Replacing Exalted Feats?

[Warchon]

A player in my party has a Druid with VoP, houseruled to be allowed despite TN alignment.
Even by level 6, we are starting to scrape the barrel in regards to what bonus feats it grants. A lot of what she qualifies for is useless--Exalted Companion is technically legal but there is no such thing as a True Neutral Celestial animal, and she won't take allegiance feats for role playing reasons--so I'm looking into legal ways to replace these feats with something else.
I'm aware there's a spell from some source that replaces any feat with some fiendish heritage line, and that will be fun when we can access the spell level, is there another option before then?

To be clear: we are not looking for anything over powered. The campaign is very light on treasure, and her VoP benefits alone might actually end up being greater than what others are getting via gear. Just looking for some way to make these bonus feats not -completely- worthless.

If there's some obscure resource that lets you forego a feat and just take +2 hit points, that's probably going to be enough to tempt her.

[eggynack]

I'm a bit surprised she's having trouble so early. First level you pick up nymph's kiss, second level exalted companion (which actually is useful, because it can let the companion take vow of poverty as well, and I'm honestly not sure what the issue is with having the companion be good), fourth level maybe touch of golden ice, 6th, I suppose would be intuitive attack, 8th is exalted wild shape, 10th is sanctify natural attack, 12th, I dunno, nimbus of light? Then animal friend? What I suppose I'm getting at is that you face a bit of a paucity at 6th that stops being quite so bad for 8th and 10th.

Anyway, suggestions. First, champions of valor and player's guide to faerun are a thing. There're a few pretty good ones hanging out there. Not, like, actually good, but good enough to stave off the tragedy of featlessness for a bit. Second, if at all possible, try to access words of creation. It takes super high intelligence and charisma, but if she can pull it off then the spell altering thing is decent.

[Deophaun]

A common solution is to allow Incarnum feats to qualify as VoP bonus feats.

[Telonius]

If there's some obscure resource that lets you forego a feat and just take +2 hit points, that's probably going to be enough to tempt her.

Well, there's Toughness...? :smallbiggrin:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A common solution is to allow Incarnum feats to qualify as VoP bonus feats.I was gonna suggest this, so I'll just second it, instead. It'd work even better as a TN druid.

[Zaq]

A common solution is to allow Incarnum feats to qualify as VoP bonus feats.


I was gonna suggest this, so I'll just second it, instead. It'd work even better as a TN druid.

N.B.: Shape Soulmeld and Open [x] Chakra are not actually [Incarnum] feats, so if the intent is to allow the VoP character to have access to soulmelds that would mitigate the loss of items (for example, by providing limited access to flight), this will not work on its own. You're already freestyling and houseruling if you bring this in, so it's not like it's difficult in any stretch of the imagination to fix this potential oversight, but it is still something to be aware of.

I'm also fond of the houserule that allows one to take the Devotion ("[Domain]") feats from CChamp instead of Exalted feats. Most of them stack in some way (uses/day, if nothing else) upon taking them multiple times, so allowing the character to break the "only 2 different unique Devotion feats on any character" rule is actually kind of optional. Animal Devotion, in particular, is especially interesting on a Druid (a Druid may need it less than a Fighter, but you can't call it inappropriate), though there are quite a few options.

[Bucky]

Exalted Companion is technically legal but there is no such thing as a True Neutral Celestial animal

This should be houseruled under the same rule that let the Druid take the vow in the first place. Celestial animals can shift their alignment like any other NPC.

[Bronk]

A lot of what she qualifies for is useless--Exalted Companion is technically legal but there is no such thing as a True Neutral Celestial animal, and she won't take allegiance feats for role playing reasons--so I'm looking into legal ways to replace these feats with something else.

I'd say, have the DM refluff everything so that there's still the original exalted feats, but now there's a whole bunch of equivalent neutral feats that key off of neutrality with lore based around elementals, modrons, rilmani, and so on. In this case, the companion could be chosen from some other list of neutral magical beasts that the DM makes up or approves, Touch of Golden Ice could be switched to some kind of entanglement, and so on.

[Troacctid]

Just remove the Exalted restriction and allow her to take any feats she wants. NBD. It's a dumb restriction anyway.

[eggynack]

Just remove the Exalted restriction and allow her to take any feats she wants. NBD. It's a dumb restriction anyway.
Not sure I love that. On a monk, sure. What're they doing with feats that anyone cares about? But druids get some strong stuff. This change would threaten to make VoP actually kinda plausible. Strikes me as a bit risky.

[Climowitz]

Allow him to take wild feats instead. Those that grant a special use of wild shape

[Nifft]

Not sure I love that. On a monk, sure. What're they doing with feats that anyone cares about? But druids get some strong stuff. This change would threaten to make VoP actually kinda plausible. Strikes me as a bit risky.

You're probably right, but that phrasing...

I kinda like it when popular options are also plausible / viable.

[eggynack]

You're probably right, but that phrasing...

I kinda like it when popular options are also plausible / viable.
It's tricky with high tier classes. If an option is plausible then it represents a marginal power increase to the class in question, which isn't necessarily where you want to be with druids. This is doubly the case for super swingy options like VoP. It could still be worse than cash in higher optimization games (feats are generally going to have reduced marginal utility the more of them you get), but if it's better then there's a lot of power on the line. Now the optimal druid has like a bazillion feats scattered about. Risky.

[Psyren]

Incarnum and Wild feats sound fine to me. You could also do Luck feats and refluff as "providence" or something.