How do you feel about the only-general-feats direction of D&D?

[the Jester]

I agree with the goal, but not the means. Feats are too nitpicky. Racial powers would have been a better solution.

Absolutely. Racial powers (preferably that you don't have to swap class powers for) would be a great way to go, especially if they were built in to the level progression, e.g. you get a racial power at 2nd, 7th, 12th, 17th, 22nd and 27th or something like that.

 

[andy3k]

If a feat is required to fix a class/race weakness then one of two things are true: 1. the class/race is broken and needs to be fixed at the class/race level, not with a feat, or 2. the weakness is there for game balance, flavor, or both and you are a power gamer who wants all the good aspects of a race/class without taking the bad.

General feats might be generic on paper but it is how you justify them and roleplay them for your character that can make all the difference in your imagination. Weapon Focus for a barb means hitting harder out of pure savagery while a vamp might do it by striking the softer, tastier flesh. If you depend on your imagination to add character to your character then mechanics can be simplified.

The other suggestion I have seen is creating a single feat that addresses multiple targets. Instead of having one feat that adds +2 to cold damage and another that adds +2 to fire damage, have one feat that adds +2 to your choice of any damage type other than untyped damage.

By extension, you could have a single feat that has a different (yet related) effect based on your class (not sub-class), race, or gender, or whatever.

All that being said, I am 100% for a limited set of feats that expand on a class or race ability or power to expand on the uniqueness of that class or race. But this should not be done unless it adds something that a general feat or variable feat cannot.

 

[interwyrm]

Racial feats that modify racial powers are good.

Racial feats that are just because are irritating. 80% of the characters I want to play end up being tieflings just because of their feat support.

 

[MrMyth]

I liked having feats that could distinguish one build from another. An ice sorcerer could feel different from a fire sorcerer, for example.

I disliked that the balance between them was often poorly done, meaning some feats were completely useless, while others were so good that everyone wanted to be an ice sorcerer/rogue/fighter/cleric.

I dislike even more the current trend of general feats, all of which are extremely powerful and tend to overshadow earlier options.

So overall... I prefered the former approach, even if it was poorly executed at times.

 

[Gryph]

I would have liked to see a middle ground but the current direction demands throwing babies out with the bathwater, usually after covering the baby with oil and setting it on fire for good measure while they are at it. There are good reasons to have "general" feats that everyone can take and are generally useful. There are also good reasons to have some feats that make a race more interesting (or give it a boost in an area it needs it) or class feats (again for the same reason).

There are good reasons to use all three and the right mix would have been ideal. The vampire and shade for example could really use feats to give them needed boosts. On the other hand, I can see general feats that apply to all kinds of healing (or whatever) being desirable to having 3 billion different variations on a similar feat just for each specific healing power. Again it's about making feats relevant and interesting, while thinking before restricting it to a narrow class/race with "Is there a good flavor or mechanical reason this should be restricted?". If there isn't a good flavor or mechanical reason to restrict the feat: It should be able to be taken by anyone.

What kind of monster would eat a raw baby?

 

[captainspud]

I'm fine with "vampire" feats or "wizard feats" if they work off those class abilities. Likewise with "dwarf" and "elf" feats that work with their racial powers. But I really don't want to see "dwarf vampire" feats, or "halfling binder"-specific feats. It's too narrow, and clogs my brainspace.

Just dropped in to post exactly this. I like feats that are tied to a race OR a class, but feats that target specific intersections of the two are silly and cause far too much feature glut.

 

[ceiling90]

I liked racial feats that made being that race more awesome.

Things like Eladrin Warrior, Dwarf whatever it was, and feats like that - I felt as though it made them more Eladrin-y or Dwarf-y cause it plays to fluff and perceived notions of those races. I felt that it gave some reinforcement of being that race; while not exactly playing on their racial power.

Some absolutely hated that.

The other really strong contending racial feats had to do with racial powers or change in how a class functioned due to being that race. I liked those. It also noticeably reinforced that race actually plays a role in your character apart from two ability bonus, mostly immaterial other benefits, and an extra encounter power.

Once again, some absolutely hate that.

I don't like most of the feat bloat either, but there are some really ridiculous corner case feats or some rather niche ones that no one ever picks. In way, feats need to be re-hauled, re-focused, and given a consistent power level and use for each feat. Kinda like the new General Feats, only I think it needs to go even further, but to do so would require a new Edition.

 

[dangerous jack]

As has been said by others, I liked the class & race feats because many of them provided flavourful options to round out my character. And I didn't like them because there were so many it was overwhelming.

Getting into (what I think is) my ideal, which is admittedly a huge stretch into 5e territory, would be to categorize every power / feature / feat / etc. in the game into themes, and let each character choose more than one theme (but a limited number) and then only make choices that fit your themes. Although you'd give up some amount of flexibility, I think you'd gain character definition.

• My dwarf knight from the north is a tough, warhammer-wielding, paragon of dwarvenkind (Dwarf, Fighter, Endurance, Warhammer, and Dwarven Stoneblood themes)
  
• My dwarf knight from the temperate desert is cosmopolitan, refined, and extra-protective. (Dwarf, Fighter, Scimitar, Guardian, and Diplomacy themes)

 

[Kung Fu Ferret]

Well I can understand why they would focus on only general feats from here on in. As the the number of available races and classes grow, the number of possible combination's increases exponentially. It would be hard to create interesting and well balanced feats for all of them, not to mention the extra page space this would take up.

What I would rather see is a focus on feats that have a noticeable presence in play rather than feeling somewhat obligated to take feats that simply add to a die roll.

 

[Ainamacar]

I favor parsimonious prerequisites, with no prerequisites preferred over some, and general prerequisites preferred over very specific ones.

These are the questions I ask about prerequisites when designing abilities, in order of priority.
1) Does this ability mechanically rely on some non-general mechanic? If so, first consider whether I can do the same thing at least as well with a more general mechanic. If I cannot, then access to that mechanic is a prerequisite.
2) Is this ability appropriate at all levels of play? If so, first consider if I can make the ability scale across all or multiple levels of play. If I cannot, then I need to add a prerequisite that is widely available (to those that meet the first prerequisite, if applicable) and appropriate to the minimum acceptable level of play.

I treat it as axiomatic that an imaginative gamer can and will find a decent flavor justification for almost any ability. Therefore, prerequisites due to flavor should be strictly decoupled from those due to mechanics: "kitchen sink mechanics" do not and should not require "kitchen sink settings". Thus, any such restrictions should be enforced by the GM and the setting, and I feel this rule should be explicitly stated. Nevertheless, as a GM tool it is a scalpel, not a bludgeon. I'm a fan of thoughtful exclusion, i.e. "saying no", to any ability without at least one flavor justification appropriate to the genre or setting. If it forces the player and GM to get a little more invested in the idea of a character, all the better. Regardless of the answer, the basic balance of the game is no better or worse than it was before, which cannot be said for flavor restrictions that only serve as a gateway to powerful mechanics. For games with many mechanics baked in the same oven as the flavor, such that you can't really play except in that setting, this is a lesser concern.

In my opinion neither flavor nor mechanics should be thought of as preceding the other in game design, they are both subject to considerable feedback loops. My only rule for myself, in this regard, is that for anything I design I can find at least one example of flavor that fits its mechanics before I officially consider it as part of the rules. This isn't strictly necessary, but often enough in my design experience it has made the difference between an OK mechanic and a great one.

Both 3.5 and 4e violate my guidelines fairly frequently. I think 3.5 tends to do it more spectacularly, since it had many more feat trees which could be ruined with a single poor decision, or single feats with an absolutely wallbanger prerequisite. The bloat in 4e is almost as bad, though. Generally speaking, I much prefer a well-designed feat tree to a glut of single feats, many of which do or nearly overlap anyway.