Worst Feat Ever

[RandomPrecision]

Dodge is useful for the feats that it's a prerequisite for, and if those feats aren't useful in and of themselves, they're the prerequisite feats for the shadowdancer PrC.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Endurance (the addition of Die Hard makes Endurance slightly better in 3.5 but it still isn't too good, PC's dont' tend to get in forced march situations too often)

Don't forget sleeping in armor. When the DM likes night encounters *cough* then it pays off big time. Encounters are much harder when you don't have your armor on. I speak from experience on both sides of the screen on this one.

 

[Goolpsy]

encounters aren't really that hard without armor..
as one of my players said: "Why invest in higher armor bonus, when the monsters got an insane attack bonus" and it kindof is true..
well orcs and kobolds dont have... but when u reach level 2 and up..
Most monsters hit you.. even with the toughest and best armor bonus available at the current level.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Most monsters hit you.. even with the toughest and best armor bonus available at the current level.

Oh, I disagree. I find that in all of my games (in which all of the players seem to focus greatly on defense, almost always buying the best armor and other AC-enhancing items), I often have trouble making mooks that can even challenge the PCs because of their AC. Sure, big bad guys can usually hit them no problem (and often do), but it's kinda hard to send a group of lesser bad guys (even ones that aren't that good) that even have a chance at hitting the PCs. Maybe that's just my games, but I find high AC to be quite worth the expense if you're willing to go for it. Oh well. YMMV. (What does that mean, anyway?)

 

[Yeoman]

YMMV. (What does that mean, anyway?)

Your mileage may vary.

Personally I don't like dodge or toughness, but many times they are prerequisites for various prestige classes, and so sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

 

[the Lorax]

Toughness can be a dubious feat, but I'd have to say that Combat Casting and the plethora of +2/+2 feats (which I have house ruled into one feat - pick 2 skills) are worse.

I have an NPC human fighter who joined one of the groups I run, a player who cannot normally play that day happened to be over, and I allowed him to generate the character - a 1st level human fighter. The feats selected were Toughness, Toughness, and Improved Toughness. The extra hit points have consistantly kept the NPC alive and standing - an NPC that the party loves, even if his only real schtick is that he can take damage.

 

[Celebrim]

Most monsters hit you.. even with the toughest and best armor bonus available at the current level.

I'm going to totally agree with ThirdWizard on this. Both as a DM and a player, I find high AC to be the single most powerful trait a player can have. The ability to keep a high AC all the time is not at all to be underestimated.

Lets say you have an AC such that most opponents need a 16 to hit you? How much better is that than having an AC such that most opponents need a 11 to hit you? Well, you take half as much damage. And how important would be a +4 bonus to your AC from Expertice or some such thing? Well, now that most opponents would only hit you on a 20, you take 1/4th as much damage as before. You take one 1/10th as much damage as the guy that isn't bothering with his AC, and even if he does get the same +4 bonus you still take less than 1/5th the damage that he does. This is an ENORMOUS advantage.

High AC players can drive DM's nut. I know; I've been that PC driving the DM nuts. High AC monsters can drive players nuts. I know. There is nothing more frustrating than the feeling that you can't hurt your foe.

High AC may never give you complete protection against a high strength monster, but it is an enormous advantage. If you can force a high strength monster to roll a 10 to hit, then it will essentially lose half of its rounds. If it has multiple attacks, and you can force the monster to roll a 10 to hit, then its almost certainly going to miss its iterative attacks. If you have a high AC, you can force the monster to not use its expertise or not use its power attack ability. If you make yourself an easy target around a giant, you are going to get squashed. You may never be able to make yourself a hard target for a giant, but you sure can avoid its full attack and/or power attack. If you go around inviting power attacks from a giant, don't be surprised when you need to be raised after one 'unlucky' critical.

PC parties have traditionally held three primary advantages over thier opponents. First, they have more hit points collectively than any common foe, they can collectively make more actions than the monsters, and they have a much higher AC than the monsters. Third edition even up the odds a bit and made high AC less dominating, but if you start sacrificing one of your most important advantages you will pay.

 

[Celebrim]

Toughness can be a dubious feat, but I'd have to say that Combat Casting and the plethora of +2/+2 feats (which I have house ruled into one feat - pick 2 skills) are worse.

I have an NPC human fighter who joined one of the groups I run, a player who cannot normally play that day happened to be over, and I allowed him to generate the character - a 1st level human fighter. The feats selected were Toughness, Toughness, and Improved Toughness. The extra hit points have consistantly kept the NPC alive and standing - an NPC that the party loves, even if his only real schtick is that he can take damage.

Actually, at low levels, toughness can rock. Toughness is probably a better buy for a low level fighter that never plans on going up in levels than Dodge, Weapon Focus, Power Attack and most anything else that he has available to him. +3 Hit Points significantly adds to his hitpoints, which is at low levels probably his most precious commodity - alot more important than a +1 bonus to AC or a +1 bonus to hit.

The problem with toughness is twofold. First, in the long run 3 hit points isn't all that significant to a fighter that is going to end up with 100 or so. Second, there isn't alot of places to go from there. If Toughness opened up as many feats as Dodge or Power Attack, more people would take it. (I really need to get published sometime... )

 

[ThirdWizard]

If you make yourself an easy target around a giant, you are going to get squashed. You may never be able to make yourself a hard target for a giant, but you sure can avoid its full attack and/or power attack. If you go around inviting power attacks from a giant, don't be surprised when you need to be raised after one 'unlucky' critical.

This I must stress. An opponent with a two handed weapon power attacking a low AC opponent isn't going to be a long fight. When you go below that 50/50 odds, you're in serious trouble. The loss of non-magical breastplate is a loss of five points of Armor Class! At mid levels that can easily go up to eight points of AC lost when caught unaware. Bad bad bad.

It's always bad, though, even without power attack, as Celebrim points out. Check out this thread with the pit fiend damage per round calculations by Nail. Here's the breakdown:

        Ave Dam/Full Attack        AC 30       AC 40
        Pit Fiend:                  105         54
        Pit Fiend w/ longsword:     118         50
        Pit Fiend w/greatsword:     145         60

AC is very important.

 

[the Lorax]

Funny. I get Combat Casting almost every time I play a spellcaster.

Sure, you can also get Skill Focus (concentration). But that's the point. You can also get it. They stack. It's pretty easy, with both, to create a spellcaster who never has to roll to successfully cast defensively.

Wow, I play a fair number of casters, and I have NEVER taken either feat for the benefit of the feat itself. I believe I have 1 character that has Combat Casting because it was a PrC requirement, and I was annoyed at having to waste the feat.

I see it like this:

I haven't played a druid in 3.x
Clerics cast before melee (buffs) or after (cures)
Wizards have high Intelligance and have the skill points to spend maxxing out Concentration
Sorcerers have nothing better to do with their skill points than max out Concentration
Bards have lots of skill points, and tend to follow the cleric model anyway.

4d6 drop the low gives us an average of 13, so I'll assume that your average caster has at least a 12 con, and thus a +1.

Any caster who intends on casting spells in melee is going to max concentration.

Casters generally have access to spells with a spell level equal to half their casting level.

At 1st level, without feats, a battle caster will have a +5 to concentration - requireing an 11 to cast his best spells on the defensive

At 3rd, w/o feats, Concentration is +7 - best spells need a 10.

At 5th, Concentration +9 - best spells need a 9

At 7th, Concentration +11 - best spells need a 8

and so on...


That is for a Cleric or Wizard. A Bard or Sorcerer fares even better, due to slower gain of spells. So for me, I find it hard to bother wasting a (rare) feat on boosting up Concentration, which by 15th level will only fail on a 1 without any Con boosting or Concentration aiding items. And if I happened to be playing a low Con caster I would prefer Skill Focus to Combat Casting - readied actions are a good thing when spell casters are around.