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5th edition design notes: Feats
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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 5302925" data-attributes="member: 72555"><p>Those might be good things, but they cannot really be good in the same category.</p><p></p><p>+1 accuracy in a 4e type system is about a 10% boost to your offensive abilities if you can trigger it constantly.</p><p></p><p>A bonus to saves vs. fire -- it would have to be near-immunity, because unlike the other things, you have <strong>no control</strong> over if you are fighting a fire opponent or not.</p><p></p><p>+2 bonus to fire damage means that your character is going to either be strong if they choose all-fire powers and avoid fire-resistant monsters (which, of course, is not under your PCs control), or weak if they end up splitting their damage over multiple kinds (because the feat is now pretty sub-par).</p><p></p><p>Heavy armor as a barbarian could be on par -- what it does is it frees up the Barbarians secondary stat from mattering to the Barbarian's AC in 4e. That could have huge, or tiny, design implications. (it now takes 3 feats to hit plate as a barbarian, and 15 con or so.)</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>The "Expertise" feats from the essentials look like better feats along these lines. Some boring (yet powerful) static bonus, and then a flavourful minor conditional bonus.</p><p></p><p>"<strong>Fire Mage Specialization</strong>: Gain a +1 feat bonus to damage per tier with arcane power damage rolls, and +1d6 fire damage per tier on a critical hit with all arcane powers. When you use a power with the fire keyword, you instead have a +2 feat bonus per tier to your damage rolls."</p><p></p><p>You'll see that the above feat is many-fold. It rewards you for using fire spells with an extra +1 damage/tier. It gives you fire crit damage, turning even your non-fire spells into fire damage. It also grants you a <strong>baseline</strong> damage/power boost, that applies in every situation. Cold Mage Specialization might look quite similar (except it slows on a crit instead of +1d6 damage, immobilizing if the target is already slowed).</p><p></p><p><strong>Wand Expertise</strong>: You gain a +1 feat bonus to accuracy per tier when using a wand. Once per attack while using a wand when you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you may reroll the attack roll. When attacking a creature you hit last round, you ignore cover and concealment (but not superior cover/concealment) when using a wand.</p><p></p><p>Here we have an expertise feat. It has the large static bonus effect, plus a few flavorful riders. Here, I split the element bonus-to-damage feats from the tool bonus-to-accuracy feats.</p><p></p><p>Ideally we'd do the same with martial powers -- have keywords on powers that we key off our damage-bonus feats, and keywords on weapons we key off our accuracy-bonus feats.</p><p></p><p>The point is to avoid "you get a +1 bonus to some number that will always apply, and nothing else" feats: balancing those feats against situational feats is nearly impossible. Either players who like situational/flavourful feats are screwed because the boring feats are optimal, or the players who like the boring feats are screwed because the situational feats open up a world of "cheese" that breaks the game.</p><p></p><p>By having both in each feat -- both a boring boost, and a situational thing -- you can have a non-trivial power upgrade from the feat (from the boring boost), and something interesting (the situational feature of the feat).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 5302925, member: 72555"] Those might be good things, but they cannot really be good in the same category. +1 accuracy in a 4e type system is about a 10% boost to your offensive abilities if you can trigger it constantly. A bonus to saves vs. fire -- it would have to be near-immunity, because unlike the other things, you have [B]no control[/B] over if you are fighting a fire opponent or not. +2 bonus to fire damage means that your character is going to either be strong if they choose all-fire powers and avoid fire-resistant monsters (which, of course, is not under your PCs control), or weak if they end up splitting their damage over multiple kinds (because the feat is now pretty sub-par). Heavy armor as a barbarian could be on par -- what it does is it frees up the Barbarians secondary stat from mattering to the Barbarian's AC in 4e. That could have huge, or tiny, design implications. (it now takes 3 feats to hit plate as a barbarian, and 15 con or so.) --- The "Expertise" feats from the essentials look like better feats along these lines. Some boring (yet powerful) static bonus, and then a flavourful minor conditional bonus. "[B]Fire Mage Specialization[/B]: Gain a +1 feat bonus to damage per tier with arcane power damage rolls, and +1d6 fire damage per tier on a critical hit with all arcane powers. When you use a power with the fire keyword, you instead have a +2 feat bonus per tier to your damage rolls." You'll see that the above feat is many-fold. It rewards you for using fire spells with an extra +1 damage/tier. It gives you fire crit damage, turning even your non-fire spells into fire damage. It also grants you a [B]baseline[/B] damage/power boost, that applies in every situation. Cold Mage Specialization might look quite similar (except it slows on a crit instead of +1d6 damage, immobilizing if the target is already slowed). [B]Wand Expertise[/B]: You gain a +1 feat bonus to accuracy per tier when using a wand. Once per attack while using a wand when you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you may reroll the attack roll. When attacking a creature you hit last round, you ignore cover and concealment (but not superior cover/concealment) when using a wand. Here we have an expertise feat. It has the large static bonus effect, plus a few flavorful riders. Here, I split the element bonus-to-damage feats from the tool bonus-to-accuracy feats. Ideally we'd do the same with martial powers -- have keywords on powers that we key off our damage-bonus feats, and keywords on weapons we key off our accuracy-bonus feats. The point is to avoid "you get a +1 bonus to some number that will always apply, and nothing else" feats: balancing those feats against situational feats is nearly impossible. Either players who like situational/flavourful feats are screwed because the boring feats are optimal, or the players who like the boring feats are screwed because the situational feats open up a world of "cheese" that breaks the game. By having both in each feat -- both a boring boost, and a situational thing -- you can have a non-trivial power upgrade from the feat (from the boring boost), and something interesting (the situational feature of the feat). [/QUOTE]
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