I'm still sympathetic to the suggestion of Strike Back.
I mean, Elephant Stomp might make you worse if you use it... but in order for it to make you worse, you have to both take it and use it. You can avoid Elephant Stomp.
Strike Back made you worse without even taking it.
Along the same lines,
My candidate for the worst feat ever is Helpless Prisoner.
You thought Strike Back was bad for locking an intuitive option behind a feat? Well, thanks to this little gem, it now takes a feat to bluff a guard into loosening your bonds just a bit in order to get a circumstantial bonus on Escape Artist! And apparently only Gnomes can employ this sort of arcane trickery.
To add insult to injury, it lets the GM arbitrarily screw with you by declaring the guard a cruel sadist, in which case your action actually penalizes your EA roll.
I hate this feat so very much. It's bad game design at it's finest.
That's awful.
My vote has changed to: Greater Weapon Specialist net.
Because of the feat cost.
Whether using it makes you actively worse could be debated (I think it does), it's quite definitely a trap. Made all the more hilarious by this trait, which is just plain better in every possible way.
Lol this is... God how do they come up with so crappy feats? Not only is it bad, it also makes no sense. Oh, i gained a level! Crap, now i'm worse at diplomacy :(
I mean, if the DM allows it as a custom item, the cost of making a magic item that gives +diplomacy is bonus*bonus*100 gp. The feat should just have given a bonus equal to that amount +1.
So in the examples given, they'd get a +3 and +4 bonus for level 3 and 4 respectively.
It'd still be an at most circumstantial feat, but at least it'd do SOMETHING useful!
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...You can use it with the Crossbowman Fighter Archetype!
Or better yet, the Polearm Master. Steadfast Pike with Polearm Training gains double Bonuses, on top of the Patient Strike.
I ready my action to stabby stabby if the enemy does an action. Level 19, +5 from Steadfast Pike, +4 from Polearm Training, +2 from Patient Strike... worth it for a single attack? /shrugs
As written, it seems like patient strike would still at least let you 5 ft step on your turn, or use a 5 ft step as part of your ready (as you normally can if you did not move on your turn). So keep that in mind. Still pretty terrible and not worth a feat at all, but it's not outright making you worse, per se. And yes, it is really sad that gimping you is the threshold for poor feat consideration in PF, and not merely doing nothing.
I dont know guys...
Maybe Elephant Stomp is the irrefutable proof that alternate worlds do exist.
Maybe in its homeworld Elephant Stomp is still an underdesigned and incomplete feat meant for monsters with the trample special abilitie; in said world, the game designer realized the fact that elephants are quite frightening when they are mad: stepping in anyone and everything until they reach for the target of its rage to finally thrusting it with its tusks (or any attack other than the slam + 1 1/2 str).
In this dimension, the overrun combat maneuver and the trample abilitie are solved in the same fashion (CMB vs CMD for both cases, for anyone caught) and the intended purpose of Elephant Stomp is to grant the monster a diverse way to finish its full round action onslaught, possibly a bite, a tail attack, maybe a gore attack (as an inmediate action as the feat suggest). The multiverse is full of possibilities.
So, what do think? I believe the feat has a good concept if the above is certain and a genuinely good feat for monsters and a decent one for a monk in a goblin-heavy campaign.
Sadly, in our reality, Elephant Stomp made it for this thread.
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My vote has changed to: Greater Weapon Specialist net.
Because of the feat cost.
And there's no net gain.
Patient Strike (Combat)
Your training under the Master of Swords has taught you that a well-timed strike is worth waiting for and that patience will serve you well in the long run.
Prerequisite: Int 13.
Benefit: You can choose to ready an attack as a full-round action instead of a standard action. When you do so, you gain a +2 bonus on your attack roll when your readied action triggers.
Normal: Readying an attack is a standard action and doesn’t grant a bonus on your attack roll.
At first I misread that as you being able to ready a full attack and then get a +2 bonus to hit and I was like "wow that's awesome, why is this here?"... and then I read it correctly.
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Channeled Revival seems like a potential trap feat, unless I am reading it wrong.
It effectively allows you to use the "bringing back to life" aspect of Breath of Life as a full round action; however for Breath of Life to work it has to be cast within 1 round of the creature dying.
So does that mean that unless you can reach the victim with a 5 foot step (or some other form of transport that doesn't require a move action), you'll get there too late to use Channeled Revival?
I am super confused the devs marked this as no response required? so the feat does what it says it does? what is the point of it?
buhler?
Channeled Revival seems like a potential trap feat, unless I am reading it wrong.
It effectively allows you to use the "bringing back to life" aspect of Breath of Life as a full round action; however for Breath of Life to work it has to be cast within 1 round of the creature dying.
So does that mean that unless you can reach the victim with a 5 foot step (or some other form of transport that doesn't require a move action), you'll get there too late to use Channeled Revival?
That is a marvelous found.
who knows...
but why was it marked no answer needed on page 1?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/supernal-feast
Prerequisites: Con 15, aasimar.
Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to a good outsider that takes bleed or blood drain damage, you gain 1 temporary hit point as you bathe in the celestial being's gore. Furthermore, as a full-round action, you can feast on the fallen body of a good outsider that has been dead no longer than 24 hours. When you do, you regain 1 temporary hit point per Hit Die the outsider possessed at a rate of 1 hit point per minute. Temporary hit points gained from this feat last 1d4 hours.
I wonder who wrote that one.
Wait, so the PC race that is described as being almost always of a good alignment gains temporary hitpoints by feasting on the corpse of another dead good outsider?
I don't get it...
Flavorwise it is awesome for an evil aasimar npc.
Patient Strike (Combat)
Your training under the Master of Swords has taught you that a well-timed strike is worth waiting for and that patience will serve you well in the long run.
Prerequisite: Int 13.
Benefit: You can choose to ready an attack as a full-round action instead of a standard action. When you do so, you gain a +2 bonus on your attack roll when your readied action triggers.
Normal: Readying an attack is a standard action and doesn’t grant a bonus on your attack roll.
Yeah, my face cringed when I saw that one. The one it was previewed next to made it look even worse. 13 int so I can wait to strike at just the right moment... as a full round action... for a +2 to attack. Feels more like something I should already be able to do. To me anyway.
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A way to make Patient Strike better.. +2 per attack you could have made based on your BAB.
Benefit: You can ready an action to make a melee attack against any foe that attacks you in melee, even if the foe is outside of your reach.
To make this one better
You can ready and action to make a melee attack against any foe that attacks you with reach in melee, even if that foe is out side your reach while they make the attack.
Or something along those lines.I see it as a feat meant to attack things like dragons or hyrdas or something. Course.. its the cruddy thing about feats.. the moment they exist, options in combat become limited.
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Yeah, my face cringed when I saw that one. The one it was previewed next to made it look even worse. 13 int so I can wait to strike at just the right moment... as a full round action... for a +2 to attack. Feels more like something I should already be able to do. To me anyway.Patient Strike (Combat)
Your training under the Master of Swords has taught you that a well-timed strike is worth waiting for and that patience will serve you well in the long run.
Prerequisite: Int 13.
Benefit: You can choose to ready an attack as a full-round action instead of a standard action. When you do so, you gain a +2 bonus on your attack roll when your readied action triggers.
Normal: Readying an attack is a standard action and doesn’t grant a bonus on your attack roll.
Actually, I can see a character getting some use out of that one. Suppose you can't actually attack the target you want to when your initiative comes up, because you don't have line-of-sight on it or something, but you also don't want to move because you're behind cover or you'd provoke an AoO. You could use this to wait for your opponent to come to you, and since you weren't going to take a move action anyway, recoup some of the opportunity cost of readying an action.
I still probably wouldn't take it as a feat unless my allies regularly dropped Obscuring Mist or something else ridiculous like that, but at least there are circumstances that make it good.
Yes, the obvious use is obvious, but is it really worth a feat? I suppose if you don't move than 5 feet often, and you really like readied actions(brace weapon?). The problem isn't that its useless, its that it probably would've been balanced to just give it a +2, but instead it also takes a full round action, has a 13 int requirement, and is still pretty minor because it doesn't actually give you more options and its just a small static bonus for more action economy. Its bad imo. I would've liked to see something nice.
In the same blog the other feat was a spontaneous caster feat. In short, pick a spell you don't know, prepare it in a slot one higher(the spell is not treated as heightened). More than anything I'm bothered casters got something nifty and martials got something lame.
Versatile Spontaneity
You made a good name for yourself in the Pathfinder Society in part because you knew how to prepare for the challenges before you, even if your natural magical abilities lend themselves less to preparation and more to spontaneity.
Prerequisites: Int 13 or Wis 13 (see Special), ability to spontaneously cast 2nd-level spells.
Benefit: When you regain spell slots at the start of the day, you may opt to prepare one spell you don’t know in place of a daily spell slot 1 level higher than the prepared spell’s level. To do so, you must have access to the selected spell on a scroll or in a spellbook, and the spell must be on your spell list (even if it is not one of your spells known). This process takes 10 minutes per spell level of the selected spell. You can cast the selected spell a single time, expending the spell slot as though it were a known spell being cast by you. Preparing a spell in this manner expends a scroll but not a spellbook. A spell prepared in this way is considered its actual level rather than the level of the spell slot expended. You can apply metamagic feats to the spell as normal, as long as the spell’s actual level plus the increases from metamagic feats is 1 level lower than the highest-level spell you can cast. For example, a 12th-level sorcerer with this feat, a scroll of fireball, and the Empower Spell metamagic feat could prepare an empowered fireball spell in her 6th-level spell slot.
Special: If you spontaneously cast arcane spells, you must have an Intelligence score of at least 13 to take this feat. If you spontaneously cast divine spells, you must have a Wisdom score of at least 13 to take this feat. If you have both arcane and divine spellcasting classes, you can use this feat to prepare a spell using a given class’s spell slot as long as you meet the associated ability score prerequisite.
You're misreading the feat a bit. You could have always done that... if you're a humanoid on a mount:
Lance: A lance deals double damage when used from the back of a charging mount. While mounted, you can wield a lance with one hand.
Since Centaurs themselves don't count as being mounted on their own (although it would have been common sense), they need a feat to do that, since nothing RAW allows them to use lances one handed and do double damage on a charge. So it's not a worthless feat.
Hmm, seems as if the point of confusion is that PF actually nerfed centaurs. Not just the undersized weapons thing, either. Here is the PF Centaur and here is the D&D 3.5 Centaur. Note that unlike the PF version, the 3.5 one says this:
A centaur employing a lance deals double damage when it charges, just as a rider on a mount does.
IIRC, a splat book (probably Races of the Wild) went on to further expound upon the whole "centaurs count as mounted" thing and allowed them to bypass some mounted things that were required but redundant and/or unusable for them, like the Mounted Combat feat.
So basically the feat does do something. Because it's giving what used to come for free.
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Note that unlike the PF version, the 3.5 one says this:
A centaur employing a lance deals double damage when it charges, just as a rider on a mount does.So basically the feat does do something. Because it's giving what used to come for free.
Thanks, glad I didn't just dream up that centaurs used to count as mounted - just not in Pathfinder!
Presumably, there's nothing in RAW that stops centaurs having mounts ....
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/supernal-feast
Prerequisites: Con 15, aasimar.
Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to a good outsider that takes bleed or blood drain damage, you gain 1 temporary hit point as you bathe in the celestial being's gore. Furthermore, as a full-round action, you can feast on the fallen body of a good outsider that has been dead no longer than 24 hours. When you do, you regain 1 temporary hit point per Hit Die the outsider possessed at a rate of 1 hit point per minute. Temporary hit points gained from this feat last 1d4 hours.
I wonder who wrote that one.
OOOkay.... Yeah I think we have a winner. From good to evil in one feat.
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OOOkay.... Yeah I think we have a winner. From good to evil in one feat.http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/supernal-feast
Prerequisites: Con 15, aasimar.
Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to a good outsider that takes bleed or blood drain damage, you gain 1 temporary hit point as you bathe in the celestial being's gore. Furthermore, as a full-round action, you can feast on the fallen body of a good outsider that has been dead no longer than 24 hours. When you do, you regain 1 temporary hit point per Hit Die the outsider possessed at a rate of 1 hit point per minute. Temporary hit points gained from this feat last 1d4 hours.
I wonder who wrote that one.
Who says you have to be a good Aasimar?
I'm not sure it can compete with Elephant Stomp, Monkey Lunge, Caustic Slur, etc... But I submit Ostentatious Display for your amusement. Spend 5% of your WBL (having to keep scaling it up as you get richer) for a +1 bonus to one specific skill. And you have to not use that slot for an actual magic item.
Wow, it is an incredibly absurd feat, +1 to an skill? seriously? just take skill focus and use that slot for something usefull.
I would say is a trong contender to the worst feat ever.
To be fair -- to get the full value of the feat, you need to use it multiple times (which does not require taking the feat multiple times). Since you have a choice of slots for each skill, you are not forced to use up the headband or belt slots (which clearly would be a waste of resources). It is still not an optimum feat, but it could provide some advantage to a character in a campaign where cash is plentiful and magic items are rare enough that you would not be hurt too badly by leaving 3-4 slots open.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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See, I see Ostentatious Display as being more of an NPC style feat. It makes some sense for an aristocrat, for example. NPCs have less wealth so they have to spend less to get the bonus, plus they often can't afford items to fill out all their slots anyway. It's not a great trade to spend 20% of your WBL and feat to get +1 to four skills, but if you already have Skill Focus etc and you want to squeeze that one extra bonus in...
It's certainly not in the same category as things like Elephant Stomp in terms of being just flat out bad.
It seems like flagging certain feats as "intended primarily for NPC use" would help a great deal.
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But that runs counter to 'Snorter's Law',
"An NPC is a PC, whose player couldn't make it to the table tonight." (So, I guess I'll step up and run him...)
Used whenever a player objects to an NPC acting in a way that wouldn't be questioned from a fellow PC.
"But...he can't kill my downed PC. Why would he do that?"
"Same reason you guys do it to downed NPCs all the time. He knows you have a channeller."
"Why would he have prepared that combo of spells? Why would he have that protection running 24/7?"
"Same reason you guys have those spells running all the time."
A s+!$ty feat is a s@~@ty feat. There should be no hierarchy of 'PC Feats' and 'NPC Feats'.
If your players would never take it, why should the GM be expected to nobble all the characters under their control?
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Well some feats are intended for NPC's because they make sense for an NPC to have but not for a PC. Skill Focus (Profession (hairdresser)) is useless for a PC, but for a hairdresser it's far preferable to Power Attack. Natural Jouster or whatever is it's name also falls into this category.
NPC's that do the same kind of things as the PC's should have the same kinds of feats, but that's not always the case.
That said, Ostentatious Display is just plain bad, even for NPC's. If an aristocrat has enough feats to get Skill Focus in it's four primary skills, it has enough money that there are better things to put that feat towards than ostentatious display. Like the +2/+2 feats, or some skill supporting feat, or extra traits for +1 to like 4 skills and adding two class skills etc.
For a human, having 5 feats as an aristocrat means being 7th level.
Look at this noble:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/npc-s/npc-3/noble-human-aristocrat-6
When she hits 7, what feat would make most sense? Skill Focus (Diplomacy), Alertness, Rethorical Flourish? Maybe Leadership? Or maybe broaden her knowledges a bit, pick up Dilettante and some ranks in Knowledge (local, history, religion) or similar?
Or should she pick Ostentatious Display, pay 4700 gold and get a +1 bonus in four skills each? When those 4700 gold could have gone towards Headband of Alluring Charisma, which will give +1 to seven different skills as well as boost an eventual leadership score, and with spare change to buy a few potions?
not forget that +2 to a skill is what a 300 gp masterwork tool does.
Where do you see this? I can find no blanket rule on this, just individual skill tools, and this:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/tools-kits#TOC -Tool-MasterworkWhich clearly require DM approval. But since the cost is different I assume you mean something different... Can't find it though :/
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Even for an NPC, Skill Focus, the relevant +2/+2 skill bonus feat, and Additional Traits (for trait that boosts said skill) are all better deals than Ostentatious Display and would be chosen first. There are probably other obscure feats, too. And that's assuming boosting a certain skill is the ONLY thing the NPC cares about and nothing else.
not forget that +2 to a skill is what a 300 gp masterwork tool does.Where do you see this? I can find no blanket rule on this, just individual skill tools, and this:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/tools-kits#TOC -Tool-MasterworkWhich clearly require DM approval. But since the cost is different I assume you mean something different... Can't find it though :/
I do not know in what part of the book that item is, nor I can find int in the srd but I know the item do exist
text of the item discription.
Tool, Masterwork: This well-made item is the perfect
tool for the job. It grants a +2 circumstance bonus on a
related skill check (if any). Bonuses provided by multiple
masterwork items do not stack.http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2n978?Masterwork-Tools-for-all-skills
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2n5bd?Masterwork-Tool
There seems to be no mention of that text on the whole SRD, nor the d20pfsrd. It most likely seems to be the item I linked to above, which has clear and serious caveats about it being up to the DM. Since that item is part of the core, i highly doubt there would be another item that is the same, just better, written into the system.
The text was changed in ultimate equipment, that's possibly why its a little different. A masterwork tool is a generic item that gives a +2 circumstance bonus to a particular skill. Its 50 gp, and usually involves "would the DM let me use this now?" but it can also be "its 50gp, and this is useful in every situation because when don't you use a comb when brushing hair?". YMMV.
Not sure what it has to do with feats though.
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Well some feats are intended for NPC's because they make sense for an NPC to have but not for a PC. Skill Focus (Profession (hairdresser)) is useless for a PC, but for a hairdresser it's far preferable to Power Attack. Natural Jouster or whatever is it's name also falls into this category.
NPC's that do the same kind of things as the PC's should have the same kinds of feats, but that's not always the case.
That's exactly right. If the NPC is a specialist in a nonadventuring profession, such as hairdressing, he would have feats to match.
I'd also drop any alleged Challenge Rating to near zero, to reflect that, too, so the PCs can't level up from rampaging through a high street of level 7 manicurists and poodle-shampooers.My post referred more to those sessions where the players kick off, when one of them gets their ass handed to them, by an NPC who uses some new tactic, feat or archetype they haven't encountered before.
Some players expect all antagonist NPCs to have limited themselves to only the options in the Core book, because 'they're NPCs, so shouldn't be looking in the APG/UC/UM/InnerSea/Race books'.
Which is an attitude I seek to correct them of, as and when I can.
"This scenario was written 5 years ago. You can bet that if it were written today, that NPC would be Class X instead of Class Y, would have used an archetype, and have taken Feats A, B, and C."
"That's not fair, rewriting him to use current material..."
"Why? You lot whine at me to allow you a rebuild, after every book is released, all the time...."