Useless feats (re: Combat Casting)

[Lord Vangarel]

An interesting event happened during the generation of a new character during the last session. The new character was going to be a spellcaster so I suggested the Combat Casting feat. The players laughed!!! Why take a feat where the effects can be matched by allocating skill points.

Does anyone else have other examples of this or of other feats that the players no longer think worthwhile?

 

[Wizardry]

Skill Focus... but, then again, almost no one ever really thought that was worthwhile. The same for Toughness. I don't think I've ever seen anyone take Sunder. And the feats for gaining a martial weapon profiency or armor profiencies might as well not even be there, since players who want them just multiclass into a class that gives access to them.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Combat Casting is a must since it allows you to become so good at concentration you don't even have to roll to cast defensively.

The most useless feat in my opinion is Endurance. Which I ironically could have used for the first time last saturday. I took 24 points of subdual damage due to a forced march. When we arrived, there was an encounter with a bunch of wights and I was at 0 hitpoints. Still, I will never pick Endurance.

Remember that skillpoints is a valuable resource which will be depleted before you have the skills and the ranks you want to have.

 

[Destil]

The point of combat casting is that it stacks with skillpoints. You can't really reproduce the effects with them, because of the skill cap. (Combat casters generly have a bonus of 7 + level + con to concentration checks on the defensive). It's also a 20% boost, quite good, really.

The only time I think it would be useless is if you have skill focus give +3, and combat casting +4. If you boost up skill focus, combat casting most likely needs to be +5 to remian attractive.

 

[Frostmarrow]

A wizard with Con 18, maxed out Concentration, Combat Casting and Skill Focus (Concentration) can cast spells on the defesive at second level without even rolling the dice (and risking failure).

A wizard with Con 10 and maxed out Concentration can pull off the same feat at 20th level. It's a lot of failed Concentration-checks to get there.


Con 18, maxed out Concentration, Combat Casting -> Lvl 7
Con 18, maxed out Concentraion -> Lvl 15

Edit: In fact a dwarven wizard with Con 20, maxed out Concentration, Combat Casting and Spell Focus (Concentration) can cast on the defensive automatically from level 1! Later on he only need to invest further ranks in Concentraition every other level, ranks that can be better spent elsewhere - In Tumbling for example.

 

[Dragongirl]

I always thought toughness was a silly feat. Compared to all the feats you can get I don't see how 3 hps competes. And toughness is much more useless than combat casting.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

I think the problem the players have is that the DC to cast is 15+Spell Level so creating a character at this higher level means the skill rank is already 12+Con bonus so most times the roll will be passed so the feat slot can be better used elsewhere.

I admit at lower levels the chances are higher that Combat Casting will be taken but for characters created at higher levels it isn't the same.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Can you deliver a touch spell with an unarmed attack?

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Wizard 1st level

Concentration maxed out to 4, Con +2 = +6 will probably make the roll half the time for highest level spell.

Wizard 9th level

Concentration maxed out to 12, Con +2 = +14 will make the roll well over half the time for highest level spell.


I still think Combat Casting is useful but my players don't.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Can you deliver a touch spell with an unarmed attack?

Yes. No AoO as the caster is effectively armed with the spell.