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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5899279" data-attributes="member: 58197">Upon reading this, I knew there was something that felt wrong about it, but it took me a while to figure it out.Here's the problem: The D&amp;DN design team is thinking about a feat as something that gives you +X to Y. This is exactly what was wrong with feats in 3E and 4E, why a potentially awesome mechanic degenerated into a lot of +1 to this and +2 to that.Feats should give you new options, or boost sub-optimal options to be on par with the rest. This is still a power boost, of course, but a very limited one because it doesn't stack--you can only use one feat at a time. Once you start thinking of feats that way, you can quit worrying about which pillar they support. A fighter with half a dozen combat feats will be a more versatile combatant than a fighter with none, but the fighter with none can still fall back on &quot;I hit it with my sword&quot; and make a solid contribution. She's just as accurate and hits just as hard. Meanwhile, she's got half a dozen exploration or roleplaying feats to give her more options in those arenas.The bane of the feat system is the Expertise feat: A feat that gives you +1 to hit, or to damage, or to your save DCs, or whatever. It's bland and boring and flavorless. It adds nothing to your character concept. It doesn't give you cool new things to do. But it's the feat everybody ends up taking, because when you pile a bunch of Expertise feats together, you're so much better at what you do than the PC who took cool and interesting feats.Any feat whose function is &quot;You get +X to Y,&quot; where Y is something you'd be doing anyway, needs to die in a fire. Problem solved.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5899279, member: 58197"] Upon reading this, I knew there was something that felt wrong about it, but it took me a while to figure it out. Here's the problem: [I]The D&DN design team is thinking about a feat as something that gives you +X to Y.[/I] This is exactly what was wrong with feats in 3E and 4E, why a potentially awesome mechanic degenerated into a lot of +1 to this and +2 to that. Feats should give you new options, or boost sub-optimal options to be on par with the rest. This is still a power boost, of course, but a very limited one because it doesn't stack--you can only use one feat at a time. Once you start thinking of feats that way, you can quit worrying about which pillar they support. A fighter with half a dozen combat feats will be a more versatile combatant than a fighter with none, but the fighter with none can still fall back on "I hit it with my sword" and make a solid contribution. She's just as accurate and hits just as hard. Meanwhile, she's got half a dozen exploration or roleplaying feats to give her more options in [I]those[/I] arenas. The bane of the feat system is the Expertise feat: A feat that gives you +1 to hit, or to damage, or to your save DCs, or whatever. It's bland and boring and flavorless. It adds nothing to your character concept. It doesn't give you cool new things to do. But it's the feat everybody ends up taking, because when you pile a bunch of Expertise feats together, you're so much better at what you do than the PC who took cool and interesting feats. Any feat whose function is "You get +X to Y," where Y is something you'd be doing anyway, needs to die in a fire. Problem solved. [/QUOTE]

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