Tessarael, can you please provide a link to SKR's feat pricing proposal? I poked around a bit on his site and couldn't find whatever you're referring to.
To answer your question, realize that I enjoy D&D because it offers both combat & non-combat (roleplaying) opportunities. I enjoy both combats and a lot of the roleplaying situations and try to keep a good balance between the two at my table when I DM, but I feel D&D is combat-oriented and that's the way I enjoy playing it. If I wanted solely a roleplaying experience with essentially no combat I'd go play a LARP.
If I wanted a primarily roleplaying game I'd probably go with another system entirely to take the focus away from the tactical combats, minis & the battlegrid.
Now, having said that, I do not feel that all Feats are equal. Those that have a primary non-combat effect, at least in my games, are just not "worth" as much as a combat feat. As an example, you will never get as much mileage out of Negotiator [+2 on Diplomacy & Sense Motive checks] in my game as you would out of Lightning Reflexes [+2 on Reflex saves] even though both have no prerequisites and are available to any PC at 1st level. Under Core those feats have the same opportunity cost (1 feat slot), even though they don't offer the same benefit.
As I was saying up above to
ouini, most skill affecting Feats to me are non-combat. I can see some arguable points (Tumble & Concentration being the biggest, but also Bluff, Intimidate & Sense Motive) but across the board skills are largely used outside of combat (except for the uncommon "make a balance check while fighting on that slippery ice" scenario).
Spells offer both non-combat & combat utility, and because of that all metamagic feats I've classified as Combat Feats. While it's useful to use something like Still & Silent Spell to cast a spell during the king's coronation ceremony, overall metamagic feats find greater usage in my games in combat. Natural spell is a prime example of that: casting a spell to put the archer/guard to sleep so you can slip by while you're a gold finch is pretty cool, but being able to casting Call Lightning while in bear form has a larger impact in most situations.
Magic Item creation feats, OTOH, are entirely non-combat, and therefore General feats.
While there are certainly exceptions to these broad generalities, I'd rather call them out specifically as exceptions to the basic guidelines of "Skills = General, Metamagic = Combat, Magic Item Creation = General, etc." If there are reasons it could be classified as General or Combat, I usually go with Combat and see if the feat/ability needs a little buffing.
Now, looking at class abilities, it's not too difficult to separate things out. A druid's Nature Sense doesn't really have any direct effects in the middle of combat, so it's a General feat. Wild Shape, OTOH, has dramatic effects in combat, so it & any related abilities are Combat feats.
This does mean some existing feats & abilities need to be tweaked. For instance, Dodge IMC is +1 dodge bonus to AC vs all opponents (as a house rule). Using the Weapon Proficiency groups I'm changing Weapon Focus & Specialization (including Greater forms) to select a weapon group instead of a single weapon.
Thinking back to Lightning Reflexes, it offers a +2 at the cost of a Combat Feat, which for me is 7 CBs. Since you get +1/2 per level by paying 2 CBs per level, that's a total of +2 for 8 CBs. 8 vs 7 is close enough for me so I consider that feat okay as is (as are Great Fortitude & Iron Will).
Does anyone have any Feats or Class Abilities that they are having a hard time categorizing? I'd be interested in discussing them since I've tried to look for repercussions from using this system and have probably certainly missed some key points.
Thanks.
DrSpunj
