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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8744223" data-attributes="member: 4937">A) Feats are a fighter’s spells.By this I don’t mean that feats should ever work like spells mechanically.  In fact, I rather despise feats that work like spells.  By this I mean that the versatility and power of a spellcasting case comes from their ability to choose from a great many spells that fit the conception of a character.  Spells are in fact class abilities.  One of the reasons things get out of hand is that every new spell becomes a potential class ability.  Every spell potentially extends the number of problems that the spell-casting class can no solve efficiently.  So spells have to be designed very carefully lest they solve a class of problems that previously the spell-caster needed help solving.  The real versatility and power of any martial class, but especially that of a fighter comes from the availability and power of feats.   Since the gap on saves, base attack bonus, and hit points has narrowed between martial classes and all the other classes, the only way to restore that gap is through feats.In my opinion, all attempts to get away from that conception such as Pathfinder’s Archetypes or 5e’s subclasses have largely been failures.  They would be like designing wizard subclasses that specified which spell slots must be filled with what rather than allowing players to mix and match a package of abilities to taste.  Attempts to simplify feat selection and creation by creating fixed packages of abilities tends to make martial classes into overly simplistic one trick ponies that can only do that one thing well.  In fact, to have parity with spell-casters they need to be able to thrive in multiple situations.  Just hitting things with a pointy stick better doesn’t solve the problem.   So a list of ways your martial character is better at hitting things with a pointy stick that you don’t get to choose whether you want isn’t helpful.Class features are just feats you are forced to have.  Almost certainly, you’d rather have feats and rather have those class features moved into a feat to mix and match if you wanted them.One of the upshots of this principle that feats are a fighter’s spells is that it is obvious the typical fighter is not conceived with as many feats as they need to compete with spell-casters.  Think about how many spell slots a feat would unlock before you’d pretty much always take the feat “Gain Spells” over any other available feat.  How many feats is the spell-casting ability of a wizard or a cleric worth if you had to pay for it in feats?  The exact number would depend on how big you make your feats, but I put it to you that whether these feats are part of a fixed progression like a subclass and it’s abilities or in the form of bonus feats, the designers have tended to air on the side of being less generous with feats than they are with spell slots.  And of course, if those feats are fixed class abilities that tends to be less generous yet, because you are locked into a progression that just tends to give you one thing to be good at.  Whereas a spellcaster upon gaining a level can chose via a learned spell to be good at something entirely new.Another upshot of this principle is that if there are “6th level spells” and “9th level spells” then there ought to be something like “6th level feats” and “9th level feats”.  They don’t necessarily need level restrictions, but they do need to clearly represent capstone abilities that represent the sort of bigger more impactful things you might do, either as depth in terms of getting really good at something or as breadth in terms of getting better at many things.  One area that I think subclassing could be useful is forcing breath on the class.  There is a tendency to optimize a character to do one thing well.  Hit things with a hammer big enough that everything is a nail.  And the result of that is a character that is very narrow and binary.  In their wheelhouse there is no challenge and outside of it there is no hope.   So one thing you could do with a subclass is say, “As you level up you get X picks from column A (that pertains to combat) and Y picks from column B (that pertains to durability) and Z from column C (that pertains to skillfulness).   You could build up your archetype from lists of the sort of feats that they can do.  Maybe this sort of fighter is mobile and gets picks from mobility feats.  Maybe that sort of fighter is a great leader and gets picks from "inspiring others" feats, and another gets extra battlefield control picks.  But the general principle that you pick your enhancements the way a spellcaster picks their spells is essential if you want to have some sort parity between the two in breath of ability.   And by forcing breadth you can safely give more feat slots because you know it’s hard to break anything by doubling down.  Breadth is rarely as game breaking as depth.  Being a little useful in a lot of situations is not a problem.</blockquote>

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