Feats

[AbdulAlhazred]

Does anyone have ideas how feats should work in 5.0? I know that they are a great way of customizing a character (especially a non-spellcasting character); but I personally think that 3.5/ Pathfinder went way overboard with them, especially in all the splatbooks. What is a good balance between the customizing features of feats and all the craziness?

I loved the BECMI era, even without all the feats; but even then we had weapon mastery. I wonder if (combat) feats can be renamed tactics, and mostly limited to fighters (and maybe rogues)?

OD&D started with fighters, clerics, and MU's.. Maybe the distinction between fighters and thieves/ rogues is just which feats they choose?

Well, feats are almost a necessity if you're going to allow for the type of customizability that 3e and 4e have had I think it was a mistake to make them combat related in 4e. I'd just as soon see them be little bits of 'color' you can add to your character, and stuff that is useful for non-combat purposes. They're there to allow you to 'fill in the cracks' between the larger character elements or pick up just a tiny bit of something that your race/class/theme don't give you already.

I'd expect to see feats basically have a lot less place in terms of tweaking the mechanics of your character in other words. Instead I'd think 'wide brush' type options to be in their place. Themes would be a big one, but for the strictly combat side of the equation maybe something like 'masteries' that just straight up give you the concept you want, like "guy that swings an axe really well" which would slightly enhance your axe attacks and give you an opening to take some cool powers that feature using the axe. This means you don't get a lot of charop type nonsense going on and less rules-centered players are easily able to see a short list of options that implement their character concept.