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My group is trying to ressurect an old 2e campaign, and in that campaign one of the characters was a bladesinger. I am trying to be faithful to the flavor of the bladesinger from 2e without the suck that was the 3.0 and/or the 3.5 bladesinger. I spent about fifteen minutes and wrote it up like so, loosely based on the somewhat decent powers of the 3.5 prestige class, but it lacks [Dr. Evil]what the French call...I don't know what.[/Dr. Evil]

Little help?!

Bladesong [Skill]
It may look gay, but it works. This is a Skill Feat that scales with your ranks in Perform (Dance).
Prerequisites: You must be elven or half-elven, you must be able to cast arcane spells of second level
Benefits: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you gain a Dodge Bonus to Armor Class equal to your ranks in Perform but no greater than your unbuffed Intelligence modifier. You lose this bonus if you have anything in your other hand or wear medium or heavy armor.
4: While holding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may cast spells with somatic components normally and may take 10 on Concentration checks when casting defensively.
9: While wearing light armor you ignore arcane spell failure chances.
14: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may deliver touch attack spells by making a normal sword attack and doing normal damage in addition to the effect of your spell.
19: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may make an additional sword attack at your highest BAB each round.

Game On,
fbmf

I think the best part of these feats is the pithy quote that has apparently become standard at the beginning.

RiotGearEpsilon wrote:I think the best part of these feats is the pithy quote that has apparently become standard at the beginning.

It is definitely the most entertaining.

Game On,
fbmf

1-Seems OK
4-We can already do that!
9-Bards and Battle Sorcerers get this at level 1!
14-Not crazy enough
19-Definitely not crazy enough

I love the quote, and idea's something I've toyed with before.

My major concern is a Bladesinger's getting crippled AC. Rather than restricting them to Light armor only, I'd set a cap on the Armor Check Penalty--at about 3. That way, they get access to a wider range of armor (Including the super-shiny Mithril Suit)

At 6 or 11, I'd give them the option to score more Dodge bonus, based on the amount by which they beat a medium-high DC (20 at least, maybe 25 or 30) Dance check. Free action every round, done round-by-round.

Maybe 1 point of Dodge for every 2 or 3 points they exceed the DC, minimum of 1?

It's what I'd do, anyway. I could be off.

Oh, and you may want to show him the Duelist feat. Which I took the trouble to dig up the other day...

Duelist [Combat]
You wade into heavy melee with nothing but a rapier and some shiny pants, it's seems to work pretty well for you.

Benefits: Whenever you use the combat expertise option you gain a +2 Dodge Bonus to AC for every -1 you take on your attack rolls.(Any and all benefits of this feat only apply when wearing only Light or lighter armor, carrying no more than light load, wielding only one weapon, and keeping one hand free.)

+1: You gain extra attacks due to BaB at multiples of 3 instead of 5, you gain your first extra attack at +4 BaB, your second at +7 Bab, ect., ect. You never take more than a -3 penalty to your attacks due to being secondary(ie. at level 10 your full attack would normally look like this: +10/+7/+7+7.)

+6: You gain a +4 bonus to disarm checks. If you are disarmed or you disarm your opponent with your weapon you can spend an attack of opportunity to grab the disarmed item out of the air with your free hand. As an attack action you can immediately throw a newly disarmed and caught weapon. If the weapon normally has a range increment this can be a normal ranged attack, if it doesn't have a range increment then you can only target a square within 50ft. of you and not a creature. This thrown attack doesn't count against your one weapon only, one free-hand status.

+11: You may attempt to Feint, as a free action, once per attack granted by virtue of a high BaB by spending one attack of opportunity per Feint. You may use Sleight of Hand or an attack roll in place of Bluff for the purpose of Feinting if you wish.

+16: You can choose to make a single melee attack as a Standard Action to gain a +4 bonus on your attack roll and multiply your damage by 10. This attack may only be used against an opponent that is denied their dexterity bonus to AC or that you are Flanking.

Where is that Duelist feat from?

Aktariel wrote:Where is that Duelist feat from?

Er. Iaimeki, I think.

I was browsing the Den and turned it up. It didn't make it into the PDF, I guess because it was in the middle of a thread.

I stand corrected.

[beg] I'm sorry, Caliborn! Please forgive me! [/beg]

We are feeling benevolent, kiss our ring and you are forgiven.

Anyways...here's my take:

Bladesong [Skill]
It may look gay, but it works. This is a Skill Feat that scales with your ranks in Perform (Dance).
Prerequisites: You must be elven or half-elven, you must be able to cast arcane spells of second level
Benefits: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you gain a Dodge Bonus to Armor Class no greater than your ranks in Perform or half your caster level. You lose this bonus if you have anything in your other hand, wear armor with an ACP over 3, or carry more than a light load.
4: While holding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may use up a spellslot or prepared spell as a free action to use your caster level in place of your BAB and gain 1d6 damage to your melee weapon attacks per level of the spell used; this effect lasts until the beginning of your next turn.
9: While wearing armor with a natural(not modified by non-proficiency) ACP of 3 or less you ignore arcane spell failure chances.
14: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may take a full-round action to cast a harmful touch spell and make a full attack where all of your weapon attacks are empowered by the spell.(Maybe this should be restricted to just touch spells that do damage, your call.)
19: While wielding a longsword or rapier in one hand and nothing in the other, you may take a full round action to cast as many spells as you would be allowed attacks during a full attack. All spells cast using this special full round action must be 2 or more levels lower than the highest level spell you can cast.

Not sure on the balance of the rank 19 ability, you'd need to test it a bit or get a real expert to give you a ruling. I altered the initial benefit to factor out ability scores for a number of reasons,

1)It screwed Sorcs, Bards, and Summoners.
2) You gained 4 AC at level one, which is a bit much from one feat.
3) you gained AC from it in extremely non-linear fits and starts, the biggest boost coming from level 11's catapult into the Wish Economy.
4) No other feat adds attributes scores directly to any of the numbers that need to stay on the RNG(and for good reason).

I didn't even think about it putting the screws to Charisma-Casters because we only have Intelligence casters in our game, but you are right.

Thanks to everybody for their input.

Game On,
fbmf

Not quite what you look for, but might be useful: a bladesinger here.

I'm going to try this feat out with an Assassin and see what happens...