Is Expanding Feats the Answer?

[Kaodi]

Also trying to avoid edition warring here

I don't think 3.x and 4e feats can cover the same ground. 4e class abilities and powers cover a lot of the ground that 3.x feats should have covered, IMO. In the 3.x space, class feats are almost desperately needed, and not the boring old "Greater Weapon Specialization" static numerical bonus-style feat either.

I think this kind of makes sense when you consider the plain English meanings of the words " feat " and " power " . The way many feats actually work is at odds with what the word " feat " really means.

(Edit: In fact, I can imagine that it might make sense to retool the difference between " feat " and " power " to be simply the difference between " mundane " and " supernatural " , and much of what we call feats would becomes " specializations " or " specialties ".)

 

[Kaodi]

Also, I just had this idea for an interplay between weapons and combat manoeuvers, if being good with the latter was still handed with feats. A combat manouever feat would allow you to be good at using that manoeuver with any weapon, whereas a weapon specialization type of feat would allow you to be good at performing any appropriate combat manoever with that weapon, instead of providing a bonus to vanilla attacks and damage. After all, if you are really specialized with a weapon meant for tripping, how does it not make sense that you would be good at tripping with that weapon if you specialized in it?

 

[Celebrim]

Also, I just had this idea for an interplay between weapons and combat manoeuvers, if being good with the latter was still handed with feats. A combat manouever feat would allow you to be good at using that manoeuver with any weapon, whereas a weapon specialization type of feat would allow you to be good at performing any appropriate combat manoever with that weapon, instead of providing a bonus to vanilla attacks and damage. After all, if you are really specialized with a weapon meant for tripping, how does it not make sense that you would be good at tripping with that weapon if you specialized in it?

This is one of the issues that PF quite rightfully addressed, if in a limited way.

 

[MoxieFu]

I am not a fan of feats. I much prefer the talent trees in D20 Modern and Star Wars Saga edition. I think they create a stronger and more focused archetype. If you want to get away from archetypes then go with a class-less system instead.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

OP here; I suppose the difficulty of such an original post mind dump is that you can never quite get all that's in your head written down. I'll do my best to start filling in gaps.

The idea of broadening the role of feats has two main pit falls for me.

First, let's imagine that you develop enough levers (and instructions on how to use them) to perfectly balance every feat in the game. The choice between any two feats is now indifferent. What you haven't balanced, though, is that you still have a limited number of feat slots. So while any two feats are equal, the synergies between any two feats are not.

This is a really good point. There is always going to be a more powerful set of picked synergistic feats over a random or casual selection of feats. If (and it's a big if) you can keep these synergies capped, then you can get variety that's a good controlled variety.

For example, let's pretend that +1 atk with sword, +1 atk with bow, +2 dmg with sword, and +2 dmg with bow are all perfectly equal feats. The moment I take +1 atk with sword, the +2 dmg with sword feat is now more powerful than either bow feat because of my previous choices--I plan to use the sword for a lot of my actions, so sword feats are now more powerful.

This is the point of having feats that are a suite of abilities that have an enforced redundancy to them. Using your example:

Feat A) one sword feat might have (+1 attack; +3 damage and extras w, x, y, z) while the other
Feat B) has (+2 attack; +2 damage and extras u, v, w, x).

Now as bonuses don't stack (and you can consider the majority of weapon bonuses and damage as of the "class" type) you could specialise and get both these feats so that you get the best attack and the best damage of each: (+2 attack, +3 damage).

However, when you specialise like this, you encounter more redundancy as both feats most offer similar things (in this case the w and x extras). If however, you go for one of these with a completely different feat:

Feat C) (Abilities a, b, c, d, u, z), you are gaining a wider range of abilties with far less redundancy.

Thus feat A + B is focused but suitably capped while feat A + C gives a more general range of abilities but is not completely overpowered by the A + B combination. That's the basic concept I have for not only balancing individual feats but controlling the synergies within them.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Celebrim]

I am not a fan of feats. I much prefer the talent trees in D20 Modern and Star Wars Saga edition.

Talent trees are basically feat sub-pools with class restricted entry.

And yes, the more you restrict entry into a feat tree to requirements based on class, the more you reinforce archetypes.

Imagine a system though with talent trees, and the rule was you could advance one of the talent trees available to your class 1/level, but every 3rd level (or 5th level or whatever) you could also additionally advance on any talent tree. So now you are strongly reinforcing archetypes, but you are also saying, "But you aren't necessarily restricted to an archetype. You can make hybrids or variants if you want."

This is essentially my preferred way of doing things. Like I said, I'm not a fan of 'purist' systems. I like hybrids.

 

[Celebrim]

For example, let's pretend that +1 atk with sword, +1 atk with bow, +2 dmg with sword, and +2 dmg with bow are all perfectly equal feats. The moment I take +1 atk with sword, the +2 dmg with sword feat is now more powerful than either bow feat because of my previous choices--I plan to use the sword for a lot of my actions, so sword feats are now more powerful.

Let me take a different approach to this.

Ok, let's pretend let's pretend that +1 atk with sword, +1 atk with bow, +2 dmg with sword, and +2 dmg with bow are all perfectly equal feats. Now let's pretend that there is a fifth feat which says, "All of your feats that apply to swords, now apply to bows as well". Now, is this feat better or worse than +2 dmg with a bow? On the one hand, its clearly better, because provided I have '+1 atk with sword' and '+2 dmg with sword', then 'Bows are the new swords' is equal to two feats for the price of one ('+1 atk with swords' and '+2 dmg with swords').

But really, so what? We aren't trying to balance feats with each other. We are trying to balance the collection of feats available at a given level with a similar collection of feats. What were are interested in is, "Is three feats to get +1 to atk and +2 to damage with both bows and swords, attractive compared to any other three feats we might choose?" We don't really have to worry about the fact that many of our combinations are suboptimal at some level. We more have to worry about that there is no one, or few, set of choices. We can assume, and indeed even intend, for feats to be chosen in a synergistic way. So long as we control the synergy, we ought to be ok.

As you can see from the "Bows are the new swords", we can actually take advantage of this to discourage the sort of linear specialization you are worried about. With feats like "Bows are the new swords" when you have a choice of a third feat, you are now choosing between say, "improve +2 to atk with swords" or "improve to +1 to atk, and +2 to damage with bows". This is now a more legitimate tradeoff between depth and breath of skill than the third feat "improve to +1 to atk with bows" would be.

So yes, a badly designed feat tree never tempts you but to go deeper. But my preference in design is to push players less toward, "Design toward what you can kill", but toward, "Design toward what can kill you." The former encourages you to be a Johnny-One-Shot that can take down anything quickly. The later however encourages you to start at some point plugging up holes in your capabilities so that you are never completely outmatched or lacking answers.

If you have dozens of little variances between feats, I suspect you'll quickly find choice-fatigue paralyzes most players. They'll resolve their paralysis by growing indifferent, which would be a shame because it looks like you have a great template set out to provide a lot of choice and customization.

This is not my experience. I grant you that some players, especially casual players, will experience choice fatigue. In my opinion that group is smaller than the group that likes freedom to choose their own path and destiny. But yeah, for groups with wildly different tastes, you'd need wildly different systems to please them.

 

[AeroDm]

Let me take a different approach to this.

[...snip...]

So yes, a badly designed feat tree never tempts you but to go deeper. But my preference in design is to push players less toward, "Design toward what you can kill", but toward, "Design toward what can kill you." The former encourages you to be a Johnny-One-Shot that can take down anything quickly. The later however encourages you to start at some point plugging up holes in your capabilities so that you are never completely outmatched or lacking answers.

I think you make a number of strong points. My concern is that your point relies on well designed feat trees instead of a well designed system. Over time, badly designed feat trees are inevitable either because of splat or because the point of these homebrews is for casual gamers to toss their fun ideas into the game.

The risks of the all-powers-through-feats come in at the system level and those risks can be ameliorated through strong implementation. I'd prefer a system that minimizes the risk so that when implementation eventually gets lazy or bloated the risks are still minimized.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Could you tell me how this is different from a point buy game?
Well adding requirements to what you can buy makes it different but anything besides that?

I think on the one hand, what I'm suggesting is a point buy system of sorts. However, what I'm really trying to do is travel the middle road on this one. A typical point buy game is quite fine grained leading to over-focusing issues as well as not supporting novice play that well. What I'm suggesting is more coarsely grained. When you "purchase" a feat, you are purchasing a package or suite of abilities. Sure the focus might be on a particular feature but you have to get the rest of the package as well.

As I highlight in my previous post, the aim is to force more redundancy the more you focus (but hopefully not unreasonably so). I think with the requirements added in, you have a good system of controls to ensure that modifier caps are strictly held to.

I tell you what though, there have been so many good responses on this thread, and I'm out of time to reply to them all at the moment. I have a ton of XP to hand out!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Hermann.. have you seen Ken Hood's Skills-n-Feats rulesM if not, I recommend you do.

The basic concept is that an entry level feat grants you access to a skill, which in turn is the prerequisite for the rest of the feat tree {3x rules}.

The nice thing is that his rules is that you can develop a 'classless' system and rely on 4 base archtypes. Assuming of course that you get more of the feat trees fleshed out. Ken did martial arts and psionics. I did a build for the paladin.
Essentially it gives you the flexibility of point buy with the ease of a class based system. It is also very easy to expand as you only need to build out feat trees based on a new skill.
Class skill versus crossclass keeps the dabblers from outshining the dedicated ones.

It is the sytsem I would love to see dnd embrace.

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