Craft Ooze is like a disappointing cherry on top of a bunch of other underwhelming ooze themed options. Other than the Cave Druid's wildshape it seems like anything to do with oozes costs too much and does too little. Just because something is cool shouldn't mean it has to suck.
I'm not sure how much a PC has to rely on a shield to be considered "shield focused". Shields are pretty good for defense, and stuff like Shield Slam can give them interesting attack options (especially if you're using Combat Stamina - the added options there seem really nice). I do wish Shield Slam didn't have a TWF feat tax on it though. Some folks might consider Improved Shield Bash a tax too, but I think the AC gain is worth the investment.
Blindig Light. You have to 1) be an aasamir. 2) use your once per day daylinght ability. 3) have an enemy that has readied an action to counter / dispell your daylight ability (or waste a regular dispell attempt after you cast daylight). 4) they need to fail this attempt. 5) they then need to fail a fortitude save.
Assuming all galaxies in the universe align, your reward is blinding the target for 1 round. You could have cast a level 2 wizard spell to blind them indefinitely, but...
My nominee for "feat whose conditions never actually happen" is Cockatrice Strike.
So you are attacking a foe who already has a status ailment, you spend a full round action to make one attack, and if you crit, your foe makes a mediocre save or turns to stone. It has to be an unarmed strike so your threat range is at best 19-20.
I'm sure it's awesome if it ever went off but you probably should have bought a lottery ticket with that luck.
That's actually not a bad feat. It's basically a coup de grace that petrifies someone. Pretty cool if your character wants to permanently incapicatate foes without killing them or someone who wants to go around, turning commoners and animals into statues to decorate the garden of his evil fortress.
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That's actually not a bad feat. It's basically a coup de grace that petrifies someone. Pretty cool if your character wants to permanently incapicatate foes without killing them or someone who wants to go around, turning commoners and animals into statues to decorate the garden of his evil fortress.Blindig Light. You have to 1) be an aasamir. 2) use your once per day daylinght ability. 3) have an enemy that has readied an action to counter / dispell your daylight ability (or waste a regular dispell attempt after you cast daylight). 4) they need to fail this attempt. 5) they then need to fail a fortitude save.
Assuming all galaxies in the universe align, your reward is blinding the target for 1 round. You could have cast a level 2 wizard spell to blind them indefinitely, but...
My nominee for "feat whose conditions never actually happen" is Cockatrice Strike.
So you are attacking a foe who already has a status ailment, you spend a full round action to make one attack, and if you crit, your foe makes a mediocre save or turns to stone. It has to be an unarmed strike so your threat range is at best 19-20.
I'm sure it's awesome if it ever went off but you probably should have bought a lottery ticket with that luck.
Except it's it's own full round action. You can't combine it with a coup de grace, so you do not have the auto-crit. You have to actually roll a crit for the feat to trigger.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
It's still not completely useless like some of the worst feats in the game.
I'd just keep having to punch a helpless person over and over again to petrified. Would just be super annoying because I'd likely kill them before they turn to stone.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
It's still not completely useless like some of the worst feats in the game.
I'd just keep having to punch a helpless person over and over again to petrified. Would just be super annoying because I'd likely kill them before they turn to stone.
Pretty much.
Best possible crit chance without improved critical? 5% (nat 20 only) x 95% (assuming you hit on a 2 or above on the die) = 4.75% if I added it up right, and if I'm right about a nat 1 on the confirm roll still meaning a miss.
Edit: at that rate you're probably better off just killing them and making a statue out of the corpse.
I hate the Empathy feat for Androids. You lose at least as much as you gain for the price of a feat. It really should have just been a free racial option.
It is necessary for building an Android chained barbarian, the most overpowered kind of Barbarian, because they are immune to fatigue from level 1.
Greater Weapon Specialization (net) requires 3 prerequisite feats, and you STILL don't get the damage boost, because nets don't cause any damage.
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I think you guys are dramatically overselling Cockatrice strike. The feat is monstrously, horrifyingly bad.
Firstly, it doesn't even come online until level 14 or 19, which in and of itself isn't a death sentence, high level feats are fine, but it's important to remember when you look at what you actually get:
It has four prerequisites, three of which basically give it nothing. I guess you can trigger cockatrice strike's activation condition with scorpion style and gorgon's fist but that's, well, not great all things considered. Three rounds of making terrible attacks and forcing saves.
Then you need a full round action against an enemy who's basically already about to die given their condition. So not only do they need to have a nasty condition on them but you have to be standing right next to them too before this even starts.
Then you make your attack, which has at best a 1/10 chance to succeed with improved critical and me pretending confirmation rolls don't exist for a second.
Then even if you get that 1/10 or 1/20 chance you have to force a fort save, which isn't a guarantee either given that you're a martial and therefore not likely to have a pumped up wisdom score. You're honestly looking at a 50/50 here conservatively. So it's a coin that you only have a 5% chance of even getting to flip in the first place.
And of course, it's a SU polymorph effect so there are some extra restrictions to worry about too, even if they aren't as major.
And if you manage to overcome all of that and succeed on your 1/40 chance roll? You basically get what you would have gotten had you just full attacked the guy.
Someone upthread said that it can't be worse than a feat that does nothing so it's not in the running for worst feat ever... and I have to disagree.
Because while nothing is bad, in the nearly all reasonably expected combat scenarios trying to utilize Cockatrice Strike leaves you worse off than if you just didn't have any feat at all. Granted, it is a choice, but when that choice actively makes you worse I think that's pretty compelling.
I mean... maybe if you were a 20th level cyclops monk with high stealth optimization and a GM who let you take a guided amulet of mighty fists you could do some cool stuff, but even then it's not really that great.
I guess if that cyclops was up against an enemy that had trivial access to resurrection magic but did not have easy access to stone to flesh or the cyclops had access to some safe house said enemy's allies can't reach?
In that scenario I guess Cockatrice Strike is nice.
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Looking at spiked chains next to heavy flails always annoys me. I guess if you're desperate to use Weapon Finesse with combat maneuvers?
Jason Bulmahn reportedly hated spiked chain trip builds in 3.5, so spiked chain got a heavy hit with a nerf-bat. Not that it didn't deserve it, but result was, as with Paizo errata, total crap.
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Looking at spiked chains next to heavy flails always annoys me. I guess if you're desperate to use Weapon Finesse with combat maneuvers?Jason Bulmahn reportedly hated spiked chain trip builds in 3.5, so spiked chain got a heavy hit with a nerf-bat. Not that it didn't deserve it, but result was, as with Paizo errata, total crap.
They were way too heavy-handed with the spiked chain nerf. Then they released the kusarigama and the dwarven dorn dergar which are basically fixed spiked chains; though they worded kusarigama so poorly it takes the whole group agreeing on how it should be run.
At the very least, they may as well have made the spiked chain a martial weapon with its current stats.
But at least the Dorn Dergar fits that niche pretty nicely.
Spiked Chain doing Piercing damage only is pretty hilarious. Apparently you pay the exotic proficiency feat in order to somehow stab them with the spikes without actually bludgeoning them with the chain.
If it was still a reach weapon, it would be perfect for a Kuthite warrior. For the ultimate fusion of flavor and mechanics, grab the Damnation feats by swearing yourself to a Kyton patron. This let's your intimidation stack with itself to higher fear states rather than increase the shaken duration. You also get a +4 bonus on intimidate checks and can do so as a swift action.
So you can charge them and hit with Power Attack+Cornugon Smash to intimidate as a free action (Shaken) and use your swift action to intimidate again (Frightened). They try to get away, you AoO power attack + Conrugon Smash again to Panick them. Alternatively, You can pick up Hurtful for swift action attack+intimidate after your charge, but you've burnt through so many feats, you basically have to be a Human Warpriest of ZK at this point.
4 (or 3+Hurtful) Damnation feats, Power Attack, Cornugon Smash, Combat Reflexes, Lunge, Step up and Strike etc.
Or you could be an archer/caster.