Planescape: Tale of the Clueless ~OOC

[Nalfeshnee]

Senmurvs are cool looking creatures, true

Re demons and devils: sounds like a good reason for me to use them


Ambrus: could you elaborate: you want to take the wing invocation at level 6, and want to take a dragon feat to let you have them before then?

 

[Ambrus]

That's right, sort of. The invocations allows you to fly around at your base movement speed with good manoeuverability for up to 24 hours (essentially all the time). Vor can take the feat now to gain a set of wings (which is what I've been describing him as having) but he can't really fly with them; just jump high and glide around for a bit. So if I had the feat, but then later took the invocation it'd effectively become redundant to have (jumping and gliding aren't of much importance when you can fly). So I was wondering if you'd let me take the feat then swap it out later when it becomes useless.

 

[Nalfeshnee]

id allow you to fly at twice your speed, though youd need to keep the feat (i hate slow fly speeds)

 

[Ambrus]

Would I have to keep the feat? What's wrong with slow flight speeds?

 

[Nalfeshnee]

im not a big fan (just a personal thing, it seems too slow to be right for non supernatural flight). Though im not very keen on dropping feats when they are no longer useful, it means making choices for a character are not as importat

 

[Ambrus]

I agree with you about dropping feats, though in another sense I think it's kind of silly to unfairly penalize characters who are willing to sacrifice something early on for a payoff later. What I mean is, there are some prestige classes that grant certain bonus feats because they clearly jive with a the theme of the class. Unfortunately, a character who bought the feat earlier in his career (and who was even then displaying an aptitude which properly foreshadowed his motivation for later taking levels in the class) is later screwed because he essentially looses a feat later on when he gets it again as a bonus.

To me, it seems that a character who starts with an ability (by spending a feat for example) should be better off than his peer who suddenly develops the ability later on in his career. Instead the first guy gets penalized because his peer instead diversified and learned something different instead. I think it should be in the RAW that someone who gains a redundant feat or special ability should, if at all applicable, be allowed to swap out his original feat or special ability for a different one. But that's just a personal beef of mine.

 

[Nalfeshnee]

fair enough: but the reason he'd be better is beacuse he took the feat - once he gains the ability from another source and the feat becomes useless its unfair on the other guy for you to change it withsomething else. If you understand what i mean.

Could you give me a better description of the abilities?

 

[Ambrus]

I'm afraid I don't see what you mean. How is having one less feat than the other guy unfair to him, or rather how is it unfair to have the same number of feats?

Which abilities do you mean?

 

[Nalfeshnee]

the way i see it you replace the redundant feat with a new, useful one which is better (im not wuite sure if were understanding each other properly )

 

[Ambrus]

I'm afraid I still don't understand what you mean.

Two character have roughly the same classes, both enter a prestige class and both get a bonus feat at the same time. The character who had the feat beforehand looses out while the other guy, who never had that skill at all, gets a new nifty ability. My point is, if one guy gets a bonus feat, why shouldn't the first guy, who's had that feat all along, instead develop a new ability?

It's as if the system tries to penalize characters for practicing an ability earlier in their careers. Since they have no need to develop a feat that they already have, shouldn't they be able to either improve upon what they already know or instead try to learn something altogether new? The other character, who's never practiced that ability ahead of time, suddenly achieves the same level of proficiency and has the benefit of some other feat he learnt instead.