Duplex Feats (PFRPG) PDF

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Duplex feats are a special acquisition for a character, marking the forging of two or more paths into one cohesive destiny. They meld two or more core classes together, for the benefit of both. Duplex feats are an alternative to the traditional prestige classes.

This supplement contains 30 duplex feats, all bringing together two core classes. Perhaps your character is driven to become a Beastmaster Adept, folding together the best aspects of barbarity and druidism. Or maybe instead your character feels the calling of martial pursuits intertwined with divine faith as a Devoted Crusader. Alternatively, perhaps your character feel your sorcerous ways blending into the way of the monk?

As well as the thirty duplex feats, this supplement also has four additional racial duplex feats, ranging from the Elven Exemplar to the Dwarven Stone-Blessed. For Games Masters uneasy about introducing duplex feats into his or her game, allowing just these four racial duplex feats is an excellent way to begin.

Finally, there is an addition which always raises a discussion in our homebrew games here at Reality Four Studios. NPC Duplex feats are presented here, requiring a single level of an NPC class as a prerequisite. These NPC duplex feats allow Games Masters the option of trying an 'ordinary heroes' approach to the Player Characters.

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2.00/5 (based on 2 ratings)

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A lot of potential, simply falls short

2/5

This book is a series of feats designed to allow a multiclassed character the option to advance certain elements of both classes. This is something I loved in 3.5 and was hoping to see someone pick up and run with, but Duplex Feats isn't quite there.

Some of the feats are great, like the Beastmaster Adept viewable in the discussion thread. Most are nearly useless such as the barbarian/ranger one that advances Track and Trap Sense. Good game design should be modular and adaptable. Why not word the feat to also work with archetype class features that replace trap sense and advance at the same progression?

Lastly, the options in this book only cover core classes. No support for the magus, summoner, cavalier, etc.


Honestly I'm extremely disappointed...

2/5

So let me start by saying that I normally don't write reviews, because most of the time someone with more knowledge than I has already written a great one before I even see the product. This time, however, I feel like I have a unique perspective on the product, as I've been working on a somewhat-similar project.

Let me start with the basics. It's 17 pages, with the first page being artwork, the second being a table of contents, and the last two being the OGL statement and a commercial for their other products.

The general idea of the feats presented here is to give a multiclassed character a way to continue the progression of one or more of their class features from their "marginalized" class. And as far as the mechanics of the game are concerned, the feats presented here can do that. The issue I have with this product is how specific the requirements are for some of these feats, yet how general the benefits are.

I'll give an example: The Duplex feat called "Illusionary Savant" requires 3 levels in Wizard with the Illusion school as its focused school, 2 levels of Rogue, and three ranks in the Bluff skill. That sounds like a great set of requirements for a multiclassed Rogue/Wizard who focuses on Illusions, right? The problem is that the flavor of the Illusion focus is completely lost in the feat benefits. Despite the requirements and the name of the feat being Illusion-focused, the benefits of the feat are incredibly generic. You get to add levels in Wizard and Rogue for the purposes of your school abilities. You gain a level worth of spells per day and +1 caster level in the Wizard class at every even level of the Rogue class. That's it. There is no mention of the Illusion school anywhere.

If they had also added some flavorful abilities, like "your save DCs for Illusion spells increase by 1 per two Rogue levels" or "when you cast an Illusion spell, you have a 15% chance of causing the opponent to be flat-footed against your next attack, allowing you to use sneak attack", then this would be an AWESOME product!

On top of the generic nature of the feat benefits, most of the feats have arbitrary special conditions involving how many class levels of each of your classes you need to have for the feat's effect to continue. Here's an excerpt sentence from the Illusionary Savant feat that I was just describing: "If you have a difference of more than three class levels between the classes named in the prerequisites for this feat, or your number of Rogue class levels is ever greater than your number of Wizard class levels, this feat is suspended."

To me, this requirement seems arbitrary, and again doesn't address the flavor aspect of multiclassing. WHY should your classes need to be within 3 levels of each other? Is this just to discourage dipping? If so, they've already done so by requiring multiple levels in each base class. I would think that a rogue could dabble in magic a lot (take 7 levels of Wizard), or a little (take 3 levels of Wizard), and still should get to benefit from this feat for his full 20-level progression.

This type of issue is rampant throughout the entire product, all the way to the Racial and NPC-based Duplex feats toward the end of the pdf. Overall, I believe that these feats are mechanically sound, and therefore if you chose to use them in your game it should be fine. Nothing will break. BUT, the requirements, special requirements, and lack of flavor really make this a bad read, and I would personally never use these feats in their current forms.



Nice review, cartmanbeck!

Liberty's Edge

I've been hoping to see something like this for a while. What classes does this product cover?

Is it just the base classes or do they support the APG, UM, and UC classes as well?


Feral wrote:

I've been hoping to see something like this for a while. What classes does this product cover?

Is it just the base classes or do they support the APG, UM, and UC classes as well?

Hi there. This product just covers the Core and NPC classes that appear in the main rulebook. The aim of this supplement is to both allow a level of progression in two classes as well as replacing the need for dipping levels in prestige classes.

Here is a duplex feat, taken straight from the book, so you can see:

Beastmaster Adept [Duplex] 
The creatures of the wild are at your beck and call, respecting your might and power but also inspired by it.
Prerequisite: Barbarian 3+, Druid 2+, Nature Bond (animal companion) 
Benefit: Whenever you enter your Barbarian rage, your druidic animal companion gains the effects of your rage (but not the effects of any rage powers). It also suffers the same drawbacks too. For the purposes of your Nature Bond (animal companion) class feature, you add half your number of barbarian levels, rounded down, to your effective druid level.
Additionally, you are skilled at speaking to animals and persuading them around to your way of thinking. You add your barbarian class level onto your druid class level for the purposes of your Wild Empathy class feature.
Special: If you have more levels in the druid class than the barbarian class, this feat is suspended.

As regards the review, thanks to Cartmanbeck for his comments as well as openly acknowledging that he himself is working on a similar product. I'm sure his product will be a great success, and we will take his comments on board for a future release of this supplement.


I can think of a few reasons for not having the feats increase the things that replace trap sense. Mostly either game balance, since archetype replacements aren't balanced by what they replace but rather on a whole, or "oh god the amount of time it's going to take to make sure these work is going to increase the price by a ton"

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