Wizards of the Coast uses in-house design documents to build game material for their books. I would like our community to recreate something similar that allows DMS, third party publishers and aspiring game designers to build better game mechanics on their own. So, this series of threads is going to cover each area of specific core mechnanics one at a time.
For this thread, lets cover feats and skills as a subject. What design guidelines (do's and don'ts) should a game designer follow with building balanced feats? How do you set requirements? When do you and don't you create a feat tree? Essentially I want to end up with a reference document that looks at all the tricky areas of feat creation. Things that are not obvious to the casual DM. Keep things streamlined, use lists and bullet points. Be brief in explanations. Avoid things that are obvious. I want something close to official as you can get it.
As for Skills, lets put together advice on how to set DCs, designing alternative skill uses and other game mechanic design considerations regarding skills. I have included skills along with feats as I don't see them requiring much work and they fit well in with feat design.
For this thread, lets cover feats and skills as a subject. What design guidelines (do's and don'ts) should a game designer follow with building balanced feats? How do you set requirements? When do you and don't you create a feat tree? Essentially I want to end up with a reference document that looks at all the tricky areas of feat creation. Things that are not obvious to the casual DM. Keep things streamlined, use lists and bullet points. Be brief in explanations. Avoid things that are obvious. I want something close to official as you can get it.
As for Skills, lets put together advice on how to set DCs, designing alternative skill uses and other game mechanic design considerations regarding skills. I have included skills along with feats as I don't see them requiring much work and they fit well in with feat design.
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