Is a storm coming RE: skills and feats?

[Transformer]

Your background gives you skills, and your specialty gives you feats. That's the way the second playtest packet works. As of yet there is no official option to pick your feats and skills (and backround traits--this applies to them as well) a la carte, piecing together your own "background" or "specialty." Now, I'm unclear on whether or not WotC has promised us that option: if so, can someone link me to the article where they explicitly promised it? Regardless, I see a major problem looming.

The problem is this: if WotC explicitly gives us the option to pick skills and feats a la carte, then immediately picking them a la carte becomes the norm. Any player with even a passing interest in character optimization will always hand-pick his skills and feats. Want to make a character who used to be a blacksmith? Well, pick the interesting and potentially useful Item Crafting Trait, but drop the crappy Local Lore and Professional Lore for something better. You're just as legit a blacksmith, but your skills are way better. You'd be crazy not to do it, as long as character effectiveness matters even a little in your group. In fact, always drop the crappy (and now, very granular) suggested Knowledge skills for something more likely to come up in play. Why not? You can still roleplay a knight/commoner/artisan just as well.

Want a specialty with a great 3rd level feat, but a mediocre 1st level feat? Drop something better in there at level one. Why wouldn't you? Grab Toughness at level one, when it actually doubles your hit dice, then head into something else later when it makes a smaller difference (in terms of percent increase in effectiveness).

Now backgrounds and specialties are pointless. Remember starting package in 3rd edition? Did you care? Of course you didn't. You mixed and matched feats and skills and equipment as you liked. No one cared. New players rarely even cared. I am absolutely convinced that backgrounds and specialties will end up in the exact same place if the option to mix and match is presented. No matter how much emphasis they're given, no matter how much the book tries to present them as the norm, in practice they'll become nothing more than annoying suggestions that everyone ignores.

And now the format of the books is stupid. Nearly everyone mixes and matches, but now all the first level feats aren't in the same place. They're scattered throughout all the different backgrounds. If everyone mixes and matches (which is, again, what will happen), why not put all the feats of a certain level together for easy reference instead of packing them into these silly starting pack--uh, "specialties" that everyone ignores. It's incredibly inconvenient. And since everyone mixes and matches anyway, is there anything wrong with releasing stand-alone feats that aren't part of any background?

And now look where we are: back in 3rd edition, with feat bloat, and us scanning through four hundred feats just to make a first level character. Except now it's even worse because all the 1st level feats aren't even together in one list. And even if they were together in one list, that would only marginalize the actual specialties even more: now I don't even really have to look at them, I just skip straight to the feat list where the actual mechanics for the feats are.

But WotC can't officially not allow mixing and matching either. People would freak out; over on the D&D boards disgruntled fans would be proclaiming that they're bringing the apocalypse upon us by limiting player choice so sharply into these arbitrary categories.

So what's to be done? Allow a la carte, and specialties and backgrounds suddenly don't matter any more than starting packages did, and we're solidly back in 3rd edition bloat territory. Disallow it, and everyone gets mad. Either way, there's trouble on the horizon. Maybe making it DM-optional would solve the problem? Have a sidebar saying that you can mix and match if the DM deems it a good fit for his game? Or maybe I'm over-reaction, and everyone won't actually ignore backgrounds and specialties like I think they will?

 

[Umbran]

Now, I'm unclear on whether or not WotC has promised us that option

I don't believe they've promised anything in that sense. I would presume that it will be an option, somewhere along the line.

The problem is this: if WotC explicitly gives us the option to pick skills and feats a la carte, then immediately picking them a la carte becomes the norm. Any player with even a passing interest in character optimization will always hand-pick his skills and feats.

Picking a la carte may be an optional rule. If the GM allows it, then players will do it. If the GM says, "standard packages only in this game", well then the players can argue with the GM about it

This would be inline with their repeated "we want to make it so you can play the game you want to play" line.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I don't believe they've promised anything in that sense. I would presume that it will be an option, somewhere along the line.



Picking a la carte may be an optional rule. If the GM allows it, then players will do it. If the GM says, "standard packages only in this game", well then the players can argue with the GM about it

This would be inline with their repeated "we want to make it so you can play the game you want to play" line.

From this blog post:

I can see backgrounds used in several different ways:

DM 1: We’re not using backgrounds at all. Just ignore this stuff.
DM 2: Use the background suggested by your class.
DM 3: Choose a background for your character. It can be the one suggested for your class or a different one.
DM 4: Choose a background for your character. You can trade out one skill for a different one.
DM 5: Come up with your own background by choosing up to four skills.

The same approach to backgrounds also applies to themes.

So the idea at that time was for it to be a DM option.

 

[Transformer]

So the idea at that time was for it to be a DM option.

Ah, I see. So the solution to my issue does indeed seem to be "make it DM-optional." I suppose that's the only way to avoid both sides of the problem.

I guess that pushes it onto the grounds of the "DM-empowerment vs. player-empowerment" argument, an argument I like to avoid.

 

[ComradeGnull]

I'm pretty sure both methods- packages and a la carte- will eventually be allowed in the core rules.

Ways to control skill selection: Actually, it is always up to the DM to decide whether skills like Local Lore or Drapery Lore or whatever are actually useful. I would have no problem playing a dungeon crawl game where Lore skills got dropped entirely; at the same time, I could see an interaction/investigation heavy game where Lore skills are more important than a lot of your combat traits, and your party is severely gimped without having good Lore coverage. I wouldn't want to gimp either method of play, so mechanically I wouldn't change anything about Background vs. a la carte selection- I would just want to know as a player what kind of game I am in when I am creating my character.

Feats: Feat chains/dependencies (which have been with us since 3e) can easily prevent 'dipping' into getting good low-level feats and then grabbing something better at a higher level. Even if a la carte becomes the norm, the specialties could be quite good in terms of showing new players "here's how to build a character that specializes in x'- laying out, for example, all the dual wield feats or archer feats that you might want to pick up in order to build a character that is focused on those areas.

My big concern with Specialties right now is that there seem to be a few too many class feature-like abilities that have been turned into Feats/Specialties- things that maybe should be options for the core class, in edition to a specialty. Maybe that is just a reflection of the default lvl 1 power level being a little lower in 5e than it was in previous editions.

 

[The Shadow]

Eh. I see plenty of options other than 'published backgrounds and specialties only' and 'a la carte, the sky's the limit'.

For example, as a DM I might say, "If you want a different background and/or specialty, describe it to me in roleplaying terms and I'll make it for you." Or I might say, "You can make one up for yourself, but it has to hang together in roleplaying terms; show it to me for approval before you use it." Cherry-picking skills and feats purely for mechanical benefit won't fly.

Maybe it's because I've played so many superhero games, where broken combinations are so easy to make, but I'm used to GM oversight and the use of a firm, "No." (Or rather, "No, but how about this instead?")

EDIT: To clarify a little more, I really like the way the background and specialty structures tie things together. I'd want to see homemade versions hang together the same way. In other words, the characters would still have backgrounds and specialties, just not necessarily ones out of the book.

EDIT: Which is not to say that I'd mind swapping a feat from one specialty to another if the player gave me a good reason. For example, I could easily see a specialty that put together Arcane Dabbler and then Aura of Souls and Animate Servant; creating a Necromancer that doesn't rely on high-elven race or spellcasting classes.

 

[Jack99]

The à la carte-option is still there according to mearls in the PA-audio recordings.

 

[KidSnide]

Other folks have already said that different DMs will make different decisions about how much "a la carte" cherry picking will be allowed. But the other important aspect of specialties is that they restrain the designer's ability to create feats. Instead of being able to come up with a random mechanical idea, feats need to fit into coherent specialties that make story sense for a character. This type of constraint will hopefully create better feats that contribute to the character concept, and aren't just building blocks of mechanical effectiveness.

-KS

 

[Kobold Stew]

This type of constraint will hopefully create better feats that contribute to the character concept, and aren't just building blocks of mechanical effectiveness.

-KS

We can hope that this is true. (-another KS)

 

[Ferrous]

I think you're right about the backgrounds. They are flat out not balanced with each other as the skills are not balanced with each other. Whilst it might be theoretically possible to write a campaign where Drapery lore was as useful as a Spot check I have my doubts that it would be much fun and a good fit for the rest of the high fantasy mechanics, "Yes Lady Gwendolyne is wearing last years fashion. At the sight of the Gorgex the destroyer, the partially transformed sorceror, she screams for the guards..."

As for min maxing there are already backgrounds right out of the box that give you real skills rather than highly specific lores e.g Soldier and Bountyhunter.

The basic problem is some skills like Survival, give in effect a broad range of abilities from: starting a fire in the wind, fording a stream, making sheter, finding your way in a storm etc. Whilst other skills such as Geographical lore etc are much more constrained, and could just as easily be represented by using Survival with your Intelligence bonus for theoretical knowledge.

At present for me the skill section is a step back from what was presented in the first packet and there appears to be no way for getting better at physical skills like climbing, jumping and swimming without being a Rogue.