No Feats!

[Kansaschaser]

What base class (and possibly some prestige classes) could function without any feats? I'm talking about the feats you get from leveling (1st, 3rd, 6th, etc...). If you take a Fighter, you still get Fighter bonus feats. If you take a Wizard, you still get bonus Wizard feats.

What base classes would still function well without any feats from leveling?

[DeltaEmil]

Sorcerer, Cleric (just don't take a domain that gives you a bonus feat), Druid, Rogues (don't take the extra feat option if you can choose a special ability), Barbarian, Bard.

The tier 1 and 2 classes don't need feats to kick everybody's ass.

[Telonius]

Wizard still gets some metamagic feats, and most of his power comes from his spell list. He'll still be able to function as a Wizard. Sorcerer will also still function, but not nearly as well (no energy substitution, no metamagic at all). Druid will now no longer be able to shoot bears while being a bear, but still functions as a Druid. Cleric takes a bit longer to 'zilla, but still functions as a Cleric.

Artificer shrugs and wonders what the big deal is, since he gets practically every feat he really wants as a class feature anyway.

Fighter is astounded at being suddenly useful (in comparison to the other melee classes). Mass ritual suicide of Barbarians as they realize they don't get Power Attack, with Ape Totems being the only survivors. Ranger cries in the corner when they realize he's probably less useful than Monk now.

ToB classes probably aren't as badly affected, and would still function.

[Vladislav]

Wizards will do just fine, given they still get a feat every 5 levels.

Druids will drop in power only slightly. No Natural spell means they have to actually choose between being a melee monster or a full-caster and can't do both at the same time.

Clerics will drop a lot. No DMM, no Divine feats, nothing to do with those Turn Undead attempts. Still, it's a full-casting class, so quite powerful regardless.

Fighters will remain pretty much unchanged (a level 20 fighter still gets 11 feats), but it was a very weak class to begin with.

Rangers will do okay with their archery feats. A level 6 ranger gets no less than 4 bonus feats just from being a ranger, so alright, I guess.

Rogues, being unable to get TWF or any other signature feats to enhance sneak attack (unless they dip Fighter), are relegated to skillmonkey-only role. A 1-level dip in Swashbuckler is obligatory to get Weapon Finesse.

Bards will still do well with their music abilities and spells.

Monks are now even worse than before. Like, Tier 6.

Barbarians? They don't need no stinkin' feats, just rage and smack. Ok, the loss of Power Attack hurts.

Oh, I know you didn't ask about races, but basically, everyone will want to play Human. The difference between 7 and 8 feats isn't much, but the difference between 0 feats and 1 feat is quite a lot.


Mass ritual suicide of Barbarians as they realize they don't get Power Attack, with Ape Totems being the only survivors.And Humans, don't forget Humans. He said there's no feats from leveling up, but he didn't cancel the Human bonus feat. Also, why suicide if you can dip a level in Fighter and get PA as a fighter bonus feat?

[Yuki Akuma]

Mass ritual suicide of Barbarians as they realize they don't get Power Attack, with Ape Totems being the only survivors.

Good luck getting through all that HP without Power Attack.

[Telonius]

And Humans, don't forget Humans. He said there's no feats from leveling up, but he didn't cancel the Human bonus feat.

Hm, true... thinking about that a bit more, you can still get up to two feats from Flaws. I'd guess that those should also be banned?

[Vladislav]

Don't forget you can also gain any 1-2 feats on the fighter list by dipping 1-2 levels into fighter. I expect a lot of builds will be forced to do just that (for Power attack, two-weapon fighting, and other critical feats).

[Kansaschaser]

Without feats from leveling up, do you think any classes would drop in Tier? Would any tier 1's drop to a 2? Would any 2's drop to a 3? Etc...

[ericgrau]

Fighter is perhaps the least affected since they already have so many. But really all the classes should work fine. Just with fewer options. The classes without bonus feats might be a bit annoyed, but still playable.

I don't think feats give enough additional options to significantly improve versatility, which is what the tiers seem to be based off of. OTOH with enough books barbarians who can't get shocktrooper might be seriously annoyed... unless they simply dip fighter for it. Casters OTOH still get their extra spells from splatbooks.

[gallagher]

Without feats from leveling up, do you think any classes would drop in Tier? Would any tier 1's drop to a 2? Would any 2's drop to a 3? Etc...

hahahahahahahahahaha

no

their spells are what make them in the top two tiers. feats are just their to fill up spots on their character sheet

[tonberrian]

Psychic Warriors become the best melee guys.

The. Best.

Hands. Down.

[tyckspoon]

Without feats from leveling up, do you think any classes would drop in Tier? Would any tier 1's drop to a 2? Would any 2's drop to a 3? Etc...

You *might* see some of the marginal placements on the lower tiers slip (4 to 5 would be the most likely, I think, as they're the ones that are most reliant on feats to make their stuff work.. most of your tier 4 melee would be quite sad if they couldn't select Power Attack/Leap Attack/Battle Blessing/Sword of the Arcane Order, for example.) The higher tiers generally have their placement because of potent class features already, and won't be drastically moved simply because of feats.

[Vladislav]

Cleric could very well drop from T1 to T2. His spells aren't as great as the wizard's, and without feats to do something useful with those turn undead attempts, he's not so hot in melee as well.

Fighter could probaby advance from T5 to T4.

Rogue probably drops to T5.

Single-class Barbarian also drops to T5 (a fighter dip is still T4).

[FMArthur]

Feat dependency is actually a really good measure of class design. The vast majority of melee classes in 3.5 use their feats more than their own class features as the driving force behind their fighting style and success. ToB was actually the acknowledgement of this problem, which aimed to take the burden off of feats and put it on class features, accomplishing mostly comparable effects to feats with less 'building' of a character.


Only tier 4s and below require feats to do their jobs properly. That's not all-inclusive (Warmages and Warlocks generally depend on their features more than feats), but I suspect that it may actually be impossible for a class to be truly feat-reliant and be tier 3 or above. It might in fact be a defining feature of the tier division.

[Cog]

...That might be an interesting addition to the list of tier patches, actually: give classes a feat progression according to their ranking in place of the 1/3 progression. you'd probably want to use a "fractional feat" system to keep track of multiclassing. Maybe something like 1 feat per (6-tier) levels?

This isn't enough on it's own, I'm sure, just a random thought.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Druid, with one Taint feat for Natural Spell.

[Kansaschaser]

...That might be an interesting addition to the list of tier patches, actually: give classes a feat progression according to their ranking in place of the 1/3 progression. you'd probably want to use a "fractional feat" system to keep track of multiclassing. Maybe something like 1 feat per (6-tier) levels?

This isn't enough on it's own, I'm sure, just a random thought.

That's one of the reasons I was asking the original question. If we play in a highly optimized game, should I reduce the number of feats obtainable for Tier 1 and Tier 2 classes? Should I increase the number of feats obtainable for Tier 4 and Tier 5 classes? Should I do both, neither, or a combination?

[NichG]

Okay, so a more severe version of this question:

Divide classes (or more properly, builds) at Tiers N and M. Builds of a Tier greater than N cannot have any feats from any source including class features. Builds of a Tier lower than M can have an infinite number of feats with the requirement that no feat can be taken twice, even in cases where feats could normally be taken twice (no infinite hitpoints from Toughness).

For what values of N and M is this balanced? (None is of course a possible answer).

[Cog]

The first question is, "Balanced against what?"

I don't think M can be anything other than six (i.e., no classes) unless you're including a source limit as well. There are simply too many usable feats out there. The intimimancer Samurai will basically build itself, for example.

[tonberrian]

Heck, Commoner 20 with infinite feats is a class I'd take.

[Kansaschaser]

Heck, Commoner 20 with infinite feats is a class I'd take.

Would you rather play a Commoner 20 with 10,000 feats or a Wizard 20 with zero feats(from level)?

At what point in that ratio would make you change your decision?

[Godskook]

'Standard' builds of almost any class would probably survive, with little-to-no major changes(assuming no prestige classes cause tons of them require feats to enter). The builds most effected would be the hybrids, cause those are massively feat dependent. Arcane Rogues, Gishes, Theurges, etc, all would cry a little inside, except for like Arcane Hierophant and similar, who were made both properly and nearly feat-less.

[Yuki Akuma]

Would you rather play a Commoner 20 with 10,000 feats or a Wizard 20 with zero feats(from level)?

At what point in that ratio would make you change your decision?

Considering the Commoner has the class features of several classes thanks to his feats... The Commoner.

[AmberVael]

Would you rather play a Commoner 20 with 10,000 feats or a Wizard 20 with zero feats(from level)?

At what point in that ratio would make you change your decision?

Hmmm...

I would say somewhere around 20-60 feats would be the deciding range (I'm giving myself a wide error margin here, just because I haven't taken a lot of time to look into the idea).

My reasoning is that excluding spells, Wizard and Commoner are both so powerless as to be identical. They're essentially the same class. This in mind, the "only" difference is spells.

I would very roughly equate one spell per day to be equal to one feat. Therefore, at level 20, a wizard is going to have over 40 spells per day (some of these will be lower level and less valuable, of course).

Obviously if you wanted to be very serious and in depth about this, there would be a lot more to take into account: the fact that a wizard can shift around spells per day, that feats are better at providing many benefits at once as compared to spells slots (simply because so many are passive and don't require actions to activate), spell slots must be conserved for active use, or the fact that feats have a huge power variance among them... I dunno, a lot really depends on just how you utilize those feats.

Once you hit 100 feats though, it starts just getting incredibly absurd. You can be a binder, and incarnum user, and then pick up spell-like abilities, natural weapons, and all kinds of weird things (Abyssal Heritor feats would actually be worthwhile in such an environment...)