Feat Tiers?

[sambouchah]

Is this already a thing and if so could someone point me in the direction of the thread/sight it's on?

If not; How can I determine what feats go in which tier? Power Attack is obviously better than Monkey Grip and Two Weapon Fighting. But Power Attack isn't useful for a Wizard as much as it is for a Barbarian. Just as Heighten Spell isn't useful to a fighter but can do quite well in the hands of an enchantress. So how can I determine the power of feats relative to all the PHB classes?

I hope this doesn't sound totally stupid or something, I feel like it would be a useful tool for myself. To be able to see the power of each feat against each class.

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give, Sam

[Flickerdart]

What you want is handbooks for classes, which list what feats are good for that class.

[sambouchah]

What you want is handbooks for classes, which list what feats are good for that class.

So then would feats that show up on multiple handbooks be tier one/twos and feats that only show up on one or two threes/fours? This is more for my own sanity I guess, I don't like going through guides seeing as my computer is old and slow.

[Pluto!]

Why do the feats need to be tiered again?

Even with classes, tiers don't really express much nuance or depth in their description of characters' abilities, and classes play a pretty major part in a character's capabilities. Feats don't even do that.

[Squark]

There isn't really a good way to put feats or spells in "Tiers." You might be able to put feats into different categories, like "These feats are good for certain classes, but not others [Power Attack, the better Metamagic feats]," "These feats are good for pretty much everyone [Improved Initiative, Leadership]," "These feats are just not very good [+2 to two skills feats, monkey grip]," and "These feats are only really good in a few builds, but in those builds, they're essential [Font of Inspiration]", but those aren't really "tiers."

[Red Fel]

Feats, like races, are much harder to place in tiers than classes.

Whereas classes can be examined in terms of versatility and power (does it do a bunch of things? does it do them well?), a race or feat can only be measured relative to a given goal. Yes, some feats are mostly useless, or used primarily as a feat tax, but the majority have some function relative to a given build.

For example, as you point out, Power Attack is a bread-and-butter feat for anyone using a melee character. It is completely worthless for someone staying out of physical combat, such as a caster. How do you rate that?

The question isn't "Which feats are good?" It's "Which feats are good for what I want?"

As Flickerdart points out, you want to be looking at handbooks for the given design you want. For example, if you're building a Crusader as a tank, the Stand Still feat will be very valuable for you, perhaps combined with Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain, or Combat Reflexes for extra AoOs.

Or maybe you want a monster with lots of natural attacks. You may want Multiattack, Improved Natural Attacks, perhaps even feats that give you bite or tail attacks.

On their own, in a vacuum, many of these feats are useless. For example, Stand Still is painfully situational if you're not sitting in the middle of the mob, and very difficult to use to full effect without Combat Reflexes. Multiattack is completely worthless without natural weapons, as is Improved Natural Attacks. But in the right build, they go from being worthless to being priceless.

That's why you can't tier feats the way you can tier classes. With a given class, we can look at it and say, "This class is incredible! It does everything!" Or we can say, "It was designed around this ability, and that ability stinks!" Certain classes are so good they're almost inherently awesome, others so bad that no amount of optimization can save them. This is a quality inherent to the class, almost irrespective of how the player uses it.

Feats are different. Feats can be bad, or good, but their use makes them perfect, or worthless. Their value is based entirely upon their use, not upon any inherent value.

[georgie_leech]

Attempting to rank Feats in a Tier is generally an exercise in futility. Unlike Classes, Feats are constrined by their prerequisites and whether or not a character can take advantage of them. Natural Spell, for instance, is often considered a very powerful feat, but it would be all but useless for a Fighter, or a Druid that traded away Wildshape for something else. Weapon Supremacy is an interesting feat that lets you Take 10 on attack rolls, which can be a great boon for consistent damage. However, it's actually 5 feats instead of 1 because of the prerequisite Weapon Focus etc. needed to qualify for it in the first place. Penetrating strike may be excellent on a Rogue in an undead heavy campaign, or utterly useless if everyone is a Humanoid with Class Levels instead.

There are just too many variables to rank with any consistency. Google SKR's Feat Point system for an example of what happens when you try to evaluate feats from only one perspective. if you really want an evaluation of Feat power, SonofZeal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245177) has a thread attempting to just that, though even then it's limited in usefulness if your games don't share similar assumptions, like Druids spending their time in Wildshape for better Physical Ability Scores.

[ddude987]

feats are tier 3 /thread

[Hiro Protagonest]

Sean K. Reynold's feat point system would be a good place to start.

(sometimes it's fun to do some light trolling :smalltongue:)

[Grod_The_Giant]

"Tier" is the wrong way to think of it. However, what WOULD be useful is a resource that goes through each book and picks out the useful feats from the dross. Sort 'em by, oh, "melee, archer, caster, other, or all."

[Zanos]

"Tier" is the wrong way to think of it. However, what WOULD be useful is a resource that goes through each book and picks out the useful feats from the dross. Sort 'em by, oh, "melee, archer, caster, other, or all."

There's a lot to consider though. There are many feats I would rate as useless in many builds, except in combination with very specific class features or other feats where they then become brokenly amazing.

[Hamste]

I would assume it would be rated on usefulness in general for specific styles of play. If you need a specific spell, class or too many other feats then it would be a lower tier.

[ahenobarbi]

I would assume it would be rated on usefulness in general for specific styles of play. If you need a specific spell, class or too many other feats then it would be a lower tier.

So Toughness (usable by anyobe) is higher Tier than Quicken Spell (requires you to be prepared caster)? Seems flawed.

But in the general the idea seems to not be very good. There are too many groups (feat might be good for a class, or for some build in that class, or for some gruip of builds (DMM Cleric) or for ver specific combos)). Just look how much space feat selecton gets in class handbooks.

[eggynack]

Sean K. Reynold's feat point system would be a good place to start.

(sometimes it's fun to do some light trolling :smalltongue:)
Yeah, that system is just hilariously bad. Still, a feat point system, like say sonofzeal's feat point system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245177), might be a good starting place. The feat system is actually a really good idea, in my estimation, it's just executed hideously. Really, at the core of your statement is something like feat tiers done in a manner similar to the tier system for prestige classes. It wouldn't really work as well, because feats have way too many entry points for those entry points to be at all standardized, but the question of, "How good is this feat if I'm playing the ideal character for this feat?" is a reasonable one. For example, natural spell would be at the maximum tier, because it's one of the most powerful feats in existence when it's on a druid, and weapon focus would be at a low tier, because it's not even good on a fighter, which is the ideal entry point for the feat. (Actually, the ideal entry point might be a warblade, because they can change it up. Still low tier though.)

[Humble Master]

A Feat Tier system might be a two part thing. The first number of the tier would be how powerful the feat actually can be (5 or 6 = Acrobatic. 1 = Leadership) while the second number would be based on how many builds can use the feat or how easily it can fit into any given build. For instance, Quicken Spell is quite a good feat power wise and it can fit into almost any caster build. Just a thought.

[TuggyNE]

I came in here to say that, while feats might not fit in tiers, they can be valued in the way Sonofzeal did. But I see this has already been linked. My work here is done! :smallbiggrin:

[Hamste]

So Toughness (usable by anyobe) is higher Tier than Quicken Spell (requires you to be prepared caster)? Seems flawed.

But in the general the idea seems to not be very good. There are too many groups (feat might be good for a class, or for some build in that class, or for some gruip of builds (DMM Cleric) or for ver specific combos)). Just look how much space feat selecton gets in class handbooks.

It's for specific styles of play and it's usefulness not in who can use it. Quicken spell is useful to just about any full caster and doesn't require any other specific class other than being able to cast spells. On the other hand toughness is pretty much useless and unless if you have something in the build for it there is no reason to have it. Therefore toughness would be a bad tier for spell casters while quicken spell would be a higher tier.

[eggynack]

A Feat Tier system might be a two part thing. The first number of the tier would be how powerful the feat actually can be (5 or 6 = Acrobatic. 1 = Leadership) while the second number would be based on how many builds can use the feat or how easily it can fit into any given build. For instance, Quicken Spell is quite a good feat power wise and it can fit into almost any caster build. Just a thought.
The only problem with that is that the feat versatility number doesn't actually tell you anything about the game. No one's going to say, "Well, I was going to take natural spell on this druid, but the feat versatility number is just too low." Nor is anyone going to say, "I was going to take natural spell on this fighter, but the feat versatility number reminded me how bad an idea that would be." Nor is anyone going to say, "I don't think you should be allowed to take toughness. The feat versatility number is just too high. You need to take something else on your druid. I was thinking natural spell, because of the low feat versatility number." I'm just not sure what the goal of a feat versatility number is. Feats are just so often binary in the degree to which a build can take them.

[Humble Master]

The only problem with that is that the feat versatility number doesn't actually tell you anything about the game. No one's going to say, "Well, I was going to take natural spell on this druid, but the feat versatility number is just too low." Nor is anyone going to say, "I was going to take natural spell on this fighter, but the feat versatility number reminded me how bad an idea that would be." Nor is anyone going to say, "I don't think you should be allowed to take toughness. The feat versatility number is just too high. You need to take something else on your druid. I was thinking natural spell, because of the low feat versatility number." I'm just not sure what the goal of a feat versatility number is. Feats are just so often binary in the degree to which a build can take them.True. One could create feat categories (Caster, Archer, Melee ect.) but that would require even more subcategories. Yah, in the end, the power of a feat is based so much on the build that it is in there is no good way to rank feats in such a universal way as a tier system.

[Jeff the Green]

Yeah, that system is just hilariously bad. Still, a feat point system, like say sonofzeal's feat point system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245177), might be a good starting place. The feat system is actually a really good idea, in my estimation, it's just executed hideously. Really, at the core of your statement is something like feat tiers done in a manner similar to the tier system for prestige classes. It wouldn't really work as well, because feats have way too many entry points for those entry points to be at all standardized, but the question of, "How good is this feat if I'm playing the ideal character for this feat?" is a reasonable one. For example, natural spell would be at the maximum tier, because it's one of the most powerful feats in existence when it's on a druid, and weapon focus would be at a low tier, because it's not even good on a fighter, which is the ideal entry point for the feat. (Actually, the ideal entry point might be a warblade, because they can change it up. Still low tier though.)

I think one of the biggest problems in the feat system is chains and their distribution. Chains ideally have lower power feats at the bottom and higher power feats higher up. The top feats might also draw from multiple lower-level prereqs. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. A character has a few choices:
Specialize in one chain early and branch out a little late
Specialize in one chain but branch out a little on a regular basis
Don't specialize, but take more diverse lower-power feats

And of course, shades in between.

A gives you early power but little versatility until later, when you trade the increase in power for more (less powerful) options. B gives you consistent power gains throughout, and while you're more versatile than A until the very end, you're also less powerful until the very end. Finally, C gives you unparalleled, constantly increasing versatility with no significant power increase.

In most circumstances, A or B will be the best choices. However, it seems to be that mundane classes have long chains while magical classes have short chains. Compare the Weapon Focus line with metamagic. The pinacle of WF's line requires four feats that require each other. It's a decent feat, but the prereqs render it risible. I can't find any metamagic feat that has more than one feat as a prerequisite (and I think most of them just require any other metamagic feat), and I'd bet money there aren't any that take up that many feat slots. So while Weapon Supremacy is probably on par with one of the better metamagics (ignoring the fundamental imbalance between magic and mundane), it's never used because it requires an enormous sunk cost. In fact, looking back at all the casters I've made whose sheets yet survive none had a feat with more than one feat as a prerequisite. The only one I can think of that a caster might take is Divine Metamagic for a metamagic feat that itself has a prereq, like Persistant Spell or Twin Spell.

So what ends up happening is that there are a few mundane feats that are roughly in the same category as caster feats, like Power Attack, Combat Expertise/Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes, Stand Still, etc., while most of the good ones require taking more or less useless feats until high levels, at which point you gain a cool power that would have actually been useful at level 6, but not at 18. On the other hand, casters get to finish their chains at 3 or 6, getting the magic equivalent of Weapon Supremacy, and then leap into another chain.

(It doesn't help that magic feats tend to scale much better than mundane ones, but that's a separate issue that's widely known. That also contributes to the way Power Attack, Improved Trip, and Stand Still are sine qua non for many styles of mundane melee.)

[sambouchah]

I assumed as much, that tiering feats wasn't worth trying. I thought it may be something along the lines of;

Tier one: Useful to any character type. Ex. Leadership, Wild Talent(High Psionics), Open Minded.

Tier two: Useful to most characters. Ex. Skill Focus, Power Attack/Combat Expertise, Magical Aptitude.

Tier Three: Useful to specific character concepts. Improved Toughness, Metamagic Feats, Item Creation.

And so on.

But thank you all for saving me the trouble, I would hate to begin work on such a project and realize it isn't worth my time and effort.

[ahenobarbi]

I can't find any metamagic feat that has more than one feat as a prerequisite (and I think most of them just require any other metamagic feat), and I'd bet money there aren't any that take up that many feat slots.

FYI: You'd loose. Sudden Quicken is [Metamagic] feat from Complete Arcane. It requires 6 other feats (and each of them requires "any other metamagic feat" for total 7 feats prerequisite).

[Cruiser1]

Feats can be divided into tiers or classified by strength, with some reservation. Not all good feats can be used by all characters (but they're still good), and similarly sometimes bad feats are needed for prerequisites (which doesn't change the fact they're still bad by themselves). Given the above, then assuming a feat can be used, it can be roughly ranked by the power it grants. Here's one way to do it, with example feats for each:

Tier 1: Feats that break the game. These feats are so overpowered they're frequently banned. They give a character infinite wishes or other forms of extreme power, open up completely new abilities, etc:

Leadership, Persistent Spell, Wand Surge, Greenbound Summoning, Reserves of Strength, Item Familiar
Tier 2: Powerful feats. These feats are very strong, and as good as can be without becoming gamebreaking. They strengthen fundamental areas for classes that can use them, meaning most builds that can benefit from them should take them:

Power Attack, Quicken Spell, Natural Spell, Arcane Thesis, Font of Inspiration, Craft Wondrous Item
Tier 3: Solid feats. These are good feats, and are nice to take if you have the feat slots available, and don't have any better options from higher tiers. However they're not necessary, and you can get along without them or duplicate their ability via other means:

Improved Initiative, Extend Spell, Augment Summoning, Spell Penetration, Craft Magic Arms And Armor
Tier 4: Lackluster feats. These feats give small boosts, but there are better options. Usually only taken by unoptimized characters, or as prerequisites for classes or better feats:

Cleave, Widen Spell, Brew Potion, Spell Focus, Craft Rod
Tier 5: Worthless feats. These feats give boosts that are so minor, they're definitely not worth it. Again only taken as prerequisites, or in specialized builds wanting to maximize something, e.g. Skill Focus (Truespeech):

Toughness, Endurance, Run, Dodge, Diligent
Tier 6: Failed feats. These feats are so bad, they either do practically nothing or actually hurt the character:

Focused Lexicon, Monkey Grip, Skill Focus (Speak Language)

[Red Fel]

I assumed as much, that tiering feats wasn't worth trying. I thought it may be something along the lines of;

Tier one: Useful to any character type. Ex. Leadership, Wild Talent(High Psionics), Open Minded.

Tier two: Useful to most characters. Ex. Skill Focus, Power Attack/Combat Expertise, Magical Aptitude.

Tier Three: Useful to specific character concepts. Improved Toughness, Metamagic Feats, Item Creation.

And so on.

But thank you all for saving me the trouble, I would hate to begin work on such a project and realize it isn't worth my time and effort.

It's a great idea. I just think the execution could use a little work.

What if, instead of designing it as "these are the best feats" versus "these are not so nice, actually," you organized by concept?

You could start by breaking out common concepts - melee fighter, soaking beeftank, ranged sniper, skillmonkey, prepared arcane caster, slot arcane caster, slot divine caster, shapeshifter, etc. General concepts, not specific builds (for example, Paladin-with-Wis-focus is way too specific).

Then look at which feats will be most commonly advantageous to each one.

For example, I don't care what your specific build is, if you play a melee fighter (if not a big-f Fighter class), nine times out of ten you are almost guaranteed to want Power Attack.

If you play a divine caster, you should be aware of the existence of Devotion feats.

If you plan to be sniping, you'd bloody well better take Point Blank Shot, since that's basically a prerequisite for everything.

And so on.

The goal of such a list wouldn't be to say "this is the best feat" or "this is the must-have," but rather to inform anyone who is considering a class or build of that general variety that these are feats out there worth looking into, and these are feats you might want to avoid except sometimes and here's why.

It would be more work in some ways, less in others, but not an unworthy undertaking.

[Jeff the Green]

FYI: You'd loose. Sudden Quicken is [Metamagic] feat from Complete Arcane. It requires 6 other feats (and each of them requires "any other metamagic feat" for total 7 feats prerequisite).

Wow. I must have repressed that.


Tier 1: Feats that break the game. These feats are so overpowered they're frequently banned. They give a character infinite wishes or other forms of extreme power, open up completely new abilities, etc:

Leadership, Persistent Spell, Wand Surge, Greenbound Summoning, Reserves of Strength, Item Familiar


That really doesn't belong there. Persistent Spell is lackluster, and only becomes useful with a feat published in another book. Rather, it's DMM Persist that is the problem. And really, even then it's not that bad if you don't stack nightsticks and/or turning pools.

Greenbound Summoning might not either. The key is that they're still of Int 2, and you can't control them without a level 3 spell that's only on the Druid list. So while it grants access to wall of thorns way too early, it's not practical to do so. It's still an immensely powerful feat, but not game-breaking.

[zlefin]

Yeah, there isn't a pre-existing one. We could certainly make one though, there's more than enough expertise on this board to make one.
You'd need to think some what standards you wanted to use for the tiers; whether to rank for power, versatility and whatnot; and how to deal with things that are good in very specific builds but otherwise weak.

How much interest is there in making a feat tier list? I'm not sure how useful it would be; as there's sooo many feats in the game, that having a list might not help in making chars all that much, as there's just so many out there that a list is too big to get through. The primary uses of the class tier list, in my experience, are balancing party composition, and understanding how to houserule the game for more balance.
I'm not sure what a feat tier list would be good for, unless you want to give people extra access to lower tier feats.

[Flickerdart]

If you really wanted to rank feats, there wouldn't be only the two dimensions that the class tier system conflates into one. You'd probably want three - how much the feat enables versatility, how much the feat enables power, and how well the feat scales over time.

Natural Spell increases versatility a lot (cast spells while you could not cast spells before), increases power a lot (same thing, really), and scales as well as your wild shape does. Weapon Focus doesn't increase versatility at all, increases power slightly, and actually becomes less significant over time (as more sources of bonus accuracy come into play).

I suppose you could try and conflate versatility and power like the tier system does (since there are very few feats - mostly those that let you tap a subsystem - that significantly increase versatility but not power) but scaling is a necessary second dimension.

[eggynack]

Greenbound Summoning might not either. The key is that they're still of Int 2, and you can't control them without a level 3 spell that's only on the Druid list. So while it grants access to wall of thorns way too early, it's not practical to do so. It's still an immensely powerful feat, but not game-breaking.
I disagree. Greenbound summoning is still ridiculously powerful, even before wall of thorns. At higher levels, wall of thorns happens, but before that it makes everything you summon into a huge melee threat. It gives stat bonuses that exceed those given by augment summoning, except it gives them in one feat, and then basically gives you all of that power a second time, because that's just the amount of bonuses this gives you. Greenbound makes your meatshields all but unkillable, and your grapplers all but unstoppable. And then you get spell like abilities, and good ones at that. It's just a crazy powerful feat.

[Cruiser1]

That really doesn't belong there. Persistent Spell is lackluster, and only becomes useful with a feat published in another book. Rather, it's DMM Persist that is the problem. And really, even then it's not that bad if you don't stack nightsticks and/or turning pools.
Divine Metamagic isn't a broken feat, since it's rarely used for anything other than Persistent Spell (i.e. Persistent Spell is the real culprit here). DMM is also one of the more balanced ways of getting free metamagic, since it's limited by turn attempts. Other methods like Incantatrix (combined with Body Outside Body clones) and Spelldancer (with easily obtainable immunity to Con damage) allow free metamagic forever. See builds like Priya the Prismatic Priestess (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280365) or Team Solar for the insane power Persistent Spell can offer (neither of which use DMM). It's the core concept of persistent spells and buffs lasting all day in the first place (as accessed via the feat Persistent Spell) that's the real game changer in optimization.

[Story]

The problem isn't any one element in isolation. It's the combination of Persistent Spell with metamagic reducers and good persistable spells.

Which just goes to show how impossible ranking feats is.

[Jeff the Green]

I disagree. Greenbound summoning is still ridiculously powerful, even before wall of thorns. At higher levels, wall of thorns happens, but before that it makes everything you summon into a huge melee threat. It gives stat bonuses that exceed those given by augment summoning, except it gives them in one feat, and then basically gives you all of that power a second time, because that's just the amount of bonuses this gives you. Greenbound makes your meatshields all but unkillable, and your grapplers all but unstoppable. And then you get spell like abilities, and good ones at that. It's just a crazy powerful feat.

I agree, it's insanely powerful. It doesn't, however, "give a character infinite wishes or other forms of extreme power, open up completely new abilities, etc". It takes your existing power (summoning beatsticks) and turns it up to 11. It's worth banning, but because it makes mundane characters even more obsolete than normal, not because it's 'tier 1'.


Divine Metamagic isn't a broken feat, since it's rarely used for anything other than Persistent Spell (i.e. Persistent Spell is the real culprit here). DMM is also one of the more balanced ways of getting free metamagic, since it's limited by turn attempts. Other methods like Incantatrix (combined with Body Outside Body clones) and Spelldancer (with easily obtainable immunity to Con damage) allow free metamagic forever. See builds like Priya the Prismatic Priestess (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280365) or Team Solar for the insane power Persistent Spell can offer (neither of which use DMM). It's the core concept of persistent spells and buffs lasting all day in the first place (as accessed via the feat Persistent Spell) that's the real game changer in optimization.

I never said Divine Metamagic was broken; I've used it several times with Quicken, Rapid, or some of the more exotic metamagic feats without it being a problem. It's specifically applying it to Persistent Spell that's the problem. And Persistent Spell is a perfectly reasonable feat—even weak—if you don't get it for free more than once or twice a day. It's the combo of DMM, Persistent, and nightsticks and/or multiple turning pools that is the problem. Knock out one component and it's back to 'powerful, but reasonable' levels.

[eggynack]

I agree, it's insanely powerful. It doesn't, however, "give a character infinite wishes or other forms of extreme power, open up completely new abilities, etc". It takes your existing power (summoning beatsticks) and turns it up to 11. It's worth banning, but because it makes mundane characters even more obsolete than normal, not because it's 'tier 1'.
I suppose that's accurate. Part of the problem is that I'm not entirely sure what tier one means on a feat. Like, greenbound is probably the only feat on that list that''s amazing from level one, and that includes DMM persist if you get it that early. If the barrier to entry is wish scale, then greenbound isn't tier one, but if the barrier is feats that should probably be banned, it deserves the position. Also, by the time you get access to speak to plants, you can start summoning 1d4+1 creatures, and get that many instances of wall of thorns. It's certainly an amusing thing of some kind.