competence bonus on all move silently and hide checks in wilderness only.

Since the bonus is unusual high, but requires a prerequisite and is "terrain specific", I decided to make it a competence bonus.

Offensive Strike:
I would make it a direc sacrifice to Armor Class.
A possible option:
Prerequisite: Power Attack
Take a penalty of up to 5 (but not hither than your base attack) to your Armor Class, and add the same numer to your next attack roll.
But I don`t like it because of one of the possible abuses: Let`s make an offensive strike -5 to AC, and than take Power Attack +5 to damage. No hit penalties but terrifying damage, enmy possibly dead.

I tend do make a "offensive charge" feat:
Prerequisite: Power Attack
You gain a +2 damage bonus to your damage roll while charging
OR: Like above.

Block/Parry: No real problem with it, but I probably would stay with the "old" parry feats.

Focused Shot: Seems okay, but I would make the targeting a full round action, and only after this action, you may attack with the bonus. (And in this time the opponent may not move). Allow Bluf/Spot/Sense Motive Rolls (hidden rolled if used by the NPCs) to see if someone noticed that someone is aiming on you.
It would be a nice sniper feat...

 

[howlingwolf]

I wanted to post a reply to a couple of the responses. I am one of the co-creators along with Kershek for these feats. I thought a little more background on the two wilderness feats might be of help. We were playing a wilderness encounter at the time, I was running a Druid and another player had the rogue. It quickly became obvious that there was something not quite right about the rogue being able to sneak around the woods, while the druid stood there being useless. Why would a Druid not be able to move silently, hide, etc, when in the wilderness? They are supposed to be inately in tune with nature. These two feats were really created to try and overcome that imbalance. Now it is possible, that the approach we should have taken was to alter the class itself, but we decided that the addition of feats would seem more reasonable. Also with move silent, hide, spot and listen as cross-class skills, this makes it very difficult for a Druid to gain many ranks in any of these skills, so it is not a good avenue to take to really get the Druid where they should be.

As it stands, the Druid would have to expend skill points for Wilderness lore, and they would also have to expend an entire feat. I don't see that as terribly imbalancing, especially when you consider that gaining only half the ranks is like taking a cross-class skill. Now, I could agree, that we should remove the +2 bonus, and make it just the half of the bonus from wilderness lore. This seems reasonable since the feat wilderness stealth gives you both move silent and hide skills, so it essentially equates to getting one skill in class. Remember though, this is only useful in wilderness areas, which is maybe 20-30% of the average gaming session, a huge limitation. All in all then, you have used one feat, to gain partial use of two cross-class skills in a limited manner. Thoughts?

 

[twjensen]

My two cp

The new parry feat is great! Should be in a WotC book, IMHO. Fantasy novels are full of tales of fighters doing exactly that thing. Bravo!

Offensive strike is as powerful as power attack. But most feats are not as powerful as power attack. So adding this feat gives an unbalanced and unplanned boost to fighters. Power attack is in the books to balance fighters against spell-casters IMO. Thus, the logical thing is to not allow offensive strike to be used with power attack. That keeps everything level.

Wilderness Stealth & Awareness really break the rules in order to correct a broken seeming mechanic. Rogues rule the wild as well as they rule the city when it comes to skills like search, spot, hide and move silent.

A better way to deal with the problem is to give druids spells & items that add fixed bonuses. Example:

Wilderness Blend, Drd 3, Save: no (harmless), Duration: 1 minute / level; Range: Personal; By means of this spell, the Druid can blend with any wilderness environment, gaining +10 competence bonus to move silent and hide checks in the wild.

Wilderness Awareness, Drd 3, Save: no (harmless), Duration: 1 hour / level; Range: Personal; By means of this spell, the Druid can commune with the awareness of the creatures around her. She gains a +10 circumstance bonus to spot and listen checks to notice anything that a wild creature knows. (If a squirrel is sitting next to the hiding rogue, the Druid gets a bonus to spot him, etc..)

These spells are shot from the hip. So I make no guarantee that I've got the level right. But these spells work better within the rules framework because they require the druid to use spell slots and provide a fixed rather than variable bonus.

[edit] Changed the duration of the second spell and listed the type of bonus I envisioned for both spells.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I believe in Masters of the Wild the spell "camouflage" appears, which works very similar (giving a +10 competence bonus to hide checks), but it is only 1st level. I am not sure if this spell is on the Druid Spell list.

You might make it 2nd level spells with the named duration, or 3rd level spells with a much higher duration (Something like Caster Level hours, or even 24 hours, if it is only designed to work in the wilderness)
But I believe a experienced druid (5th level or higher) as one important ability: Just wildshape into an animal.

And a Druid has other options in the forest - using Animal Empathy, Handle Animal, Wilderness Lore and his spells, he can use the forest for himself. (Ask the next bird to tell him what happend around and so on)

Mustrum Ridcully