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Which feats shouldn't be feats
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6105933" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>In general, my rule is that if it is something a child can attempt, then it isn't something that should be a feat. </p><p></p><p>Facing another child on a playground, a child can trip, shove, push, tackle, grab and throw another child. He won't always succeed and it will generally be rather ungraceful and prone to fumbles, but he can attempt those things. Those basic manuevers should never require a feat.</p><p></p><p>Anything anyone could do is a skill, defaulting to their inate ability.</p><p></p><p>The same is true of things like Tracking, Finding Traps, Reading Lips, etc. If a child can attempt it, then it shouldn't be a feat or class exclusive ability. In 3e, they tried to deal with this by saying that everyone could do it, but no one without the feat could do it if the DC was above 20. This isn't a bad way to handle it, but it does seem wierd at times. If you have a +20 search skill, it's odd that you could be so observant and yet still have 0% chance to detect traps with a DC above 20. Like if the DC is 20, you detect it 100% of the time, but just a tiny tiny bit harder and you are blind. I've lately been thinking that the best route might be to bump up all trap DCs by 5-10, and then make the ability simply by +10 to the skill check to detect traps, or track, or whatever else a child can attempt to do at some level. The idea is that a really skillful generalist might can do something without special training, but a far less skillful specialist can do it as well or better.</p><p></p><p>I disagree however with the assertion that feats should always be short. I believe that feats and spells should have roughly the same length of text behind them, and that its perfectly valid to have feats that are half a page long for the same reason that it is valid to have spells that are half a page long. Many feats, as with many spells, do something simple. But every feat is essentially nothing more or less than a customizable class ability. Some feats ought to be able to radically transform even the archetype of the character that takes them and become the essential part of the character's schtick. Anything that could be a superpower, if it isn't a spell, is a feat. Anything that could potentially make you want to diverge a class into two separate classes, can usually be a feat. Anything that could be a class ability, but which if it were a class ability would make all members of that class too similar, should be a feat.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6105933, member: 4937"] In general, my rule is that if it is something a child can attempt, then it isn't something that should be a feat. Facing another child on a playground, a child can trip, shove, push, tackle, grab and throw another child. He won't always succeed and it will generally be rather ungraceful and prone to fumbles, but he can attempt those things. Those basic manuevers should never require a feat. Anything anyone could do is a skill, defaulting to their inate ability. The same is true of things like Tracking, Finding Traps, Reading Lips, etc. If a child can attempt it, then it shouldn't be a feat or class exclusive ability. In 3e, they tried to deal with this by saying that everyone could do it, but no one without the feat could do it if the DC was above 20. This isn't a bad way to handle it, but it does seem wierd at times. If you have a +20 search skill, it's odd that you could be so observant and yet still have 0% chance to detect traps with a DC above 20. Like if the DC is 20, you detect it 100% of the time, but just a tiny tiny bit harder and you are blind. I've lately been thinking that the best route might be to bump up all trap DCs by 5-10, and then make the ability simply by +10 to the skill check to detect traps, or track, or whatever else a child can attempt to do at some level. The idea is that a really skillful generalist might can do something without special training, but a far less skillful specialist can do it as well or better. I disagree however with the assertion that feats should always be short. I believe that feats and spells should have roughly the same length of text behind them, and that its perfectly valid to have feats that are half a page long for the same reason that it is valid to have spells that are half a page long. Many feats, as with many spells, do something simple. But every feat is essentially nothing more or less than a customizable class ability. Some feats ought to be able to radically transform even the archetype of the character that takes them and become the essential part of the character's schtick. Anything that could be a superpower, if it isn't a spell, is a feat. Anything that could potentially make you want to diverge a class into two separate classes, can usually be a feat. Anything that could be a class ability, but which if it were a class ability would make all members of that class too similar, should be a feat. [/QUOTE]
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