Should feats be open or class specific?

[Sunseeker]

To me, the big difference between 2e and 3e is that I can articulate my character's personality in the mechanics better. I often find myself taking skills or feats that serve little to no function in adventuring (Perform: Sing is my personal favorite) because they describe the character's proclivities with specificity, making him seem more human.

Sure, in any system I can say my character has a hobby, but 3e tells me exactly how good of a singer he is relative to how good he is at other things, relative to other people who can sing, and relative to an objective standard of aesthetic merit (the DC).

I guess I've never really felt a desire to have feats for things my character simply likes to do. Unless there is some particular need to use them for the benefit of the game (such as singing the raging beast to sleep) or putting on a concert for the king to lure out an assassin, I've always just RPed that my character was good at something, but in a personal context. ie: he always sings songs about dead puppies, which noone really likes to hear, even if they're very well-sung songs.

Similarly, the Knowledge skills of a dragon I create give me more specific information on exactly what esoteric facts he knows, rather than leaving me as a DM to just make that up. There's nothing wrong with making stuff up, but the point of using detailed monster creation rules is so that the DM doesn't have to.

A high knowledge skill doesn't necessarily mean you know which esoteric facts he knows, only that the higher the score, the more esoteric facts he can know. IE: a barbarian can be very well versed on the "Battle of Dragon Ridge", the penultimate battle between his people and some other faction. Even if his knowledge ranks are very low, it simply means that may very well be the only thing he's well versed in, while your dragon could know the exact details of every battle ever except for of Mr. Barbarian's battle.

You're basically making it up either way. Either you choose the specific knowledge that your NPC knows on the basis of how numerically smart they are, or you choose the information your NPC knows on the basis of those being things you feel your NPC should know.

Maybe, but I think there's also a lot to be gained through mechanically "useless" or suboptimal choices.

I'm kind of curious what you think that is.

 

[Ahnehnois]

You're basically making it up either way.

True. It is a game of make-believe. The rules just limit you from complete free-form improv, and standardize the stuff you're making up.

I'm kind of curious what you think that is.

The same reasons why you watch Burn Notice and spend entire scenes watching Mike eat yogurt. The show isn't about eating, but little details make it seem more real. Similarly, detailed character creation is a way of officially rendering the explicit details that make characters feel real.

 

[Sunseeker]

The same reasons why you watch Burn Notice and spend entire scenes watching Mike eat yogurt. The show isn't about eating, but little details make it seem more real. Similarly, detailed character creation is a way of officially rendering the explicit details that make characters feel real.

I guess I never felt the rules were very good at that for me. Part of the problem may be my liking of playing classes who suffer quickly under feat bloat and poor choices (such as fighters). I would certainly like to see D&D expand it's "traits" and "background" to help enable building your character in game without having to compete with good choices. I.E. separate "feats" for the different areas of a character, combat/skill feats on one side, social/"trait" feats on another and so on. I really don't think that a feat for ships-in-a-bottle should even be a comparative choice to say, cleave. They represent entirely different aspects of your life, which I don't think D&D is good at representing.

 

[MoonSong]

I guess I never felt the rules were very good at that for me. Part of the problem may be my liking of playing classes who suffer quickly under feat bloat and poor choices (such as fighters). I would certainly like to see D&D expand it's "traits" and "background" to help enable building your character in game without having to compete with good choices. I.E. separate "feats" for the different areas of a character, combat/skill feats on one side, social/"trait" feats on another and so on. I really don't think that a feat for ships-in-a-bottle should even be a comparative choice to say, cleave. They represent entirely different aspects of your life, which I don't think D&D is good at representing.

If you are saying that feats should be listed by area of focuss I agree, but if you are advocating for siloing of feats, you lost me, siloing combat feats from non-combat feats only takes away choice by forcing all characters to put a degree of resources into combat, even for those that would rather focuss on some other thing.

 

[ImperatorK]

I guess I've never really felt a desire to have feats for things my character simply likes to do. Unless there is some particular need to use them for the benefit of the game (such as singing the raging beast to sleep) or putting on a concert for the king to lure out an assassin, I've always just RPed that my character was good at something, but in a personal context. ie: he always sings songs about dead puppies, which noone really likes to hear, even if they're very well-sung songs.

Well, I personally want to be at least moderately good at my favorite hobby, even if I don't gain anything from it. But in-game that's hardly the case if for example my Perform (Song) skill modifier is -1. :/ It's one thing wanting to do something just for fun, and another wanting to do it good. If I'm making an NPC professional singer then I'm going to give him stuff that will improve his singing skill, not some combat (or whatever) feats that are useless to his concept.

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, I personally want to be at least moderately good at my favorite hobby, even if I don't gain anything from it. But in-game that's hardly the case if for example my Perform (Song) skill modifier is -1. :/ It's one thing wanting to do something just for fun, and another wanting to do it good. If I'm making an NPC professional singer then I'm going to give him stuff that will improve his singing skill, not some combat (or whatever) feats that are useless to his concept.

Sure, but that's still optimizing, your intended outcome is just different. If you optimize your siren to have the most beautiful voice ever and therefore be more successful at luring in sailors to devour that's no different from picking the proper weapon feats to do more damage.

If you are saying that feats should be listed by area of focuss I agree, but if you are advocating for siloing of feats, you lost me, siloing combat feats from non-combat feats only takes away choice by forcing all characters to put a degree of resources into combat, even for those that would rather focuss on some other thing.

Personally, if we stick with the idea that there should only be one area of feats, I believe we would be best served by adding flavor to feats and attempting to pare down crunch feats. So, for example, improving your ability to sing (+2 Perform: Sing) may also give you a +2 save against sleep spells, or something along those lines.

I say this because as a long-time MTG player I tend to favor cards with unique flavor text over cards without, because flavor gives the card real meaning to me beyond simply being statistically good.

So in my ideal universe, I would see flavor paired with power. Becoming great at swinging an axe makes you better at say, woodcarving, and so on. You're not simply nimble in combat with Weapon Finesse, you're flashy, like Zorro.

 

[ImperatorK]

Sure, but that's still optimizing, your intended outcome is just different.

Um... yes? Where did I say otherwise?

If you optimize your siren to have the most beautiful voice ever and therefore be more successful at luring in sailors to devour that's no different from picking the proper weapon feats to do more damage.

Which is irrelevant to the part you are quoting, because I was clearly talking about non-combat concepts.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think the vast majority of feats should be open, but I'm okay with there being a small number of class-specific feats.

 

[Starfox]

Open, as far as possible. But feats that apply to specific class features are viable, and by necessity closed. But making a feat that could be an open on into a closed one just because you are afraid of synergies is not a good idea.