Jowgen
2014-12-08, 01:11 PM
The Keen-eared scout feat from PHII allows the character to deduce a whole lot of information from their surroundings by sound alone, depending on whether you beat the DC to hear something by 5, 10, 15 or 20. Not that hard to achieve reliably with a little skill optimization, and the benefits are unreal when you look at them in detail
First you get the size speed and direction of a source of noise. Not much to write home about really, although the speed bit can be handy for certain purposes.
Second, you get the pinpoint the location of the source, with a +5 bonuses if its an invisible creature, effectively setting the difficulty one stage lower.
Third you determine the type armor heard creatures are wearing and what they are carrying. This seems pretty lackluster, until you realize that it technically allows you to know every piece of carried equipment. Depending on the DM, this can translate to hearing someone sneeze and instantly knowing the exact amount of potion vials, hidden weapons and gold-pieces that creature has on them. Or sittting in a bustling restaurant and knowing just how many swords and bows there are in the room. How much ammunition an enemy archer has left. I could go on but I won't.
Lastly, you determine the type and subtypes of a creature. You can know exactly what type of creature you're up against without a single rank in a knowledge skill. Any outsider or extraplanr sub-type creature will be obvious to you. Mundane disguises can not fool you, and neither can Disguise Self. Alternate Form is equally useless, meaning you always know a Dragon, vampire or wildshaped Druid when you see... well, hear one. Theoretically, not even Deities can hide from your ears, unless they somehow manage to rid themselves of their deity type, which might not actually be possible.
The only thing that separates this feat from a super-powered version of blindsight is that it does not work on things that are silent. That is, unless you can find away to make silent things make sounds. Hitting something real hard might produce resonance you can hear. An echo might work in a cave. Sonic attacks are probably your friend in this. Honestly, turning this feat into a form of Echo-location doesn't seem all that hard.
The list of things that can counter this feat is rather short to my knowledge. A Silence spell is the obvious one, followed by the Deafened condition, which isn't all that common due to generally being a lackluster debuff. Lastly, an Illusion that includes Auditory components might be able to fool you, provided its save DC is rather high, but even then you'd arguably get a save with every reactive listen check you can make.
Am I missing something, or does this feat not get enough attention?
First you get the size speed and direction of a source of noise. Not much to write home about really, although the speed bit can be handy for certain purposes.
Second, you get the pinpoint the location of the source, with a +5 bonuses if its an invisible creature, effectively setting the difficulty one stage lower.
Third you determine the type armor heard creatures are wearing and what they are carrying. This seems pretty lackluster, until you realize that it technically allows you to know every piece of carried equipment. Depending on the DM, this can translate to hearing someone sneeze and instantly knowing the exact amount of potion vials, hidden weapons and gold-pieces that creature has on them. Or sittting in a bustling restaurant and knowing just how many swords and bows there are in the room. How much ammunition an enemy archer has left. I could go on but I won't.
Lastly, you determine the type and subtypes of a creature. You can know exactly what type of creature you're up against without a single rank in a knowledge skill. Any outsider or extraplanr sub-type creature will be obvious to you. Mundane disguises can not fool you, and neither can Disguise Self. Alternate Form is equally useless, meaning you always know a Dragon, vampire or wildshaped Druid when you see... well, hear one. Theoretically, not even Deities can hide from your ears, unless they somehow manage to rid themselves of their deity type, which might not actually be possible.
The only thing that separates this feat from a super-powered version of blindsight is that it does not work on things that are silent. That is, unless you can find away to make silent things make sounds. Hitting something real hard might produce resonance you can hear. An echo might work in a cave. Sonic attacks are probably your friend in this. Honestly, turning this feat into a form of Echo-location doesn't seem all that hard.
The list of things that can counter this feat is rather short to my knowledge. A Silence spell is the obvious one, followed by the Deafened condition, which isn't all that common due to generally being a lackluster debuff. Lastly, an Illusion that includes Auditory components might be able to fool you, provided its save DC is rather high, but even then you'd arguably get a save with every reactive listen check you can make.
Am I missing something, or does this feat not get enough attention?