Reasons for taking +2 to skills Feats?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

There's a reason for toughness?! Like what? Prestige class requirements?!

That, and so first level dwarven wizards with toad familiars can have more hit points than the party fighter.

Toughness may be a suboptimal choice as characters increase in level (say, after level 3), but not all choices have to be optimal. Plus, in a tough organic campaign that starts from 1st level, sometimes you want to make choices that will allow you to survive to 2d level!

 

[Nightfall]

No, just one skill that I would want really high.

Still...

I mean...not two skills?!

 

[EvilGM]

I give one of those to every starting character as a bonus feat at 1st level.

I've had a few players choose those feats as well, but they are few and far between.

 

[Celebrim]

Only if the DCs never rise above 20. Thus, we are speaking about low level games, as I said, and my comment remains unmolested by your observation.

Err... no. Only if the difference between your total bonus and the DC never climbs above 20.

If its a skill you intend to invest in, the +2 bonus to say Open Locks or Spot will at a minimum give you about the same advantage throughout your career as typically DC's and skill bonuses track together.

But, often it's even better than that in that many common skill checks have a fixed difficulty (say DC 15 or DC 20). So ultimately, the +2 bonus may go from the difference between succeeding 60% of the time and succeeding 50%, to failing only 5% of the time intead of 15% of the time (or only 1/3rd as often).

Your point is only valid when you spend the feat to improve something that you don't intend to invest anything else in AND the skill is one where the challenges tend to scale with level. In that case though, you are dealing not with a limitation of the feat, but a limitation of a d20 system. The complaint you are making like comparing a 1st level wizards attack bonus to a 1st level fighters attack bonus, and then complaining that at 15th level the difference between the two is very much greater relative and absolutely. Sure, yes it is. It's a known limitation of the D20 system, but that is very much beside the point.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They're great for boosting those skills that you want a little competence in for flavor reasons but are cross-class skills. If both skills boosted are cross-class skills, then that feat saves you 8 skill points. Nothing to sneeze at.

I just had a player do that with his wizard in my Midwood campaign. It's a pretty solid use of a feat.

 

[Nightfall]

Olgar,

See if I'm a dwarf, I'd rather take a boar as a familiar than a toad.

 

[Crothian]

Still...

I mean...not two skills?!

Of the 3.x character they had skill focus in:

Bard: Perform
Cleric: Know Religion
Druid: Know Nature
Fighter: Craft Stonecarving
Monk: Tumble
Ranger: Survival
Rogue: Bluff
Sorcerer: Spellcraft
Wizard: Know Arcana

My Barbarian is only second level and hasn't taken it yet, though he will and it will be Climb. I've never played a Paladin in the current edition so nothing for him yet.

 

[Celebrim]

Plus, in a tough organic campaign that starts from 1st level, sometimes you want to make choices that will allow you to survive to 2d level!

I've found that Wizards have a very very hard time surviving from 1st level without some sort of sacrifice from an 'optimal' build at a high level. Toughness is not at all a bad choice for a low level arcane if you want to have much of any chance of surving until you have all the advantages that come with high level spells.

Of course, the player that took his first level in fighter fully planning to take every other level in Wizard simply because he was tired of tearing up character sheets may have been going abit too far.

Then again, that character lived.

 

[Nightfall]

Crothy,

You so need to be a paladin in my online Scarred Lands game some day.

 

[molonel]

Err... no. Only if the difference between your total bonus and the DC never climbs above 20. If its a skill you intend to invest in, the +2 bonus to say Open Locks or Spot will at a minimum give you about the same advantage throughout your career as typically DC's and skill bonuses track together. But, often it's even better than that in that many common skill checks have a fixed difficulty (say DC 15 or DC 20). So ultimately, the +2 bonus may go from the difference between succeeding 60% of the time and succeeding 50%, to failing only 5% of the time intead of 15% of the time (or only 1/3rd as often). Your point is only valid when you spend the feat to improve something that you don't intend to invest anything else in AND the skill is one where the challenges tend to scale with level. In that case though, you are dealing not with a limitation of the feat, but a limitation of a d20 system. The complaint you are making like comparing a 1st level wizards attack bonus to a 1st level fighters attack bonus, and then complaining that at 15th level the difference between the two is very much greater relative and absolutely. Sure, yes it is. It's a known limitation of the D20 system, but that is very much beside the point.

Err ... yes. One of the problems of skills in d20 is that at mid-levels, or at least certainly at high levels, skills become a binary proposition. It's either 1 or 0. Either you're very, very good at something and you will very likely succeed at it, or don't even bother trying. If you don't believe me, then throw a high DC Balance check at your high level party, and make the results of failure death. Your group will very likely hate you. I used to think that Skill Mastery was kind of pointless until I played a rogue from level 5 up through level 25. There were many situations where I was the only one who could succeed, and if I took 10, it made the game flow faster. I saved the rolls for the big ticket risks. In my experience, +2/+2 feats just don't mean a whole lot at upper levels. If that hasn't been your experience, then God bless you.

But I still disagree.