Category:Chapter 6 / Feats

As you advance in level, you gain a number of benefits that improve your capabilities, 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 resistance scores, or allow you to ignore a particular restriction or penalty in certain situations. Some feats allow you to use skills in different ways, augment the effects of your powers, or improve your species traits.

Choosing Feats

When you create a 1st-level character, you select one feat (if you're terran, you have an additional feat at 1st level, so you start with two feats). You gain an additional feat at every even-numbered level. When you choose a feat, you must meet the feat's prerequisites. This can be corequisite or concurrent with the choosing of the feat (for example, a character who ascends to level 6 may both increase her dexterity to 2 and select the Combat Reflexes feat).

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 them multiple times. This means either that the effects stack, or the effects apply independently each time. This information is in the feat description itself.

How Feats Work

Many feats give you small, static bonuses to one of the numbers on your character sheet. Bonuses usually have a type, and bonuses of the same type do not stack with one another. Some of these apply in any situation. These are defined as feat bonuses. If you have two feat bonuses that apply to the same number, only the higher bonus applies—the bonuses do not add together. A bonus that's untyped (such as one expresses as simply a "+2 bonus") usually applies only in certain situations. These situational bonuses reward particular combat tactics. Untyped bonuses stack with themselves. Bonuses of different types also stack. For more details, see "Bonuses and Penalties" (Chapter 9).

Types of Feats

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

Class or Role Feats

Class feats help characters of a specific class improve their class features and powers. Role feats help characters more fully realize their primary or secondary role.

Species Feats

Racial feats are only available to characters of a specific species. They build on the innate talents of each species and help you create a character who feels like an ideal representative of your race. A feat that lists a species as a prerequisite is a species feat.

Empower Feats

Each feat called "Empower ___" modifies what you can do with your Combat Multiplier during your turn other than attack. Combat Multiplier is the centerpiece of tactics, and has many rules dedicated to it. Each of these feats lets you willingly lower this number during your turn to get some benefit which either simply happens right away or lasts a listed amount of time (usually until your next turn). These represent your ability to use tactics and positioning to your advantage in ways other than killing.