Valuing feats

Kerrick · Jan 2, 2009

Greetings, fellow gearheads! I've got a challenge for you.

Sylrae came up with an idea for feat points - basically, you place a value on every feat; characters gain x feat points per level (1, I think), which they can then use to buy feats provided a) they qualify for them and b) they have enough points. He's thinking of using a 6-point system, where feats are valued from 1-6 (duh); this makes it compatible with the Pathfinder system (1 feat/2 levels) or the 3.5 system (1/3 levels).

Me being the tinkerer I am, this system immediately caught my interest. Well, that and the fact that I just added 100 feats to my site... but anyway, I want to do a system like UK did for CRs. I think it can be done; I was going to use Skill Focus as the base feat. SF would be valued at around 3.0 (I say "around", because I'm not quite sure how much 1 skill point is worth yet; I'm thinking somewhere between 0.9 and 1.1). I'm valuing the +2/+2 feats at around 2.75 - they add the bonus to 2 skills, but you can't choose them and it's only +2.

My problem, and my challenge to you: How do I conflate them? If one feat adds +3 points to one skill, and one feat adds +2 points to two skills, how much is 1 point worth? No, this is not a trick question - I'm missing something, and I can't figure out what. I'm hoping you all can help.

Ltheb Silverfrond · Jan 2, 2009

IMO, I don't think you are missing anything. Pricing feats is like splitting hairs; It isn't easy. +3 to one skill vs +2 to two skills is one thing. How about Widen spell vs Heighten Spell. Both are situational.

My best suggestion: Make them all cost whatever is about equivalent to "1 feat" and then make the really poor choices cost less, and the no-brainers (overpowered feats, or just really potent ones like power attack) should cost more. Game balance *Should* be just the same, but it depends on your gaming group.

Honestly, most point-buy systems are broken by their very nature, as there are always 'best' choices, or strong combinations. Allowing players to acquire feats via point-buy of any kind is just asking for trouble.

But if you think it won't hurt your games, then good luck. (It may even help; I have know clue how your group opperates; I know mine would Min-Max themselves silly)

Kerrick · Jan 3, 2009

Ltheb Silverfrond said:
IMO, I don't think you are missing anything. Pricing feats is like splitting hairs; It isn't easy. +3 to one skill vs +2 to two skills is one thing. How about Widen spell vs Heighten Spell. Both are situational.

If I were to just eyeball them, I'd say they're of equal worth, sure... but I want to figure out their actual value. I'm weird like that. I think it'll help better evaluate other feats and figure out better prereqs; Project Phoenix (see link in my sig) has no "epic" as such - it's just "levels above 20th" - so there are no "epic" feats. A lot of them are fine, since they already have high prereqs, but others need new ones to replace "must be 21st level", like Legendary Reputation.

Honestly, most point-buy systems are broken by their very nature, as there are always 'best' choices, or strong combinations. Allowing players to acquire feats via point-buy of any kind is just asking for trouble.

I don't see how, since you still have to qualify for any feats you buy.

But if you think it won't hurt your games, then good luck. (It may even help; I have know clue how your group opperates; I know mine would Min-Max themselves silly)

I was going to make this an optional system for Project Phoenix, if I can get it to work.

Upper_Krust · Jan 7, 2009

Hi Kerrick mate!

Sorry for the delay. Was trying to wrap my head around this. Didn't I actually do this already...vis-a-vis the CR/EL document, which lists the amount of ECL for a feat and then deconstructs all the other numerical parts of the game as how they relate to ECL?

Kerrick · Jan 12, 2009

Oh yeah... I knew you'd done feats as they related to ECL, but I hadn't thought of using that system. I.e., a feat is 0.2 ECL. A skill point is 0.02 ECL, so it's 0.1 feat.

I think that's the problem we (I and the other guy with the original idea) are having - we're using whole numbers for the overall value of the feat instead of fractions. An "average" feat should be valued as 0.3, not 3.0. Thus, Skill Focus is 0.3; the +2/+2 feats are 0.25 (I think; it's +2 skill points, +0.05 for a second skill).

Thanks! I'd given up on this project as a waste of time, but I might go back to it when I'm bored and tinker around with it a bit.

Sylrae · Sep 29, 2009

Hey Kerrick! I just thought I'd let you know, someone did Feat Points.

Sean K. Reynolds (He wrote most of Savage Species, and a bunch of other 3.0 books) has a feat point system on his site. the downside is his are ranked 1-10. On the other hand though, you could multiply his values by .6 and then get estimates. His 1-10 scale doesn't go any lower than .5, and I believe it only covers 3.0 feats. Still, it's a good basis for beginning.

You still interested in this sort of system?

Kerrick · Sep 29, 2009

As it happens, someone on another forum brought up the idea of valuing feats not long ago, so I posted my notes for him. That got me mildly interested, so went back over it, made some tweaks, and actually processed a dozen or so feats. It's changed a lot since my initial post; I set the base value at 1 (100%), and modifiers are decimals (percentages, basically). After some work, though, I realized why I'd given it up before - the vast majority of feats are already quite well-balanced. I might go back over this sometime when I'm bored, but for now I've just shelved it.

Thanks for the link, though - I don't agree with a lot of what SKR says (for example, prereqs don't count toward a feat's value), but there might be something of value in there.