hamstard4ever
2007-12-13, 07:38 PM
Here's something I've been thinking about for a while, although inspired by the "meaningless choices" thread I decided to sit down and get my thoughts in order. (Some of the buzz about 4e has contributed to my thinking too, although I was pondering these things before they started dropping hints about 4e, honest!)
See, everyone knows that there are a hell of a lot of subpar feats. Things like Weapon Focus and Skill Focus (let alone crap like Combat Casting, Endurance, and Toughness). The concept is that these things are supposed to be modular extensions to your character's abilities. The problem is that the designers, not wanting PCs to be able to just stack up ridiculous bonus modifiers, capped feat bonuses to trivial levels that didn't scale. Weapon Focus and Stealthy are marginal feats for a 10th level ranger, but completely useless for a 10th level wizard; if you want to be decent at something outside your class's focus, the only viable option is to save your feats and multiclass.
That works to an extent, but it tends to be a less elegant solution (some people in particular tend to spontaneously break out in hives whenever they see a multiclassed character). So here are my thoughts on reimagining core feats to make them into a more defining extension of your character's abilities.
First, some basic assumptions (please take a look at these before commenting):
These feats are going to be much more powerful than core feats. This is intentional! A character built with feats on this sort of scale is going to fall somewhere in-between a single-class character and a gestalt character powerwise; think of these feats offering sort of a mini-gestalt option, giving you part of the advantages of another class in addition to your base class. Actually, a character built with these feats will quite possibly still be less powerful overall than a standard multiclassed character in many cases. The main idea is to make it easier and more intuitive to build viable characters that stretch the boundaries of a single-class character without having to sort through a lot of classes and PrCs.
These feats still do not address the caster vs. noncaster balance problem. If anything, they'll undoubtedly make it worse, since casters are better able to pick up skillmonkey and fighting roles. The expanded Spell Focus feat below gives noncasters the ability to pick up some spellcasting ability, which hopefully goes a way towards balancing out the other feat concepts presented here, but does not address the core disparity between casters and noncasters. If these were to be used in serious play, it is strongly recommended you toss in the caster fix of your choice (which might simply be "do nothing and trust players to self-nerf as needed", if that's how you prefer to play).
Humans are potentially much more powerful than before, thanks to their new and improved bonus feat. I'd be inclined to houserule that other races get a bonus feat too, but make everyone else choose from a very small list of stereotypically race-appropriate feats. Examples:
Elf: Weapon Focus (longsword, rapier, shortbow, or longbow), Alertness, Self-Sufficient, Professional, Spell Focus (Enchantment), or Iron Will
Half-Elf: Any skill bonus feat
Dwarf: Weapon Focus (hand axe, dwarven waraxe, greataxe, or throwing axe), Diligent, Negotiator, Professional, Toughness, Great Fortitude
Halfling: Weapon Focus (sling, dagger, throwing axe, or light hammer), Acrobatic, Agile, Deft Hands, Professional, or Lightning Reflexes
Gnome: Magical Aptitude, Nimble Fingers, Deceitful, Persuasive, Professional, or Spell Focus (Illusion)
Orc/Half-Orc: Weapon Focus (any), Athletic, Persuasive, or Toughness
Bonus feats from classes are also much more powerful. This is probably not a huge issue for core classes--I haven't added much to fighter or wizard bonus feats, and the rogue's bonus feats (through special ability options) come at very high level and cost the rogue useful class abilities. Non-core classes with other bonus feat lists, such as the scout or hexblade, are getting the biggest boost. I do not foresee this being a terribly huge issue, however.
In general, these feats are really not designed to "play nice" with the vast majority of feats and prestige classes out there. In particular, they break a vast number of prerequisites. Bringing these into play would essentially require splatbook PrCs (and to a lesser extent feats) to be checked on a case-by-case basis for compatability, and many would have to be banned or houseruled into line. Since the point of this feat revision is largely to reduce the need to multiclass this does not seem intolerable to me.
It's Not Done. The ideas below are hardly comprehensive; there's plenty of room to bring other feats up to a similar level with these.
Overall, given the scope of the shift in power represented in this revision, the ideas here should be regarded more as the core of a sweeping homebrewed overhaul of the system rather than something to be just dropped in on top of everything else in 3.5.
Some basic general feats to start with (skill feats, saving throw feats, etc.):
Acrobatic [General] (see also Agile, Alertness, Animal Affinity, et al.)
Benefit: You get a +2 bonus on all Jump checks and Tumble checks.
You are always considered to have skill ranks in Jump and Tumble equal to your character level +3. These bonus ranks do not cost any of your skill points.
Professional [General]
Benefit: Choose any combination of 2 subskills from Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession. You gain a +2 bonus on the chosen skills.
You are always considered to have skill ranks in these two skills equal to your character level +3. These bonus ranks do not cost any of your skill points.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to two new skills.
*Really, all the various "+2 to two skills" feats could be rolled into this one, but I prefer keeping the original names for shorthand purposes.
Great Fortitude [General] (see also Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will)
Benefit: From now on your base Fortitude save is equal to 1/2 your HD + 4. (Assume fractional save rules are in effect)
Toughness [General]
Benefit: You gain hit points equal to your HD +3. This bonus continues to increase as you gain levels or hit dice, giving you an additional 1 hit point per level.
Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.
Weapon feats:
Weapon Focus [General, Fighter]
Benefit: Choose one weapon with which you are proficient (you may also choose unarmed strike, grapple, or ray spells as a weapon). Your base attack bonus on attack rolls with the selected weapon is considered to be equal to your HD, and you gain an additional +2 bonus on the attack roll. For all other purposes (including determining extra attacks on a full attack) your base attack bonus is unchanged.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.
Greater Weapon Focus [General, Fighter]
Prerequisite: Proficiency with selected weapon, Weapon Focus with selected weapon, character level 6th.
Benefit: When making a full attack with the selected weapon you may make a number of attacks with that weapon as if your base attack bonus was equal to your HD.
Special: You can gain Greater Weapon Focus multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.
Weapon Proficiency[General, Fighter]
Benefit: You are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, plus one exotic weapon of your choice. You make attack rolls with these weapons normally.
Normal: When using a weapon with which you are not proficient, you take a -4 penalty on attack rolls.
Special:
You can gain Weapon Proficiency multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of exotic weapon.
OK, here's the big one: spellcasting feats. Since the feats above let spellcasters duplicate some of the abilities of fighters and skillmonkeys through feats, I think it's only fair that I let them duplicate some of the spellcasters' abilities with feats.
It's somewhat more complicated than I would have liked, and still a work in progress, but I'm pretty happy with it as a start. Of course spellcasters still benefit in that they can gain spellcasting from a second class as well, but the big balancing factor here is the MAD; sure you potentially get 7th level spellcasting for a single feat, but getting just a single 7th level spell per day requires you to cough up a +7 ability score modifier. At low levels this version of Spell Focus can easily give spellcasters a badly needed extra spell or two per day at the cost of a small amount of MAD, but at high levels you face higher costs for comparatively smaller benefits.
I went ahead and limited the choices for additional spellcasting to Archivist, Favored Soul, Wizard, Warmage, and Sorcerer in order to maximize the amount of MAD (bards picking up Sorcerer spells would be a bit of a no-brainer, I'm afraid, but I don't foresee too much brokenness coming from that quarter; I think warmage spellcasting is going to be pretty non-broken even for a CHA-based caster, so they should be safe to include too).
Spell Focus [General]
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select.
When casting spells from the selected school of magic, your base caster level before other modifiers is equal to your HD.
Additionally, choose one of the following spellcasting classes (even one you do not have any levels in): Archivist, Favored Soul, Wizard, Warmage, or Sorcerer. You gain a number of bonus spell slots for that spellcasting class, one per spell level, based on your character level and ability score as given on the table below. Even if you do not have levels in the chosen class or do not normally have access to spells of that normal for that class, you may prepare and/or cast spells using these provisional slots just as a member of the chosen class does, although these provisional slots do not give you any additional spells for having a high ability score. If the chosen spellcasting class has a limited number of spells known, you have a minimum of 2 spells known for each spell level you have access to. You may only use these bonus slots to prepare or cast spells of schools you have Spell Focus in.
Your provisional spellcasting is limited to the base spell list of the chosen class (Archivists use the main cleric list); you cannot expand your spell list for these provisional slots or use a provisional slot to cast a spell outside your list by any means.
If you already have or later gain levels in the chosen class, the bonus slot granted by this feat does not stack with and is subsumed by your regular spell allotment for each level you can cast, although you may still gain bonus slots for levels you do not normally have access to yet.
{table=head]Spell Level|Required Spellcasting Ability Score*|Required Character Level or HD
1st|12 (+1)|1
2nd|14 (+2)|4
3rd|16 (+3)|7
4th|18 (+4)|10
5th|20 (+5)|13
6th|22 (+6)|16
7th|24 (+7)|19[/table]
*For the purposes of these requirements, use Intelligence score for wizard casting, Charisma for sorcerer and warmage casting, and Wisdom for archivist and favored soul casting.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new school of magic. You do not gain any additional slots in any spellcasting class, but may use the bonus slots you have to prepare and/or cast spells from any school you have Spell Focus in.
A specialist wizard who chooses to add their bonus slots to their wizard spellcasting is still not allowed to prepare or cast wizard spells from their banned schools. Spell slots added as another spellcasting class are not limited by banned schools.
It occurs to me that I'm definitely moving in the distinct direction of generic classes here (as in the Unearthed Arcana variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm), although other generic class systems exist). That's OK by me, but I'm still rather attached to the idea of using standard classes as a starting point. I've never been a fan of UA's particular scheme, but I think it might be appropriate to migrate over some of the bonus feat ideas, with appropriate modifications (most of the UA ideas are not built with scaling in mind, for example, and don't operate on the same scope as the ideas here).
See, everyone knows that there are a hell of a lot of subpar feats. Things like Weapon Focus and Skill Focus (let alone crap like Combat Casting, Endurance, and Toughness). The concept is that these things are supposed to be modular extensions to your character's abilities. The problem is that the designers, not wanting PCs to be able to just stack up ridiculous bonus modifiers, capped feat bonuses to trivial levels that didn't scale. Weapon Focus and Stealthy are marginal feats for a 10th level ranger, but completely useless for a 10th level wizard; if you want to be decent at something outside your class's focus, the only viable option is to save your feats and multiclass.
That works to an extent, but it tends to be a less elegant solution (some people in particular tend to spontaneously break out in hives whenever they see a multiclassed character). So here are my thoughts on reimagining core feats to make them into a more defining extension of your character's abilities.
First, some basic assumptions (please take a look at these before commenting):
These feats are going to be much more powerful than core feats. This is intentional! A character built with feats on this sort of scale is going to fall somewhere in-between a single-class character and a gestalt character powerwise; think of these feats offering sort of a mini-gestalt option, giving you part of the advantages of another class in addition to your base class. Actually, a character built with these feats will quite possibly still be less powerful overall than a standard multiclassed character in many cases. The main idea is to make it easier and more intuitive to build viable characters that stretch the boundaries of a single-class character without having to sort through a lot of classes and PrCs.
These feats still do not address the caster vs. noncaster balance problem. If anything, they'll undoubtedly make it worse, since casters are better able to pick up skillmonkey and fighting roles. The expanded Spell Focus feat below gives noncasters the ability to pick up some spellcasting ability, which hopefully goes a way towards balancing out the other feat concepts presented here, but does not address the core disparity between casters and noncasters. If these were to be used in serious play, it is strongly recommended you toss in the caster fix of your choice (which might simply be "do nothing and trust players to self-nerf as needed", if that's how you prefer to play).
Humans are potentially much more powerful than before, thanks to their new and improved bonus feat. I'd be inclined to houserule that other races get a bonus feat too, but make everyone else choose from a very small list of stereotypically race-appropriate feats. Examples:
Elf: Weapon Focus (longsword, rapier, shortbow, or longbow), Alertness, Self-Sufficient, Professional, Spell Focus (Enchantment), or Iron Will
Half-Elf: Any skill bonus feat
Dwarf: Weapon Focus (hand axe, dwarven waraxe, greataxe, or throwing axe), Diligent, Negotiator, Professional, Toughness, Great Fortitude
Halfling: Weapon Focus (sling, dagger, throwing axe, or light hammer), Acrobatic, Agile, Deft Hands, Professional, or Lightning Reflexes
Gnome: Magical Aptitude, Nimble Fingers, Deceitful, Persuasive, Professional, or Spell Focus (Illusion)
Orc/Half-Orc: Weapon Focus (any), Athletic, Persuasive, or Toughness
Bonus feats from classes are also much more powerful. This is probably not a huge issue for core classes--I haven't added much to fighter or wizard bonus feats, and the rogue's bonus feats (through special ability options) come at very high level and cost the rogue useful class abilities. Non-core classes with other bonus feat lists, such as the scout or hexblade, are getting the biggest boost. I do not foresee this being a terribly huge issue, however.
In general, these feats are really not designed to "play nice" with the vast majority of feats and prestige classes out there. In particular, they break a vast number of prerequisites. Bringing these into play would essentially require splatbook PrCs (and to a lesser extent feats) to be checked on a case-by-case basis for compatability, and many would have to be banned or houseruled into line. Since the point of this feat revision is largely to reduce the need to multiclass this does not seem intolerable to me.
It's Not Done. The ideas below are hardly comprehensive; there's plenty of room to bring other feats up to a similar level with these.
Overall, given the scope of the shift in power represented in this revision, the ideas here should be regarded more as the core of a sweeping homebrewed overhaul of the system rather than something to be just dropped in on top of everything else in 3.5.
Some basic general feats to start with (skill feats, saving throw feats, etc.):
Acrobatic [General] (see also Agile, Alertness, Animal Affinity, et al.)
Benefit: You get a +2 bonus on all Jump checks and Tumble checks.
You are always considered to have skill ranks in Jump and Tumble equal to your character level +3. These bonus ranks do not cost any of your skill points.
Professional [General]
Benefit: Choose any combination of 2 subskills from Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession. You gain a +2 bonus on the chosen skills.
You are always considered to have skill ranks in these two skills equal to your character level +3. These bonus ranks do not cost any of your skill points.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to two new skills.
*Really, all the various "+2 to two skills" feats could be rolled into this one, but I prefer keeping the original names for shorthand purposes.
Great Fortitude [General] (see also Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will)
Benefit: From now on your base Fortitude save is equal to 1/2 your HD + 4. (Assume fractional save rules are in effect)
Toughness [General]
Benefit: You gain hit points equal to your HD +3. This bonus continues to increase as you gain levels or hit dice, giving you an additional 1 hit point per level.
Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.
Weapon feats:
Weapon Focus [General, Fighter]
Benefit: Choose one weapon with which you are proficient (you may also choose unarmed strike, grapple, or ray spells as a weapon). Your base attack bonus on attack rolls with the selected weapon is considered to be equal to your HD, and you gain an additional +2 bonus on the attack roll. For all other purposes (including determining extra attacks on a full attack) your base attack bonus is unchanged.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.
Greater Weapon Focus [General, Fighter]
Prerequisite: Proficiency with selected weapon, Weapon Focus with selected weapon, character level 6th.
Benefit: When making a full attack with the selected weapon you may make a number of attacks with that weapon as if your base attack bonus was equal to your HD.
Special: You can gain Greater Weapon Focus multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.
Weapon Proficiency[General, Fighter]
Benefit: You are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, plus one exotic weapon of your choice. You make attack rolls with these weapons normally.
Normal: When using a weapon with which you are not proficient, you take a -4 penalty on attack rolls.
Special:
You can gain Weapon Proficiency multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of exotic weapon.
OK, here's the big one: spellcasting feats. Since the feats above let spellcasters duplicate some of the abilities of fighters and skillmonkeys through feats, I think it's only fair that I let them duplicate some of the spellcasters' abilities with feats.
It's somewhat more complicated than I would have liked, and still a work in progress, but I'm pretty happy with it as a start. Of course spellcasters still benefit in that they can gain spellcasting from a second class as well, but the big balancing factor here is the MAD; sure you potentially get 7th level spellcasting for a single feat, but getting just a single 7th level spell per day requires you to cough up a +7 ability score modifier. At low levels this version of Spell Focus can easily give spellcasters a badly needed extra spell or two per day at the cost of a small amount of MAD, but at high levels you face higher costs for comparatively smaller benefits.
I went ahead and limited the choices for additional spellcasting to Archivist, Favored Soul, Wizard, Warmage, and Sorcerer in order to maximize the amount of MAD (bards picking up Sorcerer spells would be a bit of a no-brainer, I'm afraid, but I don't foresee too much brokenness coming from that quarter; I think warmage spellcasting is going to be pretty non-broken even for a CHA-based caster, so they should be safe to include too).
Spell Focus [General]
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select.
When casting spells from the selected school of magic, your base caster level before other modifiers is equal to your HD.
Additionally, choose one of the following spellcasting classes (even one you do not have any levels in): Archivist, Favored Soul, Wizard, Warmage, or Sorcerer. You gain a number of bonus spell slots for that spellcasting class, one per spell level, based on your character level and ability score as given on the table below. Even if you do not have levels in the chosen class or do not normally have access to spells of that normal for that class, you may prepare and/or cast spells using these provisional slots just as a member of the chosen class does, although these provisional slots do not give you any additional spells for having a high ability score. If the chosen spellcasting class has a limited number of spells known, you have a minimum of 2 spells known for each spell level you have access to. You may only use these bonus slots to prepare or cast spells of schools you have Spell Focus in.
Your provisional spellcasting is limited to the base spell list of the chosen class (Archivists use the main cleric list); you cannot expand your spell list for these provisional slots or use a provisional slot to cast a spell outside your list by any means.
If you already have or later gain levels in the chosen class, the bonus slot granted by this feat does not stack with and is subsumed by your regular spell allotment for each level you can cast, although you may still gain bonus slots for levels you do not normally have access to yet.
{table=head]Spell Level|Required Spellcasting Ability Score*|Required Character Level or HD
1st|12 (+1)|1
2nd|14 (+2)|4
3rd|16 (+3)|7
4th|18 (+4)|10
5th|20 (+5)|13
6th|22 (+6)|16
7th|24 (+7)|19[/table]
*For the purposes of these requirements, use Intelligence score for wizard casting, Charisma for sorcerer and warmage casting, and Wisdom for archivist and favored soul casting.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new school of magic. You do not gain any additional slots in any spellcasting class, but may use the bonus slots you have to prepare and/or cast spells from any school you have Spell Focus in.
A specialist wizard who chooses to add their bonus slots to their wizard spellcasting is still not allowed to prepare or cast wizard spells from their banned schools. Spell slots added as another spellcasting class are not limited by banned schools.
It occurs to me that I'm definitely moving in the distinct direction of generic classes here (as in the Unearthed Arcana variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm), although other generic class systems exist). That's OK by me, but I'm still rather attached to the idea of using standard classes as a starting point. I've never been a fan of UA's particular scheme, but I think it might be appropriate to migrate over some of the bonus feat ideas, with appropriate modifications (most of the UA ideas are not built with scaling in mind, for example, and don't operate on the same scope as the ideas here).