Star Log.EM: Combat Feats (SFRPG)

This Star Log-installment clocks in at 7 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 3 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

All right, after a brief introduction, we dive straight into the 16 new feats contained within. These would be:

-Adaptive Guard: Nets you an untyped +2 bonus to Reflex saves, and provides the option to choose a nearby target, increasing bonuses for fighting defensively and Reflex saves originating from that foe at the expense of being slightly more susceptible against assaults from others. Nice!

-Barreling Momentum: Requires Step Up and Improved Combat Maneuver (bull rush), and lets you Step Up to bull rush targets. NICE! (As an aside – pretty sure that should be “barreling” – the pdf writes the feat with two “l”s.)

-Burst Fire: Reduces damage dice employed by automatic weapon by half, but targets only one target. Takes single damage die weaponry into account. NICE, though this one warrants closer examination if SFRPG introduces burst fire mode weaponry.

-Cleaving Lunge: Combo-feat for Cleave and Lunge, with the option to spend Resolve Points to reduced the total AC penalty for using the feats in conjunction by half.

-Defending Counter: Readied melee attacks are resolved before the opponents attacks, and the attack roll may be used as EAC/KAC if you hit. Nice – makes readying actions actually viable and doesn’t require the annoying compare atk-values swingy mechanics. Kudos!

-Explosive Leap: When using automatic, blast, explode or line weapons, use Resolve to move backwards, utilizing the recoil. Also lets you rocket-jump when aiming to the floor. To nitpick: This should specify that the short term “fly speed” ought to be considered supernatural or extraordinary.

-Flurry of Swings: Makes your melee behave as though automatic, with a range of 5 ft. + natural reach. This would be utterly OP, but requires Resolve Points to power, so I’m kinda okay with it. Still, this is one I’d watch carefully.

-Grazing Critical:  When you hit an opponent with a natural 19 or 20, you can spend ¼ of your total Resolve to treat the damage dice as though you rolled the maximum on the original damage dice. This one has a nasty glitch: It should refer to the maximum Resolve, not total you have, as the verbiage atm can be read to pertain Resolve you currently have, allowing for abuse when you only have a bit of Resolve remaining. Alternatively, this should at the very least have a minimum Resolve cost noted.

-Hammer the Gap: When using full attack, designate a target and spend 1 Resolve: All successful hits total damage for the purpose of DR etc. This is OP and the like already broke the system in PFRPG, tilting the game’s math even more in favor of attack. This should die.

-Improved Suppressive Fire: Toggle automatic weapons into a suppressive onslaught mode: Attack in a cone twice, at -4 per attack. Attack #1 is an attack, attack #2 provides covering or harrying fire. High prerequisites etc. make this viable.

-Merciful Strike:  Does what it did in PF – gets rid of atk-penalty for using lethal weapons to deal nonlethal damage.

-Prone Shooter:  When prone, you can steady your aim, gaining basically advantage on the next attack roll – rolling twice, taking the better result. Unwieldy weapons require a standard action to steady. Nice one.

-Selective Autofire: Shape automatic, blast, explode or line weapons to exclude a square. At BAB +5 and higher, spend Resolve to exclude any number of squares. I’d have made the latter scale based on BAB, but that may be me.

-Slamming Strike: When you hit an opponent in melee and surpass KAC by +4 or higher, you can spend 1 Resolve to treat the attack as a bull rush. There is no immediate action in SFRPG – this should refer to reactions.

-Snap Shot:  You count as threatening squares when armed with ranged weapons you’re proficient with, provided they’re loaded. They may be used for AoOs, and doing so doesn’t cause AoOs.

-Tumbling Targeteer: Use Acrobatics (DC 15 + 1.5 times opponent’s CR) to negate AoOs for making ranged attacks. DC increases if threatened by multiple targets. Serious failure may see you flat-footed.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are pretty good on a formal level. On a rules-language level, an immediate action remnant and some balance-concerns regarding a few of these feats remain. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard, and the pdf has a nice artwork and no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Blaine Bass’ feats here provide a couple of nice options, but the pdf feels odd to me: A couple of the feats herein feel like they should be weapon rules (*cough* burst-fire), and I have some balance concerns regarding others. However, on the other hand, there also are some options that I consider to be rather cool, making this, in the end, pretty much a mixed bag that might require some vetting by the GM. My final verdict will be 3 stars.

You can get these feats here on OBS.

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Endzeitgeist out.

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