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View Full Version : Toughness can be taken multiple times.



Ixahinon
2010-04-14, 09:04 PM
...So can Improved Toughness?

OldTrees
2010-04-14, 09:06 PM
no. Unless a feat says it can be taken multiple times it is assumed that it cannot.

Ranger Mattos
2010-04-14, 09:06 PM
If it doesn't specifically say that it can be taken multiple times in the description, it can't.

Aah! A ninja!

Private-Prinny
2010-04-14, 09:10 PM
Technically, you can take it multiple times, but the bonuses don't stack. Basically, you'd just be wasting a feat.

Kylarra
2010-04-14, 09:47 PM
On the other hand, there's no particular reason not to houserule that you can.

Zeful
2010-04-14, 10:47 PM
...So can Improved Toughness?

Can it? Does it have the "This feat may be taken multiple times. It's effects stack." line in the Special area like Toughness does (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#toughness)?

JoshuaZ
2010-04-14, 11:13 PM
On the other hand, there's no particular reason not to houserule that you can.

Well, it would remove most of the tiny, tiny reason to ever take Toughness instead of Improved Toughness.

golentan
2010-04-14, 11:16 PM
Well, it would remove most of the tiny, tiny reason to ever take Toughness instead of Improved Toughness.

I can think of one game where Improved toughness was strictly worse. Admittedly, that's because we were running tomb of horrors at first level and so were unlikely to ever make it to the point where progression is advantageous, but...

At the OP: Hahaha... no.

Kylarra
2010-04-14, 11:23 PM
Well, it would remove most of the tiny, tiny reason to ever take Toughness instead of Improved Toughness.
You mean levels 1 and 2? :smalltongue:

JoshuaZ
2010-04-14, 11:38 PM
You mean levels 1 and 2? :smalltongue:

Ok point to you. But how often does anyone actually take Toughness then? If you've got that low level a character there's probably a better feat to take.

IonDragon
2010-04-14, 11:39 PM
Regardless, it probably shouldn't be taken at all.

Kylarra
2010-04-14, 11:41 PM
Ok point to you. But how often does anyone actually take Toughness then? If you've got that low level a character there's probably a better feat to take.Yeah I agree that there's pretty much always a better feat to take.

jokey665
2010-04-14, 11:46 PM
Here's my group's houseruled version of Toughness/ImpToughness:

Toughness grants a number of hit points equal to the number of hit dice you have plus two. Each hit die you gain after taking this feat grants you an additional hit point. You may only take this feat once.

Improved Toughness You gain +10 hit points. You may take it multiple times, gaining +10 hp each time. Prerequisites are Toughness and base fort save +2.

And they're still rarely taken.

Temotei
2010-04-14, 11:48 PM
Technically, you can take it multiple times, but the bonuses don't stack. Basically, you'd just be wasting a feat.

This. Stealing a quote Milskidasith found in another thread...



Benefit
What the feat enables the character ("you" in the feat description) to do. If a character has the same feat more than once, its benefits do not stack unless indicated otherwise in the description.

In general, having a feat twice is the same as having it once.

Coidzor
2010-04-15, 12:09 AM
*shudder* I had to stop a guy from putting toughness on a rogue the other day. Since he was learning 3.5 and was practicing making 1st level characters to make sure he understood the system.

holywhippet
2010-04-15, 12:15 AM
Ok point to you. But how often does anyone actually take Toughness then? If you've got that low level a character there's probably a better feat to take.

The best candidates for toughness are low level wizards/sorcerers who want to have enough HP to avoid getting one shot killed. Long term it's not really a great feat compared to many of the others. But if you are playing in a one off game or a short, low level campaign it's worth a look.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-15, 12:24 AM
The best candidates for toughness are low level wizards/sorcerers who want to have enough HP to avoid getting one shot killed. Long term it's not really a great feat compared to many of the others. But if you are playing in a one off game or a short, low level campaign it's worth a look.

Might also be worth it if the DM allows retraining.

Godskook
2010-04-15, 12:34 AM
Here's my group's houseruled version of Toughness/ImpToughness:

Toughness grants a number of hit points equal to the number of hit dice you have plus two. Each hit die you gain after taking this feat grants you an additional hit point. You may only take this feat once.

Improved Toughness You gain +10 hit points. You may take it multiple times, gaining +10 hp each time. Prerequisites are Toughness and base fort save +2.

And they're still rarely taken.

I'd take that version of Toughness, but why'd you nerf Improved Toughness?

nargbop
2010-04-15, 12:40 AM
Craft Wondrous Item is a far better feat than Toughness or even Improved Toughness, because you can create a Belt of Constitution +6 for many many more hitpoints. Then keep crafting.

Mastikator
2010-04-15, 12:46 AM
I'd houserule that toughness grants both the +3 hp and the +1/level bonus, and there's no such thing as improved toughness.
You can take it multiple times, it stacks, but the prerequisite is a con score of 13, increasing by 2 everytime you take the feat, so 13 then 15, then 17 etc.

Kylarra
2010-04-15, 12:47 AM
Craft Wondrous Item is a far better feat than Toughness or even Improved Toughness, because you can create a Belt of Constitution +6 for many many more hitpoints. Then keep crafting.
CWI is a better feat than most feats by that metric. :smallwink:

Coidzor
2010-04-15, 12:49 AM
Well, yes, it is a fair part of why Artificers are win, after all.:smallwink:

Person_Man
2010-04-15, 08:41 AM
There's actually both pretty worthless feats. If you're worried about your hit points, just make Con your highest stat, and/or play an Incarnum build, and/or play a build with a vampiric/karmic healing trick, and/or learn how to use defense and battlefield control properly.

Ossian
2010-04-15, 08:48 AM
Toughness is an OK feat for Npcs when you just don't know what to give them. Makes low level mooks a bit more attractive for an encounter anyway. Good for petty thugs and the like.

Improved toughness is good when you want to build a high level melee character, but I still only use if for NPCs (higher durability, you know).

Then again, I work in low (or no) magic, both in the way of items and casters. I guess if you let D&D go wild by lvl 10-12 there are already that many ways of insta killing or inflicting 100 HP per shot that an extra +10 or +20 HP won't matter much.

In this sense, improved initiative makes your NPCs live a little longer :)

Sliver
2010-04-15, 09:01 AM
Toughness is awesome! The Tarrasque wouldn't have it 6 times if it wasn't awesome!

KillianHawkeye
2010-04-15, 09:08 AM
Toughness is awesome! The Tarrasque wouldn't have it 6 times if it wasn't awesome!

LOL Beat me to it! :smallamused::smallbiggrin:

Indon
2010-04-15, 09:08 AM
Well, it would remove most of the tiny, tiny reason to ever take Toughness instead of Improved Toughness.

With all the 3.5 sourcebooks, there is no reason whatsoever to take Toughness.

Azure Toughness, from Magic of Incarnum, grants you a point of Essentia and the ability to invest Essentia to get 3 HP per point. But if you have any other way to expend Essentia, or any other source of Essentia, you can use that feat to do other things (like raise your saves) or grant yourself more than 3 HP via the feat. (For instance, instead of the Terrasque having Toughness 6 times, it could have Azure Toughness, Heart of Incarnum, and 4 other Essentia feats and gain 10 HP and have the ability to essentia-invest up another 15, as well as also being able to do things like raise a save by +5 instead).

It might have a Con requirement, but I'm sure there are other, better versions of Toughness.

Penitent
2010-04-15, 09:12 AM
This is my groups houseruled version of toughness:

Great Fortitude [Combat]
You are so tough. Your belly is like a prism.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Fortitude Saves.
+1: You die at -20 instead of -10.
+6: You gain 1 hit point per level.
+11: You gain DR of 5/-.
+16: You are immune to the fatigued and exhausted conditions. If you are already immune to these conditions, you gain 1 hit point per level for each condition you were already immune to.

KillianHawkeye
2010-04-15, 10:29 AM
This is my groups houseruled version of toughness:

Great Fortitude [Combat]
You are so tough. Your belly is like a prism.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Fortitude Saves.
+1: You die at -20 instead of -10.
+6: You gain 1 hit point per level.
+11: You gain DR of 5/-.
+16: You are immune to the fatigued and exhausted conditions. If you are already immune to these conditions, you gain 1 hit point per level for each condition you were already immune to.

I'm guessing the progressive benefits are derived from Base Attack Bonus?

golentan
2010-04-15, 11:02 AM
Great Fortitude [Combat]
You are so tough. Your belly is like a prism.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Fortitude Saves.
+1: You die at -20 instead of -10.
+6: You gain 1 hit point per level.
+11: You gain DR of 5/-.
+16: You are immune to the fatigued and exhausted conditions. If you are already immune to these conditions, you gain 1 hit point per level for each condition you were already immune to.

Bolded... What does that even mean? Your belly separates different wavelengths of light?

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-04-15, 11:03 AM
While we're on the subject, don't forget there's Dwarf's Toughness (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Dwarf~s_Toughness), Giant's Toughness (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Giant~s_Toughness), and Dragon's Toughness (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Dragon~s_Toughness), from Masters of the Wild....


I was considering allowing Psionic Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#psionicBody) to be taken multiple times with its effect stacking. Then I realized that a Psychic Warrior who spends all fifteen of his feats on it would get +450 hp, and that one guy I play with would actually do that just because. Granted, it would certainly make Empathic Transfer Hostile worth every point spent.

Person_Man
2010-04-15, 11:10 AM
I was considering allowing Psionic Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#psionicBody) to be taken multiple times with its effect stacking. Then I realized that a Psychic Warrior who spends all fifteen of his feats on it would get +450 hp, and that one guy I play with would actually do that just because. Granted, it would certainly make Empathic Transfer Hostile worth every point spent.

Spending all of your feats on gaining hit points would be a very poor choice. Your offensive options would be severely limited, and you could still be killed or otherwise taken down by a wide variety of effects (Save or Lose, Save or Suck, battlefield control, etc).

Also, an Elan has access to Enhanced Elan Resilience (Complete Psionic), improves your Elan ability to spend your Power Points to negate damage to 4 points per power point spent. And as you pointed out, there's also powres like Empathic Transfer Hostile, Vigor, Claws of the Vampire, etc.

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-15, 02:20 PM
Spending all of your feats on gaining hit points would be a very poor choice. Your offensive options would be severely limited, and you could still be killed or otherwise taken down by a wide variety of effects (Save or Lose, Save or Suck, battlefield control, etc).

Also, an Elan has access to Enhanced Elan Resilience (Complete Psionic), improves your Elan ability to spend your Power Points to negate damage to 4 points per power point spent. And as you pointed out, there's also powres like Empathic Transfer Hostile, Vigor, Claws of the Vampire, etc.Not to mention vigor + share pain on your psicrystal for (essentially) +200 hp for both of you. And it's renewable.

mabriss lethe
2010-04-15, 02:39 PM
the only time I've found toughness to be worth it was when Illithid savants are in play, and only if their food has it.

Sinfire Titan
2010-04-15, 02:46 PM
the only time I've found toughness to be worth it was when Illithid savants are in play, and only if their food has it.

Eww. What a waste of the Eat Feat class feature.