Thought Experiment: Synergy between high stat scores granting "Free" half Feats?

[Mith]

Hello Playground,

This is one of my ideas that I want to throw out and see if it's actually worth anything: Giving "free" half feats to characters that have multiple high stat bonuses. One can still get the feats normally by spending an ASI, but if they meet the alternative prerequisite, they also get the feat.

This idea started with me considering Heavy Armor Master, which requires at least a STR of 13 to use the least of heavy armor, and Dex does not apply to AC. The feat also gives the PC a +1 to STR.

My alternative feat concept would be that a PC with significantly high STR being able to move and utilize the armor more as described with the feat description, with the greater the Strength score meaning that they can be more flexible in the armor.

My first rough tuning of this idea is something like this:

Alternative Heavy Armor Master

Prereq: STR 17, Dex 17, proficient with Heavy armor

While wearing Heavy armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 1. If your STR modifier increases to +4 (18 - 19) or +5 (20), you may reduce the damage by 2, or 3.

I am aware that the maximum use of this feat at STR 20, DEX 17 is likely not to come up in standard point buy early game. The fastest that I can think of is a Half Orc Fighter.

Standard Array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 8

STR Fighter: STR 15, DEX 14, CON 13 (rest don’t matter for this)

Race – Half Orc: STR 17, DEX 14, CON 14

The soonest the free feat kicks in is at Level 6. Assuming that stat boosting to get this free feat is the goal, the PC has STR 18, DEX 17, CON 14. They now need to spend a 3rd ASI to Max out STR at 8th level and get full use of the feat. If this is a Champion FIghter, they are now at 8th level reducing all non magic physical damage by 3, and are maxing out the STR based options and not far behind on DEX based ones. They can spend 2 more ASIs (5 in total) to max out their DEX as well.

Since most classes only get 5 ASIs, this alternative method costs 60% of the total available ASIs to obtain, while Fighters spend just under half (43%) on straight stat boosting. If you count this as a quarter feat (due to lack of +1) this would make the cost effectively 2.5 in straight ASI cost, but the gain is the overall increase in specific stat based ability checks.

If one allow for synergy between other stats to grant free feats provided that the feats in question are half feats, and that the cost to obtain is 3 ASIs by point buy, would this be a mechanic worth introducing in your opinion? I am picturing options like Observant being Synergy between Wisdom and Intelligence, Animal Handler and Actor can come from synergy with Wisdom and Charisma plus relevant proficiencies.

Since options in this system will likely share the same prerequisites, I would say you pick one from the category, and must increase both stats before you can take a second from the same category.



So what are your thoughts on this? The intent behind this is a system that rewards investment in multiple Stats (hopefully balanced between a Primary and Secondary stat), as well as planning a character

[Tanarii]

The game already rewards rolling high stats. No need to reward it even more.

In fact, you're better off going the opposite if you're giving away free stuff. Give it to characters that roll particularly low ability scores, not high ones. Either total bonus added up, or some combination of very sub-par stats.

[PeteNutButter]

Seems like the goal is to encourage people to spend their ASIs on non-optimal stats in order to get "free" feats. Free is in quotes because the cost is essentially as high as several ASIs (instead of just one for the feat).

It'd be hard to balance and might run into the problem of when you try and make something inconvenient, you end up just making it really really strong on the right class combination.

Not saying it's impossible to balance, but you have to be keenly aware of what you are incentivizing.

[Mith]

The game already rewards rolling high stats. No need to reward it even more.

In fact, you're better off going the opposite if you're giving away free stuff. Give it to characters that roll particularly low ability scores, not high ones. Either total bonus added up, or some combination of very sub-par stats.

I can see your point. The only way I can see a sub par system working is if you set a "Minimum array" and then treated deviations from it as a "Flaw" to bring back the Flaws system from 3.5.


Seems like the goal is to encourage people to spend their ASIs on non-optimal stats in order to get "free" feats. Free is in quotes because the cost is essentially as high as several ASIs (instead of just one for the feat).

It'd be hard to balance and might run into the problem of when you try and make something inconvenient, you end up just making it really really strong on the right class combination.

Not saying it's impossible to balance, but you have to be keening aware of what you are incentivizing.

That's fair. The idea started with Heavy Armor Master, and I was trying to see if it would work to try and generalize the system.

Heavy Armor Master is likely an outlier, and would potentially be dropped if I were to fully develop this idea, but it would hopefully make some of the more underutilized half feats more tempting, as stat investment can allow one to potentially pick up a feat that could be situationally useful.