I'd say a lot of pure spellcasters have mediocre class feats. My group has 2 sorcerers in it and they quickly branched out to archetype feats.
Grab Reach Spell, Dangerous Sorcery, your bloodline upgrade, and then... well yeah.
Sorcerer is in the better half imo, most basic evolutions are fine, crossblooded is excellent (arcane sorc with heal lmao), both level 16 greater evolutions are fire, and there are some random gems hidden in the feat list, such as *the* blaster metamagic
It's cool but it's crazy that it's a level 10 feat, and it still has a visual indicator, plus it deals damage to you.
I want them to keep it in the remaster though, as it removes all components, but maybe lower the level and remove the part that makes you glow.
I don't mind it actually, probably because it's so cool visually, regarding the damage it's because it's ad emergency feat, not a stealth feat, you use it because you are either restrained or the enemy's reactive strike would surely bonk you for more damage
You also must consider that it doesn't require and additional action like lower lvl metamagics
Sure, but I wouldn't say they have good class features either, outside of Bard, Cleric and maybe Psychic. For the most part spell casters cast spells, and the entire power budget for the class is locked up in that.
Bard, Cleric, Witch, Oracle all have interesting or good Class Features. I'm sure Psychic is fine. No one complains about Magus or Summoner's class features. Sorcerer is what you make of it. That really just leaves Wizard (and maybe Druid) for lackluster class features.
Imo sorcerer has the single best feats out of the caster squad. Not like top of the system but very decent. Evolution feats, crossblooded evolution is a treat (seriously, oracles have identical feat at level 16 while sorcerers get it at 8), a simple ''+1 to all saves against magic'' in bloodline resistance, some extremely good focus spells (I have experience of playing high level hag sorcerer which has extremely good focus spells), and pretty much everything post 16 is nothing short of amazing.
I mean, yeah some levels of feats are pretty boring but multiclassing often is only possible if you ignore a lot of the good paths in the thaumaturge. Such as the scroll path, the talismans path, the recall knowledge boosting path, etc. Yeah what's leftover is lame but that's because you ignored everything good. Now granted the boring options do outnumber the interesting ones.
More examples of this I would say are the spellcasters. You get the spellcasting feature, but across the board their feats are pretty sucky.
Oh yeah I am aware of that. It's the idea of playstyle choice. Like, the best thing about Ranger now that I am building one, is that at any level, there are some very good class feats that will support whatever choice you make, you can be a monster hunter and have animal companion, you can have animal companion and use gravity weapon, you can skip on the companion and take dual weapons, and these choices all work well enough with any instinct. With Thaum, if your concept doesn't include scrolls, that tree won't be useful, and if it does include, well..... why? It could be that the easier and better option is to multiclass to Bard if the goal is to get spellcasting, there could be a valid reason to take Scroll Path instead of a multiclass, but that reason doesn't work with all concepts
I am not saying it is not useful, I am saying that there are cases where just taking a Caster is a quicker way to get spells, so if the goal from taking the Scroll tree is to become a Gish, and not to be a Swiss army scroll user or a Talisman dispenser, then taking these trees would be more expensive than taking a Spellcaster archetype feat wise
Up to level 8, you only get two Rank 1 and Rank 2 Scrolls. Then at level 12 you begin to get into Rank 3 up to 5, and then at level 18 you get Rank 6 followed Rank 7 spell at level 20. 4 Class feat investment that competes with level 12 and 18 feats, that's quite expensive. Meanwhile most Caster Archetypes give twice the number of spells up to level 6 and you get up to Rank 8 spells + Cantrips + 2 trained skill feats+ access to other useful class feats/features/focus spells (Courageous Anthem and Dangerous Sorcery for example).
I mean, if you constantly buy Scrolls, then taking the first feat is enough to make you comfortable, but you really should be asking yourself why take the entire tree when Charisma spellcasters are abundantly available. Again, not that it won't be useful, it's just a lot of playstyle dependency and competition with other later class feats that make this decision hard.
Spellcasters are the biggest examples of this. Spellcasting is, naturally, one of the most disproportionately strong and varied class features, and their Class Feats tend to bring proportionately less power and variety to the table to counterbalance that.
But there is no counterbalancing. Nothing's stopping casters from picking up archetypes with worthwhile feats. As things are, the poor and uninteresting class feats casters get don't actually prevent them from gaining power if that's the players' goal.
I agree! In *theory* strong class features get counterbalanced by weaker and less flexible Feats, but in practice all it does is create an optimization gap between Archetyped casters and straight-classed ones.
That is probably why the Remaster seems to be buffing caster Feats, if PC1 is any indication
Yeah, which is the problem. They made spellcasters have weaker feats, by and large, which means that, rather than getting worse feats, spellcasters instead have the most incentive to archetype.
That being said, it does make it harder for them to linearly increase their power level, as archetyping generally means you're covering for your weaknesses or doing other things rather than just making your character linearly better at the things they're already good at.
Of course, if you look at spellcasters, druids have very strong feats... and are probably the strongest class in the game overall as a result.
I dunno. If we prescribe to the belief that a huge chuck of a caster's power is chained to their versatility, doesn't adding a casting dedication to them directly increase their power? Yeah, you're not adding a bunch of damage or increasing your spell save DC, but you are getting more options.
How much of a benefit this is depends on class and tradition. Primal casters, for instance, really just get access to some mental-targeting effects, whereas a wizard can gain access to Heal or an occult caster access to AoE damage, or a divine or occult caster access to Wall spells like Wall of Stone. And of course there's focus spells.
Generally speaking, primal casters benefit the least from this (druids and primal sorcerers in particular) while occult and arcane get the largest benefits.
However, a lot of this access is gated behind scrolls (and wands and staves), so it may cost you an extra action to draw your off-class spell scroll to use it.
This is why grabbing focus spells is a very strong thing to do when archetyping as a caster, because if your class has poor focus spell options, grabbing a good offensive focus spell lets you replace your cantrips with focus spells and you can cast focus spells all day.
The wizard with the staff focus can also abuse his staff ability to dump a bunch of extra charges into a staff that gives him cross-class spells.
I kinda want to say Magus, Magus got some cool class features with spellstrike and everything that comes with hybrid study but the feats feel pretty mediocre. Then again I might be biased because I played a starlit spawn.
Starlit span definitely doesn't help here. It's honestly like they designed the class and the feats and then nailed the subclass to the side at the end. Like... Arcane Cascade doesn't even do anything for the class. It is wasted design space.
And every other kind of magus has a way to meaningfully use staves, but not the Starlit span with a weapon that takes two hands to fire. It's very silly.
I mean, Starlit Span isn't in a different position than any of the others in regards to staves. Except Twisting Tree obviously. Sparkling Targe wants a weapon + shield, Inexorable Iron is about true two-handed weapons and Laughing Shadow really wants a free hand. None of them really have space for a staff without [Fused Staff](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2864).
As a staff, it also cannot hold property runes and even the staff portion ironically isn't great for the Magus, imo. And ofc the whole melee-only part.
Yeah, usually martials heavily interact with their class feats. But no, the Magus' feats might as well not exist with how little impact most of them have. They just don't support what you actually do. And not only at low level either. The fact that it is incredibly common to replace most of them with Wizard or Psychic archetype feats even *with* FA is telling. That that is often objectively even moreso.
Usually hybrid study feats are the exception, but yeah, Starlit Span doesn't even do that. I'd also add Sustaining Steel to that list.
Sustaining Steel is incredible, especially with a Wizard Archetype and a focus on reaction spells, but I havent been impressed by Inexorable Iron's other feats.
No, I definitely see what you mean. We play Free Archetype and I've gone Inventor -> Sentinel -> Golem Grafter, which has allowed me to be very tanky. Sustaining Steel and AoO are the only feats I really have been excited to take.
That's pretty much the opposite of my experience XD. Devastating Spellstrike is *technically* an upgrade, but unless you often fight clumped up foes with strong weaknesses, it is pretty much irrelevant.
Sustaining Steel is neat, but why would I pay a 10th level feat and be forced top prepare attack spells in my highest slots for something that *might* allow me to take another hit like once or twice a day at most? One of my players had this for a good five levels and I don't think it ever mattered, despite his best efforts. When monsters hit for over 20 damage and you get 5-ish temp HP + heal for 10, that is kinda how it works out often.
In my experience, it adds up. A magus with high CON (+3) and Toughness would have around 128 HP at level 10, give or take. An on-level enemy with a High attack and an agile backup with High and Moderate damage, respectively, would do, on average, 39 HP per turn (assuming Heavy Armour). If we can cast, on average, at least a Rank 3 spell per turn (one action spells, reactions, spellstrikes), that give us 11 HP every turn with the temp HP counted in. It means that you can survive five turns instead of four (128 + 33 = 161) tanking two hits from an on-level enemy every turn. Your studious spell slots can also be used for Sure Strike, which you would want to use for spell strikes, meaning that you'd get 4 + 8 or 4 + 10 some turns in addition to the temporary hit points.
At our table, it unfortunately was incredibly common for enemies to roll just high or low enough for it to literally not matter. It really doesn't take much, just a few points of damage. If the enemy just does 35 damage on average the temp HP already allow you to survive 5 rounds and if they just do 41 damage per round you don't last more than 4 either. That is the whole problem with Sustaining Steel, it is just so easy to roll out of.
But what you are describing also doesn't sound particularly viable for more than one intense combat, if that.
There is no way you are using a 3rd+ rank spell every turn, even with scrolls and wands. In my experience the Magus's action economy is already heavily overloaded (re: one-action spells or Sure Strike) and you just don't have the resources to sustain it either. Using 3rd rank spells to Spellstrike at level 10 is also a huge waste of damage (10d6 vs 6d6), you have to dip into your actual slots to do as good or better than a focus spell. And if you are spamming reaction spells, the spells themselves (Interposing Earth in particular) already do the heavy lifting by themselves.
I actually think, as of the Remaster, Wizard is one of the better spellcasters as far as Feats go. Aside from what they already had Premaster (Familiar, Enhanced Familir, various Spellshapes, Irresistible Magic, Split Slot, Scroll Savant) they now have new (or newly buffed) Feats like Spellbook Prodigy, Spell Protection Array, Explosive Arrival. I feel like only Witches and Clerics have equally varied and useful Feats as the Wizard now, with the Druid coming in a little below them all. Hopefully casters in PC2 get the same treatment.
Druid is pretty good because no matter what you can grab Order Explorer (Storm) and Order Magic for Tempest Surge and have one of the best focus spells ever, insane value spell. And the see-through-weather has really nice mileage with Obscuring Mist (bully party into buying Goz Masks), it's nice having semi reliable off guard for your ranged attacks
At level 6+ you can instead go wave order and grab [Pulverizing Cascade](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1311), which is basically a smaller fireball that deals bludgeoning damage and does 1d6 less damage than an equal-rank fireball. It also has 120 foot range for some reason.
I keep forgetting about Bards having the obvious best Feats lol.
I disagree that Sorcerer is above Wizard though. Aside from Dangerous Sorcery, nothing really stands out as an excellent Feats option for Sorcerers. Maybe Crossblooded Evolution, but it’s not noticeably better than Wizard Feats imo.
As for Psychic I’m currently GMing for a Psychic and we both feel like their Feats are quite a bit more situational and less cool than Wizard ones. What stands out to you to make the Psychic feel better?
I really like Thoughtform Summoning and Dark Persona's Presence for Psychics. I think Sorcerer feats are just a lot more interesting with all of the evolution feats which play into the flavor of your bloodline.
Dark Persona would be impressive, but it basically turns you into an additional enemy that casts Dirge of Doom on your party. Unless theres a way you can run 30 ft deep into the front lines as a 6 HP caster to not hit your allies with the aura.
And Thoughtform Summoning looks at the summon level; a rank 5 spell only gives the creature 2 physical resistance when you're level 9, not to mention occult only has Animate Dead (where most parties might object to), Summon Fey and Summon Entity.
> Dark Persona would be impressive, but it basically turns you into an additional enemy that casts Dirge of Doom on your party. Unless theres a way you can run 30 ft deep into the front lines as a 6 HP caster to not hit your allies with the aura.
If your allies have master will, cold-minded, and/or things like bravery, they can potentially just shrug off your aura more easily than enemies can. It is generally at worst symmetrical (except that the psychic himself is unaffected) and if your party has ways of exploiting it it is quite unfair in your direction, as Dirge of Doom is really good and there's a number of ways for you to build a party to exploit frightened enemies.
It works best on psychic/champions or similar high AC melee psychics.
> I disagree that Sorcerer is above Wizard though. Aside from Dangerous Sorcery, nothing really stands out as an excellent Feats option for Sorcerers. Maybe Crossblooded Evolution, but it’s not noticeably better than Wizard Feats imo.
The bloodline focus spells are really good for the good bloodlines.
Crossblooded Evolution lets you grab Heal as an arcane caster, which is quite powerful.
Helt's spelldance is really good on sorcerers because you're a charisma class so you can actually pass the performance check.
Safeguarded Spell lets you drop fireballs and other AoE spells on your own head.
You also still get access to Quickened Casting and Effortless Concentration.
Greater Vital Evolution basically gives you two extra spell slots of your highest two ranks. Divine Evolution basically gives you an extra heal or harm spell every day at your top rank. Arcane and Occult Evolution let you add a spell to your repertoire that changes, giving you some of the benefits of being a preparatory caster. And Primal Evolution gives you an extra spell slot that you can use to summon an animal or plant or fungus.
Druids have the best feats of any caster by far. They get animal companions, they get the best focus spells, they get a bunch of path-unique feats that are often quite good (ignoring difficult terrain, gain swim speed, zap an enemy with a focus spell as a reaction or set them on fire for attacking you, etc.), heal yourself and regain a focus spell, give your group bonuses to saving throws vs spells, give your familiar a breath weapon that frightens enemies, etc.
A recent character I had is a Witch, I was very hesitant to choose either, Wizard or Witch.
Let's just say that backstory purposes made Witch win out. I'm really only taking Wizard multiclass just because both are Int classes and I could use more spells.
I've been playing a Life Oracle.
The game has free archetype, so I have yrt to actually take a single Oracle feat. Even at 2nd level I took "reach spell" which all spellcasters can get anyways
Spellcasters epitomizing this is actually one of my biggest gripes of the system.
Investigator seems to be the only martial subjected to this for most of their feats.
Playing an investigator, I can say with a lot of certainty that unless your campaign is specifically geared around the investigation playstyle, there are a LOT of completely dead feats. There is too much riding on the GM knowing when *your* abilities apply, so you have to constantly badger them to make sure its happening.
But good lord Devise Strategem, especially when combined with a deadly or fatal weapon is just so damn fine. The class has so many skills out of the box that most investigators will be trained almost all of them
Agreed about Devise A Stratagem, but I combined it with a light crossbow and Archer dedication (picked up Crossbow Terror and Archer's Aim as well). At 20th level that is a pre-rolled to hit doing 4d10+8 piercing + 5d8 precision (always bring Insight Coffee!) plus 2 more D6 in miscellaneous elemental runes. Not bad on a crit and if I roll crap to hit on Devise A Stratagem I can just pivot into moving to flank, battlefield medicine or many other tricks (Alchemical Sciences methodology helps a lot here).
Definitely one of the most fun characters I have ever played when it comes to tactical options.
Low level investigator feats are that for me. Many just doesn't do anything, and a GM would have to be kinda a evil to not just do what red herring does for free.
The solution for that's odd is really simple, it's just to make it similar to trap finder or lantern thaumaturge that they always search for clues and odd stuff
Yeah so much early Investigator feats are either really lame or outclassed by clearly better feats, I will never take That's Odd or Red Herring because they just sorta feel like they take RP away from a class that has a lot of built-in RP support. That said I still think investigator is a lot better than, say, barbarian, who has some truly dull feats.
The barbarian is wierd because it varies a ton in the quality when it comes to feats. It have some of the best and the worst but what I dislike the most is the feats that lack a scaling and become obsolete, like wounded rage or Furious finish.
Some feats also comes with unnecessary complexity such as the +2 circumstance bonus to damage against you for come and get me, which may not stack with certain effects and is something for the GM to remember.
All that said, I never have a problem taking feats on a barbarian because enough of them are so good
>I will never take That's Odd or Red Herring because they just sorta feel like they take RP away from a class that has a lot of built-in RP support.
How?
Some time i'll go figure out how Search and Investigate are distinctly different exploration activities, and how doing them normally looks any different in the fiction than doing both using the [Ongoing Investigation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1459) feat (which really should just be a basic class feature for the Investigator (that doesn't count against their power budget because who the heck doesn't just combine Search and Investigate into one thing?)).
Does every investigation scene take 20 minutes because some of the clues were hidden and i can't roll perception while investigating? do i have to go over every distance i travel twice??
Investigate only does recall knowledge skills, search does perception. Investigate won't find traps, but it will explain you the wierd underworld signs saying >>target here<< or similar
Yeah but 1/3rd of the clues are hidden in a secret compartment that has subtle visual clues to where it is so it's both a perception (to find) and recall knowledge (to explain) check (according to me and my gm, it's fine if you do it only recall knowledge i think according to GMC), but let's say i gotta do both, so it's both, and it's the middle of my investigation so i just, do a perception roll, which is apparently a Search activity, and then continue Investigating, and the GMC says Search can take however long makes sense don't overcomplicate it, but like, what's the point of Ongoing Investigation then, like sure, i could Investigate while doing all the other exploration activities but if i'm not Searching while Investigating i'm missing so much stuff, and if i'm searching and finding something interesting i'm obviously going to Investigate it (class title). (assume nobody else has Wisdom and is Searching for me.) (and like if i'm Avoiding Notice enough for it to be important it'd be an encounter anyway and i can Recall knowledge in encounters while sneaking)
As I said, it's when something may be obvious but may need recall knowledge to be actually obvious. Something the GM can do in secret but a player doesn't have to stop and constantly ask for.
Are there any animal droppings? The GM rolls and mention that you can expect a bear in the area after a nature check. It may also allow a nature check as initiative in this instance as you are following the signs of what you know.
It took a while for me to get investigate, but it does have its benefits. Alot of perception check should perhaps be converted to society checks because you may find a ton of documents, but what does perception tell you when you need to find information? It's better to skip the perception all together and just roll a society in such instances for those wishing to investigate.
More quick examples where to prompt investigate checks:
* Banners
* Symbols, religious, cult, gang, clans etc.
* Tracks
* Documents
* Altars
* Build quality change
Just like search looks for the hidden objects (items/creatures/hazards), investigate gives information, not the object. It can also change what you roll with initiative as it's determined by what you did previously.
Well yes this is all very good advice.
I'll consider passing it on to my GMs and incorporate as much as i can remember/accomplish into my own games. (some GMs don't in the habit of rolling for PCs, so i do have to stop and ask for rolls and specify what i'm doing based on context)
You're explaining how to do investigation and search good normally, not at all commenting on Ongoing Investigation, and i respect that, but you've made me even more convinced that Ongoing Investigation (and probably similar feats) is totally useless, and actively counterproductive to good use of the rules because one might interpret the exploration rules bad based on the feat.
The thaum pain is real, you want the low level feats, and the high level ones, but in the middle you sometimes want literally nothing.
But Magus is even worse, its not rare to want like 3 magus feats and take the rest in archetypes since they actually synergize better with the class than its own feats
I'd say Oracle is one of the worst especially for Battle Oracle.
Combine the disappointing nature of caster class feats with their mediocre advanced and greater revelation spells and add the cherry on top of stupefied 2 from their major curse and you find that almost all of their feats are just not good.
Champion archetype suits them much better.
Spellcasters are the iconic example of this, having one of the strongest class chassis with some bad feats. Wizard in particular has the worst feats of the bunch.
Champion definitely has some meh feats, with most of the good one being only useful if you have a shield.
I'll also give a quick side note for an argument for alchemist. Though a lot don't consider them to have a good chassis, I consider it to be the best part of them, effectively being a tankier wizard with all of their spells being focus spells. That said, as much as I love the class, they have the worst feats of any class. You get alchemical familiar, quick bomber, and if you're feeling spicy, a couple bomb related ones. Not till higher levels like 12, 16+ that you get good feats.
Revivifying Mutagen is one of the best Alchemist feats for *any* Alchemist, and it's Level 2. It's so good I wish they'd make it a Class Feature. Every Alchemist should take it.
Honestly? A good amount of Ranger builds have *no* support whatsoever. As in, I've built a few ranged flurry Rangers, and I pretty much always find myself just taking Hunted Shot on 1 and then an archetype for almost *every* feat beyond that.
There are some ways around it. You can pick up some decent focus spells, or go for the Recall Knowledge paths, or get a pet. But there's not *that* many focus spells, Recall Knowledge is pretty antisynergistic with a flurry build, and if I wanted to go pets, I would just replace all of my class feats with Beastmaster instead. (I've done that before, it works pretty decently.)
But realistically, if you don't go an Edge that's specifically supported... you can just pick up whatever level 1 feat is made for your build, then your Edge will carry you for the rest of the game. It's kind of liberating, in a way, but also kind of sad.
Ranger is weird in terms of feats since most of them are just feat lines, such as the Monster Hunter line, animal companions (Beastmaster exists, yes, but you want to get at least the first Ranger feat since companion with edge is bueno), and the edge sharing line (which is my personal favourite). But if none of the feat lines fit your build, yeah, multiclass it is.
Feat opportunity cost is kind of uneven across the board and it's really frustrating as a casual observer, casters are obvious but even outside of that it starts feeling silly.
Thaumaturge feels like a lot of feats besides The Controversial One(tm) are just sorta. There? You'll have some cool ones, but 99% of the conversation I see around their feats seems to revolve around Diverse Lore, maybe scroll/talismens, and what archetype you should take.
I'm holding out for PC2 before I commit to being too bummed about it, but: Champion feels like it was never allowed to get anything particularly exciting because its reaction is just so good, with legacy features relegated to laughing stock feats (Divine Grace and Smite Evil, oh how the mighty have fallen) and feats that cause awkward action *bloat* rather than any compression to its playstyle(s). Investigator has a bunch of feats that feel like they sawed off parts of core features to turn into feats (Red Herring for Pursue a Lead; the free recall of Known Weakness for Keen Recollection, etc) while lacking in ways to give itself more alternative actions or combat style based action compression.
Alchemist.
If you invest into the scroll thing it costs a couple of feats down the line, and flying on your implement is something I need to do. Actually, some of the higher ones are cool. But I agree, in between a lot of meh. Hence, my thaumaturge is also a Marshall.
Unless Im playing "THE" Investigator type character, every single one of my Investigators has taken almost zero investigator class feats. Not because they are bad, but because I feel like everything I need from the class I get at level 1 and then it just autoscales.
Rogue has a handful of excellent class feats, and a lot of class feats that are just not as good as taking an archetype imo. I actually think a lot of their class feats work better for other classes in archetype form rather than for rogues particularly.
Gunslinger.
You have some real standouts like Drifter's Juke or Fake Out, alongside crap like Blast Lock and Cauterize. Far too many of them are just super situational or overlap with skills and skill feats - giving up a class feat for the same effect as being Trained in Thievery, or Intimidating Glare. Every time I try to build a Gunslinger, I wind up with "dead levels" where there are just no feats that appeal to me and I wind up taking an Archetype because there's just nothing interesting.
Ranger is the one that immediately comes to my mind (sans the first level action-compression feats). Flurry Rangers don't really get any good feats (with most of their feats being about parrying, which they really don't want to do). Rangers wanting an Animal Companion will get faster progreasion by taking the Beastmaster Archetype. Outwit has some alright feats but doesn't really function pre-10 (and has no in-class support for Demoralize/Feinting). Even their focus spells are kinda middle of the pack. Their only really good feats come in in the higher levels.
Barbarian is another. They've got some in-class support for Demoralize and Grappling, but if you don't want to do that, there isn't much support until the mid to high levels. Some instincts get nice feats at 6, but it competes with Reactive Strike (and not every instinct gets a good one). I've yet to see a Barbarian not take Fighter/Wrestler/DWW/Mauler archetypes to steal the fighter's much better feats.
I don't subscribe to the narrative that spellcasters as a whole have bad feats. This is true of *some* casters. Bard, Cleric and Sorcerer especially have some of the best feats in the game. Wizard and Oracle certainly get good options and Witch feats are looking a lot better post-remaster.
It's funny that I actually believe (at least on paper) that Ranger is some of well made classes in the game with good feat distribution. Outwit may shine post-10, but I feel that the reason it gets put down is because it is compared to Thaumaturge in Recall Knowledge department while having objectively better combat feats than Thaum pre-10. As a person who played Flurry extensively..... yeaaah.... they're only good for Twin Takedown when it comes to their combat support..... but the Monster Hunter and Animal Companion trees are not limited to Outwit and they can easily take it, and Warden spells are underrated.
Honestly, I hate the Thaumaturge for that reason.
As a class it's perfectly fine and balanced, but Esoteric Knowledge makes the Enigma Bard, Outwit Ranger (and its Monster Warden feat line), the Investigator, and the Mastermind Rogue all feel like crap.
The thing about the cleric's good feats are that they're all built for a melee warpriest. If you're not doing melee weapon strikes then you don't get any use of 90% of the good cleric feats.
That's not really true. Reach Spell is great. The communal healing line and healing hands are good when paired with Divine Font. Raise Symbol is good for all clerics. Cast Down and Restorative Channel are *phenomenal*. Advanced Domain also offers quite a few great focus spells like Traveler's Transit and Rebuke Death. Their higher level feats are certainly great as well.
The slower progression for the ranger's animal companion is very stupid, because it means that the ranger is very strongly incentivized to grab the Beastmaster archetype. They really should have fixed that for the remaster.
The sad thing is, if Beastmaster didn't exist, you'd still probably just spend all your class feats on an animal companion anyway.
The ranger does get a fair few good feats, though - Disrupt Prey is great, a number of the warden spells are good, Skirmish Strike is good, Blind-Fight is good, Favored Terrain + Terrain Master can be good depending on the game, Double Prey can save you a ton of actions (and eventually you can get Shared Prey, which grants an ally your hunter's edge, which is really nasty against bosses), Camouflage lets you hide in plain sight, Distracting Shot lets you throw enemies off guard with ranged attacks, etc.
There's a lot of good ranger feats.
Though yes, Outwit has serious issues pre level 10.
> Barbarian is another. They've got some in-class support for Demoralize and Grappling, but if you don't want to do that, there isn't much support until the mid to high levels. Some instincts get nice feats at 6, but it competes with Reactive Strike (and not every instinct gets a good one). I've yet to see a Barbarian not take Fighter/Wrestler/DWW/Mauler archetypes to steal the fighter's much better feats.
Barbarian gets Sudden Charge (which is great), Draconic Arrogance, Elemental Evolution, Shake It Off, Fast Movement, Raging Athlete (though this is only useful if your GM uses a lot of difficult/hazardous terrain/gaps that you can leap over), Attack of Opportunity, Cleave, the various specialist barbarian feats, etc. Barbarians get a big power bump at level 6/8, this is true, but a lot of classes do.
Do spells count as features? Because if they do, pretty much every spellcaster whose class header does not start with "D" and end with "ruid" often might as well not HAVE feats. I don't run to very high level, and in two separate occasions a caster player has straight up shrugged and not bothered to pick a level 4 feat because nothing in their class was interesting and they couldn't be arsed to dig through the Giant List Of Archetypes when the game was going to end in a level or two more.
I think swashbuckler’s a great candidate, not cause their feats are bad but just cause only having a handful goes so far. A lot are for conflicting archetypes, and their finishers are so many of their feats when you don’t lose out much by just using the default or your personal fav
Pre-remaster I would say Cleric, but now they have many more feats that give a bunch of versatility or potency on top of absurd class feature... (I am only counting Divine Font and that is enough lol)
I’m playing a Wandering Reverie Distant Grasp psychic. Started at level 1 and currently level 9. I have one class feat (Parallel Breakthrough) and 3 archetype feats (Linguist Dedication for 2, Linguist feat for 4, class feat for 6, and Sleepwalker dedication for 8).
I didn’t pick up the archetypes because I think they’re super fun (though we make it work, of course). I picked them up because the psychic class feats just didn’t fit the build or play style. She is a very effective blaster with support ranked spells, and nothing seems to work with that.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the psychic class feats have really cool themes and ideas, but honestly too many come with drawbacks or are way too niche for most adventures.
I do love this psychic, she’s the first I ever played, and she may be the last. The chassis is strong, the feats are severely lacking.
Wizards are mostly underwhelming insofar as feats, which is actually a good thing because it gives you plenty of room for archetype feats even if you arent using Free Archetype.
I really like Thaumaturge and I think the scroll/talisman stuff is cool, but only getting one a day is really annoying. I need more than that. And those are really the bulk of the good feats for the class. Nothing else grabs me.
Psychic and Wizard both IMO. It’s not that they completely lack good feats, just that the good class feats are a few and far between compared to other classes.
Investigator only has about 3 good class feats: Known Weakness, Just One More Thing, and Suspect of Opportunity
There are some other okay ones to give you minor bonuses, but nothing as good as the above when it comes to action economy.
I'd say a lot of pure spellcasters have mediocre class feats. My group has 2 sorcerers in it and they quickly branched out to archetype feats. Grab Reach Spell, Dangerous Sorcery, your bloodline upgrade, and then... well yeah.
Sorcerer is in the better half imo, most basic evolutions are fine, crossblooded is excellent (arcane sorc with heal lmao), both level 16 greater evolutions are fire, and there are some random gems hidden in the feat list, such as *the* blaster metamagic
Also Blood component substitution is quite underrated
It's cool but it's crazy that it's a level 10 feat, and it still has a visual indicator, plus it deals damage to you. I want them to keep it in the remaster though, as it removes all components, but maybe lower the level and remove the part that makes you glow.
I don't mind it actually, probably because it's so cool visually, regarding the damage it's because it's ad emergency feat, not a stealth feat, you use it because you are either restrained or the enemy's reactive strike would surely bonk you for more damage You also must consider that it doesn't require and additional action like lower lvl metamagics
Level 12 feat, actually.
>*the* blaster metamagic Which one is that?
Scintillating, it is available quite late, but tacking on dazzle/blind on your blasts is great
Wizard gets it in the remaster too.
Sure, but I wouldn't say they have good class features either, outside of Bard, Cleric and maybe Psychic. For the most part spell casters cast spells, and the entire power budget for the class is locked up in that.
Spellcasting is also a class feature.
Bard, Cleric, Witch, Oracle all have interesting or good Class Features. I'm sure Psychic is fine. No one complains about Magus or Summoner's class features. Sorcerer is what you make of it. That really just leaves Wizard (and maybe Druid) for lackluster class features.
Imo sorcerer has the single best feats out of the caster squad. Not like top of the system but very decent. Evolution feats, crossblooded evolution is a treat (seriously, oracles have identical feat at level 16 while sorcerers get it at 8), a simple ''+1 to all saves against magic'' in bloodline resistance, some extremely good focus spells (I have experience of playing high level hag sorcerer which has extremely good focus spells), and pretty much everything post 16 is nothing short of amazing.
Sorcerer has a lots of stuff. Extra slots, Spell from any list. More focus spell options. You are just not looking or valuing them.
I mean, yeah some levels of feats are pretty boring but multiclassing often is only possible if you ignore a lot of the good paths in the thaumaturge. Such as the scroll path, the talismans path, the recall knowledge boosting path, etc. Yeah what's leftover is lame but that's because you ignored everything good. Now granted the boring options do outnumber the interesting ones. More examples of this I would say are the spellcasters. You get the spellcasting feature, but across the board their feats are pretty sucky.
Oh yeah I am aware of that. It's the idea of playstyle choice. Like, the best thing about Ranger now that I am building one, is that at any level, there are some very good class feats that will support whatever choice you make, you can be a monster hunter and have animal companion, you can have animal companion and use gravity weapon, you can skip on the companion and take dual weapons, and these choices all work well enough with any instinct. With Thaum, if your concept doesn't include scrolls, that tree won't be useful, and if it does include, well..... why? It could be that the easier and better option is to multiclass to Bard if the goal is to get spellcasting, there could be a valid reason to take Scroll Path instead of a multiclass, but that reason doesn't work with all concepts
What do you mean why? Because you can use scrolls of any tradition in the game, that’s incredibly useful
I am not saying it is not useful, I am saying that there are cases where just taking a Caster is a quicker way to get spells, so if the goal from taking the Scroll tree is to become a Gish, and not to be a Swiss army scroll user or a Talisman dispenser, then taking these trees would be more expensive than taking a Spellcaster archetype feat wise Up to level 8, you only get two Rank 1 and Rank 2 Scrolls. Then at level 12 you begin to get into Rank 3 up to 5, and then at level 18 you get Rank 6 followed Rank 7 spell at level 20. 4 Class feat investment that competes with level 12 and 18 feats, that's quite expensive. Meanwhile most Caster Archetypes give twice the number of spells up to level 6 and you get up to Rank 8 spells + Cantrips + 2 trained skill feats+ access to other useful class feats/features/focus spells (Courageous Anthem and Dangerous Sorcery for example). I mean, if you constantly buy Scrolls, then taking the first feat is enough to make you comfortable, but you really should be asking yourself why take the entire tree when Charisma spellcasters are abundantly available. Again, not that it won't be useful, it's just a lot of playstyle dependency and competition with other later class feats that make this decision hard.
Spellcasters are the biggest examples of this. Spellcasting is, naturally, one of the most disproportionately strong and varied class features, and their Class Feats tend to bring proportionately less power and variety to the table to counterbalance that.
But there is no counterbalancing. Nothing's stopping casters from picking up archetypes with worthwhile feats. As things are, the poor and uninteresting class feats casters get don't actually prevent them from gaining power if that's the players' goal.
That's balanced by their being far less useful archetypes for casters. There's decent options, but the martials can get great stuff like Dual Strike.
I agree! In *theory* strong class features get counterbalanced by weaker and less flexible Feats, but in practice all it does is create an optimization gap between Archetyped casters and straight-classed ones. That is probably why the Remaster seems to be buffing caster Feats, if PC1 is any indication
Yeah, like the Witch especially has some feats that seem quite good
Yeah, which is the problem. They made spellcasters have weaker feats, by and large, which means that, rather than getting worse feats, spellcasters instead have the most incentive to archetype. That being said, it does make it harder for them to linearly increase their power level, as archetyping generally means you're covering for your weaknesses or doing other things rather than just making your character linearly better at the things they're already good at. Of course, if you look at spellcasters, druids have very strong feats... and are probably the strongest class in the game overall as a result.
I dunno. If we prescribe to the belief that a huge chuck of a caster's power is chained to their versatility, doesn't adding a casting dedication to them directly increase their power? Yeah, you're not adding a bunch of damage or increasing your spell save DC, but you are getting more options.
How much of a benefit this is depends on class and tradition. Primal casters, for instance, really just get access to some mental-targeting effects, whereas a wizard can gain access to Heal or an occult caster access to AoE damage, or a divine or occult caster access to Wall spells like Wall of Stone. And of course there's focus spells. Generally speaking, primal casters benefit the least from this (druids and primal sorcerers in particular) while occult and arcane get the largest benefits. However, a lot of this access is gated behind scrolls (and wands and staves), so it may cost you an extra action to draw your off-class spell scroll to use it. This is why grabbing focus spells is a very strong thing to do when archetyping as a caster, because if your class has poor focus spell options, grabbing a good offensive focus spell lets you replace your cantrips with focus spells and you can cast focus spells all day. The wizard with the staff focus can also abuse his staff ability to dump a bunch of extra charges into a staff that gives him cross-class spells.
I kinda want to say Magus, Magus got some cool class features with spellstrike and everything that comes with hybrid study but the feats feel pretty mediocre. Then again I might be biased because I played a starlit spawn.
Starlit span definitely doesn't help here. It's honestly like they designed the class and the feats and then nailed the subclass to the side at the end. Like... Arcane Cascade doesn't even do anything for the class. It is wasted design space. And every other kind of magus has a way to meaningfully use staves, but not the Starlit span with a weapon that takes two hands to fire. It's very silly.
I mean, Starlit Span isn't in a different position than any of the others in regards to staves. Except Twisting Tree obviously. Sparkling Targe wants a weapon + shield, Inexorable Iron is about true two-handed weapons and Laughing Shadow really wants a free hand. None of them really have space for a staff without [Fused Staff](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2864).
Spellstriker Staff helps alleviate that since you can turn it into other weapon
Aye... Melee weapon. No help for the Starlit Span.
As a staff, it also cannot hold property runes and even the staff portion ironically isn't great for the Magus, imo. And ofc the whole melee-only part.
It's true for most studies, Twisted Tree is the main exception, though Sparkling Targe is also good if you bothered to have good int for DC.
Yeah, usually martials heavily interact with their class feats. But no, the Magus' feats might as well not exist with how little impact most of them have. They just don't support what you actually do. And not only at low level either. The fact that it is incredibly common to replace most of them with Wizard or Psychic archetype feats even *with* FA is telling. That that is often objectively even moreso. Usually hybrid study feats are the exception, but yeah, Starlit Span doesn't even do that. I'd also add Sustaining Steel to that list.
I think Inexorable Iron feats are pretty great, honestly. My Magus, Sir Ivan IV is incredibly tanky thanks to the temporary HP and Sustaining Steel.
Sustaining Steel is incredible, especially with a Wizard Archetype and a focus on reaction spells, but I havent been impressed by Inexorable Iron's other feats.
No, I definitely see what you mean. We play Free Archetype and I've gone Inventor -> Sentinel -> Golem Grafter, which has allowed me to be very tanky. Sustaining Steel and AoO are the only feats I really have been excited to take.
That's pretty much the opposite of my experience XD. Devastating Spellstrike is *technically* an upgrade, but unless you often fight clumped up foes with strong weaknesses, it is pretty much irrelevant. Sustaining Steel is neat, but why would I pay a 10th level feat and be forced top prepare attack spells in my highest slots for something that *might* allow me to take another hit like once or twice a day at most? One of my players had this for a good five levels and I don't think it ever mattered, despite his best efforts. When monsters hit for over 20 damage and you get 5-ish temp HP + heal for 10, that is kinda how it works out often.
In my experience, it adds up. A magus with high CON (+3) and Toughness would have around 128 HP at level 10, give or take. An on-level enemy with a High attack and an agile backup with High and Moderate damage, respectively, would do, on average, 39 HP per turn (assuming Heavy Armour). If we can cast, on average, at least a Rank 3 spell per turn (one action spells, reactions, spellstrikes), that give us 11 HP every turn with the temp HP counted in. It means that you can survive five turns instead of four (128 + 33 = 161) tanking two hits from an on-level enemy every turn. Your studious spell slots can also be used for Sure Strike, which you would want to use for spell strikes, meaning that you'd get 4 + 8 or 4 + 10 some turns in addition to the temporary hit points.
At our table, it unfortunately was incredibly common for enemies to roll just high or low enough for it to literally not matter. It really doesn't take much, just a few points of damage. If the enemy just does 35 damage on average the temp HP already allow you to survive 5 rounds and if they just do 41 damage per round you don't last more than 4 either. That is the whole problem with Sustaining Steel, it is just so easy to roll out of. But what you are describing also doesn't sound particularly viable for more than one intense combat, if that. There is no way you are using a 3rd+ rank spell every turn, even with scrolls and wands. In my experience the Magus's action economy is already heavily overloaded (re: one-action spells or Sure Strike) and you just don't have the resources to sustain it either. Using 3rd rank spells to Spellstrike at level 10 is also a huge waste of damage (10d6 vs 6d6), you have to dip into your actual slots to do as good or better than a focus spell. And if you are spamming reaction spells, the spells themselves (Interposing Earth in particular) already do the heavy lifting by themselves.
The magus gets a few quite good feats and a lot of mediocre ones. They also get a ridiculously huge boost from multiclassing.
The first ten levels of Wizard feats are so boring.
I actually think, as of the Remaster, Wizard is one of the better spellcasters as far as Feats go. Aside from what they already had Premaster (Familiar, Enhanced Familir, various Spellshapes, Irresistible Magic, Split Slot, Scroll Savant) they now have new (or newly buffed) Feats like Spellbook Prodigy, Spell Protection Array, Explosive Arrival. I feel like only Witches and Clerics have equally varied and useful Feats as the Wizard now, with the Druid coming in a little below them all. Hopefully casters in PC2 get the same treatment.
Sorcerer, Bard and Psychic are above Wizard too IMO. So by the end you're just left with Wizard beating the (to be remastered) Oracle and Druids.
Druid is pretty good because no matter what you can grab Order Explorer (Storm) and Order Magic for Tempest Surge and have one of the best focus spells ever, insane value spell. And the see-through-weather has really nice mileage with Obscuring Mist (bully party into buying Goz Masks), it's nice having semi reliable off guard for your ranged attacks
At level 6+ you can instead go wave order and grab [Pulverizing Cascade](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1311), which is basically a smaller fireball that deals bludgeoning damage and does 1d6 less damage than an equal-rank fireball. It also has 120 foot range for some reason.
Yeah druid focus spells have some banger blasts tbh, stone lance is pretty fab too
I keep forgetting about Bards having the obvious best Feats lol. I disagree that Sorcerer is above Wizard though. Aside from Dangerous Sorcery, nothing really stands out as an excellent Feats option for Sorcerers. Maybe Crossblooded Evolution, but it’s not noticeably better than Wizard Feats imo. As for Psychic I’m currently GMing for a Psychic and we both feel like their Feats are quite a bit more situational and less cool than Wizard ones. What stands out to you to make the Psychic feel better?
I really like Thoughtform Summoning and Dark Persona's Presence for Psychics. I think Sorcerer feats are just a lot more interesting with all of the evolution feats which play into the flavor of your bloodline.
Dark Persona would be impressive, but it basically turns you into an additional enemy that casts Dirge of Doom on your party. Unless theres a way you can run 30 ft deep into the front lines as a 6 HP caster to not hit your allies with the aura. And Thoughtform Summoning looks at the summon level; a rank 5 spell only gives the creature 2 physical resistance when you're level 9, not to mention occult only has Animate Dead (where most parties might object to), Summon Fey and Summon Entity.
> Dark Persona would be impressive, but it basically turns you into an additional enemy that casts Dirge of Doom on your party. Unless theres a way you can run 30 ft deep into the front lines as a 6 HP caster to not hit your allies with the aura. If your allies have master will, cold-minded, and/or things like bravery, they can potentially just shrug off your aura more easily than enemies can. It is generally at worst symmetrical (except that the psychic himself is unaffected) and if your party has ways of exploiting it it is quite unfair in your direction, as Dirge of Doom is really good and there's a number of ways for you to build a party to exploit frightened enemies. It works best on psychic/champions or similar high AC melee psychics.
> I disagree that Sorcerer is above Wizard though. Aside from Dangerous Sorcery, nothing really stands out as an excellent Feats option for Sorcerers. Maybe Crossblooded Evolution, but it’s not noticeably better than Wizard Feats imo. The bloodline focus spells are really good for the good bloodlines. Crossblooded Evolution lets you grab Heal as an arcane caster, which is quite powerful. Helt's spelldance is really good on sorcerers because you're a charisma class so you can actually pass the performance check. Safeguarded Spell lets you drop fireballs and other AoE spells on your own head. You also still get access to Quickened Casting and Effortless Concentration. Greater Vital Evolution basically gives you two extra spell slots of your highest two ranks. Divine Evolution basically gives you an extra heal or harm spell every day at your top rank. Arcane and Occult Evolution let you add a spell to your repertoire that changes, giving you some of the benefits of being a preparatory caster. And Primal Evolution gives you an extra spell slot that you can use to summon an animal or plant or fungus.
Druids have the best feats of any caster by far. They get animal companions, they get the best focus spells, they get a bunch of path-unique feats that are often quite good (ignoring difficult terrain, gain swim speed, zap an enemy with a focus spell as a reaction or set them on fire for attacking you, etc.), heal yourself and regain a focus spell, give your group bonuses to saving throws vs spells, give your familiar a breath weapon that frightens enemies, etc.
I always hated Cleric feats. There's a couple good ones like Cast Down or Raise Symbol but frankly, most are just boring.
I legitimately just tell people to go Witch and pretend to be a wizard if they're set on a casting class
A recent character I had is a Witch, I was very hesitant to choose either, Wizard or Witch. Let's just say that backstory purposes made Witch win out. I'm really only taking Wizard multiclass just because both are Int classes and I could use more spells.
but no staff thesis :(
Is a single slot worth it?
The real secret of Staff Thesis is that if you multiclass, you can basically get more high level spell slots from your secondary tradition.
By pumping spell slots into it and being able to staffcast more (just making sure I have it right)?
Yeah, that's basically the idea. You use a staff with spells from the other tradition.
I've been playing a Life Oracle. The game has free archetype, so I have yrt to actually take a single Oracle feat. Even at 2nd level I took "reach spell" which all spellcasters can get anyways
Spellcasters epitomizing this is actually one of my biggest gripes of the system. Investigator seems to be the only martial subjected to this for most of their feats.
Playing an investigator, I can say with a lot of certainty that unless your campaign is specifically geared around the investigation playstyle, there are a LOT of completely dead feats. There is too much riding on the GM knowing when *your* abilities apply, so you have to constantly badger them to make sure its happening. But good lord Devise Strategem, especially when combined with a deadly or fatal weapon is just so damn fine. The class has so many skills out of the box that most investigators will be trained almost all of them
Agreed about Devise A Stratagem, but I combined it with a light crossbow and Archer dedication (picked up Crossbow Terror and Archer's Aim as well). At 20th level that is a pre-rolled to hit doing 4d10+8 piercing + 5d8 precision (always bring Insight Coffee!) plus 2 more D6 in miscellaneous elemental runes. Not bad on a crit and if I roll crap to hit on Devise A Stratagem I can just pivot into moving to flank, battlefield medicine or many other tricks (Alchemical Sciences methodology helps a lot here). Definitely one of the most fun characters I have ever played when it comes to tactical options.
Low level investigator feats are that for me. Many just doesn't do anything, and a GM would have to be kinda a evil to not just do what red herring does for free. The solution for that's odd is really simple, it's just to make it similar to trap finder or lantern thaumaturge that they always search for clues and odd stuff
Yeah so much early Investigator feats are either really lame or outclassed by clearly better feats, I will never take That's Odd or Red Herring because they just sorta feel like they take RP away from a class that has a lot of built-in RP support. That said I still think investigator is a lot better than, say, barbarian, who has some truly dull feats.
The barbarian is wierd because it varies a ton in the quality when it comes to feats. It have some of the best and the worst but what I dislike the most is the feats that lack a scaling and become obsolete, like wounded rage or Furious finish. Some feats also comes with unnecessary complexity such as the +2 circumstance bonus to damage against you for come and get me, which may not stack with certain effects and is something for the GM to remember. All that said, I never have a problem taking feats on a barbarian because enough of them are so good
>I will never take That's Odd or Red Herring because they just sorta feel like they take RP away from a class that has a lot of built-in RP support. How?
Some time i'll go figure out how Search and Investigate are distinctly different exploration activities, and how doing them normally looks any different in the fiction than doing both using the [Ongoing Investigation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1459) feat (which really should just be a basic class feature for the Investigator (that doesn't count against their power budget because who the heck doesn't just combine Search and Investigate into one thing?)). Does every investigation scene take 20 minutes because some of the clues were hidden and i can't roll perception while investigating? do i have to go over every distance i travel twice??
Investigate only does recall knowledge skills, search does perception. Investigate won't find traps, but it will explain you the wierd underworld signs saying >>target here<< or similar
Yeah but 1/3rd of the clues are hidden in a secret compartment that has subtle visual clues to where it is so it's both a perception (to find) and recall knowledge (to explain) check (according to me and my gm, it's fine if you do it only recall knowledge i think according to GMC), but let's say i gotta do both, so it's both, and it's the middle of my investigation so i just, do a perception roll, which is apparently a Search activity, and then continue Investigating, and the GMC says Search can take however long makes sense don't overcomplicate it, but like, what's the point of Ongoing Investigation then, like sure, i could Investigate while doing all the other exploration activities but if i'm not Searching while Investigating i'm missing so much stuff, and if i'm searching and finding something interesting i'm obviously going to Investigate it (class title). (assume nobody else has Wisdom and is Searching for me.) (and like if i'm Avoiding Notice enough for it to be important it'd be an encounter anyway and i can Recall knowledge in encounters while sneaking)
As I said, it's when something may be obvious but may need recall knowledge to be actually obvious. Something the GM can do in secret but a player doesn't have to stop and constantly ask for. Are there any animal droppings? The GM rolls and mention that you can expect a bear in the area after a nature check. It may also allow a nature check as initiative in this instance as you are following the signs of what you know. It took a while for me to get investigate, but it does have its benefits. Alot of perception check should perhaps be converted to society checks because you may find a ton of documents, but what does perception tell you when you need to find information? It's better to skip the perception all together and just roll a society in such instances for those wishing to investigate. More quick examples where to prompt investigate checks: * Banners * Symbols, religious, cult, gang, clans etc. * Tracks * Documents * Altars * Build quality change Just like search looks for the hidden objects (items/creatures/hazards), investigate gives information, not the object. It can also change what you roll with initiative as it's determined by what you did previously.
Well yes this is all very good advice. I'll consider passing it on to my GMs and incorporate as much as i can remember/accomplish into my own games. (some GMs don't in the habit of rolling for PCs, so i do have to stop and ask for rolls and specify what i'm doing based on context) You're explaining how to do investigation and search good normally, not at all commenting on Ongoing Investigation, and i respect that, but you've made me even more convinced that Ongoing Investigation (and probably similar feats) is totally useless, and actively counterproductive to good use of the rules because one might interpret the exploration rules bad based on the feat.
What ongoing investigation allowed me to do was avoid notice and investigate at the same time, essentially looking through paper in the "open"
The thaum pain is real, you want the low level feats, and the high level ones, but in the middle you sometimes want literally nothing. But Magus is even worse, its not rare to want like 3 magus feats and take the rest in archetypes since they actually synergize better with the class than its own feats
I'd say Oracle is one of the worst especially for Battle Oracle. Combine the disappointing nature of caster class feats with their mediocre advanced and greater revelation spells and add the cherry on top of stupefied 2 from their major curse and you find that almost all of their feats are just not good. Champion archetype suits them much better.
Oracle basically doesn't have feat, but some of the Mysteries are very solid. Especially cosmic.
Spellcasters are the iconic example of this, having one of the strongest class chassis with some bad feats. Wizard in particular has the worst feats of the bunch. Champion definitely has some meh feats, with most of the good one being only useful if you have a shield. I'll also give a quick side note for an argument for alchemist. Though a lot don't consider them to have a good chassis, I consider it to be the best part of them, effectively being a tankier wizard with all of their spells being focus spells. That said, as much as I love the class, they have the worst feats of any class. You get alchemical familiar, quick bomber, and if you're feeling spicy, a couple bomb related ones. Not till higher levels like 12, 16+ that you get good feats.
Revivifying Mutagen is one of the best Alchemist feats for *any* Alchemist, and it's Level 2. It's so good I wish they'd make it a Class Feature. Every Alchemist should take it.
Honestly? A good amount of Ranger builds have *no* support whatsoever. As in, I've built a few ranged flurry Rangers, and I pretty much always find myself just taking Hunted Shot on 1 and then an archetype for almost *every* feat beyond that. There are some ways around it. You can pick up some decent focus spells, or go for the Recall Knowledge paths, or get a pet. But there's not *that* many focus spells, Recall Knowledge is pretty antisynergistic with a flurry build, and if I wanted to go pets, I would just replace all of my class feats with Beastmaster instead. (I've done that before, it works pretty decently.) But realistically, if you don't go an Edge that's specifically supported... you can just pick up whatever level 1 feat is made for your build, then your Edge will carry you for the rest of the game. It's kind of liberating, in a way, but also kind of sad.
Ranger is weird in terms of feats since most of them are just feat lines, such as the Monster Hunter line, animal companions (Beastmaster exists, yes, but you want to get at least the first Ranger feat since companion with edge is bueno), and the edge sharing line (which is my personal favourite). But if none of the feat lines fit your build, yeah, multiclass it is.
people have pointed out spellcasters a lot but Oracle in particular has to have at least an 80/20 split of general metamagic vs class-specific feats
Feat opportunity cost is kind of uneven across the board and it's really frustrating as a casual observer, casters are obvious but even outside of that it starts feeling silly. Thaumaturge feels like a lot of feats besides The Controversial One(tm) are just sorta. There? You'll have some cool ones, but 99% of the conversation I see around their feats seems to revolve around Diverse Lore, maybe scroll/talismens, and what archetype you should take. I'm holding out for PC2 before I commit to being too bummed about it, but: Champion feels like it was never allowed to get anything particularly exciting because its reaction is just so good, with legacy features relegated to laughing stock feats (Divine Grace and Smite Evil, oh how the mighty have fallen) and feats that cause awkward action *bloat* rather than any compression to its playstyle(s). Investigator has a bunch of feats that feel like they sawed off parts of core features to turn into feats (Red Herring for Pursue a Lead; the free recall of Known Weakness for Keen Recollection, etc) while lacking in ways to give itself more alternative actions or combat style based action compression. Alchemist.
Yeah, Thaumaturge has really strong 1st level feats and then just pretty middling ones afterwards
If you invest into the scroll thing it costs a couple of feats down the line, and flying on your implement is something I need to do. Actually, some of the higher ones are cool. But I agree, in between a lot of meh. Hence, my thaumaturge is also a Marshall.
Starlit Span has no use for two thirds of the feats on their list. Some of those feats they can use aren't really that useful either.
Unless Im playing "THE" Investigator type character, every single one of my Investigators has taken almost zero investigator class feats. Not because they are bad, but because I feel like everything I need from the class I get at level 1 and then it just autoscales.
Rogue has a handful of excellent class feats, and a lot of class feats that are just not as good as taking an archetype imo. I actually think a lot of their class feats work better for other classes in archetype form rather than for rogues particularly.
Gunslinger. You have some real standouts like Drifter's Juke or Fake Out, alongside crap like Blast Lock and Cauterize. Far too many of them are just super situational or overlap with skills and skill feats - giving up a class feat for the same effect as being Trained in Thievery, or Intimidating Glare. Every time I try to build a Gunslinger, I wind up with "dead levels" where there are just no feats that appeal to me and I wind up taking an Archetype because there's just nothing interesting.
Ranger is the one that immediately comes to my mind (sans the first level action-compression feats). Flurry Rangers don't really get any good feats (with most of their feats being about parrying, which they really don't want to do). Rangers wanting an Animal Companion will get faster progreasion by taking the Beastmaster Archetype. Outwit has some alright feats but doesn't really function pre-10 (and has no in-class support for Demoralize/Feinting). Even their focus spells are kinda middle of the pack. Their only really good feats come in in the higher levels. Barbarian is another. They've got some in-class support for Demoralize and Grappling, but if you don't want to do that, there isn't much support until the mid to high levels. Some instincts get nice feats at 6, but it competes with Reactive Strike (and not every instinct gets a good one). I've yet to see a Barbarian not take Fighter/Wrestler/DWW/Mauler archetypes to steal the fighter's much better feats. I don't subscribe to the narrative that spellcasters as a whole have bad feats. This is true of *some* casters. Bard, Cleric and Sorcerer especially have some of the best feats in the game. Wizard and Oracle certainly get good options and Witch feats are looking a lot better post-remaster.
It's funny that I actually believe (at least on paper) that Ranger is some of well made classes in the game with good feat distribution. Outwit may shine post-10, but I feel that the reason it gets put down is because it is compared to Thaumaturge in Recall Knowledge department while having objectively better combat feats than Thaum pre-10. As a person who played Flurry extensively..... yeaaah.... they're only good for Twin Takedown when it comes to their combat support..... but the Monster Hunter and Animal Companion trees are not limited to Outwit and they can easily take it, and Warden spells are underrated.
Honestly, I hate the Thaumaturge for that reason. As a class it's perfectly fine and balanced, but Esoteric Knowledge makes the Enigma Bard, Outwit Ranger (and its Monster Warden feat line), the Investigator, and the Mastermind Rogue all feel like crap.
The thing about the cleric's good feats are that they're all built for a melee warpriest. If you're not doing melee weapon strikes then you don't get any use of 90% of the good cleric feats.
That's not really true. Reach Spell is great. The communal healing line and healing hands are good when paired with Divine Font. Raise Symbol is good for all clerics. Cast Down and Restorative Channel are *phenomenal*. Advanced Domain also offers quite a few great focus spells like Traveler's Transit and Rebuke Death. Their higher level feats are certainly great as well.
The slower progression for the ranger's animal companion is very stupid, because it means that the ranger is very strongly incentivized to grab the Beastmaster archetype. They really should have fixed that for the remaster. The sad thing is, if Beastmaster didn't exist, you'd still probably just spend all your class feats on an animal companion anyway. The ranger does get a fair few good feats, though - Disrupt Prey is great, a number of the warden spells are good, Skirmish Strike is good, Blind-Fight is good, Favored Terrain + Terrain Master can be good depending on the game, Double Prey can save you a ton of actions (and eventually you can get Shared Prey, which grants an ally your hunter's edge, which is really nasty against bosses), Camouflage lets you hide in plain sight, Distracting Shot lets you throw enemies off guard with ranged attacks, etc. There's a lot of good ranger feats. Though yes, Outwit has serious issues pre level 10. > Barbarian is another. They've got some in-class support for Demoralize and Grappling, but if you don't want to do that, there isn't much support until the mid to high levels. Some instincts get nice feats at 6, but it competes with Reactive Strike (and not every instinct gets a good one). I've yet to see a Barbarian not take Fighter/Wrestler/DWW/Mauler archetypes to steal the fighter's much better feats. Barbarian gets Sudden Charge (which is great), Draconic Arrogance, Elemental Evolution, Shake It Off, Fast Movement, Raging Athlete (though this is only useful if your GM uses a lot of difficult/hazardous terrain/gaps that you can leap over), Attack of Opportunity, Cleave, the various specialist barbarian feats, etc. Barbarians get a big power bump at level 6/8, this is true, but a lot of classes do.
Reading through all this, I guess every class has very good class features, but not so good class fears
Do spells count as features? Because if they do, pretty much every spellcaster whose class header does not start with "D" and end with "ruid" often might as well not HAVE feats. I don't run to very high level, and in two separate occasions a caster player has straight up shrugged and not bothered to pick a level 4 feat because nothing in their class was interesting and they couldn't be arsed to dig through the Giant List Of Archetypes when the game was going to end in a level or two more.
I think swashbuckler’s a great candidate, not cause their feats are bad but just cause only having a handful goes so far. A lot are for conflicting archetypes, and their finishers are so many of their feats when you don’t lose out much by just using the default or your personal fav
Barbarian is notorious for this. A feat to let you intimidate while raging or moment of calm. Absolutely horrendous
Pre-remaster I would say Cleric, but now they have many more feats that give a bunch of versatility or potency on top of absurd class feature... (I am only counting Divine Font and that is enough lol)
I’m playing a Wandering Reverie Distant Grasp psychic. Started at level 1 and currently level 9. I have one class feat (Parallel Breakthrough) and 3 archetype feats (Linguist Dedication for 2, Linguist feat for 4, class feat for 6, and Sleepwalker dedication for 8). I didn’t pick up the archetypes because I think they’re super fun (though we make it work, of course). I picked them up because the psychic class feats just didn’t fit the build or play style. She is a very effective blaster with support ranked spells, and nothing seems to work with that. Don’t get me wrong, some of the psychic class feats have really cool themes and ideas, but honestly too many come with drawbacks or are way too niche for most adventures. I do love this psychic, she’s the first I ever played, and she may be the last. The chassis is strong, the feats are severely lacking.
Spellcasting is a feature and spellcasting classes are notoriously light on feat. Moreso, if Counterspell isn't picked.
Truth be told, Diverse Lore for the Thaumaturge feels as if the +2 to hit where a Level 1 feat for the Fighter. 🤣🤣🤣
Wizards are mostly underwhelming insofar as feats, which is actually a good thing because it gives you plenty of room for archetype feats even if you arent using Free Archetype.
I really like Thaumaturge and I think the scroll/talisman stuff is cool, but only getting one a day is really annoying. I need more than that. And those are really the bulk of the good feats for the class. Nothing else grabs me.
Psychic and Wizard both IMO. It’s not that they completely lack good feats, just that the good class feats are a few and far between compared to other classes.
Investigator only has about 3 good class feats: Known Weakness, Just One More Thing, and Suspect of Opportunity There are some other okay ones to give you minor bonuses, but nothing as good as the above when it comes to action economy.