Storm Soul [3.5e Martial Discipline] -- PEACH

[Rithaniel]

I don't think recovery of maneuvers as a free action, without the limitations of the Crusader "grant" system, is balanced with ToB. It was very specifically designed such that you cannot use your best maneuvers every round. With this, you certainly could. There's no reason not to use Tempest Eye, Maelstrom Burst, and Thunder each and every round once you get that ability. I don't think that's balanced and really, I don't think it's very fun.

If the final benefit of Eye of the Storm was 1/day, then that would be reasonable-ish. Still very powerful.

As for gaining actions, that's pretty high on the list of "obviously powerful things to do". Action economy abuse is the #1 route to power in 3.5.

The real issue is, the 0 ranks ability is potentially worth a feat, the 4 ranks ability is equivalent to some of the weaker feats in Core, the 9 ranks ability is more powerful than a feat should be, and so is the 14 ranks ability. You're getting more than four feats worth of power, for one feat. That's just not balanced.

Have you ever read the Races of War? Cause, if not, you probably don't know of the people to first make [Skill] feats. I'll give you an excerpt on their design philosophies:

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"How about instead of being able to travel anywhere in the multiverse, transform yourself into anything you can think of, stop time, and slay everyone you can see, we just give a nice +1 to hit with your secondary weapon? Deal?"

Feats were an interesting idea when they were ported to 3rd edition D&D. But let's face it; they don't go nearly far enough. Feats were made extremely conservative in their effects on the game because the authors didn't want to offend people with too radical a change. Well, now we've had third edition for 6 years, and we're offended. Feats are an interesting and tangible way to get unique abilities onto a character, but they have fallen prey to two key fallacies that has ended up turning the entire concept to ashes in our mouths. The first is the idea that if you think of something kind of cool for a character to do, you should make it a feat. That sounds compelling, but you only get 7 feats in your whole life. If you have to spend a feat for every cool thing you ever do, you're not going to do very many cool things in the approximately 260 encounters you'll have on your way from 1st to 20th level. The second is the idea that a feat should be equivalent to a cantrip or two. This one is even less excusable, and just makes us cry. A +1 bonus is something that you seriously might forget that you even have. Having one more +1 bonus doesn't make your character unique, it makes you a sucker for spending one of the half dozen feats you'll ever see on a bonus the other players won't even mention when discussing your character.

We all understand this problem, what do we do about it? Well, for starters, Feats have to do more things. Many characters are 5th level or so and they only have 2 feats. Those feats should describe their character in a much more salient way than "I'm no worse shooting into melee than I am shooting at people with cover that isn't my friends." This was begun with the tactical feats, but it didn't go far enough. It's not enough to add additional feats that do something halfway interesting for high level characters to have – we actually have to replace the stupid one dimensional feats in the PHB with feats that rational people would care about in any way. Spending a single feat should be enough to make you a "sniper character" because for a substantial portion of your life you only get one feat. Secondly, we have to clear away feats that don't provide numeric bonuses large enough to care about. The minimum bonus you'll ever notice is +3, because that's actually larger than the difference between having rolled well and having rolled poorly on your starting stats. Numeric bonuses smaller than that are actually insulting and need to be removed from the feats altogether. 3.5 Skill Focus was a nice start, but that's all it was – a start.

Furthermore, the fundamental structure of feats has been a disaster. The system of prerequisites often ensures that characters won't get an ability before it would be level appropriate for them to do so, but actually does nothing to ensure that such characters are in fact getting level appropriate abilities. Indeed, if a 12th level character decides that they want to pursue a career in shooting people in the face, they have to start all over gaining an ability that is supposed to be level appropriate for a 1st level character. Meanwhile, when a wizard of 12th level decides to pursue some new direction in spellcasting – he learns a new 6th level spell right off – and gets an ability that's level appropriate for a 12th level character.

It's sort of long, but, most assuredly a good read. Having pointed that out, though, I shall respond to your points.

The 0 ranks is not worth a feat. Neither is the 4 ranks ability. Both of them together, however, makes that worth a feat... at first level. Add in the "I get a few extra AoOs" ability (which will soon be the 9 ranks ability), and you get a pretty decent feat. Then add in "Extra swift or immediate action" (soon to be 14 ranks ability), and you've got something that should probably not be a feat till after 10th level (this is part of the reason why I'm changing it to be the 14 ranks ability, cause that way it isn't even that feat, till 11th level). As for the 19 ranks ability, well, I hate x/day mechanics. Perhaps if I made it be "you recover a single maneuver, as a free action" instead? Any comments on that?

A good job putting that in perspective: you're right, and I'm rethinking the Snake Dance feat. But, notice that the Snake Dance feat has some limitations (not enough, but it has some), as does the Master of the Nine ability (limited uses per day), plus the Master of the Nine is utterly brutal to enter (so, many, useless, feats). Yours is usable every round for a skill check. I think it's more powerful than a feat ought to be.

Again, scroll up and read ze exerpt up above, it's a fun read. Now, okay, I can see this being a bit strong for some people, action economy and all. Perhaps openning up a new restriction on it would offer some more balance. Something like "you lose the ability to take AoOs this round, if you do so", "you cannot move more than 10 feet during your turn if you do so", or "you cannot take a full round attack option this round if you choose to do so". Any thoughts?

Intuitive Strike, Book of Exalted Deeds, gives Wis to attack rolls. With that, and this, and the Swordsage 1st and 4th level abilities, you get Wis to AC, attack, and to damage twice when using Storm Soul maneuvers. And there's nothing stopping you from having Shadow Blade too, if you wanted; Shadow Hand and Storm Soul share some associated weapons.

Well, it's the 2nd and 4th level abilities, but that me being nitpicky. Now then, my example actually was based off of pure feats (which you had to have only 2 of to achive the desired result). Your example was based off of a 4 level dip into a class and a few feats (which you had to have 3 of to achive the desired result). When compared side by side with the Shadow Blade feat, they are about equal, when taking all things into account. Of course, perhaps a little nudge might be in order. How about I change it so that you use your Wisdom to determine damage, instead or Strength, rather than on top of Strength?

A single round seems most appropriate. Compare this to the other Tactical feats. Lasting Weak Spot from the Distant Horizon feat is similar to this (damage him twice last round), but then you need to make a single melee attack as a Standard action (pretty much as a waste of a standard action, and all you get out of it is that the guy takes an extra damage per hit for a minute. 1 damage. Pretty much all of the tactical options involve you wasting actions doing things you'd rather not (standard action melee attacks, total defense actions, etc), or rely on your opponent attempting something and messing up (missing due to concealment, missing on a charge, etc). This is something that is completely in line with what you want to do anyway, and it gives a much bigger bonus than any other Tactical feat. Even at only a single round.

Wow, I guess I hadn't read Distant Horizon, it is a royal slap in the face (if you disagree, then, read ze exerpt). Though, yes, I think I will change it to be just one round.

Change how? Become more powerful? I don't think that's appropriate unless you're increasing their level.

Well, I was thinking about bumping each maneuver up a level, and removing the requirement that both attacks had to be directed at a single foe.