"Weakest" feat / character option you've actually taken?

[Blueskier]

I've had a deathmage 10(3rd party gish)/paladin 1. No, not paladin 2, just one level

[Alni]

Most useless skill. My cleric had performance +22/24(with masterwork lute) ... he had 7 skill points per level enough to spare, think he'd make the bards jealous.

Most useless feat Improved Channel. It may be useful generally, but after I got it we met... ONE undead till the end of the campaign.

[JonathonWilder]

For me, I would take Profession (storyteller), to better fit the them my character is a travelling storyteller, scholar, and illusionist.

[Eoghnved]

I took Leadership as a feat. It's not completely useless, since I will be able to use the low level followers as ship crew and what have you. The witch cohort I took has so far failed to attempt using any hexes. That's not having the opponents make saving throws or having immunity to the effect used. That's spending every combat round nauseated, confused, or exhausted. Sometimes multiple effect at the same time. I think I'll just skip taking a cohort at all.

[JonathonWilder]

The Feyspeaker archetype for the Druid.

Has BAB as a Sorcerer, losses ability to Wild Shape into elementals, no nature sense or medium armour, as well losing ability to spontaneously cast Summon Nature's Ally spells.

Gains Charisma based casting though staying a prepared divine spellcaster, access to enchantment or illusion spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list to her druid spell list as a spell of 1 level higher.

Adds Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Sense Motive as class skills with skills at 6 + Int. Sylvan as a bonus language. Lastly gains ability to Bluff animals.

[pH unbalanced]

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

I took a level in Witch on a sniping rogue. The character was built for a one shot and was already 8th level, but that one Witch level did next to nothing useful. The hexs were counter-functional to what I was actually doing (I couldn't cackle because I would reveal myself, I couldn't get my Evil Eye to stick because the DC was too low, and I wasted a feat on Extra Hex instead of getting Dampen Presence, which prevented me from hiding from the boss of the one shot and so I couldn't snipe, thus I was completely useless).

In principle a dip into a caster wasn't necessarily the worst part. It was that what I wanted from it didn't do anything useful, and I would have been better served going into wizard, probably.

I've done this too.

It was PFS, and I had intended to make a Half-elf Sniper Rogue/Bonded Witch Arcane Trickster. She was up to Rogue 3 when they released Unchained, and I realized I could be a better Arcane Trickster by staying single-classed URogue.

But at that point I'd already baked in an Int 16, the Magical Knack trait, and Witch as one of my favored classes. So I decided I might as well go ahead and take a single level of Witch.

Took Prehensile Hair for my hex (Disguise was my backup, but I knew I eventually wanted a Ring of Chameleon Power) and was able to take some versatile spells, but I probably wouldn't have gone there if I'd gotten a complete rebuild.

[Tusk the Half-Orc]

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

archmagi1 wrote:

The weakest feat ive taken? Combat expertise. But for some reason my melee guys keep taking it and never using it. Ita so odd.

It's prerequisite to tons of other less useless feats. But now you can take Dirty Fighting feat to bypass it! :)

Dirty Fighting is terrific!

I've been trying to build a bard/rogue/occultist because it feels like the classes ought to mesh well for RP purposes, but the build requires high Int, Dex, and Cha scores and its hard to put all the pieces together without dumping other stats badly.

[SmiloDan]

In 3.5, I actually made good use of the Improved Counterspell feat with my druid.

Since I was the healer, it was more efficient to trade out flamestrikes to block enemy lightning bolts and fireballs.

[Lady-J]

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

[Trojan Flumph]

Paladin with the Silver Champion archetype... Drakes are just beyond awful!

[James F.D. Graham]

I just recently stopped playing a rogue with the counterfeit mage archetype.

He was a gnome, for the SLA's. He took feats like Arcane Talent and Bookish Rogue. Had lots of UMD and spent all his money on wands, potions, and putting spells into his own spellbook.

He was ok at low levels, but as the campaign progressed to the mid-level range.. he really started to suffer. After all, there is only so much you can do with cantrips and 1st level spells.

But he was one of the most fun characters I've ever played. He kept up the ruse of being an 'archmage' for the entire campaign. Didn't even tell the other PCs until the last session.

[SmiloDan]

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

[Nhirik Powderbreath]

Oooh! Oooh! I have one rank each in Craft(traps) and Profession(Miner)! We Kobolds are supposed to be good at that stuff, and I'm a Gunslinger, so it makes sense!

He's started at 3rd level and I've only played one session as him, so I have no idea how useful those might be eventually, but the trap crafting rules are massive, time-consuming, and expensive, so I doubt that will come up.

[Lorila Sorita]

In the current group I play with, a lot of people have criticized me for taking toughness. Toughness is actually one of my go to feats when I have nothing else that I want to take. I find it amusing since we play with a house rule that lets player get extra health. Yeah, maybe they wouldn't need that house rule if they gave toughness a bit more respect.

That said, toughness isn't really all that great of a feat. Though ironically they all seem to think eschew materials is the greatest thing since slice bread, and their casters always take it. Me, I would never take that feat, unless I was playing maybe something like a sword mage or someone who requires holding stuff in their hands? They take it on like pure wizards and stuff.

One feat I would consider taking is skill focus, but I personally find that fairly weak. It is cool if you want to like maximize something and get it crazy high, but honestly in most situation you probably don't need any skill that high. Most of the skill feats are probably not all that great, but can be good for situational builds.

[SmiloDan]

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

Healing up during a short rest is fine, but I like how it recharges bards, clerics, fighters, monks, paladins, warlocks, and wizards.

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

Healing up during a short rest is fine, but I like how it recharges bards, clerics, fighters, monks, paladins, warlocks, and wizards.

i thought only warlocks got stuff back on a short rest

[Will Huston]

My PFS samurai has persuasive as his third level feat because every feat that I really wanted at that point had a +4 BAB requirement. Now he can praise glorious Bachuan and try to rile the proletariat.

My PFS core Druid has Skill Focus (Profession(Barrister)) for the day job checks. She's an environmental lawyer, so she needs the boost to her career.

My PFS warpriest's first two feats were those ones from the Advanced Race Guide that let humans attempt to make any check untrained, I'm forgetting their names at the moment. He was my first PFS character and I was told it was important to have your character be able to do things outside of combat. My reasoning was that he's a warpriest of Besmara, he's lived on a ship for most of his life, and when you're on a ship, you have to be able to jury-rig and be able to do a little bit of everything because you can't hire someone to do it for you when you're weeks away from port.

[Haladir]

Back in 3.5, I had a PC who started out as a first-level aristocrat (the NPC class). I advanced him as a fighter for the rest of the campaign.

[JonathonWilder]

Fot my 2e AD&D human Paladin, I chose to take the non-weapon proficiency of Miner. With that of Toughness, his backstory being that he'd lived in the small mining community and worked in the mines before discovering his true path was that of holy warrior.

[SmiloDan]

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

Healing up during a short rest is fine, but I like how it recharges bards, clerics, fighters, monks, paladins, warlocks, and wizards.

i thought only warlocks got stuff back on a short rest

Nope!

After 5th level, bards regain Bardic Inspiration, clerics regain Divine Channels, Druids regain Wildshape (and some get Natural Recovery too!), Fighters regain Action Surge, Monks regain Ki points, Paladins regain Divine Channels, Warlocks get all their spell slots back, and Wizards get Arcane Recovery.

[Bloodrealm]

SmiloDan wrote:

Warlocks get all their spell slots back

Jeezus, every time someone says anything about 5E it just sounds worse and worse. So is there are reason for warlocks not to nova in every fight? Ugh...

[Klorox]

Actually, warlocks get their spell slots back, the few they got after a long rest, like everybody else, it's any of their invocations, and pact abilities that get renewed after a short... and anyway, they don't need their spells all that much, they got eldritch blast as a cantrip, and they don't need much more.

[SmiloDan]

Bloodrealm wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Warlocks get all their spell slots back

Jeezus, every time someone says anything about 5E it just sounds worse and worse. So is there are reason for warlocks not to nova in every fight? Ugh...

Warlocks get 1 spell slot at 1st, 2 at 2nd, 3 at 11th, and 4 at 17th. Plus cantrips, and a few invocations grant some utility spells at will.

Warlock spell slot levels increase by 1 at levels 3 (2nd), 5 (3rd), 7 (4th), and 9 (5th level slots).

So they can nova pretty often, but since 5th Edition battles are pretty long (but quick!), and the "adventuring day" is "supposed" to be 6 encounters with 2 short rests mixed in, if they nova in half their encounters, they can only use cantrips in their non-nova encounters.

Practically, warlocks are primarily ranged skirmishers with the ability to use magic spells in the clutch.

I've only seen 1 or 2 in action, but we're starting a new campaign with 1 in it on Sunday.

[Bloodrealm]

Ugh, I won't get into how terrible 5E is here, so I'm just gonna go back on topic.
I haven't actually gotten to play all that many characters, so my post up there as Nhirik is pretty much all I've got for weakest options.
Other than that, I've taken the Sword Saint archetype and 1 rank in Perform(Wind) for my Swash/Samurai (I really didn't want to manage a mount and banner; I don't care how good they are).

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

Healing up during a short rest is fine, but I like how it recharges bards, clerics, fighters, monks, paladins, warlocks, and wizards.

i thought only warlocks got stuff back on a short rest

Nope!

After 5th level, bards regain Bardic Inspiration, clerics regain Divine Channels, Druids regain Wildshape (and some get Natural Recovery too!), Fighters regain Action Surge, Monks regain Ki points, Paladins regain Divine Channels, Warlocks get all their spell slots back, and Wizards get Arcane Recovery.

is that from newer books? cuz i dont remember that from the core book

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

So they can nova pretty often, but since 5th Edition battles are pretty long (but quick!), and the "adventuring day" is "supposed" to be 6 encounters with 2 short rests mixed in, if they nova in half their encounters, they can only use cantrips in their non-nova encounters.

we also only had an average of 1.2 combat encounters a day but each encounter had usually a minimum of 15 enemies in them

[Steve Geddes]

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

i took the durable feat in 5th edition we never short rested ever.

Maybe I don't really understand the Durable feat, but it just seems to prevent poor rolling when spending Hit Dice to heal.

But you never took a short rest? So many great class features re-charge on a short rest!!! :-O

it was when 5th first came out every one exept me were avid 3.5 players so the only rests we ever took were long rests and long rests fully heal you so theres no need to roll hitdie to regain hp thus making the feat completely useless

Healing up during a short rest is fine, but I like how it recharges bards, clerics, fighters, monks, paladins, warlocks, and wizards.

i thought only warlocks got stuff back on a short rest

Nope!

After 5th level, bards regain Bardic Inspiration, clerics regain Divine Channels, Druids regain Wildshape (and some get Natural Recovery too!), Fighters regain Action Surge, Monks regain Ki points, Paladins regain Divine Channels, Warlocks get all their spell slots back, and Wizards get Arcane Recovery.

is that from newer books? cuz i dont remember that from the core book

No that's from the core book.

One of the balancing features across classes is when their abilities recharge - after a short rest is obviously better, but the degree to which it is better does depend a lot on the playstyle of the group and the structure of the adventures.

The default assumption is half a dozen encounters with one or two short rests (so one would expect to play through three encounters and then the SR abilities would recharge, then another three before LR abilities are recharged).

It's not always possible to take a short rest - some of the internet discussion assumes those are 'encounter powers' a la 4E, but due to the hour that it takes, that's not really true.

With the DM running the game you were in, it sounds like those classes whose abilities can be used after a SR lost a bit of their oomph. 1.2 encounters a day means what - every five days you had two encounters but the rest were single encounters? There's pretty much no reason for everybody not to spend all their powers each battle in that sort of campaign, which means the warlock's rapid recharge doesn't really balance their extreme lack of spellcasting slots.

[Lady-J]

Steve Geddes wrote:

No that's from the core book.

One of the balancing features across classes is when their abilities recharge - after a short rest is obviously better, but the degree to which it is better does depend a lot on the playstyle of the group and the structure of the adventures.

The default assumption is half a dozen encounters with one or two short rests (so one would expect to play through three encounters and then the SR abilities would recharge, then another three before LR abilities are recharged).

It's not always possible to take a short rest - some of the internet discussion assumes those are 'encounter powers' a la 4E, but due to the hour that it takes, that's not really true.

With the DM running the game you were in, it...

well it was me(the paladin) the only main front line and a monk/rogue as a melee unarmed/ranged bow switch hitter and every one else were casters who just spammed cantrips all day (i think there was something like 9 of them) i didnt mind being the only front line at times as i enjoy playing tanks got my ac up to 26 by level 7 so i was pretty good at my job

[Steve Geddes]

Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound like a criticism - it's just a fair way from the 'default assumptions', so that may have been why it wasn't obvious to you that there were some other abilities which recharged on a short rest. It sounds like you didn't really have many.

[Lady-J]

Steve Geddes wrote:

Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound like a criticism - it's just a fair way from the 'default assumptions', so that may have been why it wasn't obvious to you that there were some other abilities which recharged on a short rest. It sounds like you didn't really have many.

didn't read it as one just felt like saying what the party was/what it normally did in combat sort of as an explanation as to why i didn't realise it i'm just generally bad at getting what i want to say out properly

[Steve Geddes]

I want to favorite your post to acknowledge it, but don't want to agree with you being bad at getting out what you want to say. :p

I'm often pretty bad at reading comprehension, so you know...

[Umbral Reaver]

I willingly made an archetypeless fighter last year.

[Lady-J]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I willingly made an archetypeless fighter last year.

with the right build they can be pretty bad ass tho with aat and awt

[Klorox]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I willingly made an archetypeless fighter last year.

Actually, I was under the impression that most fighter archetypes, trading bravery, weapon training and armor training for specialisation, gained only limited efficiency in exchange for what they trade away. a basic fighter is badass with a variety of weapons, and in whatever armor it wears... archetypes need to fight in their favored style to be worth anything.

[Esquizo]

Trojan Flumph wrote:

Paladin with the Silver Champion archetype... Drakes are just beyond awful!

not as bad as empyrial knight archetype

[SmiloDan]

Lady-J wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

No that's from the core book.

One of the balancing features across classes is when their abilities recharge - after a short rest is obviously better, but the degree to which it is better does depend a lot on the playstyle of the group and the structure of the adventures.

The default assumption is half a dozen encounters with one or two short rests (so one would expect to play through three encounters and then the SR abilities would recharge, then another three before LR abilities are recharged).

It's not always possible to take a short rest - some of the internet discussion assumes those are 'encounter powers' a la 4E, but due to the hour that it takes, that's not really true.

With the DM running the game you were in, it...

well it was me(the paladin) the only main front line and a monk/rogue as a melee unarmed/ranged bow switch hitter and every one else were casters who just spammed cantrips all day (i think there was something like 9 of them) i didnt mind being the only front line at times as i enjoy playing tanks got my ac up to 26 by level 7 so i was pretty good at my job

WOW! A party of 11??? And I thought our party of 6 was pushing it...

With a party of that size, I can see how battles could be kind of big deals. And the need for 15+ enemies per fight. Even Legendary monsters would be overwhelmed by 11 PCs....

AC 26??? Holy moly!!!! :-D I thought my dwarf cleric AC of 20-22 was really good!

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I willingly made an archetypeless fighter last year.

I'd argue that given the recent release of AWT and AAT, archetypeless Fighter is the best fighter, because they get a ridiculous amount of utility out of all the features they keep. AAT gives them Steel Headbutt, Armoured Sacrifice (always have a buckler on hand) and Armoured Juggernaut. AWT gives so many options it is difficult to put it down to just one. Armed Bravery alone is enough to never want to lose Bravery.

I think Fighter archetypes need to be re-evaluated now that AWT and AAT are available, but they seem to be straight net losses outside of very specific situations, like Lore Wardens and maneuver builds.

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

No that's from the core book.

One of the balancing features across classes is when their abilities recharge - after a short rest is obviously better, but the degree to which it is better does depend a lot on the playstyle of the group and the structure of the adventures.

The default assumption is half a dozen encounters with one or two short rests (so one would expect to play through three encounters and then the SR abilities would recharge, then another three before LR abilities are recharged).

It's not always possible to take a short rest - some of the internet discussion assumes those are 'encounter powers' a la 4E, but due to the hour that it takes, that's not really true.

With the DM running the game you were in, it...

well it was me(the paladin) the only main front line and a monk/rogue as a melee unarmed/ranged bow switch hitter and every one else were casters who just spammed cantrips all day (i think there was something like 9 of them) i didnt mind being the only front line at times as i enjoy playing tanks got my ac up to 26 by level 7 so i was pretty good at my job

WOW! A party of 11??? And I thought our party of 6 was pushing it...

With a party of that size, I can see how battles could be kind of big deals. And the need for 15+ enemies per fight. Even Legendary monsters would be overwhelmed by 11 PCs....

AC 26??? Holy moly!!!! :-D I thought my dwarf cleric AC of 20-22 was really good!

we started off with about 18-22 players but a few droped off

[Tacticslion]

That's even bigger than the largest campaign I've ever run!

[Lady-J]

still not the record for the club which is one game with 46 players or at least that's what i've been told

[Bloodrealm]

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I willingly made an archetypeless fighter last year.

I'd argue that given the recent release of AWT and AAT, archetypeless Fighter is the best fighter, because they get a ridiculous amount of utility out of all the features they keep. AAT gives them Steel Headbutt, Armoured Sacrifice (always have a buckler on hand) and Armoured Juggernaut. AWT gives so many options it is difficult to put it down to just one. Armed Bravery alone is enough to never want to lose Bravery.

I think Fighter archetypes need to be re-evaluated now that AWT and AAT are available, but they seem to be straight net losses outside of very specific situations, like Lore Wardens and maneuver builds.

Yup. Sensate went from being quite good to being worthless.

[SmiloDan]

Lady-J wrote:

still not the record for the club which is one game with 46 players or at least that's what i've been told

It sounds like you need more DMs! :-P

How long does a turn take in your group of 20???

[Lady-J]

SmiloDan wrote:

Lady-J wrote:

still not the record for the club which is one game with 46 players or at least that's what i've been told

It sounds like you need more DMs! :-P

How long does a turn take in your group of 20???

depended on how on track every one was if every one was paying attention we could do a round in about 12 mins if people were not paying attention it would take longer sometimes even up to an hour

[SmiloDan]

OMG!

12 to 60 minutes per turn??????

I ran a homebrew adventure today. We played (and talked and goofed around and got dinner and stuff) from 2 to 9:30 today. The 6 PCs started at 1st level and almost got to 3rd level. I ran 11 combats, a couple puzzle encounters, some roleplaying encounters, and lots of exploration. (It's basically a haunted house.) They also used some clever tactics to bypass a couple combats.

5th Edition is so much quicker than PF or 3.5. :-)

[Cuenta]

SmiloDan wrote:

OMG!

12 to 60 minutes per turn??????

I ran a homebrew adventure today. We played (and talked and goofed around and got dinner and stuff) from 2 to 9:30 today. The 6 PCs started at 1st level and almost got to 3rd level. I ran 11 combats, a couple puzzle encounters, some roleplaying encounters, and lots of exploration. (It's basically a haunted house.) They also used some clever tactics to bypass a couple combats.

5th Edition is so much quicker than PF or 3.5. :-)

Curse of Strahd?

Having played both editions, it's really not faster at those low levels. Some players are just slow.

[SmiloDan]

Nope, homebrew. Steampunk/Conan mash-up.

I've played Basic, 1st, 2nd, 3.0, 3.5, PF, and 5th Editions, and I think 5th is the quickest. It's certainly the most elegant.

We have some slow players. One is also out of state and plays by Skype. We hang him from the chandelier, and ironically, he's not the swashbuckler.

[Cuenta]

SmiloDan wrote:

Nope, homebrew. Steampunk/Conan mash-up.

I've played Basic, 1st, 2nd, 3.0, 3.5, PF, and 5th Editions, and I think 5th is the quickest. It's certainly the most elegant.

We have some slow players. One is also out of state and plays by Skype. We hang him from the chandelier, and ironically, he's not the swashbuckler.

If you say so, man. Could just be that I delay your turn until after the next guy if you can't work out what you're doing within a few seconds when it comes to your turn, regardless of edition (I make an exception for new players though).

[pH unbalanced]

Back in the 80's, I ran the Dragonlance modules for a party of 12 (the 8 pregens plus 4 more I created), and ran a couple of GURPS adventures for a party of 16. It worked ok but was exhausting.

Back on topic...I haven't decided if this will be weak or strong yet but I'm making a human fighter based around Shielded Gauntlet style. He holds a long sword, but then goes around punching everyone with his off hand, which is hilarious.