First, full disclosure, I was one of the recipients of a free copy of this PDF. I don’t think this affects my opinion of the product, but just in case, I want anyone reading this to be aware. I will also not be going over every single feat.
As for the product itself, not only is it just plain awesome, but more than a few of these feats really do “feel” like the Paizo design team just forgot to put these in the core rulebook.
For example, we have Trader, which offers a +2 bonus to appraise and linguistics checks (increasing to +4 at 10 ranks). Or Exotic Hunter’s Bond, which opens up a ranger’s animal companion choices to include everything available to druids.
There’s also many feats that fill in a lot of “gaps” that the fine folks on these messageboards insist need filling. You think there needs to be a “Toughness for skills”? We have that in Cunning. I personally have been aching for an “Improved Dodge” for years, and I finally get it with Defensive. Both Toughness and Cunning get “improved” versions, granting even more hp and skills. In fact, the word “improved” shows up a LOT in this PDF. This is a good thing.
There’s also at least a couple of feats that take the idea that “a trait is half a feat” literally. Such as Second Skin, which reduces armor check penalty by 2 (double the “armor expert” trait). Intuitive Spellcaster that adds 4 to a character’s caster level (double “magical knack”). And yes, this allows your paladins and rangers to become full level casters, with a level to spare even!
Other fun and useful feats include:
Curious, which gives you 3 new class skills.
Goliath Grip, which reduces the penalties for wielding larger weapons.
Improved Furious Focus, which gets rid of ALL of your Power Attack penalties.
Now sadly, this product isn’t perfect, but I’m 90% sure these are just nitpicks on my part. For starters, we have Simple Weapon Proficiency....which already exists. Not only is the name the same as an actual core rulebook feat, it does the exact same thing.
Then there’s Martial Weapon Group Proficiency, which grants access to ALL martial weapons. This one bugs me for two reasons. One, this seems like a “fix,” like the author didn’t like the core feat and decided to fix it. Not only does it seem unneeded, but it kind of ruins the “feel” of the product (more on that in a bit). Two, it strikes me as maybe, possibly unbalanced. Probably not game-breakingly unbalanced, but it just seems like a bit much.
We also have Exotic Weapon Proficiency, which grants access to just two more exotic weapons. To me, this one just kind of seems pointless, but maybe it’s perfect for someone else. (Plus there’s that “same name as an actual feat” issue again.)
Going back to what I said about the “feel” of this product, there a feats for firearms, archetypes of core classes, and the spell lists and class features of the new hybrid classes....none of which are things you will find in the Pathfinder Corerulebook. Yes, this nothing but a nitpick, and a really silly one at that. Still, it just kind of ruins the flow for me.
And I promise my last criticism is at least somewhat valid: the last feat, Zealous Faith, has the prerequisite of “Blessing, Dogma, Domain, or Inquisition” class feature.
“What’s dogma?” you may ask. Well, it is a feature of Flaming Crab Game’s priest class. My issue comes from the fact that no where near the feat, or anywhere else in the product (that I can find), does it mention that FCG has made a priest class...and the “priest” is probably the most repeated third party class that I have seen. I originally thought this feat was intended for another company’s class. Granted, this issue is minor and is easily resolved by looking at FCG’s other products. Still, just a sentence added near the feat letting the reader know about their priest class would have been nice.
Now that the negative is out of the way, I want to stress just how much I really LOVE this PDF. Not only will I be bugging a lot of my GMs about taking many of the feats found herein, but if I run a campaign and a player asks me if they can use these feats, I won’t even ask which one. This product has “instant approval” status with me. I really do think it’s that darn good.
Man, I wish I was still playing my chaotic good goblin rogue so he could take Improved Flank...
