[3.x] What are the most useful feats that are not build/class-dependent?

[7RED7]

Assume that you have decided not to pursue a specific build and will not be using your feat options to support class abilities (you could be taking any class, it doesn't matter), what are the best all-round useful feats that you can take?

What is going to give you a lot of mileage in any situation whether meleeing, casting, range-attacking, crafting, talking, etc.?

I would think things like Improved Initiative would be a good choice, but what are some of your favorite or lesser known feats?

Including the entire 3rd edition DND and pathfinder.

[Psyren]

Other than Improved Initiative?

Shape Soulmeld is useful for a variety of builds. Able Learner is handy for human types. Hidden Talent and Psicrystal Affinity are welcome additions to any psionic build. Snap Kick is useful for most melee builds. Point Blank Shot is nearly mandatory for archers.

[Eldan]

I try to stick Darkstalker on all of my characters. It's just awesome.

[Gnorman]

Leadership.

[Ziegander]

Improved Toughness.

There aren't terribly many of these sort of feats, and anyone playing a character at the low end of Tier 3 or lower probably should not use all of their character-level feats taking general-purpose feats, even the best ones, because those types of characters generally need to use their feats create synergy between their class features and other feats to operate at an adequate level of power.

[Draz74]

Poached from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244841):


Ability Focus (MM)
Able Learner (RoD)
Air Heritage (PlH)
Darkstalker (LoM)
Expeditious Dodge (RotW)
Flyby Attack (MM)
Imperious Command (DotU)
Improved Familiar (PHB/PGtF/CSc/CW/FRCS/RoF)
Improved Flight (RotW)
Improved Initiative (PHB)
Keen Intellect (UE)
Master of Poisons (DotU)
Midnight Dodge (MoI)
Mindsight (LoM)
Nymph's Kiss (BoED)
Obtain Familiar (CA)
Open Greater Chakra (MoI)
Open Least Chakra (MoI)
Open Lesser Chakra (MoI)
Quick Reconnoiter (CAdv)
Quick Recovery (LoM)
Shape Soulmeld (MoI)
Steadfast Determination (PHB2)
Steady Concentration (RoS)
Tactile Trapsmith (CAdv)
True Believer (MIC)
Versatile Performer (CAdv)
Wanderer's Diplomacy (PHB2)
Wild Cohort (Web)

Even on this list, a number of feats have rather tricky prerequisites or depend on characters who focus on certain skills. I've bolded the ones that everyone would like to have.

[Devmaar]

Planar Touchstone: Catalogues of Enlightenment
Particularly Pride

[Roguenewb]

Wild Cohort, Dragon Cohort, Leadership are all awesome.

[VGLordR2]

And don't forget Item Familiar.

[Kuulvheysoon]

What, no mention of Knowledge/Law/Travel Devotion yet?

[Roguenewb]

What, no mention of Knowledge/Law/Travel Devotion yet?

Knowledge devotion isn't quite as good if you don't get all 6 identifying skills in class. Law devotion is much less exciting without turn attempts. Travel devotion is a little overrated unless you have a powerful use for it, like skirmish.

[Answerer]

Travel devotion is a little overrated unless you have a powerful use for it, like skirmish.
For a Core-melee type (Barbarian, Fighter, Hexblade, Knight, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Samurai, Scout, etc.), it's amazing and almost cannot be overrated.

Also, Skirmish is not a powerful use for it. Skirmish is meh at best, and while Skirmishers definitely like Travel Devotion, there's at least a few alternatives for Scouts. Far fewer for most of the list.

[Draz74]

For a Core-melee type (Barbarian, Fighter, Hexblade, Knight, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Samurai, Scout, etc.), it's amazing and almost cannot be overrated.

... for one encounter per day. (Except Paladin. But then, Paladin also has a lot of other uses for its swift actions, with Battle Blessing.)

[tyckspoon]

Anything that lets you tap a system and pick your effect instead of giving you a single pre-defined effect. So Shape Soulmeld, Martial Study, Bind Vestige (and similar feats in a few other systems, although things like 'learn a Truename utterance' and 'pick a draconic Aura' generally aren't as powerful) are almost always good feats, because you get to pick the effect that is relevant to you.

[Answerer]

... for one encounter per day. (Except Paladin. But then, Paladin also has a lot of other uses for its swift actions, with Battle Blessing.)
A one-level dip in Cleric gets you so much I was taking it for granted with respect to Travel Devotion.

Basically every Core Melee-style character ever should be dipping either Barbarian for Pounce or Cleric for Travel Devotion.

[Draz74]

Anything that lets you tap a system and pick your effect instead of giving you a single pre-defined effect. So Shape Soulmeld, Martial Study, Bind Vestige (and similar feats in a few other systems, although things like 'learn a Truename utterance' and 'pick a draconic Aura' generally aren't as powerful) are almost always good feats, because you get to pick the effect that is relevant to you.
Shape Soulmeld is pretty cool, although it mostly gets you skill boosts. Martial Study is great for almost any character (even casters can pick up a save => Concentration maneuver). But I've always been rather puzzled with why people like Bind Vestige. What effects can it get you that actually don't suck? Please elaborate.


A one-level dip in Cleric gets you so much I was taking it for granted with respect to Travel Devotion.
Ah. See, I wouldn't. For one thing, that's the sort of dip that would make my playgroups actually bother with multiclassing XP penalties.


Basically every Core Melee-style character ever should be dipping either Barbarian for Pounce or Cleric for Travel Devotion.

... or a Tome of Battle class. OK, sure. But "should" doesn't mean "will." There are a LOT of non-optimizer players out there who think it's better to play a "pure" class. :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

Shape Soulmeld is pretty cool, although it mostly gets you skill boosts. Martial Study is great for almost any character (even casters can pick up a save => Concentration maneuver). But I've always been rather puzzled with why people like Bind Vestige. What effects can it get you that actually don't suck? Please elaborate.

The main use for it is Naberius: his initial ability is like multiple Shape Soulmelds rolled into one feat, except it includes even more choices, like Iaijutsu Focus and Lucid Dreaming. His Practiced function is extremely valuable for any party face, especially in social campaigns - take 10 on Diplomacy and Bluff, even in combat, and standard action Diplomacy checks with no penalty is absolutely worth two feats.

Other good choices are Dahlver-nar - depending on the campaign, confusion/wis damage/wis drain immunity could be very useful. Practiced gets you natural armor that scales with Con; depending on how much your build has, this could be a worthwhile boost for two feats. Andromalius is nice if your DM loves picking your pocket, so you can get this and thumb your nose at him.


... or a Tome of Battle class. OK, sure. But "should" doesn't mean "will." There are a LOT of non-optimizer players out there who think it's better to play a "pure" class. :smallsmile:

He has a point though - if your melee class has no other way to get pounce, dips like these are nearly mandatory. Totemists and Psywars don't need either, but a Swashbuckler or Scout might.

[Answerer]

Ah. See, I wouldn't. For one thing, that's the sort of dip that would make my playgroups actually bother with multiclassing XP penalties.
I have nothing to say to that other than that I would never, ever play with your group if for that reason alone, and I can't even begin to understand why you would want to play that way. 3.5's multiclass flexibility is its only advantage that I can see. If I don't have that, I don't see any reason to play 3.5.


... or a Tome of Battle class. OK, sure. But "should" doesn't mean "will." There are a LOT of non-optimizer players out there who think it's better to play a "pure" class. :smallsmile:
I did say "Core melee". A Cleric dip doesn't make you a spellcaster, but a Crusader or Warblade dip... it certainly moves you a longer way to taking advantage of a proper subsystem.

But yes, I absolutely agree about Tome of Battle.

[Draz74]

The main use for it is Naberius: his initial ability is like multiple Shape Soulmelds rolled into one feat, except it includes even more choices, like Iaijutsu Focus and Lucid Dreaming. His Practiced function is extremely valuable for any party face, especially in social campaigns - take 10 on Diplomacy and Bluff, even in combat, and standard action Diplomacy checks with no penalty is absolutely worth two feats.

Other good choices are Dahlver-nar - depending on the campaign, confusion/wis damage/wis drain immunity could be very useful. Practiced gets you natural armor that scales with Con; depending on how much your build has, this could be a worthwhile boost for two feats. Andromalius is nice if your DM loves picking your pocket, so you can get this and thumb your nose at him.
Interesting. I guess it can have its niche uses, then. Although as far as party faces + Silver Tongue is concerned, I tend to think it's more worthwhile to just take a level in Binder rather than spending two feats.

Oh, and I still don't see the point of the one-feat version of Naberius. It's worse than just taking Jack of All Trades (assuming you're using JoAT under RAI, rather than the utterly-useless strict RAW version). And RAI-Jack of All Trades is still a rather poor feat IMO.

Hmmm, the more I think about it, the more I'm going back to my opinion of "not all that useful." Andromalius and Dahlver-Nar would each require two feats to bind, IIRC, and although I can see how the abilities you mention would be extremely useful in a very small minority of campaigns, they're definitely not worth two feats in what I imagine is a typical campaign.


He has a point though - if your melee class has no other way to get pounce, dips like these are nearly mandatory. Totemists and Psywars don't need either, but a Swashbuckler or Scout might.
In my last long-running playgroup, the Fighter did just fine at leading the party in DPR without any sort of Pounce ability. And he was a bastard-sword-and-board Fighter who refused to use Power Attack even against low-AC enemies. :smallconfused: No, it doesn't make any sense to me either. (Especially since the player had a master's degree in Mathematics ... he should have understood that Power Attack would increase his average damage.) But it was true anyway.

Point is, Pounce being "nearly mandatory" is highly dependent on the op level of the group. Not true for everyone.


I have nothing to say to that other than that I would never, ever play with your group if for that reason alone, and I can't even begin to understand why you would want to play that way. 3.5's multiclass flexibility is its only advantage that I can see. If I don't have that, I don't see any reason to play 3.5.
I doubt you would want to play with my playgroups, true. I don't think you would get along with the optimization level demonstrated, for example, in the Fighter I wrote about above.

Personally, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of opinions about whether fluff should be authoritative or whether it should be entirely mutable, and if I were to DM 3.5e, multiclass penalties would be on a case-by-case basis depending on whether I thought they were well-encapsulated by a single uniting character concept. I would probably never impose multiclass penalties for a Rogue/Bard or a Barbarian/Fighter or somesuch. But a single Cleric dip on an otherwise non-religious-themed character? That strikes me as inelegant exploitation of overly-frontloaded class design. So I would enforce XP penalties in that case.

I'm not saying anyone has to agree with the above paragraph unless they're currently playing with me as DM, of course. :smallsmile:

I strongly disagree with multiclassing being 3.5e's only attraction as a system, however. I'd say its biggest draws are (a) the large player base, (b) the easily-accessible online Core rules, and (c) the extreme variety and complexity of builds available in all the splatbook material.

That being said, I agree that there's many drawbacks to 3.5e as a system, and I doubt I'll ever play 3.5e much again; my tastes have moved on to my own work, as well as Legend.


I did say "Core melee". A Cleric dip doesn't make you a spellcaster, but a Crusader or Warblade dip... it certainly moves you a longer way to taking advantage of a proper subsystem.

But yes, I absolutely agree about Tome of Battle.

Ah, I didn't think you meant strict "Core only." Since Travel Devotion, Law Devotion, et al, don't exist in such environments.

[Psyren]

Interesting. I guess it can have its niche uses, then. Although as far as party faces + Silver Tongue is concerned, I tend to think it's more worthwhile to just take a level in Binder rather than spending two feats.

It could be; it depends on the build and things like whether your group enforces multiclass penalties etc.



In my last long-running playgroup, the Fighter did just fine at leading the party in DPR without any sort of Pounce ability. And he was a bastard-sword-and-board Fighter who refused to use Power Attack even against low-AC enemies. :smallconfused: No, it doesn't make any sense to me either. (Especially since the player had a master's degree in Mathematics ... he should have understood that Power Attack would increase his average damage.) But it was true anyway.

A statement like that is unfortunately meaningless without knowing what the rest of your group was running. I could lead damage in a party of unoptimized commoners, but it wouldn't really say much about my own build.

[Draz74]

It could be; it depends on the build and things like whether your group enforces multiclass penalties etc.
Heh, fair enough.


A statement like that is unfortunately meaningless without knowing what the rest of your group was running. I could lead damage in a party of unoptimized commoners, but it wouldn't really say much about my own build.

We had a Rogue; two archery Rangers; a summoning-focused Cleric who took over for a blasting Sorcerer; a Paladin and Bard on-again, off-again; some homebrew thing vaguely similar to this Druid variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid); and my character: a Transmuter Wizard who had sworn off all spells that could possibly kill anyone, focusing only on buffs/debuffs/utility. And the Fighter. All of them mostly Core-Only, and most of them played by people with very little D&D experience.

[Psyren]

^

None of the above seems particularly damaging to me. No Totemists, no ToB, no Psywars, no Scouts, etc. Nothing where pounce would actually make a big difference. So it's consistent with the results you've seen, but doesn't say much about pounce's value.

[Novawurmson]

3rd Party PF Open-Minded (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/open-minded). It's 3.5 Improved Toughness for skills! Especially good with the consolidated PF build system.

Eldritch Heritage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/eldritch-heritage) and friends are pretty versatile.

Nothing really gets as good as Improved Initiative, though; I don't think there's a single build in which it would be a bad choice. The worst it could be is not the absolute optimal choice in a given situation.

[laeZ1]

Nymph's Kiss (Book of Exalted Deeds, pg 44)
Fey creatures regard you as though you were fey. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus on all Charisma-related checks, and a +1 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities. Starting with the level when you take this feat, you gain 1 extra skill point per level.
Always useful.

The description mentions you maintaining an intimate relationship with a good aligned fey, but there are no actual pre-reqs...

[Keld Denar]

I'll second the above mentioned Quick Recovery. Everyone has to roll saves. Being able to recover from a subset if botched saves is nice. It even helps against some effects that don't allow saves like Blasphemy or Dust if Sneezing and Choking. Good on any character, but above average on any character with a good will save and above average fort save.

[Answerer]

The description mentions you maintaining an intimate relationship with a good aligned fey, but there are no actual pre-reqs...
That's because it's not a prerequisite, it's a benefit.

[kitcik]

Martial Study: White Raven Tactics

[Draz74]

Martial Study: White Raven Tactics

Only doable if you already have a (prereq) White Raven maneuver or stance. Also, if you do, you can duplicate this feat with just 4500 gp. (Unless, of course, you already got the prereq via 4500 gp, which is probably the smartest direction to go.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nymph's Kiss (Book of Exalted Deeds, pg 44)
Fey creatures regard you as though you were fey. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus on all Charisma-related checks, and a +1 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities. Starting with the level when you take this feat, you gain 1 extra skill point per level.
Always useful.

The description mentions you maintaining an intimate relationship with a good aligned fey, but there are no actual pre-reqs...

There's prereq's on it alright. It's an exalted feat. You don't just have to be good, you have to be good+, both to take it and to keep it.