Swapping class feats for chosen feats

[Quasqueton]

My first worry about doing this is the spread-effect it could have among Players. If one Player is allowed to tweak his character in this way, others either will want to, or they might be unhappy that they didn't think to ask about it.

A greatsword wielding fighter doesn't need Shield Proficiency. "Can I trade Shield Proficiency for Power Attack? You let John trade his Shield Proficiency for Two-Weapon Fighting."

A barbarian decides to take a level of fighter. "Since I don't need to double up on armor proficiency, can I trade Light, Medium, and Heavy Armor Proficiency, oh, and Shield Proficiency for a couple feats?"

A PC wants to be a dual-classed cleric/wizard, working towards mystic theurge. "Since I don't wear armor because of the arcane spell failure, can I trade my armor proficiencies in for a metamagic feat?"

Quasqueton

 

[Jarrod]

It's all about the motivation.

What if there was a Fighter2 base class that had TWF as a free feat, but lacked Shield Proficiency. A player says "Hey, I want to play a fighter2 but I have no interest in two weapon fighting... can I swap that feat for shield prof?". Is that okay or not?

The problem is not whether swapping particular feats is balanced, it's whether a a-la-carte system is more optimizable. And the answer is yes.

So back to motivation and that's trickier to adjudicate.

In my campaign, I have a Flavored Soul that comes from a pirate ^h^h^h^h fisherman background. I removed his medium armor proficiency and replaced it with Expertise. Made sense to me: you don't want to wear metal on shipboard, but Expertise gives him some armor capacity back. Is that more or less powerful? I'm not worried, as he's not a powergamer.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A barbarian decides to take a level of fighter. "Since I don't need to double up on armor proficiency, can I trade Light, Medium, and Heavy Armor Proficiency, oh, and Shield Proficiency for a couple feats?"

Why not cash Martial and Simple Weapon Proficiency in as well?

Arbitrary swapping, even at 2 or 3 to one, breaks the multiclassing system as written.

 

[feydras]

I've been doing something similar in my campaign for quite awhile and it's worked out well. I stole the idea and most of the implementation from some house rules i saw somewhere long ago, sorry to whoever that was that i can't give you credit. Here it is...

CLASS FEATURE REMOVAL [Hindrance]
You do not have an ability typical of others in your profession.
Hindrance: Each class except the monk has certain features that, while highly useful, aren't at the essential core of the class. If you take this hindrance you lose all the features listed for the class as given below:
· Barbarian: Fast Move and Medium Armors
· Bard or Druid: All armor proficiencies and shield use.
· Cleric, Fighter or Paladin: Shield Use, Heavy and Medium Armor use.
· Ranger: Combat Style, Improved Combat Style, Combat Style Mastery
· Rogue: Uncanny Dodge abilities.
· Sorcerer or Wizard: Summon Familiar

In exchange for this the character gets a bonus feat of their choice. Any feat. The important thing about this deal is that you can only take it at 1st character level so you cannot multiclass into a class and take it. This is important as it prevents abuse by classes, for instance rogue/fighter. The other thing about this system, as we play it is that once you give up an ability you can only get it back by spending a feat, not by multiclassing into a class that gives you back the abilities. So a cleric who gave up Shield use, Heavy and Medium armor proficiency for say, Extra Turning cannot take a level of fighter to get all the feats back.

Our group likes this and several players use it. In the group we have used this to create a diplomatic cleric based on a merchant god, a swashbuckling fighter, and to compensate a wizard in a setting where familiars are looked upon as signs of infernalism (Iron Kingdoms by Privateer Press).

As an aside i've always hated that sorcerers have to use material components so i force my PC sorcerers to loose 'find familiar' and gain 'eschew material components'. Maybe not a fair trade, but then i'm a bastard.

- Feydras