[and 4th] Feats: What do you use them for?

[domino]

This question came up when I leveled up recently. I'm playing an Essentials game, but it applies to any game with feats, really.

I was torn between two options, one that gave me +2 to Nature, Perception, and Initiative, and the other one which was practically blindsight (with +2 perception). I wound up picking the blindsight one, because it is something I can't really otherwise do.

So, what about you? Do you look to use feats to make what you can already do better? Do you look to broaden your skill set? Do you get feats that open up entirely new options that were unavailable to you? Do you focus on one specific thing, and then whatever enhances that is your choice?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I use feats to make my PC more like the idealized version of him or her floating in my head. That can mean making him better at doing something he already does, or it can mean broadening his overall capabilities. Example: my 4Ed Starlock is multiclassed into Psion. His next feat will either be Hidden Sniper or Sacrifice to Caiphon. There are Psionic feats on his list as well. OTOH, I'm strongly considering Dwarven Weapon Training and Melee Training, because even though he is quite unusual for a dwarf, he is also somewhat of a traditionalist.

Rarely, I use them to help fill in capabilities for the party.

 

[Croesus]

I can't speak to 4E, but in 3.x, being very good at one or two things is far better than being semi-good at a lot of things. Therefore, I usually use feats to improve strengths, rather than cover weaknesses or add new abilities. There are exceptions, of course, but that's my general rule.

 

[Celebrim]

I can't speak to 4E, but in 3.x, being very good at one or two things is far better than being semi-good at a lot of things.

This is an adventure/campaign design issue. It's generally true of most games that being a 'one trick pony' ('johnny one-shot') is better than being broadly skilled ('jack of all trades, master of none'), but the utility of that route is called into question if the adventure design puts you in situations where an apparantly secondary skill is essential to success. Your 'one trick' better be one that is applicable in every situation. Usually in 3.x, the 'one trick' was applicable in every combat situation, but outside of a tournament/open dungeon crawl adventures, you may not be able to solve every problem by hitting it with a bigger stick.

For my games, I encourage 'jack of all trades, master of one' in that in my gaming, I found more success as a PC by always asking the question, "What can the DM do to kill me?" and plugging that hole, rather than by trying only to get better at my primary combat skill. (I've been playing some nostalgia nethack lately, and I'm struck by how much this is true of Nethack. You may get a long ways with Greyswandir and Gauntlets of Power, but its your weaknesses that will kill you. Then again, if you can't deal a one shot kill to most foes, you probably won't get far either.) As a DM, I try to follow suit, so you can be sure that you'll have to deal with squeezing in tight spaces, balancing on ledges, swimming, survival challenges, diplomacy challanges, evasion, chases, etc.

Traditionally in D&D, plugging holes has meant 'magic items' and not feats or skills, but if a feat or skill can cover for a magic item to at least some extent, then that's a pretty good choice.

 

[Croesus]

This is an adventure/campaign design issue.

I would suggest it's both an adventure design issue and an issue of the rules.

Example: For most skills, unless you can Take 20, having lots of skill levels in a few skills is far more useful than having a few skill levels in many. In the latter case, you'll generally fail more often than not. For many skills, like Tumble, Disable Device, Survival, Use Magic Device, the various Knowledges, a few points is usually useless.

Example: Which character is more useful - a 10th level wizard, or a 5th level bard/5th level wizard? Each character has options that the other doesn't. But are the options gained by five levels of bard (or pick a class) more useful - in or out of combat - than having 4th and 5th level spells?

Example: Which character is more useful - a 10th level fighter, or a 5th level fighter/5th level bard? Ok, I give you that one - for a campaign that's not mostly combat, the ftr/bard is a good choice.

I agree that a GM can design a campaign to minimize the need to specialize, but it does take conscious effort to do so when the rules tend to reward the opposite.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, naw, anything in 3e that mixes in a bard is bad. (j/k)