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TheNinjaD wrote:

I like this thread a lot and would love to hear more thoughts one balance-related things from more people. In other words, BUMP

Why thank you. :D


Added new Ranger feats (a bit overdue perhaps). Added Animal Empathy, and versions for affecting Aberrations and extraplanar creatures as well.

They're mostly flavor feats, but let me know what you think.

FeanorCursed wrote:

Would you mind if i translate some of them to my language (portuguese), so i can put them on my site?
Dont worry, I'll give you the credits.

I don't mind at all, that's why I posted these in the first place :D

By the way, Rapid Reload its something that everyone thought, but i notice that in the other topic, they put it as paragon feat.

TheNinjaD wrote:

I would say that it is fair as a Heroic feat. I'm sure there would be a fair amount of disputing that but it is how I feel. A feat has to be spent to get that ability and all it does is save you a minor action from time to time when using a crossbow. That feat could have been spent on another feat that would be much more powerful.

I agree that the free minor action is not really that big of a deal (in this instance). Of course, if it turns out that there are super-duper new crossbows that are awesome weapons for a variety of classes, then maybe it would need to be reexamined, but currently only the Crossbow can benefit. Even a superior crossbow would probably require a feat to gain full use of, so that's still an extra feat to spend.

For 1 feat you can upgrade to a superior weapon for +1 average damage (such as longsword to bastard sword, or shortsword to rapier). Weapon Focus also gives that +1 average damage at heroic, and also increases as you gain levels.

I view the Crossbow as basically a one-upped hand crossbow for the most part, with a drop extra range. The main problem with the normal Crossbow, I feel, is the Reload Minor which scares a lot of people away. So if your options for Crossbow were hand crossbow or crossbow, you might just go with the hand crossbow even if you were proficient in both.

This Rapid Reload lets you basically use a "Superior" hand crossbow, by making the Crossbow genuinely superior in that instance (no loss of actions, but more damage).

All that said, the Crossbow is still a very marginalized weapon. The only ones who might be seriously interested in it are Rogues (who can use most of their ranged powers with it), or Ranger characters who like to be different than the norm. Artificers also seem to benefit, but this is sort of like making it a "Superior" hand crossbow, like I said.

Given that the Rogue would still have to take a proficiency feat with Crossbow unless he was just a multiclass feat Rogue, this version of Rapid Reload is really quite on the low-end of the power scale featwise. Weapon Focus (Crossbows) would better serve most characters who want to spend a single feat to improve weapon damage, but for those who are dedicated then this gives them another option to increase damage with crossbows.

And sometimes there just aren't any particularly appealing feats for a given character at a certain level... but a +1 damage boost is always good.


I am open to any suggestions for rewording things; I try to make them as clear as possible but I am never really certain I'm spelling things out well. Particularly with the Animal Empathy feats the language seems very awkward but I don't know what else I could do.