Question regarding Feats and Divine Abilities

[paradox42]

A while back in some thread or another (I forget which), I mentioned that I was toying with the notion of allowing Divine Abilities to be purchased with feats, under certain circumstances. Essentially, my reasoning goes, since a Divine Ability can be used to purchase six feats, why shouldn't the reverse be true, if the character is high enough in level and the proper feats get spent?

The thing is, this has now become rather important in my Epic game, since several characters in that party have taken Cryptomnesia feats and the rest are strongly considering it (or are waiting to see what they have to do to get the real, constant Divine Abilities that they really want). So far, only one character's "hidden" divine ability has activated, but I expect more will come in time. The players are bugging me about how they go about using feats to get the Divine Abilities, particularly those who have held off on taking Cryptomnesia so far.

My current idea is that a character can take Cryptomnesia six times for the same ability, each time making the likelihood of activating the hidden power more likely, until at the sixth and final time it finally becomes constant and fully realized. But then I remember that Epic feats are superior to regular feats, and IIRC UK himself said in a previous thread that they appear to be "worth" two regular feats on average. What do the rest of you think, about this idea or the topic in general?

[mercucio]

Read the section on Esoteric Abilities in the IH. I beleive that should cover all your questions .

[paradox42]

Originally Posted by mercucio

Read the section on Esoteric Abilities in the IH. I beleive that should cover all your questions .

If it did, do you think I'd have posted this thread to start discussion? Questing has been done here; that's not the problem I'm wrestling with. The problem is, as I described above, how I should go about allowing feat slots to be used to purchase Divine Abilities (or for that matter whether it should be done before the PCs are true deities themselves).

If it's allowable, how many feats should be used? Should they all be Epic feat slots (this becomes important if you use the retraining rules from PHB II, or allow the Psychic Reformation power from the XPH and Psionics SRD)? Should Epic feat slots count double in the number of feats used?

[mercucio]

"Another method of gaining abilities is through feat slots. As Table 4-1: Gaining Abilities shows, six feat slots are required to gain even a single divine ability. Either the deity must delay choosing any feats with those slots or change them (see changing abilities).

The immortal must of course meet any and all prerequisites for any ability it seeks to gain."

Under Esoteric Abilities it states the normal ability mortals receive as feats, and the Esoteric as divine abilities. Since your PCs have fufilled the questing requirement they must meet the above.

According to Table 4-3 it takes 1 wish or 5000 quintessence to change a feat. I would not allow the use of psychic reformation.

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I don't think giving them a 6:1, Feativine conversion would be all too bad. Since they are either being penalized for 18 levels, or losing levels via Anoxia, allowing them to get divine abilities doesn't seem very strong.

However, from what I gather about your setting, higher-tier divine beings have multitudes more HD than lesser beings, right? That could be a problem. Just because they can't take an Omnific power does not mean that a level 3600+ character is any weaker because it took 200 Divine abilities. (All sorts of stat-synergies, crazy AC, dozens of attack and defense forms, etc) An extreme example; Uncanny Quantum Telluric Iatric Mastery is a bit more feasible.

[paradox42]

Originally Posted by Ltheb Silverfrond

However, from what I gather about your setting, higher-tier divine beings have multitudes more HD than lesser beings, right? That could be a problem. Just because they can't take an Omnific power does not mean that a level 3600+ character is any weaker because it took 200 Divine abilities. (All sorts of stat-synergies, crazy AC, dozens of attack and defense forms, etc) An extreme example; Uncanny Quantum Telluric Iatric Mastery is a bit more feasible.

You are correct, beings in my setting will generally have much higher HD totals, and this does slightly worry me. My version of the Draeden, for example, has 55,000 HD as a base, but in keeping with the original Immortals Rules version it's only as powerful as a Greater Deity- I gave it 20 integrated/effective Divine Ranks.

Perhaps a valid solution would be to limit the number of abilities you can gain this way to be equal to your existing number, plus one; thus, a Demi-Deity (DR 6) with 180 HD could spend feats to gain up to 7 more Divine abilities, since it has 6 already, and could potentially spend 6 Divine Ability slots to gain 1 Cosmic ability (which it would be stuck with until it goes Cosmic and gains such abilities naturally). This would mean that non-divine characters are stuck with one Divine Ability gained this way; they can never gain more. I could live with that.

[Adslahnit]

Would bonus feats be allowed for the purpose of trading in feats for divine abilities?

For example, a DvR 48 First One Human Fighter 240 would have a total of 203 feats: 1 (human) + 1 (first level) + 80 (standard feat progression) + 11 (non-epic fighter bonus feats) + 110 (epic fighter bonus feats). He could trade in 180 of those feats for 30 divine abilities. He could also choose to trade in 180 feats for 5 cosmic abilities. He might have trouble meeting the prerequisites for the divine or cosmic abilities, but if he chooses them carefully he shouldn't have too much of a problem.

However, there might be a problem with non-fighter-type immortals loading up on levels in Fighter just to get more divine abilities. An [Effect]-centered immortal taking fighter levels just to improve his [Effect]s, for example. Perhaps certain abilities should be assigned as "eligible for trading in fighter bonus feats" or something along those lines?

[dante58701]

I would never limit the number of esoterics that could be learned. It would be yet another pointless limitation on an already limited character.

A group of feats can oftentimes be more valuable than a divine ability.