Whenever the topic of Feats comes up, I often see people bring up the idea that Feats broke D&D 3e, but that the way that 5e handles them is basically Feats "done right". I could hazard a guess as to why people feel this way or what they mean by those claims (3e where certainly not perfect), but I've never been so sure, and it doesn't always seem clear from their posts.

When looking at 5e Feats I tend to see a lot of minor, sometimes barely useful benefits packed into single a ability, as opposed to being spread out across multiple feats. While 5e feats tend to be more solid overall, some of them are things I would rather not exist in my game (like automatically avoiding surprise or advantage from unseen attackers granted by Alert), while others are things I would consider default (most of what Charger and Polearm Master do). And every time a feat amounts to basically a single feature of limited benefit (like getting proficiency in a single armor type, which apparently needs to be broken down into three feats for some reason) they seem to pad it up with a +1 bonus to a single ability score to sweeten the deal--just to try to match it up to a +2 bonus in an ability score (which is what a 5e feat costs) in terms of power.

I'm not sure to what extent that is an improvement over 3e, as much as it is a rearrangement of tightly packed features.

So I was wondering, what are the specific reasons why people don't like 3e feats? What specifically about 5e feats makes them better? Conversely, what did 3e feats do right? What do you want to get out of feats or similar abilities (traits, perks, advantages, whatever they might be called)? What are your thoughts about feats (et al) in general?

Il guess grognards dislike feats because they dislike character building options (for non-wizards) an prefer the simplicity of a focused class structure.

What I guess people like about 5e feats is that there are fewer of them and there is less padding. Fewer tons of feats that give minuscule nothings that stack together. While 5e has bad feats, it at least has less bad feats.

I don't like default 3e feats but the spheres system reworked them into something I liked.

I don't know why others say this, with the possible exception that in 5E the idea of the "feat tax" is all or at least mostly gone. Since I was never into the deep builds where the "feat tax" matters, I get the idea intellectually, but it's not something that I experienced all that much.  3E rules drove me away before the feat tax could manifest itself much.

For me, there are two reasons to prefer the 5E feats (though those aren't perfect either):

- There aren't many of them and there isn't much encouragement to take them with the ability score option included.  Not every character takes them, and the feats that do get taken tend to stand out a little, which perversely makes them feel more important for the character that does take them even though they do less.

- They mostly don't stack, which takes the "build" aspect out.

In fact, I'd say that 5E feats work better in 5E than 3E feats work in 3E in exactly the same way that 5E multi-classing works better in 5E than 3E multi-classing works in 3E.  As someone said right after 5E launched, paraphrasing:  "WotC did us the great favor of making 5E multi-classing both workable and unnecessary."  Both "workable and unnecessary" is how I like feats.

5e Feats arent really the same thing as 3e feats. 5e feats work more like kits did in 2e possibly.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1137238Il guess grognards dislike feats because they dislike character building options (for non-wizards) an prefer the simplicity of a focused class structure.

That is my impression as well from people who don't like feats. They don't like to deal with the hassle of making a bunch of selections. But I understand that it's a give and take, and I'm willing to take the trade off of customization options and fine tuning at the expense of additional complexity. Though, even with that trade off in mind, I think that a case could be made that even if you want options, those options should be manageable, as well as significant enough to be worth the effort. I'm just wondering where the sweet spot is.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1137238What I guess people like about 5e feats is that there are fewer of them and there is less padding. Fewer tons of feats that give minuscule nothings that stack together. While 5e has bad feats, it at least has less bad feats.

I don't like default 3e feats but the spheres system reworked them into something I liked.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1137247I don't know why others say this, with the possible exception that in 5E the idea of the "feat tax" is all or at least mostly gone. Since I was never into the deep builds where the "feat tax" matters, I get the idea intellectually, but it's not something that I experienced all that much.  3E rules drove me away before the feat tax could manifest itself much.

For me, there are two reasons to prefer the 5E feats (though those aren't perfect either):

- There aren't many of them and there isn't much encouragement to take them with the ability score option included.  Not every character takes them, and the feats that do get taken tend to stand out a little, which perversely makes them feel more important for the character that does take them even though they do less.

- They mostly don't stack, which takes the "build" aspect out.

In fact, I'd say that 5E feats work better in 5E than 3E feats work in 3E in exactly the same way that 5E multi-classing works better in 5E than 3E multi-classing works in 3E.  As someone said right after 5E launched, paraphrasing:  "WotC did us the great favor of making 5E multi-classing both workable and unnecessary."  Both "workable and unnecessary" is how I like feats.

I figured that this might be part of the issue people have with 3e feats specifically. They tend to be too specialized, often offering only insignificant, sorta benefits that only add to bookkeeping and don't provide much value during play. The "feat tax" can be also an issue, but it can sometimes make sense, specially when dealing with particularly powerful benefits. The problem, I think, is that they overstretch it with a bunch of useless feats leading up to the big ones, making the whole process tedious and unsatisfying.

Quote from: Omega;11372485e Feats arent really the same thing as 3e feats. 5e feats work more like kits did in 2e possibly.

That's actually an interesting observation. I think that part of me felt that way without actually realizing it, but now you mention it, it does make sense. A lot of 5e feats (not all) are like packed benefits comprising a minor role or field of specialty, like most of the weapon group feats (Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, Shield Master, etc.) or stuff like Dungeon Delver or Tavern Brawler. They provide a handful of benefits that improve your ability to perform a general type of activity, as opposed to a specific function, like toughness or wearing a specific type of armor.

As someone who had played a lot of 3.X in the past, taking the "wrong" feat would really screw up your character mechanically. In 5th, there's no such thing as a sub-optimal choice because every feat is sub-optimal to just taking the attribute increases.

It really comes down to a few key ideas, of which I will try to hit all the main points.

Bloat, Necessity, Value.

This is not to suggest either that 5e Feats are entirely perfect... nothing made by people other than me ever is, nor is it to say that feats in 3e were not a worthy idea, merely that it was an idea that needed refinement.

So:

Bloat:  The problem with 3E feats is that you tend to accumulate a fair number of them, and often need to accumulate a fair number of them, in order for Feats to be meaningful.  If you take just a single instance of two weapon fighting, by mid to high levels its a weird abberation on your character, rather than a meaningful choice, as a single extra attack pales against all the extra attacks (and your need to keep scaling up your damage per round to remain competetive... compounded by... well, I'm getting ahead of myself).  Now, as for the character the problem of bloat is quite managable, as most characters would have seven Feats (on top of class abilities and so forth, but we're talking about feats...) at 20th level. The issue was that WoTC not only started with 300 odd Feats in the PHB, but insisted in producing ever more feats in every supplement released... this number itself bloated by the decision to 'feat tax' builds via chained feats (example again: Two Weapon Fighting, which would consume some half dozen feats by 20th level, depending on build), meaning that a single Feat Chain could itself add, well, half a dozen feats, potentially.. though honestly few did.

Bloat became a problem as well due to synergy, as keeping track of how any two feats may work together is relatively simple when you have 300 feats in one book, but it becomes a nightmare when you have a thousand feats scattered through twenty books, and this created sometimes bizzare and even broken 'builds', such as the infamous Pun-Pun.

5e limits itself to thirty or so Feats (I haven't counted...), in one single book and eliminates the Chaining.  This keeps Feats managable, and also makes them inherently more valuable... Feats can actually be more powerful as character options, thus making them more valuable (again, getting ahead of myself).

Outside of D&D, the idea of Feats expanded into a different sort of bloat, which is worth mentioning in passing, with entire schools of game design now focussed entirely on character growth through an ever accumulating list of Feats, until characters become unmanagable.

Necessity:

In 3E feats were mandatory, in a matter of speaking. Not merely because you automatically gained Feats during character creation (by which logic I can point out that Skills are equally mandatory, in 3E), but also because in many cases Feats... by sheer virtue of their Bloat... often were necessary to access certain parts of the rules, at least with any competence.  That is to say, by making feats necessary, you actually make them necessary to be able to perform actions which should be inherent, at least in some cases.  

This also reflects value: If every character takes feats, then feats don't represent anything special about your character, but merely reflect a small color change.  A two weapon fighter isn't special, since a fighter has to spend feats, it merely becomes a common choice. There are no generic fighters in mandatory feat systems, merely fighters who chose on of a small handful of standard, effective, feat builds.

IN a system where feats remain optional, however... especially with (as 5E) with an associated cost (attribute points!), then the rule set has to be inherently complete, not taking feats becomes the default , generic 'build', while taking a feat to alter your character becomes a much more meaningful choice, something that makes your fighter ACTUALLY stand out from all the other fighters. And because they are now optional and costly, and have meaningful impact on who your character is, they can make even fundamental changes to your character... such as a fighter who can cast spells. or is literally abnormally lucky... or cannot be surprised (a common trope for a jaded old fighter, actually, so I'm surprised to see it criticized in this thread...)

Value:

I've already touched on this a couple of times in the previous two points, so I'll keep this brief.  Stripped of bloat and made optional but costly, Feats in 5E have genuine value. Not every feat, and not to every character (there are a couple of tar-pits in there). In 3E, every character had feats, and there were so many of them (and they needed to stack) that they didn't realy have any value. They were, to be blunt, boring.

Now, when a player introduces a character with a feat, it says something about that character, and about that player's priorities for that character in a way they never did, and never could, in 3e.



Now I could get a literary and junk and talk about kids in chocolate factories and Hans Christian Anderson, about hard times and soft times and so on, but I've made my case, and I'll stand by it without all the gilding of the lily.

I never really met anyone who had a problem with 3e feats so can not comment on people who thought that Feats "broke" 3e.

Comparing 3e with 5e, feats are better in 3e because you dont have to choose between a feat or an ability increase.

I think they have been done even better with Pathfinder 2e, but basically everything and your dog is now a feat in Pathfinder 2e.

Pros to Feats in 3e: that you could essentially break ALL the rules set into place. 3e is Exclusionary designed, meaning you can't do/take massive penalty for X, Y, or Z  unless you have A, B, and C corespondent feat. Finding and exploiting these loopholes was deemed a reward for learning the system. Basically the concept of Ivory Tower design.

Con: most of the Feats, some thousands, were utter trash and so abysmally useless past a certain level as to fade away into obscurity. Improved Trip, for example, is great at low levels but once you start hitting monsters with Strength scores of 30+ (Iron Golem, CR 13) and your chance of succeeding in using that feat at all dwindles to almost none.

Con: you have to "build" your character, and nowadays I find that tedious AF. You miss a feat at X level or think its going to be good but turns out it's not, oh well, hope your DM is cool with retraining. Also, they ultimately make casters all the better. Feats like Uncanny Forethought make wizards the most versatile of any class (even druids), druids can use feats to cast spells in wild shape, and divine metamagic allows clerics to quicken spells or make them last all day.

5e feats are better, but only because you get more bang for your buck. Since you max out your stat at 20, a Fighter is going to get bored bumping all Str, Dex, and Con rolls to the max. Plus it adds some versatility to your character too.

Con: it eats up your ASI. But that also kinda good considering that it maintains some semblance of Balance

Well the best thing about 5e feats is they are optional, and you never have to engage with them if you don't want to, just take a +2 ASI. This can remove a huge amount of char-build stress for people who don't like that element.

I like taking 5e feats, but I'm sure glad they're optional. PF2 really brought home to me the horror of compulsory feat selection.

Lots of good points, @Spike (and others as well--@Batman touched on some of this, but I wrote most of this last night, then couldn't post due to connection issues). I pretty much agree with most of your points about bloat. This is an issue for me as well (despite liking feats), as I can't help but go crosseyed the moment I have to go through inordinately long lists of items. Particularly if those items are just minor abilities that barely do anything on their own and only become significant on the aggregate. I'm not necessarily against chain feats (some concepts may require them, specially if I want to break down class abilities into feats), but think that they should be kept minimal and that each individual feat should offer some sort of substantial benefit--not necessarily major, but not so minor you barely remember that you have it and keeping track of it becomes a pain.

I also think that some aspects of the "necessary" nature of feats (at least in 3e) are undesirable, even if you want everything to revolve around feats. Particularly making feats required to perform certain actions that anyone should be able to attempt by default (even if penalized). IMO, feats should only improve certain actions (or eliminate inherent penalties), unless that action is something that would truly be impossible to attempt without training or special capabilities, in which case feats are an excellent way to represent that training or capabilities (specially in a classless system).

I have some doubts about how making feat optional and costly (like in 5e) makes valuable, though, but I think I get what you mean by helping characters stand out, particularly from the point of view of class-based systems, where classes are the core component and feats are merely an added spice that makes your character unique. But some 5e feats are still weak compared to a +2 bonus to an ability score (as @Brad hints at the end of his post, calling them "sub-optimal"), making it more a matter of style than substance.

Quote from: Spike;1137300And because they are now optional and costly, and have meaningful impact on who your character is, they can make even fundamental changes to your character... such as a fighter who can cast spells. or is literally abnormally lucky... or cannot be surprised (a common trope for a jaded old fighter, actually, so I'm surprised to see it criticized in this thread...)

The point of contention for me isn't with the trope, but with mechanics that undermine normal ability rolls (and potentially certain character abilities) by declaring certain outcomes automatic before a roll is even made. I'm fine with a character getting advantage or a bonus to ability rolls to resist or avoid negative outcomes (such as surprise or spotting unseen enemies)--that to me is enough to represent a character who's unusually alert and adept at avoiding being taken off-guard. What I don't like are abilities that automatically cancel out other abilities or that undermine some aspect of the game rules as opposed to simply giving bonuses or some type of benefit that allows you to manage that type of situation better rather than outright negating it out of existence.

Even if it's sometimes used as a literary trope, RPGs aren't novels or similar media. And even in such media a secondary trope is the sneaky character who's so good they can even get the drop on "un-surprise-able" characters. How do you represent that in terms of the game rules? By making those abilities a bonus instead of an instant success/canceling ability (or by making two canceling abilities that cancel each other out, but I don't like that level of convolution).

A similar issue for me is the automatic critical success some classes get in Pathfinder 2e. I'm fine with a bonus (or advantage) that would increase your chances to score a critical success in certain circumstances, but I don't like mechanics that undermine the idea of achieving X result (10+ in PF) to actually score a critical or achieve a certain type of outcome.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137320Comparing 3e with 5e, feats are better in 3e because you dont have to choose between a feat or an ability increase.

Kinda agree, but mostly because a full +2 ASI is a hard price to pay for a single feat. Personally, I'd turn +1 ASI's into a feat then treat all feats as being 1 Feat = +1 ASI in terms of power. And balance all feats around that standard.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137320I think they have been done even better with Pathfinder 2e, but basically everything and your dog is now a feat in Pathfinder 2e.

Quote from: S'mon;1137353I like taking 5e feats, but I'm sure glad they're optional. PF2 really brought home to me the horror of compulsory feat selection.

Yeah, while I do think that PF 2e has some interesting stuff, including some of its feats and the idea of ancestry feats, I think that it's the living embodiment of that "bloat" that @Spike was talking about (even the book itself is a 600+ page bloated mess). And while the idea of feats that expand on what you can do with a skill is interesting and something I've considered doing as well, a lot of the things PF 2e covers are things I would allow as part of a skill's core functions by default.

Bonded Animal, for example, is pretty much the entire reason most people in my experience even take Animal Handling in the first place (and something almost anyone could potentially do IRL, if they have to put an ENTIRE week of time doing it, as the rules require). I've been allowing people to do this all these years before feats even existed, but now according to PF 2e I have to make players sacrifice a feat to bond with a random stray.

Some of the Group Interaction (Impression, Coercion) feats are also things I would normally allow as part of the core skill as well (albeit, at a penalty based on group size). So while I would use PF 2e as a reference for ideas, I would trim the hell out of its feats considerably.

The reason I don't like feats is because they pretend to be abilities, but in actuality are proscriptions. My experience playing with feats is that they inevitably tear immersion and verisimilitude apart -- sooner or later a perfectly reasonable character action is going to be banned for lack of having the feat, with no reasonable explanation available as to why the character in the story couldn't actually attempt that action. It's a case of the rules opposing the story, instead of supporting it.

Nothing to do with "builds" for me -- I'm not into character "building" games myself, but I never saw feats as the primary offender in that regard.

I've never used 5e feats, so I can't speak to how they might be different in this regard. My opinions are based on 3e feats, though I haven't read anything in this thread so far that suggests I'd feel any differently about 5e feats.

Part of the problem with feats in general is that if designed well, they really ought to change based on the setting and/or conceits of the game.  That is, not merely provide character customization but setting customization as well.

Something like:  In this setting, only "knights" are allowed to wear plate mail.  You take the feat "knight", then the right to wearing plate mail is one of the things that come along with it.  If you've previously developed proficiency with at least heavy armor, then that includes the proficiency, too.  If not, well it is probably one of those honorary things for the knighted wizard who wears a little emblem to signify the fact.   Whereas in another game, plate mail is the province of warriors who can manage it, and there is no feat. It comes along with the class abilities or you don't have it.

Thus what would actually make more sense to me in the rule book is a slightly longer list of themed feats, followed immediately by suggestions on a subset of the feats to take if you'd like your game to be like theme X.  Also include the default theme of "no feats" and a classic theme of "common D&D tropes" or something like that.  

I think WotC even dabbles with this idea.  Their problem there is that their themed feats are too narrow.  Instead of "knight" we get "Purple Dragon knight".  They have to do it this way because of how the base feats are already constructed which doesn't leave them room to do the somewhat more generic themed feats.

While it's the red-headed stepchild around here, I think it might be worth bringing up 4E in this discussion as it was a reaction to 3e's feats and 5e was a reaction to both.

4E dealt with 3e's individual feats not being meaningful enough by giving you a lot more of them; every even level plus one at the start of each tier (1, 11 and 21) for a total of 18. This tied into another element of 4E's design philosophy; that you should have a meaningful choice to make every time you level up (new powers coming generally on the odd levels). While I can appreciate the sentiment, I think 4E's mistake was applying that to a game with 30 levels.

4E also largely did away with feat chains, but with so many choices for each PC and those being still small 3e-style feats it led to a lot of small, largely forgettable situational bonuses. A monthly hardback and magazine guaranteed to have at least a dozen new feats between them also bloated the options to the point of ridiculousness (I believe the count was something like 2500 feats by the end of the four year run).

To be fair to 4E, they did TRY to course correct with Essentials that shaved the list down to just a hundred feats and buffed those so they'd be more meaningful (most 4E GMs I know commonly restricted feats to just those in the two Essentials Player books... which had 95% overlap); but as I've said before, Essentials was too little, too late... it didn't recapture the lost players and alienated the ones still left.

5e was more a reaction to 4E than to 3e... it drastically cut the number you could get (further limited by the ASI trade-off; the only 5e PCs I've seen with feats below level 8 are either variant humans or who get a bonus ASI from their class), made the choices more potent/meaningful and, as with all things in the edition, didn't add many more options as time went on.

That said, I may as well bring up my own lessons learned and how it applied to my own system design. I really liked the 4E philosophy of making a meaningful choice each time you level, but I cut the number of levels in the game down to just 15. I further siloed combat and non-combat options into class talents and background boons respectively so gained only one or the other every level for a total of seven added to each over the PC's entire career. Likewise, what would be powers in 4E are part of that same list, with other talents and boons scaled to match so they're all meaningful.

Another meaningful design decision that came out of looking at 3e and 4E design was that these benefits should be more "make easier" than "you must have this to even attempt it." While this obviously doesn't apply to say, an Arcanist spell granting flight, most of my skills have a Margin of Success and/Failure to them with near impossible things simply having higher target numbers to achieve instead of needing a feat to do them at all. An associated boon gives a bonus to that action sufficient to take it from "really hard" to "I can do that", but if you have other ways of getting that check bonus up (or are just really lucky with your die rolls) you could do it without the boon.

I also fully intend my core rulebook to be one-and-done in terms of options, so additional bloat won't be a thing.

Finally, while I do have a sidebar listing options that are super-simple for those who want "I hit it with my sword/spell" levels of complexity, what this discussion has prompted is the idea that I am going to add some default lists for those who don't want to even have to choose at all past character creation.

I'm thinking for the Fighter classes this will be a split between Combat Style (Strong, Swift and Berserker) at levels 1, 2, 6, 10 and 14 and Combat Focus (Daring, Tactical and Wary) at levels 1, 4, 8 and 12. You don't HAVE to pick those talents (unless the GM says "default talents only"), but if you don't want to pick at all those will give you good options for your PC.

My Spellcasting classes will be a little trickier since many of their talents and boons are what would be the spell list in any edition of D&D, but I'm sure I could come up with something.

Quote from: Zalman;1137369The reason I don't like feats is because they pretend to be abilities, but in actuality are proscriptions. My experience playing with feats is that they inevitably tear immersion and verisimilitude apart -- sooner or later a perfectly reasonable character action is going to be banned for lack of having the feat, with no reasonable explanation available as to why the character in the story couldn't actually attempt that action. It's a case of the rules opposing the story, instead of supporting it.

Yeah, like I mentioned in my last post, I think that feats should only grant bonuses or special benefits, and should not be required to perform most actions, except for stuff that involves specific knowledge (like languages*) or special capabilities (like spell/power use for non-caster classes or classless systems).

*And even then I sometimes wonder if languages should just be a factor of time and ability checks (maybe based on a Linguistics skill) to learn a new language.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1137371Part of the problem with feats in general is that if designed well, they really ought to change based on the setting and/or conceits of the game.  That is, not merely provide character customization but setting customization as well.

Something like:  In this setting, only "knights" are allowed to wear plate mail.  You take the feat "knight", then the right to wearing plate mail is one of the things that come along with it.  If you've previously developed proficiency with at least heavy armor, then that includes the proficiency, too.  If not, well it is probably one of those honorary things for the knighted wizard who wears a little emblem to signify the fact.   Whereas in another game, plate mail is the province of warriors who can manage it, and there is no feat. It comes along with the class abilities or you don't have it.

Thus what would actually make more sense to me in the rule book is a slightly longer list of themed feats, followed immediately by suggestions on a subset of the feats to take if you'd like your game to be like theme X.  Also include the default theme of "no feats" and a classic theme of "common D&D tropes" or something like that.  

I think WotC even dabbles with this idea.  Their problem there is that their themed feats are too narrow.  Instead of "knight" we get "Purple Dragon knight".  They have to do it this way because of how the base feats are already constructed which doesn't leave them room to do the somewhat more generic themed feats.

I don't think that core rules can always anticipate setting, but rather deal with generalities (specially looking at from a non-D&D-centric universal system POV), and most core functions are bound to apply across most settings anyways. But the case could definitely be made that feats should be adapted to setting. Though, that would largely be a factor of setting design or GM planning and campaign management to ascertain which feats are available or not, or which might be automatic or restricted to just some classes, races or backgrounds.

But the caveat could also be included from the get-go at the start of the feats chapter that feats always require GM permission by default (which they kinda do in 5e), and that GMs always have the final say on what goes into their game--specially in the case of feats.

In regards to armor, though, I don't really think that it should take more than one feat. Looking at it from beyond a D&D-centric view (where available armor has traditionally been based on classes), I don't think that the benefit of being able to wear armor--IF you afford to buy one or are lucky enough to find it--is really that significant. Most games other than D&D or OGL games built around D&D conceits don't even make you take an ability to wear armor. It's just a given--maybe some minor inherent penalties based on weight in exchange for a nifty DR, but that's it.

There are exceptions, like Glitter Boys in RIFTS, but that's because it's a freaking power armor with a minigun, and they built an entire class around it (power armor should cost extra feats).

If it were up to me I'd just make light armor universal, and heavier armor would just be a single feat called Armor Use, and if you have it, you can wear any armor effectively...if you can find or afford it. In the case of your specific example, I would still handle it that way (Armor Use = can wear any armor effectively), but I would make the idea that only knights can wear plate armor a setting conceit (maybe there's a law against it) and grant characters that take the "knight" feat certain knightly privileges and perks, including an ornate and exceptional quality suit of armor (maintained by their order) awarded to every member of their order, with style matching their rank, plus maybe a service weapon, a mount and some social privileges, like having authority or something to that effect.

Quote from: Chris24601;1137380While it's the red-headed stepchild around here, I think it might be worth bringing up 4E in this discussion as it was a reaction to 3e's feats and 5e was a reaction to both.

4E dealt with 3e's individual feats not being meaningful enough by giving you a lot more of them; every even level plus one at the start of each tier (1, 11 and 21) for a total of 18. This tied into another element of 4E's design philosophy; that you should have a meaningful choice to make every time you level up (new powers coming generally on the odd levels). While I can appreciate the sentiment, I think 4E's mistake was applying that to a game with 30 levels.

4E also largely did away with feat chains, but with so many choices for each PC and those being still small 3e-style feats it led to a lot of small, largely forgettable situational bonuses. A monthly hardback and magazine guaranteed to have at least a dozen new feats between them also bloated the options to the point of ridiculousness (I believe the count was something like 2500 feats by the end of the four year run).

To be fair to 4E, they did TRY to course correct with Essentials that shaved the list down to just a hundred feats and buffed those so they'd be more meaningful (most 4E GMs I know commonly restricted feats to just those in the two Essentials Player books... which had 95% overlap); but as I've said before, Essentials was too little, too late... it didn't recapture the lost players and alienated the ones still left.

5e was more a reaction to 4E than to 3e... it drastically cut the number you could get (further limited by the ASI trade-off; the only 5e PCs I've seen with feats below level 8 are either variant humans or who get a bonus ASI from their class), made the choices more potent/meaningful and, as with all things in the edition, didn't add many more options as time went on.

That said, I may as well bring up my own lessons learned and how it applied to my own system design. I really liked the 4E philosophy of making a meaningful choice each time you level, but I cut the number of levels in the game down to just 15. I further siloed combat and non-combat options into class talents and background boons respectively so gained only one or the other every level for a total of seven added to each over the PC's entire career. Likewise, what would be powers in 4E are part of that same list, with other talents and boons scaled to match so they're all meaningful.

Another meaningful design decision that came out of looking at 3e and 4E design was that these benefits should be more "make easier" than "you must have this to even attempt it." While this obviously doesn't apply to say, an Arcanist spell granting flight, most of my skills have a Margin of Success and/Failure to them with near impossible things simply having higher target numbers to achieve instead of needing a feat to do them at all. An associated boon gives a bonus to that action sufficient to take it from "really hard" to "I can do that", but if you have other ways of getting that check bonus up (or are just really lucky with your die rolls) you could do it without the boon.

I also fully intend my core rulebook to be one-and-done in terms of options, so additional bloat won't be a thing.

Finally, while I do have a sidebar listing options that are super-simple for those who want "I hit it with my sword/spell" levels of complexity, what this discussion has prompted is the idea that I am going to add some default lists for those who don't want to even have to choose at all past character creation.

I'm thinking for the Fighter classes this will be a split between Combat Style (Strong, Swift and Berserker) at levels 1, 2, 6, 10 and 14 and Combat Focus (Daring, Tactical and Wary) at levels 1, 4, 8 and 12. You don't HAVE to pick those talents (unless the GM says "default talents only"), but if you don't want to pick at all those will give you good options for your PC.

My Spellcasting classes will be a little trickier since many of their talents and boons are what would be the spell list in any edition of D&D, but I'm sure I could come up with something.

As mentioned at the start of this post, feats should just grant bonuses/benefits rather than be a requirement for actions (with few exceptions). I also think that feats should make things easier on characters rather than override certain game rules or mechanics (like degrees of success), like I mentioned in my prior post, and should also provide significant benefits rather than tedious and forgettable ones.

I've also considered the idea of "progression paths" for people who don't want to bother with selections beyond character creation. Players could just pick a progression path and automatically get certain feats packages. Progression paths could also help GMs set up quick encounters by simply taking a race-path combination.

Regarding spell-casting, from a D&D centered POV, I've considered making Spell Level access a feat chain (maybe something like: 1 feat = levels 0-3, 2 feats = levels 4-6, and 3 feats = levels 7+). Then Spell List access would be divided into Minor (Paladin, Ranger) and Major (Mage, Priest), and Major lists would be further divided by school. Each minor list could be a feat and each major list could be two schools per feat. This could still require tweaking (maybe spell level access could be broken down more?), and maybe more casting functions to consider, but it would be my starting point for feat-based casting capabilities.