So many things here that I've been speaking of and wishing on for months now. I love it.
Backgrounds: This is precisely the system that I wanted them to follow when they talked about backgrounds almost a year ago. If you're a Pirate... you don't need to have 4 specific "skills" written down on your sheet to tell you what you are good at as a pirate-- you just need a little bit of imagination and a DM that can adjudicate. Especially because you shouldn't necessarily be trained in ALL facets of a particular "skill" just because you're a pirate. As a pirate, are you good at Intimidation? Absolutely. Against EVERYONE? Not a chance. That Naval Commander deals with pirates all day long... your feeble attempts at snarling and showing off your row of gold teeth shouldn't have any real advantage against that hardened naval officer. But when you use "skills", theoretically that pirate should get his bonus for having Intimidation. However, just using Backgrounds... the DM can make the ruling that yeah... your CHA check to try and intimidate the lord mayor's daughter will work with a bonus... but your CHA check to try and intimidate the naval officer doesn't work at all.
I LOVE that!
Classes: It appeared as though Mike touched upon the idea that Fighters and Rogues would have special class abilities
separate from the Feats system. Which is exactly what I was clamoring for in my "get rid of feats as a universal mechanic thread"... the idea that both of those classes should have their own separate system for maneuvers and tricks that put them on par with the cleric and his spells and the wizard and his spells. It sounds like this might actually be happening. If it does, THANK GOD.
I saw absolutely no reason why as a Fighter you needed a Specialty of a Defender *and* a Fighting Style of a Protector, or the Specialty of a Sharpshooter *and* a Fighting Style of a Marksman, or a Duelist/Swashbuckler, Reaper/Slayer etc. etc. etc. Two different subsystems trying to accomplish the same exact thing, layering on an overlapping fluff that did very little to help describe who your fighter was. And what was even worse was the idea that you might have a Duelist/Slayer and a Swashbuckler/Reaper. What the heck does that mean in the fiction of the game world? Are they the same? Are they different? What's the difference?
By changing the feat system up so that you don't have a bundle of them together with a fluffy name that basically duplicates what the fighter should have with his own maneuvers system, can only be seen as a boon in my opinion. Or bundles which duplicate what the rogue should have with his own tricks system. Give the fighter and rogue their own mechanical system for performing the actions which they are supposed to do, to match what the cleric and wizard get with spells.
And to recreate the simple fighter and rogue a la BECMI? Just make sure there is at least one maneuver package and one tricks package that *is* so bleedingly simple (while still balanced) so that the Basic game can assign it to them automatically and the player never has to think or worry about it.
Feats: I still await to see what exactly these "new feats" look like in order to determine whether or not they are really useful and do not add needless complexity for me. I *suspect* that for me personally, they will just add in an additional layer of abilities over and above the ones I'll get from Race, Class (plus Style/Scheme/Deity/Tradition), and Background (Lore/Proficiency/Benefits) that will ultimately prove unnecessary. Just looking at the Cleric alone, and all the Class Features I get from Channel Divinity and my Deity selection PLUS my list of spells... to then add in some lore, proficiencies, background benefits, and a handful of racial abilities on top of that... having ANOTHER series of special bennies seems like overkill.
Maybe I'll find myself completely wrong once the new packet comes out about feats? Dunno. But I'm very anxious to see it.
