Not so Epic Feats

[AllisterH]

From the thread on the Mage Slayer feat, what are the top 5 epic feats do you consider not so epic. Using the PHB and PHB II as a basis for comparison, here's mine (and boy, do a lot of them suck royally)...

Armor Skin? While this is better than Dodge, it isn't THAT much better that I'd even bother with taking this if offered at level 1.
Epic Endurance I don't take Endurance and this feat doesn't change that..
Epic Speed Again with the sucky pre-requisite.
Epic Toughness ONLY 30 HP? That's not even a swing from one creature at epic level...
Extended Life SpanWhen the blue blazes is this ever worth a feat?

 

[Patlin]

Don't forget these two:

Legendary Leaper
Legendary Rider

 

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

From the thread on the Mage Slayer feat, what are the top 5 epic feats do you consider not so epic. Using the PHB and PHB II as a basis for comparison, here's mine (and boy, do a lot of them suck royally)...

Armor Skin? While this is better than Dodge, it isn't THAT much better that I'd even bother with taking this if offered at level 1.
Epic Endurance I don't take Endurance and this feat doesn't change that..
Epic Speed Again with the sucky pre-requisite.
Epic Toughness ONLY 30 HP? That's not even a swing from one creature at epic level...
Extended Life SpanWhen the blue blazes is this ever worth a feat?

You could throw in a Salient Divine feat too: Battlesense sounds more like an epic feat or a high-level rogue/ranger (15th-20th works) goodie. A Greater Uncanny Dodge, if you will.

 

[Simm]

add Wield oversized weapon to the list. Its like monkey grip but gasp you don't take a -2 penalty to hit.

 

[questbreaker]

legendary rider and legendary leaper are more for flavor than anything.
weild oversize weapon is good i think, take it to get an even larger weapon than you can already weild with monkey grip. use a fullblade and you can be doing somewhere around 4d8+(STRx1.5) damage with a nonmagical fullblade.

 

[Nifft]

The Epic rules need a bit of an overhaul. I think they kept too much 3e thinking.

Armor Skin? While this is better than Dodge, it isn't THAT much better that I'd even bother with taking this if offered at level 1.

It *is* offered at level 1, if you already have a natural armor bonus to AC (e.g. you're a kobold). Then it's just called Improved Natural Armor.

Epic Toughness ONLY 30 HP? That's not even a swing from one creature at epic level...

To be fair, 3 hp isn't one swing at 1st level...

Extended Life SpanWhen the blue blazes is this ever worth a feat?

Depends on the game. If you don't abuse reincarnation, there is a fixed limit to how old your PC can be. Even effects that stop you from taking aging penalties state that you still die "when your time is up".

In many games, where you can go from levels 1-20 in under a year in game time, it's totally worthless.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kelleris]

Even more than the epic feats being too weak in many cases (most of them, actually, in my opinion) is that a lot of them are boring. You're generally not getting any new class abilities at epic level, epic feats should let you do some cool and new for at least a vast majority of them. For that reason I actually prefer, e.g., Polyglot over actually useful but boring epic feats like, oh, Epic Skill Focus or something. Sure Polyglot's benefit sucks (it allows you to speak all languages, just like a common, long-duration 3rd-level spell), but it's cool. Epic feats should combine significant power with a cool, larger-than-life feel to them.

Instead of Extended Life Span, I would have liked to see something like this -

Immortality

Whether through the favor of a deity, amazing physical conditioning, sheer force of will, or transcendence of mortality into something more archetypal, you are no longer subject to the ravages of age.

Prerequisites: +25 Base Attack Bonus, 33 ranks in any skill, OR Con or Cha 31+.

Benefit: You no longer age normally, remaining at your current age category for as long as desired and becoming immune to effects that would artificially age you. You gain a +5 bonus on saving throws against death attacks, negative energy attacks, and any other attacks that directly damage your life force.

Something like that. I'm continually disgusted by how few epic feats meet either of the power-level or coolness requirements, much less both of them.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The Epic rules need a bit of an overhaul. I think they kept too much 3e thinking.

The epic rules were made in 3.0, so of course it kept the 3.0 thinking

 

[IanB]

What I find most baffling of all is that Armor Skin got nerfed going from 3.0 to 3.5, from 2 points of natural armor bonus to just one.

EDIT: Overwhelming critical is pretty lacking as well. +d6 damage on a critical? Gosh.

 

[Nifft]

The epic rules were made in 3.0, so of course it kept the 3.0 thinking

Didn't they get an errata / update thingy when 3.5e came out? I thought they did... could be wrong, though.

Anyway, IMHO the Epic rules could use MORE of an update than they've gotten so far. Coolness should be added in post-haste. (Honestly, the whole Epic system needs an overhaul... why do you get LESS cool stuff each level?)

Cheers, -- N