New Design & Development: Feats

[jasin]

Whereas the old-style spell schools had deeper meaning that was hard coded into both culture and the English language. Need a master of death magic necromancy leaps out at you, the word has been used for centuries and has cultural grip. On top of that its a literal description of what it does. Wizard who changes things. Transmutation. The root meanings of the word describe to you just what the school is supposed to do. While people may argue a bit over exactly where particular spells belonged they could be easily moved around between schools to fit if necessary.

While necromancy indeed is a (relatively) commonly used word, ask anyone not familiar with the particulars of D&D what an abjurer or evoker does, and I wouldn't bet they'll get it right, even if they're a fantasy fan.

I like current D&D's schools of magic, but it seems to me that they're mostly so comfortable because they're coded into D&D culture, not culture at large or common language.

 

[Enoch]

I like the Toughness feat. Especially since they made it like Improve Toughness, which has the added bonus of being equally valuable at all levels. I'm not sure how many hitpoints 4E characters will have, but 33 hitpoints for one feat is pretty good.

 

[Gloombunny]

My problem with the wizard traditions whether physical or philosophical organization is that they don't mean anything and have no resonance. Golden Wyvern? Iron Sigil Snake? utterly meaningless and don't create any idea of what they're about.

Whereas the old-style spell schools had deeper meaning that was hard coded into both culture and the English language. Need a master of death magic necromancy leaps out at you, the word has been used for centuries and has cultural grip. On top of that its a literal description of what it does. Wizard who changes things. Transmutation. The root meanings of the word describe to you just what the school is supposed to do. While people may argue a bit over exactly where particular spells belonged they could be easily moved around between schools to fit if necessary.

But these new traditions aren't broken up like that, they're treated more like the divisions between fighting styles of a martial art. And the names themselves have no association with any meaning let alone a connection with a general theme of magic. So it becomes more difficult to move certain features you don't think thematically belong together because they've been built into the mechanics with too strong a relation.

Oh please. There's nothing intuitive or common-sense about the eight schools. You'd have to heavily rearrange the spells before the eight schools would even be self-consistent, and even then you'd have to explain to people what abjuration, evocation, enchantment, and perhaps conjuration mean in D&D. And that "illusions" aren't always illusory. And so forth.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Oh please. There's nothing intuitive or common-sense about the eight schools. You'd have to heavily rearrange the spells before the eight schools would even be self-consistent,

I kind of specifically pointed out that there WAS argument over what spells belonged where, and that as such the framework still made it easy to move spells from one school to another.
Right here

While people may argue a bit over exactly where particular spells belonged they could be easily moved around between schools to fit if necessary.

and even then you'd have to explain to people what abjuration, evocation, enchantment, and perhaps conjuration mean in D&D. And that "illusions" aren't always illusory. And so forth.

The only schools that are not descriptive are abjuration and evocation. Abjuration comes from a root meaning to shun or forsake, while evocation derives from a root meaning 'to call upon.' These aren't very straightforward but of the eight schools they are the only two that aren't.

The school names have a rough description of what they do bound right into the name. Conjuration is the act of bringing forth something from nothing and is a fairly good short description of what the school involves, healing for example doesn't really fit within it but wasn't part of it in previous editions. Divination, the act of foretelling or prophecy. Enchantment, to influence the mind or desire. Illusion, to mislead through false impression. Necromancy, death magic. Transmutation, changing the nature of a thing. The basic root structure or definition of the word itself serves as a decent rough outline of what the school does.

 

[ferratus]

If we look at the complaints we can see some similarities with complaints of prior editions:

1) Names - This is sort of like the problem we had with Tasha's Hideous laughter, Bigby's crushing fist or Mordenkeinen's sword. They were Greyhawk names, and you might have wanted something a little more generic for your setting, or use your own names. Most people didn't bother, because a) they didn't stick during gameplay or b) you have the conceit that they were archmages buried somewhere in the history of your campaign.

The paragon paths are a little different, in that they are both active schools, and feats and class abilities attached to that school. I myself don't really see a place for Golden Wyvern or Emerald Frost in my campaign setting (though I do have culture that fits Iron Sigil). Regardless, I'm going to want to use the feats and magical attacks associated with that school, so I'd rather not have their name on them because of reason (a) mentioned above. So if I was (for example) to call an order of War Wizard Evokers "The Academy", I would probably find them mentioned by players as the "Golden Wyvern Academy" pretty quickly if I based it on that order or a few of their abilities. Not quite the same elite menace I was trying to convey.

2) Not anime enough - The complaint that a spell's school didn't really fit its effect in 1-3e is similar to the complaint that "Golden Wyvern" doesn't really explain its theme or philosophy of magic. I would certainly expect a school called "Iron Sigil" to use an iron orb as a focus and create magic based on sigils. It certainly is much more cinematic. Like fighting styles, if it was based on an animal, you would expect it to have abilities that evoke that animal. The Black Crow Witches for example would have a shrieking attack, and dissolve into a pile of black feathers when they teleport.

I was kind of hoping myself that since we were getting rid of the Vancian magic system that we would be easier to design our own types and philosophies of magic by having standard ways of attacking, effects, and so forth so that you could leave the flavor text to define a lot of how the magic functions. This seems to go against that principle.

 

[Li Shenron]

I actually agree with this article main idea....

I like niche protection of classes, to me it's perfectly fine that Sneak Attack is only for Rogues, Rage only for Barbarian, and (YES!) Use Magic Device only for Bards/Rogues.

If someone wants two sticks, they can always multiclass (if multiclass rules are solid enough, there should be no major problem).

The hard part is the decision of what should be a feat and what should be a class ability. The simplest criteria is that if it's conceivable for everyone to be able to learn this, then it should be a feat... However this criteria, as simple as may be, is the cause of why Fighters in 3ed have really nothing special. Nothing major is Fighter-only, because every class is theoretically qualified to learn about combat, and the consequence is that the Fighter becomes a utility/support class to dip into for a few extra combat feats and then pursue another, more interesting class path.

edit:

So how is it that I have nothing yet to criticize this time...? Let me think... got it! I dislike the magnitude of the new feats. Actually, they are not that large compared to the 3e feats... but overall 4e is another step into the hero-ization of D&D (to quote Hong). By the time we get 6th edition, player characters will start with a Divine Rank.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

If I'm playing a wizard of the Emerald Frost, I definitely wouldn't have this feat.

Why not, are they exclusive?

Class-only feats have existed since 3rd Edition. Nothing new.

True. However a class only feat you'd have to be either a fool or intentionally gimping yourself to skip, are bad design. This sounds like its basically Spellcasting Prodigy 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Raise your hand if your crusader DIDNT take "Extra Granted Manuever". Go stand in a corner.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Are you trying to say that the "class glut" was significantly worse than the feat glut? There were a lot of prestige classes, sure. But there were more feats by at least an order of magnitude, if not two.

Definately. I think classes should be broad archtypes. You dont need a WHOLE new class for a guy that likes ham and fights with a spear and a warhammer. Make it a feat and be done with it. Most classes should have been feat chains.

 

[pawsplay]

Raise your hand if your crusader DIDNT take "Extra Granted Manuever". Go stand in a corner.

Oh come on... I'm sure at least 5% of those characters had a good justification.

 

[Rechan]

Why not, are they exclusive?

Yes, that's what I'm thinking.

Or at least, it's like Spell Focus: Evocation versus Spell Focus: Conjuration or Spell Focus: Enchantment. You could conceivably get them all, but you don't want to.