Vestige adept feat

[Rothe_]

I have a player who wants to play a human vestige pact warlock.
He took the feat "Vestige adept" from Arcane power at 1st level.

Now, we are still debating how it should work. It could be either very powerful, or useless at 1st level.

The feat basically says that you can switch your vestige (like King Elidyr, Zutwa or Mount vaelis) to another one that you have had active since your last extended OR short rest, when you trigger your pact boon.

As the vestige warlock can basically switch their pact boons for one encounter by using a daily, this might mean the following:

- 1st encounter of the day, the Warlock uses his daily (the Mount Vaelis power) and proceeds to kick ass. This is fine. He uses the Mount Vaelis pact for that combat.

- 2nd encounter of the day, he declares that he wants to switch his normal pact Zutwa for Mount Vaelis again, using the feat. This is based on the OR word being interpreted so that he can choose either short rest, or extended rest (read description of the feat earlier).

The second interpretation is:

- 1st encounter of the day, he uses the daily power. During the same encounter he can use the feat to get his originally chosen zutwa pact back. That is it. He does not have more dailies, so there is no other use.
This is based on it being the most restrictive of the two rests mentioned.

Any ideas on how it is meant to work?

The alternative boons are clearly better than those that are available each morning as basic choices.

 

[Saeviomagy]

- 2nd encounter of the day, he declares that he wants to switch his normal pact Zutwa for Mount Vaelis again, using the feat. This is based on the OR word being interpreted so that he can choose either short rest, or extended rest (read description of the feat earlier).

Did he have a short or extended rest? Yes. Therefore the selection of pacts resets.

If the feat meant otherwise it would not bother to include the short rest clause, because no one would ever choose to use the more restrictive type.

And yes, this makes the feat worthless at his level.

 

[Rothe_]

to another one that you have had active since your last extended OR short rest

You can also claim that, yes, he had the Mount Vaelis pact active since his last extended rest, even though he had a short rest too.

There are two ways to read it, and it is not explicit.

 

[CapnZapp]

Are you asking if you can use the same Daily twice a day?!

Then the answer is "no".

 

[Rothe_]

No, I am not asking that.

The vestige pact warlock gains a special bonus when they use vestige pact related daily powers. The bonus is that their pact boon and at-will change for the duration of the fight.

The vestige adept feat allows you to regain a boon and at-will augment effect you used earlier. The wording is in the original post. The daily power is not used again, just its effects that are referred to in the vestige adept feat.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As Saeviomagy said - it is short or extended rest, so whatever rest you last had applies and that means you only get to use it during the encounter you use the power. It's useful if you have two or more Vestige Dailiy Powers to use during an encounter.

The wording is probably suboptimal, since explicitely mentioned both types of rest is confusing here. It would be better if they had said something like "you can switch to a vestige benefit you already used during this encounter".

As you noted, the benefits of Vestiges are considerably better than those of the standard ones, so giving the same benefit twice per day without expending any major resources would probably be broken. Kinda like getting the benefits of a Barbarian Rage or a Fighter Stance twice for a feat.

 

[Rothe_]

I think I agree with you guys. I just wanted to see if there was someone who knew about errata or FAQ rulings on this, perhaps someone has used it in LFR?

Anyway, the more I read about the vestige powers, the more I am convinced the feat is too good. The augment also would remain, which would 1d6 damage in most cases to each attack by the warlock. That is too good for a feat.

 

[rayous]

The augment also would remain, which would 1d6 damage in most cases to each attack by the warlock. That is too good for a feat.

First off, no, its not each attack, its each attack using eyes of the vestige. Secondly this is at the opportunity cost of using up a daily early and not using any of the other benefits that eye of the vestige can have. Thirdly its only triggered by activating your pact boon, so does not occur until someone you have marked has died in the fight (bloodied if you are using a bloodcurse rod). This means that against solo encounters this feat does nothing.

Now, 1d6 damage in mose cases is too good for a feat is it? Thats an average of 3.5 damage. That is really good. Almost as good as having your encounters be reliable for a piddly amount of damage (Sacrifice to Caiphon) or +2 to damage and proficiency with all axes and hammers (dwarven weapon training). In fact, on average a rageblood barbarian will get more damage out of powerful charge then a warlock would out of +1d6 after its been triggered. There are lots of really good feats out there. Lets compare the average damage of the at wills vs eye+1d6:
Eye of the vestige average 7+stat
Spiteful Glamor average 6.5+stat
Eldritch Strike (mordencrag) 8+stat+slide
Dire Radiance 3.5+stat with an additional 3.5+stat if they move closer
Eldritch Blast 5.5+stat
Eyebite 3.5+Invisibility (you can make a stealth check vs that person as you have full concealment from them, and maintain it due to the concealment from shadow walk)
Hellish Rebuke 3.5+stat with an additional 3.5+stat if you get hurt.

Looks to me that its generally in line, being slightly better then spiteful glamor and eldritch blast, definately more damage then eyebite, and less damage than hellish rebuke and dire radiance if you can trigger them, which can be easy.

If your gm ALWAYS has a minion that you can kill first thing then yes versitile adept is extremely good. But please do not ignore the costs (the other benefits from vestige dailies or heck the +1-3 to hit and auto prime shot of the base abilities, and the fact that you have to use a daily early which in LFR mods can REALLLLLLLY suck) and the limitations (it only goes into effect first time something that has been cursed is killed, before that you are using one of the 2 base abilities).


P.S. If you don't use the extended rest reasoning, you really shouldn't take the feat. Its just bad! The whole "its good for when you want to use two dailies" is a stupid arguement because you don't have to switch your benefits when you use a daily (unlike barbarians). The feat only allows you to change on it triggering your pact, so 99% of the time you stick with the benefit you want for that battle (usually the +1-3 to hit or whichever daily you used). You only have marginal control over when you get the opportunity to switch so you can't just say "hrm, im gonna want to push that guy with shax then do 1d6 thunder to this guy". If you want to have the benefit of 2 dailies, you wait for paragon and get vestige versatility. Heck, the way some are reading this feat, after vestige versatility there is nearly no reason to take it (Only reason is if you like king elidyr i guess).

 

[rayous]

As you noted, the benefits of Vestiges are considerably better than those of the standard ones, so giving the same benefit twice per day without expending any major resources would probably be broken. Kinda like getting the benefits of a Barbarian Rage or a Fighter Stance twice for a feat.

That is not an apt comparison. If a barbarian already has some abilities that the rage replaced or if the fighter lost his class abilities when in a stance that would work, but as it is you lose a benefit to gain the new vestige ability. To you this may mean nothing, but i like Zutwa's +1-3 to hit and always having prime shot no matter my position (especially with Called shot feat which means +5 to damage always).