Stupid feat naming: Does it really matter that much?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Are there any good reasons for feat names like "Golden Wyvern Adept"? All the argument for them seems to be "you can change them" or "they aren't so bad". If something isn't a positive, why include it?

I don't like these kind of names because (1) they don't mean anything, (2) they may give the wrong impression of my campaign world (that there is a Golden Wyvern tradition in the world), and (3) they often sound really lame.

The reason why feat names are useful is:
It reminds the players and the DM that feats and powers don't have just to be some abilities people can get to make their character more effective, they also represent something about their personality and their role in the world.

Sure, people could have done that before, but did they? Did you? Sure, it might change a little bit of our understanding of what feats represent (more than just a special ability).

With the removal of Prestige Classes, such feats might even provide more useful - because it allows people to represent their ties to an organization by taking feats associated with it. (Yes, and if a DM wanted, he could enforce it.)

And once you had your fix of the implied setting and want to go to your homebrew, where you probably want to create new organization to fill the setting anyway, the "fluffy" feats gives you ideas where to start.

 

[Imaro]

I was arguing the point that just because it's a "traditional archetype" doesn't make it good, nor does something being newly generated as an archetype make it bad. D&D has soiled all kinds of traditional archetypes and created whole new ones, so I see no reason for them to stop that now.

As for the confusion, I don't see it. I went through it with one of my players, who has only ever played WoD games before.

Me: "What does Golden Wyvern mean to you?"
Her: "Uhh... gold dragon. Why?"
Me: "If I told you they were spell-shapers, would that make sense? Think about it for a few."
<10 minutes go by>
Her: "Okay, well, I guess gold stands for the shaping, since gold is one of the most malleable common metals, and the wyvern stands for magic, since wyverns and dragons are magical creatures. Is that right?"
Me: "No clue, but it sounds like a reasonable explanation to me."

And yet my little brother was able to grasp Power Attack in less than 10 seconds and remember it.


Another thing you're avoiding is the fact that in this edition players have more abilities/powers/etc. to keep track of. That's great, it took 10 minutes for your player to draw the connection between one power and it's name...but not everyone wants to do mental gymnastics to keep the list of powers their character has straight in their mind. Some people are casual gamers and want to just play, giving them these types of naming conventions does nothing but cause the game to slow down or the DM to pick up the slack.

It's funny to me how "quest cards" are lauded to help players keep track of what is actually happening in game...yet abstract names for their powers are argued by some as better(??) than functional descriptive names. I just don't get it.

 

[Imaro]

The reason why feat names are useful is:
It reminds the players and the DM that feats and powers don't have just to be some abilities people can get to make their character more effective, they also represent something about their personality and their role in the world.

Sure, people could have done that before, but did they? Did you? Sure, it might change a little bit of our understanding of what feats represent (more than just a special ability).

With the removal of Prestige Classes, such feats might even provide more useful - because it allows people to represent their ties to an organization by taking feats associated with it. (Yes, and if a DM wanted, he could enforce it.)

And once you had your fix of the implied setting and want to go to your homebrew, where you probably want to create new organization to fill the setting anyway, the "fluffy" feats gives you ideas where to start.

But couldn't this be more elegantly implemented with a sidbar or even a small listing of "alternate names" for feats?

 

[Will]

Lauded? I've seen several threads in various places that quest cards are going to appeal to retarded children who only play MMOs and will be the end of civilization as we know it.

I wouldn't draw any broad inferences from how people react; it seems to be all over the map, from what I can see.

 

[Oldtimer]

As for the confusion, I don't see it. I went through it with one of my players, who has only ever played WoD games before.

Me: "What does Golden Wyvern mean to you?"
Her: "Uhh... gold dragon. Why?"
Me: "If I told you they were spell-shapers, would that make sense? Think about it for a few."
<10 minutes go by>
Her: "Okay, well, I guess gold stands for the shaping, since gold is one of the most malleable common metals, and the wyvern stands for magic, since wyverns and dragons are magical creatures. Is that right?"
Me: "No clue, but it sounds like a reasonable explanation to me."

Sweet, but I could give any one of my players 10 months or 10 years and they wouldn't remember what Golden Wyvern Adept does.
Confusion is very real with such names.

 

[Wolfspider]

Me: "What does Golden Wyvern mean to you?"
Her: "Uhh... gold dragon. Why?"
Me: "If I told you they were spell-shapers, would that make sense? Think about it for a few."
<10 minutes go by>
Her: "Okay, well, I guess gold stands for the shaping, since gold is one of the most malleable common metals, and the wyvern stands for magic, since wyverns and dragons are magical creatures. Is that right?"
Me: "No clue, but it sounds like a reasonable explanation to me."

I hate to tell you, but this ain't a great example of a name not being confusing.

You gave the player a description of what the feat does and ten minutes later she was able to cobble together a No Prize-ish reason for it. That's not very impressive. (By the way, wyverns in D&D--at least up to this point--aren't magically adept creatures. They are mostly savage beasts who bite and sting the crap out of stuff.)

I bet feats like Quick Draw, Two Weapon Fighting, and Weapon Specialization are a whole lot less difficult for players to figure out.

Your example would have been much more effective if you would have given the player the feat name "Golden Wyvern Adept" and she would have then replied, "Ahhh! They must be shapers of magic!"

EDIT: Your example brought to mind the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail involving an explanation, seemingly rational, of how to determine if someone is a witch. Great. Now I'm going to have to break out the DVD and watch it tonight.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But couldn't this be more elegantly implemented with a sidbar or even a small listing of "alternate names" for feats?

No. If you add the ability to your character sheet, you don't copy the side bar. If you refer to the ability during play, you don't refer to the side bar.
If you put things in a side bar, you will forget the information.

 

[IceFractal]

The thing about "simple, descriptive" feat names, is that they becomes less descriptive the more feats you have, and may not have been that simple in the first place.

For example:
Combat Reflexes is not related to Lightning Reflexes, nor does it modify your reflex save, give you a better initiative, or help your AC. These are all equally plausible from the name as what it actually does.

Combat Expertise is poorly named. One would expect it to let you use your Int bonus in combat somehow, or simply be better at combat, or use tactical manuevers. The actual effect is way down the list of guesses.

Power Attack does give you a more powerful attack. It does so at the expense of accuracy, which is not obvious from the name. Power Critical is not related at all - it does no extra damage, instead giving you extra accuracy to confirm a critical.

There are a lot of +2/+2 skill feats, and the names are only vaguely helpful at determining which is which.

Could you guess that Weapon Focus gives you +hit and Weapon Specialization gives you +damage without already knowing it?

Would you be able to guess that Extraordinary Spell Aim applies not to targetted or ray spells, but instead AoE spells, and involves exempting your allies instead of aiming better at your foes?

Combat Brute and Shock Trooper - which one gives you the "damage at the expense of AC" ability, and which one gives you the "better accuracy loss to damage gain ratio" ability? Do the names help at all here?

Clever Wrestling is only useful for escaping grapples. It doesn't help someone who wants to grapple. Close-Quarters Fighting helps prevent grapples, not do better in them.

 

[Wolfspider]

The thing about "simple, descriptive" feat names, is that they becomes less descriptive the more feats you have, and may not have been that simple in the first place.

For example:
Combat Reflexes is not related to Lightning Reflexes, nor does it modify your reflex save, give you a better initiative, or help your AC. These are all equally plausible from the name as what it actually does.

Combat Expertise is poorly named. One would expect it to let you use your Int bonus in combat somehow, or simply be better at combat, or use tactical manuevers. The actual effect is way down the list of guesses.

Power Attack does give you a more powerful attack. It does so at the expense of accuracy, which is not obvious from the name. Power Critical is not related at all - it does no extra damage, instead giving you extra accuracy to confirm a critical.

There are a lot of +2/+2 skill feats, and the names are only vaguely helpful at determining which is which.

Could you guess that Weapon Focus gives you +hit and Weapon Specialization gives you +damage without already knowing it?

Would you be able to guess that Extraordinary Spell Aim applies not to targetted or ray spells, but instead AoE spells, and involves exempting your allies instead of aiming better at your foes?

Combat Brute and Shock Trooper - which one gives you the "damage at the expense of AC" ability, and which one gives you the "better accuracy loss to damage gain ratio" ability? Do the names help at all here?

Clever Wrestling is only useful for escaping grapples. It doesn't help someone who wants to grapple. Close-Quarters Fighting helps prevent grapples, not do better in them.

You're absolutely right. The names of these feats do not perfectly capture what they do.

But at least the names have something to do with their description. Clever Wrestling does involve wrestling. Extraordinary Spell Aim does involve who is or isn't targetted by your spells. Power Attack does involve a powerful attack. Combat Reflexes does involve reflexive attacks.

Dragon Tail Cut? Does this feat involve cooking or fighting? Do you have to have a tail to use it, or be a dragon?

Golden Wyvern Adept? From the name, we're only sure that the character with the feat is adept at doing something that involves golden wyverns. It's a stretch to even identify "Golden Wyvern" as a particular style of something, and even then the question comes up whether Golden Wyvern "style" is a form of dancing, combat, cooking, spellcasting, or whatnot.

But you are right. If I had my way, all of the feats in 3.5 would have been named to the degree that what they do is pretty intuitively determined from what they're named.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

There was an article in an issue of Dragon magazine not too long after 3.0 first came out. It was about how to (properly) design a feat. There were a number of good rules in there. One of them was that you should always give a feat a simple name that describes what the feat does. IIRC, they even gave examples of core feats that originally had longer, more colorful names, as well as the new (released) names. I'll try to find the complete article when I'm home in a couple of days (I'm visiting relatives right now).

So I guess this isn't 100% on topic, but you could say that naming is one of the basic design-level changes that WotC has implemented in the new edition. In 3.0, simple naming was a specific design consideration. In 4e, they have flip-flopped, in favor of colorful, descriptive names. Whether or not that's good or bad is a matter of oppinion.

THAT WAS 3.0 BABY!!! That was yo' grandmamma's D&D

This is the Muther F*&#%n, in yo' face, D&D turned all the way up, blowing out yo' mind Jackie Chan meets Conan meets the X-men meets Inuysha D&D, all action all the time D&D where nuthin' exists that doesn't scream I'm gonna kick you pu&%y a$$ from one side of the dungeon to the other D&D. They even killed off the gods that don't specialize in whoopin a$$. This is 4E baby!!!

Show some respect punk!

Translation: This is the new and improved D&D Experience we are providing our customers in the hopes that D&D will broaden in its overall appeal to a wider demographic. Thank you for your time.





Wyrmshadows