House rule on Feats and their requirements

[Sadrik]

All feat ability prerequisites and tier requirements are removed.

A couple notable ability prerequisites:
Armor requirements are ridiculous.
The spell caster +1 damage feats ability requirements are completely ridiculous.
Many of these ability requirements are nonsensical.

A couple notable tier requirements
Arcane recovery can actually make a wizard better.
The 19-20 crit feats can actually make those crit feats worthwhile before level 21+.

Thoughts on this?

 

[Garthanos]

I get people suggesting they need more info when I talk out of my head (Ie I know what I am thinking but I dont give them enough context to work with)

A string of opinions, no arguments for those opinions (that way they can't be disputed or easily agreed with either?) ... some of those opinions which I "think" I agree with but ...no description for your proposed solutions or alternate preq. to take the place of ones you don't like. (Do you mean "I think I will just throw them out?")

OK I will take one of those "house rules" and pretend I understand where you are coming from - "the prerequisites for armor are ridiculous"

Hmmm, the weight of real plate armor is evenly distributed... making it functionally lighter than chainmail and taking less not more... rigor to wear So high strength requirement may not be realistic lets leave it like the others.) It should also be far more expensive being much harder to make and taking more materials (lets call it 100gp).
Do you not like having to know scale to learn plate? yup that is pretty silly the two are not very similar. Both Scale and Chain mail usually have leather like armor underneath it so maybe that isnt too silly. If however your plate is the earlier style rather than field plate the kind which used a lot of chain mixed in with the plates well.. maybe it makes a little sense.

That is as far as I can go...

 

[corwyn77]

I can't say I disagree too strongly with the OP - str 8, con 10 paladins can wear plate but str 28 con 10 BS rogue can't even wear Hide properly. Spellcasters have prereqs all over the map for damage feats but anyone can have weapon focus. And then there's the ridiculous disparity in armour specialization.

There will probably be some balance issues but mostly manageable.

Throwing out tier prereqs will almost certainly cause balance issues but it might be a fun ride. Arcane Mastery makes Flaming Sphere an encounter power ftw. Actually it grants every wizard pre-errata Veteran's Armour. Awesome!

That aside, there aren't many epic feats for non-weapon users (eagerly waiting for Divine/Arcane Power) but that's another issue.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I've never been a fan of ability prereqs, but some other prereqs actually do make sense. Tier prereqs, for example.

 

[Sadrik]

I've never been a fan of ability prereqs, but some other prereqs actually do make sense. Tier prereqs, for example.

All non-ability prerequisites remain.

For the tier requirements - have you actually read those feat? They are not overly powerful. Why are they even there? those feats are weak and waiting till 21st level to get a critical range of 19-20. Give me a break. Inescapable force and evasion. Sure, give it to the players whatever. What is so bad, break it?

 

[Sadrik]

I can't say I disagree too strongly with the OP - str 8, con 10 paladins can wear plate but str 28 con 10 BS rogue can't even wear Hide properly. Spellcasters have prereqs all over the map for damage feats but anyone can have weapon focus. And then there's the ridiculous disparity in armour specialization.

Thank you for illustrating this. This is precisely the issue I am having. Not only are the armor feats split into 5 feats they have crazy ability requirements.

There will probably be some balance issues but mostly manageable.

Like what?

Throwing out tier prereqs will almost certainly cause balance issues but it might be a fun ride. Arcane Mastery makes Flaming Sphere an encounter power ftw. Actually it grants every wizard pre-errata Veteran's Armour. Awesome!

That aside, there aren't many epic feats for non-weapon users (eagerly waiting for Divine/Arcane Power) but that's another issue.

You can also take the spell accuracy to omit squares from an attack. Make controllers a little better.

 

[Garthanos]

Not only are the armor feats split into 5 feats

Here is a brain storm based on the excess of 5 feats worth of armor...
lets see my brain almost wants these categories
Light or Heavy
Flexible or Rigid

Those combine to make four options.. but all light seem likely to be flexible.... so we could decay it to the following.

Light (leather and hide)
Heavy Flexible (chain and scale)
Rigid (plate)

3 feats

Though some armors might be Light and Rigid for instance Wood or Boiled/Waxed leather based armors are Rigid and Light so perhaps it is an option even if it isnt in the current selection sets...that makes the original 4 feats reasonable that is still quite a few but it covers armors not on the list
Real cloth armor is like leather or even hide in protection and not nearly as comfortable as clothes....

Well I think its better than 5 feats?

 

[Sadrik]

funky double post

 

[Sadrik]

Well that mostly wont work without changing the modifiers for the armors. Look at what they did with the penalties, take that into account and then you might have something.

Having 5 feats for them really is not that big a deal it is that you need a 15 STR and 16 CON to even begin to train for it. And when the 8 str, 10 con paladin just wears it with ease.

Mostly I like house rules which can easily do their job. But switching around all the penalties on all the different types of armor so that I can have less feats to take is not really going to happen. That is more of an overhaul when I am looking for a tune up.

 

[Obryn]

All non-ability prerequisites remain.

For the tier requirements - have you actually read those feat? They are not overly powerful. Why are they even there? those feats are weak and waiting till 21st level to get a critical range of 19-20. Give me a break. Inescapable force and evasion. Sure, give it to the players whatever. What is so bad, break it?

I'm going to start here and then get to the rest of the stuff.

Expanding your weapon crit range is a really big deal in 4e. Remember that there are no confirmation rolls, so any crit deals a ton of damage. Also, almost every magic weapon gives additional bonus damage on a crit. Finally, remember that extra damage dice are also all maximized, apart from those dice that only apply on a crit.

So, a Rogue with a +2 vicious dagger, Dex 20, Cha 18, and sneak attack will deal 4 (weapon) +11 (modifiers) +16 (sneak attack) + 2d12 on a crit. And they will crit 10% of the time. That's one out of every 10 attacks.

Expanding critical hit range is big in 4e, at every level.

All feat ability prerequisites and tier requirements are removed.

A couple notable ability prerequisites:
Armor requirements are ridiculous.
The spell caster +1 damage feats ability requirements are completely ridiculous.
Many of these ability requirements are nonsensical.

A couple notable tier requirements
Arcane recovery can actually make a wizard better.
The 19-20 crit feats can actually make those crit feats worthwhile before level 21+.

Thoughts on this?

I agree on the spellcaster +1 damage feats, for what it's worth. Those shouldn't have minimum requirements, and IMHO they should scale by tier like Weapon Focus does.

I disagree on armor requirements. Each point of AC is a pretty big deal with 4e combat math, so each one is a pretty major power boost. It also encourages characters to spread some ability score points around, if they would like the added protection better armor affords.

I also think removing all tier requirements from feats is a little ... crazy. The epic feats are just insanely better than lower-level feats. Heroic feats are often barely worthwhile. Epic feats are often must-haves.

-O