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You had me until Arcane Strike. I'm not sure I've seen a bard that focuses enough on weapons to bother with that feat. Or if they do, it's an archery build that has the archery feat chain, and not enough feats to squeeze Arcane Strike in there. None of my 3 bards in Pathfinder Society has Arcane Strike, though one of those is also a weird multiclass with only 1 level of bard.
The others are much more common. There are occasionally melee builds that focus on combat maneuvers instead of damage, so don't bother with Power Attack, or some types of druids that don't need Natural Spell, but it's safe to say that 90% or more of those character types take those feats.
Raging Vitality is mandatory for barbarians, even more than Power Attack, I'd say.
I'd say Spell Penetration is non-optional for offensive casters, by level 9 at the latest. Possibly Greater Spell Penetration, too, though maybe not for elves, since they get a racial +2 to overcome spell resistance.
Selective Channeling isn't quite as mandatory, but still common enough that probably 2/3 or more of clerics take it.
Fey Foundling and Greater Mercy are both VERY popular with paladins. The class is feat starved enough that if they just want to kill things faster, they skip those for more offensive stuff, but that much swift action healing is hard to pass up.
Selective Channeling isn't quite as mandatory, but still common enough that probably 2/3 or more of clerics take it.
I haven't seen a Cleric take this feat at my table in ages. If you mostly use the ability between combat rather than during combat, then it really doesn't come up very often as an issue.
Weapon Finesse is a feat tax on any high-dexterity melee character - that's like the poster boy for feat taxes.
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Improved Unarmed strike.
If you dont get it for free, you pretty much need it to unarmed strike... at all..
feats are not optional - feats are the shape of a character. Power Attack is not compulsive for a fighter - it's compulsive if you are going to play a power/strength focused fighter. Feats were created before archetypes, and they are what makes each character different from every other of the same class.
As CraziFuzzy points out, they're not meant to be optional. If you want to be good at something, you have to take feats that make you good at it.
CraziFuzzy, it is however a problem that feats are a resource used for both combat and flavourful non-combat differences.
For example, consider the Half-Orc feat Keen Scent. On a Ranger this is absurdly cool, fits right in with the tracker background and has marginal combat utility. But if you're playing a Half-Orc Ranger, where the heck are you going to squeeze that into your feat progression? Regardless of build, selecting it (at low-to-mid level where it would be useful) will hold your combat competence back.
If you got a combat feat progression used purely for shaping your character in combat and a flavor feat progression for skills/fun tricks/background etc then it would be different. As it stands, "cool but suboptimal" does not compete well with "dull but essential".
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You are saying you want Paizo to make a supplement with 'background feats' like they did in Unchained for Background skills?
As CraziFuzzy points out, they're not meant to be optional.
They should be optional. There are hundreds of interesting feats out there. If I can't take any of them because I need the ones that are the bare minimum for being a competent melee attacker / archer, then all those feats are going to waste, I'm not making interesting decisions, and my character is less distinctive.
If you want to be good at something, you have to take feats that make you good at it.
Fighting is something you should be good at by default.
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You are saying you want Paizo to make a supplement with 'background feats' like they did in Unchained for Background skills?
Actually...
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You are saying you want Paizo to make a supplement with 'background feats' like they did in Unchained for Background skills?Actually...
Right? It'd be wickedly difficult to define what defines a "background feat", but it's tempting...
It's hard to say what is an "optional" feat really, when many of the ones you need are kind of a given.
Right? It'd be wickedly difficult to define what defines a "background feat", but it's tempting...You are saying you want Paizo to make a supplement with 'background feats' like they did in Unchained for Background skills?Actually...
It'd be daunting for sure, given factors like feat chains, character builds, etc, it would certainly be hard to figure out what feats would be "harmless" to be made available as "background feats", plus there's the sheer number of feats...
If anyone took the time to put a list together, they'd be alright in my book :D
As CraziFuzzy points out, they're not meant to be optional.They should be optional. There are hundreds of interesting feats out there. If I can't take any of them because I need the ones that are the bare minimum for being a competent melee attacker / archer, then all those feats are going to waste, I'm not making interesting decisions, and my character is less distinctive.
If you want to be good at something, you have to take feats that make you good at it.Fighting is something you should be good at by default.
Get out of your 'combat first, everything else secondary' rutt. I actually don't really like the 'background skills' any more than I'd like the 'background feats', simply because CHARACTER is not background in an RPG.
Actually... I could see a houserule where 10 feats are selected as "combat packages". Essentially feat archetypes where a fighter can pick the cleave package, the saves package, the archery package, the shield package... And then they can take any feats which aren't included in a package.
In other words, here's the most optimum feats for your style. Now add actual flavor, since you're an effective build already. You don't get to take the most optimum feats for these flavor choices, if you wanted to be good at both archery and melee you should have picked the switch hitter package instead of melee, but you can take the blind fight feats or the snatch arrows line if you want. Those are cool character ideas that are all but useless in a real build, most of the time.
I like you, you have good ideas.
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Many of you have entered into an unwitting arms race with your GM. When you make characters who are entirely optimized for combat, you are communicating to your GM that you are after a game with a combat focus. When designing encounters, the GM is keeping track of how much the party can take in a combat, and sets the difficulty accordingly, so as to avoid having boring unchallenging encounters.
I recently had some players roll up characters and 3/4 decided they wanted to play highly charismatic tricksters. Am I going to make a campaign centered around bashing zombies? Of course not! It will be filled with silly people who are prone to being tricked!
If you rocked up with a character with Deceitful and Stealthy as feats, you are saying to your GM that you are after encounters that can be solved by guile and subterfuge. If you show up with a half-orc ranger with Scent, and favoured enemy (Elf) you are saying that you want your character to sniff out and chop some elves. If you take Skill Focus (Barrister), you character will end up in courtroom, and finding evidence to defend their client. And after the first session or two your GM will stop increasing the CR of each encounter, and we can all go back to accidentally typing Skill Focus (Barista) and having quests involving finding the most aromatic coffee in the land, without being made to feel like idiots.
Get out of your 'combat first, everything else secondary' rutt. I actually don't really like the 'background skills' any more than I'd like the 'background feats', simply because CHARACTER is not background in an RPG.As CraziFuzzy points out, they're not meant to be optional.They should be optional. There are hundreds of interesting feats out there. If I can't take any of them because I need the ones that are the bare minimum for being a competent melee attacker / archer, then all those feats are going to waste, I'm not making interesting decisions, and my character is less distinctive.
If you want to be good at something, you have to take feats that make you good at it.Fighting is something you should be good at by default.
You might want to realize that background has two separate definitions, with one meaning "one's origin, education, experience, etc., in relation to one's present character, status, etc.".
I.E. Background is SYNONYMOUS WITH character. Which is what Background Skills are for. They flesh out your character with interesting skills you generally cannot afford to take because they are, quite frankly, worthless.
Profession: Baker is never going to be useful to an adventurer, but if you want your character to be a baker...he kinda needs that skill.
Background Skills are quite a nice solution to solving the problem of a character having to essentially set skill points on fire for their character.
Of course, it's still not as good as simply doing away with "Skills are required to do pretty much anything", but it's a step in the right direction.
You and nemophles need to crawl down off your high horse because nothing of what you said is even relevant to the discussion in the first place. Nobody said "Combat first, everything else is secondary", and it doesn't have any bearing on the topic at hand whatsoever.
You cannot deny that there is a strict segregation between "Combat usable" Feats and "Fun, flavorful, but not super combat useful" Feats. You also can't deny that for most characters that aren't AM SMASH with a big 2H weapon and Power Attack, A LOT of Feats are required to make your character usable in combat. Which, as much as people like you like to bury your heads in the sand and deny, is a big part of the game. The Combat rules, Feats, and the Bestiary compromise something like 70% of all released material, or more. Clearly, this game focuses quite a bit on combat.
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I'm not suggesting combat isn't a big part of the game. The question being asked and the rhetoric being used is about characters "staying competitive in combat". Are you going to deny that GMs plan encounters with the PCs combat capacities in mind? Or are you only going to deny that in doing so, there's no relative power.
Pathfinder is already a game which gives the players lots of toys and abilities. D&D5e has little character strength growth. That doesn't make it a harder game, because the enemies only increase in strength as fitting for the PCs. In 3.5D&D, races only got one racial stat bonus. Of course, in Pathfinder people would complain if their race only had one racial stat bonus, they'd call it sub-optimal. What has changed is not any absolute, the game need not be any harder. The only thing that has changed is players expectations. Overcome this, and this percieved need for mandatory feats ceases to be a problem.
No high horse - it's just that not everyone sees things as 'mandatory' as you do. You can play characters without a single combat related feat if you choose to, and you can still have fun doing so. The only time a feat you may not want would be mandatory is if it is a prerequisite to a feat you DO want. The key word here is want.
I'm not suggesting combat isn't a big part of the game. The question being asked and the rhetoric being used is about characters "staying competitive in combat". Are you going to deny that GMs plan encounters with the PCs combat capacities in mind?
Around 50% do, I'd guess? Some GMs are inexperienced and don't have the skills to do that, so just pick CR-appropriate enemies. Some run PFS. Some run Adventure Paths and don't have much time to rewrite things.
When you're not optimizing to meet the challenges of the CR system, you still might want to optimize to match the rest of the group. If half the group make optimized combat characters because that's what they enjoy, while you refuse to take the 'non-optional' feats, and the GM plans encounters with the strongest PCs in mind, you could end up spending half the time during the game playing, say, an archer who can't hit anything. Most people don't like that.
No high horse - it's just that not everyone sees things as 'mandatory' as you do. You can play characters without a single combat related feat if you choose to, and you can still have fun doing so. The only time a feat you may not want would be mandatory is if it is a prerequisite to a feat you DO want. The key word here is want.
Roll with an entire party where nobody takea any combat related Feats or options. Run them through a Paizo AP.
See how long they survive.
No high horse - it's just that not everyone sees things as 'mandatory' as you do. You can play characters without a single combat related feat if you choose to, and you can still have fun doing so. The only time a feat you may not want would be mandatory is if it is a prerequisite to a feat you DO want. The key word here is want.Roll with an entire party where nobody takea any combat related Feats or options. Run them through a Paizo AP.
See how long they survive.
I've never played through, or run, an AP, unmodified, and most playing I've done through my life has been in homebrew campaigns. Dice luck ends up having far more impact than most of these 'mandatory' feats anyway.
Around 50% do, I'd guess? Some GMs are inexperienced and don't have the skills to do that, so just pick CR-appropriate enemies. Some run PFS. Some run Adventure Paths and don't have much time to rewrite things.
When you're not optimizing to meet the challenges of the CR system, you still might want to optimize to match the rest of the group. If half the group make optimized combat characters because that's what they enjoy, while you refuse to take the 'non-optional' feats, and the GM plans encounters with the strongest PCs in mind, you could end up spending half the time during the game playing, say, an archer who can't hit anything. Most people don't like that.
Ideally, that character would have some other strength, which means that in some other situation, be it it diplomacy or Survival or stealth or whatever, their character shines. The games is after all one of specialization and teamwork, that's why a fighter has distinct abilities that a rogue doesn't. If you get into an arms race with the other players, that's on you.
I realise that I'm saying Ideally, and I acknowledge it isn't always the case. Ideally the GM has time and effort to make a campaign relevant to the players. Ideally the GM won't just throw out random CR appropriate monsters (Or, CR+1 or 2 encounters because the party dominates combat repeatedly). Ideally a GM allows players to find alternate ways of dealing with encounters. But here's a thought, why should everyone make characters assuming their GM is inexperienced? Or uninspired? And if that is your assumption, then this whole discussion should accompanied an extra conditional statement:While the GM is new and mostly runs straightforward combat encounters, or the party is very focused on making combative characters...What feats are necessary for a class to keep up?
Which is a fine topic, but we should be clear that that is what is being talked about. For certain groups, for PFS, for a rigidly run AP. And of course those are fine ways to play. I like playing in PFS.
Roll with an entire party where nobody takea any combat related Feats or options. Run them through a Paizo AP.
See how long they survive.
That seems like a great idea! That actually seems very funny to me.
On further consideration, I did not answer the question. Some characters roles ARE combat based, and pretending that no character wants to fill that role is silly. So, if the character DOES want to excel in various combat roles, what feats are necessary.
Power Attack. Let's say you want to hit things harder than characters who aren't inclined to hit things. You could also Piranha Strike, or if you are a halfling, Risky Striker. These are very much like power attack for different circumstances. But you could also increase melee power using Weapon Specialization, Vital Strike, Elemental Fist.
Weapon Finesse. So you are a rogue, who wants to be able to hit things properly? Consider this, you could make a Str 10 Dex 18 human rogue with weapon finesse, or for the same point buy cost make a Str 16 Dex 14 Character. That's only a difference of +1 to hit, but you also gain 3 or 4 damage, roughly equivalent to an entire sneak attack dice. Sure that wouldn't help you be as sneaky, but with that extra feat space, you could take Stealthy, gaining you +2 Stealth and Escape Artist, and +4 later on. Plus, you can climb and swim better, and carry more loot. Role Saved. Did you want to be high dex AND be able to hit stuff using that high DEX? If a different feat did that exact same thing, it'd be called a redundant waste of space. We're talking roles, not builds. If you had 14 STR and 16 DEX, Weapon Focus will cover that distance early on, you have an extra feat now. Later on, try invisibility. Minor Magic Acid Splash from unchained rogue is a pretty sweet deal.
Combat Expertise, until recently, yes. Much maligned, often houseruled out. But now you could take Dirty Fighting from Dirty Tactics Toolbox, which incidentally covers pre-requisites like unarmed strike, combat expertise, int 13, dex 13. That feat is bananas and PFS legal. A real game changer.
Improved Unarmed Strike. - So, you want to be able to punch things while also not being a monk. Introducing the spiked gauntlet. It's a Core Rulebook Simple Weapon, so any character can use it! It dishes out a healthy 1d4 damage (for a punch), is considered an ARMED attack and is within the price range for a 1st level character at 5gp, rogues can even climb around while wearing one, and still be armed when they hit the top rung! Want to dish out non-lethal damage but a spiked gauntlet can't get you there? Martials and Rogues can take a SAP! I dishes out just as much damage as 1st level monk would!
Rapid Shot / Many Shot
Sure, if you want your archer to shoot rapid fire. That's good if you intend to stand in one place. You could also take FOCUS SHOT. This amazing feat allows you to add you Intelligence to damage, so long as it is a standard action shot. Plus, you can also get the bonuses of having high intelligence. A 14str, 16dex, 12 con, 16int Elven ranger can dish out 1d8+5 damage with a shot using this baby, or 1d8+7 with deadly aim. Plus, Highly intelligent rangers have skill points coming out their ears. Plus, you can hit thing in melee if you get desperate. Your GM might even let you combine it with Vital Strike. Maybe.
Precise Shot, Point Blank - So you want to shoot at an enemy, but there is too much melee in the way? Now, I'll admit it's a handy feat to have, and I'll admit it is a prerequisite for many other feats. But with planning, a ranger doesn't worry about that as much. But let's say you are a dextrous Fighter who didn't have the feat space to dip in archery. What are you to do? Some awkward careful planning may save the day! Many players do not know or utilize this, but Shooting or Throwing into melee penalties can avoided if the enemy, or part of the enemy, is at least ten feet away from the melee-ing. That's right! If The the Throg barbarian uses a reach weapon, you can delay/ready until Throg steps back and then fire! Or you can shoot the Back half of a large bear, by standing perpendicular to the melee, or even shooting at the top 1/3 of a huge creature. Ideal, no, but helpful to those without the feats to spend, absolutely! Are you not able to get any maneuverability to use this? Chances are your shooting through cover anyway and or getting swarmed, switch to melee.
Spell Penetration Conjuration magic is the king of all schools! Many spells do not allow SR. Summoned monsters can attack anything in melee, even those pesky golems. Did you want to focus entirely on evocation, only using a few specific spells? Well why not just take burning hands and intesified burning hands through a jaunt through the worldwound. Level 9 wizards are nothing if not versatile. Conjuration magic or Party Buffs for anything with SR, Intensified Heightened Maximised Shocking Grasp for everything else.
Power Attack and friends
Everything you listed there is either a slight variant on power attack or ****y compared to power attack (unless maybe you are a Hippo).
Weapon Finesse and point buy alternatives...
Lets look at what a rogue needs
- More Accuracy- A bunch of attacks to milk sneak attack
- better defenses
- high numbers on it's skills that are used frequently
Lets look at what trading off dex for strength does
- You can't dump strength, which you should have done in the first place so you can increase Dex
- You lose AC from lower Dex
- You get a better carry capacity. Not a big deal with Mithril Kikko and two daggers
- You can't two weapon fight without a really MAD stat distribution - that 17 dex requirement for improved two weapon fighting is nasty when the stat is secondary.
-All your Dex based skills (you know, most of the good ones for a rogue) are made worse.
- Reflex and initiative are lower
- Your damage is a bit better (but accuracy is much more important)
- You lose accuracy
You can maybe mitigate *one* of the problems...by spending a feat, making the whole thing moot anyway. Joy. This changes a bit if you are two handing, but that is moving away from "stealthy nimble burgler with shanks" and more into "sneak-attack-with-a-greataxe half-orc" territory.
Oh, and if you are an unchained rogue then this looks even worse, because you actually have a decent base damage when dex based.
Combat Expertise or Dirty Fighting...
So the ****y prereq might be replaceable by a less ****y prereq. Holy options, Batman. Seriously, which one you pick comes down to this: Do I have any way of skipping these prereqs?...if no, can I use Dirty Fighting?...if no, Combat expertise. Unless you are doing some wacky ultra high AC build, but those often require piles of feats anyway (because shields are like that if you want to not be a big useless lump).
Improved Unarmed Strike or...other things
Last time I checked, gauntlets don't count as unarmed strikes, and so don't work with all the things that work with unarmed strikes only (why else would you be punching dragons)... Yep, they don't count. Your "option" isn't an option most of the time. Same thing for the Sap. Misses the whole point of unarmed strikes (no sweet, sweet style feats, for example).
Rapid Shot / Many Shot vs Focused Shot
So...how does your damage look like on a Ranger at level 6? A Rapid/Manyshot archer is pumping out 4+ arrows a round, and they don't have to jack up Int to abnormal levels. I expect Focused Shot will rapidly end up useless compared to just full attacking, even without rapid shot. You are only saving 1 feat anyway when the typical character is spending 4 feats minimum by +6 BAB. Vital Strike is actually better anyway unless you are rocking at least 18 int
Precise Shot, Point Blank - PositioningIf you aren't taking the archery feats, then a bow is an emergency weapon for when your primary style doesn't work. Then this is valid, but it's an emergency option that is slightly better than nothing and is thus completely irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion, since we are talking about specializing in a style(if you aren't specializing in another style, then no feats in archery doesn't cut it anyway). It's also kind of moot, since neither of these are likely to matter against a target out of reach like a flyer. If you are actually an archer, Point blank shot is a prereq so you need it,and Precise shot is frequently a Prereq and also kinda essential.
Spell Penetration...stuff
Amusingly enough, pure casters don't have much in the way of feat taxes. There are a few really good feats for them, but there is a reason the easiest way to make a 9 tailed kitsune is to play a full-caster and rely on spells. When you play a wizard, you actually do get to pick and choose from a pretty large list of quality feats - Quicken and maybe Improved Initiative the only thing approaching a feat tax. Even if playing something like an evoker, you have a few choices (Dazing Lightning Balls, Draconic/Orc blockbuster fireballing, Gnome pyromaniac silliness, Rime Spell). This discussion isn't really about them, because Casters.
So...your options aren't really much in the way of options. There are a whole bunch of no-brainer choices, a whole bunch of non-options, and a whole bunch of traps.
stuff...
Your thinking optimization again, instead of just taking the feats you want your character to have. If i want to play a strength rogue, I'm not going to be taking weapon finesse, and I'm not going to bother taking two-weapon fighting feats either. That might make a lesser combatant in your eyes, but it doesn't make a lesser character. Maybe I want to take Medium Armor Proficiency, wear Chainmail, and sneak attack with a greatsword.
Many of you have entered into an unwitting arms race with your GM. When you make characters who are entirely optimized for combat, you are communicating to your GM that you are after a game with a combat focus. When designing encounters, the GM is keeping track of how much the party can take in a combat, and sets the difficulty accordingly, so as to avoid having boring unchallenging encounters.
I recently had some players roll up characters and 3/4 decided they wanted to play highly charismatic tricksters. Am I going to make a campaign centered around bashing zombies? Of course not! It will be filled with silly people who are prone to being tricked!
If you rocked up with a character with Deceitful and Stealthy as feats, you are saying to your GM that you are after encounters that can be solved by guile and subterfuge. If you show up with a half-orc ranger with Scent, and favoured enemy (Elf) you are saying that you want your character to sniff out and chop some elves. If you take Skill Focus (Barrister), you character will end up in courtroom, and finding evidence to defend their client. And after the first session or two your GM will stop increasing the CR of each encounter, and we can all go back to accidentally typing Skill Focus (Barista) and having quests involving finding the most aromatic coffee in the land, without being made to feel like idiots.
However, this also requires the entire group to be on the same page. It's rare that I see a group where nobody wants combat. And in PFS you don't know who's going to show up and the modules are prewritten. A lot of GM's simply don't have the time to come up with a whole homebrew campaign from scratch. They pick up AP's and other adventures and season them to taste.
While your advice is good, it only applies to a subset of gamers.
Let me provide examples to support some assertions.
Raging Vitality is mandatory for barbarians, even more than Power Attack, I'd say.
My barbarian has Raging Vitality but not Power Attack. I have been tempted to learn Power Attack at several levels, since she prefers to attack with a two-handed Lucerne Hammer and extra damage would help against DR, but I run the math and other feats provide more benefit.
As for background skills, my barbarian learned Raging Climber, Raging Leaper, and Night Vision as rage powers, because her specialty is wilderness survival. She has a +7 to Craft(Cooking and Food Preparation) because she makes jerky out of the beasts she kills (except the undead, because undead are too gamy).
Many of you have entered into an unwitting arms race with your GM. When you make characters who are entirely optimized for combat, you are communicating to your GM that you are after a game with a combat focus. When designing encounters, the GM is keeping track of how much the party can take in a combat, and sets the difficulty accordingly, so as to avoid having boring unchallenging encounters.
I recently had some players roll up characters and 3/4 decided they wanted to play highly charismatic tricksters. Am I going to make a campaign centered around bashing zombies? Of course not! It will be filled with silly people who are prone to being tricked!
If you rocked up with a character with Deceitful and Stealthy as feats, you are saying to your GM that you are after encounters that can be solved by guile and subterfuge. If you show up with a half-orc ranger with Scent, and favoured enemy (Elf) you are saying that you want your character to sniff out and chop some elves. If you take Skill Focus (Barrister), you character will end up in courtroom, and finding evidence to defend their client. And after the first session or two your GM will stop increasing the CR of each encounter, and we can all go back to accidentally typing Skill Focus (Barista) and having quests involving finding the most aromatic coffee in the land, without being made to feel like idiots.
I took over a Rise of the Runelords campaign at 7th level, retiring my detective-skilled ranger monk. The party included a rogue with social skills, a wizard lore master specializing in ancient Thassalonian lore, an enchanter sorcerer, and a lyrakien bard with a direct line to the goddess Desna. They were great at gathering information.
But Rise of the Runelords is combat heavy. Thus, I added opportunities where gathering information could give the party combat advantage. A double agent told them of the secret passage into The Fortress of the Stone Giants. The madman Xaliassa left additional clues in ancient Thassalonia language. I altered the Wrath section of the Runeforge so that the wrathful warriors had a strain of mercy from faithfully worshiping Desna. The lost city of Xin-Shallast had political factions willing to secretly aid the party in exchange for future gains. And those are only the big examples.
My players essentially communicated to me that they wanted a game based on mystery and discovery, and that is what I gave them. It worked out wonderfully.
However, this also requires the entire group to be on the same page. It's rare that I see a group where nobody wants combat. And in PFS you don't know who's going to show up and the modules are prewritten. A lot of GM's simply don't have the time to come up with a whole homebrew campaign from scratch. They pick up AP's and other adventures and season them to taste.
While your advice is good, it only applies to a subset of gamers.
"Season them to taste" can make a lot of difference in an Adventure Path.
The Rise of the Runelords party also included a battle oracle and a two-weapon-fighting rogue who were all about combat. And a second bard. I liked the unusual combat synergy of that party: the two rogues would rush in for sneak attacks while the battle oracle buffed herself. A round or two later, the rogues retreated to avoid damage, the bards and lore master had established battlefield control, and the battle oracle stepped forward as death on two legs. The non-combat fluff let them pick their battles to their advantage. Sometimes the sorcerer took the stage to avoid unwanted combat entirely. Good intelligence (and a large party) meant that I had to increase the CR of their encounters, not reduce them.
What you want to say is clear, I just want to point out that in fact your choices, more or less, are optimizing that rogue.stuff...Your thinking optimization again, instead of just taking the feats you want your character to have. If i want to play a strength rogue, I'm not going to be taking weapon finesse, and I'm not going to bother taking two-weapon fighting feats either. That might make a lesser combatant in your eyes, but it doesn't make a lesser character. Maybe I want to take Medium Armor Proficiency, wear Chainmail, and sneak attack with a greatsword.
But it does show that the concept of 'mandatory feats' is not a real thing. There are a million ways to build a pathfinder character, and every single one of them is the right way to build it.
One reason for the 'arms race' and so much focus on combat is that while combat isn't everything, it can be the end point for many characters (ideally, the enemy). Flubbing a Craft (weapon) check means your greatsword is a misshapen bar of crap metal. Flubbing a Wield (weapon) check enough times means your character ends up dead courtesy of the bugbear and HIS misshapen bar of crap metal. Noncombats can give you failure, combats can give you death.
(Yes, there are cases where you can die outside combats. But how often does that come up with how often death can happen in fighting?)
Because of this, most players have to cope with the idea that while Cosmopolitan and Master Craftsman and Breadth of Experience are FUN feats, they have to make way for Power Attack or Spell Focus or Point Blank Shot.
Raging Vitality is mandatory for barbarians, even more than Power Attack, I'd say.
Never heard of that one before. Looks like quite a good feat though. If I've seen multiple effective Barbarians without it (including those made without access to APG feats, and those who didn't meet the prerequisites due to low Constitution) is it still mandatory?
When there is zero tolerance on PCs on party side and people always tend to fight to the end, it becomes debatable what counts as optional then.
I think if the GMs only plan encounters that the player can win with their unoptimized characters is bad GMing.
If a dragon is landing only because the party don't have a ranged combatant or the "Baker Wizard" or something silly never bother to prepare Fly spells, I think it's bad GMing.
If all NPCs in the enemy fortress have bad Perceptions because our Rogue is a STR based and with low focus on Stealth, I think it's bad GMing.
The opposite is bad too: To ALWAYS fight enemies that are prepared to make your tactics weaker of not functional at all.
For me, good GMing is make a world where can I meet the balance of this. Dammit, I save my party once because I had Profession(Sailor) to guide our ship because the crew died. The same character meet his demise because I didn't have Trapsense and I tripped in a SoD trap and rolled very bad.
Some people, GM's and Players, enjoy a game where there's an open world that the GM has made the the players can go and try things they shouldn't. They go into town at lv3 and hear of a dragon rampaging the next city. They aren't "supposed" to go fight it. It's a CR 12 dragon. So the expected options are, find someone who can handle it, go and get stronger and come back. If you go fight it, you'll likely die. This makes thing realistic for some people and enjoyable to them, as they know that the world is dangerous and that they can get in over their head if they make bad choices.