talents vs. feats?

[woodelf]

Are Talents equivalent to feats, or too weak?

I'm pawing through the D20M stuff looking for inspiration and bits to steal, and the feats mostly disappointed me--i like what Spycraft did better. However, the class abilities are pretty cool, and could easily be turned into feats, for the most part. But then i was looking at the Talents. My first thought was: "these are pretty cool". But then, as i looked at them more, it looks like they're weaker than feats. Which seems sort of weird to me, since class abilities seem to be equivalent, or better than feats, mostly (in both D&D and D20M).

So, what do people think? Could i turn talent trees into feat chains, balance-wise? Or maybe turn the entire talent tree into a single feat that progresses with the character's level? Ideas?

 

[Malacoda]

I have already converted all the talents to feats, and I find most of them to be equal to feats. There are certainly exceptions, such as the Strong Hero tree Extreme Effort, but in these cases they can be distilled from three talents to one or two feats.

A number of talents are simply feats from other D&D books, such as Remain Concious, which is easily a nice feat.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't know if one could compare the feats from d20 Modern which strive to be a generic game, to the feats from Spycraft which makes every PC a trained Agent.

Keep in mind, d20 Modern also use Advanced Class which can be taken at a lower level than Prestige Class. So Spycraft Agents must have something to keep them alive and with abilities tailored for their chosen class until they reach a suitable level to acquire Prestige Class (around 6th or 7th).

Of course, I try not to compare two different d20 products and scale them. When it comes to Espionage and to some extent Military Operation, Spycraft have the advantage.

 

[malladin]

It's difficult to compare talents to feats, when the talents them sleves are deliberately unbalanced between classes. They are you clas features, so some are particularly good, whereas others (most noticably those available to the strong hero) are not.

cheerio,

Ben

 

[Ranger REG]

Still, the Talent tree concept sounds like a good idea.