Non-combat, non-magic feats: Why are there no good ones?

[Kerrick]

I agree... I think it's for the simple fact (and you can disagree with me if you want) that 3E seems more geared toward combat than roleplaying. I would love to see mroe feats like Master Horsemanship (to rename that feat Ranger posted), or Friend of the Forest, where you can communicate with a few different forest animals (again, a little overpowered, but you get the idea). While a few of the feats in the class books are useful, most of the ones you can find are geared toward combat, or just give you a few bonuses to skills (useful, granted, but not very conducive to covering odd roleplaying aspects).
What you could do is makes feats for specific actions, like "Tightrope Walker" - the character is especially adept at walking across narrow spans, like tightropes, ropes, wires, and narrow beams, and gains a +10 Balance check in such situations only. It would be good for someone who was a carnie, or who wanted to be a thief-acrobat or high-end cat burglar. The only downside is that with the narrow focus comes limited usage. Since WotC apparently figured players would be doing a lot of hack-n-slash (see my above comment), they included a lot of combat, magic, and "boosting" feats.

 

[Kyramus]

Ancestral Enemy
You inherit an enemy of your forefathers, whether it is a single person/spirit or an organization
Prerequisites: Any neutral or good
Benefit: While the enemy itself doesn't give you any bonuses at the start of play. While you do not know them, they get a +2 to their spot, bluff and sense motive against you. If you deduce that a particular enemy is them, you there after gain a +2 to spot, bluff, and sense motive against them.
Normal: you gain enemies as you progress in level.

Boastful Reputation
You are adept at bragging your exploits.
Prerequisites: bluff 6, perform (story telling) 6
Benefit: People remember your reenactment of your story, may even remember your name and details that you expouse in the story, whether true or not. Later on when they meet you, they initially don't believe you are who you say you are "You aren't Lord Blackthorn, he's at least 10 feet tall!". If you manage to convince them that you are who you say you are, you gain the benefit of being able to have room and board for your stay in the town/village with the local tavern/inn.
Normal: you can try your damndest to make a name for yourself and it's still up to the DM if you get famous.

heheheh I hope you mean something like this.

 

[Harlock]

Hmm, interesting. I mostly agree with you. There are some feats not directly related to combat of course, but I think there are quite a few people that can take the most innocous feats and somehow use them indirectly for combat. Not to say everyone I know is a powergamer of course. For skill based classes a hopped up skill focus can make it worth while. I know my rogue bard uses the bluff skill (for telling lies and talking his way out of trouble, not feinting) more than anything so a little focus in that means a great deal to me.

 

[Jeph]

I forget the issure, but didn't a Dragon magazine or two ago have a "social hit point" system? If i remember, this had some pretty kool stuff, cards played right, you could nock down a kingdom in a couple of months with a spinnoff of Pyramus and Thisbee.

-Jeph

 

[mmadsen]

Many class Special Abilities would make excellent Feats: Fast Movement; Inspire Courage, Fascinate, Inspire Competence, Suggestion, Inspire Greatness; Nature Sense, Animal Companion, Woodland Stride, Trackless Step; Divine Grace, Divine Health, Aura of Courage; Skill Mastery.

 

[shadow]

I really don't mind the fact that most of the feats seem combat oriented. Call me a munchkin or powergaming if you want to, but I don't want to see endless pages devoted to feats describing a characters ancestory, occupation, etc. Part of the reason for my opinion is the fact that D&D 3e lacks a set of rules describing non-material wealth, reputation, or the effects of a character's bloodline. If such feats were added a new set of rules would need to be added to allow the feats to work, or the feats would run the risk of being too "tacked on".

 

[Victim]

Also, if those things were feats, then characters would need lots more feats. Now you can have the noble knight guy fight just as well as the merc guy. Now if the noble had to spend a bunch of feats for his status, then he'd be much worse in combat.

 

[RangerWickett]

No, I most definitely do not want status feats. Things that are based on your character should be based on just your character's personality, the plot, and the roleplaying. You shouldn't have to buy titles.

However, there are lots of nifty things that you could give characters that don't have to be combat oriented. As one minor example, consider Velendo from Piratecat's storyhour. He has the niftiest ability granted by his god (the Wallbuilder). At will, he can create a brick out of nothingness. Thus, with enough time, we could build a whole wall, regardless of where he is. That's pretty nifty, and it isn't worth squat in combat.

Well okay, maybe if the brick was considered a holy item, and thus it could bypass demonic damage reduction. But that's about it.

 

[Blood Jester]

The alpahbet, letters kay through why.

...Horse-Fu lets you do nifty things with your horse...it would be fun...

RW:

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

 

[Kyramus]

hmmm nifty ideas instead of feats.....

1) laboratory blew up with lightning and you suddenly can move an extra 5 feet in your movement rate.

2) mindflayers attack, left you for dead, you slowly come to and realize you are dead but alive. that's when you realize you have become a ghost and you are literally possessing your own body where most of the brain is gone but the rest of the body lives.

3) The gods have given you a small token for your very small tie to their bloodline. you can always tell when your water/ale/drink/food has been soiled by the server (like being spit on or worse)

4) When entering a bar, the bartender always calls you Fred for no reason.

5) Everytime you get your horse shoed, somewhere in the travel the front left horse shoe falls off, always. Inspection doesn't show any reason why it would, just that it does.

6) Has a habit of tying the peace knot a little too tight every time. First encounter after a town or city, the character needs to roll a str check dc 12 to break the peaceknot and draw the weapon (when in combat only)

7) small divinitive ability. Watch what the person says, it comes back to them true, a few weeks or months after he says it.