Exchanging Feats

[Water Bob]

The small effect on story or continuity due to the retcon seems a small price to pay to me to have a player that enjoys their character.

I don't really look at it as a continuity issue. People grow and change. I've been good at things in the past that I'm not so good at now because I didn't practice and keep it up.

I see that happening here. It happens so rarely (a character only gets a handful of feats during his lifetime) that I think there will be no story issues. The character is plain just not as good at something as he used to be.

In my experience, as long as you add a caveat that they can retrain a feat for a feat that they would have been eligible for at the level they took the feat to be retrained, everything works out fine.
If you took Weapon Finesse at level 1, and then at level 6 realized that you never used it and would like to change it, you'd have to change it to another feat you could have gotten at level 1.

I like the sound of this, but what I don't like is the hassle it brings with it of having to figure out which Feats are elligble. The higher level the character, the more difficult this becomes.

 

[Water Bob]

- There may be feats designed specifically to be taken only at level N or later, with also the intent that a character could not have more than one at such level. With your house rule, at level N the character takes two such feats already, one legit and the other by retraining a previous feat.

- An extension to the previous issue, is that at level 20 (or whatever) the character may end up having many powerful feats that the designers assumed no one could have that many because of the level prerequisite, but the character has retrained all his low-level feats for high-level feats.

It's not a House Rule. It's an official d20 Optional Rule. I think its in the PM II.

And, I wouldn't allow a Feat to be retrained that was needed as a prerequisite for some other Feat the character had. Feat Chains cannot be broken.

 

[Li Shenron]

And, I wouldn't allow a Feat to be retrained that was needed as a prerequisite for some other Feat the character had. Feat Chains cannot be broken.

Of course. I had rather in mind that e.g. if there are feats requiring BAB +15, it might mean that you're not supposed to have more than 2 of them ever (because at best you would get the first at 15lv and second at 18lv) but with such retraining rules you can get 2 immediately at 15lv plus 2 more at 18lv.

For feat chains, without breaking them, it's possible that a 4-feat chain is meant to start e.g. at level 6 (dictated by the requisite of the first feat) and to be completed in the fastest case at level 15, but with these retraining rule you can complete it at level 9.

But again, I think this is more or a theoretical issue, in practice I doubt it would ever come up.

 

[Water Bob]

Of course. I had rather in mind that e.g. if there are feats requiring BAB +15, it might mean that you're not supposed to have more than 2 of them ever....

I wonder how many Feats like that aren't part of chains.

Still....I think you just convinced me to not allow this in my game.

Man...my players aren't going to like this...

 

[Celebrim]

Of course. I had rather in mind that e.g. if there are feats requiring BAB +15, it might mean that you're not supposed to have more than 2 of them ever (because at best you would get the first at 15lv and second at 18lv) but with such retraining rules you can get 2 immediately at 15lv plus 2 more at 18lv.

Yeah, but if you are playing with stock fighters as opposed to say Tome of Battle classes, that might actually be balancing rather than unbalancing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Also, how many feats in your Conan game have a prereq of +15 BAB? I'm hazy on 3.5 these days (because my prereq's are all significantly more relaxed), and I'm completely ignorant of Conan requirements.

 

[Water Bob]

Also, how many feats in your Conan game have a prereq of +15 BAB? I'm hazy on 3.5 these days (because my prereq's are all significantly more relaxed), and I'm completely ignorant of Conan requirements.

Dunno. And if that were the only BAB I'd have to check, I'd prolly still allow the retraining of Feats in my game.

 

[Li Shenron]

I wonder how many Feats like that aren't part of chains.

Still....I think you just convinced me to not allow this in my game.

Man...my players aren't going to like this...

But you can try it if you want... I don't think your game will be broken (unless some player really finds a way to exploit it), and in the unlikely case that it really breaks, then you'll have learned something for next time

 

[orion90000]

In my experience, as long as you add a caveat that they can retrain a feat for a feat that they would have been eligible for at the level they took the feat to be retrained, everything works out fine.
If you took Weapon Finesse at level 1, and then at level 6 realized that you never used it and would like to change it, you'd have to change it to another feat you could have gotten at level 1.

I would also add that it should be a combat/metamagic related feat. Some feats like Iron Will and Toughness reflect the physical/mental improvement of the character and wouldn't make much sense to remove. Retraining from archery to mounted combat makes more sense than trading improved mental resistance with martial weapon training.

 

[paladinm]

Forgive the humor, but the topic just reminded me of a bad joke..

"I only open my mouth long enough to exchange feat (sp)"