Legends & Lore: A Bit More on Feats

[tuxgeo]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this L&L presents something different from the scheme they were discussing earlier, thus:

Earlier, Mike claimed that feats would each be the equivalent of an ability increase. Now, however, Mike is showing us feats that are each equivalent to two ability increases. That's power-inflation, pure and simple.

I don't like it. In previous versions of the game, a PC with a 16 in his or her main stat was a viable character; but this giving of +2-at-once multiple times is going to punch all PCs up to maximum 20 in their prime stat. So much for variability of characters' playing stats: all Rogues will have 20 DEX, all Wizards will have 20 INT. I don't like it.

I do understand that they want to reduce the number of feats that people have to search through to find the one to take on each occasion; but I think that's not a good enough reason to allow any +2-at-once stat boosts.

 

[Li Shenron]

You know, I like these. If I am feeling old school, I forgo feats and just take the ability bumps. If I am wanting a customized character, I take a feat. And the feats seem about right for an ability bump level of power. Perhaps some tweeking is required, but it seems right.

That the feats are about right for an ability bump seems the only thing right here to me...

Because OTOH if I am feeling old school, I definitely don't want to see high ability stats being common and give a huge bonus too, while if I am wanting a customized character I would feel very restricted by feats that have multiple (and not even connected) benefits that cannot be cherrypicked.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, I think that this is fundamentally a really dang amazing idea (SUPERYOINK). I love rolling "feat chains" into a single feat. Much less fiddly and much more potent from a "give me BIG choices" angle. Very nice.

I think the specific implementation could use a little bit of help (-5 penalty?), but that's basically a quibble. The foundation of this thought process is quite excellent.

 

[Dausuul]

I agree that both of these feats are a bit too fiddly, but note the part where Mike says neither feat has been developed or edited. They'd both be fine with some polishing. I really like that feats are bigger now, encompassing whole concepts instead of little bitty bits of concepts. Maybe 5E will be the edition that finally gets feats right.

Earlier, Mike claimed that feats would each be the equivalent of an ability increase. Now, however, Mike is showing us feats that are each equivalent to two ability increases. That's power-inflation, pure and simple.

No, it's responding to the widespread concern about odd-numbered stats. If you're a wizard with Int 16, and you have a choice between a feat and bumping your Int to 17, you now have to try and guess whether the campaign is going to last long enough for you to get the second stat bump. If you guess wrong, then you end up either wasting a feat slot or cutting yourself off from ever reaching 18 Int.

The new system ensures that you can always get a tangible benefit from the "stat bump" option. As long as they keep reasonable limits on the number of feats they hand out, I prefer this version.

Then why did you allow it?

You can't blame the game for breaking your immersion when its the players themselves who are doing the breaking.

I certainly can. Immersion breaks the moment players realize there is a mathematically optimum choice for Power Attack which can be computed by knowing the opponent's AC (and it seldom takes very long for them to zero in on that AC). Once they realize this, the decision about Power Attacking becomes pure metagame. It's just a question of whether they re-do the math every time, or try to fudge it, or consult a chart. The chart just makes it quicker.

The new version of Power Attack is better. It still bugs me that it can easily be reduced to a mathematical formula: If the opponent's AC is X or less, Power Attack is a good choice, otherwise not. I'd rather see Power Attack become a matter of balancing offense versus defense, rather than trying to trade off two elements of offense. But at least this one only requires you to memorize a single number.

Edit: Why is ENWorld turning "fudge" into a hyperlink? Can I turn that off? The word "fudge" is not always a reference to the FATE system, guys.

 

[Li Shenron]

I do understand that they want to reduce the number of feats that people have to search through to find the one to take on each occasion; but I think that's not a good enough reason to allow any +2-at-once stat boosts.

I don't think that's the reason, the reason is trying to allow both "simple" and "complex" PCs at the same table and at every level, which they have decided to solve by equating feats (complexity) to ability bumps (simple power).

As much as I need simplicity if I ever want to be able to DM the game again for my friends, I am starting to dislike big time the results of this target-at-all-costs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

How nice wouldn't it be if you could write "+5 to hit" on your character sheet and be done with it?

Which you can certainly do now if you want a simple game. But feats are currently meant to be a more "complex" option, so there's no reason why they can't be complex enough that Charop folks will create tables for themselves to maximize their potential.

If you don't want it... then don't use the feat or just take the +2 to your ability score. But let's not hamstring the designers and developers from look at these more complex feats just because some players don't want to be bothered or think their game is going to be slowed down. So long as WotC has figured out and calculated that even a optimal usage of the feat is still within the numeric bounds of what they want the feat to do... there's no reason to cross off that kind of design idea out of hand.

Maybe the feat after design and development will be determined to not do what they want it to and they have to rework it. That's fine. But I don't want them to dismiss whole subsets of the game without going through due diligence just because some players don't want any complexity whatsoever. Because there's going to be a version of them game already there for them.

 

[Li Shenron]

So, I think that this is fundamentally a really dang amazing idea (SUPERYOINK). I love rolling "feat chains" into a single feat. Much less fiddly and much more potent from a "give me BIG choices" angle. Very nice.

If you wanted big choices you already had them: they were called Specialties.

How about those who instead wanted to cherrypick feats and make their own specialty? Just until a couple of months ago, this was actually presented as a very positive feature of 5e, that some players could just make a big&simple choice while others could cherrypick.

Also, how are you going to like it, that at level X you get one BIG bump of character power, instead of more gradual bumps spread over 3 levels?

All this is just because they pretend to equate a feat with +2 to an ability score, which is a LARGE bonus. And they want to equate with +2 because otherwise there is people complaining about odd vs even ability scores.

I think that if they just totally eliminated ability score increase by level (and leave it to Wish spells, Tomes and other powerful magic only), the whole design process will get a huge relief!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I certainly can. The game sets up the incentives. When the game provides a fine-grained choice where there is a clear, mathematical optimum, it's hardly surprising that players--after a few sessions of trying to figure out how much to put into Power Attack--would choose to optimize it. How are you going to ban something like this, anyway? You going to play censor and review players' character sheets to check that they aren't making Power Attack charts? That's a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

Uh.. yeah?

If people feel their immersion of the game is ruined by everyone at the table being on their cellphones while the game is going on... do you have a problem banning the use of cellphones during the game?

If people feel their immersion of the game is ruined by people taking 5 minutes to take their turn by figuring out the very best way to move their miniature and review all of their powers to find out the best tactical decision at that moment in time... do you have a problem adding an eggtimer to the game so that everyone only gets 2 minutes?

If people feel their immersion of the game is ruined by players not talking in-character... do you have a problem with DMs stating at the start of a campaign that if players aren't willing to talk in-character, then they shouldn't join this particular game?

In all these cases... if the table decides on something because immersion is being broken... you negotiate a settlement or ban something outright if a compromise can't be reached (and you accept the consequences of that decision.) But don't go blaming WotC or demanding they change their design philosophies because you don't want to have that discussion cause you feel "icky" about it.

If a player spending an extra few seconds checking a chart in addition to the 2 minutes they spend going over their character sheet is such a big deal to you all... then yeah... ban the charts from the table. If your "immersion" trumps someone's potential "hurt feelings"... then accept the consequences of your choice. Don't complain that WotC's putting you in this position in the first place.

 

[Dausuul]

I think that if they just totally eliminated ability score increase by level (and leave it to Wish spells, Tomes and other powerful magic only), the whole design process will get a huge relief!

Ability score increase by level was hugely popular when it was introduced in 3E, and that hasn't changed. Furthermore, it's not something that can easily be made modular, because it has a big impact on character power. So I think it's more or less guaranteed that 5E will have level-based stat bumps by default.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Overall, I like it, though I share concerns that four to six +2 increases is a lot. More than ever, I think they should move back to 3d6 for ability scores (with an equivalent array or point buy).