Favored Vestige feat

[true_shinken]

I'm not very into Binders, but recently I've been toying about the idea of playing one and this Favored Vestige feat tree looks like it completely BLOWS. I mean, Rapid Recovery and Favored Vestige Focus are not that bad (I'd even like Rapid Recovery if it wasn't the last feat in a tree) but Favored Vestige looks like pure garbage.

Am I missing something?

[Zaq]

It's pretty much just an annoying prereq. It DOES make pact checks slightly easier, and there ARE a bunch of abilities tied to your EBL (including some save DCs, so that's like half an increase), but it's pretty much just there to kick-start the feat chain. Whether this feat tax makes the rest of the feat chain not worth it is . . . a possibility, depending on the character concept.

[FMArthur]

I would say that Favored Vestige and its child feats are always a bad option. I mean, even ignoring that it's just plain a stupid idea to take a class designed for flexibility and then force it to specialize in one small area to benefit from your feats at all, it's hard to imagine that a handful of well-chosen feats that simply suit the vestige well instead of giving it direct, miniscule bonuses could not be more useful. I feel like these are "obligatory" feats included for completeness or a feat section quota than to actually fulfill any missing character concepts.

Improved Binding, Skilled Pact Making and Expel Vestige are the only feats there I would use as a Binder. And Rapid Pact Making if your DM houserules it to be usable in its intended fashion.

[Zaq]

Ignore Special Requirement can be quite worth it, especially when you get to a level where you can bind multiple vestiges, some of whom don't like each other.

[JaronK]

Zceryll makes that feat chain amazing. You get higher level summons earlier and they last longer and you can cast them faster.

JaronK

[FMArthur]

Ignore Special Requirement can be quite worth it, especially when you get to a level where you can bind multiple vestiges, some of whom don't like each other.

Somehow I always forget this one.

[Thurbane]

I mean, even ignoring that it's just plain a stupid idea to take a class designed for flexibility and then force it to specialize in one small area to benefit from your feats at all, it's hard to imagine that a handful of well-chosen feats that simply suit the vestige well instead of giving it direct, miniscule bonuses could not be more useful.
I totally agree that the favored Vestige feat chain really isn't worth it, but in regards to committing to one vestige at the sake of flexibility - some of the binding PrCs enforce much the same thing. Knight of the Sacred Seal, Scion of Dantaltion and Tenebrous Apostate basically lock away one of your binding spots every day. If you're destined to be shackled with one particular vestige each day, the Favored Vestige feat chain doesn't suck quite as much.

[true_shinken]

I totally agree that the favored Vestige feat chain really isn't worth it, but in regards to committing to one vestige at the sake of flexibility - some of the binding PrCs enforce much the same thing. Knight of the Sacred Seal, Scion of Dantaltion and Tenebrous Apostate basically lock away one of your binding spots every day. If you're destined to be shackled with one particular vestige each day, the Favored Vestige feat chain doesn't suck quite as much.

And KoSS is pretty much required for melee binders anyway.