Feats as Rewards for Awesome Deeds

[Belteshazzar]

Is anyone else in favor of using feats (some of the less powerful ones anyway) as rewards for nifty achievements or impressive role-playing.

I generally ignore WBL and the XP tables and anyway because I like slower leveling and simply give out items that would make sense for them to find depending on their enemies or surroundings (I mean seriously why do all races appear to use gold coins as a standard especially the primitive nonhumans we so love to beat up on, but then I have always been in favor of a barter system) .

Anyway back on tangent I believe it would be interesting for a fighter to seek out some old master on a mountaintop and learn the secrets of waepon mastery ,provided he had the prerequisites and roleplayed some of the training (wax on wax off)

[Emperor Tippy]

I give them out as benefits of training or magical enhancement every so often. They generally cost about 30K of WBL for the receiving player. 10K is generally the cost of an item that provides a feat. Double it for slotless. And add another 10K for it being impossible to lose.

And that is for the more physical feats. Not really as much for more magical feats.

[BCOVertigo]

I was recently talking with a friend about a system he was making that involved something similar to this in which players got abilities by killing enemies that had an ability that related to it. (fire resistance from a red dragon for example)

You'd need to be careful about what feats you allow because even though dodge and toughness aren't great, they are prerequisites to things that are better.

[Arbitrarity]

A feat for preforming a feat?

Couldn't resist.

[Everyman]

I think its an excellent idea, assuming you use this at higher levels for very impressive stunts or tasks. It works well if you're running a low-wealth campaign too.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I might give people access to stronger feats but I wouldn't give them free feats.

For example if someone performed three critical hits against a giant at a important moment I might allow them to take a feat that lets them increased threat range and auto confirm critical hits against giants.

[technomancer]

If I were to do something like that, I would use the feats that nobody takes, feats that are so weak they probably shouldn't have been feats in the first place, like many of those +2 to two skills feats, or Run and Endurance.

[Reinboom]

The main group I play with gives out 'junk' feats, skill points, items, or spells known/present in spellbook for artwork and backstory, as well as for 'cool roleplaying'.
I furthered this by creating a point system which people can 'buy' things at and giving values to different aspects.

May I recommend that you give more options than just feats for this however? Certain classes use free feats much worse than other classes.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I think giving out free feats works okay if you use them to replace magic items. A lot of people hate playing item heavy DnD anyway.

[Belteshazzar]

I fully intend to use mostly the 'junk' feats (I seriously hope they give most nonmagical classes maneuvers in 4th ed) as rewards. Some of those feats have a larger gap of usefull-uselessness than that between a half-orc and a dwarf. and I like to break the character reliance on magical stuff non-casters fall into (unless you are playing a batman gadgetry reliant type of course).

Unarmed combat for example: I can understand joe shmo down the street probably doesn't know how to kill a man with his hands but a trained solder should know at least five ways to quickly do so. Giving this feat as a reward could let a hardened fighter truthfully say "I know seventeen ways to kill a man with just my thumbs."

As contrast player plays a constant coward a la Rincewind would love to have run as a feat and in character it would make sense for him to flee faster than most others without loosing an oh so precious feat.

[Fourth Tempter]

I think giving out free feats works okay if you use them to replace magic items. A lot of people hate playing item heavy DnD anyway.

Save, of course, for the fact that feats in no way replace the things magic items are used for; they do completely different things.

[Emperor Tippy]

Save, of course, for the fact that feats in no way replace the things magic items are used for; they do completely different things.

Well except for the magic items that just give you a feat.

[Indon]

Save, of course, for the fact that feats in no way replace the things magic items are used for; they do completely different things.

There's still a lot of spillover, as Tippy noted; items can give feats (There's a weapon in the DMG which can grant Cleave, for instance, and obviously there are metamagic rods). Many feats and items grant similar effects, as well.

All in all, giving 'free' feats in exchange for an invisible WBL payment seems balanced enough. Of course, one should mind that treasure not chosen by the player is potentially less powerful than treasure the player can freely choose.

[Latronis]

I do it fairly often

[lumberofdabeast]

A DM in a game I used to play once gave another player Weapon Proficiency: Kobold.

As for me, I don't.

[squishycube]

I never thought of it in the WBL light. Good idea, I might use that if I DM again.

[Hazkali]

A DM in a game I used to play once gave another player Weapon Proficiency: Kobold.

Mr Lumberofdabeast, your DM is now a God in my eyes and an inspiration to DMs everywhere.

I am sooo going to have to work that into my campaign.

Me: "The Devil attack you with a +1 Vorpal Kobold!"
Players: ....

[lumberofdabeast]

Mr Lumberofdabeast, your DM is now a God in my eyes and an inspiration to DMs everywhere.

I am sooo going to have to work that into my campaign.

Me: "The Devil attack you with a +1 Vorpal Kobold!"
Players: ....

Well, technically it was a kobold corpse...

Plus, they aren't Slashing, and thus cannot have the Vorpal characteristic anyway.



And I actually thought of one I do use. Everyone intoxicated gets EWP: Improvised for the duration of their drunkenness.