Unlike Toughness (which the book says stacks), Improved Toughness gives the character bonus hit points at each level. Would the effects of multiple Improved Toughness feats stack? The book doesn't say one way or the other, but allowing a potentially limitless number of extra hit points at each level seems high.
No feats stack unless The description says they do.
Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
Same here.
The only things that have that feat are monsters.
Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
Although I haven't, our gaming group has considered even making the ordinary Toughness Feat a prerequisite. But that might be somewhat underwhelming and noone would take either Feats, so we haven't touched anything.
While I'm kind of on the subject of Feats, we have house-ruled that Skill Focus style Feats and Save improvement Feats (e.g. Lightning Reflexes) offer double the listed benefitial effects since they were never being taken. Since we've done that, every fighter has taken Iron Will.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
Because your DM doesn't award experience or allow you to level? Then it would totally rock.
Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
Ultradan
Well, for a 1st level wizard or sorcerer (esp elven) Toughness could nearly double your hit points. Improved Toughness requires you actually make it to the next few levels to get any benefit.
Because your DM doesn't award experience or allow you to level? Then it would totally rock.Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
Thats a pretty hard ass DM.
I just house ruled that Toughness feat gives you +1hp/lvl. I mean, it's like totally worthless otherwise.
Yes, it is. 1st level elven wizard: "Oooo, look! I nearly doubled my HP, but not quite, which is somewhat embarrasing considering how small my hp is, and when I gain later levels, I'll both not even notice the extra 3 HP, especially compared to other party members, becuase let's face it, my HP is going to always suck no matter what compared to everyone else unless I have 18 Con and always roll 4s on my HD, and not only that, at much later levels, I will wish to commit suicide for taking such a crappy feat when I could have takin Spell Penetration, Spell Focus, an item creation feat, or one of many, many other things from the Complete Arcane; not only that, but I have just made one of the longest run on sentances I've ever seen! Look at me, I have a Wisdom of -4!!!!"
Toughness sucks. Improved Toughness is good and should replace it. It is a scientifically proveable fact. /rant over
OK. I feel like dissenting a bit... :-)
If you start a Sor/Wiz at lvl 1 and know you like your character and the time you invested creating it, you might consider taking "Toughness".
I know that in the long run it is really a loss and you won't be able to really benefit from it after lvl 3 or 4 has passed, but it really make the difference and helps you bring your character to the middle range levels. It is not necessary, but it helps.
I would probably never take it if I am not playing a Human Sor/Wiz, but I once had a player whose character was a Human Wizard and these 3 extra hp quite often made the difference between going down or not. And these extra one or two rounds he could stay active were the one when he would manage to place a well rolled "burning hands" or "magic missile" which turned the tide of the battle. So he started to love it that he had "wasted" one of his two Feats on it.
Of course later on it was less relevant, but he always knew that things might have turned sour if he had not taken it and his character might have never reached higher levels...
Bocklin
Rolling with the general opinion on this one. Toughness is pathetic, and Improved Toughness is what Toughness should have been. I've even gone so far as to replace the Toughness feat on all the big, HP-monger monsters that had taken it about 4 or 5 times. This is a perfect example of how pathetic Toughness is: The MM 3.5 Triceratops has the Toughness feat 4 times, for a total of 12 extra HP. Replace just ONE of those with Improved Toughness, and you get 16 extra HP. So, one feat that yields greater benefits than 4 others together, while opening up three other feats for things like Improved Natural Attack, Improved Natural Armor, Ability Focus (Trample), etc.
Synopsis - Toughness sucks, Improved Toughness is worth a feat slot.
As a DM, I require the players to take toughness as a prereq for improved toughness.
As a Player, I frequently take toughness as a mage or rogue. Fighters and clerics have better things they can use their feats for and already have solid defense. It has a solid impact all the way up to level 5 or so. If your well stocked up on healing magic, its not just 3 extra HP. Its 3 extra HP per encounter. That can really add up.
As a DM, I require the players to take toughness as a prereq for improved toughness.
As a Player, I frequently take toughness as a mage or rogue. Fighters and clerics have better things they can use their feats for and already have solid defense. It has a solid impact all the way up to level 5 or so. If your well stocked up on healing magic, its not just 3 extra HP. Its 3 extra HP per encounter. That can really add up.
Doesn't improved toughness have a requirement for taking it?
Something like a Fort +2 bonus? This would ofcourse exclude a sorcerers and wizards from taking it at 1st level.I like toughness, yes it is only 3 hp but at 1st level those go a long way.
Doesn't improved toughness have a requirement for taking it?
Something like a Fort +2 bonus? This would ofcourse exclude a sorcerers and wizards from taking it at 1st level.I like toughness, yes it is only 3 hp but at 1st level those go a long way.
Exactly my point. The requirements for "Improved Toughness" put it out of reach for the Sor/Wiz or Rog when they need it. Which is why it makes sense for them to fall back on the regular "Toughness" to help them survive the first levels.
Bocklin
Toughness, as the designers realised once they had finished the rules, was underpowered. They left it in anyway as something that experienced players could feel good about knowing to avoid. Besides which, they had already given it to a lot of monsters and didn't want to change them all. Currently, it's still good as a weak feat for a prestige class prerequisite.
I like the Arcana Evolved equivalent feat which is called Sturdy. If I remember correctly, it gives you double the normal Con bonus to HP for that level, with a minimum of 5HP. Therefore, when a wizard takes it he gains 5HP, but when a 20-Con high level fighter takes it he gains a whole ton of HP. The feat is thus equally useful for high-level, high-con characters as it is for first level characters.
I guess this depends on how brutally lethal a game you run. Mine is pretty deadly, but I haven't changed anything with these feats either.
I remember running a game in 3.0 ed. where a human wizard took Toughness twice...he still got eviscerated by an ice troll. But you have to say he was one tough wizard...at least for a little while.
Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness? ...
No. Why would we try?
Anyone who takes it must like throwing away feats -- Skill Focus (farming) anyone?
Jack :)
Yes, it is. 1st level elven wizard: "Oooo, look! I nearly doubled my HP, but not quite, which is somewhat embarrasing considering how small my hp is, and when I gain later levels, I'll both not even notice the extra 3 HP, especially compared to other party members, becuase let's face it, my HP is going to always suck no matter what compared to everyone else unless I have 18 Con and always roll 4s on my HD, and not only that, at much later levels, I will wish to commit suicide for taking such a crappy feat when I could have takin Spell Penetration, Spell Focus, an item creation feat, or one of many, many other things from the Complete Arcane; not only that, but I have just made one of the longest run on sentances I've ever seen! Look at me, I have a Wisdom of -4!!!!"
Toughness sucks. Improved Toughness is good and should replace it. It is a scientifically proveable fact. /rant over
I had a player whose wizard character (16 con) took toughness. With max hit points at first level and a toad familiar he had 13 hp early in his first level - that was a tough wizard, and as a human he didn't really regret the feat loss.
- Ashavan
Yes, it is. 1st level elven wizard: "Oooo, look! I nearly doubled my HP, but not quite, which is somewhat embarrasing considering how small my hp is, and when I gain later levels, I'll both not even notice the extra 3 HP, especially compared to other party members, becuase let's face it, my HP is going to always suck no matter what compared to everyone else unless I have 18 Con and always roll 4s on my HD, and not only that, at much later levels, I will wish to commit suicide for taking such a crappy feat when I could have takin Spell Penetration, Spell Focus, an item creation feat, or one of many, many other things from the Complete Arcane; not only that, but I have just made one of the longest run on sentances I've ever seen! Look at me, I have a Wisdom of -4!!!!"
Toughness sucks. Improved Toughness is good and should replace it. It is a scientifically proveable fact. /rant over
Down boy take it easy.
I agree some extra hp can help a low level wiz survive but three hp seems really small vs somehing like spell focus, or ummm... any other feat for that matter that keeps contributing even in high levels. A wiz could use all of his feats for toughness but by 5th lvl he still needs to stay away from melee.
I play gnome wizards all the time with 16's 18's in con and they were tough. Every time they died they were at -20's -30's or higher so I dont see tougness being a good option in my case. I was very happy however with greater spell focus illusion and all my item creation feats (which I used to make some cheap amulets of con)
It depends on the campaign though. we always play into high levels before we start something new but it may be worthwile in a low level game. So it's worth is directly related to the game. In a conventional game that continues into high levels I would caution against it.
IMHO
There are situations from a DMing perspective when Toughness is better than Improved Toughness. Toughness is a good feat to use for what I like to call mooks. That's NPCs like town guards, 1st-level orc barbarians, low-level evil wizards or rogues, etc. since Improved Toughness is not better than Toughness until 4th level (when it gives you 4 hp) the regular feat is good for these low-level NPCs. Also, because of the prerequisites, a straight 5th level wizard or rogue or warlock or scout or sorcerer, or...etc is better with a few Toughness feats under his belt simply because he can't get Improved Toughness until 6th level (unless he wants to multiclass).
After saying all this I must point out that Improved Toughness is way better than Toughness, particularly for undead :)
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Why, oh god, WHY would somebody take the (ordinary) Toughness feat??? Can anyone convince me of it's usefulness?
In my game I ruled that Improved Toughness simply replaced the Toughness feat.
Ultradan
As I use the Vitality/Wound Points variant rules from Unearthed Arcana, and I ruled that the Toughness feat gives wound points, it's a good feat to take for every class (especially for fighter-type ones!) and even at high levels.
But that's just my setting & house rules.