Book Club: Player's Handbook II

[pabelfly]

The quick summary:
Best player options: Awareness, Camp Routine, Group Trance, Massed Charge, and Steadfast Resolve. They have the best benefits and you’re most likely to qualify for these ones.

Best DM options: Awareness, Cunning Ambush, Steadfast Resolve, Team Shield Manoeuver, Wall of Steel. If you want to add a bit of bulk or some slightly better numbers or strategies to your enemy stats, these are your best options.

The essay version:
The first problem with Teamwork Benefits is that this wants players to have skill points partially invested in the same skills, but players generally have other skills relevant to their character they’re fully investing in instead. Fortunately, there’s enough options that you’ll have a few you’ll qualify for, and the best ones are pretty easy to qualify for.

Last, these benefits will be more useful for larger groups, where it’s more likely that you’ll have a few people meet the prerequisites to take advantage of them.




Awareness – this setup seems like it is common enough, given that Listen and Spot are common skills to take, and you’ll typically be within 30ft of your allies most of the time. This one is worth remembering.

Camp Routine – take a single rank in Survival to get a conditional +2 to Listen and Spot. Very good deal, this will probably be what you want to get at level 5.

Circle of Blades – having someone with Weapon Specialization and someone else with Sneak Attack isn’t going to be common. And if you somehow meet that requirement, you need to ready an action. And if you do all that, you get a +2 to damage. I don’t see this happening often or being worthwhile to train in for when it does, is what I’m saying.

Crowded Charge – the problem with this is that characters who don’t want to be jumping about (so, anyone that’s not an ubercharger) aren’t taking ranks in Jump.

Cunning Ambush – my experience is that characters are typically travelling to a problem and don’t have the opportunity to ambush enemies. Maybe a DM can make use of this one, though.

Expert Mountaineer – I have never played a character that took any ranks in Use Rope, and I’ve rarely climbed mountains. There might be games where this is useful but I don’t play in them.

Foe Hunting – if you have Favored Enemy +4, you can flank to do extra damage. But you already should be doing pretty good damage if you have a +4 to said damage rolls, never mind the other bonuses Ranger can get to their favoured enemies.

Group Trance – if you’re an Elf or half-elf, this lets a party member gain the benefits of sleep with just four hours of rest. No-one is using half-elf, but Elf is pretty solid for many casting types. If you’re in a situation where time is of the essence and you need to recover spells, this could be useful. The requirements of team members are suitably low too.

Indirect Fire – if you’re in the right position, you can spend a move action to help an archer mitigate the effects of cover on a target, or give them a +2 to attack rolls. The problem will be being in the right position, and then having the move action to spare in the specific turn you’d need to spend it. This is too narrow a use case to train in over other, more broader options.

Like a Rock – you can give adjacent allies a +4 against Bull Rush checks. Unfortunately, Bull Rushes aren’t that common. Secondly, allies don’t normally stand next to eachother in combat for a variety of reasons.

Massed Charge – this is pretty good, provided your Team Leader with the high Balance skill has a good initiative. This means a bunch of your allies can attack sooner, and I think we all know how to optimize a charge.

Missile Volley – my dnd group typically has zero or one person doing an archery build, this requires that you have two of them with specific feats. But let’s say you do meet these circumstances. You’ll be trading multiple attacks for a single, slightly more accurate attack. Not a good trade.

Steadfast Resolve – Iron Will is a common prereq feat for a bunch of prestige classes, including Ur-Priest and Incantatrix, as well as the Reserves of Strength feat. So, occasionally, you’ll meet this requirement in the party, and if you do, you can also pencil in a +2 to certain Will saves, which is a nice free boost.

Superior Team Effort – my experience, the person who is taking skill focus for a skill has so thoroughly optimized for that particular skill that Aid Another isn’t relevant for passing the DC of the intended skill check. And taking Skill Focus is rather rare anyway, since it’s horribly underpowered.

Team Rush – does anyone care about overland movement speed being different for different party members?

Team Melee Tactics – first, Combat Expertise and Dodge are occasional feat taxes for melee builds, so you might sometimes qualify for this one. You still won’t have someone who wants to trade their turn for someone else, and if you do, that boost in accuracy is 5% - not really worth bothering about for one single attack.

Team Shield Manoeuver – using a shield is a suboptimal strategy, so having two people in the group using one would be rare, and even then, the two have to be adjacent to eachother to get this effect. I just don’t see this happening often in play.

Wall of Steel – as above, and an arcane spellcaster has much better options to boost their AC than this.