Starfarer’s Codex: Horrifically Overpowered Feats (SFRPG)

Starfarer’s Codex: Horrifically Overpowered Feats (SFRPG)

This collection of horrifically overpowered feats for Starfinder clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 16 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Let’s begin with the introduction, shall we? Horrifically Overpowered feats started as a joke for PFRPG, but you know, there is a market for super high-powered gameplay; the popularity of Dreamscarred Press’ Path of War and for gestalting PCs is testament to that. Moreover, the power that PCs have, and the experience of some players does mean that there are bound to be groups out there that have too easy a time when dealing with regular modules. For such groups, GMs can use these feats easily and smoothly to increase the challenge faced. This, alongside the use of Legendary Games’ mythic rules expansions, were some of my own strategies to account for the skill of my players and the power of my PCs.

Fast forward to the Nova Age, and we get some advice on how to use these in our campaigns. To quote the pdf:

“First, don’t.

Second, if you really want to look for ways to add

these to a campaign, we have some ideas. Like the

p0roduct itself, these are all bad ideas.” (Yep, typo’s there in the pdf, not mine.)

The pdf mentions their use as grafts, as options for super high-powered campaigns, beyond level 20 – some pretty nice suggestions I’d enjoy seeing developed further at one point. The pdf then talks about the new feat types – the first is [Horrifically Overpowered] – that ought to be self-explanatory. The second would be [Mathbreaker] and it’s really interesting: If you’ve taken a very close and analytic look at SFRPG,l you will have noticed that the math of the system is very tightly-wound. These feats, then, allow you to break the underlying numbers at the assumption of power per level. The pdf explicitly notices that no character should have more than one of those.

The third feat type is one that’ll be familiar for PFRPG-veterans – the [Meta-Attack] feat. These allow for the modification of attacks in the way that technomancers can use magic hacks to modify spells. They mostly are swift actions and modify one attack – that may be anything that requires an attack roll or full attack action. These don’t change the nature of the attack – Empower Attack would, for example, not simply add damage to a grapple if it doesn’t inflict damage without the feat. Quickened Attack is an exception, and allows for a single attack as a swift action, and may add it to other attacks or to make a separate attack. Quickened attacks may not be enhanced with [Meta-Attack] feats. These feats have a certain amount of uses, which are replenished after a 10-minute rest to regain Stamina Points. The pool of these attacks is unified, and while additional uses are gained at higher levels, these are applied once to the pool, and not per [Meta-Attack] feat.

The pdf contains 27 regular [Horrifically Overpower] feats, 8 [Mathbreaker] feats, and 12 [Meta-Attack] feats. Let’s start with the latter, shall we? The [Meta-Attack] feats include options to deal maximum damage, automatically hitting, having the attack continue to inflict half damage for a couple of rounds, etc. – basically, a kind of high-powered metamagic for regular attacks, a system that, on a less high-powered level imho would be a salient design goal for regular attacks, but I digress.

The[Mathbreaker] feats allow for the addition of a mental ability modifier to all saves, always going first in combat, having a minimum EAC and KAC, having your class level as BAB, treating all weapons as having an item level equal to your character level, always Take 20 instead of rolling a chosen skill…and what about the two feats that set your base ability scores (either physical or mental) all all 18s, before modifications? OUCH.

The regular [Horrifically Overpowered] feats include gaining a full archetype’s benefits in addition to your usual class features; there is a feat that nets you a full drone or exocortex. There is a 1/day feat that lets you pronounce DENIED, automatically negating a single attack, maneuver, spell, etc. There is a feat that makes you never provoke attacks of opportunity ever again; Easier to Keep Track had me LOL really hard. You must be built as an NPC and have no Resolve, sure – but you simply can’t be killed for 3 rounds. On the fourth round, anything that inflicts damage kills you. Quick and dirty and pretty funny. Gaining full spellcasting, endless cleaving, old-school style, and there is a feat for 3 extra lives. It should also be noted that this pdf is genuinely funny in its crunch. The special line of the latter one, for example, reads: “This feat can be taken more than once. (Although, really, you need to take Toughness if you’re dying that often. Or just stand closer to the envoy and mystic.) Each time you take it, the number of times your character may freely return from the dead increases by three.“ Yep, this is actually a pretty fun-to-read crunch-book! Casting multiple spells is also included, but that was to be expected at this point, right?

The feats are btw. organized in a nice manner: We get a list of feats, alphabetic and organized by type, and the write-up of the feats themselves is alphabetic.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch on a formal and rules-language level; I only noticed a very minor cosmetic snafu. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard, and the pdf has plenty of really nice full-color artworks, which are stock to my knowledge, but superbly chosen. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Owen K.C. Stephens delivers, big time – the feats herein are ridiculously overpowered in hilarious ways, but retain their ability to be used in the game. These obviously are not intended for every group, but if you’re looking for something ludicrously over-the-top, then this has you covered! Larger than life and far out, this is a great toolkit to add to your arsenal. Chances are decent I won’t ever play a campaign with the PCs using these, but for e.g. a super-charged showdown? As a result of an artifact or the like? There are plenty of scenes where this can allow for a remarkable and novel change of pace – on both a long-term and short-term side. These need to be carefully contemplated, and by design, they break the assumptions of the game. But they do so in a fun-enhancing manner. 5 stars + seal of approval.

You can get these horrifically overpowered (and pretty awesome) feats here on OBS!

Endzeitgeist out.

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