Feats You Think Are Awesome!


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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So what feats do you love?

Ones that come to mind...

Cunning, love this feat.

Any feat that gives extra uses of class ability or adds additional class abilities such as Extra Channel, Extra Lay On Hands, Extra Revelation, Extra Rogue Talent, Extra Wild Talent, etc.

Many racial based feats such Angel Wings, Catfolk Exemplar, Drow Nobility, Fast Learner, etc.

Expanded Arcana, extra spells know is always great.

Quicken Spell, love this one for spontaneous casters.

Skill Focus, such an underrated feat.

Spring Attack, useful especially if you are a monk or have haste up.

Toughness, extra HP is always good.

Great Fortitude and Iron Will, do I need to say more.

Fleet, another underrated feat...and it stacks with itself.

Penetrating Strike and Greater Penetrating Strike, I know it's Fighter only, but still fun.

Deadly Agility, this should have been from Paizo.


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I really love Second Chance for melees swinging two handed weapons.

Iron Will is another feat I will almost always try to buy as early as I can.


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Combat Reflexes... or Torag's equivelant... allows you to make AoO whilst flat-footed. 'Tis clutch, I tell you, absolutely clutch.

Weapon Trick... especially for polearms, but the one-handed riposte and the sickening Sunder and the... they are all pretty fun, great feat all around.

Cut/Smash From the Air... chopping missiles out of the air is classic freaking awesome.

Deific Obedience/Diverse Obedience... and every variation thereof... they offer so much fun flavor, by far one of my favorite feats in the game.

Rhino Charge... because being able to ready a charge as a standard action is legit. Anything that breaks action economy is pretty sweet.

Bewildering Koan... just the perfect feat... so fun.

Additional Traits... traits can add a lot of flavor to any build...


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Combat Advice - on a caster who isn't going to be using their move action much in combat.
Ride-by attack - you have to build into it, but it's so much fun when you get there.
Step Up - because wizards who 5' step and thenmn cast at you are so annoying.
Spirit Ridden - to get the perfect skill for the day in a flavourful way.

I second Deific Obedience, it's a real character defining feat.


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Twist Away Very cool, very effective.


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Dreamed Secrets

Guaranteed 24hr gravy.....


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Flagbearer... because it allows for the Bard to use the Banner of Ancient Kings. And I love me a good Bard.

Flickering Step/Dimensional Savant... teleport pounce is just so rad. And even a big dumb Fighter can have it. Gotta love that.

Healer's Hands/Incredible Healer/Psychic Sensitivity [Faith Healing]/Signature Skill [Heal]... it makes healing anyone's game, and does so with flavor. Again, even a big dumb Fighter can do it.

Arcane Strike/Blooded Arcane Strike/Riving Strike... could probably throw Caster's Champion in there, too... I love, just freaking love, that the Gloves of Arcane Striking add the Arcane Strike bonus to Aid Another. Brings a tear to me eye. Tears of joy.

Desna's Shooting Star... attack and damage on Charisma for one feat. Full stop. This feat has opened up so many fun options it's ridiculous.

Martial Focus... opens up fun weapon mastery feats for the non-Fighter types. Like Cut/Smash From the Air. I like pretty much any feat that opens up access to class features from other classes... like the Animal Companion/Familiar feats, and pretty sure you can get Channel Energy, too. Just good clean fun.

Mother's Gift... because Hags.

Racial Heritage [Ogre]... because Vestigial Head is as hilarious as it is useful. Who doesn't want a character with two heads? You can also go down the Corrupted Flesh rabbit hole, building for Toxic Stench/Pungent Stench. So much fun with that. Racial Heritage, in general, is fabulous.


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Energy Mastery(Item Mastery) is great and the number of uses is based on your base fort save.


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The possessed hand feat line is fun. A bunch of great bonuses and distinct flavor.

I like breaking things, so Shrapnel Strike and Stunning Irruption are top shelf for me. Sending shards of a wall into your enemies, or everyone standing their gawking when you knock in their front door, are both nicely cinematic. Shieldslam + crushing/smashing impact are also cool for the same reason. It's a real shame that awesome blow isn't as supported or easy to use as shieldslam. I should just change that.

Weapon Shift. I like shapeshifting as a character theme already, but making your tiger claws solid fire is a good transformation.

Improved familiar has so many options, and I like having strange companions with surprising abilities. Summon Guardian Spirit is similarly interesting for a somewhat customizable summon, though the option limits make it more work than I'd like. (only fey or outsider, very reliant on monsters default HD for scaling great concept though)

Deflect arrows, missile shield, ray shield, mobile bulwark style. Blocking an arrow isn't much, but it can't fail and looks cool. Ray shield is much more impressive, and mobile bulwark gives you the classic "warrior with his shield up blocking dragon breath" scene. This is some nice pulp fantasy.

I do like things like Erastil's Blessing, Guided Hand, and Desna's Shooting Star, but there should be more varieties with more similar requirements. As long as you don't end up with charisma greatswords and such.


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Improved Familiar is great and so many options.

Deflect Arrows, missile shield, and ray shield are great as well.


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Friendly Switch is a very useful feat that shows its true worth if you know you'll spend a lot of time enlarged. I strongly recommend it for frontliners and mounts. The ability to displace an ally as you move into their space does not do much for your damage or give you bigger numbers, which is probably why it doesn't see much discussion. But it can be invaluable.

It can be used to push backliners out of harm's way, to negate enemy full-attacks, to enable ally full-attacks, and does not cost any actions or movement from your allies. It's one of the better "tank" feats available for low-lv characters and especially so if you (or your mount) is size large. Because the larger you are, the more distance your ally is displaced.
If you are medium, an enemy can simply 5-ft step around you and reach your ally (if the enemy acts first). But if you're large then they lose their move action and will provoke if they chase after their squishy target that was displaced 10 ft away.

It's quite silly how much tactical opportunity presents itself when you've equipped your mount with Horseshoes of Speed for +30 movement. Pairs really well with Escape Route, which is another great feat for mounted characters.


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The Eldritch Heritage line, aka, we have Obedience at home.


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The Eldritch Heritage feats are interesting.


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Additional traits is fun along with Cosmopolitan wich gives you two class skills and two languages.


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I like the feats requiring you to engage a foe without aid: Steadfast Slayer, Solo Maneuvers, Redirect Attack etc.. While working together can be fun, there is some specific satisfaction in taking out a serious foe on your own.

It goes on with melee feats that allow you to do new things: Sliding Dash, Painful Collision, Tumbling Upset, Circling Mongoose, Dimensional Dervish, Step Up, Pushing Assault, Totemic Initiate (and follow-up feats), Cleaving Finish, Cleave Through, Cleaving Sweep, Devastating Assault, One-Inch Punch, Weapon Trick (two-weapon: Dual Strike), Shifter's Rush, Mutated Shape, Acrobatic Spellcaster.

Especially I like retaliation in melee (strike back when they attack you): Panther Style (and follow-up feats), Snake Fang, Stick-Fighting Counter, Weapon Trick (one-handed: Stylish Riposte) etc.. It's maybe for the better they don't synergize well (usually).

A few magic feats make me sob: Ultimate Mercy, Evolved Familiar (goat of death, anyone?), Secret of Magical Discipline, many metamagic ones, Force Dash, Flickering Step.

Special mention goes to Breadth of Experience, Born of Frost, the rogue friendly Surprise Maneuver, the bad*** Stalwart and the "I always wanted to build around that" feats Elven Battle Focus / Sword and Pistol. Special senses don't hurt either, like half-orc's Keen Scent / ifrit's Fire Sight / tiefling's Fiend Sight / dwarf's Stone Sense.


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Steel Soul

"BWAAHHAHAHAHA.....you threaten me with your spells and trickery?! Kurtspike Witch-Mort is indeed amused."


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Steel Soul is great also Ironhide as well.


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Sarenrae’s Mercy (Divine Fighting Technique) not only allows you to ignore the penalty for dealing nonlethal damage with a scimitar, it converts extra damage to nonlethal damage. And it allows you to deal nonlethal damage using spells with the fire, light or good descriptor as well as inflict spells. It’s like getting merciful spell for free. Being able to decide to deal nonlethal damage when you cast it makes it even better.


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I like feats that open interesting combat options, like Hamatula strike.


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Now I kind of want to make a Dex/Cha build with Sarenrae's Mercy and Enforcer.


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Shamira really needs a divine fighting technique where, against anyone who could be sexually attracted to you, you add your CHA to CMB and CMD when grappling.


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There are so many feats that I love that narrowing them down is difficult, but... most recently: Glorious Heat is topping my list for awesome. Not just by itself but in combination with a LOT of other feats/abilities that add to the passive healing.


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I can't believe I forgot to mention Spell Perfection, such a great feat for casters.


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DeathlessOne wrote:
Glorious Heat

Well, that's broken. Spark.


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Mudfoot wrote:
DeathlessOne wrote:
Glorious Heat
Well, that's broken. Spark.

Haha, yeah. Goes to show you that I never thought to involve cantrips/orisons in the mix. Personally, I don't treat orisons or cantrips like actual spells, in so much as they can trigger those kinds of effects. They do fall under different abilities granted to each class (ie, 'Spells' and 'Orisons' are different class abilities granted to a cleric).

So, if you find a permissive GM, want to worship Saranrae (locked into a alignment range), and want to abuse the hell out of that feat... go for it.


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Wow, that infinite out of combat healing from level 5 onwards?


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As per usual, Goblins are the best!
Goblin Racial Feat: Roll With It. On a high dex goblin with max acrobatics, makes them deadly melee dodge tanks. Hit the Goblin? It rolls away, bounces off a wall, then charges back with boots of haste and fleet relatively unharmed. Hilarious and awesomely broken with a Scout Rogue.

Well Prepared Halfing feat is also just thematically fun for a packrat, couple with Helpful, another Halfling feat, and Lucky, you become the best sidekick ever.

The Vishkanya has another really thematic feat: Sleep Venom. On a multi attacking build (Like a shuriken storm ninja) you can easily get the target to guarantee to fail at least once, for zero cost other than downtime and daily uses. Hella powerful on an intrigue character that absolutely HAS to put down that target or fail.


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Mightypion wrote:
Wow, that infinite out of combat healing from level 5 onwards?

Yes, for the cost of a feat, and time spend. Of course, there's a 5k magic item doing pretty much the same thing, and healing wands exist. And while that's not free, neither is a feat - and feats can generate (or save) wealth, too. Outside of a campaign with no or very few magic items, I don't see the feat breaking anything.

DeathlessOne wrote:
They do fall under different abilities granted to each class (ie, 'Spells' and 'Orisons' are different class abilities granted to a cleric).

That's purely a legacy thing, though - that cantrips/orisons/knacks have infinite daily uses really should've just been in the magic rules. A 0-level spell is still very explicitly a spell, as can be seen from rules like the magic item creation pricing rules: "Spell Level: A 0-level spell is half the value of a 1st-level spell for determining price." CRB pg. 550


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Derklord wrote:
DeathlessOne wrote:
They do fall under different abilities granted to each class (ie, 'Spells' and 'Orisons' are different class abilities granted to a cleric).
That's purely a legacy thing, though - that cantrips/orisons/knacks have infinite daily uses really should've just been in the magic rules. A 0-level spell is still very explicitly a spell, as can be seen from rules like the magic item creation pricing rules: "Spell Level: A 0-level spell is half the value of a 1st-level spell for determining price." CRB pg. 550

I am certainly not arguing that a cantrip/orison is not a spell. I'm simply stating that I wouldn't allow them to interact with abilities like Glorious Heat unless they actually had a specific spell level. As far as Item Creation does, cantrips/orisons count as a 0.5 spell level for PRICING purposes only. I don't extend that line of reasoning beyond pricing.


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Yeah... I'm gonna go with Derklord on this one. Not only do I usually follow RAW, and by RAW there's no "spell level" requirement on Glorious Heat, but also the feat is not game breaking for out-of-combat healing.

A CL 10 divine caster delivers 5 HP healing every round at the expense of lighting something on fire. That's 50 HP a minute. In the meantime, a single CL 10 Cure Critical Wounds spell would deliver 28 HP avg. Said spell could be scribed on a scroll, at that CL, for 1000 GP. Do the PCs have someone in the party with Scribe Scroll? 500 GP. Do you use the Downtime system? 250 GP.

My point is only that it could either cost a divine caster, a couple of whom don't even get bonus feats, one of their precious character build options, or it could cost a lot of money. Even if they take the feat, this would still cost time.

If multiple PCs needed critical healing after a fight at level 10, getting everyone back to full health using only Glorious Heat would require several minutes. This could, in turn, mean the escape of a villain, the arrival of reinforcements, or some other time-critical failure.

Last but not least... worshipper of Sarenrae. I don't know about other's campaigns, but she seems to be one of the least worshipped in mine.


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I mean, Saerenrae has a failry reasonable deeific obedience, (although it is inferior to a skill focus perception in all aspects)her divine fighting style actually becomes quite notable at level 10 (if you are TWFing with scimitars you can heal a surprising amount of damage per turn by full attacking, of course, only against enemies that arent immune to non lethal), but the issue is that prisoner managment, and Saerenrites are massive generators of prisoners, can get really iffy.

There are some modules, for example wrath of the rigtheous, were you actually have facilities for dealing with prisoners, but if anything calls for infiltration...


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Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
Yeah... I'm gonna go with Derklord on this one. Not only do I usually follow RAW, and by RAW there's no "spell level" requirement on Glorious Heat, but also the feat is not game breaking for out-of-combat healing.

Not sure why sides need to be chosen. I am not arguing about the legality of the option. I'm just offering an opinion on how I treat cantrips/orisons in regards to abilities that function like Glorious Heat. If anything, I am self-nerfing one of my favorite feats.

As far as not being 'game-breaking', hardly anything reaches that level as far as I am concerned, but there are other options and abilities that can pair with Glorious Heat that turn that healing into something that might actually be useful in combat. I have one character (as I mentioned) that uses that feat and I am not going to go out of my way to get Spark in order to make it more powerful.


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DeathlessOne wrote:
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
Yeah... I'm gonna go with Derklord on this one. Not only do I usually follow RAW, and by RAW there's no "spell level" requirement on Glorious Heat, but also the feat is not game breaking for out-of-combat healing.

Not sure why sides need to be chosen. I am not arguing about the legality of the option. I'm just offering an opinion on how I treat cantrips/orisons in regards to abilities that function like Glorious Heat. If anything, I am self-nerfing one of my favorite feats.

As far as not being 'game-breaking', hardly anything reaches that level as far as I am concerned, but there are other options and abilities that can pair with Glorious Heat that turn that healing into something that might actually be useful in combat. I have one character (as I mentioned) that uses that feat and I am not going to go out of my way to get Spark in order to make it more powerful.

I'm genuinely sorry Deathless! I honestly thought you were suggesting there was a spell level requirement or something to use Glorious Heat; I thought this was partly a rules debate. Sorry for my misunderstanding!


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Blind-Fight-Such a great feat vs blindness, darkness, invisibility, gaze attack based monsters, mirror image, etc.

Dodge- Any feat that increases AC is great.

Eldritch Claws- natural attacks treated as magic and silver and as far I know there is no rule that your animal companion couldn't take it.

Furious Focus, nice feat for a two handed weapon focused character.

Steadfast Personality, the version that lets you add your Cha mod(instead of Wis) to your will saves.


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hmmmm... IMO the game isn't structured so that there's a broad commonality among Feats, it's rather class or build specific and then there are Feat Chains. That makes it great for a class/build group or something commonly required, or overpowered(LoL). There are a few that relate to combat styles. IMO Traits span classes better.
I'll go with commonly required good feats.

+ Additional Traits/Cosmopolitan/Cunning/Fast Learner(human). A salve for low INT or class skills.

+ Barroom Brawler. BAB+4 -> Combat Feat Flexibility! Use Dirty Fighting & Imp. Dirty Trick for a host of possibilities.

+ Blind-Fight. Circumstantial but halving concealment bonuses is great.

+ Dazzling Display with Intimidate & Weapon Focus. Not bad and makes a common first round action into a AoE ability for a short deBuff.

+ Dervish Dance. Locks you into a combat weapon but generally worth it.

+ Leadership. Broken & usually banned.

+ the dingbat Point-Blank Shot & then Precise Shot are require by most classes doing ranged combat. I say dingbat as clearly the order is forced and it's two feats but you need them. Requirements for feats like Manyshot, Rapid Shot.

+ Power Attack. More of what you're there for. Later Dazing Assault at BAB 11+.

+ Weapon Focus/Spell {School} Focus. Basic, helpful, & required for Greater versions (which is why you took them).

+ Weapon Finesse. Not everybody has a high STR.


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Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
I'm genuinely sorry Deathless! I honestly thought you were suggesting there was a spell level requirement or something to use Glorious Heat; I thought this was partly a rules debate. Sorry for my misunderstanding!

No worries, my friend. No offense was taken at all. Besides, I try to keep all my rule debating in the rules forum. Anything I post outside of it should really be taken as my take on an issue at my own table. I am completely fine with people disagreeing (even vehemently so) with me on just about anything. It really does not bother me, unless they start getting petty and rude, then they get ignored until they get civil again.


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Glorious Heat
FYI(as the icon has a red border on AoN);

PF Org Play Campaign Clarifications wrote:
The feat Glorious Heat grants a number of points of healing equal to the spell level, not half your caster level. For example, flame strike grants 5 points of healing, while spark grants 0.

It can be handy to use a decision that's been looked at for a large player base format. It's not always applicable to your home game.

There should be a save & SR notation associated with the ability, just in case ya know. {dottin those i's}


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Martial Versatility/Mastery allows so much shenanigans.

Cayden Cailaen's Divine Fighting Technique turns attacks into ki on the right monk.

Rhino charge breaks so many things with pounce

Secret of Magical Discipline assuming your DM allows you to ignore the FAQ

Auspicious Birth is the only way to ignore the Nat 1 rule on saves

Wretched Curator arguably allows you to make creating undead a non-evil act

Fiend Sight is one of the few ways to get See in Darkness

Beast Speaker especially because Mammoth Rider Sun Falcon is nice

Eclipsed Spell is so much fun because Eclipsed Light and Eclipsed Continual Flame

Talented Magician and Bookish Rogue are funny on a Phantom Thief

Cherry Blossome Spell because it triggers on every damage and just one-shots most animals

Racial and Planar heritage because, again, shenanigans

Destroyer's blessing because infinite rage with a merciful weapon

Greater Drow Nobility because at-will 3rd level spell

Extreme mood swings because it raises the effective ability score cap

The Hand's Autonomy chain is fun

Human Guise because Racial Heritage

Prestigious Spellcaster because spellcasting is the best class feature

Rat Stack (Plus maybe Pack Rat) is fun

Wyvaran Spellcasting could theoretically allow wish as a spell-like twice a day if you somehow technically had the ability to cast a 10th level spell though I haven't yet figured out how

Signature deed because no 1 grit minimum

Equipment trick because having something count as a weapon begets shenanigans

Shielded Gauntlet style because it makes anything count as a shield with Equipment Trick (plus maybe the weapon modification) and Martial Versatility

Skilled Rager, "Hulk apologize for teammates' poor conduct"


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Leadership is a broken feat but of course that means it's too good.


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for me one of the best feats is improvising initiative, giving a person a +4 to the initiative gives a greater opportunity to reduce the enemies or create better strategies in the game

Outflank it another feat I like sice it's give +4 when attakin flanking target and the possibility of an attack of opportunities when some 1 do a critical


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Dragon78 wrote:
Leadership is a broken feat but of course that means it's too good.

no. It's broken in 3 major ways besides being far too powerful As Is by game metrics. 1) rules:penalties & re-recruitment & measuring NPC satisfaction & tracking history of treatment, then 2) game metrics:APL & WBL etc, then 3) how PCs use the NPCs. Even in 3.5 there was no happy solution for this legacy feat. PF just changed the tense of the majority of 3.5 printed rules at the onset.

In a 3.5 offshoot called Arcanis they pumped Leadership and it led to crazy outcomes such as a politician with a wizard of higher level as a sidekick and in practice the main character.


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TheKillerCorgi wrote:


Secret of Magical Discipline assuming your DM allows you to ignore the faq

What faq would that be?


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Java Man wrote:
TheKillerCorgi wrote:
Secret of Magical Discipline assuming your DM allows you to ignore the faq
What faq would that be?

I presume Corgi means this one, although it doesn't inhibit SoMD at all (unlike Dreamed Secrets.


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Improved Initiative is great as well especially for many casters and Rogues.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm surprised Natural Spell hasn't been mentioned (especially in conjunction with Eschew Materials). Too bad it's limited to wild shape only and not any other types of shifting (it's still awesome, just not widely applicable).


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I agree, natural spell should have been for all shifting/polymorph, not just wild shape.


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I think the reason why Nature spell is more for those who have wild shape is because those who have this ability are people who have continuous use in that field so they learn better The use of this feat is like the fight with his specialization in weapons, the wizard with his spell mastery or the monk with his improved unarmed strike


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Derklord wrote:
Java Man wrote:
TheKillerCorgi wrote:
Secret of Magical Discipline assuming your DM allows you to ignore the faq
What faq would that be?
I presume Corgi means this one, although it doesn't inhibit SoMD at all (unlike Dreamed Secrets.

Some people think that because of the line "as if it were one of your spells known" in SoMD and the last line of the FAQ which says "The spell slots of a class can only be used to cast spells that appear on the spell list of that class." it doesn't work.

Notably apperantly most people on the Pathfinder discord.


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Selective Spell: Any time the spellcaster's initiative doesn't exceed the martial's at the beginning of a fight, most of your blasting and crowd control spells suddenly become non-options...unless you have Selective Spell!


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Helic wrote:
Selective Spell: Any time the spellcaster's initiative doesn't exceed the martial's at the beginning of a fight, most of your blasting and crowd control spells suddenly become non-options...unless you have Selective Spell!

What an underrated ability/feat... love me an Urban Bloodrager for their ability to negate such "difficulties" when casting into a contested battlefield. Not that 4th level spells are ever anything to worry about, ally or not, but the consideration was kind [and is appreciated].

My homeboy Wizard in a 5e campaign has extensively used "Sculpt Spell", or whatever it is called, to avoid hitting allies with offensive spells. It absolutely IS appreciated...

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