D&D 5E 5th edition design notes: Feats

[mkill]

@Zephyr: Let me come back to the two schools of creating a character. Imagine two players come up with a character called "Superman".

One opens the rulebook, he starts with the "from Krypton" racial template and combines it with the "Invincible Laserguy" class. He then selects his suggested superpowers and skills, and then writes a bit of backstory.

The other player starts with "he's from a destroyed alien planet, he can fly, he's invincible, he can shoot lasers" and then opens the rulebooks and checks whatever fits this best.

D&D, with its class-based system, is leaning very far into the first approach. Point-based character creation systems (Gurps etc.) lean very far towards the second approach.

Now, I don't want D&D to completely forget its roots and become point-based. That's way to far. What I want it to do is give me a very flexible toolbox of feats, like lego-bricks, that I can fit to my character as I like, without locking me into assumptions like "flails are for the Marauder style ranger".

I don't want a game that has a dozen feats that all do the same, such as allow me to crit on a roll of 19-20. It was one feat in 3rd edition, why was it split up? And why can't my Swordmage get this feat for swords? A frickin' Epic level swordmage is one of the best swordsmen of the planet, he doesn't need Str 21 and Dex 17 to prove it. And if you don't slap pigeonholed ability score requirements on the feat in the first place, you don't need to fix the gap later with yet another feat (!) in Dragon 387.

Just let me add that feat to any character I want and let me figure out how to integrate it into the description of his combat style.

Quoting Chuck Palahniuk doesn't make you correct.

Oh, yes it does.

 

[mkill]

I think that restrictions on feats should be purely limited to "is this feat actually useable by whomever wants to take it"? Stat requirements? Right out. Race requirements? Unless the feat requires a racial ability (like our friend draconic challenge requires dragon breath) then I don't want to see a race-specific tag on it. Same goes for classes (I believe that divine sanction is a class-specific ability, and if it's not, it should be). If a feat lets you deal extra damage to a foe that you've marked, I don't want to see a requirement that makes it fighter only. If a feat gives you low light vision, I don't want it to be restricted to human rangers.

Yes, yes, and yes. Mr. Mearls, if you read this, listen to this man. Print his post out and pin it to your cubicle wall.

Now my personal view is that static bonus feats are just boring, and shouldn't exist.

Now, that is a bigger issue. Let's imagine we throw out all feats that give a static bonus. I don't think you realize how huge the impact of feats that just give a static bonus is. You'd basically have to redesign the game maths, because the game assumes that at a certain level, you have a bonus to to hit, to damage, to AC, to NADs... And if you think about it, even a "flavor" feat like skill training isn't much more than +5 to one skill.

Frankly, I don't think static bonus feats are evil. They're just part of the game. Some people, me included, even like feats that are simple and plainforward. If you take Weapon Focus, you add the bonus to all damage and you're done.

If I'm level 30, and I have 16 feats, I don't want to have 16 fiddly bits on my character sheet that need attention. 4th edition already has a subsystem of situational stuff, the powers. Feats can be plain and boring, I don't want them to steal the spotlight of powers.

Now, I understand that even though I like plain and simple feats, other people don't. To be clear: I call my feats basic feats because there will be other, advanced feats. These can be situational and specialized and flavorful. But if I'm DM and a more casual player asks me "hey, I leveled up, I need a feat", I can say "well, you said you want Brogar to hit harder, so why don't you take the one here that says 'Extra Damage'". I don't even have to look at his character details, because these feats are designed to "just work".

 

[ZephyrTR]

I agree Feats shouldn't be Powers. It should do something for you that is usually helpful in a passive way, and I think, Mkill, you'd agree. I'd go so far as to say feats (or at least 90% of them) shouldn't specifically modify or require certain class features. It's also true the game's math assumes you take a few '+1 blablabla' feats. We can't get rid of those without applying similar bonuses somewhere else.

Personally I don't like feats that require, as you suggested, 21 STR and 17 DEX. That's too much. The most my feats ever ask for is 17 in one stat, and I don't think that's too much. It's a good way to get fighters to not just think "Swing harder, more strength" or wizards to say "bigger spells, more int" -- but you're absolutely right some of the feat restrictions get outta control.

I'm very much agreeing with the philosophy behind what you're trying to do! I just think you're outwardly throwing out ideas that may only need to be scaled back a bit instead.

 

[NotAYakk]

Feats do more than just add to numerical bonuses. As you gain levels, they start creating "optional class features" (some of which are less optional than others).

I cannot help but think that "optional class features" is a good way to go about it.

Feat attribute requirements should exist for two reasons. First, they should act as a filter (if you don't have con of 15 or higher, you probably don't want the feat that grants con-to-damage). This helps with the character builder.

Second, it should boost otherwise sub-optimal choices. A str/con barbarian needs help with his AC if he doesn't go heavy armor. Having a feat that gives the str/con barbarian a gimped defence boost in hide armor is a good thing.

Another more abstract use of feats is to provide another source of power to characters. You can imagine a system that models 4e combat in which you want a given character to, over 6 rounds, using encounter and at-will powers, be able to deal Y damage to an even-level opponent.

Given that requirement, you could imagine splitting up the responsibility for this damage over the character's powers, the characters feats, the character's class features, the characters "organic growth" from levels, and the character's items.

To be more precise, one might want to split up the power gain over a given set of levels over those categories. Ie, imagine comparing a level 15 to a level 25 character. X% of the power increase comes from the power upgrades, Y% comes from the item upgrades, Z% comes from the feat upgrades and new feats, W% comes from "organic growth", V% comes from new class/epic/paragon features.

---

The mixture of the "an optional class feature" and "a source of power" is starting to develop in 4e. The new will boosting feat, for example:
+2 feat bonus to will, increasing to +3 at paragon and +4 at epic (power).
You can save against dazed (and a few other) effects at the start of your turn, even if it normally doesn't require a save (class-feature esque).
Finally, it requires 15 charisma and will (boosting a sub-optimal choice of having two high attributes in the same defence).

Now, this approach might not work, but it seems like an interesting one.

 

[Oldtimer]

Finally, it requires 15 charisma and will (boosting a sub-optimal choice of having two high attributes in the same defence).

No, it's 15 Charisma or 15 Wisdom.

 

[eamon]

+X attack/damage/defense feats I'd sooner be rid of. Give it to everyone, or no one. Build attack/damage/defenses into the system. Otherwise, you're just messing up your own system of expectations.

There's two different type of static bonus feats. There are those that make a night-and-day difference and are essentially required - i.e. expertise and other similar feat bonuses to attack. These are Not Good, clearly. However, there are also feats such as Weapon Focus that don't clearly overshadow other choices.

While there are certainly some feats that are overly fiddly, I think that most of your feat ideas (and the general premise of what makes a good feat) are bad ideas as they're purely mechanical and I don't think there's any need to have that.

I'd much rather there were _no_ feats like that.

'Gimme a +1' feats are real boring though.

I think a variation in complexity is a good thing. I help some of my friends build PC's - particularly those that aren't that interested in detailed tactics. It's not that easy to come up with builds that work; and those that do depend on things like Weapon Focus - things that always work and don't depend on weird combo's or situations that require complex tactical interaction between party members or set-ups to satisfy various conditional bonuses.

I think conditional bonuses should be kept to a minimum. There's really too many of them anyhow; and powers impose too many short-term variations anyhow - feats don't need to add to that. If he's bloodied... if I'm bloodied... With combat advantage... if ally is adjacent... if enemy is not adjacent... If I hit last turn... If I was hit last turn... If I marked the enemy... If I cursed an enemy... If I am marked... etc. It's too much. And though I understand how it happened to evolve for balance reasons, feats that add their bonuses on only the first attack in a round or some such thing are just terrible - anything I can precompute on my character sheet is one less hassle during the game.

Basically, this:

Frankly, I don't think static bonus feats are evil. They're just part of the game. Some people, me included, even like feats that are simple and plainforward. If you take Weapon Focus, you add the bonus to all damage and you're done.

If I'm level 30, and I have 16 feats, I don't want to have 16 fiddly bits on my character sheet that need attention. 4th edition already has a subsystem of situational stuff, the powers. Feats can be plain and boring, I don't want them to steal the spotlight of powers.

Another good feature of static feats is that they impose a certainly baseline usefulness. Weapon Focus is a great example of that.

 

[eamon]

Getting a new encounter, daily, or utility power as a feat is awesome. One of my current favorite feats is Skill Power. Various multiclass feats fall in this category.

When you do X, you can also do Y feats should be the meat and potatoes of feats. This is what will differentiate builds of the same class from each other. You can have a guardian fighter with a series of shield related feats that push and prone enemies, while defending allies with intercepts and turtling. You can also have a guardian fighter with a series of flail related feats that slide, immobilize, restrain enemies, and give them attack penalties. This is what feats should be for.

This is essential. Basic feats that add simple bonuses always are a great baseline - something the PHB1 should have had. Feats that take existing things and improve them are slightly more complex and would be a great second-tier form of complexity. They don't have the fiddlyness of conditional bonuses, yet neither are they the boring flavorless things static bonuses tend to be. Shield Push, for example, is a perfect example of such a feat - great, and not fiddly at all.

 

[eamon]

I think that restrictions on feats should be purely limited to "is this feat actually useable by whomever wants to take it"? Stat requirements? Right out. Race requirements? Unless the feat requires a racial ability (like our friend draconic challenge requires dragon breath) then I don't want to see a race-specific tag on it. Same goes for classes (I believe that divine sanction is a class-specific ability, and if it's not, it should be). If a feat lets you deal extra damage to a foe that you've marked, I don't want to see a requirement that makes it fighter only. If a feat gives you low light vision, I don't want it to be restricted to human rangers. I don't want to see feat chains either.

I'd love to see pointless prerequisites out, and less overlap in general. Fewer game-elements means that those that do exist can be much more fleshed out; various possible fluff's could really be written well rather that the almost pointless bits of flavor text that now sometimes accompany mechanics.

A similar step I'd love to see is far fewer powers in general, and having classes share powers - basically as in previous editions spellcasters did; except without the choice paralysis - rather than include all arcane powers (basically the 3.5 sorc/wizard) make a selection which includes only interesting powers - which may depend on the class, naturally. One big list of powers; but each class gets to choose only a few each level as now. Where possible, rather than effectively rewriting very similar powers at higher levels with higher [W]'s and a few extra's, include that in the power (ala at-will's or psionics), or, alternatively, make that possible through feats or class features. The power retraining mechanic is essentially screaming for that as is now anyhow - if you're retraining a low level encounter power for a high level encounter power that's a bit stronger and has a better effect - isn't that essentially just augmenting an existing power?

We don't need 10 different close burst 1 weapon sweeps. We don't need 10 different area burst 1 damaging powers+minor effect.

Most powers have become bland because they don't really have any distinguishing features; that's a shame.

 

[keterys]

However, there are also feats such as Weapon Focus that don't clearly overshadow other choices.

Sure they do. Weapon Focus is one of the least powerful of this type of feat and it still skews implement users heavily towards weapliments and at higher levels reduces weapon variety (ie, you won't see the ranger using both an axe and a hammer, or people just swapping the weapon they use when they find something nicer).

There's nothing really good about it that couldn't as easily have been accomplished if it didn't scale or just provided a flat bonus to all attacks instead of all attacks using a particular weapon.

You can also do conditional bonuses that are easy to understand and track. For example, Backstabber raises damage without ever being confusing. A feat that gave +1/tier damage bonus with Area attacks would certainly be easy to track. Even if you want something to "Focus" on a weapon, you can get all of the following for hammers to show specialization without inflation: Increase push distance by 1, deal stat damage when you miss, Rattling on melee basics.

 

[eamon]

Sure they do. Weapon Focus is one of the least powerful of this type of feat and it still skews implement users heavily towards weapliments and at higher levels reduces weapon variety (ie, you won't see the ranger using both an axe and a hammer, or people just swapping the weapon they use when they find something nicer).

I.e. it's a real choice - which is fine. The lack of equivalent for implement users is tricky. Over-specialization by feats and powers is definitely a problem, but that's another matter entirely - were weapon focus more general, that wouldn't really change the balance argument. And if you find a weapon with a higher bonus, then in heroic and paragon tier it's almost certainly worth giving up weapon focus for +1 to hit and damage, and probably worth it in epic too - but obviously overspecialization is due to multiple other factors as well. In any case: this is a different problem (and has been discussed in a different thread). I'm saying that in terms of power level it's a simple feat that doesn't require any extra tracking in game and yet is still balanced - not that overspecialization doesn't matter.

You can also do conditional bonuses that are easy to understand and track. For example, Backstabber raises damage without ever being confusing. A feat that gave +1/tier damage bonus with Area attacks would certainly be easy to track. Even if you want something to "Focus" on a weapon, you can get all of the following for hammers to show specialization without inflation: Increase push distance by 1, deal stat damage when you miss, Rattling on melee basics.

I wouldn't call backstabber a conditional bonus - it always applies to all sneak attacks. It's this kind of feat I mean when I said "Feats that take existing things and improve them are slightly more complex and would be a great second-tier form of complexity. They don't have the fiddlyness of conditional bonuses, yet neither are they the boring flavorless things static bonuses tend to be."

Stuff like Nimble Blade and Backstabber don't so much add extra conditions as take existing stuff and make it better - no extra tracking, so that's fine. Lasting Frost is an example of a feat which is dubious (need to track the vulnerability). Or Marked Scourge (only 1/round - resource tracking). Most of these kind of feats happen to also be quite weak too (not Lasting Frost/Marked Scourge, of course), which makes it even worse - tons of feats to wade through which are essentially traps.