Feats that rock

[TengYt]

What feats would you say are the most useful of all?
For most melee builds, Power Attack is awesome enough to be near mandatory.
Improved Initative is one of those feats that can help no matter what your build is, as going first in battle is always handy.

[Eldariel]

Leadership
Natural Spell
Divine Metamagic (and related Extra Turnings)
Quicken Spell
Persistent Spell
Song of the Heart
Words of Creation
Extraordinary Artisan
Legendary Artisan
Font of Inspiration
Power Attack
Shock Trooper
Robilar's Gambit
Karmic Strike
Combat Reflexes
Mage Slayer
Defensive Sweep
Stand Still
Leap Attack
Improved Trip
Knock-Down
Knockback
Large and In Charge
Rapid Shot
Extend Spell
Craven
Chain Spell
Flyby Attack
Stormguard Warrior
Shadowblade
Weapon Finesse
...and I'm out of breath. Psionics, Incarnum and Binding are completely missing still, along with a hundred others I'm not thinking of right now.

[Curmudgeon]

Eldariel already got the sine qua non of Rogue feats, Craven, so I'll just add Savvy Rogue. It's another feat that keeps on giving, because it provides benefits for all the Rogue special abilities -- including those you take after Savvy Rogue.

For archer types with precision damage: Greater Manyshot.

If your DM actually enforces the Spot rules ("Trying to spot something you failed to see previously is a move action."), then you really must have Quick Reconnoiter.

[Egiam]

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Heavy Repeater Crossbow). Totally.
Psychic Strike.
Skill Focus (Concentration)

Hundreds of others.

[Kris Strife]

Throw anything

Exotic Weapon Proficiancy: Electric Guitar.

[TempusCCK]

Improved Initiative.

Weapon Finesse

Basically anything that makes a concept viable, like Daring Outlaw, you grab 3 levels of Swash, get Int to Damage, and then you go all the way into Rogue to be a better Swashbuckler than finishing the class would net you.

Now you can play the Brains over Brawn type Rogue who instead of being powerful, knows exactly where to hit you to make it hurt.

[Frog Dragon]

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Heavy Repeater Crossbow). Totally.
Psychic Strike.
Skill Focus (Concentration)

Hundreds of others.

Skill Focus: Concentration sucks in fact go check out feats that suck. There's plently proof there
And an ownage feat? Combat Panache. Yes please. Make the enemy's damage cheese kill his allies and that's only one function.

[kyoten]

Throw anything

Exotic Weapon Proficiancy: Electric Guitar.

Combo - Power attack and EWP: Electric Guitar. AXE ATTACK!!!

[Fizban]

Draconic Aura [Vigor]: infinite out of combat healing to half max? Yes please!
Dragon Prophesier: which leads to....
Prophecy's Shaper: empower basically all your spells every fight, woo hoo!
Prophecy's Artifex: quicken a wand or staff for the duration of every fight
or Prophecy's Hero: a few free action points a day, which can be combined with...
Wand Surge: activate a wand or staff using 1 action point per charge
Minor Shapeshift: get your level in temporary hp every round? I has regenerative shielding!
Versatile Spellcaster: screw the rules, I have excess spell slots!
Sculpt Spell: who said anything about a fireball
Residual Metamagic: you basically only have to pay for metamagic every other round as long as you're casting the same spell
Shield Charge/Shield Slam: you knock them off balance with your shield, reminds me of Twilight Princess
Brutal Strike: you bludgeon them so hard they take -2 to pretty much everything

That's most of them off my own list of awesome feats, though that's mostly for the less talked about ones I like.

[Thurbane]

Scorpion's Resolve - +4 on saves vs. mind affecting spells and abilities. +4!. No prereqs. Compare to Iron Will, which it stacks with, BTW...

[Blood_Lord]

Scorpion's Resolve - +4 on saves vs. mind affecting spells and abilities. +4!. No prereqs. Compare to Iron Will, which it stacks with, BTW...

And what about Echo Power.

It gives a +Infinity bonus to Int checks to win chess games.

Seriously, +4 against a specific subset of Will saves that are the easiest types to negate. I mean, +4 for a feat, or you can have someone cast Protection from Evil/Mindblank/ect.

[Thurbane]

Seriously, +4 against a specific subset of Will saves that are the easiest types to negate. I mean, +4 for a feat, or you can have someone cast Protection from Evil/Mindblank/ect.

I still think it's a pretty sweet deal, especially at lower levels. +4 against what are generally save or sucks. The core only gives you a feat that gives +2. And let's face it, 90% of Will saves are against mind effects. The only notable (common) exception that springs to mind is Glitterdust.

Protection from Evil has a limited duration, especially if you're getting it from a wand (Magic Circle against Evil has a better duration, but is more costly). Otherwise, you are eating into the caster's spell resources, not to mention that you may be called on to make a save unexpectedly, before you can get a spell up. Also, casting spells costs precious actions, if you're going to do it in combat. A permanent item costs a significant amount of cash.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Steadfast Determination: in the right build it gives more than just a little bonus, but it still gives a decent portion with regards to will saves for melee combatants outside of ToB.
Arcane Strike
Dragonfire Inspiration: Replace my inspiration bonus with d6s? Gimme!
Travel Devotion
Daring Outlaw
Swift Hunter

[FMArthur]

Well, Complete Scoundrel had a great idea where instead of making up new PrCs that are just combinations of a couple existing classes, you could just take a feat to let levels of certain (usually weaker) classes count as levels of another class for the purpose of a few abilities. The general idea is that some classes suck hard enough that adding a scaling part of another class onto them doesn't even affect overall game balance.

Here:

• Ascetic Stalker - Pretty bad: Monk+Ninja and it's only unarmed damage and Ki pool
• Daring Outlaw - Rogue/Swashbucker levels stack for Grace, Dodge Bonus, and Sneak Attack
• Daring Warrior - Fighter/Swashbuckler levels stack for Grace, Dodge Bonus, and feat qualification
• Martial Stalker - Fighter/Ninja levels stack for Ki pool, AC Bonus, and feat qualification
• Master Spellthief - Spellthief/Arcane Caster levels stack for Steal Spell, Caster Level, and Armored Casting
• Swift Ambusher - Rogue/Scout levels stack for Skirmish
• Swift Hunter - Ranger/Scout levels stack for Skirmish and Favored Enemy

Anyway, they're amazing feats, but since they're on not-so-amazing classes, they won't see much use in high-power builds. After this book came out, certain classes could be reduced to dips without actually losing important features.

[Blood_Lord]

I still think it's a pretty sweet deal, especially at lower levels. +4 against what are generally save or sucks. The core only gives you a feat that gives +2. And let's face it, 90% of Will saves are against mind effects. The only notable (common) exception that springs to mind is Glitterdust.

Protection from Evil has a limited duration, especially if you're getting it from a wand (Magic Circle against Evil has a better duration, but is more costly). Otherwise, you are eating into the caster's spell resources, not to mention that you may be called on to make a save unexpectedly, before you can get a spell up. Also, casting spells costs precious actions, if you're going to do it in combat. A permanent item costs a significant amount of cash.

Or you could just not care about a +4 twice per level and take a feat that lets you do something.

[Lappy9000]

Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu! Hippopotami don't rebuke themselves.

[DrakebloodIV]

Or you could just not care about a +4 twice per level and take a feat that lets you do something.

Hey, lay off the guy. Last time I checked we let other people have opinions on this forum and don't make flaming comments just to start a childish argument.

Now I want you to apologize or its ten minutes on the time out chair for you.

[Starsinger]

Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu! Hippopotami don't rebuke themselves.

And not to mention the ever important clause, "You'll never be attacked by a wild hippopotamus."

[Fax Celestis]

Hey, lay off the guy. Last time I checked we let other people have opinions on this forum and don't make flaming comments just to start a childish argument.

Now I want you to apologize or its ten minutes on the time out chair for you.

Someone fetch this man a moderator hat.

[Thurbane]

Or you could just not care about a +4 twice per level and take a feat that lets you do something.

Yes, a +4 against Deep Slumber, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Charm Person or a Harpy's song is completely useless, especially for someone with a poor Will save. There is no place for defense in 3.5, obviously...

[Lappy9000]

And not to mention the ever important clause, "You'll never be attacked by a wild hippopotamus."

Woah, there, let's not get ahead of ourselves. "You'll never be attacked by a wild hippotamus unless magically compelled."

[Blood_Lord]

Yes, a +4 against Deep Slumber, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Charm Person or a Harpy's song is completely useless, especially for someone with a poor Will save. There is no place for defense in 3.5, obviously...

Since you could get the same +4 for a feat that also lets you use relics, or +5-14 for two feats that applies to all will saves ever made.

Or you just rely on your +base save +6 resistance +2-4 morale +2 luck.

Or you could get a spell with a duration of 24-48 hours cast on you.

Yeah, there is room for defense in D&D, there is no room for blowing a feat on a +4 to one very specific type of defense that is really easy to negate.

[Thurbane]

Since you could get the same +4 for a feat that also lets you use relics, or +5-14 for two feats that applies to all will saves ever made.

Or you just rely on your +base save +6 resistance +2-4 morale +2 luck.

Or you could get a spell with a duration of 24-48 hours cast on you.

Yeah, there is room for defense in D&D, there is no room for blowing a feat on a +4 to one very specific type of defense that is really easy to negate.

Well, I guess we disagree. Imagine that!

[afroakuma]

Where is Craven from? I can't find it...

For that matter, where did Savvy Rogue come from.

[Thurbane]

Craven = Champions of Ruin (FR)
Savvy Rogue = Complete Scoundrel

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...ts&tablesort=1

[RebelRogue]

Well, Complete Scoundrel had a great idea where instead of making up new PrCs that are just combinations of a couple existing classes, you could just take a feat to let levels of certain (usually weaker) classes count as levels of another class for the purpose of a few abilities.

The general idea was actually pioneered in Complete Adventurer, which has a bunch of those too. And yes, a lot of them are pretty nice.

[Curmudgeon]

FMArthur's post reminded me of another good one: Sacred Outlaw, from Dragon # 357. This adds Rogue and Cleric levels for undead turning and sneak attack damage. A pretty decent fit using the Cloistered Cleric variant (6 skill points/level!).

[Grynning]

Darkstalker is pretty neat. I'm also a fan of Elusive Target (only thing that makes Dodge and Mobility worth taking) and Divine Might (makes Paladin turning useful for something), both from CWar. Plus the multi-class feats from Complete Scoundrel and Adventurer already mentioned.

[sonofzeal]

Favorite feats....


Deep Impact - touch attacks ftw!
Instant Clarity - so broken it's not even funny, especially combined with the previous
Martial Study - just awesome; ToB for the man on the go!
Item Familiar - so broken it's not even funny.
Divine Metamagic: Persist - this one feat is almost solely responsible for Czilla, at least in practice where there's few opportunities to prebuff.*
Natural Spell - this one feat is almost solely responsible for Dzilla, at least before Shapechange.*
Improved Trip - always solid in humanoid-heavy campaigns; a focussed tripper can keep pretty much any other character flat on its back AND lay on the hurt at the same time.
Improved Grapple - always solid in humanoid-heavy campaigns; a focussed grappler can totally shut down most other characters, and rings of FoM are never as common as some people seem to suggest.
Deflect Arrows - totally shut down an entire combat style? Yes please!
Leadership - famously broken, and plain fun
Font of Inspiration - makes my favorite class awesome!
Roll With It - best DR potential this side of Mineral Warrior
ANYTHING AT ALL LISTED HERE - because SAD breaks things.



* I'm aware that Cleric and Druid are entirely respectable without these two options, but combat clerics do rather rely on prebuffs, and most druids do rather rely on being able to stay in animal form, and without those the classes generally descend from "zilla" to "merely powerful".

[Leon]

From the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide

Sharpshooter
Adds your Dex to damage with Ranged Weapons

Aurum Omius Alchemist
A number of benifits including reduced costs of potions and reduced crafting time

Advanced Synthesis
A weeks work in a Day when making Alchemicals for a harder check

Maximize Alchemy
As it says, for a slightly harder DC when crafting