Best Feats of 3.5

[Grod_The_Giant]

Alrightie, then. I've updated everything with your suggestions, and fixed some formatting errors.

[Flickerdart]

Is Ultimate Feats allowed? Is that a book people use? Because there are some big feats in there like:
Known Spells Focus(General):
Prerequisites: Spontaneous caster level 8+,
Benefit:You may apply your bonus spells for the chosen class(Charisma bonus in spells for sorcerers and bards) to your list of spells known for that class.

Third party is generally frowned upon because of a lack of consistent quality. That feat is a great example - there's no spontaneous caster who wouldn't want to have this feat, which is how you know it's too strong.

Granted, WotC's official publications also have some stinkers and some ridiculously strong feats, but they're at least a known quantity people are familiar with. Someone shows up with "Ultimate Feats" and you have no idea what's in it until they whip this out.

[squiggit]

Crappy prerequisite feats did not make this list

Why's combat expertise the number two feat then? Isn't it the poster-child for a feat that no one wants but everyone has because all the good stuff is gated behind it?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant
…suggestions for things I missed….

I've always liked Education, which gives all Knowledges as class skills and a bonus on any two of them. Works nicely in conjunction with Knowledge Devotion.

There are several versions floating around; the one from the Eberron Campaign Setting grants a +1 bonus to any two Knowledges, while Player's Guide to Faerûn gives +2 to any two.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Since you included Dragon Magazine what about KoK? Irresistible Spell and Miser with Magic are pretty good. (Well, Miser with Magic is pretty good, Irresistible Spell is broken as all get out).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why's combat expertise the number two feat then? Isn't it the poster-child for a feat that no one wants but everyone has because all the good stuff is gated behind it?

Wait, that's still on there? Whoops.

I've always liked Education, which gives all Knowledges as class skills and a bonus on any two of them. Works nicely in conjunction with Knowledge Devotion.

Ooh, good one.

Since you included Dragon Magazine what about KoK? Irresistible Spell and Miser with Magic are pretty good. (Well, Miser with Magic is pretty good, Irresistible Spell is broken as all get out).

I don't even know what KoK stands for.

[ZamielVanWeber]

KoK is Kingdoms of Kalamar. It is in that same weird world as Dragon Magazine Compendium where it has the official Wizards seal but was not made by them. The book had three notable feats (and then one got errata'd into uselessness).

[Tommy2255]

KoK is Kingdoms of Kalamar. It is in that same weird world as Dragon Magazine Compendium where it has the official Wizards seal but was not made by them. The book had three notable feats (and then one got errata'd into uselessness).

Well, errata'd into not as broken. Irresistible Spell still gives a pretty hefty boost to DC. Enough to be important, though not nearly as good as removing the save entirely.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Well, errata'd into not as broken. Irresistible Spell still gives a pretty hefty boost to DC. Enough to be important, though not nearly as good as removing the save entirely.

This is a common misconception. The errata file contains nothing on Irresistible Spell. There is a feat with an identical name in Player's Guide to the Sovereign Lands that does what you are saying, but that is very strict 3rd party, so it is as legal as the Ultimate Feats book someone quoted earlier.

[Rubik]

You should expand Ability Focus to describe what happens if you're a caster, manifester, artificer, or similar character with a bunch of sub-abilities under a single ability heading. Take Ability Focus (Spellcasting), for instance. +2 to ALL of your spell DCs.

Supernatural Transformation is a great feat for any psionic character, since it turns your psi-like manifesting into supernatural manifesting, instead. Manifesting is even flat-out stated in the XPH to be an "innate ability." There are a LOT of great benefits to manifesting as a supernatural ability, including ignoring power/spell resistance, never taking AoOs, and never fizzling in the middle of manifesting. It's awesomesauce icing on a 20% cooler cake. And the feat itself specifies that your manifester level equals your HD, which means it acts as a turbocharged Practiced Manifester.

[Psyren]

You need a "setting-specific" section, perhaps under "Books I don't own" if you don't have these. For example, Eberron has Secrets of Sarlona (Tashalatora, Versatile Unarmed Strike), Races of Eberron (Racial Emulation + a slew of Warforged feats), Faiths of Eberron (Ancestral Whispers, Worldly Focus) etc.

Also, add the following to the "ToM" section:

Ignore Special Requirements: Some useful vestiges don't play nice with each other, or want to be summoned in impractical ways. This feat lets you bypass all that and customize your binder without issue.

Still Mystery: Unlike the other metashadow feats, this one can be used unlimited times per day at no cost, thus letting you auto-still every spell mystery you have (i.e. your most powerful ones) free of charge. Your shadow does all the work, letting you continue to fight or get out of trouble if you're ever tied up, pinned or paralyzed.

Shadow Cast: This can be very useful if your DM likes caster-counters like Mageslayer that prevent you from casting defensively or making your concentration check difficult. This works for regular casters and Warlocks too, if you're willing to dip.

Quicken Utterance: If you're truenaming at all, there's no reason to skip this, since you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by attempting a swift utterance every round.

[Grod_The_Giant]

KoK is Kingdoms of Kalamar. It is in that same weird world as Dragon Magazine Compendium where it has the official Wizards seal but was not made by them. The book had three notable feats (and then one got errata'd into uselessness).

Ehh... given that I'd never heard of it, I'm going to classify it as "too third-party."

You should expand Ability Focus to describe what happens if you're a caster, manifester, artificer, or similar character with a bunch of sub-abilities under a single ability heading. Take Ability Focus (Spellcasting), for instance. +2 to ALL of your spell DCs.

That, um, seems like bull**** to me. Regardless of whatever convoluted RAW reading you use to make that work, I'm pretty sure that most DMs wouldn't let you do it. And if it was going to fly in your group, you could probably come up with the argument yourself. So... no?

Supernatural Transformation is a great feat for any psionic character, since it turns your psi-like manifesting into supernatural manifesting, instead. Manifesting is even flat-out stated in the XPH to be an "innate ability."

\
But...it's... not a spell-like ability?

[QUOTE=Psyren;18890042]You need a "setting-specific" section, perhaps under "Books I don't own" if you don't have these. For example, Eberron has Secrets of Sarlona (Tashalatora, Versatile Unarmed Strike), Races of Eberron (Racial Emulation + a slew of Warforged feats), Faiths of Eberron (Ancestral Whispers, Worldly Focus) etc.[QUOTE]
Hmm, not a bad idea. Also, thanks for the feat suggestions.

Ignore Special Requirements: Some useful vestiges don't play nice with each other, or want to be summoned in impractical ways. This feat lets you bypass all that and customize your binder without issue.

Whoops, missed that one.

Still Mystery: Unlike the other metashadow feats, this one can be used unlimited times per day at no cost, thus letting you auto-still every spell mystery you have (i.e. your most powerful ones) free of charge. Your shadow does all the work, letting you continue to fight or get out of trouble if you're ever tied up, pinned or paralyzed.

Did not know that. Good one.

Shadow Cast: This can be very useful if your DM likes caster-counters like Mageslayer that prevent you from casting defensively or making your concentration check difficult. This works for regular casters and Warlocks too, if you're willing to dip.

Nice.

Quicken Utterance: If you're truenaming at all, there's no reason to skip this, since you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by attempting a swift utterance every round.

Already on the list.

[Zaq]

If you're including Races of Eberron stuff, don't miss Boomerang Daze. It turns every attack with a boomerang into a save-or-lose, with a DC based on damage dealt. Very good stuff.

[Rubik]

That, um, seems like bull**** to me. Regardless of whatever convoluted RAW reading you use to make that work, I'm pretty sure that most DMs wouldn't let you do it. And if it was going to fly in your group, you could probably come up with the argument yourself. So... no?

Just reading it should tell you that it works. Spellcasting is an ability. Ability Focus grants +2 to the DCs of one ability. You do the math.

But...it's... not a spell-like ability?

Transparency or magic mantle. The XPH says that psi-like abilities are the psi equivalent to spell-like abilities, which means that if your campaign's level of transparency isn't high enough, you can make it high enough.

[nyjastul69]

Just reading it should tell you that it works. Spellcasting is an ability. Ability Focus grants +2 to the DCs of one ability. You do the math.

Transparency or magic mantle. The XPH says that psi-like abilities are the psi equivalent to spell-like abilities, which means that if your campaign's level of transparency isn't high enough, you can make it high enough.

Ability Focus only works on special attacks. Do you have a source citation that claims spellcasting is a special attack?

[Rubik]

Ability Focus only works on special abilities. Do you have a source citation that claims spellcasting is a special ability?

Spells are explicitly listed under the list of special abilities in the SRD.

[edit] They're also listed in monster entries as special attacks, JSYK.

[nyjastul69]

Spells are explicitly listed under the list of special abilities in the SRD.

My bad. It has special attacks as a prerequisite. Is spellcasting a special attack? Also, if spellcasting DC's can be increased by Ability Focus, what is the point of the Spell Focus feat?

[Rubik]

My bad. It has special attacks as a prerequisite. Is spellcasting a special attack?

Most certainly -- at least, if monster entries and character entries are anything to go by.

Also, if spellcasting DC's can be increased by Ability Focus, what is the point of the Spell Focus feat?

An extra +1.

I'm sure the designers never considered using Ability Focus for spellcasting characters, but they apparently never considered using wild shape in combat either, if playtesting is any indication.

[Psyren]

Perhaps create a "cheese/unlikely to fly" section for "Ability Focus (Spells)." This is about as 'No Sane DM' as it gets.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Perhaps create a "cheese/unlikely to fly" section for "Ability Focus (Spells)." This is about as 'No Sane DM' as it gets.

Yeah. I'm kind of not inclined to put such ridiculous stretches in there. I feel like if you're in a group that will accept such things, you're capable of coming up with the combo on your own.

[Rubik]

Perhaps create a "cheese/unlikely to fly" section for "Ability Focus (Spells)." This is about as 'No Sane DM' as it gets.

Quicken Spell is a lot more powerful than that is. As is
Craft Contingent Spell. And Invisible Spell.

Also, Sanctum Spell. That feat is so potentially abusively powerfully amazing it's ridiculous.

And if you go with any of the crafting feats, Magical/Legendary/Extraordiary/Exceptional Artisan. Reduce crafting costs? Yee haw.

Even worse is Craft Device. Make a nonmagical version of ANY magic item whatsoever without needing any prereqs? Heck yeah.

[Psyren]

Quicken Spell is a lot more powerful than that is. As is
Craft Contingent Spell. And Invisible Spell.

Those all require other pieces to become broken, pieces which can be banned piecemeal without impacting the basic intended functionality of the feat itself. Quicken is reasonably costed without (multiple) metamagic reducers. Breaking Invisible Spell requires either the former, or nonsensical combinations, like invisible invisibility or invisible fog. Contingent Spell's power depends entirely on the power of the spell being made contingent itself.

Compare to AF(S), which is just straight up a no-brainer pick for any spellcasting creature in the entire game, invalidates (and even stacks with) two similar feats, and functionally works out to a permanent +4 to your casting stat from a single feat, or a 16-level swing - 5 feats in one.

Regardless, our opinions don't matter, Grod isn't including it in his guide and that's that.


Also, Craft Device is from a 3rd-party book (published by Arthaus/White Wolf, not WotC), no matter that they had a license to use a WotC setting, so it's printed homebrew as far as I'm concerned.

[Endarire]

Uncanny Forethought: Note that you can spontaneously cast any Spell Mastery spell you know, or cast any non-Spell Mastery spell you know, but at -2 caster level. By RAW, this changes the casting time of longer cast time spells (like genesis).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Uncanny Forethought: Note that you can spontaneously cast any Spell Mastery spell you know, or cast any non-Spell Mastery spell you know, but at -2 caster level. By RAW, this changes the casting time of longer cast time spells (like genesis).

Indeed. It's one of the most out-of-the-box-overpowered feats for prepared casters out there, which is why it's already on the list.

[Rowan Wolf]

Haven't finished looking at the list, but improved unarmed strike really seems like the "feat you need" category you relegated dodge to,

I will give more feedback after completely reading the list.

[Flickerdart]

Transparency or magic mantle. The XPH says that psi-like abilities are the psi equivalent to spell-like abilities, which means that if your campaign's level of transparency isn't high enough, you can make it high enough.

Transparency doesn't have any levels. There's either transparency, no transparency, or people trying to hoodwink the DM into allowing insane munchinkry.

[Curmudgeon]

Spells are explicitly listed under the list of special abilities in the SRD.

[edit] They're also listed in monster entries as special attacks, JSYK.

So they qualify if you're playing a monster which has that special attack listing. They're not special attacks for most classes, where they're just a class feature.

[Rubik]

Transparency doesn't have any levels. There's either transparency, no transparency, or people trying to hoodwink the DM into allowing insane munchinkry.

Except Magic Mantle enforces the fact that psionics IS magic, at least in your case, and even counts for purposes that it normally wouldn't.

That, and some groups play it more or less than what the book suggests for transparency, meaning that UMD, UPD, Dispelling, and so on may have penalties when used on the opposing system, or that UMD = UPD, magic items = psionic items, and so on.

So yes, there is a higher level of transparency than standard.

There's no hoodwinking, just the Magic Mantle >> standard transparency >> or << specific group transparency.

So they qualify if you're playing a monster which has that special attack listing. They're not special attacks for most classes, where they're just a class feature.

Except spells are listed for creatures with casting as class features, and they're also listed in character entries, so you can't say that.

[Curmudgeon]

Except spells are listed for creatures with casting as class features, and they're also listed in character entries, so you can't say that.

Spells are listed in different contexts (monster entries and class descriptions). These would have identical properties only if the rules say so (which they do not, to the best of my knowledge). You don't think Cleric Spells and Wizard Spells have identical properties, do you? Your argument is that both of those Spells class features, with clearly different properties, have the same properties as Spells from a monster listing. How much wool does it take to cover your DM's eyes sufficiently to pull that one over?

[Flickerdart]

Except Magic Mantle enforces the fact that psionics IS magic, at least in your case, and even counts for purposes that it normally wouldn't.

That, and some groups play it more or less than what the book suggests for transparency, meaning that UMD, UPD, Dispelling, and so on may have penalties when used on the opposing system, or that UMD = UPD, magic items = psionic items, and so on.

Specific rules are specific rules, not general transparency - and what houserules people play with doesn't matter even a little bit.