Valuing feats

Kerrick

First Post
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.
 

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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

First Post
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.
 

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

First Post
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

First Post
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

First Post
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.
 

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