D&D 5E Splitting feats and ability increases

[Xeviat]

I picked up Pathfinder 2 recently, and while I find it to be very overwhelming to digest, there's some neat ideas in it. It's certainly a big change. I do like the class/subclass system of 5E more, as it has more story feelings to it and less tiny decisions, I do find myself missing feats as a part of character progression and diversification. I also really like how Pathfinder 2 has skill feats for gaining certain abilities that otherwise might not get chosen alongside more combat oriented options.

My group hasn't been big on taking feats; I've only seen them on humans and the one barbarian who wanted Heavy Weapon Master because it's so good with advantage. But I miss that bit of build options.

I've long been wanting to break up feats into smaller feats and give them out. Basically, feats that grant an ability increase would lose the ability increase, and bigger feats would be split in 2. Then, ASIs could just be used for ability scores, and feats could become a part of level progression.

This would be a flat power up, so I'd probably tweak monsters or the CR system a little.

But that got me thinking that Ability Score growth feels more like it should be part of levels and feats then could be in the class progression. So I'm not sure how I'd go about doing this. Has anyone else thought of something similar?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, first thing I would say that whenever we select a feat that has an ASI as part of it, we've unlinked it from any specific ability to one of the player's choice.

Now, for what you want:

ASI's are at levels 4, 8 , 12, 16, and 19. So, 5 ASIs overall. 5E expects some increase in primary ability score in order to stay competitive with the increases in opponents' power. For myself, when looking at things in a white room I assume +3 until level 8, then +4 until level 16, and +5 from level 16 on. Overall, I expect +5 increase total, which would equate to a +1 per ASI.

So, keeping ASIs the same, but reducing them to +1 would keep the power-level roughly the same in the RAW.

To off-set the lower ASIs, add in your "reduced" feats. In order to keep things--interesting(?)--maybe include these feat awards every 3 levels like in earlier editions, including 1st level if you choose. Maybe 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18. This would allow 8 reduced feats, or only 7 if you don't give one at 1st level.

Is that along the lines you're thinking??

 

[Xeviat]

Is that along the lines you're thinking??

Kinda, but you're looking to keep the balance the same.

I'm looking to allow for a bit of an increase in power. But, breaking the big feats into +1 ability feats and removing raw ASIs would be a way of allowing for feat customization while still having ability progression (and non fighters and rogues would still be able to get their 15 to a 20 in worst case build scenarios).

I do also like how, mostly, you can compare a level's benefits to the benefits of an ASI or a feat now. But I don't like how ASI progression (and Extra Attack) complicates multiclassing. Having ASIs in base level would help with that, but I'd still want to make sure the class levels were balanced (and, thus, I'd be powering characters up).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Kinda, but you're looking to keep the balance the same.

I'm looking to allow for a bit of an increase in power. But, breaking the big feats into +1 ability feats and removing raw ASIs would be a way of allowing for feat customization while still having ability progression (and non fighters and rogues would still be able to get their 15 to a 20 in worst case build scenarios).

I do also like how, mostly, you can compare a level's benefits to the benefits of an ASI or a feat now. But I don't like how ASI progression (and Extra Attack) complicates multiclassing. Having ASIs in base level would help with that, but I'd still want to make sure the class levels were balanced (and, thus, I'd be powering characters up).

Gotcha.

For multiclassing, which we do nearly all the time, we use character level, not class levels, for granting ASI/feats. You can keep the progressions as I outlined above, but allow the full +2 for ASI if you want a bit more power.

I should note for our multiclassing, Fighters and Rogues still get their additional ASIs at their class levels, not character level.

For a greater power boost, we do HP differently than with following the normal MC progression. It allows PCs to have a bit more HP. We do MCing old-school, but simply dividing XP between all the classes, and classes level equally. That created a unique problem. We had the power needed to handle stronger foes, but lacked the HP to stand against them. We had too much power for weaker foes, which we could stand against. So, with our new method, we have the HP to stand against the stronger foes and the power to deal with them.