Skill feats, anyone?

[Harmon]

I have a Ranger/Fighter/Deepwood Sniper that has two such Feats giving him Survival +5 and Heal +2 bonus.

Works well for character concept as he had to rely on himself for many years for healing and he is really good at staying alive in the wilds.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I have to ask. Why?

To decipher script In my homebrew world, there is an ancient language that predated the weave of magic and cannot be deciphered using spells like Comprehend Languages. It is also a language of constant flux and flow that is never static, so the DCs are rather high to completely understand it. And she *really* wanted to read it all

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Like Shilsen, I would expect that it's that way by design, for the most part.

Let's say you're a commoner who makes his living tilling the fields and driving the pigs to market in the spring. You want to catch the eye of that pretty girl in town. What's going to be your feat combination: Power Attack and Cleave, Skill Focus: Profession Farmer and Skill Focus: Diplomacy, or Spell Focus: Necromancy and Iron Will?

Approaching it from a different angle, let's say that you're designing the matron of a peasant family. She's in her late thirties and you've decided that she's third level. You want her to be able to spot a phony from a mile away, be an expert weaver (though she rarely has the opportunity to do anything that challenges her talents) and still remember how to use the longbow and spear that all members of her egalitarian community have to learn in their use. Negotiator, Skill Focus: craft weaving, and martial weapon proficiency: longbow seem to fit that role. That way, she's still third level and has very little combat ability, but with a decent wisdom, it will take a mid-level rogue to sneak a believable lie past her. Given a masterwork loom, she could weave masterwork clothes even though her Int is only 10. And since she's proficient in spear (the commoner's free simple weapon proficiency) and longbow, she's a believable former militia member.

On another angle, the skill focus feats allow a DM to create NPCs who are very good at doing something without being particularly high level. A 3rd level dwarven smith with max ranks, a 12 Int, Skill Focus: Craft Weaponsmith, masterwork tools, and an apprentice to use Aid Other will succeed on a DC 26 craft weaponsmith roll while taking ten as long as the weapon is made from stone or metal. But his combat ability is probably similar to a first level player character's. With the skill focus feat, he can be an exceptional weaponsmith without being particularly high level.

Then, think about the kind of people who go into adventuring. They're going to spend the rest of their lives killing an average of at least one sentient being per week and are likely to risk death a hundred times over. The ones who are actually going to succeed are going to have feats like Power Attack, Dodge, Spring Attack, etc. If they're wizards, they'll have Spell Focus: Evocation and Empower Spell (or spell focus: necromancy, etc).

Of course adventurers are going to have more combat feats and commoners are going to have feats that adventurers only very rarely take.

Actually Elder-Basilisk, I've wondered now and then whether that's a widespread phenomenon (NPC's having more of those types of feat than PC's). Other than to qualify for PrC's, of course.

 

[Zappo]

To decipher script In my homebrew world, there is an ancient language that predated the weave of magic and cannot be deciphered using spells like Comprehend Languages. It is also a language of constant flux and flow that is never static, so the DCs are rather high to completely understand it. And she *really* wanted to read it all

Good answer. It's sad that you need to add new elements to the game to make a skill somewhat useful. Me, I've been toying with the idea of making Comprehend Languages and Tongues only work on current languages.

 

[davidschwartznz]

I took Skill Focus (Tumble) for my dwarven heavy-armor tumbler.

I tried a half-elf sorcerer with Negotioator, but he died pretty quick.

My latest character is a psyhic warrior. I considered taking Combat Manifesting; then decided that Skill Focus (Concentration) was better; then realized I could do even better with Psi Crystal Attunement (focused).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Good answer. It's sad that you need to add new elements to the game to make a skill somewhat useful. Me, I've been toying with the idea of making Comprehend Languages and Tongues only work on current languages.

The character actually considered the skill to be vitally useful, since anything written in that language was guaranteed to be something involving ancient arcane secrets and magical rituals to channel the power of the world's wight nexuses, but yeah, I had to come up with a new concept or else the skill would be worthless, even at level 1

 

[Legildur]

Skill Focus (concentration) as a defacto Combat Casting replacement. But never a +2/+2 skill bonus feat. Only seen one character ever take that, and that was a Rogue with Nimble Fingers.

 

[Imret]

Certainly. Besides NPCs (who are typically riddled with those feats), my ranger/rogue took Alertness and Stealthy, the former mostly to make up for his 9 Wisdom.

It doesn't come up often, but since the last PC I got to play had them, I thought I'd chime in. Mostly it's Alertness or Stealthy IMXP, but I've seen a couple SF: Bluff and SF: Concentration.

 

[DragonLancer]

I perfer Skill Focus over the half & half skill bonus feats. Usually because I'd rather the full bonus to one skill, and because I've always found (thus far) that for the half & half, I only want a bonus to one of the two skills.

 

[DeBracy]

I'd definitly take a +2/+2 and/or Skill Focus if I thought it suited the character and was at least partially useful game wise. I'm not that into builds and optimizing so I just generally pick what I feel like ATM (with the risk of regretting it later but... oh well... ).