Shoddy Feat Showdown! Round 2.0

[daremetoidareyo]

Welcome one and welcome all!

We are gathered here for one reason:

April Madness

for those who had fun doing brackets

but want more brackets!!!






Round 2:

Veteran's Knowledge (Heroes of Battle p.99)

VS

Trivial Knowledge (Races of Stone p.145)


The premise is simple: pick the feat you want to see compete against something else. It's like a vote to say, "Yes, i would like to think about this one feat more than this other feat"

Please fill out your vote here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyNkZgi9ag9bqVZh6O2s6H3MEehaDclz-zHOlP4f3cACE5jw/viewform?usp=pp_url

Please Vote only ONCE

I'll check the responses april 11th and apprise you of the winning feat.

Discuss the merits and flaws of the feats below.
Post weird build stub ideas that the feats inspired into you below.


And gear up, cuz on April 11th, round 3 will feature the next two semi-finalists:

Stormheart (OA update)
VS
Old Salt (stormwrack)


Post your analytical ruminations below.

[daremetoidareyo]

So, before you balk, I think that this little nugget might close the gaps a little

"BARDIC KNOWLEDGE
Many bards know songs and tales of legendary battles. Some bards understand the history behind the lyrics and know that hidden in those tales are bits of information relevant to how those battles were won. Reflecting on the meaning of these legends, a bard might piece together clues that might lead to victory.

A bardic knowledge check (or a lore check, such as that made by the loremaster prestige class) result of 25 or higher while planning will grant your force a strategic
planning advantage.

If battle is already joined, a bardic knowledge check result of 30 or higher is required to acquire the same strategic planning advantage."

[MinimanMidget]

So, before you balk, I think that this little nugget might close the gaps a little

"BARDIC KNOWLEDGE
Many bards know songs and tales of legendary battles. Some bards understand the history behind the lyrics and know that hidden in those tales are bits of information relevant to how those battles were won. Reflecting on the meaning of these legends, a bard might piece together clues that might lead to victory.

A bardic knowledge check (or a lore check, such as that made by the loremaster prestige class) result of 25 or higher while planning will grant your force a strategic
planning advantage.

If battle is already joined, a bardic knowledge check result of 30 or higher is required to acquire the same strategic planning advantage."

But it was never in question that Trivial Knowledge is better, surely? That's why I didn't vote for it - boring but at least slightly useful seems wrong for this contest.

[pabelfly]

Trivial Knowledge looks like a fun feat for a knowledge bank type character. Especially if the player adds in the Knowledge Devotion feat (and maybe Education to get all knowledge skills). Just needs a combat concept with lots of hits to take advantage of the bonuses to attack and damage

[Troacctid]

Here's my analysis.

So, as before, judging based on how well-written the feat is, from a game design perspective.

Veteran Knowledge is tied into the victory points system, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is a mess. It's a system used by Heroes of Battle to measure the PCs' effect on a large-scale battle by abstracting the impact of every helpful action they took into a certain number of points. There's a fairly long list of ways to earn victory points, and it's immediately clear to me that, while this system could work great for one big, epic, Lord of the Rings-style battle, using it too many times in the same campaign is going to result in it becoming a checklist. "Did we cast a divination spell? Okay, check. Did we make a Knowledge check? Cool. What about bardic knowledge? Oh, we don't have that, since Fflewdur is off this session. Alright, then, fortifications..." And on top of potentially becoming rote, this system also places a lot of burden on the DM. Every battle, you have to plot out all the possible outcomes in order to determine how many victory points the party needs, and what happens if they get there, and what happens if they fall short. It's a lot of heavy lifting and math.

So, Veteran Knowledge requires the campaign to A. have big epic battles that B. use the victory point system and C. provide an opportunity to gain a strategic advantage beforehand, and also D. this has to happen frequently enough over the course of the campaign to justify spending a feat slot that E. only gives 10 victory points, the same as defeating a single 1st-level enemy fighter, oh, and F. the check is only a flat DC 20, which, do you really need to spend a feat to hit that?

On the other hand, we have Trivial Knowledge! And you know what, this is not a shoddy feat. Trivial Knowledge gives you advantage on all Knowledge checks and bardic knowledge checks (roll twice and take the higher result). That's really good! It's a huge boost to your Knowledge checks, maybe the largest boost given by any feat in the game. This isn't a luck feat that can only be used once a day—it's all Knowledge checks, all the time. It's not your Skill Focus where you have to pick just one Knowledge—it's every Knowledge in just one feat. Trivial Knowledge is pushed in power level to the point where it's exciting, and the player who takes it feels like they're getting away with something; at the same time, because Knowledge checks have a limited impact on combat, there's no meaningful risk of it ever breaking the game. I think this is a really well designed feat. My only quibble with it is that the racial requirement feels arbitrary. Why are gnomes the only ones who can know trivia? What's the story justification for that? Gnomes don't have any racial abilities that would provide them with obscure knowledge (except in Dragonlance, but this isn't a Dragonlance book). I guess I could understand if it were a rilkan feat, but gnome? Gno way.

This makes it another easy choice. Veteran Knowledge is an atrocious trap feat that no one would ever want, and Trivial Knowledge is actually good. The winner by a mile: Trivial Knowledge.

[Seward]

What Troacctid said. Trivial Knowledge is niche, but far from useless in that niche. It's about as "shoddy" as Searing Spell is - not worth it unless you're an arcane thesis fire-spell master, but then it's amazing.

That other feat isn't anywhere close to being in the same league.

[daremetoidareyo]

https://i.imgur.com/UOCyJZF.png