Combat School (3.5e Variant Rule)

[edit] Overview

Combat School was an attempt to implement feats as deep trees, giving greater amounts of power than normal feats due to their substantial requirements. This experiment produced many interesting feats, but was ultimately a failure. There are two primary reasons for these failures:

Confusing

These feats trees were confusing. Long lists of required feats required a great deal of mental energy to assess correctly. They required a great deal of effort to coordinate in the writing process. Administering these feats was a burden compared to their payoff.

Unequal

Other classes gained their great abilities without needing complex trees. Gaining appropriate abilities at appropriate levels works far better than listing many requirements.

In playtesting, these feats helped give fighters appropriate numbers without resorting to magic equipment. In this respect, the system worked terrific. It worked well enough that it begged generalization. In a low magic setting, all characters need protection, not just the fighter, so leaving this system only to fighters did not correctly address the issue. This lead to the development of a virtual magic bonus system.

Many feats developed for this system were generalized. They did not need vast requirements to work correctly. These can be found in the Feat section. Some abilities were rewritten as Alternate Class Abilities for the fighter.

I've left this page here as a reference for those who may be interesting in developing the game further into this direction.

[edit] Going to Combat School

Learning on your own is one thing. Being trained by a master is an entirely different thing. When a character goes to combat school, they gain knowledge and discipline that only a true master of melee can offer.

Schooled fighters are proud of their course of study and will proudly state who they studied under. Each master usually teach some variation of a certain style. These styles may be fanciful, such as "Flying Wind style," or more mundane, such as "Berlin" style.

Combat School feats build more strongly than regular feats. These feats may not be suitable for all games.

Combat School feats bring a uniqueness to melee characters that is not based on magic or supernatural abilities. These feats help a fighter in a low-magic or no-magic environment to perform closer to the default power curve.

These feats are not "fair". They are heavily weighted towards the fighter. This is an exploration of deep feat trees.

[edit] Combat School [Combat]

Benefits: This is a combat feat that scales with your Base Attack Bonus.

• +0: First, name your fighting style (such as "Hammer and Anvil Technique" or "Crescent Moon Style", or "Way of the Lightning Mace"). This fighting style only works with a small list of melee weapons that you have to describe the connectedness to the DM in a half-way believable way. Now, whenever you are using that technique in melee combat, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls.
• +1: Your immersion in your technique gives you great martial prowess, you gain a +2 to damage rolls in melee combat.
• +6: When you strike your opponent with the signature moves of your fighting school in melee, they must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your level + your Strength bonus) or become dazed for one round.
• +11: You may take 10 on attack rolls while using your special techniques. The DC to disarm you of a school appropriate weapon is increased by 4.
• +16: You may add +5 to-hit on any one attack you make after the first each turn. If you hit an opponent twice in one round, all further attacks this round against that opponent are made with The Edge.

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[edit] Trained Stance [General]

[edit] Prerequisite

base attack bonus +1

[edit] Benefit

You can enter a Trained Stance as a swift action. During this stance, you may substitute your BAB for ranks in Balance. You lose your Trained Stance if you fail a Balance check.

[edit] Special

A fighter may select this feat as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[edit] Least Combat School Feats

Each of the following feats requires the Trained Stance feat. When you have all four least combat school feats, you gain the Combat Expertise and Power Attack as synergy feats. You must have all four Least Combat School feats to take any Lesser Combat School feats.

Expert Strike (DnD Feat)

{{3.5e Feat |name=Grounded Stance |types=General |summary= |prereqs= |prereq_feat1=Trained Stance |benefit=As an immediate action you enter a Grounded Stance. Treat your size category as one larger for defensive purposes (such as defending against bull rush, disarming, grappling, and tripping). This feat stacks with any feat or ability that grants a similar bonus. |normal= |special=A fighter may select this feat as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[edit] Astonishing Leap [General]

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