When are flaw feats earned?

[magusoftheCore]

To clarify the title's question, when one takes feats from flaws is the character considered as having anything a class level provides or not? Are the feats gained before the class level is gained?

[Apophis]

Are the feats gained before the class level is gained?

No. You take the class, then select feats.

[Ksheep]

Normally, flaws must be taken at 1st level, so you'd receive the feats while you're rolling up the 1st level.

However, there is a provision that you can take flaws later, but that is up to the DM to decide. Personally, I'd think that if the DM went this route, he would give you the flaw between levels as the plot dictates, allowing you to gain the bonus feat at the next level.

This is murky territory, however, as there are no cut-and-dry rules for non-first-level flaws. It's all up to the DM to make the decision.

EDIT: The way I see it, the first-level flaws would be things you are born with, so you'd get the flaws and associated feats before you "gain" your first level. The flaws could be seen as something impeding the character from an early age, and the feats would be ways that they got around such impediments. Again, hard to rule, and it's all up to the DM, but that's my take on it.

[noparlpf]

Normally, flaws must be taken at 1st level, so you'd receive the feats while you're rolling up the 1st level.

However, there is a provision that you can take flaws later, but that is up to the DM to decide. Personally, I'd think that if the DM went this route, he would give you the flaw between levels as the plot dictates, allowing you to gain the bonus feat at the next level.

This is murky territory, however, as there are no cut-and-dry rules for non-first-level flaws. It's all up to the DM to make the decision.

EDIT: The way I see it, the first-level flaws would be things you are born with, so you'd get the flaws and associated feats before you "gain" your first level. The flaws could be seen as something impeding the character from an early age, and the feats would be ways that they got around such impediments. Again, hard to rule, and it's all up to the DM, but that's my take on it.

Generally the way I think it ought to work is only one flaw before 1st level, which gives you absolutely nothing until you gain your first class level, at which point you gain two feats rather than the normal one (or three if you're a human). I would allow a second flaw to come into play later in the game, say around 10th level (in between levels, so during leveling up from 9-10 or 10-11), if it fit into the story somehow. Otherwise you can end up with some pretty high-powered (at least for their level) low-level characters.

(It gets worse when you add a houserule that lets you get 20 or 24 for an ability score if you roll all four dice as 5s or 6s when rolling with the roll 4d6, drop the lowest method. I had a 1st level human fighter with five feats and Str 24 because the DM allowed two flaws at 1st level and was using that houserule.)