Too Many Feats?

[Alzrius]

No, there can't be too many feats. Ever.

QFT.

 

[jcfiala]

I don't think there's too many feats. For someone who's interested in searching and researching his character, it's a lot of fun to dig through a few books and finally come up with something good. For someone who isn't, the feats in just a couple of books (PHB and Complete X) gives you a nice array of suitable feats without overwhelming.

 

[Psion]

How do the rest of you handle feats by the thousands? Is it a big deal like with us or are we in the minority here?

Feats are a major method in distinguishing your character from every other character of the same class.

You don't "gotta catch 'em all."

That said, I think that the system provides you with too few feats to really plug into some of the available variety possible from feats.

To this end, I am jumping on the growing bandwagon of those increasing the rate of feat acquisition.

For further discussion, see this thread in the house rules forum:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=162508

 

[Odhanan]

How do the rest of you handle feats by the thousands? Is it a big deal like with us or are we in the minority here?

Like someone else said above, there aren't enough feats, ever.

For me, the question really presents a non-problem. The reason it is a non-problem is that you won't ever have thousands of feats in play at the same time. The thousands of feats are actually outside of the game. I use literally dozens of sources for my games, and let players look at the feats when they level up. They can just pick up a book and look through them. But in the end, there is maybe a dozen feats that see use over and over in the game. That's not a problem. That's the difference between theory (rulebooks) and practice (the game itself).

 

[Someone]

Huge numbers of feats are only a problem if you don´t have an idea of what character you want to play, and spend hours perusing them all trying to find a useful combo. But if you start with a clear character concept and are just looking for the right feat, you´ll find that sourcebooks never have enough of them...

 

[Stalker0]

I think there are too many crappy feats out there, ones that mechanically don't stand up as a feat or are too overpowered. But no, I don't think you can have too many feats in general.

 

[Razz]

It depends on the player. If you have a player that doesn't want to be overwhelmed with thousands of feats, hand them the books you'll think he or she needs. Say they're playing a Wizard, the PHB (of course) and Complete Arcane are enough. The next guy plays a warrior, PHB, PHB 2, and Complete Warrior are just fine.

Then you have those who enjoy pouring through books for the feats they want. In this case, your job isn't any harder since they're the ones doing the work. You just have to be the one that says Yes or No to the feats they choose, of course.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No, there can't be too many feats. Ever.

Actually, I'd have to differ on this a little bit. Its all well and good to have choice, but some of the feats are so similar as to be redundant or to create really bad combinations.

Consider:

Lunging Strike + reach weapon = 15' reach attacks! Brilliant!

I agree. However, if the same PC also takes Long Arm (or whatever the Feat from DCv1 is called)- which adds 5' reach to any polearm by virtue of an altered grip- you can make those attacks at 20'.

Does that sound right to you?

Basically, there needs to be a real master index of some kind that will, if nothing else, keep game designers from creating redundant feats and help them avoid creating bad combinations.

 

[Jdvn1]

How do the rest of you handle feats by the thousands? Is it a big deal like with us or are we in the minority here?

Nah.

You have to figure, there are potentially an infinite number (or, at least, a very large amount) of character concepts, and much smaller number of base classes and prestige classes.

Sure, various combinations of classes and prestige classes can be used for different concepts, but you can have two different concepts with the same class build. So, what makes them different? Well, the actually color of the character for one, but also feats. Feats are the easiest way to accomdate for a large number of concepts very easily.

 

[reanjr]

Yes there are.

My players choose from PHB and Complete X only. If they want something else to define their character, I'll make a feat for/with them. Much better than trying to sort through 35 books and 1,300 feats to find the ones that match the concept you are going for.