Legends and Lore: Uber Feats eat Prestige classes and Paragon Paths or give +1 to ability

[Lord Mhoram]

Mike Mearls on Twitter:

If you're not using feats, you get +1 to an ability score instead of picking a feat. Classes are built on that assumption.
[T]he assumption in the core game is that you can only take +1 to an ability. That levels the field in terms of power.
There's basically a feat that says +1 to a stat. If using the optional feats system, you can instead take a new feature
Keep in mind that none of the feats we've shown match where they need to be if they equal +1 to an ability.
Feats will look more like class features, powers, and special abilities - big, active, things.

That makes more sense. If feats are not used, the feat choice instead becomes +1 Ability. But if feats are used, you use feats. I can live with that.

 

[Kinak]

I'm really curious to see where they go with this. On one hand, I'll love to be able to trade out feats for static bonuses on a character-by-character basis. That's genius.

On the other hand, +1 to an attribute is... not always very useful. Looking at a bunch of even scores (or even just a maxed out primary attribute) for your last feat pick will be sad.

In any case, if they pace these well enough to prevent everyone from running out of attributes they want, it's worth a shot.

This made me laugh, and it's so very true. Sadly, can't XP you again.

Fixed that for you

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[tuxgeo]

So many good comment already in this thread:

Not enough information to judge, but the "+1 to an ability score instead" option isn't good, in my opinion. But, let's see what he means by making feats more powerful.

Feats as power instead of customization? Yes, that seems like "design-goals drift" to me.

Agree. I always thought feats were about breadth and customization rather than power.

We might end up not getting a choice between those two: customization and power might be made equivalent and interchangeable.

< snip > I'm all in favor of making feats the great mechanical features they were in the first packet but I don't want to make them mandatory... And having it a feature that you gain feats by different rates depending on your class make them mandatory while killing the idea of speciality at the same time.< snip >

If one of the class features of the Fighter class is that it gets more feats, then feats might seem mandatory -- but see below.

The article is hilarious... < snip >The whole 5e game is built around abilities being more important than level-based bonuses due to bounded accuracy, why giving them away so easily? Now pretty much every single 1st level PC is guaranteed to have at least 18 in her primary score. In a way this feels like it will become mandatory... be prepared to see every mid-level Fighter have Str 20, every mid-level Wizard have Int 20 and so on.< snip >

Variability of character power is not being mandated away: people can still choose not to spend their feats to get up to 20 in their PC's primary stat -- but how many will? Power spread among PCs is going to become a tighter bell curve (i.e. less spread).

Oh, the other thing I dislike is fighters and rogues getting feats at a different rate than other classes. Why not just give them bonus feats instead?

Now I understand better what they're looking after... < snip > That would at least have one benefit: that the group as a whole can decide "no feats except bonus feats" so that only the Fighter and Rogue will ever have to think about feats at all. < snip >

That would certainly take the "select a feat" onus off new Sorcerer players.

 

[fjw70]

So you're this Fighter guy (or gall) and you adventure some, level up, the usual. Your Strength score started at 16 but now after some feat-choices you managed to get it to 19. Yeah! Progression!

And then in the next treasure hoard you find a girdle of hill giant strength.

Where is your god now?

But even before the feat stat increase you could still raise your strength to 19 so the new feat doesn't change that.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

Also I can't believe that Mearls is so overlooking the reason why his Sorcerer friend couldn't find a feat. That clearly was not because of the feat mechanics but simply because there were no feats in core 3e interesting enough for Sorcerers. IOW, core 3e did not have enough feats. I know that people complain that there were too many feats in 3e, and too many of them were garbage or broken, but that was only after you factor in dozens of supplements. The core 3e had too many combat feats, and too few non-combat feats.

Li I thought his point with this is that for new players the choosing can be exhausting! I've encountered the same problem as was here mentioned with players long after the early days of 3ed.

 

[Dausuul]

Li I thought his point with this is that for new players the choosing can be exhausting! I've encountered the same problem as was here mentioned with players long after the early days of 3ed.

New players, nothing. I've been playing D&D for 25 years and I still find it exhausting--in fact, the longer I play, the less patience I have for fiddling around with feats. I just want to think up a character concept, pick stats, race, and class, choose a few class abilities, and hit the road.

If feats were focused on fleshing out a concept, I'd be for them, but somehow that never seems to happen.

 

[CAFRedblade]

While I agree that for both new and sometimes old players choosing feats can be an exhausting exercise. I personally don't believe that creating a +1 ability score feat resolves the underlying issue.

To me the issue of feat bloat is too many fiddly feats that only dole out circumstantial or flat bonuses and nothing else. Now, perhaps, since we haven't seen any balanced feats in comparison to these ability score feats, they'll be worth it to those that choose to play with this option. I certainly hope so.

I'm liking the idea of class abilities as feats, as long as the core classes have them automatically baked into their design. This would go along way for some people to build (almost like a point buy) a custom class.

Personally, I'm trying to figure out the best way to remove all but the racial, and class ability score increases. I personally want a streamlined mechanic that resembles (although not replicating) the feel of 2nd ed.

I loved the early specialization options that were feats with extras, if all feats are like this going forward, I'll be happy. They were more than single bonuses, and I felt that they expressed more flavour in their design than 90% of the feats in both 3e and 4e.

It'll be interesting to see how things develop. Need to finish reading the latest packet and response to the survey.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

New players, nothing. I've been playing D&D for 25 years and I still find it exhausting--in fact, the longer I play, the less patience I have for fiddling around with feats. I just want to think up a character concept, pick stats, race, and class, choose a few class abilities, and hit the road.

I'm convinced a lot of folk, new or otherwise, would agree with you! If I have the option, I'll be happy.

 

[Gargoyle]

Meh. Quoting the article below.

Classes gain feats at a rate appropriate to that class. Fighters might get more feats than wizards, for example. We don't have a universal rate where all characters gain a feat at levels X, Y, and Z.

I have mixed feelings. This ensures that feats will not be an optional module and makes them very difficult to remove, adding more complexity to the basic game (although see below...) I hate that because figuring out feats slows character generation down to a crawl so I'd rather feats be in an optional module. That said, if we have to have them, I like that martial characters get more of them, because I believe feats fill some of the same design space as spells. Both feats and spells are self contained packages of rules that supersede the core rules to let you do cool things. Spellcasters don't really need a lot more of that, but martial characters do.

A feat can be used to gain +1 to an ability score, to a maximum of 20, or to gain a special ability that is equivalent in power to that ability bonus.

The ability score bonus option does make feats easy to remove, so it would seem that it negates the problem for those of us DMs who might like to make feats optional, and for players who just don't care for choosing a feat. This alleviates most of my concern above. However, the "special ability that is equivalent to that ability bonus" part is just not true though...because...

Feats have level requirements, and higher-level feats are more potent than lower-level ones.

So at higher levels, you will probably be more inclined to select feats rather than ability score bonuses. And as some have pointed out, once you max your primary ability score, you get less from ability score bonuses after that, and of course increasing to odd numbers gets you nothing immediately. This isn't horrible or bad. It's not even messy until you consider the last part...

Finally, this approach has a fairly interesting implication for paragon paths and prestige classes. Feats are now more powerful than they have been in prior iterations of the playtest materials. At this stage, I feel comfortable that we can model many paths and prestige classes through sets of feats that duplicate their powers and class features.

I'm optimistic that this will be ok in the core basic rules. I think the page count limitations will enable them to design a list of feats that is mostly balanced and fun. But as the splatbooks and Dragon articles start coming out, it will become more and more difficult, and I fear we will end up with a huge number of feats again. I guess it's inevitable though, got to print something in those books and history proves that bad feats are easy to write and sell.

I really wish they'd chosen to make feats an optional module, but at least they've given us an easy way to house rule them out.

Edit: And of course I didn't see the post about the tweets. Glad to see they are optional. But I still have the same concerns about proliferation of feats and balance. We will see.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

So theoretically in the basic or core game, they can have some fundamental, straight-forward and simple classes, and feats will provide an option for customising your character the way you want to? If this is the case and it's done well, this seems like a fantastic idea to me. One of my biggest gripes has been how difficult it was to tool up a character concept satisfactorily. Juggling unwieldy class combinations with columns of class features I didn't want for the one single one I wanted sucked. If it also manages to simplify the game by merging class features, feats, and such into one category, that's a move in the right direction!