"Perfect" Feats

[Draz74]

Part of what makes psionic feats (including metapsionics) more balanced is changing their resource. Instead of beinig powered by uses/day

Assuming you were going to finish that sentence with something about psionic focus ... yes, that's probably my favorite part of the psionics system.

- Body Fuel: an excellent example of a balanced feat. Gives a great benefit [PP] in exchange for a cost that actually matters (physical ability scores); then it makes sure that it plugs the loopholes by which cheese may enter. (You must be alive, you cannot prevent or prematurely heal ability burn, and you can't even use it while in someone else's body. Yes, they even thought of that!) Simple, elegant, effective.

Hmmm. I admit they did a better job than usual of pre-emptive cheese prevention here ... but I still haven't seen anyone ever actually use this feat.

- Deadly Precision: elegant and effective. Reroll all ones when you roll sneak attack damage. Constantly on, and therefore worth a feat slot. And like all good feats, it scales - i.e. this feat gets better as you level, because you'll be rolling more dice.

Uh. Math time. This feat adds 0.41666667 average damage to each sneak attack die. Even for a Level 19 Rogue, that's just adding (let's be generous and round up) 5 damage to each Sneak Attack. By no means is this worth a feat.

I'm not even sure a feat that just added +1 damage to each Sneak Attack die would be worth it, and that's more than twice as good as Deadly Precision.

- Hidden Talent: as above, you learn a power from anyone's list; except it has to be first level.

Eh, I don't really like this feat, just because it wasn't well integrated with the rest of the rules (being in a Sidebar). It's not in the SRD; I feel a little guilty anytime I take it; and it doesn't explain its rules clearly (like how exactly Charisma relates to the use of the power you gain here, especially if you also have levels in a psionic class).

Conceptually, though, I agree, this feat was a great idea; a predecessor to the excellent "dip-into-new-mechanics" feats in ToB and MoI.

- Practiced Caster/Manifester: This is well worth a feat, and every caster should have had the choice of a similar ability. (Practiced Invoker, Practiced Initiator, Practiced Meldshaper etc.)

Good feat ... but not in the XPH.

- Psionic Mastery - Take 10 on ML checks. This is solid gold, and well worth spending a feat to get.

I don't recognize this one at all. Where is it from?

Psicrystal Containment - Another feat tax. If you ever get a psicrystal you're getting this, so why not let Psicrystals hold a focus for you as a base ability?

Because then the Psicrystal feat would have been way, way too good? Hmm, I don't think we're going to agree about the game design principles of "feat taxes" in general.

Open Mind - I'd say a feat is worth more than 5 skill points, but that's just me.

No, not just you, we're in total agreement on this.

Psionic Body - if this works with Metapsionic feats then I'll be a lot more on board. But it doesn't seem to.

Math time again. Even if this applied to Metapsionic feats ... it would be worse than Improved Toughness for most characters. With the exception of Psychic Warriors who don't take any Fighter feats. They could possibly get up to about 32 Hit Points (at Level 20) from this feat ... which isn't terrible, but still isn't a great feat.

Don Mantle/Tap Mantle: They should really have reversed the order of these, or better yet combined them. My Psywar would much rather have the granted ability of most mantles than the powers in them, especially since only Ardents can switch out the powers by RAW.

And even for Ardents, you're relying on DM-fiat-reliant web material rather than the original source text.

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, adding another mantle to a psionic character seems like it should be very powerful, worthy of two feats. On the other hand, feats are useful for so many things, I haven't seen any psionic characters actually manage to squeeze these two feats into their build. So yeah, maybe they're too weak after all.