Feat Points

[CapnZapp]

A framework to avoid having to houserule feats.

§ You gain one feat point every level, immediately spendable at that level (you can spend 3 at level three, 4 at level four etc)
§ You may only make one purchase every other level. (That is, if you spend one or more feat points at level three, you must wait for level five before spending more feat points)

§ Fighters and Rogues gain a bonus feat point every even class level (they can spend 3 at level two, 6 at level four etc)
§ Variant Humans start with 2* bonus feat points (they can spend 3 at level 1 etc)
*) not 4

§ A feat costs 4 feat points, with the following exceptions:
- Charger, Dungeon Delver, Grappler and Weapon Master cost 2 feat points each
§ Alert, Crossbow Expert, Elven Accuracy (XGE), Mobile, Polearm Master, Prodigy (XGE), Resilient, Sentinel, Shield Master, and War Caster cost 6 feat points each
§ Great Weapon Master, Lucky, and Sharpshooter cost 8 feat points

§ An Ability Score Increase costs 4 feat points

Optional variant:
§ An ASI increasing your score to the maximum* costs 6 feat points
*) normally 20

Optional variant: Encouraging racial feats to differentiate races more.
§ You start with 2 feat points only spendable on racial feats for your race. If you never purchase a racial feat these points remain unused.
§ You may purchase a racial feat at first level, even if this brings your feat points into the negative. Example: a Deep Gnome takes the Svirfneblin Magic feat at first level and is at 1 (for level) +2 (racial feat points) −4 (cost of feat) = −1 feat points. At second level she is at 0 feat points. At fourth level she could buy a regular feat costing 2 feat points.

Optional variant: Starting with a feat. For some feats it makes sense to be born with them. This is a variant since it greatly diminishes the purpose of these rules.
§ You may purchase any feat at first level even if this brings your feat points into the negative, with your DMs permission. This could include feats such as Actor, Keen Mind, Linguist, even Lucky.

Got thinking after perusing this:

https://thinkdm.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/feat-strength-tiers/

Zapp

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

§ An Ability Score Increase costs 4 feat points

Just to clarify, by "Ability Score Increase", do you mean 1 point towards ability scores, or do you mean 2 points amongst the ability scores?

I might suggest that each +1 to an ability score only cost 2 Feat points.

Or perhaps, extend the points-buy character creation ability score table, and each feat point can be spent as a point there. So increasing from 11 to 12 will only cost 1 feat points, but increasing from 13 to 14 will cost 2.

 

[jaelis]

This makes sense, but if I’m homebrewing I’d rather adjust the feats to make them better balanced.

 

[CapnZapp]

This makes sense, but if I’m homebrewing I’d rather adjust the feats to make them better balanced.

Sure but this thread is specifically about the opposite sentiment

 

[CapnZapp]

Just to clarify, by "Ability Score Increase", do you mean 1 point towards ability scores, or do you mean 2 points amongst the ability scores?

I mean exactly what the rulebook means

"you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two Ability Scores of your choice by 1."​

I might suggest that each +1 to an ability score only cost 2 Feat points.

Sure, if you must. It might allow you to gain a 20 in your prime stat two levels earlier, so I'm not adopting it myself.

 

[Krachek]

IMO I would rather nerf Tier 1 feats and boost Tier 5 & 6.

 

[CapnZapp]

IMO I would rather nerf Tier 1 feats and boost Tier 5 & 6.

Let me repost my previous reply:

Sure but this thread is specifically about the opposite sentiment

 

[CapnZapp]

Updated OP with optional variants.

 

[Blue]

Thanks for stating your goal, that makes it easy to evaluate in that context.

I think this works well. A few questions or comments but overall I'm positive to this.

What is the purpose of being able to spend every other level? The only times I can see it coming up are a variant human picking up a 2 point feat at 1st and 2nd, and a fighter or rogue getting a 2 point feat on an even level even if they spent everything the level before. Doesn't seem like harmful enough corner cases.

I like that fighter/rogues get on even levels - reduces cherry picking via multiclassing. I'm assuming that's even class level - that it doesn't matter the order you take the class.

Rogues get less and slower bonus ASI then fighters, would it make sense to have them get a bonus on a level divided by three?

This seems a big boon to multiclassing, since they lose nothing not aiming for ASI levels - as a matter of fact except for spellcasters since ASI levels are now dead it encourages cherry-picking 1-3 levels. This I'd want to address somehow.

This leaves dead levels, which seems to be a big design no-no.

Two thoughts that would address those two last points (doing one or the other, not both):

Alternative 1: Replace the "no buy on back to back" levels with "You can not have more feats/ASIs then your classes would have provided. Variant humans get +1 to this cap."

Alternative 2: Replace "1 feat point per level" with "2 feat points for on every even class level". (With fighters/rogues getting their increase on top). This would mean that with multiclassing there is a cost for just dipping one level, or for leaving a class permanently after getting the level 5 power bump.

Again, these are small questions; as a whole I like what you have.

 

[houser2112]

All other considerations aside, I like that the resource used to buy ASI/feats is character-based and not class-based.