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big teej
2011-02-21, 11:21 AM
hey playgrounders,

I have a curiosity

"what's worth a feat?"

exotic weapons?
no*
from what I've seen, the only weapon worth a feat is the spiked chain.

*this is purely by mechanical benefits of the weapon, as opposed to the fluff based special training required to wield the weapons (such as fukumi bari)

exotic armors?
no
from what I've seen, the balance is built right into the price

summary
exotic arms and armor are NEVER worth a feat


what about prerequisites for prestige classes?

Dwarven Defender requires TOUGHNESS!!!
is it reallly worth the prestige class to take such a feat?

is it to overpowered to ignore a requirement that is absolute crap?

what about certain abilities that 'make sense' for certain characters?

is "scent" too powerful for a feat?


I ask the playground
what, in your experience, is or is not worth a feat?

what non-feat things have you made INTO feats?

RndmNumGen
2011-02-21, 12:02 PM
A feat is worth being able to do anything you want to do that you couldn't do before in lieu of doing something else you can't do but want to do.

No? Is that too roundabout of an answer?

I'm not a big optimizer, so I don't really know what the cut off point of good feats versus bad is, but as a general guideline...

1) Feats that allow you to use equipment are not worth it unless using that equipment is essential to what you're trying to accomplish, either fluff-wise or crunch-wise.
2) Feats that give a bonus to skills are not worth it unless you're trying to get a particular skill as high as possible to achieve some specific goal. Even then, things like masterwork tools and temporary buffs should be exhausted beforehand.
3) Feats that allow or enhance certain combat abilities may or may not be worth it depending on the character's combat style, what kinds of enemies they commonly face, and what the rest of the party is.

grarrrg
2011-02-21, 12:10 PM
summary
exotic arms and armor are NEVER worth a feat

what about prerequisites for prestige classes?

Dwarven Defender requires TOUGHNESS!!!
is it reallly worth the prestige class to take such a feat?


Mostly agreed on the Exotic Weap/Armor. But there are a few ways to 'cheat' exotic proficiencies. "Racial Weapon Familiarity" for example.

As for Prestige requirements? You need a better example.
Dwarven Defender is a poor class. The Toughness as a pre-req is nothing compared to the class itself.

For a better example, use the ever popular "Dodge > Mobility" line that seems to crop up in every other PrC EVER.

Shadow Dancer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/shadowdancer.htm) is a fairly ho-hum PrC, but this is more likely due to the 'wasted' feat pre-reqs (dodge, mobility). Some builds want/NEED Hide in Plain Sight, and Shadow Dancer has it at Level 1.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 12:12 PM
Feats are flavor. The feats I select come strictly from character development, not from whatever happens to get me the highest DPS, not from whatever happens to make my spell save DCs the highest in existance, etc.

Dusk Eclipse
2011-02-21, 12:16 PM
Feats are flavor. The feats I select come strictly from character development, not from whatever happens to get me the highest DPS, not from whatever happens to make my spell save DCs the highest in existance, etc.

While that is a perfectly valid reasoning and way of doing things, in my experience doing an "organic" character grow in D&D 3.5 is quite unforgiving, the sheer number of options (which many are quite bad) makes it quite difficult.

Having said that my general guidelines on whether a feat is worth it or not depends on:

Will it give me an otherwise impossible to get ability, IE most of the devotion feats?

Do I need it to make a concept work mechanic wise (I need twf for a dual wielding character if I want a semblance of working for example)

Do I need it as a pre-requisite for something?

If I answer yes to any of those question IMO the feat is worth it.

Mordokai
2011-02-21, 12:20 PM
Feats are flavor. The feats I select come strictly from character development, not from whatever happens to get me the highest DPS, not from whatever happens to make my spell save DCs the highest in existance, etc.

I try to do this as often as possible. For example, I took Arcane Familiar feat for my 4E bard and choose parrot as her familiar. Even though the parrot is one of the worst possible familiars, at least if you ask any decent optimiser. However, the character in question is a bard... in mainly pirate based campaign. For me, that's worth a feat.

Of course, if I intend to play a serious character I'll try not to gimp myself with all useless feats. The character above had a bunch of other options to compensate for that familiar and she was still good at what she did. But one feat? Not such a big deal.

Of course, I sometimes do characters mainly for my own amusement and in cases like that, who gives care about feats?

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 12:28 PM
While that is a perfectly valid reasoning and way of doing things, in my experience doing an "organic" character grow in D&D 3.5 is quite unforgiving, the sheer number of options (which many are quite bad) makes it quite difficult.


I try to do this as often as possible. For example, I took Arcane Familiar feat for my 4E bard and choose parrot as her familiar. Even though the parrot is one of the worst possible familiars, at least if you ask any decent optimiser. However, the character in question is a bard... in mainly pirate based campaign. For me, that's worth a feat.

Sorry, I've been doing this too long to care about optimization. The older I get, the more silly it seems. I play to enjoy the roleplaying, not to "kill monsterz and get phat lootz." (That may sound offensive, but that's how I feel.) I'm a casual gamer, and proud of it! :smallwink:

Mordokai
2011-02-21, 12:29 PM
I kinda agreed with you, you know :smalltongue:

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 12:31 PM
I kinda agreed with you, you know :smalltongue:
I know, I just didn't want this huge wall of quotes about serious characters and optimization. I chopped off the wrong piece of quote there. :smalltongue:

Dusk Eclipse
2011-02-21, 12:31 PM
Sorry, I've been doing this too long to care about optimization. The older I get, the more silly it seems. I play to enjoy the roleplaying, not to "kill monsterz and get phat lootz." (That may sound offensive, but that's how I feel.) I'm a casual gamer, and proud of it! :smallwink:

As I said fair enought, in the same vein I am a power-gamer and proud of it :smallwink:

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 12:34 PM
As I said fair enought, in the same vein I am a power-gamer and proud of it :smallwink: And there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as you enjoy the game, right? Each person enjoys the game differently. The members of my group are all like me (with one exception, but we throw him a combat every once and a while to keep him happy :smalltongue:).

Dusk Eclipse
2011-02-21, 12:36 PM
And there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as you enjoy the game, right? Each person enjoys the game differently. The members of my group are all like me (with one exception, but we throw him a combat every once and a while to keep him happy :smalltongue:).

It is actually refreshing to find someone who thinks as you, many people in my group give me dirty looks when I bring my characters :smallcool:

Greenish
2011-02-21, 12:41 PM
I know, I just didn't want this huge wall of quotes about serious characters and optimization.Then maybe you shouldn't flirt with stormwind so much? :smalltongue:

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 12:41 PM
It is actually refreshing to find someone who thinks as you, many people in my group give me dirty looks when I bring my characters :smallcool:
Contrary to popular opinion, powergaming and roleplaying are not mutually exclusive. I simply choose not to do both. Yeah, I used to think that they were, but I've met some people since being on these boards, and my opinions have changed dramatically. Granted, I'll usually turn down an invite to a high-op group, but I just prefer to let a character grow naturally, rather than plan out 30 (or so) levels of character in advance. Too much work, not enough payoff for my tastes.

navar100
2011-02-21, 12:42 PM
Sorry, I've been doing this too long to care about optimization. The older I get, the more silly it seems. I play to enjoy the roleplaying, not to "kill monsterz and get phat lootz." (That may sound offensive, but that's how I feel.) I'm a casual gamer, and proud of it! :smallwink:

The desire and skill to optimize to kill monsters does not prohibit one from wanting and able to enjoy roleplaying a character personality and engage in conversations with NPCs.

Quietus
2011-02-21, 12:51 PM
Sorry, I've been doing this too long to care about optimization. The older I get, the more silly it seems. I play to enjoy the roleplaying, not to "kill monsterz and get phat lootz." (That may sound offensive, but that's how I feel.) I'm a casual gamer, and proud of it! :smallwink:

I don't think it was intended this way, but this comes across as being very inflammatory. I saw that you later gave a generic "But if you have fun your way then that's okay", but just because someone enjoys optimization doesn't mean they're playing the game to "kill monsterz and get phat lootz." I love optimization, drawing the character I have in my mind from the rules exactly the way I see it, with just the right level of ability to match or compliment the rest of the party without overshadowing them. This is pure, mechanical optimization.. without the juvenile approach that you are assuming is inherent in optimization as a whole. Just because I like to make sure my characters are actually good at something doesn't mean I want WoW on the tabletop. I want deep, involved games where the personality I wrote up is MORE important than the numbers on my character sheet. I just also happen to enjoy working those numbers around and seeing what I can build with them.

As to the actual thread : Feats in general are worthwhile if they do one of three things. They have to either give a scaling bonus - see Power Attack, which adjusts to your level, as opposed to weapon focus/specialization, which don't. Or, they can give you a totally new ability you didn't have before; As mentioned before, the Domain feats are like this. Third, they can take an option that was poor before and make it worthwhile, this would be things like Improved Trip.

Beyond these, sometimes prerequisites are worth the hit to get whatever's above them. For example, Shock Trooper requires... was it Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush? Power Attack itself is a good feat, but Improved Bull Rush has little value outside of specific builds (dungeoncrashers mostly). You have to sink the cost of that feat to get Shock Trooper - and ST is strong enough to make that sink worthwhile. Compare this to, for example, Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack. Both require sinks of multiple poor feats, and the payoff is poor. These feats are wastes, not because the abilities they offer are poor - if they didn't have prerequisites they'd be fine - but because you not only have to buy these, but also all of their very poor prequisites.