How do you judge if a Feat is good?

[EisenKreutzer]

I don't have particularly good system mastery. I love Pathfinder, especially building characters, but I have a hard time building strong character without the help of guides.

One of the things I find particularly challenging is judging wether or not a Feat is worthwhile or not. The same goes for spells as well, but Feats I find especially challenging.

So, Playground, how do you judge Feat quality?
How often are your initial reactions wrong?
How much play do you generally need with a Feat to know for certain if it is strong or weak?

[ArendK]

I don't have particularly good system mastery. I love Pathfinder, especially building characters, but I have a hard time building strong character without the help of guides.

One of the things I find particularly challenging is judging wether or not a Feat is worthwhile or not. The same goes for spells as well, but Feats I find especially challenging.

So, Playground, how do you judge Feat quality?
How often are your initial reactions wrong?
How much play do you generally need with a Feat to know for certain if it is strong or weak?

Does it achieve the intended effect within the bounds of the system? Can it be refluffed without any mechanical concerns? Does it actually work within the rules set? Does the feat seem unnecessary (ala Research from Eberron Campaign Setting)? Is it a feat I'm going to use regularly and can I replicate the effects of the feat through other means (ala Alertness and Eyes of the Eagle).

Most of the time, I'm right about the mechanics, but not the amount of use of a feat (Improved Initiative is useless if you rarely ever do combat, the Social feats are useless are useless in dungeon and combat crawls, etc. etc. Varies by campaign). Not much I can do about that, but such is life.

[weckar]

Well, there are generally two types of feats: Feats that add options, and feats that improve your options. The first are almost universally better than the latter.

[Florian]

I mostly gm, so I started to get interesting stuff organized in Numbers/Excel to ease the task of NPC creation.

Using tabs, most of the time, I clump stuff together by common theme and have some simple go-to feat-chains, items, spells or interesting archetypes for that theme listed, like "Archery", "Necromancy", "Mind Control", "Tanking" or "Dreams and Dreamscapes". An important one is "Common prereqs and their replacements".

So, when new stuff comes out, I compare it with the "standard" and see if it´s better, worse or just gives a different angle to something old or, rarely, opens up something new.

After that, I hit the forums, especially the guide discussions and exchange ideas on what can be done with the new stuff.

[Mordaedil]

Does it add skill points? Pass. Do you need it to take a prestige class? Take it, unless you can get it in a smarter way (such as taking master specialist to qualify for archmage)

Does it give give you hit points or saving throws? Don't bother with it unless it scales in a positive way. Improved toughness and Unearthly grace are way better than most other alternatives.

Otherwise stick with feats that increase options. If it looks like fun, run it by your DM and see if he thinks it does the same thing you do, before taking it.

[Barstro]

First, it completely depends on the game. My group doesn't do much roleplaying, so anything that doesn't help combat in some way is not good for us.

After that, it all depends on character concept. I look at where I want my character to be in the late teens and take the feats that get it there. What others consider good or bad could be the opposite for your particular build. If there are extra spots after I've mapped out a build, I'll look to a guide for other suggestions.

[upho]

I don't have particularly good system mastery. I love Pathfinder, especially building characters, but I have a hard time building strong character without the help of guides.

One of the things I find particularly challenging is judging wether or not a Feat is worthwhile or not. The same goes for spells as well, but Feats I find especially challenging.I also think feats tend to be more difficult than most other components to get right, especially when building characters which are primarily martial.


So, Playground, how do you judge Feat quality?Basically the same way as I judge other options. That is, always in the context of how well the feat helps the character achieve whatever mechanical objectives I've set for it, and always in relation to the costs involved and in comparison to other accessible options (if any) which grant similar benefits. So if I'm building say a trip focused warder and have a few levels open for class dips, it would probably be a good idea to take a couple of levels of Lorewarden fighter for the bonus combat feats and the free Combat Expertise, while the "Int 13" prerequisite of CE and related feats means I'd likely be better off with a different class/archetype dip and Dirty Fighting if I was building a trip focused warlord.

I think combat feats tend to be more tricky to judge on their own because they're often vital parts of feat chains and/or action combos, and their benefit vs cost ratios are therefore often highly build dependent. For example, Weapon Focus has an awful benefit vs cost ratio if you have to use a feat slot for it and your character doesn't need the benefits of some other option which requires WF. But if you can get WF by buying/crafting a Cracked Opalescent White Pyramid ioun in a Wayfinder (2,000 gp) and you really want another option which requires it, WF likely has one of the best cost vs benefit ratios of all feats in the game. Likewise, a feat which is generally very strong for builds of X broad category may be weak for certain builds with a less common mechanical focus within said category. For example, Power Attack is generally one of the best feats for Str based melee builds, but may be weak for say a Str based melee control/debuff build (as such a combat style may very well be highly effective regardless of its hp damage output potential, but not without a high attack bonus).

But if simply judging by how significant and unique benefit a feat offers in comparison to its cost, and how broadly this benefit applies, I think it's pretty easy to determine the game's "best" feats. I'd say this includes for example staple combat feats such as Power Attack, Dirty Fighting, Deadly Aim and Rapid Shot, strong casting feats such as Quickened Spell and Augment Summoning, plus a few infamously OP ones like Leadership and Sacred Geometry.


How often are your initial reactions wrong?When reading up on a feat for the first time? If I'm at least somewhat familiar with the most closely related mechanics, my initial reactions are very close to the actual "truth" in my games nowadays. (When it comes to more specialized feats related to stuff I'm not at all familiar with, like say a feat only applying specifically to occultists, I of course rarely have an initial reaction. And back when I first played 3.0, I honestly think I was more often wrong than right... :smallredface:)


How much play do you generally need with a Feat to know for certain if it is strong or weak?I usually don't need any play (but see also above).

Speaking of play to determine a feat's actual potency, I believe a lack of enough play is often the reason why I quite often read posts on for example the Paizo boards where the value of certain combat feats seems off. Since many combat feats provide less self-contained benefits than other options, often having little effects on their own but potentially huge effects in the right combo including other options, accurately judging their value without play tend to require quite a lot of system mastery and a lot of experience visualizing the often complex mechanical net effects in actual play. The same can be said about quite a few martial maneuvers from PoW.

(An example of this complexity, just off the top of my head, could be the cost vs benefit ratio and applicability of the feats in the Brute Style chain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/brute-assault-combat/) when compared to the potential of Wolf Style (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wolf-style-combat-style/) and Wolf Trip (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wolf-trip-wolf-style/). Both chains have similar benefits and are (seemingly) designed for very similar combat styles, but have quite different prerequisites and many different mechanical details. I think accurately determining which one is generally better than the other, and for which builds the opposite would be true or for which builds both chains would be preferable, is a quite daunting and difficult task for most players who haven't already tried out both alternatives with various build combos in several actual in-game combats.)

[Calthropstu]

Well, there are generally two types of feats: Feats that add options, and feats that improve your options. The first are almost universally better than the latter.

I disagree. Feats that increase spell resistance penetration, improve the effects of combat maneuvers, increase the number of attacks or dc etc are very usable and among the best and most used feats in the game.

[legomaster00156]

Ok, let's go with some of the big questions.


Does this feat expand my options?
Does this feat make me better at my build's job?
Is this feat an unavoidable prerequisite for a separate feat that I determine valuable to my build?
Should this even be a feat, or should it be something you can do anyway?

Examples of feats that expand options include metamagic feats and item creation feats. These allow you to sculpt your strategy for the situation, or allow you do something you couldn't before (like create magic items). These are usually good feats.
Examples of feats that make one better at their job include staples like Power Attack, skill bonus-increasing feats, etc. These are also usually good feats.
Unavoidable prerequisites tend to be considered feat taxes. Feats like this are Point-Blank Shot (to open up a variety of archery builds). These tend to be bad feats, but some are good.
Feats that do things that should be accomplishable without them include egregious examples like Call Truce, and indeed many social feats from Ultimate Intrigue. These are almost universally considered bad feats, not because the abilities they give are bad, but because they shouldn't require a feat to be able to perform.

[dude123nice]

How often is a feat going to come into play and how good is the action it provides/improves?

For example all Improved [Maneuver] add great bonuses and options for using that particular maneuver, so they are great if you plan on using that maneuver often, but aren't worth it if you will only use it sporadically. Improving spell penetration, even if just a little bit, is very useful because casters encounter spell resistance at mid to high levels all the time. Improving save DCs is useful only for full casters, or 3/4 casters that force saves a lot of time, but if you are playing something like a magus who doesn't use a lot of spells with saves, you probably don't need it. Improving damage and to to hit sounds great in theory for martial classes, so you would think that they would always want to grab Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization lines if they can, but the bonuses from those feats are very small, even if you use them all the time, so those feats should only be taken if you really don't have any better options at the time. On the other hand if you want to make a Dex build, taking one of the Dex to damage feats is very useful, since the bonus to damage is much greater than weapon Specialization, and it also means you can dump strength. Extra Rage/Channel/Arcana/etc are useful if you find yourself running out of that particular resource all the time. You already KNOW you will be using the benefits from that feat a lot. Getting Metamagic feats is like maneuver feats, but for casters. Take them if you are going to make regular use of them. So especially full casters want to grab a lot of them. But all 1/2 and even some 3/4 casters should be careful of feats that increase spell level by to much, since they won't be able to make a lot of use of them.

BTW, all this advice assumes you are aiming to optimize your character mechanically. If you are more interested in fluff and storytelling you can probably take some feats just to match your character's themes. It depends on how challenging the game you are playing is. So it basically boils down to your DM.

[Tuvarkz]

I make a cookie cutter build where the feat might fit, and then compare whether the feat is an improvement over what already is or not.
If the feat enables a new build, I compare it against another similar build (same role/class/etc as much as possible) and see whether there's a comparative advantage.
And sometimes, you just see Smash from the Air, drool at it, and say: "Yes."