In fact, in terms of a feature having little purpose besides opening up ridiculous tricks and combos, aptitude is probably second only to the Snowcasting feat from Frostburn. But in such cases, I would consider waiving the need for aptitude in the first place, and just allow the feat to just work with that weapon to begin with.Īnd it gets much worse than you suggest: Hand Crossbow Focus on great crossbows makes for pretty hefty damage, but Lightning Maces and Roundhouse Kick on high-crit-range weapons results in statistically infinite damage.

Plenty of feats are written too narrowly anyway. 4 To allow certain feats to work on an aptitude weapon even when they would not otherwise be a valid choice, on a case-by-case basis, is probably good for the game. My other suggestion for handling aptitude well is to consider the specific use-case for which someone brings it up. Aptitude will still have its place for those who want to use some exotic weapon without the feat and want to have any feats they were using prior to being able to afford aptitude still work with the new weapon. This will often mean that no one will bother using aptitude, since +1 is pretty pricey for that and auto-proficiency, but that’s OK: most special weapon properties out there get ignored. Under this houserule, you can use Weapon Focus (hand crossbow) for your aptitude great crossbow since Weapon Focus (great crossbow) is a perfectly valid choice, but you cannot use Hand Crossbow Focus on any great crossbow. This is probably what the authors actually meant for it, 3 seeing as it’s quite similar to the warblade’s weapon aptitude feature in the same book. In practical terms, just for the sake of both balance and sanity, aptitude should probably be restricted to only working on feats that let you choose what weapon it applies to, and for which the aptitude weapon would have been a valid choice. But it does allow for a huge array of potential combos and tricks, particularly things you couldn’t have done otherwise, and that means the rules-as-written aptitude is of significant interest in optimization. Not only is this preposterously powerful, 1 it’s not hard to imagine cases where it gets flat-out nonsensical. As written, yes, aptitude means any feat that works on any weapon, also works with your aptitude weapon.

Best crossbow enchantments 3.5