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Does anyone else feel this feat is far and away too situational to warrant a feat, much less a 4th-level class feat?
In all my years of roleplaying 2e, I can't recall a single instance of needing to Avert Gaze.
This should be a more general ability given freely to all, such as rewriting Avert Gaze to allow for this when using Raise Shield. Seems to me like a natural consequence of Raise Shield.
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No.
This depends of how do you understand Avert Gaze in your Table.
You can close your eyes, effectively becoming blind as consequence, or you can actively try to not focus into the visual effect while keep your eyes opened but without focus into the effect source while keep the attention in the battle to prevent disadvantages is where the Avert Gaze action enters.
The idea of Averting Shield is that you are so well trained with the shield blocking part of your vision that you not even needs an action to do this.
That said I agree that this is a very situation ability that hardly will taken by anyone specially as a class feat.
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There are a lot of visual effects, so getting a free +2 on them isn't bad. For instance, it's a +2 to a npc using Demoralize with Intimidating Glare, casting Horrific Visage or a Reflected Desires hazard. It's situational more in how much the DM checks for Visual effect and how they read "require you to look at a creature or object" like items that create area effects like a Sun Dazzler. That and it depends of foe composition, like how a +2 vs fire might not come up much depending on who you're fighting.
Overall, maybe drop it to a second level feat?
This depends of how do you understand Avert Gaze in your Table.
It's pretty clear: you never go blind. "You avert your gaze from danger, such as a medusa's gaze" no 'you close your eyes to the danger'.
A class feat that has a 95% chance to never come up in a campaign probably is too niche for it's first book at least.
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A class feat that has a 95% chance to never come up in a campaign probably is too niche for it's first book at least.
Maybe I'm the weird one, but Demoralize with Intimidating Glare [or similar but differently named ability] alone comes up a lot more than that in the games I've played in. There are a LOT of creatures that have a visual ability that Avert Gaze would work against and quite a few have been in adventures/AP's. If anything, I find people 95% of the time either don't know to Avert Gaze [the ability isn't conveyed as specifically Visual] or they don't want to spend the action to do so.
There aren't very many abilities with both the Visual trait AND a save.
And Intimidating Glare is not on that list.
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There aren't very many abilities with both the Visual trait AND a save.
And Intimidating Glare is not on that list.
Wouldn't the bonus also apply to your save DCs against visual effects, using the rules for generating DCs from Modifiers?
Wouldn't the bonus also apply to your save DCs against visual effects, using the rules for generating DCs from Modifiers?There aren't very many abilities with both the Visual trait AND a save.
And Intimidating Glare is not on that list.
Avert Gaze says the bonus applies to saves. Demoralize opposes Will DC, not the Will Save. From what I've seen, if it is intended to apply to one or the other, or both, the rules usually call it out, such as is often the case with abilities that modify defenses against combat maneuvers.
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Sometimes you'll need to know your DC for a given saving throw (such as a Grapple attempt requiring a roll against your Reflex DC). Like any other DC derived from a modifier, the DC for a saving throw is 10 + the total modifier for that saving throw.
Bonuses to saves apply to save DCs.
Sometimes you'll need to know your DC for a given saving throw (such as a Grapple attempt requiring a roll against your Reflex DC). Like any other DC derived from a modifier, the DC for a saving throw is 10 + the total modifier for that saving throw.Bonuses to saves apply to save DCs.
You sure that's not for global permanent bonuses, rather than temporary situational ones?
If that intent is the general rule (and I'm not saying it isn't), why would the developers ever bother differentiating the two when bonuses comes up?
Perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't there even a FAQ/errata or Remaster change for abilities that defended against Combat Maneuvers, because stated save bonuses weren't enough?
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Here is the entry. You can read it yourself.
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Averting Shield seems fine. Saying that it doesn't come up enough reminds me of players ignoring Heritages like Whisper Elf, skill feats like Combat Climber, or spells like Floating Disk when situations to use these options come up a surprising amount of the time. It's just that the "pain points" of not having them aren't immediately noticable, so they get forgotten as "bad options" or worse, get called trap options.
Here is the entry. You can read it yourself.
Thanks for providing a source link, but that's wrong.
Grapple is checked against Fortitude DC, not Reflex DC. ;P
I'm still at a loss as to why the developers would bother differentiating between the two in several areas. If there's a general rule, doing so is moot.
Averting Shield seems fine. Saying that it doesn't come up enough reminds me of players ignoring Heritages like Whisper Elf, skill feats like Combat Climber, or spells like Floating Disk when situations to use these options come up a surprising amount of the time. It's just that the "pain points" of not having them aren't immediately noticable, so they get forgotten as "bad options" or worse, get called trap options.
When it requires your gm intentionally put a very tiny tiny tiny subset of monsters into your campaign for it to have use, I consider it too niche to be one of the few options the class will have for a good while.
In addition, different mechanics have different weights. It doesn't matter as much if your skill feats are spent towards niche utility, because that's sort of half of the point of them. Your class feats in this game are normally much more utilised and key to your gameplay.
In a full release, Averting Shield I think would be completely fine, because even though it's a niche feat, it can still have its uses and inject a bit of flavor into the class (though I don't see why this also shouldn't be a feat on the Champion or Fighter, or even the Cleric). I am, however, baffled to see it in the playtest material, because normally class playtests are meant to give a small subset of the class's total feats that best represent the gameplay fantasy the developers are aiming for. Surely there must've been other feats that are more representative of the Guardian?
When it requires your gm intentionally put a very tiny tiny tiny subset of monsters into your campaign for it to have use, I consider it too niche to be one of the few options the class will have for a good while.
A quick rough check on Nethys has over a hundred creatures with Visual abilities that require saves. So it's not like it's some super rare thing. And that's just creatures with Visual abilities: the number would be much greater if we counted creatures that had or could take Visual spells.