Some Tome feats for consideration

[koz]

I sketched these at the request of one of my players, who wanted a better version of INA. Deciding that INA was flavourless, I wrote these two feats instead:

Rending Claws [Combat]

Your claws fvcking cut people in fvcking half.

+0: Your claws are considered one size category larger for the purpose of dealing damage.
+1: Improved Grab -- If you hit an opponent with both claws, you can start a grapple as a free action that does not provoke an AOO.
+6: Rend: If you hit an opponent with both claws, you rend them for an additional amount of damage equal to your normal claw damage.
+11: Rapidstrike -- You may make a second attack with any claw that you have, but this attack takes a -5 penalty, and can only be taken when iterative attacks could be.
+16: Your claws' critical multiplier is increased by 1, and you may attack with both claws at once as a standard action. Additionally, you may attack with both claws on a charge.

Farspawn Tentacles [Combat]

'The Fisherman's Wife' ain't got nothing on you.

+0: Your tentacles deal damage as if you were one size category larger.
+1: Improved Grab -- If you hit an opponent with two or more tentacles, you can start a grapple as a free action that does not provoke an AOO.
+6: Your tentacles have 5ft more reach than normal.
+11: Rapidstrike -- You may make an additional attack with any tentacle you have, but this attack is made at a -5 penalty, and can only be used when iterative attacks could be.
+16: Crushing Constriction -- You gain a constrict attack dealing 2d6+BAB+Str modifier (or whichever stat you add to physical attack damage, if this would be different) damage. Additionally, you count as being 2 size categories larger for grapple purposes when using your tentacles.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Calibron]

Weak and uninteresting.

Rending Claws [Combat]

Your claws fvcking cut people in fvcking half.
Prerequisite: Two or more claw attacks.

+0: Your claws are considered one size category larger for the purpose of dealing damage.
+1: Rend -- If you hit an opponent with both claws, you rend them for an additional amount of damage equal to your normal claw damage.
+6: Savagery -- You are so focused on your kill that you are on your prey faster than either of you know it, you can take a full attack with your natural weapons on any creature 10 or less feet beyond your reach; if you disabled your target you are now in(one of) their square(s), if not then you are adjacent to them. Additionally you ignore an amount of damage reduction equal to your BaB when attacking with natural weapons.
+11: Rapidstrike -- You may make iterative attacks with up to two of your claws as you would with manufactured weapons, also you may attack with both claws at once as a standard action. The range of Savagery increases to 20 feet beyond your reach.
+16: Vital Strike -- Whenever you Rend an opponent or score a Critical Hit with your claws the target must make a Fortitude save(DC10+1/2 BaB+Str Mod) or die; this is Precision Damage, so it does not work against creatures immune to critical hits, without a discernible anatomy, or that has total concealment against you.

Farspawn Tentacles [Combat]

'The Fisherman's Wife' ain't got nothing on you.
Prerequisite: A tentacle attack.

+0: Improved Grab -- If you hit an opponent with a tentacle, you can start a grapple as a free action that does not provoke an AOO.
+1: Your tentacles have 5ft more reach than normal. You count as being 1 size category larger for grapple purposes when using your tentacles.
+6: You may grapple as many creatures as you have tentacles+1, for every creature beyond the first you are grappling you suffer a -3 penalty to your grapple checks; for every tentacle you have grappling a specific creature beyond the first you gain a +2 bonus to grapple checks against that creature.
+11: You gain an additional tentacle attack, your tentacles have +10ft. reach instead of +5ft. reach, and are now considered one size larger for the purposes of damage. Your tentacles have become so large and swift that they protect you from projectiles; you may spend an AoO to make a tentacle attack against any thrown weapon or fired ammunition that comes within you natural reach. Weapons that only require a touch attack to hit and Magic weapons with the Seeking property are not affected by this ability.
+16: Whenever you are using at least two tentacles to grapple a creature you can force one down it's breathing hole(or other appropriate orifice >:3) as a non-action, forcing a Fort save(DC10+1/2 HD+Str Mod) versus Nausea every round it remains in the grapple; every additional tentacle beyond the second adds +1 to the save DC. If you keep a creature like this long enough you can force it to save versus suffocation too. You count as being 2 size categories larger for grapple purposes when using your tentacles, and your tentacles are considered two size categories larger for the purposes of damage.

[koz]

Wow... these are a hell-load more powerful. How do they balance with other [Combat] feats? Not criticising, just curious.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Rending Claws [Combat] - WTF? Full attack as a free action at level 6? Keep in mind this may be a full BAB class with Blitz. You are seriously looking at a level 7 Full Attack of 7 attacks with very little penalty. Also, you double it.

Farspawn Tentacles [Combat] +1 ability stomps all over Jugernaut. +11 should just grant Deflect Arrows flat out rather than new mechanics.

[Calibron]

You're right, I worded that +6 ability incorrectly, it isn't meant to do that. I'll fix it.

As for the tentacle feat: I disagree that the +1 ability is intrinsically better than Juggernaut's +0 ability. Juggernaut affects all size dependent maneuvers, while the tentacle feat only let's you grapple larger creatures(RoW style grappling doesn't give out size based bonuses). Concerning the +11 ability, maybe, but I like that you can protect yourself from more than a single arrow, and I also like that there's a chance of failure such as if you don't hit the object hard enough to break it.

As for how they compare to other Combat feats, that's a hard question to answer, since they honestly vary in effective power themselves(Hunter or Murderous Intent versus TWF or Whirlwind for example). I can say fairly surely that the end result isn't going to be any more powerful than a decently made fighting character that took Combat School, Whirlwind, TWF, or Blitz instead of one of these feats.

[CatharzGodfoot]

These feats don't really have combat feat 'flavor'. For one, they make more trouble for a DM trying to create monsters with them ('let's multiply the number of abilities a monster gets by 2-5'). They also shouldn't be BAB-based, as there's no guarantee that a combat brute is going to have any kind of BAB.

That's purely my aesthetic feeling, and doesn't have a lot to do with game balance. I'd rather see simple but powerful monstrous feats like Constriction, Extended reach, Rend, or Multiattack.

[Calibron]

I know what you mean, I kept feeling the urge to change these to general feats that work off of HD instead of BaB when I was remaking them.

[Bigode]

He means not scale - like fiendish and monstrous feats. In fact, they are monstrous feats as far as anyone can tell.

[koz]

These were designed for a Shadow Warrior PC, which is why I made them [Combat] feats. Although you are probably right in that they should be [Monstrous] feats.

[Calibron]

He means not scale - like fiendish and monstrous feats. In fact, they are monstrous feats as far as anyone can tell.

I know what he meant, and I agree for the most part. These shouldn't be Combat feats and monsters should take simple feats that are easy to keep track of, but I didn't think these should just be scrapped, they are interesting and useful enough to be something a be-clawed or be-tentacled PC could use.

[Bigode]

I might sorta grant that (though I'm personally opposed to feats, that look like monstrous, smell like monstrous and quack like monstrous, but aren't monstrous), if I didn't think they're too powerful.

[CatharzGodfoot]

These were designed for a Shadow Warrior PC, which is why I made them [Combat] feats. Although you are probably right in that they should be [Monstrous] feats.

Ah, that makes sense. In that case they're reasonable. In a sense they're the shadow warrior equivalent of metamagic feats. At any rate, I think that power wise your originals are fine. Not that I have any in-depth analysis to back that opinion up..

[Bigode]

I guess at least the presence of repeated abilities' less than ideal.

[Orion]

The original set is useful and reasonable. Maybe a shade weak (I'd like to see rend come sooner, and I'd like two attacks as a standard somewhere on the claw feat)

The second set looks off-the-hook crazy even by RoW standards.

[Calibron]

I'd appreciate it if you guys would quantify your claims of overpoweredness in some way.

The claw feat gives a small damage boost, Rend, what is effectively the ability to move a short distance before making a full attack, a level appropriate number of attacks(seeing as how if you are using your claws then your aren't holding weapons), and the piece de resistance is a SoD that you have a decent chance of not even seeing in any given combat round at a level where Major Weapon properties(4 out of 5 of which are SoDs that you see on every single hit) have been around for a level or two already.

The tentacle feat doesn't do anything offensive besides make grappling a good option(and it only has the one defensive ability), you really still can't do enough damage with your tentacles to compete with magic weapons after the early levels by attacking outright. Mostly they're only good for being an alternative to a Spiked Chain Tripper, it suffers from a lot of the same weaknesses and can't even tie up as many eligible opponents at the same time(unless you can find a way to get enough tentacles to make a Japanese schoolgirl blush).

I'm certainly not claiming these as flawless, I would not be surprised is these needed some adjustment(they are basically version 0.3 at this point), but I ask you to take a quick look at what warriors with more conventional fighting styles can do at various levels and compare them to what a claw fighter or tentacle fighter can do before you tell me these are overpowered. Also if you know of any unforeseen and unfair synergies that exist between these and Board or Mainstream WOTC material(Core+Completes+Spell Compendium) let me know and I'll alter these to compensate.