Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ashcat_lt 01-12-05, 05:23 PM	I'm guessing most of you will figure this to be broken, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. I have not playtested this yet, but have been theorizing on it and intend to give it a shot in my next game. I personally have a problem with the Feint action taking an entire standard action, or even a move action. In actual combat a feint can't really take much more time than a normal attack would. On the other hand, a poorly executed feint read correctly by a skilled opponent will leave you open to an attack. So it goes like this. A feint can be attempted in place of any attack in a round. The actual opposed roll will work exactly as stated in the PHB. If successful, the benefit takes place on your next attack roll. Thus, if you only have one attack/round then it works pretty much the same as stated in the PHB, but at higher levels or when dual weilding it becomes possible to make more than one feint attempt per round. Now, a failed feint attempt will give your opponent an immediate AoO which ignores your Dex bonus. If the failed feint was your last attack for the round, then you lose your Dex bonus to your opponent for his next attack against you, as long as it is the very next attack he makes, and whether or not he uses an AoO or a regular attack. If this "reactive" attack is successful, then you lose your next attack. The Improved Feint feat changes so that it allows you to trade an AoO instead of a regular attack to make the feint, but the results remain the same. Now, lets look at how this averages out damage-wise. For simplicity sake we have a human Rogue 10 with Dex 20, Weapon Finesse, Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, and Improved Feint (that's all the feats he gets) fighting with a rapier. He's up against your typical Human Fighter 10 with Str 20. I'm not going to list all of his 10 feats. The most important ones for this comparison are his Weapon Specialization and Power Attack. He's got his trusty greataxe in both hands. Assuming that the Rogue successfully feints and hits on both of his attacks, he will do 2*(6d6) average 42/round, with a minimum of 12. If the fighter hits with both of his attacks at full PA, he will do 2*(1d12+29) average 67, minimum 56. Now if both of these characters have equivalent AC's, the fighter has a 3 more points to hit with. Then, consider that the rogue will have a maximum Bluff skill of 13+CHA, with no opportunity to take Skill Focus. The fighter, on the other hand, has 4 general feats, which he could concievably have spent on Cosmo(Sense Motive) and Skill Focus(Sense Motive) giving him a total SM of 16+Wis, and then he adds 10 for his BAB. The fighter won't suffer much from losing his DEX, but the rogue on the other hand... Then there's the fact that the fighter will likely have at least half again as many hit points as the rogue. The rogue will do much better against other types of characters - dex-based fighters and swashbucklers, wizards and sorcerers, etc - but from this example I think we can see that it's not terribly overpowered. In fact, I'm thinking the consequences of the failed feint may swing the balance too far the other way. What do y'all think?
evangelion1010 01-12-05, 06:18 PM	How would it work with uncanny dodge? Does this count against the 1 AoO you get/round? (Combat reflexes aside) Also, in your example, how are you PA for full and still having 3 greater chance to hit the rogue? The difference in BAB is only 3, and if you PA for 10, the fighter now has almost no chance to hit an opponent of comparable AC. Also, said rogue should get 1 more feat. He gets a feat at levels 1,3,6,9 - and a bonus one for being human. Don't forget to give him crippling strike for his level 10 special ability. The odds of a fighter taking that many ranks in sense motive and 2 feats to get that high a check is very suspecious. Try to play devils advocate, rather than the reverse... Also, how did you get +29 points of damage - it should be 20 (PA for 10*2) + 5 (str) + 2 WSpec. Improved feint only allows you to make a feint as an AoO. Its not really that useful, IMO. It'd be much more useful if it negated some of the insane penalties failing at feinting entails - like the free flat footed attack that if it hits ruins your next attack. Feint definately needs to be re-done, IMO, but i don't think this is the correct way to do so. Most specifically, i think it needs to be done to balance feinting at range. Its certainly possible to feint at range (i'd argue even easier than in melee), so why it's only possible to do so if you pick a specific ability out of specialized PrC, i don't know.
ashcat_lt 01-13-05, 01:32 AM	How would it work with uncanny dodge? Does this count against the 1 AoO you get/round? (Combat reflexes aside) How does feint work now for uncanny dodge? I'm thinking that uncanny dodge lets you retain your Dex bonus when flat-footed. Feint does not make you flat-footed, so uncanny dodge doesn't help. Yes, unless you have combat reflexes, you only get one AoO, but you could always give up any of your regular attacks as well. Also, in your example, how are you PA for full and still having 3 greater chance to hit the rogue? The difference in BAB is only 3, and if you PA for 10, the fighter now has almost no chance to hit an opponent of comparable AC. Also, said rogue should get 1 more feat. He gets a feat at levels 1,3,6,9 - and a bonus one for being human. Don't forget to give him crippling strike for his level 10 special ability. I knew i missed a few things, and have been thinking about it all day. The fighter actually is still only -4 points in trying to hit the rogue, however. The rogue should have another feat, so lets give him Skill Focus (Bluff), now his bluff skill is 16+CHA The odds of a fighter taking that many ranks in sense motive and 2 feats to get that high a check is very suspecious. Try to play devils advocate, rather than the reverse... Also, how did you get +29 points of damage - it should be 20 (PA for 10*2) + 5 (str) + 2 WSpec. Even without the 2 feats, the fighter could have 16+Wis for his Sense Motive check. I understand that it's a little far fetched to expect him to put so many ranks into this skill when others might be more useful more often, but maybe he's sick of the little dex-dudes showing him up so often. He gets +7 from str because he's weilding two handed. Improved feint only allows you to make a feint as an AoO. Its not really that useful, IMO. It'd be much more useful if it negated some of the insane penalties failing at feinting entails - like the free flat footed attack that if it hits ruins your next attack. I was thinking the same thing.
evangelion1010 01-13-05, 12:19 PM	Even without the 2 feats, the fighter could have 16+Wis for his Sense Motive check. I understand that it's a little far fetched to expect him to put so many ranks into this skill when others might be more useful more often, but maybe he's sick of the little dex-dudes showing him up so often. Without the feats, the fighter can at best have 6.5 +wis modifier in sense motive. His max cc skill is 13/2, and he loses the 3 from skill focus. Still, he adds his BAB, for a total of 10+6 +wis modifier, we'll assume 18 to be safe. Both sides could argue for an item with +10 competence in SM or bluff, but i'd say its more likely the feinting rogue would have one. (though its not the point, since it won't be included). I'd also argue theres a much better use of his item allocation to protect him. If this is really such a problem, have him get a medium fortification enchantment. 75% (IIRC) of critical hits and sneak attacks are negated. +3 enchantment. These are mostly mechanical points, but just remember that feinting can still be negated, even if you lose every check. Also, uncanny dodge basically allows you to have your dex modifier at all times, provided you're still aware and not tied down... i want to say it works with feint, but it very well couldn't.
Avatarblu 01-13-05, 02:07 PM	ok, correct me if I am wrong but Improved feint lets you feint and get 1 attack in a round. So you are changing it so that it takes 2 rds ( one to feint and one to attack) Wouldn't that change your comparison as a fighter would get 2 rounds of attacking to the rogues one round with one attack beign of the sneak variety? I think it pretty much makes the feinting and improved feinting useless. Not to mention the invisible stalker prc.
ashcat_lt 01-13-05, 02:59 PM	Yeah, the main point of this entire post was to deliver a new mechanic for feinting which allows a little more realism, and to try and figure out if it was completely broken. Of course there are ways to protect against feinting, that's probably a good thing. Uncanny Dodge actually is not because feinting neither renders the attacker invisible nor the defender flat-footed. There are many instances where you lose you Dex bonus but are not actually flat-footed. Climbing is one that I can think of off the top of my head. I think grappling is another. That having been said, imagine the devestation of the fighter feinting against the rogue in our example. Give the fighter those two feats back, only make them Cosmo(Bluff) and SF(Bluff), dump all the ranks he can in there, and maybe a Cloak of Charisma or something. He's got plenty of opporunities to take Combat Reflexes and Improved Feint. Fake out that rogue - who depends much more on his dex for AC - twice in a round and he's likely to be dead! Avatarblu, please stand corrected as you are wrong. If you read the original post, I think you will find that I am providing characters more chances to feint in a single round. Part of my problem with the current mechanic is that there is no way (short of haste or hustle) to make a feint and more than one attack in a round. In my system, if you had 4 attacks/round, you could go ahead and feint - attack - feint - attack as a full attack action without the feat. Please note that in this sequence, you give up the attack bonus corresponding to the placement of the feint. So if it was 16/11/6/1, your two actual attacks would be at +11 and +1. With the feat, you can instead give up your AoO's to make feint attempts before or between any of your attacks. The character in the example above could do something like this: feint(AoO) - attack(+16) - feint - attack(+6) - feint //next round//attack(+16) - feint(AoO) - attack(+11) - feint - attack(+1). With Combat Reflexes and a Dex of 18, he could: feint - attack (+16) - feint - attack(+11) - feint - attack(+6) - feint - attack(+1) Unless he lost one of the feint checks and got hit with the AoO it provoked. I'm going back and forth on that rule, though.