A Guess About Feats...

[Scribble]

So I'm looking through my Book of Iron Might... And I noticed the Fighting Style feats.

You take one, and as you gain levels new powers open up.

It made me wonder something about 4e... They mentioned that "feat chains" wouldn't be relevant.

I wonder if instead of feat chains... various feats that rely on a previous feat will be rolled up into a single feat.

For example:

You select something like Mighty Attack... It basically consists of Power Attack at first level. At maybe 3rd level you gain Cleave. Then at 6th you gain Great cleave...

Just a thought and not really based on anything concrete.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Something similar to this has occurred to me. It may also apply to the way Wizards' spells work, or at least the way they silo.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

That's also similar to Iron Heroes, where after you buy the base feat you can select others in the chain. Which is an excellent approach. I would be happy to see something like that. (Though I wonder if it will eventually lead to griping about having to plan for a feat chain from L1.)

 

[Szatany]

I thought of it as well, but I'm thinking it might be connected to 3 tiers of play (1-10, 11-20, 21-30). So each feat would have 2 successors, each significantely more powerful than the last and available 10 levels later. (like Rage -> Frenzy -> Berserk)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

From what I gathered from a blog posts (many moons ago), they try to avoid the typical long feat chains. Feat Chain had some interesting things to them, but some feats became so difficult to get, that you really had to plan your character from level 1 to level 10 or more to be able to get it (and in some cases, you also had to hope that you find the right equipment)
If you wanted to use a new feat from a splat book, you basically had to create a new character at the appropriate level to get it...

More readily accessible feats make it easier to just play your character and pick up new things on the fly, if they suite your current style or desires.

I thought of it as well, but I'm thinking it might be connected to 3 tiers of play (1-10, 11-20, 21-30). So each feat would have 2 successors, each significantely more powerful than the last and available 10 levels later. (like Rage -> Frenzy -> Berserk)

Interesting idea.

 

[Li Shenron]

You take one, and as you gain levels new powers open up.

...

You select something like Mighty Attack... It basically consists of Power Attack at first level. At maybe 3rd level you gain Cleave. Then at 6th you gain Great cleave...

I don't think it's a good design idea for 4e. In the new edition you already get 1 new ability every level, if in addition to that each of those can potentially be things with multiple uses, the character may end up burdened in lots of options to remember. I don't think that is a target in 4e.

Maybe in 3e it would work, but still there is a high risk that such feats would be largely better than the core feats.

 

[jasonbostwick]

A major problem with feats in 3.5e was that lengthy feat chains were a necessity - requiring a weak feat prerequisite was the only way to balance out a feat that was more powerful than the baseline and would only be appropriate in higher level play (other than restrictive BAB requirements).

I think the introduction of the three tiers of adventuring might give them the chance to introduce multi-tiered feats - not in the way Szatany has proposed necessarily, but simply by restricting more powerful feats to Paragon and Epic characters, the way that Epic feats have a requirement in 3.5e.

 

[wedgeski]

I think the introduction of the three tiers of adventuring might give them the chance to introduce multi-tiered feats - not in the way Szatany has proposed necessarily, but simply by restricting more powerful feats to Paragon and Epic characters, the way that Epic feats have a requirement in 3.5e.

We'll see this notion infuse the game at every level, I'm sure. It'll make passing into both the Paragon and Epic tiers a major character milestone. I know I'll be designing my adventures such that the party has to overcome a major bad guy before they move between tiers (kinda like Luke Skywalker having to face Vader before he could become a Jedi).