Bonus Feats and Falling

[thatothersting]

So, as we all know, paladins can fall. There are variant paladin options that provide bonus feats, and so the question is: if a paladin selects the various bonus feat options and then falls, does he lose his bonus feats? Or, are the bonus feats themselves not the class feature, but rather, the class feature (Holy Warrior, Power of Self, etc) grants bonus feats to the character, and thus he'd merely lose the ability to gain new ones (which would be a non-issue since he can't take more paladin levels anyway)?

I've been pondering this for a bit and was hoping to find out if there's already some official answer somewhere, but barring that I'll be glad to see a well reasoned argument / skillful BSing. I can see it going either way, though I know that as a DM I always take the more lenient option, so I'm sure my bias shines through in how I've worded things.

Hopefully I've worded this clearly enough.

[nedz]

If these are due to ACFs, where you have traded a Paladin class feature for them, then you should lose them if you would have lost the class feature.

The answer is in the name really: ACF means Alternate Class Feature.

[pabelfly]

I'd say bonus feats earned as a Paladin count as Paladin abilities, in terms of a fallen Paladin.

[ciopo]

I do remember asking something similar in the RAW thread, about what happens when you lose a feature that grants a feat.

The RAW answer I got was that you keep the feat, because the feat is a separate entity from the feature that granted it, and it would be lost only if the cause of losing the feature was something like level loss.

Of course, that was rightfully deemed cheesy/inelegant when I used that in an IC entry.

Anyway, consider this possible argument : a human uses alter self to become an orc, nominally he loses his racial ability called "extra feat", but he does not lose "what that specific human selected as his extra feat"

[Remuko]

I don't think so. Feats, bonus or otherwise are things based on training. A Paladin doesnt lose their proficiencies so they shouldnt lose feats. Paladins are also punished enough as is, theres no need to punish them harder by making them lose these.

[Seward]

Hm. I actually thought paladins enumerated what you keep (presumably bab, saves, hit dice - the stuff that is part of any class but not a class feature) but that isn't how it is written.



all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin?s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies).


"Ability" isn't a term of art in D&D in this context. It looks like they meant to say "Class features except for weapon and armor proficencies" but that isn't how they wrote it.

You can't even say "lose all class features that aren't SP or SU" since aura of good is EX and that goes away if you aren't also a multiclass (and still good) cleric or something.

So it's up to the GM what happens when this text interacts with a bonus feat from an ACF. You will absolutely lose any feat that has a prereq that you lose (like Divine Vigor, which requires turn undead) but as armor and weapon proficiencies are feats, you could argue that spending a bonus feat on something like quickdraw could stay, and have an even stronger argument for something like Shield Spec, whose prereq is explicitly something left behind in the text even when you fall.

At my table though, I'd go with the idea of "if the bonus feat replaces something that got removed by falling the feat goes away". Basically the prereq for any paladin bonus feat is the class feature it is standing in for, lose the prereq, lose the feat.

So if you traded spellcasting for bonus feats, they all go away. If you traded heavy armor proficiency for point blank shot, it stays.

[the_tick_rules]

I would say any feat that relates to the abilities of a paladin like smiting or whatever is lost, but something like weapon specialization or something remains.

[thatothersting]

I appreciate the answers! In the interest of exploring some cheese, I thought it might be worth looking at the relevant wording of one of these ACFs.

"You no longer gain spells as a paladin, but you can now select a bonus feat at X, Y, and Z level from (list)."

Precise numbers removed because copyright etc, but they don't matter anyway. The ACF says "can," as in, "this feature allows you to do this thing." If a feature allows me to fly, and then I lose it, I do not retroactively UN-fly those times I made use of it. Likewise, if a feature let me heal, and was then lost, the HP I restored isn't suddenly taken away. Because this feature allows the character take a bonus feat, losing the feature doesn't mean that it retroactively removes the selected feat, as it wasn't granting the feat--it was granting the ability (to be used or not) to select a feat on level up.

It's reasonable to say "oi, that's ridiculous," but feats aren't really class features, unless the class directly grants them (like weapon and armor proficiencies, which had to be explicitly stated to remain in place because they were explicitly granted as class features). If the ACF simply says that you can take a feat, then what it's granting the character is "permission to acquire something," just like flight would be granting me the power to fly.


This is all silly, of course, but in a rules lawyer-y way I think it's probably correct, if only barely, and not by any intent of the designers. So! Counter arguments? Supporting arguments? I doubt anybody will change their minds, but it's fun to dig into something like this and reason through a "why" for those opinions. Maybe there's an obscure article or missive from The Sage somewhere?


Also, for one more weird case, the Sword of Celestia variant (Dragon 349, apparently) grants actual, honest-to-God equipment (and the feature also grants it additional abilities as your level rises, but is silent about what happens when falling, etc). It's hard to argue that the physical object in your character's hand disappears in a puff of smoke just because the class feature which granted you the ability to acquire it has been lost. Could it even be argued that negative levels affect such a thing, beyond whatever bonuses are directly granted to it by the class feature itself? Call this a bonus question, I guess, since it struck me while I was writing up the other part of this and I just really wanted to toss it out there while it was fresh in my mind.

[Seward]

"You no longer gain spells as a paladin, but you can now select a bonus feat at X, Y, and Z level from (list)."


I feel I have to respond to this chain of inference as this is a precise example off the sort of thing where I would make the feats go away (although if you built a feat chain with them as prereqs invalidating later feats bought without bonus feats I'd allow free retraining of the non-paladin-bonus-feats into something that didn't violate the build, bonus points for making them something flavorful with the way you fell)

1. you "CAN" take the feats.
Well yeah. and if you somehow didn't choose to make use of the bonus feats you don't lose any feats if you fall. But if you sacrificed spellcasting to get your deity to bless you with feats instead, said deity expresses displeasure by no longer guiding your hand when using your favored weapon, or helps you ride a horse better or etc.

2. comparison to flight.

Entering an antimagic field doesn't invalidate your prior ability to fly magically, nor does it have any effect on you if you don't happen to be flying at the moment. But while in the antimagic field, you'd better have wings or some other EX power that lets you fly, just as when you fall, you have to atone to get the ability to fly again.

3. Equipment

The Ruathar PRC does something similar, gives you a free magic item that you can't really sell and if you toss it or give it away it has only social consequences. Given that Paladin stuff is always tied into the deity, I would assume the gear would become nonmagical (or at least down to whatever buffs were not provided by class abilities if it had some before being buffed by the class feature). It would still exist, it would still be masterwork, but it would lose the class-granted features that made it special until you atoned.

For an example of this logic - see Miko's fall in Order of the Stick. Author said that a lot of the Sapphire Guard equipment worked only for paladins, so when she fell it changed color from blue (magical) to grey (no longer blessed with extra goodies for being part of the guard).

In the end, the GM's opinion is what matters in these kinds of debates. But I feel my position is consistent and can cover a lot of variants.