It needs to be said, too, that "trap" feats can be retrained under RAW at higher levels. So long as there's downtime and you have a GM who doesn't put up an artificial obstacle, some feats can be an important boost in the first 10 levels or so.
This can also be a nice transition to a character trying to go for something like an archetype but not being quite there yet. For example getting armor proficiency until they manage to become a champion etc (depending on how the roleplay around it goes of course)
when DM allows retraining feats and the Razertooth Goblin becomes Charred Goblin 😂 "I found out that my family tree was wrong all along." Edit: Yes I know this statement is wrong, it is trying to be a joke.
"A Home At Every Port" is basically for sneaky parties in enemy territory, because there is the possibility that no-one in that region would shelter them. The issue I find is that it should not be 11th level, because a lot of those stories are actually lower level.
that, combined with the fact it should take like 10 minutes to use instead of 8 hours of down time. Which people could use to earn a living to pay for better quality lodging/a bribe.
Yes, I think the strongest part of that feat is that you find shelter with 8 hours of downtime. No checks, no other conditions. You have finally reached the Keep of the Skeleton King in the middle of the ghost town filled with zombies? You are out of spell slots? Well, you ask around and Fred, the ghost of a murderer, likes your smile and let's you crash on his couch befor you face the Skeleton King. All you have to do is survive 8h in the town. It's the kind of feat that let's you change the narrative, like Prescient Planner.
Another fun video! Untrained Improvisation and Incredible Investiture strike me as being 2 holdouts from the PF2 Playtest: *Untrained Improvisation* - A number of people *hated* how being untrained in a skill didn't prevent your bonus from increasing every time you leveled up. (I was one of them.) Untrained Improvisation seems to be a hold-out from the Playtest's idea of "you don't become increasingly useless in skill situations as they (presumably) become more difficult as your party levels up." They kept this feat in the game, to still allow character the option of not being "left behind" in the skills department. I think it's strong, but it's not broken. A few things mitigate this. First, for many Exploration activities, you can still do decently well if you "Follow the Leader" of someone who is Expert or higher. When you do so, you get to add your level to your check, AND you get to add a circumstance bonus from the leader. You don't have to take this Feat, to be able to do this. Second, because there usually are very-bad Critical Failure results for skill checks, you generally don't want to attempt a check at something that you're Untrained in, even IF your level is included. The fact that DCs generally scale up faster than level (generally 4 for every 3 levels), you increasingly do not want to do skill checks, even *with* Untrained Improvisation, against at-level challenges. If you're untrained in Athletics you generally don't want to try to trip a Level 17 Marilith: you might be Level 17 and have 18 Strength and have Untrained Improvisation, but your +21 will be sad up against its DC 39 Reflex DC. You're more likely to fall prone yourself, than to succeed. *Incredible Investiture* - this is a stubborn holdout of Resonance from the Playtest, which is an attempt to make Charisma have more mechanical importance. (This feat requires a high Charisma.) And yes, I agree that it's not very good... I think you only go up against the 10 items limit when you are buying a bunch of worn and held magic items to give yourself item bonuses to a bunch of skills. And if you were doing that, you likely were getting that 11th and 12th item in a skill that you were probably not very good at to begin with. Maaaaybe a high-level Rogue or skill-heavy class will find use for it. But with how generous skill increases are in 2e, you usually can rely on other members of your party to pick up the slack in other skill areas. EDIT: I take this back after reading Aw3som3-117's comment. Yes, there are great OTHER items like rings of energy resistance. More magic items purleez! The greatness of *Incredible Scout* is that its +2 circumstance bonus doesn't stack with a bunch of other feats that other PCs may have that also give a circumstance bonus. By taking it, you free up your entire party to retrain any feats they have that boost initiative (including your own Incredible Initiative). As for why there aren't as many high-level General Feats (yet), I think it's because once you get to Level 11+ players start looking at those juicy high-level Master and Legendary Skill Feats as well, which you can take as your General Feat also. High-level feats tend to be more awesome, and Paizo scales that back by requiring higher prerequisites - usually a high skill proficiency. True Perception is in this same vein, the only reason it's not a Skill Feat... is that Perception isn't a skill in 2e.
@@petalsinthebreeze I agree. Where it really shines is allowing PCs that aren't trained in skills which remain good versus simple DCs. Tired of your wizard who isn't trained in athletics who can't climb a DC 15 tree or wall at level 8? Do you want your character to be a witty story teller, but you aren't a Bard and don't otherwise benefit from spending one of your few skill increases on Performance? Do you not want to be a total burden to your party trying to avoid notice with your +2 Stealth check at level 10? Untrained Improv is for you. Follow the leader, or spells etc aren't always the best options if you need to be quiet/subtle or you need to perform another exploration activities while climbing/avoiding notice, etc. That being said, it's not TOO strong because it doesn't really help you to be more reliably successful with checks vs most level based DCs. Where it can get out of hand is "I'm now almost trained in EVERY lore skill" which is almost Bardic Lore for a general feat. With the usual 2-5 lower DC for general or specific Lore, that basically makes up for the lack of Trained-Master proficiency bonuses.
@@kevinbarnard355 maybe I'm too used to 4e where it didn't really matter if you got your level bonus to a skill, if you weren't trained, you were going to struggle on those DCs unless you had an exceptionally high Score for the Skill's ability (which was rare since for half the game your ability mod was smaller then your training bonus
To be fair, toughness is a godsend for any gish-like build, such as warrior bard or battle Oracle. You really need all the HP you can grab when you want to tumble with less than 10+conhp per level.
I've seen many times where a character was brought down to their Level or less in hit points. So Toughness (if they had it) essentially saved them a turn (or more!) as well as possibly also an ally's turn who otherwise would need to spend a round getting them back in the fight.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG honestly, yeah. 4 HP at 4th may not seem like a lot, but thats potentially 1 more round that the cleric, druid, Oracle, or whatever medic the party has to treat you and keep you in the fray.
As a player, I always choose toughness. Not only because of hp, but also the recovery check. Any advantage, in that area is really useful. Not mentioning that toughness interacts with other feats to combine advantages. (Mountain stoutness for dwarfs, die hard for orcs for example)
Hi! Sorry I am late to the discussion, but there is a question I would like to ask. Does toughness scale? That is you get 4 HP at level 4, and then 5 HP at level 5. Or is it where you get the benefit only once? The rules do not clarify this, so I was just wondering. Thanks.
On note of early level feats, baked-in retraining rules really make em more useful. Also, with adopted ancestry, if you're a versatile human (or the "general feat" human, basically), due to their ability to get general feats at level one, they can actually grab an adopted ancestry feat from level 1. It's just expensive cause you get locked into versatile and you have to spend that feat on adopted ancestry. One thing that also makes fleet super strong: for most ancestries it bumps you up to an even 30 ft movespeed. This means it also winds up being a 5ft increase to your movement even in difficult terrain. It'd actually be less good if the base movement for most ancestries was 20 or 30.
35 ft Half-elf wearing Heavy armor will net you 30ft, which is very good. Like a fighter in full plate being able to outrun most people, fully normal ;)
@@Nonat1s I wound up noticing it a lot in a westmarches style game I was in, where difficult terrain actually came into play quite frequently (cause wilderness).
Speaking of that, how do you deal with two strides in a row in difficult terrain with an odd speed? A character with 25 speed can only stride 10 in difficult terrain but if they stride twice in a row, do you allow 20 feet or 25? I allow 25 since that's actually half their speed, but n'y RAW it would seem to be 20, which seems kind of silly.
Incredible Investiture is _fantastic_ ! People skimp on the lower level magic items a lot, but once you get high enough up the cost is so small in comparison to what you make and the bonuses can still be pretty relevant. Whether it's just wanting to get a +1 to a ton of skill checks for like 50-100gp each, or a little later on getting resistance 5 to acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage with a full set of Rings of Energy Resistance coming in at 1225gp total, only 250gp more than getting resistance 10 on _one_ of them with the greater variant.
@@webbowser8834 You don't have to wear them all at once! -- having resistance items available to swap in can make a huge difference in harder fights when you have time to prepare.
@@webbowser8834 The reason 2E has the 10 invested item rule is to move away from item "slots." Past editions like PF1E did have the slot rules where a character could only wear 2 magic rings at a time but in 2E you can wear more than 2 rings, but they count against the 10 invested item rule. So in some ways it's simpler and a character can wear 10 magic rings even. There's still basic logic like not being able to wear more than one pair of magic boots at a time a GM is likely to take issue with but at least the intent of the 10 invested magic item rule was to be more flexible than past slot rules.
Yeah, at the levels where you can take incredible investiture, you can afford any number of rings of fairly decent low-level items. A permanent +1/+2 to your secondary skills is great, especially with things like Athletics/Acrobatics to Escape from all the monsters that try to eat you at that level.
I understand people wanting to engage with a very tactical simulationist gameplay style and why Prescient Planner and the like would be frustrating for those players, but I have a lot of appreciation for games and systems that allow for more flexible improvisation, especially in groups that don’t want to “get bogged down” in shopping and the like.
Prescient Planner and Consumable are only immersion breaking if your character uses it that way. My scatterbrained Gnome cleric has been so many places and done so many things in his travels he doesn't remember everything he's left in his bag of holding. So every once in a while he digs in it and finds just what he or his party needs.
@@fermentedbadger5717 Or contrast the person who WOULD have all of those things in their bag, the marbles, the sand, the fucking rock. They already have half that stuff and it's established their character has all kinds of bullshit contingency plans because adventurer is their profession, no sorry what they need a specific thing that isn't on their standard gear list, sod that they have it. My immersion would be broken by that kind of character NOT having an item. It's such a character ability and i love it.
@woomod2445 I love prescient planner for the implication that yout character will just pull out *exactly* what they need for a harebrained scheme and spout some crap about how "this was all a part of my calculations" *but it's actually true for the character* it's so much fun and I couldn't imagine just using it on any old character
Hello, PF2 3PP designer here, some thoughts: Precedence in PF2 is very important for your ability to design for the game. Secrets of magic opened a lot of design space for classes because of bounded spellcasters for example. General feats are difficult because of what you said; there is not really a Precedence for high level general feats that are combat oriented. We generally avoid them during design for that reason. You're basically left with two options, to avoid them, or to be VERY specific in your Prerequisites. Something I've given some thought on is conditional general feats that only some characters would be interested in. A few in the idea book: - The ability to aid an ally in your reach as a reaction (mid level) - Take cover as a reaction if you have a tower shield and shield block (mid level) - the ability to command two or more animals with Command an animal (high level, legendary in nature probably) - the ability to substitute a specific skill for another when using recall knowledge, such as using nature for identifying arcane things (low-mid) Most of those are predicated on pretty specific pre-requisites, that way they don't dominate every character's choices
While this doesn't explain the lack of General feats at level 11 and level 19, I think I may have found out why there are so few, or no General feats at levels 7 and 15. Level 7 is the earliest you get Master proficiency in a skill, and there are a ton of Level 7 Skill Feats. As you know, you can spend that General feat on a Skill feat. This actually incentivizes you to take a Skill feat at this level. And using that skill you just increased to be able to do something cool with it is pretty satisfying. The same is true for Level 15, which is the earliest you can get Legendary proficiency in a Skill.
Agree, it's pretty obvious Paizo really intends for you to fill half or more of your general skill feat slots with regular skill feats, they never intended to have great general feats at every level
There's ways to mess with that. If your character comes from the Mwangi, then certain ancestries become common. Thus, as those ancestries are common there, you can Adopted Ancestry for those ancestries without an issue. More Lore books will allow more regions to show which ancestries are common or uncommon there.
They're all level 1 because they didn't want to restrict you from taking them in the order you want, and there aren't upgrades because they wanted to avoid feat trees and feat taxes wherever possible.
There is a really good usage of Canny Acuman: Perception checks. Basically any class that limits itself to Expert in perception, and going to Master allows you to grab certain general feats that require Master as well as getting the increase earlier.
Your "trick feats" are sometimes useful. You take them at low level and get the benefit. When they cease being useful, you retrain the feats into something better. Incredible Investiture is useful for the people that like having lots of lower level items. They collect ioun stones, or have a couple of items that grant resistance 5. A valid playstyle. Even the "combat" general feats aren't much about combat. I don't think that the design space allows for much combat effectiveness from general feats. We have a place for this and it's class feats and archetypes. That's where you get you your combat boosts. Feat types are a tier. Skill feats are your lowest tier, then General, Ancestry and Class feats rule them all. Promoting a general feat to be as useful as a class feat is a problem.
Incredible investure, if you play a monk your "weapon" the Handwraps must be invested. If you are a two hand fighter, doubling rings and if you are a gunslinger drifter, blazoons of shared power and your gun belt that can share runes between your guns. In the last case you lose 3 invested options with armor, belt and blazoons. I don't know how other people like to play but I like small magic items that give you utility spells like mage hand or prestidigitation. They are common they are mostly cheap and I like to have a couple of them. So you have the nessesary items, the real important ones and the fun ones. More than enough to fill 10-12 slots
We're playing level 12 in a PF2e game and my fighter has untrained improvisation. It was really good during levels 7-10 but since we've gotten passed 10 it becomes a lot less useful, primarily because the DCs for checks are so high at this point I'm basically rolling for a 17-20. It does at least give me a 15% chance of being successful when normally I'd have only a 5% chance of critting but I've found it scales out of being broken pretty quickly.
at higher levels, a nat 20 on an untrained skill check would bump you up from a crit fail (failed dc by 10 or more) to a fail, so sometimes you wouldn't have even the 5% chance of success
Props to your choice of music during the last section. Gerudo Valley during a serious section where you ramble fit in a way that I never thought possible.
I actually LOVE how many good feats are at level one, in all feat categories. It doesn't feel bad to go back and get an early leveled feat, because it's truly not a bad option.
I would say armor proficiency is good if you take it early for sure. And the best part is when you eventually outscale the feat, you can simply retrain it to something else that scales better for you level
Untrained Improvisation is not actually that good, because with the DC by level rules you'll still be failing almost all of those skill checks - it's expected that you're expert or master in skills at that point. All it really does is prevent automatic crit fails in situations where you're forced to roll a specific skill check, which are extremely rare IME.
It is better on humans with clever/incredible improv feats since you can do trained actions and once a day choose to act as an expert in an untrained skill
I’m pretty sure my party’s fighter has Hireling Manager. He’s the party HR guy tasked with recruiting crew for our ships, and uses Recruiting Lore for it.
One use of armor proficiency is the sentinel dedication. If you're playing a class that gets trained in light armor and you take armor proficiency and the sentinel dedication, that gives you scaling increases to heavy armor proficiency.
Great video! You opened up a question about design. I don't design games, but I am a mechanical engineer which has designed several mechanical systems, and applied that design process to designing D&D subclasses for homebrew. If your design team has a chance consider using a P-diagram and fishbone diagram to develop the higher level general feats. I have found that the diagrams helps a designer organize factors in a logical way. Since a feat is a component to the overall function and output of a character, it may be difficult to use the P-diagram strictly, but it may help generate high level feats as controls (lower section of the P-diagram). Then after the general feat, as a control, idea has been generated it can be reviewed using a fishbone diagram considering how it could result in "game play failure." When using a P-diagram the noise factors, top section, should be considered from the point of view of the RPG. Therefore, I equate: Interaction with other systems = Interaction within the game rule system, Piece to Piece variation = class to class (sub class to sub class) variation, Customer usage = player usage, Degradation & wear = Use of the class / feature at higher levels, Environment = use of the class/feature in the 3 pillars of the game (combat, exploration, downtime). Control factors are features such as dice control, social or physical environmental controls, offensive or defensive controls, controls on time to complete a task, controls on the cost to complete a task, controls on the quality of a product (both physical or non-physical), etc. Inputs are player use, when considering all of the different types of players. Desired outputs are generally related to what you would define as success. Undesired outputs are generally related to what you define as not working well. When considering a fishbone diagram, a similar approach to relabeling is needed. I have not used a fishbone to troubleshoot an RPG feature design, but I imagine using it to consider different failure modes will help in development of higher level general feats. The failure mode for a RPG fishbone diagram would be related to a lack of fun for a class or feature. Defining the causes of failure is related to perception, so a good cross functional team would be best when considering inputs into the fishbone diagram. A cross functional team, in this case, not only includes GM & player, but also a variety of player & GM personalities and play styles. Best of luck with the kickstarter and keep up the great work!
The thing about Canny Acumen is that depending on your class, it starts off good, becomes useless then gets good again. I plan to have my Cleric eventually take it at level 19 to get master proficiency in Perception. There are very few ways to increase Perception so it's a really valuable feat.
Hey man, I don't actually have time to watch this video right now, but I saw the thumb, and just wanted to drop in and say that your hair looks great! Have a good one!
A nice general feat would being able to use a reaction to cast a single action non damaging spell or focus spell. Then something like personal rain cloud could be able to be used to follow an invisible target.
Toughness isn't flashy, but it's valuable. Sure, it's not incredible, but if you skimped on constitution a little it can help shore that up, letting you invest your skill increases elsewhere. It's not a perfect replacement, but given how valuable skill increases are, even doing half the job of one is worth something.
The important detail about Canny Acumen is that it increases your proficiency to Master at level 17. There's no class in the game that has master or greater in all three saves AND Perception. Meaning it's not really a trap, it's just a dead feat in the mid to upper-mid levels. At the end of the game, you can absolutely boost something. For a Monk, you can boost your weakest save or Perception to Master (Monks SHOULD have that already, but that's another topic). Fighter? You can get your Will saves to Master.
Often when I look at feats that are extremely flavorful but borderline useless I just feel like giving them out as a character reward instead of loot. Not access to them, but straight up give players extra feats (usually lower level feats).
I will say, a bit of a bump to A Home in Every Port; it would be niche, but I can see another use; if you would normally not be able to find lodging at all (maybe there's no room in the inns, or perhaps you're wanted by the local law enforcement or the BBEG and people would be unwilling to put you up) you can find it anyway, for at least 24 hrs.
Totally though the weird thing about it is that it comes in at level 11 which at that point you probably have alternatives or such hefty sums of money to bribe silence.
I think Incredible Investiture was changed in the playtest, where Charisma modifier was important to how many items you could attune. So a low Charisma character could get Incredible Investiture and use more items, but the playtest feedback was negative to that aspect, and then Paizo changed to a limit of 10 items no matter your Charisma. I think General feats should interact with the general actions or activities characters can do, and I’d like to see general feats that help with Aid, Ready and Defend. Specially Aid, as it’s an action that becomes better and better at higher levels. So my advice would be: look at the Actions and Activities tab in Archives of Nethys and start thinking “oh what I could bring to further increase the Interact action?” or similar
yeah, I like the idea of a general feat allowing (certain) interact actions to not provoke, or you can do once per round as a free action. Similar to Quick Draw for attacking or Poison Weapon for applying poisons, there could be a Quick Drinker or Fast Reader to retrieve a potion/scroll as part of the action to activate them.
I think the reason breath control is seldom taken is because it's one of those feats where you don't know when it'll be useful, what if you never have to say, fight underwater, or fight something that uses noxious fumes? It's easier to take a feat that gives you a smaller bonus always rather than an amazing feat that may never get used, at least in my experience
Hmm here are my rough notes on a few feats I've home brewed for my group based on complaints or problems LV 11 Magic Empowerment- Pre Int 18 or Magical Crafting: all magical items that you use and are attuned to you use your Class DC or Spell casting DC whichever is higher. This one I made up for our War Priest I did feel bad for them, but I do get that it would be the best feat to take that you were talking about. Lv 15 Enhanced Training- Pre Expert in weapons or armor: Choose one weapon or armor type became Master with that type of weapon or armor. I do not care for how crafting is in this game to be honest LV 11 Mass Production- Pre Master in Crafting- Apply the following additional effects to your crafting when crafting items that only require Expert and below to make and if you provide the necessary crafting materials cost x4 Crit Success- Each additional day you spend counts as 4 extra days of work to reduce cost Success- You create 4 items instead of just the one that you would normal do Failure- You create at least one of the items At Level 15 this general feat can be used on Master level items Lv 15 Legendary Lore- Pre More then 3 Lore skills: All Lore skills turn into Legendary Note that if you have the Lore skill from Bardic Lore or Lore Master or any other class that makes such a reference this feat can only turn them into expert. Lv 11 I'm worth it- When using downtime to earn Income with a Master level skill x4 the pay out. If using a skill with Legendary x 8 the pay out. Lv 11 Open a Shop- Pre Entourage and a place you own to sell Goods- Your Entourage works a shop for you while you are adventuring. The GM will roll secret checks using your Perception, Diplomacy, Deception, or Society depending on the type of guests that you wish to attract and the Players may use the stats for any of those rolls based on who is investing in the shop. Crit Success- Items put in shop for sale sell for 100% of there value Success- Items sell for 75% of Value. 25% of it went to your entourage Failure- Item sells for 50% of the value. Critical Failure- The GM rolls to see which one of your items that was on sale was stolen.
As many have mentioned, the retraining makes a number of feats including Canny Acumen something you take early and then retrain. Armor Proficiency when combined with the Sentinel archetype allows a new armor proficiency to scale with your class granted armor training. Want a bard in full plate? Armor Proficiency (to get Medium Armor) plus Sentinel gets you that. Limited use, but not exactly a trap. If you really like the Untrained Improvisation that much, you should look at the Pathfinder Agent dedication.
Incredible Initiative actually does have a noteable downside in that it provides a Circumstance bonus. If your party is using the Scout exploration activity, you get a +1 Circumstance bonus to initiative anyway. It always doesn’t stack with things like Elven Instincts or Incredible Scout. It's gonna be mostly useful by lone wolf type characters who don't have a party, or in a party that doesn’t use the Exploration Activites rules or have a dedicated party scout.
Now that that you mentioned it, it's true that those you mention are the best over all, and in the adventure we are playing most of us picked those even at higher levels, so the 3rd,7th and so on general feats are chosen from lvl1 general feats. Therefore, I believe that those should be a bit limited, so each character must choose 1 or 2 between them, and not limiting them to an stat requirement. So I imagine a system where you choose between those 6 aside from the other general feats, having a diferent name, and, lets say, you can only pick 2 or 3 of them in total at different levels. Or you can do it the other way aroud. I believe it would be very fun and thematic to associate each of them to an specific base stat. For example, every character who reach 16 DEX will get fleet, 16 CON could be thoughness, and so on. I belive this could lead to a series of breakpoint in each stat where you get a benefit from them, and when you reach 20 or 22 (for balancing issues) you could get an upgrade of those.
I'd like to comment on incredible investiture, one of my age of ashes groups has a real big hardon for rings of resistance because they have a bomber alchemist and they end up shaving off a whole bomb of monster damage while the alchemist can just freely splash whatever since it'll most likely be resisted by the party. Everyone is wearing like at least 3 rings with some other resists from other sources. Because they;re all wearing so many rings the feat has definitely gotten value for them.
One thing about Untrained Improvisation is that you still cannot do the Trained actions with those skills, you can only do things that are untrained options for the skills. Now this is of course negated by that Human feat that gives you UI AND allows you to do Trained actions.
So, general combat feats could revolve around skills such as the different spell traditions, a feat that lets you add +1 Damage with a weapon once per round isn't terribly game breaking, but it's a nice boost to the gish builds, and not bad for a fighter who is planning to muliclass into a casting class, or keeps a couple cantrips on hand. I think the main thing with any suggestions like this is to work a feat chain into it. So for example Energized Weapon well call that first one, the next upgrade could let you spend your reaction on a miss to immediately attack again at the cost of 1 action, and at a decrease of the penalty by 1. There are a lot of better feats by that point so it balances. Last feat in the tree could be a quick drawl option for said weapon, but only if it was previous energized that day. This gives you a very situational, but powerful, benefit if you need to climb a rope after one combat, and then find yourself in another combat with your weapon not drawn. For a good idea of a good general feat without a skill requirement, "Excellent Care" would give a +1 to attack, +1 to AC for one round, but only if during your morning preparations you use the feat to spend 10 minutes ensuring your weapons are honed and your armor is fitted. The next level up could provide a will save bonus of +1 from your confidence in your armor. Next after that could be a kind of "Master of Pacing" where you ditch the armor in mid stride giving you a bonus of twice your dex for one round while foes have trouble with your pacing shift. What is, or isn't the best optimal feat really depends on a lot of factors, but very small bonuses with penalties or situational improvements is really the way to go.
Prescient planner is taking an ancient house rule and codifying it. It was super duper common in 1e for the gm to just go "yeah fine you remembered to buy a torch"
Another thing in defense of prescient planner would be that we as players will likely forget something that our actual character wouldn't. For example my fighter would know he's out of rope because it was used to set a trap in the dungeon he just left. Where as I might have forgotten that 3 sessions ago I used up that rope, even though I took it off my sheet.
I despise that the negative title attracts more views... great video as always Nonat. I will echo the friends in the comment section, you can retrain those "Weak at early" feats, and if you want to do no wrong, just pick toughness or fleet xD
I would interpret A Home In Every Port to mean you can find someone to harbor you and your party even if you're in enemy territory or being hunted by a Hellknight death squad.
We had a campaign where we acquired a castle. (Yes, the Hellknight one.) My character took the Hireling Manager Feat to take care of the staff of the Castle...then the GM, who was an alcoholic, got so drunk during one session that he rage quit his own session, deleted the entire campaign, and went ended up in rehab. I never got to use the feat...
Just some quick notes on a few of the feats. (Great video btw) Breath Control: Not as combat powerful as other level 1 Gen feats but this is easily my favorite. I took it as a human fighter in a high seas campaign and it is amazing for exploration and RP. Fleet: It is good but I don't think it's the strongest level 1 feat. It's great for melee characters but I frequent ranged and spellcasters so I haven't really had reason to take it. Untrained Improv: This is OP. I both love and hate how good it is. It almost feels like this was supposed to be a feat split across two. Like at 3rd level you take Untrained Improvisation and then at 7th or 11th level there would be a feat with Prerequisite for the first one that gives you the full level benefit. Weapon Training: Universalist Wizards Numb to Death: I wasn't even aware of this feat until now and gosh dang do I want to have a character die just so I can take it. That's so cool.
Untrained Improv isn't OP. it is a bit of a trap. DC by level makes UI mediocre since you aren't going to be using it for anything that matters, you can't use it for trained actions so maybe if you want to trip some lower level enemies for some reason instead of just attacking them, coerce some townsfolk?
I think some good early-mid level options for general feats would include ways to improve proficiencies in some things you can't get quickly any other way, or just too slowly. Especially if you're trying to qualify for a specific Archetype. Like (Weapon) Expertise.
I think the other thing about Caravan Leader that makes it maybe a bit better than it first appears is that it also means everyone uses the longest hustle time in the party, rather than the shortest. That means that squishy wizard who gets puffed super early can use the barbarian's Con modifier instead, so it actually gains a fair bit more than just the 20 minutes. Say your lowest Con is 14 (because boosts), you could normally hustle for 20 minutes without leaving them behind. Take Caravan Leader, and suddenly the entire group can hustle for at least an hour (+4 mod x 10, +20 mins) thanks to the 18 Con requirement. Still only useful in niche situations, but in those situations I can see this being VERY useful.
Adopted Ancestry is very useful actually. It's a tool to get generally good feats like Remorseless Lash or Mountain's Stoutness on any character. It does not even restrict the level requirements for the feats from another ancestry (unlike multiclassing, for example)
As other comments have said, adopted ancestry only lets you choose a common ancestry. Hobgoblins are unfortunately uncommon :(. I wish uncommon ancestries were RAW
@@meeseemeeseeks RAW - yes, but you can always ask GM's permission From the designer's point - it's actually fair that a common feat allows only common ancestries. In our games, we made the feat get the same rarity as the ancestry you pick
The armor proficiency feat allows classes without any armor training qualify for the duelist archetype. Not sure how relevant that is for non-Monks, though.
Hello! As for relevancy for non-Monks, take a cleric that does not want to be a Warpriest for whatever reason. Now they have a better measure of protection if they take trained in light and medium armor. All depends on preference though.
This is like one of the only pf2 TH-camrs I've been able to find and i love his content. Does anyone have some more recommendations for channels? I wish pf2 was as popular as 5e
More than a hobby: Choose one feat from any of your archetypes that you currently have access too. This feat does not count towards any feat counts needed to allow the choosing of another archetype.
Hi Nonat1s, in your vid, you ask for idea of general feat of higher level than 1rst that would be useful without being autopick. I think feats that let you use a skill for trained action of others skills can be interesting. At level 7, you can become master in a skill and you can select a general feat. So for a character which want to use master profiency in multiple actions, it can be a good option. I didn't think of a specific wording, but the 1rst feat of the Bard that let you use performance for Make an Impression or Demoralize, the Reverse Engineering Feat of the Inventor that let you use Crafting for Pick a Lock or Disable a Device can be good way to find a general feat that would be good without being an autopick. Here is a proposition: Ingenious Way of Thinking - prerequisite (Master Proficiency in a Skill): Your proficiency opened your eyes on the possibility and potentiality of your trade. When you select this feat, you must select a skill with the proficiency Master or more and you choose a trained action from any skill, you can use your skill proficiency with the selected skill with your proficiency of master or more. The explanation for this aptitude can be magical or not and must be discussed with your GM. For example, your are master in Arcana and select Pick a Lock, you can now use the Arcana Skill to Pick a Lock. The explanation, here, can be your trade in Arcana, made you aware of the intricacy of the locks and you are able to visualize the lock in your mind. whan you pick the lock, your mind representation guide your hand in coordination with your mind map. If you want to you use Nature to Disable Device, this can be because of your attunement to your environnement that you can sense what you must do (Feel the Force Luke...) If you want to Society to Sneak, it's your habits and knowledge that guide you, you're used to observe your environnement and know exactly what to do (Imagine Sherlock Holmes with RDJ) Another general feat, that could be useful, is a feat that could make more efficient in downtime. Downtime is lakcluster in feats. Here is a proposition: Efficient use of time - prerequisite (Master Proficiency in a Skill): You're knowlegeable and very efficient. When doing Downtime activity, you can do two actions at the same time with skill you are at least master in proficiency. Even, if you're efficient, you're not that fast, so when using this feat, you must choose before beginning one of those two: - Quickly done , Badly Done: you perform the two actions in the same time and take the minimum of time possible, but this can be risky. In game terms, the dowtime needed is equal to the longer of the two activities and the checks gain the misfortune effect - Being fast but keeping safe: ou perform the two actions in the same time but you take any risks with the results. In game terms, the dowtime needed is equal to the longer of the two activities + 50%, the checks are unmodified. For example, you want to craft a batch of potions and some ammunitions or a batch and a rune... Quickly done , Badly Done: You take 4 days, do your checks with both the misfortune effect and can continue reduce the cost on a 1 day work / 1 day reduction base for both project. Being fast but keeping safe : You take 6 days, do your checks as normal and can continue reduce the cost on a 3 days work / 2 days reduction base for both project. Sorry for the long post, I hope that was useful and good luck
You can follow the games policy on design, by giving it some ridiculous prerequisites and grant only +1 bonus of a type that you already have elsewhere, and only in certain circumstances. Which still makes it the only one, but it will be so bad that you would actually pick fleet instead ;)
"There's no argument" about Untrained Improvisation being best in slot? Yeah, there most definitely is. It's a good feat that helps you be decent at the things you're not able to put full investment in. That's nice, but you're still meaningfully worse than anyone actually trained in it, and miles worse than people investing in it. Often it's better to just find a way to get training in the one or two extraneous skills you might actually care about it on. Because of that, I rarely see people consider this much.
Idea for general feats: add higher levels to weapon and armor proficiency as general feats. Also, higher levels of Toughness and maybe Fleet, or higher levels of Canny Acumen too. All are pretty easy to implement and don't seem like they would be hugely game changing
got to your ramble at the end, and one thing I'm surprised isn't in there: continuations to the armor and weapon proficiency feats. I see no reason why they couldn't have given us the option to take "Armor Expertise" at level 11, for example, and Mastery at 19. That'd allow for those trap feats to be investments, instead, and allow for some really interesting builds.
Like, when I first read the rules, I saw Armor Proficiency feat, I thought "oh cool! And at level 11, I could take the next level to get the next proficiency leve- oh. Nope. Weird."
The best idea for new general feats is either improve the level 1 stuff with higher level feats, or make non-combat feats that help with party utility.
I would love a feat where, once a day, you can use an extra reaction but you can't use a reaction again for several rounds, even a minute maybe. I feel like it would be key for being able to save a companion, or make a big difference. You don't want to blow your load with it all the time, but actually doing that in short battles could be an effective strategy. I would call it something like divine premonition. You receive a premonition to act from some divine source, but it leaves you a little confused and disoriented, so you lose your reaction for one minute. Something like that.
A point about your criticism of A Home in Every Port. Cost of Living assumes you own or rent a property in the settlement, what this feat does is allow you to cover lodging and food whenever you show up in a village as a stop over before going into an investigation or adventuring spree in that area, covering those expenses for a day. As such the cost savings should be measured against lodging and food service costs, not cost of living rates. As this can provide decent lodging for up to 6 allies, it should be measured against extravagant lodging at the highest or at the very least, bed cost for six people (so between 6 silver to 10 gold) in addition to the cost of meals and drink, and allows for fun and engaging roleplay opportunities regarding the well connected PC.
Incredible investure is really good. My lvl 7 character has 8 slots filled, Staff, armor, item for arcana, item for deception, diplomacy, Cloak of feline rest, doubling ring and belt of good health. 7 from my mind. At lvl 12 I'd want to have ring of wizardry, an item or 2 giving resistance, googles of night, a gremua Boots of speed, and an apex at lvl 17. I won't be carrying belt at that moment, But everything I find that might be useful will be used. 12 slots efficiency give me +2/3 item bonus on 2 skills with some nice editions
i feel like some of those general feats that are sad could become better with some homebrew errata. like adoptive ancestry you also gets a lvl 1 ancestry feat of the chosen ancestry (same restrictions). armor/weapon proff: whenever your proff in armor/ weapons goes up so does this feat (not the best wording but i think the idea gets there) the house one just gives free housing in the town after the downtime is paid.
Great video, just one issue: Feather Step DOES NOT allow you to Step within difficult terrain, only INTO difficult terrain. The feat grants no benefits if you are already in a square of difficult terrain, except in the case you're moving into yet another square of difficult terrain. (P.S. I run a home rule where Adopted Ancestry grants you a 1st level ancestry feat of the ancestry you chose when you gained the feat, which has its limits but gives immediate flavor for low level characters! You might consider allowing something similar at your tables if you find the feat subpar on those grounds?)
At high level play, characters do run into the magic item situation where Incredible Investiture becomes relevant. By Level 20, the game is designed with the expectation that: You have Magic Armor (1 invested) About six sources of item bonuses to skills, if it comes from a worn magic item, they are invested (7 total) A source of item bonus to Perception (if worn magic item then invested) (8 total) That leaves with 2 slots left for any other magical effects a character may want outside of items that mostly just give a modifier to character stats. Something like a Ring of Elemental Resistance or an Aeon Stone. Want more than that like having multiple Rings of Resistance to different energy types, Incredible Investiture looks more appealing. Is it kind of annoying bookkeeping that you might houserule away? Yes, for one of my campaigns at Level 19, I houseruled that characters can have more than 10 invested items and don't worry about feats like Incredible Investiture. For my other groups that don't mind the bookkeeping and enjoy RAW, we do use it and I have seen players hit 10 invested items before Level 10 once. That feat is a thing and it's a good thing to ask your GM about in terms of how they feel about the 10 item limit. It's still better than the Pathfinder 1E slot rules at least. Now I can wear 10 magic rings if I really want to at least.
Just as an advisory note regarding the Ride feat and Command an Animal not requiring the animal to be willing, do keep in mind that animals that can be mounted such as horse and dire wolf have the Buck reaction, which allows them the ability to knock you off of them if you fail the DC, so rather than completely denying you the ability to ride an unwilling animal, it gives the animals you would try to ride the ability to resist.
Personally I think there should be a few more general feats in the game, I don't think we need general feats at every level. There is no inherent balance or theme issue in that the "General" ways adventurer's excel differently can be encapsulated in things that all exist at the low to mid levels. Actually as I'm writing this I think I've come to the opinion that there is a theme issue with too many high level general feats. I also think it's OK that all of the good combat general feats are at the lowest level, it means you're not having to learn about them at later stages of play and they are all tightly balanced around each other, plus you experience them early on in every campaign which is good design for teaching your players about a fundamental game element. I can see the difficulties in making higher level combat general feat options but I think that this is a subtle but important feature, not a bug.
Do you have any plans to ever cover Skill Feats? I know there are a ton of them, but even a general overview of some of the best (and maybe a few "traps" for new players) would be awesome!
4:15 Well, you have not seen me in real life ever but... my Half-Orc Rogue Eldritch Trickster does have the feat Breath Control... and I did pick it at a perfect time, right before we had to battle some water creatures which could drag us under water and/or stay away from shallow water where us close combat fighters could reach them so we had to fight on their terms. Well... every time you attack (or do some other things) while submerged, you lose some of your time. Having Breath Control takes away all worries of drowning in such a fight ^^ I kinda doubt I will need the feat another time in the adventure path but hell did it come in handy at that time. And I only took it for the option to dive through a narrow passage where we did not know how long it might take ^^ And in another spot before the fight I could scout even another passage which was fully submerged. It might be, I will retrain out of it of course but for the moment, it sticks with me ^^
Adopted ancestry really should include Ancestral Paragon as well. Though I did still find use for it with my Halfling adopted by Goblins who rode his dog into battle
it should be noted that level 1 human gunslingers can get a clan pistol via adopted ancestry for free, which is great for saving starting gold and gives you probably the best single shot pistol in the game right off the bat
They probably don't have other high level general feats yet because Paizo may expect people to want to take more high level *skill* feats in those slots, since most if not all skill feats also have the general tag. One other thing about skill feats that I was a little disappointed in (only a little) was that there were some roll-able actions tucked away in feats, rather than being an option that gets attached to higher training in a skill - how many skills have actions unlocked at training levels higher than Trained? In my humble opinion, feats should be things you can just do (even if it is an added effect onto something you're already rolling) - you can't fail at it; whereas skills require an actual roll to pull off - so things like Battle Prayer should have been something you are able to do when your training in Religion goes up, not having to take a specific feat for it to be able to attempt it.
General feats seem to be things that just about anyone can do/learn. I don't think it's too surprising if the majority of them are lower level to help represent this accessibility.
Personally I do not mind the lack of "late game support" it allows me to pick some of the lower level stuff that I couldn't get the first time around and I think that needs to be remembered about higher level stuff sometimes not only is it the area that is least played in, but because you are past the pre-requisite for a lot of the other feats you can still get those too.
I feel you bro, is really hard to create general feats, because is really hard to get bonuses in combat that stack, maybe really specific general feat could work, for my campaing I create a special technique for my pcs that they could pick instead of their general feat, this feats alloweds to do things that they normally can't, for example the rogue can flank with a trees and bushes, but it take a lot of time to thinks and a lot of talk with the players.
1:48 pretty much the only time you're going to take Adopted Ancestry is if you are a human. 4:09 and it becomes almost completely pointless by level 3 when the casters can cast Breath Water on everyone in the group. 21:28 basically the hustle feats are only going to be useful if you are doing a military/war focused game where getting to a position in time to help an allied unit in time or getting to a position before another army/unit to prepare the battlefield before they show up. 23:53 honestly, I feel like PF2 needs more support for everything. Having only recently moved over from PF1 to PF2, PF2 feels kind of empty. Partly, I think that Paizo has gone too wide too fast, trying to add everything they had in PF1, but not spending a ton of time to flesh out a lot of that stuff.
Speed master plan: Step one: Elf Ancestry. Step two: Undine heritage Step three: Nimble Elf Step four: Fleet Step five: Strong Swimmer With what I listed puts your character at a 40ft movement speed and strong swimmer feat Your swim Speed increases to match your land Speed. So you end up with land and swim speed of 40ft. Then being a rogue makes is more amazin.
What about focusing mainly on general feats that grant unique reactions in combat. Being able to use all your actions is so important in this system and i always enjoy finding new reactions to slot into a build
As for the lack of higher level general feats. As you mentioned yourself, skill feats are general feats. And there are some really good skill feats at those higher levels. I don't mind at all spending a general feat slot on a skill feat. And I still have the option to take a regular general feat, should I want that. As for Untrainied Improvisation. Even more ridiculous is the human ancestry's Clever Improviser. But of course you need to be human for that... Or you need to have taken the Adopted Ancestry Feat to be able to take human ancestry feats. Being able to also use trained skill actions for untrained skills is just awesome. Of course, it's an ancestry feat and there are plenty of good ancestry feats, so it doesn't stand out as much, I guess. But still... Unless I play one of the skill classes, Clever Improviser is my go-to level 5 ancestry feat when playing a human. Otherwise, yes, at level 3 I'm probably taking Untrained Improvisation.
I don't think Versatile Heritages count for Different Worlds. I don't think it matters that much balance-wise, but if you asked a Paizo Person, I doubt they'd agree.
Numb to death EITHER not gain the wounded condition (if you don't have the condition) OR don't increase the condition (of you already have the condition). It doesn't reset your condition.
For your Final question. I don't super mind because you don't get THAT many general/skill feats and because all skill feats are labeled as general feats I do believe that means you could take one of them instead, correct? So in that regard it does open up the roster more while choosing at higher levels when you can use a general feat to 'scare to death' and such. All the rambling below is my thought on the weaker feats you pointed out! Mostly niche uses and variant rules that give them value. I think armor training is a potentially worthwhile investment for spellcasters. Given that the feat gives you roughly a +2 to your AC (assuming it doesn't mess with your dex cap) keeping it on par with an increase to your armor proficiency. Now if you EVER get more than expert in an armor proficiency it is completely a trap. The other end of it with some value is that you get to wear heavier armors that are enchanted. So if you find some leather armor of...something being untrained in it basically makes it worthless to your character (assuming you don't have another PC to hand it off to.) Though this gap also becomes less of a big deal if you are playing in a game with proficiency without level too! Adopted Ancestry is REALLY niche, I could see it if you're using the paragon ruleset where you get more ancestor feats? Otherwise pretty lame. Toughness I think needs to be 2HP per level, basically something for low con melee fighters to take, upgrading you to the 'next type of classes' HP line (but they are really hesitant to do things like that as we have virtually no proficiency increasing feats besides 'becoming trained' or 'becoming expert' in a lot of regards). I can only see someone taking it if they are REALLY trying to be a meat tank to the max or they are TERRIFIED of dieing. Though maybe for spellcasters with the new blood magic it will see some increased potential? Home in Every Port makes sad, it is REALLY flavorful, it is such a cool concept! BUT it is not cost effective, except in really niche situations. It is a thing I've noticed with some strange feats that mostly come from adventure paths. The feat "All of the Animal" vs "Forager" is crazy.
I'm pretty sure the only reason a feat is limited to a higher level is to prevent issues really on and that the design goal is mostly that you have more at higher levels rather than stronger ones.
Home in every port, I think could be a really amazing addition. By RAW it's really underpowered for its level and niche in use. But I think you could treat it in game as a character reaching the a point in their career of being a known figure. After all by level 11 they have likely done some impressive things, and people have heard of them. There are lots of really fun ways to make use of this feat for RP and character development. You just have to ask why people would welcome them into their home.
It needs to be said, too, that "trap" feats can be retrained under RAW at higher levels. So long as there's downtime and you have a GM who doesn't put up an artificial obstacle, some feats can be an important boost in the first 10 levels or so.
I feel like everyone forgets how easy and accessible retraining is in 2e
This can also be a nice transition to a character trying to go for something like an archetype but not being quite there yet. For example getting armor proficiency until they manage to become a champion etc (depending on how the roleplay around it goes of course)
when DM allows retraining feats and the Razertooth Goblin becomes Charred Goblin 😂 "I found out that my family tree was wrong all along."
Edit: Yes I know this statement is wrong, it is trying to be a joke.
Nonat doesn't like downtime activities.
@@DaDunge There's a difference between not liking something and not using it in your games because it doesn't fit the story or plot you are going for.
"A Home At Every Port" is basically for sneaky parties in enemy territory, because there is the possibility that no-one in that region would shelter them. The issue I find is that it should not be 11th level, because a lot of those stories are actually lower level.
Yeah I like 'A Home At Every Port' for the narrative implications but just not a 11th level feat.
that, combined with the fact it should take like 10 minutes to use instead of 8 hours of down time. Which people could use to earn a living to pay for better quality lodging/a bribe.
Yes, I think the strongest part of that feat is that you find shelter with 8 hours of downtime. No checks, no other conditions.
You have finally reached the Keep of the Skeleton King in the middle of the ghost town filled with zombies? You are out of spell slots? Well, you ask around and Fred, the ghost of a murderer, likes your smile and let's you crash on his couch befor you face the Skeleton King. All you have to do is survive 8h in the town.
It's the kind of feat that let's you change the narrative, like Prescient Planner.
Another fun video!
Untrained Improvisation and Incredible Investiture strike me as being 2 holdouts from the PF2 Playtest:
*Untrained Improvisation* - A number of people *hated* how being untrained in a skill didn't prevent your bonus from increasing every time you leveled up. (I was one of them.) Untrained Improvisation seems to be a hold-out from the Playtest's idea of "you don't become increasingly useless in skill situations as they (presumably) become more difficult as your party levels up." They kept this feat in the game, to still allow character the option of not being "left behind" in the skills department.
I think it's strong, but it's not broken. A few things mitigate this. First, for many Exploration activities, you can still do decently well if you "Follow the Leader" of someone who is Expert or higher. When you do so, you get to add your level to your check, AND you get to add a circumstance bonus from the leader. You don't have to take this Feat, to be able to do this. Second, because there usually are very-bad Critical Failure results for skill checks, you generally don't want to attempt a check at something that you're Untrained in, even IF your level is included. The fact that DCs generally scale up faster than level (generally 4 for every 3 levels), you increasingly do not want to do skill checks, even *with* Untrained Improvisation, against at-level challenges. If you're untrained in Athletics you generally don't want to try to trip a Level 17 Marilith: you might be Level 17 and have 18 Strength and have Untrained Improvisation, but your +21 will be sad up against its DC 39 Reflex DC. You're more likely to fall prone yourself, than to succeed.
*Incredible Investiture* - this is a stubborn holdout of Resonance from the Playtest, which is an attempt to make Charisma have more mechanical importance. (This feat requires a high Charisma.) And yes, I agree that it's not very good... I think you only go up against the 10 items limit when you are buying a bunch of worn and held magic items to give yourself item bonuses to a bunch of skills. And if you were doing that, you likely were getting that 11th and 12th item in a skill that you were probably not very good at to begin with. Maaaaybe a high-level Rogue or skill-heavy class will find use for it. But with how generous skill increases are in 2e, you usually can rely on other members of your party to pick up the slack in other skill areas.
EDIT: I take this back after reading Aw3som3-117's comment. Yes, there are great OTHER items like rings of energy resistance. More magic items purleez!
The greatness of *Incredible Scout* is that its +2 circumstance bonus doesn't stack with a bunch of other feats that other PCs may have that also give a circumstance bonus. By taking it, you free up your entire party to retrain any feats they have that boost initiative (including your own Incredible Initiative).
As for why there aren't as many high-level General Feats (yet), I think it's because once you get to Level 11+ players start looking at those juicy high-level Master and Legendary Skill Feats as well, which you can take as your General Feat also. High-level feats tend to be more awesome, and Paizo scales that back by requiring higher prerequisites - usually a high skill proficiency. True Perception is in this same vein, the only reason it's not a Skill Feat... is that Perception isn't a skill in 2e.
I'll be completely honest, the hate towards Untrained Improvisation seems completely irrational to me
@@petalsinthebreeze I agree. Where it really shines is allowing PCs that aren't trained in skills which remain good versus simple DCs. Tired of your wizard who isn't trained in athletics who can't climb a DC 15 tree or wall at level 8? Do you want your character to be a witty story teller, but you aren't a Bard and don't otherwise benefit from spending one of your few skill increases on Performance? Do you not want to be a total burden to your party trying to avoid notice with your +2 Stealth check at level 10? Untrained Improv is for you. Follow the leader, or spells etc aren't always the best options if you need to be quiet/subtle or you need to perform another exploration activities while climbing/avoiding notice, etc.
That being said, it's not TOO strong because it doesn't really help you to be more reliably successful with checks vs most level based DCs. Where it can get out of hand is "I'm now almost trained in EVERY lore skill" which is almost Bardic Lore for a general feat. With the usual 2-5 lower DC for general or specific Lore, that basically makes up for the lack of Trained-Master proficiency bonuses.
@@kevinbarnard355 maybe I'm too used to 4e where it didn't really matter if you got your level bonus to a skill, if you weren't trained, you were going to struggle on those DCs unless you had an exceptionally high Score for the Skill's ability (which was rare since for half the game your ability mod was smaller then your training bonus
To be fair, toughness is a godsend for any gish-like build, such as warrior bard or battle Oracle. You really need all the HP you can grab when you want to tumble with less than 10+conhp per level.
I've seen many times where a character was brought down to their Level or less in hit points. So Toughness (if they had it) essentially saved them a turn (or more!) as well as possibly also an ally's turn who otherwise would need to spend a round getting them back in the fight.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG honestly, yeah. 4 HP at 4th may not seem like a lot, but thats potentially 1 more round that the cleric, druid, Oracle, or whatever medic the party has to treat you and keep you in the fray.
As a player, I always choose toughness. Not only because of hp, but also the recovery check. Any advantage, in that area is really useful. Not mentioning that toughness interacts with other feats to combine advantages. (Mountain stoutness for dwarfs, die hard for orcs for example)
Hi! Sorry I am late to the discussion, but there is a question I would like to ask. Does toughness scale? That is you get 4 HP at level 4, and then 5 HP at level 5. Or is it where you get the benefit only once? The rules do not clarify this, so I was just wondering. Thanks.
@@crapshot321 1 hp plus per level. Per level you get class HP+con+1HP. Seems little, but it makes a big difference.
On note of early level feats, baked-in retraining rules really make em more useful.
Also, with adopted ancestry, if you're a versatile human (or the "general feat" human, basically), due to their ability to get general feats at level one, they can actually grab an adopted ancestry feat from level 1. It's just expensive cause you get locked into versatile and you have to spend that feat on adopted ancestry.
One thing that also makes fleet super strong: for most ancestries it bumps you up to an even 30 ft movespeed. This means it also winds up being a 5ft increase to your movement even in difficult terrain. It'd actually be less good if the base movement for most ancestries was 20 or 30.
That's an interesting analysis of movement speed. It actually makes me reconsider my thoughts on the 35ft movespeed halfelf's can get at level 1.
35 ft Half-elf wearing Heavy armor will net you 30ft, which is very good. Like a fighter in full plate being able to outrun most people, fully normal ;)
@@Nonat1s I wound up noticing it a lot in a westmarches style game I was in, where difficult terrain actually came into play quite frequently (cause wilderness).
Speaking of that, how do you deal with two strides in a row in difficult terrain with an odd speed?
A character with 25 speed can only stride 10 in difficult terrain but if they stride twice in a row, do you allow 20 feet or 25? I allow 25 since that's actually half their speed, but n'y RAW it would seem to be 20, which seems kind of silly.
@@SebastienPatriote That's where it's most noticeable. Each action resolves on its own. Two 25-foot strides in difficult terrain is 20 feet by RAW.
Incredible Investiture is _fantastic_ !
People skimp on the lower level magic items a lot, but once you get high enough up the cost is so small in comparison to what you make and the bonuses can still be pretty relevant. Whether it's just wanting to get a +1 to a ton of skill checks for like 50-100gp each, or a little later on getting resistance 5 to acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage with a full set of Rings of Energy Resistance coming in at 1225gp total, only 250gp more than getting resistance 10 on _one_ of them with the greater variant.
Uhhhh, how many ring slots does a character actually have? IIRC you can only wear 2 rings at a time.
@@webbowser8834 You don't have to wear them all at once! -- having resistance items available to swap in can make a huge difference in harder fights when you have time to prepare.
@@webbowser8834 The reason 2E has the 10 invested item rule is to move away from item "slots." Past editions like PF1E did have the slot rules where a character could only wear 2 magic rings at a time but in 2E you can wear more than 2 rings, but they count against the 10 invested item rule. So in some ways it's simpler and a character can wear 10 magic rings even.
There's still basic logic like not being able to wear more than one pair of magic boots at a time a GM is likely to take issue with but at least the intent of the 10 invested magic item rule was to be more flexible than past slot rules.
Ah, rings of energy resistance - I didn't think of that. Yep, good to have.
Yeah, at the levels where you can take incredible investiture, you can afford any number of rings of fairly decent low-level items. A permanent +1/+2 to your secondary skills is great, especially with things like Athletics/Acrobatics to Escape from all the monsters that try to eat you at that level.
I understand people wanting to engage with a very tactical simulationist gameplay style and why Prescient Planner and the like would be frustrating for those players, but I have a lot of appreciation for games and systems that allow for more flexible improvisation, especially in groups that don’t want to “get bogged down” in shopping and the like.
Prescient Planner and Consumable are only immersion breaking if your character uses it that way. My scatterbrained Gnome cleric has been so many places and done so many things in his travels he doesn't remember everything he's left in his bag of holding. So every once in a while he digs in it and finds just what he or his party needs.
@@fermentedbadger5717 Or contrast the person who WOULD have all of those things in their bag, the marbles, the sand, the fucking rock.
They already have half that stuff and it's established their character has all kinds of bullshit contingency plans because adventurer is their profession, no sorry what they need a specific thing that isn't on their standard gear list, sod that they have it.
My immersion would be broken by that kind of character NOT having an item.
It's such a character ability and i love it.
@@woomod2445 after all, maybe the character is just what the feat says: a prescient planner
@woomod2445 I love prescient planner for the implication that yout character will just pull out *exactly* what they need for a harebrained scheme and spout some crap about how "this was all a part of my calculations" *but it's actually true for the character* it's so much fun and I couldn't imagine just using it on any old character
Toughness is still nice to have. Especially with that slight reduction to recovery checks because recovery checks are now flat checks.
Hello, PF2 3PP designer here, some thoughts:
Precedence in PF2 is very important for your ability to design for the game. Secrets of magic opened a lot of design space for classes because of bounded spellcasters for example. General feats are difficult because of what you said; there is not really a Precedence for high level general feats that are combat oriented. We generally avoid them during design for that reason.
You're basically left with two options, to avoid them, or to be VERY specific in your Prerequisites. Something I've given some thought on is conditional general feats that only some characters would be interested in. A few in the idea book:
- The ability to aid an ally in your reach as a reaction (mid level)
- Take cover as a reaction if you have a tower shield and shield block (mid level)
- the ability to command two or more animals with Command an animal (high level, legendary in nature probably)
- the ability to substitute a specific skill for another when using recall knowledge, such as using nature for identifying arcane things (low-mid)
Most of those are predicated on pretty specific pre-requisites, that way they don't dominate every character's choices
A TON of the feats like Armor Proficiency are actually great for just a few levels, and then you retrain them once your class features compensate.
While this doesn't explain the lack of General feats at level 11 and level 19, I think I may have found out why there are so few, or no General feats at levels 7 and 15.
Level 7 is the earliest you get Master proficiency in a skill, and there are a ton of Level 7 Skill Feats. As you know, you can spend that General feat on a Skill feat. This actually incentivizes you to take a Skill feat at this level. And using that skill you just increased to be able to do something cool with it is pretty satisfying.
The same is true for Level 15, which is the earliest you can get Legendary proficiency in a Skill.
Agree, it's pretty obvious Paizo really intends for you to fill half or more of your general skill feat slots with regular skill feats, they never intended to have great general feats at every level
what's worse... technically you can't take adopted ancestry Kobold, since the feat states you can only take common ancestries
There's ways to mess with that. If your character comes from the Mwangi, then certain ancestries become common. Thus, as those ancestries are common there, you can Adopted Ancestry for those ancestries without an issue. More Lore books will allow more regions to show which ancestries are common or uncommon there.
They're all level 1 because they didn't want to restrict you from taking them in the order you want, and there aren't upgrades because they wanted to avoid feat trees and feat taxes wherever possible.
There is a really good usage of Canny Acuman: Perception checks. Basically any class that limits itself to Expert in perception, and going to Master allows you to grab certain general feats that require Master as well as getting the increase earlier.
Your "trick feats" are sometimes useful. You take them at low level and get the benefit. When they cease being useful, you retrain the feats into something better.
Incredible Investiture is useful for the people that like having lots of lower level items. They collect ioun stones, or have a couple of items that grant resistance 5. A valid playstyle.
Even the "combat" general feats aren't much about combat. I don't think that the design space allows for much combat effectiveness from general feats. We have a place for this and it's class feats and archetypes. That's where you get you your combat boosts. Feat types are a tier. Skill feats are your lowest tier, then General, Ancestry and Class feats rule them all. Promoting a general feat to be as useful as a class feat is a problem.
Incredible investure, if you play a monk your "weapon" the Handwraps must be invested. If you are a two hand fighter, doubling rings and if you are a gunslinger drifter, blazoons of shared power and your gun belt that can share runes between your guns. In the last case you lose 3 invested options with armor, belt and blazoons. I don't know how other people like to play but I like small magic items that give you utility spells like mage hand or prestidigitation. They are common they are mostly cheap and I like to have a couple of them. So you have the nessesary items, the real important ones and the fun ones. More than enough to fill 10-12 slots
We're playing level 12 in a PF2e game and my fighter has untrained improvisation. It was really good during levels 7-10 but since we've gotten passed 10 it becomes a lot less useful, primarily because the DCs for checks are so high at this point I'm basically rolling for a 17-20. It does at least give me a 15% chance of being successful when normally I'd have only a 5% chance of critting but I've found it scales out of being broken pretty quickly.
Though in situations where you're doing those lower level checks it should be useful still or does your DM scale all your checks in that manner?
at higher levels, a nat 20 on an untrained skill check would bump you up from a crit fail (failed dc by 10 or more) to a fail, so sometimes you wouldn't have even the 5% chance of success
Props to your choice of music during the last section. Gerudo Valley during a serious section where you ramble fit in a way that I never thought possible.
I actually LOVE how many good feats are at level one, in all feat categories. It doesn't feel bad to go back and get an early leveled feat, because it's truly not a bad option.
I would say armor proficiency is good if you take it early for sure. And the best part is when you eventually outscale the feat, you can simply retrain it to something else that scales better for you level
Exactly, was going to say the same thing.
Can't you pick Skill Feats with General feat, as the Skill feats have the 'General' Trait?
Yep!
Untrained Improvisation is not actually that good, because with the DC by level rules you'll still be failing almost all of those skill checks - it's expected that you're expert or master in skills at that point. All it really does is prevent automatic crit fails in situations where you're forced to roll a specific skill check, which are extremely rare IME.
It is better on humans with clever/incredible improv feats since you can do trained actions and once a day choose to act as an expert in an untrained skill
I’m pretty sure my party’s fighter has Hireling Manager. He’s the party HR guy tasked with recruiting crew for our ships, and uses Recruiting Lore for it.
Haha, I'm getting Roy vibes from Order of the Stick
Are those "Low Level Traps" not okay with retraining ? You can swap it out when it becomes useless
One use of armor proficiency is the sentinel dedication. If you're playing a class that gets trained in light armor and you take armor proficiency and the sentinel dedication, that gives you scaling increases to heavy armor proficiency.
Oh I never even thought about that, that's actually a pretty good use
Another good use is wearing some armor as a spellcaster til you've Dex 18, usually at lv10 so you won't be too vulnerable to crits.
Great video! You opened up a question about design. I don't design games, but I am a mechanical engineer which has designed several mechanical systems, and applied that design process to designing D&D subclasses for homebrew. If your design team has a chance consider using a P-diagram and fishbone diagram to develop the higher level general feats. I have found that the diagrams helps a designer organize factors in a logical way.
Since a feat is a component to the overall function and output of a character, it may be difficult to use the P-diagram strictly, but it may help generate high level feats as controls (lower section of the P-diagram). Then after the general feat, as a control, idea has been generated it can be reviewed using a fishbone diagram considering how it could result in "game play failure."
When using a P-diagram the noise factors, top section, should be considered from the point of view of the RPG. Therefore, I equate: Interaction with other systems = Interaction within the game rule system, Piece to Piece variation = class to class (sub class to sub class) variation, Customer usage = player usage, Degradation & wear = Use of the class / feature at higher levels, Environment = use of the class/feature in the 3 pillars of the game (combat, exploration, downtime). Control factors are features such as dice control, social or physical environmental controls, offensive or defensive controls, controls on time to complete a task, controls on the cost to complete a task, controls on the quality of a product (both physical or non-physical), etc. Inputs are player use, when considering all of the different types of players. Desired outputs are generally related to what you would define as success. Undesired outputs are generally related to what you define as not working well.
When considering a fishbone diagram, a similar approach to relabeling is needed. I have not used a fishbone to troubleshoot an RPG feature design, but I imagine using it to consider different failure modes will help in development of higher level general feats. The failure mode for a RPG fishbone diagram would be related to a lack of fun for a class or feature. Defining the causes of failure is related to perception, so a good cross functional team would be best when considering inputs into the fishbone diagram. A cross functional team, in this case, not only includes GM & player, but also a variety of player & GM personalities and play styles.
Best of luck with the kickstarter and keep up the great work!
The thing about Canny Acumen is that depending on your class, it starts off good, becomes useless then gets good again. I plan to have my Cleric eventually take it at level 19 to get master proficiency in Perception. There are very few ways to increase Perception so it's a really valuable feat.
Hey man, I don't actually have time to watch this video right now, but I saw the thumb, and just wanted to drop in and say that your hair looks great! Have a good one!
A nice general feat would being able to use a reaction to cast a single action non damaging spell or focus spell. Then something like personal rain cloud could be able to be used to follow an invisible target.
Toughness isn't flashy, but it's valuable. Sure, it's not incredible, but if you skimped on constitution a little it can help shore that up, letting you invest your skill increases elsewhere. It's not a perfect replacement, but given how valuable skill increases are, even doing half the job of one is worth something.
I am curious if it'll play nicely with blood magic in the future for spellcasters too!
The important detail about Canny Acumen is that it increases your proficiency to Master at level 17. There's no class in the game that has master or greater in all three saves AND Perception. Meaning it's not really a trap, it's just a dead feat in the mid to upper-mid levels. At the end of the game, you can absolutely boost something. For a Monk, you can boost your weakest save or Perception to Master (Monks SHOULD have that already, but that's another topic). Fighter? You can get your Will saves to Master.
Often when I look at feats that are extremely flavorful but borderline useless I just feel like giving them out as a character reward instead of loot.
Not access to them, but straight up give players extra feats (usually lower level feats).
I will say, a bit of a bump to A Home in Every Port; it would be niche, but I can see another use; if you would normally not be able to find lodging at all (maybe there's no room in the inns, or perhaps you're wanted by the local law enforcement or the BBEG and people would be unwilling to put you up) you can find it anyway, for at least 24 hrs.
Totally though the weird thing about it is that it comes in at level 11 which at that point you probably have alternatives or such hefty sums of money to bribe silence.
@@mentalkitty789 true, I do think the level needs to be lowered for it.
I think Incredible Investiture was changed in the playtest, where Charisma modifier was important to how many items you could attune.
So a low Charisma character could get Incredible Investiture and use more items, but the playtest feedback was negative to that aspect, and then Paizo changed to a limit of 10 items no matter your Charisma.
I think General feats should interact with the general actions or activities characters can do, and I’d like to see general feats that help with Aid, Ready and Defend. Specially Aid, as it’s an action that becomes better and better at higher levels. So my advice would be: look at the Actions and Activities tab in Archives of Nethys and start thinking “oh what I could bring to further increase the Interact action?” or similar
yeah, I like the idea of a general feat allowing (certain) interact actions to not provoke, or you can do once per round as a free action. Similar to Quick Draw for attacking or Poison Weapon for applying poisons, there could be a Quick Drinker or Fast Reader to retrieve a potion/scroll as part of the action to activate them.
You could make the high level general feats require non-combat general feats as a prereq
I think the reason breath control is seldom taken is because it's one of those feats where you don't know when it'll be useful, what if you never have to say, fight underwater, or fight something that uses noxious fumes? It's easier to take a feat that gives you a smaller bonus always rather than an amazing feat that may never get used, at least in my experience
Hmm here are my rough notes on a few feats I've home brewed for my group based on complaints or problems
LV 11 Magic Empowerment- Pre Int 18 or Magical Crafting: all magical items that you use and are attuned to you use your Class DC or Spell casting DC whichever is higher.
This one I made up for our War Priest I did feel bad for them, but I do get that it would be the best feat to take that you were talking about.
Lv 15 Enhanced Training- Pre Expert in weapons or armor: Choose one weapon or armor type became Master with that type of weapon or armor.
I do not care for how crafting is in this game to be honest
LV 11 Mass Production- Pre Master in Crafting- Apply the following additional effects to your crafting when crafting items that only require Expert and below to make and if you provide the necessary crafting materials cost x4
Crit Success- Each additional day you spend counts as 4 extra days of work to reduce cost
Success- You create 4 items instead of just the one that you would normal do
Failure- You create at least one of the items
At Level 15 this general feat can be used on Master level items
Lv 15 Legendary Lore- Pre More then 3 Lore skills: All Lore skills turn into Legendary
Note that if you have the Lore skill from Bardic Lore or Lore Master or any other class that makes such a reference this feat can only turn them into expert.
Lv 11 I'm worth it- When using downtime to earn Income with a Master level skill x4 the pay out. If using a skill with Legendary x 8 the pay out.
Lv 11 Open a Shop- Pre Entourage and a place you own to sell Goods-
Your Entourage works a shop for you while you are adventuring. The GM will roll secret checks using your Perception, Diplomacy, Deception, or Society depending on the type of guests that you wish to attract and the Players may use the stats for any of those rolls based on who is investing in the shop.
Crit Success- Items put in shop for sale sell for 100% of there value
Success- Items sell for 75% of Value. 25% of it went to your entourage
Failure- Item sells for 50% of the value.
Critical Failure- The GM rolls to see which one of your items that was on sale was stolen.
The Ride build is a grappling monk build. Be the literal beast wrangler you want to be.
As many have mentioned, the retraining makes a number of feats including Canny Acumen something you take early and then retrain.
Armor Proficiency when combined with the Sentinel archetype allows a new armor proficiency to scale with your class granted armor training. Want a bard in full plate? Armor Proficiency (to get Medium Armor) plus Sentinel gets you that. Limited use, but not exactly a trap.
If you really like the Untrained Improvisation that much, you should look at the Pathfinder Agent dedication.
Incredible Initiative actually does have a noteable downside in that it provides a Circumstance bonus.
If your party is using the Scout exploration activity, you get a +1 Circumstance bonus to initiative anyway. It always doesn’t stack with things like Elven Instincts or Incredible Scout.
It's gonna be mostly useful by lone wolf type characters who don't have a party, or in a party that doesn’t use the Exploration Activites rules or have a dedicated party scout.
Now that that you mentioned it, it's true that those you mention are the best over all, and in the adventure we are playing most of us picked those even at higher levels, so the 3rd,7th and so on general feats are chosen from lvl1 general feats.
Therefore, I believe that those should be a bit limited, so each character must choose 1 or 2 between them, and not limiting them to an stat requirement. So I imagine a system where you choose between those 6 aside from the other general feats, having a diferent name, and, lets say, you can only pick 2 or 3 of them in total at different levels.
Or you can do it the other way aroud. I believe it would be very fun and thematic to associate each of them to an specific base stat. For example, every character who reach 16 DEX will get fleet, 16 CON could be thoughness, and so on. I belive this could lead to a series of breakpoint in each stat where you get a benefit from them, and when you reach 20 or 22 (for balancing issues) you could get an upgrade of those.
I'd like to comment on incredible investiture, one of my age of ashes groups has a real big hardon for rings of resistance because they have a bomber alchemist and they end up shaving off a whole bomb of monster damage while the alchemist can just freely splash whatever since it'll most likely be resisted by the party. Everyone is wearing like at least 3 rings with some other resists from other sources. Because they;re all wearing so many rings the feat has definitely gotten value for them.
One thing about Untrained Improvisation is that you still cannot do the Trained actions with those skills, you can only do things that are untrained options for the skills.
Now this is of course negated by that Human feat that gives you UI AND allows you to do Trained actions.
So, general combat feats could revolve around skills such as the different spell traditions, a feat that lets you add +1 Damage with a weapon once per round isn't terribly game breaking, but it's a nice boost to the gish builds, and not bad for a fighter who is planning to muliclass into a casting class, or keeps a couple cantrips on hand.
I think the main thing with any suggestions like this is to work a feat chain into it. So for example Energized Weapon well call that first one, the next upgrade could let you spend your reaction on a miss to immediately attack again at the cost of 1 action, and at a decrease of the penalty by 1. There are a lot of better feats by that point so it balances. Last feat in the tree could be a quick drawl option for said weapon, but only if it was previous energized that day. This gives you a very situational, but powerful, benefit if you need to climb a rope after one combat, and then find yourself in another combat with your weapon not drawn.
For a good idea of a good general feat without a skill requirement, "Excellent Care" would give a +1 to attack, +1 to AC for one round, but only if during your morning preparations you use the feat to spend 10 minutes ensuring your weapons are honed and your armor is fitted. The next level up could provide a will save bonus of +1 from your confidence in your armor. Next after that could be a kind of "Master of Pacing" where you ditch the armor in mid stride giving you a bonus of twice your dex for one round while foes have trouble with your pacing shift.
What is, or isn't the best optimal feat really depends on a lot of factors, but very small bonuses with penalties or situational improvements is really the way to go.
Prescient planner is taking an ancient house rule and codifying it. It was super duper common in 1e for the gm to just go "yeah fine you remembered to buy a torch"
Another thing in defense of prescient planner would be that we as players will likely forget something that our actual character wouldn't. For example my fighter would know he's out of rope because it was used to set a trap in the dungeon he just left. Where as I might have forgotten that 3 sessions ago I used up that rope, even though I took it off my sheet.
I despise that the negative title attracts more views... great video as always Nonat. I will echo the friends in the comment section, you can retrain those "Weak at early" feats, and if you want to do no wrong, just pick toughness or fleet xD
I like toughness. My rogue is the party tank.
I would interpret A Home In Every Port to mean you can find someone to harbor you and your party even if you're in enemy territory or being hunted by a Hellknight death squad.
Supertaster Dhampir Investigator would be hilarious
We had a campaign where we acquired a castle. (Yes, the Hellknight one.) My character took the Hireling Manager Feat to take care of the staff of the Castle...then the GM, who was an alcoholic, got so drunk during one session that he rage quit his own session, deleted the entire campaign, and went ended up in rehab. I never got to use the feat...
Just some quick notes on a few of the feats. (Great video btw)
Breath Control: Not as combat powerful as other level 1 Gen feats but this is easily my favorite. I took it as a human fighter in a high seas campaign and it is amazing for exploration and RP.
Fleet: It is good but I don't think it's the strongest level 1 feat. It's great for melee characters but I frequent ranged and spellcasters so I haven't really had reason to take it.
Untrained Improv: This is OP. I both love and hate how good it is. It almost feels like this was supposed to be a feat split across two. Like at 3rd level you take Untrained Improvisation and then at 7th or 11th level there would be a feat with Prerequisite for the first one that gives you the full level benefit.
Weapon Training: Universalist Wizards
Numb to Death: I wasn't even aware of this feat until now and gosh dang do I want to have a character die just so I can take it. That's so cool.
Untrained Improv isn't OP. it is a bit of a trap. DC by level makes UI mediocre since you aren't going to be using it for anything that matters, you can't use it for trained actions so maybe if you want to trip some lower level enemies for some reason instead of just attacking them, coerce some townsfolk?
@@Argol228 Agreed, it's mostly for Medicine, Athletics/Acrobatics vs environment, and stealth to not crit fail group sneaking.
I think some good early-mid level options for general feats would include ways to improve proficiencies in some things you can't get quickly any other way, or just too slowly. Especially if you're trying to qualify for a specific Archetype. Like (Weapon) Expertise.
I think the other thing about Caravan Leader that makes it maybe a bit better than it first appears is that it also means everyone uses the longest hustle time in the party, rather than the shortest. That means that squishy wizard who gets puffed super early can use the barbarian's Con modifier instead, so it actually gains a fair bit more than just the 20 minutes. Say your lowest Con is 14 (because boosts), you could normally hustle for 20 minutes without leaving them behind. Take Caravan Leader, and suddenly the entire group can hustle for at least an hour (+4 mod x 10, +20 mins) thanks to the 18 Con requirement.
Still only useful in niche situations, but in those situations I can see this being VERY useful.
yeah, this seems like a Fellowship of the Rings kind of feat.
Adopted Ancestry is very useful actually. It's a tool to get generally good feats like Remorseless Lash or Mountain's Stoutness on any character. It does not even restrict the level requirements for the feats from another ancestry (unlike multiclassing, for example)
As other comments have said, adopted ancestry only lets you choose a common ancestry. Hobgoblins are unfortunately uncommon :(. I wish uncommon ancestries were RAW
@@meeseemeeseeks RAW - yes, but you can always ask GM's permission
From the designer's point - it's actually fair that a common feat allows only common ancestries. In our games, we made the feat get the same rarity as the ancestry you pick
The armor proficiency feat allows classes without any armor training qualify for the duelist archetype. Not sure how relevant that is for non-Monks, though.
Hello! As for relevancy for non-Monks, take a cleric that does not want to be a Warpriest for whatever reason. Now they have a better measure of protection if they take trained in light and medium armor. All depends on preference though.
This is like one of the only pf2 TH-camrs I've been able to find and i love his content. Does anyone have some more recommendations for channels? I wish pf2 was as popular as 5e
More than a hobby: Choose one feat from any of your archetypes that you currently have access too. This feat does not count towards any feat counts needed to allow the choosing of another archetype.
Hi Nonat1s, in your vid, you ask for idea of general feat of higher level than 1rst that would be useful without being autopick. I think feats that let you use a skill for trained action of others skills can be interesting.
At level 7, you can become master in a skill and you can select a general feat. So for a character which want to use master profiency in multiple actions, it can be a good option. I didn't think of a specific wording, but the 1rst feat of the Bard that let you use performance for Make an Impression or Demoralize, the Reverse Engineering Feat of the Inventor that let you use Crafting for Pick a Lock or Disable a Device can be good way to find a general feat that would be good without being an autopick. Here is a proposition:
Ingenious Way of Thinking - prerequisite (Master Proficiency in a Skill):
Your proficiency opened your eyes on the possibility and potentiality of your trade. When you select this feat, you must select a skill with the proficiency Master or more and you choose a trained action from any skill, you can use your skill proficiency with the selected skill with your proficiency of master or more. The explanation for this aptitude can be magical or not and must be discussed with your GM.
For example, your are master in Arcana and select Pick a Lock, you can now use the Arcana Skill to Pick a Lock. The explanation, here, can be your trade in Arcana, made you aware of the intricacy of the locks and you are able to visualize the lock in your mind. whan you pick the lock, your mind representation guide your hand in coordination with your mind map.
If you want to you use Nature to Disable Device, this can be because of your attunement to your environnement that you can sense what you must do (Feel the Force Luke...)
If you want to Society to Sneak, it's your habits and knowledge that guide you, you're used to observe your environnement and know exactly what to do (Imagine Sherlock Holmes with RDJ)
Another general feat, that could be useful, is a feat that could make more efficient in downtime. Downtime is lakcluster in feats. Here is a proposition:
Efficient use of time - prerequisite (Master Proficiency in a Skill):
You're knowlegeable and very efficient. When doing Downtime activity, you can do two actions at the same time with skill you are at least master in proficiency. Even, if you're efficient, you're not that fast, so when using this feat, you must choose before beginning one of those two:
- Quickly done , Badly Done: you perform the two actions in the same time and take the minimum of time possible, but this can be risky. In game terms, the dowtime needed is equal to the longer of the two activities and the checks gain the misfortune effect
- Being fast but keeping safe: ou perform the two actions in the same time but you take any risks with the results. In game terms, the dowtime needed is equal to the longer of the two activities + 50%, the checks are unmodified.
For example, you want to craft a batch of potions and some ammunitions or a batch and a rune...
Quickly done , Badly Done: You take 4 days, do your checks with both the misfortune effect and can continue reduce the cost on a 1 day work / 1 day reduction base for both project.
Being fast but keeping safe : You take 6 days, do your checks as normal and can continue reduce the cost on a 3 days work / 2 days reduction base for both project.
Sorry for the long post, I hope that was useful and good luck
You can follow the games policy on design, by giving it some ridiculous prerequisites and grant only +1 bonus of a type that you already have elsewhere, and only in certain circumstances. Which still makes it the only one, but it will be so bad that you would actually pick fleet instead ;)
"There's no argument" about Untrained Improvisation being best in slot? Yeah, there most definitely is. It's a good feat that helps you be decent at the things you're not able to put full investment in. That's nice, but you're still meaningfully worse than anyone actually trained in it, and miles worse than people investing in it. Often it's better to just find a way to get training in the one or two extraneous skills you might actually care about it on. Because of that, I rarely see people consider this much.
Idea for general feats: add higher levels to weapon and armor proficiency as general feats. Also, higher levels of Toughness and maybe Fleet, or higher levels of Canny Acumen too. All are pretty easy to implement and don't seem like they would be hugely game changing
I almost moved that chair this morning... oops.
got to your ramble at the end, and one thing I'm surprised isn't in there:
continuations to the armor and weapon proficiency feats. I see no reason why they couldn't have given us the option to take "Armor Expertise" at level 11, for example, and Mastery at 19.
That'd allow for those trap feats to be investments, instead, and allow for some really interesting builds.
Like, when I first read the rules, I saw Armor Proficiency feat, I thought "oh cool! And at level 11, I could take the next level to get the next proficiency leve- oh. Nope. Weird."
The best idea for new general feats is either improve the level 1 stuff with higher level feats, or make non-combat feats that help with party utility.
I would love a feat where, once a day, you can use an extra reaction but you can't use a reaction again for several rounds, even a minute maybe. I feel like it would be key for being able to save a companion, or make a big difference. You don't want to blow your load with it all the time, but actually doing that in short battles could be an effective strategy.
I would call it something like divine premonition. You receive a premonition to act from some divine source, but it leaves you a little confused and disoriented, so you lose your reaction for one minute. Something like that.
A point about your criticism of A Home in Every Port. Cost of Living assumes you own or rent a property in the settlement, what this feat does is allow you to cover lodging and food whenever you show up in a village as a stop over before going into an investigation or adventuring spree in that area, covering those expenses for a day. As such the cost savings should be measured against lodging and food service costs, not cost of living rates. As this can provide decent lodging for up to 6 allies, it should be measured against extravagant lodging at the highest or at the very least, bed cost for six people (so between 6 silver to 10 gold) in addition to the cost of meals and drink, and allows for fun and engaging roleplay opportunities regarding the well connected PC.
Incredible investure is really good.
My lvl 7 character has 8 slots filled,
Staff, armor, item for arcana, item for deception, diplomacy, Cloak of feline rest, doubling ring and belt of good health.
7 from my mind.
At lvl 12 I'd want to have ring of wizardry, an item or 2 giving resistance, googles of night, a gremua
Boots of speed, and an apex at lvl 17.
I won't be carrying belt at that moment,
But everything I find that might be useful will be used.
12 slots efficiency give me +2/3 item bonus on 2 skills with some nice editions
For prescient planner, i wanted to take it on a character that used a chest like a backpack and kept it full of junk.
i feel like some of those general feats that are sad could become better with some homebrew errata. like
adoptive ancestry you also gets a lvl 1 ancestry feat of the chosen ancestry (same restrictions).
armor/weapon proff: whenever your proff in armor/ weapons goes up so does this feat (not the best wording but i think the idea gets there)
the house one just gives free housing in the town after the downtime is paid.
Great video, just one issue:
Feather Step DOES NOT allow you to Step within difficult terrain, only INTO difficult terrain. The feat grants no benefits if you are already in a square of difficult terrain, except in the case you're moving into yet another square of difficult terrain.
(P.S. I run a home rule where Adopted Ancestry grants you a 1st level ancestry feat of the ancestry you chose when you gained the feat, which has its limits but gives immediate flavor for low level characters! You might consider allowing something similar at your tables if you find the feat subpar on those grounds?)
If you live outside of America can you still get the dice? I'm guessing I'd have to pay shipping.
A home in every port should be a background style of feat.
At high level play, characters do run into the magic item situation where Incredible Investiture becomes relevant. By Level 20, the game is designed with the expectation that:
You have Magic Armor (1 invested)
About six sources of item bonuses to skills, if it comes from a worn magic item, they are invested (7 total)
A source of item bonus to Perception (if worn magic item then invested) (8 total)
That leaves with 2 slots left for any other magical effects a character may want outside of items that mostly just give a modifier to character stats. Something like a Ring of Elemental Resistance or an Aeon Stone. Want more than that like having multiple Rings of Resistance to different energy types, Incredible Investiture looks more appealing.
Is it kind of annoying bookkeeping that you might houserule away? Yes, for one of my campaigns at Level 19, I houseruled that characters can have more than 10 invested items and don't worry about feats like Incredible Investiture. For my other groups that don't mind the bookkeeping and enjoy RAW, we do use it and I have seen players hit 10 invested items before Level 10 once. That feat is a thing and it's a good thing to ask your GM about in terms of how they feel about the 10 item limit. It's still better than the Pathfinder 1E slot rules at least. Now I can wear 10 magic rings if I really want to at least.
Scoot Swiftly is gonna be the name of my next Halfling Rogue
Just as an advisory note regarding the Ride feat and Command an Animal not requiring the animal to be willing, do keep in mind that animals that can be mounted such as horse and dire wolf have the Buck reaction, which allows them the ability to knock you off of them if you fail the DC, so rather than completely denying you the ability to ride an unwilling animal, it gives the animals you would try to ride the ability to resist.
If you're playing a class that has some save that doesn't go beyond expert then canny acumen is a great pickup at level 15.
Personally I think there should be a few more general feats in the game, I don't think we need general feats at every level. There is no inherent balance or theme issue in that the "General" ways adventurer's excel differently can be encapsulated in things that all exist at the low to mid levels. Actually as I'm writing this I think I've come to the opinion that there is a theme issue with too many high level general feats. I also think it's OK that all of the good combat general feats are at the lowest level, it means you're not having to learn about them at later stages of play and they are all tightly balanced around each other, plus you experience them early on in every campaign which is good design for teaching your players about a fundamental game element. I can see the difficulties in making higher level combat general feat options but I think that this is a subtle but important feature, not a bug.
Do you have any plans to ever cover Skill Feats? I know there are a ton of them, but even a general overview of some of the best (and maybe a few "traps" for new players) would be awesome!
4:15 Well, you have not seen me in real life ever but... my Half-Orc Rogue Eldritch Trickster does have the feat Breath Control... and I did pick it at a perfect time, right before we had to battle some water creatures which could drag us under water and/or stay away from shallow water where us close combat fighters could reach them so we had to fight on their terms. Well... every time you attack (or do some other things) while submerged, you lose some of your time. Having Breath Control takes away all worries of drowning in such a fight ^^
I kinda doubt I will need the feat another time in the adventure path but hell did it come in handy at that time. And I only took it for the option to dive through a narrow passage where we did not know how long it might take ^^ And in another spot before the fight I could scout even another passage which was fully submerged.
It might be, I will retrain out of it of course but for the moment, it sticks with me ^^
Adopted ancestry really should include Ancestral Paragon as well. Though I did still find use for it with my Halfling adopted by Goblins who rode his dog into battle
it should be noted that level 1 human gunslingers can get a clan pistol via adopted ancestry for free, which is great for saving starting gold and gives you probably the best single shot pistol in the game right off the bat
I can’t wait to try: “Oh wait! I do have a 10’ pole. It’s right here inside my backpack.” 😂
They probably don't have other high level general feats yet because Paizo may expect people to want to take more high level *skill* feats in those slots, since most if not all skill feats also have the general tag.
One other thing about skill feats that I was a little disappointed in (only a little) was that there were some roll-able actions tucked away in feats, rather than being an option that gets attached to higher training in a skill - how many skills have actions unlocked at training levels higher than Trained? In my humble opinion, feats should be things you can just do (even if it is an added effect onto something you're already rolling) - you can't fail at it; whereas skills require an actual roll to pull off - so things like Battle Prayer should have been something you are able to do when your training in Religion goes up, not having to take a specific feat for it to be able to attempt it.
General feats seem to be things that just about anyone can do/learn. I don't think it's too surprising if the majority of them are lower level to help represent this accessibility.
Personally I do not mind the lack of "late game support" it allows me to pick some of the lower level stuff that I couldn't get the first time around and I think that needs to be remembered about higher level stuff sometimes not only is it the area that is least played in, but because you are past the pre-requisite for a lot of the other feats you can still get those too.
I feel you bro, is really hard to create general feats, because is really hard to get bonuses in combat that stack, maybe really specific general feat could work, for my campaing I create a special technique for my pcs that they could pick instead of their general feat, this feats alloweds to do things that they normally can't, for example the rogue can flank with a trees and bushes, but it take a lot of time to thinks and a lot of talk with the players.
1:48 pretty much the only time you're going to take Adopted Ancestry is if you are a human.
4:09 and it becomes almost completely pointless by level 3 when the casters can cast Breath Water on everyone in the group.
21:28 basically the hustle feats are only going to be useful if you are doing a military/war focused game where getting to a position in time to help an allied unit in time or getting to a position before another army/unit to prepare the battlefield before they show up.
23:53 honestly, I feel like PF2 needs more support for everything. Having only recently moved over from PF1 to PF2, PF2 feels kind of empty. Partly, I think that Paizo has gone too wide too fast, trying to add everything they had in PF1, but not spending a ton of time to flesh out a lot of that stuff.
Speed master plan:
Step one: Elf Ancestry.
Step two: Undine heritage
Step three: Nimble Elf
Step four: Fleet
Step five: Strong Swimmer
With what I listed puts your character at a 40ft movement speed and strong swimmer feat Your swim Speed increases to match your land Speed. So you end up with land and swim speed of 40ft. Then being a rogue makes is more amazin.
You do know you have to make that Ride a hostile animal Druid build after talking about it. It's very Rodeo!
Would a lvl 3 heal be 3d8+24 though I may just be thinking of the 2 action version
Yes! My math is bad when I do it on the spot! lol
Hey now, I took Breath Control once!
... since it came as part of the Iruxi ancestry.
What about focusing mainly on general feats that grant unique reactions in combat. Being able to use all your actions is so important in this system and i always enjoy finding new reactions to slot into a build
As for the lack of higher level general feats. As you mentioned yourself, skill feats are general feats. And there are some really good skill feats at those higher levels. I don't mind at all spending a general feat slot on a skill feat. And I still have the option to take a regular general feat, should I want that.
As for Untrainied Improvisation. Even more ridiculous is the human ancestry's Clever Improviser. But of course you need to be human for that... Or you need to have taken the Adopted Ancestry Feat to be able to take human ancestry feats. Being able to also use trained skill actions for untrained skills is just awesome.
Of course, it's an ancestry feat and there are plenty of good ancestry feats, so it doesn't stand out as much, I guess. But still... Unless I play one of the skill classes, Clever Improviser is my go-to level 5 ancestry feat when playing a human. Otherwise, yes, at level 3 I'm probably taking Untrained Improvisation.
What was I thinking (feat 15): Reduce the number of required feats need by 1 for the feat counts needed to allow the choosing of another archetype.
I don't think Versatile Heritages count for Different Worlds. I don't think it matters that much balance-wise, but if you asked a Paizo Person, I doubt they'd agree.
Numb to death EITHER not gain the wounded condition (if you don't have the condition) OR don't increase the condition (of you already have the condition). It doesn't reset your condition.
For your Final question. I don't super mind because you don't get THAT many general/skill feats and because all skill feats are labeled as general feats I do believe that means you could take one of them instead, correct? So in that regard it does open up the roster more while choosing at higher levels when you can use a general feat to 'scare to death' and such. All the rambling below is my thought on the weaker feats you pointed out! Mostly niche uses and variant rules that give them value.
I think armor training is a potentially worthwhile investment for spellcasters. Given that the feat gives you roughly a +2 to your AC (assuming it doesn't mess with your dex cap) keeping it on par with an increase to your armor proficiency. Now if you EVER get more than expert in an armor proficiency it is completely a trap. The other end of it with some value is that you get to wear heavier armors that are enchanted. So if you find some leather armor of...something being untrained in it basically makes it worthless to your character (assuming you don't have another PC to hand it off to.) Though this gap also becomes less of a big deal if you are playing in a game with proficiency without level too!
Adopted Ancestry is REALLY niche, I could see it if you're using the paragon ruleset where you get more ancestor feats? Otherwise pretty lame.
Toughness I think needs to be 2HP per level, basically something for low con melee fighters to take, upgrading you to the 'next type of classes' HP line (but they are really hesitant to do things like that as we have virtually no proficiency increasing feats besides 'becoming trained' or 'becoming expert' in a lot of regards). I can only see someone taking it if they are REALLY trying to be a meat tank to the max or they are TERRIFIED of dieing. Though maybe for spellcasters with the new blood magic it will see some increased potential?
Home in Every Port makes sad, it is REALLY flavorful, it is such a cool concept! BUT it is not cost effective, except in really niche situations. It is a thing I've noticed with some strange feats that mostly come from adventure paths. The feat "All of the Animal" vs "Forager" is crazy.
Canny Acumen is great at lvl 17. +2 on a weak save is life-saving.
I'm pretty sure the only reason a feat is limited to a higher level is to prevent issues really on and that the design goal is mostly that you have more at higher levels rather than stronger ones.
Home in every port, I think could be a really amazing addition. By RAW it's really underpowered for its level and niche in use. But I think you could treat it in game as a character reaching the a point in their career of being a known figure. After all by level 11 they have likely done some impressive things, and people have heard of them. There are lots of really fun ways to make use of this feat for RP and character development. You just have to ask why people would welcome them into their home.