Feat Problems With PHB II

[Ditch]

Sammael, if your rog has 40+ to hide then he is definately not fighting standard Orcs and they probably have ways of countering sneak attack damage as it is. Apples vs. apples, this bonus range is still not broken.

I guarantee if I play a class past level 20 I'll have some form of fortification on my armor/shield. Sneak attacks hurt too dang bad to ignore after a certain point.

 

[MarkB]

Overwhelming Assault: Hmm... this looks a lot like Defensive Sweep. Let's see... Opponent starts on adjacent square, doesn't attack or use a spell/ability against you, and ends in that square, you get +4 to attack him next round. Another weirdo feat - the only opponent who would stand next to you for a full round and do nothing is either held/paralyzed, a Dwarven Defender-type, or just plain stupid.

Or is attacking your ally. This is a reasonable feat for characters who use flanking a lot - choose an opponent who's focused on one of your team-mates, and it will probably pay off more often than not.

Arcane Consumption: Once/day as a swift action, you can give your next spell a +4 on the save DC, but it must be cast in the same round. In return, you suffer a -4 (?!) to Con and are fatigued for 12 hours.

WTF is going to take a feat like this? I could see it as a last-ditch, "If this doesn't work we're all going to die" thing, but I wouldn't take a feat for something that might come up once every few sessions (and if it fails, the mage really IS screwed since he's lost a good number of hit points and can't cast spells). And it requires Toughness and arcane caster level 6? I've got better things to blow feat slots on at that level.

The first thing that occurred to me was "warforged". They have naturally high CON and aren't subject to the effects of fatigue. Even then, I'd consider the CON penalty too high, though.

PCs aside, though, this is a nasty feat to give to an undead or full-construct BBEG.

Grenadier (this ranks right up there with Endurance as Most Useless Feat Ever): You get a +1 to attacks and damage with splash weapons.

Its only purpose seems to be to provide a prerequisite for the Mad Alchemist tactical feat, and that feat isn't exactly stellar.

 

[KarinsDad]

Or is attacking your ally. This is a reasonable feat for characters who use flanking a lot - choose an opponent who's focused on one of your team-mates, and it will probably pay off more often than not.

Actually, it is not reasonable even then.

For example:

.....
..a..
..b..
..c..
.....

a and c flank b.

In our game, b 5 foot steps right away next round:

.....
..ab.
.....
..c..
.....

In order to have both a and c flank him on the next round, both a and c must take 5 foot steps (and only the opponent who did that last actually gets the flank). Once they get to a wall, he can no longer be flanked unless one of the attackers takes more than a 5 foot step (he can still be flanked, but one of the opponents had to move more than 5 feet and hence, does not get a full round attack).

Overwhelming Assault would rarely see use in our game unless the opponent is Entangled and cannot move from his square. The tactics and movement are just too fluid.

 

[Grog]

Indomitable Will: Considering this requires one useless feat and one minor feat (Endurance and Iron Will), I think being able to choose your roll is fine. If it required only one, then yeah, I'd say take the second roll.

The big problem I have with this one is that it's a substantial nerf to one specific school of magic. If you had a 50% chance to save against that Dominate Person spell before, you have a 75% chance to save now. If you had a 25% chance to save before, you have a ~45% chance to save now. It was hard being an Enchantment specialist already since there are significant numbers of enemies who are just flat-out immune to your spells (undead, constructs, etc.). And now, creatures that were vulnerable to your spells can become much less vulnerable to them (especially since they have to take Iron Will already to qualify for this feat).

Enchantment specialists just got screwed.

 

[Lamoni]

And now, creatures that were vulnerable to your spells can become much less vulnerable to them (especially since they have to take Iron Will already to qualify for this feat).

Enchantment specialists just got screwed.

One should always remember that the availability of a feat is NOT equivalent to giving every one the feat for free. I bet an enchantment specialist can adventure just as before and still find very few opponents who chose this feat chain. And if the opponent did choose it, they are probably much less effective at offense because of the feats they didn't choose instead.

 

[mikebr99]

The halfling rogue in my long-term game abuses it every round. He has +40-something on Hide checks and so the -20 penalty from sniping doesn't phase him much. Even opponents with decent Spot checks have trouble detecting him when he snipes, and most have no chance whatsoever.

I hope you are only allowing him to get one attack per round this way...


Mike

 

[Shade]

I'm thrilled to finally see a large number of feats that are actually worth taking compared with those in the PHB. People have been clamoring for high-level feats to justify the fighter class, and I think a bunch of these have done just that. Sure, a few of them have some issues, but overall I'm excited by them finally dropping the gloves and making some powerful feats.

FWIW, here's Andy Collins' reasoning from his message boards:

On the "these feats are too powerful" issue, consider this:

I think the vast majority of the feats in D&D are too weak, too boring, or both.

Historically, we've been way too conservative about creating exciting, potent feats. We've spent way too much ink printing feats that give you a small numerical bonus (often only applying in a corner-case game situation), and not nearly enough creating new equivalents of Cleave and Spring Attack. PH2 represents an intentional shift in that mentality.

The other tricky issue is that unlike, say, spells, feats don't have an easy ranking system to compare them against one another. If Spring Attack were a "4th-level feat" and Toughness were a "0-level feat," it'd be easier to see how much better the former is supposed to be compared to the latter. PH2 has a lot of feats that, due to their high prereqs, are effectively "high-level" feats, and thus are very much intended to be more powerful than those that've come before.

Some folks will freak out when they see what's available in PH2. I think that's just flat-out a good thing--it's about time folks got excited about a new D&D book

 

[Simplicity]

Yeah, I'd say that feats in general needed some more power. I don't actually mind if the PHBII feats ARE overpowered in comparison to the PHB. Feats should have been more powerful in the PHB in the first place.

So why choose PHB feats then? ... Well there's still a bunch of prereqs for many of these things... And it's pretty hard to fill your character up with PHBII feats. I think most people will take the following route:

1) Choose PHB feats for prereqs.
2) Choose PHBII feats for their coolness.
3) Choose PHB feats to get that final extra edge.

I'm okay with that.

 

[Grog]

One should always remember that the availability of a feat is NOT equivalent to giving every one the feat for free. I bet an enchantment specialist can adventure just as before and still find very few opponents who chose this feat chain. And if the opponent did choose it, they are probably much less effective at offense because of the feats they didn't choose instead.

"Not everyone's going to take it" isn't a defense. You can say that about ANY feat. It has no bearing on whether or not the feat itself is balanced.

If WotC published a feat that gave a saving throw to avoid rogue sneak attack damage, would you seriously argue that that wasn't a nerf to rogues because "the availability of a feat is NOT equivalent to giving every one the feat for free?"

A feat like this is especially problematic when it applies to enchantment spells, since enchantment spells are almost always completely negated by a successful save. If your opponent saves against your fireball, he still takes half damage - if he saves against your dominate spell, absoultely nothing happens.

Oh, and with the nerfed Hold spells in 3.5, someone with this feat will get two saving throws per round against them. You'd be lucky to hold them for one round, even if they have a crappy Will save.

 

[KarinsDad]

"Not everyone's going to take it" isn't a defense. You can say that about ANY feat. It has no bearing on whether or not the feat itself is balanced.

To add to this, an unbalanced feat is an unbalanced feat regardless.

In the case of Indomitable Will, the DM always used to have his Enchantment (and even certain types of Illusionist) specialist NPCs throw Charm and Hold and Dominate, etc. against the PC tanks because it was obvious to the NPCs that these PCs should be the most susceptible to those types of magical attacks.

Now, a PC Fighter or Barbarian takes Indomitable Will. Sure, it cost him 3 feats. But, the DM is now stuck in a situation where only Reoccuring Villain Enchantment Specialist NPCs should eventually figure out that you cannot charm the PC Fighter. Every other Enchantment Specialist NPC should by default target this Fighter (at some point in the combat) and waste a few rounds every combat finding out that the Fighter almost always saves. Not only that, but it changes other aspects of these types of encounters. For example, if the Fighter saves more often because of this, then the Cleric and/or Wizard does not have to cast as many Dispel Magic spells to counter a Domination.

Eventually, it becomes so bad (and boring) that the DM stops sending these types of NPCs against the group.

And, it is all due to the fact that the feat is unbalanced. Remember, this feat can be acquired at 3rd level. +2 to Will saves is balanced. Two Will saves pick the better of the two (both at +2 btw) is not. Any game mechanic where you can roll two D20, pick the better of the two rolls and oh by the way, you can do this every single time this roll comes up in the game and are not limited to set number of times per day (like one), the feat is unbalanced.

Third level Fighter with Wisdom 10 has +1 to Will saves. Against a third level Cleric with a 16 Wisdom and Hold Person, he saves 35% of the time. If he takes Indomitable Will, he saves 69.75% of the time. Effectively, he just got a +7 to his save, +5 more than taking Iron Will alone, the equivalent of a +5 magic item for a feat.

No feat in the game so far gives +5 to a save TMK. This one easily can.