Feats (D&D)

Unofficial rules compendium

Feat Rules

Tactical and Reserve feats are not used.

Learning Feats

All characters get one feat per level instead of one at level one and one every third level.

Feats

Animal Follower (General)

You own an exceptional animal, most often a mount.

Prerequisites: Animal Handling 4 ranks

Benefit: Gain a limited version of the druid’s animal companion (PH 36). Your animal follower never learns any special abilities of an animal companion: share spells, evasion, devotion, multiattack, or improved evasion. It otherwise functions as an animal companion, but it is not a prerequisite for any ability that requires an animal companion.

Special: If you have a special mount or familiar, you have the option to give up that ability, and instead gain the full animal companion, including the special abilities.

Armor Mastery (General, Fighter)

You live in your armor all the time and can overcome its bulk.

Prerequisites: Base attack +4, Armor Proficiency (light and medium)

Benefits: When in medium armor or lighter and with light encumbrance, you only suffer the restrictions associated with light armor. This lets you move at full speed, use evasion and Tumble, sleep in armor and other similar tasks while in medium armor.

(Option) In addition, you can add your Strength bonus (if positive) to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus and Armor Penalty of your armor (thus increasing the maximum Dexterity bonus and lessening the armor penalty). The armor penalty can never become positive in this way.

Special: This is a fighter bonus feat. A ranger with armor mastery for the type of armor worn can use his combat style.

Armor Mastery (Heavy) (General, Fighter)

Prerequisites: Base attack +9, Armor Proficiency (light, medium, and heavy), Armor Mastery (medium)

Benefits: The benefits of Armor Mastery (Medium) now extend to heavy armor as well.

Armored Caster (General)

You have learned to gesture freely in armor.

Prerequisites: Armor Proficiency (light)

Benefit: You can ignore the normal spell failure chance for arcane spells when wearing light armor. You still suffer normal spell failure while wearing medium or heavy armor or a shield.

Notes: This fulfills the prerequisite for the Battle Caster feat (Complete Arcane 75).

Combat Casting (General)

This feat became pretty much obsolete with the improvements to Skill Focus in 3.5. The only remaining use is as a prerequisite for some feats and prestige classes. Those classes can choose whether to use Combat Casting or Skill Focus (Concentration) as a prerequisite.

Craft Focus (Item Creation)

Craft magic rods and rings.

Prerequisites: Caster level 9

Benefit: You can create any rod or ring whose prerequisites you meet. Crafting a rod or ring takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To craft a rod or ring, you must spend 1/25 of its base price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of its base price.

Some rods and rings incur extra costs in material components or XP, as noted in their descriptions. These costs are in addition to those derived from the item's base price.

Notes: This supersedes the feats Craft Rod and Forge Ring.

Craft Magic Tattoo (Item Creation)

Craft magic tattoos that resemble rings and some wondrous items in effect.

Prerequisites: Caster level 3, Craft (Tattooing) 4 ranks

Benefit: You can create any Magic Tattoo whose prerequisites you meet. Crafting a magic tattoo takes one day for each 1,000 gp in the price of its magical features. To craft a magic tattoo you must spend 1/25 of its total price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of this total price. Unlike other item creation feats, a magic tattoo must be crafted at the same time as it is enchanted, but not necessarily by the same person.

Notes: A problem with this spell exists mainly if the DM starts to use it extensively; as tattoo magic cannot be looted, this allows NPCs to carry use equipment the players can never acquire, which removes one of the checks and balances of the game.

Craft Spell Trigger (Item Creation)

Craft magic staffs and wands.

Prerequisites: Caster level 5

Benefit: You can create any wand or staff whose prerequisites you meet. Crafting a wand or staff takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To craft a wand or staff, you must spend 1/25 of its base price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of its base price.

Some wands and staffs incur extra costs in material components or XP, as noted in their descriptions. These costs are in addition to those derived from the item's base price.

Notes: This supersedes the feats Craft Staff and Craft Wand.

Dodge (General, Fighter)

You have learned to avoid enemy attacks.

Prerequisite: Dex 13

Benefit: You get a +1 dodge bonus to AC.

Special: A fighter may select Dodge as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Domain Devotion (General)

Your devotion to your patron goes beyond the norm and grants you a domain.

Prerequisite: Patron deity, same alignment at patron deity, spellcaster level 1, Knowledge (religion) 4 ranks

Benefit: Choose one of the domains of your patron deity. Learn the granted power of the domain. Add the spells of this domain to your spell list and are learned and cast in the usual way. If you are an arcane spellcaster, these spells become arcane spells, tough they may still require a divine focus to cast and always require a divine focus to prepare. If you are a cleric, this gives you a third domain, whose spells must be prepared in your domain spell slots.

Special: If you grow lax in your faith or violate the alignment of your patron, you lose the benefits of this feat. If the granted power of your domain grants an improved version of the turn/rebuke undead ability (such as the sun domain) and you lack normal undead turning, you instead gain the ability to turn/rebuke undead once/day at your class level. This feat can only be taken once.

Endurance (General)

Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on the following checks and saves:

• Swim checks made to resist nonlethal damage.
• Constitution checks made to continue running.
• Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from a forced march.
• Constitution checks made to hold your breath.
• Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst.
• Fortitude saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments.
• Fortitude saves made to resist damage from suffocation.

Also, you may sleep in light or medium armor without becoming fatigued. Finally, you can hustle with no more effort than normal people exert when walking. This lets you hustle eight hours per day, more with a forced march.

Normal: A character without this feat who sleeps in medium or heavier armor is automatically fatigued the next day. A character can hustle for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for a second hour in between sleep cycles deals nonlethal damage.

Special: A ranger automatically gains Endurance as a bonus feat at 3rd level. He need not select it.

Extend Spell (Metamagic)

You can extend the duration of your spells.

Benefit: An extended spell lasts twice as long as normal. A spell with a duration of concentration, instantaneous, or permanent is not affected by this feat. An extended spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell’s actual level.

For a spell with a duration given as 1 round, 1 minute, or 10 minutes per level, this feat can increase the duration from one category to the next. A duration of 10 minutes/level goes to 1 hour/level. This uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spells actual level. You can apply this version of the feat several times to the same spell.

Spell Slot Modifier	Original Duration	New Duration
+2	1 round/level	1 minute/level
+2	1 minute/level	10 minutes/level
+2	10 minutes/level	1 hour/level

You can never extend a spell to a duration of more than 24 hours; spells which already last 24 hours or more cannot be extended. Nor can it increase the damage a spell does to a target; a spell that inflicts periodic damage to a specific target ceases to do so when its normal duration runns out.

Far Shot (General, Fighter)

Prerequisite: Point Blank Shot.

Benefit: When you use a projectile weapon, such as a bow, its range increment increases by one-half (multiply by 1½). When you use a thrown weapon, its range increment is doubled. Any ranged weapon effect that is normally limited to 30 ft. increases this limit to 45 ft.; common examples include the bonus from the Point-Blank Shot feat and the limit on ranged Sneak Attacks.

Special: A fighter may select Far Shot as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Heighten Spell (Metamagic)

Benefit: A heightened spell has a higher spell level than normal (up to a maximum of 9th level). Unlike other metamagic feats, Heighten Spell actually increases the effective level of the spell that it modifies. All effects dependent on spell level (such as saving throw DCs and ability to penetrate a lesser globe of invulnerability) are calculated according to the heightened level. The heightened spell is as difficult to prepare and cast as a spell of its effective level.

If a spell is heightened by two levels or more, all of these additional benefits apply. Each applies once per two levels of spell level increase. I.e., a first level spell heightened to sixth level (+5 levels) gets each of these bonuses twice.

• Increase the cap on the maximum amount of damage your spell can do by five dice.
• Increase the limit on any spellcasting level based bonus in the spell by ten.
• Affect four additional hit dice of enemies. Only applies to spells who affect a limited number of hit dice.

Example: Tim the Enchanter is a ninth level wizard who considers how he can prepare various heightened spells. Hypnotic pattern is normally a first level spell that affects 2d4 hit dice of creatures, plus a number of hit dice equal to the caster level. Tim can prepare it in a third level spell slot, and it will affect 2d4+13 hit dice of creatures, or use a fifth level spell slot to affect 2d4+17 hit dice of creatures. A fireball that uses a level 5 spell slot has a damage cap of 15 dice, while a seventh level slot gives it a cap of 20d6. A Dispel Magic that uses a level 5 spell slot has a cap on the dispel check of +20.

Improved Critical (General, Fighter)

Choose one type of weapon.

Prerequisite: Proficient with weapon, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: When using the weapon you selected, your threat range is doubled.

Special: You can gain Improved Critical multiple times. The effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon. This effect does stack with any other effect that expands the threat range of a weapon, though such effects otherwise do not stack.

A fighter may select Improved Critical as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Inventor (General)

Your head is full of new ideas.

Prerequisite: Int 13, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) 1 rank.

Benefit: You are good at devising and building gadgets; odd devices that produce seemingly magical effects through mundane means. You are highly inventive, and can easily come up with new gadgets. You know of or can come up with any gadget described in any sourcebook allowed in the campaign, and can instruct another craftsman on how to make them at normal cost. If you can craft such items yourself with the proper Craft skill, tools, and raw materials, you do so at half the regular cost in materials and time.

You can come up with creative uses for things you encounter that have no application in combat but bring you some utility. For example, you could use Brown Mold to make a refrigerated cupboard, but only you or another character with this feat could use such a device safely, at least until it has been perfected (in the DMs opinion).

All the items under Special Substances And Item , and Gunpowder are considered inventions. There are many examples of inventions in Complete Scoundrel and among the list of Special Equipment. Exotic weapons are also inventions.

In addition, you are free to come up with inventions of your own, as long as you can convince the DM that they could possibly work and it fits his idea of the world. You can only invent new devices that are within the limits of available technology. The DM is the final arbiter of what is possible, and should see to it that inventions progress in small steps and not in leaps and bounds; for example, if firearm inventions are allowed, you might have to invent and perfect matchlocks and wheellocks before you can invent flintlocks or caplocks.

Your inventions start out as unstable prototypes. This is not a problem as long as you are around to advice and fiddle with them, but to make a marketable version takes quite a bit of refinement and a minimum of 3d6 prototypes being made. Once perfected, inventions can be copied by any skilled craftsman, though it will take some time for the idea to spread and you might very well wish to keep it a secret.

Magical Pet (General)

Benefit: Gain a limited version of the sorcerer’s familiar (PH 53). Your magical pet never learn the supernatural familiar abilities: share spells, empathic link, deliver touch spells, spell resistance, scry on familiar. Nor do you get the special bonus a familiar would give you. It otherwise functions as a familiar, but it is not a prerequisite for any ability that requires a familiar.

Special: You can take this feat twice. Doing so grants you a full familiar. You do not get an additional magical pet.

Monster Salvage (General)

You can salvage body parts of creatures to create one-use weapons.

Prerequisite: Int 15, Inventor, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) 1 rank, Craft (Alchemy) 4 ranks.

Benefit: You can create one-use weapons from parts of dead monsters. You can only salvage enough for one such grenade from each creature, but another character could use the same corpse for salvage. If there is no corpse, there is no salvage. It takes one minute to salvage a grenade, and it remains fresh for 24 hours; thereafter it becomes useless, ill-smelling junk.

You can make grenades from extraordinary and supernatural (not spell-like) creature special attacks, such as chill grenades that mimic the cold attack of the brown mold, fire grenades from the fiery substance in a red dragon's throat or coax one last rusting touch out of a Rust Monster's antenna. You can also extract poison from the glands of slain creatures. You cannot salvage normal physical attacks like teeth or claws.

The effect of such a grenade or poison can never exceed that of the original creature. Otherwise, the limitation is as follows, depending on your skill ranks in Craft (Alchemy). The rank requirement is an upper limit; you can always chose to make a lesser device.

Minimum Ranks in Craft (Alchemy)	DC	Attack type
		Energy Damage	Attribute damage	Save DC (hindering effect)	Save DC (incapacitatingeffect]
4	15	2d6	1d4	15	-
8	20	4d6	1d6	17	12
12	25	6d6	1d8	19	13
16	30	8d6	1d10	21	14
20	35	10d6	2d6	23	15

Hindering effects include damage, attribute damage (such as poison), blinded, confused, cowering, dazed, dazzled, deafened, entangled, exhausted, fascinated, fatigued, frightened, knocked down, panicked, or stunned. Incapacitating effects include dead, helpless, paralyzed, and petrified. The duration of the effect is the same as it was for the creature you salvaged it from.

If the original attack was an area attack, you create a grenade-like weapon with a burst radius of 10 ft. If the original attack was single-target, your create a ranged touch attack. In both cases it is a thrown weapon with a range increment of ten ft. If you salvage an injected poison, you get one application you can put on a weapon, and you can apply such a poison with no risk to yourself.

New Spell (General)

You have exceeded the normal limitations on spell learning.

Benefit: Select one spell from any spell list and one of your spellcasting classes. You learn this spell and can cast it as if it was a spell on the chosen class. Increase the level of the spell by one if it is not normally on your class list.

Notes: Divine casters need to motivate the spell as an aspect of their faith. A wizard can learn a spell of a prohibited school this way.

Poison Use (General)

You can use poison without accidentally poisoning yourself.

Benefit: You are trained in the use of poison and never risk accidentally poisoning yourself when applying poison to a blade.

Special: Using a poison is generally an evil act. Exceptions are made for paralytic and disabling poisons, but abusing or abandoning creatures thus captured is evil

Notes: This is the same as the assassin’s Poison Use ability.

Rapid Strike (General, Fighter)

You can strike multiple times with light weapons

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Weapon Finesse

Benefit: You can get one extra attack per round with a weapon that you use with Weapon Finesse. The attack is at your highest base attack bonus, but each attack you make in that round (the extra one and the normal ones) takes a -2 penalty. You must use the full attack action to use this feat.

Special: A fighter may select Rapid Strike as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Riposte (General, Fighter)

You can counterattack when you are missed in melee when on the defensive.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Weapon Finesse, Rapid Strike

Benefit: When using a weapon that can be used with Weapon Finesse and in light or no armor with no more than light encumbrance, anyone who misses you with a melee attack while in your threatened zone triggers an attack of opportunity from you. Several misses still only generate one opportunity attack. You do not get attacks of opportunity against opponents who are flanking, in cover or against opponents against whom you are denied your Dexterity bonus to armor class.

Special: A fighter may select Riposte as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Ritual Spell

You may reduce the power required for a spell by casting it as a six-hour ritual.

Benefit: A spell with a normal casting time of ten minutes or less can be cast as a ritual with a casting time of six hours. The ritual also requires a number of (unskilled) helpers equal to the spell level and must be conducted in a suitable place appropriate to the spell, such as a temple or wizard's sanctum. The benefit is that the spell takes up a spell slot one level lower than normal.

Special: If you have an appropriate sacrifice, perform the ritual at the right time in the right place, or have an artifact or item of power or the ritual fits in the story, the DM may reduce the required spell slot even further. This feat is recommended for evil NPCs, whose terrible rituals the PCs must stop.

Notes: This is particularly useful to divine spellcasters, who know high-level spells but normally just can't cast them. Many cleric spells do very well as rituals. Wizards can learn spells of a level they cannot normally cast, but must scribe it using the standard rules, not take it for free when they go up in level. Sorcerers and Bards can never learn spells that they cannot normally cast, and thus find this feat almost useless.

Sex Appeal (General)

Sex sells, and friends can be won by seduction.

Benefit: You can use sexual allure to get a +4 bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy and Perform checks attempts against creatures who find your race and gender sexually attractive. After you use this feat, some people might seek to be intimate with you. They will resent a blunt rejection, worsening their attitude by one step or more.

Notes: Using this feat a lot might gain you some notoriety. This feat is not appropriate in a campaign involving children as players.

Special: If using rules from the Book of Erotic Fantasy while not using the Appearance statistic, having this feat satisfies any Appearance requirement.

Static Spell (Metamagic)

You can cast an extra spell when standing still.

Benefit: Casting a static spell is a move action, but you cannot use a swift or immediate action to cast another spell in the same round you do this. You can perform another standard action, even to cast another spell in the same round as you cast a static spell. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be static. A static spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell’s actual level.

Special: You normally cannot use a quickened spell and a Static Spell in the same round. If you have both Static Spell and Quickened Spell you can cast two extra spells in a round; one Static Spell at +3 levels and one Static, Quickened spell at +7 levels.

Terrifying Appearance (General)

You can frighten people by looks alone.

Benefit: You are ugly to the point of being terrifying. This can be how you were born or the result of scaring or disease. As long as people can see your ugly face, you can use the Intimidate skill as a swift action. Your ugliness can be hidden with magic, Disguise skill or a simple mask. You can never learn Sex Appeal feats or any other feat or trait based on good looks.

Special: If you have 6 or more ranks in Disguise when you take this feat, you might not actually be ugly; you can fake it enough to qualify for this feat while avoiding the limitations.

Trapfinding (Genral)

You can find and disarm complex traps.

Prerequisite: Disable Device 4 ranks, Search 4 ranks

Benefit: You can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20. You can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. If you beat a trap’s DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with your party) without disarming it.

Notes: This is the same as the rogue's trapfinding ability.

Versatile (General)

You have diversified beyond the normal limits of your profession.

Benefit: Pick any two skills. These skills become class skills for all your classes.

Notes: This feat originally appeared in the Rokugan campaign setting.

Weapon Kata (Special)

You have mastered a martial art based on an unusual weapon.

Prerequisites: Monk level 1

Benefit: Choose one melee weapon. You become proficient with this weapon, and in your hands it counts as a monk weapon.