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

[iserith]

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.

Would you make them do that if they had the Inspiring Leader feat? Or would you just let the player say "I spend 10 minutes inspiring my companions, shoring up their resolve to fight..."?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Would you make them do that if they had the Inspiring Leader feat? Or would you just let the player say "I spend 10 minutes inspiring my companions, shoring up their resolve to fight..."?

No, the Inspiring Leader feat is a game mechanic that awards temp hp. Inspirations are for role playing.

 

[iserith]

No, the Inspiring Leader feat is a game mechanic that awards temp hp. Inspirations are for role playing.

I would say the Inspiring Leader feat is a mechanic that imparts temporary hit points by saying "I spend 10 minutes inspiring my companions, shoring up their resolve to fight..." or words to that effect. Which is the act of playing out a role by determining how the character thinks, acts, and talks and thus "roleplaying." To that end, a player saying "I make an inspiring speech to lift the spirits of my comrades before the looming battle..." is also roleplaying and if the character had a personality trait of "I am famous for giving inspiring speeches before battle," or something like that, it would be worth Inspiration in my game.

Thus, the incentive to engage in that sort of roleplaying which Hussar asserts is absent without the feat is actually there under the Inspiration rules.

You can of course, as DM, set forth specific criteria under which Inspiration is awarded ("Your DM will tell you how you can earn Inspiration in the game..." Basic Rules, page 35), but requiring a player to actually make a genuinely-inspiring speech would seem to me too limiting, especially since that's just a matter of how you communicate the act of roleplaying. It's also highly dependent upon impressing the DM and thus may only be inconsistently achieved which makes it less reliable.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is a roleplaying game, not a character making game

Well that’s a false dichotomy if I’ve ever heard one. Making characters is an essential part of a roleplaying 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.

That’s your opinion and you are welcome to it. Personally, I don’t think 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.

Absolutely. I’m no fan of the obsessive tinkering and build optimizing of 3e and Pathfinder, which is why I don’t play them. In those games, there are so many decision points, and your options at each of those decision points are so dependent on previous decisions, that you really have to make all of your decisions at character creation to be optimal anyway.

I believe 4e, while it has its own flaws that keep me from going back to it, stuck the right balance of character customization options. You had about one choice to make every level, none of the options depended on your previous choices, and all of the options had a small but not insignificant gameplay impact on the character and how it functioned. Every Fighter felt different than every other fighter because they all had different powers. 5e manages this with the arcane spellcasting classes, since they get to pick new spells every level. But the divine casters who just prepare from the full class list and the non-spellcasting characters don’t have nearly as much to make one play differently from another. Feats help bring some much-needed customizability to those classes, particularly fighter and rogue, since they get more than just one every four levels.

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).

If you’re not using Feats, then your first two ASIs aren’t actually decision points because there’s a “right” choice. Your first two ASIs go into your class’s primary ability score, or else you’re taking a trap option. With Feats, it can actually be a meaningful choice. Do you increase your Dexterity to 18, or do you take Sharpshooter? That is actually a meaningful decision.

 

[Satyrn]

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.

I think [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] kinda skewed the conversation the wrong way by focusing on any specific feat. Because you disagree with his analysis of this feat (and I do, too) it distracts from what his analysis was meant to illustrate. It winds up a poor illustration of his point.

Anyway, I find the stifling comes from feeling like the feat is required to an inspiring leader, and so I'm less inclined to do inspiring leader stuff without the feat.

But worse than that, as a DM in 3e, I've found myself ruling on how well a player's behaved based on the feats and features the player didn't have, and I felt like I was ripping them off.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I think [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] kinda skewed the conversation the wrong way by focusing on any specific feat. Because you disagree with his analysis of this feat (and I do, too) it distracts from what his analysis was meant to illustrate. It winds up a poor illustration of his point.

Anyway, I find the stifling comes from feeling like the feat is required to an inspiring leader, and so I'm less inclined to do inspiring leader stuff without the feat.

But worse than that, as a DM in 3e, I've found myself ruling on how well a player's behaved based on the feats and features the player didn't have, and I felt like I was ripping them off.

Depends on the Feat in question. Some feats grant powers or abilities you just cannot have without the feat. Those you just cannot duplicate without the feat. In 5E a perfect example if Mage Initiate. You cannot roleplay yourself into having a couple cantrips and a free 1st level spell.

Other feats though are basically expanded upon or auto-succeed skill checks.

One solution is to take every feat like the latter and attach an ability score and a skill to them. If you dont have this feat you attempt to copy with this skill, DC determined by DM and situation, if you do not even have proficiency in the skill then its an ability check at a DC again determined by the DM and situation.

Simple enough and does not require you to throw away the concept of feats.

 

[Satyrn]

Oh, here's an example of how feats might stifle creativity in a different way:

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.

In Paul's game, taking the feat apparently shortcuts the need to do anything in the game to be an inspiring leader, while someone without the feat would have to get very creative indeed!

 

[Yunru]

Oh, here's an example of how feats might stifle creativity in a different way:
In Paul's game, taking the feat apparently shortcuts the need to do anything in the game to be an inspiring leader, while someone without the feat would have to get very creative indeed!

And? All that means is that without it no-one plays an inspirational leader (unless they're a scriptwriter and narrator or something).

That's less creativity, not more.

Unless you're arguing that everyone who does something as a character has to be able to do it as a player. In which case... you must not get a lot of rogues, wizards, clerics, barbarians, fighters, monks, rangers, bards, druids, warlocks, sorcerers or paladins.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Would you make them do that if they had the Inspiring Leader feat? Or would you just let the player say "I spend 10 minutes inspiring my companions, shoring up their resolve to fight..."?

I do not have my characters Charisma nor his speech making skills. If you want to give inspiring speeches that rouse everyone around you then you take the feat. You do not get to give yourself a skill or talent just by writing it conveniently into your character background.

This is the perfect example of someone trying to min-max their character and grant themselves more than one character should have.

 

[Satyrn]

Depends on the Feat in question . . .

. . . Other feats though are basically expanded upon or auto-succeed skill checks . . .

. . . Simple enough and does not require you to throw away the concept of feats.

Absolutely. And that's the other way I think that mistwell skewed this conversation in the wrong direction right from the start. It's that category of feats that I think he's really talking about. It's certainly the category of feats I like least - luckily for me they're mostly in the Unearthed Arcanas.

I agree that the concept of feats doesn't need to be thrown away. I just want more like Magic Initiate and Martial Adept . . . and Inspiring Leader, and pretty much nothing from the Skill Feats UA.




I might be repeating myself here: I really don't like basically expanded upon or auto-succeed skill checks. They are the core "problem" to me because I feel like they constrain my ability as DM to rule as I see fit on whatever action the players choose - if a feat grants autosuccess or has a DC, I'm kinda forced into a choice bewteen two options:

1) make a player without the feat roll a check even if I think it should just succeed (or set the DC higher than the feat, even if I don't think it should be); or

2) invalidate the feat.


In the past, in 3e, I've chosen #1 too many times for my liking. I'm choosin #2 from now on (ideally, telling the players never to take those feats first!)