Excising, Severely Limiting, or Strictly Organizing Feats

[Lanefan]

I'd like to see feats die in a fire. But, if that ain't gonna happen the next best thing might be...

I think I'd be okay if you got, say, 3 feats... all at first level. And that was that. They're good for a way to differentiate two similar characters, but we don't need feat trees or 12 feats all oriented on adding to damage. Just something cool for each character to be a little different / special.

...this.

And then never, ever, EVER publish another one.

Why? Because all feats did in 3e (can't speak for 4e) was turn power creep into power gallop when compared to earlier editions. Take any class in 1e at 10th level and put it up against the same class at 10th in 3e...the 1e will lose every time, almost always because of what the 3e character can do via its feats.

And for those who (in another thread) complained about having to memorize a few more defenses, memorizing feats is every bit as bad.

We did not have too many feats in 3e, we just had too many poorly designed feats, the +2/+2 skills feats being the worst offenders.

By the end, there were hundreds if not thousands of feats in 3e. And that is far too many.

Lan-"Bob Seger got demoted - he's now in the Bronze Bullet Band"-efan

 

[Minigiant]

Maybe I'm a skeptic.
But I think Feats will be in.
AND each book will come with MORE feats.

I don't like them as no one has ever designed them well. And I don't think it would be possible.

I love the premise of feats, just not the execution.

That's why I prefer that feats be categorized and optional. That way groups can decide to have no feats, only combat and magic feats, only skill and racial feats, or use all feats.

Give the power to the people, man.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'd like to see feats die in a fire.

Then tell me: do you want the game to support differentiation in PC design between characters of the same class/race? How would you support that?

Why? Because all feats did in 3e (can't speak for 4e) was turn power creep into power gallop when compared to earlier editions. Take any class in 1e at 10th level and put it up against the same class at 10th in 3e...the 1e will lose every time, almost always because of what the 3e character can do via its feats.

So what? 3e characters are by design choice more powerful than 1e/2e characters of the same level.

And for those who (in another thread) complained about having to memorize a few more defenses, memorizing feats is every bit as bad.

That cannot be an issue. Every spellcasting character (including half-casters like Paladins, as soon as they reach the minimum level) very soon has more spells than feats, and spells descriptions are more complicated than feats descriptions, in fact you pretty much have keep a spell's description handy always even after you've used it dozens of time, at least to check its parameters. Non-casters have no spells, even if they have to memorize (or check every time) their feat, they still have a number of feats which is normally less than their level. This is hardly bad, and it's still way easier than a caster.

By the end, there were hundreds if not thousands of feats in 3e. And that is far too many.

If someone buys tens of book and then has an issue with quantity, he created his own problems. Not just with feats, but also with classes, prestige classes, races, equipment, spells... If you think that just because you own books with 1000 feats then you have to be aware of them or have them in your game, why don't you have the same issue against classes or magic items or everything else?

I can tell you that with my 25ish 3ed books I still had fewer feats than I could use, particularly for certain classes (the Rogue first and foremost). There were certainly also many garbage feats published, if you mean this then I certainly agree.

 

[Minigiant]

The problem was never feats themselves. It always was their implementation.
Feats is a good idea made bad. They all had various uses. The balance was off. They were designed poorly and many of them have no reason for existing.

Much like a cupcake filled with worms.
Or humorless filler episodes of a great TV show.
Or ketchup at the steakhouse.

 

[NewJeffCT]

D&D worked just fine, in the days before feats were ever a twinkle in Monte, Jonathan, and Skip's respective eyes.

Here's hoping that it's not too late to, pardon the metaphor, slay that particular dragon before the beast is grown so large that it can never again be removed from its lair.

D&D worked okay at very low levels before feats. However, wizards would soon outshine the other classes once they got up to level 5/6 or so.

What I liked about feats was that it allowed a feat monster like a fighter to be able to do something more than just hit a monster with his or her sword. You could trade accuracy for damage (Power Attack), or you could be great with one weapon (Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus), or you could be a nimble fighter with Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise and Whirlwind Attack, etc.

 

[Naszir]

I've liked feats but I will agree that since their implementation they do have a tendancy to get a little out of control. As far as organizing them I feel like they could be set up as a way to structure the base classes out to "sub-classes".

If the base classes are Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard then there could be a section at the end of each base class suggesting feats throughout the levels to make your Fighter a "Knight" or a "Slayer" or a "Beserker". This would help new players recognize how you can customize the base classes. As new players get a hold of the interactions of the feats then they can play around with structuring them however they want.

If used responsibly feats can be the gateway drug to character creativity.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Why? Because all feats did in 3e (can't speak for 4e) was turn power creep into power gallop when compared to earlier editions. Take any class in 1e at 10th level and put it up against the same class at 10th in 3e...the 1e will lose every time, almost always because of what the 3e character can do via its feats.

Put a 3E orc against a 1E orc and the 3E orc is going to win most of the time as well, though not always. The 3E orc gets a Strength bonus to hit & damage, so not only is the 3E orc hitting more often, it is doing 6-10 points of damage with each hit, vs a 1E orc who does 1-8 points of damage.

However, an encounter "gang" of 4 orcs in 3E is probably going to beat a 1E gang of 4 orcs a vast majority of the time.

 

[Mattachine]

I hope that they make a design decision that feats will not offer constant, flat bonuses.

I would like feats that give situational bonuses to some things, but I would like most feats to be modifiers or extensions to class features and racial traits.

Feats could be a great way to differentiate within a class. Wasn't that the idea when they were introduced in 2e, in the High-Level Campaigns book?

 

[Li Shenron]

The problem was never feats themselves. It always was their implementation. Feats is a good idea made bad.

Definitely. In a nutshell, they weren't simply a good idea... they were probably the simplest possible idea for implementing add-on abilities: to define a measure of "smallest" add-on and try from there to design more of them that would be balanced against each other.

They all had various uses.

This is a good thing! If you differentiate the mechanic for different uses, you reduce the flexibility of character design. This is in fact one reason why I don't like changing from feats to AEDU: once you've separated the A/E/D/U you have certainly made it easier to balance their design, but then you have to pick X at-will + Y enc + Z dailies... you're no longer free to design a whole character with at-wills and another with only dailies, and everybody else in the middle, you're stuck with whatever standard formula the designer have decided for you (the DM of course can vary the formula, but still everyone in the same game has to use the same formula, or balance is again under question).

Even if you differentiate by usability area instead of mechanic, it's the same. Imagine you take all feats related to attack actions and call them "tricks" and take all feats related to defense actions and call them "talents", and you separate them not just by categorization (which isn't bad) but also by dictating how many "tricks" and how many "talents" each PC has to choose at certain levels. You're no longer allowed to focus wholly on one or the other or anything in between, you've restricted yourself.

The balance was off.They were designed poorly and many of them have no reason for existing.

Unfortunately true. Too often the designers just added feats to a book with little care. Sometimes they just added +N feats at random, other times they built upon other designers' mistake (+2/+2 feats everywhere because they're "cheap" to design), and some other times they made overly complicated feats that should have really be game/class options on their own (e.g. the "vow feats"). Maybe they just assumed that since feats take up so little space in the book then they deserved little design time, and this is a gross misunderstanding on the impact that a feat can have on the game!

 

[erf_beto]

Seem that +1 bonus (either permanent or highly circunstantial) is a bad feat, by consensus. But out of curiosity:

What is an exemple of a *good* feat?

Suppose a party of Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Rogue.