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I like Catch Off Guard, mostly because it let me play a paladin who hit people with a shovel when she got bored with the battleaxe.
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If you can ignore the prerequisites (like Ranger and Zen Archer can), Improved Precise Shot is probably one of the best. Ignoring cover and concealment except for total on each is sweet. Basically, if you can see it, you don't suffer a penalty or miss chance. However, most of the awesomeness is in getting the feat 5 levels before everyone else.
Expanded to pretty much any feat a ranger (or other cheater) can get 4+ levels earlier than anyone else.
CWICheat With Intent?
Conspicuous Wealth Inheritance
Throwing these in the mix:
Boon Companion- makes druid dip awesome!
Superior Summoning- extra meat sheilds yes please
Improved summoning- my meatsheilds hit harder and take more damage...
Leadership? allowing the PC to build the cohort as if it were a second PC for all intents and purposes is balanced out by the 2 level hit. in fact, the only rules you need are
- Treat it the way you would a PC, in other words, preserve it with the same sense of preservation you would a PC, allow the maker to control it.
- Keep their inventories seperate, the occasional sharing of consumables is fine, but remember to keep the equipment seperate
- build it just like an individual PC, no special difference in rules is required, and the 2 level hit is sufficient. allow the player who took the feat to do the designing and playing of the cohort, saves a lot of DM time
- don't go for any unexpected synergies your group wouldn't normally coordinate. meaning builds you wouldn't coordinate with another player, you shouldn't coordinate with yourself. flanking and teamwork feats are generally fine, but keep away from stuff like butterfly's sting and such.
- don't try to usurp another PC's role. supporting that role is fine though. a secondary fighter, sorcerer or oracle shouldn't be an issue. as would a bard, so long as they aren't spotlight hogs.
- the cohort should yield priority to any primary PC of the same role.
Leadership? allowing the PC to build the cohort as if it were a second PC for all intents and purposes is balanced out by the 2 level hit. in fact, the only rules you need are
- Treat it the way you would a PC, in other words, preserve it with the same sense of preservation you would a PC, allow the maker to control it.
- Keep their inventories seperate, the occasional sharing of consumables is fine, but remember to keep the equipment seperate
- build it just like an individual PC, no special difference in rules is required, and the 2 level hit is sufficient. allow the player who took the feat to do the designing and playing of the cohort, saves a lot of DM time
- don't go for any unexpected synergies your group wouldn't normally coordinate. meaning builds you wouldn't coordinate with another player, you shouldn't coordinate with yourself. flanking and teamwork feats are generally fine, but keep away from stuff like butterfly's sting and such.
- don't try to usurp another PC's role. supporting that role is fine though. a secondary fighter, sorcerer or oracle shouldn't be an issue. as would a bard, so long as they aren't spotlight hogs.
- the cohort should yield priority to any primary PC of the same role.
What about a wizard cohort with all Item Creation feats? Half price magic for everyone! S/he can go into Loremaster for mobile sage goodness too!
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Toughness is fun, it's nice to essentially treat your Con modifier as one higher for the purposes of hp, and thus be able to use your favored class bonus on something more amusing. Have your cake and eat it too! I'm also a big fan of the feats that give you "extra x" because its always nice to have more uses of a class ability, particularly Expanded Arcana (which i realize, name-scheme-wise, breaks the "extra x" thing but...shut your face...)
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Leadership? allowing the PC to build the cohort as if it were a second PC for all intents and purposes is balanced out by the 2 level hit. in fact, the only rules you need are
- Treat it the way you would a PC, in other words, preserve it with the same sense of preservation you would a PC, allow the maker to control it.
- Keep their inventories seperate, the occasional sharing of consumables is fine, but remember to keep the equipment seperate
- build it just like an individual PC, no special difference in rules is required, and the 2 level hit is sufficient. allow the player who took the feat to do the designing and playing of the cohort, saves a lot of DM time
- don't go for any unexpected synergies your group wouldn't normally coordinate. meaning builds you wouldn't coordinate with another player, you shouldn't coordinate with yourself. flanking and teamwork feats are generally fine, but keep away from stuff like butterfly's sting and such.
- don't try to usurp another PC's role. supporting that role is fine though. a secondary fighter, sorcerer or oracle shouldn't be an issue. as would a bard, so long as they aren't spotlight hogs.
- the cohort should yield priority to any primary PC of the same role.
What about a wizard cohort with all Item Creation feats? Half price magic for everyone! S/he can go into Loremaster for mobile sage goodness too!
yeah, but that is balanced by the time it takes to craft, the crafting while adventuring penalties, and the fact the loremaster is 2 levels lower and not doing as much a contribution in combat.
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Exotic Weapon Proficiency.
Sure, it was decent in the CRB, but now that it can give you your pick from a table full of Eastern weapons (which are all suspiciously better than their Eurpoean equivalents, or so I hear) or ALL the firearms at once, I'd say it's been elevated to Best Feat Ever.
If not yet, then one more book's worth of exotic weapons to pick from and it'll be there.
the eastern weapons aren't really that much better. nor are most of the exotics
Wakazashi? kukri with a beefed up damage die, if you are looking for an 18-20 light weapon, there is the kukri, want a d6 light weapon? the gladius counts as a shortsword for all feats that affect it. which includes proficiency.
Katana? Scimitar who trades dervish dance compatibility for a bump in damage die, unless you get this proficiency for free, use the damned scimitar
Firearms? you are more likely to misfire than you are to score a crit, and more attacks per round means more chance to misfire.
Meteor Hammer? just a 3.5. spiked chain with a few additional powers
Aldori Dueling sword? only used by a handful of archetypes built around it
Falcata? why waste the feat when you could use a freaking Falchion?
Elven Curve Blade? Save that feat and use a Falchion
Spiked Chain? Useless unless you are using the 3.5 edition version, where it is inferior to the meteor hammer unless you have the proficiency for free, such as by being an inquistor of Zon-Kuthon.
Fauchard? the Glaive, Guisarme, and Horsechopper, don't require the feat and are just fine.
Tetsubo? just use a scythe.
Fauchard? the Glaive, Guisarme, and Horsechopper, don't require the feat and are just fine.
Those weapon ar just fine, somebody takes the EWP when he do not want a just fine weapon but a better weapon. In this case the critical range is superior not only for DPR but for the critical feats chain.
a better critical range does help for the critical feats and chance of scoring critical hits. but a feat is still spent on an 18-20 weapon when there are already 5 martial candidates.
the nodachi
the falchion
the rapier
the scimitar
the kukri
if you wanted a minmaxed DPR machine? why didn't you become an archer? the range of a composite longbow is one of the greatest ways to increase damage potential. i believe the advertised pattern is 5 foot step.
I'm a huge fan of Deepsight. Unless you're playing against Drow, few if anything else has senses that are going to go that far in darkness. It is almost like automatically winning surprise in any night-time or underground environment.
Druid = Natural Spell. a DUH. There is no better feat then being allowed spellcasting while a chipmunk, and not needing Silent/Still casting feats, with no +LA.
Actually natural spell does not eschew verbal and somatic components completely. You have to substitute them with animal sounds and gestures. So if you're unable to move you can't cast spells with somatic components and if you're muted somehow (silence spell or otherwise) or want to remain unheard, you can't cast spells with verbal components, even in wild shape.
And your question about archery is a bit silly. People stay in meleebecause the want to hit monster with poity sticks right in their face.
An archer also hits the monster with pointy sticks, only difference is, he launches them from a string spanned between the two ends of a bent stick.
Leadership.
In my current main campaign (which broke 20th level last Sunday) almost all PCs have it. And I love it. As a GM, I tell my players to build cohort-characters when I'm too occupied and it seems to work as they enjoy the change of pace.
Depends on the campaign, though.
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Firearms? you are more likely to misfire than you are to score a crit, and more attacks per round means more chance to misfire.
You're far more likely to do neither and just hit or miss normally. And since firearms can ignore armor at close range, you're far more likely to hit.
Also scatter guns exist. A loaded blunderbuss costs less to fire than one charge from a Wand of Burning Hands, and doesn't require a UMD check.
Meteor Hammer? just a 3.5. spiked chain with a few additional powers
JUST a 3.5 spiked chain? The 3.5 spiked chain enabled some of the most absurd gamebreaking exploits that melee had to offer in 3.5, and having additional powers on top of that still isn't worth one feat to you?
Aldori Dueling sword? only used by a handful of archetypes built around it
So a handful of archetypes want proficiency with it. Sounds about right to me.
Falcata? why waste the feat when you could use a freaking Falchion?
Falchion is a two-hander, falcata is a one-hander. If you're a Magus, or want to wear a shield, or keep a free hand for anything else, a falchion just isn't an option.
Mind you, I agree with you on the others. There are plenty of clunkers in the exotic weapons lists, but plenty of gems as well.
Net? Who says the fighter can't be the de-buffer?
Mancatcher? Grapple an enemy from reach so he can't hit you back? Yes please.
Battle poi? Show me a person who can wield these and not have fun and I'll show you someone who hates Pathfinder.
Whip? Who cares if trip attempts provoke an AoO when you're standing 15 feet away? And that's before you take Whip Mastery.
3.5 spiked chain was a powerful melee weapon, but it did nothing to bring martials anywhere near casters.
when tripping a foe you had to ask the following questions
1. is the creature more than one size category larger than you?
2. can the creature fly?
3. does the creature use exactly 2 legs for movement?
tripping only worked if the answer was 'no' to the first two and 'yes' to the third
the reasons why were
you couldn't trip fliers, whom were especially common past 5th level and after
outside of humanoids, giants, fey and outsiders, most other creatures would have 4 or more legs, no legs, or wheels. which made tripping impossible.
and tripping capped out at creatures one size larger than yourself. considering how few PC races had access to large size without an ECL adjustment or a short duration spell, and how many races past level 7 were huge or larger.
the 3.5. spiked chain only broke one type of encounter, medium humanoid martials. and even then, a -4 could be lived with because the only weapon that couldn't be used while prone, was the bow family.
An archer also hits the monster with pointy sticks, only difference is, he launches them from a string spanned between the two ends of a bent stick.
If there's anything I've learned from this forum it's that archers and gun users don't hit people with arrows and bullets, they hit people with bows and guns.
Which is why OBVIOUSLY a Suli's Elemental Assault works with them.
*Grumble Grumble*
I like arcane strike. One feat boosts the damage of every weapon you use. Pretty awesome for magic warrior types if you've got nothing better to spend your swift action on.
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I like arcane strike. One feat boosts the damage of every weapon you use. Pretty awesome for magic warrior types if you've got nothing better to spend your swift action on.
Arcane Strike looked good on paper, but when it first came out, only Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards could use it, and only Bards really cared about weapon damage. Sure, the core has three different "gish" prestige classes that could use it, but there weren't a lot of fans of those. Now that Magi and Summoners also exist, it's a better feat.
If there were a Divine equivalent, THAT would be the best feat ever.
Steel soul is very good too.
That's interesting, since I was kind of thinking the same thing. It's not really the best feat, but hardy has saved me from failing a save twice over two sessions on my new character, and I don't even have it the feat yet. I definitely plan on taking it at level 5.
And I'm happy with the breadth of experiance love going around. I just absolutely love having room for one knowledge skill on a character, and being able to roll on any of them is like Christmas.
As for my pick, I may not be the best player or anything, but friggin' good ol' Toughness. Keeping PC's alive since 19forever. Simple, elegant, it isn't a wasted feat on any character, and it even scales.