Too many feats? (or - Why is this a feat?)

[Buttercup]

Are there too many feats?

A thousand times yes!

Moreso, are mechanics that should just be 'try it and see' turned into feats so no one but a high level fighter is gonna end up doing obvious things?

Yes again. That's why I'm increasingly leaning toward only allowing feats from the PHB. You can do just about anything you need to do with them, and a bit of imagination. I certainly won't allow a feat from another source with out giving it a great deal of thought.

 

[Quinn]

If you try to include all the various feats from all the different sources out there (WotC splatbooks, Dragon mag, d20 publishers), you are definitely going to have too many feats on your hands. You need to be selective. Some feats as written will not work for everyone's game, however a lot of folks feel they need to include everything. Take what you want, leave the rest.

There is no reason to make Power Dive a feat if you want every flying creature to be able to do this. For that matter, you can do this for any number of feats. Personally, I like the fact that they are feats to begin with. It's a nice little set of rules that detail complicated maneuvers and game mechanics. Keeps things nice and organized, IMO. However, a lot of the time, I find myself tweaking feats from their original sources until they're acceptable to me.

If nothing else, it gives you an idea how to adjudicate a certain mechanic if it comes up in a game. So the polymorphed wizard wants to Power Dive. Great! You could come up with your own mechanics (what is his AC? His damage? etc, etc, etc.)...or you can look at Power Dive first and decide if you like that, and then go from there.

Just don't feel you have to do something just because it's written down in the rules somewhere. Rules get revised anyways, so I hear.

 

[Buttercup]

Yes, there are too many feats as there are too many prestige classes, too many books, too many...

Have I ever mentioned how much prestige classes annoy me?

That being said, I'm of the opinion that all the current variety is a very good thing, because it gives the DM a much larger toolbox. However, that doesn't mean one has to use all the options in a given campaign. In fact, using all the options would be crazy, IMO. But maybe your campaign has an Oriental flavor, say. And someone else's has high magic. And a third person has darkenss and despair. The cool thing is that all of those DMs will find plenty of material to help them. And that's a Good Thing.

 

[hong]

What when a player declares he attacks the giant's knee caps to make it drop so he has access to the giant's eyes & head? How do you rule this? Or do you simply say "no you can't do that" ?

No, I say "well, what d'you think you're doing right now, playing footsies with him?" D&D presupposes that you're always trying your best to take the other guy down. Exactly how that's accomplished is where it's abstract.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I could not agree with this sentiment more strongly. They are using feats to emulate combat feats that should be standard for maneuvers.

I put this squarely on the back of the game designers for not being able to tell the difference between a combat mechanic and a feat. The PHB is fine, but some of the Dragon Mag and Sourcebook feats shouldn't be feats at all.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Re: Re

I could not agree with this sentiment more strongly. They are using feats to emulate combat feats that should be standard for maneuvers.

While I agree with this sentiment, I don't think there are too many Feats. On the other hand, it is possible to "approve" too many Feats for your game. About a year ago I started going through the Netbook of Feats to do such a project; I got about half-way through C when I finally told my Players, "If you want it, let me know."

I had figured I'd save them some time by providing all the Feats up-front that I would allow, and ended up working on those more than the setting. I'm sure most folks will agree that this is a bad thing.

(Note: I still recommend the netbook as an excellent source, just don't do what I tried to do.)

 

[smetzger]

Why not just include this as a new mechanic? Worse, by including it as a feat, it by implication removes the ability to do it otherwise.

Just because there is a feat to do something does not negate the possibility that you could do a similare effect w/o having the feat.

In the case of Power Dive, ( I am going off of your description), No, there is no specific rule to do slam damage with your body. You could do one of several similar things:
1) Charge Attack
2) Bull Rush
3) Grapple
4) Use rules for dropping objects, except the object is yourself, of course you would also take damage from this.

Feats should enable a character to either do something he can't already do; or enable him to do something better than he can already do. From your description, Power Dive does this. This feat should probably have a Normal section to it explaining rules for if you don't have the feat, probably number 4.

So, there is lots of room for different feats and feat trees. Some of them will hardly ever be taken and will only be applicable to a very narrow character concept. Thats Ok, as long as the feat is not unbalancing.

 

[Psion]

I think there are more badly written feats than badly written prestige classes. And that's not just becasue they are smaller and there are more of them. People come up with the weakest excuses for feats, and since feats by their very nature go outside the normal boundaries of the rules, some people start getting way too inventive for their own "designing ability" britches.

 

[Mordane76]

Re: Re: Too many feats? (or - Why is this a feat?)

Just because there is a feat to do something does not negate the possibility that you could do a similar effect w/o having the feat.

In the case of Power Dive, ( I am going off of your description), No, there is no specific rule to do slam damage with your body. You could do one of several similar things:
1) Charge Attack
2) Bull Rush
3) Grapple
4) Use rules for dropping objects, except the object is yourself, of course you would also take damage from this.

Feats should enable a character to either do something he can't already do; or enable him to do something better than he can already do. From your description, Power Dive does this. This feat should probably have a Normal section to it explaining rules for if you don't have the feat, probably number 4.

So, there is lots of room for different feats and feat trees. Some of them will hardly ever be taken and will only be applicable to a very narrow character concept. Thats Ok, as long as the feat is not unbalancing.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is here; sure, there are a lot of feats, and some of them seem to fly in the face of standard creativity by seemingly limiting the regular actions of players. However, this is the best description of just how the rules already allow something like this without resorting to a feat. In most cases, I think that oversight is the problem -- the feat seems like a new mechanic, but it's really not; it just a restatement of a mechanic that is already present in the rules, with an addition of some flashy/helpful mechanical change to how this rule would normally work, usually in the character's favor. Power Dive seems to fit into this category -- they just forgot to reference the normal functioning of the rules in this matter; this feels more like a case of an oversight in editing than a new mechanic.

Some of the feats like Power Attack (and by extension Expertise), which have come up in the thread, I think are perfectly viable feats, and that there shouldn't be inherent mechanics that partially mimic the powers granted by these feats. Just because someone knows how to swing a sword well doesn't necessitate their understanding of how to sacrifice accuracy for either damage or protection -- that's something they have to focus on, and the culmination of that focus (in this abstract system) is the spending of a feat on that ability. Yes, that means that fighters will be better at these things... isn't that what they're supposed to be? If someone is looking for access to these abilities, they can always multiclass to fighter -- a few levels of fighter isn't going to hurt them one darn bit.

 

[LazarusLong42]

Re: Re: Re: Too many feats? (or - Why is this a feat?)

Some of the feats like Power Attack (and by extension Expertise), which have come up in the thread, I think are perfectly viable feats, and that there shouldn't be inherent mechanics that partially mimic the powers granted by these feats. Just because someone knows how to swing a sword well doesn't necessitate their understanding of how to sacrifice accuracy for either damage or protection -- that's something they have to focus on, and the culmination of that focus (in this abstract system) is the spending of a feat on that ability.

Well, yes, but don't forget that Expertise does have a well-defined inherent game-mechanic equivalent: Fight Defensively: +2 to AC for -4 to attack. (+3 to AC with 5 ranks in Tumble).

The difference between Expertise and Fight Defensively is that the former allows you (1) a 1-to-1 exchange and (2) greater flexibility--you choose the penalty/bonus (up to 5).

So, why shouldn't Power Attack have the same sort of equivalent?

Fight Aggressively: +2 to damage for -4 to attack; +3 to damage if you also have Weapon Focus with the weapon you're using.

And the nice thing is that, as DM, you can make up on the fly a similar rule for any other feat

LL