Are the core (PHB) feats enough?

[Belen]

I think this is an excellent comment. It would be great if there were some clear Wis-based and Cha-based feats. Some of the "talent trees" from d20 Modern could have been pressed into this kind of mould, or examples taken from other OGL games (I know that Conan has some excellent flavourful combat feats based on other attributes).

And I second the general agreement that there could be some useful higher level feats to provide more variety for the top level fighters. Some options that come to mind might be "Improved Whirlwind Attack", requires BAB 15+, whirlwind attack and lets you get a primary AND a secondary attack against everyone adjacent to you (no using precise terminology here, obviously), "Decapitating Slash" (with equivalent for other weapon types) - BAB 15+, imp critical, regardless of your weapons crit modifier and threat range, if you score a critical hit with a roll of 20 then you get an automatic crit multiplier of x5.

I'm not suggesting that those off the cuff ideas are balanced or thoroughly developed - just thinking about how some logical extensions of existing feats could reach up into the high prereq arena.

Cheers

I agree completely. One of the things that fighters really need are some exceptional ability feats. They suffer in comparison to other classes because they are just not versatile. They also have to spend a lot of their wealth on magic weapons and this do not have the wonderous items needed to compete with classes that have spells. Maybe some feat chains that allowed a weapon to act as a magic weapon etc....

 

[Psion]

My players perfer to get feats outside the PHB. We have gotten a lot of use out of AEG's Feats.

You really have to filter that book. Many feats are largely out of context or just not well conceived.

Some of them are neat but trade roleplaying disads for mecanical ads. I'd use those reservedly or assign additional (e.g., XP) costs.

 

[sjmiller]

Well, I am slightly out of the main in this, as I am playing in a D&D3.0 group that has no plans on changing to 3.5. That being the case, I find that the PH has quite a few feats that lean toward either the fighter or the wizard, but fewer for everyone else. I've taken some feats (talents actually) from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, and some other interesting ones from Philip J. Reed's original (limited edition) Book of Unusual Treasures. If a feat adds more character, if it makes the character more interesting, I will generally think about adding it before I would one that just makes combat easier for the character.

 

[Will]

By the by, the other win for two weapons is when you can afford weapon enchantments.

2 +1 flaming weapons costs 16k. A +1 flaming/shock weapon costs 18k. (Being slightly conservative)

And with two weapons, you can do things like have one weapon be holy and the other brilliant. Or something.

 

[Arnwyn]

Are the core feats too limited?

No, not at all. As a DM, I pretty much use feats exclusively from the PHB when designing NPCs. Who's got time to go through a multitude of other books? (Answer: Not me.)

 

[Kalendraf]

The feats in the 3.5 PHB are a good start. However, they are rather limited in scope, and do not provide enough diversity for all characters. A few of the feats I believe should have been included in the PHB are as follows:

Zen Archery - Why this one wasn't included is beyond me. A great feat to allow a high wisdom, low dex character to be an effective archer, making it an ideal choice for clerics who want to hang back.

Shield Expert - Anyone who has studied medieval combat or even caught a few battles on film should realize that the shield can often be used for more than just blocking attacks. Without this feat available, the option for using shields in that way is often not worth the penalty.

Dwarf's Toughness, Dragon Toughness - The usefulness of Toughness as a feat just doesn't cut it at high levels. These feats would give high-level fighters some better options to increase hit points.

I have my own opinions on streamlining/combining certain feats as well as how certain feats should be changed up, but since the original question was about whether the core feats are enough, I'll leave those for another thread.

 

[National Acrobat]

Yes

Yes, there are more than enough feats to play in the Core Books. It gets muddled after that. Plus, we only use the Core Books for our 3.0 game anyway.