Ok what is a good feat my 7th level fighter with can take to be great at hiding no later than 8th level if he has invested zero points to date.
You claim I can do that, now tell me how!
This is a Strawman. We are discussing concepts in general and there are in fact lots of good feats.
But since you want to make this super narrow, if you are only interested in being a great hider at no later than 8th level, take 1 level of rogue. There's a good chance that or your main class has one of those as its preferred class. If it is, at 8th level you just invest your 9 skill points(8 for rogue and 1 for int) and with that 13 dex you said your guy has you have +10 to hide at 8th level which is darned good. If not, you wait two levels. Remember that I said 1-3 levels. At 9th level you take the feat to make rogue a preferred class.
Your 5e ranger, by the way, fails at being great at hiding. You have a 13 dex for +1. Even with proficiency and expertise, +7 isn't going to make you great at hiding. Good, sure. Great? No.
None of that change the fact, though, that you can pick up a TON of good story feats that are simply level gated somehow.
And I know I can't achieve even 5% of the concepts I can acheive in 5E in a .
That's because you've already admitted that you will kludge in something like ranger with its blatant nature association in place of something that is an accurate fit. For many of us, 80% of the way to the concept =/= meeting the concept.
You have already said on an earlier thread you pick a race that compliments your class, so you have already writeen off a bunch of concepts right there.
No. I said I saw it often. Not that I did it or that it happened every time. So no, I've written off exactly ZERO concepts.
EXACTLY! Can do that concept.... at least not well.
Can't do it well in 5e, either. Fighters don't get more than two skills no matter what you do. Others come from backgrounds, other classes, and/or feats, just like in 3e.
Also, fighter with skills isn't really a concept. Concepts are more formed than that.
So that is 5 points halved to invest in a cross-class skill, giving me actually 2 extra (and one left over). I take that feat, invest the 2 points, the 1 I get for being a fighter and I still suck at the skill for this level. Not I am mediocre, not I am below average. I still suck even after spending a feat on it.
You keep contradicting yourself. You say on one hand that you are willing to grow into the concept, and on the other hand that you need an immediate right now full concept the instant you level up. Which is it?
And by the way, the feat was to get you the hide ranks for a prestige class that has the abilities you are looking for. Take that feat and you have an immediate 4 ranks in hiding. Within 2 more levels you will have enough to get you into most prestige classes that need hide AND those prestige classes generally come with more skill points and hide as a class skill, so you will suddenly be very good.
Again, within 3 levels.
Ok I told you how long I think it would take, map out for me how to actually do it in 2 levels. I am a 7th level fighter without any points in the Shadowdancer prerequisites now, tell me how to get a level of Shadowdancer NLT than character level 11.
I've been ignoring you pushing Shadowdancer as THE requirement because it was moving the goalposts. You listed it as one possible outcome among many, so I will not entertain it as the only outcome you will accept. If you are close to it, then great! Otherwise go with one of the many other ways.
Please, you say I can do it in 1-3 levels now tell me how!
Never once said Shadowdancer in 1-3 levels with no requirements prior to leveling.
Screw that! This makes no sense at all. Gating in is exactly what the name implies - gatekeeping!
The entire game is gating. You are gated to one class and race at first level. You are gated from higher levels via exp. You are gated from many spells through the leveling process. Gating is everywhere. If you don't like gating, you are playing the wrong game.
Just let me take the feat when I want it. If I want to skip skill focus and take skill master I should be able to, I want to skip dodge and spring attack and take Whirlwind attack I should be able to.
Then you will simply have a bunch of weak feats to pick from, so you can avoid gating. Many of us, though, would like to have more powerful feats to use at higher levels and so we enjoy the gating that allows it.
There is no reason to chain feats or bar certain characters from certain feats.
Sure there is. You may not like the reasons, but reasons do in fact exist whether you like them or not. Now personally I don't like chains that are more than two feats long. Cleave to great cleave for example, but I'm okay with short chains.
Ok, give me some examples of good feats that are not chained and are the equivalent of chained feats in their respective group. For example a non-chained combat feat that is the equivalent of Greater Weapon Specialization.
Disguise Spell
Deft Strike
Deft Opportunist
Dive for Cover
Expert Tactician
Extraordinary Concentration
Extraordinary Spell Aim
The list goes on and on and on and on and on.
Heck, one of my favorites is Robilar's Gambit.
First off, I don't want to "grow into" something. I want to get it now. Second this is just factually false. If my 7th Level Wizard wants to take Whirlwind attack after spending a night in a Dervish camp she can't do it, and she can't "grow into it" in 1-3 levels.
If your wizard(or even a fighter) wants to take whirlwind attack after spending a night, or even a week in a dervish camp, you aren't trying to get it for story reasons.
No, we are talking about the number of options the rules support, and in 5E they support everything theoretically possible due to the fact that according to the rules, the rules themselves are mutable.
3e's rules were just as mutable, but they had 10 billion(and I'm almost surely underestimating) times the combination of classes, feats, skills and prestige classes(subclasses).
This is the logical fallacy with your earlier observation.
There was no fallacy. You just disagree for some very strange reason. You think that literally less than 1% of the combinations 3e grants = better ability to achieve concepts. 5e objectively cannot meet the same number of concepts that 3e can meet. Not without sacrificing on the concept like you do with your ranger example.
Well to start with, if it is my character I am building I would have decided what his or her intelligence was, and I will point out you are right now fencing my ability to build this off an average intelligence character concept.
In 5e you can do that. In 3e you roll your stats, which means the average roll will be 12.
Also, your 5 skill points you used a feat for still get halved to invest in cross-class skills.
8, not 5. 5 for feat and 3 more for class and int bonus for having the average int of 12.
Ok tell me how to do it in fewer, and just to be mean, let's assume I want to do this with my 8 intelligence Elf fighter.
I'm not going to assume less than average intelligence, which is 12 when rolling 4d6-L.
So it is "not right" to play a low intelligence fighterif I want to?
Sure, but then you don't get to complain if the story doesn't work out how you like. Your choices matter and are themselves part of the story. If your PC is too stupid to pick up what he needs during his journey through the plane of shadow, that is also the story.
Do you want to go as far as to say the 3.5E rules don't support this character concept?
They support every single concept I have been able to imagine. Changing your concept on a dime =/= 3e not being able to achieve the concept.
It doesn't seem like you actually want to change for story reasons. You can see this from your examples. I spent a night at a dervish camp, so I should be able to instantly whirlwind attack! I walked into the plane of shadow, so I should instantly be able to be a shadowdancer!!
You aren't making story changes. You are making power changes to your character and then trying to paste on a weak justification for your desired power change.
This is wrong.
