[FC] Melee Combat Feats, mucking them up

[Golden Dragon]

How balanced are the the Melee Combat feats from Fantasy Craft? Are all the stances equal, or are they balanced against the body of the feat?

Here's my case in hand: While dreaming and scheming, I've come to the conclusion that I like a mish-mash of feats, from 3 chains, and would like to get the cool parts into one character with only 3 feats instead of the 7 it would normally take. The Martial Stance from Sword Basics is way too useful to not like. From the Sword-Circle chain, I like the body for Basics and Supremacy, and the Slashing Riposte Parry Trick from Mastery. From the Fencing chain, the body of Mastery is fine, and the Touche trick from Supremacy is one of the great capstone tricks of the Melee chains.

How unbalancing would it be to create my own chain? And then substitute it for the Fencing chain for Swashbuckler?

<Splat> Basics
Body of Sword-Circle Basics.
Martial Stance from Sword Basics.

<Splat> Mastery
Body of Fencing Mastery
Slashing Riposte from Sword-Circle Mastery.

<Splat> Supremacy
Body of Sword-Circle Supremacy
Touche from Fencing Supremacy

[Agent 333]

The fact that to get the benefits you want you need less than half as many feats makes my gut reaction go NOOOOoooooooooooooo. That's definitely something I wouldn't let my players do, though as a GM I think defining new feats using that method wouldn't be completely unbalanced. In the hands of a player... 7 feats for the price of 3 is too good to allow.

[Morgenstern]

While the feats are built to be roughly symetrical in value for both their permanent effect and stance/trick at each step along the chain, there are certainly highs and lows, and those are balanced out between the pairing and over the course of the chain (yes, the art, not the science). What you have there is a pretty impressive list of cherry picking the high water mark of every component. Starting with the sword stance: that one is definitely a little strong, but the chain as a whole is somewhat tricky to grasp/master - and onece you nabbed the stance you never went back. The auto-kill is also paired with way too strong of an effect. There's basically no balance here between high and low, direct bonus and utility effects. It avoids risk and variability for hard, flat bonuses at every turn. Look at the things you are skipping to get it~

Basics
+2 reflex saves (roll a weakened free attack against flattfooted, roll a weakened free anticipate)
Stance: +1/+3 hit/damage (5-foot step is attacked and missed, no action dice boosting attacks on you)

Mastery
Choice of lethal or Stress damage (roll 1 die sneak attack, weapon tricks)
Trick: parry = target bleeding (full defense damage aura wth save, roll a strong hit = keen 10)

Supremacy
Guard +2 (Dex +1, Partial All-out on high attack rolls)
Trick: Dex-based auto-kill (skill based attack bonus with limited uses per combat, total defense + attacker miss = flat footed)

Looking at each pool of three components you drew from, does that look balanced to you?

[Golden Dragon]

there are certainly highs and lows,

The short answer:the original feats are balanced as a whole, not piecemeal.

Looking at each pool of three components you drew from, does that look balanced to you?

I had enough doubt to ask. Yes, I suspected I was cherry-picking, but then any request to deviate from RAW may be cherry-picking.

[Morgenstern]

The short answer:the original feats are balanced as a whole, not piecemeal.

There is a bell curve at work - many components probably would be interchangeable, and there is an effort to try and keep most affects being introduced near the center of the curve, but yes, the final checks are made by looking at the feats, and the feat chain as a whole.

In fact splitting up componentes can greatly devalue them - the fencing chain is balanced around some evil synergy between it's parts. Same with flails. Some chains re balanced by active antagonism between the parts - benefit A works against benefit B. A swap that removes that hard choice makes the componets free to run wild.

I had enough doubt to ask. Yes, I suspected I was cherry-picking, but then any request to deviate from RAW may be cherry-picking.

Good instincts . I suspect if you were to fuse elements from two chains, and to be mindful of mixing the sweet with the salt, you could probably hit some combos that don't make most GMs blink when you ask if you could use it .