Toughness Tree, D&d 3.5e

[Mastikator]

The toughness feat has always bugged me. It's bad, really bad. And the fact that improved toughness exists is ok but not enough, there's only one (AFAIK) worthwhile HP feat, and you can't even take it multiple times.
So here, I present to everyone a feat tree for hit points!

Spoiler'd


Toughness
Prereq: 13 con
Benefit: You gain 3 hp, and 1 for every level (or hit die) beyond first. HP increases retroactively.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.

Improved toughness
Prereq: Toughness, base fortitude save +2
Benefit: You gain 1 hp for every level beyond first, hp recalculates retroactively, and a +1 bonus to fortitude saves.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.


Greater toughness
Prereq: Improved Toughness, base fortitude save +4, con 15
Benefit: You gain 10 hp, and 1 for every other beyond first, hp recalculates retroactively, and the same effect as the Endurance feat grants
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.


Resilience
Prereq: Improved Toughness, con 15
Benefit: You regenerate hit points more rapidly, you gain the heath you normally would from a full nights rest each 8 hours without rest and double from sleeping, you also gain a +4 bonus to resist coup de grace.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.

Improved Resilience
Prereq: Resilience , con 17
Benefit: You gain DR 1/-, or improve by 1 if you already have DR/-, and gain light fortification (25%) to resist critical hits and sneak attack, and a +1 bonus to resist death effects
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.


Weather Blast
Prereq: Resilience, con 15
Benefit: You may use your fortitude save in place of your reflex save against effects that allow you to make a reflex save for half damage, you can't use evasion with this.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.


Die Hard
Prereq: Toughness, con 15
Benefit: Functions like regular Die Hard, except the limit is extended to -15 or -50% of your total HP. If you go below -15 you become unconscious even if you don't die. And you get a +1 bonus against to save death effects and coup de grace
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.



It's a total of 7 feats, all fighter friendly. At level 20 with all feats a character gets 63 more HP, light fortification, DR 1/-, +1 fort, +5 vs coup de grace, +2 vs death effects, double healing from resting and regeneration effect and last but not least, and more negative hp before death.

I think they're all worth while taking without being too good.

[Talyn]

I like it. Toughness as written was always sort of useless after 2nd level.

[Havvy]

They are called fighter bonus feats, not fighter special feats.

[Codemus]

Looks great! Barbarians would love these feats too. Overall, they seem very ballanced to me.

[Lateral]

Okay, in order:

Toughness
Prereq: 13 con
Benefit: You gain 3 hp, and 1 for every level (or hit die) beyond first. HP increases retroactively.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
Not terrible; it's basically Improved Toughness, only better. Seeing as Improved Toughness is only a decent feat and not an incredible one, I'd say this is fine.

Improved toughness
Prereq: Toughness, base fortitude save +2
Benefit: You gain 1 hp for every level beyond first, hp recalculates retroactively, and a +1 bonus to fortitude saves.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
Hmm. The +1 to Fort saves is half an (admittedly crappy) feat in and of itself, and so is the gaining 1 hp. Since neither of these are incredibly good feats, this is okay, but I don't think that many builds are going to need the extra HP badly enough to burn two feats on it.
Greater toughness
Prereq: Improved Toughness, base fortitude save +4, con 15
Benefit: You gain 10 hp, and 1 for every other beyond first, hp recalculates retroactively, and the same effect as the Endurance feat grants
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
Okay, at this point, we're getting into the extreme area. I seriously doubt that even the most dedicated damage-sucking tank is going to need this many HP-increasing feats. It's not bad, just... probably kind of unnecessary unless your build has more feats than you know what to do with.


Resilience
Prereq: Improved Toughness, con 15
Benefit: You regenerate hit points more rapidly, you gain the heath you normally would from a full nights rest each 8 hours without rest and double from sleeping, you also gain a +4 bonus to resist coup de grace.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
Not even remotely worth it. The amount of HP you regenerate from sleeping is trivial, and if you're in a position where you're about to be Coup de Grace'd then you've pretty much lost anyway. It'd pretty much never be worth taking. Also, reduce the requirements to just Toughness-- it's not good enough to be that high on a chain, and it starts its own section of the chain anyway-- you shouldn't need two feats just to start in on a feat chain.

Also, Imp. Toughness required con 15 anyway, you don't have to say it again.


Improved Resilience
Prereq: Resilience , con 17
Benefit: You gain DR 1/-, or improve by 1 if you already have DR/-, and gain light fortification (25%) to resist critical hits and sneak attack, and a +1 bonus to resist death effects
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
I'm not really sure how much Light Fortification is actually worth. DR 1/- is basically worthless, though. The +1 bonus to resist death effects is basically +1 fortitude in specific situations- not worth it on its own at all. I don't think this is worth it, but could someone with experience with Fortification correlate this?


Weather Blast
Prereq: Resilience, con 15
Benefit: You may use your fortitude save in place of your reflex save against effects that allow you to make a reflex save for half damage, you can't use evasion with this.
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
One word: Mettle. This allows you to basically have Evasion on ALL saving throws. Was that intended?
However, Mettle isn't really that common and the feat (as it stands) has a 3-feat requirement. I'd say it's okay but not great, since failing a Reflex save often just means taking some extra damage-- and that's something that you have a surplus of.


Die Hard
Prereq: Toughness, con 15
Benefit: Functions like regular Die Hard, except the limit is extended to -15 or -50% of your total HP. If you go below -15 you become unconscious even if you don't die. And you get a +1 bonus against to save death effects and coup de grace
Special: This feat can be taken as a special fighter feat.
This feat doesn't work; taking damage past -10 means you are dead, no exceptions. Never mind, that's not true. :smallredface:
However, it's still not much more worth it than regular Die Hard. You're still disabled, after all.

All in all, I'd say they're mostly pretty weak feats, except for Toughness (which is okay), but they're reasonably workable. It'd probably be better to make all the feats with a prerequisite of Improved Toughness have a prerequisite of Toughness, remove Improved and Greater Toughness, and make it so that you can take Toughness multiple times. Resilience is extremely weak, basically a feat tax. Make it more worth it.

[Siosilvar]

This feat doesn't work; taking damage past -10 means you are dead, no exceptions.

Um, no? There's plenty of precedent for it. Rageclaws, Delay Death, Frenzied Berzerker...

Obviously, the feat should say you don't die, but there's three exceptions off the top of my head.

[Lateral]

...You are correct. :smallredface:

[Psionic Dog]

Those look pretty good. They make toughness a valid choice, give options to expand, but most aren't so 'optimal' that DM's would ban them on sight. I like them, but the Resilience stuff and Die Hard might need some revision.


First, consider Resilience. Now compare with Rapid Metabolism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#rapidMetabolism).

The improved healing is only useful at low levels (when curative items/magic is limited) or in low-magic settings (where said magical healing is unavailable). Unfortunately, with a two-feat prerequisite by the time anyone gets this they're either no longer low level or have sacrificed offensive capabilities. The preexisting rapid metabolism does a better job at giving improved healing early where it's most usefully, rendering Resilence nothing but a 'feat tax'

Improved Resilience would be great- if Resilience wasn't required to get it. DR 1/- is basically +1 hp every time you get hit in combat (nifty) and the chance to negate critical and sneak attacks occasionally isn't half bad either. A good feat, but not quite worthy as a capstone objective.

Diehard has the opposite problem: that one might be too good. Not dying until -50% health? With only toughness as a prerequisite? Gimi. By 10th level fighter types can easily have 100 hp, and not dying until -50 is (almost) mundane death immunity while you have allies still standing.

Suggestions:
Make 'Resilience' do your 'improved resilience' stuff.

Let improved resilience allow a reroll on failed coup de grace/massive damage saves with a +4 bonus. At high levels taking massive damage isn't unusual and rolling that natural 1 is very very sad, making a reroll more capstone worthy.

DieHard- I see two ways to rebalanced this: A) reduce to death at -25% health (or -10, whichever better), or B) keep Diehard the same as the SRD version with Toughness the new prerequisite, and then put the increased stamina/death resistance into a 2nd 'Greater Diehard' feat.

[Zaydos]

Original die hard is pretty much useless. You still are disabled so you only get 1 action, and Improved Toughness (a so so feat at best) gives you more HP than it does by level 10. The only levels SRD Die Hard is useful is low levels; actually pretty much level 6 and below before it really wanes maybe not even that many. I've seen it be useful when the DM used the 3.0 Remain Conscious effects because he (me) had only glanced over the new version so ignored that it only keeps you conscious up to -10 hp as written and leaves you with only 1 action per round and allowed that to be combined with the spell Delay Death which is a level 7 spell, immediate action to cast and stops the target from dying from hp damage period for 1 round/caster level. This one only gives them another 5 hp of consciousness over original diehard and some bonus hp for unconsciousness so I wouldn't say it's too powerful (although you are right it does by Lv 10 make you mostly immune to dying as long as your allies are alive or the enemies don't decide to just Coup de Grace you).