D&D 5E A static feat progression

[Jiggawatts]

Has anyone played with the idea of having a static feat progression decoupled from the ability score increases?

Something like you automatically gain a feat at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, and keeping the stat increases at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 (although personally I would prefer 20 for symmetries sake) without the option to trade it for a feat. Though if doing this I would probably bring it back down to a single +1 to a stat at each increase.

 

[Tormyr]

No I have not tried it. I kind of like the way it is set up in the PHB. While the Rogue that multiclassed to monk got extra cool stuff, it pushed off the ability score/feat until he reached a high enough level in rogue. Also, the fighter gets extras. I think these contribute to balanced in its unbalanccedness nature of the 5e classes. If the feat progression was static, you would lose some of that. Decoupling these and giving the PCs both feats and ability score increases my kill some of the balance. My 2cp

 

[DammitVictor]

I don't know, I think 1/4/8/12/16/20 is reasonable. Main reason I'm working on it is that I want to change the way ability score increases work.

Of course, this leaves me baffled what to do about Fighters, because there aren't enough feats for them to take and giving them that many feats would be potentially pretty broken.

 

[Li Shenron]

Has anyone played with the idea of having a static feat progression decoupled from the ability score increases?

Something like you automatically gain a feat at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, and keeping the stat increases at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 (although personally I would prefer 20 for symmetries sake) without the option to trade it for a feat. Though if doing this I would probably bring it back down to a single +1 to a stat at each increase.

There is no major problem in your idea. This is just how it works in 3e/PF.

Eventually the only practical issue is that 5e classes get score increases / feats at different rates and levels... So when you take those away, you have some "empty levels", while now you'll have other levels that are worth a lot since you gain the feat or stat increase on top of whatever level feature was already there. In addition, class balance is altered if you now give them all a fixed number of stat increases and feats: some classes are beefed up, others are toned down.

To avoid these two problems, you could consider these alternatives:

1- Keep the stat increases progression fixed by class as now, but only allow to take stat increases; add your feat progression in parallel for gaining feats

2- Keep the stat increases progression fixed by class as now, but only allow to take feats; add your stat increases progression in parallel for gaining stat increases

Or in either case, you could also allow both stats increases and feats in either the class-based or character-based progression.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

In theory, multiclass is balanced around the fact that you're going to lose on feats/ability score increases. If you feel like multiclass is not powerful enough, or would like to further encourage characters to go multiclass, I see no problem in doing that, but if you feel like multiclass is already in good shape without that, you're taking the risk of making single-classed characters worse than their multiclassed allies. I've not tinkered enough with the math of the system to give an opinion one way or the other, though.

 

[ppaladin123]

I was thinking about this too:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358117-Thought-experiment-feats-AND-ability-boosts

"Out of curiosity how do you think this would work:

At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th level, all classes get an ability score boost as normal (+1/+1 or +2 up to maximum of 20) AND they also get a feat.

At 6th and 14th levels fighters get a bonus feat but no ability score boost
at 10th rogues get a bonus feat but no ability score boost,

No feats give +1 to any ability scores (that part of the feat is stripped if present).

Humans get +2 to one ability of their choice, +1 to one ability of their choice, a bonus feat at level 1 and a bonus skill (the switch to +2 is to make up for all the +1 ability score feats a human could have previously utilized at level 1).

Would this totally break the game? What sorts of crazy things would you expect to see? Could you challenge PCs by simply upping the number of monsters? "
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