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Fun with Feats |  |
I got Iron Heroes about a week and a half ago, and I finished it a few days ago. Wow. Just wow. Anyway, I thought I’d post some stuff that I came up with, making use of mastery feats and tokens and whatnot. For your reading pleasure, here are three feats: Biting Repartee, Fortune’s Favor, and a mastery version of Improved Unarmed Strike.
Biting Repartee [Social]
You gain confidence from your opponent’s failures, allowing you to use your words as a powerful weapon.
Base Mastery: 1
Benefit: During your action, you designate an opponent to watch for mistakes. Every time your opponent attempts an action and fails, you gain 1 barb token.
During your action, you may spend 1 barb token as a free action in order to insult your opponent in attempt to rattle her; you may spend additional barb tokens to increase the DC of the save that your opponent must make, as well. When you use this ability, your foe must make a Will save (DC 10 + your Charisma modifier + the number of additional tokens spent) or suffer a -2 penalty on all attack rolls, skill checks, and ability checks until the end of her next action.
You can maintain a total number of unspent barb tokens in your token pool equal to your character level + 10. Tokens beyond this maximum go to waste. Your pool lasts until the end of the encounter. You can build up tokens against one opponent at a time. If you switch targets, you lose the tokens that you have already built up for this ability.
Special: All uses of this feat are mind-affecting, language-dependent effects.
Expanded Mastery: 2. Your jibes and insults can cause your foe to lose focus momentarily, creating an opening for an attack. Any time your foe performs an action within with in a threatened area (either yours or an ally’s), you may spend 2 barb tokens. If you do so, her action provokes an attack of opportunity, even if it normally would not.
Expanded Mastery: 3. You can verbally distract your foe to such an extent that he simply fails to do anything useful. You may spend 2 or more barb tokens as a free action. When you do so, your opponent must make a Will save (DC 10 + your Charisma modifier + the number of additional tokens spent) or become dazed until the end of her next action.
Expanded Mastery: 4. By distracting your opponent with your repartee, you can cause her to lower her defenses momentarily. You may spend 4 or more barb tokens as a free action in order to force your opponent to make a Will save (DC 10 + your Charisma modifier + the number of additional tokens spent). If she fails, she loses her active bonus to Defense against the next attack aimed at her.
Expanded Mastery: 7. You can force your opponent to focus her ire upon you and you alone, ignoring all others. You may spend 4 or more barb tokens as a free action. If you do so, your opponent must make a Will save (DC 10 + your Charisma modifier + the number of additional tokens spent); if she fails, she must take the shortest path to get to you and engage you in melee. Your opponent does not have to move through any dangerous or damaging terrain; you cannot force her to walk through flames. However, you can force her to move through an ally’s threatened area, or into an area that would spring a trap that she does not know about.
Expanded Mastery: 10. Your criticism is so insightful and effective that you can provoke your opponent into taking a specific action by questioning her ability to do so. As a free action, spend 8 or more barb tokens and designate an action that you wish your opponent to take. The action must be relatively straightforward, and it cannot be obviously suicidal or against your opponent’s nature. For example, you cannot force your opponent to jump off a cliff or attack her allies, but you could force her to take a combat challenge that lowers her defenses, or engage your berserker ally in melee combat. Your opponent is entilted to a Will save (DC 10 + your Charimsa modifier + the number of additional tokens spent) to resist this effect.
Fortune’s Favor [Special]
You are luckier than most. You’ve found that, if you take significant risks, you tend to have good luck later on.
Base Mastery: 1
Prerequisite: This feat does not have an associated mastery category. As such, your mastery rating, for the purpose of this feat, is equal to the number in the column listed �Other Feat Mastery� or �All Feat Mastery�.
Benefit: You gain access to the luck token pool. Any time you make a skill check for which there is a penalty for failure (i.e., a check on which you can neither take 10 nor 20), you may take a special skill challenge. By taking a -5 penalty to your check, you gain 1 luck token if you succeed; note that you gain no other benefit for this challenge. In addition, you may take a special defensive combat challenge in order to gain tokens. If you take a -4 penalty to Defense (following the normal rules for combat challenges) you gain a luck token.
At any given time, as part of another action, you may spend 1 luck token in order to gain a +1 luck bonus to your next d20 roll. There is no limit to the number of luck tokens you may spend on a single roll, but you do not gain any luck tokens from a check on which you have spent luck tokens.
You can maintain a total number of unspent luck tokens in your token pool equal to your character level + 10. Tokens beyond this maximum go to waste. Your pool lasts until you rest for 8 hours.
Expanded Mastery: 3. Your luck is sometimes more potent, though this is not always the case. Instead of spending luck tokens for +1 bonuses on a 1-for-1 basis, you may spend 2 luck tokens in order to add a luck bonus of +1d6 to your next d20 roll. Otherwise, this ability obeys the same rules as listed above.
Expanded Mastery: 5. You have learned to play the odds, risking much for great rewards. Any time you must make a skill check, ability check, attack roll, or base attack check with at least a 50% chance of failure, you may risk any number of luck tokens. If you fail, you lose any luck tokens that you risked on the action. However, should you succeed, you gain an additional number of luck tokens equal to the number that you risked. If you spend any luck tokens on this roll, you gain no benefit.
Expanded Mastery: 7. You are so lucky that it seems as if you often get a second chance at things. Any time you make a d20 roll, you may spend 6 luck tokens to reroll the die once you have seen the result. If you do so, you must take the second roll, even if it is worse than the first. Note that this second roll gains all of the same bonuses as the initial roll, including bonuses granted by spent luck tokens.
Improved Unarmed Strike [Power, Finesse]
You have trained to fight with punches and kicks, which allows you to engage an armed opponent on equal terms.
Base Mastery: 1
Prerequisite: When you take this feat, you must choose to take it as a Power or Finesse feat.
Benefit: You are considered armed even when unarmed. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity from armed opponents when you attack them unarmed. However, you still get an attack of opportunity against any opponent who makes an unarmed attack on you. Also, your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your option, and your unarmed damage improves as if you were one size larger than you are.
Normal: Without this feat, you are considered unarmed when attacking with an unarmed strike, and you can deal only nonlethal damage with such an attack.
Special: Note that the benefits for expanded mastery levels 3, 6, and 9 are all identical. They are listed as separate mastery abilities because you can’t take the same ability more than once. However, their effects stack.
Expanded Mastery: 2 (Power). You can deliver devastating blows with your unarmed strikes that send your opponent reeling. Your unarmed strikes gain the power descriptor. When fighting unarmed, you gain the benefit of the Foe Hammer feat, though this benefit applies only to your unarmed strikes and not to cudgels. If you wish to use Foe Hammer with a cudgel, you must purchase it separately. You can spend feat selections to gain Foe Hammer’s expanded mastery abilities for this use of your unarmed strikes.
Expanded Mastery: 2 (Finesse). You can attack with great speed, dazzling your opponent with your lightning-fast strikes. Your unarmed strikes gain the finesse descriptor. When fighting unarmed, you gain the benefit of the Razor Fiend feat, though this benefit applies only to your unarmed strikes and not to daggers. If you wish to use Razor Fiend with a dagger, you must purchase it separately. You can spend feat selections to gain Razor Fiend’s expanded mastery abilities for this use of your unarmed strikes.
Expanded Mastery: 3. Your unarmed strikes deal more damage, making you a living weapon. The damage dealt by your unarmed strikes improves again, as if you were an additional size larger than you are.
Expanded Mastery: 4. You are capable of reacting with complex moves at a moment’s notice. Any time you make an attack of opportunity, you may initiate a disarm, trip, or grapple attempt without provoking an attack of opportunity in return. In addition, you no longer suffer the -4 penalty to disarm attempts for using a light weapon when you are unarmed.
Expanded Mastery: 5. As a move action, you may make a base attack check opposed by your opponent’s own base attack check, or by his Sense Motive check, whichever is better. If you succeed, your opponent loses his active bonus to Defense until the start of his next action.
Expanded Mastery: 6. Your unarmed strikes deal more damage, making you a living weapon. The damage dealt by your unarmed strikes improves again, as if you were an additional size larger than you are.
Expanded Mastery: 8. You know how to strike at your opponent’s weakest spots, often avoiding his armor’s protection. You may make an unarmed strike as a full-round action. For this attack only, your foe takes a -1d8 penalty to his damage reduction.
Expanded Mastery: 9. Your unarmed strikes deal more damage, making you a living weapon. The damage dealt by your unarmed strikes improves again, as if you were an additional size larger than you are.
