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TheAmishPirate
2010-09-03, 09:33 AM
I'm somewhat new to D&D and I'm just starting up a campaign as a Human Fighter, eventually going into Psychic Warrior. I'm realizing that I have a metric pantsload of feats to spend. I've looked over the Figher Bonus Feats, and I think I'm eventually going to go for a charge + Power Attack build. I could get some prerequisite Fighter feats out of the way early, but I could always get those later and get some non-bonus feats now. My question is this; what non-Fighter feats are generally worth getting? As far as I know, there are no limitations on sources, but the less obscure the better.

A second minor question as well: Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization. If I don't need it for a prerequisite, then is it worth getting?

Telonius
2010-09-03, 09:46 AM
I'm somewhat new to D&D and I'm just starting up a campaign as a Human Fighter, eventually going into Psychic Warrior. I'm realizing that I have a metric pantsload of feats to spend. I've looked over the Figher Bonus Feats, and I think I'm eventually going to go for a charge + Power Attack build. I could get some prerequisite Fighter feats out of the way early, but I could always get those later and get some non-bonus feats now. My question is this; what non-Fighter feats are generally worth getting? As far as I know, there are no limitations on sources, but the less obscure the better.

A second minor question as well: Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization. If I don't need it for a prerequisite, then is it worth getting?

A big problem you'll have with this build is that it's very MAD. You'll need everything but Int and Cha. (Regular Fighters can usually skimp on Wisdom, but you'll need that for Psychic Warrior). There's one feat from Book of Exalted Deeds called Intuitive Attack that could help you out there; it lets you use Wisdom to hit instead of Strength, but it only works on Simple weapons. Spear would qualify; Greatsword wouldn't. With that feat, you can get away with putting only 13 into Strength to meet your Power Attack prerequisite, and focusing more on Wisdom.

To answer the second question: No. Focus/Specialization aren't worth it unless you're in a Core-Only game.

Any particular reason you aren't going Psychic Warrior from the start?

TheAmishPirate
2010-09-03, 10:31 AM
It's a roleplay-heavy campaign, and our starting town is way the heck away from anywhere. Our DM allows any class, but we have to have a proper trainer to start out.

Plus, I don't think he's going to be terribly cruel and unusual, so super-optimization isn't a requirement.

ericgrau
2010-09-03, 10:55 AM
Psionics are good for nigh-broken size bonuses for tripping and/or grappling. Related feats may help. Or pick another focus if you like and related feats. The main thing is that you frequently use whatever you pick and don't pick feats for niche applications.

As for weapon focus / weapon specialization, AB is a very very powerful and underrated source of damage. Misses suck. AB is something you always want to get and not lose. In fact:
power attack < weapon specialization < weapon focus < power attack cheesed out via shock trooper or etc. so you don't lose AB.

If you do use vanilla power attack (w/o shock trooper / etc.), limit it to 1 or 2 BAB and expect most of that 2-4 damage to be lost to misses. Against very low AC things you can sometimes go as high as 4-6 BAB. Another reason why the power attack / cleave tree is so good against mooks. Sacrificing more BAB will only make your damage go down.

Hope that helps.

EDIT, low cheese version: Don't get shock trooper, it is a sloppy publishing mistake. Limit size boosts to 1 size category and only then on a humanoid race. Now you can still trip and grapple if you like without being cheesy. Or as I said pick whatever focus you want and feats to match.

Person_Man
2010-09-03, 01:00 PM
If you intend to be a Psychic Warrior build, then in most cases (Monk 1 or 2/Psychic Warrior X with the Tashalatora feat being an exception) you should take as many levels of Psychic Warrior and Prestige Classes that fully progress your psionic powers only. While Fighter 2/Psychic Warrior 2 is pretty awesome at that level, Fighter 2/Psychic Warrior 8 is just a nerfed Psychic Warrior. He has fewer power points, a lower manifester level, and weaker powers.

If you intend to be a Fighter build (a much weaker choice compared to the Psychic Warrior, btw), then avoid taking levels of anything that doesn't provide full BAB progression. Almost all Fighter builds will end up taking the Power Attack chain of feats as their primary source of bonus damage and battlefield control. Anything that reduces your BAB therefore reduces your overall damage output, to-hit, and Bull Rush/Trip/etc success rate.


Also, most feats which provide static bonuses, including Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Dodge, Mobility, etc, are garbage. Look for feats which provide scaled bonuses or an ability that you can't otherwise duplicate more efficiently with magic items or class abilities.

Devils_Advocate
2010-09-06, 09:59 AM
It's a roleplay-heavy campaign, and our starting town is way the heck away from anywhere.
Well, is your character necessarily from anywhere nearby, or can (s)he be a Mysterious Traveler from a Far Away Land?


Our DM allows any class, but we have to have a proper trainer to start out.
Well, psionic ability is innate, like sorcery, although being self-taught in a psionic class other than Wilder is more iffy. If starting as a PsyWar isn't an option, you could give your character the Wild Talent feat to represent already-present mental powers that he seeks to harness to enhance his combat prowess. Then you can start taking Psionic feats right off the bat, too (unless your DM decides that you need a trainer for those as well). Psionic Weapon or Speed of Thought -> Psionic Charge seem like they might be good choices.

If you want to keep your BAB up as Person_Man suggests, you could try a Fighter/Psychic Warrior/War Mind build. More BAB and more power points (assuming you enter it early) than continuing in PysWar, plus other bonuses, though at the cost of feats and powers known.

Edit: I'm confused as to why someone would say that BAB is important but static bonuses are poor. Since BAB is a static bonus. (Mostly. It does do other things, but not so that you need a lot of it, at least so far as I know.) Granted, those statements were in reference to different choices, but if scaling bonuses and opening up new options are better than static bonuses for feats, then shouldn't providing those be the primary consideration for class levels as well? What am I missing here?

Greenish
2010-09-06, 10:21 AM
Well, psionic ability is innate, like sorcery, although being self-taught in a psionic class other than Wilder is more iffy.Well, at least one of the Eberron books claimed that kalashtar (an innately psionic race) raised outside their communities often became Psychic Warriors, as opposed to the ones raised in the psionic culture, who're more prone to become Soul Knives. So one could argue that it requires no particular training, and the abilitites may have awaken while practicing something different.


Edit: I'm confused as to why someone would say that BAB is important but static bonuses are poor. Since BAB is a static bonus.BAB advances with levels. Weapon Focus will remain +1 for your entire career (and thus become less and less useful).

ericgrau
2010-09-06, 10:21 AM
Ya static/scaling is a misnomer for AB, since a +1 provides the same benefit from level 1 to level 20. Your roll needs to be 1 lower in either case, simple as that. Or to those who say the +1 is a bigger portion of your AB at lower levels, what about those with +0 AB? Omg, my AB got multiplied by infinity, now I'm way better!!!!1!!!! Uh, no. The ~+7% damage from more hits at all levels is impressive among core feats.

Btw, pathfinder alpha had utterly broken scaling AB bonuses that would lead to auto-hits at higher levels, but later they removed it.

Weapon specialization OTOH isn't scaling, except partially from the extra attacks you get. But unless you get shock trooper cheese (or other ways around the AB penalty) or fight low AC mooks (which is perhaps why cleave is in the same tree), weapon spec is still more damage than power attack b/c the AB penalty really kills overall damage when power attacking.

In a thousand damage ubercharger build I'd get shock trooper and such, but for his more mellow group it seems like he's best off taking weapon focus and weapon specialization for maximum damage and steering clear of the cheese.

Amphetryon
2010-09-06, 10:48 AM
While they're not outstanding, a Fighter/Psychic Warrior can offset some of the MAD concerns by using the Combat Focus Feats from PH2. Use the Psionic Fist and various Claw PsyWar Powers along with these and you can reduce MAD to either STR/CON/WIS (better) or DEX/CON/WIS (harder, but viable). This is especially useful because the aforementioned Intuitive Attack Feat also works on Natural Weapons.

Prime32
2010-09-06, 12:36 PM
Well, at least one of the Eberron books claimed that kalashtar (an innately psionic race) raised outside their communities often became Psychic Warriors, as opposed to the ones raised in the psionic culture, who're more prone to become Soul Knives. So one could argue that it requires no particular training, and the abilitites may have awaken while practicing something different.You can't really learn "being psychic". So you were trained in combat at the same time you started manifesting your innate abilities, resulting in you having levels in a class which represents both of those things.

Devils_Advocate
2010-09-06, 02:19 PM
BAB advances with levels. Weapon Focus will remain +1 for your entire career (and thus become less and less useful).
Um, yeah, BAB goes up as level increases. So? The difference in BAB between a Fighter 1/Psychic Warrior 4/War Mind 10 and a Psychic Warrior 5/War Mind 10 is still the same at level 5 and level 15, for example.

Of course, the more levels you take in a class, the more impact it has on your BAB, but here's the thing: It has more impact on the other stuff that the class gives you, too! So if the costs of swapping 4 levels of Fighter out of a build are worth the benefits of 4 levels of Psychic Warrior, then why aren't the costs of swapping 4 more levels of Fighter out of your build worth the benefits of 4 more levels of Pyschic Warrior? Doesn't the trade-off get better, since you get more power points at higher levels of Psychic Warrior?

Obviously, there are specifics to consider. Maybe you just needed to get one psionic power, and thus once you have that power, you're done with the Psychic Warrior class. But generally speaking, the difference between a full BAB class and a 3/4 BAB class is one stinkin' point of BAB per 4 levels. So if a measly +1 to hit is less important than the other differences between 4 levels of each class, taking 4 levels of the lower-BAB class could easily be the better deal.

And if the benefits of 4 levels of the 3/4 BAB class are worth more than the benefits of 4 levels of the high-BAB class, including that +1 to hit... then, well, that trade-off has to somehow stop being worth it in order for it to become a bad idea to keep making that trade-off. Right?

It might be that the best classes for fighters are full-BAB, but it's not because they're full-BAB; not if +1 to hit is trivial next to what else you get over 4 levels of a class.


You can't really learn "being psychic". So you were trained in combat at the same time you started manifesting your innate abilities, resulting in you having levels in a class which represents both of those things.
Well, you can't learn to be psionic (or at least that seems to be the default fluff), but being psionic doesn't necessarily cause or allow the abilities represented by a psionic class. A kalashtar could have levels only in Fighter (though that would be an odd choice of build); nothing mandates that she be a Psychic Warrior instead. (And a kalashtar Fighter is still "psychic", in the form of her racial mindlink ability and pool of power points.)

Greenish
2010-09-06, 03:45 PM
Um, yeah, BAB goes up as level increases. So?So BAB is not static. Doh.

Kalaska'Agathas
2010-09-06, 06:06 PM
You might also consider taking your first level or two of Monk instead of fighter and then taking Monastic Training/Tashalatora once you're a PsyWar. You might also consider taking a PsyWar ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a), I personally like Mantled Warrior for the Freedom Mantle, Mental Power Mantle (to reduce MAD a bit), or Time Mantle. Also, you should check out the Psychic Warrior Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8904.0) for more recommendations.

As far as feats go, check out Person_Man's Mêlée Combo Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026). It'll give you plenty of suggestions as to what to do with your feats in order to dominate in mêlée. And if you take Power Attack, make sure you take Shock Trooper. Taking a penalty to AC rather than to-hit means that you will frequently not need that AC, and with your PsyWar powers you can likely teleport away with Augmented Hustle+Dimension Slide anyhow (later on, at least).

You haven't mentioned what race you'll be playing as, or if you're using level adjustment buy off. If you are you might try a Goliath (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040711b&page=5) from Races of Stone in order to get Knockback. You may also like the Half-Giant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/halfGiant.htm) for the same reason, plus bonus power points, though I prefer the Goliath for better stats and Mountain Movement (Works wonders with Battle Jump that does). Another choice could be the Empty Vessel from the Eberron Campaign Setting - even though they get a -2 to strength they get a +4 to wisdom, which with a point buy system should even out pretty well, and a human's bonus feat and bonus skill points. They also get one bonus power point per hit die/class level, even if the classes are non-psionic. If you don't have LA buy off, go for an Elan, Synad, or Kalashtar. Elan and Synads have the Aberration type which can benefit you if you're going to be changing form (there are some juicy Aberrations out there) and Kalashtar get one bonus PP/level and Mindlink 1/day.