What are the 5 most powerful feats in the PHB?

[Mistwell]

It's time to consider playing a bard.

Where I can find Inspirational Boost spell?

Might I suggest the Inspire Courage Optimization Thread

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

1. Leadership - The cohort alone makes this the most powerful feat. One of the most frequently banned feats in all the games I've played in.
2. Natural Spell - It's basically Silent and Still Spell for the Druid, with no level adjustment! Granted, not quite true, but not far off, either.
3. Craft Wondrous Item - The amount of things you can make with this one feat and the right spells is obscene.
4. Two-Weapon Fighting - It effectively gives you +2/+6 to hit! Plus, it's the cornerstone of many other good feats to follow.
5. Spell Penetration/Greater SP - Casters just plain win in D&D. Saving throws can be avoided, and effects scaled so high, that even a successful save dooms a creature. But SR is a constant, auto-counter, pain in the a** that is very difficult to avoid. These feats help erode that one last check on spellcasters' power.

 

[Hypersmurf]

No, really, it's in the PHB.

Maybe we've both got rare and valuable misprints?

-Hyp.

 

[Harlekin]

Sure, but I'm not going to use PA to any great extent if my chances to hit are mediocre.

At the high level we're at now, I can usually either auto-hit or auto-miss. In either case, I'm going to use PA, because in the former case, I have no reason not to, and in the latter, I might as well, since I need to make those rare hits count.

If we're somewhere in the middle, I'm obviously not going to sacrifice an amount of BAB that will jeopardize my chances to-hit. Unless I really need it, however, I will usually soak up things like flanking or rage bonii, because the 2-to-1 damage bonus is too good to pass up.

Not to mention, all I really care about are my first iterative attack and my haste/rapid-strike attack. The subsequent attacks are typically either gravy (auto-hit) or swing-and-pray (auto-miss).

For a two-handed weapon user, taking PA is a no-brainer. It has been insanely useful for my barb.

I think your evaluation of PA is strongly affected by your opinion about the iterative attacks. However, I do agree that PA & Cleave are very good feats. (As opposed to 3.0 where you only took PA to get cleave).

 

[Plane Sailing]

natural spell

I've yet to see why anyone thinks this is actually overpowered. Care to suggest why you think it is?

n.b. there is clearly no consensus yet, since everyone is suggesting different things!

 

[Mistwell]

Natural spell is such a given for any druid that they should just put it in the druid abilities and officially remove a feat from druids and be done with it.

I don't consider it super powered, just necessary for a druid. Necessary isn't always the same as overpowered.

 

[jeffh]

Leadership, Cleave, Rapid Shot, Scribe Scroll, Craft Wonder. Not necessarily in that order.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've yet to see why anyone thinks this is actually overpowered. Care to suggest why you think it is?

n.b. there is clearly no consensus yet, since everyone is suggesting different things!

Because starting at mid levels, a druid with this feat can stay in animal form 100% of every adventure without losing any functionality.

When 3.5 was first released and for several years afterward (up until VERY recently), a druid in animal form could use his many animal buffs, most notably animal growth, on himself and his companion, making the druid at least as good as if not better than any fighter or other buffed spellcaster and his companion at least as good as if not better than any cohort. Because the druid could still cast, it allowed him to freely engage in melee while tossing off spells at need (and with a 10 ft. reach from being a Huge quadruped, he could often take his regular action to cast and fight via AoO). A druid also didn't need any stat other than Wisdom, allowing a power-oriented player to easily have an 18 in that stat whenever he liked, with essentially no drawbacks because he'd have enough points left over for decent mental ability scores and never used his own physical ability scores.

To be fair, Natural Spell is fairly heavily nerfed by the changes to polymorph. Since a druid can no longer use his animal buffs on himself (his type doesn't become animal) and doesn't get animal forms' Con bonus to hit points, he's generally not as powerful as a cleric.

On the flip side, Natural Spell is still a feat that essentially no 6th level druid DOESN'T want more than any other feat. No other class, with the possible exception of barbarian and Power Attack, essentially ALWAYS wants a particular feat.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Either way, the bard song is almost doubling the fighter's damage.

Whats wrong with that? The bard himself isnt likely to be dealing much. Its what bards DO - enhance others. My party cried at the thought of their NPC bard companion leaving him, because he made everyone that much more awesome. I love to see "support" characters pull their weight.

This really seems a bunch of hand wringing over the fact that 1st and 2nd edition pounded it into people's heads that its "wrong" to let someone else besides the cleric, mage or cleric/mage be important.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Because starting at mid levels, a druid with this feat can stay in animal form 100% of every adventure without losing any functionality.

Well, this points ot one of my biggest personal issues with the druid. Whenever I've seen them played around the table, when the druid does stay in wildshaped form they still continue to contribute to the conversation around the table. Last I checked - although I could be wrong - a wildshaped druid is unable to talk. So people who like to play druids who stay in wildshaped form should also have to deal with the RP restriction as well. So long as that's adhered to, then - yep - a druid with natural spell can stay in wildshaped form for quite some time.