This should be an interesting thread. What do you think are the most affective feats to take as far as survival in the underdark is concerned?

Dodge and Cleave?

Whirlwind attack is fun but IMO takes too many kind of semi-lame feats as prereqs to get it.

Cleave is uberleet, while great cleave can occasionally be. However, in the later levels where monsters become much harder to kill in one hit, it becomes less useful. Dodge is certainly a good one, unless you're a rogue or barb and get uncanny dodge! Ummm... Power Attack is lame... Toughness is cool occasionally... the Iron Will etc feats are helpful if you're a class that's weak in a certain save, such as barbs getting paralyzed at the drop of a hate *glares at Westmore* I'm sure there are more, but I'm short on time.

Cleave and Dodge are useless and I never took them willingly with one of my characters (In my opinion!).

Cleave is extremely meh at the higher levels where you fight strong creatures and Dodge is +1 AC against 1 foe facing you, woop-pi-do.

For survival?

The Expertise/Improved Expertise are the most survival inclined.

And I'd say Knockdown due to its awesomeness in so many situations (PvP or otherwise).

I've always enjoyed Spring Attack.

There is nothing sexier.

Than Extended Invisibility.

ok, Extended spell, gotcha. OK, yeah that's a great feat with Ghostly Visage too.

Power Attack is sweet when you face one of those many enemies that you know you can hit easily, but they have high HP and hit back hard.

I like power attack for those pesky in-animate objects.

Toughness is a great boon for those fighter types.

Stealthy is hawt for sneaks, especially if you're normal sized with only a decent Dex.

Knock Down, and Expertise are some of the best feats in the game.

Ah yes, I had forgotten Expertise. That is a massively helpful skill for survival, though it does require a modicum of intelligence.

Courteous Magocracy. Every Fighter should have it.

To run a weapon focus with your spare feats as a warrior is sometimes a good idea, if you choose specialization too afterwards, you can easily get good on the offence, even with less obviously awesome weapons.

CM is the single lamest feat in the history of completely lame feats. It's worse than Thug! Okay, quit mocking me because I don't know what an initiative check is...

Iron Will

Skill Focus: Healing.

Resist Disease.

SF: Craft Weapon FTW

Skill Focus: UMD or Taunt

Needs no explanation.

Blind Fight can be very useful against certain monsters, wizard PC's, and anyone that suddenly gulps an invisibility potion. This is probably the most under-rated feat around on EFU.

Toughness while granting up to 10 extra hit points, is without a doubt EFU's most over-rated feat. I'd stress that while survival may be seemingly difficult for a lot of people, this is probably the most boring and deceptively useless feat around. Take something more interesting to really define your character!

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The feats I think are actually some of the best around, though this is definitely a personal taste issue, are Strong Soul, Luck Of Heroes, Iron Will, and Greater Fortitude, especially if you take all of these feats.

Weapon Specialization and Expertise

Weapon Specialization: Club, available at level 1.

These below are for pure builds not multiclassing

For fighting classes (barb/fight/pally/monk/ranger), I'd say the Expertise feats for any size, Knockdown for non-halfling/gnome, toughness is also a must.

rogues - Stealthy (nearly mandatory) and shield proficiency (nice to have), feats like bullheaded (or other social skill boosting ones) are useful if you tend to only put skill points in rogue technical skills (stealth/traps/crafting)

clerics - Extend Spell and Craft Wand

bard - Extra Music and Lasting Song (or whatever the non-epic name is for it), Curse Song is great when you face large groups.

ranger - really depends on if you are a fighter, tracker or more rogue-like. Though regardless of growth - Alertness is a must.

Druid - not sure here

wizards - brewing and craft wand, crafting in a battle could save the day.

sorcerers - I'd say same as wizards.

Skill Focus : Bluff is the most affective, IMO.

I usually grab lightning reflexes on my rogues just to really get the most out of evasion.

Skill Focus Lore.

Hmm, quite varied responses. I think i'm going with Expertise as being mentioned by the most people. Anyone ever used improved expertise? basically you are a wall of defense... I think I could have used that last night when we were attacked by like 15 trolls...

I'll say Spell Foci for mages.

Metro_Pack Skill Focus : Bluff is the most affective, IMO.

X enjoys this feat greatly

Blind Fight. It's the Underdark, visibility is supposed to be poor! Doesn't matter if you can hack stuff apart by hearing it, or smelling it, or whatever!

Weapon Finesse is pretty cool too.

And Combat Casting is awesome, if you can use it properly.

Improved Expertise is definately a good choice, but some things that I didn't see mentioned about it that are worth saying.

Expertise and Imp. Expertise have ONE prerequisite: 13 Intelligence. Wizard spells + Imp Expertise. You won't be able to cast, though, so it won't do you too much good without a backup plan. Think about it. Just... fear the critical hits.

I advocate any feat that fits your character.

However, as far as fighters go, I think improved expertiese, if you want to be the anvil, and spring attack if you want to be the hammer. By that, I mean a high con character is a good anvil. Get yourself Improved Expertiese, constantly cause the monsters to get AOO's on you, so you are their focus. A high strength character makes a great hammer (especially with a two handed weapon), and spring attack means no combat Aoo's. One of each, coupled with a caster and a rogue to scout-a practice that I wish there was alot more of on this server, since I don't know the quests that well, and always end up stepping on the traps you all seem to wade around-and theres few things that you can't beat.

I enjoyed having Resist Disease quite a bit with one of my previous characters. It comes in handy in a lot of the quests, in the long run saving you the need to put skill points into heal and spend excessive amounts of money on Salutory Tonics.

For PvP, the best feat I've seen is Knockdown. I couldn't believe how badly I got destroyed in PvP the first time somebody used this on me (fortunately, it was just friendly duel).

I agree with those who say Toughness is overrated. I've never really tried it out (with the exception of one character who got perma'd within an hour of creation), but just thinking about it, it seems practically useless.

For bards, without a doubt take extra music and lingering song. I haven't ever tried curse song, but if it's as good as the aforementioned, then take that, too.

Iron Will seems like a good one to have if you're going to be a potential target of the Spellguard, since one of the favorite tactics of wizards is to cast hold person on targets from invisibility. Iron Will is good in general, in fact. Of course, it doesn't make much sense to take it on a lot of characters, in terms of its implications for personality.

While Blind Fight is awesome if you get to initiate PvP before the other person goes invisible, it's not so great when somebody initiates PvP with you from invisibility, since they still get to hit you with their best shot before you get to react.

Not to popularize my favorite feat, but Curse Song is amazing. It's like a 1 level debuff on as many creatures are in range with no save!

Lillithid Not to popularize my favorite feat, but Curse Song is amazing. It's like a 1 level debuff on as many creatures are in range with no save!

I can concur this. I've seen a group being beaten badly, but a high level bard (6+) with curse song can turn that fight around even if your team is low on buffs.

Only draw back is that you have to send your bard right into the heart of the disaster to pull of said team-wipe preventing event.

SPRING ATTACK

I LIKE SPRING TIME

Martial Weapon Proficiency

I agree with wcsherry with the save boosting feats and blind fight.