Fight Juggling

[peripeteia]

Earlier today I watched a juggling routine, and it was all very fun and entertaining, especially when they had a kid get up from the audience and have him stand between the two jugglers who would then send flying pins past his head. As I was watching this I was thinking “man, they better not screw up or they’ll kill the little guy” which then got me to thinking, what if I made a character who used juggling to fight (don’t ask me why it made scene at the time).
Having a character who juggled knives or some other object to fight with would be fun, and it would be cool role playing, but I was wondering on what kind of restrictions he would get, or what type of feats (maby even skills) would be required fight with juggling. The one big advantage I can see to juggling in battle would be the ability to throw lots of items (probably small items) in just a few seconds (at the show, they two jugglers threw about 2 pins a second). But that advantage could be unbalancing if a player would juggle 7 or 8 weapons of returning and fire them off every turn.

So anyways, I was just wondering what you guys think about the fighting juggler idea, and what restrictions and/or bonuses a character who was fight juggling would get.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

It's an interesting concept - basically, by continually juggling the blades, the character has several blades readied at once, rather than having to worry about drawing them.

Now, I'm always in favor of keeping weird and complex ideas like this as flavor. In that case, I would simply have the player take a few ranks in Sleight of Hand or Perform (Juggling), and Quickdraw, to go along with the normal thrown weapon feats. Functionally there is no difference from the normal Quickdraw/bunch of thrown weapons concept, it's just a neat flavor image.

Alternatively, it might work as a feat (this one is very spur of the moment and probably not well balanced at all):

BLADE JUGGLING [GENERAL]
You mix performance with combat prowess in order to confuse your foes. While using this feat, you juggle a number of thrown weapons, throwing them when your target least expects it.

Prerequsites: Quickdraw, Weapon Focus (any light thrown weapon), Improved Feint, Sleight of Hand or Perform (Juggling) 6 ranks, Bluff 6 ranks, Dex 15+, Base Attack Bonus +7.

Benefit: When using this feat, you give up the threatened space you would normally have for wielding a melee weapon. In exchange, you can make one feint attempt as a swift action each round. You may not make additional feint attempts in that round, and the benefit only applies if you make the attack with the thrown weapons you are juggling. You must be juggling at least two thrown weapons to benefit from this feat. The weapon you are juggling are automatically considered readied for the purposes of making a ranged attack, and you may juggle up to five at a time.

Special: A fighter may take Blade Juggling as one of his bonus feats.

[snow_cheetah]

hi hi

That is a very interesting idea. I have a knife throwing character around that might benefit from trying this out. Who knows if I'll ever get a chance to try it though :P

[AtomicKitKat]

Here's a thought, feinting usually results in target being denied his Dexterity bonus to AC right? Question here is, should the attacker be allowed to sneak attack? After all, it's kind of hard to aim at a "critical spot" while juggling knives(to say nothing of Arterial Strike and Hamstring and all the other crazy things that allow you to sacrifice SA dice for effects)

Alternatively, allow them to treat their Perform/Sleight of Hand(player's choice I guess, or whichever is higher.) check(once a round) as their attack roll for the round. If it beats the target's AC(minus Dexterity), target is considered flatfooted and can be sneak-attacked/sudden striked as normal.

[Everyman]

I don't know, GK. I would think that the "fight juggling" idea would probably deserve a Tactical Feat at the very least, and potentially its own prestige class.

The idea does make me think of the Master thrower class in CW. The one that specializes in throwing such weapons as described? I don't know if I got the name right. Anywho, I like the idea Peripeteia. Now I've got something to think about while doing my mindless summer factory job! Yay!

Post more later!

[peripeteia]

The tricky bit about designing new stuff like this is trying to not over power it, and just trying to make it realistic. On the realistic bit, there are lots of down sides to juggling in combat. Its hard to run or move fast (I’d suspect that tumbling would be impossible, or suicidal.) Other skills like hide and move silently while juggling (although I don’t know why someone would want to juggle and hide at the same time) would receive penalties, and some things like clime and swim would simply be impossible while juggling (do I look stupid stating the obvious?). It’s also probably hard to dodge stuff without dropping some knives. Making normal melee attacks would be difficult because with the more blades that a character is juggling, the less time that they have holding a single one, and therefore less time to make a strike. Also if a juggler was hit while juggling, it’s probable that he would drop his stuff (and would probably have to make a concentration check to see if he can continue). Oh and sneak attack wouldn’t be an option while juggling.
But on the up side, if a character changed juggling forms frequently and/or juggled several different looking objects (possibly different colors, sizes, or even multiple types of weapons at once) the attracter wouldn’t know what to make of it (resulting in a AC bonus probably). Also with several different weapons up in the air, with different specialties, the juggler has a pick of which one he wants to use to attack with, which in some cases is a big deal. On a side note, I don’t really see someone juggling a couple of battle axes, and I would probably limit the weapon selection of a juggler to small, light, and/or medium weapons, which they would get their dex bonus added to for attack rolls and such.
As such, I think that there are too many restrictions to the juggling idea to make it worth wile, and this is why I want to add this little bit to make it good (but it might be too good) or I could go the other way and use Kadzar’s suggestions. The first thing that drew me to the idea of fight juggling was the fact that a juggler goes threw all the things that he is juggling in just a couple of seconds, so they should be able to throw (at an opponent) all of the stuff that is in the air in a single round (seeing as how rounds are 15 seconds or so). But that has some very high damage potential and probably would make the skill or feat unbalanced, but it would be way cool, and it makes scenes to me (but it gives munchkins something to abuse).

So, as before, I was just wondering what u guys thing of all that. On and I haven’t herd of the quick draw + lots of throwing weapons before, sounds good by itself, but its just not as flavorful.

ty
(oh and sorry for taking so long (if 24 hours is long) to get back to u guys)

[Xudo]

A juggler for combat. That is so cool. I might even have to steal the idea for an NPC bard.... But yah, that is totally cool

[peripeteia]

oh yeah, I forgot, but id probably talk with my DM about making a prestige class for my fight juggler. Wonder what it would be like…(suggestions for a prestige class would be greatly appreciated, like any other suggestion)