Feat Points?

[Fifth Element]

and no excuses to create hundreds upon hundreds of pages of special rules for spells and hundreds upon hundreds of bland prestige classes to fill up books and sell dead trees.

Or, as WOTC calls it, "making money so that we can stay in the RPG business."

 

[Psion]

So if a new book came out where a player could 'spend' an attribute point advancement on some nifty special ability, would you still argue that it's not a 'slippery' slop?

I would roll my eyes audibly. Yes, you would be able to hear it.

But it still wouldn't be HERO by several orders or magnitude.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I would roll my eyes audibly. Yes, you would be able to hear it.

But it still wouldn't be HERO by several orders or magnitude.

And then, just for s&g, what if, like some OGL products like Deathstalkers, a book came out where you could spend XP for feats and/or other things like attribute advancements with the cost being in relation to how useful the feat was?

 

[Psion]

And then, just for s&g, what if, like some OGL products like Deathstalkers, a book came out where you could spend XP for feats and/or other things like attribute advancements with the cost being in relation to how useful the feat was?

I thought my feelings on direct XP for powers arrangement were a longstanding matter of record. But in short: nosir, I don't like it.

But is this a quiz on taste? Or meaning. I'm confused. Don't we already agree to disagree on what the necessary and helpful level of pointmongery is in D&D?

Yeah, you could sit here all day and eventually you'll dig up something that will make me say "yep, that's almost like hero." It would no longer be a game I would go to when I say "I want to play D&D". If well enough done (and if we are getting there by piling on rulebooks on 3.5, I doubt it would be), I might actually want to play it with the right group. But I would consider the experience something different than I am looking to play when I seek to play D&D.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Just taste.

I personally see the trick thing as another in a long line of 'pseudo' point buy steps in a vein in more so than the subsitution levels and special abilities.

I found it interesting when I read Deathstalkers and it had Feats for XP. One of my friends immediately put it in then had to put limits on how many feats you could buy as some people were quickly surpassing others.

 

[Aaron L]

Okay, I'm going take a swing...

My to-hit is...
base attack 15
+ normal strength bonus +3
+ weapon bonus +3
+ double focus and mastery + 4
+ did the bard sing, yes +2
+ am I flanking, not this round +0
+ I charged, +2
+ Did I get bullstrength this time, yes, +2
+ but bullstrength doesn't stack with gauntlets of ogre power, -1
+ I got enlarged -1 size
+ I got enlarged +1 strength
+ haste +1
+ I'm power attacking for 15 so -15
= 16

I hit...
Base damage is
d8
but enlarge person so 2d6
+ weapon bonus +3
+ strength +3
+ double specialiation and mastery +6
+ bullstrenghth which doesn't stack +1
+ enlarge person +1
+ bard song +2
+ swinging two handed 50% str bonus... ugh, whats my strength 16 + 2 + 2=20 so +5/2 = +2
+ power attack +30
= 48 + 2d6 damage on a hit

Oh, okay, now someone swings at me... My AC is...
30 normally
+ no shield -4
+ charge -2
+ dodge +1
+ dex drop for (gotta figure out if I'm using all my dex because of armour) enlarge -1
+ size for enlarge -1
+ haste +1
= 24

Yeah, DnD combat is sooooo fast and simple. :\ I have to be an expert in stacking rules, know and apply the modifiers from a dozen peices of equipment the character has, know and add the benefits of 3 different non-sensical special case spells, plus a song, know and apply the benefits of 5 different feat rules, know and apply special case rules for the combat action (charge), and special case rules for using a weapon two-handed instead of one.

A typical DnD combat at higher level has us opening the PHB a dozen or more times looking up special case rules, often spells, sometimes actions or skills, occasionally feats. HERO... even novice players rarely if ever have to stop the game to look up a rule. HERO combat is MUCH faster.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Do you think in future editions (hold up, this thread is about feats, not 4E) it would be worth it to have points/costs assigned to feats, rather than all feats being (relatively) the same cost (i.e., one feat slot per feat)?

On the upside, feats could be scaled in power. On the downside, the feat system would become more complicated and like skills. Also on the upside, you could theoretically have more feats per character if the character picks all low-cost feats.

Maybe pre-req feats count towards the cost of the feats they're pre-reqs for?

Thoughts?

Are you thinking kind of mini feats that the Stormreach MMO has?

 

[RFisher]

But at the same time, say in a traditional fantasy hero game, you've got four players, three with speed 3 and one with speed 4 against say, eight goblins with speed 3.

Are you telling me that fight is going to go quicker than a similiar fight of low level characters in d20 against goblins?

No way.

The dice rolling alone takes a fairly substantial time no?

I'm not sure a comparison like this can be very fair. e.g. D&D can start very simple & ramp up complexity as the campaign progresses, where Hero is going to start out more complex but probably not increase in complexity as quickly.

But having said that, a round might get resolved quicker in D&D, but one Hero round is roughly equivalent (in this particular example) to three D&D rounds.

It's been a long time since I've played Fantasy Hero (& it's starting to be a significant amount of time since my last D&D3e campaign--not counting a single recent session) though.

Or, as WOTC calls it, "making money so that we can stay in the RPG business."

Sure. But a game doesn't win my money by its business model. Rather, the more influence the business model has over the design, the less I would think it would be able to win my money. I'd like to believe that a game company is better off creating the best games it can & going with diversity in both categories of games & number of games in each categories rather than trying to design a few games with built-in milk-ability. Especially since I keep hearing about how adventures make negative money, supplements may break-even, & only the core books actually make money. (Note: The preceding sentence was hyperbole.)

I'm probably wrong, but I'd like to believe that.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm not sure a comparison like this can be very fair. e.g. D&D can start very simple & ramp up complexity as the campaign progresses, where Hero is going to start out more complex but probably not increase in complexity as quickly.

Not quite true. For example, a high fantasy campaign where the character's point totals are like super heroes, can have variable power pools to represent magic, damage reduction for high end demon lords and dragons, and lots of dice rolling around.

But having said that, a round might get resolved quicker in D&D, but one Hero round is roughly equivalent (in this particular example) to three D&D rounds.

True. Depending on the speed, it may be equal to even more rounds.

It's been a long time since I've played Fantasy Hero (& it's starting to be a significant amount of time since my last D&D3e campaign--not counting a single recent session) though.

Sure. But a game doesn't win my money by its business model. Rather, the more influence the business model has over the design, the less I would think it would be able to win my money. I'd like to believe that a game company is better off creating the best games it can & going with diversity in both categories of games & number of games in each categories rather than trying to design a few games with built-in milk-ability. Especially since I keep hearing about how adventures make negative money, supplements may break-even, & only the core books actually make money. (Note: The preceding sentence was hyperbole.)/QUOTE]

But at the same time, Hero, where all the rules are in the core book, manages to put out numerous sourcebooks. As does GURPS. These books generally either provide examples of things that a GM will need for a certain genre, like monster books, or they provide advice and background material for campaign settings and showing you how to tweak the various point systems to accomidate those genres. It doesn't rely on inserting new game mecahnics that may not mesh with the game system as established already.

 

[RFisher]

These books generally either provide examples of things that a GM will need for a certain genre, like monster books, or they provide advice and background material for campaign settings and showing you how to tweak the various point systems to accomidate those genres. It doesn't rely on inserting new game mecahnics that may not mesh with the game system as established already.

Yep. A great example of building your business around the game(s) rather than the other way around. You also get the bonus of selling more of your supplements to people who use someone else's mechanics.

Though SJG isn't rolling in the dough. I suspect Hero Games isn't either. Yet they're feeding their families, enjoying their work, & earning the respect of a significant (to us normal mortals, if microscopic to Hasbro) number of customers.

OK. I may be coming off as slamming WotC. That's really not my intention. This is just idle chatter.

& I still think that other games do carefully-crafting-a-character better than house-ruled D&D ever will & I'm very glad that D&D is available as an alternative to that.