stonehead
Explorer
I know that "skill feats are boring" is an overused complaint at this point, but I had a realization about why so many of them seem so underwhelming. Many skill feats give you abilities that normal people already have. I can estimate the number of items in a group, I can make an impression on two people at the same time, I can skim read. Because of this, it's really hard to come up with scenarios in which having the feat would do anything. Imagine in a game, your character gives a speach at a big banquet, and the GM asks "Alright, and which individual creature would you like to make an impression on?" It would never happen, the default assumption is that everyone can do it.
The other type of boring skill feat interacts with a system that no one uses. Quick Coercion, Quick Identification, etc all interact with time in a way that would never come up in a game. Most survival feats interact with tracking, hunger, and overland travel, which no one ever uses. Many feats, like Hobnobber, interact with the Gather Information activity; maybe it's different at other tables, but all of that stuff is handled informally in every game I've played. No one I've played with uses the RAW rules for npc attitudes. I understand the intention of these feats, and I don't exactly blame the designers for them being useless, but in reality, the only system most groups (that I've seen) interact with is "roll d20, add modifiers, compare to dc" and it's hard to interact with that system mechanically.
A good number of well-liked skill feats are just combat buffs in disguise. Titan Wrestler, Bon Mot, Battle Medicine, etc. They're all great, but they're basically class feats. They actually do something and are worth taking, so they're much better than the feats that do nothing.
Then there are a few skill feats that give you new and interesting abilities. The gold standard. Not in terms of power, but in terms of design. Wall Jump gives you a cool new ability that most DMs wouldn't assume you already had. Legendary Thief lets you literally steal the clothes off someone's back. Even Legendary Survivalist, lets you no longer need to eat or drink, even if that's not useful at level 15.
In my opinion, this is what skill feats should be. New utility options that exist on the edge of realism. Wall jumping doesn't exactly work in real life, so I wouldn't assume every character could do it, but it's close enough that you can take a feat for it. This realization was followed by another: it's really hard to come up with abilities like this. I spent hours trying to come up with better ideas for skill feats in the back of my mind, but the best I could come up with is a Performance feat to let you change your voice to sound like someone else. Pretty sure that's already a spell somewhere, but utility spells are their own separate conversation.
Skill feats are a cool idea, even if the implementation is a bit lacking. I now have more sympathy for the implementation, because it's hard to do. If you can come up with any better ideas let me know, it's more difficult than it seems.
The other type of boring skill feat interacts with a system that no one uses. Quick Coercion, Quick Identification, etc all interact with time in a way that would never come up in a game. Most survival feats interact with tracking, hunger, and overland travel, which no one ever uses. Many feats, like Hobnobber, interact with the Gather Information activity; maybe it's different at other tables, but all of that stuff is handled informally in every game I've played. No one I've played with uses the RAW rules for npc attitudes. I understand the intention of these feats, and I don't exactly blame the designers for them being useless, but in reality, the only system most groups (that I've seen) interact with is "roll d20, add modifiers, compare to dc" and it's hard to interact with that system mechanically.
A good number of well-liked skill feats are just combat buffs in disguise. Titan Wrestler, Bon Mot, Battle Medicine, etc. They're all great, but they're basically class feats. They actually do something and are worth taking, so they're much better than the feats that do nothing.
Then there are a few skill feats that give you new and interesting abilities. The gold standard. Not in terms of power, but in terms of design. Wall Jump gives you a cool new ability that most DMs wouldn't assume you already had. Legendary Thief lets you literally steal the clothes off someone's back. Even Legendary Survivalist, lets you no longer need to eat or drink, even if that's not useful at level 15.
In my opinion, this is what skill feats should be. New utility options that exist on the edge of realism. Wall jumping doesn't exactly work in real life, so I wouldn't assume every character could do it, but it's close enough that you can take a feat for it. This realization was followed by another: it's really hard to come up with abilities like this. I spent hours trying to come up with better ideas for skill feats in the back of my mind, but the best I could come up with is a Performance feat to let you change your voice to sound like someone else. Pretty sure that's already a spell somewhere, but utility spells are their own separate conversation.
Skill feats are a cool idea, even if the implementation is a bit lacking. I now have more sympathy for the implementation, because it's hard to do. If you can come up with any better ideas let me know, it's more difficult than it seems.
