What are the 5 most powerful feats in the PHB?

[Victim]

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.

When did I say that there's something wrong with it?

 

[two]

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.

Well, if you have an archer bard, he can inspire everyone (even as a free action with the right feat) and full attack in the same round. That +4 damage on every arrow really helps! A basic bard archer at 6th level could be doing 1d8+4 (I courage) + 2 (strength) + 1 (point blank shot) + 1 (magic) = 1d8 + 8.

Use rapid shot, and your penalty "to hit" is +2/+2 (bard song grants +4, -2 rapid shot).

The bard can also use a weapon in 2 hands, and thus net +12 damage ...(assuming power attack)

You stated: "The bard himself isn't likely to be dealing much."

Any reasonable ranged bard build will be dealing a moderate (not spectacular, but significant) amount of damage. That, plus all the other damage being inflicted by the bard via his allies, can be quite spectacular when added up.

And I don't think there is anything wrong with that, either!

 

[Slife]

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.

Oh, come on. Bards were the best class. Prereqs were a bit of a killer, though...

 

[Cadfan]

In no particular order, excluding item creation, and assuming the character is built to use it and/or need it:

Natural Spell
Leadership
Iron Will
Weapon Finesse
Weapon Focus
Skill Focus: Concentration

Natural Spell and Leadership are broken and should be restricted by the DM. The others are on the list because they're so popular, and for good reason. They're all meat and potatoes feats, but don't leave home without them. Iron Will reinforces the save that's the most obnoxious to fail according to a great number of players. Weapon Finesse dramatically increases the attack bonus of certain classes, and is essentially mandatory for them. Skill Focus: Concentration is another nearly mandatory feat. And Weapon Focus improves your attack roll, and if you're going to make hundreds and hundreds of those in your career, every point counts.

Power Attack isn't there because of the bad math problem. Its often not a benefit. Fighters still have a problem of "what do I do when I can't make a full attack?" But there are adequate non-PHB feats to help with this, including Martial Study. Power Attack is still good as a prerequisite though.

There are other feats you can break if you really want to. Improved Sunder is a good one. There's feats which damage your opponent when you sunder their weapon, and feats which let you take a second attack against your opponent after you sunder. So you end up with essentially twice as many attacks, AND their weapon is destroyed. But that requires a combo, and I dont' think that's what this is about.

 

[Chimera]

Skill Focus: Concentration is another nearly mandatory feat.

Huhwhat????

I guess the people I have played with have all been morons, because I have never seen *anyone* take this.

Heck, I rarely see anyone max out Concentration.

Your group must over-focus on nailing spellcasters.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

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!

I don't find it as over-powered as most do, but as others have said, it's just such a given. I personally hate the new polymorph rules and don't understand how it woud work with wildshape in the first place. If you lose access to all class features when poymorphed, you can't even cast spells, making natural spell pointess.

Honestly, if the feat was made into a metamagic with no level adjustment, I'd find it balanced, as then the Druid would have to prepare spells as either human or wildshape. Of course, there's still the problem of staying in wildshape all day, but I think subtle effects (need to communicate to party; the city won't allow the party's "tiger" inside its walls , etc...) can mitigate that somewhat.

Also, I think there's a consensus on Leadership, and deservedy so. Of course, while it may be powerful, I still am ok with it, as a lot of its power is out of the player's hands. Your followers are vulnerabe if a spiteful enemy wishes to do you harm through them. Almost all cohorts I've seen have been DM PC's, mosty doing what the character would like, but also breaking off from his commands often enough to be significant and represent that this isn't just a mentally dominated automaton of the PC, that (s)he has his own goals, desires, and methods. Plus, the extra division of treasure kinda sucks.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

They're all meat and potatoes feats, but don't leave home without them. Iron Will reinforces the save that's the most obnoxious to fail according to a great number of players. Weapon Finesse dramatically increases the attack bonus of certain classes, and is essentially mandatory for them. Skill Focus: Concentration is another nearly mandatory feat. And Weapon Focus improves your attack roll, and if you're going to make hundreds and hundreds of those in your career, every point counts.

I don't think meat-and-potatoes = most powerful, just most taken, which is a totally different question. I do think weapon finesse is very powerful as it increases the power of the most overpowered stat even further.

But skill focus, concentration? I don't think so. Combat casting is probably taken at least 5x as much as it is necessary for many good prestige classes, and I have never seen a requirement for SF:Concentration, though I am sure there is a prestige class out there that does require it.

But weapon focus? Prerequisite, or as part of the Weapon Spec chain, yes, but for the +1, I don't see that much. If that logic is true, why don't rogues take two weapon defense? +1 to AC would be far more used than a +1 to hit.

 

[Stalker0]

The power of Leadership is too much in the DM's hands for me to put it in the top list. It can in fact be the strongest feat in the game if the DM allows it to be so. It can also be the weakest feat depending on how he rules it.

 

[Plane Sailing]

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.

It is one of the two reasons that I think the alternate druid wildshape in PHBII is such a good idea - apart from fixing the 'broken animal form' problem, the swift wildshape does still leave the door open for casting when you need to.

 

[Plane Sailing]

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

Any functionality?

My Druid lost +6 Wisdom (periapt of wisdom, which amounted to +3 on spell DCs and several bonus spells, cloak of resistance, ring of deflection, scarab of protection, lesser rod of empower, strand of prayer beads, boots of the winterlands... Pretty much the only magic item that was still usable wildshaped was the leather armour with the 'wild' enhancement!

That plus the inability to speak with the party meant that even at 12th level, wildshaping was just used for special purposes. (I tried spending a lot of time in wildshape at around 8th/9th level, but hey - melee combat was too dangerous for low AC forms. What would an old woman be wanting to do that for?)