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King_of_GRiffins
2006-02-05, 11:42 AM
Hello there. I've been thinking of creating some feats that give my players in RL more natural abilities (EX & Su).

So, I started by creating a tree for the Toughness feat. All out there by it's lonesome, with it's 3 hp. Here is the tree I'm thinking of for it. It revolves around the same concept, better hp conservation(or just more hp)

Improved Toughness
Prerequisite- Toughness, Con 13+
Benifit- +2 hit points/Level, Retroactive for previous Levels

Thick Skin
Prerequisite-Toughness, Improved Toughness, Con 13+
Benifit- Gain Natural Armor bonus to AC equal to your consitution modifier

Iron Body
Prerequisite-Toughness, Improved Toughness, Thick Skin, Con 15+
Benifit- Gain DR/- equal to your constitution bonus

Super Tough
Prerequisite- Toughness, Improved Toughness, Thick Skin, Con 15+
Benifit- Additional 3 Hit points/Level, Retroactive

Excellent Healer
Prerequisite- Toughness, Improved Toughness,(Thick Skin, Super Tough?) Con 19+
Benifit- Gain Fast Healing equal to your constitution Bonus


From a little calculating, it seems balanced, but a second opinion would be helpfull.

Also, because I cant post it enough.

Impossible Flight
Prerequiste- 13 Wisdom
Benefit- As a standard action you may throw youself at the ground and attempt to fly with average maneuverbility at a speed of 40ft.To fly you must roll your wisdom modifier plus one or lower. At the end of each round of Flight you must roll again to resume flying or allow gravity back into your life and take falling damage.
Normal- you cannot fly beyond normal means (wings, magic, devices)
Special: A roll of natural one is success, and a natural 20 is failure. The DC does not go below 1. This feat does not allow you to gain any other flying feats. No adition modifiers (such as fog) can change the DC, you allows know where the ground is, even if you cant see it.

Improved Impossible Flight
Prerequiste- 17 wisdom, Impossible Flight
Benifit- As a standard action on a roll of your wisdom modifier + 5 you throw yourself at the ground and begin to fly at a speed of 60ft with good maneuverbility. At the end of the round, roll again or never complain about how uncomterable bunjie cords are again and take falling damage.
Normal- Fly with speed fo 40ft and average maneurverabliity on a roll of Wisdom mod + 1.
Special- A roll of natural one is success, and a natural 20 is failure. The DC does not go below 1. This feat does not allow you to gain any other flying feats. No adition modifiers (such as fog) can change the DC, you allows know where the ground is, even if you cant see it. Bassicly, this is a feat for those with no chance of Flight otherwise, inspired by another thread, and a book, Throwing yourself at the ground and missing. What Im looking for here is some advice, whether or not you think its balanced, or anything related to it.


Also, any additional feat ideas would be great.

Harnryd
2006-02-05, 11:59 AM
Toughness needs some company, absolutely, and this seems balanced, with two exceptions:

Iron Body and Thick Skin both exist as epic feats (with minor variations), so they might be too powerful in your version.

Nolfar
2006-02-05, 12:08 PM
Excelent Healer is ALSO an epic feat. Also, Improved Toughness is a feat in Complete Warrior, gives +1hp/level and doesn't require normal toughness to get it.

Toughness, itself, honestly isn't that great of a feat if you play with the Complete books. Though a sugested second feat could possably be something like Iron Body, only it works on subdual damage (possably including damage from dessication and other enviromental effects).

King_of_GRiffins
2006-02-05, 02:12 PM
Hmm, I thought they might be, but I wasn't sure they where epic feats already. But considering these are for my local RL group which has only the phb to reference(and will never get epic level), its probally good to lower the bar a bit.

At any rate, anyone have any other ideas for feats? Something Charisma based that involves spell-like abilities(perhaps after taking magical aptitude feat?)

AtomicKitKat
2006-02-05, 02:55 PM
Hmm, I would lower the boosts on some of the toughnesses really.

Remember that 1 hp/level=2 constitution points(well, 1.5, since an actual 2 Con will raise your Fort save, and a couple other endurace-related benefits), or 8 levels of advancement(2 ability points) Also remember that if it's retroactive, it becomes more valuable, the higher you go(worth only +1 hp at level 1, but +20 hp at level 20, even though relative to the hp per level, it will usually be worth a lower % at level 1, due to the first HD being maximised)

Perhaps take Improved Toughness from Complete Warrior, then make Greater Toughness(in keeping with the TWF tree's terminology), which grants an additional +1 hp per level(for a net total of +2 hp per level), but make sure that neither feat can be taken more than once. If you wanted to be really evil, make them have to spend 4 feats(Toughness, Improved Toughness, Greater Toughness, and "Unnamed", because I cannot think of a suitable name yet), which will grant them a guaranteed 50%(up to you if you want to allow them to roll for more than 50%) on every HD(retroactive or not up to you), in addition to +2/level(+1 each from GT and IT) and +3(Toughness)

If you're going the retroactive route though, make sure you keep good records.

And just for the kicker, you could make up "Perfect Specimen", wherein they get maximum health on all HD(+Con, +2/level from IT/GT and Toughness), but that's kind of stepping into Deity-land. ;D

Addendum: I think Toughness got switched to a flat 3 hp, because it was found that +1/level(3.0 version of Toughness, if NWN is anything to go by) would be too much, especially retroactive. 3 hp=1hp per level it took you to get the feat, assuming you spent every feat that you got each 3 levels on Toughness.

I_Got_This_Name
2006-02-05, 03:10 PM
3.0 Toughness was also a flat 3; NWN Toughness was its own separate change.

AtomicKitKat
2006-02-05, 03:18 PM
3.0 Toughness was also a flat 3; NWN Toughness was its own separate change.

Hmm, I still stand by my assertion that it was probably set to +3 per Toughness for balance. +6 might have been a decent reason to pick it though, or maybe +4(is 4 HP equal to +2 each to 2 skills?) Improved Toughness from CW could probably have included Toughness as a pre-req though, to keep it in line with the other Improved X feats(barring those where it's an improvement on a regular option that doesn't require a feat, like Trip, Bull Rush, Overrun, Disarm, Sunder).

As for why NWN Toughness was different, I'd guess that they had an advance copy of the 3.0 rules, probably at the alpha or beta-test stage.

Nolfar
2006-02-05, 03:32 PM
Also, CW's Improved Toughnes stacks with itself, last I checked.

Abd al-Azrad
2006-02-05, 04:13 PM
Note: The epic feats of Damage Reduction, Fast Healing, and Natural Armour all stack with themselves and can be taken many times. And they only have a Con prereq. Similarly, Savage Species has Natural Armour and DR/- feats that stack with themselves, with Toughness and Con 20+ as prereqs. These feats already exist in various books, you just have to find them...

Oh, and they all have set amounts for their granted Armour/DR/fast healing(+1/(2/- or 3/-)/3 (epic fast healing)). Granting bonuses based on your Con modifier could get kinda ugly, especially for druids and the like who can get themselves fantastic Constitutions via shapeshifting.

Nolfar
2006-02-05, 06:30 PM
Druids are weird with those feats anyway, they lose access to them if not in a form that has the requsite con, AND they can take them anyway by virtue of the fact that they CAN have that kind of insane con (epic druid, anyone want to turn into a Turrasque?)

OzymandiasVolt
2006-02-05, 08:22 PM
The proposed feats are horribly overpowered as written.

Nolfar
2006-02-05, 08:31 PM
To them being overpowered, yes. Let's give it a breakdown a bit instead of talking in generalities as we have been.

Improved Toughness
Prerequisite- Toughness, Con 13+
Benifit- +2 hit points/Level, Retroactive for previous Levels
Except for this being 1/2 of a feat by the same name, it's not SOO bad, but 2/level does sound like a bit for one feat.

Thick Skin
Prerequisite-Toughness, Improved Toughness, Con 13+
Benifit- Gain Natural Armor bonus to AC equal to your consitution modifier
+1 Natural armor (minimum) isn't too bad, making it be stadic but stack with itself would be much more balanced though (the Epic version goes NA 3, IIRC)

Iron Body
Prerequisite-Toughness, Improved Toughness, Thick Skin, Con 15+
Benifit- Gain DR/- equal to your constitution bonus
Minimum bonus of DR 2/-, this is 2/3 of what a Dwarven Defender or Barbarian gets at higher levels. The minimum is also only one lower than the Epic feat Iron Skin which requires Con 25 and gives "only" DR 3/- but stacks with itself and with Barbarian/Dwarven Defender DR (but not from items).

Super Tough
Prerequisite- Toughness, Improved Toughness, Thick Skin, Con 15+
Benifit- Additional 3 Hit points/Level, Retroactive
See above about Improved Toughness, ESPECALLY if it stacks with Imp. Toughness.

Excellent Healer
Prerequisite- Toughness, Improved Toughness,(Thick Skin, Super Tough?) Con 19+
Benifit- Gain Fast Healing equal to your constitution Bonus
Minimum bonus of Fast Healing 4 outshines the epic version flat out (epic is Fast Healing 3, IIRC). Also has a lower con requirement.

Impossible Flight
Prerequiste- 13 Wisdom
Benefit- As a standard action you may throw youself at the ground and attempt to fly with average maneuverbility at a speed of 40ft.To fly you must roll your wisdom modifier plus one or lower. At the end of each round of Flight you must roll again to resume flying or allow gravity back into your life and take falling damage.
Normal- you cannot fly beyond normal means (wings, magic, devices)
Special: A roll of natural one is success, and a natural 20 is failure. The DC does not go below 1. This feat does not allow you to gain any other flying feats. No adition modifiers (such as fog) can change the DC, you allows know where the ground is, even if you cant see it.
Allowably broken, if only because HHGttG rocks. :P Consider it an attack against AC 5 (standard AC for a single square), you only succede if you miss, meaning that it's only good with characters who can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Improved Impossible Flight
Prerequiste- 17 wisdom, Impossible Flight
Benifit- As a standard action on a roll of your wisdom modifier + 5 you throw yourself at the ground and begin to fly at a speed of 60ft with good maneuverbility. At the end of the round, roll again or never complain about how uncomterable bunjie cords are again and take falling damage.
Normal- Fly with speed fo 40ft and average maneurverabliity on a roll of Wisdom mod + 1.
Special- A roll of natural one is success, and a natural 20 is failure. The DC does not go below 1. This feat does not allow you to gain any other flying feats. No adition modifiers (such as fog) can change the DC, you allows know where the ground is, even if you cant see it. Bassicly, this is a feat for those with no chance of Flight otherwise, inspired by another thread, and a book, Throwing yourself at the ground and missing. What Im looking for here is some advice, whether or not you think its balanced, or anything related to it.
Honestly, the original is about all you REALLY need.

Darkie
2006-02-05, 08:36 PM
As for why NWN Toughness was different, I'd guess that they had an advance copy of the 3.0 rules, probably at the alpha or beta-test stage.No, it's a coding thing.

At a guess, "Toughness" gave you a +1 Con Mod when calculating HP. Easier than just +3 HP from a feat.

Kind of similiar as to Discipline... it was to make it go with their code.

coredump
2006-02-06, 01:15 AM
Okay, they are super powerful, but that has been covered.


As for flavor type issues...

They are also very linear, you need A to get B, A+B to get C, A+B+C to get D, etc. Makes it kinda.... boring.

Also, I never liked prereqs that were no brainers. Having a high Con makes these really powerful, so requiring a high con seems redundant.

I think it would be much more interesting to make the requirements go off of int, Wis,and Cha. But keep them in the 13-15 range so they are achievable.

For example, Iron Body requires a Wis of 15+ as you use your willpower to 'ignore' damage.