Phantom Feat

[officeronin]

What do you think of this feat?

Phantom Feats

When taking "Phantom Feat", you select two other feats for which the character would meet the prerequisites. The second feat chosen may have the requirement of the first feat as a prerequisite. For the purposes of pre-requisites for either prestige classes or further feats, the character is considered to have those feats. For all other purposes, the character is not considered to have those feats.

If further feats or class abilities replace or enhance the phantom feats, the phantom feat becomes an actual feat, and the new feat/class ability becomes a phantom feat. Examples of this would be a phantom Cleave followed by a Samuri's Supreme Cleave, a phantom Spell Penetration followed by a Greater Spell Penetration, or a phantom Extend Spell followed by a Persistent Spell.

This is a feat designed to ease the pain of taking all those "throw-away" feats that get required. Some examples I can think of are:

1. Phantom Dodge and Phantom Mobility to get Spring Attack
2. Most prestige classes have a pre-requisite that's terrible -- Phantom Skill Focus: Knowledge to get into Loremaster (oh, that hurt to take...)
etc.

I did notice that Greater Spell Focus gave a +4 that replaced the original spell focus, so I nipped that gamebreaker.

What do you think?

OfficeRonin

 

[Chun-tzu]

I don't think that's a good idea. Prestige classes are powerful, so you need to pay a training cost, and that's why many have sucky prerequisites. Sometimes those prequisites are poorly thought out, and seem pointless, but if anything you're better off houseruling those particular PrCs than creating something that impacts ALL PrCs and makes it much easier to qualify for them.

 

[dvvega]

I agree with Chun ... if you allow two phantom feats per selection, then most prestige classes will be gained much faster (BAB probably being the thing that slows it a little).

 

[the Jester]

Er, I think you could be opening a door to abuse re: prestige classes.

Feats are prolly one of the two biggest limiting factors for taking a prc... skill ranks being the other, with base attack a close second place. I wouldn't think making it easier to get into many prcs is a good idea.

 

[Cheiromancer]

How about the converse?

i.e. one feat gets you two others, but these feats don't count as pre-requisites for any other feat or PrCl?

 

[the Jester]

How about the converse?

i.e. one feat gets you two others, but these feats don't count as pre-requisites for any other feat or PrCl?

Heck no! Way too good, not to mention easy to get around (say I'm a human fighter; I take expertise, power attack and dodge at first level... at second level I take cleave and sunder, already having the prereqs and having no intention of taking either one further. There are lots of ways to do this- you can also simply take feats that aren't prereqs at a two-for-one rate (take two saving throw feats, for instance).

 

[officeronin]

How about the converse?

i.e. one feat gets you two others, but these feats don't count as pre-requisites for any other feat or PrCl?

Exactly --

If half the value of a feat is what it does, and half is what it allows you to take later on, then "phantom feat" would be balanced to work both ways, because you're getting 50% value of each of the two feats each way. Of course, feats should be about 75% value in "what it does" and 25% value in "what it allows you to take later on", so phantom feat as written should be a severely under-powered feat.

Fact is, not all feats are equal, and many feats are severely under-powered. The next question is why a prestige class would require these absurdly under-powered feats. ("We'd love to have you join our prestige class, but first, you have to cripple yourself...") If they weren't under-powered, the PC would take them normally, so phantom feat allows the players to decide which ones are terrible.

Just a note, the character is still blowing a feat and gaining nothing for it -- so the arguement that PrCs should require taking a silly feat is upheld...

Personally, I think that the extremely negative reaction against Cheiromancer's suggestion (which I also think would be too powerful) is a vote in favor of the feat as written, and, because I'm sure many don't agree, I'd love to hear the justification for why it is unbalanced both as written and as Cheiromancer suggested.

OfficeRonin

 

[Forrester]

No offense, but both suggestions are . . . how shall I put this? Lacking in common sense. Yeah, that's it.

The original post suggested that the PrC take feats that really aren't feats but they count as feats even though the character wouldn't be able to actually do the things listed in the feats.

So you need to be Mobile to be a Shadowdancer but you take the phantom feat of "Mobility", allowing you to become a Shadowdancer because you're mobile but you're really not. Of course! It all makes sense now.

Good PrCs are supposed to have tough thematic requirements. That's kind of the point. If you think Mobility is underpowered, tweak it. But saying a player can take it while not benefiting from it at half-cost is just f'ing bizarre.

I won't even comment on Cheiro's suggestion, because it's broken on its face. Free feats for those who don't want to continue a chain/aim at a particular PrC? Sure. Let's hand out vorpal swords while we're add it. And ponies! Free ponies for everybody.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think that the value of some feats is mostly "what will it get me," (i.e. the immediate use of the feat) whereas the value of other feats is mostly "what can I get with it" (i.e. the feat as pre-requisite).

Given a pair of feats, you could buy their use with my proposed feat, and get their pre-requisite use with the phantom feat. Two feats = two feats, and so it is balanced.

The problem, of course, is that all feats aren't 50/50 splits between immediate use and pre-requisite use. If two feats are purely to fulfill pre-requisites, then a phantom feat is too efficient. If two feats are useful in themselves, but aren't pre-requisites for anything else, then my feat is too efficient.

Only with a pair of 50/50 feats would either a phantom feat or my feat be balanced. Generally, they are both broken, sometimes extremely broken.