Planar Touchstone

It can be agonizing selecting the right feats. Never mind the fact that the average character gets a mere seven of them over the course of a full adventuring career - you also have to worry about when their payoff is. What's better: the feat that's useful now but negligible at high level? Or the feat that's useless because it's just a prerequisite for something really juicy down the line? Neither sounds particularly attractive, and while you might recall that a casting of heroics or mirror move can score you bonus feats at a moment's notice, not all of us can cast wizard spells, thank you very much. Is there some feat that can not only be tooled to virtually any build, spellcaster or not, but also can be swapped out or updated so there's no point in the campaign in which it loses its luster?

You might be expecting you'll have to look pretty far afield to find such a lofty feat. You'd be right - in fact, you're going to have to look on whole other planes of existence. Today we're discussing Planar Touchstone, the feat that asks of you more than most, but may well be worth it in return.

The first hurdle with Planar Touchstone is understanding the core concept as well as the rather heavy-handed list of prerequisites. Essentially, when you take the feat, you choose a "planar touchstone" from a list and become attuned to that particular location. In doing so, you immediately gain access to a persistent bonus or ability specific to that site. However, if you pick yourself up and physically hoof it to the touchstone in question, you can perform a mini-quest to unlock the 'higher-order ability,' which is a more dramatic effect but can only be used a limited number of times. Having said that, you can revisit the site and redo the mini-quest to recharge your uses any number of times, so it's more a convenience issue than a hard cap.

Now that's already more fuss than most feats, but one exciting feature is that while you can only be attuned to one touchstone at any given time, you are free to swap them out whenever you like! If you visit any of the touchstones and perform their little errand of choice, you become attuned with that site instead, swapping out the base ability and higher-order ability of whatever site you were plugged into last for the new one. Here's one feat you can be sure will never outstay its welcome!

The last matter is one of prerequisites. In addition to each touchstone location having a signature task
you need perform to join their club, the Planar Touchstone feat itself has a few hurdles to jump through before you can even take it, like many feats out there. Unlike many feats, however, this one calls for you to have an object worth at least 250 gp that's native to any one of the designated touchstone locations, as well as 8 ranks of Knowledge (the planes.) Then you need spend 10 experience points and 24 hours straight concentrating to forge the link. Most feats don't cost you experience points and a chunk of pocket change, but in the scheme of things it's dirt cheap... the biggest disappointment is how the prerequisite of ranks in Knowledge once again makes the feat more accessible for spellcasters. The planar substitution levels can help quite a bit if that's your biggest hurdle. However, fret not: if you wish to swap allegiance from one touchstone to another, you explicitly do not have to expend another 10 XP and 250 gp souvenir. You only have to pay for the first time, whereupon all the touchstone sites presumably understand you're serious about this whole arrangement.

Location, Location, Location

So the primary thing to consider with the Planar Touchstone feat is the basic ability your site of choice grants you. A key point that's easy to miss is that you do not need to visit the site in question to pick up its baseline ability. The abilities granted by the sites are quite explicitly not made equal (some are meant to provide EL 4 challenges if you visit them, others are EL 14, and their associated abilities reflect this level discrepancy,) so you can score some pretty impressive abilities even if you take the Planar Touchstone feat as early as possible. Here, then, are some of the sites with the more interesting baseline abilities on offer.

Arthenmyr's Wrath: Gain acid resistance 5.
Ashardalon's Tongue: You get a +1 untyped bonus on unarmed melee attack rolls.
Blinding Tower: Gain 60 foot Darkvision, or improve your existing Darkvision by 30 feet.
Catalogues of Enlightenment: You gain the granted power of any one Cleric domain of your choice. This is surely the most famous option for Planar Touchstone there is, and opens up a whole new spread of options from your feat slot. More on this below.
Densahl's Challenge: You get a +1 untyped bonus on melee damage rolls.
Fields of Autumn: You get a +1 untyped bonus on ranged attack rolls.
Ice Catacombs: Gain cold resistance 5.
Monastery of Zerth'Ad'lun: You get a +1 dodge bonus against all melee attacks, or a +2 dodge bonus against full attacks made in melee against you. The Dodge feat never looked good, but this stunts on it pretty hard.
Oxyrhynchus: Pick one type of weapon; you can make an extra attack with a -5 penalty when using the chosen weapon against a flat-footed foe. This probably stands out as the flashiest ability available - how often can you get free extra attacks with a feat?
Peak of Continuation: You subtract 1 from the damage you take from any source, and it explicitly stacks with Damage Reduction.
Pilgrim's Rest: You get an untyped +1 bonus to AC so long as you're on the Material Plane.
Restyn's Last Stand: You get an untyped +1 bonus to all melee attack rolls. Weapon Focus who?
Shrine of Acererak: Mindless undead ignore you unless you attack them. A permanent hide from undead could be convenient in an undead-heavy campaign, but keep in mind it doesn't extend to your party members, and it's only a level 1 spell to replicate it.
Valley of Thunder: You get an untyped +1 bonus to AC. That's it - all armor class, all the time. Dodge is really taking a beating out here.

 

Just Deserts

Okay, so you think you've got the Planar Touchstone concept figured out? Along comes Sandstorm to throw a wrench in the works with... what may or may not be the same feat. Planar Handbook gave us Planar Touchstone, Sandstorm features a mostly-identical feat just called Touchstone. It has the same setup with picking a site, getting an always-active base ability, and having the option to visit it to unlock a higher-order ability with limited uses. It does have its own list of sites, all of them desert-themed, but what's interesting is that it specifically mentions you can use the Touchstone feat to forge a link with any of the planar touchstones from the Planar Handbook. So it's not as if there's one feat exclusively for planar touchstones and another feat exclusively for desert-themed ones... the Sandstorm variant seems to be an updated version.

Where it differs is in the prerequisities. You need 8 ranks of Knowledge (local) OR possession of a 250 gp touchstone key. The fact that it's "or" means that if you can scrape up 250 gp, you could take this feat at first level. Then you still need to spend 24 hours, 10 XP and 250 gp in material components to make the link, but you can also sacrifice the key in place of the material components. What advantage, if any, there is to holding onto it instead is unclear.

So again, it's unclear whether the Touchstone feat is meant to entirely replace the Planar Touchstone feat, but seeing as it does everything the Planar version does and then some (and has less demanding prerequisites to boot,) there's not really any reason to take the Planar variant so long as Sandstorm is on the table. Speaking of which, some of the locations detailed in Sandstorm have some intriguing base abilities on offer as well.

Blue Dragon's Graveyard: Gain electricity resistance 5.
Dusty Conclave: Your natural armor bonus improves by +1.
Eternal Breath of Seneferu: You get a little grab bag of wind-related abilities, most of them pretty small potatoes. You're treated as two sizes larger for resisting wind effects, you have DR 2/- against nonlethal damage from sandstorms, and - here's the interesting one - you get a +4 untyped bonus to all Fortitude and Will saves so long as you're exposed to wind speeds of at least 21 miles per hour. If you can somehow engineer it so you are constantly exposed to fast-moving winds, getting +4 to two saves from one feat is completely bonkers.
Salt Statuary: You gain the Improved Heat Endurance feat (which is to say, fire resistance 5.)

Seer's Catalogue

I'll be the first to admit that it's overly obnoxious in the level of book-diving it asks of you to really understand everything Planar Touchstone has to offer - most feats don't need you to consult two different books. You already combed through a list of options when you took the Planar Touchstone feat... why not double down and have to consult a second menu?

The Catalogues of Enlightenment offer many, many options in the form of all the various domain abilities printed in the game's lifespan. Do note that whatever domain you choose need not be part of your deity's portfolio... in fact, you need not worship any particular deity at all, so you can just cherry-pick the best domains without fear of divine retribution. Note also that the planar domains, introduced in Spell Compendium, feature domain powers intended to be more powerful than normal, in exchange for a planar domain taking up both of a cleric's domain choices. Of course, that makes no difference to us just yoinking the ability via Catalogues of Enlightenment, so that's an easy list of targets. Here, then, is a list of the more intriguing standouts on offer.

Baator: You can see perfectly in darkness or deeper darkness. Carry around an item of deeper darkness and you should have the advantage in most any fight.
Bestial: You gain the Scent ability. Yeah, remember how the DMG said this would be too powerful for one feat?
Celerity: Your land speed is increased by 10 feet.
Demonic: You get a +1 profane bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes and natural weapons. What totemist wouldn't like this?
Destiny: 1/day you can grant an ally within 30 feet (not yourself) an immediate reroll. Won't you be popular!
Dragon Below: You get Augment Summoning as a bonus feat. 99% of the time, using Catalogues of Enlightenment to get a bonus feat is an obvious waste. This is a tricky one, though - it lets you bypass Augment Summoning's prerequisite of needing Spell Focus: Conjuration. Combos particularly well if you take the Stalwart Planar Ally feat!
Dream: You are immune to fear. Simple as that!
Elysium: Smite Evil 1/day, with an extra use every five levels.
Fate: You gain the Uncanny Dodge ability.
Hunger: You gain a bite attack - plenty of combat classes are looking for extra attacks any way they can get them!
Inquisition: You get a +4 bonus on all dispel checks. Could be handy on any number of casters who make regular use of dispel magic.
Kobold: You gain trapfinding. If your party doesn't have a rogue, this helps make up for it a bit.
Luck: You get to reroll any roll, once per day. Never know when you'll need it!
Magic: You can use spell completion and spell trigger items as a 1st level wizard. This single-handedly opens up a whole world of utility spells.
Pleasure: You are immune to Charisma damage or drain. It's pretty specific, but who can say no to an immunity?
Pride: Whenever you roll a 1 on a saving throw, you immediately get one reroll. Never auto-fail a save again!
Storm: You gain electricity resistance 5 (in case maybe the Blue Dragon's Graveyard isn't available?)
War: You gain Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus for a deity's favored weapon. What's particularly juicy is that you can select a deity with an ideal favored weapon even if he or she doesn't have the War domain in his or her portfolio - particularly nice for exotic weapons, since they generally require a feat for proficiency in the first place! You might recall this particular choice getting called out earlier, since getting two feats for the price of one is a tempting deal.

Here's a list of the exotic weapons you can gain proficiency and Weapon Focus in via Planar Touchstone, along with the deities that grant them: bastard sword (Kord), chakram (Shar), claw bracer (Malar), double scimitar (Spirits of the Past), drow scorpion chain (Vulkoor), dwarven waraxe (Gendwar Argrim), kama (Tem-Et-Nu), khopesh (Re-Horakhty), net (Marduk), nunchaku (Waukeeen), pincer staff (Blibdoolpoolp), scourge (Beshaba), shuriken (Mystra), spiked chain (Zoser), tail scythe (Parrafaire) and whip (Lolth).

Enchanted Pilgrimage

More often than not, I think the smart money is on just focusing on the baseline ability provided by
your planar touchstone site of choice and forgetting about the higher-order ability completely. After all, that's the ability you get for no further investment: you have it the moment you qualify for the feat. Having said that, some higher-order abilities are so intriguing that they are worth consideration after all. Unfortunately most of the best examples are on sites that have pretty lame baseline abilities, so it's not too easy to double dip. But considering you're still getting this power out of a feat slot, it makes little difference which half of the feat is your 'main' payoff. Here, then, are some of the standout higher-order abilities on offer.

The Breaching Obelisk: You can activate a 1-round time stop! Notably it doesn't say what type of action it is to activate - only that "you can instantly enter another time frame"... a particularly generous reading of such could interpret that as being an immediate action.
Catalogues of Enlightenment: You may cast any spell from the domain you chose, so long as you have a high enough level and Wisdom score. That's already incredible (fighter able to cast miracle or shapechange, anyone?) but what's really nuts is that this is potentially a supernatural ability... or spell-like? It's not entirely clear.
Empyrea Mere: Once per day, your touch can cure one of the following conditions: ability damage, blinded, confusion, dazed, dazzled, deafened, disease, exhaustion, fatigue, feeblemindedness, insanity, nausea, sickness, stun, poison, or up to 90 points of hit point damage. Yes, ninety. This is one of the best low-level methods of healing in the game, assuming your party can reliably make their way to Celestia every now and again.
Jubilex's Grasp: Once per day, you can activate a freedom of movement effect that lasts for 10 minutes per level. This is an effect that everyone wants at some point or another, and it's hard to argue with a get-out-of-grapples-free card.
Monastery of Zerth'Ad'lun: As a free action on your turn, you can 'ready an action' without specifying either what that action is or what conditions will trigger it. So you could take your whole turn and then immediately take another standard action, if you like. Essentially you have a nonmagical celerity without the dazing!
The Peak of Continuation: If your hit points ever drop below -10, you get targeted by a contingent resurrection. Fear the man who does not fear death. You only get one before you have to recharge it again, but how many free resurrections were you expecting to need?
The Shrine of Acererak: You can give one undead a command of your choice. What's most exciting about this is that it allows for no saving throw and has no stipulations or restrictions on targeting other than being undead. Demilich servant ahoy!
The Were Glade: This is a pretty intriguing one. Getting a temporary lycanthrope template without the baggage of level adjustment makes for a pretty impressive power boost, certainly. But the intriguing part comes in the form of permanently having the Shapechanger subtype... now anyone can enter the warshaper prestige class!

 

Out of Touch

Owing to its wide breadth of options, not to mention the subsequent options-within-options, Planar Touchstone amounts to an extremely versatile feat - as well as one of the game's strongest, creating for the character a need for adventure and rewarding that adventure appropriately. Not many feats come with a built-in sidequest that you can repeat whenever you like... but then, not many feats let you cast time stop. Well, I guess it's true what they say if you're having trouble keeping up with spellcasters: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.