Guideline for creating Feats/Talents/Powers

[Naszir]

I hope that in the 4e DM's guide we will get some guidelines for creating balanced Feats/Talents/Powers. I don't recall anything like this showing up in the 3rd edtion DM's guide.

As a DM I enjoy trying to come up with new and interesting abilities for characters to try out. It wasn't overly difficult to do this in 3rd edition but I think it would still help to have some idea right off the bat if something is overpowered, underpowered or right in line with the initial design of the game.

 

[Trainz]

The most important guideline is the following.

If the feat is one no-one would spend a feat to get, it isn't good enough.

If the feat is one that no-one would pass up, it's too good.

If it's somewhere in-between, you're on the right track.

The next step (which is a bit more complicated) is to look up what kind of synergy it has with other feats/options, and see if it creates some kind of rules-abusing broken situation. This might have to be adjusted as the feat is tested in actual play.

Other than that, imagination is the limit.

 

[kennew142]

I agree that this would be a nice feature of 4e, but I'm not holding my breath. Not only have we never seen this sort of thing in past editions from the designers, but I'm not sure exactly what such a system would look like. I've managed to get by just comparing a feat/talent to existing examples, but it is always hit or miss.

 

[Sir Brennen]

There's been talk by the designer's about more "rules transparency" in 4E, so I hope that means this kind of information will be included as well.

I'm also thinking that the new SRD will point to these sorts of "behind the scenes" sections, to give 3rd party publishers better starting mechanical guidelines when creating new material. If 3rd party designers, as well as DMs, have a clearer understanding of how the math is intended to work, the amount of material published with under and over powered options will hopefully be reduced.

 

[Sitara]

Honestly speaking, its not hard at all to make a feat yourself. I mean really. Talents/powers should also not be hard, going by SAGA. All you need is imagination and a good grasp of the rules presented in the rulebook.

For example here is a feat Ijust made up on the spot for 3e:

Parry:
You are skilled at parrying with your melee weapon.
Prerequisite: Proficient with simple weapons
Effect: You gain a +1 to your AC whenever you have a melee weapon drawn and in your hand.
Special: You do not gain the bonus if you are unarmed, flatfooted or surprised.

 

[Deset Gled]

I hope that in the 4e DM's guide we will get some guidelines for creating balanced Feats/Talents/Powers. I don't recall anything like this showing up in the 3rd edtion DM's guide.

There was an article with guidelines for creating feats in a issue of Dragon. Sorry, I don't know the number.

Honestly speaking, its not hard at all to make a feat yourself. I mean really. Talents/powers should also not be hard, going by SAGA. All you need is imagination and a good grasp of the rules presented in the rulebook.

There are a number of little quirks that are a huge difference between an "acceptable" creation and a "good" creation. For example, prereqs for ability scores should always be an odd number. It's not amazingly intuitive, but does have a long-term affect on play if you don't follow the rule. Other rules, like never balancing a mechanical benefit with an RP limitation, seem like they are intuitive now but were only learned by the industry after seeing many people doing it the wrong way. And remember - what's obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone. A good set of guidelines helps people a lot in learning some of these things.

Edit: Actually, I can already pick apart your feat as having at least one major issue. The prereq of "Proficient with simple weapons" is a bad thing, because it limits the feat to certain classes, not by their need to parry. Monks and rogues cannot qualify for this feat without multiclassing, which is silly. It also requires me to be proficient with a dagger to parry with a quarterstaff, which doesn't make much sense.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Actually, it's way harder than that, Sitara, even with simple feats like that one.

 

[Cadfan]

The best way to create feats is to look at existing feats, and judge how powerful they are. I doubt this will change, because feats are too varied. Its not like weapons where there's a finite amount of traits a weapon can have, and relatively transparent guidelines to what weapons should get what abilities. Feats are a wide open design space.

Fortunately, creating feats is more forgiving for the homebrewer than it is for the official designers. If you screw up and create a feat that is too good, you can explain to your player that you messed up, you'd like to rework the feat in the following fashion, and he can either keep the new version, or pick something else.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Actually, it's way harder than that, Sitara, even with simple feats like that one.

I agree. Boost my AC with an unnamed +1? This is better than Dodge, stackes with Dodge, and anyone can qualify for it. It's adding to the AC inflation already present in 3e.

So yeah, not that simple. Or at least, not that simple to make a balanced feat.

I also get the idea that in 4E, numeric bonuses will not be a main feature of Feats anymore; those will be regulated to class powers, thus curbing the aforementioned inflation. Feats will be more like... you know... what the word "feat" implies: a cool action or manuever your character can perform.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I hope this sort of info is in the DMG also, I am a tinkerer. Making feats as a DM and, even better, helping my players design feats to better achieve their vision of their characters -priceless.
However I hope it is nothing like, for example, the awful formulaic rubbish that is UA bloodlines- eerggh. A lazier, unbalanced and boring optional rule set I have never seen