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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6223641" data-attributes="member: 1465">As I wrote, I think overlapping proficiencies are an issue. Not a game-breaking issue, but nevertheless still an issue. It's the kind of thing that some gamers say don't care or worry about, until it happens to them, and then they start complaining. It just feels bad, like when you're a kid and get duplicate baseball cards. Those who genuinely don't care about overlapping are probably in many cases players who generally don't worry much about the rules behind their PC.However, the proficiency problem cannot really be solved by a different list of feats IMO, unless you mean to have really a lot of feats, to create variants where e.g. Archery Master version 1 grants bow proficiency (so it's meant for those who don't already have it) and Archery Master version 2 doesn't grant bow proficiency but replaces it with something else (and is therefore meant for those who already have the proficiency). But you'd still get some players who would like that "something else" but also needed the proficiency.Te best solution IMO is really to downsize feats back again, so that a feat's benefit is approximately as valuable as a proficiency, and proficiencies can be feats again.One feat == one proficiency == +1 ability score.And then obviously still have feats with unique benefits, balanced against this equation (it is of course a "reasonable" equivalency, it can't be perfectly equal).This of course assumes that one proficiency = +1 ability score. Some people would disagree that this is the case. I say that roughly it feels like a reasonable trade-off to me, but it's tricky to compare them since the ability increase is worth the same at all levels, while proficiencies scale by level.Exactly!Language is always very questionable, because in some campaigns languages are completely useless, so let's not focus on this one option too much.But proficiencies, which now include skills, saving throws, weapons (if one is too few, weapon groups could be used), armors and tools, are really something that need support to be taken individually one-by-one.While it is ok to have a Loremaster feat turning someone into an expert in many fields, this is not going to be ok for a lot of players, who are looking for expertise in one field. Granted, backgrounds are customizable, but they have one big limitation: you can only choose your background at the start of the game. Thus there is no way during the course of your PC's lifetime to add a specific proficiency, unless you take "the whole package" that turns you into an expert archer or a loremaster etc. There is a huge gap between the two options, having or not having that feat.Now for those players who do want the whole packages, they should just notice that we already had them, and they were called "Specialties".But if feats were smaller (as small as a proficiency and as a +1 ability score), it would solve so many problems at once. Furthermore there would be much more player's freedom, because in the current implementation you don't have to take feats if you don't like them, you don't have to take ability increases if you don't like them, but you have to take one of the two anyway. With smaller feats, you can also opt for proficiencies (which are themselves quite a range!) so you have an additional degree of freedom.As I said, the only problem that small feats don't solve, is that they will have to be balanced against a +1 ability increase, which some people don't like and want +2 instead. But to me the benefits largely outweight this problem.</blockquote>

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