Dilemmas upon conundrums stacked on top of even more quandaries. One can use that to sum up character creation in a game that offers more options and complexity than its Dungeons and Dragons roots. Hence, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an intimidating venture for beginners of the CRPG genre.
Feats, for example, is a sea of jargon that any uninitiated RPG fan will find perplexing. After all, one would still want their heroes and carefully crafted characters to be competent or even overpowered in the fight against a literal demonic invasion. Hence, picking these feats will ensure a more battle-ready chosen one.
Updated on January 31, 2023, by Sid Natividad: In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, players must build their characters wisely or suffer the consequences of an inefficient chosen one. Thankfully, respecs are given for free but without knowledge of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous feats, they might end up with suboptimal choices.
Thankfully, this list features Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous and its best feats. It just so happens that there are tons of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous feats so picking the best is always quite the ordeal. Thus, we've expanded the list to make room for even more incredible character traits to make them ultimately better.
Now that the game is more available to a wider audience due to the widespread multiplatform release, it's high time to add more to this Pathfinder best feats list. Some are lesser-known compared to heavy hitters such as Cleave, but they still offer some rather game-changing uses most especially in combat.
20 Spell Penetration
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Strengthening caster spells
Caster builds or magic users are some of the most powerful characters or builds in the game but they're not exactly jacks of all trades. They excel at one thing usually and that's dealing massive crowd control or massive damage. Take that away from them and they're sitting ducks in the party.
That's why ensuring that the casters in the party are all adequate in their capabilities is a must. Their spells need to break through enemy defenses for them to actually be of use, so the Spell Penetration feat is almost always mandatory; don't make casters waste their turns with whiffs.
19 Seize The Moment
- Requirement: Combat Reflexes
- Usage: Singling out soft targets and focusing attacks
Seize the Moment is well-suited for melee characters and builds who stand side by side in the heat of a combat encounter. It's a perfect trigger for ganging up on enemies since any character who has this feat that scores a crit will grant adjacent party members an attack of opportunity against the same target.
Hence, all this feat needs is a good combination of crit-fishing feats and weapons. Before players know it, targets will start popping up in red mists because their melee characters will abruptly focus-fire on certain unlucky targets.
18 Iron Will
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Added resistance to attacks and effects with a Will check
The majority of the enemies in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous are treacherous and deceptive demons who frequently inflict some debilitating status effects. Most of these go against the will saving throw, so it's always a good idea to bulk up that stat check.
Granted, Iron Will doesn't really sound like much since it only adds +2. But that +2 can be a lifesaver especially when certain in-game handicaps such as minus-level effects and fatigue start creeping in inevitably. A character who has this just might prevent a party wipe.
17 Skill Focus
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Bolster a skill and its corresponding skill checks
If players want to specialize on their skill checks even more, then the Skill Focus feat is always a good idea. Players can choose it multiple times for multiple specializations. It's useful not just for combat but also for exploration.
The most obvious and beneficial choices would be Stealth, Persuasion, Perception, Athletics, and even Mobility. In combat, players might just be able to wiggle themselves out of tricky situations if they have a character who has had multiple Skill Focus picks.
16 Critical Effect Feats
- Requirement: Critical Focus, other Critical effect feats
- Usage: Enhancing critical attacks
Critical attacks are pretty powerful already, but players can even make their crit-focused builds and playstyles even more overpowered with feats such as:
- Exhausting Critical
- Tiring Critical
- Blinding Critical
- Staggering Critical
- Sickening Critical
They're pretty self-explanatory. They just add more debilitating status effects to critical attacks. Against bosses, these make the fight a lot easier though players might not benefit too much from them against regular enemies. Still, they're fun feats with plenty of good synergistic opportunities.
15 Outflank
- Requirement: Base Attack Bonus of 4
- Usage: Triggering reaction damage and increasing flanking damage
Players should consider Outflank as more of an investment as this feat will only be useful if there is at least one other party member who has it. Consequently, if all party members have it, then any lone boss is probably going to get beat up real bad before dying.
Outflank gives a +4 bonus on attack rolls for flanking attacks, assuming another party member has it. Also, scoring a critical hit against the flank target will trigger an attack of opportunity for allies. It's by far one of the best boss-killing feats in the game.
14 Combat Reflexes
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Increased number of Attacks of Opportunity
Combat Reflexes might look a bit underwhelming and tailor-made for classes and builds that stack up on Dexterity but it's still quite a beast for those kinds of characters. Because when paired with the feat above, Outflank, then it can turn a boss fight into a poking contest.
Combat Reflexes increases the allowed number of Attacks of Opportunity per round based on Dexterity bonus. Moreover, any character who has this feat also gets to perform Attacks of Opportunity even when they're flat-footed. That's pretty handy against ambushes.
13 Shatter Defenses
- Requirement: Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, Base Attack Bonus of 6
- Usage: Makes enemies unable to defend themselves
Shatter Defenses is a little misleading as it's not a feat that actually destroys the target's defenses. Instead, this feat allows players to beat down an already defenseless enemy to submission. Shatter Defenses makes it so that striking enemies with compromised defenses makes it so that they can't do anything about the attack.
In addition to that, enemies with some of the most common status effects in the game that get hit by a character with this feat also become flat-footed, meaning they can't react properly to combat situations. This will prevent them from making attacks of opportunity against a disengaging teammate.
12 Blind Fight
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Mitigating invisible enemy damage and increasing hit chance against them
Blind Fight is a feat most players won't think they need until the late game in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous where invisible enemies are thrown against them left and right. Blind Fight will have been a godsend then and there because it makes invisible enemies a joke.
The key benefit of Blind Fight is that lets characters reroll a missed attack against a concealed target. This increases the hit chance at the very least. Moreover, invisible targets can't get bonuses when attacking a character who has this feat. It's quite handy and reduces one of the most difficult aspects of late-game.
11 Vital Strike
- Requirement: Base Attack Bonus of 6
- Usage: Special single attack with high damage
Vital Strike is one of the attacks available for any damage-dealer character as it effectively deals double damage since the weapon's damage roll is rolled twice then added, assuming the attack connects. This is calculated before all the other bonuses such as Strength modifiers and such.
This easily makes Vital Strike a must-have as a standard attack per action. Moreover, the whole Vital Strike feat line is also great and players can't go wrong by picking the improved and higher versions of this special attack.
10 Cleave
- Requirement: Power Attack, Strength 13
- Usage: For triggering multiple melee attacks against several enemies
Being a melee combatant has way too many risks in a game like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous or just about any Pathfinder game. They mostly act as tar pits that will stop enemies long enough for the caster or glass cannons at the rear to do their thing.
Cleave ensures that the melee combatants in the party are able to soften up several targets. This feat has a chance to trigger upon an attack where the character will initiate another attack but to a different, adjacent melee target.
9 Diehard
- Requirement: None
- Usage: Staying alive for one round after zero HP
Diehard lives up to its name. It's a literal feat where if the player character reaches zero HP through combat or other causes, they'd be able to remain standing for one more round to fight some more. Such a feat has numerous uses but it mostly boils down to ensuring players don't see that 'game over' screen.
It's best to choose this feat for a tough character who can take on multiple opponents such as a Paladin with Cleave or even a Barbarian. Half-orcs also get this feat as a racial trait so it most likely doesn't stack. For any other race, it's a godsend of a feat.
8 Disarm
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- Requirement: Combat Expertise, Intelligence 13
- Usage: Denying the enemy some combat moves
Disarm is a nifty little disruptive ability that has its own downside. Obviously, the user of this feat has to be in melee range for it to work. They can then attempt to remove a target's weapon where they won't be able to attack with it for one round.
Against demons with powerful weapons, this is a good ability. It also scales even further with more investments to the related feat or attribute. If players choose to improve it, then they can prolong the time that their target can't attack with weapons.
7 Extra Rage
- Requirement: Unlock Rage
- Usage: Increased Rage for better combat efficiency
Rage is one of the most useful skills for blitzing the enemies and ending the fight before they can even react. It's highly effective in boss fights or encounters where the party is at a disadvantage. Its number of uses is limited, however.
Thankfully, there's a feat called Extra Rage which allows the affected character to be angrier more often in encounters. It's usually the Barbarian or Bloodrager that benefits from this feat the most but any character with a Rage ability will love this.
6 Improved Initiative
- Requirement: None
- Usage: +4 bonus on initiative checks
For a feat that every character will like regardless of their disposition, one can't go wrong with Improved Initiative. Since it's a tabletop RPG, who gets to attack first is highly dependent on Initiative. Improved Initiative thus ensures better chances of getting the long end of the stick.
The +4 bonus is quite a significant amount and can let characters cheat their way into the turn list. This might even be enough to make the fight unfair for the enemies especially if players have a special build in mind that lets them win in the first round or turn, provided they get Initiative.
5 Intimidating Prowess
- Requirement: None
- Usage: Adds the Strength modifier to Persuasion (intimidate) checks in addition to the Charisma modifier
If one's character isn't intimidating enough despite the hulking physique (mayhaps due to the lack of Charisma), then this feat ought to make them blunter in a good way. Intimidating Prowess is all about peacocking using muscles until the enemy or conversation partner cowers in submission.
The Strength attribute gets thrown in with the skill modifiers, making it great for bland fighters or boorish Barbarians. It's highly useful for getting the upper hand in social situations where one doesn't want to shove their way into every interaction.
4 Rapid Shot
- Requirement: None
- Usage: Getting a second free but penalized projectile attack
In fantasy fiction, every elf with a bow wants to be Legolas. With the Rapid Shot feat, ranged characters in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous can make that goal more feasible.
It's essentially a second attack that comes in free with the full main attack per round. It does come with a -2 penalty, meaning it can miss a bit more often. But it's well worth it and can serve to double a ranged character's damage.
3 Shake It Off
- Requirement: None
- Usage: +1 bonus on saving throws per ally with the same feat
Shake It Off requires quite a high investment. If players want to reap the maximum benefit of this feat, which is a +4 to saving throws, then four characters in the party will have to take the feat, sacrificing their other opportunities.
The defensive implications are a life-saver though, making it a worthwhile feat. Such is the case for higher difficulty where enemy groups will constantly throw around big spells and other debilitating debuffs. Having excess insurance of saving throws will foil their plans.
2 Trip
- Requirement: Combat Expertise, Intelligence 13
- Usage: Making a target prone and vulnerable
Dungeons and Dragons players from the fifth edition know this tactic all too well. It's similar to the Shove Action where instead of choosing to attack, players can opt to push the target in order to make them go prone, thus making them vulnerable and giving the attackers an advantage.
Trip is the Pathfinder equivalent of that lovely combat maneuver. Logically, it's more difficult to perform this move against any creature with more legs than the standard two. Any other humanoid is fair game.
1 Wings
- Requirement: Aasimar, level 10
- Usage: A pair of wings that grant a +3 dodge bonus to AC against melee attacks and immunity to ground-based effects, such as difficult terrain
Sprouting wings and shooting magical bolts from the heavens while staying well out of the combat's dredge is one of the cheesiest tactics a spellcaster can pull of in either D&D or Pathfinder. Such a move that will likely earn the ire of the Dungeon Master is actually easier to perform in Wrath of the Righteous.
All players need is a level 10 Aasimar and the Wings feat. After that, they're more or less untouchable and can zap enemies like an angel ready to dish out a deity's wrath. No Dungeon Masters are present in this game, so no need to feel guilty about this feat.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh operating systems.