Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Asmodeous 02-04-08, 07:35 AM	I wrote a bunch of epic feats some time ago for our gaming group. Some I thought where logical progressions of existing feats, others are rewrites of what needed to be redone and some new ones. See what you think, critique, adopt into your own gaming if you like. DEVASTATING THROW. (EPIC) You have mastered the ability to put your entire weight behind your thrown weapon attacks, hurling them with incredible power. Benefit: When you take a penalty from your chance to hit, you add double the penalty to your damage with your thrown weapon attack. This double damage only applies to a range of 30ft. Prerequisites: Brutal throw, Power throw (complete adventurer), Throw anything (complete warrior), Strength 19, Dexterity 19, Base attack +23. Special: You cannot use this feat with light weapons. EPIC DIE HARD. Due to your characters fortitude, your character can avoid fatal injuries. Benefit. As per the improved die hard feat, except that if you make the saving throw, you may elect to act if you are disabled as per the die hard feat. Prerequisites: Improved die hard, Fortitude 25, Fast healing from class ability or feat. EPIC POINT BLANK SHOT. You are skilled at making well placed shots with ranged weapons at close range. Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons of up to 30ft. Prerequisites: Point blank shot, Dexterity 25. IMPROVED DIE HARD. Due to your characters fortitude, your character can avoid fatal injuries. Benefit: When reduced to –10 hit points or more, you can make a fortitude saving throw to survive. The saving throw DC is equivalent to the total amount of damage below 0 hit points, plus 20. For example, if you are reduced to –17 hit points, you must make a fortitude saving throw of 37 to survive. If you succeed, you are immediately unconscious and cannot act until your hit points are increased to a positive number. Prerequisites: Die hard, Fortitude 19. INSANE OFFENSE. You can shift your focus completely from your defense, to offense. Benefit: When you make any attack action, you may take a penalty of up to your base armor class and add half of this penalty to your attack rolls. Prerequisites: reckless offense, Base attack +15. INSANE COMBAT. (EPIC) You throw all caution to the wind, and concentrate on pure offense. Benefit: When you make any attack action, your base, natural and equipment armor class is reduced to 1. Other bonuses such as deflection and divine are not affected. In addition, your dexterity base saving throw is reduced to one. You add half your character level to all your attack rolls you make during the round. Prerequisites: Insane offense, Base attack +20. RAPID MANY SHOT. (EPIC) You are able to fire multiple arrows quicker than normal. Benefit: As per the many shot feat, you are able to fire multiple arrows per attack. With this feat you may make multiple many shot attacks per round. The normal penalties for many shot apply along with an additional -6 penalty for each additional attack you make per round up to your maximum attacks per round. You can reduce this penalty to -4 by only firing 2 arrows per attack. Prerequisites: Many shot, Improved many shot, dexterity 25, Base attack bonus 25. VOICE OF THE WARRIOR. Your battle cry Strikes fear and intimidation into all who hear it. Benefit: As a full round action, you unleash a terrifying battle cry that works as per the intimidation skill (players handbook page 76) except that the range of all affected is 5 feet per skill point you have invested in the intimidation skill and the effect lasts for one round per character level. Prerequisites: Intimidation 20 ranks. Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time, the feat is taken all targets of the feat take an additional –2 penalty to their check, or an additional –2 penalty when demoralized. DIVINE FEATS. DIVINE WEAPON. (revised divine might feat) You can channel divine energy into your deities favored weapon to increase the damage you do in combat. Prerequisites: Turn or rebuke undead ability, Wisdom 13, Knowledge religion 5 ranks, Deities favored weapon as your selected weapon for this feat. Benefit: As a free action, spend one of your turn or rebuke undead attempts to add your charisma bonus to your weapon damage for one round. If the weapon is ranged, the maximum damage added is + 5 and limited to a range of 30ft. This damage is considered as divine damage. Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different favored weapon of your selected deity (if any or subject to DM’s approval) EPIC DIVINE WEAPON. You can channel divine energy into your deities favored weapon to increase the damage you do in combat. Benefit: As a free action, spend two of your turn or rebuke undead attempts to add double your charisma bonus to your weapon damage for one round. If the weapon is ranged, the maximum damage added is + 10. This damage is considered as divine damage. Prerequisites: Turn or rebuke undead ability, Wisdom 19, Knowledge religion 20 ranks, Deities favored weapon as your selected weapon for this feat. Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different favored weapon of your selected deity (if any or subject to DM’s approval) DIVINE VENGEANCE. (EPIC) You can channel energy to deal extra damage against undead in melee. Benefit: As a free action, spend two of your turn undead attempts to add 4d6 points of damage to all your successful melee attacks against undead until the end of the current round. Prerequisites: Sacred vengeance, Wisdom 17, Deity favored weapon.
Sulacu 02-04-08, 09:30 AM	DEVASTATING THROW. (EPIC) You have mastered the ability to put your entire weight behind your thrown weapon attacks, hurling them with incredible power. Benefit: When you take a penalty from your chance to hit, you add double the penalty to your damage with your thrown weapon attack. This double damage only applies to a range of 30ft. Prerequisites: Brutal throw, Power throw (complete adventurer), Throw anything (complete warrior), Strength 19, Dexterity 19, Base attack +23. Special: You cannot use this feat with light weapons. Isn't this basically what power throw does? Allow you to use Power Attack with thrown weapons? I believe there already is a Power Attack feat that allows you to trade attack damage 1-to-2, which would apply to any weapon that allows you to use Power Attack. Thanks to Power Throw, this would apply to thrown weapons too, making this feat useless :) EPIC DIE HARD. Due to your characters fortitude, your character can avoid fatal injuries. Benefit. As per the improved die hard feat, except that if you make the saving throw, you may elect to act if you are disabled as per the die hard feat. Prerequisites: Improved die hard, Fortitude 25, Fast healing from class ability or feat. I see no problems, other than that I don't this feat to be sufficiently powerful as to be called Epic. EPIC POINT BLANK SHOT. You are skilled at making well placed shots with ranged weapons at close range. Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons of up to 30ft. Prerequisites: Point blank shot, Dexterity 25. Fair enough. Does it stack, though? If it doesn't, I'd rather have Epic Prowess ×2. IMPROVED DIE HARD. Due to your characters fortitude, your character can avoid fatal injuries. Benefit: When reduced to –10 hit points or more, you can make a fortitude saving throw to survive. The saving throw DC is equivalent to the total amount of damage below 0 hit points, plus 20. For example, if you are reduced to –17 hit points, you must make a fortitude saving throw of 37 to survive. If you succeed, you are immediately unconscious and cannot act until your hit points are increased to a positive number. Prerequisites: Die hard, Fortitude 19. This one's pretty cool. INSANE OFFENSE. You can shift your focus completely from your defense, to offense. Benefit: When you make any attack action, you may take a penalty of up to your base armor class and add half of this penalty to your attack rolls. Prerequisites: reckless offense, Base attack +15. Reverse Combat Expertise? This is not going to work well. You can take your full BAB off of Armor Class, and then can subsequently drop half your BAB again in favor of damage for power attack. So, you lose your BAB to armor class, and gain half your BAB in attack and in damage. This feat will unbalance things, since attack and damage is quite a lot more important than Armor Class in many, if not most cases. INSANE COMBAT. (EPIC) You throw all caution to the wind, and concentrate on pure offense. Benefit: When you make any attack action, your base, natural and equipment armor class is reduced to 1. Other bonuses such as deflection and divine are not affected. In addition, your dexterity base saving throw is reduced to one. You add half your character level to all your attack rolls you make during the round. Prerequisites: Insane offense, Base attack +20. This one is pretty bad, sorry to say. In most cases, half your character level ≤ your BAB (unless you take slow BAB progressing classes to uneven levels). By the time you are epic, your AC will likely be around 40 at least, so with your Insane Offense feat you can gain a higher bonus to attack at a much lower cost. Even if it stacks, you would destroy your character's efficacy quite utterly if you use this feat, at no great return reward. RAPID MANY SHOT. (EPIC) You are able to fire multiple arrows quicker than normal. Benefit: As per the many shot feat, you are able to fire multiple arrows per attack. With this feat you may make multiple many shot attacks per round. The normal penalties for many shot apply along with an additional -6 penalty for each additional attack you make per round up to your maximum attacks per round. You can reduce this penalty to -4 by only firing 2 arrows per attack. Prerequisites: Many shot, Improved many shot, dexterity 25, Base attack bonus 25. Hmeh.... Hmm... Well, alright then. But you'll end up emptying your quiver in one or two turns :P VOICE OF THE WARRIOR. Your battle cry Strikes fear and intimidation into all who hear it. Benefit: As a full round action, you unleash a terrifying battle cry that works as per the intimidation skill (players handbook page 76) except that the range of all affected is 5 feet per skill point you have invested in the intimidation skill and the effect lasts for one round per character level. Prerequisites: Intimidation 20 ranks. Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time, the feat is taken all targets of the feat take an additional –2 penalty to their check, or an additional –2 penalty when demoralized. Rawr. This can work, I think. DIVINE WEAPON. (revised divine might feat)[/B] You can channel divine energy into your deities favored weapon to increase the damage you do in combat. Prerequisites: Turn or rebuke undead ability, Wisdom 13, Knowledge religion 5 ranks, Deities favored weapon as your selected weapon for this feat. Benefit: As a free action, spend one of your turn or rebuke undead attempts to add your charisma bonus to your weapon damage for one round. If the weapon is ranged, the maximum damage added is + 5 and limited to a range of 30ft. This damage is considered as divine damage. Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different favored weapon of your selected deity (if any or subject to DM’s approval) What, no Weapon Focus (deity's favored weapon) required? Heh, this can be a good feat, but why did you nerf ranged attacks? A deity's favored weapon is a deity's favored weapon. I don't see why the feat should kill itself stone dead if the deity happens to prefer a longbow. Also, since most people only worship one deity, and most deities only have one favored weapon, your note in 'Special' seems mildly superfluous. EPIC DIVINE WEAPON. You can channel divine energy into your deities favored weapon to increase the damage you do in combat. Benefit: As a free action, spend two of your turn or rebuke undead attempts to add double your charisma bonus to your weapon damage for one round. If the weapon is ranged, the maximum damage added is + 10. This damage is considered as divine damage. Prerequisites: Turn or rebuke undead ability, Wisdom 19, Knowledge religion 20 ranks, Deities favored weapon as your selected weapon for this feat. Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different favored weapon of your selected deity (if any or subject to DM’s approval) Twice the gain at twice the cost. Such is hardly what I call Epic. :) I would make it one turning attempt for double Charisma based damage. That is hardly gamebreaking for an Epic Feat. DIVINE VENGEANCE. (EPIC) You can channel energy to deal extra damage against undead in melee. Benefit: As a free action, spend two of your turn undead attempts to add 4d6 points of damage to all your successful melee attacks against undead until the end of the current round. Prerequisites: Sacred vengeance, Wisdom 17, Deity favored weapon. Same comment here as in Epic Divine Might. All in all, you have some fine feats here, but I'd tweak most of them a little bit.
Asmodeous 02-06-08, 01:36 AM	(re: devestating throw)Isn't this basically what power throw does? Allow you to use Power Attack with thrown weapons? I believe there already is a Power Attack feat that allows you to trade attack damage 1-to-2, which would apply to any weapon that allows you to use Power Attack. Thanks to Power Throw, this would apply to thrown weapons too, making this feat useless :) afaik, power attack allows you to trade attack damage 1-to-2 when using two handed weapons, not single handed. I hoped that epic throwers would be able to use a feat like this to keep up in the damage output stakes to be viable in epic which is a bit of a problem for throwers and archers alike. (re:epic die hard) I see no problems, other than that I don't this feat to be sufficiently powerful as to be called Epic. Well, some would call the ability to continue acting when at -11 hit points or more valuable (for example, suck a potion down). The question is it justified as an epic feat as you pointed out. (re epic point blank shot)Fair enough. Does it stack, though? If it doesn't, I'd rather have Epic Prowess ×2. Yes, it would stack. Good point out. This one's pretty cool.(re: improved die hard) My friend who plays an epic fighter thinks so too. (re : insane offense)Reverse Combat Expertise? This is not going to work well. You can take your full BAB off of Armor Class, and then can subsequently drop half your BAB again in favor of damage for power attack. So, you lose your BAB to armor class, and gain half your BAB in attack and in damage. This feat will unbalance things, since attack and damage is quite a lot more important than Armor Class in many, if not most cases. (re : insane combat)This one is pretty bad, sorry to say. In most cases, half your character level ≤ your BAB (unless you take slow BAB progressing classes to uneven levels). By the time you are epic, your AC will likely be around 40 at least, so with your Insane Offense feat you can gain a higher bonus to attack at a much lower cost. Even if it stacks, you would destroy your character's efficacy quite utterly if you use this feat, at no great return reward. These two feats came about from our own in game experiences, one party member playing a level 30 fighter. The original feat from the comp psyhic, reckless offense which allows -4 AC for +2 to BAB. Insane offense is supposed to take this to the next level, -10 AC for +5 BAB. (By base armor class I mean the +10 a medium sized character gets. My terminology may be wrong.) Then Insane combat is a "all out im going to go balistic and kill everything and throw caution to the wind. On paper, the feats do seem grossly overpowered, yes I agree. But the feats are meant to be a two edged sword. If your character is going to use them, it should increase damage output by a good deal, but it will be at a great cost. A good dm should role play the enemy as recognizing the fighters tactic and in return, use combat expert or some other ability knowing it can hit the character easily and do a lot to the fighter in return, damage, spells, special attacks, etc all knowing it will have an easy time hitting the character. If you are going to do the damage, expect a lot back in return kind of scenario. In game it balances out quite nicely as the party fighter may well be doing huge damage on the enemy, but the party healer has to devote all actions to keeping the fighter alive,or let the fighter die in 2 rounds flat, mass heal every round for example instead of taking action against the enemy so we find it works in game quite nicely and allows some extra tactical possibilities. Hmeh.... Hmm... Well, alright then. But you'll end up emptying your quiver in one or two turns :P (re : rapid many shot) Yeah, probably. But the feat seemed like the logical next step progression for many shot in epic levels. Rawr. This can work, I think. (re : voice of the warrior) This feat was written for an NPC, a dwarven legendry dreadnought, intimidation as a requirement for the kit. The NPC was known to have a dwarven war bellow that shook the ground and sent the brave running for their lives. So this feat was written for the purpose. What, no Weapon Focus (deity's favored weapon) required? Heh, this can be a good feat, but why did you nerf ranged attacks? A deity's favored weapon is a deity's favored weapon. I don't see why the feat should kill itself stone dead if the deity happens to prefer a longbow. Also, since most people only worship one deity, and most deities only have one favored weapon, your note in 'Special' seems mildly superfluous. (re: divine weapon) We saw the need to rewrite the divine might feat so that all clerics could use it no matter what weapon was the deities favored weapon. The ranged weapon nerf comes from our groups belief that ranged weapon attacks have a good advantage being ranged so they shouldn't do as much damage as melee weapons do. The nerf is debatable, you could easily take out the 30foot range limit and still balance the feat nicely. The "special" notation is due to a house rule where certain dieties do have two favored weapons. An example being Bahamut. Dragon followers favored weapon is natural weapons, bite, claw and human followers the heavy pick. The house rule is for the instances where a dragon could use a heavy pick or human follower who grows dragon teeth or claws. Twice the gain at twice the cost. Such is hardly what I call Epic. :) I would make it one turning attempt for double Charisma based damage. That is hardly gamebreaking for an Epic Feat. (re : epic divine weapon) I set both divine weapon and epic divine weapon feats to be inferior to a paladins smite/great smite feats. imho, a paladin should be able to do the "charisma to damage thing" far better than the cleric given the many drawbacks of smite (evil targets only) and of being a paladin versus being a cleric. This is why the damage caps for the two divine weapon feats and the turning attempts costs. This way, a cleric should not hit as often as a smiting paladin who gets a bonus to BAB as well, less damage as the paladins smite charisma damage is unlimited, and times per day as well. level 30 paladin for example gets 7 smites per day base where as a 25 charisma level 30 cleric would have 11 turn attempts. so with the two turn attempts cost, epic divine weapon will not be as good as the paladins great smiting feat, though it does depend on the characters off course and their other feats, extra smiting/turning feats, actual charisma etc.
beej_silver 02-18-08, 06:49 AM	I find The Die Hard tree interesting. :D I have, however, seen tons of damage dealt bu a single blow in epic, and wonder if these feats will actually help a character survive. Oh, Asmodeus, please fix the entries such that the pre-requisites of the feat are written before the benefit, in keeping with the way the books write it down. :)