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Message: <blockquote data-quote="malcolm_n" data-source="post: 5253658" data-attributes="member: 63154">Welcome back to another week of review and insight into the Pnumadesi Player's Companion.  For anybody following this thread, I've posted the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/283756-pnumadesi-1st-level-scenario.html" target="_blank">1st level scenario</a> now in case you want to run something.  Please consider getting back to me if you do so and let me know how it went.Anyway, this week, I'm tackling feats again.  This time, I'm going into more depth on why some of the feats were made and how they function in the greater scheme of things.[sblock=Unorthodox Training]UNORTHODOX TRAINING    Benefit:  Choose two of the key abilities of your class.  When a feature or power from that class lists one of those abilities, use the other.  For example, you can choose Strength and Dexterity, then replace all instances of Strength in your fighter powers with Dexterity and vice versa.    Special:  You can take this feat more than once.  Each time you select this feat, choose a different class.Unorthodox Training is a feat that we came up when one of our party members wanted to play a wizard who multiclassed into rogue.  She didn't want to be the smartest character in the world, and her backstory supported her just having a knack with magical teachings.  At first, we tried her out being a sorcerer who became a rogue, but she disliked the chaotic feel she was forced into and it didn't suit her character.  After thinking on it, I finally told her she could give up a feat to use her Dexterity instead of Intelligence with her wizard spells.Naturally, a few sessions in, she proved way overpowered since everything she did keyed off of her Dexterity (wand of accuracy much?).  So, I had to tone her down a bit.  We talked about it and agreed that, although she didn't have to be incessantly smart to be her brand of wizard, she did have to at least know what she was doing.  I told her that when she read a power, to switch anything she saw about Intelligence with Dexterity (like before) and vice versa.  She was fine with that, and now had a character who wasn't relying on 3 stats to survive because she could take a small rider from both Int and Cha to enhance her Dex based spells and exploits.This character, by the way, is Yllana of Singe (and eventually Yllana Silentblaize) from the preview above.And with that, the idea of Unorthodox training was born.  As it's read, it means you can choose two key stats of your class, as defined in the stat block (Wizard can choose two of Int, Wis, Dex for example) and switch them when you would see either in a class feature or power.  This opens up the door to multiclassing into many more options (with a small feat tax, but our group uses the option from Player's Strategy Guide where paragon MC gives you 3 refund feats, so we don't feel the pain).  It's possible to play a wizard/rogue with Dexterity as your high point, or a fighter/sorcerer who relies on Strength and doesn't have to be pretty to be good at his spells.[/sblock][sblock=Role-Benefit Feats]STRIKER’S VERSATILITY    Prerequisites:  11th level or Striker Role    Benefit:  When you reduce a target to 0 or fewer hit points, you can repeat the attack against a new target within range.  The new attack deals half damage.Role-Benefit feats add an element of a particular role to a character.  The fighter might occasionally need to heal, but doesn't want to dedicate himself to a god or become a general.  A rogue may choose to play the part of a defender for a bit until things get rough, then she steps back.They also function well with your current role.  A fighter could get a free mark set up at the beginning of combat, eliminating the need for an insane initiative.  A warlord may lack in powers that grant saves and opt for a feat to shore this up; or a sorcerer may keep killing things right as his good spell goes off and hate that he doesn't get a special effect half the time.  Each of these reasons are good enough to warrant the use of role-benefit feats.  Keep in mind, though, that they aren't all available up front.  As demonstrated by the one above, there's at least one or more at each tier of play, given the relative power level of the role when compared to the possibility of using it outside of your already defined role in a class.In Pnumadesi, characters work to fill roles in a variety of ways, from multiclassing to these feats and everything in between.  They do this because (with the lack of dedicated gods and considerably weaker arcane magic) there may not be a bard or cleric immediately out there to heal the party, and there isn't always a totemist sitting around and waiting for adventurers to ask for his help.  There are groups of warlords, but most of them dedicate their efforts to the war front, instead of breaking into smaller groups and questing for gold.  Since the lack of healers was so apparent, it only stood to reason that people would pick up a trick here or there to help out.  This idea spread and people started wondering why they were always the guy stuck in the front line, or how they could pull tricks off that the wizards of old were so good at but now were almost forgotten.  Eventually, people just kinda picked up on it and it's stuck ever since.[/sblock][sblock=Armor Proficiency Feats]PARAGON ARMOR PROFICIENCY    Prerequisites:  11th level    Benefit:  You gain training with the first armor in which you are not already proficient from the following list. The order of armor is cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, plateThese feats are a segway into a common request for why armor proficiencies require high Strength and Constitution.  Granted, most classes that require one or both are probably already wearing heavier armor, and those without aren't worried because of a high Dexterity or Intelligence.  But, there is plenty of story reason that a character may want to play a wizard in scale, especially if that wizard doesn't have the highest of Intellects (through unorthodox training, above).  This gives characters the option of having heavier armor at higher levels without investing ability points into Strength and Constitution.[/sblock]  That covers everything I wanted to for this week.  As always, feed back would be great here, or through PM.  Have a good week, everybody.</blockquote>

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