CHAPTER 6 - Feats

As you advance in level, you gain a number of benefits that improve your capabilities. These benefits are called feats. Typically, a feat doesn’t give you a new ability, but instead improves something you’re already able to do. A feat might provide a bonus to a skill check, grant a bonus to one of your defense scores, or
allow you to ignore a particular restriction or penalty in certain situations. Some feats also allow you to use skills in different ways, alter the effects of your
powers, improve your racial traits, or even grant you capabilities from another class.

This chapter discusses all aspects of feats:

  • Choosing Feats: How you gain feats and how they work.
  • Feat Descriptions: Full explanation of each feat and what it does.
  • Multiclass Feats: Discussion of the multiclassing rules and the feats involved

Choosing Feats

When you create a 1st-level character, you select one feat. (If you’re human, you have an additional feat at 1st level, so you start with two feats.) You gain an addi-
tional feat at every even-numbered level and at 11th and 21st levels. When you choose a feat, you must meet the feat’s prerequisites. Generally, you can’t take the same feat more than once, and most of the time you wouldn’t want to. A few feats, however, specify that you can take the same feat multiple times. That means you can apply the bonus from the feat to more than one situation—multiple weapon groups, powers you know, and so on.

How Feats Work
Most feats give you small, static bonuses to one of the numbers on your character sheet. When picking feats, there’s one important rule to remember about these bonuses: Bonuses of the same type don’t add together (or stack).

Some of these bonuses apply in any situation. These are defined as feat bonuses: Great Fortitude gives you a +2 feat bonus to your Fortitude defense, and that bonus is always in effect. If you have two feat bonuses that apply to the same number, only the higher bonus applies—the bonuses don’t add together. So if you have both Alertness (which gives you a +2 feat bonus to Perception checks) and Elven Senses (which gives you a +1 feat bonus to Perception checks), you have only a +2 bonus—the bonuses don’t add up to +3. A bonus that’s untyped (such as one expressed as simply a “+2 bonus”) usually applies only in certain situations.

These situational bonuses reward particular combat tactics. For example, Combat Ref lexes gives you a +1 bonus to attack rolls with opportunity attacks. Unlike feat bonuses, however, untyped bonuses stack with themselves. If you have both Defensive Advantage (which gives you a +2 bonus to your AC against a foe when you have combat advantage) and Defensive Mobility (a feat that gives you a +2 bonus to your AC against opportunity attacks), you have a +4 bonus as long as both circumstances apply. Bonuses of different types stack as well. If you have Fleet-Footed and Fast Runner, you have a +1 feat bonus to your speed all the time (from Fleet-Footed), and an additional +2 bonus when you charge or run (from Fast Runner). So your speed when you charge is 3 higher than it would be if you had neither feat.

For more details, see “Bonuses and Penalties".
Feats and Keywords: When a feat provides a benefit related to using a power that has a keyword, that benefit applies when you use a power of a magic item, as well as when you use a power granted by your class, your race, or another feat.

Types of Feats

A few types of feats have special rules that apply to all feats of the same category.

Class Feats
Class feats help characters of a specific class improve their class features and powers, or specialize their capabilities along the lines of their builds. A class feat
is denoted by the name of a class in brackets after the name of the feat: Expanded Spellbook [Wizard] is a feat that only wizards can take. Class feats are also available to characters who have taken a multiclass feat in the class the feat is associated with. For example, if you’re a fighter who has the
Sneak of Shadows feat, you can take Press the Advantage, which is a rogue feat.

Divinity Feats
Divinity feats grant characters who have the Channel Divinity class feature (clerics and paladins) the use of special powers from their deity. The power associated
with each of these feats follows the feat description. A divinity feat is denoted by “Divinity” in brackets after the name of the feat.

Profession Feats
Profession feats grant characters the specialized skills that professionals have to perform tasks in society. Most of these feats are feats that are part of a tree linking professional skills together. Among some of these feats you'll find medical feats, piloting, and other skilled professionals that will create an additional dimension to your characters' class.

Multiclass Feats
Multiclass feats are a special category of feats. The complete rules for multiclassing and the associated feats are found on page 208. Most multiclass feats are denoted by a bracketed phrase that includes “Multiclass” followed by the name of a class: Student of Battle [Multiclass Warlord], for example, is the feat that lets you gain a feature of the warlord class.

Three of the multiclass feats in this book are of a different sort—they allow you to exchange a class power you have from your primary class for a power of the same type from the class you have chosen to multiclass in. These feats are denoted by a bracketed phrase that includes “Multiclass” followed by the type of power (Encounter, Utility, or Daily) that can be exchanged.

Racial Feats
Racial feats are available only to characters of a specific race. They build on the innate talents of each race and help you create a character who feels like an ideal representative of your race. A racial feat is denoted by the name of a race in brackets after the name of the feat: Lost in the Crowd [Kiltaran] is a feat that only kiltarans can take.

Feat Descriptions

The feats in this chapter are presented in the format described below.

Linguist

Prerequisite: Int 13
Benefit: Choose one language. You can now speak, read and write those languages fluently.
Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you select this feat, choose three new langauges to learn. In the header that gives the name of the feat, the type of feat (if appropriated) appears in brackets after the name.

Prerequisite(s)

You must meet these additional requirements to take the feat. If you ever lose a prerequisite for a feat (for example, if you use the retraining system to replace training in a prerequisite skill with training in a different skill), you can’t use that feat thereafter. If this entry is absent, the feat has no prerequisites.

Benefit

This section (which might be more than one paragraph) describes the advantage you gain when you take the feat.

Special

Occasionally, special rules apply to a feat. This entry specifies whether you can take the same feat multiple times and any provisions that apply if you do so. It also can indicate any other requirement for using the feat.


Heroic Tier Feats

Any feat in the following section is available to a character of any level who meets the prerequisites. Heroic tier feats are the only feats you can take if you are 10th level or lower.

Paragon Tier Feats

Any feat in the following section is available to a character of any level who meets the prerequisites. Paragon tier feats are the only feats you can take if you are between 11th level or 20th level.

Epic Tier Feats

Any feat in the following section is available to a character of 21st level or higher who meets the prerequisites.

Multiclass Feats

Multiclass feats allow you to dabble in the class features and powers of another class. You might be a fighter who dips his toe into wizardry, or a warlock who wants a smattering of rogue abilities. Each class has a class-specific multiclass feat that gives you access to features from that class.

Class Specific Feats

There are two restrictions on your choice of a class-specific multiclass feat. First, you can’t take a multiclass feat for your own class. Second, once you take a multiclass feat, you can’t take a class-specific feat for a different class. You can dabble in a second class but not a third.

A character who has taken a class-specific multiclass feat counts as a member of that class for the purpose of meeting prerequisites for taking other feats and qualifying for paragon paths. For example, a character who takes Initiate of the Faith counts as a cleric for the purpose of selecting feats that have cleric as a prerequisite. These feats can qualify you for other feats; for example, a warlock who takes Sneak of Shadows can use the rogue’s Sneak Attack class feature, which means that he meets the prerequisite for the Backstabber feat.

Power-Swap Feats

The Novice Power, Acolyte Power, and Adept Power feats give you access to a power from the class for which you took a class-specific multiclass feat. That power replaces a power you would normally have from your primary class. When you take one of these power-swap feats, you give up a power of your choice from your primary class and replace it with a power of the same level or lower from the class you have multiclassed in.

Any time you gain a level, you can alter that decision. Effectively, pretend you’re choosing the power-swap feat for the first time at the new level you’ve just gained. You gain back the power that you gave up originally from your primary class, lose the power that you chose from your second class, and make the trade again. You give up a different power from your primary class and replace it with a new power of the same level from your second class.

You can’t use power-swap feats to replace powers you gain from your paragon path or epic destiny.

If you use retraining to replace a power-swap feat with another feat, you lose any power gained from the power-swap feat and regain a power of the same level from your primary class.

Paragon Multiclassing

If you have the Novice Power, Acolyte Power, and Adept Power feats for a class, you can choose to continue to gain powers from that class rather than take a paragon path. If you choose this option, you gain several benefits.

At 11th level, you can choose to replace one of your at-will powers with an at-will power from your second class.

In place of the paragon path encounter power gained at 11th level, you can select any encounter power of 7th level or lower from your second class.

In place of the paragon path utility power gained at 12th level, you can select any utility power of 10th level or lower from your second class.

In place of the paragon path daily power gained at 20th level, you can select any daily power of 19th level or lower from your second class.

Profession Feats

Any feat in the following section is available to a character of who meets the prerequisites.

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