Yeah, I've never met anybody who didn't put warrior of old or reactionary on their character, except myself. I decided my human fighter could go ahead and go last so I could up a save stat and decrease my armor check penalties. My flat footed AC is better then everyone else's regular AC, so it don't bother me :).
But yeah, THE most common trait by far.
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...a +18 to Initiative.O.o
It does require for me to have both my weapons out beginning the combat otherwise my Init is +13
Dex: +6
Improved Initiative: + 4
+1 Agile, Dueling, Keen Silversheen Rapier: +4
Reactionary Trait: +2
Cracked Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone: +1
+1 Pitfall Cold Iron Shortsword: +1
So the only issue is if Pitfall Stacks with Dueling. Dueling is an Enhancement Bonus and Pitfall can be read as an untyped or Enhancement bonus, According to SKR it stacks but I am willing to go the other way if the GM disagrees.
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Better question, how many role play the bullied character as such in any way. i mean it help for who you are enough to get that bonus....I have a PC that wanted the bonus - but I couldn't see her being bullied AT ALL, so I didn't take it. And rejected the "Warrior of Old" etc. for wrong race. So she ended up taking Improved Init....
Good call, character should NEVER take a back seat to power
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.. Damn. How the hell did 90% of uncanny dodge get made into a trait!?!?
defensive strategist does the same thing, not 10% of the time like reactionary, but ALWAYS.
Non sarcastic answer:
Every book added to the game adds to the total number of odd corner cases to check against.
Books are produced to finite page and word counts.
Books are written by teams of freelancers and edited in chunks as document turnover happens, and probably thrown to page layout (which freezes the text) shortly after a once-through by the editor and developer. They're done under deadlines. Figure that before publication, there are probably fewer than 6, and certainly fewer than 10 people who actually read through the entire book from end-to-end with fresh eyes, and fewer than 10% of the options actually gets put on a table and played before publication.
The later something is processed in this cycle, the likelier it is to slip.
Every book added to the game adds to the total number of odd corner cases to check against.
Yup. I'm sad magical knack is banned though. It doesn't seem like it would cause all that much of an imbalance, since it only is useful for a (relatively small?) subset of characters. Meanwhile, rolling a save twice once a day, or 90% of uncanny dodge, seem like exactly the kind of traits that would be taken by anyone who could have them.
I guess I shouldn't argue, since I haven't personally done actual organized play yet, I'm just bitter that when I do join a PFS game my Paladin 2 / Arcane Duelist X can't have full bard CL.
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I think the only character I have with Reactionary is my bard, who only has it because he was rolled up at a convention, and I didn't know what else to take. I don't regret the choice though, as it's paid off getting my buffs up.
I'm not sure if I've ever seen it on anyone else's character in my local group. Someone must have it, but I can't think of who. Everyone I know tends to go for whatever gives them more class skills or a better day job check.
For a bit of fun, and for speed of starting play, whenever someone sits down with the intention of rolling up a new character to start a low tier scenario, I always recommend taking Reactionary when they take longer than a few seconds looking through traits. Hell, if they don't like it, they can change it after the scenario, and if giving them a +2 to initiative (somewhat ironically) gets us playing faster I'm all for it.
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I use traits to do one of two things: grant me certain things I need as class skills, or improve existing abilities.
Skill examples - bluff on a cleric, use magic device for my dhampir (wand of inflict light wounds, diplomacy on a fighter, etc
Ability examples - 3 more rounds of rage/day and 1 more channel/day have both proven to be worth it. And my druid gets maximum effect from this trait.
Eagle form for 18 hours? 3/day? Huzzah!!
+2 to initiative really does the following to a static example (both rollers have a +0 modifier). If you have reactionary, you will get an initiative between 3-22. They will get an initiative between 1-20. You both have 20 possibilities for numbers. That's 400 combinations. Of these combinations, 229 will result in your number being higher than their number, rather than the standard 190 (10 of the combinations are the same number, thus a tie). So that's 190/400 = 47.5% chance of going first versus 229/400 = 57.25% chance of going first.
Basically, reactionary equates to +~%10 to your chance to go first.I'd rather be a bird all day.
You win ties if your bonus is higher, so it is more like a 15%.
Every book added to the game adds to the total number of odd corner cases to check against.Yup. I'm sad magical knack is banned though. It doesn't seem like it would cause all that much of an imbalance, since it only is useful for a (relatively small?) subset of characters. Meanwhile, rolling a save twice once a day, or 90% of uncanny dodge, seem like exactly the kind of traits that would be taken by anyone who could have them.
I guess I shouldn't argue, since I haven't personally done actual organized play yet, I'm just bitter that when I do join a PFS game my Paladin 2 / Arcane Duelist X can't have full bard CL.
Probably it was banned for the way in which it interact with other abilities raising your caster level. I recall a few thread of people mixing and matching traits, feats and co. to get abilities way above they CL. As the order in which you add the abilities will change the result it probably was considered to complicate to rule appropriately and banned.