Requesting Feat Guru help ! (PC needs a feat)

[Tatsukun]

Hi all, my PC is approaching 6th level, and is in dire need of a feat. I was planning on taking "Divine Vigor" from DotF, but yesterday I finally got around to looking it up, and noticed that he doesn't qualify for it (doesn't have Extra Turning, Doesn't have a CHA 13 - that's 0 for 2 DOH!)

Here's his info…

Overall role: In battle he's a front line fighter, out of battle he's a face. He uses his wands / blade to deal damage and try to control the battle as best he can in battle. Out of battle he uses a lot of diplomacy and knowledge skills to try to assist the party.

Bahram Hannan - Character level 5 Human male.

Levels: Ranger 1 / Cloistered Cleric 2 / Paladin 2 (In that order)
Next level will be Paladin, then Kensei for 10 levels.
Domains: Knowledge, Fate, Magic
Favored Enemy: Humans

Stats: Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 12
Hp: 41
AC: (10) + (9 armor) + (2 Shield) + (1 Dex) + (1 Natural) = 23

Feats: Exotic weapon (Bastard Sword), Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Combat Expertise, Uncanny Dodge (From Fate domain), Track (From Ranger level)

Skills with ranks purchased - Total bonus:
Concentration - 7
Diplomacy - 13
Handle Animal - 3
Know (Dungeon) - 7
Know (Geography) - 7
Know (Nature) - 9
Know (Nobility) - 9
Listen - 5
Ride - 5
Search - 6
Sense motive - 6
Spot - 5
Survival - 6 (up to 10 in some places)

Usual gear: Bastard sword, +1 Full plate, +1 buckler and a wand. Right now he's switching between a web wand and a grease wand.

This guy has a lot of different abilities, and he uses almost all of them. The exceptions are his turning attempts and his "Bardic knowledge" from the Cloistered Cleric levels.

With a caster level of 2 and a Cha of 12, he's not going to be turning anything real soon, so I'd love to find a way to use them.

So… can someone help me choose a feat???

Thanks in advance

-Tatsu

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Question: How can he be a paladin if he's a human ranger with favorite enemy: humans?

As you're referring to DotF, I assume you play 3.0? Are feats from 3.5 acceptable?

As all your abilities are even, you could take Extra Turning now, boost your Cha at 13 at level 8, and take Divine Vigor at level 9. Nothing wrong with planning.

Other than that...

A feat from the Combat Expertise tree? Improved Disarm / Trip?

Power Attack to take advantage of the Power Surge Kensai ability?

Seeing that many of the Kensai's abilities are Concentration-related, Skill Focus (Concentration) might be a good idea.

AR

 

[Legildur]

Front line fighter wielding a bastard sword and a buckler shield? That screams Power Attack to me, assuming of course that he his wearing a buckler shield to enable some two-handed attacks with the bastard sword....

Any thoughts about a level of Weapon Master PrC? Prerequisites of Wpn prof and focus in an exotic weapon and some ranks in Weaponsmithing. At 1st level you could take the Uncanny Blow ability and get double strength bonus to damage from attacks when wielding the bastard sword two-handed.

 

[Kurotowa]

I agree that Power Attack is a very viable choice. Getting 2 damage for each -1 to hit when you switch to two-handed attack is a great option to have. Especially in a few levels when you have enough spell and special ability bonuses that you can trade in your BAB against important foes.

 

[Darkness]

Question: How can he be a paladin if he's a human ranger with favorite enemy: humans?

3.5 or at least 3.25. (He's a cloistered cleric, for example, which is a 3.5 class.)

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, if he only uses it against EVIL humans, it's okay - a paladin is permitted to kill humans under some circumstances, after all.

 

[Tatsukun]

Sorry, more information...

We play 3.5, but use some of the non-updated things from 3.0. In general, if there's a 3.5 version of something, we use it; if not, 3.0 is usually ok.

Having a favored enemy "Human" has no effect at all on alignment / Paladin levels. He puts the bonus to spot, sense motive, etc to use a lot and we fight a fair amount of humans.

This guy doesn't have a huge bonus to hit (Right now it's +9 with the B. sword), so I'm not sure if "Power attack" fits. Plus, he usually has a wand in the second hand, so he'd have to drop it to attack two handed with the sword. I'm not too keen on that (not to mention loosing the AC form the buckler). Right now, attacking two handed means that A) He looses 2 points of AC, B) Can't use a wand, and C) Gains +1 Damage. Doesn't seem worth it.

Taking extra turning now would mean that he has even more of the only resource he can't really ever use. Three levels of a useless feat is too much to pay for "Divine Vigor" IMHO.

I am starting to think "Improved Toughness" would be good, he's a bit low on Hp. But that still leaves me with all those useless turning attempts. Is there ANY feat / item / trick that I can feed these silly attempts into and get something useful?

Thanks for the ideas, keep them coming!

-Tatsu

 

[Ferrix]

He's 90% likely playing 3.5 as he has Survival listed as a skill rather than wilderness lore, thus you can take your own race as a favored enemy without any problems. I always thought it was silly in 3.0 that you couldn't take your own race without being evil.

Favored enemy is just that you know a lot about fighting a specific type of enemy, know their weak spots, tactics, since you've studied them. It would make perfect sense for "police officer" types who generally police their own populace to be a ranger with their favored enemy as their own race, and they could very well be good aligned. Silly 2e hold over that the rangers favored enemy was someone they had to instinctively hate or something like that.

For the feat, I think Power Attack is one of your best choices.

Your stats could have been distributed a bit better to give your more use out of your Paladin levels (really weak charisma which should basically be a paladins prime stat), but it seems alright so far.

I'd almost go for a PrC which would provide you spellcasting levels (hospitaler could be a very good choice from Complete Divine, although you'd have to sink two feats into Mounted Combat and a few more skill points into handle animal) that way you get the most out of those two cleric levels you invested so long as you can increase your wisdom.

 

[Ferrix]

It seems to me that you are playing it that you can activate the wand as if it were an offhand weapon, but that isn't the case, since it takes a standard action to activate a wand. Although I could easily just be reading this horribly wrong.

I don't think you can get much out of those turning attempts without a higher charisma and some divine feats, although maybe Glorious Weapons (it aligns all weapons of your allies to good within a 60 ft. burst till the end of your next turn).

Power Attack could still be a good option since it is the pre-requisite (alongside Str 13 and ability to turn/rebuke) for Divine Might which lets you add your charisma bonus to damage for one round. Although, you might want to up your Charisma if you want to use any divine feats.

A good feat for you could be Improved Buckler Defense, it let's you keep your buckler's AC bonus when fighting with two weapons (or technically a two-handed weapon), thus you could use your Bastard Sword two-handed and still get the AC bonus.

I don't think there will be much that could help you increase your to-hit, the fact that you lost a BAB by taking two levels of Cloistered Cleric hurts a bit.

 

[Tatsukun]

Your stats could have been distributed a bit better to give your more use out of your Paladin levels (really weak charisma which should basically be a paladins prime stat), but it seems alright so far.

I'd almost go for a PrC which would provide you spellcasting levels (hospitaler could be a very good choice from Complete Divine, although you'd have to sink two feats into Mounted Combat and a few more skill points into handle animal) that way you get the most out of those two cleric levels you invested so long as you can increase your wisdom.

Yeah, if I had known this guy would end up a Paladin, I might have gone with more Cha. But it's been a wild ride for this guy, from guide, to city cleric, to paladin. This guy is on the cusp of being a Kensei, so that's the way I'll go. I don't think I like the idea of more than one PrC.

Once he's a Kensei, Cha won't be so important. He won't get back to Paladin levels until Lv. 17, so I'm not too worried about it. For this guy, the Paladin levels are really just fighter levels with more flavor. I like the Detect Evil, immunity to fear, and Diplomacy more than I would like the fighter feats I think.

Also, there is a cleric healer in the party, so this guy is really a front line fighter. I don't think he'll be casting much in battle. For reference, the party is ...

Human (Rogue 4 / Fighter 2) who wields a (very) minor artifact short bow -
Dwarf (Favored Soul 4 / Church Inquisitor 1) who is tricked out for healing -
Elf (Wizard 6) who is a generalist wizard, but has some heavy artillery -
Half-elf (monk 5) with "Vow of Poverty" -

So, as you can see, the monk and my guy are the front line fighters. The party is a little light on magic items because we have just left a fairly low magic area. Now we are in a city and have been equipping ourselves.

Anyway, I hope this helps!

-Tatsu