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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 2937452" data-attributes="member: 813">Except that feats are some of the most ineligent parts of the system. Yes, the idea of feats being exceptions to a rule sounds elegant. But feats also need to be balanced against one another and doing this is very hit or miss in the rules. This is because not all rules are equal and thus rules exceptions cannot be equal.I feel like I'm talking in circles so let me get to a concrete example:Improved Disarm: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when you attempt to disarm an opponent, nor does the opponent have a chance to disarm you. You also gain a +4 bonus on the opposed attack roll you make to disarm your opponent.Improved Grapple: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when you make a touch attack to start a grapple. You also gain a +4 bonus on all grapple checks, regardless of whether you started the grapple.Improved Sunder: When you strike at an object held or carried by an opponent (such as a weapon or shield), you do not provoke an attack of opportunity. You also gain a +4 bonus on any attack roll made to attack an object held or carried by another character.Improved Trip: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when you attempt to trip an opponent while you are unarmed. You also gain a +4 bonus on your Strength check to trip your opponent.These four feats are extremely similar and yet the differ in unpredictable ways. All of them remove the chance for an attack of opportunity. But some improve a Strength check and some improve your attack roll. And one (disarm) changes the options available to your oppenent when you fail. I don't see how this can be called elegance. Every feat is an exception to the rules. By definition (which I admit I haven't done) elegance of rules involves a lack of exceptions.This does not translate well with your assertion that complexity away from the game is okay. If leveling up is a chore that must be done away from the gaming table, that is free time I must spend slogging away at inelegant subsystems. This must reduce fun overall. As long as complexity and inelegance are permitted in any section of the rules, you will never reach 100%.Elegance and fun are probably orthogonal. In my own post above (which I see has been sigged. Cool, my first sigging I think), I point out that people do not oogle elegant game designs while experiencing them. So, it is not a crime for D&D to have inelegant parts and it is not necessarily that inelegance that inhibits fun. Calling D&D's inelegant bad is rediculous. The OP encountered someone using its inelegance as an indictment against the system and I say 30 years of people coming back to it again and again regardless of its pulchritude (or lack thereof) is a pretty good reason to ignore such an indictment.</blockquote>

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