What if feats had no direction combat application?

[DracoSuave]

If you're the type of player who wants to take non-combat bonus feats, you take non-combat bonus feats.

If you're the type of player who wants to take combat bonus feats, take combat bonus feats.

I see trying to impose a restriction on what players can take for their own characters, based solely on the fact you don't like that they can do this... it's kinda douchey.

Timmy wants to take weapon focus and have a big weapon, go ahead, let him. Feats that do non-combatty things are for Johnnies... Not every player is a frikken Johnny, or even wants to play in Johnny's game.

Timmy wants to smash faces with lots of damage, and part of the joy for him is the joy of knowing that in one level... he's gonna have that feat which will smash more face, and so he can plan his next feat and oh boy that's gonna be fun.

Stop being the 'Stop Having Fun Guy.' By removing those feats... you actually DO make the game less fun for guys like this. And they're not bad people. Why deprive them of fun?

You're not a Stiffly Stifferson are you?

 

[mneme]

Draco, I think this is basically another "Down with tax feats" thread, even though it doesn't know it is.

It's not about combat and non-combat, but about encoding numbers you ned in feats, vs having to get something -other- than numbers from feats.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It's not about combat and non-combat, but about encoding numbers you ned in feats, vs having to get something -other- than numbers from feats.

That's certainly a big part of it, but it isn't all of it.

It's also implicitly an "anti feat bloat" topic (whatever that means practically speaking for the business need to fill up source books). And related, it's about making feats simpler to understand and pick. My personal ideal would be a list of no more than 40-60 feats (depending upon how categorized), most of which were at least moderately compelling to most characters.

Finally, it's about anything else feat related that anyone contributing wants to make it about--as long as they are brainstorming solutions.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Timmy wants to smash faces with lots of damage, and part of the joy for him is the joy of knowing that in one level... he's gonna have that feat which will smash more face, and so he can plan his next feat and oh boy that's gonna be fun.

Stop being the 'Stop Having Fun Guy.' By removing those feats... you actually DO make the game less fun for guys like this. And they're not bad people. Why deprive them of fun?

I've met Timmy. In other systems, I've found that Timmy generally likes options that gives him more and interesting ways to smash faces, rather than another +1 to hit. When Timmy wants the +1, OTOH, it is usually because his powergamer side (which there is nothing wrong with) think he has to have it. Every now and then, Timmy is the kind of guy who only likes big numbers, and doesn't care about options. But then, my experience is that those guys are usually into smashing faces and something else.

My wife is in that last category, though her name is not Timmy.

 

[Riastlin]

Okay, so here are my ideas riffed purely off the top of my head:

1. I agree that it would be nice to get around the "feat tax" if at all possible, whether through bonus feats, removal of tax feats, whatever. As much as I like to think of myself as being "character" and "roleplay" driven its hard for me not to take Weapliment Expertise right out of the gate (unless its a Superior Weap Prof first).

2. Perhaps a good middle ground that might appeal to both camps is to place the tax/combat feats into the feat pool and remove the non-combat feats. The "non-combat" feats could then become a function of themes.

3. This obviously means greatly expanding themes. Take the noble example given earlier. Noble Birth becomes not just a background, but also a theme. Then, at certain levels, you get the option to select from a variety of optional choices within your theme. So at level 8, the noble themed character could a) gain a steading which could serve as the party's base of operations while not adventuring, b) gain a bonus to diplomacy checks made to gain an audience with public and politcal figures, or c) become a member of a "social club" for the area's elite.

Obviously, this is not a great example as its coming off the top of my head, but it should help to satisfy both the guy who's interested in making his character as effective as possible in combat while also appealing to the person who really wants to develop his character's personality and "character" as much as possible.

Doing this also allows certain characters to become more and more effective at certain skills. The noble character for instance, can eventually become really skilled at diplomacy. The idea being that all his training as a youth is finally paying off and as he takes a more and more public role, and uses his family's name, people are more and more receptive to him. Of course, there can also be a give and take in this too. As the PC starts using his family's name more and more, his family's rivals also take more and more notice of him, perhaps leading to penalties to certain skill checks and interactions in some areas or with some factions. This should work for most themes as well. Medics gain bonuses to Heal, Performers can bonuses to Bluff, etc. etc.

4. At this point, I think it would be difficult to incorporate into 4ed. Frankly, you are simply changing too much of the theory that went into the design. Much as was pointed out in the recent Mearls article, every edition has had its own theory with regard to combat vs. exploration, etc. However, I really like the idea of developing themes further. I think they are one of the great successes of 4th Ed and its just a shame it took so long to bring them on board. Themes become then the way to differentiate characters from each other, even differentiating one cleric from the next, etc.

5. Not sure you'll ever see a dramatic reduction in the number of available feats. WotC is in the business of making money and the easiest way for them to make money is to provide more content. That means either new print books, or updates through DDi. If DDi only had the CB, MB and VTT, it would still likely do well, but not nearly as well as it will do with access to Dungeon and Dragon. For better or worse, feats are the great unifier. Not everyone cares about the next Class Acts: Warlord article, but feats that can be used by the majority of players will always get a look over, plus they require less design resources. I have no problem with wanting fewer feats, after all it makes a lot easier to design a character, but I just don't see it happening.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You know what the real problem here is? The Character Builder has trained a whole generation of gamers that if you can't create a whole new character in like 2 minutes, that something is now somehow wrong.

The fact that many of you actually make the complaint that "Ugh, I don't want to have to sift through 1000 feats to find the one I want" is laughable to me.

How long does it REALLY take to go through the Character Builder to find different feats? Considering that they are already divided up into categories, those that don't apply to your character don't show up, and most of you already know the half-dozen feats you're going to take anyway because of your "feat tax" beliefs... how long does it take to go through what's left? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? Even if it's an HOUR... you usually have what... A WEEK between sessions in which to level up your character? And you can't spend any scanning through the Feat list?

What's the point of leveling up a character at all if you DON'T want to spend an hour or so deciding what to do for him? Isn't that supposed to be the FUN part of leveling? Getting to look through all the options available and making decisions on how you want your character to be? You take that away... then the whole reason for the leveling process goes away too. You might as well just hit the "auto-level" button and be done with it.

I find it absolutely hilarious that at the same time we have countless people complaining that because of the existence of the "feat tax" feats they now have no choice in what to take... we have all these people complaining about "anti-feat bloat" and having too many choices and being forced to read them all.

Here's an idea... everyone who feels like there are too many feats... go skim through the all the "feat tax" threads or the CharOp boards, find out what the top feats are across the board, and then just choose them. It'll save you the 30 minutes sitting at the Character Builder.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, the game has room for and needs options for both the Jimmys
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-TeMHys0&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame]

AND the Timmys

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2jPOAHo78&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame]

of the world.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

For those who don't happen to know what "brainstorming" implies, and didn't get the hint from post #13, you generally aren't supposed to make a reply that does nothing but dump on an idea. That comes later, in the critical analysis phase.

I realize that this is a discussion board, that I don't control anyone here or set the rules, and that this might not be the most obvious point. But if you want to be on-topic in this thread, you ought to at least supplement any critical analysis by using it as a springboard for more brainstorming.

What I want is ideas, good, bad, ugly, hare-brained, I don't care. That's what brainstorming is.

 

[Dice4Hire]

What I would prefer to see with 4E is feats being non-combat, boosting skills, or even giving skills new uses something like the skill powers do.

So perhaps one feat would allow someone to make a heal check to transfer a healing surge form one character to another.

Another would allow a character with Nature to grow plants of exceptional strength.

And so on.

All the mechanical bonuses especially hit, damage and defenses would be gained at 5th, 10th, and so on, but would not be called feats.

I know the concept of feats was to make the characters super-special in limited ways, but characters get too many of them. And too many are far too mechanical.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

I'm pretty sure someone might have stated this here, but there's plenty of ways to make a game fun with open-ended aspects like this.

It's all in the numbers really. You could give up a feat for 6 HP, but in the end Toughness is what you'd use.

To balance out the game it's about exchanging one plan for another. One aspect for another. Some will take weapon prof. others coordinated explosion.

You roll-play to make the non-combat situations exciting. It takes experience, judgment, intelligence, ect.,. to know what works and doesn't.

In Chess it's about being precise.
In Magic it's about being lucky and using the most unfair card.
DnD is more group/fun geared. Not something to sweat over too much imo.

If I had to draw conclusions about games it would sound like that. I don't know if it'll change.