Is Expanding Feats the Answer?

[Herremann the Wise]

I think the feat idea is a bit clearer than point buy, but not by much.

Amd the problem with point buy uysually is putting everything into one area and nothing in other areas. Will this be balanced here?

Think of each feat like a package rather than a single ability or modifier or power. This package is meant to be representative of a feature of the character such as Toughness, Alertness of Mobility. I'm not too sure how well you know the fate system but imagine "Aspects" but a codified version of them (although I think it would be neat if you could also use them as fate aspects when appropriate); that is what I'm thinking of when I think "Feat" as in my original post.

For example, let's imagine what the "Toughness" feat could possibly look like (a really rough draft as I have not pinned down in my mind even the major features of a PC yet).

TOUGHNESS
Your tenacity and raw toughness make you difficult to stop or keep down. Your well known to be able to take a hit and still smile before exacting revenge upon your enemy.

Prerequisites: Constitution 15 and the Character must have recovered naturally on their own from a critical condition. [XP 2500]
{No idea yet what exactly a “critical” condition is but you get the idea. I have a bunch of ideas in relation to damage and healing but that is well and truly a different thread. The aim here is that the toughness feat must always be earned from in game circumstances rather than simply selected by the player. XP cost would place this feat above the initial levels).

[Constitution]
{Tag to indicate that constitution is an option and may be picked for the next ability score increase}

[10hp]
{I imagine 10hps for a single feat would be at the absolute tippy top of the hit point range}

[Fortitude +2 {Special}]
{As highlighted before, there most likely needs to be three different categories of bonus type. You would also then have the (special) bonus type which like dodge or un-named bonus types always stack with anything.}

Gutsy Recovery
Exploit: The character can initiate a second wind even when at negative hit points or with zero surges left. Initiating a second wind is a minor action for your character. {Comparatively: normally a character must be conscious or have surges left to initiate a second wind.}
Tally: Whenever during an encounter your character initiates a second wind when at negative hit points or with zero surges left, tick one of the tick boxes.

Tick boxes
Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ
{I have no idea yet how many tick boxes there should be but I’ll guess at 20 to start with.}

Half: The PC gains a further 4 hps.
Complete: The PC gains one point of constitution.
{This is used for making the pre-requisites for certain feats relying on all of or half of the tick boxes being ticked. The half and complete abilities are garnered when half and all the tick boxes are completed.}

”Aspect”:
The PC chooses one of the following:
- Tough as nails
- Scarred Intimidator
This aspect can be initiated during a critical point during a social encounter (with the effect being a bonus or penalty). If particularly successful or disastrous, the DM may direct the player to tick one of their PC's toughness tick boxes.

Rough as guts but hopefully this works as an example of how I'm viewing a feat as a collection or suite of abilities. It is meant to represent a key feature of the character.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[tuxgeo]

Brainstorming. (Spitballing?)

My impression of this exercise is that Herremann the Wise is beginning to design a completely new fantasy game derived from D&D, to replace the various Classes/Powers/Feats/Backgrounds/Themes/Items systems already in place. ("Brainstorming," to put it into a single word.)

I recall having read that the key to brainstorming is to add ideas, and never to criticize ideas, so I'll just add these comments:

A. Terminology: I'll violate established language principles by back-forming the word "Feat" by rashly assuming it to be an abbreviation of the word "Feature" (instead of meaning "accomplishment" as I otherwise traditionally would).

With that many more letters to abbreviate in various ways, we can divide the word "feature" to derive the abbreviations "feat," "eatu," and "ature" from the same word, and to get three different classifications of options for characters to take: Feats, Eatues, and Atures.

• The middle one -- "Eatues" -- will immediately (because I'm doing it right now!) get corrupted into "Each Use"; so those can be restricted to options that involve the active use of something, whether it be Standard, Move, Minor, Free, Immediate, Opportunity, or No Action; and from whatever source (class? item?)
• The last one -- "Atures" -- will have to relate to the character's stature somehow (not meaning physical height). (Not settled yet; there may be more ways to relate to stature than merely one.)
• The first one -- "Feats" -- will conglomerate the leftovers.

B. Level-specific options, and option-trees: These should probably be put into the "Atures" bucket -- because any one character might not be qualified to take a specific one of these at first, but the same character might qualify to take it later; so its use depends on the character's stature.
This seems to tread on the territory that classes used to support, so putting these options into the "Atures" bucket might be a way for the new game to avoid proliferation of classes.

(That's all I have right now.)

 

[Jhaelen]

Think of each feat like a package rather than a single ability or modifier or power. This package is meant to be representative of a feature of the character such as Toughness, Alertness of Mobility.

Sounds more like a 'theme' to me, except you're using abstract qualities to 'label' your packages instead of something associated with a particular profession or grouping of people.

What I slightly dislike about your examples is that they seem to be directly derived from abilities:
Toughness - Con
Alertness - Wis (or rather Perception, if that was an ability score in D&D)
Mobility - Dex

What I'm immediately wondering is why a character with exceptional Con wouldn't get the Toughness package automatically? Why go the indirect route via a 'feat'? How can a character with superhuman Con _not_ be 'tough'?

Compared to 4e's themes you also lose the advantage of having the 'package' be automatically associated with 'fluff' (unless you consider that a disadvantage ).

 

[FireLance]

Frankly, I would just drop the term "feat". It's a term that carries too much baggage. The core building block of a PC would be the "benefit", which could be anything: a constant bonus (to attack rolls, damage rolls, skill checks, hit points, etc.), an at-will, encounter or daily power, etc.

I can see benefits being organized in groups that would end up being quite similar to Dark Sun style themes (and let's use the term "theme" for these groupings). Each theme would grant access to some fixed benefits and a choice of some other benefits.

Themes could be further sub-divided into races, classes, backgrounds, whatever. By default, a character could have up to three themes, but the DM could choose to adjust this up or down based on the power level he is comfortable with.

Maybe a PC typically chooses a race, a class and a background. You could have an Elf Wizard Scholar, or a Dwarf Fighter Bodyguard, for example. Multi-classing and racial hybrids could be obtained by doubling up on class and race. So, you could have a Halfling Fighter Rogue, or a Human Elf bard.

During character creation and level up, the player picks a number of benefits from those his PC's themes grant him access to. There could also be a generic group of benefits that anyone could take. Maybe these could be called feats.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

This reads a lot like a game that isn't D&D, basically a point-buy system.

Which might be fine, but why not just play GURPS or some other point-buy system? This would no longer be D&D imho.

This is making me think so thank you for the input. To me a point buy system is focused on finer details with the points or cost being the primary method of keeping what is purchased "balanced". What I think I'm thinking of though is that the suite of abilities or the package that you access for your character is balanced within itself. The XP cost of a feat is not meant to take on that burden, but is meant to be used as a lever that helps determine when a feat may be purchased.

My main motive for using the term "feat" is that it is a D&D term in both 3e and 4e that has already been flexed in its use. You have class abilities, feats, powers, racial abilities and themes all kind of treading similar ground and so I though for simplicity, it would be useful to try and unite these under one umbrella. A kind of evolving of the organisation of D&D character capacities. I still want it to very much feel like Dungeons & Dragons so the fact that it was more "GURPS" to you is a concern and a factor to keep an eye on.

As far as the basic question, "Is expanding feats the answer," I don't think so, because that really means "Is EVEN MORE option overload the answer?"

What I'm trying to do though is reduce the option overload, I'll see if I can convince you (and others). The difficulty is that without actually having a finished product to show you, it is quite difficult to convey what I have rolling around in my head but let's see what I can come up with.

A feat is meant to represent a particular aspect of a character; the title is meant to be informative (and evocative) so as if you were "building" your character, you would look to these titles as to which ones best represented the character you have in mind. The feat is a simple building block or a package of adjustments, abilities, powers etc. that all back up and mechanically represent what the feat title is trying to say. As such, you are trying to mop up several "things" and put them all under the one umbrella. This in essence is looking to contract the wide field of options into a field large enough to present variety but not so much as to requiring a compendium to manage them all. The aim is to contain the number of feats rather than allow them to explode. By tying them explicitly to a theme, I'm hoping that it discourages creating large numbers of feats that all basically represent the same thing.

The other factor is that there is a small amount of variation within a feat. These may be minor tweaks or choosing a particular exploit over another; or more interestingly features that must be earned from in game action rather than being simply selected by the player. The aim is that you could have two characters with identical feats but who were not necessarily mechanically identical.

Broadly speaking, you are making two sets of choices when you are selecting feats. The first is selecting the broad categories that best represent your character concept. The second is having selected these feats, tweaking the available options within the feat to nail down and more highly define that original concept. I think that is a more organic way of creating characters.

And so thank you for the short but thought-provoking response; much appreciated.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Sounds more like a 'theme' to me, except you're using abstract qualities to 'label' your packages instead of something associated with a particular profession or grouping of people.

What I slightly dislike about your examples is that they seem to be directly derived from abilities:
Toughness - Con
Alertness - Wis (or rather Perception, if that was an ability score in D&D)
Mobility - Dex

This is a really good point (thank you for spotting it) and one I did not notice (and perhaps should have noticed) when throwing out a couple of examples. In short this was completely unintentional. I envisage feats as representing a wide range of possible character facets including more specific profession-based ideas as well as abstract ones. While some feats as above would be naturally focused on a particular one of the six ability categories, I did not mean at all to limit feats to such ability-type ideals. So thank you again for pointing this out. I agree with you that a system with just this style of feat would be too limited in the scope that feats as I'm imagining should represent.

What I'm immediately wondering is why a character with exceptional Con wouldn't get the Toughness package automatically? Why go the indirect route via a 'feat'? How can a character with superhuman Con _not_ be 'tough'?

I suppose it depends upon how you view constitution. Toughness is perhaps one aspect of it but bodily health is another as is a character's fitness. Some features of each of these concepts might be:
- Toughness: Focused on taking a hit and recovery
- Health: Capacity for healing and susceptibility to disease
- Fitness: Capacity for endurance, and physically outlasting others.

You raise an interesting point though in terms of access: should access to such a feat be automatic and under what conditions or not? My inclination is to not make it automatic, so long as the system plays out that having a high constitution has some in-game benefit that a feat such as "Toughness" would then augment. You could certainly put incentives into the pre-requisites that make it desirable for the player to select such a feat. If they have focused on their character's constitution, chances are they will be looking at feats that can augment and take advantage of this high constitution.

Compared to 4e's themes you also lose the advantage of having the 'package' be automatically associated with 'fluff' (unless you consider that a disadvantage ).

I think this is one of the reasons why themes resonated so well with the 4e community and it is certainly something that I consider important. You want a feat to truly represent something, be it an abstract quality or a highly specialized professional skill or social position. You then want the mechanics underneath that feat to carry that out and equally represent that idea. You want the fluff and crunch pulling in the same direction, enmeshed and statistically producing such effects during gameplay rather than split or in strained accord. Such unity within a feat is what I would be trying to achieve.

Thank you again for the observations.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It might be useful to think of these abilities like Lego blocks--or more accurately, the base Lego blocks that everyone used to get in a basic set before everything got so specialized. Let me be almost completely abstract here for a moment:

Character abilities come in blocks. Picture these as the Lego blocks with the "dots". That is, your basic block is the "thick" one (about 1/4" high) with a 2x4 array of dots. You can also have a half, thick block, with a 2x2 array of dots. And then you have a few niche blocks that are 2x1 thick, and the "thin" ones (1/3 of the thick one) in 2x1, 2x2, and 2x4 configurations. For illustration purposes, that's all we have.

Classes are distinguished by the common colors: Fighter is red, wizard is white, cleric is blue, and rogue is yellow. You put one of the less common green blocks on a cleric, you get a druid. Put the same block on a fighter, you get a ranger.

There are, of course, all kinds of embellishments you can make on this, with the sets that have more specialty pieces. But assume that each "dot" on a basic dot represents the approximate worth of that block. (Or if you like, that a "toughness" 2x4 block has about 8 related abilities on it, though I don't mean it that exact.) So a bland but workable starting fighter is to grab three red, 2x4 blocks and stack them.

But you can also get two red, 2x4 blocks and two red 2x2 blocks. It might even be that two particular 2x2 blocks more or less replicates a particular 2x4 block, but that's ok. Not all of them do, and presumably that 2x4 block is so popular they went ahead an included it as one bigger block and two smaller ones.

I think one of the reasons that the "feat" terms seems a bit off is that we think of "feats" as more the specialty pieces, used to customize once the basics are there. You'd like to have some basic "blocks" that are the foundation, and then embellish from there--or not, if that is the way you want to play.

Anyway, hope that twist helps somehow, from someone who also knows what brainstorming means ...

 

[tuxgeo]

It might be useful to think of these abilities like Lego blocks--or more accurately, the base Lego blocks that everyone used to get in a basic set before everything got so specialized. Let me be almost completely abstract here for a moment:

Character abilities come in blocks. Picture these as the Lego blocks with the "dots". That is, your basic block is the "thick" one (about 1/4" high) with a 2x4 array of dots. You can also have a half, thick block, with a 2x2 array of dots. And then you have a few niche blocks that are 2x1 thick, and the "thin" ones (1/3 of the thick one) in 2x1, 2x2, and 2x4 configurations. For illustration purposes, that's all we have.

Classes are distinguished by the common colors: Fighter is red, wizard is white, cleric is blue, and rogue is yellow. You put one of the less common green blocks on a cleric, you get a druid. Put the same block on a fighter, you get a ranger.

Love it! (I'll let you be the one to try to tell the rogue he's yellow.)

Another possible design outrage: Martial source red, Divine source white, Arcane source purple (like their robes), Primal source blue (like both sea and sky), Psionic source black (like the monks' belts), Shadow source gray (because shadow doesn't deserve to have green or orange or yellow).

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think I'm getting my your concept better! So I pick a bunch of keywords that match that character and I get abilities and stuff that match?

For example, I have a Pathfinder character named Kana and the following "feats" would fit her: Sorcerer, Water Magic, Enchantment magic, Fashionable, Very Attractive, Enthusiast (Tea), Diplomatic, etc.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think I'm getting my your concept better! So I pick a bunch of keywords that match that character and I get abilities and stuff that match?

For example, I have a Pathfinder character named Kana and the following "feats" would fit her: Sorcerer, Water Magic, Enchantment magic, Fashionable, Very Attractive, Enthusiast (Tea), Diplomatic, etc.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

At the most basic player level, you can have pre-generated characters or "classes". These pre-organised "feats" (not the best word I know) can be easily scanned so that a new player will have a clear idea of what their character is supposed to be good at, even if they don't yet mechanically understand why their character is good at such things.

At the next player level, the focus is on mixing these building blocks to craft the character concept they have in their head. With experience, they know that certain feats have particularly interesting or effective abilities but the focus is on who their character is and that their PC properly represents that mental picture.

At the last player level, the focus is most likely on an appendix of lists in the back of the book, so they can see which abilities and powers are contained in which feats, and thus which feats are most synergistic for a particular concept or character focus.

My hope (and what I'm trying to explore and think about in this thread) is that this system seems to cover quite a few bases in terms of character building preferences, and is somewhat intuitive for novices and experts alike (even if my presentation of it has been scatterbrained).

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise