Expanded aura of despair

[Biggus]

In Heroes of Battle there's a feat called Expanded Aura of Courage, which increases the radius of a Paladin's Aura from 10ft to 60ft.

The Paladin of Tyranny from Unearthed Arcana gets Aura of Despair instead, which gives a -2 penalty on saves to all enemies within 10ft. Would you allow an Expanded Aura of Despair feat? And if so, would you make it as large as 60ft?

[Dameme]

It would make sense to me, since most good feats have an evil counterpart, so i would allow it. I see it kinda like a "why not?" But it really depends on if the player is attempting cheese of some sort.

Edit: I think 60 ft is pretty great, but buffing allies from farther away is less powerful than debuffing all enemies from same distance.

[Biggus]

It would make sense to me, since most good feats have an evil counterpart, so i would allow it. I see it kinda like a "why not?" But it really depends on if the player is attempting cheese of some sort.

Edit: I think 60 ft is pretty great, but buffing allies from farther away is less powerful than debuffing all enemies from same distance.

Yes, this is more or less what I was thinking. Paladin of Tyranny is in most ways an exact LE counterpart to the standard Paladin, so it seems only fair that they should be able to take equivalent versions of most if not all Paladin feats.

However, a -2 to all saves which can't be resisted in any way except an antimagic field is clearly better than a +4 to saves against fear, especially at higher levels where many parties will have immunity to fear active as standard. So I wondered if I should reduce the area the feat expanded it to, to maybe 30ft or so?

[ViperMagnum357]

I would probably not allow it, since as mentioned above debuffing as an AoE is generally far more powerful, unless you are a spellcaster build with a large number of Construct/Undead/Summoned minions. And Aura of Despair is WAAAY more powerful than Courage. A typeless -2 penalty to all saving throws is virtually incomparable to a +4 bonus against Fear.

The ELH has expanded auras, with the Widen Aura feats for both Courage and Despair, as well as Improved feats that double their effects. Given the relative strength, I think it is a good idea the improvements to Despair are strictly Epic. If you want a more balanced, non-Epic option, you can take the Dilate Aura feat from Fiendish Codex 2, which allows you to double your aura size once per encounter for a number of rounds equal to your Cha modifier. Most combats should be decided within that number of rounds if you did not dump Cha, so the length should not be a huge deal if you fight smart and wait to pop it for when you close the distance.

[Biggus]

If you want a more balanced, non-Epic option, you can take the Dilate Aura feat from Fiendish Codex 2, which allows you to double your aura size once per encounter for a number of rounds equal to your Cha modifier. Most combats should be decided within that number of rounds if you did not dump Cha, so the length should not be a huge deal if you fight smart and wait to pop it for when you close the distance.

I wasn't aware of Dilate Aura, that does seem more balanced, thank you.