Abyssal Herritor Feats OP?

[Boren]

I was playing a character that was using a mix of book AHFs and a few off a home-brew website I found. I soon started to see a greater power curve for him then for some of the other party members. I started to wounder, was it the home brew stuff? All of them seemed more or less in line with the book feats so I really didn't think it was because of them so I decided to make a test I took the elite stat array from the MMI so as to eliminate any random factors in stats and build a 3rd level human fighter.
My results were as fallows using no magic equipment:
AC 22; Long Sword attack +5; Saves 5,2,2; 26HP; DR 3/Lawful; Dark-vision 30ft; and a +3 to all search and spot checks.
Armor was non-magical breast plate, shield was non magic tower shield.
The main this I see here is while 2 points of natural armor isn't much of a difference a human with dark-vision and DR 3/Lawful (which at level 3 vary little is going to penetrate) is huge. Also most level 3s are going to one or two minor magical items I just chose not to use any for controls sake.
Thoughts? Comments?

[AmberVael]

It's a very fun set of feats, and you can get some pretty nice bonuses... but in the end, it requires a lot of investment, and numbers aren't everything. You lose out on too many options by putting the majority of your feats into that category.

That said, it isn't necessarily a bad option by any means. Just a rather constraining one.

[Adumbration]

Abyssal heritor feats are only good if you spend all your feats on them, and even then their power starts to degrade in the late game. At 1-10 range, though, I think they are worth mentioning despite the intense feat investment.

[WinWin]

to be fair, he is playing a fighter. The character may be tough now, but by level 7 (or even level 5) those bonuses are not going to be as helpful.

Consider a CR 3 creature such as the Shadow or Allip. Without a magic weapon, the character has no means to fight back. Both those monsters can make ability draining touch attacks...They ignore armour and natural armour. They also ignore the DR. It gets a lot worse at higher levels.

I suggest you keep doing what you are doing. Hold back a magical item & some treasure. Then when the bonuses start becoming less of an issue, make sure the character gets a couple of decent items in order for them to keep up against the opposition.

[TaintedLight]

They're fun, but for synergistic feats I personally prefer the Combat Focus tree. The other dumb thing that people do with AHF is abuse the spell Shun the Dark Chaos so they can trade them out for feats they normally wouldn't qualify for.

[Zaq]

Honestly, they're like most feat chains in that the bonuses scale way too slowly to actually be worth it.

Most of the big feat groups like that (Abyssal Heritor, Aberrant, Vile (esp. Willing Deformity), Draconic, Shifter, etc.) would be really fun if you got one as a bonus feat every two levels or so, but they're almost never worth actually blowing real feats on. Which is a shame, honestly, since they're fluffy and fun... but they really don't stack up to a lot of the other feats out there.

[Adumbration]

Honestly, they're like most feat chains in that the bonuses scale way too slowly to actually be worth it.

Most of the big feat groups like that (Abyssal Heritor, Aberrant, Vile (esp. Willing Deformity), Draconic, Shifter, etc.) would be really fun if you got one as a bonus feat every two levels or so, but they're almost never worth actually blowing real feats on. Which is a shame, honestly, since they're fluffy and fun... but they really don't stack up to a lot of the other feats out there.

What, like you get them by worshipping an Elder Evil?

[Runestar]

After some experimenting, I determined that 4 heritor feats is probably the best breakpoint. I can get +3NA, 2 floating +1 insight bonuses, dr4/lawful and one other benefit (possibly +12 to jump checks).

Also gave it to a dragon once, boy did the +4 damage on all natural attacks hurt on a full attack...:smallbiggrin: