Bonus Feats as Treasure

[Rune]

I've always been notoriously stingy when handing out physical treasure, preferring boons and leveling items and the like. But, I want another option. So, I'm thinking of offering some bonus feats as treasure (for instance, an expert in light blades will take on a single apprentice to train them in light blade expertise in reward for some minor quest fulfilled).

Perhaps this would be a good way to get some of the lesser-chosen "social" feats into the game (like "Linguist"). Unlike a boon, these would be permanent enhancements to the character (but, possibly, could be retrained).

Has anyone done anything like this and, if so, are there any potential pitfalls I should look for?

 

[Stalker0]

The idea is perfectly fine, and is a nice way to balance out lesser treasure. My games have seen bonus feats here and there. I think the key thing is to use is sparingly.

Players shouldn't be getting hordes of new feats...but a few here or there can be quite nice.

 

[Zero Cochrane]

I've always been notoriously stingy when handing out physical treasure, preferring boons and leveling items and the like. But, I want another option. So, I'm thinking of offering some bonus feats as treasure (for instance, an expert in light blades will take on a single apprentice to train them in light blade expertise in reward for some minor quest fulfilled).

Perhaps this would be a good way to get some of the lesser-chosen "social" feats into the game (like "Linguist"). Unlike a boon, these would be permanent enhancements to the character (but, possibly, could be retrained).

Has anyone done anything like this and, if so, are there any potential pitfalls I should look for?

In third edition D&D, I went through elaborate calculations to figure how many XP a feat is worth: about 1000 XP.
In my campaign, I allowed players to purchase additional feats at this price, with the limitation that you could have no more than one purchased feat per character level. It seemed to work out fairly well.
Perhaps this would work as well in 4th edition, either as is, or as a gp value. The trick would be to figure out the gp value of a magic item whose effects are comparable to a feat.

 

[aco175]

I had several times in 3e given extra feats as bonus treasure of a sort. It worked fine, especially when I limited it to certain classes of feats like skill bonus feats that hardly ever get taken anyways. I think there was a hidden school where they party had taken a secret skill challenges and depending on how many points the party got depended on how 'powerful' a feat they got.

I mostly have things like magic pools and holy relics that boost a magic item up to the +1. I tend to have pc's keeping the same weapon or armor and just 'finding' newer versions of the same. This may be why I dislike the wish list magic item method, but have not found time to generate a random item list.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

That seems fine. I think it'd go especially well with survivability feats, too.

Brad

 

[the Jester]

As long as you don't give them out willy-nilly and don't give too many to one player compared to another, I think it's fine.