[Hourglass of Zihaja] Chapter 6: Feats

[Zeta Kai]

Impaling Shot
Prerequisites: Level 21, Piercing Shot.

Benefit: You can apply piercing shot bonus damage to any at-will ranged power.

[Zeta Kai]

Master’s Energy Storage
Prerequisites: Level 21, Kobold, Energy Conservation racial feature.

Benefit: You do not lose a healing surge due to Energy Conservation whenever you are bloodied. You still lose a healing surge due to Energy Conservation whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points or fewer.

[Zeta Kai]

Skilled Finisher
Prerequisites: Level 21, Finisher.

Benefit: You can apply Finisher bonus damage to any at-will melee power.

[Zeta Kai]

Undiluted Divinity
Prerequisites: Level 21, Invoker.

Benefit: Your attacks with the divine keyword ignore all resistance & immunity.

[Zeta Kai]

This thread is now open for any & all comments, questions, & concerns regarding feats. And... go!

[Zeta Kai]

I said GO. DISCUSS. NOW.

I just gave you guys like about a hundred feats for each edition. Seriously, say something. The 3E feats in particular are game-changing, & have been designed (& re-designed, & edited, & revised again) to address many issues with the Core game. The style feats alone are probably the nicest gift melee combat has had since the ToB, & without the weeaboo controversy. Check it out. And discuss. Before I sic the Dandan on you. Or something worse (read: Afro).

[unosarta]

Wow. I love the monk feats. Replacing pretty much every statistic with wisdom is awesome for the playability, but doesn't that also sort of make them almost mandatory, the feats? They are awesome for increasing the power of the monk, and giving them more options, but they also shoehorn the monk into one option set, and one way to function in any way that makes them functional in game. Is this intentional?

Like, if I wanted to play a brawler who fights with their fists in HoZ, who focuses on a higher Strength, I could play one who is... really wise? But what if that doesn't fit my character?

Also, how does this work with feats like Kungfu Genius, which allows the monk to replace wisdom with Intelligence for all class features (or at least the bonus to armor class)?

[Garryl]

I'm having trouble figuring out how the Style feats are supposed to work. The description of them seems self-contradictory.

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Style Feats
Representing diverse combat styles, these feats allow the practitioner to develop her skills in a particular field as her overall combat prowess improves. Though study of multiple styles is certainly possible, it often results in taking longer to develop equivalent aptitudes. Refer to Table 6-1: Style Feats to see which feat caters to which fighting style.

Each Style feat teaches a particular combat skill, with additional skills learned as the possessor increases her base attack bonus. When you initially take a style feat, you gain only the first technique; as your BAB increases beyond the minimum, you unlock more techniques from that feat. For instance, if an 8th-level fighter chose Bulwark Warrior as his bonus feat, he would gain the Covering Shield technique right away, but would not gain the Shield Ward technique until he had increased his BAB by another +2.

According to the description, you gain benefits based on how high your BaB is compared to the feat's minimum. However, the example seems to indicate that you only actually gain them based on how high your BaB is compared to what your BaB was when you gained the feat.

Is there any reason that the style feat BaB requirements are written as they are? By being written as the change in BaB required to gain the next tier of effects, it makes it difficult to figure out at a glance what you get for having any given BaB. Tempest Assault might be the worst, having 5 effects at differing changes in BaB, with a big table in the middle. Crusading Zealot is bad as well, having six different effects beyond the minimum, along with other effects (additional smites/day) that are also based on BaB, but described in a different manner (that is, by a threshold above which you gain the extra smite attempts, rather than the additional BaB you need above gaining the previous benefit).

While it makes sense for them to be written as a change in BaB from what you originally had if the intent behind the 8th-level Fighter example above is correct, they should still list the total BaB requirement above the base, rather than the BaB above the previous. By writing them as the total needed change in BaB, it becomes easy to see whether you have access to any given benefit by comparing your current BaB to your original BaB. As written, you need to add up each and every +1 or +2 BaB requirement from the beginning to give you each number to compare to, adding another tedious step.



General feats

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Avoidance: A simple, effective feat. Not amazing, but a very good value if you don't plan on using heavy armor anyways, and you want a feat or option with Dodge and/or Mobility as prerequisites. The synergy with Dodge makes Dodge actually attractive (although it’s still probably not worth it if you don't have other synergistic effects like Elusive Target). The synergy with Mobility is about equivalent to the Tumble skill. You may want to reword it, though, as the current wording is clunky. "If you possess Mobility in addition to Avoidance, you may designate a single opponent at the beginning of any move action. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity from that opponent due to moving into or out of a threatened area."

Awareness: A scaling feat directly in competition with Improved Initiative (although you can take both if you're desperate for initiative). Unless you've changed the base classes, Trap Sense scales far too slowly for this to be relevant compared to Imp. Init. For a straight Rogue or Barbarian, the benefit does not equal that of Improved Initiative until level 12, and it doesn't beat it until 15th level. A minor, secondary benefit would help improve this feat.

Base Vasrah: +1 to Will saves, Stunning Fist DCs, and Monk AC bonus, but only if you don't do anything to make them not be Wis-based (like Steadfast Determination or Carmendine Monk). This isn't entirely impressive on its own, being slightly less than one half of each of three average feats (Iron Will, Ability Focus, and Avoidance). Like Avoidance and Iron Will, it also functions as an opening to a useful feat chain, so I'll withhold final judgement until I get to the rest of the chain.

Is there any particular reason that the Vasrah chain disappears for a day if you take any Wis penalties at all? I could understand if it went away if your Wis was reduced below the minimum (13 Wis), or if it went away for as long as the penalties lasted (and thus returned when they were removed or cured), but losing a big chunk of your feats for getting smacked with a touch of idiocy seems a bit harsh.

Blessed By Fate: Player’s Guide to Faerun had Luck of Heroes, which was a regional feat selectable only at 1st level that did the exact same thing, except it also granted a +1 luck bonus to AC. Luck bonuses are common enough (Luckstones, prayer spells, etc.). A +1 bonus to all three saves isn’t that much better than a +2 bonus to a single save, and those feats aren’t that impressive in and of themselves. Does this really need to be a luck bonus instead of untyped?

Counterattack: Slightly stronger then Agile Riposte, weaker than Karmic Strike. Seems okay, I guess. The description of how attacks that don’t deal damage to you still trigger it could probably be pruned a simple “... even if the attack did not deal any damage”, although I can understand wanting to keep it longer to make it absolutely clear. The description of what weapons trigger the benefit is redundant; unarmed strikes and natural weapons are already melee weapons. If the intent was to write “a manufactured melee weapon” instead of just “a melee weapon” then the distinction would be necessary. However, that change would also prevent Counterattack from triggering from melee attack forms that any of the above, such as the melee touch attacks generated by spells and effects (although I think incorporeal touch attacks are natural weapons).

Desert Nomad: Endurance limited to desert environments and desert hazards and Skill Focus (Survival), but as insight bonuses and locked to desert terrain.

Elusive Prey: Significant requirements in Improved Evasion (which comes earliest at Monk 9 or Rogue 10). But wow, what an effect! Any targeted spell against you grants an extra Reflex negates saving throw. Sure, the DC is 10 higher than normal, but the save is in addition to whatever normal save is allowed, and the wording prevents spellcasters from adding their other save DC boosting effects to it (such as Spell Focus). Admittedly, 10 points of saves are hard to make up, but the benefits make focusing on your Reflex saves very worthwhile.

Fifth Vasrah: Okay, that’s nice. 5+ times/day to just say “no” is a strong defence (and possibly a decent offence as well; this feat’s wording is vaguely reminiscent of Iron Heart Surge in its vagueness, although it’s not quite that bad). It’s also at the end of a long chain. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen the whole chain.

I don’t know whether being designed for Monks is a point in favour or against this feat chain. On the one hand, limiting it to that class makes the feat in and of itself less impressive that it otherwise could be. On the other hand, being designed as a powerful series of effects to boost the class that needs it... As I said, I’ll reserve judgement.

Forceful Hand: The option to trip instead of push back is good so that you’re not forced to break your own full-attacks, while still giving you the option of a poor man’s Spring Attack to break your opponents’ full-attacks. That said, a 5’ push isn’t that great when the weapon you’re using it with is, by definition, not a reach weapon.

Also note that the movement caused by this feat will cause the pushed creature to provoke AoOs, as normal for movement (including forced movement) in 3rd edition. This includes provoking from the character that pushed the creature with this feat. (Even bull rushing would do this if it didn’t specifically say otherwise.)

The text at the end, “and on a success is not pushed back.” is erroneous. The wording already negates the push in exchange for knocking prone. The subject would not be pushed back on a success or a failure. If the intent was for the option to both push and knock down the subject, instead of just one or the other, the wording of the option should say that the knockdown is in addition to the push, not instead of. I also think that that change would weaken the feat, as it would remove the option to benefit from the feat without breaking your full-attacks.

Fourth Vasrah: Wis to HP, Fort saves, and Concentration/Constitution checks. Also uses it for other Con-based options (such as Deepwarden and Fist of the Forest’s Con to AC abilities). Certainly helps the Monk’s MAD, although it is a bit deep (5th level Monk required, 3 prerequisite feats).

Gift of Tongues: If disparate languages are extremely common in this campaign setting, this might be useful. I can’t help but think that taking Open Minded for 2-5 more languages might be more efficient.

Grim Determination: Highly reminiscent of the Devoted Spirit Stance of Immortal Fortitude. Better than Diehard, I think. Seems like a nice choice if you already have Endurance.

Improved Parry: See Parry.

Improved Sneak Attack: Is this a reference to readying an action? If so, this feat is weak, as it only gives you a benefit when you refrain from making multiple attacks (from a full-attack action; you can only ready standard, move, or free actions). If that text is erroneous, and the effect is entirely passive and is always active, then this is certainly an okay feat (and probably pretty nice; I don’t know how to properly evaluate +1 damage/die to Sneak Attack-type feats).

Intuition: Blind-fight is better, except for discerning invisible opponents, although it grants you other benefits in that situation that I think are better. The synergy with Alertness, Awareness, and Perceptive makes it slightly better than Blind-fight (by 4%) against creatures with concealment, but its still worse against creatures with total concealment.

Lion’s Leap: Pounce as a feat. Very good.

Murderous Intent: Ability Focus (Death Attack) and faster Death Attack in one. Does its job well.

Nature’s Ally: More spells are always good.

Never Say Die: Does not combo well with Diehard (which gives no benefit below -9). Grim Determination is probably better at the upper-middle to higher levels.

Parry: Stops the damage from a single melee attack, although other effects still get through. Has a fairly rough save DC. Improved Parry helps, though.

Path of the Traveling Moon: Abrupt Jaunt for Rogues (and Barbarians). The word “away” in “you may move up to 10’ as an immediate action” is unnecessary. The specification preventing passing physical barriers is unnecessary since the movement defaults to standard walking-type movement, unless the point is to interfere with incorporeal creatures’ ability to use this feat. The specification preventing using this as a response to attacks while flat-footed is unnecessary as you cannot use immediate actions while flat-footed anyways.

This feat seems strange in that it talks about jumping away in its fluff, but has no mechanical connection to jumping. It does not require or use the Jump skill, and in fact uses the mechanics of walking (defaulting to base movement, which is usually a land speed).

Poison Use: Alone, the Master of Poisons feat (from Drow of the Underdark) does the same thing and lets you apply poison as a swift action. If you already have poison use, this is nice, as blanket save DC boosts to poisons are somewhat uncommon. The requirements should allow for 4 ranks in Craft (poisonmaking) instead of alchemy, though. I don’t know which book codified it, but poisonmaking is the “proper” skill for making poisons, and alchemy can still be used but at a -4 penalty or something like that.

Quick Pace: Like Dash, but useful. Good.

Second Vasrah: Wait, um, what? You gain 4 skill points now (slightly less than Open Minded) and a bonus feat from a lousy list at next level. Still, Blind-fight and Improved Initiative are okay, and being able to bypass the prerequisites of Combat Expertise or Dodge has some merit. This feels like a very filler feat, but if you’re going for the Vasrah chain and something that also requires one of the other feats, I suppose it’s okay. It just feels very tasteless to me.

Sharper Edge: Gives a +1 on attack rolls per iterative attack per iterative attack. Feels a bit like Weapon Focus, but it does concentrate the bonuses (or rather, reduced penalties) on the attacks that need them, so that’s something.

Snake’s Tongue: Are you allowed to use Bluff on initial Diplomacy/Intimidate checks?

Superior Toughness: +1 hp/level and +1 to Fort saves. Why not just say so? Are you afraid of Monks with Fourth Vasrah taking this as well or something?

Surging Palm: Gives Forceful Palm an improved save DC, and gives the pushback options some improved staying power.

Templar: So you can get it as long as you’re not a full-caster? Interesting way to enforce that, by preventing access to those with cantrips.

Third Vasrah: The less MAD Monks can be, the better. See comments of Base Vasrah with respect to losing Wisdom causing the loss of this feat for the day.

Topple: What exactly do you mean by “natural form”?

Treacherous: Does the game really need more +2/+2 skill feats?

True Believer: Does this interact in any way with the published True Believer feat (from Complete Divine)?

Zealous Faith: A domain power and more spells. It comes a little late, but domain powers are usually worth a feat when well chosen, and the extra spells make sure it’s worthwhile.

Zealous Prayer: More spells and a reverse Serenity. Sounds good.

[Zeta Kai]

Sorry that I haven't responded in a more rapid manner; I've been very, very lazy busy.

Wow. I love the monk feats. Replacing pretty much every statistic with wisdom is awesome for the playability, but doesn't that also sort of make them almost mandatory, the feats? They are awesome for increasing the power of the monk, and giving them more options, but they also shoehorn the monk into one option set, and one way to function in any way that makes them functional in game. Is this intentional?

Like, if I wanted to play a brawler who fights with their fists in HoZ, who focuses on a higher Strength, I could play one who is... really wise? But what if that doesn't fit my character?

Also, how does this work with feats like Kungfu Genius, which allows the monk to replace wisdom with Intelligence for all class features (or at least the bonus to armor class)?

Well, there are a couple of different ways that monks can be effective in our setting. The first is to do what you suggest & take the Vasrah feat tree as fas as you can go. That's a good way to do things, & it solves a lot of the monk's inherent problems. Another way is to simply take the Unarmed Mastery style feat, which boosts the monk's attack power considerably (especially when combined with the Storm of Blows feat). Or you could take Forceful Hand followed by Surging Palm, which is another means of boosting your unarmed strikes. Lastly, there's Templar, which looks like it has a ton of prerequisites, but most of them are very easy to meet. And, of course, there's a number of ways you could combine these into potent builds.

So, as you can see, the Vasrah feats are but one of the ways in which we worked to improve the monk, & you are not obligated to take all of them in the least to be an effective combatant.

I'm having trouble figuring out how the Style feats are supposed to work. The description of them seems self-contradictory.

According to the description, you gain benefits based on how high your BaB is compared to the feat's minimum. However, the example seems to indicate that you only actually gain them based on how high your BaB is compared to what your BaB was when you gained the feat.

Is there any reason that the style feat BaB requirements are written as they are? By being written as the change in BaB required to gain the next tier of effects, it makes it difficult to figure out at a glance what you get for having any given BaB. Tempest Assault might be the worst, having 5 effects at differing changes in BaB, with a big table in the middle. Crusading Zealot is bad as well, having six different effects beyond the minimum, along with other effects (additional smites/day) that are also based on BaB, but described in a different manner (that is, by a threshold above which you gain the extra smite attempts, rather than the additional BaB you need above gaining the previous benefit).

While it makes sense for them to be written as a change in BaB from what you originally had if the intent behind the 8th-level Fighter example above is correct, they should still list the total BaB requirement above the base, rather than the BaB above the previous. By writing them as the total needed change in BaB, it becomes easy to see whether you have access to any given benefit by comparing your current BaB to your original BaB. As written, you need to add up each and every +1 or +2 BaB requirement from the beginning to give you each number to compare to, adding another tedious step.

Alright, here's a quick recap of what you do with a Style Feat:

1. Do you meet all the prerequisites? Congratulations, the feat is yours! You've made a wise purchase.
2. Now, at first, you only get is the first technique. Enjoy it, cause no matter how high your BAB is now, that's all you get.
3. Later, once you've gained a level or two, you will probably qualify for another technique. All you need is +1 or +2 BAB more than you had when you first bought the feat. No further purchase is necessary; eventually, all of the techniques will be yours to use. Just not yet.
4. Rinse & repeat step #3.

It's pretty simple, really: the style feats scale with your power level. It happens slowly & predictably, so you can plan things out in advance. It happens over many levels, so you can take the time to try out the different techniques. Each one is designed to assist with a specific combat style, just like it says on the tin. And they're all in one feat, so you can spend your precious few feats on other things, too.

For melee characters, feats are your rarest commodity, & they have the greatest potential for making or breaking your character (your equipment can be sold & repurchased, but feats are set in stone, unless your DM is very nice & has read the PHB2). So we've done our best to make sure that you get as much bang for your buck without giving the casters all of the same toys. Melee can have nice things & they should, so style feats are here to prove it.

As for the other feats that you reviewed, it looks like you spent a good deal of time looking at each one. Thank you very much for your thoroughness. I really appreciate that, so I'm gonna respond to each one. Look for that soon.

[unosarta]

Sorry that I haven't responded in a more rapid manner; I've been very, very lazy busy.

No problem!

Well, there are a couple of different ways that monks can be effective in our setting. The first is to do what you suggest & take the Vasrah feat tree as fas as you can go. That's a good way to do things, & it solves a lot of the monk's inherent problems. Another way is to simply take the Unarmed Mastery style feat, which boosts the monk's attack power considerably (especially when combined with the Storm of Blows feat). Or you could take Forceful Hand followed by Surging Palm, which is another means of boosting your unarmed strikes. Lastly, there's Templar, which looks like it has a ton of prerequisites, but most of them are very easy to meet. And, of course, there's a number of ways you could combine these into potent builds.

Actually, these slightly increase the Monk's power, but they don't really solve his main problems. First of all, he is still sort of restricted by the fact that he doesn't really have any real combat variety. He can Trip (which isn't boosted by any of these feats), Bull Rush (again, not boosted), Grapple (boosted by one feat, and not really by that much), Disarm (again not boosted), or attack with unarmed strikes. The unarmed strikes are mildly interesting, to a lesser degree. At the end of the day, however, you still are just running around and attacking. Some of the most interesting combat options for the monk (Grapple, Trip, Bull Rush, mainly) are not very well boosted. The Vasrah feats are interesting, mechanically fun, and something I would love to play a character with. However, I would equally like to play a character who isn't so focused on wisdom, and that just isn't really supported by these feats at all. I could use Forceful Hand and Surging palm, but they still aren't really very powerful (although they are far more interesting than the other monk feats, so there is that). However, once you get past that, there are not really any other monk supporting feats. If I wanted to play a brawling character for instance, focusing on Strength instead of Wisdom, I could take Unarmed Strike Mastery (which isn't that strong, or at the very least doesn't make combat any more varied except maybe that last option, which comes in at 7th level at the earliest), but past that? There aren't any feats that really support that kind of character, and all of the Vasrah feats are pretty much wasted on the character concept, making it pretty much inviable.

Templar is interesting, and implies that Monks in this setting are religious, which is an interesting take, but it doesn't really get past that main problem of being really passive and not giving anything worth taking it.

So, as you can see, the Vasrah feats are but one of the ways in which we worked to improve the monk, & you are not obligated to take all of them in the least to be an effective combatant.

Except you kind of are. Or at least take one or two. There just aren't enough feats other than them to put to use, as far as I can tell. I would love to see some that I just missed that prove me wrong, but I can't really see or find any.

[lesser_minion]

Special: If your Wisdom score is reduced, drained or damaged, you immediately lose uses of this ability commensurate to the decrease in Wisdom bonus. If your Wisdom score is increased by a temporary effect, you do not gain additional uses of this ability.

As far as preventing exploits is concerned, this is redundant, because you always track the number of times you've used an ability. If the number of times you're allowed to use the ability temporarily rises or falls, you simply compare the new number of uses allowed to the number of uses you've expended.

Worse, this language means that having Owl's Wisdom cast on you will cause you to automagically lose two uses of the ability when the spell ends, which is almost certainly not what you wanted.