Silly rules question - any feat that just drives you batty?

[Plane Sailing]

if a character has Cleave and drops a foe with one attack, he can use Cleave to hit another foe. When describing the maneuver, the player (or DM) just say the character hit two opponents with a flying roundabout kick to the head.

That is EXACTLY the rationale for my current monk character taking cleave

 

[Alduk]

Hyp:

Exactly. Though even for a "stuck-at-first-level-monk-NPC", I think it is a feat of very doubtful utility; whenever he could use it for the possibility of gaining an extra attack on another target at no penalty, he could instead flurry without having to spend a feat, making two attacks even if there is not another enemy nearby, albeit at a -2 penalty to both.


Klaus:

(BTW, meu compatriota. Sou teu fã, camarada. )

Though I fully agree about the "feat overdose" we face (and not only regarding feats, unfortunately), I do think there would be an exclusive niche for this one if it had been properly done.

Pretend it required a standard attack action (still giving up all other attacks) instead of a full-round action, for instance: now we have a feat that allows that spring-attacking monk to dive in between two mooks, jump into the air and kick both in the face, tumbling back right after doing so - even if she didn't drop any of them.

Hmmm... I smell a house rule reviving an old feat in my games.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Exactly. Though even for a "stuck-at-first-level-monk-NPC", I think it is a feat of very doubtful utility; whenever he could use it for the possibility of gaining an extra attack on another target at no penalty, he could instead flurry without having to spend a feat, making two attacks even if there is not another enemy nearby, albeit at a -2 penalty to both.

Right. It's like a really-watered-down Whirlwind Attack.

It's not a good feat for the NPC, but it's not quite the Weapon Specialization: Net that it is for a PC

Pretend it required a standard attack action (still giving up all other attacks) instead of a full-round action, for instance...

... that's not at all a bad idea!

-Hyp.

 

[Particle_Man]

Oddly, as a player I would have said "toughness" but, as a DM, when I just don't have time to fill in the feats, it is nice and easy to just slot in Toughness as many times as necessary and be done with it.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Pretend it required a standard attack action (still giving up all other attacks) instead of a full-round action, for instance: now we have a feat that allows that spring-attacking monk to dive in between two mooks, jump into the air and kick both in the face, tumbling back right after doing so - even if she didn't drop any of them.

Except that I believe Spring Attack requires one use specifically the Attack action. So the feat might need to be rewritten a bit to work with Spring Attack.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Except that I believe Spring Attack requires one use specifically the Attack action. So the feat might need to be rewritten a bit to work with Spring Attack.

By 'rewritten a bit', you mean 'remove the word full'?

"When you perform the full attack action, you can give up..." becomes "When you perform the attack action, you can give up...", and it works perfectly with Spring Attack.

-Hyp.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

By 'rewritten a bit', you mean 'remove the word full'?

"When you perform the full attack action, you can give up..." becomes "When you perform the attack action, you can give up...", and it works perfectly with Spring Attack.

Yep, that's exactly what I mean. The post I was replying to was suggesting it be made into a Standard Action, which is not the same as the Attack Action, as you yourself have pointed out many-a-time.

Edit: Whoops. Looking back over the post I was referring to, I see it actually states "standard attack action"... My bad, I saw "standard" and skipped straight to "action" without seeing the "attack" in between.

 

[Alduk]

Well, it happens.



Speaking of Sword & Fist, I remember another ridiculous feat there, Dirty Fighting. Another case of requiring a full-round action for a paltry result, only useful if you plan on never going above 5th level. Even worse, they tried to fix it in the errata, but requiring that you spent even more feats into it for a marginal improvement!

It's only a shame that the designers apparently tried to make up for this underpowerism in Defenders of the Faith... =/