D&D 5E Krynn's Free Feats: setting-specific or the future of the game?

[James Gasik]

Found it, it was overgeeked:

"Infinite regeneration over an 8 hour sleep. As long as you have 1 hp, you won’t have anything wrong with you the next day. Broken ribs, missing limbs, poof. All better tomorrow."

 

[Parmandur]

On the one hand, I dislike the idea of making feats required because one of the strengths of introducing this edition of D&D to new players is that they have a small number of meaningful choices when they create a character, and they don't really have to know a lot about how the game works to make those choices right now and have a character to play quickly. The biggest "small" choices most new players have to make are what spells to take or if they're a cleric, warlock or sorcerer, what subclass to take as well - which can be a bit tough for some new players (though actually only cleric has ever been an issue IME - the warlock patron and the sorcerer bloodline are both obvious hooks for a new player to gravitate towards and they'll pick whichever one sounds the coolest to them - the cleric domain choice ends up being a bit less exciting and so they have more questions about it).

On the other hand, once they know the game most of the players I've taught like to pick feats over ASIs except for the really casual ones who will take a +2 over looking through the feat lists every time. So it's not like they're adding that much complexity.

Hopefully they'll keep the list of free feats at 1st level that aren't tied to a specific background small, like in the UA release, to keep the choices obvious for for new players. That's my only real reservation.

This is about how I feel about it. This has the potential to help actually differentiate characters, and provide design space for Settings flavor.

 

[Li Shenron]

• Most people want to play with feats; this just normalizes existing practice.

That's an atrocious principle but unfortunately a lot of people fall for that: impose the will of the majority onto the minority. If the two were mutually exclusive it would make sense to choose the majority, but original 5e rules had the brilliant idea of making feats optional so BOTH the majority who wants feat and the minority who doesn't could play the same game even at the same table. If you give free feats you put the minority into a difficult situation of either accepting to play by someone else's tastes or refuse and be penalized.

As a comparison, what if they gave every chatacter free spells on the ground that anyway the majority already play spellcasters? Then nobody could play a non-spellcaster anymore unless they accept that everybody else got a boost but them. How fair is that?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

As a comparison, what if they gave every chatacter free spells on the ground that anyway the majority already play spellcasters? Then nobody could play a non-spellcaster anymore unless they accept that everybody else got a boost but them. How fair is that?

I mean it would be more honest then now where they hide class features in spells..

 

[cbwjm]

I like it. I had been thinking about allowing a free feat at first level anyway and now I think that one at 4th as well would be fine. I would also be ok with different worlds having different curated lists of feats. One for first level and another for fourth level.

I think the bonus feat at 4th level is to help reduce spending your few ASIs/feats on the limited feat chains they've put out. In like you in that I've been planning on allowing a free first level feat, though I forgot about it last game I started. Bonus 4th level feat? Why not.

 

[TwoSix]

As a comparison, what if they gave every chatacter free spells on the ground that anyway the majority already play spellcasters? Then nobody could play a non-spellcaster anymore unless they accept that everybody else got a boost but them. How fair is that?

I already played that edition; I quite liked it.

 

[jasper]

More power at first level and i's free baby.

 

[jayoungr]

When I get pushback on simply finding my party a place to sleep for the night, it's obvious (to me) that a component of backgrounds has failed to work as advertised.

Or the problem could be with your DM, and not the feature.

 

[James Gasik]

Or the problem could be with your DM, and not the feature.

That's also true, but I can see why replacing ribbons with more useful things can be advantageous.

 

[Minigiant]

I see it...
...as a patch to get first level feats in to patch in complexity.

Tougher harder hearthier PCs would have more levels. That's the point of levels.