Hiya!
I would like to see more options to customize characters. Note that I said "customize," not "optimize." One good approach would be to add some new feats, some new subclasses, etc., rather than just beefing up one of them.
I seem to remember saying the same thing in some other thread (probably about feats/classes, iirc) a couple months ago. The way 5e is "set up", it's
perfect for this! AND, the beauty part, you don't need f'ing "Feats" or "Multiclassing" to do it.
"But how?", you say,
"Everyone knows it's impossible to differentiate one Fighter from the next without using Feats!"...two ways that are built into the system: archtypes and backgrounds.
If more "crunch" simply 'must' be produced, rather than a book of feats (or three), I'd much rather see new archtypes and backgrounds. Best case...put these in a "theme focused book", as I mentioned above a "Dungeoneers Survival Guide" could have one or two archtypes for each class; that right there opens up a poop-ton of differences...add in a few pages of new backgrounds, and add a couple of new skills or uses of standard ones, toss in a few pages of new spells for clerics and wizards...that's multi-pages of 'crunch'.
Alas, "the masses" all screaming for more feats just want more feats. Why? The more feats, the more chances of "finding that special loophole to make an uber character". Now before you get the rope and horses, I'm
not saying that all people wanting more feats are munckins...but I
am saying that all munckins (in 5e) want more Feats. When one OPTIONAL thing in a game system is pretty much an absolute requirement for munchkins to min/max/power-game the system...then the writers of the game need to look at
why and they need to be
extremely careful in if, when and how they add new ones. IMHO, or course.
Can Feats be used for "good" character creation? Absolutely! But that isn't the problem that me and my group have. Our problem with them is that they simply add stuff to the character (not change/modify/focus), and that a fighter who wants to be really good with the two handed sword, and another fighter who wants to be good with the two handed sword...well, if one takes GWM, the other one pretty much
has to take GWM. Otherwise, he will 'suck' compared to the fighter that took the feat. From then on, any and every fighter (or 'warrior type') who wants to be the front-line damage dealer type brute...
will always take GWM! To me, this is the exact
opposite of what the feats were trying to do...make each character more 'special' or 'unique'. It was to keep, for example, all fighters with two handed swords from looking exactly the same (mechanics wise, at least). There should have been, like, six "GWM" type feats...each with a slightly different take on using a two handed weapon, each with different 'bonuses'. Maybe one focuses on damage over accuracy, one on accuracy over damage, one on fighting multiple opponents at once, one with a nice averaging of damage and accuracy, etc. That way it's not just "one required feat if you want to do X". This leads me to...
I believe I said this in another thread (I think it was here on EnWorld). WotC dropped the ball...
again... with regards to Feats. They keep making the exact same mistake that 3e did: having feats just "add too" a character with nothing "subtracted from". There should be a trade off for ALL feats, IMHO (and no, "but you don't get the ASI" isn't quite the same thing...a good start, but not enough). Taking GWM will make you really good at damage dealing up front. However, there should have been a drawback... "
Because the character has trained almost exclusively with two handed weapons, they have -2 to hit and damage with all 1-handed weapons. They also have very little knowledge of missile weapon tactics and use, so suffer Disadvantage on to-hit rolls with missile weapons". Something like that. What you
can't do defines your character just as much as what he
can do...if not moreso.
Anyway, this is derailing the thread a bit I think. Splat books...don't much care for them if they focus on "primarily crunch for characters" and are just books with 'stuff' in them. That's fine once every three to five years (ala "Unearthed Arcana" for 1e, for example), but it's not something I want to see every six months. Theme-Focused books, IMHO, would be the best way to go to introduce "PC crunch" if they must, but smaller "very narrowly focused" books, like a "book of martial feats", "book of arcane feats" etc. would be fine too...makes them really easy for me and my group to just ignore. But making "book of martial characters" that contains new archtypes, equipment, feats, backgrounds, classes, rules, etc? This is the worst thing they could do for me and my group. We may want to use the archtypes and backgrounds, and maybe some of the equipment, and some of the rules...but all the pages of feats, classes, equipment we don't want, rules we will never use, etc, is all just wasted space and money. Which makes it FAR less for any of us to buy.
*sigh* I guess the old saying is holding up pretty well...
You can't please all of the people, all of the time!
^_^
Paul L. Ming