So... Complete Champion...

[Maerok]

PHB: You can take Weapon Focus. It grants you a +1 to attack bonus with one weapon of your choice. Nifty. I believe the prereq is BAB +1?

Complete Champion: You can take the Trickery Devotion. Essentially, it lets you create a duplicate of yourself that can interact with the world and even attack for you at a higher level. And you can use it once per day, plus another time per 3 turn attempts you trade in. There is no prereq.

Or, you can take Law Devotion: Once per day as a swift action, you can add +7 between your AC or attack bonus for one minute at level 15 (+3 at first levels). There is no prereq.

What exactly happened here? Who thought that this would be acceptable in any way? In retrospect, I wish these were the folks who were working on ToM...

[TengYt]

It's likely to assume, that like many things in Core, Weapon Focus is just bad compared to the stuff in the splat books.

[Doc Roc]

Someone who understood that weapon focus is worthless except as a pre-requisite. The simple fact of the matter is that Complete Champion is very powerful, overall, but adds a lot of fun and piz-zazz to characters. It depends on what you want, and how much you trust your players.


Also, devotions are intended to be restricted to one a character barring extremely exotic circumstances.

It's not precisely that they are bad. It's that Complete Champion is a book about providing you with interesting options for how you play and who you play. I don't think it's a bad thing if these options happen to be better than some others. If you don't like it, ban it on a case-by-case basis.

[Thrawn183]

You mean like a paladin going for law, good and then whatever he's decided to roleplay his character as?

[Maerok]

I think that between choices A, B, and C, it shouldn't really matter what you take and you'll still be able to get adequate results. If you want some crazy effect, that is the purpose of prereqs. It just never seems like they tried to address many issues and just let them stay the course.

[Starbuck_II]

Someone who understood that weapon focus is worthless except as a pre-requisite. The simple fact of the matter is that Complete Champion is very powerful, overall, but adds a lot of fun and piz-zazz to characters. It depends on what you want, and how much you trust your players.


Also, devotions are intended to be restricted to one a character barring extremely exotic circumstances.

It's not precisely that they are bad. It's that Complete Champion is a book about providing you with interesting options for how you play and who you play. I don't think it's a bad thing if these options happen to be better than some others. If you don't like it, ban it on a case-by-case basis.

Clerics have it best (can use turning attempts for extra uses instead of spending more feats).

[shadow_archmagi]

Power creep is a dreadful thing, isn't it? Except that, well, to be honest, the second two are by far more interesting choices.

A permanent, static +1
A cool new toy that has multiple uses
A +7 that can be placed or divided between two different slots.

Which is going to spice up your game more?

[Mr.Moron]

Weapon Focus is a pile. Law Devotion is a solid feat, but far from being a world-shaker.

I'm not seeing the problem.

[Zaq]

You're comparing two solid but by no means game-breaking feats from Complete Champion to one of the most lackluster feats in Core. It's not that Law Devotion is really good... it's that Weapon Focus is really bad.

It really is true when they say that Core is the worst-balanced set of books in the 3.5 canon. Just in terms of feats, don't forget that the PHB also provided us with, oh, I don't know, Quicken Spell. Or Natural Spell. I won't even get into the crazy broken spells in Core...

[Maerok]

I guess it's that I'm not very happy with the returns you get from feats, especially when they matter so much and you usually get so few. But this appears to be the nature of the beast. It's just that when all was said and done, there wasn't an official attempt to go back and scale up the rest of the material to the level it had reached by the Completes.

Edit: I just wish that every feat was good in its own way, without the lackluster ones and the overtly powerful ones. I've never really enjoyed building a character around the feats in order to keep up.

[Sinfire Titan]

Many feats prior to Tome of Magic are complete utter garbage. Hell, there's some in the ToM itself that are worthless too.


Let's take Champions of Ruin for example. There's 3 feats in there for boosting weapon damage. They each have similar requirements, and all require a different type of weapon damage (Slashing, Bludgeoning, or Piercing).

To be honest, all three of those feats are worthless, but it gets ridiculous. The Piercing and Bludgeoning feats both add 1d6 to the damage dealt with the weapon you wield, but the Slashing one only adds +1. Not 1d6, a flat 1 point of damage. For the same requirements as the other two feats, you get an extra point of damage instead of 1d6.

And in that same book is Craven, a feat that adds your character level to any sneak attack you make, with only Sneak Attack as its prereq. Can you say inconsistency?


There's horrid power inconsistency throughout 3.5. Some abilities and feats just are not worth the investment needed. This becomes less frequent the further you get from Core, but it's still there (War Devotion, Magic Devotion, and the post-errata Trickery Devotion are all very weak).

[Maerok]

And it's that sort of inconsistency that has always irked me. It would be nice to consider feats relevant or irrelevant to a character, rather than good or bad.

[Sinfire Titan]

And it's that sort of inconsistency that has always irked me. It would be nice to consider feats relevant or irrelevant to a character, rather than good or bad.

They got it mostly right around the MoI and Bo9S, but then went and said "Screw it" when 4E was printed. There's only a handful of good feats in 4E, and most feats are just +1/Tier bonuses that are largely redundant.

[Eldariel]

To be honest, all three of those feats are worthless, but it gets ridiculous. The Piercing and Bludgeoning feats both add 1d6 to the damage dealt with the weapon you wield, but the Slashing one only adds +1. Not 1d6, a flat 1 point of damage. For the same requirements as the other two feats, you get an extra point of damage instead of 1d6.

The table lists it as a +1d6 like the other feats; it's just an error in the text. I know, I know, text is the primary source...but if we get our heads out of our asses and look at it ourselves, it's pretty obvious that it's an editing error (either because the feats were improved or because they were going to be nerfed or something before the change).

Also, Flay Foe is a decent feat for some TWFer builds, as it adds an average of 3.5 damage to every subsequent hit; when you can expect 6-7 hits per turn, that starts to add up.

[RTGoodman]

There's only a handful of good feats in 4E, and most feats are just +1/Tier bonuses that are largely redundant.

Which, incidentally, is kinda the point, from what I gather. Feats are there to give you little bonuses, not to give you new options - that's why you have powers. And you get so many feats over the length of your career (18-20, I think, depending on race and class and so on) that making them all have a big effect would be ridiculous.

[Sinfire Titan]

Which, incidentally, is kinda the point, from what I gather. Feats are there to give you little bonuses, not to give you new options - that's why you have powers. And you get so many feats over the length of your career (18-20, I think, depending on race and class and so on) that making them all have a big effect would be ridiculous.

I prefer it when feats open up new combat options, like Spring Attack and Snap Kick. I hate feats that only give a bonus and negate a rule that screws you if you don't have them (like Improved Trip and Improved Disarm). I prefer feats that give you things (Shape Soulmeld, Martial Study, and Martial Stance are good examples).

Feats should not bypass the rules, they should augment them. Skills and Skill Tricks should bypass some rules, but not all of them.

[T.G. Oskar]

Consider the facts of the restrictions:

Weapon Focus: limited to one weapon only (BAAAD!!). Only a +1 to attack rolls (BAAAAAAAAD!!!!). Opens up the Weapon Focus feat (OH GOSH IT'S HORRIBLE!!!!)

Law Devotion: +3 to +7 sacred bonus (WOOO!) to either attack or AC (YAHOO!!) for one minute (MEH!) once per day (WAIT, WHAT!?) as a swift action (OH...) Except it's once per day. Notice the once per day thing. Also, notice the prerequisite of DM can just say no be faithful to the Domain's intent. That is a tad harder to accomplish than BAB +1.

Trickery Devotion: image that behaves at first as silent image + unseen servant (HMMM...), then upgrades to major image (OH...), then you can use it to spy (OHHHHHH...), then finally to a bastardized version of the Shadowcraft Mage's persistent image (WOOOOOW!!!). Again, once per day (AWWWWW!) Again, notice the once per day thing. And the unseen prerequisite, again mentioned above.

Considering that only clerics or paladins (or anyone that somehow gets abilities to turn or rebuke undead) gain the most benefit, that the Law Devotion Domain feat benefits mostly a dedicated warrior, that the Trickery Devotion Domain feat is mostly beneficial to sneaky clerics who probably have less need for AC and not enough spells to outmake the rogue every day, that the Trickery Devotion Domain feat mostly requires you to be level 15th (and that's a modicum of a year's worth of sessions if you start at level 1, give or take one month depending on the DM) to actually make it worthwhile or else you need to be smart while using it (and you'd do better actually being a Beguiler)...well, those are reasonable restrictions.

What really happens is that Weapon Focus was meant to draw the Weapon Specialization feature from 2nd Edition into a branch of feats, and then power creep ensued when Batman Wizard and DMM Persist Cleric and Druidzilla appeared. In PHB II, you notice just how ridiculous is the amount of feats you need to earn what the Fighter had as a class ability, depending on the DM. Had they retained the class ability of Weapon Specialization, passing from the lowly Weapon Focus as a free feat, then passing through Weapon Specialization, GWF and GWS, and adding the feats in PHB II (Melee/Ranged Weapon Mastery, slashing/bludgeoning/piercing unique feat, perhaps the slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage-enhancing feat in CoR, AND Weapon Supremacy), then the Fighter could be considered an interesting class. Or perhaps not.

Thing is, Weapon Focus was designed for Fighters to have a branch of feats with which to cover what they thought was an insane amount of bonus feats, until they decided "screw it, spellcasters are better" and completely ignored the point.

However, it's odd that you haven't spoken of Knowledge Devotion. That is the only Domain feat that requires no expenditure of daily uses (or Turn/Rebuke Undead uses), that actually scales with the spending of skill points (and most of the classes who really need it tend to have at least one Knowledge skill) and most other enhancements to skill rolls, that grants an insight bonus (which is not as common as morale, circumstance, competence or enhancement), and which requires you to have merely 5 ranks in Knowledge (any Knowledge, actually); roughly the same amount of time it requires a Wizard or Cleric or Rogue to have BAB +1.

I'll comply with the other posters in here that it's not that those feats are broken or overpowered, but that Weapon Focus is weak. However, it's not like you can have easy access to it. If you have, then your DM may allow Leadership cheese and other things, or is rather gullible (or worse, it can be devious!) The Domain feats are feats that usually require DM approval, since they have more of a roleplay restriction than a mechanical restriction. Any savvy DM that knows how those can be exploited can actually question you if you're being devoted to the meaning of the Domain, or else it can let you have a feat you can't use. I'd say that's a great restriction, much like the Paladin's Code of Conduct, or the Druid's restriction of metal armor, or heck, even the invention of Weapon Focus!

[Eldariel]

Taking the look at particularly bad offenders in PHB, there's this feat called "Toughness". Sure, it's fine for the first 3-5 levels, but when you start to accumulate HD, you'll suddenly notice that the likelihood of an attack taking you to 3 instead of just knocking you to negatives grows lower and lower as the power of individual attacks keeps increasing.

hen we come to a 45HD monster in the Tarrasque that has taken this feat 6 (yes, count 'em!) times and it doesn't contribute even 3% towards the thing's HP! The chances of a potentially dangerous attack knocking it down to those last 18 points are just...miniscule. Basically any feat would be better; hell, if it spent 'em all buffing its Spot and Listen-checks, they may actually be of some good to it...


This just goes to show that PHB feats weren't really thought out and the idea "what a feat should do" just wasn't there. Taking the best PHB feats, we have Leadership (an extra character, yay!), Natural Spell (now I'm a caster AND a tank! Yay!), Quicken Spell (I can cast twice the spells per turn! Yay!), Craft Wondrous Items (I get all the items for half the price and I can get anything I want! Yay!), Extend Spell (level 5 Rope Tricks for everyone. Yay! Oh, and a billion other uses on buffs), other Crafts and so on.

Then we have Toughness (3 HP! Yay! Too bad HP grows in sync with the amount of punishment you're expected to take and thus the relevance of individual points fades very rapidly), Mobility (+4 AC against your own idiocy! Yay!), Spring Attack (I can dump my damage output to make the others take the hits thus making myself completely useless! Yay!), Whirlwind Attack (I can get myself surrounded and not move to deal a lot of damage! Yay!), etc. Later on, they decided feats are gained rarely and thus they should give you something tangible to give your character identity and direction, with abilities to match. That's why latter feats simply kick PHB feats' keister.


And I realize I'm preaching to the crowd, but nobody had brought up Toughness yet so not like I had a choice.

[Curmudgeon]

Also, devotions are intended to be restricted to one a character barring extremely exotic circumstances.

Not what the rules say.

you can never have more than two domain feats (except as specified in Clerics and Domain Feats, below).

An ordinary Cleric can have 4 domain feats. One with extra domains could have more.

[Maerok]

Well back to 3.5, it seems silly for a lot of techniques to only be available for those who have feats. "Why can't I ____ without that feat." It does inherently carry some kind of master of that ability but I don't see why no one can't do such things out of the box with just a little less power to it.

[Eldariel]

Well back to 3.5, it seems silly for a lot of techniques to only be available for those who have feats. "Why can't I ____ without that feat." It does inherently carry some kind of master of that ability but I don't see why no one can't do such things out of the box with just a little less power to it.

The thing is, mostly you can. You just suck horribly at it. You can fight defensively without Combat Expertise, you just get -4 to attacks for +2 to AC for your troubles. You can do a jump to attack from above, but that means you can only do a standard action attack, and the only bonus is the +1 from higher ground.

You can trip/grapple/sunder/disarm/whatever, you'll just provoke AoO that makes your attempt fail, then need to roll a touch, then an even check and then something more for minor benefits so you just pretty much fail at all of it. 3.5 in general has the paradigm that sure, you can do anything without a feat, but you'll just suck horribly at it.

[Quietus]

Even within CC, you have some pretty wacky crap with feats. Look at Law devotion; Bonus to AC or Attack, you can change it round to round, 1/day for one minute.

Protection devotion : Smaller bonus, AC only, same limitations.

::Edit:: Oh, nevermind. Protection domain is all allies within 30 feet. Well, the fact still remains that the bonus is smaller, and more limited in its application. Plus it's generally accepted that AC is the worst way to mitigate damage.. whereas +7 attack from Law Devotion becomes +14 damage, or more, depending on circumstances.

[Maerok]

You can do a jump to attack from above, but that means you can only do a standard action attack, and the only bonus is the +1 from higher ground.

The higher ground bonus hasn't been all it's cracked up to be... Especially with lava battles.

Spoiler

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[Sinfire Titan]

Even within CC, you have some pretty wacky crap with feats. Look at Law devotion; Bonus to AC or Attack, you can change it round to round, 1/day for one minute.

Protection devotion : Smaller bonus, AC only, same limitations.

::Edit:: Oh, nevermind. Protection domain is all allies within 30 feet. Well, the fact still remains that the bonus is smaller, and more limited in its application. Plus it's generally accepted that AC is the worst way to mitigate damage.. whereas +7 attack from Law Devotion becomes +14 damage, or more, depending on circumstances.

Protection Devotion is more for Incarnates/Clerics who ran out of options. Its still considered a good feat because of how it scales and because it applies to your allies, despite being an AC boost. Plus its type applies to Touch and FFed AC, not just normal (good luck having it active when FFed though).

Law Devotion is considered superior, but only because it's a massive boost from a single source that stacks with Knowledge Devotion. RKVs would love to take both feats, but IIRC Wee-Jas doesn't offer Knowledge as a domain.

[Tukka]

Law Devotion is considered superior, but only because it's a massive boost from a single source that stacks with Knowledge Devotion. RKVs would love to take both feats, but IIRC Wee-Jas doesn't offer Knowledge as a domain.

I'm not really familiar with the feats and such in question, but there's always the cloistered cleric variant if you need access to the Knowledge domain.

[Sinfire Titan]

I'm not really familiar with the feats and such in question, but there's always the cloistered cleric variant if you need access to the Knowledge domain.

True. I remembered that after I had hit submit.

[OverdrivePrime]

I always thought that Weapon Focus and Dodge would be a lot more useful if they gave you a +2 bonus instead of a static +1. Even at first level a +1 to hit or to AC is barely noticed. A +2 actually makes a bit of a difference, and shows devotion to that particular action.

It still doesn't match up to any of the good feats from the splatbooks, but it'd at least be taken besides just as an opening to other feats once in a while.

[Demons_eye]

Some people let feats like Weapon Focus and Dodge stack with BaB (like +1 bonus for every 4 BaB) I find this makes them more useful.

[T.G. Oskar]

Some people let feats like Weapon Focus and Dodge stack with BaB (like +1 bonus for every 4 BaB) I find this makes them more useful.

That's basically what they should have done (and what they're doing on 4th Edition, actually). Tiered bonuses. The paradigm of 3rd Edition was that Fighters had their combat technique shaped by their path upon established feat branches, rogues had their progressions shaped through their skills, and spellcasters had their progression shaped through their spells. However, after revising, they still couldn't realize that the feat branches couldn't scale as quickly as spells do, or as swift as skills can. In 4th Edition, they decided to grant tier-based bonuses to level the playing field, although Fighters and melee classes already had powers scaled against the spellcasters.

So, as most people probably suggest, let the bases of the branch be based on a specific tier, such as BAB or Fighter level, or even character level. Then, the rest of the branch is simplified. This may aid on the most feat-intensive of the branches (Weapon Focus, Two-Weapon Fighting), and scale it against the most balanced feat branches (Power Attack...um...actually, only Power Attack, and that's saying a lot) However, for that to be true, it has to be promoted as an errata, something to which we already lost the chance (and it doesn't seem that Pathfinder helps on that, right? Need confirmation on that)

[Maerok]

I do think that Devotion feats could be applied as a defining feature of Paladins, if they were given as bonus feats at certain levels.

But besides feats, a lot of the alternate class features (Pounce for Barbarians) and classes themselves are pretty over the top.