TheRPGSite

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. :D

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. :D

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.

The following is a general summary of what I've gathered so far, in terms of pros & cons, conclusions drawn from people's comments, as well as my own design preferences and standards at the end:

3e Pros

• Less costly than 5e feats
• Reward system mastery

3e Cons

• Are Mandatory components
• Are required for actions that should be default
• Most provide only insubstantial benefits
• Tend to rely on feat-chains
• Bloated and unmanageable lists
• Mistakes may "screw up" your character

5e Pros

• Are Optional components
• Aren't required for most actions
• More substantial than 3e feats
• Don't rely on feat-chains
• Concise and manageable lists
• Less chance to "screw up" your character
• Help define your character & make them stand out

5e Cons

• Feats cost one +2 ASI
• A +2 ASI is usually still better than taking a feat

Comments & Conclusion

• Feats should be optional
• All feats should provide substantial/meaningful benefits
• Feats should focus on benefits when dealing with actions, rather than being a requirement for them
• Feat-chains should be minimized or eliminated
• Feats should be adaptable to the setting

Core Functions & Personal Preferences

• Feats may provide special perks or capabilities, ability increases, ability check bonuses or additional effects when attempting certain actions, or special benefits in certain situations
• 1 Feat = +1 ASI
• Feats stronger than +1 ASI should be broken into multiple feats
• People who don't like feats may simply take +1 ASI as their feat selection
• Follow Comments & Conclusion as guidelines to make feats more effective as game tools
• Only tasks involving specific knowledge and/or special capabilities (like magic) should require feats

If you want to see how Feats in 3e were done correctly - it's Fantasy Craft.

I argue 5e should have taken a page out of that design too, but FC is far more mechanically toolkitty than 5e ever will be. The Feats are *beefy*, none of them suck. All of them are weighted against one another *and* spells and because of how the classes are designed along with their HP/Wound system they have more vertical scale.

I've posted about it at length elsewhere in Fantasycraft threads.

General Fantasy Craft comparisons (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?30168-Let-s-talk-about-Fantasy-Craft&p=774137&viewfull=1#post774137)

Fantasy Craft Feats (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?27191-My-love-hate-relationship-with-Feats-and-how-the-Splat-treadmill-ruins-them&p=674200&viewfull=1#post674200)

I like that they are optional in 5e. Because they end up being flavoring. Instead of a focus of how the game works.

in 3e, they were a bit too omnipresent for my tastes. They changed how the system worked. Which was fine. But they also led to options overload for a player.

Quote from: tenbones;1137654If you want to see how Feats in 3e were done correctly - it's Fantasy Craft.

I argue 5e should have taken a page out of that design too, but FC is far more mechanically toolkitty than 5e ever will be. The Feats are *beefy*, none of them suck. All of them are weighted against one another *and* spells and because of how the classes are designed along with their HP/Wound system they have more vertical scale.

I've posted about it at length elsewhere in Fantasycraft threads.

General Fantasy Craft comparisons (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?30168-Let-s-talk-about-Fantasy-Craft&p=774137&viewfull=1#post774137)

Fantasy Craft Feats (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?27191-My-love-hate-relationship-with-Feats-and-how-the-Splat-treadmill-ruins-them&p=674200&viewfull=1#post674200)

I've heard about Fantasy Craft a couple  times in passing, but never really delved into it. From your breakdown it appears to have a lot of interesting stuff, not just in the way they handle feats but also classes. Definitely will check out.

Thank!

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.

To me that is just the same as a Wizard memorising a spell.  No you can not cast Fireball because you learned Lightning Bolt.

If it is a perfectly reasonable action then the DM should let you take your action.  And on the other hand if the DM is going to let everyone "whirlwind attack" because it seems perfectly reasonable that everyone could "whirlwind attack" for example then why have the feat "whirlwind attack"

If the feat Whirlwind attack was the first in the chain, it would make sense.  It was the stuff that everyone should do that you had to buy to get to it that didn't make sense. (Roughly speaking.  It's been so long since I've played 3E I've forgotten the exact sequence, but I remember at least some of them being substandard.)

Reminds me of my teenage games:  

I stab him in the eye!  Yeah, must be double damage, right?

Im surrounded?  That means I can spin around and attack everyone, right?

Good times, good times.

In 3rd edition or Pathfinder, I see a feat I like and I get excited, but then I see that in order to get that feat, I have to take like five feats in a specific order, most of which suck and/or don't match my character at all. So in order to get that one cool feat I have to forgo the fun of getting good feats for the next 10 levels and who knows if the campaign will even last that long. So I look through the mountains and mountains of feats that don't have prerequisite and most of them are useless or don't match my character concept.

When I saw 5th edition and the way they changed things, I knew that somebody who felt the same way as I did must have had a big influence in making 5th edition. I like 5th edition much better.

My understanding is that the philosophy behind the original design of feats was to reward system mastery - much like magic did with their design of card sets for MtG. So some feats were required for a good build, whereas others might look good, but would ultimately lead to a poor character.

Unfortunately, they failed to notice the vital difference between D&D characters and magic decks. If your MtG deck turns out to be rubbish, you can remake it with completely different cards - or just tune it over time. D&D characters on the other hand are not updated from week to week - so sucks to be you if you chose one of those "trick" feats! And if through luck or good judgement you honed in on the best feats that were synergistic and boosted each other, then your character became miles better than the rest of the group. Not good for player happiness.  

So feats were designed for a fundamentally different game - one where you can swap them in and out as the game goes on. So no wonder they never worked for 3rd ed (and non-essentials 4th ed) D&D. As other people have said, they tend to replace things that a GM might have allowed a player to try - and perhaps succeed on a good roll (like the example of befriending a stray). But feats now replace that more free-wheeling approach. And you can't mix them, otherwise a player will complain of unfairness - they had to use a feat that someone else is "getting for free". Not good at all.  

5th ed feats are much better - each is designed to replace a +2 ASI. They tend to be flavourful and allow a few non-standard things that are situational rather than always on. And the weaker ones give a +1 ASI to make up for their weakness. And I haven't found a game-breaking feat combo yet (maybe xbow expert and sniper combined?).

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1137698If the feat Whirlwind attack was the first in the chain, it would make sense.  It was the stuff that everyone should do that you had to buy to get to it that didn't make sense. (Roughly speaking.  It's been so long since I've played 3E I've forgotten the exact sequence, but I remember at least some of them being substandard.)

I looked them up and they were all subpar at best or pure trash: Dodge, Expertise, Mobility, Spring Attack (also 13+ Dex and Int, and +4 Base Attack).

Dodge: +1 AC vs ONE opponent.
Expertise: Take up to -5 to attack in exchange for equal AC bonus (would just be a default option if up to me).
Mobility: +4 AC vs Attacks of Opportunity when moving between opponents (not bad but extremely situational).
Spring Attack: May move up to remaining movement after attacking (this is a default option in 5e).

TBH, I'd just leave the Dex and BAB requirements and ignore the rest, which barely even have anything to do with attacking everyone around you (in the off chance you're even surrounded in the first place). Whirlwind Attack is a flashy trick that's not bad, but it's also not always that useful in practice. Even if you hit with every single attack, if you don't kill at least a few of them you're getting flanked and pummeled when it's their turn. But it may help soften them up if you have friends around to help pick them off you.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137703In 3rd edition or Pathfinder, I see a feat I like and I get excited, but then I see that in order to get that feat, I have to take like five feats in a specific order, most of which suck and/or don't match my character at all. So in order to get that one cool feat I have to forgo the fun of getting good feats for the next 10 levels and who knows if the campaign will even last that long. So I look through the mountains and mountains of feats that don't have prerequisite and most of them are useless or don't match my character concept.

Exactly! Sometimes campaigns don't even last more than a few sessions, if someone can't commit to it and you end up playing something else. And even if you make it happen there's no guarantee that you're gonna make it pass mid-high levels before you end up playing something else. Your character could even die before 10th level if the campaign even makes it that far. Meanwhile you only got to play with crappy feats that added almost nothing to your character, either mechanically or in terms of what you wanted to play.

Quote from: spon;1137725My understanding is that the philosophy behind the original design of feats was to reward system mastery - much like magic did with their design of card sets for MtG. So some feats were required for a good build, whereas others might look good, but would ultimately lead to a poor character.

Unfortunately, they failed to notice the vital difference between D&D characters and magic decks. If your MtG deck turns out to be rubbish, you can remake it with completely different cards - or just tune it over time. D&D characters on the other hand are not updated from week to week - so sucks to be you if you chose one of those "trick" feats! And if through luck or good judgement you honed in on the best feats that were synergistic and boosted each other, then your character became miles better than the rest of the group. Not good for player happiness.  

So feats were designed for a fundamentally different game - one where you can swap them in and out as the game goes on. So no wonder they never worked for 3rd ed (and non-essentials 4th ed) D&D. As other people have said, they tend to replace things that a GM might have allowed a player to try - and perhaps succeed on a good roll (like the example of befriending a stray). But feats now replace that more free-wheeling approach. And you can't mix them, otherwise a player will complain of unfairness - they had to use a feat that someone else is "getting for free". Not good at all.

This is a good point. 3e feat design followed a different design philosophy from the game they were made for. What's good for a card game is not necessarily good for an RPG.

I'm not fundamentally against the idea of "builds" in RPGs, because there are aspects of character design that lend themselves to picking optimal ability packages for what you want your character to focus on. The issue lies when you have to make a bunch of "gamey" picks that just add bloat to the system  and don't meaningfully contribute to your game options or concept just to get the ability you actually want.

As VisionStorm says, a lot of things that you needed feats for should probably just be the rules as they are. It comes from rule systems which are too convoluted, made worse by feat requirements to do all sorts of things. One really common example is Dexterity for attacking and damaging. It's something that any Dexterity based combat character is going to want and yet to do it in 3rd edition or Pathfinder requires a bunch of feats in the right order along with weird limitations, like not having anything in your other hand. Why make all Dexterity classes jump through those hoops?

As for rewarding system mastery - I disagree on a fundamental level. There should be no reward for system mastery, especially not a reward which is deliberately built into the system. A person playing their first D&D game who doesn't understand the rules that well shouldn't have a mechanically weaker character than a person playing for decades who knows the rules by heart and it's bizarre to think that they should. Especially when picking the wrong feat could condemn a character to problems for the rest of the campaign, unless you have a DM who lets you change out bad feats if you realize you made a mistake.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137781Exactly! Sometimes campaigns don't even last more than a few sessions, if someone can't commit to it and you end up playing something else. And even if you make it happen there's no guarantee that you're gonna make it pass mid-high levels before you end up playing something else. Your character could even die before 10th level if the campaign even makes it that far. Meanwhile you only got to play with crappy feats that added almost nothing to your character, either mechanically or in terms of what you wanted to play.

Thats really a fake complaint.  Why?  Because you could apply it to literally anything in the game. For example:

The DM gives your party a plot hook: Go to the ruins, defeat the Dragon and rescue the Princess.  But oh noes, maybe me only get half way there and the game finishes so what a waste of plot hook.

The PC has a backstory, his brother has gone missing presumed kidnapped!  But oh noes, the group falls apart and can not game anymore before you get to find out what happened to your characters brother so what a waste of backstory.

You have come up with a great accent for your character complete with different sayings that ground your character within the game world,  But oh noes, Bill wants to swap to playing Shadowrun chummer and now your DnD game is finished.

The worst that you can say about Dodge is that it gives you +1 to your AC vs one opponent which, if you have had at least one fight, has helped your character at least once during your game.  Is it a +5 to AC? No, but so what its a level 1 feat were you expecting an extra language or something.

If we want to talk about wasted opportunity then you have to realise that you dont even get any feats in 5e until what 4th or 5th level so oh noes maybe your game does not even make it that far because reasons.

Want to cast Fireball?  Well bad luck, you dont even get that to 5th level so better hope the game lasts that long otherwise you are stuck with crappy magic missile and burning hands like a chump.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137796As VisionStorm says, a lot of things that you needed feats for should probably just be the rules as they are. It comes from rule systems which are too convoluted, made worse by feat requirements to do all sorts of things. One really common example is Dexterity for attacking and damaging. It's something that any Dexterity based combat character is going to want and yet to do it in 3rd edition or Pathfinder requires a bunch of feats in the right order along with weird limitations, like not having anything in your other hand. Why make all Dexterity classes jump through those hoops?

As for rewarding system mastery - I disagree on a fundamental level. There should be no reward for system mastery, especially not a reward which is deliberately built into the system. A person playing their first D&D game who doesn't understand the rules that well shouldn't have a mechanically weaker character than a person playing for decades who knows the rules by heart and it's bizarre to think that they should. Especially when picking the wrong feat could condemn a character to problems for the rest of the campaign, unless you have a DM who lets you change out bad feats if you realize you made a mistake.

Any game that involves skill is going to have an advantage to an experienced player.

DnD has always been like that.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137809Thats really a fake complaint.  Why?  Because you could apply it to literally anything in the game. For example:

The DM gives your party a plot hook: Go to the ruins, defeat the Dragon and rescue the Princess.  But oh noes, maybe me only get half way there and the game finishes so what a waste of plot hook.

The PC has a backstory, his brother has gone missing presumed kidnapped!  But oh noes, the group falls apart and can not game anymore before you get to find out what happened to your characters brother so what a waste of backstory.

You have come up with a great accent for your character complete with different sayings that ground your character within the game world,  But oh noes, Bill wants to swap to playing Shadowrun chummer and now your DnD game is finished.

The worst that you can say about Dodge is that it gives you +1 to your AC vs one opponent which, if you have had at least one fight, has helped your character at least once during your game.  Is it a +5 to AC? No, but so what its a level 1 feat were you expecting an extra language or something.

If we want to talk about wasted opportunity then you have to realise that you dont even get any feats in 5e until what 4th or 5th level so oh noes maybe your game does not even make it that far because reasons.

Want to cast Fireball?  Well bad luck, you dont even get that to 5th level so better hope the game lasts that long otherwise you are stuck with crappy magic missile and burning hands like a chump.

Yeah, it's a weak argument on its own and specially out of context. But that wasn't so much a core argument as much as it was a reinforcing one. It wasn't so much "Aw, this sucks because I have to wait!" but rather "Aw, this sucks because all these feats are garbage and don't even make sense as requirements. And to top it off, now I have to wait AND use up all my selections in the meantime on stuff I don't want just to qualify for something I might not even play long enough to get!"

Coincidentally, I've also complained before about wizards only getting garbage spells till they get to level 5. But at least wizards don't need to invest heavily on a specific set of crappy spells just unlock Fireball. They automatically get access to that one the moment they reach 5th caster level, even if they don't know a single fire-related spell.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137820Any game that involves skill is going to have an advantage to an experienced player.

DnD has always been like that.

True. I just accept this as a fact of life. My only problem is when the game exacerbates this with stuff like long feat chains that force you to take a bunch of crappy feats and plan ahead just to get the few viable feats. While inexperienced players just consistently gimp their character trying to navigate a sea of useless feats.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137820Any game that involves skill is going to have an advantage to an experienced player.

DnD has always been like that.

Actually, 3E D&D was literally designed with 'trap' options to deliberately lull inexperienced players into bad design to reward more experienced players. This was explained, and later apologized for, by... as I recall... Jonathon Tweet in an essay called... Ivory Tower Design... or something like that, and... again, as I recall (Its been a while since I read it)... this idea explicitly came from Magic the Gathering deck building design philosophy.

It is a spectacularly stupid idea to punish new players (Eg Potential new lifelong customers) simply for the crime of being new.


Of course, as far as I'm concerned modern gaming has taken a decidedly stupid turn by focusing entirely on combat balancing. Certainly no character should only ever be useful in a fight, which is an entirely different topic, but my earlier comments (this thread?) about how the Rogue should have remained the Thief certainly do more than touch upon my thoughts on the matter.

But yes: Being able to Dodge an attack is, or should be, an innate human characteristic, rather than a selected (and chain mandatory) 'Special Thing' about your character... and if you are a noteworthy 'exceptional dodger', having something better than a mere 5% increase to dodge chances, against one dude at a time where mass combats are common, is especially pathetic.  Dodge is a poster child for the problems with 3E Feat philosophy.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137825Yeah, it's a weak argument on its own and specially out of context. But that wasn't so much a core argument as much as it was a reinforcing one. It wasn't so much "Aw, this sucks because I have to wait!" but rather "Aw, this sucks because all these feats are garbage and don't even make sense as requirements. And to top it off, now I have to wait AND use up all my selections in the meantime on stuff I don't want just to qualify for something I might not even play long enough to get!"

Except that you still get to use the stuff that you picked on the way to getting what you want.  You still get to dodge, expertise and mobility even if you dont ever get to spring attack.

And if you have to miss out on power attack because you need mobility then thats called a meaningful choice.  Yes it would be cool if I can just pick the strongest thing every time I get a choice or, in Shieldwifes case, have no strong thing to pick because everything is the same for everyone.

QuoteTrue. I just accept this as a fact of life. My only problem is when the game exacerbates this with stuff like long feat chains that force you to take a bunch of crappy feats and plan ahead just to get the few viable feats. While inexperienced players just consistently gimp their character trying to navigate a sea of useless feats.

Sure and newer games have different ideas about how to "fix" the problems that some people complain about.

But how many DnD heart breakers are out there, each with their own particular way to "fix" AC, or HP, or Vancian Casting or Feats Chains or whatever it is that the author particularly hated.

Quote from: Spike;1137829Actually, 3E D&D was literally designed with 'trap' options to deliberately lull inexperienced players into bad design to reward more experienced players. This was explained, and later apologized for, by... as I recall... Jonathon Tweet in an essay called... Ivory Tower Design... or something like that, and... again, as I recall (Its been a while since I read it)... this idea explicitly came from Magic the Gathering deck building design philosophy.

It is a spectacularly stupid idea to punish new players (Eg Potential new lifelong customers) simply for the crime of being new.

Right, as opposed to playing a 1st level Mage in ADnD with 1d4 hit points and one spell to cast.  Yeah that game was certainly designed to coddle those new players with kid gloves.

QuoteOf course, as far as I'm concerned modern gaming has taken a decidedly stupid turn by focusing entirely on combat balancing. Certainly no character should only ever be useful in a fight, which is an entirely different topic, but my earlier comments (this thread?) about how the Rogue should have remained the Thief certainly do more than touch upon my thoughts on the matter.

But yes: Being able to Dodge an attack is, or should be, an innate human characteristic, rather than a selected (and chain mandatory) 'Special Thing' about your character... and if you are a noteworthy 'exceptional dodger', having something better than a mere 5% increase to dodge chances, against one dude at a time where mass combats are common, is especially pathetic.  Dodge is a poster child for the problems with 3E Feat philosophy.

Maybe you are getting confused between Dexterity and the Dodge action?

Yeah, DnD has a real problem with naming conventions otherwise how do we end up with [Character] Level, [Spell] Level and [Dungeon] Level all having the same name and yet meaning very different things.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137809Thats really a fake complaint.  Why?  Because you could apply it to literally anything in the game. For example:

The DM gives your party a plot hook: Go to the ruins, defeat the Dragon and rescue the Princess.  But oh noes, maybe me only get half way there and the game finishes so what a waste of plot hook.

The PC has a backstory, his brother has gone missing presumed kidnapped!  But oh noes, the group falls apart and can not game anymore before you get to find out what happened to your characters brother so what a waste of backstory.

You have come up with a great accent for your character complete with different sayings that ground your character within the game world,  But oh noes, Bill wants to swap to playing Shadowrun chummer and now your DnD game is finished.

The worst that you can say about Dodge is that it gives you +1 to your AC vs one opponent which, if you have had at least one fight, has helped your character at least once during your game.  Is it a +5 to AC? No, but so what its a level 1 feat were you expecting an extra language or something.

If we want to talk about wasted opportunity then you have to realise that you dont even get any feats in 5e until what 4th or 5th level so oh noes maybe your game does not even make it that far because reasons.

Want to cast Fireball?  Well bad luck, you dont even get that to 5th level so better hope the game lasts that long otherwise you are stuck with crappy magic missile and burning hands like a chump.

If my DM was in the habit of sending the party off on numerous tedious side quests that weren't fun, didn't further the main plot, didn't profit the party, and took literally months or years of real life playing before we finally get to the plot that we were interested in, then I would have issues with that. That would be a problem of the DM, not the rule system, but if the rule system does the same thing then it is a problem.

Unless you give a caster all of the spells they might ever get to start with, then there is always the chance (the likelihood in fact) that they never get to the level to gain a cool power that they want. That isn't a problem as long as they are getting cool powers powers along the way and are having fun. If there is some class where you feel useless until you get to a certain level, then that would be a flawed class. Back in AD&D we had wizards, as you say, with 1d4 hit points who could only cast a single marginally useful spell each day - though as D&D editions have come and gone, the class has been improved upon.

The 3rd and Pathfinder feat system isn't terrible in every regard, there are good feats and it can still be fun, but what I described above is still a major flaw in the system which D&D 5th has improved upon.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137820Any game that involves skill is going to have an advantage to an experienced player.

DnD has always been like that.

Of course, any RPG is going to be like that to some degree, but it is a flaw of a game, not a feature which designers should want to increase deliberately.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137854If my DM was in the habit of sending the party off on numerous tedious side quests that weren't fun, didn't further the main plot, didn't profit the party, and took literally months or years of real life playing before we finally get to the plot that we were interested in, then I would have issues with that. That would be a problem of the DM, not the rule system, but if the rule system does the same thing then it is a problem.

Unless you give a caster all of the spells they might ever get to start with, then there is always the chance (the likelihood in fact) that they never get to the level to gain a cool power that they want. That isn't a problem as long as they are getting cool powers powers along the way and are having fun. If there is some class where you feel useless until you get to a certain level, then that would be a flawed class. Back in AD&D we had wizards, as you say, with 1d4 hit points who could only cast a single marginally useful spell each day - though as D&D editions have come and gone, the class has been improved upon.

Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

My point is that any long term goal may never have time to play out because the game might finish.

QuoteThe 3rd and Pathfinder feat system isn't terrible in every regard, there are good feats and it can still be fun, but what I described above is still a major flaw in the system which D&D 5th has improved upon.

I am willing to leave it up to you on how much 5e has or has not improved on it.  From my point of view it just made a couple of feats absolute must haves which I thought was exactly what you were complaining about previously with trap feats.

QuoteOf course, any RPG is going to be like that to some degree, but it is a flaw of a game, not a feature which designers should want to increase deliberately.

Sure, tell that to anyone who has had a character encounter rot grubs, green slime or every other gotcha monster for the first time.

But maybe you are right, maybe players just like easier games that dont have real challenges in them.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137839Except that you still get to use the stuff that you picked on the way to getting what you want.  You still get to dodge, expertise and mobility even if you dont ever get to spring attack.

And if you have to miss out on power attack because you need mobility then thats called a meaningful choice.  Yes it would be cool if I can just pick the strongest thing every time I get a choice or, in Shieldwifes case, have no strong thing to pick because everything is the same for everyone.

Yeah, but what benefits are those?

• A +5% bonus to maybe evade ONE SINGLE enemy's attack in the entire round?
• The "ability" to trade attack for defense, which is something ANYONE IRL can do by default, on pure instinct without training?
• An extra +20% to evade attacks of opportunity, specifically when moving between enemies--IF that ever happens?
• The "ability" to complete your move after an attack, which is something so situational it's just default in 5e now?

And all for ONE situational special attack that might not always be more useful than simply unloading all your multiple attacks into a single enemy at higher levels? Do you really need a FOUR feat investment for that? What's meaningful about sinking FOUR feats into a bunch of useless, situational abilities and artificially gated stuff that should just be default to gain access to ONE special attack you won't even be able to benefit from most of the time?

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

My point is that any long term goal may never have time to play out because the game might finish.

The DM has a very central role in the game and if the DM is bad, there will be problems. Of course, the players have to bring fun too, but they can only do so much. That is a tangential issue though. Long term goals may never be achieved, that is true, which is why its good to have fun along the way. Or have some kind of benefit along the way in the case of feats.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857I am willing to leave it up to you on how much 5e has or has not improved on it.  From my point of view it just made a couple of feats absolute must haves which I thought was exactly what you were complaining about previously with trap feats.

How are feats must have in 5th? Plenty of feats are really good for certain builds. If they are good, get them, but if you prefer increasing attributes, do that instead.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Sure, tell that to anyone who has had a character encounter rot grubs, green slime or every other gotcha monster for the first time.

But maybe you are right, maybe players just like easier games that dont have real challenges in them.

That may be one of the most ridiculous strawmen I have seen on an RPG forum that didn't involve politics. What does any of this have to do with challenges? Is knowing the right 5 feats in a row to get the kind of challenge that we want in our RPG's? I don't think so.

Also, veteran players shouldn't be able to prepare better for rot grubs or green slime than new players, in either case that would be metagaming. Does the character know what those things are? If not, the player shouldn't use out of game information. Creating these traps for new players on purpose so that they have suboptimal characters is absurd on its face. Why would anybody want to do that unless they just wanted to bully and ultimately drive away new players?

In any case, not wanting to make feat optimization hard for new players doesn't mean that I don't want any challenges in a game.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

What are you, some sort of Indie-player? :-)

It's true that the players need to bring their sense of fun, and the GM needs to respond to player actions - but if the GM is bad and just keeps putting tedious dungeons that are 90% empty and with no fun in them that's a recipe for a short campaign.
A game with a good GM can survive a large %age of "bad" players, but a game with a bad GM is doomed, even if all the players are great.

Quote from: Spike;1137829Actually, 3E D&D was literally designed with 'trap' options to deliberately lull inexperienced players into bad design to reward more experienced players. This was explained, and later apologized for, by... as I recall... Jonathon Tweet in an essay called... Ivory Tower Design... or something like that, and... again, as I recall (Its been a while since I read it)... this idea explicitly came from Magic the Gathering deck building design philosophy.

It was Monte Cook in 2008 (https://web.archive.org/web/20080221174425/http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_los_142). And while Cook laments the (supposed) decision, the whole apology smacks suspiciously of retroactive bullshit to me. So call me skeptical that the complete (and admitted) fuck-up was "deliberate". In particular, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually sat down at a table and said "we could make D&D rules collectible just like MtG ... so you only get the rules you pay for," and everyone else somehow twistedly thought that concept made any sense for D&D at all -- and in fact enough sense to invest a whole new product launch with.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137862Yeah, but what benefits are those?

• A +5% bonus to maybe evade ONE SINGLE enemy's attack in the entire round?
• The "ability" to trade attack for defense, which is something ANYONE IRL can do by default, on pure instinct without training?
• An extra +20% to evade attacks of opportunity, specifically when moving between enemies--IF that ever happens?
• The "ability" to complete your move after an attack, which is something so situational it's just default in 5e now?

And all for ONE situational special attack that might not always be more useful than simply unloading all your multiple attacks into a single enemy at higher levels? Do you really need a FOUR feat investment for that? What's meaningful about sinking FOUR feats into a bunch of useless, situational abilities and artificially gated stuff that should just be default to gain access to ONE special attack you won't even be able to benefit from most of the time?

I guess, if you consider +1 to your AC to be useless and situational.

Maybe you just dont play front rank fighters very much?

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137863How are feats must have in 5th? Plenty of feats are really good for certain builds. If they are good, get them, but if you prefer increasing attributes, do that instead.

If you really want to know which feats are good then there are plenty of character builds that you can search up on the internet.

Otherwise just take your ability increase.

QuoteThat may be one of the most ridiculous strawmen I have seen on an RPG forum that didn't involve politics. What does any of this have to do with challenges? Is knowing the right 5 feats in a row to get the kind of challenge that we want in our RPG's? I don't think so.

Also, veteran players shouldn't be able to prepare better for rot grubs or green slime than new players, in either case that would be metagaming. Does the character know what those things are? If not, the player shouldn't use out of game information. Creating these traps for new players on purpose so that they have suboptimal characters is absurd on its face. Why would anybody want to do that unless they just wanted to bully and ultimately drive away new players?

In any case, not wanting to make feat optimization hard for new players doesn't mean that I don't want any challenges in a game.

To be honest, I just kind of blank out when someone rolls out the strawman claims.

Peace out!

Quote from: Zalman;1137888It was Monte Cook in 2008 (https://web.archive.org/web/20080221174425/http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_los_142). And while Cook laments the (supposed) decision, the whole apology smacks suspiciously of retroactive bullshit to me. So call me skeptical that the complete (and admitted) fuck-up was "deliberate". In particular, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually sat down at a table and said "we could make D&D rules collectible just like MtG ... so you only get the rules you pay for," and everyone else somehow twistedly thought that concept made any sense for D&D at all -- and in fact enough sense to invest a whole new product launch with.

Am I the only one old enough to remember the 4e Fortune (https://rpggeek.com/rpgseries/9693/dd-fortune-cards) cards?

Quote from: Shasarak;1137948I guess, if you consider +1 to your AC to be useless and situational.

Maybe you just dont play front rank fighters very much?

I play them (well I play Warblades which are fighters done right) all the time and it's categorically worse than just upgrading from scale to a breastplate (+1 AC for +150gp) or from banded to full plate (+2 AC for +1250gp)... or adding a +1 enhancement bonus to an armor or shield (+1000 gp). All of which apply to everyone attacking the player.

Dodge ranks behind even weapon focus (+1 to all attack rolls with one type of weapon) in terms of utility.

Dodge is such inarguably trash that you even attemping to claim otherwise is grounds to disregard everything you say about any RPG related topic. You beclown yourself even making the statement.

Further, that you consider playing a fighter of any kind in 3.5e to be something players might willingly do except by accident just reinforces your utter lack of understanding of the system you're commenting on.

Other than perhaps Monk, there is no more functionally useless class in 3.5e than a fighter. A bard or a cleric who preps nothing but self-buffs (ex. bless, magic weapon, bull's strength, divine power) can outfight any same level fighter and actually be useful in other situations without even needing feats. Barbarian and Ranger are better choices for a party due to greater number of skills and supporting abilities. 3.5e Paladins suck, but are still better than 3.5e fighters.

Fighters can't even do its own job well (needing a full-round action to make more than one attack per round does a number on their ability to deal meaningful damage... the only class it hurts worse is the monk whose movement features actively fight its damage dealing flurry feature) and lacks any tools (crap skill points with no intelligence synergy, crap skill list, no other class features) to contribute outside of combat.

One of the chief reasons 3.5e fighters suck is because their only class feature is getting more crappy feats.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137950Am I the only one old enough to remember the 4e Fortune (https://rpggeek.com/rpgseries/9693/dd-fortune-cards) cards?

I remember those. I got a free booster pack as a promo from my FLGS. I was agog at the flagrant obtuseness of the concept: "CCGing the TTRPG session." Said FLGS owner & workers shared their disbelief after the 4e game. Something about distributor sent it as part of the WotC order (dunno how much they paid beyond extra shipping) and they were trying to move it after months sitting on shelves.

Still kept those cards as a reminder whenever the urge to buy heavy into 5e came up. I wanna support 5e, as it is a curbing of many WotC excesses, but... their corporate nature chases the flavor of the month after it's already stale. ;)  Such a perspective since 2000 helped me avoid a lot of mediocre crap from a lot of companies.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137841Right, as opposed to playing a 1st level Mage in ADnD with 1d4 hit points and one spell to cast.  Yeah that game was certainly designed to coddle those new players with kid gloves.

You may want to re-read my argument again. Playing a 1st level mage is, while admittedly 'difficult' is not in any fashion a 'trap' option, especially as Mages quickly grow in power sufficient to render non-mages near obsolete (I can recall many a 'mid level' (9-12, say) games where the main fight of the night was essentially over the moment the Mage cast a spell, to the point where encounter design became notoriously swingy... if the mage player was having an off day, or simply felt exceptionally pissy, encounters designed to engage the whole group became quickly overwhelming simply because massive AOE damage wasn't being tossed down (or some other alternate means of fundamentally changing the calculus of combat via magic).

Being fragile and (temporarily) low powered utility players is not a "Trap", at best its a decent trade off.

Forgive me if I don't offer up any examples off the top of my head. I haven't played 3e in a long damn time, and clearly brokenly sub-optimal 'trap' designs, by their very nature, do not get used often (ideally, no player makes that mistake more than once in a career...), and thus don't necessarily stick in memory.  

I am absolutely certain I made no mentions of 'Kid Gloves' or 'Coddling' at any point, and I believe I made clear that there is a distinct difference between 'Rewarding mastery' and 'punishing ignorance'.  3E, at least according to Monte Cook (thank you Thread for clarifying that), chose the later.

But you do you, man.

Quote from: Chris24601;1137964I play them (well I play Warblades which are fighters done right) all the time and it's categorically worse than just upgrading from scale to a breastplate (+1 AC for +150gp) or from banded to full plate (+2 AC for +1250gp)... or adding a +1 enhancement bonus to an armor or shield (+1000 gp). All of which apply to everyone attacking the player.

Dodge ranks behind even weapon focus (+1 to all attack rolls with one type of weapon) in terms of utility.

Dodge is such inarguably trash that you even attemping to claim otherwise is grounds to disregard everything you say about any RPG related topic. You beclown yourself even making the statement.

And yet it stacks on top of your plate mail which gives now gives you an extra +2 to your AC over your non-dodging banded mail wearing compatriot who spent his feat on power attack and an extra +1 on his sword.

Your invocation of "inarguably trash" indicate that you must have never experienced the full range of trash feats to be found within the complete 3e library or then we could argue about getting +3 to your hit points.

Quote from: Spike;1137975But you do you, man.

I will certainly do me when I listen to people who are smart enought to complain on the internet about "trap feats" while being not smart enough to know how to search on the internet.

I will do me indeed.

Greetings!

In my game groups over the years I have had more than a few people just not give a damn about any of the intricate details of feats, clever feat chains, or worrying about how a particular feat is somehow "suboptimal." They have just selected whatever feats that fit their character or sounded fun and interesting to them, and gamed on. Amazing how much fun everyone had doing so, and there was no one standing over them barking at them about how Feat A and Feat B were fucking weak and stupid.

Many people are not *powergamers* seeking to mathematically calculate every possible advantage to their character. *Shrugs* I think that's ok though.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1137999Greetings!

In my game groups over the years I have had more than a few people just not give a damn about any of the intricate details of feats, clever feat chains, or worrying about how a particular feat is somehow "suboptimal." They have just selected whatever feats that fit their character or sounded fun and interesting to them, and gamed on. Amazing how much fun everyone had doing so, and there was no one standing over them barking at them about how Feat A and Feat B were fucking weak and stupid.

Many people are not *powergamers* seeking to mathematically calculate every possible advantage to their character. *Shrugs* I think that's ok though.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hi Shark,
      you're completely correct there - when you're playing with a good non-power-gaming group, but the issue comes when you have a mix of min-maxers and more casual players. If you want to keep up with the min-maxers you have to learn to avoid the "trap" feats. Which means you're probably having less fun than you were. And just saying "don't play with those guys" doesn't help when they're the only guys in town. These days it's a lot different, but we're talking specifically about 3e feats here, so we've pretty much tied down the years we're talking about.
That's why I prefer the 5e version of feats - no real traps, no real must-haves.
Cheers,
Spon

Quote from: Shasarak;1137993And yet it stacks on top of your plate mail which gives now gives you an extra +2 to your AC over your non-dodging banded mail wearing compatriot who spent his feat on power attack and an extra +1 on his sword.

Oh. You're one of those; The CharOps types. You probably thought the Expertise feats were required in 4e too because the absolute highest possible number is always best. You take no consideration of the opportunity costs, just the absolute value.

Also, why is the one guy in banded-mail? If the guy who took Dodge can afford full plate, certainly the guy who didn't can too. Oh, right... you're trying to distort things so Dodge doesn't look like the garbage it is and associating +2 with dodge makes it seem less like garbage.

So the actual difference is +1 AC against one attacker per round. Three orcs attack you and Dodge MIGHT matter for one-third of the attacks (if you chose the right orc as your "dodge buddy"... that orc may have attacked the guy next to you instead so you get no benefit at all). By contrast the non-Dodge guy gets +1 to every attack he makes... or takes a penalty to hit to gain twice that bonus to damage (because power attack is only worth it with a two-handed weapon).

Also, since you seem to have missed it; the point of comparison about armors was putting a gold piece value on the cost of +1 AC; it's not much. The point was that for just 1250 gp (the cost difference between banded and full-plate) you could get +2 AC vs. every attack. In 3e that's chump change past level 3 and you're trying to sell that spending one of only SEVEN feats should gain you the benefit of spending about 625 gp.

Also, it's cute that you think anyone with the Dex to go after Whirlwind Attack (the only reason to even bother taking Dodge) would choose full plate over a mithral breastplate. Full Plate caps your DEX to AC at +1. Even mithral full plate is only +3 (Dex 16) and still reduces your speed to 20ft. Mithral Breastplate lets you use up to a 20 Dex to AC (+5 bonus) and (relevant because Spring Attack is in the chain) lets you have a base speed of 30ft.

QuoteYour invocation of "inarguably trash" indicate that you must have never experienced the full range of trash feats to be found within the complete 3e library or then we could argue about getting +3 to your hit points.

Just because Toughness is bad (for fighters; for a starting wizard it's nearly doubling their hit points and has been credited by many wizard/sorcerer players I know with keeping them alive long enough to get the higher level spells) doesn't make Dodge good. It just means it's not THE worst choice for a fighter; just one of many possible bad choices.

And this again proves my point that your evaluation of Dodge is completely divorced from opportunity costs. +1 AC can be a good thing if it's valued appropriately. +150 or 625gp for improved armor? Super. +1000 gp for a +1 enhancement bonus? Worth it. +2500 gp for a +1 deflection bonus? Worth it in a high-magic/undead focused campaign... not as much in a low/no magic setting where touch AC won't come up much.

A conditional +1 for the cost of one of only seven feat you get? Not even close when alternate choices include power attack, cleave, expertise, improved disarm, improved sunder, two-weapon fighting, etc.

That's why I say it's inarguably trash... actually the entire fighter class in 3.5 ranks just above garbage tier (tier 5; can't even do its one job all that well) to the point that the NPC Adept class (no class features and only a partial caster like the bard) is considered a more valuable addition to the party than a fighter (the Adept is tier 4).

Quote from: spon;1138021Hi Shark,
      you're completely correct there - when you're playing with a good non-power-gaming group, but the issue comes when you have a mix of min-maxers and more casual players. If you want to keep up with the min-maxers you have to learn to avoid the "trap" feats. Which means you're probably having less fun than you were. And just saying "don't play with those guys" doesn't help when they're the only guys in town. These days it's a lot different, but we're talking specifically about 3e feats here, so we've pretty much tied down the years we're talking about.
That's why I prefer the 5e version of feats - no real traps, no real must-haves.
Cheers,
Spon

Greetings!

Hi Spon! True, having a mix of power gamers and hmmm...role players, I suppose--can throw into contrast that a particular feat is suboptimal. I admit, I enjoy both aspects of the game, in that taking feats that are uber strong, and also feats that just make sense for the character or are otherwise fun, regardless of their actual mechanical value. I know some players will definitely leap at being able to learn a feat that allows them to do something interesting, like say, speak with toads, and be able to use *Medicine* to heal them or something weird.

I enjoy feats that amplify the character's *place* in the campaign setting, deepen their particular cultural lore, or contribute to the character in some other meaningful way that has no mechanical or necessarily mathematic benefit to them. I think a great many players are intrigued and interested in such feats. I can imagine their fun being dampened considerably if they are outnumbered by power gamers, or the DM mocks them, or somehow frequently reminds them of how their feat selections have been suboptimal and "That's fucking retarded! Those feats are weak, and silly!":D

I also believe that 5E has presented feats very well. That's nice, for both players and the DM, as you said, all feats are pretty decent. I like how they amplify whatever YOU want to do with your character, and they are separate almost, like a special enhancement, as in 5E your character is already essentially competent in doing their job. I recall with some frustration in 3E how there were whole clusters of feats that were *essential* do a character fulfilling their duties effectively. Take Fighters, for example. I know that many people *love* low-level, non-magical, gritty games, with everyone being a level 1 farmer. Looking at the feats, I was like, damn, what professional soldier doesn't know how to Shield Bash, and Dodge, and on and on. Before I knew it, I made most basic professional soldiers level 3, 4, 5, and 6, as a sort of base line. Anything below level 3 and such a character was nothing more than a raw recruit. That process was heavily influenced by the very institution of clusters of feats, which all pushed for them being essential for whatever character being genuinely effective and proper in their job.

5E is a big improvement over the 3E feat dynamics for sure!:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1138033I also believe that 5E has presented feats very well. That's nice, for both players and the DM, as you said, all feats are pretty decent. I like how they amplify whatever YOU want to do with your character, and they are separate almost, like a special enhancement, as in 5E your character is already essentially competent in doing their job. I recall with some frustration in 3E how there were whole clusters of feats that were *essential* do a character fulfilling their duties effectively. Take Fighters, for example. I know that many people *love* low-level, non-magical, gritty games, with everyone being a level 1 farmer. Looking at the feats, I was like, damn, what professional soldier doesn't know how to Shield Bash, and Dodge, and on and on. Before I knew it, I made most basic professional soldiers level 3, 4, 5, and 6, as a sort of base line. Anything below level 3 and such a character was nothing more than a raw recruit. That process was heavily influenced by the very institution of clusters of feats, which all pushed for them being essential for whatever character being genuinely effective and proper in their job.

The fact that you had to go through this process proves that this isn't an issue of powergamers vs casuals, but an inherent problem with the way that feats work. The idea that 5e feats are better than 3e feats also reinforces that notion. After all, if taking feats was simply a matter of just picking the most fun looking one and rolling with it, you wouldn't be able to say that one system's implementation was better than the other's, or to assess that professional soldiers not knowing how to shield bash makes no sense.

Changes like the ones that took place between 3e and 5e could not be made without discussing these issues and pointing out what needs to change to make feats more effective. And some of these issues go beyond just some feats being weak, but also being tedious to use, not just for players but for the DM. Dodge providing a +1 bonus to AC against a single enemy is not just an issue of the character not gaining much benefit, but also involving ME in keeping track of which of my dozen orcs precisely the PC is applying that whopping +1 bonus to AC against. I just gave them a +1 bonus to Dodge AC against everyone if they weren't flat-footed and left it at that. I was not gonna track which enemy's attacks were affected by a measly +1 bonus to AC when a +1 bonus against everyone isn't game breaking.

I also don't think that characters should have to rely on feats to define background elements that have no mechanical benefit. That just work against RP instead of reinforce it. That used to be default before feats were a thing. If my character had some sort of background quirk that added flavor but didn't provide mechanical benefits my DM would just let me have it. This is handled now through Backgrounds in 5e, which offer standardized mechanical benefits as well as some RP quirk based on their origins. That is a much more effective way to handle that sort of thing than using up limited feats, and it ensures everyone gets some sort of quirk that ties them to the world.