What are you favorite feats?

[SangoProduction]

I am wanting to see what feats people like the most, and why. (or, feat-like features)

Also, what are feats do you find the most unique?

(Any system really, but 3.5 and Pf seem the most applicable.)

[martixy]

1. Linked power: Do I even have to explain?
2. Keen Intellect: Because I frequently play Int-heavy characters and it makes them less MAD.

[Troacctid]

For me, it probably has to be Celestial Familiar. The feat is just so good.

[Ruethgar]

Redhead and Dragon Wings are pretty well tied. Redhead for the massive versatility and flavor it can provide when abused. And dragon wings just because it is cool to get(nearly) free movement and have freaking dragon wings.

[ryu]

Do things are basically feats like class features that cost a single feat slot count? If so spontaneous divination is pretty sweet.

If not there's always goodies like collegiate wizard, mindsight, craft contingent spell, and obtain familiar to free up the original for class feature trades and scale with prestige classes.

Versatile spellcaster on wizard accessed by any number of tricks is also SO GOOD.

[OldTrees1]

My favorite feats in order
1) Combat Reflexes
2) Knockback
3) Touch of Healing
4) Staggering Strike
5) Dark Stalker
6) Lifesense

[Snowbluff]

Domain/"Devotion" feats
Feats that give you new abilities. Super sick. Law, Trickery, Knowledge stand out to me.

Reserve Feats
Same as above. The Summoning and Polymorph ones are super good.

Bind Vestige
Grant some small effects.

Shape Soulmeld
Super nice, especially for Azurins.

Draconic Wildshape
Become a medium dragon, get their breath weapon and senses and stuff!

Exalted Companion
Make your AnC good and intelligent, so you can give them Vow of Poverty or other feats.

Draconic Familiar
Dragons make good familiars, as their HD give them more feats.

Celestial Familiar
Some nice familiar options.

Improved Familiar
Good options, including fighting ones

Psicrystal Affinity
Get a little buddy!

Obtain Familiar
Get a little buddy!

Martial Study/Stance
Some stances are so worth the two feats

Draconic Aura
buffs that can scale if you're related to a dragon or whatever

[zyggythorn]

Touch of golden ice.
The flavor for it is delicious, and it meshes so beautifully with certain builds- totemist abuse is a fun trick with it.
Exalted companion
Because sometimes having a good dog is better when they are a Good dog.
IUS/SUS
Because frankly, when your gm tries to gimp you for your magic item fetish, nothing quite like punching the BBEG in the face. The GM in question tried it once.
(PF) Nemesis
Great story writing, gives the GM more rope to allow certain other shenanigans, and 2 favored class bonuses/lv once completed
Wolfpack
Dungeon crasher/combat familiar shenanigans.
Shock Trooper
Because obviously.

[weckar]

Swift Hunter is probably my most favorite feat ever. It enables an archetype that would be near-impossible without it AND allows precision damage on those normally immune as a cherry on top :)

Nemesis (BoED) is also an AMAZING feat for it's no ifs/whens/buts detection abilities too. Shapeshifting evil outsiders be danged!

[Cerefel]

My favorites are Domain feats, for reasons snowbluff explained, and the feats like Swift Hunter, Daring Outlaw, etc. because they tend to give a little more power and build leeway to classes that have noticeable problems.

My favorite of those is probably Ascetic Hunter as it allows a class that is fundamentally broken to be advanced on a chassis with full BAB, good skills, and an easy entry into Horizon Walker, which has a lot of abilities comparable to the Monk's but once again on a decent chassis...

...and I'm really starting to ramble quite a bit now so I'm just going to stop. In short Ascetic Hunter makes monk tier 4 or so with little effort and I really enjoy that.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Master's Voice - UMD check to control mindless undead/constructs. Great flavour - I'm thinking of Stross' Laundry series, for example.

[Seppo87]

From 3.5

-Stand Still & Staggering Strike
Both give efficient crowd control to melee characters, enabling the "tank" role without the need of a taunt mechanic.
What I would improve: DC based on damage is too high, should give the defender a chance

-Knowledge Devotion
Great concept, I like how it blends the fluff and the crunch in a simple, clean way.
A bit too effective for its cost and yet requires too many resources, encouraging overspecialization (which I do not really love). It's not good design. Instead, I would make the DC based on the enemy CR and lower the reward (i.e. make a check, if you succeed you get +3, otherwise you get nothing)

-Elusive Target
Nice options, really impacts the playstyle of your character.

-Deadly Defense
Simple, clean, effective. If it was just slightly stronger (i.e. reduce the penalty to hit when fighting defensively by 1) it would be the perfect example of a balanced feat

Pathfinder:

-Weapon Trick
I love options for melee. The idea of a feat that evolves based on other requirements is fantastic and it really helps developing certain fighting styles.

-Eldritch heritage chain
If it wasn't clear, I like feats that expand a character's options.

---
feats I do NOT like:

-Deflect Arrows:
What is this - deflect an attack no action no check?Why? Doesn't seem fair conceptually to automatically "win" at an opposed anything. It's also situational, because if you don't need it you can't use it.
This is a feat that is either completely useless or completely invincible.
It might seem that the two things balance each other, but two faults don't make a quality, it's just a feat that's wrong twofold.
Give it a permanent active benefit (land speed? a bonus at skill checks based on quick hand-eye coordination, such as sleight of hand?)
AND the chance of deflecting one or more arrows with a check, by expending Aoos

-Weapon Focus
Feat tax that is not rewarding enough for its cost, and is a boring, static bonus

-Leap Attack, Shock Trooper (and charge feats in general) & a note on Lion Totem
While I love the concept of a brutal charger, the problem here is that they didn't really design the single feats and ACFs in a cohesive way. They didn't foresee the combinations and this resulted in numbers skyrocketing (this is not the only way of dealing thousands of damage, but is by far the most popular) it's just too easy to get pounce and use these feats to make every fight that doesn't specifically disallow charges completely trivial.
I don't hate effective melee (I love them) I hate that you have to pidgeonhole yourself into certain unintuitive routes to be effective, or be completely overshadowed because you thought a shield was cool and you don't like charging. Also, having a strategy that either works (autowin then by extreme damage) or doesn't (can't charge/can't hit) is not fun to play.

-Call truce
Aka "mundanes can't have nice things"

[Inevitability]

I can't believe Magical Training and Precocious Apprentice haven't been mentioned yet. They're just great, especially when combined.

Do you want Animate Dead on your 1st-level character (class doesn't matter)? Here you go. Perhaps you want a reserve feat instead? How about Ray of Stupidity to negate all those pesky low-level wildlife encounters? Perhaps you want Alter Self and all its cheese?

[Telonius]

Melodic Casting - more or less required on any Bard I build.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to go in a different direction entirely, and mention the Spelltouched feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm). Not because they're actually any good - most of them aren't - or even because they're feat taxes for something bigger - again, not the case.

They're simply so flavorful. You were hit by lightning, so now you can redirect it. You were hit by a magical knowledge spell, so now information just leaks into your brain from nowhere. You were exposed to Barkskin, so now your flesh has become a bit photosynthetic. Someone tried to kill you with a phantasm, and that terror has so scarred your soul that anyone trying to use divination against you sees that same thing, and might die from it. (That one's actually pretty useful, for RAW-abuse reasons.)

[ComaVision]

-Elusive Target
Nice options, really impacts the playstyle of your character.

I really like the [Tactical] feats conceptually.

[Segev]

My personal favorites are Chain Spell (because it can do some really fun things, from making the chaingun wizard out of launch bolt (when combined with Reach Spell and Arcane Thesis) to allowing a necromancer to control far more unintelligent undead than one might expect thanks to command undead lacking a HD limitation) and Mother Cyst.

Mother Cyst has flavor and is tailor-made to be an utterly terrifying monster of a controller.


I can't believe Magical Training and Precocious Apprentice haven't been mentioned yet. They're just great, especially when combined.

Do you want Animate Dead on your 1st-level character (class doesn't matter)? Here you go.

I am unfamiliar with this trick, and don't see how it works just from reading the feats. Please elaborate, as getting animate dead on a first-level necromancer is of great interest to me.

[daremetoidareyo]

combat panache. Hands down the most fun feat to play with. Act dead after get hit by the first guy to strike at you. Say out loud, "that's all of my HP." Text your DM that you're using it. Other players be like: WHAT?!

Just make the mage do all the work. Sorry bud, I was DEAD!

Or, alternatively:

Then, next round, make that guy hit his own friend and backstab him in the process.

[Yael]

Most come from World of Warcraft RPG :/

Mind over Matter: Charisma into HP, must be undead (forsaken or otherwise).

Any [Totemic] feat, cause y'know, throwing totems around feels just gud.

Link Spell, Greater Link Spell. Both are incredibly broken, cast two spells at the same action by only applying a +1 to both? Well, ok. What? The Greater version lets you cast any number at +1 at the same action? :smalleek:

From 3.5 I love the Intelligence for X feats, Keen Intellect, Faerie Mysteries Initiate (Passions), Kung-Fu Genius (for monks). I especially love those when playing wizards, I've been more tanky than the barbarian (both in HP and AC). For that note, Improved Initiative is a nice-balanced feat.

[Bobby Baratheon]

Another vote for Mother Cyst. My favorite character ever would do "tag and release" on captured bandits/rebels/monsters so that we could track them back to their lairs. Oh, and then blowing them up with a thought once we were done. :smallamused:

I'm quite partial to the Draconic feats. Some of them suck, some of them are okay, and some of them are tragically underrated. One of my favorites is Draconic Power - flat +1 caster level and +1 to the DC of spells with your draconic heritage's energy tag (hello, snowcasting!). I also really, really like Blue Dragon Lineage. Pretty much guaranteed damage with no saves or SR. Also a ranged touch attack, and damage is contingent on the spell slot sacrificed and your Charisma. Pretty easy to get ~40 damage out of a third level slot, which while not amazing is at least extremely reliable.

Another one that's cool mostly for flavor is Spellfire wielder. It's not nearly as good as it seems at first brush, but it does let you tank spells like a boss and then vomit magical energy back at the other dude. Also, it's technically a supernatural ability, which does open up some cheese IIRC.

[Zaq]

I love Fell Conspiracy from Exemplars of Evil. It's not evil or even distasteful—it's actually phenomenally useful to just about every party. At-will intraparty Message for free? Awesome. Intraparty telepathy and a crazy gigantic typeless bonus to Spot and Listen for the whole team for just 50 gp (per party, not per character) a day? Sold! The bonus to Spot and Listen is even better if your GM allows you to include familiars, animal companions, and similar critters, but even if you just apply it to the actual PCs, it's still fantastic, and basically every party can benefit from it.

There's plenty of other feats I like, but I think Fell Conspiracy is my favorite.

[ComaVision]

Never heard about [Ceremony] feats before. Very cool, too bad there are very few and they mostly suck pretty bad.

[Pugwampy]

I think these are my faves .

1. Headlong Rush : Double Damage on charge attacks for Half orcs or Orcs .

2. Chaste Life . Red Sonja feat . 2 AB points to any stat as long as you dont have sex with an NPC or Party Member . How many players have bothered poor DM for an AB feat ? All of them .

3. Dirty Fighting . Extra 1d4 damage on melee eezy peezy lemon squeezy .

4. Toughness PF rules . Level 1 players best friend

5. Selective channel . Major combat overhaul

6. Raging vigour . SChwweet extra + 2 on con and stay raged at negative hP .

7 Nymph kiss. skill points , saves , +2 Cha checks...

[Zaq]

Never heard about [Ceremony] feats before. Very cool, too bad there are very few and they mostly suck pretty bad.

Indeed, almost all of them are more hassle than they're worth. Blessing of the Godless isn't totally useless, but it's also poorly written—feats and other abilities that aren't tied to a specific class shouldn't reference "class level," and while the intro indicates that the rituals require unholy water, there's no text indicating how much unholy water you need, so you need a GM ruling on the cost of each ritual. The ones from PHB2 are a total waste of time, though, and I'm not familiar with any first-party ones outside of EoE or PHB2.

Even so, Fell Conspiracy is still amazing. And my favorite part is that it doesn't require an Evil alignment or unholy water or anything distasteful—you can have someone with Exalted feats taking and using Fell Conspiracy without anything bad happening. And since there's nothing that says that [Ceremony] feats are supernatural effects, they're extraordinary, following the general rule for feats that don't specify otherwise. (I think Blessing of the Godless is supernatural because it has the Vile tag, but other than that, we're good.)

[ComaVision]

The ones from PHB2 are a total waste of time, though, and I'm not familiar with any first-party ones outside of EoE or PHB2.

Dragon Magic has a few but a quick read-through didn't impress me.

[Zaq]

Dragon Magic has a few but a quick read-through didn't impress me.

Huh, right you are. I agree with them being profoundly unimpressive, though. I'd consider using one or two of them in very specific circumstances if I didn't have to spend a whole feat slot on them, but they're either too limited, too costly, or both to actually be worth taking as normal feats.

[daremetoidareyo]

throw anything gets honorable mention

[Amphetryon]

In b4 Leadership? Really?

[Qc Storm]

I was always a fan of Poison Healer, even though I never felt like spending two feats for it.

Gave it to one of my players at some point. We had a lot of fun with it.

[Telonius]

In b4 Leadership? Really?

Leadership is my favorite feat for somebody else to take. Yes, it's powerful, but I'm already giving tactical advice to the party newbies.

[Goodkill]

no one said two weapon fighting yet. twf and a rogue/fighter multiclass is a good combination. sorry i'm very simple ... probably because i don't have many splat books, just epic level handbook, book of vile darkness, book of exalted deeds, and some FR books.

[Pugwampy]

no one said two weapon fighting yet.

Thats my least favorite kind of feats . This game is unfair to two weapon fighters .

Its far too costly just to be on par with fatty the fat barbarian and his even fatter Axe , who has a bite option as second attack yet did not burn one feat .

[mabriss lethe]

My favorite kinds of feats do some or all of the following:

-Grant new abilities as opposed to giving bonuses
-Grow in power as a character levels up
-Have minimal entry requirements/feat taxes.
-Retain some degree of relevance throughout the game

[ComaVision]

My favorite kinds of feats do some or all of the following:

-Grant new abilities as opposed to giving bonuses
-Grow in power as a character levels up
-Have minimal entry requirements/feat taxes.
-Retain some degree of relevance throughout the game

Well, that was an incredibly succinct summary of the entire thread lol

[ryu]

Thats my least favorite kind of feats . This game is unfair to two weapon fighters .

Its far to costly just to be on par with fatty the fat barbarian and his even fatter Axe , who has a bite option as second attack yet did not burn one feat .

This is why you don't stop at two. Rogue or factotum, boot blades, elbow blades, knee blades, armor spikes, braid blades. Become the blender. Helps when combined with sneak attack or iajitsu focus.

[Pugwampy]

This is why you don't stop at two. Rogue or factotum, boot blades, elbow blades, knee blades, armor spikes, braid blades. Become the blender. Helps when combined with sneak attack or iajitsu focus.

Ummmm how much Attack Penalties are we talking about here ?

[ryu]

Ummmm how much Attack Penalties are we talking about here ?

Hilariously little to none with the right build. If you want absolutely none but similar style of play you can stack natural attack sources which stack without penalty at base.

[Snowbluff]

Ummmm how much Attack Penalties are we talking about here ?

Wand of or Arcane Dilettante Wraith Strike?

[gorfnab]

Magic in the Blood - Great on Whisper Gnomes and Drow

[Inevitability]

I am unfamiliar with this trick, and don't see how it works just from reading the feats. Please elaborate, as getting animate dead on a first-level necromancer is of great interest to me.

If you're already a necromancer, you don't need Magical Training.

The cheesy thing is that Precocious Apprentice only says:


Choose one 2nd-level spell from a school of magic you have access to.

Nowhere is it mentioned that this spell needs to be on or from your spell list. Simply pick the Death Master version of Animate Dead, which is a 2nd-level spell, and you're good to go.

On a non-arcane caster, Magical Training is required to get an arcane caster level of 1. The reading here is a little less elegant, but it boils down to assuming this:


and are treated as a sorcerer or wizard of your arcane spellcaster level (minimum 1st) for the purpose of determining level-based variables of the spells you cast. If you choose to cast spells as a sorcerer, the DC for saves against your spells is 10 + your Cha modifier. You know two 0-level spells of your choice from the sorcerer/wizard list. If you choose to cast spells as a wizard, the DC for saves against your spells is 10 + your Int modifier.

Satisfies the following prerequisites:


Arcane caster level 1st, Spellcasting ability (Int or Cha) 15,

If it does, any human/elf/half-elf can get any 2nd-level spell at the cost of two feats.

[StriderITP]

Spell Thematics because wasting a feat to show off is completely worth it.

[asnys]

Spell Thematics because wasting a feat to show off is completely worth it.

I'm AFB at the moment, and I can't find it in the SRD, but I could swear that that's an intrinsic ability of spellcasters without needing to spend a feat. Which, if I'm remembering right, means that the feat gives you an ability you already have.

[ComaVision]

I'm AFB at the moment, and I can't find it in the SRD, but I could swear that that's an intrinsic ability of spellcasters without needing to spend a feat. Which, if I'm remembering right, means that the feat gives you an ability you already have.

The feat also adds +4 to the Spellcraft check to identify the spell, IIRC.

Still a bad feat. I don't like it.

[Inevitability]

The feat also adds +4 to the Spellcraft check to identify the spell, IIRC.

Still a bad feat. I don't like it.

Also, one spell of each spell level becomes 'thematic' and you cast it at +1 CL from then on.

[Segev]

If you're already a necromancer, you don't need Magical Training.

The cheesy thing is that Precocious Apprentice only says:



Nowhere is it mentioned that this spell needs to be on or from your spell list. Simply pick the Death Master version of Animate Dead, which is a 2nd-level spell, and you're good to go.

Ah. Rats. I don't know any DMs I could talk into that liberal a reading of the feat. At least, not without them also being liberal enough to just let me take animate dead as a 2nd level spell on a wizard.

By which I mean that any circumstance in which I could talk the DMs I know into allowing the former, I could probably talk them into house-ruling the latter.

Ah well. I was kind-of hoping for something a little more iron-clad. Thanks for clearing it up, though!

[Zaq]

Spell Thematics because wasting a feat to show off is completely worth it.


I'm AFB at the moment, and I can't find it in the SRD, but I could swear that that's an intrinsic ability of spellcasters without needing to spend a feat. Which, if I'm remembering right, means that the feat gives you an ability you already have.

It's mostly there to quiet down wet blanket GMs who don't encourage their players to describe things creatively.

It sucks that such a thing would need to exist, and if your GM isn't a wet blanket, you shouldn't ever take the feat, but it can be useful if you need to crowbar in more flavor than your GM usually allows. (It's never a high-power feat, but no one is saying that it is.)

[AnimeTheCat]

I like the corpse crafter feats. They're fun :smallbiggrin: make my thingies that are already kinda good better? hokay!

I also like taking shield specialization and shield ward on characters that use shields. It gives a nice boost to your touch AC as well as other stuff and helps (not entirely) cover a gap in your defenses. They're not the best feats to be sure, but they're fun for me.

[Honest Tiefling]

Spell Thematics because wasting a feat to show off is completely worth it.

The only reason I'm not voting for this is that it should be free for spellcasters in my opinion (other then the actual mechanical benefits). Why did you do this, WOTC? The one I am voting for is Breadth of Experience. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/breadth-of-experience) It might be about as useful as Spell Thematics, but I do love my Knowledge Skill rolls.

[Bakkan]

Extend Spell - I use it so often on mid- to high-level casters. At +1 effective spell level, it's super cheap once you get 4th-level spells and above, and once you're there, extended hours/level spells last close to all day.

Shape Soulmeld - See my signature.

Knowledge Devotion - Because I like turning my skill points into damage.

[Rebel7284]

Versatile Spellcaster
Divine Metamagic
Font of Inspiration

[Someguy231]

Since I usually play as a warblade, I tend to go with the improved unarmed and superior unarmed strike feats to simulate the monk's unarmed attacks, while having full BAB, maneuvers, and d12 hit die. And before someone says that's not super powerful, I like to punch and kick things to death. That's just my play style.

[AnimusBane]

If you're Nowhere is it mentioned that this spell needs to be on or from your spell list. Simply pick the Death Master version of Animate Dead, which is a 2nd-level spell, and you're good to go.

On a non-arcane caster, Magical Training is required to get an arcane caster level of 1. The reading here is a little less elegant, but it boils down to assuming this:


would you still know the spell after you hit third level however without using one of you spell learnt on level up (since you can't learn it as a wizard as a 2nd level spell)? Knowing the spell or rather casting it as a DC8 check seems to be the benifit you lose.

[Troacctid]

would you still know the spell after you hit third level however without using one of you spell learnt on level up (since you can't learn it as a wizard as a 2nd level spell)? Knowing the spell or rather casting it as a DC8 check seems to be the benifit you lose.
Once you become able to cast 2nd level spells, you lose the original benefit of the feat, including the ability to cast the spell. You'll need to select it as one of your known spells if you want to keep casting it.

[radthemad4]

Keen Intellect (Yes, Int to Willsaves, but as a nice bonus I can also totally heal, see, sense motives and survive!)
Shape Soulmeld
Binding Feat Tree
Combat Reflexes
Inhuman Reach
Mage Slayer
Martial Study/Training (ToB/PoW)
Wolf Berserker (+4 to trip, can qualify for improved trip using this instead of combat expertise and stacks with improved trip)
Barroom Brawler (PF) (especially if Martial Study and/or Martial Training from PoW are in the game) or with that Iron Caster thing linked earlier
That Path of War Fighter that gets an initiator level and can be combined with that Fighter Archetype that gets Martial Flexibility (PF/DSP)
Morphic Familiar (Changeling Wizard Substitution 5) combined with feats that grant more familiar options (improved, celestial, shadow, etc.) (It's a Hippogriff! Now it's a Coure Eladrin! Now it's a Blink Dog! Now it's an Imp! Now it's a Beguiler (creature with true sight)!, etc.)
Effortless Trickery (PF): Maintain concentration spell on illusion as a swift action and use standard for other spells
Gnome Illusionist cantrip silent image
Flyby Attack (Especially combined with a high speed)
Fast Study (PF)
Eldritch Heritage (PF) if you can get free Skill Focus by being a PF Half Elf or that PF Human alternate racial trait
Ready Response (PF/DSP)
Apprentice (PHB2) if your DM agrees to let you use it to swap out spells for off list spells

[bloated glutton]

Animal Devotion: nicely scaling buffs, crazy versatile.
Mage Slayer: saves, no more casting on the defense.
Nymph's Kiss: saves, skill points, +2 cha checks.
Words of Creation: double inspire courage, lots of flavour.
Mother Cyst: not super effective, but i just like the feel on this one.
Illithid Inheritor Feats: why not zoidberg?
Font of Inspiration: int to atk & dmg all day.
Divine Metamagic: be cleric zilla.

[Akal Saris]

I really like reserve feats. The [Polymorph] one is my favorite since it's a great source of temporary HP for a gish.

I also like the rogue-like 'package' of Craven and Darkstalker.

I like the Poison Healer feat enough that I built a character around it :P