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thompur
2010-11-09, 09:12 PM
We all agree that Alertness and other +2/+2 Feats are weak and generally poor choices unless your going for a mastery of a particular skill(and even then).

What would they need to be to make them worth while? Aditional benefits?(For Alertness, a +2 on initiative)
A higher +(3 or 5)? What would make them worth a precious feat?

SurlySeraph
2010-11-09, 09:14 PM
Having them scale by level would certainly help. This could be overdone - Alertness gives +2/+2 at 1st level, but certainly shouldn't give +40/+40 at 20th level - but I think they'd be worthwhile and mostly balanced if they scaled up to +10/+10.

Scroll down to what DythTheKobold said, his answer is excellent.

The Shadowmind
2010-11-09, 09:18 PM
They could also add the bonus, and make those class skills always. While not making the feats worth it in most situations it would help certain build ideas that need to enter specific prestige classes, but can't meet the required ranks in a certain skill due to class skill restrictions.

Kylarra
2010-11-09, 09:22 PM
Having them scale by level would certainly help. This could be overdone - Alertness gives +2/+2 at 1st level, but certainly shouldn't give +40/+40 at 20th level - but I think they'd be worthwhile and mostly balanced if they scaled up to +10/+10.I'd rather these hypothetical improvements scale by skill ranks than by level, to represent some sort of investment, personally.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-11-09, 09:29 PM
I second the idea of making them, giving the skill, a class skill status for all classes (at the time the character in question, and subsequent classes including prestige ones).

And BTW that is what my group does

NineThePuma
2010-11-09, 09:33 PM
The feat makes the skill in class, retroactively, and then have it give a bonus equal to 1/2 your skill ranks. That's about +11 at level 20.

ericgrau
2010-11-09, 09:33 PM
I've heard of a DM who ended up with all his players taking skill focus (swim) because in his world they fell in the water so often. I think the problem is that you could give someone +9000 to a skill and it still wouldn't be worth a feat. Or if you added another bonus the player would only take it for that bonus alone. The only way around it is for the DM to put skills in his campaign more. Otherwise the simplest solution is to cross-out the skill feats from your Player's Handbook and call it a day.

I am, however, in favor of allowing retraining on skill feats. Especially those with flat DCs like swim. I mean at very high levels (if you play that far) you'll auto-pass them without the feat.

Ormur
2010-11-09, 09:57 PM
Feats should really always give you new options you couldn't get without them (or as class features maybe) so anything that gives +X is pretty boring no matter how high the value of X is. Sure a feat that gave you +100 to hit would be crazy but why should it be a feat.

Coidzor
2010-11-09, 10:01 PM
^: Eh, you run the risk of making the skill feats into feat taxes for any character who wants to use skills if you go that route. It's bad enough with the few feats required to get new uses for skills that really shouldn't require feats.


The feat makes the skill in class, retroactively, and then have it give a bonus equal to 1/2 your skill ranks. That's about +11 at level 20.

This I like, especially in combination with the one with the skill being a class skill for the character from that point on after taking it.

Merk
2010-11-09, 10:05 PM
On a somewhat related note, this is what I do for Skill Focus (in Pathfinder).

You gain a bonus to the skill equal to 3 + 1/3 your ranks in the skill. The skill becomes a class skill for you, and once you have 10 ranks in the skill, you can take 10 on the check at any time (unless the skill prohibits you from doing that).

Amiel
2010-11-10, 01:59 AM
It may actually be more worthwhile if they were re-worked as traits.

Dsurion
2010-11-10, 02:37 AM
I know most people don't particularly like Frank and K, and a lot of their stuff isn't even for me, but The Gaming Den produced a lot of fairly decent skill feats. Instead of simply giving a flat bonus to two skills, you get a flat bonus to one skill, plus benefits based on your ranks in said skill, like these two specifically, since we're talking about Alertness:

Alertness [Skill]

Your ears are so sharp you probably wouldn’t miss your eyes.
Listen Ranks:
0: You gain a +3 bonus to Listen checks.
4: You can make a Listen check once a round as a free action. You don’t take penalties for distractions on your Listen checks.
9: You gain blindsense to 60 feet. You don’t take penalties for ambient noise, such as loud winds. Divide any distance penalties you take on Listen
checks by two.
14: You gain blindsight to 120 feet.
19: You can hear through magical silence and similar effects, but you take a -20 penalty on your check. Divide any distance penalties you take on Listen checks by five.


Sharp-Eyed [Skill]

Nothing escapes you.
Spot ranks:
0: You gain a +3 bonus to Spot checks.
4: You can make a Spot check once a round as a free action. You don’t take penalties for distractions on your Spot checks.
9: As a move action, you can make a Spot check against a DC of an opponent’s Armor Class: if you succeed, you can ignore their Armor and Natural Armor bonus to AC for the next attack you make against them. If you accept a -20 penalty to your check, you can attempt this check as a swift action. Divide any distance penalties you take on Spot checks by two.
14: If you beat an opponent’s Hide check with a Spot check at a -10 penalty, you can ignore concealment. If you beat their Hide check at a -30 penalty, you can ignore total concealment.
19: You can see through solid objects, but you take a -20 penalty on your Spot check for each 5’. Divide any distance penalties you take on Spot checks by five.

Eloel
2010-11-10, 03:06 AM
Maybe roll a couple skill tricks into those feats?

Person_Man
2010-11-10, 09:42 AM
There are 3304 official WotC feats (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats), thousands of Dragon Magazine feats, and thousands of 3rd party feats. There's really not a compelling reason to re-write the old cruddy ones, when they can simply be ignored.

And in general it's bad idea to spend feats to boost Skills, because they can be efficiently boosted with magic items.

T.G. Oskar
2010-11-10, 10:27 AM
I'd go with a combo; half Dyth's idea, half Frank & K's idea.

Giving a flat bonus to skills is already a bad idea, but scaling that bonus would make it a bit "meh" on its own; you'll be capable of getting better and better with the skill, but eventually you'll be either too good with the skill or still not good enough, mostly because of how the system works. A scaling bonus, and heck, even a flat bonus would be good if you had something else alongside it.

However, I find Frank & K's idea to be a tad too much towards the other side. Alright, so it's good if you suddenly go from "don't take Alertness" to "why the heck you don't want to take Alertness; aren't you supposed to be the smartest thing in this Material Plane?", but I prefer something in the middle; make Alertness something of an option, not something like Natural Spell for martial characters.

Hence, I'd make it scaling, but a more elegant scaling; +1 when you take it, +1 for every 5 ranks after the first four, so you'd have your first increase at level 5, then at level 10, and so on. However, if for some reason you get the indicated skills as class skills, then you get a special benefit if you have ranks in all mentioned skills. Something along these lines: if you have both Spot and Listen as class skills, you can't be surprised if your ranks in either Spot or Listen are higher than the enemy's ranks on Hide or Move Silently, again whichever are higher. This gives some sort of verisimilitude (you're effectively always alert, so you'll rarely be surprised unless for some reason you got Uncanny Dodge which still has value as a class feature), but clever ways to counter it.

As for Skill Focus...make it what it should have been: grant X skill as a class skill (except, obviously, for Use Magic Device and Use Psionic Device, which are too powerful on their own right to be considered for that). Greater Skill Focus would actually be Skill Mastery, because if you're already focused on making that skill better, why not do it at a moment's notice even with stress and under duress?

But...that's me. Not the consensus of the forum.

mangosta71
2010-11-10, 12:28 PM
I would also add "Characters with skill feats can take 10 on checks for that skill, even when conditions would normally prevent them from doing so" to Dyth's idea.