Pathfinder Improved Save Feats

[Talakeal]

So PF added improved Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, and Great Fortitude. They allow you to reroll a saving throw once a day.

This seems really good, until I read the catch: You must decide to use the reroll before learning the DC of the saving throw.

To me this makes them seem almost useless. It is actually possible to make the situation worse, and imagine how bad you would feel to lose a character because you decided to reroll what would have been a success? Likewise this means that I will never use them unless I obviously failed, which means they will hardly ever come up, and as it is a reroll rather than an auto succeed even when I do use them they aren't guaranteed to help, and still waste my one use per day.

Are these really trap feats, or am I just not seeing the right way to use them?

[malonkey1]

I imagine you're to use those feats to rescue yourself from a truly bad roll (e.g. a natural 1), one where you basically have nowhere to go but up.

[Waker]

Nope, you read it right. The feats are deadly traps for the unwary who just read the abbreviated feat description. Houseruling an auto-success or allowing a reroll after results have been revealed with taking the better are both fine by my book.

[Rickshaw]

Being able to reroll a 5 or less once a day on a failed will save on a charm as the only melee character in a party of glass cannons seems decent enough to me.

Wouldn't say they are traps, they certainly have their place in certain builds, just maybe not every single one.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Yeah, those feats are kind of funny because if you have a DM that's the kind who will casually let you know what the DC of a spell is, or your target's AC is, they don't work.

As for how to use the feat:
- Lightly Consider using it whenever you roll lower than 11, and you think that will fail. You have a 50/50 shot at getting something better or worse.
- Strongly consider using it whenever you roll lower than a 6. You'll have a 3/4 shot at getting something equal or better to what you rolled.
- Use it on a natural 1 if failing will be a problem, especially if you rolled it on one of your stronger saves (which is likely with two feats invested in it).

Remember that saving throws are binary in their result. If you roll a 1 when you needed a 19, the penalty is the same as if you needed a 2.

[BWR]

Houseruling them to work once you know if you've failed or not does not make them overpowered in the slightest. Heck, I'm seriously considering rolling that version together with the base forms. Who takes the ST-improving feats other than as prereqs anyway?