By Thilo Graf
All right, you know the drill – 3 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page content – this time detailing 10 new feats – though only 2 of them have the [Style]-descriptor and most develop the new styles, so let’s take a look!
- Basilisk Blink: As long as in basilisk style and with at least one ki point, you gain a gaze attack with 30 ft range that deal 1 point of dex damage to living foes on a failed save versus DC 10+1/2 class levels+ ki-governing attribute modifier. Interesting and balanced thanks to the restrictions.
- Basilisk Stare: Allows you to kill foes your gaze rendered helpless with dex damage with a glance. Ouch, but also rather cool!
- Basilisk Style: Adds 1d3 Dex-damage to stunning fist as long as you have 1 ki-point in reserve.
- Improved Uncanny Style: As long as you have 1 point in your ki-pool, you gain the benefits of uncanny style sans spending ki.
- Phoenix Feathers: When using Wind Stance in Phoenix Style Stance, gain concealment versus both melee and ranged attacks. As long as you have elemental fist uses left, also gain fire resistance 5.
- Phoenix Fire: +1 elemental fist use per day and gain fire resistance 10 as long as you have one use left. Also expend 1 use of elemental fist to gain wis-mod rounds fast healing 1.
- Phoenix Style: When using acrobatics to move through threatened squares and attack with elemental fist, you deal additional fire damage equal to the amount of elemental fist uses left as a standard action. Additionally, this increases your wind stance’s concealment to 30% and as long has you have 1 elemental fist use left, you gain fire resistance 1.
- Shifting Style Defenses: When you change styles, you get a +1 dodge bonus to AC for 1 round. Cool idea, but could have been a tad bit stronger for my liking.
- Toughened by Training: Gain +2 Hp per Style-feat you possess.
- Uncanny Style: Spend 1 point of Ki to enter a stance of one of your styles as a part of the initiative check.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to Abandoned Art’s no-frills 2-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.
Style feats are a tough sell on me, partially because I consider several of them overpowered and flat-out broken. Suffice to say, I was positively surprised by this pdf’s offering: Tying Phoenix Style to elemental fist instead of ki is an interesting decision and even the basilisk style, which could have easily turned out to be a disaster, actually works really well – in spite of featuring a gaze attack. That being said, 2 of the feats feel a bit weak and a bit like filler to me, though their ideas per se are not bad. It is only due to this I will omit my seal of approval for an otherwise cool collection of useful, style-related feats with interesting mechanics.
Endzeitgeist out.
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