D&D General Subclass and Feat Path thoughts (+)

[CreamCloud0]

I hear you and I personally like feats based off of PB.

However, I want to slightly push back on the specific examples you gave. Magic Initiate can be scalable depending on what you pick. Many cantrips do scale with character level, which is exactly what we want.

i didn't mention the cantrips from MI as they're explicitly the one bit that does scale from that however...

As for the level 1 spell, it can be upcast. A Wizard taking MI (Cleric or Druid) could cure quite well via upcasting, which they would never be able to get otherwise as a pure Wizard.

Even for spells that don’t upscale, you could still increase your spellcasting power via slots from other classes. A Cleric or Bard taking Magic Initiate (Wizard) can have Shield for the rest of their career, and cast it plenty more than once per day, arguably the best non-upcastable 1st level spell in the game.

Finally, for Wizards, Magic Initiate has the quirk of letting you learn one extra 1st level spell per level, since the spell counts as prepared, therefore you can back it up to a spellbook, and on your next character level swap it for another, and rinse/repeat. The utility of that is not incredibly high, but just a nice little perk for the spellbook-wise players out there…

But those nitpicks aside, I still agree with the sentiment you bring up. Feats that scale can be better balanced across the span of the game, by avoiding being too weak in the end nor too strong in the beginning.

...none of this scaling is happening off anything the feat itself is providing as such, it's all piggybacking off from a class instead, it makes it sound like the feat scales but it's just latching onto something else, if MI actually scaled i'd expect something like, 'you have two 1/3rd caster pact slots that you can recover once per day on a short rest, you know PB number of cantrips, and know 1+[casting mod] spells of a level you can cast, you can swap 1 spell and 1 cantrip out at level up.'

 

[Minigiant]

i didn't mention the cantrips from MI as they're explicitly the one bit that does scale from that however...

...none of this scaling is happening off anything the feat itself is providing as such, it's all piggybacking off from a class instead, it makes it sound like the feat scales but it's just latching onto something else, if MI actually scaled i'd expect something like, 'you have two 1/3rd caster pact slots that you can recover once per day on a short rest, you know PB number of cantrips, and know 1+[casting mod] spells of a level you can cast, you can swap 1 spell and 1 cantrip out at level up.'

Exactly.

Currently, most feats scale by either latching on something that doesnt change with level (Aka choosing Shield with MI), applying proficiency bonus (Resilent Con or GWM). or giving something that already scale (cantrips)

Most feats are flat bonuses, giving situational advantage, or removal of situational disadvantage.

Many subclasses give scaling aspects. And the good one that just give flat bonuses give bigger bonuses or bonuses in the classes core loops.

See Frenzy vs Charger vs GWM. Frenzy has the highest reliable damage. GWM has a smaller reliable damage but higher potential if you can do the BA attack. Charger is weakest.