Little-used Feats

[Dagroth]

Another person's thread about the GM giving out loads of extra feats reminded me of all the Feats in 3.5 that get ignored because of the sheer amount of Feat-Starvation that most builds have.

So, to address that, I was thinking of instituting a House Rule in my next game...

Starting at 1st level, a character may pick a "Heritage" and gains the base Feat for that Heritage. Luck would be considered a Heritage. There's Fey, Draconic, Aberration and others (can't think of them all at the moment). Every odd-numbered level after 1st, a character picks another feat from their Heritage. A character cannot pick a duplicate of a feat they already have (even if they feat says they can) until 11th level.

I'm sure there are other feat-types that should be included...

Any ideas? Thoughts?

[Flickerdart]

There are a couple of feat subsystems scattered through the books. Psionic meditation (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827b) is one, the Combat Focus feats in PHBII are another. These would make excellent candidates for heritage-ing.

[daremetoidareyo]

The draconic prophesizer feats are another group. Dreamtouched feats from secrets of sarlona are another. Tainted feats from heroes of horror, and host feats from complete psi/secrets of sarlona.

[ExLibrisMortis]

There are some martial arts feats that are very difficult to qualify for. The worst example, Might Works Mastery II, has the following feats as requirements:


Improved Unarmed Strike
Improved Grapple
Stunning Fist
Choke Hold
Fists of Iron
Deflect Arrows
Mighty Works Mastery I (requires all the above)
Improved Trip
Earth's Embrace
Ki Shout
Iron Will

Yes, that's 11 prerequisite feats. The feat lets you deal 1d4 strength damage with a Stunning Fist attack (instead of the stun). As one of the top ten sad moments in monk history, this would make for a great heritage progression.


There are a good number of not-so-powerful incarnum feats, as well. Worth having a look at - if those feats are free, it may just about push things like Combat Expertise into the 'nice to have' zone.

[Dagroth]

So... sort of a Martial Arts Heritage? I could see that.

Though one of the best things about the Luck, Draconic, Fey, Celestial, etc. Heritage Feats is how they synergize with each other. Fey Skin, for example could give you DR 5/cold iron (Though I would change the text to "Fey Heritage feats", rather than "Feats that require the Fey Heritage Feat".) The more Luck feats you have, the more re-rolls (and things you can use the re-rolls on) you get. etc.

[ExLibrisMortis]

So... sort of a Martial Arts Heritage? I could see that.

Though one of the best things about the Luck, Draconic, Fey, Celestial, etc. Heritage Feats is how they synergize with each other. Fey Skin, for example could give you DR 5/cold iron (Though I would change the text to "Fey Heritage feats", rather than "Feats that require the Fey Heritage Feat".) The more Luck feats you have, the more re-rolls (and things you can use the re-rolls on) you get. etc.
If you want that particular mechanic - and why shouldn't you, it's a nice one - just change Toughness to provide +3 hp per Martial Arts feat, and add it to the heritage progression. Or do a similar thing with Iron Will (+1 will, and another +1 per feat), Dodge (+1 AC, and another +1 per feat), or any other ultraweak feat.

[Dagroth]

Ooo... I like the Dodge one. +1 Dodge bonus to AC vs. a single target for every (whatever) Feat. You can apply all of this bonus to one target, or split it up among multiple targets. Thus, if you have Dodge & 3 other qualifying feats, you have a total of +4 Dodge bonus... giving you +4 vs. one opponent, +2 vs. each of two opponents, +1 vs. one opponent & +3 vs. another opponent or any other combination adding up to your total bonus.