3.5 Endurance

[Kaelik]

Reading over the Fighter skills thread, Frank mentioned several times that 3.5 Endurance is good.

My contention is that 3.5 Endurance is bawls terrible and should never be taken by anyone ever, and also, sucks.

My question is: How is it different from 3.0, and why did Frank make it so clear that he was talking about 3.5, such that which one he was talking about was apparently really important as to which one it is?

Now a break down of Endurance:

+4 to Swim checks against nonlethal damage: "Each hour that you swim, you must make a DC 20 Swim check or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage from fatigue. "

This will never ever come up. If you actually need to swim for over an hour, you are low level. You will also flub six checks in a row sometime during those 100 checks and drown. Also, it's 1d6 nonlethal, who fucking cares.

Actual worth in D&D: 0 points on any scale imaginable.

+4 on Constitution checks made to continue running: I can't find a single mention in the SRD of such checks, but I do know that you can continue running for a number of minutes equal to your Con score, and you aren't allowed to say, "I run to the next town" because it counts as hustle. So either way, I can't see this ever coming up at all, even if it did exist.

Worth to a D&D game: 0

+4 on checks against nonlethal damage for forced march: "A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It’s possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard. "

Okay, so for whatever reason, if we need to walk for more then the 14 hours in day it would take to actually possibly fail that check, and we have no mounts...

wait, please name any level ever where this would matter.

Teleport negates everything. Mounts negate everything. Why the hell are you in such a hurry at level 1?

But you know what, if you for some reason don't have the ability to cure 1d6 nonlethal damage whenever you want (or are immune to it) and remember, non lethal, so cure light could cure you of your nonlethal and of any lethal damage, so not even really a waste,

24 hours in a day, +2 for every hour after 8th, resets next day. Maximum possible DC for the check equals DC 42, and that's if you literally walk all fucking day. Factor in the eight hours of rest that you might need +1 hour of prep spells or praying assuming you have any arcane caster in your party, which you do, and it's down to +24. Fucking wow, like anyone would ever need a +4 to that.

Worth to game: 0

"+4 to constitution checks made to hold your breath, Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst, Fortitude saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments, and Fortitude saves made to resist damage from suffocation."

Do you have an Arcane caster in your party? Yeah, this doesn't matter. Do you have a level 1 NPC Wizard? still doesn't matter. Are you over level 3? Doesn't matter.

Getting tired of long winded shit, so skipping this crap.

"Also, you may sleep in light or medium armor without becoming fatigued. "

This is probably the only reason anyone would ever take this feat, other then of course, as a pre-req for Steadfast Determination.

But let's look at it. It only effects people who use Medium armor and are afraid of being attacked in the night.

Since no one in their right mind uses Medium armor until Mithril Full plate comes on line, and Extended Rope Trick comes on line before that, it actually means that no one uses this ever.

But even if it did matter, because you never use rope trick or whatever and can't buy an eternal wand of lesser restoration, is it really worth a feat to get that critical +6 armor bonus for like 1/100th of all fights?

I mean really?

Shouldn't you be more concerned about the whole not having any buffs and getting totally owned thing? Cause all day buffs actually provide more then +6 ac to anyone who cares.

[RandomCasualty2]

All I can really think of is that you need endurance to get steadfast determination, which is an awesome feat.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Two points:

1 Feats suck balls and are incredibly narrow (usually). As such, any feat that could possibly be useful in a wide variety of situations gets high marks.

2 Prestige classes have entry requirements, and prerequisite feats can only come from the PrC source or the Phb. Add to this the fact that many designers are lazy and don't bother to include new feats. So Endurance becomes the de facto tacked-on prereq feat for martial prestige classes. This also gives people a reason to take 3 levels of Ranger.

[Kaelik]

As such, any feat that could possibly be useful in a wide variety of situations gets high marks

You must be confused. Endurance doesn't come up in a wide variety of situations, it adds +4 to checks that never actually occur.

If you seriously have a wand of Cure light wounds, it ceases to have any actual effect.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I actually played a character with Endurance. Yes, I know, it is sad, you may all laugh at me if it will increase your happiness and help me not be evil (see Thread that make us Laugh, Cry, etc.).

I took it as a prerequisite to Horizon Walker. Yes, I know, it is sad.

In addition to Two Weapon Fighting. Yes, I know, it is sad.

I vouch for the complete uselessness of TWF and Endurance as strategies.

To further invalidate Endurance, we found Chain Shirts on some goblins we killed at level 1. The barbarian in the party said "This is Thruggs sleeping armor". Yea, seriously, even at level 2 it was only worth "+2 to AC when attacked in the night".

You may continue laughing.

[Bigode]

I actually played a character with Endurance. Yes, I know, it is sad, you may all laugh at me if it will increase your happiness and help me not be evil (see Thread that make us Laugh, Cry, etc.).

I vouch for the complete uselessness of TWF and Endurance as strategies.

You aren't singing the hymns of Endurance and TWF.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

You are right, they suck.

[Endovior]

I actually played a character with Endurance. Yes, I know, it is sad, you may all laugh at me if it will increase your happiness and help me not be evil (see Thread that make us Laugh, Cry, etc.).

I took it as a prerequisite to Horizon Walker. Yes, I know, it is sad.

In addition to Two Weapon Fighting. Yes, I know, it is sad.

Wow.

I did the exact same thing, once.

That was, what... the third 3.5 character I ever played? When I was looking for a group and somehow wound up joining a game at 13th level, still with relatively minimal idea of how to play. That was the game where I took TWF so I could fight with a shortsword in each hand, and somehow managed to miss the bit where this gave me extra attacks. To this day, I can't fathom how I missed this... or what seemed attractive about it without the extra attack. I think part of it was wanting to use a Luck Blade for the passive bonuses and a Sword of Subtlety for attacking, but still...

And so, I wound up playing a Halfling Rogue/Horizon Walker for several months. I didn't notice any problems with this at the time, because of a misinterpretation of a Halfling-specific feat that allowed me to sneak attack anything bigger then me all the time allowed me to do almost as much damage as the Dervish.

It's cringingly bad NOW, of course, but only in comparison... I'm mostly just vaguely surprised that someone else actually did this.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

The HW was my second 3.5 character. My first was a level 15 Druid (which I pretty much butchered). The Druid at least had the strategy of "Take Augmented Summoning and Natural Spell, be a <Giant Level Appropriate Monster> that summons <Other Giant Level Appropriate Monsters> each round while being helped along by <Level Appropriate Sidekick>.

Seriously, the Druid Strategy of filling all your spell slots with Cure and Buff, and converting them to SNA spells works super-good even in the hands of a newbie character. Just give them a print-out of "these are the things you can summon each level" and a Monster Manual and they will reliably contribute to combat.