D&D 5E 18/7/2013 D&D Next Q&A: Feat Progression, Bonus Feats & Requirements

[Dausuul]

Hmm. Looks pretty good. I begin to think that maybe, just maybe, 5E will be the edition that redeems the feat mechanic. It's always had great potential and wretched execution, such that I became convinced WotC would never get it right and it was better just to get rid of it. But this is starting to look like something worth having in the game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I also can't say I care for the first of them not being available until level 4. If I want to play a character who is good at two-handed weaponry, I generally don't want to play three levels of not being good at it, then achieve sudden mastery.

Don't forget that Mike had said previously that levels 1-3 were an 'apprentice' tier, and that you don't become a full-fledged adventurer until level 4. So it makes sense that its only at level 4 that you move from a more general student of your class to selecting your theme/specialty/feat to identify the kind of adventurer you are (assuming the apprentice tier is still an idea in the game.)

 

[GX.Sigma]

Don't forget that Mike had said previously that levels 1-3 were an 'apprentice' tier, and that you don't become a full-fledged adventurer until level 4. So it makes sense that its only at level 4 that you move from a more general student of your class to selecting your theme/specialty/feat to identify the kind of adventurer you are (assuming the apprentice tier is still an idea in the game.)

Yep. Levels 1-3 are for new players (and are also convenient for old-school "you are not a special snowflake; you are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the earth" assumptions), and in either case, are supposed to go quickly with a minimum of complexity and choice.

This also goes some way towards solving the problems of starting hit points and multiclassing (since an experienced group of "heroic" players will be encouraged to start at level 4, so they start out with plenty of hit points and potentially multiple classes).

You may have noticed that I'm in favor of this idea.

 

[JamesonCourage]

It’s true that some classes get more ability score increases (and, thus, more opportunities to take feats) than others, but they all default to ability score increases.

Looks like I'll be dipping certain classes at certain levels. (I just means I hope they fix the uneven rate gain.)

Our design goals for the current iteration of feats, in addition to balancing them against ability score increases, include making it so that so that you need only one feat to be good at a certain thing.

Sounds good to me. But you start to lose me here:

When designing this feat, we asked ourselves the questions, “What am I looking for in a feat that rewards me for using a heavy weapon? What do I want as a player when I choose to use a heavy weapon?” Heavy weapons, with their higher damage dice, provide a visceral feeling of strength and power by dishing out high damage on the die. So, you probably want to deal more damage, or kill things faster, or kill more things

I've had many, many PCs in my games (whether I played them or not) that did not use heavy weapons but wanted to deal more damage, or kill things faster, or kill more things. I've seen this in archery, with shield fighters, with polearms, with rapiers, and occasionally even with daggers. If you want to make a "kill things faster" feat, I'm okay with that. That's good. Call it "Killer" and describe it as "you kill things faster" and there you go.

However, when you tie it to heavy weapons, you're tying killing things faster it to heavy weapons. I have a feeling they're not going to tie a "kill things faster" concept to archery based on their description of an archery feat. While I do get where they're coming from, I think that the designers need to fully be aware what they're doing. With this approach, they're basically saying that "heavy weapons will be the most effective at damaging and killing things." If they're okay with that, then proceed, I guess. But, if that's not their intent, I think they should decouple concepts like "kill things faster" from "heavy blades."

How many concepts can value "kill things faster"? Rogues with sneak attack? Two-weapon fighting? Archery, one-handed weapons (rapier), polearms, and shield fighting? Clerics, wizards, druids, and warlocks? Minions (animal companions and conjured servants)? There's a whole host of concepts that can value "kill things faster." If you want that to be an option, design a "kill things faster" feat, and then it'll be attractive to the heavy weapons guy, as well as anyone else who values it that has a different build.

But, if you only want the heavy weapons people to be the best at it, then make sure that's the case. Great Weapon Master still looked like it was pretty good for Rogues with their sneak attack, potentially with their extra action to help acquire advantage on each attack, since that makes the -5 on the attack a lot less painful. However, that also means that a Rogue that takes it might get some unwanted baggage (heavy weapons proficiencies).

Why not just avoid all of that and make a "kill stuff faster" feat that's attractive to those that want it? I'm not sure, honestly. As always, play what you like

 

[GX.Sigma]

Looks like I'll be dipping certain classes at certain levels. (I just means I hope they fix the uneven rate gain.)

No one gets ability score increases until level 4, so you'd have to take four levels of a class just for one feat (which you would get anyway from that many levels of your main class).

 

[JamesonCourage]

No one gets ability score increases until level 4, so you'd have to take four levels of a class just for one feat (which you would get anyway from that many levels of your main class).

Though some classes do gain bonuses faster than others. I'll be kind of surprised if multi-classing gets people stuck on level 1-3 stuff for 3 levels, too. But we'll see. Not enough information to go on, yet. Hopefully it's not too much of a problem, and hopefully they handle 3.X multi-classing well.

Though, you're right, requiring 4 levels of "dipping" can go a long way to stop the "grab more stat hops / feats from other classes" problem, if it is handled that way. I'm not sure it's ideal, but it's kind of a blunt force way of doing it. As always, play what you like

 

[UngeheuerLich]

misquoted

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The only part of this I dislike is that Rodney, who is supposedly an experienced game designer, is defending Power Attack as a well-designed mechanic.

Definitely better than the blanco +y to damage for -x to to -hit. where y is a function of x. At least with double damage you can do balancing. If you normally hit 50% of the time, the average damage aout put stays the same, if you use the feat or not, and it is a gamble. But since you give up +2 to strength, you should better already hit more than 50% of the time to make the feat a good choice.
For later level, when your chance to hit should be well above 50% the usefulness of the feat depends on also doubling your extra damage or not. Maybe balancing will make you only deal 1[w] more damage or make it an automatic crit (preventing power attack crits from being too devastating) or only doubling the number of [w] you throw, without also doubling static modifiers AND extra dice.
It is not as bad as it seems on first glance!
You should not look at it from a 3rd edition point of view, where your primary attack bonus goes up really fast and you will soon reach a point, where you will hit so well, that -5 looks like no penalty at all.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'm not at all happy that characters don't get a feat until level 4.

I'm also iffy on these "super" feats. They make it sound like there's one and only one feat for archery, for example. I hope that's not the case.

 

[Raith5]

I'm not at all happy that characters don't get a feat until level 4.

I'm also iffy on these "super" feats. They make it sound like there's one and only one feat for archery, for example. I hope that's not the case.

Agree on both counts - apprentice tier be damned! I think most players like to customise their PC from level 1.

I just cant help but feel that all archers/great weapon wielders etc are going to be exactly the same suddenly at 4th level. I am fine with feats having multiple effects - but I think they are piling too much game material into one feat here.