Armor Focus and Razor of the Wind fighter feats for review

[mercucio]

Dreamed up two nifty feats for combat-oriented characters. They seem balanced at first galance, so I figured why not get a second opinion.


ARMOR FOCUS [GENERAL]
Requirements: Base Fortitude save bonus equal to chosen armor’s armor check penalty, Proficiency in chosen armor’s base type (heavy, light, medium, or shield).

Benefit: Select one specific type of armor you are proficient with. When wearing that type of armor, your maximum dexterity bonus increases by one, your armor check penalty decreases by 1, and your arcane spell failure is 5% less. In addition a +1 dodge bonus to AC. You lose your dodge bonus to AC whenever you would lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Special: A fighter may select Armor Focus as one of his fighter bonus feats. You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you do, the benefit applys to a different type of specific armor you are proficient with.


RAZOR OF THE WIND [General]
Prerequisites: Dex 15+, Weapon Finesse, Base Attack Bonus +4.

Benefit: When wielding a slashing weapon to which you may apply Weapon finesse feat you may apply your Dexterity modifier to your damage roll in place of your Strength modifier.

 

[green slime]

ARMOR FOCUS [GENERAL]
Requirements: Base Fortitude save bonus equal to chosen armor’s armor check penalty, Proficiency in chosen armor’s base type (heavy, light, medium, or shield).

Benefit: Select one specific type of armor you are proficient with. When wearing that type of armor, your maximum dexterity bonus increases by one, your armor check penalty decreases by 1, and your arcane spell failure is 5% less. In addition a +1 dodge bonus to AC. You lose your dodge bonus to AC whenever you would lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Special: A fighter may select Armor Focus as one of his fighter bonus feats. You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you do, the benefit applys to a different type of specific armor you are proficient with.

This feat gives too much.
Remove the dodge bonus to AC and the arcane spell failure and you have the same feat as listed in the Net Book of Feats.

RAZOR OF THE WIND [General]
Prerequisites: Dex 15+, Weapon Finesse, Base Attack Bonus +4.

Benefit: When wielding a slashing weapon to which you may apply Weapon finesse feat you may apply your Dexterity modifier to your damage roll in place of your Strength modifier.

And now there are no strength fighters left in the game? I wonder why? Seriously, this feat is too good.

 

[handforged]

Green slime, I think your comments on the Razor of the Wind feat is a little presumptuous. Now by spending two feats, a fight can have her Dex bonus apply to AC, attack, and damage. For a certain type of fighting, this will be very advantageous. However, two feats is a decent investment. This also puts all of the eggs in one basket, however.

Let's take a look at two level six human fighters.

Dex based
H: Dodge
1: Weapon Finesse
F1: Mobility
F2:Combat Reflexes
3:
F4: Razor of the Wind
6: Spring Attack
F6: Elusive Target (Complete Warrior)

Str based
H: Power Attack
1: Combat Expertise
F1: Improved Bull Rush
F2:Improved Trip
3:Improved Sunder
F4:
6: Shock Trooper (CW)
F6: Combat Brute (CW)

Each of these fighters has one left over feat. The Dex fighter has a very specific attack style: Get in, Attack, Get out. Even with the tactical feat from Complete Warrior, there aren't a whole lot of other things to do. The Str fighter has many options for combat. Disarm, Bullrush, Sunder, and several very nice tactical maneuvers. The Dex fighter's only hope is to stay out of reach, because without a good Str, they will lose almost every trip, bullrush, or grapple attempt made against them.

I am not saying that a Dex fighter is a bad choice, only that a Str fighter is not obsolete, even with this feat.

Saying that, I think that Razor of the Wind should require at least a +6 BAB, and I agree with green slime about the Armor Focus feat.

~hf

 

[mercucio]

This feat gives too much. Remove the dodge bonus to AC and the arcane spell failure and you have the same feat as listed in the Net Book of Feats.

To be honest, I don't give two sh*ts about what is available in the Net Book of feats...these are my ideas, not theirs. However, if you want to compare the benefit to a published feat my brother kindly pointed out today that a feat with the same name exists in the Rokugan:

ARMOR FOCUS [All Clans Technique]
Prerequisities: Armor proficiency with the chosen armor type.

Benefit: Select one type of armor. You gain an additional +2 dodge bonus to AC when wearing this armor.

Credit
The Armor Focus feat described above originally appeared in Rokugan, published in 2001 by AEG.

15. Copyright Notice
Author: Rich Wulf, Shawn Carman, and Seth Mason.

And now there are no strength fighters left in the game? I wonder why? Seriously, this feat is too good.

Sounds like you have a problem with the Dex-based fighter archtype, not the feat. As for the feat being too good, I strenously disagree. It requires you have the weapon finesse feat, BAB +4 or higher, in order to apply your Dex bonus *in place of* your Strength bonus when determing damage for an extremely limited class of weapon. A strength-based fighter faces none of these restrictions and in fact has two feats more than an equivalent Dex-based fighter.

*snip*

Saying that, I think that Razor of the Wind should require at least a +6 BAB, and I agree with green slime about the Armor Focus feat.

~hf

Handforged, why BAB +6? I set it to +4 based on what I felt was the closest comparable feat: Weapon Specialization.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I like the pre-requisite for armor focus. Linking the base Fortitude save bonus to the armor check penalty is quite elegant. I agree that the dodge bonus to AC is a little too much (that could be a feat in itself), but I wouldn't balk at the 5% reduction in ASF.

I don't see any reason that Razor of the Wind would need a +6 BAB. At +4 BAB a rogue considering the feat would have to wait until 6th level to get it. That seems late enough. A pure fighter would have to decide whether he wanted it at 4th level, or Weapon Specialization instead. I'd keep it at +4 BAB.

 

[Wolf72]

I agree, too much in one feat ... break it up a bit.

Armor Feats: each of these feats requires a specific armor feat to use properly (light, medium, heavy, shield). The feat chain only applies towards one type of armor (single types: chain mail, chain shirt, or half-plate are examples) and must apply towards the same type of armor.

You can gain these Armor Feats multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of Armor.

Armor/Shield Focus (general, fighter) [by Wolf72]
you excel in the use of a particular armor or shield.
Prerequisite: appropriate armor feat (light, medium, heavy, shield)

Benefits: Choose one specific type of armor; you get -1 ACP and +1 max dex bonus. Shields only benefit from the –1 ACP.

Armor/Shield Specialist (general, fighter) [by Wolf 72]
Your superior skill with armor allows you to use it more effectively.
Prerequisites: +3 BAB, Armor/Shield Focus

Benefit: With the specific type of armor you are focused you gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC (it stacks with other dodge stuff). You lose this bonus any time you would lose a normal dodge bonus.

Armored Mobility (general, fighter) [by Wolf72]
You are an expert at moving in heavier armors.
Prerequisites: +2 BAB, Focused Armor

Benefit: Armor counts as one category less for you (minimum of light). This allows you to move faster with medium armor (or use a ranger’s special abilities), or use the full run ability in heavy armor.

Special: This feat does not stack with any other ability that lessens the weight or encumbrance of armor, specifically mithral (a suit of mithral half-plate will not count as light armor).

 

[green slime]

To be honest, I don't give two sh*ts about what is available in the Net Book of feats...these are my ideas, not theirs.

And yet you wanted commentary on what we thought about them... but by refering to another source, I thought I might perhaps point out that some other gamers had come up with a similar feat, but slightly less powerful. If that isn't telling you anything about the power of your feat, then nothing else is. I guess, if you want to have your ideas anyway, regardless of commentary, that is up to you. I wonder why you then posted them here?

It wasn't the similarity in name, it was the similarity in what it did. Rokugan's Feats I do know about, thanks.

 

[mercucio]

And yet you wanted commentary on what we thought about them... but by refering to another source, I thought I might perhaps point out that some other gamers had come up with a similar feat, but slightly less powerful. If that isn't telling you anything about the power of your feat, then nothing else is. I guess, if you want to have your ideas anyway, regardless of commentary, that is up to you. I wonder why you then posted them here?

It wasn't the similarity in name, it was the similarity in what it did. Rokugan's Feats I do know about, thanks.

Crap...this is what happens when I forget to put a smiley in when I am typing. If I came across as insulting I apologize. I do would indeed like commentary. I simply prefer that the feat be review blindly i.e. without comparing their benefits to material (other than the SRD, of course).

 

[handforged]

The reason that I suggested BAB +6 as a requirement is to put the feat on the same sort of level as other improved fighting style type feats. Both Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Manyshot require BAB +6 and improve on a fighting style(two-weapon fighting, firing more than one arrow). Both of these styles are based on Dex and so provide a good measuring point. As Green slime points out, this feat is fairly powerful. I understand that a rogue would have to wait a little longer to take the feat, but that seems right since a rogue has plenty of other things that it can do earlier; specifially Sneak Attack, which already benefits from a high Dexterity(Initiative Bonus, Tumble into flanking positions).

~hf