New Design & Development: Feats

[Najo]

And I say that it's the same.

Every time someone says gold or GP it breaks the immersion.

How may monsers have DR/Silver? How many things in D&D reference Silver? Hell, there are silver dragons. And if you don't have Silver in your campaign, MADNESS.

But I as a DM can easily control the elements I am using. The elements in the hands of the players is going to effect the game atmosphere more. Those elements need to be setting generic in the core books as much as possible, otherwise everytime the player's refer to those abilities they are breaking the immersion, if even on a small level.

With silver, for example, I can replace silver with whatever valuable I wish. Tell my players as such, and replace silver DR on the monsters. Like, swap iron in place of it for example.

With feats, and other class powers, the players are using it. Changing the names confuses them or makes it hard to communicate. So that means I am stuck referencing wyverns and flying monkeys and tiger style, when maybe my world is the land of undead bugs and bug like faeries and there is no wyvern, flying monkey or tiger style anywhere in my game.

It would be like having a power called Songbird Strike or Drifting Rainbow Acolyte. Both of which color my setting more so than any other aspect of the rules, because I can't choose to include them or not.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Too much choices for my character .

I read the words, but I do not understand what they mean when they are in that order.

The first thing I look at in game rules is character creation flexibility - one of the things that brought me back to D&D (after leaving when 2nd ed came out) was the amazing flexibility that feats and PrCs and the new multiclassing rules brought to the game.

I am in the boat that I hope that 4th would be more open and flexible in character creation.

 

[Ruvion]

And I had the exact opposite feeling. If you want to learn to punch someone, you shouldnt have to go train at a monastary. Classes have baggage, feats are bite sized abilities.

Hmmm....classes may have baggages or not (see below), but it may require more than a simple bite-sized band-aid solution if you want to punch someone (as per martial arts), when you don't even know an uppercut from straight...you being a cloistered cleric/wizard. A fighter would have access to this 'empty hand fighting style' from the get-go (ie: without the need to multiclass) of course. Now if we can safely assume that 4e multiclassing involves 'point mutations' (or a quick dip for an ability or two, but not skinny dipping and getting the whole baggage) rather than a whole 'x-some mutations' which may result in a weird assortment of baggages then the designers have cause to be proud of their multiclass system.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Golden Wyvern sounds like something one might catch from the local tavern trollop.

 

[Rechan]

But I as a DM can easily control the elements I am using. The elements in the hands of the players is going to effect the game atmosphere more. Those elements need to be setting generic in the core books as much as possible, otherwise everytime the player's refer to those abilities they are breaking the immersion, if even on a small level.

Except that if it's Darksun, you're buggered.

For one, you're arguing about a Wizard's feat, and Dark Sun doesn't really have "wizards". Or at least, it seems like they're not allowed to be PCs, so you don't have to worry about that.

Two, no psionics, so how you going to play Dark Sun in the first place?

But I've never had a problem with immersion. Hell, at the tables I've been at, the most extensive people get when they use a feat is say 'I'm sundering' or 'Power attacking with'.

The wizard PC isn't going to say 'I initiate my Golden Wyvern adept capacity to allow me to develop the arcane strike so that it invalidates the area around the gladiator'. He's going to say 'I arcane strike this area, sans this square so that it doesn't hit the dwarf.'

 

[Mad Mac]

Golden Wyvern adept is bad too.

It's a necessary evil for their organizational structure, though. It's not just a "fireball your party feat" it's a "Congratulations on your ascension to the rank of adept in the hallowed Order of the Golden Wyvern" feat.

You can hate the name of the order, or the idea of feat based organizations, but given that is what they're doing, I'd like to see someone come up with a name that both explains that it is an entry level feat to an organization devoted to advanced metamagic and the precise mechanical benefit.

 

[Cadfan]

1) Its true that you shouldn't have to go to a monastery to learn to punch someone.
2) Its not true that the fighter should be designed so that it can punch people just as well as the monk.

Classes have baggage. But so do fighting styles. If you want to play a character who doesn't wear armor, or at least doesn't wear much armor, who punches things as his primary attack technique, and who's reasonably skilled in terms of balance, coordination, and mobility, and I want to play a character who wears full plate, carries a shield, hits people with a big axe, and who occasionally punches people when he's in a bar and not wearing any of his gear, well, we probably need two different classes for that.

 

[Klaus]

In this case it makes perfect sense that you go to some fighting school to improve your warrior skills, and pause your cleric development for a while.
A god of war would totally be in favor of an adventuring cleric developping his fighting skills instead of satying in the convent reading books and studying religion.

If multiclassing rules were done properly, you shouldn't get much trouble for taking one or 2 levels in a class that fits your concept (unlike 3E)

I never quite liked feats in 3.5... There was an infinity of feats. Too much choices for my character and most of the feats I could not use, as they where designed for all the other classes. So I prefer this way better. Stuff meaningful to your PC is connected to the classes you have. And general stuff useful to anyone stays as feats.

Smaller brushes paint a more accurate image.

The example given above (dual-hammer dwarven cleric of war) can *easily* be done in 3.5 by simply taking 1 or 2 levels of Fighter. Wanna get better at fighting? Take a few levels of Fighter.

From what is inferred of 4e, the same character would need to take a few levels of Rogue or Ranger, neither of which match the heavy-armor image the character conveys.

 

[Rechan]

Area Effect Spell Novice of the Campaign Appropriate Name.

 

[Guild Goodknife]

You know what Debbie? You're right! And I think Guild Bubblepants also has a point. In fact since you two are obviously more experienced could you give me some help with my current 3,5 build?

I'm playing a lvl 5 westfolk Kingdom Rebel, my feats so far are Unseen Warrior and Blade Parry. What do you think I should take at lvl 6?

What i suggested had nothing to do with experinece but with common sense. I implied that you had to rename things in 3.5 to fit your homebrew, and that's exactly what you'll have to do in 4th Ed. If thinking about alternative names is to troublesome for you, you can always play in a published setting.