D&D Skills & Feats [Rebalancing 3.5]

[RabidPirateMan]

In addition to Str.  This helps it scale properly.

THe +6 BAB requirement is so Monks who chose Imp Grapple instead of Stunning Fist don't have to wait forever to take it; this way, a straight monk qualifies at level 8, and can take it at 9 instead of 12.  It also helps full BAB classes who want to go unarmed, since this is a tasty treat for them- they take it at level 6. 

[Kuroimaken]

I just don't really get the BAB requirement, actually. Arguably, this feat works best at lower levels, before critters that are immune to everything start popping left and right.

[RabidPirateMan]

I just don't really get the BAB requirement, actually. Arguably, this feat works best at lower levels, before critters that are immune to everything start popping left and right.

Way I see it is its a way to keep a one level dip into monk viable.  Either you want to go straight fighter and wait till 6th to pick up Stunning Fist, or you dip a bit.

As for immunities, I admit im not up on the changes made to immunities in the rebalanced 3.5.  I'd expect itd have the same restrictions as what SA has now.

[Elennsar]

Personally, I would say that it takes BAB +1, or BEING a monk. As in, no dipping for one level.

Dipping for one level makes Cthulhu cry.

I'm not arguing against multiclassing. That's a completely seperate arguement from this note.

I am pointing out that the more "dip into a class for one level" is a way to get anything useful, the more the balance issue will argue for making so that you get as little useful early on as possible to avoid dipping that could be avoided by dipping being treated with skepticism to begin with.

"I want some of the tricks of being a X as well as a Y" calls for some creative DM improvised subsitution levels, so that instead of getting a bonus feat at level 1 (as a fighter), you get Rage, or the like. Beyond that, either multiclass seriously or not at all.

As for skills: Yay. No excessive penalty for cross class skills. Yay.

As for the rework for the feat: Yay, I think.

As for monks: I can deal with monks waiting forever almost as well as the nearly forever for anyone else, so lowering the BAB to +6 just to please monks doesn't particularly please me. I'm not against it (I don't agree to the required BAB being +8), but I don't want to do it just to please monks.

[RobbyPants]

I don't have a problem with monks getting better use out of the feat, but I do think that a high BAB requirement is too much.  I can see a +1 requirement.

As for immunities, I admit im not up on the changes made to immunities in the rebalanced 3.5.  I'd expect itd have the same restrictions as what SA has now.

What do you mean here exactly?

So far the only change I've proposed is to allow rogues to deal 1/2 Sneak Attack damage to creatures immune to crits.

[RobbyPants]

I'm wondering if I should work on a feat to improve the use of precision damage against various non-crittable creatures.  I guess it depends on how much "realism" I'm looking for.  This feat could allow for either full or half precision damage to apply to various creature types.  Perhaps critical hits would apply too.  I think the list of creatures would include:

- corporeal undead
- constructs
- plants
- elementals of the earth subtype?

What are your thoughts on this?  Also, this concept is based on the latest version of combat rules:

[spoiler]General Combat


Power Attack and Combat Reflexes are now standard combat actions available to all PCs, without spending feats.  Power attack works as stated in the feat (+1 damage for every -1 penalty for a one-handed weapon, and +2 damage per -1 penalty for a two-handed weapon).

A feat Improved Power Attack will increase the bonus damage granted per -1 penalty to the attack roll by one point (+2 for a one-handed weapon and +3 for a two-handed weapon). This has the same prerequisite as Power Attack, and counts as Power Attack for purposes of any prerequisites printed elsewhere.

Note, all other feats, class features, and spells that improve Power Attack simply add another +1 point of damage per -1 attack roll penalty.  So someone with Improved Power Attack and Leap Attack would add an additional +2 damage (for a total of +4) per -1 penalty to attack when doing a leap charge.

Attackers have the option to use either their Str or Dex mod to melee attack rolls.  You may only use your Dex mod to hit with a finessable weapon.  You cannot use your Dex mod on your attack roll and Power Attack.  You may only do one or the other.

The Weapon Finesse feat now grants your Dex mod to melee damage rolls instead of adding your Str mod.  This is considered precision damage and does not apply to creatures immune to critical hits.  You can only add your Dex mod to damage when using your Dex mod on melee attacks (so only on finessable weapons and not while Power Attacking).  This does not stack with any other source that lets you add your Dex mod to the damage roll.

A new feat called Accurate Shot grants you the ability to add your Dex mod to damage on ranged attacks.  This is precision damage and does not affect creatures immune to critical hits.  It only applies within the first range increment of the weapon or thirty feet, whichever is greater.  You cannot use this ability if you are not using your Dex mod for the attack roll (such as with the Brutal Throw feat).[/spoiler]

[veekie]

Hmm, I like the U_K solution here, where critical immunity is replaced by various levels of critical resistance. So you have crit multipliers reduced by a certain value, and precision damage dice reduced by the same. Though I differ on his opinion on handling fortification armor, it should be a constant but reduced value(light -1, moderate -2, etc), to save on extra rolling midcombat.

One of the interesting effects would probably be that a pick would now actually manage to do damage to rock given enough thwacking.

If there were feats to increase precision damage/crits vs normally immune/resistant creatures to 100%, I'm fine with that too.

[RobbyPants]

I don't believe feat exclusivity is the way to go here either - if anything, fighters should get more options out of existing feats, not feats all to themselves.

Is this something we should work on now?  We've gotten the fighter pretty well hammered out, so we have a baseline for comparison.

Several people have suggested the idea about some feats granting an improved bonus to fighters at certain levels (perhaps every five levels).

Also, if we do this, should non-fighter receive a lesser scaling bonus?  Just to make up an example:

Lets say Dodge give you a +1 dodge bonus to AC.  Maybe a fighter gets an additional +1 every 5 fighter levels (+2 total dodge bonus at 5th, +3 at 10, etc).  Maybe non-fighter levels count half way toward this.  So a 10th level rogue (or whatever) would get an additional +1 bonus and a 20th level rogue would get an additional +2 bonus. 

This would also allow for stacking in terms of multiclassing.  So a Fighter 2/Rogue 6 would count as a 5th level fighter for the bonus.

Obviously, we need to think about which feats should do this, and to what capacity.  What are all of your thoughts on this?

[Elennsar]

I don't think the Fighter should get "better use from his feats". Make him have other useful class features and he doesn't need to.

Now, if the idea of Fighter: The class to be a Weapon Master is kept (I'm not sure what the idea on Weapon Focus and all are at the moment, then Weapon Focus and such, sure.

Though I'd make it a relatively modest bonus. Say, +1 (additional bonus) every 10 levels, instead of every 5 (in addition to whatever improvement is made to the feat).

[ZeroSum]

I don't know if this had been discussed when I first threw up a similar idea or not, but how about making more [Fighter] feats that include the text "+1 for each additional [Fighter] feat you have" or "+X for every Y [Fighter] feats you have".  This would make Fighters better at [Fighter] stuff solely because they can devote more feats to it while also still allowing [Fighter] feats to be useful to non-fighters.

(So if a human devotes all 8 of his feats to [Fighter] feats he gets, effectively, the same [Fighter] level as a level 8 human Fighter.)

[Elennsar]

The problem is that you could get huge bonuses that way. Particularly if the feats scale anyway.

And I'm not sure that having oh, +20 from Dodge would be a good idea.

Its worth a thought, but I'm leery of it.

[RobbyPants]

It's easier, IMO, to control a flat amout based on level, rather than a number of feats.  I guess if we know you're playing a human fighter with two flaws, you're going to start at five feats, whereas a halfling rogue gets one.  Using the number of feats seems similarly (but not as drastically) dangerous as using skill checks to balance things.  It's easy for it to get out of hand for a particular character.

[ZeroSum]

Well, it could scale +1 per 5 feats or something.

I mean, max [Fighter] feats someone could have at 20 is something like 21.  So 1 + 1/5 = +5 at 20.  1 + 1/4 is +6.  1 + 1/3 is +8, 1 + 1/2 is +11, 1 + 1/1 is +22.

[RobbyPants]

Because I removed the free Power Attack and Weapon Finesse suggestion from the Combat & Rules thread, that changes a few things.  I figure the two feats can work as printed in the PHB.

One thing I would like to change is the prereq of Weapon Finesse.  I want to drop the +1 BAB prereq and replace it with Dex 13+.  This opens it up to rogues at level one.

As JaronK noted, Shadow Blade adds Dex to melee damage, so we don't really need an Improved Weapon Finesse feat.

I'd still like to be able to add Dex to damage for ranged attacks.  Tell me what you think of this:

Accurate Shot
You are skilled at placing your shots where you want them to go.
Prerequisites: Point Blank Shot, Dex 13+
Benifit: When making a ranged attack, you may add your dexterity modifier to damage rolls.  This damage is considered precision damage, and does not affect creatures immune to critical hits.  You may only use this feat if you are within your weapon's first range increment or 30 feet (which ever is greater) of your target.
Special: A fighter may choose Accurate Shot as one of his bonus feats.

Now, a couple of other points to bring up:

• Should Precise Shot be added as a prereq, or would that be too many?
• Should the range be tweaked?  Should it just be the first range increment of the weapon?  Should it be the first range increment or 30 feet, which ever is greater?
• Should there be a clause in there about not adding Str to damage when using Accurate shot, or should they stack?
• Should Crossbow Sniper add to this?  This would grant a total of +1 1/2 Dex to damage for crossbows only.  Should it overlap instead?

[Kuroimaken]

Should Precise Shot be added as a prereq, or would that be too many?

A little too many, methinks.

Should the range be tweaked?  Should it just be the first range increment of the weapon?  Should it be the first range increment or 30 feet, which ever is greater?

First range increment works better, I believe. More incentive for archer types.

Should there be a clause in there about not adding Str to damage when using Accurate shot, or should they stack?

Hmmmm. I really don't know for this one. Seems to me like Str+Dex would benefit Fighter archers.

Should Crossbow Sniper add to this?  This would grant a total of +1 1/2 Dex to damage for crossbows only.  Should it overlap instead?

Overlap. Otherwise we're giving bow users the shaft, and crossbows already have better base damage.

[RobbyPants]

I modified the range to the first range increment.

I'm not sure I'd compare crossbows favorably to bows, because of their reload time.  Still, they might fare better with the "mighty" crossbows I've proposed in the Equipment thread.

[RabidPirateMan]

I'd say Dex to damage for ranged attacks steps on Crossbow Sniper's toes.  Mighty bows are fine, as are magical bows and such.  Really, the damage with bows is already pretty good.

[RobbyPants]

Well, I guess I'd submit that Crossbow Sniper is underpowered.  The increased range on precision damage is nice, but the 1/2 Dex to damage isn't that great.  Perhaps it should provide full Dex to damage, and then we wouldn't allow them to stack.  That way, you have Crossbow Sniper for crossbows, and Accurate Shot for everything else.

[SiggyDevil]

Hmm, I like the U_K solution here, where critical immunity is replaced by various levels of critical resistance. So you have crit multipliers reduced by a certain value, and precision damage dice reduced by the same. Though I differ on his opinion on handling fortification armor, it should be a constant but reduced value(light -1, moderate -2, etc), to save on extra rolling midcombat.

One of the interesting effects would probably be that a pick would now actually manage to do damage to rock given enough thwacking.

If there were feats to increase precision damage/crits vs normally immune/resistant creatures to 100%, I'm fine with that too.

Or you could just, you know, change how criticals work. <_<;

Leave Accurate Shot mostly as it is, Rob, except allow the crossbow damage to overlap (not stack) and expand that "first range increment" up to unlimited.

[RobbyPants]

Unlimited might work.  I guess it's the "precision damage" thing that made me not want to do it.  From a balancing standpoint, I guess it's not a big deal.