sorry, I've suddenly become involved in real life.

for ranged guys you WF is literally a must - it removes Str dependency for bows or adds Dex to crossbow damage, literally a Crossbow Sniper on crack. Better-than-good feat? A must in my book.

for the melee guys, let's see..

trip builds: WF (Expertise) is Combat Expertise (a good feat on its own) and Int dependency removal. Great.

charge builds: WF (swordsmanship) is good on low levels (to use PA and still hit things, since there is no Shock Trooper in core)

WF(Knockout Weapons) - ridiculously good and not in line with other 3.5 abilities. DC should be Str-based, not damage based.

other things are nice (and many are essentially 2 feats in one), but nothing broken, IMO.

alas, real life removes the urge to argue =)

I'd suggest your WF version give Rapid Shot to bows and Crossbow Sniper to crossbows, to make the ranged bonuses in line with others.

@JeorMattan I agree, but I think it's idiotic that it wasn't the default. Further, there are other as-important-if-not-more feats in Rapid Shot and Manyshot

@JeorMattan Combat Expertise is an absolutely terrible feat. It almost never sees use in optimal play, even if you have it. It is 100% tax. Hence my removing it. You're just wrong here. The Int dependence is similarly-poor design. The differences in MAD/SAD between different archetypes is a major problem with 3.5; the casters don't need 13 Str for random crucial things. It's a shame that 3.5 doesn't handle MAD better, but it doesn't.

@JeorMattan Pffft, it's so minor as to be close to meaningless past level like 5 or so. Which is better than the original WF's meaninglessness at level 1, but still. Swords are the best weapon type for a lot of things, so relatively weak choice here.

@JeorMattan "Ridiculously good" cuz you have, at high levels, a no-save-just-lose for one target per encounter if you catch someone unaware during a surprise round. There are so many conditions on it that by the time it becomes automatic, you'll rarely get to apply it. I want it to be reliable, if you can meet the condition.

@JeorMattan I do understand that.

@JeorMattan That's rather odd, considering Rapid Shot is better than what bows currently get. Don't feel like referencing an out-of-Core feat for this, so Crossbow Sniper's out.

@KRyan What, +5 to AC (and touch AC for that matter) is bad in core? How?

@KRyan once again, +4 to atk AND ac (touch ac included) is minor in core? I don't think so.

@KRyan now bows remove STR dependency. it is at least comparable to rapidshot, IMO, which can always be taken as well.

as for Crossbow Sniper - whatever, copypaste its text, then. Half Dex bonus to damage, precision damage like sneak attack applies at 60ft instead of 30ft.

@JeorMattan because if you have +5 AC, you're never going to hit anything. Standing there doing nothing (and not being hit-able) is pointless.

@JeorMattan you have a point about touch AC, but you're talking at the cost of two feats (since EWP for Bastard Sword is a complete waste). No, +4 attack/+4 AC is not a good use of two feats, even in Core.

@JeorMattan exactly why I wrote it. The Str dependency is bad design, because 3.5 does not handle MAD well at all

@JeorMattan so less damage than it should have, with a pointless restriction on it? this is a good idea why exactly?

basically, you seem dedicated to keeping mundanes down, and I won't support it

I wrote Weapon Focus the way I did to improve their lot

it is not the best feat available

but it's a damn good feat

and the game would be much better off if feats were, in general, more like my Weapon Focus

it's not so great that you'll take it as your #1 feat for every warrior build, but it's good enough that every mundane warrior wants it

that, to me, is a sign of a good, well-designed feat

@KRyan except that Trip uses touch attack and is going to hit anyway, -5 to attack or no.

@KRyan because range restriction is for sneak atk and other precision damage, not for yor half dex, and btw it expands default limits.

@KRyan to me, that's a sign that a feat is too good.

a feat should be good enough that people wanted to take it, but not so overly good that everyone wanted to take it.

@KRyan no sane amount of work is going to solve tier1 vs tier5 imbalance, so I prefer to acknowledge it and work my way around, not fix it. moreover, such a feat would be of more benefit to strong mundanes than to poorly designed (cough*fighter*cough) ones, which is another reason to tune it down.

@JeorMattan And with Improved Trip you're making a real attack afterward, and with Knock-Down (not PHB, but it is SRD) both are real attacks. It's not a good trade.

@JeorMattan making it precision damage that's ignored by far too many Types is still a pointless restriction, and it's still less damage than it ought to be. Dex-to-damage is not necessarily a Sneak Attack-only thing.

@KRyan at the prone target. which gets me a +4 bonus to attack. Trading -1 atk for +5 ac? I can live with that.

@KRyan once again, bonus damage from Crossbow Sniper is not precision damage.

@JeorMattan all feats should be desirable. The limit should be that there are so many that you want, that you cannot take them all

@JeorMattan then you were unclear about that twice

@KRyan probably.

@JeorMattan with Knock-Down, that's before they're prone. And Power Attack is massively better; AC is not that valuable because of the way numbers scale in 3.5

you get lots of "free" AC in 3.5, so that you probably start with around 19 AC without trying; almost all methods of investing in more AC cost far more than they return, and for most characters it barely matters because attack bonuses scale so much faster

@KRyan so are you saying that all feats should be available to everyone? because one probably won't desire something he won't ever meet prerequisites for.

@JeorMattan prerequisites are frequently pretty poor design but I wouldn't remove them entirely

yes, there are always going to be feats that are useless to one archetype or another

my point was that relevant feats should be desirable, and feats should be relevant to a rather broad spectrum of characters

prerequisites basically come in two major categories

1. a level requirement, hiding behind some particular feature you cannot get until some level

2. a tax, requiring you to do something or take some option that would not otherwise be of use to you

#1 is fine, but it's bizarre that Leadership is the only thing that directly just comes out and states the level req

#2 is bad design

"trade power now for more power later" is bad design

frankly, I fail to see how exactly that is bad.

a perfectly valid point of choice: be mediocre now and almighty later vs cool now and not-really-overwhelming later.

because 1., the initial option is too weak, and characters who have not yet gotten the payoff are underpowered for their level (bad design)

2. many characters start at higher level, which means they never "pay" for it and get more power than they'd otherwise have for their level (again, bad design)

all characters should be equally viable at all levels

1. they are not underpowered in a sense of evil game designers robbing them of power. they are underpowered for a time being as a result of their own conscious choice, which will get them certain benefits if they live to reap them. details of implementation may vary, but the notion in general is sensible.

"linear warriors, quadratic casters" (which isn't really a good description of 3.5 but whatever) is bad design in the first place

@JeorMattan if the options were actually labeled as such, you'd have a much stronger case

but they're not

and you'd still be wrong even if you were

because this is not a game that plays through from 1-20

most people level up rarely and most campaigns do not last that long

2. point about starting at higher level is valid. though it boils down to "some choices are less optimal than other choices", which, um, is omnipresent and can't be rid of?

if you were talking about something like a MOBA game, where the entire game is less than an hour and successful players level up all the way, and heroes are explicitly labeled as "early game ganker" and "late game carry" it's fine design

but not for a game like D&D

@JeorMattan it could be, if the game were well-designed

and while I'm not going to go and fix 3.5

I can try to make my design avoid it

(also, because I already have contributed to a pretty good attempt to fix 3.5, and in Legend all options are pretty close to equivalent)

@KRyan with that you're welcome, but if your design is a part of 3.5 .. well.. there is not much hope to avoid its fundamental problem.

@JeorMattan so I should be forced to repeat Wizards' mistakes? I don't think so

of course not.

My point is that you can't avoid Wizards' mistakes while designing in the realm of Wizards' bug-ridden product.

well, my contention is that my version of Weapon Focus is appropriate to that realm

it is better than 99% of feats, but 99% of feats are complete crap that I won't emulate

your design may be flawless per se, but it will inevitably interact with environment.

it is not the best feat available for any character, even in Core

and in games with more supplements there are enough options as good or better that a player may never get a chance to take it

but he'll still want it

and on top of that, even lower-tier spellcasters have no reason whatsoever to feel threatened by the change

@KRyan oh my. haven't you said that this feat will be wanted by every mundane warrior?

this is not going to ruin a Beguiler or Dragonfire Adept's day

@JeorMattan yes, but not as their very first feat

well, maybe by trippers because of Improved Trip's stupid prerequisite

but if they could get Improved Trip without this, and they were level 1 and had to pick, Improved Trip is definitely the better feat

@KRyan that doesn't really mean much. if it is in every warrior's list of feats taken, then it's too good and should probably be converted to class feature.

@JeorMattan in Core, it probably will be because Core's design is atrocious

but in a all-of-3.5 game?

@KRyan outside of core, same thing - people will want to take rapid shot + weapon focus instead of just rapid shot, etc.

it will not

yeah, bad example because 3.5 has bizarrely poor support for archery

um

there is not a single good archery-focused class

Barbarian or Fighter or Rogue make far better archers than Ranger, Scout, etc.

the prestige classes are worse

I started to notice that your argument ultimately breaks to "my feat is good design, 3.5 is bad design on SO MANY levels". That is not going to take us anywhere.

Rapid Shot and Greater Manyshot are the only particularly good archery feats

it is inherently MAD, not to mention you have to pay through the nose for the privilege of using Str

Also, barbarian being better archer than ranger/scout? Really?

@JeorMattan Whirling Frenzy for an extra attack on top of Rapid Shot

Ranger/Scout rather than Ranger-or-Scout is better but only because of Swift Hunter and hunter's eye

@KRyan arrowsplit.

@JeorMattan action cost, limited spell slots

swift action (cheap) and 3rd level spell (wand)

@JeorMattan the problem with this statement is that you imply that I merely assert the former claim, which I have not; I have explained why I consider mine to be good design

3.5 is bad design on so many levels

that's a fact

another one that I have not merely asserted

@JeorMattan so huge gold cost for something the Barbarian gets free

@KRyan for something heaps better than Barbarian gets.

@JeorMattan I'm away from book so I can't check exactly what it does

you cited it in response to Whirling Frenzy so I assumed it was equivalent

lmgtfy dndtools.eu/spells/champions-of-ruin--27/arrowsplit--266

but fine, a heavily-optimized Swift Hunter using spells from multiple different supplements is better than a Barbarian using one ACF from the SRD

an Archivist or Cleric is still a better archer

@KRyan you haven't stated anything about optimization levels, and they aren't remotely heavy here, okay?

as for Cleric, yeah

@JeorMattan true enough but certainly far more than the Barbarian

also, more importantly, you've kind of proven my point: this character is seeing an awful lot more damage from arrowsplit, Rapid Shot, Skirmish, hunter's eye, etc. than it is from WF's Dex-to-damage

@KRyan can't agree here.

is he going to want the feat? yes, it solves some MAD issues and it is better than his extremely limited other options

because everything you've brought up cannot be taken as a feat

Point-blank Shot and Precise Shot are necessary but taxes, Rapid Shot is actually good, Manyshot's OK but not great, but required for Greater Manyshot

and then Swift Hunter

dex to damage would mean 40+ dex (and dex being half of the arrow damage or even more)

40+ dex? have fun with that

swift hunter is actually off

unless you're willing to use greater manyshot

18+2+5+5+6=36 is pretty much the baseline

that's 18 damage, which is equivalent to 5d6 from Skirmish, on average

@JeorMattan or Travel Devotion

even if not a "Cleric," Cleric 1 adds so much that it's silly to not dip it

@KRyan and you pull out second swift action for arrowsplit from where?

@JeorMattan point, forgot that

@KRyan yeah, it will probably be 6-10 points higher

@JeorMattan from what?

enhancement bonuses, inherent bonuses, level bonuses, and LA +0 racial bonuses are accounted for

there are vanishingly few other bonuses to ability scores

@KRyan dndtools.eu/classes/wildrunner has +Dex variant of rage

thats +6

on top of that can't think of anything short of alterself/polymorph/PAO

hey, a use for Wildrunner

but you have to be an Elf, and you had 18 base Dex, so your Con's gonna be crap

there may not be a lot of good feats for archery, but there are a lot of necessary feat taxes for it

@KRyan whatever, it's a gatling turret anyway

so enjoy burning yet another feat on Endurance

which ranger gives me for free

right

okay, let's postpone getting the ranger up high

I gotta go

cya

sure

but I don't see any of this as particularly contradicting me here; I mean, OK, so archery can be buffed pretty high and Dex-to-damage is valuable; meleers have been getting 1.5*Str by default from level 1, so why on earth is this such a big deal?

Dungeoncrashers get 3 *Str to damage

all this does is put them closer to even ground with what is already a low-tier archetype

also, in a all-of-3.5 game, Dead Shot gives Dex-to-damage within 30 ft.; stupid restriction, but not usually a huge problem. It requires PBS and BAB +1.