Tying Feats to BAB

[AnimeTheCat]

Just gauging people's thoughts on a slight system tweak I've been thinking about. Instead of having static character level feats, why not tie them to BAB instead. Also, as opposed to making them at first, third, and every three levels after, why not progress them like fighter feats, on, two, and every even BAB after.

I'm a fan of limiting the nice things that spellcasters get, and this severely delays fear progression on 1/2 BAB spellcasters while simultaneously giving full BAB characters the support they need for the bloated feat chains.

On mobile right now, but I can better explain if people still find the concept confusing.

[DeTess]

The general idea sounds decent, but you'll likely have to make a lot of case-by-case adjustments to feats specifically meant for casters, as some of those might have a minimum level.

Also, note that at the higher end of the optimization spectrum, this won't matter too much for caster/martial balance. It's quite possible to build a caster that can get 9th level spells and 16 BaB, after all.

[AnimeTheCat]

Caster level minimums shouldn't have any effect honestly. There are plenty of feats that already have BAB requirements at +8 BAB that are available to non-Fighter characters, but there's no special exemption, a character just picks it up at level 9. Also, wizards get bonus feats every 5 levels that can be used for some of those, clerics get 3/4 BAB meaning they'll get their feats at 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, etc. Which hit those caster levels either on the money, or 1 level behind. Honestly, at level 9, a cleric has the exact same number of fears as a normal feat progression cleric, but a barbarian has an additional feat by comparison. It's just a concept to help with feat bloat on the mundane side of the house since spellcasters dont honestly need it. Anything a spellcaster gets with fears is just "nice" none of it is "necessary" for a spellcaster to function, which is not the case for a martial character.

Rant done? I dunno, I'm just not too keen on bending to the benefit of a spellcaster I guess.

[OgresAreCute]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

[zlefin]

doesn't seem like the ebst way to address the problems. full casters have far less need of their feats anyways. and not affectin clerics/druids, which are already top end classes, makes it seem kinda silly.
simpler to just hand out more bonus feats to martials, or use one of the various fixes that make the martial feats better.

[AnimeTheCat]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

That doesn't negatively impact 1/2 or 3/4 BAB spellcasters though. The point is to make non-spellcasters more resource free and spellcasters more resource limited. There is more non-spellcaster feat bloat and.

I really enjoy 3.5, but one of my least favorite things about it is that spellcasters kept getting overbloated with class features that could be swapped out based on convenience (sorry bards and sorcerers... life is bad-is for you too) but non-spellcasters got bloated with options that only served the purpose of being stepping stone requirements to get to somewhat ok options, that were requirements for generally usable options. Things only got better for spellcasters as time went on, thing got arguably worse for non-spellcasters because their available resources grew (feats and meh ACFs) but their opportunities to acquire them didn't change. You have to be level 12 to get DR from your heavy armor IF you didn't multiclass into something that wasn't full BAB. If you did, sorry, wait till level 15 when it still doesn't even matter and you're just waiting your time.

Overall, the non-spellcaster support just never came (and dont say "play a martial initiator" because for the most part their whole schtick is "I hit it with my sword, with a flourish" with a few exceptions that are overly touted). A non-spellcaster never got the chance to actually leap tall buildings in a single bound. A non-spellcaster never got the ability to change the face of the battlefield, even a feat to grant a ground pound ability that changes the terrain in an X ft radius to difficult terrain would have been nice. Alas, spellcasters got beat loads more spells, non-spellcasters got more prerequisites.

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

[Nifft]

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

Spellcasters don't need any feats to be overpowered.

Sure, their feats help them power up even more, but they aren't strictly necessary.

[AnimeTheCat]

Spellcasters don't need any feats to be overpowered.

Sure, their feats help them power up even more, but they aren't strictly necessary.

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.

[Celestia]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.
That seems like a much simpler solution. Sure, it won't fix the main problem, but it would help a bit.

[Nifft]

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.

The thing is, it doesn't limit the caster. It just makes them less diverse.

A Wizard doesn't need craft wondrous item to have access to buffs or disguise illusions like disguise self, but she might take the feat in order to make those illusions available to her party mates through stuff like a Hat of Disguise.

Reducing the Wizard's feats such that she can't take item crafting screws the party more than it screws the Wizard -- and giving the Fighter 10 bonus feats doesn't allow the Fighter to craft a Hat of Disguise, so yeah. You're just screwing the whole party -- who then become primary casters to compensate for lacking custom magic items, like using a Beguiler (who can cast disguise self) instead of a Rogue with a hat.

[Celestia]

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.
You're not doing much limiting, though. With this set up, half BAB gets 5 feats, 3/4ths BAB gets 7 feats, and full BAB gets 10 feats. The arcane casters only gets the smallest of debuffs while the martials only get the smallest of buffs, and the divine casters don't even notice the change. Also, you run into the major problem of there no longer being first level feats. This is, of course, easy to solve by adding a first level feat in addition to everything, but it makes your attempted fix even more pointless. That's why it is not only easier but better to just give full BAB classes the fighter bonus feat progression. They get an extra 11 feats, and everyone else gets nothing.

[AnimeTheCat]

You're not doing much limiting, though. With this set up, half BAB gets 5 feats, 3/4ths BAB gets 7 feats, and full BAB gets 10 feats. The arcane casters only gets the smallest of debuffs while the martials only get the smallest of buffs, and the divine casters don't even notice the change. Also, you run into the major problem of there no longer being first level feats. This is, of course, easy to solve by adding a first level feat in addition to everything, but it makes your attempted fix even more pointless. That's why it is not only easier but better to just give full BAB classes the fighter bonus feat progression. They get an extra 11 feats, and everyone else gets nothing.

Correction, full BAB characters get first level feats and feats that are cheese anyway (I'm looking at precocious apprentice) are no longer available OH NOOOOO...

I see what you mean and I guess that takes this concept back to the drawing board then.

Thanks for the input everyone.

[Cosi]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said you should try buffs before nerfs. As Nifft points out, casters don't need feats to be effective. And if you do cut down on the number of feats they get, that will just cause them to focus more on the most powerful feats. The guy with Extend Spell, Persist Spell, DMM: Persist, and a fluff feat isn't going to drop DMM when you tell him he has one less feat. Feats generally provide minor bonuses that make characters more interesting, so this nerf is pretty directly making the experience of playing a caster less fun without meaningfully changing game balance.

Also, this only effects WIzards, because Clerics are secretly full BAB (go go gadget divine power) and Druids only want like one feat.


You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

Yes, this is a thing that should happen. Fighters are boring and don't do anything important. The class should be scrapped. Martials don't get enough feats. Giving all martials a free Fighter gestalt would solve both problems.


Overall, the non-spellcaster support just never came (and dont say "play a martial initiator" because for the most part their whole schtick is "I hit it with my sword, with a flourish" with a few exceptions that are overly touted). A non-spellcaster never got the chance to actually leap tall buildings in a single bound. A non-spellcaster never got the ability to change the face of the battlefield, even a feat to grant a ground pound ability that changes the terrain in an X ft radius to difficult terrain would have been nice. Alas, spellcasters got beat loads more spells, non-spellcasters got more prerequisites.

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

You're upset martials didn't get the kinds of cool abilities you thought they should, so you respond by nerfing casters? That seems not only ineffective for achieving your stated goal, but kind of spiteful as well. Instead of just trying to make the characters you like better, you've decided that the only way to fix things is to make the characters you don't like worse. Why not combine martial feats, or give a bonus feat for each point of BAB, or write feats that let you add your BAB to stuff, or any number of other things that make martials better without making casters any worse?

For example, you could add a feat like this:

Earthshaker
Benefit: Terrain in a radius of 5ft per point of BAB around you is considered difficult terrain. You may make attacks of opportunity in this radius as if you were in any square in the radius. You may make an additional attack of opportunity each round for each point of BAB you possess.

That would make martial characters substantially better at influencing the battlefield, and wouldn't make casters any worse. Why not just write up a dozen or so feats like that for all the cool things you wish martials could do?

[AnimeTheCat]

Cosi, I get where you're coming from. You're coming from an equally sound point of "make everyone competitive at the highest level of play", I'm coming from a different viewpoint of "make the highest levels and the lowest levels of play competitive in a comfortable middle ground level of play". I understand that I could rewrite over half the game and reconstruct every full BAB, mundane player class, but at that point I would rather write my own game system entirely with completely different mechanics.

The reason that "just buff martials" does not work is because magic is multiverse altering and no matter how high you jump, how hard you punch, or how fast you walk, you're never going to alter the multiverse. That's how I see it. To balance things to an even playing field, you need to remove some of the universe shaking, eternity altering power that comes with a full spellcaster. I know you dont like hearing that, but that's my opinion.

I didn't state the specific goals i had in mind for this tweak because i was on mobile and formatting is a pain on mobile. Overall, my desire is to limit feats on spellcasters and grant more feats to non-spellcasters. The most organic way I could think of was to link fears to BAB so that more non-casters could take more feat chains and so that you might see more than barbarian 2 on a character sheet.

An additional adjustment could be to grant all classes without spellcasting progression full BAB, grant 3/4 BAB to 1-6 level spellcasters, and 1/2 BAB to all 1-9 level spellcasting classes. That really slows the roll of a DMM cleric, a summoner druid, and a lot of wizard builds to name a few.

My desired point of balance is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, yours is a 12. It's fine that you like playing up there, I dont. I'm not a fan of rocket tag, cat and mouse contingency games.

As I said, back to the drawing board.

[KillianHawkeye]

One of the games that I play in, we're doing a Feat for every point of BAB gained. It really opens up some options for more Feat-intensive fighting styles, and even allows us to try some things we wouldn't normally try. But we like Feats a lot. We think everyone should have more of them.

My character in that game is a Hexblade (a class I've never tried before that just happens to have full BAB), and I've been taking several of those Combat Form Feats from PHB2 (which would normally take up most or all of the feats a normal character would get, so isn't usually worth doing). Now, because of my personal choices, he isn't the strongest character on the team, but he is interesting and fun to play and that's mainly because the rule we're using lets me do something I've never done before.

Don't settle for half measures! Give Feats for every point of BAB!

[Cosi]

Cosi, I get where you're coming from. You're coming from an equally sound point of "make everyone competitive at the highest level of play", I'm coming from a different viewpoint of "make the highest levels and the lowest levels of play competitive in a comfortable middle ground level of play". I understand that I could rewrite over half the game and reconstruct every full BAB, mundane player class, but at that point I would rather write my own game system entirely with completely different mechanics.

That's orthogonal to the point I'm making. I'm not saying (in this specific context) that you shouldn't nerf Wizards. I'm saying that your logic doesn't follow. "I wish Fighters could ground-pound people" is not a reason for nerfing Wizards. Things like "it doesn't matter if the party has a Fighter when every fight ends with the enemies locked down" or "Clerics can perform better than Fighters as front-line combatants" or "blasters deal single target damage more effectively than Fighters do" are all reasons to nerf Wizards. But "I wish Fighters were better" is not. That's a reason to buff Fighters.


The reason that "just buff martials" does not work is because magic is multiverse altering and no matter how high you jump, how hard you punch, or how fast you walk, you're never going to alter the multiverse. That's how I see it. To balance things to an even playing field, you need to remove some of the universe shaking, eternity altering power that comes with a full spellcaster. I know you dont like hearing that, but that's my opinion.

Yes. That is why "does not do magic" is a low level concept. If you cannot see a way for the Fighter to replicate plane shift or teleport, then Fighter is a class that is 8 levels long. There's no actual reason you can't both use plane shift and an axe -- Thor does exactly that in Infinity War. You can't solve the problem with nerfs, because the problem is that you have defined certain characters as not having abilities that are established parts of the setting.

But even if we acknowledge that your goal is reasonable, it's obvious that this plan is not going to work. One feat per two points of BAB puts martials up one feat per six levels and casters down one feat per twelve levels. That's just totally irrelevant. It's not solving the problem you have, it's not a serious impact, and it makes characters less interesting. This is exactly how you don't solve a problem.

[Nifft]

One of the games that I play in, we're doing a Feat for every point of BAB gained. It really opens up some options for more Feat-intensive fighting styles, and even allows us to try some things we wouldn't normally try. But we like Feats a lot. We think everyone should have more of them.

My character in that game is a Hexblade (a class I've never tried before that just happens to have full BAB), and I've been taking several of those Combat Form Feats from PHB2 (which would normally take up most or all of the feats a normal character would get, so isn't usually worth doing). Now, because of my personal choices, he isn't the strongest character on the team, but he is interesting and fun to play and that's mainly because the rule we're using lets me do something I've never done before.

Don't settle for half measures! Give Feats for every point of BAB!

So half-BAB full-casters would get slightly accelerated feats (Pathfinder progression), and full-BAB mostly-not-casters would get double that?

Yeah that would be cool.

Not a nerf for anyone, but a nice thing that's somewhat nicer for non-casters.

[Crichton]

That's orthogonal to the point I'm making. I'm not saying (in this specific context) that you shouldn't nerf Wizards. I'm saying that your logic doesn't follow. "I wish Fighters could ground-pound people" is not a reason for nerfing Wizards. Things like "it doesn't matter if the party has a Fighter when every fight ends with the enemies locked down" or "Clerics can perform better than Fighters as front-line combatants" or "blasters deal single target damage more effectively than Fighters do" are all reasons to nerf Wizards. But "I wish Fighters were better" is not. That's a reason to buff Fighters.



Yes. That is why "does not do magic" is a low level concept. If you cannot see a way for the Fighter to replicate plane shift or teleport, then Fighter is a class that is 8 levels long. There's no actual reason you can't both use plane shift and an axe -- Thor does exactly that in Infinity War. You can't solve the problem with nerfs, because the problem is that you have defined certain characters as not having abilities that are established parts of the setting.

But even if we acknowledge that your goal is reasonable, it's obvious that this plan is not going to work. One feat per two points of BAB puts martials up one feat per six levels and casters down one feat per twelve levels. That's just totally irrelevant. It's not solving the problem you have, it's not a serious impact, and it makes characters less interesting. This is exactly how you don't solve a problem.


Cosi, thank you for putting far more eloquently than I could, exactly how I've been feeling this whole thread.

AnimeTheCat, you could give Fighters a feat at every level and their normal bonus feats to boot, and take away a wizards feats entirely, and you still wouldn't have solved the problem you claim to want to solve. You can buff a Fighter's mundane ability all day long, but until you give them magic or something that does some of what magic does, they're a low power class compared to casters. You can try to nerf casters, but by the time you've stripped away 3/4 of their spells and other abilities, no one is going to want to play them.

I'm not saying you haven't identified a problem, but you certainly haven't found a solution. Or even 12% of a solution.


(Truthfully, I don't think you have a problem here at all. I don't find the 'quadratic wizard, linear' fighter thing to be a problem. Rather, it's an intentional design decision, baked into the very core of 3.5. And as for my personal opinion, which doesn't invalidate yours, I think people are far too quick to swing the nerf-hammer at casters.)

[Zancloufer]

I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB.

Also I really think 95% of the non-spell-caster/Meta-Magic feats that are "Epic" could probably have the requirements dropped to the point that level 6-14 characters could qualify for them.

[KillianHawkeye]

So half-BAB full-casters would get slightly accelerated feats (Pathfinder progression), and full-BAB mostly-not-casters would get double that?

Yeah that would be cool.

Not a nerf for anyone, but a nice thing that's somewhat nicer for non-casters.

For the sake of full disclosure, my group had already been doing Feats every odd level and Ability Score increases every even level for a while before we tried the Feats at every BAB increase game. So Wizards and other poor BAB classes were more or less unaffected while everyone else just got more Feats to play with.

[Nifft]

I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB. I recall seeing this idea before, and I like it.

Have there been any notably good full re-writes?


For the sake of full disclosure, my group had already been doing Feats every odd level and Ability Score increases every even level for a while before we tried the Feats at every BAB increase game. So Wizards and other poor BAB classes were more or less unaffected while everyone else just got more Feats to play with. Sounds awesome.

In combo with the "feats get better with BAB" thinking, giving more feats with BAB seems like a reasonable way to get some mildly quadratic value for Fighter-types. Won't solve the issue of combat feats lacking utility, but it's a step in the right direction.

[Manyasone]

At the risk of threading on the toes of nay-sayers, this is the exact reason why my next campaign will be a Spherefinder campaign. I find that both systems make the caster/martial endless discussions nigh obsolete. I mean sure casters will be able to do things martials can't but here at least martials also get nice things

[Crichton]

... sure casters will be able to do things martials can't but here at least martials also get nice things

And that's how it should be. Balance is too much to ask for, but variety, well, if all classes could do the same things, they'd just be one class. As long as every class gets nice things, and all the players have fun, you all win!

[StreamOfTheSky]

I strongly dislike how PF added (or increased) BAB requirements for numerous martial feats, and how it hurt medium BAB martials like the rogue and monk.

Your basic premise of giving more feats for higher BAB would trouble me for the same reasons.
Would you nerf primary casters all down to 1/2 BAB, or would clerics, druids, etc... still have the same number of feats as the rogues and monks?

[Fizban]

Looks like I'm seeing two different arguments here. One is about the fix in the OP, and one is about something completely different. The OPost doesn't seem to suggest that this is supposed to be some massive fix, but the OPoster derailed themself and everyone jumped on that instead.

Trimming caster feats is good if you want to trim caster feats. Giving all full BAB classes faster feats is good if you want them to have faster feats, though this does make the Warblade problem even worse. Considering that even the more conservative caster feats tend to be ridiculous over time, trimming/delaying caster feats is a significant reduction in power, period. Getting 6 at 20th instead of 7 at 18th is pretty significant, and more so when you look at anything but 20th. At least for wizards, since the divine casters all get 3/8 instead of 1/3, which is actually an increase, and before you account for the extra 5 feats wizards get because reasons.

So the quick fix is a bit of a bust, simply because it's not big enough.

[liquidformat]

An additional adjustment could be to grant all classes without spellcasting progression full BAB, grant 3/4 BAB to 1-6 level spellcasters, and 1/2 BAB to all 1-9 level spellcasting classes. That really slows the roll of a DMM cleric, a summoner druid, and a lot of wizard builds to name a few.

My desired point of balance is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, yours is a 12. It's fine that you like playing up there, I dont. I'm not a fan of rocket tag, cat and mouse contingency games.

As I said, back to the drawing board.

Ya no reason to be mean to rogues, monks, and so forth because you have an issue magic...


I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB.

Also I really think 95% of the non-spell-caster/Meta-Magic feats that are "Epic" could probably have the requirements dropped to the point that level 6-14 characters could qualify for them.
Ya I was about to suggest this, getting rid of feat tax and letting things like TWF and Spring Attack scale with BAB is a good start. Hell Throw Two-Weapon Defense into TWF and double the bonus you receive at each progression and it still isn't over powered.

A lot of the 'mundane' feats you get at epic level should have been given some where between level 5-15 or can be gotten through PRCs. Take Combat Archery for example, what not triggering AOOs with a bow in melee, gee that would have been great back at level 5 when I took that prc that gave me that oh wait I did do that...

Honestly I at level 10-20 you should be getting feats like a ground pound that knocks everyone around you prone if they fail their check and makes the area difficult terrain for everyone but you. Or firing a whole group of arrows to deal damage as an AOE attack. By the time they are in epic levels the melee guy should be splitting mountains with his every swing and the archer should be capable of firing his bow once and killing an entire army, or be able to accurately kill people from miles away with a single shot. Another major problem I see is damage scaling for mundanes, honestly you shouldn't have to be an uber charger to be dishing out high damage.

Also there are easier ways to nerf spell casters than to restrict their feats. Take wizard for example, if you take away their 'free' spells each level and instead enforce the 100gp/page for all spells then you dramatically reduced their versatility. For clerics you can directly tie their experience gain to acts that further the cause of the deity they supposedly represent and similar with druids. This way being a murder hobo only gains experience for clerics of very specific gods. Nerfing beguilers, sorceresses and other such classes is a bit harder since there isn't as obvious a mechanism but it is possible.

[Nifft]

Just give Rogues & Monks & etc. full BAB, and think about giving Clerics & Druids half BAB.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Just give Rogues & Monks & etc. full BAB, and think about giving Clerics & Druids half BAB.

So Medium BAB only continues to exist for like...Bards and other 6-level casters?

[Nifft]

So Medium BAB only continues to exist for like...Bards and other 6-level casters?

Sure, that sounds reasonable.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sure, that sounds reasonable.

Plenty of those in PF. In 3E, there wouldn't be that many. Bard, Psychic Warrior, uh...Lurk i think?
Where would Warlocks, Binders and Incarnum classes factor in? Assuming Totemist and Incarnate get a bump in their BABs, and Soulborn....continues to be forgotten. Binder and Warlock probably stay medium...

Still, I try to resist to the temptation to just make all non-magic classes full BAB. Feels like admitting defeat. Should be able to have medium BAB martials with class features to make up for it and still be playable. Swordsage sort of is, but practically cheats (the "non-magic" qualifier) w/ all the Su maneuvers, and even then it's still bar none the weakest of the three ToB classes. Granted, part of that is because WR Tactics is worth more all on its own than half of the swordsage class :smallbiggrin:

[Zancloufer]

I recall seeing this idea before, and I like it.

Have there been any notably good full re-writes?


http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?482763-Fixing-the-sub-par-feats

Blah. I might have a slightly more up to date version I could post somewhere later if there is still interest in it. The jist of it was going through the SRD and buffing the mundane "Epic Feats" and making them available pre-epic and rolling most of the Improved/Greater versions of feats together but making their effect BaB dependent.

[liquidformat]

What about duskblade, they only go up to 5th level spells but have a ton of them and full bab. Would they get to keep their full bab, casting, and get huge jump in feat count? That type of benefit might be enough to bump them up a tier.
On the flip side it also gimps dread necromancers, their standard shtick for the first 8 levels is now a lot less functional.

[Archiplex]

A system of punishment and limitations will only feel worse for players;
Casters deserve to have their power stripped, but unfortunately that will be almost impossible to fly in an established medium where a good chunk of people enjoy playing casters.

Also, too many feats are tied to the assumption of character level; How are you going to handle feats like Item Creation if a caster will only get them at level 2, 4 and then every 4 levels after that?

[Cosi]

Granted, part of that is because WR Tactics is worth more all on its own than half of the swordsage class :smallbiggrin:

Part of it is also that they have bar none the worst recovery mechanic of any of the classes. Warblades and Crusaders can reasonably expect to use the same maneuver twice in a fight in a way that Swordsages can't.


What about duskblade, they only go up to 5th level spells but have a ton of them and full bab. Would they get to keep their full bab, casting, and get huge jump in feat count? That type of benefit might be enough to bump them up a tier.
On the flip side it also gimps dread necromancers, their standard shtick for the first 8 levels is now a lot less functional.

Yes, "magic user who fights" is supposed to be a supported archetype. There are like three different base classes dedicated to it, and god knows how many PrCs and ACFs. This is part of why nerfs don't really work as a balance solution.


A system of punishment and limitations will only feel worse for players;

This is true. Trying to fix an imbalance by making things worse is not fun. People dislike punishments more than they like rewards. If your problem is that martials are too weak, buff martials. The idea of giving a feat for every point of BAB is an entirely reasonable one. It's not going to do much, because feats are mostly bad, but it's a solution that doesn't make anyone feel bad.


Casters deserve to have their power stripped

I don't particularly think this is true. Certainly, there are things casters can do which are too good (polymorph, planar binding) which should be nerfed. But there are also things that casters can do which are not good enough (blasting), or which are reasonably balanced (BFC, buffs, SoL, most spells people cast in combat), or which interact with an unfinished minigame (all the wealth creation spells). As a result, attempts to nerf "casters" are almost inherently misguided. You can make a convincing case that the Wizard needs nerfs, particularly if that means "changes to specific spells". It is much harder to make that case for the Warmage or the Healer.

[Crichton]

Trying to fix an imbalance by making things worse is not fun.

THIS!!!!


People dislike punishments more than they like rewards.

THIS TOO!!!!


If your problem is that martials are too weak, buff martials.

AND THIS!


I like Cosi. I think we could be friends

[AnimeTheCat]

This is true. Trying to fix an imbalance by making things worse is not fun. People dislike punishments more than they like rewards. If your problem is that martials are too weak, buff martials. The idea of giving a feat for every point of BAB is an entirely reasonable one. It's not going to do much, because feats are mostly bad, but it's a solution that doesn't make anyone feel bad.

I don't particularly think this is true. Certainly, there are things casters can do which are too good (polymorph, planar binding) which should be nerfed. But there are also things that casters can do which are not good enough (blasting), or which are reasonably balanced (BFC, buffs, SoL, most spells people cast in combat), or which interact with an unfinished minigame (all the wealth creation spells). As a result, attempts to nerf "casters" are almost inherently misguided. You can make a convincing case that the Wizard needs nerfs, particularly if that means "changes to specific spells". It is much harder to make that case for the Warmage or the Healer.


THIS!!!!

THIS TOO!!!!

AND THIS!

I like Cosi. I think we could be friends

All I have to say is that your gaming groups must be a group of power gamers. That's not bad, just not something I care for.

I dont think the game, as a whole, is balanced around the power level that a highly optimized wizard brings to the table. I do think that the game, again as a whole, is balanced around a party of moderately optimized different character filling different roles. Bringing classes on the outliers of that spectrum closer to that in-game balance point will come in the form of enhancements to the lower spectrum and penalties to the higher spectrum.

If you honestly think that the only way to balance the game is to buff the lower end until it is the same as the higher end, this isn't the thread for you and I encourage you to move on. This started as a thread to discuss a change that would inherently limit more powerful classes while simultaneously enhancing less powerful classes. By refusing to limit the more powerful classes, you dont really hold anything of value to a conversation about compromise in a middle ground that involves both buffing and nerfing.


If your problem is that martials are too weak, buff martials.
You've said this a lot so I'll target it specifically. I think that non-magical characters are distinctly less powerful. I also think magical characters are distinctly too powerful within the parameters of the game. I think that non-magical characters need to be enhanced and magical characters need to be restricted. I dont think it is appropriate in any game system for there to exist a class that can do literally everything and has no need for a party. It undermines the fabric of a party-based rpg. Each class needs to have limitations, otherwise 3.5e happens.

[Cosi]

All I have to say is that your gaming groups must be a group of power gamers.

No. That is not the case. If we were power gamers, we'd be taking the dogmatic stance that neither Fighters nor Wizards be changed. The debate here is about how to address the power imbalance that manifestly exists.


I dont think the game, as a whole, is balanced around the power level that a highly optimized wizard brings to the table.

I genuinely don't understand how you can believe this. Lets take a look at some CR 14 monsters. The Trumpet Archon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/archon.htm#trumpetArchon) casts as a 14th level Cleric and is also an Archon. How do you look at that and say that it indicates that casters aren't the expected balance point? A Mature Adult Black Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#blackDragon) has more than one and a half times the HD of a 14th level martial character, HD that are individually better than any printed class, a seven-attack full attack, flight, a AoE that can kill the Fighter in a couple of hits, and enough casting to potentially counter some of the few tactics a Barbarian has that beat it at all (not to mention treasure). How do you look at that and say that it indicates that martials are the expected balance point?

The expected balance point of the game is not a philosophical question. It is empirical one, and the evidence is clear -- monsters pay no substantial penalty for level appropriate casting, and monsters that are expected to fight physically have abilities far beyond their PC counterparts. We can argue about whether that implies a balance point we like, but it is very clear that the expectations placed on characters are categorically closer to Wizards than Fighters.


I do think that the game, again as a whole, is balanced around a party of moderately optimized different character filling different roles.

So to be clear, the difference between a "highly optimized" Wizard and a "moderately optimized" Wizard is that the "moderately optimized" one gets one less feat every twelve levels? Not, you know, planar binding or polymorph. Just one feat.


By refusing to limit the more powerful classes, you dont really hold anything of value to a conversation about compromise in a middle ground that involves both buffing and nerfing.

I'm not against nerfs. Literally every time I've ever posted in any thread like this I've suggest that some spells need to be nerfed. I've done that in this post (albeit somewhat sarcastically). My problem is that you're blindly nerfing, and that you're nerfing something that doesn't need to be nerfed. A Wizard who doesn't abuse planar binding and instead just casts spells in combat to do things in combat is balanced. The class doesn't need substantial nerfs, a list of spells that fits on a single page does.

That said, "this direction is unproductive" is absolutely useful advice to give. If you are describing your problem as "I want martials to do cool things", and your proposal is "martials get marginally more of the non-cool things they currently do and casters are marginally less interesting" it is absolutely appropriate for people to say "not only is that plan bad, it doesn't solve your problem".


I dont think it is appropriate in any game system for there to exist a class that can do literally everything and has no need for a party.

Fortunately, such a class does not exist in 3e. It is categorically false that you can make a single Wizard which defeats the same encounters as a part of comparably powerful characters do (without using spells I also think need to be changed), and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.


Each class needs to have limitations, otherwise 3.5e happens.

3e is probably the most popular edition of D&D, and it is the only one to have a retroclone that outlasted the subsequent edition (Pathfinder). I know you meant this to sound like a bad thing, but it's like capping off your argument for why Disney shouldn't do something by saying "and then you get the Marvel Cinematic Universe" or telling Apple that their plan is a bad idea because "and then you get the iPhone".

[Crichton]

If you honestly think that the only way to balance the game is to buff the lower end until it is the same as the higher end,

I'm pretty sure I said in my earlier post quite the opposite of this: You can add all the feats to your martials that you want, but they're still a lower power class. That doesn't make them inferior to play. It makes them fill a different role in the party. I've never heard from actual players at the actual table that they felt useless next to a caster. Most of the time they're having a great time.

[AnimeTheCat]

I genuinely don't understand how you can believe this.
You misunderstood my point, which is fine, but I said A highly optimized wizard is not the balancing point. A moderately optimized PARTY is the expected balance point.



...but it is very clear that the expectations placed on characters are categorically closer to Wizards than Fighters.

I don't think the balance point is placed on individual classes or characters at all. I think it is placed on parties.


So to be clear, the difference between a "highly optimized" Wizard and a "moderately optimized" Wizard is that the "moderately optimized" one gets one less feat every twelve levels? Not, you know, planar binding or polymorph. Just one feat.

Not at all, I think it is a component of the issue. This is one piece of a greater issue that includes poorly written spells which also need to be addressed, that was beyond the scope of this topic though. Feats alone aren't fixing every one of the multitude of issues that plague the system. It doea, however, address the fact that every martial character is feat starved and can usually only barely eeke out acceptable mid-power builds unless a solar system's worth of hoops are jumped through while subsequently making more fortunate, overly bloated classes think harder about their options.


I'm not against nerfs... ... A Wizard who doesn't abuse planar binding and instead just casts spells in combat to do things in combat is balanced. The class doesn't need substantial nerfs, a list of spells that fits on a single page does.

I understand that you're not against nerfs, but the issue goes beyond just spells. A level 1 conjuration specialist can trade their familiar for an immediate action "NOPE" card. At level 1. Everyone else gets... what? It goes beyond just the spells that are an issue. It continues into the class features of the druid and the mere existence of Divine Metamagic as well. Because of DMM, a cleric fully replaces a fighter, just because. That, from a balance and design perspective, is wrong and should not happen. If a game is based on party centric activities, you should not design said game and allow classes to outclassed another classes supposed niche, especially without providing those other classes with literally anything else to do but that niche. The imbalance goes beyond a page of poorly written spells.


That said, "this direction is unproductive" is absolutely useful advice to give. If you are describing your problem as "I want martials to do cool things", and your proposal is "martials get marginally more of the non-cool things they currently do and casters are marginally less interesting" it is absolutely appropriate for people to say "not only is that plan bad, it doesn't solve your problem".

I had already conceded that though. I had already thanked for the input before you swooped in and continued badgering it. Also, what you've been saying isn't my intent. Again, this isn't the only fix I was considering, and admitidly I didn't do a good job explaining that, but I did explain it. Feats are a resource every character should want. Due to the innate power and versatility of magic, I feel as though spellcasters should get fewer feats due to not even really needing them to succeed. Non-spellcasters need more of them, partially because martial feats are bloated with useless prerequisites and as opposed to rewriting everything, I am opting for more opportunities it is to get said feats.


Fortunately, such a class does not exist in 3e. It is categorically false that you can make a single Wizard which defeats the same encounters as a part of comparably powerful characters do (without using spells I also think need to be changed), and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

Thanks to divinations, a wizard (or other full casting class) can indeed do everything. It's kind of what literally everyone talks about. Not to mention ice assasins, simulacra, etc. If they, themselves, can't do the thing, they have a spell that summons, creates, or otherwise augments them to do the ting. Need a lock picked? Got a spell for that. Nobody with trapfinding? Got a spell for that. Enemy immune to magical damage? Got a spell to make me a fighter. And any given wizard can, and likely will, know all of those. Those are no fault of the fighter, rogue, barbarian, or other similarly non-magical classes, that is a problem with the existence of low level, easily accessible magic that makes the game not fun to play for a lot of people that I know. This isn't representative of the community at large, but a large portion of the 18 hobby shops I've played at in 3 countries and 7 states.


3e is probably the most popular edition of D&D, and it is the only one to have a retroclone that outlasted the subsequent edition (Pathfinder). I know you meant this to sound like a bad thing, but it's like capping off your argument for why Disney shouldn't do something by saying "and then you get the Marvel Cinematic Universe" or telling Apple that their plan is a bad idea because "and then you get the iPhone".

I'm not arguing the legacy or popularity of 3e. Everyone who plays 3e has something to complain about though. Most of the time that is balance. To compare Apple's iPhones to this statement just misses the point I was trying to make. Lets say Apple comes out with a computer process g system that involves 11 parts. Of these parts you have 4 devices designed to brute force hack into other devices, 3 devices that are designed to fill various roles that range from brute force hacking to subtle intelligence collection or deceiving other devices, 1 that is programmable for one role and it is capable of filling that role very well, but can't be changed once programed, and 3 devices that do everything the other 8 devices do and then some. Why would customers purchase the entire suite of devices when they can just purchase one of the 3 that make the other 8 useless? When Apple moves on to make thir next run of devices, what is something they should take away from the first run? That's a more accurate comparison or anology using apple (or any other computer company).

@Drysdan: Google search or look around these forums. Plenty of people have posted "Help my X, the party [insert caster] is way stonger" or similar. There are plenty of scenarios where non-casters have felt useless or overshadowed by casters and have come asking for help.

[liquidformat]

If you honestly think that the only way to balance the game is to buff the lower end until it is the same as the higher end, this isn't the thread for you and I encourage you to move on. This started as a thread to discuss a change that would inherently limit more powerful classes while simultaneously enhancing less powerful classes. By refusing to limit the more powerful classes, you don't really hold anything of value to a conversation about compromise in a middle ground that involves both buffing and nerfing.


The problem is your 'nerfing' and 'buffing' of giving mundanes more feats and spell casters less feats is fallacious. If you make a level 20 Wizard with no feats from number of hd and a level 20 Fighter who gains a feat at each hd, guess who is the more powerful character. I will give you a hint, it still isn't the fighter, heck it is questionable if you have even narrowed the gap. The problem is largely that feats are not powerful enough to make up for the difference in class features, fighters don't suffer from a lack of feats they suffer from a lack of class features and feats available to straight fighters have already proven that they are in no way enough to narrow that gap. Your solution is like throwing a bunch of band-aids at a person who's leg was chopped off while taking band-aids away from someone that has no injuries. Sure the person with no injuries could use the band-aids eventually but they don't particularly need them. While the band-aids can barely slow down the bleeding much less stop it from the person missing a leg...

So while I agree that mundanes need help and I like getting more feats, also tier 1 and tier 2 classes could stand to have their ceiling lowered, taking away their feats doesn't do much to change the differences. Also there is more than one way to skin this cat, rather than adding more feats you can just make them better, one way is by getting rid of feat taxes such as only needing Two-weapon Fighting as a feat, by adding dex and bab requirements to the original feat to gain further iterative attacks. You can also use this combining to make them more powerful for certain classes, here is an example:

Weapon Focus now is combined with greater weapon focus so you add another point of attack bonus once you hit 8 bab. A fighter who takes this feat receives the benefits of Weapon Specialization at fighter 4, of greater weapon focus at fighter 6, of weapon mastery at level 8, of Greater Weapon Specialization at fighter 10, and of Weapon Supremacy at level 12. A character with a special feature allowing them to stack levels of other classes with fighter for the purpose of qualifying for fighter feats also gains this progression based on their effective fighter level. By making this change you have made weapon focus much more powerful, reduced needless feat taxes, incentivized using a mundane class, and using feats that let other mundanes gain benefits from stacking their levels with fighter.

This can easily be done with other feats too. Lets take above mentioned Two-weapon fighting, we combine it with multiweapon fighting and the iteratives of both, so now if you remove some of the ambiguous nature of the two feats interactions with each other and a character with this feats gains an extra attack with each iterative as long as they meet the dex threshold. now for the incentiving, by adding in the bonuses gained by two-weapon defense if you take this feat as a fighter or receive it from ranger levels and explicitly let ranger and fighter levels (maybe some prcs like tempest too) stack to determine shield bonus. If that isn't a big enough bonus for taking mundanes maybe increase the defense bonuses gained, or add reflex saves or something.

The next thing that would be helpful is looking at homebrew feat and or PRC creation. To go along with two weapon fighting maybe making a spell blocker feat, something like the following:

Spell Breaker
Prerequisite
Dex 16, Two-Weapon Fighting, gain shielding bonus from the two-weapon fighting feat, Combat Reflexes, BAB +X

Benefit
A character with Spell Breaker who is targeted by a spell can if they choose use one of their AOO's as an immediate action to strike the spell targeted at them in attempts to break it. The result from their attack roll is used in place of a spell resistance check to block the spell. Due to the brute force of this method as well as the extreme accuracy needed to blocking spells the character takes a penalty to this attack of Y.

Spell Breaker works on any spell that spell resistance is effective on and is applied after touch attacks succeed but before any saves are made.

Special
This feat can not be taken by a character with more than four levels of spell casting(add in wording to restrict binders, warlocks, and whatever else), and is immediately lost with no way to replace or retrain by any character that gains more than 4 levels of spell casting.
(adding max 4th level spell casting to not screw over, paladins, rangers, and hexblades, they deserve nice things too!)

Spell Reflection
Prerequisite
Spell Breaker, BAB +X

Benefit
When a character with spell breaker scores a critical during their spell breaking attempt they instead reflect the spell back onto the caster.

Special
This feat can not be taken by a character with more than four levels of spell casting(add in wording to restrict binders, warlocks, and whatever else), and is immediately lost with no way to replace or retrain by any character that gains more than 4 levels of spell casting.

Ground Smash
Prerequisite
Power Attack, BAB +x, Weapon Focus (bludgeoning)

Benefit
By smashing the ground in front of him a character with ground Smash sends out a wave of earth in a 15' cone in front of him. Anyone caught within this wave must succeed a reflex save or fall prone, the DC of which is equal to the attack roll made by the character initiating the ground smash. Ground smash turns the ground within the 15' cone into difficult terrain, the character does not trigger an AOO by performing a ground Smash.

Special
This feat can not be taken by a character with more than four levels of spell casting(add in wording to restrict binders, warlocks, and whatever else), and is immediately lost with no way to replace or retrain by any character that gains more than 4 levels of spell casting.

[Troacctid]

I agree with Cosi, broadly speaking.

I also want to add that I think one of the main goals for a balance fix should be to increase build diversity. Taking away feats (probably the foremost vehicle for character customization!) does the opposite of that.


3e is probably the most popular edition of D&D, and it is the only one to have a retroclone that outlasted the subsequent edition (Pathfinder). I know you meant this to sound like a bad thing, but it's like capping off your argument for why Disney shouldn't do something by saying "and then you get the Marvel Cinematic Universe" or telling Apple that their plan is a bad idea because "and then you get the iPhone".
5e is much more popular than any other edition of D&D (or any other TRPG on the market in general).

[death390]

i honestly don't agree that the idea would solve ANY problem. turning wizards into feat @1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 simply means that they lose out on 1 feat over the course of the game and sometimes the delay will be beneficial to them.

meanwhile you run into the fact that the druid is a 3/4 Bab class so thier feats would be on 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 19 overall gaining 1 extra feat over the course a net gain. (though timing may be screwed up for some later feats)

with the cleric a 3/4 Bab class get 1 extra ACF's can make it more powerful. Golarion ACF for cleric boosts them to 1 BaB/lvl. so they now get an extra 4 feats. Duskblade while it can really use some help since it IS a gish in a can get a base 1 Bab/lvl as well. the trade off are the 2 domains which while it is pretty major can be suplemented with PrC and more feats could be worth it for a specific build.

bard 3/4 bab gets 1 extra feat.

sorcerer is the only one that really gets hit hard by this losing 1 feat, having no good Class features other than spellcasting (which is very good) but they can get 8 total feats by using the battle sorcerer ACF to get 3/4 Bab. -1 spell slot -1 spells known; but also gets proficiency in 1 light/1-h martial melee weapon proficiency, light armor proficiency, and cast without ACF in light armor. not the best version but servicable.

[Pleh]

Still, I try to resist to the temptation to just make all non-magic classes full BAB. Feels like admitting defeat. Should be able to have medium BAB martials with class features to make up for it and still be playable.

Hm. But the OP is suggesting feat progression be tied to BAB. The Rogue was wanting to stack attacks (probably through TWF) to optimize their DPS from Sneak Attack. What are exactly the things they need? Well, Full BAB makes all their attacks hit more often and now it actually gives them the number of bonus feats they need to pick up a few extra attacks per round.

Meanwhile, the monk is in the same boat as the rogue, but they're still talking with the DM about lifting the alignment restrictions so they can take SLT Barbarian dip.

My point is, 3/4 bab martials were already struggling to stay combat relevant for missing full bab and having generally heavier feat taxes that ultimately don't compare with THF anyway.

You better have some stinking good ideas as to how their class features are going to compensate for misding out on extra feats they already desperately need.

[Cosi]

You misunderstood my point, which is fine, but I said A highly optimized wizard is not the balancing point. A moderately optimized PARTY is the expected balance point.

A party is comprised of characters. Talking about the balance point of individual characters in that party just makes things simpler. Frankly, if we are talking about a party as a whole, the situation of "Wizard does everything, Fighter does nothing" should be totally acceptable to you -- that still results in a party that solves an appropriate number of problems. Your point is only coherent if you believe the power of individual characters is relevant.


This is one piece of a greater issue that includes poorly written spells which also need to be addressed, that was beyond the scope of this topic though.

No it's not. Fixing those is a higher priority (in that regardless of what you do with feats, casters are still broken with RAW planar binding), so your assumption should be that they are fixed. And if they are fixed, casters are balanced. If you want to nerf Wizards by reducing the number of feats they get, you need to explain why they're broken specifically for getting the number of feats they do. Why is it impossible to challenge a Wizard who gets Improved Initiative, Extend Spell, and Craft Wondrous Item but possible to challenge one who only gets Improved Initiative and Extend Spell?


It doea, however, address the fact that every martial character is feat starved and can usually only barely eeke out acceptable mid-power builds unless a solar system's worth of hoops are jumped through while subsequently making more fortunate, overly bloated classes think harder about their options.

So it solves an actual issue martials have, but then we also have to make casters worse because ... reasons. "Martials don't get enough feats" is a real problem that deserves a serious solution. Your reason for nerfing casters, on the other hand, is basically spite "they're too good, so anything that makes them less good must be good design". There are lots of solutions in this thread that make martials better without making casters any worse (Fighter Gestalt, feat for every point of BAB). Why not implement one of those? They're more substantive buffs, and they don't make anyone's character less effective.


A level 1 conjuration specialist can trade their familiar for an immediate action "NOPE" card.

Well, that has absolutely nothing to do with feats, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. In any case, while that ability is powerful, it's not as impressive as people usually claim. It's not clear to me that the interpretation where they lose their action entirely is correct, and it's not great against ranged attacks. Also, it's one specific ability so it doesn't necessitate changing the Wizard as a whole any more than iron heart surge is a reason that the Warblade class needs to be changed.


It continues into the class features of the druid and the mere existence of Divine Metamagic as well. Because of DMM, a cleric fully replaces a fighter, just because. That, from a balance and design perspective, is wrong and should not happen.

I could be persuaded that Wild Shape falls under the same kind of broken as polymorph. The fact that the Fighter is outclassed by Persistent divine power or an animal companion seems like more of a problem with the Fighter than those abilities. All divine power does is buff the Cleric's chassis up to the Fighter's. If that's enough to replace the entire Fighter class, that suggests to me that the Fighter class wasn't good enough to begin with. It takes a lot more work to replace e.g. a Warblade.


The imbalance goes beyond a page of poorly written spells.

I didn't say that was all the imbalance. I said that was all the parts of the Wizard that were overpowered. Certainly there are other problems. The Fighter's only class features are feats, and it has no non-combat abilities. But those are problems with classes that aren't the Wizard, and should be fixed by buffing those classes. What possible nerfs can you inflict on the Wizard to give the Fighter relevant non-combat abilities?


Thanks to divinations, a wizard (or other full casting class) can indeed do everything.

Spending some of your spell slots to spend your remaining spell slots more efficiently seems like an entirely reasonable thing to be doing.


Not to mention ice assasins, simulacra, etc.

Yes, let's not mention them, because I already said they needed to be nerfed.


When Apple moves on to make thir next run of devices, what is something they should take away from the first run?

The things that don't measure up to spec. You know, like the Fighter.


I also want to add that I think one of the main goals for a balance fix should be to increase build diversity. Taking away feats (probably the foremost vehicle for character customization!) does the opposite of that.

Yes. This is something I alluded to earlier. Most caster builds (particularly the optimized ones OP presumably cares about) have several feats they need ASAP, and then can spend their other options on flavor (or simply "less powerful") options. If a Druid gets less feats, she's still taking Greenbound Summoning and Natural Spell -- the two feats every Druid takes. So now the already small difference between Druid builds shrinks even further.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hm. But the OP is suggesting feat progression be tied to BAB. The Rogue was wanting to stack attacks (probably through TWF) to optimize their DPS from Sneak Attack. What are exactly the things they need? Well, Full BAB makes all their attacks hit more often and now it actually gives them the number of bonus feats they need to pick up a few extra attacks per round.

Meanwhile, the monk is in the same boat as the rogue, but they're still talking with the DM about lifting the alignment restrictions so they can take SLT Barbarian dip.

My point is, 3/4 bab martials were already struggling to stay combat relevant for missing full bab and having generally heavier feat taxes that ultimately don't compare with THF anyway.

You better have some stinking good ideas as to how their class features are going to compensate for misding out on extra feats they already desperately need.

Well, the first of those ideas would be: Don't tie feat progression to BAB
:smalltongue:

[Crichton]

Ok, so here's what I see in this thread. The OP seems to have two problems. 1: He wants martials to be able to do more and better things. 2: He wants casters not to be able to do as many things as they currently can.

There are a bunch of posts above showing why and how the changing of feats isn't going to do what the OP wants, for either of those. But in his second post, he elaborates on the types of abilities he wants martials to have (ground pounding, leaping tall buildings, etc.) Adding more access to current feats can't do that, since current feats don't offer those abilities. But I agree that martials really should progress higher, and the types of things he mentions are a great start.

So lets shift gears and forget about feats for that purpose. The discussion about reducing the feat tax on chains is a great idea, but not gonna do what the OP seems to want.

I think what he needs is a pretty big rewrite of martial class abilities. Or else feats that add those sorts of powers, but that seems like more power than a feat is meant to have.


As for problem 2, well, I've made it clear that on a whole, I don't agree with that. Some spells and abilities are perhaps too much, particularly when abused, but overall, I'm against nerfs. So I'm not gonna chime in any more on that front.

[Goaty14]

Have there been any notably good full re-writes?

Some people (not me*) like the Frank & K's Tome Series (https://sites.google.com/site/middendorfproject/frankpdf) which introduce feats that tie the overall effect to things like skill ranks and BaB.

*I personally think that it's not enough of an addition to be considered a rewrite, so it awkwardly makes normal feats obsolete.

EDIT: It's pretty clear that the thread is steering away from free BaB feats, but Grod_The_Giant already did this in his Giants & Graveyards rewrite:


Feats

Bonus Feats

Certain feats are granted for free when your Base Attack Bonus reaches a certain level, as shown on the table below. You do not need to meet the normal prerequisites. If you would be granted a feat you already possess, you may instead learn one fighter bonus feat (for which you must meet the prerequisites)



Base Attack Bonus
Free Feats


+1
Combat Expertise



Improved Shield Bash



Improved Unarmed Strike



Power Attack



Precise Shot



Rapid Reload



Quick Draw


+6
Blind Fight



Improved Two-Weapon Fighting* (Two-Weapon Fighting)



Weapon Specialization* (Weapon Focus)


+11
Bounding Assault* (PHB 2) (Spring Attack)



Greater Two-Weapon Fighting* (Two-Weapon Fighting)



Greater Weapon Focus* (Weapon Focus)



Whirlwind Attack


+16
Greater Weapon Specialization* (Weapon Focus)



Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting* (Two-Weapon Fighting)


Starred feats are only granted if you already possess the prerequisite feat, listed in parenthesis. If you gain the prerequisite feat at a later date, you are automatically awarded any subsequent feats you would have been granted. In addition, Track and Darkstalker are granted automatically once you have a certain number of skill ranks, as described above.