Most underrated feat(s)

[Kwalish Kid]

Because you would shift 2 instead of one which, by default, lets you shift the opponent 2 into the square that you vacated.

Mark of passage does not let one slide an opponent more, it only let's one shift more. So the opponent is only sliding one square. But Mark of Passage is still a great feat to use with that power or with Footwork Lure.

 

[Ryujin]

I would interpret it otherwise as it states that the opponent moves to is slid into the square that you occupied, but ruling the opponent slides into the second square that you shifted through would also be a valid interpretation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, it isn't because of D&D's focus on combat.

It is because D&D's focus on the specialist.

Either you are very good at what you do, or you leave it to somebody else. (That is, somebody else in your party).

Being mediocre or terrible, it doesn't matter in this game. Don't do what you don't excel at, that's a waste of time and resources.

I got to agree with the Cap'n pretty much on this one. JoAT is very close to pointless. The corner case is at low levels some PCs with a decent stat and some skills that work with it they aren't trained in (high WIS fighter is a likely one).

In general though suppose you have a 12 in a stat and you never raise it. At level 1 with JoAT your untrained skills in that stat are now +3 (and could go as high as +7 with racial and background bonuses). +3 might be useful but even so there's a guy in the party with +8-12 in that skill, so at best you're second tier there. A skill based on 14 stat? Now you might maybe conceivably be actually using it.

Now picture the same character at 21st level. His 12 is now a 14 and he now has a whole +4! Meanwhile the guy with that stat as primary started with say an 18 and he's boosted HIS stat by 6 points. You're now 2 more points behind him than you were at level 1 where it was marginal to begin with.

Its just not really a useful feat. I LIKE skill feats and other non-combat feats, but JoAT is not underrated, its just weaksauce.

 

[Ryujin]

I got to agree with the Cap'n pretty much on this one. JoAT is very close to pointless. The corner case is at low levels some PCs with a decent stat and some skills that work with it they aren't trained in (high WIS fighter is a likely one).

In general though suppose you have a 12 in a stat and you never raise it. At level 1 with JoAT your untrained skills in that stat are now +3 (and could go as high as +7 with racial and background bonuses). +3 might be useful but even so there's a guy in the party with +8-12 in that skill, so at best you're second tier there. A skill based on 14 stat? Now you might maybe conceivably be actually using it.

Now picture the same character at 21st level. His 12 is now a 14 and he now has a whole +4! Meanwhile the guy with that stat as primary started with say an 18 and he's boosted HIS stat by 6 points. You're now 2 more points behind him than you were at level 1 where it was marginal to begin with.

Its just not really a useful feat. I LIKE skill feats and other non-combat feats, but JoAT is not underrated, its just weaksauce.

JoaT is great at Heroic tier when a non-physical character needs to climb a wall using a rope, for example. When that same character without skill is at high Paragon and trying to climb a boiling hot cliff face that's covered in aboleth mucus? Not so much.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

JoaT is great at Heroic tier when a non-physical character needs to climb a wall using a rope, for example. When that same character without skill is at high Paragon and trying to climb a boiling hot cliff face that's covered in aboleth mucus? Not so much.

Eh, like I say, it has some marginal use at Heroic Tier. It certainly isn't a great feat that's being underrated IMHO though. Its more like why would I spend one of my very few Heroic Tier feats on this edge case? I'm better off training Athletics with Skill Training to be honest. Athletics comes up a LOT and for most characters it will be the skill you're by far most likely to want to score well on and may not have a choice to let someone else roll. Perception is the other one that's similar, but again its best to take Skill Training in that and its MUCH less likely someone else's high perception won't make up for your weakness in that area.

Where JoAT might be a better deal is in a smaller than normal party of a character that is frequently operating alone and needs to be good at most everything. Even then once you hit maybe 12th level or so its probably better to retrain it.

 

[bganon]

I've always thought Defensive Mobility, especially as the archer ranger freebie, is a bit underrated. Flanking with the fighter and making point-blank ranged attacks is a nice way to put a monster in a terrible dilemma - sit tight and eat the attack or make the OA against a high AC but otherwise temptingly squishy target and draw the fighter retaliation?

Durable - past the midpoint of each tier, this can actually give a low-Con character more hp per day than Toughness. Whether or not it's really better than Toughness depends somewhat on how easily you can spend surges; in any case it's really quite competitive but nonetheless Toughness seems to get all the love.

Psychic Lock - I don't know if it's really underrated so much as specific to certain builds, but it provides such a nice bonus that it's probably worth it even for characters that have only a few psychic powers. Once PH3 comes out, this'll probably become one of the most popular feats.

 

[Mengu]

I'm not buying the "you have to be an expert for a skill to be useful" argument. In the game I'm running, I can ask for common skill checks like Insight, Perception, Athletics from anyone. And it's not unusual when the rogue tries to calm down an agitated bystander that I ask for a diplomacy check, or when the warlord says he's with the city guard, that I ask for a bluff check. Few sessions ago, I asked the shaman trying to jam a portcullis to make a thievery check, and I asked the wizard trying to cross a thin ledge in some ruins to make an acrobatics check. I use Endurance checks as part of skill challenges sometimes, that everyone has to make, and if half the party or more succeed, they get a success and do whatever they are trying to do in less time.

Skills are not just for the specialists to "win" a skill challenge. They are used frequently enough during adventuring by everyone, so Jack of All Trades is a reasonably good feat for anyone who wants to be better at those skill checks, or to be a helpful assistant in skill challenges. Also not all parties can cover every knowledge skill so having a bunch of +2's on knowledge skills is also great, especially with strong Int/Wis like an Avenger who is not traditionally a knowledge character.

 

[Thatwackyned]

Does anyone have a list of all the Feats in all the books? In excel?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've always thought Defensive Mobility, especially as the archer ranger freebie, is a bit underrated. Flanking with the fighter and making point-blank ranged attacks is a nice way to put a monster in a terrible dilemma - sit tight and eat the attack or make the OA against a high AC but otherwise temptingly squishy target and draw the fighter retaliation?

I'll agree with you on this one. Its not a killer feat, but its generally useful to ranged/area attackers and an archer ranger built for point blank attacking is going to get a lot of benefit out of it. That being said I've basically never seen anyone actually take the feat.

Durable - past the midpoint of each tier, this can actually give a low-Con character more hp per day than Toughness. Whether or not it's really better than Toughness depends somewhat on how easily you can spend surges; in any case it's really quite competitive but nonetheless Toughness seems to get all the love.

The problem with Durable is that over time more and more ways to expend surges have appeared. With just core PHB it was a pretty good feat because it was HARD for low level PCs to unlock more than at most 2 surges in an encounter. Nowadays with Astral Seal, Recovery Strike, and more and more surge triggering powers and items its just not that big a deal. Even low level parties can either access several surges or simply live off the surgeless AS/RS healing. This means that Toughness has gradually become the better of the two feats.

I'm not buying the "you have to be an expert for a skill to be useful" argument. In the game I'm running, I can ask for common skill checks like Insight, Perception, Athletics from anyone. And it's not unusual when the rogue tries to calm down an agitated bystander that I ask for a diplomacy check, or when the warlord says he's with the city guard, that I ask for a bluff check. Few sessions ago, I asked the shaman trying to jam a portcullis to make a thievery check, and I asked the wizard trying to cross a thin ledge in some ruins to make an acrobatics check. I use Endurance checks as part of skill challenges sometimes, that everyone has to make, and if half the party or more succeed, they get a success and do whatever they are trying to do in less time.

Skills are not just for the specialists to "win" a skill challenge. They are used frequently enough during adventuring by everyone, so Jack of All Trades is a reasonably good feat for anyone who wants to be better at those skill checks, or to be a helpful assistant in skill challenges. Also not all parties can cover every knowledge skill so having a bunch of +2's on knowledge skills is also great, especially with strong Int/Wis like an Avenger who is not traditionally a knowledge character.

No, but most "immediate" uses of skills like you are talking about above involve very low DCs. At anything above low heroic they're essentially auto-success regardless of an extra +2. If they are level scaled DCs, then again the same old logic as ever applies. JoAT helps as long as you're low level, much past that there simply are so few checks the character has a chance of passing that aren't trivial that it probably isn't worth a feat slot.

 

[Mengu]

JoAT helps as long as you're low level, much past that there simply are so few checks the character has a chance of passing that aren't trivial that it probably isn't worth a feat slot.

I guess this is DM/group dependent. Even for trivially easy checks, I sometimes have extraordinary success benefits (like beat DC by 10), and a +2 would still help there.

Not for just JoAT, but skills in general should really not be ignored. It's embarrassing when the 10th level paladin is stuck in a 20' pit for 3 rounds because he can't make a climb DC of 10, and has to spend a standard action removing his shield for a better shot at the check. Comes out when the fight's almost over, only to be slid right back into the pit.