D&D 5E L&L: Mike Lays It All Out

[Szatany]

I'm curious to see how these feats replace prestige classes. Like what would having an Arcane Archer feat do?

Something like your arrows can inflict fire, cold, lightning, thunder or acid damage. And some limited number of times, determined by something you could can have your arrows inflict damage over a 10' radius cloud.

This is my take on it:

Elemental Archery
Prerequisites: proficiency with bow, ability to cast spells
Every arrow you nock and let fly becomes magical, gaining one property of your choice:
* Fire: All damage the arrow deals is fire damage. In addition, on its next turn the target takes 2d6 fire damage (Dex save for half)
* Frost: All damage the arrow deals is frost damage. In addition, on its next turn the target is slowed. (Con negates)
* Lightning: All damage the arrow deals is lightning damage. In addition, the lightning jumps from the target to one random adjacent target, dealing 2d6 lightning damage. (Dex save for half)
* Seeker: Arrow seems to have mind of its own. It flies around covers and ignores concealment, including magical one.
* Deadly: Arrow scores critical hit on natural roll of 16-20.
At 11th level, you can add two properties to one arrow.

Arcane Archery
Prerequisites: proficiency with bow, ability to cast spells
You gain the following:
* You can place an area spell upon an arrow and shoot it as an action. When the arrow is fired, the spell’s area is centered on where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster. This ability allows you to use the bow’s range rather than the spell’s range. The arrow must be fired in the round the spell is cast, or the spell is wasted.
* Whenever you shoot an arrow, you may sacrifice a spell slot. You gain a bonus to attack roll equal to that slot's level and bonus to damage roll equal to that slot's level x5.

Hail of Arrows
Prerequisites: profiency with bow, Dex 15, level 10+
As an action, you may fire up to one arrow per your Dexterity bonus. Each target must be within 90 degree cone in front of you. Resolve each attack separately. Arrows can target same or different creatures. You don't add your Dexterity bonus to those attacks.
Once per encounter you may use this ability and retain your Dex bonus.

 

[Blue]

Hmm. How about feats with scaling benefits that unlock at odd ability score thresholds? Creates a tension between 3 choices.

1) Increase an ability score from odd to even, and gain a +1 to many relevant rolls.
2) Increase an ability from even to odd, and unlock benefits of previous feats, as well as be halfway to another another ability modifier increase.
3) Gain a new feat, and gain new abilities.

This would definitely solve one of the issues I have with it. Reminds me of the elegant skill die change int he Mar 20th - when you reach certain levels, you can advance the skill die or pick another skill.

Though your idea would need to empower something besides feats since they wouldn't exist in the most basic game according to the article.

 

[EvilDwarf]

So, I'm unsure how the +1 Ability Score substitute for Feats will work within the concept of Bound Accuracy. Will there be an upward limit on how high I can push my Ability Scores? Will the bonuses start to slow down, something like 18-19 +4, 20-23 +5, 24-29 +6? Or will there be a limit on Scores, like, No Score may be increased above 23--add your +1 to another Score?

 

[TwoSix]

The odd number ability score problem isn't really that big an issue. What it really does is encourage a player to grab the easy wins, then opt for feats for the rest, which both keeps the numbers down and creates broad characters. At the same time, it leaves open the option for maxing out an attribute, but you have to pay for it. Ultimately, that leads to a more balanced game.

Next step, make 3d6 the baseline for starting attributes.

That is true. The opportunity cost of an even score is that you can't raise it again right away. You have to forgo the benefits of a feat for at least 2*X levels (where X is rate of feat gain) to get your modifier up again. With an odd score, you get the tangible benefit of an upgrade at the next feat choice.

 

[Szatany]

So, I'm unsure how the +1 Ability Score substitute for Feats will work within the concept of Bound Accuracy. Will there be an upward limit on how high I can push my Ability Scores? Will the bonuses start to slow down, something like 18-19 +4, 20-23 +5, 24-29 +6? Or will there be a limit on Scores, like, No Score may be increased above 23--add your +1 to another Score?

There's a limit on ability scores, there has been since the first (or second) playtest. No ability score can go above 20.

 

[MarkB]

This is probably too awkward, but how about having your ability bonus for attacks, defenses and saves be calculated as (Ability score -10) / 2, but for ability checks be (Ability score -9) / 2.

That way, your bonus for checks rises ahead of your bonus for combat stats, and every ability score increase has value.

 

[the Jester]

I'm wondering what proficiency means. With weapon proficiency I can still use a weapon unskilled, I just take Disad. Will that be the case with other proficiencies as well? - I guess so.

I certainly hope so- lack of proficiency shouldn't preclude making the attempt.

 

[Warbringer]

I certainly hope so- lack of proficiency shouldn't preclude making the attempt.

This will be an easy house rule even if not included.

Do like the idea of:

non-proficient: disadvantage
proficient: standard role
expert/specialized: advantage

Easy for a beginner

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm personally not really seeing the issue with the "even/odd" ability score advances. If you have an even score and then your next bonus "doesn't do anything" because your score now goes odd... so what? If you have plans for your next ability score advancement past that to go up a point in modifier... then you just accept the odd score as a fait accompli on the way to the next bonus.

I mean... sure you could forsake the +1 bonus for a feat since taking the +1 would now make your ability score odd... but all you're doing is pushing your eventual modifier bonus several levels later on. Is it "doing nothing"? No. It's speeding up your advancement to the next modifier bonus.

And as far as the "dead level" issue... it sounded like Mike said that those slots for the feats/ability bonuses would occur on the same level as gaining a different feature of your character-- so that even if you chose to go to an odd ability score, it's not a "dead level" since you're still gaining something else at that level too. So the urge to create "things" you get when your ability score goes odd is lessened quite a bit in my opinion, and really unnecessary.

 

[Blackwarder]

It also depends how often the class gets a feat. I'm thinking that spell casting classes will be every 3 levels and non-spell casting 2 levels. If so, feats need to be big, and from mearls:

"Powers, special attacks, minor spellcasting, expertise at sneaking or interaction, and so forth can live inside of feats"

This definitely has the feel feats are going to be much more on the power of class features and 4e powers than 3e feats... Indeed, feats look like the mechanism for 4e level capabilities.

That gives +5 modifier increase for non-spell casters, enough to get to 20 on primary and secondary and +3 fo spell casters, so just primary. Feels right.

Mike said in a tweet about six feats for spell asters and up to twelve feats to non casters.

Warder