Giving players more feats

[NBooms06]

Alternatively titled: You get a feat! And YOU get a feat! Everyone look under your chairs for a feat!

When it comes to 5E, I really enjoy the feats. They introduce cool mechanics, and allow for new play styles to emerge. I started with 3.5, and having feats be an optional rule kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Naturally, I allow the feat rule variant in my games, and I even went a step further and house ruled that all races start with a feat, and variant humans don't exist. The purpose was to allow my characters the chance to have their builds "come online" right away, like one fighter player picking the dual wield feat so he could start with a battleaxe and warhammer from the get-go.

I'm thinking about allowing additional feat picks as the classes progress. Current implementation would simply be that on levels where a class has the option of an ASI or a feat, they now get both ASI AND a feat.

This obviously comes with some ramifications, in that player power level is going to go much higher, possibly skyrocket. Fighters and rogues, I may limit the feats to 4, 8, 12, 16, 19 so they don't inflate their characters too much.

I'm comfortable adjusting encounters to accommodate the more powerful characters, but it's also a fair point that most characters are completely functional with low to middling scores anyway. Thoughts, playground? Am I being too generous? If you were going to give more feats to your characters, how would you do it?

[Ralanr]

I like the concept of everyone getting a feat at level 1. But making them get feats and ability score increases at the same time makes it feel somewhat less special to me.

Childish I know.

[Daishain]

I like and endorse the concept of a single first level feat. Lets people get the unique things needed for character concepts rolling from day one without ending up with a horde of variant human characters.

However, a free feat along with every ABI is a bit much. Feats are powerful in this edition, and forcing a choice between them and ABI make them all the more precious. Just handing out five feats without a sacrifice is a considerable boost to power, and decreases variation between characters.

[asorel]

I support giving every race Feats at 1st level. Personally, I would allow Variant Humans and give them two Feats (otherwise there is little mechanical benefit to playing Humans). Allowing an additional Feat with every ASI would only serve to homogenize players, and decrease the apparent value of Feats. As any given build will only have a few Feats that really synergize with it, you will end up with everyone taking the same generic feats such as Resilience.

[HoarsHalberd]

I support giving every race Feats at 1st level. Personally, I would allow Variant Humans and give them two Feats (otherwise there is little mechanical benefit to playing Humans). Allowing an additional Feat with every ASI would only serve to homogenize players, and decrease the apparent value of Feats. As any given build will only have a few Feats that really synergize with it, you will end up with everyone taking the same generic feats such as Resilience.

Only in a group of power gamers. In my group we all got a feat at level four and I'm the only one with a combat feat. What's more likely is that people will pick a couple of important feats and then some flavour feats. Although if I was a brutal optimiser I'd go paladin: PM, Sentinel, Warcaster, GWM, Tough/Lucky. For barbarians: PM, GWM, Tough, Lucky, Mobile. Wizards and Sorcerers can benefit from Elemental mastery, Spell Sniper, lucky. Wizards could benefit from keen mind (for illusions and int) and Resilience(con) But honestly it's more likely that you'll get what you need for your concept, then have some fun ones like actor/keen mind/linguist.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Feats work. They enable more character variety and make certain builds much more worthwhile/The only way they work.

I honestly believe that the only reason they were made optional (and we got the utterly useless base human) was an irrational fear that more options would scare the little demographic they had left from Hasbro edition

I use lv1 feats and variant Human is my base Human and I don't regret it

[Forrestfire]

I've had good success in my game with giving a feat (not an ASI) at level 1. Variant Human is unchanged, and is less mandatory for most builds, since the biggest reason, in my opinion, to give a level 1 feat is that there are so many character-defining feats, but... You generally only need one of them, so it opens up the ability to play more races before level 4.

[some guy]

I'm thinking about allowing additional feat picks as the classes progress. Current implementation would simply be that on levels where a class has the option of an ASI or a feat, they now get both ASI AND a feat.

Might be a problem with feats that grant an ability increase.
Start with 17/18 at level 1 (racial+2,feat+1), get to 20 at level 4 (ASI+feat+1). I'd say it's a very large power increase. Probably quite manageable, but it also might take some extra work to make it challenging.

[Ramshack]

This is standard at my table, everyone just picked humans for the feat. So I gave all races a bonus feat at level one and removed the variant human and replaced it with the option to choose 2 +2 ability scores instead of 6 +1s. Works out great, everyone is happy and I haven't noticed a problem with game balance at all.

[Cyan Wisp]

Feats are tasty, I agree. To me, they also seem a little too special for "everyone gets one at the beginning of their career". They seem more like something you train into by gaining experience. 4th level doesn't take long to get to. Patience, people!

I am wondering what proponents of this free-feat-giveaway do to compensate the poor forsaken humans! Only Asorel and Ramshack have this covered. The rest seem to ignore this sudden power shift. Do people still play humans in your games? Really, it is all the humans have going for them, right?

[Ralanr]

Feats are tasty, I agree. To me, they also seem a little too special for "everyone gets one at the beginning of their career". They seem more like something you train into by gaining experience. 4th level doesn't take long to get to. Patience, people!

I am wondering what proponents of this free-feat-giveaway do to compensate the poor forsaken humans! Only Asorel and Ramshack have this covered. The rest seem to ignore this sudden power shift. Do people still play humans in your games? Really, it is all the humans have going for them, right?

I just assumed either humans get 2 or they get any kind where everyone has a more specific list of feats to choose from at level one.

[HoarsHalberd]

I am wondering what proponents of this free-feat-giveaway do to compensate the poor forsaken humans! Only Asorel and Ramshack have this covered. The rest seem to ignore this sudden power shift. Do people still play humans in your games? Really, it is all the humans have going for them, right?

Everyone just assumes they get two. And two feats are very, very tasty. PM+Sent from level 1. Skulker+Either CM or Sharpshooter for rogues.

[Cyan Wisp]

Everyone just assumes they get two. And two feats are very, very tasty. PM+Sent from level 1. Skulker+Either CM or Sharpshooter for rogues.

But doesn't that make variant humans the go-to again? Level 1 just seems like too soon to already be experts in your field. :smallfrown:

Anyway, back to the OP; sorry for the slight derail.

If you are adjusting encounters it shouldn't be a problem balance-wise. It increases your group's fun having feats by the wagon load, so what are you worried about?

I see you are/were a 3.5e player. It seems like you want 3.5e style feat acquisition. In 5e, the feats are sometimes more like two or three 3.5e feats rolled into one. Consider the Skulker feat: Three features that could easily have been separate feats from 3.5e that gradually build an operational identity for your character. Likewise, Sharpshooter and others.

Even in 3.5e, unless you were a fighter, it sometimes took a wee while (i.e a few levels) to realise your concept due to prerequisites (feat trees, ability scores or BAB). Multiclassing into fighter was popular for weapon-users to hasten the process.

5e PCs seem to kick posterior as it is. Feats are like super powers - and your PCs will be brimming with them under your proposed regime. There are feats that seem more favoured than others and, if you believe the forums, some which are must-haves. As Asorel points out, PCs might start to seem same-y. Whatever floats your boat!

[HoarsHalberd]

But doesn't that make variant humans the go-to again? Level 1 just seems like too soon to already be experts in your field. :smallfrown:

Variant humans are only the go to for certain very specific builds with or without feats. Dwarves and Half orcs are far more likely for most martial classes. Rogues will go for wood elves or halflings. Wizards for gnomes. Monks will tend towards wood elves. All the charisma casters are much better served by half elf than human. They're still a great choice but darkvision, a full ASI in numerical terms, immunity to sleep and an additional skill is easily worth a feat. As is 1/day get back up from unconsciousness, darkvision, half an ASI, and turning crits from double damage to triple damage for most weapons. Etc etc.

But again on topic. A free feat every ASI is a bit much. I'd give them a feat at 1, a feat at 8 and a feat at 20 if they get there, and make them able to spend ASI's on feats as normal as well

[rollingForInit]

My group has a system for bonus feats.

We don't use XP for leveling (we have milestone-based leveling), but we still earn XP. This XP can be used to buy various things. For instance, for 150XP you can buy advantage on a roll (before the roll). You can buy a reroll on an HP roll when leveling up. And for 3000XP you can buy a new feat. The second feat costst 6000. We haven't set a cost for the third yet, since we wanted to see how much XP we start earning at higher levels and we don't want too many.

Works well so far. And it can be tweaked in whatever way you want. We thought it was a fun way to get something from every combat without having XP as the basis for leveling.