Knife Fighters
For a little while now, I’ve been making feats devoted to making fighting with a specific weapon or group of weapons feel different than fighting with other types of weapons, by providing you with weapon-specific options and bonuses that fit into the “feel” of fighting with that particular weapon. So far, we’ve done rapiers, quarterstaves, and throwing axes (with a little bit of love for other heavy throwing weapons, like hammers and whatever a “starknife” is). Since it’s Dagger Week this week, you can probably guess where I’m going with all this. That’s right, from the stereotypical wizard with a dagger and robe and nothing left to lose, to the throat-slitting assassin, to the half-orc knife fighter in the back alley, these feats are for wielders of oversized kitchen knives everywhere.
Counterstab (Combat)
You punish foes who leave openings when they attack by filling those openings with six inches of cold, hard steel.
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus (dagger).
Benefit: Once per round, when a creature makes a melee attack against you and misses, if you are wielding a dagger, you may make an attack of opportunity as an immediate action against that creature with that dagger. If the attacking creature is out of range (such as because it attacked with reach), this ability has no effect.
Double Knife Fighter (Combat)
You can fight with two daggers more easily than most.
Prerequisites: Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (dagger or punching dagger).
Benefit: When using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, if you are wielding two daggers, two punching daggers, or one of each, you suffer only a -1 penalty on your attack rolls as a result of two-weapon fighting, instead of the normal -2 penalty.
Frenzied Slashes (Combat)
You use the dagger’s lightness for extreme speed, filling the air with wild slashes.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus (dagger), base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: Whenever you make a full attack action with a dagger, you may make an additional attack with that dagger at a -5 penalty. When your base attack bonus is 6 or higher, you can make another additional attack at a -10 penalty. When your base attack bonus is 11 or higher, you can make a third additional attack at a -15 penalty. When your base attack bonus is 16 or higher, you can make a fourth additional attack at a -20 penalty.
Whenever you use this ability, you suffer a -2 penalty on all attack rolls made in the round (this is in addition to the penalties listed above, for total penalties of -7, -12, -17, and -22, respectively). Further, due to the erratic nature of your attacks, during any round in which you use this ability you cannot deal precision-based damage (including sneak attack) and suffer a -5 penalty on attack rolls made to confirm a critical hit.
Special: You can use this ability in conjunction with Two-Weapon Fighting, and, if you are fighting with two weapons, can apply the ability to both weapons (note that the penalties stack, so using this in conjunction with Two-Weapon Fighting would impose a -4 penalty on all attacks, instead of -2, and using it with both weapons would impose a total penalty of -6 on all attack rolls made in the round).
Knife Twist (Combat)
You twist your blade inside the target before wrenching it back out, opening a vicious, bleeding wound.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus (dagger or punching dagger), base attack +6.
Benefit: Whenever you successfully hit a target with a dagger or punching dagger while using the full attack action, if you have at least one more attack left to make as part of that full attack action, you may choose to forgo all other attacks you would make as part of that full attack action. If you do, you twist the dagger in the target’s wound before removing it, instead, inflicting 1d3 points of bleed damage on the target for each attack you forwent in order to use this ability (roll the bleed damage when you use this ability, and the target takes the resulting amount of bleed damage each round until it is healed).
Special: When used in conjunction with Two-Weapon Fighting, or similar abilities, you only forgo any attacks that would be made with the dagger or punching dagger in question. Attacks with the other weapon you are wielding can still be made as normal, and do not count towards the amount of bleed damage inflicted on the target.
Special: The amount of bleed damage inflicted depends on your size. If you are Small, you deal only 1d2 points of bleed damage per attack you forgo, whereas if you are Large, you deal 1d4 points of bleed damage, instead.
Powerful Throw (Combat)
You put all your strength into throwing a dagger, and allow its momentum to make it deliver even more force than you could ever do on your own.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus (dagger).
Benefit: Whenever you make a ranged attack with a dagger, you gain a +1 bonus on the damage roll. At 10th level, this bonus increases to +2. Additionally, if you use a dagger to make a ranged attack against an object with hardness of less than 8, you may choose to have the dagger automatically stick in the target, dealing damage to it as normal (if it overcomes the hardness), but remaining lodged in place in the object’s surface.