Allowing a party member a major detrement as a trade for a feat

[Dankus Memakus]

So during a session zero I had a player ask "can I give up a leg, gimp my speed by half and have a chance to trip with my peg leg in trade for a feat?" I said maybe and now I need help? Would you guys allow stuff like this?

[Thrudd]

No. Don't encourage this. You will then need to offer everyone the chance to think up some flaw so they, too, can get an extra feat - and everyone is going to be trying to invent the least detrimental "serious flaw" they can think of. This is just a min-maxing rabbit hole you don't want to go down.

The only reason a person would want this is because they believe that movement rate isn't really going to be all that relevant in the game and you will probably forget to make them roll to trip most of the time.

[Dankus Memakus]

No. Don't encourage this. You will then need to offer everyone the chance to think up some flaw so they, too, can get an extra feat - and everyone is going to be trying to invent the least detrimental "serious flaw" they can think of. This is just a min-maxing rabbit hole you don't want to go down.

The only reason a person would want this is because they believe that movement rate isn't really going to be all that relevant in the game and you will probably forget to make them roll to trip most of the time.
I have another thing that was asked, if a player chose to be blind could he have blindsight 20 ft? This was a similar question posed but more on the flavor side (we do use maps so movement speed does matter but is probably forget to have him trip)

[smcmike]

I think it depends on how well you know and trust the players. There is certainly a potential for a mess, but with a good group, allowing for major flaws might make for interesting characters. The way you phrase the player's request raises red flags, though. It is would be better phrased as "I really want to play a character with (flaw x), but I'm worried that it will make him a drag on the group. Is there any way to balance things so this character can still contribute?"

Blind + some form of special sight is a more typical example. I don't think I'd give out blindsight for free, but there are options. I'd allow a permanently blind or deaf character to use a familiar's sense without using an action in it, for example.

[Thrudd]

I have another thing that was asked, if a player chose to be blind could he have blindsight 20 ft? This was a similar question posed but more on the flavor side (we do use maps so movement speed does matter but is probably forget to have him trip)

No, because that is basically giving him Daredevil's superpower. In terms of game mechanics, there are no real downsides to this - he can see in 360 degrees all the time regardless of conditions that normally obscure things. And if you have him in the same room on the same map as everyone else, he is seeing more than 20 ft away even though his character shouldn't be able to - keeping what he can sense separate from what everyone else senses is not really possible given the game's normal format.

It kind of sounds like your group is going for a "Crippled Avengers" theme. Which could be fun, if you're doing that on purpose - one guy has no legs, one guy has no arms, one guy is blind, another one constantly hallucinates and can't tell what is real and what isn't, or something - give each one a special ability derived from his disability. Watch that Shaw Bros. movie for ideas. Though this is really something more appropriate for Feng Shui or another cinematic game, maybe, rather than D&D. D&D doesn't do kung fu movie format.

I would suggest telling all the players to stick to what's in the books already, in terms of abilities, flaws, vices, bonds, etc. If they want to invent their own backgrounds, that's fine, but mechanically they get nothing different than what the rules say they get - same number of proficiencies and feats and everything else.
If you want to start inventing a homebrew subsystem of merits and flaws like some other game systems use, where each merit or flaw is worth some number of points and they need to balance out - that's a thing you'd need to work at a bit before putting it out for players to build characters with. In general, I find these sorts of systems get abused quite easily, with flaws rarely having as much negative effect as they ought to and certain merits being disproportionately useful/valuable for all characters.

[furby076]

No. Don't encourage this. You will then need to offer everyone the chance to think up some flaw so they, too, can get an extra feat - and everyone is going to be trying to invent the least detrimental "serious flaw" they can think of. This is just a min-maxing rabbit hole you don't want to go down.

The only reason a person would want this is because they believe that movement rate isn't really going to be all that relevant in the game and you will probably forget to make them roll to trip most of the time.

I disagree with both your paragraphs
1) As the DM you can determine what is fair and even trade (not every customization has to be a net net negative impact). Heck, as the OP did, you can come here and ask for advice as if the request is too much
2) I disagree with that. Sometimes people want cool concepts, and are willing to take a gimp. Sometimes they want to play a cool concept without being severely hurt. For example, the blind monk that can still "see" and attack. One of the better solutions for this is the monk has blindsense of 5' + 5' per level. So by level 20, at best the monk can see 105' with blindsense. While some may say "wow, that's amazing"....then the monk runs into the archer, or the spell slinger.

Now is half movement speed worth the ability to get a free Tripping feat? I think yes. Tripping is circumstantial. What if the creature has 4 legs, or is so massive that it can't be tripped. You are also sacrificing an attack to trip. Even more, if the creature's turn is right after yours, it can spend half its move to stand up. In the meantime, you are always at half speed.

[Kane0]

As long as the tradeoff is equal to -2 to a stat then in theory it should balance out.

Just be careful of the slippery slope, it isn't uncommon for players to try and game this sort of thing for maximum benefit.

[furby076]

I have another thing that was asked, if a player chose to be blind could he have blindsight 20 ft? This was a similar question posed but more on the flavor side (we do use maps so movement speed does matter but is probably forget to have him trip)

I've done this one before. Honestly, if a player wants blindsense of 20' vs regular sight, I'd tell the player he is going to be severely gimped. The way I've done this is 5' + 5' per level. Ranged will stay be able to pluck your player away without recourse, but up close and personal he won't get hurt and in some cases will have some advantages.

Given that, don't let the player be a drow or have the ability to cast darkness all the time - as it can be abused real fast. His benefit should be circumstantial. Now, if you guys are doing a massive dungeon delve, where there is always low or no light, this blindsense will be really strong - but not too bad...since players can easily get low light, darkvision and other ways to deal with underground adventures.

[furby076]

No, because that is basically giving him Daredevil's superpower.
Well, that's just a dumb reason not to.


In terms of game mechanics, there are no real downsides to this - he can see in 360 degrees all the time regardless of conditions that normally obscure things. And if you have him in the same room on the same map as everyone else, he is seeing more than 20 ft away even though his character shouldn't be able to - keeping what he can sense separate from what everyone else senses is not really possible given the game's normal format.

THis is a legit concern. The way i would handle this is simple: If I see a pattern of the player consistently running towards the enemy without a logical reason ( I was following the fighter) then I'd tell the player he was meta gaming and there would be consequences. It's not that hard. Also, how often is blindsense superior to having 'unlimited' vision? It would have to be a specific campaign to be problematic



I would suggest telling all the players to stick to what's in the books already, in terms of abilities, flaws, vices, bonds, etc. If they want to invent their own backgrounds, that's fine, but mechanically they get nothing different than what the rules say they get - same number of proficiencies and feats and everything else.
If you want to start inventing a homebrew subsystem of merits and flaws like some other game systems use, where each merit or flaw is worth some number of points and they need to balance out - that's a thing you'd need to work at a bit before putting it out for players to build characters with. In general, I find these sorts of systems get abused quite easily, with flaws rarely having as much negative effect as they ought to and certain merits being disproportionately useful/valuable for all characters.

Why are you giving advice to stick to core only? People can make minor tweaks, here and there, without needing to overhaul anything. Play the game, make customization that suit your table, and let everyone know if it gets out of hand there will be other changes. I think you are being way too cautious here. Nothing wrong with going beyond core...D&D has always been about doing what you want for your table. If you don't want customization then play AL or a video game

[Marcloure]

I wouldn't by the way you paraphrased his asking. The way you did, it looks like he was like "OK, I need this feat. What can I do to get it? Maybe I can cheat-chat the DM to gain this feat in trade of something I think is irrelevant". But if the case is different, "I want to have a severed leg, but I don't want to be a pain in the ass of everyone. So, could I have this thing that makes me able to overlook my deficiency?" I think is more acceptable, but will depend on what he is asking for anyway.

I remember a game I played long ago in Pathfinder wherever someone talks about flaws system. In that game, the PCs had all kinds of deficiency and mixed personallities just to gain points to build a "better" character. Never used this kind of thing afterwards, but I still let my players have small perks that won't change much of most games.

[Marcloure]

As long as the tradeoff is equal to -2 to a stat then in theory it should balance out.

Just be careful of the slippery slope, it isn't uncommon for players to try and game this sort of thing for maximum benefit.

I still think that -2 in a stat isn't even close to the benefits granted by many feats (GWM, SS and PAM mainly). Also, the way the system works, I would gladly lose -2 in STR for DEX builds, or CHA/INT for martials, in trade of a feat.

[90sMusic]

As a general rule, I never say "yes" to anything unless I know EXACTLY what they are going for.

You want "some feat"? Well tell me what it is first and what you plan to do with it, then i'll think about it.

I would be alright with someone giving up something in exchange for a feat under certain circumstances, but I would always want to know all the details of those circumstances beforehand.

NEVER give a blind character blindsight. I actually made a thread on this very topic a long time ago talking about how so many people want to play friggn Daredevil or Lee Sin. They always want to be blind monks but given blindsight to compensate.

Just say no to that sort of silliness. Blindsight is outrageously strong. If he wants to be blind, fine, let him be blind, but he shouldn't get some magical bonus perk for it that makes him more powerful than if he wasn't blind. They are called handicaps for a reason.

But in that thread, someone did have a suggestion of a character that I enjoyed who was a blind monk. But instead of asking for blindsight and silliness like that, he just became a shadow monk and cast darkness on himself in combat. Since both he AND his enemy were blinded, it canceled out and let him fight normally. It was a cool idea and I liked it. It let you live the character concept without breaking the game or changing the rules.

[imanidiot]

Absolutely not. If he wants a feat at 1st level he can play a Variant Human and give up Darkvision, if his build is too feat heavy he can give up an ASI. What you player wants is a build that uses lots of feat combos and maxes multiple abilities. All for a "drawback" that he will build around so that it is irrelevant. He wants to play a broken character.

[Thrudd]

Well, that's just a dumb reason not to.



THis is a legit concern. The way i would handle this is simple: If I see a pattern of the player consistently running towards the enemy without a logical reason ( I was following the fighter) then I'd tell the player he was meta gaming and there would be consequences. It's not that hard. Also, how often is blindsense superior to having 'unlimited' vision? It would have to be a specific campaign to be problematic




Why are you giving advice to stick to core only? People can make minor tweaks, here and there, without needing to overhaul anything. Play the game, make customization that suit your table, and let everyone know if it gets out of hand there will be other changes. I think you are being way too cautious here. Nothing wrong with going beyond core...D&D has always been about doing what you want for your table. If you don't want customization then play AL or a video game

I'm giving advice to stick to core (or at least published material) for a DM that is clearly pretty new to the game, and perhaps gaming in general. It's not always a great idea to start homebrewing things and accepting every suggestion from every player before you've got some games under your belt. From experience - doing that sort of thing can let campaigns get out of control fast. They can get silly (in more ways than one) really quick.

Not just letting characters have random extra superpowers is about balance and fairness in the game. Unless it is a game where everyone has a superpower - which D&D is not.

Also, 5e has so many options. So many possible combinations of things that have rules written for them already - there is no reason anyone should be exhausted of ideas given all that there is to work with. There is no reason to automatically accept every special snowflake character concept that needs homebrewing just because it is different, for any GM of any game.

Calling out a player that is metagaming and asking them not to do it is one possible solution, but an unideal one. The best solution is to not put the player in a situation where they constantly need to pretend they don't notice the things all the other players notice, or otherwise have to make sub-optimal choices with their character because "the character wouldn't know to do that". This is why the blind character is not a great idea for D&D, in general. It just poses too awkward of a situation for that player to constantly be cognizant of metagaming and choosing his actions in an inorganic way.

[Lysiander]

So during a session zero I had a player ask "can I give up a leg, gimp my speed by half and have a chance to trip with my peg leg in trade for a feat?" I said maybe and now I need help? Would you guys allow stuff like this?

We and you need more context before we can give you any useful input. Your player has basically asked you "Can I trade X for Y" but has left both X and Y vague. In my experience, players know exactly what they want when they ask this sort of question but chose not to specify out of fear you will shoot it down. Hence, they seek to establish precedence first.

I would ask the player exactly what he wants, why he wants it and how he expects the results to turn out. Only then can you (and we) evaluate the rules implications. Right now, you are asking us to judge an unspecified disability vs. every single printed feat (possibly in combination with other feats and class features). This is an impossible task.


I have another thing that was asked, if a player chose to be blind could he have blindsight 20 ft? This was a similar question posed but more on the flavor side (we do use maps so movement speed does matter but is probably forget to have him trip)
I would not allow this. If your player wants to be blind without being blind, I would reflavor his natural vision to some other sense without changing the mechanics. Blindsight is vastly superior to vision in every situation where vision truly matters.

Also note that one player being "blind" requires you to put in significantly more work because you'll have to narrate the same things twice in different ways. This will slow the game down significantly. If you don't do this, the player will feel like his character's traits aren't taken into account and be unhappy.

If I were you, I'd have a chat with the player and find out just how important being blind is to him and his character concept. Unless its an integral element, I would ask him to not go there so that the game can run smoothly.

[Thrudd]

I would not allow this. If your player wants to be blind without being blind, I would reflavor his natural vision to some other sense without changing the mechanics. Blindsight is vastly superior to vision in every situation where vision truly matters.

Also note that one player being "blind" requires you to put in significantly more work because you'll have to narrate the same things twice in different ways. This will slow the game down significantly. If you don't do this, the player will feel like his character's traits aren't taken into account and be unhappy.

If I were you, I'd have a chat with the player and find out just how important being blind is to him and his character concept. Unless its an integral element, I would ask him to not go there so that the game can run smoothly.

Actually, I would wager that the player would be perfectly happy never having his disability taken into account - it would only be remembered, by him, when his super power gives the character an advantage during play.
Same with one-leg guy. He wants some feat so he can have his ideal "build" faster, perhaps right away - that build probably doesn't rely on a lot of movement (a ranged attack guy), and/or he's also assuming the disadvantage gets forgotten most of the time.

Players always be trying to game the game, squeeze in any extra advantage for their characters that they can - an inexperienced or very accommodating DM is a prime mark for this sort of behavior. There's no reason they shouldn't try to squeeze in every advantage for the character they can - within the rules that everyone normally abides by. There's no reason to give anyone extra stuff that requires special, untested homebrew rules, on top of the many very diverse and player-friendly options available to them in the number of books that have been published so far.

[JNAProductions]

I'd say no. Maybe offer a slightly higher point buy, but if they want to play a crippled character, they'll do it regardless of any bonuses. If they're only in it for the bonus, though, that's some powergaming right there. Which can be okay, if your table is nicely high powered, but I'd still lean towards no.

[Spiritchaser]

I'd say maybe to the peg leg if it made sense... what feat does he want?

As for blindsight, I'd say no, but there's a very well dressed archfey, a burning fiend and... something over there with tentacles, that would be happy to replace those oh so vulnerable eyes of yours with something else... something that can see through any darkness... and the price isn't that bad, is it? Nothing you'd really miss...

[Tanarii]

No. Don't encourage this. You will then need to offer everyone the chance to think up some flaw so they, too, can get an extra feat - and everyone is going to be trying to invent the least detrimental "serious flaw" they can think of. This is just a min-maxing rabbit hole you don't want to go down.Agreed. The few times I've played point building systems with extra points for 'Flaws', the results are almost universally mix-max (ie optimization gone bad) or an unplayable character. Or more commonly, both.

If you want to play a character with a flaw, play one with a flaw. If it's a crippling flaw, then it's crippling. There's no particular reason it should be balanced out.

That said, the DMG suggests a way to balance out a lingering injury, even with no specified mechanical penalty. DMG p 273:
Instead of using the effect described in the table, you can put the responsibility of representing a character's lingering injury in the hands of the player. Roll on the Lingering Injuries table as usual, but instead of suffering the effect described for that result, that character gains a new flaw with the same name. It's up to the player to express the lingering injury during play, just like any other flaw, with the potential to gain inspiration when the injury affects the character in a meaningful way.

In other words, when the player decides to play out the flaw, give them inspiration to use. Note in this suggestion, you don't even have a hard mechanical penalty. It's all on the player for when it comes into play.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I wouldn't let a player trade anything for a feat, no questions asked. Maybe if they started by specifying a feat or feature, I'd be more likely, but I really don't like it when a player tries using the sort of language normally reserved for lawyers to wring a blank check out of me. And a tripping mechanic just sounds annoying for everyone involved.

[GorogIrongut]

My viewpoint is different from most on here... I like letting my players have whatever they want... for the most part.

If a player came up with a valid reason/exchange, then I'd jump at it. As long as everything was fully explained and on the table.

The reasons I'm so laissez faire are:
1. I like players becoming invested in their characters. Yes they may be min maxing... but they're spending hours and hours outside and inside the game trying to figure out how to play it. For me this is a win.

2. No matter how tough you allow them to make their characters... You are the DM. You can always make what they face more epic. That's the fun trade off. They feel bad ass. You send them at something even more bad ass. And when they finally win, it's so much more epic. Remember to think three dimensionally. Just because you allow a player to run a winged tiefling, doesn't mean you can't compensate for it.

The player running the winged tiefling in my campaign has almost died more than the rest of the party combined BECAUSE they were flying. My favourite was when he was confronting a chronomancer over an abyss. The rest of the party were tied down to a chain because they couldn't fly and didn't want to fall to their doom. He was acting all fancy pants zipping around and got cold cocked by the chronomancer. He went into a tail spin falling down the Abyss and was only just saved by the rest of the party. I thoroughly enjoyed describing all of the g forces that he was undergoing and how close he was to blacking out. The copious amounts of vomit due to failed constitution saves were just the icing on the cake.

If you give your player blindsight via echolocation, then use loud noises to render him 'blind'. There are plenty of spells that will do this. They should be used creatively against him.

3. If your player is taking the piss. You know it. He knows it. Use his flaw against him. If someone's blind and you've given them blindsight, it doesn't mean they'll always have it. A good smack to the head can dislodge the little bones in the ears and suddenly his echo location goes from being a super plus... to being a big negative. Now he's really blind. And he's got to learn to survive blind while he tries to repair the damage. Suddenly he's hugely reliant on the party for help. And his cocky, arrogantly min maxed character has to eat humble pie.

If you foresee having to use this, then allude to it through a couple of sessions. Heading back to the blindsight example, having him suffer momentary bouts of 'blindness' during medically logical moments should be enough of a clue for the player to realize that nothing is permanent and he needs to be ready for a sudden shift in blindsight if he's not careful (alcohol when taken in large quantities can have a severe effect on cardiovascular flow... hearing is dominated by blood flow to some very tiny yet vital objects in the ear. When off his head, feel free to make your player blind.)




When a player invests time in their character (even for min maxing) it's a win/win for me. They get to play what they want... and I get told which path to take the story down next as I get to tailor it to their characters specifically. Then it becomes real for all of us and it's a blast.

[grumbaki]

I'd allow it. But I wouldn't allow the following feats...

* Great Weapon Master
* Polearm Master
* Sharpshooter

Take those away, and what will he get for 1/2 movement speed? Magical Initiate? Lucky? Good feats, sure. But worth losing 1/2 your movement and having a chance of falling prone? Hard choice.

Or just say to him "You want to play that peg legged pirate? Sure. You can trade your leg for the feat lucky. Or Alert. Feel free to trade a hand too, if you like, for a hook. It'll count as a dagger that can't be disarmed, but you can't use that hand either."

[Eric Diaz]

Personally, I'd allow it... but he gets disadvantage whenever he needs two legs, etc.

Also, blindsight 20 ft? seems reasonable to me! So, if he takes an arrow from someone that is 40 ft away he doesn't know where to run? He cannot read? Etc.