Questions on two specific feats

[Draccus]

I'm approaching level 6 and have to pick my next feat.

My original plan was to take Combat Expertise as the prerequisite for taking Improved Feint. I've read the discussions on Improved Feint here on the board and my people agree that it's not worth the two feats. I'd like explore that a bit more.

The main complaint I hear about Improved Feint are that it's not very useful because if you're group is performing well and your tanks are doing their job, you should be getting plenty of SAs without having to Feint. While I would certainly agree with that, I've found myself wishing I had the ability to generate a SA in face-to-face combat quite often already. This includes soloing (which I do quite a bit) and when my group isn't doing a great job of controlling aggro. So my question is this: even though Improved Feint may not be completely useful, does it work as intended when it is used?

My second question is around Weapon Focus. In all the D&D games I've played, I've ignored weapon focus because it used to be tied to a specific weapon. I considered it a fighter feat and since my rogues always dual wielded, I didn't want to take a feat for each weapon (usually rapier/ss or rapier/dagger). However, with the 3.5 rules, Weapon Focus can be taken for all piercing weapons. I'm now wondering if it's a viable rogue feat.

Thanks in advance.

[Cap_Man]

Have you tried using the Diplomacy skill? When in a group and you have the aggro, using Diplomacy can get the mob to look for another opponent thus turning it's back on you and giving you a SA opportunity. No feats required, but I don't think it works when solo.

Not sure about the weapon focus question but there are rogue enhancement lines that can increase your SA to hit (by up to +4 I think but not positive about that) .. and again, no feats required. You can also use a backstabbing weapon in you off hand that can give you up to +5 to hit (and +8 damage) on your SA attacks and that also applies to the weapon in your main hand.

If you are going to be doing a lot of soloing, you might want to look in to picking up 'Deception' weapons which give you a small chance (5 - 10 %, I think the jury is still out on that one) of deceiving the mob giving you a few seconds of sneak attacks even if you have aggro.

If you still wondering what feat to get you might want to consider 'Improved Crit ...' for what ever weapon type you favor. That helps a lot with the 'Burst' and special effects (ie: crippling) type weapons and later on when you get to higher levels it becomes very useful when using banishers and smiters as they only work on a crit.

Hope this helps

[Kargon]

Kargon find weapamon focus to be plenty handy from levamels 1 to say 10 on a rogue type, but aftermer that kargon usuamally respec it out since kargon BaB and random party buffs startaming to catch up with kargon need to hit enemamies.

[krud]

I have improved feint on my fighter/rogue. It works ok for soloing. For a few brief seconds it will distract a bunch of mobs around you and give you a free backstab on three or four mobs if you can tab them fast enough. However, if you are a pure rogue chances are if you have that many mobs around you when soloing you are in for a rough time, even if you can feint them. If your AC isn't high enough to give you some more breathing room, or you don't have displacement, then you'll still get pounded before you have a chance to throw another feint. The feint only allows for one sneak attack per mob, so it's not like you'll be killing anything with just one feint. Unless you have some feats to spare (i.e fighter or monk levels), I don't recommend it. Stick to diplomacy, and hope the devs fix the bluff skill. (btw - you'll need close to max bluff skill to make IF work well enough.)