Feats with +1 ASIs would be the only way to increase ability scores if straight ASIs were not allowed.
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No ASIs, only feats
- Thread starter Mrodron
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Feats with +1 ASIs would be the only way to increase ability scores if straight ASIs were not allowed.
Are there any obvious examples of classes/builds that would suffer if ASIs were not allowed? I understand that there would still be "optimizing", but I would want to close the too obvious ASIs to STR 20 + GWM -combo.
not-so-newguy
Legend
Whether good, bad, or meh. Please post your experience with this. Sounds like an interesting twist.
I guess I'm going more by personal experience; I generally only take 1-2 feats. For example if I'm a sword-and-board paladin there are only a couple of useful feats. Shield master is fairly pointless IMHO if you follow JC's latest tweet. Mounted combat can be useful if enough of your encounters take place outside, otherwise it's not. You can shore up saving throws of course with resilience and if you don't mind finicky rules heavy armor master.
But I'd rather take 1, maybe 2 iconic feats that make sense rather than taking a bunch of feats that don't really add to my character. Particularly for my paladin character he can really benefit to a +2 to several different abilities.
If you really have a problem with feats like GWM, I'd go with a game without feats instead. But like I said, try it and see how it works. What works for me and my group may not work for yours.
Skyscraper
Adventurer
We have a no ASI's, only Feats rule. We like it.
The reason is that Feats are fun, while ASI's bring little to the game storywise. They are closer to a Feat tax that force players to increase ASI's instead of picking up something that grants nifty moves or defining powers, IMO anyway. Feats tend to mechanically and thematically define a PC. ASI's do very little towards that, in my humble opinion. Quite on the contrary, ASI's tend to make every character of a same class feel more similar:`indeed, I like that having 18 is rare and impressive. And having 20, completely exceptional. With ASI's, having 18 in a character's main stat is normal, and 20 should be achieved over time, by all characters. So, every PC is exceptional, which, conversely, means that none really is
If feats are an option to ASI's, it becomes a difficult decision, and it seems like a wise choice mathematically to select an ASI over a feat. So if you allow the option of feats, it's likely that you'll end up with ASI's being picked up anyway. By having a no ASI's/Feats only rule, you allow players to freely pick feats and have fun with them.
That said, it's not a big thing in the grand scheme of things. Feats, ASI's, they won't make or break a game. I'm just discussing a detail here, one for which I have a preference.
Peace,
Sky
p.s. We don't play games from level 1 to level 20. We usually stop before level 10. Which means, you pick few feats, really. Maybe, over the course of longer campaigns, you could allow ASI's for variety; if so, perhaps consider allowing them at fixed levels. E.g. level 8 and level 16 is an ASI, others are Feats only.
p.p.s We roll dice to determine ability scores, 3d6 six times in order, but roll 2 sets and pick one; and change one ability score of your choice to 12-15 (roll 1d4). So 18 is rare.
p.p.p.s.: items such as Gauntlets of Ogre Power are meaningful.
p.p.p.p.s. It's a question of flavor to me, more than a question of trying to obstruct a problematic feat.
The reason is that Feats are fun, while ASI's bring little to the game storywise. They are closer to a Feat tax that force players to increase ASI's instead of picking up something that grants nifty moves or defining powers, IMO anyway. Feats tend to mechanically and thematically define a PC. ASI's do very little towards that, in my humble opinion. Quite on the contrary, ASI's tend to make every character of a same class feel more similar:`indeed, I like that having 18 is rare and impressive. And having 20, completely exceptional. With ASI's, having 18 in a character's main stat is normal, and 20 should be achieved over time, by all characters. So, every PC is exceptional, which, conversely, means that none really is
If feats are an option to ASI's, it becomes a difficult decision, and it seems like a wise choice mathematically to select an ASI over a feat. So if you allow the option of feats, it's likely that you'll end up with ASI's being picked up anyway. By having a no ASI's/Feats only rule, you allow players to freely pick feats and have fun with them.
That said, it's not a big thing in the grand scheme of things. Feats, ASI's, they won't make or break a game. I'm just discussing a detail here, one for which I have a preference.
Peace,
Sky
p.s. We don't play games from level 1 to level 20. We usually stop before level 10. Which means, you pick few feats, really. Maybe, over the course of longer campaigns, you could allow ASI's for variety; if so, perhaps consider allowing them at fixed levels. E.g. level 8 and level 16 is an ASI, others are Feats only.
p.p.s We roll dice to determine ability scores, 3d6 six times in order, but roll 2 sets and pick one; and change one ability score of your choice to 12-15 (roll 1d4). So 18 is rare.
p.p.p.s.: items such as Gauntlets of Ogre Power are meaningful.
p.p.p.p.s. It's a question of flavor to me, more than a question of trying to obstruct a problematic feat.
Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
This is a funny sentence to me, since the vast majority of "balance" problems I've seen are due to multiclassing. Ban multiclassing, allow feats only with no ASIs, bask in the sudden variety of character development you see.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
One concern I have is strictly table based - what's your range of play. For example, most of the games I'm in use point buy, in seem to last until the 8-10 range. So for about half of play there are no feats (except variant human), half has a single ASI/feat, and a little bit with two ASI/feats.
With feats only, that means that except for the very end, a 17 that can be increased to an 18 with a half-feat is much more powerful than a 16. So lining up +2 racial mods and your class ability scores seems a lot more important, to the detriment of playing anything less than perfectly optimized in that regard.
With feats only, that means that except for the very end, a 17 that can be increased to an 18 with a half-feat is much more powerful than a 16. So lining up +2 racial mods and your class ability scores seems a lot more important, to the detriment of playing anything less than perfectly optimized in that regard.
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