D&D (2024) Feats are going to happen

[Clint_L]

Grr rant rant. So they either listening to only what they want to hear, or just doing this to say, "Well we got good feedback."

I don't follow. They stated that feats have consistently been something most players have supported, and they were very highly rated in the OneD&D testing/polling thus far.

Feats are popular. Most players like having extra customization options. I'm not surprised at all that there is a lot of support for them. But every table is free to run the game the way they want, so if your table prefers to just stick with ASIs then that seems like a simple enough agreement to come to at session 0.

 

[shadowoflameth]

WotC is a business, so, naturally, they are going to publish the content that makes the most money. Popular content equals more people buy the book. They will limit the amount of content pages to a book that they can produce for a price gamers will pay. No business can please every customer. ever. Not Disneyland, not Pepsi, not WotC. Optional rules are specifically part of that model. People who want anchovies on their pizza can have it and those who don't aren't required to have them, but so many people want cheese that it comes standard on a pizza. These are the decisions that they make driven by their profits.

 

[Incenjucar]

The only real impact this can have is if they hard-code it into VTT or if you also don't want feats as class features. Otherwise it's a pencil-and-paper game, so you can skip it and just ease back the difficulty a bit.

 

[overgeeked]

from the AL Players Guide Version 13.
Background: You can create a custom background or use any available background as presented. If you choose a background that does not grant a feat, you may choose one of the following feats for your character: Skilled or Tough....
Since AL is the red haired step child of WOTC support. If they are adding free feats even before the third play test goes to survey, feats are going to be a thing.
Grr rant rant. So they either listening to only what they want to hear, or just doing this to say, "Well we got good feedback."

Yep. It's more of a marketing and PR campaign than a proper play test. There might, maybe be some specific details honestly up in the air but the majority is likely set in stone. Probably was before they announced the "play test".

 

[CleverNickName]

Yep. It's more of a marketing and PR campaign than a proper play test. There might, maybe be some specific details honestly up in the air but the majority is likely set in stone. Probably was before they announced the "play test".

(That's not a bad thing; marketing of a new product is important and they need to get it right. The playtest isn't the direct phone line to the Writer's Room that some folks want it to be, but it's not useless.)

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I thought WotC had said somewhere that they were only making the 1st level (background) feat[ure] be required?

[see Feats still optional in 1D&D: and other notes from the survey results]

I think they forgot the epic feat capstone.

 

[Horwath]

Skilled is still to weak compared to tough.

Either, buff up all 1st level feats to power level of proper "full" feat. Or make them all on power level of "half feats" so at 4th level you could take that feat with +1 ASI if you wanted to.

Skilled:
full feat: 4 skills
Half feat: 2 skills

Tough:
Full feat: +2 HP per level
half feat: +1 HP per level

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Yep. It's more of a marketing and PR campaign than a proper play test. There might, maybe be some specific details honestly up in the air but the majority is likely set in stone. Probably was before they announced the "play test".

We've already seen that's not true, look at the ardling and dragonborn.

What is more likely is that they have alternate contingacies in case something proves unpopular and a few things that have been tested before so they know already it's likely to be popular like background feats.

 

[Yaarel]

Skilled is still to weak compared to tough.

Either, buff up all 1st level feats to power level of proper "full" feat. Or make them all on power level of "half feats" so at 4th level you could take that feat with +1 ASI if you wanted to.

Skilled:
full feat: 4 skills
Half feat: 2 skills

Tough:
Full feat: +2 HP per level
half feat: +1 HP per level

I pay attention to how much a feat is worth.

Feat = 8 Proficiencies
Half-Feat = 4 Proficiencies

That said. Some Skills are better than other Skills.

Perception = 2 Proficiencies
The "good skills" (Arcana, Athletics, Persuasion, Stealth, Survival) = 1½ Proficencies
The "normal skills" (Animal Handling, Deception, History, Insight, Nature, Slight of Hand) = 1 Proficiency
The "meh skills" (Acrobatics, Intimidation, Medicine, Performance) = ½ Proficiency
The "worthless skills" (Language, Musical Instrument) = 0 Proficiency

The UA playtest handles Languages perfectly: Common + Background Language + Choice of Language.

Make Musical Instruments free with Performance. Performance might have one style per Proficiency Bonus, including Song, Dance, Acting, Painting, etcetera, and Musical Instrument. Beef up the Performance skill, such as when crafting an item, use Performance to determine its esthetic appeal to improve its gp value.

Merge Athletics-Acrobatics into the same skill. In other words, use Athletics for all physical stunts.

Use Medicine to make Poison, and other applications.



Because the Class and the Background will have already selected Perception and most good skills, a Half-Feat should grant at least 3, preferably 4 skills.



I assume some Tool Proficiencies are better than others, but I havent looked closely at them yet.



Those feats like Prodigy that grant Skill Expertise are powerful and solid.

 

[delericho]

It's been fairly obvious that this is happening for some time. So I'm not exactly surprised.

I'm much less sure about whether this is an improvement or not.