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I see in some mix/max guides saying that "since your warrior will have a poor Will save, take Iron Will at this level to boost it up a little".

But I feel the Will save will be in the trash level anyway and a +2 won't do much difference. Especially when Steadfast Determination is banned. (And it seems a lot of guides are not considering this feat. Maybe it is not allowed in many tables. I would personally ban it as well since it would simply become a too-attractive option for fighter characters.)

I wonder when it would become worthy of taking a feat or two on boosting a character's save. I personally feel like +4 instead of +2 would make PCs start considering it as a viable option for their build, though. Anything less than that would simply push them to pick attribute-exchanging feats like Steadfast Determination or Power Of Personality, even if those might require more feats to achieve; or ignore them at all like most PCs do.

This question is for helping in the consideration of my homebrew rules btw.

V2Blast
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Terry Windwalker
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  • We're going to need more to go on than 'worth it' I think. I don't have enough system mastery of 3.5 to say what exactly would help, but to start we need to know what you're comparing them against. All Feat options? Feat options at most tables? Defensive Feat options? – Ifusaso Jun 13 '23 at 00:10
  • @Ifusaso Probably feat options at most tables, but not just limit to defensive feat options. What I can see is that most builds (even in a core-only environment) are not considering them as a suitable option, so I am looking for a way to make them viable or get to know that they are actually valuable in certain builds. – Terry Windwalker Jun 13 '23 at 00:23
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    "I would personally ban [Steadfast Determination] as well since it would simply become a too-attractive option for fighter characters." ...how are you playing 3.5? Do you feel fighter characters need to be nerfed in order for the spellcasters not to get left behind? – From Jun 13 '23 at 12:22
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    Adding to @From: Why do you think it's so overpowered? Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect the Wisdom modifier to be more than six below Con (e.g. Con 18, Wis 6 would get that sort of spread, and I'd expect them to be closer together than that for most characters). Steadfast Determination would be roughly equivalent to Iron Will x 3 in that circumstance, and it would cost you two feats to get it (unless you're a Ranger, but 3.5E Rangers need all the help they can get), making it slightly better than the underpowered Iron Will if you min-maxed to maximize the benefit of the feat. – ShadowRanger Jun 13 '23 at 23:02
  • @From I am not sure why but my spellcasters are buffing fighters and let them do the work basically at all times. Perhaps that's more efficient but looks like my team is relying on their fighters quite heavily. – Terry Windwalker Jun 14 '23 at 04:50
  • @ShadowRanger Good point, now this feat looks much more balanced to me now. I was thinking this could make someone like a combat rogue to be have good saves everywhere but now I see it is not as good as I was thinking. – Terry Windwalker Jun 14 '23 at 04:52
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    @TerryWindwalker Spellcasters buffing warriors is how the game is supposed to work, that’s pretty ideal! Much better than the spellcasters side-lining the warriors and doing everything themselves. But while the warriors are getting to do stuff, those buffs are doing a lot of heavy lifting, so don’t be misguided into thinking that the warriors are doing more than they are. A wizard can often do more damage with a single cast of, say, haste, than a warrior can do with all their turns in the combat (counting the extra haste attacks as the wizard’s rather than the warriors’). – KRyan Jun 14 '23 at 21:06

2 Answers2

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I have no idea which guides you’re reading that are saying these things, but you should stop reading them.

Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes are to be taken—under protest—only when absolutely necessary due to the requirements on something really good. The fact that you have to take one of these feats to get it should be regarded as a significant drawback for that option, and its value to you should be judged accordingly.

A +2 bonus to a saving throw is actually fairly-large number; it could arguably be worth 4 levels’ or even 6 levels’ worth of base saving throw progression. Except you can always just multiclass something to get +2 (and a half, if using sane rulings about how multiclass BAB/base save progressions work), along with whatever else that level gives. Except that you should always be maxing out on the best cloak of resistance your wealth can afford. Except that you have too many defenses to cover to be getting just +2 to just one of them for an entire feat. Feats are exceptionally valuable, dearly limited things. You need to get more from them than this.

Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Endurance, and Weapon Focus should also be regarded in the same way. Any of the “+2 to on two skill checks” should be considered, somehow, worse. Skill Focus is only marginally better. Frankly, Point-blank Shot really should be in this category, except that is required for nearly every other ranged-attack feat so there’s just no getting out of it if you want to do ranged attacks.

In the case of Iron Will particularly, note that you can get it as a bonus feat by spending a week in the Otyugh Hole, a special location described in Complete Scoundrel. The experience can give you one of several (poor) feats, the most notable of which is Iron Will (notable solely because it comes up so often in requirements). The experience also counts as 3,000 gp worth of “treasure” for the sake of a DM deciding how much loot you “should” get (à la the wealth by level recommendations in the Dungeon Master’s Guide). So Iron Will, in particular, you should never take, because 3,000 gp is a very cheap price for a feat.

As for Steadfast Determination, guides that don’t consider it are incomplete. It is not commonly banned at all—it’s commonly recommended, at least by guides that are thorough, but only so much. Banning it makes no sense to me: the cost for it is high (two feats, since Endurance is worthless), and while the benefit is good, it’s not must-have, and most characters have far too many must-have feats to get and can’t afford to take any nice-to-have feats. If you’re a single-classed fighter, maybe, but you shouldn’t be a single-classed fighter—a feat per level is weak, but if you’re desperate, it can be a valid option. A feat every other level is just awful. Dungeoncrashers will go to fighter 6th, but also give up their 2nd-level and 6th-level bonus feats, leaving them with the same number of bonus feats as a standard fighter 2nd. So if you end up with more than 2 bonus feats from the fighter class, you’ve almost-certainly made a mistake and taken too many fighter levels.

KRyan
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  • Yeah, that's exactly what most guides are telling me. But I just appear to see two or three guides saying they actually worth something even if just taking them solely. Thanks for the explanation. – Terry Windwalker Jun 13 '23 at 02:40
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    +1 Just for the first sentence. I was amazed when I saw this question. I both thought "surely this is a duplicate" and "how would anyone be so misled as to think these feats are good?". Nobody recommends these feats. – J. Mini Jun 13 '23 at 07:29
  • @J.Mini Last time I see that is from "Power Gamer's 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide" which only contains core sources. I guess that's from a very early stage of 3.5 when no one knows the game much. That guide was so confusing that it introduce a lot of stuffs that are completely contrary to what I have read in later guides, like "using weapon with slightly higher damage dice is better than using one with better threat range" and "weapon-focus feat chain is actually good". It also contains a lot of analytics and concepts though, which I am not sure how many of them might still be true today. – Terry Windwalker Jun 14 '23 at 04:38
  • Guess those editors are never a real player afterall. – Terry Windwalker Jun 14 '23 at 04:39
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    @TerryWindwalker Neither slightly-larger damage die nor larger critical threat range matters much at all. Larger dice are +1 maybe +2 damage, which is nothing, and criticals happen too rarely to care about much. Focus on special properties (primarily, finesse, reach, and/or trip, or unique stuff like the lance’s doubled damage on mounted charges). – KRyan Jun 14 '23 at 13:49
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Not only is this advice bad, it's antithetical to the idea of min-maxing. Min-maxing and optimisation in general involves being great at a limited number of things and ensuring your weaknesses aren't relevant.

As you stated, with +2 your Will will be trash anyway. Steadfast determination involves two feats and endurance is pretty much useless in the majority of campaigns (seriously, how often do those saves come up). Even then, unless your Will is exceptionally bad and your con is high, it's not that strong.

Instead, avoid needing to make Will Saves altogether. The majority of will saves will be against either illusions or mind-affecting spells and effects. For illusions, you can rely on other party members to make the saves.

For mind affecting spells and effects, there are a variety of spells and items. Protection from Evil, for example, blocks all attempts to control you and is level 1. There's an entire question here that has been asked and well-answered.

If Tome of Battle is on the table, you can outright replace Will Saves with concetration checks with Moment of Perfect Mind.

Comic Sans Seraphim
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  • Yeah, the last time I optimized my fighter was multiclassing with Rogue and get some magic items to empower him with Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Deathward, etc. And when I read this guide, I suddenly realize I have never considered things like Iron Will could ever be useful in any of my builds LOL – Terry Windwalker Jun 14 '23 at 04:43