Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ubasrawr 05-19-07, 02:38 PM	Improved Combat Maneuver [General, Fighter] You have mastery over your combat maneuvers and control the battlefield to your liking. Prerequisite: Power Attack or Combat Expertise, Base Attack +1 Benefit: Reduce your Base attack Bonus to gain this reduction as bonus in your Improved Combat Maneuvers Check(Bull Rush, Overrun, Trip). You may only add the bonus to your check if you have taken the Improved feat in the maneuver you are intending to use, i.e. you can only add the bonus to bull rush if you have the improved bull rush feat. Special: Fighters may choose this as one of their Bonus Fighter Feats. ======================= What do you think of this home brewed feat? I'd think this gives a melee fighter at higher levels some way of controlling the battle field again, maybe even put down some pressure on the bigger monsters. A balor might get bull rushed by a fighter again and pushed over the edge or there is finally a chance of the melee warrior tripping a giant. I think this feat opens up some of the fun and attractiveness of playing a high level melee class again.
Vaelan 05-19-07, 02:42 PM	I wouldn't allow it for my group because they're smart enough to buff the Fighter if they want something tripped, bull rushed, overrun, or grappled. When you're Huge and have 43 Strength, you generally don't need help with these maneuvers. But a lot of people aren't smart enough to do that, so it would probably be fine for them.
AtmaWeapon 05-19-07, 03:03 PM	Never mind, misread.
Ubasrawr 05-19-07, 03:05 PM	I wouldn't allow it for my group because they're smart enough to buff the Fighter if they want something tripped, bull rushed, overrun, or grappled. When you're Huge and have 43 Strength, you generally don't need help with these maneuvers. But a lot of people aren't smart enough to do that, so it would probably be fine for them. That is exactly the problem I am seeing. There is a huge array of parties out there and not every party is working perfectly together. Allowing a fighter this feat allows him at higher levels still to play a tanking or pressuring role during combat. Fairly quickly do fighters loose their role as a combat flow driving force and the caster take over this role with web/entangle and what not other spells. This allows them to still do some kind of maneuvering and not look like a useless piece on the battle board.
Dither 05-20-07, 11:44 PM	What do you think of this home brewed feat? I'd think this gives a melee fighter at higher levels some way of controlling the battle field again, maybe even put down some pressure on the bigger monsters. A balor might get bull rushed by a fighter again and pushed over the edge or there is finally a chance of the melee warrior tripping a giant. I think this feat opens up some of the fun and attractiveness of playing a high level melee class again. Does absolutely nothing for a monk or a fighter with Improved Grapple... since you're subtracting BAB from grapple to add it to grapple... lol. I think an interesting thing for this feat would be to have specific, slight alterations to the effects of each "Improved SomethingOrOther" ... for example, if you have Improved Grapple, you can double your BAB to grapple ... for feint, perhaps it allows you to add your BAB to feint ... for overrun, you are treated as one size larger. Feat seems kinda bland otherwise.
Vaelan 05-21-07, 12:31 AM	Does absolutely nothing for a monk or a fighter with Improved Grapple... since you're subtracting BAB from grapple to add it to grapple... lol. Did you happen to notice that the feat only references combat maneuvers that don't use BAB in their main resolution rolls?
Ubasrawr 05-21-07, 12:38 AM	Did you happen to notice that the feat only references combat maneuvers that don't use BAB in their main resolution rolls? Thanks for pointing it out to him :P Yeah, I was hoping it would apply to all the maneuver but noticed really quick that subtracting Bab to the other maneuvers like grapple etc would not work. I just specified it to things it would work on.
Ubasrawr 05-22-07, 05:03 AM	Ok, I redid the feat and wonder if this might be better then the first solution. =================================== Improved Combat Maneuver [General, Fighter] You have mastery over your combat maneuvers and control the battlefield to your liking. Prerequisite: Power Attack or Combat Expertise Benefit: You gain a +4 to all your Combat Maneuver Checks. This feat does not remove the AOO if applicable. You may take this feat multiple times. The bonus stacks. Special: Fighters may choose this as one of their Bonus Fighter Feats.
JWT 05-22-07, 11:12 AM	Ok, I redid the feat and wonder if this might be better then the first solution. =================================== Improved Combat Maneuver [General, Fighter] You have mastery over your combat maneuvers and control the battlefield to your liking. Prerequisite: Power Attack or Combat Expertise Benefit: You gain a +4 to all your Combat Maneuver Checks. This feat does not remove the AOO if applicable. You may take this feat multiple times. The bonus stacks. Special: Fighters may choose this as one of their Bonus Fighter Feats. How about making the improved feat version a prerequisite for getting the bonus? So you only the get the +4 to grapple if you have improved Grapple, only bonuses to trip if you have improved trip, etc.
Ubasrawr 05-22-07, 03:18 PM	How about making the improved feat version a prerequisite for getting the bonus? So you only the get the +4 to grapple if you have improved Grapple, only bonuses to trip if you have improved trip, etc. At first I was thinking about it as you can see in the first version, but then I wanted something more general for melee characters. I didn't want to restrict the melee into one type of combat maneuver like a fighter with weapon specialization. You get a +4 and loose the AOO if you take Improved XXX so that is suppose to be more of a specialization, while this feat is just there to "even" the score/check against bigger or stronger foes.