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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6278984" data-attributes="member: 8461">So you're saying I'm the voice of mainstream 3.5? Um...thanks? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />I believe that the answer to the question in your last sentence is that your third sentence isn't true. Holy crap is it not true. "With a good enough set of feats, it's almost impossible to have a concept that you can't build"? The degree to which I disagree with this is staggering.There are many, many character concepts that feats can't build - and neither can character classes, for that matter - with the sole caveat that "build" is understood to mean "build effectively" (as in, they're not a combination of disparate abilities that add up to little).I <a href="https://alzrius.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/power-word-recriminate/" target="_blank">once came up</a> with a character concept that was a character who was haunted by an evil spirit - essentially an incorporeal familiar - that was trying to push him towards doing evil. It needed to have stats, since it routinely killed or drove off potential allies in his childhood as part of his back-story. The character, however, was not a spellcaster. Rather, he was discovering that the reason he was haunted in the first place is that he has a latent ability to naturally shape and control negative energy...which could make him a powerful force for evil. As such, he practiced unarmed combat to try and learn discipline...with that discipline was slowly unlocking low-level psychic powers (a la a classic Jedi, in the original trilogy).So, to recap, this character has:1) a familiar that's essentially connected to him (hence why he doesn't just kill it) but is essentially an NPC2) unarmed combat skills3) channel negative energy/rebuke undead (and related abilities)4) psionic powers5) is not a spellcasterEven if you write number one off by just making it an NPC, you're still going to need clerical levels (channeling/rebuking), which have the added problem of spellcasting; psionic levels for the psychic powers, and monk levels for any sort of worthwhile unarmed combat abilities.Leaving aside how much that compromises the character (spellcasting, a slew of unwanted monk abilities that don't fit the theme), that's something along the lines of three different classes, which don't make for a very playable character. Admittedly, this is more of a class problem than a feat problem, but it underscores just how many different character concepts can't be effectively made under the class/level rules.That's rules bloat, in other words; what you're talking about isn't in any way specific to feats. Now, I'm certainly sympathetic to that - I find that this is worst in the supplement treadmill ("supplement bloat"? "options bloat"?), as it involves never-ending reams of new material that simply can't be memorized the way the Core material(s) can be. But that's true across the spectra of materials, be they feats, prestige classes, spells, etc. We seem to be agreeing with each other here, which is disconcerting.Sometimes similar is close enough; it's also not quite enough to presume that just because something is a "new mechanic" it's necessarily bad - it's not that hard to grok that "1 point here is a +15, no further points can be added." Sometimes the addition is so light that it's only adding to the bloat in the most technical sense.  That's not specific enough: how is a "skill stunt" different from a "skill check"? Because unless you're using them as synonyms, the former doesn't really apply where the revised Knowledge (local) is concerned.You're moving the goalposts, here. It's not about ambiguity in where they apply, it's about the potential for thematic overlap.You're tragically misguided if you think that's my answer. My answer  regarding the Trojan War would be "You roll Knowledge (history) because you want to know about a historical event. The other ways of looking about it are interesting, but don't apply." If you want to know who the king is, you roll Knowledge (nobility and royalty) because that's the skill that deals with knowing about, you know, nobility and royalty.What's ironic here is that you're actually the one who's okay with ambiguity, because you're introducing it where I don't see any at all. In other words, you're creating a comparative devaluation of skills, and then bemoaning that they're not more valuable. This is something I talked about in my previous post - the one you ostensibly responded to - where I said that some people take that position that different skills can be used for the same check, and that I didn't care for that.If you see ambiguity there, it's because you're allowing it in. Even if you think it's unclear which skill would apply, just make a decision and stick to it. Problem solved.This would be a good idea if it weren't so subjective as to have very little practical value. Saying that the answer is to "just do it better" when it comes to game rules is something that sounds great, but breaks down when you have to deal with details.That's a nice house rule, but it's still just a house rule. Personally, I don't see how granting everyone the abilities of myriad feats for free necessarily makes things better. That might, I suppose, solve some problems with opportunity costs, but it's going to create its own set of difficulties.   If that works for you, then more power to you. I see that as treating a symptom without addressing the underlying cause, however, which is the restrictive nature of the class/level method of building characters.Notice that I said that something is jumbled when it has unrelated themes united under one mechanic. A skill check that can tell you general information about any given location, and tells you what sorts of damage a troll can't regenerate? That's a jumbled mechanic. Likewise, you absolutely look at spells and complain about spell bloat. That's part and parcel of the issue with "linear fighters, quadratic wizards" that has been coming up for years.</blockquote>

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