no more regional feats?

[delericho]

Right there with you. It shows that one area specialized in Thing A. The player has a home instead of just, "I grew up in the middle of nowhere after my parents died and I developed social skills from talking to the wolves. That's why I am multiclassing swashbuckler with aristocrat."

All too often, I found that players simply selected their region to fit their chosen class and/or race, without any interest in the region at all. In many ways, therefore, my objection to regional feats was the same as my objection to Elven subraces: I no more wanted "the Fighter-region", "the Wizard-region" and so on, any more than I wanted "the Fighter-elf", the "Wizard-elf", and the like.

 

[Li Shenron]

Regional feats were a great idea, but received an utterly awful implementation.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Never like regional feats either.

Better to just say characters from this region of the world are more likely to use weapons X, Y and Z and be skilled at doing A, B and C. And then have the player making their character incorporate those decisions if they desire too.

 

[dmccoy1693]

All too often, I found that players simply selected their region to fit their chosen class and/or race, without any interest in the region at all.

True, I've encountered that myself. But I blame that on munchkins, not on the regional feat. My current FR campaign is ending soon. Our next campaign will be in the Forgotten Realms, the Dalelands specificly. Where's my character going to be from? The Dalelands. I decided that first. Then I'll look at the regional feats and see if there are any I like. I'm more interested in the story, the adventure then in munchkining my character.

 

[delericho]

True, I've encountered that myself. But I blame that on munchkins, not on the regional feat.

Mostly, I agree. But a game will get the types of players it caters to. So, by providing Regional feats and making them better than the normal feats, they encourage munchkins in their activities.

And actually, the same might be true of D&D 3.5e as a whole - the extreme mechanical focus of the rules might perhaps be playing to the power-gamer segment of the player base. Which is, in itself, fine, but I'm starting to think a game that looks a lot more like BD&D (but with cleaned-up d20 mechanics) would be a very good thing.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

but I'm starting to think a game that looks a lot more like BD&D (but with cleaned-up d20 mechanics) would be a very good thing.

Too simple and dry?

 

[delericho]

Too simple and dry?

I had a lot of fun for about 18 months with BD&D, before I graduated to AD&D 2nd Edition. In hindsight, a lot of the 'improvements' that came with AD&D were nothing of the sort. Would a game in that style be fun again? Maybe, I don't know.

I do know, however, that I wouldn't want to simply go back to BD&D, as the various quirks in the rules would be too jarring for me. Things like races-as-classes, AC going down from 9, and different XP tables for different classes would quickly drive me away. For that reason, one possibility I am strongly considering if I don't go to 4e is to write my own system melding some of the BD&D sensibilities with cleaned-up d20 rules. (I think, though, that that may be another thread for another time. I'll stop hijacking this one now )