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Starship Cartographer
I've been considering adding some "Swashbuckler" feats (from the book of the same name) into my campaign but am concerned about the balance problems that some of them could cause.
First, the Parry and Riposte feats. Repsectively, these allow you to block one attack per round, and then make a counterattack against something that you just parried. The (potential) problem is that neither requires an action of any sort, not even the loss of an AoO.
I'm used to things like Oriental Adventure's "Karmic Strike" that gives you free attacks, but each one costs an AoO. Are there other precedents for pure freebie counters and attacks like this?
The other feat that concerns me is the one that give you armor class bonuses when not wearing armor. This is a series of three feats, each improving the AC more, and all of them scale with level. While this seems fine for unarmored sailor-types, I think that it would seriously unbalance Monks and other core classes that are restricted to light (or no) armor.
If anyone has experience playing with these (or other Swashbuckler) feats and PrCs, I'd really like to hear your opinions about how they mesh with a non-swashbuckling campaign. Are they well balanced, or is this another example of "pay the cash and be more powerful than your fellow players"?
First, the Parry and Riposte feats. Repsectively, these allow you to block one attack per round, and then make a counterattack against something that you just parried. The (potential) problem is that neither requires an action of any sort, not even the loss of an AoO.
I'm used to things like Oriental Adventure's "Karmic Strike" that gives you free attacks, but each one costs an AoO. Are there other precedents for pure freebie counters and attacks like this?
The other feat that concerns me is the one that give you armor class bonuses when not wearing armor. This is a series of three feats, each improving the AC more, and all of them scale with level. While this seems fine for unarmored sailor-types, I think that it would seriously unbalance Monks and other core classes that are restricted to light (or no) armor.
If anyone has experience playing with these (or other Swashbuckler) feats and PrCs, I'd really like to hear your opinions about how they mesh with a non-swashbuckling campaign. Are they well balanced, or is this another example of "pay the cash and be more powerful than your fellow players"?
