Feats as Rewards

[seventh_soul]

I’m dming a new campaign and I’m thinking about side quests with related feats. I.E Saving a town from a volcano gives elemental adept fire. I’m also wondering if I should put a setback. For example getting burns on your body.

Edit: Mabye considering adding a way to get rid of the drawbacks.

Would this be balanced?

[Tanarii]

No. Free feats are not balanced.

Edit: If you don't care about balance, go for it anyway. :smallwink:

[Lombra]

The DMG does suggest feats as an alternative reward to items, I suggest reading it. If it's a reward, it shouldn't have a setback anymore than any other type of reward.

Magic initiate because you managed to protect/restore/create a powerful macigal artifact

Elemental adept because you got blessed by a powerful elemental/dragon

Keen mind because you tapped into a font of powerful divination magic

Skulker because you did many quests in the underground with the thieves' guild

Some are harder to justify than others, but you can work them out so that it makes sense with the story.

[Talamare]

It's definitely a Tricky thing to do, but it can present the opportunity for a lot of interesting development.

I would recommend trying to find the feat list for 4e for some inspiration. Since they had probably 1000 feats.
The amount of Feats in 5e is a little limited unless you divide feats that give multiple benefits.

[nickl_2000]

Why not go for non combat feats as rewards? This would still be something fun that the PCs can get, but won't upset the balance of combat as much

[Errata]

You don't normally get a lot of feats, and they compete with ASIs, which are also essential. 5e doesn't assume that a typical character will have as many feats as in 3.5. If they start racking up feats as a regular reward for ordinary run of the mill side quests like gold, experience, and minor magic items, the it won't be long before they are way out of line with normal game balance.

One way to at least slow things would be to give such rewards out to just one player, so if you have say 4 players, they'd be getting a bonus feat after at least 4 major accomplishments, rather than all the time.

Another option for keeping it at a manageable pace would be to design custom boons/blessings/charms that are scaled down versions of feats. Comparable in power to half of a feat/ASI. Then if they do something similar maybe boost it to the full feat as a separate reward.

[Unoriginal]

Have you read the section on Boons, in the DMG?

[HunterOfJello]

If you want to give feats as rewards, I suggest going and looking at d&d 3.5 feats and choosing some of the options from those. That edition had much weaker feats overall and far more variety in them.

Feats from 3.5 that slightly increase someone's versatility or interestingness and dont boost the numbers on any of their most important character options are probably best.

[Lombra]

Have you read the section on Boons, in the DMG?

And right before that section, there's a paragraph about training to gain inspiration/skills/feats.

Giving feats breaks nothing. Come on.

[Tanarii]

And right before that section, there's a paragraph about training to gain inspiration/skills/feats.

Giving feats breaks nothing. Come on.
Because a free feat, which the DMg says is an alternative to an Epic Boon for level 20 characters, is totally balanced. AmIright?

[Tiadoppler]

For low level characters, who have saved a village(or other low-level quest) I like to give things like:
Proficiency in Animal Handling, Nature or Survival
Proficiency in a single martial weapon
Proficiency in a artisan's kit

Combat feats throw things off too much, especially at lower levels.

[Nidgit]

What about allowing the party to each have one item of their choice "enchanted" with a feat? Maybe the party decides the ranger would benefit most from the Skulker feat so her +1 bow now has that added feature. But if the ranger later wanted a +2 bow or the Magic Initiate feat equipped, she'd have to replace her current bow+feat.

[Theodoxus]

Because a free feat, which the DMg says is an alternative to an Epic Boon for level 20 characters, is totally balanced. AmIright?

Granted, this is anecdotal, so take that for what it's worth, but I made every feat a 'half feat', stripped out the ASI portion, and added a number of new ones. Then, gave everyone a feat every odd level, and kept ASIs as is.

My players love it. It's allowed them to play the class they want, while expanding their options. They're not really any more powerful than any other standard 5E character, because they're still constrained by action economy, but their options, round to round, are massively increased.

They're currently level 8 and having a blast.

Balance is in the hand of the DM - not in a rule in a book.

[Desteplo]

A halfling in my campaign ate a mind flayer brain... so his new subrace is mind flayer and he’s using feats to get most of the powers
-he basically got a psychic damage dragonborn breath from subrace with +1 int
-using feats for at will spells, retractable tentacles that use intellect to hit, etc

-it’s a game have fun. Worst case, add a a few extra little guys in a fight or a bouncer (that’s there to counteract magic) gives them extra step. Get rid of the magic bouncer before you can read the main baddies mind

[MxKit]

Because a free feat, which the DMg says is an alternative to an Epic Boon for level 20 characters, is totally balanced. AmIright?

Eh, to be fair, they're talking about something entirely different from that. Yes, a free feat is given as an alternative to an Epic Boon in the sidebar on p230, but a free feat is after downtime training is also given as an option on p231, totally unrelated to epic boons and absolutely available before level 20. It also seems to put "inspiration daily at darn for 1d4 + 6 days," "proficiency in a new skill" and "a free feat" about all equal. Gaining a free feat that way is also comparable, in the DMG, to gaining a blessing or charm, getting a letter of recommendation or a medal, being given a parcel of land and a title, special favors and special rights, and strongholds.

It's confusing because the DMG puts feats both on par with getting a medal and with getting an Epic Boon, and both of those rewards confer drastically different levels of power.

Basically, OP, I'd say be circumspect about what feats you offer and how often, and maybe be willing to rework some of the feats that look a bit overly powerful. You probably don't want to be handing out War Caster and Sentinel and Lucky like candy! Or maybe you want someone to be able to pick up the Actor feat through a side quest, but don't really want to hand them to +1 to Charisma, in which case... that's fine, take it out.

But if you're judicious, it can be flavorful and your players can have a lot of fun with it. Occasionally giving out Elemental Adept or Magic Initiate to your party can really make things feel unique, especially if you limit things in a specific way (like tying it to fire due to the volcano, like you said, or limiting Magic Initiate to the Bard and Druid spell lists if they picked up some magic via prolonged exposure to the Feywild, or whatever). Don't have a ton of quests that all give everyone in the party a feat, but I think you'd be fine to stick a few in there among other rewards they can get.

And just be prepared that increasing their power in this way might mean you have to approach them with different challenges and enemies; they might hit different tiers a bit earlier. This is just as true if you're handing out a bunch of magic items, however, and some DMs like to do that too. If it does end up unbalancing your games somewhat because you were a little too free with the stronger feats, you might have to adjust things to balance it back out on your end. This can be done, though, and if you're careful and thoughtful about what you're doing, it's not necessarily going to be... necessary.

[DarkKnightJin]

I'll try to sum up what everybody seems to say:

You can give out Feats as a reward, but don't give the party Feats for every sidequest.
At the end of a particularly epic quest, with a power NPC to give them the power they would gain? That's alright. Maybe turn it into an RP-based session, where they train to gain the power the Feat would grant them.

The world is your oyster.

[Davrix]

To be fair only certain feats in certain combos can be OP

Personally I'm working on a new game after wrapping my old one last night and I'm toying with the idea of banning feats at the start, letting players take only the stat boosts but plan out rewards to alter characters powers and abilities if they accomplish certain tasks or have a table of feats they can train during downtime.

[Cybren]

Because a free feat, which the DMg says is an alternative to an Epic Boon for level 20 characters, is totally balanced. AmIright?

How is a feat any better than a magic item?

[Tanarii]

How is a feat any better than a magic item?
It doesn't require attunement.


And it can't be lost, stolen, broken, or melted into a puddle. Okay, technically it can be the last one. Or at least the PC can. :smallamused:

Anyhow, what MxKit and several others have said is probably fair. A big quest reward at lower than 20 levels for some of the lesser used Feats, whatever that might be in a given campaign, is probably not 'Epic Boon' territory. Or partial Feats, just one aspect of a multi-part not very powerful Feat.

I still wouldn't see it as 'balanced' until at least Tier 3 though. But as I said, the game isn't always about balance. Heck, officially you can let players roll ability scores, and clearly that's not balanced. As every "Help me build this character I rolled" post shows, you'll always get an 18 and a couple of 16s doing that. :smallyuk:

[Cybren]

It doesn't require attunement.


And it can't be lost, stolen, broken, or melted into a puddle. Okay, technically it can be the last one. Or at least the PC can. :smallamused:

Anyhow, what MxKit and several others have said is probably fair. A big quest reward at lower than 20 levels for some of the lesser used Feats, whatever that might be in a given campaign, is probably not 'Epic Boon' territory. Or partial Feats, just one aspect of a multi-part not very powerful Feat.

I still wouldn't see it as 'balanced' until at least Tier 3 though. But as I said, the game isn't always about balance. Heck, officially you can let players roll ability scores, and clearly that's not balanced. As every "Help me build this character I rolled" post shows, you'll always get an 18 and a couple of 16s doing that. :smallyuk:

Well, for one thing, not all magic items require attunement. For another, magic items still exist in excess of the systems expected character power. A feat is not any more "overpowered" than any non-xp reward. As in all cases, use your judgement and know what the repercussions of the reward are. That's true if it's an airship, a castle, a noble title, a +3 sword, a spellbook, or a feat.

[Tanarii]

That's true if it's an airship, a castle, a noble title, a +3 sword, a spellbook, or a feat.And if a DM is planning on handing any of those in Tier 1 or 2 asking if it's balanced, I'd be speaking out just like I did. Note OP said 'new campaign' so that's a reasonable assumption.

[Cybren]

And if a DM is planning on handing any of those in Tier 1 or 2 asking if it's balanced, I'd be speaking out just like I did. Note OP said 'new campaign' so that's a reasonable assumption.

Define "balanced". I'm not sure how tier matters here.

[Tanarii]

Define "balanced". I'm not sure how tier matters here.
Castles, noble titles, air ships, and +3 swords are things you'd expect to start showing up for player ownership when you start playing Tier 3.

Edit: also, on balance, angry had some good words in a recent article that is probably appropriate here:



Game balance is one those things that GMs LOVE to use to rip apart things they don’t like. Because people can’t simply not like things. Not liking things is emotional and irrational and totally human. But analyzing things and recognizing their flaws make them fundamental unlikeable? That’s rational and logical and makes you totally smart. Like a robot. And that’s why robots are notoriously fun to hang out with and play games with. I spend hours and hours watching movies and playing D&D down at the local Coca-Cola bottling plant with the capping machine and the pouring machine and that arm that sticks the labels on the outside of the bottles.

Game balance is also one of those things that GMS LOVE to use as an excuse to rip options out of the game. Because they can’t simply think that something doesn’t fit the tone of the story. Because tone is emotional and…

You get it.

(Edited to remove typical angry profanity masking because forum rules.)

http://theangrygm.com/a-trifecta-of-unbalance/

:smallbiggrin::smallamused:

[Vogie]

I like the idea, but I think you shouldn't use the existing feat system - it's too broad, and powerful

I would suggest stealing the Merit system from WoD games.

They're much like feats, but they scale and have gated effects based on the "dots" that you award them.

For example, a "Combat Awareness" merit can have up to three dots, and each dot is a separate reward. Which, in this example, will make the "Alert" feat at three dots.

Combat Awareness (• to •••)
• You can’t be surprised while you are conscious.
•• Other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you.
••• You gain a +5 bonus to initiative.

You can then use this to reward multipart feats to your players slowly over time (great for feats like Sentinel, Dungeon Delver, Athlete, or the various weapon mastery feats) or give them most of a feat but without the actual ability score bonus - such as Menacing (without charisma bonus), Investigator (w/o intelligence boost), Acrobat (w/o dexterity boost), and so on.

You can also customize the Merit rewards to your players, either to help them specialize or diversify their kits. For example, a Strength-based character may gain merits improving their grappling... or, if it's a character that takes a lot of damage, they may slowly collect merits that help them survive - like:


Quick Healer
•• Whenever you regain hit points out of combat, you treat one of the dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value.
•••• Whenever you regain hit points in combat, you can spend one Hit Die to additionally heal yourself. Roll the die, add your Constitution modifier, and regain a number of hit points equal to the total.
or

Chokehold
••• When you grapple a target with a neck, and target is restrained, it is also at risk of suffocating. This gives the target disadvantage on concentration checks and checks to break the grapple.
Et cetera.

This could also be a way to track how the players accrue other noncombat Rewards

Housing:
Lair (• to •••)
Safehouse (• to •••••)
Mage's Sanctum (•• to •••••)
Druid's Hollow (•• to •••••)
Temple (•• to •••••)

Other Resources
Contacts (•-•••••)
Fame in a Region (•-•••)
Reputation with Faction (•-••••)
Passive Income (•-••••••)
Decorated (•-•••••)
Armory (•-••••)
Anonymity (•-•••••)
Amateur Linguist (•-•••) -You learn 1-3 languages of your choice.
Direction Sense • You always know which way is north

Fence (••-•••)
•• Ability to find someone to sell illegally gotten goods of great value within a large city, receive 60% of actual value
••• Ability to find a fence within smaller cities at 70% of value, or 80% of value in a large city.

You get the idea.