True Believer

[Human Paragon 3]

I'm making an army of spear-wielding warriors who serve a dark magician / cult leader. They are supposed to be tough warriors with a fanatical devotion to their leader and cause.

I gave them six levels of NPC warrior, and then slapped on a couple of martial study feats to make them tougher.

I was considering martial stance, but none of the low-level stances are worth giving these guys IMO.

I wanted to give them a feat that would both add to their staying power and be thematically aligned, so I chose True Believer.

Yes, I know this is normally just taken as a prerequisite for relics.

Here is my thinking on why this is not a dumb idea. The feat gives +2 to a save 1/day. If they are NPCs who will only ever be seen once, and they all have it, and I would only trigger the feat if they failed a save by 2 or less, this comes out looking a lot more like an effective +2 on all saves.

Does this make sense, or is there a better feat I could employ?

[Extra Anchovies]

It would take a bit more bookkeeping than giving them all continuous-effect feats, so that's a possible downside. If they don't have Improved Initiative, Improved Toughness, or one of the "+2 to one type of save" feats, just give one of those instead. Less work for you.

ETA: If you want ToB-using NPC mooks, take a look at this class (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=49.0) as an alternative to martial study/stance.

[Zaq]

The power of that aspect of the feat depends on how much awareness of game information you display at the table.

For example, if you know that you're making a DC 16 Will save, you know that it's a good idea to use your True Believer bonus on a 14 or 15, but not on a 13 or a 17. But if you just know that you're making a Will save, and you don't know what the save DC is, then you don't necessarily know when to use your True Believer bonus. If you roll pretty low or pretty high, you can probably guess that it would be a waste to invoke True Believer, but there's still a pretty broad middle range where you just wouldn't know if True Believer will put you over the mark. Sure, you might get lucky and use it right when it's exactly what you need, but it's still going to be less valuable than an always-on "+2 to all saves."

Now, you're the GM. You're pretty much always going to have more information than the players will. If your table always announces save DCs before the die is rolled, and you're thus not using any more information than is always there, I'd say your use of True Believer is legit. But if you routinely call for the players to just "make a Reflex save" without telling them the DC ahead of time, but you still know in advance that the party Wizard's Glitterdust is always a DC 16 Will save, then you're specifically using metagame knowledge that the players can't use, and that seems a little less than fair to me. Yes, the GM is always going to have more information and more options than the players do, and I'm not objecting to that. But specifically using metagame knowledge that isn't open to all just doesn't seem right to me. You might know that it's a DC 16 Will save, so you invoke True Believer when you get a total of 14 or 15 on your save, but if characters in your game don't usually know those kinds of numbers, then the NPCs in question shouldn't know those kinds of numbers either, you know?

So, to sum up, if everyone at the table has foreknowledge of save DCs, then True Believer can be useful in the way you're intending, at least for NPCs who aren't expected to last very long. If no one, including you, has foreknowledge of save DCs, then it's going to be a lot riskier, and you might want to go with a more reliable option. If you have foreknowledge of save DCs and the players don't, then the feat will still be effective, but you're still taking advantage of metagame knowledge in a way that I don't think a GM should have to do.

[Platymus Pus]

I'm making an army of spear-wielding warriors who serve a dark magician / cult leader. They are supposed to be tough warriors with a fanatical devotion to their leader and cause.

I gave them six levels of NPC warrior, and then slapped on a couple of martial study feats to make them tougher.

I was considering martial stance, but none of the low-level stances are worth giving these guys IMO.

I wanted to give them a feat that would both add to their staying power and be thematically aligned, so I chose True Believer.

Yes, I know this is normally just taken as a prerequisite for relics.

Here is my thinking on why this is not a dumb idea. The feat gives +2 to a save 1/day. If they are NPCs who will only ever be seen once, and they all have it, and I would only trigger the feat if they failed a save by 2 or less, this comes out looking a lot more like an effective +2 on all saves.

Does this make sense, or is there a better feat I could employ?

Fanatical devotion to their leader and cause you say.
How well is there int and wis really going to be then?
I think I see why the dark magician is ruling things.

[Human Paragon 3]

I give my players the DCs of saves they need to make, typically. I do worry about book keeping now that it's been mentioned. Just giving them lighting reflexes would probably be better, as my party forces ref saves more often than any other type.

[mabriss lethe]

Alternately, you could give them access to one or two devotion feats. Fanatical cultists of a dark magician scream Death and or Evil devotion.

Though as a DM I agree that it's a huge help to keep your mooks streamlined so that you juggle as few numbers as possible and go for simple static bonuses where possible.