[PF] Racial Heritage: Is it worth it?

[FatherMalkav]

So I'm building a Varisian sorcerer with a focus on Illusions. I come across the gnome racial feat Effortless Trickery
Benefit: You can maintain concentration on one spell of the illusion school as a swift action. This has no effect on spells of other schools or on illusion spells with durations that don’t depend on your active concentration. While you may only maintain one spell as a swift action, you may take your move and standard actions to maintain other spells normally, if you wish.


I ask for your opinion on this topic: is this ability worth a two feat burn (Racial Heritage: Gnome and Effortless Trickery) or does this render the price too high?

The character has to be human for campaign reasons, so changing races sadly isn't an option.

[Souju]

First you must ask yourself: "How many illusions with 'concentration' am I actually going to be using?"

[avr]

Higher level illusion spells make this feat kind of redundant, at least for some purposes. Minor Image (2nd level) lasts 2 rounds after you stop concentrating, Major Image (3rd) 3 rounds, Persistent Image (5th) has a flat 1 min/level duration, and guess the duration of Permanent Image (6th). Specialised illusions - anything else - never seem to have concentration duration.

You would use this feat when you want to make one of these adjust and react to peoples' actions and you also want to cast other spells. Usually Improved Familiar & a wand would be a better deal for this purpose though.

So, not a good deal IMO.

[Erik Vale]

So I'm building a Varisian sorcerer with a focus on Illusions. I come across the gnome racial feat Effortless Trickery

I ask for your opinion on this topic: is this ability worth a two feat burn (Racial Heritage: Gnome and Effortless Trickery) or does this render the price too high?

The character has to be human for campaign reasons, so changing races sadly isn't an option.

Only if you can convince your DM that it also lowers the action required for the benifits of Tattooed Mystic's Flickering Eye tattoo, in which case you can get [for the price of a spell slot and a swift action/turn] concealment or resetting invisibility. But even then given access to spells like blur, it's kinda iffy.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The feat doesn't seem to remove the restriction that you can't cast another spell while concentrating on one. So unless you have a REALLY awesome standard action -using combat ability that is *not* a spell, doesn't seem worth it to me.

Racial Heritage (Half-Elf) so you can learn the Paragon Surge spell, on the other hand, is super duper ultra worth it with a cherry on top.
It gives you any one feat you qualify for for min/level. Expanded Arcana is a feat... Do you like the idea of spontaneously grabbing any spell on your entire list (of a level you're capable of casting) whenever it may be needed? Yeah, I thought so. :smallwink:

[Tokuhara]

Racial Heritage can do some seriously silly things, if you're creative. Here's some examples:

Racial Heritage: Catfolk - Make enemies reroll, get claws without barbarian levels, pounce

Racial Heritage: Changeling - Hag Heritage. Need I say more?

Racial Heritage: Grippli - Human Gunslinger + Prehensile Tongue + 2 Pistols = Viable Dual wielding. Also, a Human Alchemist Multiweapon Fighting with Bombs

Racial heritage: Kitsune - This means you can burn feats for SLAs (magical tail) and turn into a fox (Fox Shape)

Racial Heritage: Ratfolk - Two Claw Attacks without barbarian levels/druid

Racial Heritage: Tengu - Ultra-Limited Wildshape, Wings, and Appraise Check Bonuses

Racial Heritage: Tiefling/Aasimar - Oodles of good Racial Feats

[navar100]

So I'm building a Varisian sorcerer with a focus on Illusions. I come across the gnome racial feat Effortless Trickery

I ask for your opinion on this topic: is this ability worth a two feat burn (Racial Heritage: Gnome and Effortless Trickery) or does this render the price too high?

The character has to be human for campaign reasons, so changing races sadly isn't an option.

You can take both feats at 1st level to get them out of the way to use your later feats on whatever else you want. At low level your illusion spell is Silent Image. Swift action to maintain then do whatever you want, including casting another spell, is a big help. Higher level spells have a small duration after you cease concentrating, but you may not want to rely on that duration depending on the situation.

The idea is sound. Do not worry whether or not it's super duper awesome optimal. It's a neat trick that can give you a lot of fun.

[FatherMalkav]

Racial Heritage: Tiefling/Aasimar - Oodles of good Racial Feats

I don't think this part is rught. The feat reads
Choose another humanoid race and therefore Tieflings, Aasimars, and the elemental races would not be viable choices RAW.