What are the 5 most powerful feats in the PHB?

[Brother MacLaren]

I'm surprised Quicken Spell hasn't been mentioned. At high levels, it's a must-have for casters.

 

[Nifft]

I'm surprised Quicken Spell hasn't been mentioned. At high levels, it's a must-have for casters.

Original post specifies no meta-magic feats. I'm guessing he knows about Quicken, Empower and Persistant ... er, that's it.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dragon Vindaloo]

Everyone in our group always has Improved Initiative for their character no matter what class/race combo they are playing.

 

[jasin]

Hmm... top PHB feats for people who don't believe in statistics (and so think they're much better than they actually are...)

1. Improved Initiative
2. Power Attack
3.
4.
5.

Say what? Improved Initiative is debatable, since the benefits are hard to quantify, but how is Power Attack for people who don't believe in statistics?

 

[Harlekin]

Say what? Improved Initiative is debatable, since the benefits are hard to quantify, but how is Power Attack for people who don't believe in statistics?

If you do the math, power attacking on a full attack usually reduces the expected damage output, except when you fight creatures with DR. However, at high levels, power attacks allow fighters to do a lot of damage on a standard attack.

 

[Zaruthustran]

1. Two Weapon Fighting - the most precious resource in the game is the Action, and this feat provides an extra attack action.
2. Rapid Shot - (see above)
3. Power Attack - the double benefit for two-handed weapons makes this feat crazy powerful, especially when combined with items, feats or abilities that further double damage (lance on a charge, Leap Attack, and so on).
4. Natural Spell - this feat makes Druids "broken".
5. Spring Attack - this feat denies the target his full attack action--that alone is plenty powerful, if you're fighting say a troll with claw/claw/bite/rend. It gets more powerful f you combine the feat with a reach weapon, or if your character has Hide in Plain Sight and sneak attack and you Hide on the way in *and* the way out. If you move in such a way as to prevent the target from closing with you (spider climb, water walking, etherealness, etc.) you can break an encounter.

-z, player of a character with TWF, Power Attack, Spring Attack, sneak attack, skirmish, Hide in Plain Sight, boots of spider climb, and a two-handed reach weapon.

 

[Shade]

1.) Power Attack by a massive landslide.

2.) Rapid Shot
3.) Manyshot
4.) Quick Draw
5.) Combat Reflexes

 

[drothgery]

If you do the math, power attacking on a full attack usually reduces the expected damage output, except when you fight creatures with DR. However, at high levels, power attacks allow fighters to do a lot of damage on a standard attack.

... except that by high levels they're doing ungodly amounts of damage even without power attack (insane strength, powerful magic weapons, feats, other magic items, buffs from allies, barbarian rage, high levels of ranger favored enemy-age or paladin smiting), so increasing the chance of missing has a tendency to reduce expected damage even when you're only making a single attack. 1-for-1 Power Attack (i.e. 3.0 style or non-two-handed weapon 3.5 style) is pretty much never worth it except to overcome DR or in only hit on 20/only miss on 1 edge cases.

The reason why PA is overvalued is because in non-edge cases people don't tend to attribute missing on a low non-1 roll to PA, they attribute it to rolling a 3. And that situation comes up more in practice than missing on a high non-20 roll due to PA.

 

[BadMojo]

If you do the math, power attacking on a full attack usually reduces the expected damage output, except when you fight creatures with DR. However, at high levels, power attacks allow fighters to do a lot of damage on a standard attack.

I think blasting through DR is a huge advantage at mid to high levels. In a recent game, power attacking helped against a creature with DR/silver. The rest of the party members in melee were doing very little actual damage while hitting more often than the PA fighter. Even my monk doing a "flurry of misses" was hitting quite a bit but doing little damage.

 

[Warren Okuma]

1.) Power Attack by a massive landslide.

2.) Rapid Shot
3.) Manyshot
4.) Quick Draw
5.) Combat Reflexes

Really? How many optimised druids did you game with? And did you ever see a 10+ level wildshaping druid? Summoning druid?

For me it's...

1) Leadership (Duh)
2) Natural Spell (Duh)
3) Augment Summoning (For druids, the summoner build)
4) Improved Trip (Spiked chain tripper)
5) Greater spell penetration

In that order.