Consolidated Binder Handbook (3.5e Guide)/Feats

Feat Selections
Binders can go in any possible direction for party role, which makes planning your career ahead of time difficult. WotC has ruled against Vestige-granted feats qualifying as prereq’s for other feats, recently (and mildly).

Required Feats
There are a few feats every Binder needs:

Improved Binding: While its true that you won’t get any use out of it after 16th level, a Binder starting any level below 12th this will find in invaluable.

Weapon Focus: All full Binders must take all 5 levels of the Knight of the Sacred Seal prestige class. It’s a mandate.

That’s it for required feats, leaving you 9 feats to pick (or 10 if you were human or strongheart Halfling).

Bonus Feats
You’ll get a few bonus feats, but these won’t define your main characteristics. For the two Binder bonus feats, I think the following are good choices:


 * Expel Vestige (if you start below L4)
 * Rapid Pact Making (only if the feat bypasses the need for the drawing)
 * Sudden Ability Focus (if Rapid Pact Making is nerfed)
 * Improved Binding (if you start after L4, make this a bonus feat)
 * Ignore Special Requirements (you can afford to take this later, as the main benefit is to bind opposing vestiges)

Other Feat Choices, and Binder Roles
The other feat choices are all dependent on what party role you want to spend the most time doing. The * means the feat isn't really the most important for that particular role.

Melee - Charging (Chupoclops based, add Ipos, Haures, Savnok)
 * Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shocktrooper, Leap Attack, Improved Sunder*, Combat Brute*, 1 free
 * Pretty standard: you use Headless Charge to take off your full PA from your AC, using a spear and Chupoclops' bite for X3 and X2 PA damage and lots of Str damage. See the builds section for an example.

Melee – Mobile (Paimon based, add Chupoclops, Ipos, Ronove)
 * Improved Initiative, Dodge*, Mobility*, Martial Study*, Martial Stance*, Shadowblade*, Combat Expertise*, Deadly Defense*
 * Dance of Death will provoke lots of AoO's, but adding Dex to damage and getting and extra 2d6 when you win Initiative is all very synergistic. Since Tumble isn't on your skill list, Mobility is actually very useful here.  Deadly Defense adds d6 damage to all light and finnessable weapons when fighting defensively or taking 2 off for Combat Expertise, which is useful, as finessable weapons don't do much damage in general.

Melee – Tank (Savnok or Aym based, add Dahlver-Nar, Halphax or Abysm, and Buer)
 * Dodge, Combat Expertise, Improved Buckler Defense, Shield Specialization*, Shield Ward*, Melee Evasion*, Combat Focus*, Combat Defense*
 * This is one more than you have unless you went with a bonus feat race. Its an AC combination, obviously, and the most important feat here is Improved Buckler Defense, if you had to pick just one, but Dodge and Combat Expertise both add a lot.  The PHB2 feats really add to the sword and board style of combat.

Melee – Tactical Tripper (can have any melee vestige as the basis; Agares, Otiax, Paimon, Balam, etc)
 * Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, EWP: Spiked Chain, Combat Reflexes, Knockdown*, Hold the Line*, 1 free
 * The most basic Spiked Chain combination I could think of. Only the first 3 are absolutely necessary (Combat Reflexes through Otiax, for example, or even EWP through The Triad).  Agares gives a nice 10' ability to knock people prone, that gets full use of Combat Reflexes, if you decide.

Arcanist – Tactical Nuke (Amon or Haures based, add Zagan, Chupoclops, Focolor)
 * Ability Focus, Sudden Ability Focus, Favored Vestige, Rapid Recovery, Sudden Empower Supernatural Ability, 2 free.
 * Nothing in the rules says you have to bind different vestiges, so you could bind 4 Amons and use a 20d6 Fire Breath every round this way. Still, talk to your DM.  This combination is too focused on one vestige, imo, but if you do it you definitely want all the above feats.  Gerdreg developed this combination for high (ridiculous) DC Phantasmal Killers (I believe 43 once per day was the final DC).

Arcanist – Constant Damage (Focalor and Karsus based, add Halphax and Zagan)
 * Ability Focus: Lightening, Sudden Ability Focus*, Favored Vestige: Karsus*, Rapid Recovery*, Sudden Empower Supernatural Ability*, 2 free
 * Ability Focus for something you do every round is nice, and Rapid Recovery on Karsus lets you debuff more often. Still too focused on too few vestiges, imo.  Realize that you can only use the dispelling ability of Karus once per day per Binder level.

Scout – The Seeker (Malphus, add Andromalus, Karsus, and Tenebrous)
 * Improved Initiative, Quick Recoinoiter*, Martial Study*, Martial Stance*, Shadow Blade*, Telling Blow, 1 free
 * Improved Initiative works well on everyone. Quick Reconoiter is nice, assuming you didn't dump Wis too much, but even then you use the Bird's mods.  I think these 2 feats are well worth the investment.  Telling Blow gets more precision damage on a crit; make sure to get Keen weapons, somehow.  Shadow Blade boosts damage, and Martial Stance: Assasin's Stance gets you and extra 2d6 Sneak Attack, which is nice.

Scout – The Sniper (Leraje early, later Malphus, add The Triad, Andromalus, and Marchosias)
 * Point Blank Shot*, Rapid Shot*, Precise Shot*, Improved Rapid Shot*, Many Shot*, Ranged Pin*, 1 free
 * Ranged Pin is just funny. Precise Shot is a redundant prereq.  You can pick the right vestiges and just emulate a Sniper easily; not really worth the feat investment.

Trapfinding (Karsus based, add Ashardolon later)
 * Shape Soulmeld: Theft Gloves*, Open Least Chakra: Hands*, Able Learner
 * This is a tough, tough role to fill for Binders. They have low skll points per level, and need to invest heavily in Disable and Search cross-class.  First level should be Scout, preferably, or anything w/ Trapfinding, and Able Learner as a feat, to ease the pain (renders the Incarnum feats unnecessary).  My suggestion is to NOT do this: just bind Karsus, keep Karsus's Sence active, and use Karsus's Touch when you see a magic trap.  Mechanical traps mainly just do damage, and poison, and disease, which you should be able to avoid.

My suggestion is to pick a handful of great feats from 2-3 roles that you want to do, and you won’t go wrong! For example, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shocktrooper, Leap Attack, Improved Initiative, Combat Expertise, Quick Reconoiter, Improved Initiative could do the Mobile, Seeker, and Charging roles, and would be ok as the Tank.

One other note: Fey Heritage, Fey Presence, and Fey Legacy. The save DCs on this scale so freakin' well on a save based Binder, that enchanters basically have to wait until L6 spells (with all feats going to their saves) before they can top it. Its three feats for five awesome 1/day abilities: Confusion, Charm Monster, Dimension Door, Summon Nature's Ally 5 (summon 1d3 Unicorns for healing, etc, the possibilities are pretty wild). I took them on my recent Binder, only starting with a 16 Cha, and at L12 the save DC is already up to a 23. I may retrain them later, but the Confusion and Charm Monster have been taking out at least 1 monster per encounter right away. They aren't considered powerhouses by any means, but they aren't worthless feats for some flavor.