Variant Toughness Feat(s)

[basaipete]

My players and I have been pretty disappointed with the Toughness feat (and its sucessor feats, Dwarf's Toughness, Giant's Toughness, and Dragon's Toughness). I have a player who, even though he would have been perfect for the Dwarven Defender PrC, decided not to pursue it as he conisdered Toughness to be a wasted feat. So, in an effort to improve the value of a feat that all of my players have said they would never take I am considering the following changes. Please critique these and help me assess if I have made these feats too powerfull....

Revised Toughness Feats

Toughness [General]
Benefit: Add one hit die. This will increase the creatures hit points and resistance to HD based spells. Constitution modifiers are applied to the hit points rolled (minimum 1 hit point per die). This HD type is based on the base creature type defined in the Monster Manual.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times.

Dwarf’s Toughness [General]
Prerequisite: Base Fort save bonus +5
Benefit: Add two hit dice. This will increase the creatures hit points and resistance to HD based spells. Constitution modifiers are applied to the hit points rolled (minimum 1 hit point per die). The HD type is based on the base creature type defined in the Monster Manual.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times.

Giant’s Toughness [General]
Prerequisite: Base Fort save bonus +8
Benefit: Add three hit dice. This will increase the creatures hit points and resistance to HD based spells. Constitution modifiers are applied to the hit points rolled (minimum 1 hit point per die). The HD type is based on the base creature type defined in the Monster Manual.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times.

Dragon’s Toughness [General]
Prerequisite: Base Fort save bonus +11
Benefit: Add four hit dice. This will increase the creatures hit points and resistance to HD based spells. Constitution modifiers are applied to the hit points rolled (minimum 1 hit point per die). The HD type is based on the base creature type defined in the Monster Manual.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times.

 

[Nifft]

Interesting variant. I don't like it, though -- a Feat that can raise base saves, BAB and skill ranks is IMHO bad.

If you mean that only the HP and spell-effects of HD are implicated, it's slightly confusing.

Here's my variant:

Toughness adds your Base Fort Save +1 to your HP total. As your Base Fort Save increases, so does the bonus to your HP total. You may take this Feat multiple times, and its effects stack.

Note that my version is effectively auto-upgrading itself along the chain of Toughness -> Dwarf's Toughness -> Giant's Toughness -> Dragon's Toughness, since those all give BFS+1 HP.

-- N

 

[CRGreathouse]

My players and I have been pretty disappointed with the Toughness feat (and its sucessor feats, Dwarf's Toughness, Giant's Toughness, and Dragon's Toughness). I have a player who, even though he would have been perfect for the Dwarven Defender PrC, decided not to pursue it as he conisdered Toughness to be a wasted feat.

That's sort of the point of requiring Toughness -- it's suboptimal, so that the prestige class can give out powerful benefits like the AC bonus.

 

[Nail]

As is often the case, Nifft's got the right of it. Feats that increase all of that stuff, level after level, are a bad idea.

Note that my version is effectively auto-upgrading itself along the chain of Toughness -> Dwarf's Toughness -> Giant's Toughness -> Dragon's Toughness, since those all give BFS+1 HP.

Still.....why not simply liken the feat to Spell Casting Prodgidy? That is: "This feat increases the creature's Con score by 2, but only with respect to hit points gained per level."

Why bother with Fort+1?

 

[Nifft]

Still.....why not simply liken the feat to Spell Casting Prodgidy? That is: "This feat increases the creature's Con score by 2, but only with respect to hit points gained per level."

Why bother with Fort+1?

My goal is to make the Feat good for both melee and non-melee characters. Since high HD seems to track good Fort saves, this Feat allows itself to scale with the type of character who you're building.

A Wizard gets +1 HP at 1st level, and +8 HP at 20th level. Not great, but HP aren't his strength. Since the Feat stacks with itself, he could have +16 or +24 HP, or even more.

A Fighter gets +3 HP at 1st level, and +13 HP at 20th level. Far better than a static +3, and (since the Feats stack) he could have any multiple of 13 he wanted: +26 HP for 2 Feats, +39 HP for 3 Feats. At 20th level, that's not going to break the game, but it might help him survive an extra hit or two -- just as +9 HP would help at 1st level.


Finally, the game makers seemed to think that "Base Fort Save +1" was the correct number -- look at Dwarf's Toughness and the others, they all follow that pattern. I've just generalized it to a single Feat that grows with the PC.

-- N

 

[Iron_Chef]

My goal is to make the Feat good for both melee and non-melee characters. Since high HD seems to track good Fort saves, this Feat allows itself to scale with the type of character who you're building.

A Wizard gets +1 HP at 1st level, and +8 HP at 20th level. Not great, but HP aren't his strength. Since the Feat stacks with itself, he could have +16 or +24 HP, or even more.

A Fighter gets +3 HP at 1st level, and +13 HP at 20th level. Far better than a static +3, and (since the Feats stack) he could have any multiple of 13 he wanted: +26 HP for 2 Feats, +39 HP for 3 Feats. At 20th level, that's not going to break the game, but it might help him survive an extra hit or two -- just as +9 HP would help at 1st level.


Finally, the game makers seemed to think that "Base Fort Save +1" was the correct number -- look at Dwarf's Toughness and the others, they all follow that pattern. I've just generalized it to a single Feat that grows with the PC.

-- N

Here's a couple ideas for variant Toughness feats...

Variant #1: +5 hit points and +1 Fortitude.

Variant #2: Your CON is considered two points higher for determining base hit points and Fort saves.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Dwarf's Toughness? Giant's Toughness? Dragon's Toughness? The way you guys are talking about these, it sounds like they're official or at least third-party.

Are the original feats house rules, or what?

 

[Iron_Chef]

Dwarf's Toughness? Giant's Toughness? Dragon's Toughness? The way you guys are talking about these, it sounds like they're official or at least third-party.

Are the original feats house rules, or what?

I think they're all in Masters of the Wild, so yes, the original versions are official.

 

[AeroDm]

I think Nift has got the right idea. That is the variant I had planned to use, although I didn't intend for it to auto-scale. I dislike the bookkeeping that goes along with such things.

As for the original post- good idea, but very much overpowered. Imagine when someone meets the reqs for dragon's toughness and then selects the feat. Assuming an 18 con is not unreasonable (very reasonable imo) by that level, you are looking at a maximum of 4d12 + 16 hp. That averages to 42! This is 14x more powerful than Toughness, something that withstood the revision. Now I can't see many people arguing that toughness is even a 'good' feat, but this is way too powerful. I cannot imagine anyone not taking this feat and the requirements are just too easy not to eventually meet it (assuming you want to).

 

[Michael Morris]

Throwing my alternate into the ring.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/Dusk/index2.php?file=feats.php&body=./feats/toughness.php

Basically, 1 hp / level extra. This version can't be taken multiple times.