Introduction

Many characters are created in a vacuum. Players often conceive, build, and run their characters with little consideration for other characters in their party, and at best might consider the roles of the other characters in the party when building their own. Teamwork feats rely on coordination between players, and typically require that multiple characters take the same feats in order to reap the benefits. It is often difficult for players to justify a feat when they can only be guaranteed to gain its benefits while their teammates are in place to cooperate.

Fortunately, many classes provide options for sharing teamwork feats which can remove the need for multiple characters to take the same teamwork feats. With some careful coordination, the party can share several groups of teamwork feats with each other, thereby gaining the effects of considerably more feats than a character could otherwise have.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

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RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Teamwork-Friendly Classes and Archetypes

Many classes and archetypes provide bonus Teamwork Feats, and many of those provide a means to share those feats with your allies. Having even one character in the party who can share Teamwork Feats can be a huge boon to the party.

Brawler (Exemplar): Field Instruction allows the Exemplar Brawler to grant teamwork feats to allies for a few rounds at a time. Combined with Martial Flexibility, this gives the Brawler access to a dizzying number of options.

Cavalier: The Cavalier gets bonus Teamwork Feats at 1st, 9th, and 17th level. The Cavalier can share one (two with Master Tactician) of these feats one to five times per day for a few rounds at a time. To get any interesting Teamwork Feats you will need to spend your regular feats on Teamwork Feats.

Cavalier (Strategist): The Strategist doubles down on the Cavalier’s Teamwork Feats. Drill Instructor allows the Cavalier to grant Teamwork Feats to allies for 10+ minutes at a time, which saves you actions in combats, and saves daily uses of Tactician.

Fighter (Tactician): The Tactician can select Teamwork feats as Fighter Bonus Feats, but doesn’t have any way to share them with allies.

Hunter: The Hunter gains bonus teamwork feats every 3 levels, and the Hunter can change the most recently selected teamwork feat on the fly. This is helpful for teamwork feats which are situational, but which have prerequisites which you already meet. On top of that, Hunter Tactics automatically gives the Hunter’s Animal Companion all of the Hunter’s Teamwork Feats, giving the Hunter an easy option for teamwork.

Inquisitor: The Inquisitor is a fantastic option for Teamwork Feat enthusiasts. In addition to receiving free Teamwork Feats every 3 levels, the Inquisitor’s Solo Tactics ability allows the Inquisitor to benefit from Teamwork Feats even if allies don’t have any. On top of all of that, the Inquisitor can change their most recently selected Teamwork Feat, opening up a lot of situational Teamwork Feats which you can’t justify taking as a permanent option.

Inquisitor (Sacred Huntsmaster): In addition to the Inquisitor’s existing Teamwork Feat abilities, the Sacred Huntsmaster automatically grants all of their teamwork feats to their Animal Companion, automatically granting the Inquisitor an ally with which the Inquisitor can cooperate, and leaving the Animal Companion’s small number of feat slots open for other things.

Paladin (Holy Guide): The Holy Guide gets exactly one free teamwork feat, and can grant that feat (and only that feat) to allies for a few rounds by spending one of the Paladin’s very few uses per day of Smite Evil. Because the Holy Guide gets this feat at 5th level, it’s hard to get anything really interesting to share with your allies.

Paladin (Holy Tactician): The Holy Tactician gains a total of 5 bonus Teamwork Feats, and can share one Teamwork Feat (any one known, not just the bonus feats) to allies. Because there is no duration, you can set this once when you meet your allies, then change it for the rest of your career as a swift action. This is incredibly powerful, especially if you have several high level Teamwork Feats to share.

Slayer (Vanguard): The Vanguard gets one teamwork feat at second level, and thus can’t get anything even remotely powerful. The Vanguard can then share this lousy feat once per day with their allies, and can gain one additional use a time by wasting a Slayer Talent.

Warpriest (Divine Commander): The Divine commander grants one bonus Teamwork Feat at 3rd level, long before you can get anything interesting, and a second at 12th level. You can grant one of these feats to your allies 1 to 3 times per day for a few rounds. The 12th level feat will allow you to select from several fantastic options, and you can use it as a swift action, but the limited uses per day make it hard to justify focusing on this ability.

Teamwork Feats

  • Allied Spellcaster: Spell Penetration will be considerably more reliable. It’s not often that multiple spellcasters in a party know and prepare the same spells, so the extra benefits are even less useful.
  • Back to Back: Very situational.

    • Improved Back to Back: Even more situational than Back to Back, and you have to spend an action to use it.
  • Broken Wing Gambit*: This can be really great, especially if you like to draw attacks, but it’s somewhat hard to use. If you can get this to work reliably, this is one of very few mechanics in Pathfinder which actively encourage enemies to attack you over your allies. If you are your party’s Defender, this can be a great way to keep enemies focused on you instead of your allies.

    • Wounded Paw Gambit*: Difficult to set up, but this can be very good if you have a ranged DPS close enough to take advantage.
  • Combat Expertise
    • Pack Flanking: Flank things while riding your Mount/Animal Companion. Requiring Combat Expertise is annoying, but considering that this can be a guaranteed +2 to all of your attacks I think it’s justified. This feat also allows you to use Teamwork Feats which require flanking at the same as Teamwork Feats which require that you be adjacent to your allies.
  • Combat Medic: Very situational. Buy some potions.
  • Coordinated Charge*: Despite requiring 2 other teamwork feats, Coordinated Charge may be the best Teamwork Feat. This allows all of your party’s melee characters to charge at once, and doesn’t cut into your allies’ full attacks. If you select a class which gives you the ability to grant Teamwork Feats to your allies, this is a fantastic option. Gives your allies Coordinated Charge during the surprise round, and whoever gets the highest initiative charges and allows the rest of the party to charge at the same time. If your enemy dies (likely), charge something else. Because the rules don’t specify in which order everyone gets to charge, I would resolve each charge in initiative order for simplicity.
  • Coordinated Defense*: Situational.
  • Coordinated Maneuvers*: Most characters don’t rely on Combat Maneuvers, but if you have two characters, and you can get the same bonus by flanking.
  • Distracting Charge*: Combine this with Coordinated Charge.
  • Duck and Cover: This is great if you have bad luck, but being forced to stand next to your ally can be annoying.

  • Enfilading Fire*: This requires that at least one of your melee allies also take this feat, and if they’re flanking they can’t benefit from this feat, which means that this feat is useless for them. The +2 bonus isn’t good enough to justify making one of your allies waste a feat on this. Even if you can give them a feat, it’s questionable because your enemy still needs to be flanked for you to get the bonus.
  • Ensemble: This would only be good in a party of traveling Bards.
  • Escape Route: This might be nice for characters who move around a lot and draw lots of attacks of opportunity, but at that point your ally needs to have Mobility and a decent AC without relying on you.
  • Feint Partner: This is really only useful if both of you have Sneak Attack, and few parties have multiple characters with Sneak Attack.

    • Improved Feint Partner: If you or your ally are good at flanking, this is a fantastic way to get free attacks every round.
  • Improved Spell Sharing: This can really improve your spell economy and your action economy.
  • Lookout*: The ability to take a full-round action during the surprise round is amazing. You can do a lot of things with a full-round action, including using Coordinated Charge to get all of your melee allies into melee so that they can make full attacks, also during the surprise round.
  • Mounted Combat:
  • Outflank*: Great, especially if you have a two-weapon fighting melee rogue. If you use a weapon with a high threat range (and you really should), the extra attacks of opportunity can work out to a huge amount of free damage.
  • Pack Attack: You need to start adjacent to an ally to use this, and if you’re not already flanking, you’re probably trying to stay adjacent to use other Teamwork Feats.
  • Paired Opportunists*: This pairs well with feats like Improved Feinting Partner, Outflank, and Seize the Moment which grant your allies attacks of opportunity. The Opportunist Rogue Talent is also a great option. Greater Trip won’t work because it already provokes an attack of opportunity.
  • Precise Strike*: Perhaps the simplest Teamwork Feat, this is a great option for all of those classes that get a free Teamwork Feat before they can qualify for anything good, and can share that feat with their allies. The damage isn’t muchm but it’s easy to use and it will always be helpful.
  • Point-Blank Shot
    • Coordinated Shot*: This feat requires a melee character to waste a feat so that you can get a lousy +1 bonus. Just take Weapon Focus.
    • Target of Opportunity: If your party has multiple ranged DPS characters (such as an archer and a spellcaster), this can get you a lot of free attacks. However, few parties will be built so that this works every round.
  • Seize the Moment: If you or your ally are built for critical hits, this can be a nice source of free attacks.
  • Shake it Off: Nice and reliable, and it works great if you get ambushed.
  • Share Healing: Situational.
  • Shield Wall*: Very situational. Generally only one or two characters in a party use shields, and they are rarely adjacent.
  • Shielded Caster: Very situational, and Concentration checks are very easy to boost between traits and items.
  • Stealth Synergy: Fantastic for stealthy parties. No more worrying about the Cleric stomping around and alerting your enemies!
  • Swap Places: Situational.

    • Improved Swap Places*: Very situational.
    • Intercept Charge*: This is a fantastic ability for Defenders. It requires that whomever you defend takes this feat (or that you give it to them), but it guarantees that you can interpose yourself when enemies attempt to charge. Because your ability to intercept charges depends on your move speed, be sure to improve your move speed with items like Boots of Striding and Springing.
  • Tandem Trip: If you like tripping, this is absurdly good. Rerolls work out to roughly a +5 bonus, and it makes your nearly immune to rolling a Natural 1. If you have an ally who benefits from you tripping enemies (such as a melee Rogue), you can make a very strong case for them to spend a feat on this.
  • Team Pickpocketing: Very situational.

* – This is a combat feat, and can be selected as a brawler, fighter, gunslinger, swashbuckler, and warpriest bonus feat.