Exp exchange for feat

[Winternight]

I have found this ruleset in the net:
Experience Exchange System
Tried of waiting for three levels before your next feat? Need a few more skill ranks to get that prestige class? Want your magic items to be built in? Well, you can with the Experience Exchange System.

Feats
You can purchase additional feats starting a 1000 xps for the first feat and increasing by 1000 xps for each additional feat.


code:

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Additional
Feats Experience Accumulated
Purchased Cost Total
1 1000 1000
2 2000 3000
3 3000 6000
4 4000 10000
5 5000 15000
and so on...


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My Problem is I do not known the author and I was to dump to copy the url.
Now:

• Can somebody help me to find the author. I am quite shure i followed a link from here
• what du you think about these rules, i think they are Ok and not broken.
  
  Thanx in advance

 

[Dr.Dan]

I don't know who the author is, but those rules sound awful! It allows PC's to gain extra feats WAY too easily.

 

[the Jester]

The problem I see is that it's quite possible to burn a few thousand xp to suddenly have a 4th-level pc with more feats (i.e. more power) than a 4th-level pc should have.

For example, take a 4th-level human fighter... his feats are-
Weapon Focus (1st lvl)
Dodge (f1)
Mobility (human bonus)
Power Attack (f2)
Cleave (3rd)
Weapon Specialization (f4)

Now, at 4th level he burns 3000 xp to gain two feats, let's say Spring Attack and Great Cleave... suddenly he's got more power than he should, but he still earns xp as a 4th-level character (despite having the feats of a 6th-level character, and GC and SA are fantastic powerups). Is he the equal of a 5th-level character? Probably. Is he treated like a 5th-level character? No.

Now, make him an npc- when the pcs defeat him (after a much greater challenge than a straight CR 4 encounter would pose) they earn only the xp for beating a CR 4 monster. Same problem in reverse.

Hm, no, I don't like the idea one bit. I think it's broken, especially since you can get extra goodies for no real cost (the xp you spend will make up for themselves by virtue of getting higher xp awards as a lower-level character).

 

[fba827]

I agree with what has been said (and the The Jester's example).

The rational for my opinion is that D&D levels and experience simply don't work well that way

The effective level is supposed to represent a person's level of power relative to all others. by introducing a mechanic to make someone inherently more powerful at lower levels they could theoretically stay at a low level and have a ton of feats / skills and outmatch someone who has the higher effective level.

Plus, toss PrCs into the mix and someone could qualify for a PrC much sooner than the designer of the PrC ever intended....

over all, the idea just doesn't click in my mind.

 

[der_kluge]

Buying feats with XP is a monumentally BAD idea.

I would not allow it under any circumstance.

 

[Spatzimaus]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Not a chance. Ain't no way.

Currently in the core rules there are only two ways to trade XP for power (besides leveling up, I mean):

1> You can create magic items (if you're a spellcaster). The balance here is, what the DM giveth the DM taketh away. Items are easy to remove from a campaign if they get too powerful.

2> You can currently trade XP for Inherent stat bonuses, but there are only 6 of them, they don't stack with themselves, they cost 5000*N XP, where N is the size of the bonus, AND, you have to be a ninth-rank spellcaster (Wish or Miracle).

And don't say "but I can buy a +5 Tome of Whatever, because the DMG says so!". First, look at the price tag, and compare to the cost tables for a given town. You just won't find the things in the corner store. But let's say you COULD find a 20th-level Wizard with Wish, 25000 extra XP, and the Wondrous Feat. Why would he want to make you one?
According to the equipment tables in the DMG, a player earns 180,000 gp going from level 19 to level 20, to a total treasury of 760k. Why would a 20th-level player forgo more than an ENTIRE LEVEL to earn another 137.5k gp?

The point is, the few existing ways to trade XP for power are rare, expensive, and controllable by the DM. The splatbooks at a few more ways, but the pattern remains.

But let's say you don't have a problem with buying Feats. Those numbers still aren't balanced. With Feats, there's no stacking issue; it's not like the inherent stat bonuses from Wish, where you have to decide between the +1 bonus now, or waiting to get a +3 or higher later.
That XP cost is just WAY too low. In another thread there was a discussion on whether Wishing for a Feat was okay, and most people seem to feel that THAT was still too good, at 5k XP per.

 

[Planesdragon]

FWIW - My Rule

In my campaign, I have a "savant ability" system.

"Savant Feats" cost 1/4 a level, "Savant Combat Levels" and "Savant Spellcasting Levels" cost 1/4 a level, and "Savant Skill Ranks" cost 2/25 their market value if they were a magical item.

(I'm currently musing a way to make it all level-based... probably with the inclusion of "technicques" and equipment into the formula as well)

Considering that there isn't a feat out there that gives more of a bonus than a class level--and even the best selection of four feats only scratches the surface--I haven't run into a problem with it.

The balance, of course, is that the feats are counted as class levels--meaning that you're a higher character level, and take less XP and suffer more danger from the same foe.