Rank these homebrew feats

[graeylin]

Fortunate enough in a Pathfinder game to have a DM offering some homebrew feats.

Just curious how you would rank them in terms of "Must take/you'd be an idiot to turn it down" versus "meh, it's nice, but..."

These are in ADDITION to the normal feats available via levels, and you must take one of these at the levels offered, you can't swap if for a standard feat. So, the rankings should be subjective to these feats being compared to these feats only.

And, background: We are 8th level, and probably not going to make it to 20th. 12th might be an expected ending of the campaign. And since some feats are situational, I am playing a herald caller cleric, if that matters to your ranking.

- +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls
- +2 luck bonus to AC
- +3 bonus to one skill
- +2 bonus to saves
- low-light vision
- darkvision 30 ft. or +30 ft.
- +10 bonus hit points
- +2 bonus to initiative
- damage reduction 3/-
- 5 resistance to one type of energy or +5 to existing resistance
- +5 ft. bonus to movement speed
- two cantrips, one level 1 spell 1/day
- +2 bonus to saving throws vs one school of magic
- +2 bonus to one ability score
- Ranger Training (Gain 1st level abilities of a Ranger and count as a 1st level Ranger without any other class benefits.)
- Blindness Immunity
- One 2nd level druid or cleric spell, 2/day
- +2 bonus to DC when casting divination spells
- Favored Enemy
- Huntsman Weapon: Any weapon being wielded is considered to have the Huntsman enhancement.
- Foehunter Traits: +2 Dexterity, Acid Resistance 10, +2 racial bonus to Survival & Knowledge (Nature) checks, +1d6 damage after moving 10 ft. or more
- Commune with Birds

[Silvercrys]

Tier 1
Foehunter Traits (Weapon users)
+2 Ability Score
+2 Initiative
+2 Saves
+2 Attack/Damage (weapon users)

Tier 2
+2 to AC
Darkvision if you don't have it
+10 HP
DR 3/-- for non-barb frontliners

Tier 3
everything else is pretty situational or bad

Tiers are unordered.

Seems like Foehunter Traits are totally made up, I can't find them anywhere. For the record.

[King of Nowhere]

- +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls

very strong for every martial character. it's weapon focus, greater weapon focus and weapon specialization in one single feat, and it applies to any weapon.



- +2 luck bonus to AC


situational. if your build relies on AC, and you often fight against physical attacks, it may be worth taking. but I generally don't think it would be worth a feat.



- +3 bonus to one skill

this feat already exists, it's called skill focus. And I've never seen anyone pick it except as prerequisite for prestige classes.


- +2 bonus to saves

to all saves, or to one save? to one save, there are already feats for it. +2 to all three saves, that would be nice if you have feats to spare. unless you are playing at the level of optiimization where you have immunity anyway.


- low-light vision

is there even a group who keeps track of stuff like this?


- darkvision 30 ft. or +30 ft.

gaining darkvision if you lack it would be useful, though probably not feat-worthy. increasing range of darkvision... meh. how often is that relevant?


- +10 bonus hit points

it's better than the regular feat that gives +3, but still not many are going to take it


- +2 bonus to initiative
there's already improved initiative for +4. if they stack, I can see people wanting it. you roll initiative every fight, and going first makes a difference.

- damage reduction 3/-
unless you routinely fight hordes of mooks, it's not going to be a significant reduction.

- 5 resistance to one type of energy or +5 to existing resistance
unless you are running a campaign with enemies tied to a speific element, it's too specific to be useful often. And it's only 5.

- +5 ft. bonus to movement speed
i could see a slow character wanting it if it was +10

- two cantrips, one level 1 spell 1/day
huge if you take it at first level, becomes useless by level 6 or so

- +2 bonus to saving throws vs one school of magic
unless your whole campaign revolves around one theme, it's too specific to be of much use

- +2 bonus to one ability score
BROKEN. Absolutely. I can see a wizard getting nothing but that feat, if allowed.
Unless it didn't stack with item bonus, in which case it would be useless

- Ranger Training (Gain 1st level abilities of a Ranger and count as a 1st level Ranger without any other class benefits.)
I don't know pathfinder rangers, can't say

- Blindness Immunity
I've been playing at least 6 years, the last two in two different groups, and I've never seen anyone being blinded, ever.

- One 2nd level druid or cleric spell, 2/day

this also would be strong early and useless later


- +2 bonus to DC when casting divination spells
I can see a diviner taking that.

- Favored Enemy
I fear what would happen with a ranger taking this feat 5 or 6 times and stacking it with existing favored enemies. I also fear it would be utterly useless unless the campaign revolved around a specific enemy

- Huntsman Weapon: Any weapon being wielded is considered to have the Huntsman enhancement.
don't know it, can't say. but as a rule of thumb it is a bad idea to have a feat replicate a piace of magic. you want the enchantment, you buy it, and save the feat for something you can't get otherwise.

- Foehunter Traits: +2 Dexterity, Acid Resistance 10, +2 racial bonus to Survival & Knowledge (Nature) checks, +1d6 damage after moving 10 ft. or more

I hope you're not getting all that stuff with a single feat; if that's the case, I would like to talk with your DM and ask him WTF was he thinking when he made it.


- Commune with Birds
No idea what it does, can't say.

[FearlessGnome]

- +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls
- +2 luck bonus to AC
- +3 bonus to one skill
- +2 bonus to saves
- low-light vision
- darkvision 30 ft. or +30 ft.
- +10 bonus hit points
- +2 bonus to initiative
- damage reduction 3/-
- 5 resistance to one type of energy or +5 to existing resistance
- +5 ft. bonus to movement speed
- two cantrips, one level 1 spell 1/day
- +2 bonus to saving throws vs one school of magic
- +2 bonus to one ability score
- Ranger Training (Gain 1st level abilities of a Ranger and count as a 1st level Ranger without any other class benefits.)
- Blindness Immunity
- One 2nd level druid or cleric spell, 2/day
- +2 bonus to DC when casting divination spells
- Favored Enemy
- Huntsman Weapon: Any weapon being wielded is considered to have the Huntsman enhancement.
- Foehunter Traits: +2 Dexterity, Acid Resistance 10, +2 racial bonus to Survival & Knowledge (Nature) checks, +1d6 damage after moving 10 ft. or more
- Commune with Birds

Ok, so, far above everything else, +2 to an ability score. In your case Wisdom. If you can pick this more than once, pick it as often as you can. It beats all the other choices.
+2 to Initiative is always nice, but depends on how important it is to always act first in your particular game.
+2 to attack is fantastic if you are going to actually attack.
+2 to saves is great. Once per ten saves it's going to make the difference between passing and failing.
Darkvision and DR3/- are good as well.

The rest probably won't matter much. Maybe the extra hp could be nice.

[Vaern]

Mind you, I've never played Pathfinder so I'm comparing the effects to what I've played with in 3.5, but a large amount of the Pathfinder content that I've looked through before is identical to 3.5 so I'm guessing my comparisons aren't going to be too far off base.

- +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls
Twice as good as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization combined, assuming this bonus applies to a single weapon which must be chosen with the feat. If it applies to everything, it's about twice as good as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization taken about 40 times apiece.

- +2 luck bonus to AC
Feats that give you a flat armor bonus are hard to come by. Dodge only gives a +1 against a single designated enemy and other armor bonuses granted by feats tend to only apply under specific conditions, so having any bonus to armor class that applies against all opponents at all times already makes this feat much stronger than what we see in general feats. Armor skin gives a +1 bonus to natural armor as an epic feat. One is subject to being lost while flat-footed, and the other doesn't apply to touch attacks. Luck is retained in both touch and flat-footed AC, making this feat more than twice as good as both a general feat and an epic feat combined.
I wouldn't say that a bonus to armor class is terribly overpowered, but it is a strong effect strictly in comparison to what can be gained by other feats.

- +3 bonus to one skill
Skill focus?

- +2 bonus to saves
If it's a bonus to a single save, there's already feats for that. If it's a bonus to all saves, I'd make the other three feats a prerequisite as this is essentially as strong as all three combined.

- low-light vision
- darkvision 30 ft. or +30 ft.
There is actually an existing feat in 3.5 tha grants both low-light vision and darkvision. Draconic Senses requires the dragonblood subtype (Draconic Heritage) and gives low-light vision, plus darkvision 60 if you have three or more draconic feats (Draconic Senses and Draconic Heritage count as two). I don't think it would be terribly unbalanced to offer low-light vision as a general feat, especially if it had a skill or feat requirement, and then add darkvision as an additional feat with low-light vision as a prerequisite.

- +10 bonus hit points
This would need some sort of prerequisite. It's not terribly overpowered, but definitely too strong to let someone take it at level 1-5ish. A first-level skill monkey or arcane caster could outright double or triple their starting health with this. You'd need to give players an excuse, other than feat prerequisites, to ever choose Toughness over this option.

- +2 bonus to initiative
Weak in comparison to Improved Initiative, but I could still see someone taking both to stack them for that extra edge.

- damage reduction 3/-
This feat actually exists already. It's called Damage Reduction [Epic]. I don't see damage reduction as terribly overpowered or unbalancing, but this is the equivalent of a 13th-level barbarian ability or 15,000 gp worth of adamantine. Like the 10 HP, it's a bonus that would be really strong at low levels but becomes less meaningful as the game goes on. I'd make it DR 1/- and let it stack with itself.

- 5 resistance to one type of energy or +5 to existing resistance
This would be a solid feat, though it might not see many people taking it unless they were continuously exposed to a single type of energy throughout a campaign.

- +5 ft. bonus to movement speed
Also a solid bonus. +10 feet would be better for a one-off feat, though at +5 ft you could allow it to stack with itself without worrying about it getting terribly out of hand.

- two cantrips, one level 1 spell 1/day
There's a handful of feats like this in one of the books already. The spell-like abilities they grant follow a specific theme, though; they don't allow the person taking the feat to just pick and choose what spells they want out of a bin.

- +2 bonus to saving throws vs one school of magic
Like energy resistance, this will be a highly situational choice. It would be better for a character to spend 3 feats on lightning reflexes, iron will, and great fortitude for +2 against everything than to get 8 separate feats to gain +2 against all spells. This would only see use if one specific school of magic was disproportionately prevalent in your world.

- +2 bonus to one ability score
Increasing an ability score by 1 point is an epic-level feat effect. There are few situations in which increasing your ability score modifier by 1 at any given opportunity isn't the best decision you could make. This one needs some sort of heavy requirement or specific conditions under which it actually functions to be acceptable.

- Ranger Training (Gain 1st level abilities of a Ranger and count as a 1st level Ranger without any other class benefits.)
One of the abilities that a ranger gets at 1st level is a general feat, which makes this strictly better than what is available as a general feat.

- Blindness Immunity
There is a feat that grants blindsight out to 5 feet with some pretty steep requirements (19+ wisdom). Gaining the ability to function in situations where you can't see is difficult. Becoming immune to blindness altogether should not be any easier.

- One 2nd level druid or cleric spell, 2/day
Gaining anything stronger than a 1st-level spell-like ability out of a feat generally doesn't happen unless it either has the ability to cast spells of a higher level as a prerequisite or grants a number of spells that are progressively unlocked through hit dice.

- +2 bonus to DC when casting divination spells
A decent effect, though strictly better than spell focus. I'd make spell focus a prerequisite.

- Favored Enemy
Favored enemy is a unique defining characteristic of the ranger class. Although the ability, like energy resistance, is situational and only really useful if you keep encountering the same thing over and over again, making it a feat that anyone can take still devalues the class that the ability is taken from. Making it a feat available only to rangers, though, would let them stack their existing favored enemy bonuses through the roof. I'm going to have to say no to this one, because it can be both underwhelming enogh that nobody would bother with it and overpowered to the point that a ranger would spend literally every bonus feat on it.

- Huntsman Weapon: Any weapon being wielded is considered to have the Huntsman enhancement.
Any feat that grants the effects of a magical property should have some kind of prerequistes and conditions to prevent literally everyone from taking advantage of it. For this one in particular I'd probably say it requires 9 ranks in survival and the favored enemy class feature, and its bonus only applies to creatures that your favored enemy ability applies to.

- Foehunter Traits: +2 Dexterity, Acid Resistance 10, +2 racial bonus to Survival & Knowledge (Nature) checks, +1d6 damage after moving 10 ft. or more
No.

- Commune with Birds
Why?

[weckar]

I may be misreading, but when would you actually get one of these?

[graeylin]

I may be misreading, but when would you actually get one of these?

They are a bit spread out, but roughly, 1st, 4th, another at 4th, 7th and 8th. Some are available only at the 1st, 4th and 7th, the others at 4th and 8th.

I didn't want to complicate things too much with specific info, just looking in general what people thought and felt about them, and their power/rank/tiers. And I am getting some great advice.

[FearlessGnome]

I didn't want to complicate things too much with specific info, just looking in general what people thought and felt about them, and their power/rank/tiers. And I am getting some great advice.
Make sure to tell us which ones you are taking so we can yell at you!

[Biggus]

I largely agree with what the others have said, but I do have a few things to add:

+3 to one skill could be well worth it for some skills, UMD springs to mind (plus any class who relies heavily on a particular skill, like Truespeak for the Truenamer, obviously)

One 2nd level druid or cleric spell, 2/day: Divine Insight, for the same reasons

+5ft move could be useful, if your speed is 30ft it gives you just enough to outrun most other characters (would become less useful at high levels when everyone has fly and/ or teleport, but if you're only going to about level 12 that matters less)

Are all the bonuses which don 't have a type specified untyped?

[Railak]

There's a bunch if feats that already do a bunch of this, now if they're feats that stack on top of those many could be useful.
Now that being said there's already a bunch of feats that grant DR/-, most of which stack with each other oddly enough. Most notably Roll With It, and Thick Skinned both from Savage Species
Roll with it has prerequisites of Con 20 and toughness, grants DR 2/-, and can be taken multiple times, it's effects stacking.
Thick skinned just requires you to already have DR, it increases it by 2, and can be taken multiple times, to up to twice your DR.