Would you allow ASI/feats in place of a subclass levels features?

[Li Shenron]

Simple question

Do you think it would be balanced to allow a character NOT to have an archetype/subclass at all, and instead gain an ASI or a feat at the levels when a subclass benefit would have been gained?

Assume that the character concept makes sense without an archetype. So the question doesn't mean to allow it to every class necessarily. A Fighter can probably stand on its own without a martial archetype, a Wizard without an Arcane Tradition is a generalist, but you may rule out a Warlock without a Patron for instance.

 

[Li Shenron]

By the way, feel free to say whether you would allow it, but only ASI or only feats rather than both (or any other restrictions you might have in mind).

 

[StormbringerAUS]

I would consider it certainly, I would need a reason from the player wishing to do it and certainly not allow it every level, but if it fitted with the character concept I would certainly not just rule no.

Would have to be sure the other players were also comfortable with it and not open up every one wanting to do it.

 

[5ekyu]

Honestly, without a thorough review of each sub-clasd, i would say no. I dont necessarily think it all balances out that each class has the same divisions of power between main class and sub-class features.

These were balanced or tested as packages - class + sub needs tp roughly size up against class +sub.

That does not mean that class without sub matches any other class without sub.

A hint that the balances were combo vs combo is how some classes get sub class at 1 and others at 3.

So, no, i would not start sub-dividing what were built and tested as fused combos and providing an identical replacement without a f'ton of analysis.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not opposed.

 

[Li Shenron]

I would consider it certainly, I would need a reason from the player wishing to do it and certainly not allow it every level

To clarify, the main question here is related to doing it indeed at every level, i.e. give up the whole subclass and get one ASI/feat at each level when you would have gotten a subclass feature instead.

But you may also consider the idea of doing it partially, so that the character does have a subclass but gives up some subclass levels in exchange for an ASI/feat. I didn't mention this variant mainly to keep the question simple, and also because the more freedom to the player always means more chances to abuse. I just think it's easier to first think about a complete replacement.

Honestly, without a thorough review of each sub-clasd, i would say no. I dont necessarily think it all balances out that each class has the same divisions of power between main class and sub-class features.

Consider only the Wizard class then.

The context in which this idea originated, is a Wizard player undecided on which Arcane Tradition to choose (and not so much undecided between two but rather undecided between most of them...). There are of course other ways to deal with such situation, but this is the first time that the idea of not having a subclass at all comes to my mind so I wanted to focus the thread only on that.

So while I made the question generic and include all classes, you can just pick one and say if it sounds doable or not for that specific class.

 

[Rossbert]

I would say no generally and even more no to the wizard specifically.

An ASI is significantly better than many of a wizard's subclass features. I don't know if I can think of a subclass I wouldn't be very happy to trade in an ability or two for a feat or stat boost.

Making it all or nothing makes it a little better but the caster classes get most of their real asssets from the base class and the subclass is almost, but not quite, just fluff.

For the player in question try looking in other books or the UA for a tradition. I had the exact same problem with my wizard and the GM offered me the Lore Master tradition from the UA which Iiked better and may have taken if I didn't discover the bladesinger fit his belief that elves are amazing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I was building a particular game that did not include subclasses for any of the classes and replacing their slots with ASIs/feats... what I'd do first would be to take all of the subclass abilities and work/rework them and turn them into feats themselves. In my opinion the number of feats available in official sources are too limited to the amount of additional ones going to be picked up.

If every class is going to gain three to six additional feat slots, we're going to see the exact same feats taken by more than one character in any particular party, which to my money runs counter to the purpose of feats in the first place. Feats are supposed to give PCs a little definition and originality... which is easily foiled if half the party is "Lucky" for example.

As far as I'm concerned... any mechanical feature a PC has-- whether it be a class feature, subclass feature, racial feature, background feature, feat, magic item etc.-- can be worked/combined/separated to create relatively balanced "packets" of game mechanic ability. Then players can choose those packets they want to create their slate of game mechanics for their PC. There's no necessity to just sticking with the various features the Player's Handbook has parceled out in the format they have. Sure, it's incredibly easier to do so... and these pre-built packages of features have been balanced and storyboarded to make them much simpler to grok from both a mechanical and a story point of view... but anyone with a little bit of time can reverse engineer all this stuff to create all kinds of different things if they feel like they want to and they have players that would appreciate it.

You just have to be very comfortable with whatever it is you end up creating, with the expectation that it hasn't been playtested at all before you hand it to your players. But if you're good with working on that stuff on the fly... then go nuts.

 

[5ekyu]

To clarify, the main question here is related to doing it indeed at every level, i.e. give up the whole subclass and get one ASI/feat at each level when you would have gotten a subclass feature instead.

But you may also consider the idea of doing it partially, so that the character does have a subclass but gives up some subclass levels in exchange for an ASI/feat. I didn't mention this variant mainly to keep the question simple, and also because the more freedom to the player always means more chances to abuse. I just think it's easier to first think about a complete replacement.



Consider only the Wizard class then.

The context in which this idea originated, is a Wizard player undecided on which Arcane Tradition to choose (and not so much undecided between two but rather undecided between most of them...). There are of course other ways to deal with such situation, but this is the first time that the idea of not having a subclass at all comes to my mind so I wanted to focus the thread only on that.

So while I made the question generic and include all classes, you can just pick one and say if it sounds doable or not for that specific class.

I would be no for wizard.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

No, if you want change that radical then it is time to explore some other game systems.