[OT - Completely unrelated to BoEF]Opinions wanted for faster feat progression

[Snoweel]

Ok, this is the 3rd f---ing time I've posted this and been redirected to "oooh specify a forum" and lost everything, so I'm fed up enough that I'll just post it in point form:

1. I dig the Midnight (by FFG) magic system blah, blah, blah, gonna use it in my homebrew, blah, blah, blah...

2. Homebrew is rare magic setting.

3. Like Midnight, my homebrew features far less than D&D standard levels of magic items.

4. To accomodate, Midnight uses "heroic path" system - kind of a template added to heroic characters (there's over 20 to choose from) that offers a PrC-caliber ability at every level right up to 20th.

5. Since my PCs are often less than heroic, the Midnight "heroic path" system doesn't suit my game, though I want to give my PCs something in exchange for lack of magic items.

6. To this end, I'm considering extra feats. 1 extra at first level and 1 every level as opposed to every 3rd as the core rules dictate.

7. I think there's so many cool feats (especially when you've got OA) that you can't have even a fraction of the ones you want for your character even at 20th level.

8. So I think my improved feat progression will do the trick.

9. I don't throw especially magically powerful monsters at my PCs (magic is usually handled with class levels, and Midnight system spellcasters have much less magic available to them than core spellcasters) so lack of magical defence shouldn't be a problem.

10. I wonder how this will affect my game and should I hand out feats per monster HD at this same rate or restrict this feat progression to class levels?

11. All opinions welcome.

 

[Noldor Elf]

You probably need to find a way to encourage (or even force) your players to spend some of those feats to non-combat feats. Otherwise free feat at every level would hurt fighters, becouse their Bonus Feat at every other level loses its significance, as other fighter classes would be able to master their fighting style as well as normal fighter. There is no wortwhile combatfeats to fill those extra slots a fighter would receive in comprarison with other classes.

 

[Piratecat]

Weird error - sorry about that. You may want to delete your EN World cookies and then come back - it seems to help the logging out problem. Also, I generally write posts in Notepad and them paste them in, or at least copy them onto the clipboard before clicking submit.

I now return you to the topic at hand.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Looks like house rules to me.

 

[Gothmog]

You might want to reconsider a little snoweel. I also have been running a low-magic setting since 3E came out, and characters do need some extra abilities to survive in a low-magic game. I considered a feat every level, but that does take too much away from fighters, because before long every character will have optimal feat chain progressions, which is a nightmare to DM. Not to mention that what you do for the players, you also have to do for the monsters, and I'd hate to have to tack on multpile feats on every monster or NPC they deal with.

Here was my solution:

1) Humans start with 3 feats, all others with 2. One of those feats has to be a background feat (ie, non-combat related).

2) All classes gain a new feat every other level (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, etc). This still allows for an accelerated feat progression, but not too much. I think it works out to four extra feats by level 20. Fighters and wizards still get their bonus feats.

3) PCs can also spend XP to get feats, but on a limited bases. Only once every 3 levels, and the XP costs rise with each feat bought this way. It costs 1000XP for the first, 3000 XP for the second, 6000 XP for the third, 10000 XP for the fourth, etc. So far nobody has done this though.

4) For monsters, add 1 extra feat for every 2 HD. Yeah, it means monsters can be really nasty, but in a low magic game they should be. Besides, now demons can afford to get some of those nifty feats from the BoVD to use on the PCs.

Our experience has been that this works pretty well. Everyone seems happy with their characters, but it isn't overpowered.

 

[Red Baron]

I've been running a low-magic game for a while now, and, for various reasons, we decided to go with one feat at every even character level (not quite what you're proposing, I realize, but I'll get to my point...). A feat per level seemed a bit too much.

We all like it very much the way we have it. There are, as you say, so many feats out there from various sources that it's fun for the players to be able to build up feat chains more quickly. I find that I add an extra feat or two, as needed, to monsters, but it doesn't take a huge adjustment. I just eyeball it as I see it, and give monsters a feat or three that I suspect might make the encounter a bit cooler.

Nod to Noldor: The fighter (Ftr/Bbn, actually, but whatever) still gets his extra feats, so his class skills are still useful. We haven't noticed any unbalancing going on.

Snoweel, something else you might consider is making certain feats generic abilities that anyone can use. For instance, I feel that the basic metamagic feats are cool for flavour, so I let any spellcaster use them automatically -- they're not feats, they're just part of the malleability of magic. The cost of using them comes in the spell levels you use up to get the desired effect.

Likewise, things like, for example, the benefit of the Dirty Fighting feat from S&F (if you use that) can be attempted by any combatant. You just assign a penalty (from -1 to -4 generally works, I find) to try it *without* the feat. These changes seem pretty huge, but I've honestly found that, in practice, they just serve to make the game that much cooler. Much less mechanical and artificial, lots more "heroic" (FWIW) and organic. YMMV.

Edit: I see Gothmog beat me to it, even if our solutions aren't precisely the same.

Low-magic, high-action/heroism = good gaming IMO.

Cheers,

 

[Ace]

Ok, this is the 3rd f---ing time I've posted this and been redirected to "oooh specify a forum" and lost everything, so I'm fed up enough that I'll just post it in point form:

1. I dig the Midnight (by FFG) magic system blah, blah, blah, gonna use it in my homebrew, blah, blah, blah...

2. Homebrew is rare magic setting.

3. Like Midnight, my homebrew features far less than D&D standard levels of magic items.

4. To accomodate, Midnight uses "heroic path" system - kind of a template added to heroic characters (there's over 20 to choose from) that offers a PrC-caliber ability at every level right up to 20th.

5. Since my PCs are often less than heroic, the Midnight "heroic path" system doesn't suit my game, though I want to give my PCs something in exchange for lack of magic items.

6. To this end, I'm considering extra feats. 1 extra at first level and 1 every level as opposed to every 3rd as the core rules dictate.

7. I think there's so many cool feats (especially when you've got OA) that you can't have even a fraction of the ones you want for your character even at 20th level.

8. So I think my improved feat progression will do the trick.

9. I don't throw especially magically powerful monsters at my PCs (magic is usually handled with class levels, and Midnight system spellcasters have much less magic available to them than core spellcasters) so lack of magical defence shouldn't be a problem.

10. I wonder how this will affect my game and should I hand out feats per monster HD at this same rate or restrict this feat progression to class levels?

11. All opinions welcome.

I have a setting that is similar to your in many ways.

What I did is

+2 Skill Points for each class (ala Wheel of Time and Star Wars)

AC Bonus based on level (that does stack)

Enhanced Feat Progression 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 This is a total of three extra feats over the chaarcter career. It lets a few more feats get into play without taking to much away from classes that get bonus feats.

Strong Feats - I allow a few feats that are downright munchy in regular D&D to make up for magic items the players may not have.

Social Feats -- These are 2 for 1 feats ala Fading Suns D20 and include things likre Military rank, Income, Ecunimical rank and so on

 

[Snoweel]

Thanks for your input, kids.

I'm thinking more along the lines of flavour/background feats as bonus feats, rather than "optimal feat chains" - maybe I'll restrict all "extra feats" to those feats that fighters can't take as bonus feats.

Another problem I have is I don't like the massive discrepancy between 1st level characters and high level characters, or rather, the fact that a 10th level character can mow down a small army of 1st level characters, but is himself humbled in less than a round by a 20th level character.

That said, 20th level characters are basically too powerful for my game, without escalation of the challenges he/she must face - which I don't like either.

So I've halved character level progression and decided that a 12th level character is truly awesome. And that a character reaching 15th level is nearly unheard of (particularly spellcasters).

I guess I have a Cthuluesque mindset to gaming - I always like my characters to have a sense of mortality, but I also like my PCs to face 1st and 2nd level opponents (and kick their a$$es), even when they're 10th level.

So it's for this reason that I feel I need to hand out feats faster than 1/3 levels.

As for fighters, I see what you're saying, but I've thrown out so many PHB classes (not generic enough) that only fighters and warriors get +1/level BAB increase.

As for increased skill points, skills play a big part in my game (I prefer to meta-roleplay encounters, and use a lot of skill checks - why should a PC with high charisma, diplomacy and bluff suffer because his player is socially dysfunctional? ) and I feel that increasing skill points would hurt the rogue.

I'd actually prefer if everybody took some levels in rogue or expert (or aristocrat), and that a PC who spends every level on fighter should miss out on something in exchange for being so totally bada$$.

What do you guys think?

 

[Red Baron]

No problem, son. Glad to be of some help.

Re: my last campaign, I didn't have a problem with them taking combat-oriented feats, but then those guys are a bit of a H&S group. With other groups, I put more emphasis on skills and non-combat-related encounters.

Do you use WP/VP (or any facsimile thereof)? That system goes a long way toward leveling the playing field between 1st and 10th (or even 20th) level characters. I have the normal damage from any critical go to VP, and any bonus damage goes directly to WP (thus, a sword crits more often, so in a protracted fight you're more likley to get badly wounded, but a crit with an arrow is more likely to be fatal -- making snipers deadlier, as they should be IMO). There are a few other tweaks I use, but I'm confident that you're perfectly capable of deciding how you'd want your rules to work...

Also, incorporating Defense bonuses (as others have suggested) helps to alleviate the lack of bonuses from magic items normally so inherent to upper-level play. I adapted the Defense bonuses from d20M, with a few tweaks, and applied them as I saw fit to each class.

Incidentally, I made all of the players start off at 1st level in an NPC class of their choice (most of them chose warrior or expert, of course...), and that went some way in setting them up with a decent background and a number of non-combat-related skills before the campaign got under way and they started to take PC class levels. (I also assigned +1 skill ranks/level for every PC class, FWIW, since they'd never see boots of elvenkind or the like.)

 

[Snoweel]

Can you share your Def Bonus progression?

I always thought that was cool, ever since I saw it in WoT.