To answer the OP's question: If you plan to take the Improvisation feats, then you take Fast Learner. If you don't plan on taking those feats but want more HP, then you take Toughness.
I could see the Improvisation feats being really good on a Fighter to make them more well-rounded. Otherwise, pass.
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This is a feat I'd definitely take on a Magus character. Using this allows me to take the alternate racial ability and add get 5 more arcane pool points while still keeping my HP's where the should be and being able to keep my core skills maxed out.
I LIKE the feat but admit it isn't for everyone.Except it does not work that way.
You can get Skill and HP, or you can get another favored class benefit such as arcane pool. You don't get Arane pool AND either skill or Hp.
For your case take Toughness and the arcane pool.
Blargh, I read that OR as an AND, nevermind.
Its a great feat for human fighters who have feats to burn. I'll take this along with Toughness and two levels in Rogue later on for disable devise, acrobats, stealth (and evasion). This keeps my HP huge and let's me cross train Rogue stuff along with ride, handle animal, survival, blacksmithing, knowledge dungeonering, perception ect.
I feel like the feat is made for humans who want to multi class and have a large skill set.
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This was a perfect feat for my Lore Warden. Lore Warden only adds 2 bonus skill points as a class feature and its a fighter archtype so base 2 skill points. So hp and sp each level helps this build.
I think I actually went with Toughness for my Lore Warden, then used the favor class bonus for skill ranks. As others have mentioned, same result, but front loads the HP boost to help survive levels 1 and 2.
My human fighter was going to have so many feats anyways so I took all 3 of those feats early is his career (Fast Learner, Improvisation and Improved Improvisation). The extra HP & skill point at every level was just a nice added bonus, but getting 4 points to all skills that had 0 rank was just awesome. It was essentially like getting 100 free skill points. Who wouldn't want that? Plus, I would get to use exotic weapons at a reduce half penalty. And if you get that Quick Learner trait you can further reduce your non-weapon proficiency with exotic weapons to 0 or -1 (depending on how your DM reads it).
I think its a good deal for any fighters with 13 intelligence who plans on picking up Combat Expertise and Whirlwind Attack. I figure if your going to have 13 intelligence for those two feats above and your a fighter then just pick up Fast Learner, Improvisation, and Improved Improvisation for the 100 free skill points.
Toughness can be read as "Gain 1 extra hit point per level (and as an extra bonus, you get a full 3 extra hit points if you're just level 1 or 2)".
Fast Learner can be read as "Gain 1 extra hit point per level (provided you never multiclass and always put your favored class bonus into extra skill points and are human and have 13 Int and take this feat at first-level so you don't miss out because the horrible wording makes it non-retroactive)."
That's why.
Remember, Fast Learner gives you whichever you want less, HP or SP. You can already get the one you want more.
If it let you take alternate race-based favored class bonuses, then the thing to do would be to play a human sorcerer and take Racial Heritage (Gillmen) and Fast Learner as your two starting feats. Congratulations, now you can effectively get the human favored class bonus twice each level.
Huh, you could say our group went the other way; we thought Fast Learner was so weak that we made it into a trait that anyone can take.
Well, that's not the real reason. We wanted a minor fix to the skill system, so we initially considered making all classes at least 3 or 4 skills+Int/level, but instead chose to make this trait, so players can take it if they want more skill points, but not load it onto player's who don't really care either way. Great little thing for the skill starved Sorcerers and Fighters in our parties. And if the party rogue wants the trait too, to have ALL DA SKILLZ, eh, he can have it.
Also, also: Our Fast Learner trait simply reads: You gain an additional skill rank at first level and one additional rank whenever you gain a level.
So you can take the trait and still get your sweet favored class bonus options and benefit from it even if you multiclass.
There is no situation where the feat is better than Toughness, and there are several where it's worse than Toughness. The only reason to take it is if you intend to stack it with Toughness.
Well, there's one other advantage: reduced choice. If you have a hard time choosing between the bonus skill point and the bonus hitpoint every level, if you're extremely susceptible to analysis paralysis, then getting both choices might help you move on.
But as others have pointed out, it effectively gives you the option you wouldn't otherwise have chosen, so for anyone capable of choosing, it's a bad feat. Unless you also take Toughness and you really desperately need those extra HP.
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Anyone know if its retroactive?
Also seems to be toughness if you've always gotten the skill point.
The way it is written, it is not.
"Fast Learner
You progress gain extra versatility.
Prerequisites: Int 13, human.
Benefit: When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward. "
From the point you take it, each time you gain a level in a favored class you would get both the hp and the skill point.
It is exactly equal to Toughness at any level from 3 on if taken at level 1, but worse at any other point because of the fact that its benefits are not retroactive.
it could be a handy feat if you want to take one of the "heart of the..." variants but don't want to miss out on the normal human skill point?
i've taken it on a Lore Warden and on a wizard. the Lore Warden also had toughness at 1st level (and had no problem getting to 2nd); the wizard took it at 1st with the thought that if necessary he could always add toughness later (since that is retroactive)- he didn't though.
i could see it being useful in campaigns where the GM takes the more natural (but less grammatically correct) interpretation and allows it to combine a skill point or hp with the racial favored class bonus. but to address the OP- i certainly don't think that it's too good to pass up by any means.
I believe the devs have stated that everything is retroactive unless otherwise stated for the purposes of book keeping.
Well, since Fast Learner and Toughness stack, you would logically get +1 skill point and +2 hp over and above what you would get from your class and attributes. That's great if you have a low Con score, or if getting lots of hp is important like most Barbarian types who seem to need that because of crappy AC and 2 handed weapons making that AC worse.
And, Barbarians do get better skills than Fighters ever did have as class.
Or, you could take the standard either +1 hp or skill point, and still take that funky alternate favored class bonuses as well. Most of those alternate favored class bonuses I wouldn't value as much as +1 skill point or +1 hit point, me personally.
I dunno, those two together are great if you don't know what the campaign is going to be like, so you don't want to restrict yourself right from the beginning by taking Weapon Focus or whatnot, preferring a general all around bennie that doesn't tie you to a certain build.