Pathfinder 1E Extra Feat...unbalanced?

[Rorryn]

So in my last game, as a home brewed rule we started the game with 1 extra feat. I found that a lot of times people passed on a good story/role-playing feats because they couldn't afford to waste a feat or they wouldn't be able to reach far enough into a line of feats to get to the top tier they really wanted.

In an attempt to balance this out, all my adversaries got an extra feat as well...just figured I would ask the forums their opinions on the idea and whether others thought it would stay balanced or not.....

 

[Stormonu]

I don't see a problem with it at all. You could probably give players up to about 3 extra bonus feats (none of which are stackable) and not see an obvious impact on the game. I'd even go so far as to say you don't have to worry about even giving the same to the adversaries - there's no reason the players can't have a leg up on the opposition (though you might want to be kind and give henchmen and major villains a couple of feats to bring them up to the PC's power). After all, the game is about them, not their enemies.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

If you want to encourage the use of non-combat feats, I would give the players a bonus feat at first level from a short list of social/story/roleplaying feats that you have picked out. If they are only going to encounter the NPCs in combat, there is no need to give the adversaries bonus feats then but the PCs still get a bit more color.

 

[ImperatorK]

I like my PCs to be powerful, that's why I often give them some kind of power up, like a template, for free.

 

[Ramaster]

This is similar to the 3.5 mechanic of Flaws. Basically, you could take up to two Flaws (if I remember correctly) and each of them would grant you an extra feat at level one.

Pathfinder has something similar called Drawbacks, only instead of up to two you can only take one, they are less severe and you get an extra Trait instead (Ultimate Campaign):

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/drawbacks

Truth be told, an extra feat wouldn't terribly unbalance things. After level 5 or so, its effect will be barely noticeable.

 

[Crothian]

I used to hand out a feat a level instead of the feat every third level. It never caused problems balanced wise and even with more feats the players still felt like they were not getting enough.

 

[Ahnehnois]

More feats is fine, as long as PCs and non-PCs are getting them equally.

 

[Mark Chance]

"Balanced" is such a nebulous, subjective concept that it's barely worth worrying about.

 

[Rorryn]

True, I suppose to me the word "balance" in this aspect simple means "The Characters still have a fear their characters may die with poor choices." I had a game once where the PC's truly felt their characters could not die....it was miserable.

(on a side note though, it did end up giving me a new villain for a future game in the same world. That's what happens when your cocky enough to pick up that Evil Intelligent weapon.)

 

[Starfox]

I also gave out an extra feat at level 1 in my current PF game. Not for RP reasons (I don't feem mechanics can easily boost rp) but simply to let characters grow into their concept earlier. Only problem with giving an extra feat is that it makes the extra feats humans and various classes get shine a bit less.