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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011096" data-attributes="member: 18387">The d20 system is chock full of feats. Even before Prestige Classes became the staple bread-and-butter open game content in every book, products were introducing new feats.FEATS, by Alderac Entertainment Group, is 140 pages of over one thousand feats. These include the feats from the core d20 rules as well as a huge collection drawn from a variety of thrid-party sources, and over 200 new feats thrown in for good measure.Where to begin a review of a book like this?The feats HAVE been re-written from their original sources. Some have had new requirements added, some have been strung into new feat chains, and some have just been edited so they read better. There are still -some- issues with d20-isms, such as feats that allow the character to 'take 20' on an action without the retries required in order to 'take 20'. Instead, these feats are supposed to mean the character can act as if the d20 roll for success was a 20 instead of needing to roll the die. This is a semantic difference, but one that shows either some amount of laziness on the part of the writer or  a lack of grasp of the d20 system.However, besides that and a few 'metamagic' feats that don't actually modify spells (Absorb Spell, listed as metamagic, allows a character to absorb a spell cast at him to refill a spent spell slot - this is a special feat, not a metamagic feat, as it does not affect spells that the character casts and does not require that the character increase the casting time of the spell and/or increase the level of the spell slot in question), the book is quite internally consistent, with the feats being well balanced and providing some new feat chains instead of just a pile of new feats.The first chapter is background feats - feats that can only be taken at first level, including several  'bloodgift' feats that I recognize from Green Ronin's "Hammer & Helm", along with similar bloodgift feats for elven bloodlines and several others. Chapter 2 is general feats, and is the lion's share of the feats presented in the book, going from page 17 through 90. These stretch across all the variety of feats you can expect in a book of feats, with a recognizable number of feats from Fantasy Flight Games products. There are also a lot of feats from prior "one-word books" in the line.Chapter 3 is Infernal Pacts. These feats are an expansion and revision on the infernal pacts feats from a much older book in the line, "Evil". These feats come with both benefits far superior to a regular feat, but also with penalties such as stat reduction, forked tongues and so on. These feats are a nice touch for a game with a lot of, well, infernal pacts or infernalism the way it is handled in games such as White Wolf's "Sabbat" vampire products.Chapter 4 is Magic Feats. These include item creation feats, metamagic feats (sometimes mis-identified as such, however) and other feats related to spellcasting and spellcasters, and the skills they use (spellcraft, knowledge arcana, and so on). Several new feats in this section increase the damage of the damage dealing spells by 'latticing' them with energies (such as fire, acid, etc), dealing 1d6 additional damage per level of the original spell and increasing the spell level by 1. While these seem nice initially, I worry that at lower levels these can be abused for spells such as fireball. Combine a fireball with an acid lattice and you get a level 4 spell that deals 10d6 for a level 7 spellcaster. This may be a little too good in many situations.Chapter 5 introduces a new type of feat, the Quest Feat. These are feats that work a lot like the Legendary classes from FFG's products. To get one of these feats, the character must have a fairly long list of prerequisites, and must also complete a specific quest. These are fairly powerful feats such as one that removes your alignment completely, making the character 'above good and evil', or 'foerign magicks' which grants a bonus of +3 to spell save DCs as well as a -5 penalty on other people attempting to identify the spells you cast (requiring a spellcaster of level 12+ to have personally discovered and learned 3 lost spells from different creators and time periods). These feats could be incredibly too powerful for some campaigns, but can also be an excellent addition to reward role-playing or to start adventures with no other rewards (no treasure, little XP) in exchange for the chance to earn one of these feats.Finally the book closes with some silly feats. Not too many, and in a chapter of their own, these include necessary feats such as "Elven Blood, Keebler" (an elven bloodline feat granting bonuses on crafting sweet cookies), "Bonus Feat" (which allows you to pick a feat that you normally qualify for and take it), and of course, "Grassy Gnoll".---Overall, I am very impressed with this book. The layout is clean and easy to read, like most of the later books in this line. The revisions to the feats make them well-balanced with a few exceptions (improved sneak attack for example) and the inclusion of the core d20 feats means that I used this book INSTEAD of the PHB when characters were selecting feats. As a 3.0 product, it can't be beat.However, I think the book needs a revision now for 3.5, if only to include the expanded list of 3.5 core feats and to add feats from other, newer, sources. This is not vital however, and does not affect my score for the book. To be honest, I prefer this book over the often-praised "Toolbox". It is an essential compilation of feats done with a lot of heart by someone who worked hard to integrate the contents into a working whole instead of just a hodge-podge of open game content compiled from various sources.</blockquote>

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