D&D 5E Feats: Do they stifle creativity and reduce options?

[Yunru]

I guess I would like to ask: What feats enable a character concept that doesn't exist if feats are disallowed?

1. Alert - No new conceptual design space. Player can already be play an alert character by having a good perception and a good initiative.
2. Athlete - No new conceptual design space. Player can already play an athletic character by having a high strength and high athletics.
3. Actor - No new conceptual design space. Player can become a good actor and attempt to mimic peoples speech by having a good performance skill and a high charisma.
4. Charger - This feat doesn't even try to add anything to character concept. It adds pure mechanical crunch pure and simple.
5. Crossbow Expert - No new conceptual design space. Can still play any character with a crossbow as his weapon (the feat makes it mechanically possible to do so and not suck)
6. Defensive Duelist - No new conceptual design space. Pure mechanical design space.
7. Dual Wielder - No new conceptual design space. A character can always hold two longswords and attack with whichever one he prefers (perhaps a magical one that does fire damage and a magical one that does ice damage). The feat does make it mechanically not suck to wield two such weapons compared to a Greatsword or a Longsword and shield.
8. Dungeon Delver - No new conceptual design space. The game without this feat already gives plenty of ways to be a good trap finder and handler which is all the feat attempts to enhance.
9. Durable - No new conceptual design space. Same concept is enabled by taking a high constitution.
10. Elemental Adept - This feat only adds things to the mechanical design space. Conceptually this feat can't add anything as it only allows a PC to bypass a mechanical rule.
11. Grappler - No new conceptual design space. You can make a good grappler with any character that has a few hand and a good athletics score.
12. Great Weapon Master - No new conceptual design space. In a featless game you can still make a character that uses two handed weapons. He can still use them well. In fact this feat actively takes away design space by being so good that anyone who now wants to be really good at using two handed weapons now needs this feat.

...

Anyways the point is that a featless game enables all the same character concepts. as a game with feats. Feats do allow existing rules to be bypassed that caused some character concepts to be sucky without actually having to fix the sucky rule in the first place. Example: A crossbow user and part of crossbow expertise that allows you to load more than once a turn. Feats also allow an extra layer and mechanism for a character to become decent at some task he may have struggled to be good at due to other tasks he has committed to being good at. This sounds like it should be a good thing, but it is not. The more resources you have to spend at something to be an expert at it the fewer things you have the opportunity to become an expert at or nearly an expert at. Further it creates the dilemma where the DM basically allows the expert to nearly auto succeed most every check or he ups the difficulty of the checks and anyone that isn't near expert level struggles to ever make the check. If an expert at something auto succeeds then you don't need to invest in whatever the expert is doing. If the expert is the only one with a legitimate chance of success then likewise you also don't need to invest in doing it.

Since selective list there, which you then use to make a sweeping statement.

Which also involves ignoring the fact that the majority of those that don't afd new conceptual space allowing you to confidently state "this is what my character does" rather than "this is what my character does DM/rolls permitting."

 

[Ancalagon]

Of the 15 things you listed, only 4 of them are made after character creation. 5 if you want to count replacing your starting equipment, but that’s not really a choice. You just use the best equipment available that you can afford. Even at character creation, it’s hardly a choice, as it’s almost entirely determined by Class and Background. Alignment, personality, and religious beliefs have absolutely no mechanical impact on gameplay. Skill selection only affect success probabilities and do nothing to impact how a character actually plays. Ability scores primarily affect success probabilities but do have some other game play impact. However, for the most part it’s not really a choice; there are mathematically superior and inferior options, which means most “options” are just traps. Background is just a package of Proficiencies, which again, only affect success probabilities.

So what we’re left with in terms of choices that actually affect how your character functions is race and subrace (really one decision made at character creation that ultimately has fairly minor gameplay impact), Class (made once at character creation), Subclass (made once either at character creation or at 2nd or 3rd level), fighting style, some Class-based choices like Maneuvers, and multi-classing. Essentially, the vast majority of character differentiation comes at first level and comes from Class. Once you’ve decided to be a dwarf fighter, and maybe chosen what weapons you want to use, most of your choices have either already been made, or are really just math problems pretending to be choices. If you want to make your character actually functionally different than any other dwarf fighter, you have a very small number of opportunities to make choices that will allow you to do so.

This is a roleplaying game, not a character making game

The amount of choice in character creation is significant, and even more so with other 3.X games (pathfinder, I'm looking at you. can't comment on 4.X). However, this number is insignificant compared to the number of choices you have to make *in* game. And that's how it should be.

For some people though, creating a character - especially a clever, highly optimized character with combos of characteristics that aren't always driven by roleplaying consideration but rather raw power (warlock-paladin would be an example) - becomes a mini-game, and in some case *THE* game. The only goal of the actual rpg-ing becomes "proving" that their character design is good, which can lead (not necessarily, but can) to problematic behavior in play.

It reminds me of photographers who obsessed about having the "best" camera and focus most of their attention on their gear, vs, you know, taking good photos (composition, *the eye*, using light, etc etc). And yes such people exist oto.

 

[5ekyu]

I would suggest that as far as "decision point" tallies go and needing more or fewer of them... Feats do not add more decision points. The add more options at already existing decision points (ASI).

Exception of course for fighters or others where they get ASI at more the the usual 4 8 12 etc.

 

[iserith]

Now, as far as making "inspiring speeches" adding nothing? I strongly disagree. The player can say whatever he or she wants, fine and dandy, but, without any mechanics to back it up, there is zero incentive to do so. Why bother? Because it gives you warm and fuzzies? Ok, fair enough, but, again, without any mechanics to back it up, that "inspiring leader" archetype, which is very common, isn't going to happen.

Inspiration is the mechanic to incentivize this sort of play. A player inclined to have his or her character give inspiring speeches to comrades is well-advised to write a personal characteristic along those lines and then fish for Inspiration by making inspiring speeches.

I find this mechanic is often overlooked and under-utilized by many DMs. Unlike feats, it is not specifically called out as an optional rule either.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Inspiration is the mechanic to incentivize this sort of play. A player inclined to have his or her character give inspiring speeches to comrades is well-advised to write a personal characteristic along those lines and then fish for Inspiration by making inspiring speeches.

I find this mechanic is often overlooked and under-utilized by many DMs. Unlike feats, it is not specifically called out as an optional rule either.

I agree. However a feat with tangible benefits allows a player who is not themselves comfortable with making inspiring speeches in play and hence not likely to earn Inspiration, able to play a heroic and inspiring PC and have their stirring speeches have some sort of game impact.

 

[iserith]

I agree. However a feat with tangible benefits allows a player who is not themselves comfortable with making inspiring speeches in play and hence not likely to earn Inspiration, able to play a heroic and inspiring PC and have their stirring speeches have some sort of game impact.

I have no strong feelings about the feat either way. I'm just saying that Inspiration already exists for incentivizing just this sort of thing - and it's not billed as optional rule. Though many DMs in my experience seem to treat it as such, even if they think the optional feats rules are a must-have.

I would also add that, much like the feat, there is nothing about Inspiration that requires a player to actually make an inspiring speech. He or she need only state the goal and approach e.g. "I make an inspiring speech to lift the spirits of my comrades before the looming battle." Though DMs vary on when they award it, typically, it's awarded when playing to personal characteristics. If one of the character's personal characteristics has something to do with making inspiring speeches, then stating the aforementioned goal and approach is sufficient to fish for Inspiration.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Inspiration" in the core rules is in no way connected to inspiring speeches. It's intended as a reward for roleplaying - in basic terms actually following through on all those traits and bonds that you are supposed to have written down on your character sheet.

 

[iserith]

"Inspiration" in the core rules is in no way connected to inspiring speeches. It's intended as a reward for roleplaying - in basic terms actually following through on all those traits and bonds that you are supposed to have written down on your character sheet.

Yep. So write "I am famous for giving inspiring speeches before battle" as the character's Personality Trait.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I utterly fail to see the point here. Take the feat and you are so good at it that you automatically succeed when attempting the feat related skill.

If you do not have the feat then you "might" pull off the action if you describe it well enough and make whatever related skill check the DM gives you.

Where is the stifling because I do not see it.

What I do kind of see is the potential for character to over optimize for specific situation and then attempt to "role play" there way around blatant character deficiencies. You know, the life of min-maxers and superior feeling "senior" gamers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yep. So write "I am famous for giving inspiring speeches before battle" as the character's Personality Trait.

Well, if a player did that in the game I DM, I would make them actually give the speech, and only reward them with inspiration if it was genuinely inspiring.