Exalted feel without exalted pain

[WarKitty]

I've been admiring the feel of the BoED classes. However, most of them, well - Holy Banjo those are some useless feats! Especially for characters that don't start out intending to go for exalted.

Is there any good material out there to get the exalted "feel" without such painful prerequisites?

[The Rose Dragon]

Is the possibility of playing another system that does not have such silly constraints on the table?

[WarKitty]

Is the possibility of playing another system that does not have such silly constraints on the table?

Only if said system does not require the investment of actual $, or a significant time investment in learning rules.

[Callista]

I'm looking at them now and I don't think they're particularly painful to take; they just mean that you have to adjust your character build to take advantage of them. Some of them are good; some of them suck; but that's true for any class of feats. "Intuitive Attack", for example--like Weapon Finesse for high-WIS characters; very useful.

The eight (of the fifty-some total feats) Vow feats are limited to characters who would actually, in-character, take those vows. (And Vow of Poverty is considered one of the more broken of those feats.) Actually, the BoVD has a similar problem with evil-aligned feats; there are some things ("Lichloved"? Ewww!) that most characters simply wouldn't do, and thus shouldn't take the feat. Both books are heavy on the RP aspect of a character with an extreme alignment. If you're looking for a way around that--sorry, you're going to have to talk to your DM and houserule it.

So... uhm, what exactly don't you like about these feats? The alignment prerequisite? The Vows?

[The Rose Dragon]

Only if said system does not require the investment of actual $, or a significant time investment in learning rules.

Then try Risus! It is free and about six pages long! If you want to be Exalted, just take the "Exalted" cliche and go to town!

I would suggest Witchcraft, but it is not quite as rules light as Risus.

[WarKitty]

I'm looking at them now and I don't think they're particularly painful to take; they just mean that you have to adjust your character build to take advantage of them. Some of them are good; some of them suck; but that's true for any class of feats. "Intuitive Attack", for example--like Weapon Finesse for high-WIS characters; very useful.

The Vow feats are limited to characters who would actually, in-character, take those vows. (And Vow of Poverty is considered one of the more broken of those feats.) Actually, the BoVD has a similar problem with evil-aligned feats; there are some things ("Lichloved"? Ewww!) that most characters simply wouldn't do, and thus shouldn't take the feat. Both books are heavy on the RP aspect of a character with an extreme alignment. If you're looking for a way around that--sorry, you're going to have to talk to your DM and houserule it.

So... uhm, what exactly don't you like about these feats? The alignment prerequisite? The Vows?

Two things.

One is the vows. Yes, VoP is rather broken, but many of the rest seem to be "waste of a perfectly good feat for a minor bonus." E.g. "Favored of the Companions" or "Vow of Chastity." I like the RP aspect very much (hence my interest). What I don't like is sacrificing my crafting feats that could actually be useful to the party, or my power attack feats, for something that provides little to no benefit.

The other one is that you have to design characters from level 1 to get into many of the classes. I can't really get the feel for where a character would go until I've played her for a level or two. Once I've gotten there (and we typically start at level 3), I want to be able to decide then that I'd like to go for an exalted prestige class and get in in a reasonable amount of time.

[Prime32]

I've been admiring the feel of the BoED classes. However, most of them, well - Holy Banjo those are some useless feats! Especially for characters that don't start out intending to go for exalted.

Is there any good material out there to get the exalted "feel" without such painful prerequisites?

You could just, you know, describe them that way?

[WarKitty]

You could just, you know, describe them that way?

You'd think that would work but somehow it never works that way. Which to be fair might be my roleplaying skills. But I've never managed to rp an exalted-feel character that doesn't either come across as wimpy or stick-up-the-butt.

[Prime32]

You'd think that would work but somehow it never works that way. Which to be fair might be my roleplaying skills. But I've never managed to rp an exalted-feel character that doesn't either come across as wimpy or stick-up-the-butt.

So how would giving them those feats make things any better?

[WarKitty]

So how would giving them those feats make things any better?

It would at least provide something with measurable effects that's not dependent 100% on my own roleplaying skills. And I want access to exalted prestige classes, not the exalted feats.

Actually that is a fair question though. How do you play an exalted character in a mixed good-to-neutral party, while still maintaining a character that can reasonably function and not make the rest of the party want to abandon them? I've always found it either ends with the rest of the party mad at the exalted character for ruining their fun, or the exalted character looking like a wimp because nothing she says has any effect.

Edit: splitting this into a new thread, because it's interesting.

[jiriku]

VoP is actually a pretty weak feat choice except for druids and sorcerers.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to overhaul and rebalance everything in the book. Yes, I realize that's not particularly easy.

[WarKitty]

VoP is actually a pretty weak feat choice except for druids and sorcerers.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to overhaul and rebalance everything in the book. Yes, I realize that's not particularly easy.

I was more thinking of looking for someone that's done this already.

[Callista]

Two things.

One is the vows. Yes, VoP is rather broken, but many of the rest seem to be "waste of a perfectly good feat for a minor bonus." E.g. "Favored of the Companions" or "Vow of Chastity." I like the RP aspect very much (hence my interest). What I don't like is sacrificing my crafting feats that could actually be useful to the party, or my power attack feats, for something that provides little to no benefit.

The other one is that you have to design characters from level 1 to get into many of the classes. I can't really get the feel for where a character would go until I've played her for a level or two. Once I've gotten there (and we typically start at level 3), I want to be able to decide then that I'd like to go for an exalted prestige class and get in in a reasonable amount of time.

The Vow feats are usually prereqs for the prestige classes. It's a lot like requiring a Skill Focus feat in an obscure class--basically you spend the feat for entry into the PrC. I think it would be rather unbalanced without those prerequisites; those PrCs are anywhere from moderate to quite powerful.

[WarKitty]

The Vow feats are usually prereqs for the prestige classes. It's a lot like requiring a Skill Focus feat in an obscure class--basically you spend the feat for entry into the PrC. I think it would be rather unbalanced without those prerequisites; those PrCs are anywhere from moderate to quite powerful.

See if there was a way to re-balance them I'd be happy. My frustration is that you end up taking several levels of suckage before you can actually get to the PrC. Sure they're great if you're starting at a high level, or if your DM is nice enough to allow retraining. If you have to work your way up from level one, you just got stuck with 6 levels of suck.

[Callista]

So talk to your DM about allowing retraining.

[WarKitty]

So talk to your DM about allowing retraining.

None of my DM's have ever allowed that. And it's still a bad structure if you have to work in retraining to make it useful.

[SurlySeraph]

You can ask your DM to houserule out the requirements for particularly worthless feats (+1 to one roll, once per day? WHY WOULD I TAKE THAT?). You can also find ways around them (for example using the variant that replaces a Ranger's animal companion with a familiar to get free Alertness so you can go into Stalker of Kharash with only one feat slot wasted instead of three).

Other than that, there's lots of good material in Complete Divine, and some in Complete Champion (much of which is better if refluffed) which you could use instead.