There's a lot of feats. How to get more of them to see play?

[JiffyPopTart]

You can be especially free giving out some of the needless +2/+2 skill feats to beef up the otherwise neglected skills.

As a balance, you can make sure to include more of the skills that are normally handwaved and actually enforce them in play (I am looking at you Appraise).

DS

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well? There's lots of feats available. What is a balanced way to get more of them into play?

Why do they NEED to see more play? Are you not having fun or something? Will the feats shrivel and die if they do not get used often enough? Will having gobs of more feats actually in use at any given time enable you to have more and better fun? Is this a solution in search of a problem?

 

[Li Shenron]

Why do they NEED to see more play? Are you not having fun or something? Will the feats shrivel and die if they do not get used often enough? Will having gobs of more feats actually in use at any given time enable you to have more and better fun? Is this a solution in search of a problem?

They help customizing classes which have a lot of fixed abilities and only few choices. If you like for example playing a Barbarian or a Paladin etc., if it wasn't for feats you may end up with more look-alike characters every time.

 

[Li Shenron]

There are two main points you need to realise about this method:

1. The length a normal campaign takes up
   
   ...
   
   For the former: most D&D campaigns, as reseached by WotC, will not last into high levels, and might last 6months to a year (or somesuch). You would be well served to note that by increasing the feats to one every-other level, that only a net 3 feats are gained, and that before 10th level (where most campaigns are played) you get one more feat - instead of your 6th level feat, you have a 5th and a 7th. So, really, game balance is not that thrown out of whack, especially for low-level play, which are the levels which most gamers play in.

1. 
   
   This is an important thing to keep in mind.
   
   The first time I ran a game with more feats than normal, it was because I had a party of 3 PCs only and I was looking for ideas to boost their confidence a little. I gave them a feat at every odd level, but since the game didn't reach into double-digit, that meant after all only 1 more feat than usual!
   
   This is just to say that IMHO you shouldn't be particularly afraid of giving more feats than normal. Just think realistically how high in level your game is going to last, and decide if the amount of extra feats BY LEVEL is not too much for you. I guess that 2-3 feats more than normal isn't a big deal for anyone but the lowest level characters.

 

[FireLance]

If you decide to give out one feat every level, one way to prevent over-concentration in certain feat types is to divide feats into various classes, for example:

1. General
2. Racial/heritage
3. Class ability related (divine, wild, bardic music)
4. Other related (e.g. action point, luck)

And allow PCs to select only one of each type of feat every three levels.

 

[Harker Wade]

In my Ptolus game I give out extra feats. My restriction is that it's the bonus feat I've granted it must be taken in a dspline other then your primary ie. fighter types must take social or mental feats - no combat feats. Wizards take physical feats and so on...

It seems to help round out characters and gets a lot more feats out there.

 

[Sir Elton]

Feat bloat.