Charge and Shield feats

[clean_slate]

Hey guys,

I was reading about these feats and they seem interesting. Does anyone play a character which utilizes those? I was wondering if they are worth it. The whole concept is quite feat intensive, because in order to make full use of only Charge one would need to pick :

Furious Charger background feat
Powerful Charge
Improved Initiative
Dire Charge

And if you want to add Shield line :

Shield Bash
Shield Charge
Shield Slam

The problem is, on a Barbarian or Fighter which would be best suited for these feats you are already feat starved - Fighter will want to pick Weapon Focus and Specializations and Barbarian has Ice Troll Berserker, Epic Rage, Extended Rages, EDR and so on.

I'm not looking for strictly powerbuilding that's why I'm asking for IG experiences, because the feats seem interesting for me instead of plain boring click and destroy warrior types.

[dedude]

The thing is, all builds are feat starved. There are so many good feats to chose from that you can't possibly get all you want. That is a good thing, as it means each build archetype has multiple valid paths to chose from.

Charging is absolutely great fun to play with and great flavor for certain character types, if not the most mechanically impressive feat. Investing in additional charging feats makes it much better though.

Shield Bash will see an update in the very near future, and is IMO a very valid choice for a shield-using martial character. Shield Slam is just an awesome feat if you have high STR.

[Sun Wukong]

If you want to a play a dwarf, then you are in luck because 5 levels of Battlerager does let you have those charge feats for free.

Anyhow, few years back I did actually play on a Half-Orc Rogue 16/Fighter 14 build that used Shield Slam, Charge, Improved Kockdown, and Feint. I think I only picked weapon focus feats for club because the sneak attacks on top of high strength and power attack gave me all the damage I needed. But as I said, it was a few years ago. I no longer have that character and so I cannot test if Shield Slam still lets you pull off sneak attacks.

Also, I recall Pommel Strike (free feat) also letting you throw out some sneak attack dice. But I have not tested that in some months.

[Theodore01]

I no longer have that character and so I cannot test if Shield Slam still lets you pull off sneak attacks.

Also, I recall Pommel Strike (free feat) also letting you throw out some sneak attack dice. But I have not tested that in some months.

Shield slam -> Sneak
Pommel strike -> no sneaks (was fixed)

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

Charge is good if you go with Battlerager or through Dervish. Battlerager gives all feats for "free"-meaning you still have to consider the opportunity costs of taking the class and qualification requirements. That's the Barbarian version. Dervish is better for a Fighter base, and it gets Improved Inititative so you basically just have to spend 2 feats in order to make full use of Charge line - Powerful Charge and Dire Charge.

Shield is much more difficult because you need 3 extra feats, 4 if you want to use heavy shields without 2 AC penalty. I would go with Cavalier class pack if you want to make such character as they get shield feats for free.

[Sun Wukong]

I no longer have that character and so I cannot test if Shield Slam still lets you pull off sneak attacks.

Also, I recall Pommel Strike (free feat) also letting you throw out some sneak attack dice. But I have not tested that in some months.

Shield slam -> Sneak
Pommel strike -> no sneaks (was fixed)

I actually tested the Pommel Strike with my current Barbarian and the Pins dagger. I still managed to get some sneak attack damage.

1d4 (Dagger)
+5 (Strength)
+2 (Enchantment Bonus)
+1 (Elemental Damage)
+1d4 (Elemental Damage)
= 16 (Max) - and I often got 20+ damage per hit, and saw the grey *Sneak Attack* text.

[Theodore01]

Hmm, that's odd.
(I have a similar issue with Low Blow, on one hin it grants sneaks - on the other hin it doesn't )

[Sun Wukong]

Are both halflings, or gnomes? I think you needed to be smaller for it to work.

[Diamore]

My fighter Tully has all the shield and charge feats and is not feat starved by any stretch. It is a very satisfying combination of abilities but it depends greatly on your emphasis. I have no focuses or specialities and am primarily a tank who focuses on disrupting enemies over damage.

I would not take Dervish for any reason though on a shield and charging character. Dread pirate has a lower feat investment and grants both two weapon fighting feats to improve your shield fighting accuracy and still up your global damage with Rally the Crew. A Paladin Cavalier with the charge feats seems to work well still though.

[aaron22]

was thinking about rolling a charging, shield bashing MaA. havent really dived into the build too much but seems like a fun build.

hard to build without a supporting site and doing it with PnP is causing a procrastination problem.

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

A question about Charge - does it help with Knockdown check, or only with AB? It would make sense from a RP perspective.