D&D (2024) Will Feat Levels Limit Customization?

[Amrûnril]

The new Unearthed Arcana previews the idea of feat levels. With only level 1 feats presented so far, it's hard to know what this system will ultimately look like. I am worried, though, that this change will constrain character customization options. This seems most apparent at first level- while I'm sure there will be more level 1 feats than the 10 in the current playtest, it also seems clear that a character choosing a feat at first level will have significantly fewer options than a variant human or a Tasha's Cauldron custom race has now. It also seems like there will be a clear incentive to choose a feat with the highest available level, which will make combining feats that happen to fall in the same tier difficult. And since the majority of games don't reach high levels, players will rarely have the opportunity to use feats designated as 12th, 16th or 19th level.

Of course, how much this matters will depend a lot on execution. How many feats will be assigned to each tier? Is there some compensation if a higher level character chooses a lower level feat? Also importantly, we dont yet have a way to evaluate any benefits of leveled feats that may weigh against these constraints. I don't want to jump too firmly to conclusions, here, but I do think this is a concern worth keeping in mind as we learn more about the proposed system.

 

[Mistwell]

Yes, its a concern. If your PC is themed on being an archer, and the first archer feat is 8th level, you cannot use feats for the likely overwhelming majority of your adventuring career to reinforce your theme. Meanwhile, PCs who focus on aiding others (Musician) or going first (Alert), etc. will be able to pick feats which reinforce their theme from character creation.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Any limits limit customization (like Wizard spells being split into spell levels). However, this gating off hopefully allows room for scaling the later feats to be more powerful. So in the best outcome, you'd get fun flavor feats at early levels, and the power ones later. And it's a lot easier for players to glance at a dozen feats for their level, than the much bigger list of everything all at once.

However, martial effectiveness and Human appeal will be hit, as they won't have lv1 access to stuff like Great Weapon Master / Crossbow Expert. And if you still have to pick between raising your main stat OR picking one feat every 4th level, that's not going to feel great. Plus, we already see from the playtest that not even lv1 feats are created equal...

 

[Raith5]

Yes, unless they increase the numbers of feats. Increasing the numbers of feats may be the price to pay for reducing the power of feats and increasing their number.

 

[Shiroiken]

Yes, but it's by design. Some feats have proven themselves to be quite powerful, so limiting their use until higher levels would prevent them from unbalancing the early game. I suspect that most feats we know will simply be 4th level feats, as the only way the game allows a PC to get them before that is from 2 variant rules. Since people like feats, it's become a common houserule to grant a feat at level 1, but this creates balance issues. Granting feats that are limited in power at 1st level is a way to grant this desire without unbalancing the game.

 

[MarkB]

Bear in mind that having level limits for feats also opens some constraints. Feats which previously would never have made it past the drawing board due to being unbalancing at lower levels can now safely be designed and implemented.

Let's not pre-judge this until we've actually seen a more comprehensive feats playtest.

 

[Krachek]

For now, all character having a feat at first level ( and two for human) is a net boost in customization. Unless you already use Tasha Rules. If they manage to allow feats while having an ASI progression, that would be unmatchable with actual customization.

 

[Li Shenron]

If they go with tiered feats, they probably need to be careful about not having too many tiers. It'd be easy to make the association between the four character level tiers and and have four feats tiers, but if that means ending up with only 10 or so feats per tier, then you'd better prepare to see certain feats being taken by a disproportionate amount of PCs. Maybe just two tiers would be enough. Personally, I've already seen too many PCs with Alert and Lucky, and making either a 1st level feat is only going to make them even more popular.

Although personally I would ditch the idea of tiered feats completely. It was ok-ish to have feats with level requirement in 3rd edition when there were many hundreds of feats available from supplements. I don't think it would work well with 5e feats, each of which is supposed to be a bigger deal.

I am not convinced that the idea even gives more design space.

 

[Branduil]

For now, all character having a feat at first level ( and two for human) is a net boost in customization. Unless you already use Tasha Rules. If they manage to allow feats while having an ASI progression, that would be unmatchable with actual customization.

Yeah, if ASI is not dependent on forgoing feats, and if they've removed the must-have combat feats, we're going to see an explosion in customization, rather than a reduction.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I personally love levelled feats as it allows things which would just be too good for 1st level to be added later on.

The way I see it, is that gating certain feats to higher levels isn't limiting your character customisation. Because it's either they're locked to higher levels, or they're not in the game at all.

This is what we saw in the 5e playtest. Lots of cool feat trees and levelled feats which people complained about due to it limiting their customisation. So when 5e finally released, these cool options aren't available at level 1. They're simply removed from the game at all.