Breaking Feat Chains

[Luccan]

As I'm preparing to possibly run more 3.5 for my group, I'm toying with the idea of removing feat chains. This mostly came about from looking through the PHB feats, so do let me know if this breaks the game entirely outside that. Feat chains are considered something of a tax, particularly on martials. Often the feat you want most requires several other feats be acquired first. In many cases, those feats don't interact with each other at all. For instance, most feats that require Combat Expertise don't actually do anything related to Combat Expertise as a feat. Are there any drawbacks to just removing these unnecessary feat requirements and allowing some, perhaps most, feats to be taken as long as other prereqs are met? Obviously feats that interact with or improve on their prerequisite are one thing, but if I really wanted to take Cleave without taking Power Attack, is there any reason I shouldn't be able to?

[Condé]

Just my 2 cents here.

Just... Do what you want. That's your game, if you know you group and everyone is okay with it and/or is asking for it, sure, why not? I mean, you are no WotC, you are not trying to "fix" the game for everyone. I mean, it won't shatter the earth or break your game at your table if you allow people to take feats without some pre-req.

I'm sure it is exploitable. But if you have confiance in your players, they won't make some crazy combo to break your game for no reason.

Getting Cleave without Power Attack, Axespike without Weapon Focus: Armor spike, or Improved Sunder for Dire flail smash is not going to make a difference. (Or not so much of a difference) In fact, it will maybe encourage your players taking feats you don't see often because of too many taxes AND to play another races than human because of the bonus feat.

Just be careful what you allow, because some feats could be potentially really good at early level and feat taxes are also made to be not reachable by most character at early levels. But, since it is for your table only, just go case by case with what your players are asking and I thin you'll be fine.

Do not worry too much about it.

[bekeleven]

Most mundane feats are worth only a fraction of the best feats in the game. There's loads of fixes for it, from Elephant in the Room to my own feat points (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637095-Feat-Points-The-Resurrection) fix. If you want the bare minimum simplest fix: Just say 2 fighter feats are 1 feat.

[pabelfly]

There's a blog post that discusses this: https://michaeliantorno.com/feat-taxes-in-pathfinder/ You might find it interesting.

- Depending on the players, it will allow them to make more powerful characters, or give them spare feats they can invest into non-combat parts of their character, depending on the taste and sensibility of your players, as well as their system mastery.
- The effect greatly depends on the level you typically play at. Lessening feat taxes can greatly ramp up a martial character's power at low-level, where they don't really need it, and have far less effect at higher level, where they do.

I've done something similar when I've run games (I instead gave Fighter bonus feats to a bunch of weaker martial classes), and would do it again when I run games in the future.

[AsuraKyoko]

I will throw in my voice for mentioning Elephant in the room, since not only does it go a long way towards eliminating feat taxes, it also rolls weaker feats together into stronger ones, and makes things like Power Attack into options every character has access to once they have a BAB of 1 or higher.

That being said, I'm intrigued by the idea of just throwing out feat prerequisites altogether (except for the ones that obviously build on each other, such as cleave -> great cleave). I'll have to take a look at things and see what could break, but I'm tentatively wanting to try it out and see what happens.

[tyckspoon]

Obviously feats that interact with or improve on their prerequisite are one thing, but if I really wanted to take Cleave without taking Power Attack, is there any reason I shouldn't be able to?

Broadly speaking, no. The other reason feat chains are made is to kind of soft level-gate certain parts of the chain - if there is a feat that requires 2 other pre-reqs, then you will normally not get access to it until level 6. The downside of this is that if you haven't been building to take that chain, then if you start it 'late' you are taking level 1 or 3 appropriate abilities when you should be taking level 6, 9, or 12 appropriate feats.

..so if you're removing the pre-req chains, just.. actually put a level requirement on feats that deserve them, either by BAB or by actual character level. A Fighter's 'benefit' of completing chains early by having extra feats could become a class feature that makes them count as +3 levels for meeting feat requirements.

[liquidformat]

As far as I can tell feat chains were really created just to make fighter feel useful rather than actually fixing the fighter class. Here is what I have done to adjust feats (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pFwSVo331SLpKZRV_1utDb_IBKt4lwNtXlPgEgpjX8w/edit?usp=sharing) I made some like power attack, research, and run into things you automatically get as long as you qualify then also updated a lot of feats so they stay useful. So you take one feat for two weapon fighting and spring attack rather than three.

[Telonius]

Broadly speaking, no. The other reason feat chains are made is to kind of soft level-gate certain parts of the chain - if there is a feat that requires 2 other pre-reqs, then you will normally not get access to it until level 6. The downside of this is that if you haven't been building to take that chain, then if you start it 'late' you are taking level 1 or 3 appropriate abilities when you should be taking level 6, 9, or 12 appropriate feats.

..so if you're removing the pre-req chains, just.. actually put a level requirement on feats that deserve them, either by BAB or by actual character level. A Fighter's 'benefit' of completing chains early by having extra feats could become a class feature that makes them count as +3 levels for meeting feat requirements.

This is about where I come down.

The biggest thing to watch out for, is classes and PRCs that give out later feats in the chain. Ranger is the biggest example. If you collapse Two-Weapon Fighting or Rapid Shot (two of the most commonly-mentioned feats when breaking up chains) into single feats, you ought to give them something in place of the Combat Style class features at 6 and 11. My preferred solution is to give them untyped bonuses to attack when they're using their combat style (so the character that's supposed to be best at TWF or archery, is actually best at TWF or archery). But you could throw them any archery- or TWF-related goodie, or even something unrelated but helpful.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This is about where I come down.

The biggest thing to watch out for, is classes and PRCs that give out later feats in the chain. Ranger is the biggest example. If you collapse Two-Weapon Fighting or Rapid Shot (two of the most commonly-mentioned feats when breaking up chains) into single feats, you ought to give them something in place of the Combat Style class features at 6 and 11. My preferred solution is to give them untyped bonuses to attack when they're using their combat style (so the character that's supposed to be best at TWF or archery, is actually best at TWF or archery). But you could throw them any archery- or TWF-related goodie, or even something unrelated but helpful.Decent amounts of bonus damage would work well for ranger, even if it's just +1 per ranger caster level, with multipliers for favored enemies (if any). The biggest thing about archery and TWF is the need for extra damage, and that would work nicely.

[Luccan]

This is about where I come down.

The biggest thing to watch out for, is classes and PRCs that give out later feats in the chain. Ranger is the biggest example. If you collapse Two-Weapon Fighting or Rapid Shot (two of the most commonly-mentioned feats when breaking up chains) into single feats, you ought to give them something in place of the Combat Style class features at 6 and 11. My preferred solution is to give them untyped bonuses to attack when they're using their combat style (so the character that's supposed to be best at TWF or archery, is actually best at TWF or archery). But you could throw them any archery- or TWF-related goodie, or even something unrelated but helpful.

Honestly, I was considering you pick one, then get the other combat style at 6. Still need to figure out what the big bonus at 11 would be, though. I'd also treat those feats more as "self-upgrading" at certain levels (example: you wouldn't get the benefits of Improved TWF immediately, but you wouldn't have to spend a feat on it when it would become applicable)

[Blackhawk748]

The only thing I really think of is Whirlwind attack but... That's not really a big deal. Just a neat thing for Reach Fighters to have

[StSword]

You could even go the opposite direction- turn feat chains from a tax to a bonus as scalable feats.

Say you get combat expertise at level one, and you gain new benefits as you level up until you get whirlwind attack to represent your growing combat expertise.

[RandomPeasant]

Feats have a lot of problems in 3e. Some feats (like Leadership) are too big. Some feats (like Natural Spell) are mandatory. Some feats (like Weapon Focus) are very bad. Some feats (like Martial Weapon Proficiency) should probably be things you can get during an adventure, without leveling up. Feat chains are an issue because they lock out certain character concepts, but even if you remove that you have the problem of feats being a very large commitment, which can cause issues. I don't think there's a perfect general fix, but my preferred quick fix is to give people a bonus feat at every level in addition to their regular feats (maybe with some caveat/veto if people insist on using it to get good feats three times as fast). But there's a lot further you can go.


Decent amounts of bonus damage would work well for ranger, even if it's just +1 per ranger caster level, with multipliers for favored enemies (if any). The biggest thing about archery and TWF is the need for extra damage, and that would work nicely.

The fact that both combat styles the Ranger gets focus on giving you multiple attacks suggests to me that the Ranger should get some kind of damage bonus (above and beyond the highly situational Favored Enemy). The easy solution would be to combine the class with the Scout and give it Skirmish progression.


You could even go the opposite direction- turn feat chains from a tax to a bonus as scalable feats.

This thread (http://www.tgdmb.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=33294) has a discussion of that. It's tuned to a relatively high power level, but I think it works out alright if you use the feats with the regular versions of martial classes.

[Kurald Galain]

Feat chains are considered something of a tax, particularly on martials.

Bear in mind that any changes to feat chains will benefit half-caster classes (e.g. Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter) equally or more than it benefits martials - and the half-casters decidedly don't need the boost.

[ericgrau]

As I'm preparing to possibly run more 3.5 for my group, I'm toying with the idea of removing feat chains. This mostly came about from looking through the PHB feats, so do let me know if this breaks the game entirely outside that. Feat chains are considered something of a tax, particularly on martials. Often the feat you want most requires several other feats be acquired first. In many cases, those feats don't interact with each other at all. For instance, most feats that require Combat Expertise don't actually do anything related to Combat Expertise as a feat. Are there any drawbacks to just removing these unnecessary feat requirements and allowing some, perhaps most, feats to be taken as long as other prereqs are met? Obviously feats that interact with or improve on their prerequisite are one thing, but if I really wanted to take Cleave without taking Power Attack, is there any reason I shouldn't be able to?

It seems great in the PHB because the PHB feats are much weaker than feats from other books. Except maybe ones that get buffed by other books, such as metamagic from better spells. But that's the real issue. You'll run into a lot of issues with other books when many of the best feats for both mages and fighters have a lot of pre-reqs. IMO just set a standard level of power and stick to it. If that means most PHB feats are weak then give a discount on most of them instead. 2 for 1, 3 for 2, or whatever is a good level of power for your group.

I have seen the impact of extra feats before in a few games, and skipping pre-reqs is similar. It can do much more than you'd think.

[Zombulian]

Broadly speaking, no. The other reason feat chains are made is to kind of soft level-gate certain parts of the chain - if there is a feat that requires 2 other pre-reqs, then you will normally not get access to it until level 6. The downside of this is that if you haven't been building to take that chain, then if you start it 'late' you are taking level 1 or 3 appropriate abilities when you should be taking level 6, 9, or 12 appropriate feats.

..so if you're removing the pre-req chains, just.. actually put a level requirement on feats that deserve them, either by BAB or by actual character level. A Fighter's 'benefit' of completing chains early by having extra feats could become a class feature that makes them count as +3 levels for meeting feat requirements.

Alternatively, have every feat chain just require one feat of investment and as you reach those level checkpoints, have the next feat in the chain unlock.

[Harrow]

It's really going to depend on how much effort you want to put in and what classes you want to benefit, as well as what levels. If you don't use BAB or HD as a requirement for later feats in chains, a human fighter can pick up their 3 favorite feats at level 1 and likely have everything they actually want for their build by level 6. See, feat chains were the fighter's equivalent to spell levels, especially in the PHB. Whirlwind attack was supposed to be the fighter's 9th level spell equivalent. It, uh, didn't work out that well.

One of the reasons this was basically a failure was that feat chains were too short. Whirlwind attack, the feat that relies the most on what the fighter class gets, which is fighter bonus feats, is obtainable at level 4. And it would be level 3, just going by feats you need to spend, but they put a +4 BAB requirement on it. So a fighter's 9th level spell is really closer to a 2nd level spell. And then, once they pick that up, they have to go to the beginning of another feat chain when they level up. And most feat chains have very little synergy with other feat chains. Imagine playing a character that only took levels in full casting classes, but never more than 3 in any one (including advancement from prestige classes). That's what playing a fighter is like.

So, if you want to focus on low levels, before spells and magic items get completely ridiculous, and where prerequisites hurt the most, and you don't care too much about classes with bonus feats (which are more likely to pick up everything they need early on), then, yeah, removing feat requirements for taking feats probably won't hurt much. However, if you want to elevate classes like the fighter or play beyond mid-levels, then I actually suggest making feat chains longer. That would likely take some work. I'm not suggesting just stapling unrelated feats together like they obviously did in the PHB. You would need to homebrew a bunch of feats that actually warrant locking in the feat taxes 6+ levels early and are worth the investment of otherwise being a fighter (or similar).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

And most feat chains have very little synergy with other feat chains.Most feat chains have no synergy within themselves. What does Dodge have to do with Mobility? What does it have to do with Spring Attack? And how does a feat chain based on mobility synergize with Whirlwind Attack, which is a full-round action that completely precludes movement outside of a single 5' step? And it certainly doesn't help when you blow all of your feats on prereqs that are really, really bad and do nothing for you offensively, nothing utility-wise, and very little defensively. The same goes for Combat Expertise and everything based on it, or Power Attack and half the things based on it (like Cleave and Great Cleave).

[Kurald Galain]

Most feat chains have no synergy within themselves.
Most feat chains actually do have synergy with themselves (e.g. the Style feats, or GTWF), but the most well-known ones (particularly anything involving Dodge or Combat Expertise) do not. This is also why feats like Dirty Fighting (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dirty-fighting-combat/) were printed later, to alleviate that issue.

[Troacctid]

Combat Expertise goes just fine with tripping. You take your penalty, then you make a touch attack that hits anyway, then you get a real attack, but now they're prone, canceling out your penalty.

[RandomPeasant]

It seems great in the PHB because the PHB feats are much weaker than feats from other books.

Some of them are. But Natural Spell is in the PHB, and that's a great feat. Extend Spell is notable for being a metamagic feat that is defensible without any metamagic reducers. Item Creation feats are potentially powerful, though there are caveats to that.


IMO just set a standard level of power and stick to it.

The problem is that's easier said than done. Any power level you set is going to have things that are below (often substantially below) it, and generally some that are above it. You also have issues with feats that support concepts people want to play like "weapon specialist" being bad.


Bear in mind that any changes to feat chains will benefit half-caster classes (e.g. Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter) equally or more than it benefits martials - and the half-casters decidedly don't need the boost.

Could you expand on why you'd think that was the case?


And most feat chains have very little synergy with other feat chains.

I don't think that's the right thing to articulate as the problem. After all, there's relatively little cross-synergy between spells. Certainly you can find things like shivering touch + spectral hand or forcecage + cloudkill or more general ones like minions + buffs. But the caster who just takes the best BFC spell at each level does fine, and there's no synergy there. The issue is that feat chains are bad. You need to either accept that feats are minor abilities, and give martials class abilities that solve their problems, or give people feats that scale in the way kinds of magic do, so that "Power Attack" is equivalent to "being a Necromancer", not "having cause fear" (the thread I linked takes the latter approach).


Power Attack and half the things based on it (like Cleave and Great Cleave).

Power Attack has clear synergy with Cleave. If you are trying to kill mooks, you can afford to take a bigger to-hit penalty, and it matters more if you get a big damage bonus, because you want to reach the "kill them" breakpoint.

[bekeleven]

Bear in mind that any changes to feat chains will benefit half-caster classes (e.g. Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter) equally or more than it benefits martials - and the half-casters decidedly don't need the boost.
Could you expand on why you'd think that was the case?

Following along with the previous discussion of "feat chain capstones have the power of second-level spells:" Allowing fighters to skip to the end of a feat chain lets them gain a second-level spell a little early, and get more second-level spells known at a faster rate as they level.

Meanwhile, a [Gish of Choice] can take a bunch of metamagic feats and prestige class prerequisites, and when they get a spare slot, throw in a second-level spell.

Fighters will end up with twice as many 4th-5th level appropriate class features. A gish will get fewer, but for no investment. This is why you're seeing various alternate solutions proposed (like mine, endorsed by 9 out of 10 dermatologists).

[RandomPeasant]

Meanwhile, a [Gish of Choice] can take a bunch of metamagic feats and prestige class prerequisites, and when they get a spare slot, throw in a second-level spell.

Sure, but a regular caster can do that too, so why make it about partial casters? I suppose it's true that in a situation where the beneficiaries are Martials < Partial Casters < Full Casters, it's true that Partial Casters benefit more than Martials, but it seems like a pretty facile claim to make.

[Kurald Galain]

Sure, but a regular caster can do that too, so why make it about partial casters?
Because full casters largely don't care about getting free power attack or finesse or maneuver feats. Well, a shapeshift-specced druid might.

[Harrow]

I don't think that's the right thing to articulate as the problem. After all, there's relatively little cross-synergy between spells.


There are two obstacles, and fixing either one of them would do the trick. If feat chains were longer, you could justify making them strong enough to stand on their own in level appropriate encounters. If feat chains synergized with each other, then you would get abilities that scaled into mid-to-late levels without individual feats available at low levels disrupting the game. As it stands, mid-to-high level fighters have to accept that their "class features" are going to be irrelevant because they were balanced for low-level play with no scaling.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of feat synergy. If you went deep and decided on long chains, you would need like three or four distinct sets of at least 7 feats each at a bare minimum. Likely more, as you would want branching options so that every character that chose a particular tree didn't feel cookie-cutter. Include bonus feats that monks and rangers get in the trees and they get a leg-up compared to other classes pursuing the same feat trees, and fighters could just follow two complete paths, each at a level appropriate rate. Unfortunately, that's a lot of unique effects to come up with. But, if you instead decided to go wide with synergy, you could come up with 2/3rds as many feats and players would have a greater amount of agency over how their character progressed. For numeric feats, you could just make the bonus scale with the number of feats you have with the [Fighter] tag. For other feats, you could combine as necessary and turn them into [Tactical] feats that open up more options as you collect more [Fighter] feats.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Combat Expertise goes just fine with tripping. You take your penalty, then you make a touch attack that hits anyway, then you get a real attack, but now they're prone, canceling out your penalty.Taking a feat that enforces a penalty on attacks as a prereq for feats that encourage you to make attacks is the very definition of anti-synergy, since the feat doesn't give you any other benefits to your attacks in exchange. At least Power Attack grants you +damage, whereas Combat Expertise just nerfs you, especially since AC bonuses aren't very good regardless, especially if you've just made it so your opponents can't effectively attack you anyway.