Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Aleolus 12-27-07, 01:27 AM	Ok, I've been looking over the SRD, and unless I'm misunderstanding something, there is nothing to prevent a character from taking 'epic' feats, as long as they meet the prerequisites for it. Now, for almost all of them, this means that you can't take them before epic levels, because there's no way you can have sufficiently high ability scores/skill ranks/anything else you would need before epic. However, there are a number of feats that have the 'epic' tag that have no listed prereqs. Could a character take one of these before he hit epic level, since it has no prereqs to meet, after all. Examples (all of the following have no listed prerequisites): Epic Prowess; You gain a +1 bonus on all attacks Epic Reputation; You gain a +4 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information and Perform checks. Epic Toughness; You gain +30 hit points Great Charisma; Your Charisma permanently increases by 1 point. Great Constitution; Your Constitution permanently increases by 1 point. Great Dexterity; Your Dexterity permanently increases by 1 point. Great Intelligence; Your Intelligence permanently increases by 1 point. Great Strength; Your Strength permanently increases by 1 point. Great Wisdom; Your Wisdom permanently increases by 1 point.
Rebel7284 12-27-07, 01:48 AM	I believe being an epic level character is an inherent requirement of every feat with the [Epic] descriptor. Read the section that talks about the meaning of the labels. :)
Kouk 12-27-07, 03:17 AM	I believe being an epic level character is an inherent requirement of every feat with the [Epic] descriptor. Read the section that talks about the meaning of the labels. :) Yes. In addition to the Prerequisites, there is also this consideration at the top of the Epic Feats page: Acquiring Epic Feats Characters gain epic feats in the following ways: At 21st level, and every three levels thereafter, the character may select an epic feat in place of a nonepic feat. Each character class gains bonus epic feats according to the class description. These feats must be selected from the list of bonus epic feats for that class.
zeratulcraft 12-27-07, 04:10 AM	I've seen DM's be pretty lenient on the Great Stat ones. But yeah aside from fiat, all require 21st level or Uncanny Accuracy which requires 11th Ranger.
sigma999 12-27-07, 06:31 AM	Epic feat's aren't that Epic. Compared to Epic spells, the feats a downright pissy. I recommend making them available in the L11-20 range.
Kouk 12-27-07, 07:33 AM	Epic feat's aren't that Epic. Compared to Epic spells, the feats a downright pissy. I recommend making them available in the L11-20 range. Actually, several of them have been made general feats already. Additional Magic Item Space is partly replicated with Extra Rings (ECS). Epic Weapon Specialization = Greater Weapon Specialization apparently - well, almost (PHB). Spontaneous Domain = Domain Spontaneity (CD) though requires a Turn Attempt. Two-Weapon Rend = Two-Weapon Rend in PHB2. There are also slightly lesser versions of some other abilities, like Spell Knowledge and Extra Spell.
Obsidianjaerc 12-27-07, 02:29 PM	It is no great news that the ELH isn't completely accurate or well-balanced for the game as it now stands. Some of the [Epic] feats in there have proven to not be thematically or mechanically Epic and have been downgraded. But as it is, a lot of them should remain under the [Epic] tag, for reasons detailed, in part, below.
sigma999 12-28-07, 12:00 AM	Actually, several of them have been made general feats already. Additional Magic Item Space is partly replicated with Extra Rings (ECS). Epic Weapon Specialization = Greater Weapon Specialization apparently - well, almost (PHB). Spontaneous Domain = Domain Spontaneity (CD) though requires a Turn Attempt. Two-Weapon Rend = Two-Weapon Rend in PHB2. There are also slightly lesser versions of some other abilities, like Spell Knowledge and Extra Spell. Well imagine that.. guess I was ahead of the times when ELH first arrived years ago, I glanced at the feats to my DM friend, and said "These suck. Let's make them availible after level 10." He staunchly opposed but didn't give any reason why other than "it was designed that way, so let's use the rules as they are" That's good news Kouk, and thanks. That gave me hope that the designers aren't all as oblivious as the inventor of the original Toughness feat or the 3.x Half-Elf.
Kouk 12-28-07, 04:20 AM	Most of the feats in the SRD are from the Epic Level Handbook, not all of those made it into the 3.5 DMG. The Epic Level Handbook was published under 3.0 rules, so things have changed somewhat since then on what is considered "powerful" I imagine -- or it was just poorly conceived to begin with. Without going into a tremendous examination of the Epic feats, it seems like most all of them with Prerequisites could be made non-epic and still function perfectly well, as most of the prerequisites could not realistically be met until very high level in any event. The things with no Prerequisites probably should stay with a minimum level of 21+ though.
sigma999 12-28-07, 06:20 AM	They were poorly conceived.
runestar 12-28-07, 06:48 AM	Some of the epic feats are weak for epic feats, but they are fairly strong for a non-epic feat to be simply allowed as is. Consider epic toughness. A 1st lv wiz taking it starts with 36hp. The bonuses granted by epic reputation are far too good to be taken at low lvs as well. Even if I were to make them normal feats, I would at least give them some prereqs to make them inaccessible at lower lvs, rather than simply porting them over as is.