The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats by Libertad!
The Trial
Original SA postKurieg posted:
So clerics and Paladins draw power from inside the self, because the divine doesn't exist and they're all about self empowerment and improvement.
Yet druids exist completely unaltered.
The way teamwork feats work is you get a bonus if you fulfill a criteria with a person who also has the feat. The human racial trait just lets you act like your entire party has the feat, it doesn't actually give it to them.
Yeah, I remember now. I'll go back and change that.
Tasoth posted:
Hahahahaha. John Wick writes fantasy 'MURIKA! but fucks it up because he doesn't keep notes. Why not base it off of a non-European culture and get some research in? Maybe have the culture focus on familial fidelity and the inherent selfishness of adventuring.
Concerned Ninja Citizen on Min-Max Boards suggested a similar thing.
In the meantime, one more review! This is is the one that started it all. I found a misleadingly labelled 3rd Party Pathfinder product, and conducted a pseudo-court session on Min-Max Boards to determine if it delivered on its promises. What it promised was a bunch of horrifically overpowered feats which should never be taken in a game:
The Precursor to the Review
So there's this 3rd-party product called 'The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats.'
Released as an April Fool's Joke, it's meant to be exactly what it says on the tin. But then I saw a few reviews, which mentioned that only a few feats were horrifically overpowered, and quite a few of them made for nice boost to the noncasters.
One review, however, said that aside from the more blatant ones, they were no more overpowered than what a well-built Core Wizard could do. And a lot of the feats are geared towards non-casters.
Okay, it's a joke product. But what makes this significant? Well, it's written by Owen KC Stevens, a dude who's done quite a bit of work with Wizards of the Coast and on the Pathfinder RPG. And it has this blurb:
quote:
In many ways, these feats are classic bad examples, doing exactly the sorts of things feats shouldn’t. If you ever design a feat you expect to work in a normal campaign and it looks a lot like one of these feats, that’s a clear sign you’ve done something wrong.
So if the feats aren't very powerful, and it's heavily geared towards martial characters, I can't help but wonder if it's reflective of the pro-caster bias which permeates Pathfinder. Even worse, it might just turn people off from genuinely Nice Things for Fighters if the fixes smack of 'overpoweredness.' But that's probably me taking things too seriously.
And it has a sequel product, too! And I got to see some actual feat descriptions in this one beyond a table!
Who knows, I might do a review when I buy the products! Let's see what I've got in the previews:
Animated Leap: You can make a long jump up to your movement rate without an Acrobatics check, or a high jump equal to 1/2 that. It has a feat tax of 2 bad feats (Acrobatic, Run), and you cannot change your route mid-jump.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Overland Flight still exists in Pathfinder.
Arcane Armor Lord: You ignore all arcane spell failure. Proficiency in Medium Armor, 11th level, and 2 feats (Arcane Armory Training & Mastery).
The verdict: Not overpowered. Very powerful, in that it can grant a nice AC bonus, but spell effects can grant miss chances, and its at a high enough level that a Sorcerer/Wizard can pull up stuff to negate attacks.
Backswing Attack: 3 times per day, as a free action, you can roll a new attack against a new opponent within reach if you miss the original opponent in melee. Pre-requisite of +6 BAB.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Very situational, slightly less useful than Great Cleave.
Libertad's Review of The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats, Because It Must Be Done
Introduction
So basically the book opens up with a blurb of how these feats are not meant to be used in campaigns, for the sanity of players and Dungeon Masters. But it knows that those brave or foolish enough to implement them in Pathfinder games are going to ignore these warnings, so it lays out suggestions and general overview of [Horrifically Overpowered] feats.
Yes, you read that right, [Horrifically Overpowered] is its own type. Any feat marked as such can't ever be taken them as a bonus feat due to race or class; you can have a maximum of 1 Horrifically Overpowered Feat at 1st level, 2 at 3rd level, and an additional 1 every 3 levels thereafter. Keep in mind that the feat progression in Pathfinder is faster than normal 3.X, so you can't just unload all your feat slots on them.
And another (but no less important) reason for the new type is that in case anybody copies the feats as part of Open Game Content, interested parties can be properly warned ahead of time. This ends Owen Stephens' public service announcement.
The second type of feat descriptor is [Meta-Attack]. Basically, they're like Meta-Magic feats, but for normal weapon and natural attacks. They can be used a certain number of times per day, and most of them are activated as a swift or free actions. All such feats are also Horrifically Overpowered , and you can gain additional uses per day as you gain levels (1 additional use to be applied to the Meta-Attack feat of your choice at 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter).
The Trial: For the purposes of this review, I'll be acting as judge, jury, and executioner. The accused party is Owen KC Stephens, and his crime is false advertising of overpowered feats. After each feat's description, I'll lay down the verdict as to whether the feat in question is Horrifically Overpowered. In the rare case I cannot decide one way or the other, I'll turn things over to the community to decide on my behalf. If you disagree with any of my conclusions, feel free to state your case. Edit: The trial is long over, but I'll be posting the statements of other Min-Maxers to give a more holistic view of how it proceeded.
And now that that's out of the way, here are the Feats:
quote:
Denied
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can simply refuse to be affected by a specific attack, spell, or ability.
Benefit: Once per day as a free action, you can decide to not be affected by a single attack, combat maneuver, spell, or effect. All its effects on you are immediately negated. This decision must be made as soon as you are aware of the effect you wish to negate. Only a single use of the effect is negated -- if you prevent an ancient red dragon from grappling you, that does not prevent it from making a new grapple check on its next attack. You may use this twice per day at 8th level, and one more time per day for every additional 8 levels you gain, to a maximum of six times per day at 40th level.
The verdict: Overpowered. It's pretty much a versatile way of avoiding negative effects and will save the PC's bacon quite a bit. But you must be aware of the effect occurring, and in some circumstances the enemy can repeat the action on its next turn.
Edit: StreamoftheSky pointed out in his post that a no-fail ability to nullify any attack can indeed be overpowered in its versatility, while Sor0 said that it's poorly worded enough to cause many headaches (especially in regards to territorial effects). Concerned Ninja Citizen pointed out the lack of duration and specifics and ignoring "effects" such as gravity.
quote:
Empowered Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can focus all your power and rage into an attack.
Benefit: Two times per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be an empowered attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. An empowered attack increases the damage it does by 50%.
The verdict: Not overpowered. This is a nice feat for chargers and damage-dealers, but given that straight hit point damage is not an overall effective forms of offense in Pathfinder, it's not going to get balls-to-the-wall crazy.
quote:
Enlarged Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can concentrate all your attention and will on the accuracy of one attack.
Benefit: Four times per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack to be an enlarged attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. If the attack is with a ranged weapon, the range increment of the attack doubles. If the attack is with a melee weapon, you may throw it as a ranged thrown weapon (not taking the normal penalty for throwing a melee weapon) with a range increment of 30 feet.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Spells with Long range increments can still outpace archers with this feat (who can get about 220 feet increments with a composite longbow). And turning any melee weapon into a thrown weapon isn't that bad.
quote:
Eschew Foci
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You have no need for idols and mirrors to cast spells.
Prerequisite: Eschew Materials
Benefit: You do not need to fulfill the focus or divine focus components of spells in order to cast them.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Foci are pretty much reusable material components, and are not very expensive to purchase. Now, if it allowed you to ignore material components, then it would be Horrifically Overpowered.
quote:
Eschew Gestures
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You have no need to wiggle your fingers to cast spells.
Prerequisite: Still Spell
Benefit: You do not need to fulfill the somatic components of spells in order to cast them. You effectively treat all the spells you cast as if they had been cast using the Still Spell metamagic feat, but the spell’s level does not change, and no extra time is required to cast it.
The verdict: Depends. The best use I can think of is for gish builds, who can swing around a greataxe or dual-wield scimitars while casting spells without having to drop and sheathe weapons all the time. Plus it also has a feat tax of a feat you won't be using anymore.
However, it allows spellcasters to cast spells while hindered, restrained, and grappled, but spells still provoke an attack of opportunity. It can get overpowered if combined with Supernatural Spell Monster, which takes care of the AoO problem.
quote:
Eschew Incantations
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You have no need to speak to cast spells.
Prerequisite: Silent Spell
Benefit: You do not need to fulfill the verbal components of spells in order to cast them. You effectively treat all the spells you cast as if they had been cast using the Silent Spell metamagic feat, but the spell’s level does not change, and no extra time is required to cast it.
The verdict: Overpowered. Silence is no longer a poor man's Anti-Magic Field for enemy spellcasters, and it eliminates a big weakness of spellcasters.
quote:
Extended Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can drive an attack deep into a foe to insure the wound continues to tear and bleed, at least briefly.
Benefit: Three times per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be an extended attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. If the attack hits, the target suffers bleed damage at the beginning of its next round. For this bleed, roll the extended attack’s damage again, using the same modifiers as the original attack.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Since you have to declare it before the attack roll, there's a chance that you'll miss or roll low damage. It's pretty much a free second attack, but only on the next round. Very nice feat for martials.
quote:
Extra Lives
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are just hard to kill.
Benefit: Your character can come back from the dead, with no penalty, three times in its total career. This happens at the end of whatever encounter you died in, unless that would cause your character to immediately die again (such as if your body was dropped into a pool of lava). In that case, you return to life at some safe location within a week, at the GM’s discretion. If you think your character is likely to be raised quickly and easily, you may choose not to use this ability when you die, in which case it does not count against your three total uses of this feat.
Special: This feat can be taken more than once. (Although, really, you need to take Toughness if you’re dying that often. Or maybe Dodge. Or just stand closer to the cleric.) Each time you take it, the number of times your character may freely return from the dead increases by three.
The verdict: Not overpowered, especially at higher levels. Unlike other feats, it has a limited use, and becomes useless after 3 deaths. At low levels it can help increase PC survivability, and at high levels Save or Die effects are increasingly common. Given the way the feat works, 'death' is still a penalty as it takes you out of the game for 1 week. You'll still have to sit things out if the party's in a dungeon or doesn't have time to wait around for you to come back.
More to come soon!
The Trial Continues
Original SA post Part Two of the Reviewquote:
Extra Meta-Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered]
Benefit: You gain additional uses of meta-attack feats. You gain two additional uses per day, plus one additional use for every meta-attack feat you have. This does not allow you to use meta-attack feats you have not taken, only to get extra uses for meta-attack feats you have. You may spend these extra uses on any meta-attack feat you have, as long as you do not exceed 2 + (total meta-attack feats) per day in additional uses of all your meta-attack feats.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Yeah, it grants a lot of additional uses, but keep in mind that you're spending one of your limited feat slots on it, further limited by the one per 3 levels schematic for Horrifically Overpowered feats. So if you're 12th level, and spent 5 of your 6 available feats on Extra Meta-Attack and other Meta-Attacks, you deserve to gain 6 additional uses spread out among them: your character's limited resources are built around being 'Meta." And I have yet to see any truly crazy Meta-Attacks so far to drive me into conniption fits.
quote:
Favored
[Horrifically Overpowered]
The universe likes you, and gives you gifts.
Benefit: For every HD you have, you may select one favored class benefit from any character class. This is in addition to favored class benefits you receive if you actually take a level in a favored class. For more information on favored class benefits, see the Advanced Player’s Guide.
The verdict: Not overpowered. I've seen the Favored Class Options in APG, and let me tell you, none of them are very impressive.
quote:
Full Casting Action
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can cast multiple spells as a fullround action, much like a warrior can make multiple attacks if his base attack bonus is high enough.
Prerequisite: Caster level 6.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can cast two spells that have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. The first spell is cast normally, while the second spell uses a caster level 5 lower than your normal caster level, and the DC of any saving throw it requires is reduced by 2.
The verdict: Overpowered. More spells per round! If you can't think of ways to abuse this, you're not trying hard enough.
quote:
Gestalt
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are practically a member of two character classes, rather than just one.
Benefit: Select one character class. You gain all the class features (proficiencies and abilities listed in the “special” column of the class writeup) of that class other than spellcasting, as if half your total character level was your class level. (If you are 1st level, gain only the armor and weapon proficiencies of your selected class until you reach 2nd level.) If you actually have levels in the selected class, you gain class features as if your class level was equal to your actual class level plus one-half of all your other levels.
The verdict: It's not like Unearthed Arcana's gestalt, in that it only grants class features as opposed to HD, BAB, Saving Throws, and Skills. However, it's still overpowered in that can dramatically increase the power levels of PCs with a plethora of good abilities. Score some Bardic Music for your Paladin, Sneak Attack and Rogue Talents for your Ranger, or Wild Shape for your Barbarian!
quote:
Go First
[Horrifically Overpowered]
No one can more before you. No one.
Prerequisite: Improved Initiative.
Benefit: You go first in any initiative order. If there are multiple creatures present that have feats or abilities that state they each go first in any initiative order, those creatures roll initiative to see what order they go in, and all other creatures go after them (regardless of relative initiative check results).
The verdict: Going first is really important in combat, and can make the difference in battle. Imagine a spellcaster with this thing! Overpowered.
quote:
Greater Full Casting Action
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can cast up to 3 spells as a full-round action, much like a warrior can make multiple attacks if his base attack bonus is high enough.
Prerequisite: Caster level 11, Full Casting Action.
Benefit: This functions as Full Casting Action, except you can also cast a third spell with a casting time of 1 standard action or less. The third spell uses a caster level 10 lower than your normal caster level, and the DC of any saving throw it requires is reduced by 5.
The verdict: In case you're unsatisfied with firing off 2 spells per turn, and need an even more Quadratic Wizard. Overpowered.
quote:
Healing Factor
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You have a mutant healing factor.
Benefit: You gain fast healing equal to 1/3 your HD (minimum fast healing 1).
The verdict: Unless you consider the 15-minute adventuring day an important aspect of D&D, this feat is not overpowered. It saves the Cleric and Wand of CLW user to use his resources on others during downtime, and the Fast Healing is not large enough to make a noticeable difference in combat.
quote:
Heighten Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can put more muscle behind an attack to make it more effective against thick-skinned foes.
Benefit: Four times per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a heightened attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. The attack ignores a number of points of DR and/or hardness equal to your base attack bonus.
The verdict: Easy ways to bypass DR with weapon types? Check. Limited uses per day? Check. Still shown up by magic attacks? Check. Not overpowered by a long shot.
The evidence is starting to turn against you, Mr. Stephens. Your case can't afford another feat like this!
quote:
Heroic Grace
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are destined for greatness, and are thus unlikely to be petrified by a wandering monster.
Benefit: You may add your Int, Wis, or Cha bonus to all your saving throws, in addition to your normal ability modifier. This does not stack with the paladin’s divine grace class feature, or any other ability that adds your Int, Wis, or Cha to all your saving throws. (You are still allowed to add your Wisdom bonus to your Will saves, as normal.)
The verdict: Paladins have Divine Grace, so at first glance I was inclined to strike this down as Not Overpowered. But after some deliberation, I ruled otherwise. It doesn't require a 2-level dip in a non-fullcasting class. And high-level casters can easily pump their mental scores up to impressive levels. Since Saving Throws are very important to have at high levels, it's easy for a Cleric, Druid, or Wizard to bust his Saves off the RNG.
I feared I may have underestimated you, Stephens. I declare this feat Horrifically Overpowered.
I call for a 10-minute recess. Court is now adjourned!
Other posters:
SorO_Lost posted:
I disagree with one of your conclusions, so I should state my case?
"Horrifically-Overpowered" as a term doesn't do Greater Full Casting Action justice. Perhaps "Holy crap they printed this?!" might?
Ok seriously. I'm mostly in shock and awe at some of this stuff.
I can't believe they printed it and I'm glad you're taking the time to review it.
Garryl posted:
Does Pathfinder still have the rule that you can cast a spell with a CL lower than the CL you'd normally have at the level you get the spell? That would put a damper on the Full Casting Action feats, since you'd be restricted to using your lower level spells. Not enough to remove it from the OP category, but it's worth noting.
*Rummages through the stacks of legal documents.*
Ah, here it is!
quote:
A spell's power often depends on its caster level, which for most spellcasting characters is equal to her class level in the class she's using to cast the spell.
You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.
In the event that a class feature or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt), but also to your caster level check to overcome your target's spell resistance and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the Dc of the check).
The lowering of Caster Level in Pathfinder prevents a spellcaster from utilizing his full arsenal of spells with the feat.
Regardless, it is still a very useful feat for higher-level spellcasters to have. Imagine multiple Evard's Black Tentacles in the same round, or Acid Fog followed by Telekinesis!
I still regard it as an overpowered feat for the potential spell combos it can unleash.
StreamOfTheSky posted:
My thoughts so far...
Denied: Overpowered. It's wings of cover for the whole family. Negating anything at all 100% is broken. Also to nitpick... if it says free action but lacks the words “that you can use out of turn”.... does that mean the feat is technically useless?
Meta-Attacks: None are overpowered, and WTF having daily limits AND needing a swift? Why don't casters have to take it up the ass like this?
Eschew Foci: Mildly broken. Some foci are fairly expensive. It has no price limit like eschew materials.
Eschew Gestures/Incantation: Broken. Removes significant caster weaknesses and helps make every caster a druid (natural spell, cast in any form).
Favored: WTF does this even do? The class specific ones advance class specific features. If you have no bard levels, does getting +1/2 level to one type of bard performance actually do anything? If this lets you double up on FC bonus for the class you're progressing, this is broken. Most FC boni suck, but some caster ones ROCK. Like bonus sorc spells known, or summoner getting +1/4 evo point.
Full-Casting Action: Possibly the most overpowered and broken feat I've ever seen.
Gestalt: Hmm...I think F-C Action still is holding the crown. Barely.
Go First: Ok, this one might possibly be more broken than F-C Action.
Greater F-C Action: WTF? Seriously guys, WTF?
Healing Factor: Overpowered at low levels, ok by 10th and on.
Heroic Grace: Super overpowered, a caster's wet dream, AND a slap in the face to the paladin class. A trifecta of douche-baggery! Well done, Owen!
Court is now in session!
Here we continue the trial of Owen KC Stephens, game designer and head of Super Genius Games. He produced for the reading public a book of feats, not a crime in and of itself. But, he promised us that these feats would be 'Horrifically Overpowered,' in such a way as to boost a character's effectiveness and overall power, enough that a single one would be enough to boost a Monster's Challenge Rating by 2! In his defense, he mentioned that an adversary's Challenge Rating is just a guideline, and that the feats do more than the official Pathfinder ones. But are we to believe that a single of these feats is equivalent to 2 class levels worth of hit dice, class features, and a new spell level in the case of casters?
The trial continues.
quote:
Hex Maven
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
Your hexes are much more persistent than most witches’.
Benefit: Your hexes which state they can only affect a specific target once per day, can instead affect the same target a number of times per day equal to your Int bonus.
I am sure that there any many hexes in multiple sourcebooks, but I've so far located 2 hexes which qualify for this feat: Flight and Life Giver . One grants Levitation, the other Resurrection without a material component.
The verdict: Normally I'd rate this one 'not overpowered.' But there might be hexes in Pathfinder source books beyond Ultimate Magic which can be quite powerful, so I'll reserve judgment until I find more hexes (if there are any). If no such hexes can be found, I'll rule this as 'not overpowered.'
quote:
Magic-User
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You’ve picked up a considerable amount of spellcasting above and beyond your normal training.
Benefit: Select one spellcasting character class. You can cast spells as a member of this class of a level equal to half your total hit dice. (If you are 1st level, you cast spells as a 1st level member of the class, but can only cast 0-level spells).
Special: This feat may be selected more than once. (Why not?) Its effects do not stack. (Get real.) Each time it is selected, you must choose a new spellcasting class in which you gain spellcasting ability.
The verdict: This feat's tag is accurate. Even a low-level Wizard or Cleric has many useful spells. Combined with another class, it can be quite effective indeed. And furthermore, it serves as a nice way to meet prestige class pre-requisites without multi-classing!
quote:
Master of Magic Items
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can use any magic item to its fullest.
Prerequisites: Use Magic Device as class skill.
Benefit: You can use any magic item, even if you would not normally be able to do so.
The verdict: The feat's wording is unclear. Does this mean that there is no need for Use Magic Device, and all uses are successful? Does it grant proficiency in all magic weapons? Does it allow one to ignore the negative effects of alignment-based weapons and similar restrictions?
I turn to the community to judge in my stead for this one!
quote:
Maximize Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
Once per day, you can give an attack your all.
Benefit: Once per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a maximized attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. A maximized attack deals maximum damage.
The verdict: Not overpowered. For weapons, the modifiers after the damage dice matter more than the dice itself. Unlike fireballs and lightning bolts, the differences between minimums and maximums for longswords, battleaxes, and the like is miniscule (2-12 damage for a Medium greatsword).
quote:
Mental Paragon
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are the peak of mental perfection for your race.
Benefit: Your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are a base of 18 (before racial and level-based adjustments). If you take this feat at first level and roll for ability scores, you may only roll for your physical statistics. For example, if your campaign normally has new characters roll six times for ability scores, rolling 4d6 and take the best 3 each time, you are only allowed to do this three times (using the values for your Str, Dex, and Con). If you take this feat at 1st level and use a point-buy for ability scores, you get only half as many points (round up) to buy your physical ability scores.
The verdict: Overpowered. +4 skill points per level, +4 on related ability and skill checks, +4 on Will Saves, +4 on social skills, +4 on Save DCs for spells, and 4 additional beginning spells for a Wizard, and bonus spells per day. Combine this with a +2 mental stat bonus, and you're golden!
Granted, this is not as overpowered in point buy games with primary spellcasters who rely upon one stat (just buy an 18). But for dice rolling, it's great to have.
quote:
Offensive Combat Training
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You fight like a warrior-born.
Prerequisite: Defensive Combat Training
Benefit: Your base attack bonus is equal to your total hit dice.
The verdict: Not overpowered. At most, it can grant a +5 or +10 increase in accuracy at 20th level, and is very dip-friendly for martial builds. But it's not going to make a significant difference in your campaigns.
quote:
Physical Paragon
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are the peak of physical perfection for your race.
Benefit: Your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are a base of 18 (before racial and level-based adjustments). If you take this feat at first level and roll for ability scores, you may only roll for your mental statistics. For example if your campaign normally has new characters roll six times for ability scores, rolling 4d6 and take the best 3 each time, you are only allowed to do this three times (using the values for your Int, Wis, and Cha). If you take this feat at 1st level and use a point-buy for ability scores, you get only half as many points (round up) to buy your mental ability scores.
The verdict: Overpowered, but not as much so as Mental Paragon. You're getting +4 on attack and damage rolls, +4 Fortitude and Reflex Saves, +4 hit points per level, +4 Armor Class, and +4 on related ability and skill checks. It's a definite boon when you're rolling dice for stats, and for MAD martial builds.
Keep in mind for the Paragon feats that it does not preclude the other from being taken, nor does it explicitly state that it must be taken at 1st level. It just changes the base abilities to 18.
quote:
Perfect Blow
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
You can make a perfect attack.
Benefit: Once per day you can choose to make a single attack a perfect strike. Rather than make an attack roll, you hit any AC equal to 20 + your attack bonus or less. The attack automatically threatens a critical. The attack hits even if the target has a defense that would normally cause the attack to be ineffectual or have a chance to be mistargeted, such as mirror image, displacement, concealment, invisibility, etherealness, or feats that allow an attack to be blocked or dodged. The attack bypasses any DR or other defense of the foe, but can be healed, recovered, or regenerated normally.
The verdict: Not overpowered. It is a very nice ability for martial characters, and can foil many kinds of magical defenses. However, one must still roll to confirm the critical threat. I'd definitely allow this in my games.
Part Four of the Review
Stephens was off to a bad start, but eventually he got back into the game with some truly, horrifically, overpowered feats such as Full-Cast Action, Magic-User, and Gestalt.
Will he be able to keep this up? We've got 11 feats to go!
quote:
Prestigious
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are practically a member of a specific prestige class.
Prerequisites: Character level 6, no levels in selected prestige class.
Benefit: Select one prestige class. You gain all the class features (proficiencies and abilities listed in the “special” column of the class writeup) of that prestige class other than spellcasting. Your effective level for the prestige class (to determine both what powers you receive, and any level-dependent effects of those powers) is one-half of (your HD -5), with a minimum of 1.
The verdict: At 20th level, you technically have 7.5 levels in a PrC. Since it can skip all the prerequisites, I can see this open to some terrific abuse. Overpowered.
quote:
Quicken Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
Once per day, you can make an attack faster than the eye can follow.
Benefit: Once per day as a free action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a quickened attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. A quickened attack is a swift action. Targets within 30 feet of you are flatfooted against a quickened attack. If it is a ranged attack, it does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Grants a free Sneak Attack for the Rogue at most, and it can't be used in conjunction with other Meta-Attacks.
quote:
Silent Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can kill while silent as a shadow.
Benefit: Three times per day as a free action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a silent attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. A silent attack does not end any Stealth you are using, does not count as an attack for the invisibility spell, and cannot be traced back to you with a Perception check.
The verdict: Really ups the power and potential of Rogues, but a high-level wizard with magic can avoid detection better. Not to mention that a Rogue can still be foiled by Blind-sight, True Seeing, and similar things.
Edit: Not overpowered. Sor0_Lost and Concerned Ninja Citizen mentioned that it's limited use cuts down on its potential for abuse.
quote:
Skill Domination
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are an expert in a wide range of skills.
Benefit: All skills count as class skills for you. You can always make a skill check untrained.
The verdict: Not overpowered. In Pathfinder, a class skill grants a +3 bonus, and it doesn't make you any better at untrained skills.
quote:
Skill God
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are the best at one thing you do.
Benefit: Select one skill. Whenever you must make a check for this skill, you always act as if you had rolled a 20.
Special: This feat can be taken more than once. Its effects can’t logically stack, but if you can talk your GM into believing you should get to “roll 40” on a skill check, go ahead. The idea, however, is that each time you select it, it applies to a different skill.
The verdict: Depends upon the skill. Knowledge checks may not be so bad, but it's pure win for common skills such as Perception and Spellcraft (for things such as concentrating on a spell).
quote:
Spell Shifting
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can twist your spells into different spells.
Benefit: You have access to pattern spells. You have a number of pattern spells equal to your HD, to a maximum of two pattern spells per spell level. When you select a spell as a pattern spell it must be a spell of a class and level you are able to cast, and the choice cannot normally be changed. You are allowed to swap out one pattern spell for a new choice at every even level. How pattern spells work depends on how you cast spells. If you are a preparation spellcaster (such as the cleric, druid, and wizard), pattern spells are spells you can cast in place of a prepared spell of the same level or higher, in the same way a cleric can replace a prepared spell for a cure spell. Your pattern spells must be selected from spells you could prepare if you chose to (nearly any class spell for clerics, but limited to spells in your spellbook for wizards). If you are a spontaneous spellcaster (such as the bard and sorcerer), pattern spells are additional spells known, which you can cast once per day by using a spell slot of the same level or higher. If you ever gain one of your pattern spells as a spell known, you may replace it with a new pattern spell of the same level.
The verdict: Overpowered. You know how Clerics and Druids can spontaneously convert spells into Cures and Summons? Well, this feat can grant you up to 20 more! With the right selection, your spellcasters will never have to worry about preparing the wrong spells again!
quote:
Still Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can kill without moving.
Benefit: Three times per day as a free action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a still attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. A still attack does not require for your arms to be free or that you move, and can be made while you are grappled or pinned (without requiring a grapple check to do so), held or paralyzed.
The verdict: Not overpowered, but it sounds totally awesome, so Stephens gets my respect for the idea if not the execution. Aside from getting paralyzed or grappled, there's not many opportunities that you'll get to use this.
Part Five: The Final Stretch
Of the 32 feats we've reviewed so far, I ruled that
StreamoftheSky pointed out that 100% negation can be overpowered, but the feat did not specify that it can be used out of turn, and so I changed it. I will do the Final Four write-ups soon.
Edit: Here they are!
quote:
Supernatural Spell Monster
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You’re not really a spellcaster, but you might be mistaken for one.
Benefit: Select one class you have levels in that casts spells. Though you must meet the casting time and all the prerequisites of those spells to use them, they do not count as spells. For rules purposes, they function as supernatural powers.
The verdict: Goodbye, pesky Attacks of Opportunity! Overpowered.
quote:
Ultimate Full Casting Action
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can cast up to 4 spells as a fullround action, much like a warrior can make multiple attacks if his base attack bonus is high enough.
Prerequisite: Caster level 16, Full Casting Action, Greater Full Casting Action.
Benefit: This functions as Greater Full Casting Action, except you can also cast a fourth spell with a casting time of 1 standard action or less. The forth spell uses a caster level 15 lower than your normal caster level, and the DC of any saving throw it requires is reduced by 7.
The verdict: Overpowered like its predecessors.
quote:
Unflappable
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You are the sort of person who says “I would not be a bit surprised if the dragon is an illusion and we’re actually surrounded by invisible ninjas.” What’s more, you really aren’t a bit surprised when that turns out to be the case.
Prerequisite: Alertness.
Benefit: You are never surprised, and never flat-footed.
The verdict: Basically poor man's Foresight, except permanent and accessible at lower levels. You always act in the surprise round, and negate the offensive potential of many Rogues. I say that it's overpowered because it negates the Rogue's Sneak Attack in most circumstances, is a no-brainer for characters who boost their AC via mobility, and replicates the best features of a 9th-level spell.
quote:
Widen Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
A limited number of times per day, you can lay about you in a frenzy of blows to kill foes near and far.
Benefit: Three times per day as a swift action, you may declare one weapon attack, natural attack, or unarmed attack to be a widened attack. You must make this declaration prior to making your attack roll. A widened attack allows you to compare your attack roll to the AC of every foe in any four spaces (each adjacent to at least one other of the four spaces, and all within 1 space of an area you threaten). Each foe whose AC is exceeded by your attack roll takes damage from the attack.
The verdict: Basically Whirlwind Attack, sans the ridiculous number of prerequisites and limited in use. Not overpowered.
And the very last picture in this book before the credits and SRD is of a female ninja wielding a blade amid a swarm of cherry blossoms, her nipples poking through her skin-tight suit and sporting a faint case of camel-toe. I guess this fanservice is meant as a reward for reading through this thing.
Anyway, this brings our review to a close! 18 Not Overpowered, 15 Overpowered, 2 varies in use, and 1 still left to the community's judgment! The book's advertisement was 41% correct, but at three bucks I can't really complain.
Expect a review for the Guide to More Horrifically Overpowered Feats in due time.
The Jury Weighs In
Original SA post Min-Max Community Responses:SorO_Lost posted:
Do you think it's because Free Actions can be used whenever you want to begin with?Libertad posted:
StreamoftheSky pointed out that 100% negation can be overpowered, but the feat did not specify that it can be used out of turn, and so I changed it. I will do the Final Four write-ups soon.
Edit - It also places no limitation on Duration, only it's Single Use based, nor that is has to be used in response to right now either (in fact it suggests at any point).
You can wake up one day and decide Gravity is an "effect", gain immunity to it for the rest of your life.
Which is kind of a stupid example, but you get what I mean.
Edit 2 - Does PF have Tome of Battle? Like Feral Death Blow deals an additional 20d6 damage on a successful Save. Not saying it's some kind of Saving Grace to making those Feats OP, but there is more to it than a 2d6 being Maximized (it sounds like it applies to Sneak Attack too btw).
Edit 3 - Master of Magic Items, you can use any magic item to it's fullest...
Maybe it's a Colossal +5 Starburst Necromantic Ballast, maybe it's not. But you can use it.
Edit 4 - Deserves a note. I thought "Full-Attack" spellcasting and freebie Gestated was bad. Prestigious (Beholder Mage) with Supernatural Spell Monster. *shudders*
Still can't get over the fact this crap was compiled into and book and they charged you money to read it. DnDWiki is free and their both largely a joke, just saying.
@Sor0:
Edit 1: I checked Free Actions in the Pathfinder SRD, and only Immediate Actions specified that they could be used out of turn.
Edit 2: No, Pathfinder has no Tome of Battle Equivalent.
Edit 3: So that's a "yes" to all my questions in the verdict?
Edit 4: Why do you view Full Action Casting and Gestalt as bad feats?
Just for readers, the last feat to be decided is:
Master of Magic Items
I ruled Hex Maven as Not Overpowered, but only because I saw no other 1st-party Hexes which can greatly benefit from this.
Concerned Ninja Citizen posted:
Silent Attack is fine. Nice effect but at 3/day it's not even one of the more powerful feats out there.
Denied: It does specify that the effect is only negated "for you" which leaves out the godawful Ironheart Surge loophole stuff like turning off the sun.
On the other hand, the lack of duration or any sort of specifics on what kind of effect you can negate and when you can negate it (and the use of the word "negate" even modified by the "for you" clause) opens up a new set of stupid tricks like negating falling damage and claiming that the "effect" of gravity no longer applies to you.
I'd say the 1/day use limit means its only overpowered because it's so badly written. Used as it seems to have been intended it is only moderately more powerful than IHS or Wings of Cover and both of those can be used multiple times per day.
On the whole it's reasonable to call it overpowered.
Master of Magic Items: Yeah, I have no fucking clue what this is supposed to do either. At first glance I assumed it let you auto pass UMD checks but it's so ambiguous it could mean absolutely anything (or nothing) at all. I'd call this one "broken" in the sense that it doesn't work.
On the book in general, I think you were being a bit lenient with some of those feats. They weren't just billed as "overpowered" but as "horrifically overpowered." Even some of the ones that are legitimately overpowered are only moderately so. For feats that were written as jokes, I expect more.
I also suspect the MMB community could write their own guide to overpowered feats that was actually worthy of the name and let non casters get in on the fun.
After about 5 minutes contemplation, here's a stab:
Adaptive Fighting Style [Fighter, Horrifically Overpowered]
Your martial genius is such that you can change your approach to combat to fit the battle at hand.
Prerequisite: Fighter Level 6
Benefit: Once per encounter as a swift action you may replace any number of your [fighter] feats with other [fighter] feats for which you qualify. This effect lasts until the end of the encounter at which point you lose the benefit of the new feats and regain your original feats.
Does it need a "you may not replace prerequisites" clause or would feats you no longer qualify for just stop working?
Is this even overpowered?
I'd like to thank all responsible parties for helping me come to a decision for the remaining feats! Until I finish reviewing the 2nd book, my avatar will be changed to the coolest Judge of all: Judge Dredd!
Concerned Ninja Citizen posted:
I also suspect the MMB community could write their own guide to overpowered feats that was actually worthy of the name and let non casters get in on the fun.
After about 5 minutes contemplation, here's a stab:
Adaptive Fighting Style [Fighter, Horrifically Overpowered]
Your martial genius is such that you can change your approach to combat to fit the battle at hand.
Prerequisite: Fighter Level 6
Benefit: Once per encounter as a swift action you may replace any number of your [fighter] feats with other [fighter] feats for which you qualify. This effect lasts until the end of the encounter at which point you lose the benefit of the new feats and regain your original feats.
Does it need a "you may not replace prerequisites" clause or would feats you no longer qualify for just stop working?
Is this even overpowered?
It is overpowered if you allow the use of Fighter Feats from splatbooks. Otherwise it's not, because PHB Fighter bonus feats are just not very exciting.
Also, in Pathfinder, there are no [Fighter] feats. They're [Combat] feats, which the Fighter selects as bonus feats. It's to cut down on unnecessary clutter, and allows other classes to have bonus [Combat] feats without saying "take Fighter feats as bonus feats."
Kaelik posted:
1) Those stat changing ones are actually even more overpowered than you think, because I think you missed the biggest exploit:
It says that if you take it at level 1, you get half the PB for your physical stats. It doesn't specify that it must be taken at level 1.
Solution: Take it at level 2 (Pathfinder gives a feat at level 2 right?) or 3, in any game that starts higher than level 1.
32 PB for your Wizard becomes 18 Con, 18 Dex, 8 Str/Int/Wis/Cha, and then at level 2 or 3, you suddenly have 18s in every fucking stat except Str at the low cost of a few skill points. (Remember, Pathfinder doesn't give 4 times as much at level 1, so you really are just missing out on 5 or 10 skill points, depending on whether Pathfinder gives a feat at level 2).
2) Master of Magic Items is pretty much shit. I mean, yeah, it is really unclear what it is supposed to do, but what it actually does is let you use magic items you wouldn't be able to. So... who fucking cares.
I mean, it doesn't let you use Staves at higher CL than minimum, so it is basically just worse than having ranks in UMD. It is functionally identical to a +19 UMD bonus for wands, and a slightly higher one for scrolls, who cares.
Point buy is slightly different in PF. You can pull off 2 18s with Epic Fantasy, but you'd need to reduce the 4th 8 to a 7. Feats are gained at 3rd level and every odd-numbered level thereafter.
If the game starts at level 1, you'd be a dead weight for the party because you can't cast spells. Otherwise the exploit works.
And now a review of the Second Book!
Owen Stephens Strikes Again! Libertad's Review of the Guide to More Horrifically Overpowered Feats!
Last time we left off, we found that Owen Stephens' last work had many Overpowered Feats, but even more of the feats were not overpowered at all! Normally I'd rule him as GUILTY, but the Book wasn't completely deceptive. Let's see how his next work fares!
Upon glancing at the cover, I'm noticing a theme. Once again we're graced with the image of an Asian woman in skin-tight clothing with slightly visible nipples; the oversized sword is a new addition. In front of her, at the bottom of the frame, is a white-haired bishonen with an eye-patch and a gun in his left hand and streams of fire emanating forth from his right. And the strange, alien-looking old woman on the left makes a trio.
Being no stranger to Grognards.txt, I've noticed that accusations of 'overpowered' and 'Anime/Asian' often go hand-in-hand together (particularly among AD&D players). I do not have any hard evidence to prove that Stephens associates the two together, but I didn't survive this long in the Edition Wars to smell a rat.
We covered the first three feats in the OP, but I didn't copy-paste them. Now that I know I can do so safely, here they are in all their glory!
quote:
Animated Leap
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can make vast jumps, well beyond the range of normal mortals.
Prerequisites: Acrobatic, Run.
Benefit: You can move your entire movement in a round as one or more jumps without making Acrobatics checks. If you take an action that allows you to move farther than your normal movement rate (such as the run action), you may make this entire movement as a leap or series of leaps. Each leap must be straight, must end on a surface able to support you (though if you have Dandelion Tread, see below, that’s pretty much any surface), and takes you to an altitude equal to 1/3 of the distance jumped. The highest you can jump is equal to 50% of your normal movement rate. You must declare each leap in advance (indicating where you jump from and your planned destination), and cannot change your route if you discover an invisible wall of force in the way, or you suddenly expose yourself to fire from a column of archers with readied actions.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Seriously, what is up with people cringing in fear of people jumping far without spells? I mean, it's not like the Pathfinder designers tossed away Overland Flight! Two feat tax, all for some enhanced mobility.
quote:
Arcane Armor Lord
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
You are too skilled at casting in armor to be hindered by the limited range of motion armor leaves you.
Prerequisites: Arcane Armor Training, Arcane armor Mastery, Medium Armor Proficiency, caster level 11th.
Benefit: You ignore arcane spell failure.
The verdict: Like I said before, Not Overpowered.
quote:
Backswing Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
When your attacks bounce off a foe’s armor, you can use the momentum to backswing against another target.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: Three times per day, as a free action, when you make a weapon attack, unarmed attack, or natural weapon attack, and miss your target (but successfully hit the target’s touch AC), you may immediately reroll the attack as an attack against another target. This attack counts as the same attack for purposes of abilities that only work on a single attack roll, and the new target must be one you could have attacked instead of your original target.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Worse than Perfect Strike, and slightly worse than Great Cleave.
quote:
Brow Cut
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
You cut a foe’s brow causing blood from the wound to flow into its eyes.
Benefit: Once per round as a free action, when you hit and damage a foe with a slashing weapon, you cause the foe to be dazzled for one round, +1 round per 5 points of your base attack bonus. Any magic healing directed specifically at healing the wound bleeding into the target’s eyes ends this effect, though it does not also restore hit points.
Special: Characters with Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple may also take this feat, calling it Eye Gouge, and using it when they hit a foe with an unarmed attack.
The verdict: Look up the Dazzled Condition. Now tell me with a straight face that this is Horrifically Overpowered. Go ahead, make my day.
quote:
Channel Brightly
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can channel energy of an impressive intensity.
Prerequisite: Ability to channel energy, Improved Channel, Selective Channeling.
Benefit: when you channel energy, you may simultaneously heal all creatures you can heal with the ability, and harm all creatures you could harm with the ability. For example, Xasha is a 16th level cleric that channels positive energy with Alignment Channel (evil), Channel Brightly, Improved Channel, and Selective Channeling. When she channel energy, she can heal living creatures and harm undead and evil outsiders (using the same channeling dice for both), or heal living creatures and evil outsiders and harm undead.
The verdict: Not overpowered from the sounds of it. Hell, it sounds nigh-useless unless you're using channeling surrounded by enemy and ally Outsiders of the same alignment!
quote:
Cohort Familiar
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You have forged a bond with a much more powerful familiar than the norm.
Prerequisites: Improved Familiar, Leadership, ability to acquire a familiar.
Benefit: Your cohort (from the Leadership feat) becomes your familiar. It’s alignment does not change, but it is devotedly loyal and obedient to you, regardless of any difference in alignment. Cohort familiars otherwise use the rules for regular familiars, with two exceptions: if the creature’s type is something other than animal, its type does not change; and cohort familiars do not gain the ability to speak with other creatures of their kind (although many of them already have the ability to communicate). Your Leadership score does not take a penalty from having a familiar if it is a cohort familiar.
The verdict: Overpowered. Deliver a touch spell through your Barbarian familiar, and give him Improved Evasion early!
quote:
Combat Assault
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
You can increase your accuracy at the expense of your defense.
Prerequisite: Wis 13.
Benefit: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on your Armor Class to gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls and combat maneuver checks. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every +4 thereafter, the AC penalty increases by –1 and the attack bonus increases by +1. You can only choose to use this feat at the beginning of your turn, before moving or making any attacks. The effects of this feat last until the beginning of your next turn.
The verdict: I will not call it such here or there. I would not call it that anywhere. I will not do it while I eat, I will not compare it to Animated Leap, I will not call this a horrifically overpowered feat.
quote:
Combat Vigilance
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
You never let your guard down.
Prerequisites: Alertness or Combat Casting.
Benefit: Once per round, as a free action, when you take an action that normally provokes an attack of opportunity, you may decide to not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Special: This feat may be taken more than once. Each additional time you take it, add one to the number of times you can stand from prone (or whatever) without having an orc stab you for it.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Perhaps it might be in single combat, and if the opponent does not have Combat Reflexes. Otherwise it's nice, but not stellar.
quote:
Concussive Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
When you deal bludgeoning damage, you leave your foes reeling.
Benefit: Three times per day, as a swift action, when you make a weapon attack, unarmed attack, or natural weapon attack that deals bludgeoning damage, you may declare it to be a concussive attack. In addition to its normal damage, a concussive attack causes creatures that take damage from it to take a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks for a number of rounds equal to 1, +1 per 5 points of your base attack bonus.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Isn't there like a bunch of ways to cause the shaken condition in opponents, which largely does the same thing? Could have some nice synergy with demoralizing opponents, though.
Part Two
It was a cold and dark rainy evening. I was recently called to investigate a disturbance in the Pathfinder District of Drive-Thru RPG. Place was full of interesting characters. Back in 2008, the mayor was making all sorts of lofty promises about how it would be a new 3rd City, that they would not repeat the mistakes of the past. But it never came to be; the neighborhood fell back into its old habits of spellcasters running wild and small-time publishers pushing broken, unplaytested products onto the streets.
Super Genius Games was one of the publisher gangs. To all outward appearances they came off as just another small fish joining an overcrowded pond, but they were gaining a lot of clout around town, too much for a group of their size and resources. Turns out they were getting marching orders from Owen "the Knife" Stephens, an associate of the notorious Paizo family. Prime32 cautioned against me pursuing them, called me a loose cannon like he always does, said to focus on the guppies instead of the sharks. But that's just not the kind of guy I am.
quote:
Dandelion Tread
[Horrifically Overpowered]
Your footsteps are so light you can stand on the slightest of structures, even a tiny flower.
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Acrobatic Steps, Nimble Moves.
Benefit: You may move through difficult terrain as if it was not difficult terrain. You have a climb speed equal to your ground movement, and you can climb (or stand on) structures regardless of their ability to support your weight. As long as some object reaches a point you wish to go, you can run and stand there – even if it’s standing on water, walking across the tops of blades of grass, or walking down the sail of a ship.
The verdict: Not Overpowered. Feat tax of 2 bad feats. Spider Climb's a 1st level spell. Water Walk is a 3rd level spell. Up the Walls is a psionic feat which requires nothing but a 13 Wisdom. Overland Flight still exists. It's such a shame that Stephens views this as a feat not meant to be, because it's clearly cool and cinematic.
quote:
Elemental Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
When your attacks deal elemental damage, you can cause that damage to continue for 1 round.
Benefit: Four times per day as a swift action, when you make a weapon attack, unarmed attack, or natural weapon attack that deals acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage, you may declare it to be an elemental attack. If a creature is hit by an elemental attack, it takes acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage at the start of its next turn. This damage is equal to the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage dealt by the elemental attack when it first hits.
The verdict: Not overpowered. The elemental damage of weapon enhancements are around 1d6-3d6 energy damage.
"ZOMG, 3d6 damage the next round on a successful hit?! Filthy weeaboo munchkin!"
quote:
Endless Cleave
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
Your weapon attacks are made in wide, lethal arcs.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Cleave , Cleaving Finish , Great Cleave, Improved Cleaving Finish , Power Attack, base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: Whenever you make a melee attack against a foe within reach, if you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using the same attack bonus as the initial attack) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. This is considered a use of the Cleave, Finishing Cleave, Great Cleave, or Improved Finishing Cleave feat. Each time you make an attack that is not instigated by a “cleave” feat, you cannot hit any given foe more than once with additional cleaving attacks. Additionally, you no longer take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn when you cleave.
The verdict: Not overpowered. It's not actually endless; read the Pathfinder version of Cleave, now the Cleaving Finish feats. Now read the benefit description carefully: the foe must be adjacent to the enemy you just hit. And you cannot hit a foe more than once with cleave attacks if one of your attacks against him is not triggered by a 'cleave' feat.
Yeah, a definite case of false advertising. I expected an infinite combo, 4th Edition Orcus-Slayer style!
quote:
Escape Is Impossible!
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
You can latch onto a foe and be dragged wherever it goes.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Dex 13.
Benefit: Whenever you hit a foe with a weapon that is flexible over 2/3 or more of its length -- including the bladed scarf, cat-o’-nine-tails, dwarven chain-flail, flying blade, flying talon, harpoon (if a rope is attached), net, scorpion whip, spiked chain, snag net, whip, and various Asian weapons ; but not flails or heavy flails – as a swift action you may make a grapple check. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. If the grapple check is successful, the foe is not grappled, but you wrap enough of your weapon around some part of the foe that wherever it goes, you are dragged along. You maintain a distance based on the length of your weapon (adjacent to the target for most weapons, 10 feet away for reach weapons, and a variable distance based on how much slack you leave in the case of weapons with greater length such as harpoons with ropes attached).
You gain the grappled condition as long as you hold onto your weapon, and must use at least one hand to maintain your grip (the GM may make exceptions for weapons with enough slack to tie the weapon around your waist). You may disengage your weapon from the target at any time, ending the grappled condition on yourself and ceasing your automatic movement with the target creature. If you are within range of the creature you may attack it with attacks you could make while grappled. The target cannot free itself from your weapon, but it does have options to make you let go. If the creature is able to move through areas with multiple obstacles you might hit (such as a dragon flying through rocky crags, or a giant running through a forest), it can attempt to slam you against these painful protrusions as a free action if it takes at least a move action. A flying foe makes a fly check, while a running foe makes a CMB check. In both cases, you make an opposed Acrobatics check. If the foe’s check exceeds yours, you take damage equal to the difference between the two checks.
The target can also attack you freely, attempt to sunder the weapon, or take other appropriate countermeasures such as turning insubstantial.
The verdict: I'm sorry, but this feat strikes me on a personal level, and I'm afraid that my judgment will be tinged with emotion. But here goes.
Not.
Fucking.
Overpowered.
Many years ago, before the dawn of Let's Plays and when the Gamecube was a current-gen console, I was DMing a Shackled City game. The volcano erupted, engulfing the PC's home city in flames. A flying dragon known as Hookface terrorized the fleeing citizens, menacingly circling about the grand cathedral of Wee Jas. The Barbarian diligently climbed the scaffolding, rope and harpoon in hand, pressed against the cover of the building and waiting for the perfect opportunity: he'd latch onto the dragon, climb up to him, and start wailing at his scaly flesh with his trusty greataxe.
The party Wizard flew up to meet Hookface and tossed a Maximized Disintegrate spell at him. The dragon failed the save, and crumbled into dust to the city streets below.
This was my moment of revelation, the first inkling that not all classes were equal, that D&D was far from a balanced game. I would never look at things the same way again.
This is a great feat! With a good readied action and a respectable grapple modifier, a melee character can close in on a downed flying opponent and actually contribute to the battle against aerial adversaries. Even then, the enemy can still slam him against stuff to damage him, and it requires multiple Acrobatics rolls to avoid this complication.
Scratch that, this shouldn't even be a feat, it's something I expect all mid-high level characters can do.
Also notice the bolded entry under 'benefit.' The overpowered/Asian connection is looking less and less like a coincidence the further I delve into this PDF.
quote:
Flaying Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
When you deal slashing damage, you can painfully flay the flesh from your foes.
Benefit: Three times per day as a swift action, when you make a weapon attack, unarmed attack, or natural weapon attack that deals slashing damage, you may declare it to be a flaying attack. In addition to its normal damage, a flaying attack causes creatures that take damage from it to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 +1/2 your base attack bonus + your Str or Dex bonus) or be dazed for one round.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Isn't it funny how all the martial feats which inflict status conditions on attacked foes are "horrifically overpowered," regardless of said status effect? The dazed condition is one of the more powerful ones, but it's not like spellcasters lost their Save or Suck abilities. At most, a character can "lock down" a single foe provided he continues hitting and the opponent keeps failing the save.
quote:
Flex
[Horrifically Overpowered]
Your appearance is so intimidating, just cracking your knuckles frightens people.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, Dazzling Display.
Benefit: As a move action, you can make a display of your physique, pop your vertebrae by rolling your neck, or just put on your killing face. Make an Intimidate check to demoralize all foes within 60 feet who can see your display.
The verdict: Not overpowered. Feat Tax of 2 bad feats (Dazzling Display requires Weapon Focus) to do an AoE debuff. Unlike fear-based spells, it has unlimited uses, but a -2 on attacks, skills, and saves isn't as powerful as a lot of battlefield control spells.
quote:
Greater Alignment Channel
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can channel energy to heal or harm all those of a specific ethos.
Prerequisite: Ability to channel energy, Alignment Channel, Improved Channel.
Benefit: When you choose to channel energy to affect an alignment you have selected with the Alignment channel feat, you may heal or harm all creatures of that alignment (rather than just outsiders). If you choose to heal or harm creatures of the chosen alignment, your channel energy has no effect on other creatures. The amount of damage healed or dealt and the DC to halve the damage is otherwise unchanged.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take this feat, it applies to a new alignment you have selected with the Alignment Channel feat. Whenever you channel energy, you must choose which type to effect.
The verdict: How is this overpowered? It's still a limited use for the Cleric, and it still tops out at 10d6 at 19th level. Congratulations, you can harm all creatures of Evil alignment with a Channel, or heal all creatures of Good alignment!
quote:
Imperial Spell
[Horrifically Overpowered, Metamagic]
Your magic can take command of the magic of others.
Benefit: You can cast a dispel magic, greater dispel magic, or disjunction spell as an Imperial Spell. When you use an imperial spell to counterspell a foe’s spell, you gain control of that spell. On the next round you may cast the spell you counterspelled without expending any spell slots of your own. You make all decisions regarding this spell (area, targets, and so on) and are considered the caster of the spell. If you do not cast the spell by the end of your next turn, it is lost.
An Imperial Spell takes a spell slot five levels higher than the spell’s actual level.
The verdict: Not overpowered. The funny part about this feat is that by RAW it can't be used with Greater Dispel or Disjunction. Even a normal Dispel Magic takes up an 8th-level slot with this feat, and Greater Dispelling is normally 5th or 6th level depending upon your class.
quote:
Mega-Magic Spell
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You know a few spells you have made horrifically overpowered.
Prerequisites: Two or more metamagic feats.
Benefit: Select one spell you can cast. Its level may not be higher than half the highest level spell you can cast. Select one or more metamagic feats you know. The total level adjustments of these metamagic feats cannot exceed the level of the spell you have selected. Whenever you cast the selected spell, you may choose to apply the selected metamagic feats without changing the spell’s level or casting time. You cannot also add other metamagic feats when you do this.
For example, Davor Runetusk is a 16th level half-orc wizard who knows fireball and has the Enlarge Spell and Maximize Spell feats. He takes Mega-Magic, and selects those two metamagic feats (with a total level adjustment of +4, half the level of the highest level spell he can cast – 8th), and fireball, allowing him to cast an Enlarged Maximized fireball as a 3rd level spell. If he decided to add another metamagic feat to the spell, he could not also apply the two feats he selected with Megamagic Spell for free (though he could add them with the normal increase in the fireball’s effective spell level).
Special: If your GM is crazy enough to let you take this feat once, there’s no reason not to let you take it multiple times. Its effects do not stack, though. Get real. Each time it is selected, it applies metamagic feats to a different spell known.
The verdict: Overpowered. Persistent Spell as we know it does not exist in Pathfinder, but this feat is still open to some horrific abuse.
quote:
Metanatural
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can modify how your supernatural and spell-like abilities work.
Benefit: You can use metanatural points to apply metamagic feats you know (or have access to through a rod) to your spelllike and supernatural abilities. You have a number of metanatural points per day equal to 3 + your Int, Wis, or Cha bonus. For every spell level higher than a spell’s normal level a metamagic feat uses, it takes one metanatural point to apply it to a spelllike or supernatural ability. You cannot use more metanatural points for a single use of an ability than 1/3 your hit dice.
The verdict: Overpowered. It's really easy to get a lot of metanatural points for a caster, and you don't need to know the metamagic feats in order to use them (just have a rod handy).
quote:
Oversized Fighting
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can swing a sword WAY too big for you.
Prerequisites: Str 19, Lunge, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: You can use weapons one size too large for you without penalty, and those two sizes two large for you as if they were one size too large. Thus a Medium creature with this feat can use a Large longsword in one hand without penalty, or a Large two-handed sword in two hands, or a Huge longsword as a two-handed weapon with a -2 attack penalty.
Special: While you take no penalties from using oversized weapons, this feat cannot prevent you from looking ridiculous.
The verdict:
Wait a second, this is Monkey Grip. They think that Monkey Grip is Overpowered?!
The Verdict
Original SA postStreamOfTheSky posted:
So, yeah, basically all the caster feats or feats more useful to them than mundanes are overpowered, and the mundane ones all suck. Shocking.
The hex feat is strictly better than Accursed Hex, which "only" gives you one re-try, only works if they save (sometimes, just being able to re-slumber someone that gets woken up before he dies is handy), and *must* be attempted the very next round or be forfeited. Since Accursed Hex is already a very strong / overpowered feat, I think one that is plainly better is thus overpowered, even if the differences aren't that wide.
No AoOs is hardly even close to the benefits that making spells Su brings. No components, can cast in grapples just fine, no SR, no concentration... Crazy broken.
StreamOfTheSky posted:
Libertad seems to have gone missing.
In unrelated news, there are reports of a series of bludgeoning attacks across the tri-state area by a crazed man with a cartoonishly over-sized plastic club, whom multiple sources have claimed was screaming “if I was just using Power Attack with a normal sized club, this would be FAR more dangerous!” Thus far, the victims have only been lightly wounded by these heinous attacks. The police are asking for anyone with information on this criminal to contact them.
*Shrug* Well, where ever he has gone off to, this trial must proceed, so I suppose I will fill in for him.
quote:
Penetrating Attack
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
You can focus on an attack, making it more difficult for foes to ignore.
Benefit: Four times per day, as a swift action, when you make a weapon attack, unarmed attack, or natural weapon attack, you may declare it to be a penetrating attack. A penetrating attack ignores 10 points of hardness or DR on its target (even DR with no type).
The Verdict : “Penetrating Attack”? You need a feat for that? I guess this is where the “horrifically” part comes into play.
.Oh! The feat's not that at all, it's just a limited use no pre-req Greater Penetrating Strike! That's better, I guess.... Not overpowered.
quote:
Ready For Anything
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can be ready for any possible event.
Prerequisites: Alertness, Improved Initiative
Benefit: When you take the ready action, you do not need to specify in advance what event you are readying for, or what action you will take when that event occurs. Once you take a ready action, you simply have a partial action you may use to pre-empt any one thing you can perceive that occurs.
The Verdict : Probably not overpowered. Casters with familiars will have the feats for this anyway, and it could be occasionally useful for them.
quote:
Shish-Kebab
[Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-Attack]
You can ram a spear through one foe, lifting him off the ground, and still stab it into another target.
Prerequisites: Str 19, Dex 13,
Benefit: Once per round, as a swift action, you may make a grapple check against a foe you have hit with a piercing reach weapon that has a solid haft (not a flexible reach weapon). This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. If successful, you ram several feet of your weapon through the foe and take a free 5-foot step to move into the foe’s space.
You are not considered grappled, and you cannot pin the foe.
Whenever you successfully attack another target, the impaled target takes damage equal to your weapon’s base damage dice (not including any ability score modifiers, magic properties, feats, or maneuvers). As long as you make at least one attack per round with the weapon, the impaled foe cannot free itself
from this grapple until you are disarmed or forced to drop your weapon. If you do not make an attack, the creature may attempt to free itself by making a grapple check as a full-round action (crawling along the haft and dropping off the end). You may have impaled at one time, a single creature of your size category, or two creatures one size smaller, or up to four creatures two or more sizes smaller.
The Verdict : You must attack with a reach weapon, but as part of the feat you 5 ft step into the foe's space . The space you are 10 ft away from because you just attacked with a freaking reach weapon! Lolwut? Has a size restriction for maintaining the impale, but none to initiate it. Not overpowered, poorly worded, but damn cool.
quote:
Splash Spell
[Horrifically Overpowered, Metamagic]
Your single-target spell splashes onto a second, adjacent target.
Prerequisites: Int, Wis, or Cha 13, Magical Aptitude.
Benefit: When a splash spell targets only a single creature, and either hits that creature (if an attack roll is required)- or the creature fails its save (if a save is allowed), the spell can also target a creature adjacent to the first target that is an appropriate target of the spell and within the spell’s range. The second target is affected as if it was the target of the spell. Splash Spell has no effect on spells that affect more than one target, or do not either require an attack roll or allow a saving throw. A splash spell takes up a spell slot 0 levels higher than the spell’s normal level.
The Verdict : Tough call, but I'm going to lean towards overpowered. A no-cost variant of twin spell or split ray that only works on foes lined up like stupid British riflemen. And has a feat tax.
Halinn posted:
@Mega-Magic:
I agree with the verdict, but I also have to point out how their example doesn't even work (metamagics are based on the level of the selected spell, not potential spells) and at the same time shows that they have no idea what is good for casters (seriously, fireball at level 16?!)
Final Part
Evening, folks. Don't mind the blood on my clothes, it's mostly my own. I just needed to work out my frustrations, and am in good mind to continue the review as long as nobody mentions *that feat.*
quote:
Strong-Arm
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can grab a foe by the throat, and lift him off his feet.
Prerequisites: Str 19, Dex 13, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Benefit: When you are grappling a single foe your size category or smaller, you may do so with only one arm and without gaining the grappled condition yourself. You cannot pin a foe you are grappling in this manner.
The verdict: Hooray, you can... have one arm free while grappling, and ignore the grappled condition. Wrong again Stephens, this ain't overpowered!
quote:
Throat-Crusher
[Horrifically Overpowered]
When you have a foe by the throat, there’s not much they can do.
Prerequisites: Str 21, Dex 13, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Benefit: You know how we said back in Strong-Arm you couldn’t pin a foe you were grappling using that feat? Well, now you can. Plus, foes you grapple cannot speak or complete somatic spell components until they escape the grapple.
The verdict: Hey, you can pin now with one arm free! And can shut down enemy spellcasters! Nice, but not overpowered.
quote:
Ultimate Combat
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
You are capable of delivering attacks against which there is no defense.
Prerequisite: Any Horrifically Overpowered feat, 4 or more levels in a class with a base attack bonus equal to its level.
Benefit: When you make an attack that misses, you may invoke Ultimate Combat as a free action. The attack hits. You may invoke Ultimate Combat a number of times per day equal to 1 + your Strength or Dex ability bonus (whichever is higher).
The verdict: Well, it would be overpowered at low levels, but there are things like True Strike which can boost up your attack bonus. Still not as good as Save or Suck spells, and it's limited uses per day. Not overpowered.
quote:
Ultimate Defense
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
You are capable of avoiding attacks that have you dead-to-rights.
Prerequisites: Any Horrifically Overpowered feat, class feature that adds a bonus to your armor class (such as a monk’s AC bonus or a duelist’s canny defense).
Benefit: When you are hit by an attack roll, you may invoke Ultimate Defense as a free action. The attack misses you. You may invoke Ultimate Combat a number of times per day equal to 1 + your Int, Wis, or Cha ability bonus (whichever is highest).
The verdict: Just like Denied from the first book, it's overpowered. Far better than any miss chance/concealment stuff.
quote:
Ultimate Magic
[Horrifically Overpowered]
You can cast spells that bypass all a foe’s defenses.
Prerequisite: Any Horrifically Overpowered feat, 4 or more levels in a class with a spell list that includes 9th level spells.
Benefit: When you cast a spell that has a duration greater than 1 round and a saving throw that negates it, and it is negated by a saving throw, spell resistance, or use of a feat, you may invoke Ultimate Magic as a free action. The target it is still affected by the spell, but only for 1 round. You may invoke Ultimate Magic a number of times per day equal to 1 + your Int, Wis, or Cha bonus (whichever is highest). This has no effect on creatures that ignore the effect of your spell for other reasons (such as not qualifying as a target or having enough energy resistance to avoid damage).
The verdict: Save or Lose spells are even better! Overpowered.
quote:
Vorpal Critical
[Combat, Horrifically Overpowered]
Your critical hits behead things. Even jabberwocks.
Prerequisites: Critical Focus, base attack bonus +19.
Benefit: When you score a critical hit with a slashing weapon, the weapon severs your opponent’s head (if it has one) from its body. Some creatures, such as many aberrations and all oozes, have no heads. Others, such as golems and undead creatures other than vampires, are not affected by the loss of their heads. Most other creatures, however, die when their heads are cut off. Alternatively, if you wish, you may slice off some other extremity when you score a critical hit.
Additionally, all your attacks count as vorpal damage for purposes of bypassing DR (normally only relevant if you are facing a jabberwock, but if your GM lets you take this feat, obviously all bets are off).
The verdict: Vorpal property on all slashing weapons at 19th level ain't too impressive, folks. Not overpowered.
It's over, it's finally over. Now I can rest...
Oh wait, there's one more thing.
The designers noticed that several feats could not work when used against each other. Like using Ultimate Defense to make an attack miss, only for the opponent to use Ultimate Combat. Well, to resolve this, both parties roll a 1d20 + their level. Whoever scores higher wins, and all witnesses who do not have a Horrifically Overpowered feat are shaken for 1 round due to the sheer awesomeness on display. And failed attempts with a limited-use feat do not count against the total, so you've got another shot at things.
I hope you all enjoyed this thread as much as it made me suffer. But who knows, I may get around to reviewing other Feat books from Super Genius Games, like the Guide to Feats of Battle.
quote:
This product presents numerous feats balanced for any character, but designed to make a few popular concepts easier to play from an early level. This product also introduces a few feats that draw on a character's resistance to magic and supernatural forces, focusing their efforts in ways that grant them benefits but require them to have no caster level. These "feats of battle" give characters who eschew magic altogether a reward for doing so without resorting to creating a whole new kind of magic under a new name.
Uh-oh, subtle dig at Tome of Battle...
quote:
Finally, among many players there is a perceived imbalance between high-level spellcasting characters, and high-level characters that lack any magic talent. While this point is debatable (and is debated hotly among many fans), it’s safe to say that for some play styles a lack of magic becomes a drawback at mid and high levels. Thus this product introduces a few feats that draw on a character’s resistance to magic and supernatural forces, focusing their efforts in ways that grant them benefits but require them to have no caster level. These “feats of battle” give characters who eschew magic altogether a reward for doing so without resorting to creating a whole new kind of magic under a new name.
Oh, so close but no cigar! Stephens realizes that this is a big problem in 3.X games, but he's weighing his words carefully to avoid upsetting the zealots who insist that "Pathfinder fixed everything!"
Tempting as it is, I don't know if I have it in me to buy this new Guide anytime soon. Someone else will have to pick up the torch if I don't.
Special Thanks: Streamofthesky for challening mistaken rulings and helping me through my darkest moments;
Sor0_Lost, Prime32, Kaelik, Concerned Ninja Citizen, ImperatorK, Bozwevial, and Halinn for giving their insight on the workings of these feats and comparing them to existing [non-overpowered] ones;
everybody who took the time to read this thread.
Wow, the 2nd Guide has an even worse track record than the 1st! 24 feats not overpowered, and only 6 overpowered!
Owen KC Stephens, we the court find you guilty of selling underpowered, average, and slightly good feats as Horrifically Overpowered to the gaming public. Your penalty: you must give up your title of "Wide-Girthed God of d20 Rules Crunch," which shall be taken by a worthier candidate if one shows up. Edit: Title has been already claimed by Agita of the Min-Max Boards.
Concerned Ninja Citizen posted:
There has got to be some kind of mysterious biological imperative that we are unfamiliar with that causes people to think Monkey Grip is broken. Seriously, people have been complaining about how overpowered that feat is (and more intelligent people have been telling them to stfu, go read power attack, and learn to math) since the damn thing was first printed.
Maybe it's the innate draw of the ability to wave an EVEN BIGGER phallic symbol than everyone else gets to wave...
Keldar posted:
It still boggles my mind that game designers can't see how broad the disparity of ability between casters and [Mooks] is and continue to widen it. Even when trying to do comedy! :twitch
I think that the comedy might be geared towards a certain kind of Pathfinder player: the fanbase has a lot of people who believe that the game fixed most of 3.X's problems regarding class balance, and fiercely argued against 19th level Fighters getting DR 10/- because it's "overpowered."
It's not meant to be our kind of humor.
Mythic Explorations
Original SA post Hey Syrg, you can include this as its own entry on the Wiki, or put it in with the other Horrifically Overpowered books. I don't mind either way.
Over a year ago, I reviewed this the first two products of this series. I had a lot of fun doing it, and despite being only 50% overpowered and only the spellcaster ones were really game-breaking, the books had their uses in legitimate games.
One of the products in the Pathfinder RPG line is Mythic Heroes, Paizo's answer to 3rd Edition's Epic Level Handbook. Instead to cranking up the levels beyond 20, the book introduction a new Mythic system where PCs and NPCs gain amazing powers and abilities if they undergo legendary events in the campaign. This is determined mostly by DM fiat, where a PC might discover they're a descendant of the Old Gods, drink the blood of a Dragon-King, and other cool stuff like that. In short, there are 6 Mythic Paths (pseudo-classes with their own distinct abilities) divided into 10 tiers (pseudo-levels which increase when the PC succeeds at trials, or important adventures in line with their Path).
In addition to unique abilities, Mythic characters can increase their ability scores, gain bonus feats, expend per-day uses of Mythic Power to do cool stuff, and...
wait for it...
Mythic versions of existing feats!
Mythic feats are only available to Mythic characters, and are superior versions of existing feats. For example, Blind-Fight (Mythic) allows you to ignore all forms of cover and concealment with a use of Mythic Power.
Unwilling to be shown up by Paizo, Owen Stephens realized that his own Horrifically Overpowered Feats needed an upgrade.
quote:
When the first book of Horrifically Overpowered feats was released on April 1st, 2012, we expected to hear a lot of cries of, “What were you thinking?!” Instead we mostly heard, “When will you release more?!” So, we released the book of More Horrifically Overpowered feats, and the main comment we received was “These really aren’t THAT overpowered.”
Challenge accepted!
With the addition of the mythic rules from Mythic Adventures, some campaigns have found Horrifically Overpowered feats normalizing somewhere close to “reasonable.” Obviously, we can’t allow mythic-level power creep to make our Horrifically Overpowered line become anything like mainstream. So, there was only one thing to do: Make Horrifically Overpowered Mythic feats, and Mythic Horrifically Overpowered feats, and release them on April 1st, 2014.
But first, a warning. Horrifically Overpowered Feats, as the name might suggest, are not balanced. They are, in fact, imbalanced in three ways. First, each one represents an uptick in power larger than a typical feat (and in most cases—dare we say all cases?—larger than even the most powerful “vanilla” feats). Second, each one has the potential for being combined with class features, spells, tactics, and other feats to create an even stronger effect than normal, causing them to skew how big a boost in power they represent depending on the circumstances. Third, conceptually, many of them bend the logic of the core rules, allowing warriors to cast spells, spellcasters to become weaponmasters, and well-designed characters to be much, much more effective than characters that have not been optimized.
Given the long list of problems with Horrifically Overpowered Feats, it may sound as if these rules are unusable. That’s not true, at least not strictly speaking. Each feat is designed to give all the rules needed to use it in a campaign, and to be consistent and logical within the frame of reference of being Horrifically Overpowered. It’s just that the feats themselves are intentionally too much to reasonably be added to a typical game. In short, don’t use these for any reason.
These feats come in two categories. The first are Horrifically Overpowered Mythic (HOM) feats. These are follow-up feats to mythic feats from Mythic Adventures, specifically designed to take the mythic rules to an illogical conclusion beyond their intended scope. Second (and listed in their own alphabetical order after all the HOM feats) are the Mythic Horrifically Overpowered (MHO) feats. These take already-extant Horrifically Overpowered feats and tack on the power boost of having Mythic versions available. All these feats follow all the rules and restrictions of mythic feats, they are just horrifically overpowered when compared to “normal” mythic feats. Adding any of these to a campaign is likely to break it.
Seriously, don’t use these.
Part One: Horrifically Overpowered Mythic Feats
Stephens mentions that these feats are horrifically overpowered, even by the standards of existing Mythic feats. Therefore, we will be judging the book's feats on these merits. Stephens also mentions that their magnitude might not be as noticeable in Tier 10 Mythic games due to the sheer power available at the PC's fingertips.
Without further ado, let's begin!
quote:
Acrobatic (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your lithe maneuvers are so amazing that they can leave observers slack-jawed in shock.
Prerequisites: Acrobatic, Acrobatic (mythic).
Benefit: You can only be required to actually roll an Acrobatics or Fly skill check once per game session (per skill), as determined by the GM. For all other Acrobatics and Fly skill checks, you get a result as if you had opted to take 20, except the skill does not require any additional time to perform.
When you do roll an Acrobatics or Fly skill check, if your die roll is a 15 or greater (the die shows a 15 or higher), non-mythic creatures with fewer HD than you who witness you make the check must succeed on a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + mythic tier) or be stunned for 1 round.
Variations: A GM can use this pattern for every feat/mythic feat that grants a bonus to 2 skills.
Verdict: Overpowered. It can be easy to game under the right circumstances, and auto-succeeding on certain skills (Diplomacy, Perception, etc) is a major boon. Additionally, impressive use of the skill grants a line-of-sight stun attack to multiple opponents.
quote:
Augment Summoning (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your summoning spells bring forth legendary monsters.
Prerequisites: Augment Summoning, Augment Summoning (mythic).
Benefit: Each day when you prepare your spells or regain your spell slots, you may select a number of points of evolutions (from the eidolon evolution list) equal to half your caster level. When you summon creatures with summon spells, they gain the evolutions you selected.
Verdict: Variable. A bonus 1 or 2 Evolution Points isn't going to be game-breaking at low levels. It is still a virtual requirement for summoner builds, though. It can even be used on your Eidolon with the Summon Eidolon spell.
quote:
Bleeding Critical (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your deadliest blows unleash comically overexaggerated floods of blood.
Prerequisites: Bleeding Critical, Bleeding Critical (Mythic), Critical Focus (mythic).
Benefit: When you use your Bleeding Critical, the target sprays so much blood that it cannot be invisible, it is considered to be on ice as a result of the risk of slipping in its own blood, and each round it must make a Reflex save (DC 10 +1/2 your HD +mythic tier) or be blinded for 1 round as its own blood spray gets in its eyes.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Don't get me wrong, it's a great 3-in-1 debuff, and can be combined with the Mythic version of the feat for some Constitution damage. However, it requires a critical hit to activate, and certain spell effects can replicate similar effects (Solid Fog for reduced visibility and mobility).
quote:
Blind-Fight (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You don’t really need your sense of vision.
Prerequisites: Blind-Fight, Blind-Fight (Mythic).
Benefit: You ignore any and all penalties from being unable to see. Always act as though you can see, regardless of light conditions, fog or other concealment, or actually being blinded.
Verdict: Not overpowered. It has no effect when you'd ordinarily be able to see (which is most of the time), although it can be a great visual extender in night-time and underground settings, where darkvision only goes up to 60-120 feet. You're already paying 3 feat slots to get this, you might as well get something nice like this.
quote:
Cleave (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Twelve with one blow.
Prerequisites: Cleave, cleave (Mythic).
Benefit: Each time you make a normal melee attack, you may also make an abnormal melee attack at the same attack bonus against every foe within reach. If you select this option, it replaces all other functions of Cleave or any other feat that has Cleave as a prerequisite and grants you additional melee attacks.
Special: The only abnormal thing about the abnormal melee attacks gained is that they do not grant additional melee attacks.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Turns your normal melee attacks into area-of-effect attacks. Melee builds need all the help they can get in Pathfinder.
quote:
Combat Expertise (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
No one can touch you.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Combat Expertise (mythic)
Benefit: If your AC is less than 25 + your level, you gain a dodge bonus large enough to make your AC equal to 25 + your level. You lose this bonus anytime you are denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.
If you actually take the penalty to attacks for Combat Expertise and you make a melee attack, until your next turn, if you are hit by an attack you can expend one use of mythic power to cause the attack to miss you.
Verdict: Overpowered. It is a malleable bonus which effectively negates any penalties to your non-flat-footed AC. It is great for unarmored and arcane spellcasters in that it eliminates a major weak point in their defenses.
quote:
Combat Reflexes (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Boot to the head.
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, Combat Reflexes (mythic)
Benefit: Creatures within your threatened area provoke attacks of opportunity from you. This is provoked when they first enter an area you threaten, and again at the beginning of their turn if they are in an area you threaten.
Verdict: Overpowered. Combined with Mythic Combat Reflexes, the wording of both feats' texts allows you to make a potentially infinite number of AoOs per round, against the same opponent even. Move? Provokes infinite AoOs. Are still in your threatened square at the beginning of the next round? Infinite swords.
quote:
Command Undead (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Undead. You rule them.
Prerequisites: Command Undead, Command Undead (Mythic)
Benefit: You can command undead, as the spell, as a supernatural ability with no saving throw. You can affect each undead with this ability only once per day.
Verdict: Overpowered if used in undead-themed adventures. Can one-shot undead bosses regardless of Hit Dice.
quote:
Deflect Arrows (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
No one can shoot you.
Prerequisites: Deflect Arrows, Deflect Arrows (Mythic)
Benefit: You are immune to all attacks that would qualify to be deflected with Deflect Arrows. Once per round, you can deflect any ranged attack targeting you (including ranged touch attacks, spells that require attack rolls, siege weapons, and a meteor falling from space if the GM decides to target you with one).
You cannot use this feat when you are denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Verdict: Not overpowered. This is like a ranged version of Crane Wing and Wind Wall spell combined. As it can't be used if targeted flat-footed, and it's of limited use when fighting multiple spellcasters, there's lots of ways around this defense. It will make archers cry, though.
quote:
Disruptive (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
The most difficult magic is simply impossible when you are harassing a spellcaster.
Prerequisites: Disruptive, Disruptive (Mythic)
Benefit: A spellcaster you threaten cannot use his highest-level available prepared spell, spell slot, or spell-like ability. If multiple spells or spell-like abilities are tied for the highest-level available, none of them can be used.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Any spellcaster worth their salt's going to have a bunch of useful lower-level spells, and the ability can only be maintained as long as you remain within melee range.
quote:
Eldritch Heritage (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are, essentially, a sorcerer.
Prerequisites: Eldritch Heritage, Eldritch Heritage (Mythic)
Benefit: You gain spells known and spells per day as a sorcerer of a level equal to your mythic tier. Your caster level is equal to your mythic tier or 1/2 your HD, whichever is higher. You cast these spells as a sorcerer, subject to all the same limitations.
Verdict: Overpowered. If you're a Sorcerer, you gain a boatload of new spells. If you're not, well then you gain the ability to cast a few nifty spells which can help any build. Rogue with Invisibility, Fighter with True Strike, etc.
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Eschew Materials (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Material components? You don’t need no stinking material components.
Prerequisites: Eschew Materials, Eschew Materials (Mythic)
Benefit: You can cast any spell without its material component or focus. However, the effect of any instantaneous or permanent spell you cast ends in 24 hours. Thus you can use raise dead on someone, but they become dead again a day later. This includes instantaneous or permanent effects from spells with variable durations (such as wish granting inherent bonuses to ability scores).
Verdict: Overpowered, due to the sheer variety of spells out there. Even a few "permanent" spells can be useful. Using this feat with True Resurrection on a fellow party member should give you enough time to clear out a dungeon.
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Far Shot (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
The moon is in range.
Prerequisites: Far Shot, Far Shot (Mythic)
Benefit: Everything in your line of sight is considered to be in the first range increment of any ranged weapon attack you make.
Additionally, you treat anything within 120 feet as being in point-blank range (30 feet) for all purposes that require a ranged target to be within 30 feet.
Verdict: Overpowered. Can give ranged touch spells an effectively infinite range. Can make archer builds devastating by taking out unaware opponents before they even come close.
So far, we have 6 Overpowered feats, 5 Not Overpowered feats, and 2 which are variable. And of the Overpowered Feats, only 2 are caster-centric! This is quite the interesting start!
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Great Fortitude (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your stamina is without equal.
Prerequisites: Great Fortitude, Great Fortitude (mythic).
Benefit: You can only be required to actually roll a Fortitude save once per game session, as determined by the GM. For all other Fortitude saves, your saving throw total is calculated as your total save bonus +20.
Variations: A GM can use this pattern for Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes.
Verdict: Overpowered. Can effectively negate many forms of attack, supernatural and otherwise. And when you are forced to roll, the +20 bonus pushes you well over the RNG. Combined with the Mythic version of this feat, you roll twice and take the better result.
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Improved Bull Rush (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are both unstoppable force and immoveable object.
Prerequisites: Improved Bull Rush, Improved Bull Rush (mythic).
Benefit: Add +20 to your CMB and CMD regarding bull rushes. There is no size limit to what creatures you can bull rush.
Variations: A GM can use this pattern for all the Improved combat maneuver feats.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Bull rushes force you to spend a standard action or use it as part of a charge. And if successful, most builds will have you push the enemy around 20-30 feat (Mythic Imp Bull Rush grants an additional bonus based on your Mythic tier). A cool use, but nothing game-breaking.
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Improved Initiative (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are a blur of sudden action.
Prerequisites: Improved Initiative, Improved Initiative (mythic).
Benefit: Add +10 to your initiative checks. Anytime your initiative is 40 or higher, you get to take a partial action before the first round of combat (during which time only other characters with this feat and an initiative of 40 or higher can act). Additionally, divide your initiative by 20. This is the number of extra partial actions you can take during this combat. Each extra partial action occurs between rounds of combat, and you cannot take one more often than every 2 rounds.
Verdict: Overpowered. Initiative is very important in Pathfinder and useful to most builds. Combined with the Mythic version, you can expend a point of Mythic Power to treat your roll as a Natural 20, and you gain a flat bonus equal to your Mythic Tier.
Plus, you can get to break the action economy while you're at it! That it, if I can find what a partial action is, as it's not listed in the online Pathfinder SRD.
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Improved Unarmed Strikes (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your hands are among the most deadly of weapons.
Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strikes, Improved Unarmed Strikes (mythic).
Benefit: Your unarmed strikes have a threat range of 19-20, and a x3 critical multiplier. They are also treated as having the blocking, brace, deadly, disarm, distracting, grapple, performance, sunder, and trip special weapon features. They deal bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. When calculating bonus damage from Power Attack or your Strength bonus (or similar sources), treat your unarmed attacks as 2-handed weapons.
Verdict: Not overpowered. You're spending 3 feat slots on one style of combat, it damn well should be superior to most manufactured weapons!
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Lunge (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
No one is beyond your grasp.
Prerequisites: Lunge, Lunge (mythic).
Benefit: Your melee reach is extended by 5 feet for all weapons, natural weapons, and unarmed attacks.
You gain a +2 bonus to all attacks of opportunity. These benefits replace Lunge and Lunge (mythic).
Additionally, you can expend a point of mythic power to extend your reach by another 5 feet for 1 minute.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Most larger monsters have a superior reach to human(oid) PCs, so this is a nice counterbalancing effect.
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Manyshot (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
At least your enemies will fight in the shade.
Prerequisites: Manyshot, Manyshot (mythic).
Benefit: Anytime you make a normal ranged attack with a weapon, you may also make one abnormal ranged attack with the same weapon, using the same attack bonus. If you make 5 or more normal ranged weapon attacks in the same round, and an abnormal ranged attack for each normal ranged attack, you may reduce the light level one step in a line from you to one of the targets of your ranged attacks until the beginning of your next round.
Special: The only abnormal thing about the abnormal ranged attacks gained is that they do not grant additional ranged attacks with this feat. However, Rapid Shot (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic) does stack with this feat, granting you a total of three attacks each time you make a normal ranged attack.
Verdict: Overpowered. It doubles the number of ranged attacks you can make in a round, in addition to the two bonus arrows for each attack with the Mythic version of Manyshot. The light reduction is a mere minor effect in comparison to this.
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Mobility (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You float through combat like a butterfly.
Prerequisites: Mobility, Mobility (mythic).
Benefit: Your movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You get one additional 5-foot step each round and may use it even if you take other movement, including a 5-foot step, or may combine your two 5-foot steps into a 10-foot step, allowing you to take a 5-foot step in difficult terrain. If you expend a point of mythic power, you gain two additional 5-foot steps each round for one minute.
Verdict: Not overpowered. This is still a very nifty feat. You can now move 20 feet and make a full attack instead of just 5 feet! Also, no more AoOs just for moving through threatened squares!
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Mounted Archery (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are the saddle-sitting master of mounted archery.
Prerequisites: Mounted Archery, Mounted Archery (mythic).
Benefit: You take no penalties for making ranged attacks while mounted, regardless of what speed your mount moves. When your mount moves at least 10 feet in a round, you may add its total movement divided by 10 as bonus damage to all ranged attacks you make in the same round.
Verdict: Not overpowered on its own. However, when combined with HOM Manyshot and a fast charging mount, you can rack up insane amounts of damage.
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Mounted Combat (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
No one hurts your steed while you are around.
Prerequisites: Mounted Combat, Mounted Combat (mythic).
Benefit: As long as you are conscious and mounted, your steed takes no damage from any source. That sounds really impressive, but your steed can still be affected by non-damaging effects, and if you are playing in a game where the GM is allowing Horrifically Overpowered Mythic feats (despite all my warnings not to), you can bet the GM has some awesome options to take out your mount without resorting to anything as dull as hit points. Taking this feat is like looking your GM in the eye and saying “I dare you to make me regret this.” You’ll end up with a steed that has been petrified, or polymorphed into a hunchbacked bunny. And then how cool would you look? Not very. Seriously, go look at Cleave (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic). It’s much cooler than this.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Owen Stephens actually makes a good case for why his feat would not be overpowered. Something tells me he's not a fan of mounted PC builds...
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Natural Spell (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Even as a dire bear, you have thumbs and can wear pants.
Prerequisites: Natural Spell, Natural Spell (mythic).
Benefit: When using wild shape, you get to keep all your gear and can do everything you can do in your natural form, even though you still look like an animal.
Verdict: Overpowered. The normal version of this spell's overpowered, so's this one. Due to a lack of omission, Natural Spell is not in the list on the original link of Mythic Feats.
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Power Attack (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
If you hit it, it dies.
Prerequisites: Power Attack, Power Attack (mythic).
Benefit: When you are using Power Attack, any foe you hit with a melee weapon must make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + your mythic tier) or die (if alive) or be destroyed (if inanimate or undead).
Verdict: Variable. In the lower levels and against certain enemies it can be great, and it dramatically increases the relevance of the melee fighter at higher levels by making hit points a lesser issue. However, the Save DC will be 25 at the very most, and cannot be modified by ability scores. As higher levels, most monsters have impressive Fortitude saves and will laugh at the pitiful DC.
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Quick Draw (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You always have just what you need.
Prerequisites: Quick Draw, Quick Draw (mythic).
Benefit: You can ready and put away any handheld equipment as free actions. Basically for each action you take, you may decide what gear you are using. If you expend a point of mythic power, you can even swap clothes and armor as a free action.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Very useful for swapping out equipment and quickly putting on armor, but not game-breaking either.
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Rapid Reload (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You never seem to run out of ammo.
Prerequisites: Rapid Reload, Rapid Reload (mythic).
Benefit: You can reload any weapon in your possession without taking any action to do so, including siege weapons. You never run out of mundane ammunition. If you expend a point of mythic power, you can reload every weapon you wish to within 30 feet as a swift action.
Verdict: Not overpowered. How many groups manually track ammunition, anyway? As your attacks per round are still limited by your Base Attack Bonus and feat selection, this isn't going to do much other than allow you to fire crossbows a lot more often.
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Rapid Shot (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can lay down a field of fire so thick, people can walk across it.
Prerequisites: Rapid Shot, Rapid Shot (mythic).
Benefit: Anytime you make a typical ranged attack with a weapon, you may also make one atypical ranged attack with the same weapon, using the same attack bonus. If you make 5 or more normal ranged weapon attacks in the same round, and an atypical ranged attack for each normal ranged attack, you may designate a line from you to any one of your targets that until the beginning of your next round is so thick with flying arrows (or whatever) that a DC 20 Acrobatics check allows it to be crossed like a bridge.
Special: The only atypical thing about the atypical ranged attacks gained is that they do not grant additional ranged attacks with this feat. However, Manyshot (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic) does stack with this feat, granting you a total of three attacks each time you make a normal ranged attack.
Verdict: Not overpowered. You can use a rope and grappling hook to traverse the same distance, and the ability's too situational to be of use, and is obsolete at higher levels when spellcasters can fly and transport the party.
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Spell Focus (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
In your chosen mystic field of study, you have no equal.
Prerequisites: Spell Focus, Spell Focus (mythic).
Benefit: Select a school of magic you have already selected for Spell Focus and Spell Focus (mythic). If you are not a wizard, you gain all the benefits a wizard of your character level specialized in that school of magic gains.
If you are a wizard, you may swap any prepared spell for a spell you know of the selected school of the same level or less.
Verdict: Overpowered. Making Wizards more Quadratic since 2012.
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Spell Mastery (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Spell books? You don’t need no stinking spellbooks!
Prerequisites: Spell Mastery, Spell Mastery (mythic).
Benefit: You are considered to have taken Spell Mastery for all spells you know.
Verdict: Overpowered. Any spellcaster worth their salt's going to have a tightly locked spellbook, but the horrifically overpowered part comes in with the Mythic version of this feat. With an expenditure of Mythic Power, you can prepare all of your spells you've taken Mythic Mastery for as a full-round action. And with the HOM version, that's all of your spells.
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Spell Penetration (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Only gods are immune to your magic… and not all of them.
Prerequisites: Spell Penetration, Spell Penetration (mythic).
Benefit: Whenever you make a caster level check to overcome a target’s SR, roll twice and take the best result.
If you expend a point of mythic power, you can ignore a target’s spell immunity, condition immunity, SR, and elemental resistance or immunity for one spell cast (though it still gets a normal saving throw, if one is allowed).
Verdict: Not overpowered. I'm still floored by the previous feat that this one just doesn't seem that overpowered to me.
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Spellbreaker (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You don’t just break foe’s spells, you claim them as your own.
Prerequisites: Spellbreaker, Spellbreaker (mythic).
Benefit: If you successfully disrupt a foe’s spellcasting with a readied attack or an attack of opportunity, you gain the spell your foe was attempting to cast, as if you had used a rod of absorption, but with no level limit. Any spell absorbed fades after 24 hours.
Verdict: Overpowered. You can shut down enemy spellcaster's action for that round, and gain additional uses of spells.
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Stunning Fist (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your fists are like iron.
Prerequisites: Stunning Fist, Stunning Fist (mythic).
Benefit: You may turn one unarmed attack per round into a stunning fist without counting it toward your daily limit. You may select which attack after seeing its attack roll. If you expend a point of mythic power, targets normally immune to stun effects are not immune to your stunning fist for 1 round.
Verdict: Not overpowered. On the one hand, it's an infinite-use stun. On the other hand, it's unarmed melee only, one attack per round, and not too many creatures are immune to stun effects in the first place.
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Two-Weapon Defense (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can try to block every attack.
Prerequisites: Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Defense (Mythic).
Benefit: As long as you have two melee weapons equipped and are not denied your Dexterity bonus to AC, you have cover.
Verdict: Not overpowered. If you're wielding melee weapons and need cover, chances are a ranged opponent's shooting at you.
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Two-Weapon Fighting (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
If the left don’t get them, the right one will.
Prerequisites: Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting (Mythic).
Benefit: Each time you make a melee attack with your primary weapon, you may also make a melee attack with your secondary weapon at the same attack bonus -2.
Verdict: Not overpowered. You can get additional attacks with the normal versions of Manyshot and Rapid Shot, so melee should get some love too.
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Uber-Mythic (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are more mythic than mere mythic.
Prerequisites: Extra Mythic Power.
Benefit: For purposes of your own mythic abilities, feats, powers, spells, and magic items, you do not treat mythic creatures of a lower mythic tier than you as mythic sources.
Verdict: Not overpowered. You're not going to be fighting mythic creatures except as special boss battles, and even then this isn't an instant win button.
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Undead Master (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your undead armies and vast and readily available.
Prerequisites: Undead Master, Undead Master (Mythic).
Benefit: Undead with hit dice equal to your tier or less do not count against your total HD of undead for the animate dead spell or the Command Undead feat. If you expend a point of mythic power, you may teleport to you a number of HD worth of undead you control through one of these two methods equal to your caster level plus your mythic tier. You may do this even if they are on another plane, as long as they could reach you if they used greater teleportation or plane shift.
Verdict: Overpowered. You can totally get a legion of millions of zombies and skeletons at your beck and call, provided that you have enough material components.
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Vital Strike (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Even seeing you use Vital Strike is disturbing.
Prerequisites: Vital Strike, Vital Strike (Mythic).
Benefit: Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, the target you hit (and any non-mythic creature that witnesses the attack) must make a Will save (DC 10 +1/2 your level +your mythic tier) or be shaken for a number of minutes equal to the number of dice you gained from the Vital Strike feat used.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Most combat does not last for more than a minute (tops), and the shaken condition's a minor debuff.
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Weapon Finesse (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Your attacks are swift, powerful, and well-placed.
Prerequisites: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Finesse
(Mythic).
Benefit: You may add your bonuses from Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence to your melee attack and damage rolls.
Verdict: Overpowered. This feat's very MAD for you to gain the full benefits, but it's great for rogue and gish builds. Gaining bonuses from two ability scores can rocket up your attack bonus, and it's not so hard to do this with the right build.
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Weapon Focus (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are the unquestioned master of attacks with your preferred weapons.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, Weapon Focus (Mythic).
Benefit: When you make an attack roll with a weapon for which you have taken Weapon Focus, roll your attack twice and take the best result. If you have Greater Weapon Focus with the weapon, roll three times and take the best result.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Damage doesn't really change for this, it only allows you to hit a lot more often. A good feat, but not overpowered.
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Weapon Specialization (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You may finally get to roll as many dice as the wizard.
Prerequisites: Weapon Specialization, Weapon Specialization (Mythic).
Benefit: When you make a damage roll with a weapon for which you have taken Weapon Specialization, roll your damage twice and take the best result. If you have Greater Weapon Specialization with the weapon, roll three times and take the best result.
Verdict: Not overpowered. The descriptive text is misleading.
This post's feats were 9 Overpowered, 16 Not Overpowered, and 2 variable.
Combined with the last post, we have 15 Overpowered, 21 Not Overpowered, and 4 variable.
I'll give Owen Stephens credit here. Of the 15 genuinely Overpowered feats, about 9 of them were not caster-centric. A definite improvement than the last books.
But that's not all!
We have Part 2 to cover: Mythic Horrifically Overpowered feats! Instead of being versions of "normal" Mythic feats, they're Mythic versions of Horrifically Overpowered feats from the last 2 books!
See you soon!
Mythic Conclusions
Original SA post The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Mythic Feats Part Two: Mythic Horrifically Overpowered FeatsIn this part are 20 Mythic versions of existing Horrifically Overpowered Feats from the first product in the line. They require the base feat as a prerequisite, and generally improve upon their effects in some way as a rule.
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Denied (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
If you don’t like it, it didn’t happen.
Prerequisites: Denied (Horrifically overpowered).
Benefit: You can use your Denied feat by expending a point of mythic power, regardless of the number of uses/day you would ordinarily be entitled to.
Verdict: Overpowered. It allows you to gain more uses of an already overpowered feat.
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Empowered Attack (Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-attack, Mythic)
Your attacks can deal horrendous damage.
Prerequisites: Empowered Attack (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Your Empowered attacks deal +100% damage, rather than +50%. You may expend a point of mythic power to make an attack empowered, if you are out of meta-attack uses for the day.
Verdict: Not overpowered. You can definitely use this on a build to rack up some nice damage values, although it's no different than turning most attacks into an automatic critical hit.
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Enlarged Attack (Horrifically Overpowered, Meta-attack, Mythic)
No one is beyond your reach.
Prerequisites: Enlarged Attack (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: There is no limit to how many Enlarged attacks you may make per day.
Verdict: Not overpowered. It basically permanently doubles the range increments of non-magical weapons and turns all melee weapons into throwing weapons.
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Eschew Foci (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You have no need for idols and mirrors… and you can see to it your friends don’t either.
Prerequisite: Eschew Foci (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: You may expend a point of mythic power to grant the benefit of your Eschew Foci feat to all allies within 30 feet for one minute.
Variations: The GM can use this to create similar feats for mythic version of Eschew Gestures and Eschew Incantations.
Verdict: Not overpowered. It can be useful if you have minion mages and followers and you don't want to spend gold on foci, but most of them aren't that expensive to purchase.
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Extra Lives (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You are nearly impossible to kill.
Prerequisite: Extra Lives (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: As long as you have at least one use of the Extra Lives feat available, you can expend three uses of mythic power to use your Extra Lives feat without it counting against the maximum number of times you can use the feat.
If you expend two points of mythic power, you may grant another dead character one of your uses of the Extra Lives feat. You can’t do both of these at once.
Verdict: Overpowered. The original feat was very limited, but as mythic power is a replenishing resource, it avoids much of the drawbacks of PC death (including costly resurrections). The ability to grant it to fellow PCs is icing on the cake.
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Favored (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
The universe likes you, a lot. Really, it’s kind of unfair.
Prerequisite: Favored (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Select one class. You gain a favored class benefit for that class every time you gain a level, in addition to the normal benefit for favored.
If you expend a point of mythic power, you can bestow the benefits of favored class bonuses you have for any one class to all allies within 30 feet, for one minute.
Verdict: Variable. Favored class bonuses can grant you additional hit points, skill points, and even additional spells known/learned. Especially in the last case, you can use it to grant short-term knowledge of new spells to fellow PC spellcasters with an expenditure of mythic power.
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Full Casting Action (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can cast multiple spells as a full-round action, without losing anything for doing so.
Prerequisite: Full Casting Action (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: When you use your Full Casting Action feat, your spells cast after the first do not suffer a penalty to their caster level or saving throw DC.
Verdict: Overpowered. Eliminates the penalty on the original feat. A literal reading of the text does not allow it to be used with its Greater and Ultimate versions.
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Gestalt (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You have prestige, in addition to class and horrifically overpowered mythic abilities.
Prerequisite: Gestalt (Horrifically Overpowered)
Benefit: When calculating what class features you gain from your gestalt class, add your mythic tier to half your character level (to a maximum of your hit dice). If you expend a point of mythic power, you may also gain the class features from the first level of any one prestige class you meet the prerequisites for, for one minute.
Verdict: Overpowered. It can grant you a bunch more nifty class features, given the plethora of PrCs out there, this feat can grant you a lot of great stuff without wasting a level.
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Go First (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Even among people who always go first… you go first.
Prerequisites: Go First (Horrifically Overpowered), Improved Initiative.
Benefit: You go first in any initiative order. Full stop. Additionally, if someone readies an action in response to an act you take, their readied action does NOT pre-empt your triggering action, and you are allowed to complete your turn before any readied actions go off. If that means their readied action cannot be completed (such as if they ready to stab the first creature that comes within their threatened range, and you run into and then out of their range as your action), their readied action is triggered and wasted as they try really hard and utterly fail to do whatever it was they were ready to do.
Special: Only one creature per campaign world can have this mythic horrifically overpowered feat. First come, first served. After that, you have to wait for the previous holder to die to take it. If you used to have it, die, and someone else has it when you wake up, you don’t get to use the feat until you go kill whoever took it while you were dead. Just don’t die, it’s easier that way.
Verdict: Overpowered. It dramatically decreases the usefulness of readied actions against you. I do like its nifty special requirement.
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Healing Factor (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can heal from nearly anything.
Prerequisite: Healing Factor (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Add your mythic tier to your fast healing. You may expend a point of mythic power to also heal one point of ability damage per round for one minute.
Verdict: Not overpowered. Fast healing's most useful outside of combat anyway, and expending mythic power to heal ability damage is the kind of thing it should do.
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Heroic Grace (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Myths shall be told of you… so you can’t die yet.
Prerequisite: Heroic Grace (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Add your mythic tier to all saving throws. You may expend a point of mythic energy to double this bonus for one minute.
Verdict: Overpowered. At higher tiers you can really rack up some sweet bonuses.
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Hex Maven (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You rule hexes.
Prerequisites: Hex Maven (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: There is no limit to how many times per day you may affect a target with your hexes, even those that normally have such a limit.
Verdict: Not overpowered. I couldn't find enough hexes to make the original feat that great, and I don't think that this will change it.
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Magic-User (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can casually cast spells as well as someone who works really hard at it. They probably hate you.
Prerequisites: Magic-User (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Select one set of spells you gained through the use of the Magic-User (Horrifically Overpowered) feat. You cast spells as a member of that class of a level equal to your total hit dice.
Verdict: Not overpowered. It applies only to one spell, while the base version of the feat grants you a smorgasbord of cool spells.
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Mental Paragon (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You exceed the peak of mental perfection for your race.
Prerequisites: Mental Paragon (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Add your mythic tier to your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.
Verdict: Overpowered. Untyped bonus to already high ability scores.
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Offensive Combat Training (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You exceed the mortal peak of combat skill.
Prerequisites: Offensive Combat Training (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Add your mythic tier to your base attack bonus. This can exceed your hit dice. You can spend a point of mythic power to add your mythic surge to your base attack bonus for 1 minute.
Verdict: Variable. It has the potential to be overpowered as part of a greater build by helping you meet prerequisites for prestige classes and feats far earlier, but otherwise it's no more than a respectable bonus on attack rolls.
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Physical Paragon (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You exceed the peak of physical perfection for your race.
Prerequisites: Physical Paragon (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: Add your mythic tier to your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores.
Verdict: Overpowered. A very good feat for any physical build to take.
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Perfect Blow (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can make better-than-perfect attacks.
Prerequisites: Perfect Blow (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: When you use your Perfect Blow feat you may expend a point of mythic power, causing the attack to automatically hit, deal a critical hit (even if the target is normally immune to or can negate critical hits), and cause the damage dealt to only be able to be healed by a mythic source.
Verdict: Not overpowered. It is incredibly useful to really make sure that you land a solid blow, but is still limited by per-day uses.
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Skill God (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You can succeed at the impossible.
Prerequisites: Skill God (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: You gain an additional +20 bonus to the total of all skill checks with skills you have selected with the Skill God feat.
Verdict: Variable. Depends upon the original skills selected with normal Skill God.
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Supernatural Spell Monster (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
You break the rules of magic.
Prerequisites: Supernatural Spell Monster (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: You can expend one point of mythic power to cause all your spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities to act as extraordinary abilities for one minute. They work in antimagic fields, do not detect as magic, and cannot be dispelled.
Verdict: Varies. I remember a feat from Forgotten Realms called the Initiate of Mystra feat, which did a similar thing. As Dispel Magic is far more common than Anti-Magic Fields and Dead Magic Zones, I'd rule this as more powerful. However, these things are very situational, so it really depends upon the spells used.
quote:
Unflappable (Horrifically Overpowered, Mythic)
Nothing puts you at less than your best. Nothing.
Prerequisite: Alertness, Unflappable (Horrifically Overpowered).
Benefit: You are never surprised or flat-footed, you never lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (even if tied up and unconscious), and are never considered helpless. You may expend a point of mythic power to also be immune to being confused, dazed, dazzled, nauseated, staggered, or stunned for one minute.
Overpowered. Shuts down sneak attack and a lot of abilities dependent upon being flat-footed.
From this section, we have 9 Overpowered, 7 Not Overpowered, and 4 Variable feats. Combined with Part 1, we have a total of 24 Overpowered, 28 Not Overpowered, and 8 Variable. The amount of genuinely overpowered feats are around the same as the original book (around half), but far better than the second book (around 25%).
As for myself, I've never had an incentive to use the Mythic rules, so I can't see myself incorporating these feats. But there are more than a few of them which can be cool for certain character concepts (Blind-Fight, Lunge, Mobility, and Two-Weapon Defense to name a few) which I can see myself incorporating into normal Pathfinder games. So all in all, this book is quite useful to me.
If you enjoyed the feats listed, or can see yourself using them in your games, I'd recommend tossing a few books Owen's way as a show of good sportsmanship.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review. In fact, I plan on writing one up for another product now that I'm back in the groove. Expect to see a write-up of Spears of the Dawn coming soon, an old school D&D retroclone which incorporates the myths and folkore of medieval Africa and its greatest empires.