[PF2] My one wish, please please do away with traits

[houser2112]

I initially liked traits as a way to tie your character into a specific setting or story but....
Now they are annoying, and I absolutely hate it when players discuss the "best" trait. They weren't supposed to be treated as an optimization tool! So yeah, ditching them would be a good move. And you're right about there being too many, too specific and not that useful for character design.

I'm not sure if your "supposed to" is true or just your opinion. Regardless, if a thing has an effect on the game mechanics, it WILL be used as an optimization tool by those who wish to optimize.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I initially liked traits as a way to tie your character into a specific setting or story but....
Now they are annoying, and I absolutely hate it when players discuss the "best" trait. They weren't supposed to be treated as an optimization tool!

Neither were prestige classes originally in 3E. They were supposed to be DM tools - something to give to players but meant for individualizing a game setting, not for exploitation and optimization purposes.

 

[Khaalis]

My impression is that the Concept of traits are being absorbed into the new Ancestry Feats category.

 

[amethal]

They have become inescapable over the years, I can easily opt-out of archetypes, alternate racial traits, and weird later classes, but not from traits, I ask for permission not to take them I get inundated with friendly suggestions and I end up being forced to accept them in order to be nice, I convince a GM to run a game without them, other players just end up convincing him to allow them anyway... The easiest solution is not to play.

Some more friendly suggestions for you to be inundated with :-

- Forget to pick a any traits at all and see if anyone notices
- Give yourself +2 to Initiative and +1 to Will saves, write this down on your character sheet and never worry about it again (and don't even look up the traits to see what "flavour" they bring; ignorance is bliss here)
- Take traits which don't do anything e.g. the Bullied trait (which literally does nothing unless you have the Improved Unarmed Strike Feat), the Sacred Conduit Feat (which literally does nothing unless you can Channel Energy), Hedge Magician (which literally does nothing unless you have a Magic Item Creation Feat), Natural Born Leader (which does very little unless you have the Leadership Feat, and those benefits are so situational nobody will think it odd if you "forget" to apply them)
- Take the Rich Parents trait, and spend 750 gp of the 900 gp on a collection of masterwork tea cosies
- Pick the religion trait that corresponds to your patron deity - ok, this one might actually do something useful, but it won't give you any unwanted flavour

In the meantime, I like being able to broaden my character by picking up another class skill, or having +2 caster level make a multi-classed caster not quite so terrible as it otherwise would be.

Also, from a DM's point of view, I find having "half feats" available makes it easier to give organisations, regions etc. their own strengths, signature abilities and the like without it having to be strong enough to be worth a feat.