Some abilities are not tied to your race, class, or skill-things like particularly quick reflexes that allow you to react to danger more swiftly, the ability to craft magic items, the training to deliver powerful strikes with melee weapons, or the knack for deflecting arrows fired at you. These abilities are represented as feats. While some feats are more useful to certain types of characters than others, and many of them have special prerequisites that must be met before they are selected, as a general rule feats represent abilities outside of the normal scope of your character's race and class. Many of them alter or enhance class abilities or soften class restrictions, while others might apply bonuses to your statistics or grant you the ability to take actions otherwise prohibited to you. By selecting feats, you can customize and adapt your character to be uniquely yours.
The spilling of blood can unleash significant magic power, and many cultures have developed ways of accessing that power. Some can use magic powered by inflicting significant wounds to curse their enemies.
Damnation feats represent a bargain the character has made with some dark power, granting the character great power at the cost of her eternal soul. Damnation feats are distinct from more common feats in three ways.
Faction Feats
Faction feats represent the benefits of associating with specific organizations.
Gunslingers and swashbucklers can select Grit feats and Panache feats, respectively, as bonus feats to enhance their deeds and modify their grit or panache points.
Metamagic feats allow spellcasters to grant their spells new powers and effects. Spells modified by such feats generally take up a higher-level spell slot than normal.
Stare feats allow a mesmerist to apply additional effects to his painful stare ability. Characters without the Compounded Pain feat can apply the effects of only one stare feat to an individual attack; a mesmerist with multiple stare feats must choose which to apply before the damage roll is made.
Targeting feats modify attacks and work in conjunction with the called shots optional rules.
Animal/Familiar Feats
Familiar feats can be taken by characters who have familiars that meet the listed prerequisites. Wizards can take a familiar feat as a bonus feat, and witches can select a familiar feat in place of a hex. If you lose your familiar and gain a new familiar that doesn’t meet the listed prerequisites for a familiar feat you possess, your new familiar doesn’t gain the benefits of that feat. A new familiar that meets the prerequisites automatically gains the benefits of that feat.
When you gain a new level, if your current familiar does not meet the prerequisite of a familiar feat you possess, you can learn a new familiar feat in place of the feat your familiar doesn’t qualify for. In effect, you lose the old familiar feat in exchange for the new one. The feat lost can’t be a prerequisite for another feat you possess, and your familiar must meet the new feat’s prerequisites. You can exchange only one feat in this way each time you gain a level.
