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

[Blue]

Not so happy with the feats

I think I'm in love.

Feats you can trade for a simple +1 to ability? Yes, thank you.

I get a very different but similarly strong reaction. Can you help me understand why this is good. What I see is:

1. Feats are now like "boring math feats" from earlier editions that didn't do anything cool, but just helped a number. I've never heard, "Woo, I can take Weapon Focus!".
   
2. The flip side is that so much is based off abilities (skills, attacks, saves, spell DCs, etc.) that a class that gets lots fo feats and plows them into abilities is going to get out of whack with a character who uses feats to get more options. Sure, character B might be able to use their attack to charge or to shove or to trip, but character B might have an extra +2 to hit and damage and AC and dex saves and lots of skills from boosting their Dex. (And that +2 to hit is king in such a flat AC situation.)
   
3. Lastly, anyone with a even score has to inflict a dead level on themselves (giving up a feat choice), just so that some point in the future they can again pay to opportunity cost again of not getting a feat just to boost this. In may be simple, but that sort of dead boost isn't going to be attractive to new players.

 

[TwoSix]

Because then you have feats that are again much weaker than +1 to ability score.

That assumes that the feats are already settled. If you can make a feat that's worth "half a modifier", you can make one that's worth a full modifier.

 

[zoroaster100]

I am curious to see how they implement the changes regarding feats. I can envision it being a good way to achieve more modularity in complexity. But the more I think about it the more I hate the new direction on skills. I really like the skill system in 3e and 4e, and for that matter was o.k. with the skill system in the latest playtest packet. But it sounds like they are going to remove skills from the default game and make it a lot of work to be able to use skills smoothly with the rest of the system if the entire system is calibrated to not using the skill system. That could be a deal-breaker for me with 5e if that is the direction they choose to go.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think the trouble with ability-10 as your modifier is that it creates a very large disparity between the best and worst characters - that's really what bounded accuracy is about.

 

[keterys]

More and more I'm thinking the feat should actually give +2 to a stat instead.

 

[Szatany]

More and more I'm thinking the feat should actually give +2 to a stat instead.

I'd rather have "minor" and "major" modifiers in the game. Minor is score -10, and major is as it currently is. Minor is used for ability checks and things like carrying capacity. Major is for everything else.

Then you might run into the issue of

I think the trouble with ability-10 as your modifier is that it creates a very large disparity between the best and worst characters - that's really what bounded accuracy is about.

but you can solve that with a hard cap of +15 (or +10, or anything in between). That is, no matter the sources, a total bonus to a single d20 roll cannot exceed +15.

That assumes that the feats are already settled. If you can make a feat that's worth "half a modifier", you can make one that's worth a full modifier.

I don't think I'd want feats that powerful.

 

[dd.stevenson]

More and more I'm thinking the feat should actually give +2 to a stat instead.

Yeah, me too.

Not because I'm bothered about dead levels at all. I'm just concerned that +1 stat equivalent feats won't be important enough to be worth putzing around with.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't think I'd want feats that powerful.

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.

 

[SkidAce]

I don't personally have any problem with even-numbered ability scores giving little benefits (they do give benefits, just most of them aren't numerical but only a few marginal cases are).

I see them from a different perspective:

- if every time you increase an ability score you get a flat +1 you can be pretty sure that most players will tend to always increase the same one primary ability score until max; like it is now, players are encouraged to look for other abilities to boost or just look at feats for something more interesting

- the benefits of ability score increase are on average actually pretty large... feats are getting larger to be on par, but still that +1 is going to be applied to potentially so many things that I'm ok if you get it once but I don't think it's unfair if next bump is going to cost you twice as much

- I am also fine with the fact that if you really want your primary score to hit the ceiling, you have to take it slow and sacrifice the proverbial egg today for the chicken tomorrow

All these are just my personal feelings based on being frankly quite tired by players obsessed by always having the highest ability scores possible.



It's a little bit like choosing between attending martial arts classes or going to the gym.

Fighter A studies one fighting technique more carefully and dedicatedly, and gains a special ability (feat).

Fighter B just trains a little bit of everything without being selective, and gains a spread benefit (Str boost).

It actually even resonates well between the dedicated/casual player and dedicated/casual character

+1 for truth and great justice...(must spread around etc etc.)

 

[Obryn]

I like that it is sounding more and more like its own game, and less and less like a "greatest hits" edition.

The only way to grab my attention is by doing new stuff. They're doing it. I may not like it in the end, but they have my attention.

-O