Iron Will, etc taken more than once?

[Phaedrus]

Is it unbalancing in your opinion to allow the 3 "+2 save" feats (Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude) to be taken repeatedly?

If so, why?
There's a feat out there somewhere that gives +1 to all saves. Why not allow this one repeatedly also?

My thought is using a feat to increase a save is a fair exchange. Why should they be limited to one time only?

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with it. If a character wants to specialize that much, then I say let him.

 

[MarauderX]

Yeah, I say let them add all of them if they want, they are potentially detracting from the other abilities they could gain by choosing another feat. But if a character wants to be completely defensive, why not.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Agreed. The only class which receives a boatload of feats is the fighter, and most of those are bonus feats, which don't include these three.

Outside of bonus feats, the most any character will have at 18th level is 8 feats (1 for human, 1 each for levels 1,3,6,9,12,15,18). This means at best, +16, divided among the three save types. This is only slightly better than a paladin with an 18 Cha who gains a +4 to all saves due to divine grace ability. And the paladin doesn't have to spend any feats for his bonuses.

 

[Mordane76]

I, for one, disagree with allowing this stacking.

The examples that are being put up assume that the character is spreading the wealth among other feats and between the three saves. In the extreme of this example, a character could drop all those feats into one save --

Fortitude: Death from Massive Damage, Coup-de-grace, and most save or die spells are now moot. Poisons are now useless as well.

Reflex: A whole host of spells are now wasted, because the character cannot fail a Reflex save.

Will: A whole host of spells are now wasted, because the character cannot fail a Will save.


If you play with this part of the game engine (the save boosting feats), you will deal great potential harm to other areas by opening up whole new avenues of abuse.

Most of these difficulties don't even require all the feats to be spent in one save -- even two or three make a character FAR more resistant to even powerful spells, because a spellcaster can take Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus, but can't go past that (so they have a maximum of +4 to a specific school of magic); as an example, a person takes Great Fortitude twice, and SF/GSF Necromancy is now completely countered -- take it three times, and even these specialists of specialists can't hurt the character.


Summary -- No. I think this is a bad idea, that will see nothing but abuse.

 

[Phaedrus]

A 20th level Fighter has F+12, R+6, W+6.

If he took Iron Will 3 times he'd be at W+12... equal to his Fort save... that doesn't break the system (cf. Monk and Cleric).

If he had taken Great Fort, he'd be at F+14, also within the rules.
So now he can take Iron Will 4 times to equal that.

I don't see someone spending more than 4 feat slots on saves... but let's say a Fighter spends 8 feats on Will and Reflex, evenly divided. That puts him at F+12, R+14, W+14. This doesn't break the system, as it is the same as a Monk that took Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will...

So the only problem is someone taking 8 feats in just one save... which would make you mostly immune to failing that save type. Does that break the game? You could fix this by requiring the character to alternate: you can pick these repeatedly, but only if you change the save type each selection. This would cap the max at 4 times divided between 2 save types, which as my example above shows, fits within acceptable limits.

 

[Corlon]

will saves and absorb spell are something that don't go well together.

Already with a cloak of resistance, being a halfling and with half my levels rogue, I absorb all spells any person of my level or lower can cast with a ten or higher.

With these feats stacking, I could increase this greatly.

 

[Saepiroth]

i think stacking completely is fine. if a fighter dumps his eight regular feats in, say, Great Fortitude for a fort save of 28, then by all means let him go for it. he will be immune to Coup de Gracie attacks and such, but he will be a very inferior fighter.

i think that would be an excellent design decision for someone who wants to prestige into, say, a Devoted Defender.

 

[fba827]

Just an fyi -- there is a PrC (in Def. of Faith, I believe) that has one of its special abilities a "Superior Iron Will" that basically stacks another +2 ontop of its Iron Will prerequisite. If you use that PrC, note that opening stacking in general will lessen the boone that this ability has specific to this PrC.

(I don't think I'm making any sense, sorry, it's been a long day for me, but I hope my point is in there somewhere )

Edit: PS, be prepared to be VERY specific as to what Feats you are allowing this multiple stacking times thing ... the reason I say this is if you just make a statement that some feats can be taken more than once and stack, you may have players that start to try and convience you of other feats that should be allowed in this catagory. (Course, you seem tto already have a defined list, just saying, be sure that your defined list is stated up front to the players).

 

[Mordane76]

i think stacking completely is fine. if a fighter dumps his eight regular feats in, say, Great Fortitude for a fort save of 28, then by all means let him go for it. he will be immune to Coup de Gracie attacks and such, but he will be a very inferior fighter.

Said fighter would not be an inferior fighter. He also has his fighter bonus feats.

Originally posted by Phaedrus
I don't see someone spending more than 4 feat slots on saves... but let's say a Fighter spends 8 feats on Will and Reflex, evenly divided. That puts him at F+12, R+14, W+14. This doesn't break the system, as it is the same as a Monk that took Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will...

If this character wants this kind of access to heightened saves, then he should multiclass -- that's what the option is there for! A fighter could take X levels in fighter and then, if lawful, multiclass into monk. It wouldn't necessarily work vice versa (depending on if you enforce the multiclass restriction for monks), however. I think that allowing stacking feats of any type other than those which already state they stack is just asking for trouble -- in this case, you're manipulating a section of the engine (saves) that is in CONSTANT use, and there is no way to be certain that this seemingly little change won't derail a campaign down the road without playtesting.

As for the idea of restricting the number of times you can apply a feat to a specific save, you're still playing with fire. Stacking restrictions, I would hope, should have been playtested to see if they work. I'll assume that such is the case for this purpose, and that the reason the restriction is in place is because the WotC playtesters saw its effects durin g their sessions. Now, you want to allow stacking in limited instances... I think that doing so will just open a new can of worms. If you're going to do it, I think it has to be an all-or-none thing; either you can stack it, or you can't. Anything in between seems lacking and heavy-handed.