Fluid Feats

[celtois]

just a little concept I cam up with for feats that can become any other feat I've done a whole bunch to try and prevent them from being overpowered

Adaptable
this feat allows you to take fluid feat


Fluid feat
preq: adaptable
This feat can become any other feat
changing this feat takes a full round action that
provokes AOo every time you change or activate a fluid feat you take
1d4 points of temporary ability damage this damage goes away when you change or deactivate the feat if you change it you roll again and take a new amount of damage to a stat of your choice .
the way this works is this feat provides your with a pool of
fluid feat points (Ffp for short) your total number of Ffp's is equal too your level
Rules for in combat
each fluid feat that is active (ie is acting as another feat)
uses one fluid feat point per round.
The round to activate or deactivate a fluid feat does not
cost a Ffp
Out of Combat
feats out of combat do not cost a Ffp but anytime you wish to change a fluid feat costs a fluid feat

If you have multiple fluid feats they all form a pool of Ffp's
equal to your level*the number of fluid feats you have

even when your fluid feat is acting as something else you count as having fluid feat

you can only mimic feats you have the preq's for

if you fluid feat is the preq for something you must keep it active as that other wise you lose all feats, prc's etc. that require it until you gain it again

Swift Fluid Feat
req: fluid feat
you can now change, activate or deactivate a fluid feat as part of a
move action doing so provokes AOo

Mercurial Fluidity
req: fluid feat
you gain additional fluid feat points equal to 1 Ffp per 2 levels
sp: you can take this multiple times its effects stack

Fluid Mind
req: fluid feat
you gain 5 additional fluid feat points
sp: you can take this multiple times its effects stack

there it is. Is it overpowered? underpowered? Just right?

[Siosilvar]

Proofreading, please, proofread it.

[afroakuma]

Too overpowered, unless you can only use it on feats that you hold the prereqs for. Even then, it's still pretty powerful.

[bosssmiley]

Knee-jerk reaction: a situational Twink's charter. Very NO.

Ask yourself "would Red Mage ever not take this feat chain?"

[celtois]

its meant to be situational thing is i think it might just be balanced
..you can only take feats you meet the preq's for
cause think about it a first level character takes this feat...
they can use a feat for 1 round.. then they have no feats rest of the day....
even at higher levels not being able to have feats for a whole combat could be brutal ex. if I'm playing a 14th level character and I have 5 fluid feats ok I have 70 Ffp now...if I have all 5 feats active then I have 14 rounds of having feats .....and it takes a full round to change feats..so... say I'm a wizard i'm in a noncombat sitiuation trying to stop a theif....so I have feats to help me hide and see him I have a feat that lets my spells do nonlethal damage ok now i need to have these active till he comes say I'm waiting for 7 rounds poof their goes 21 rounds worth of having feats then then say the combat lasts 4 more rounds now I'm at 33 rounds used sure it exploitable and maybe a touch overpowered but its made to allow character to be versatile and adaptable
would it be more balanced if I made it so you had to take a useless feat first that all it did was let you take fluid feat?

[afroakuma]

There's no appropriate way to balance this feat, because it is rife for abuse. It essentially invalidates most of the skill boosting feats, since you can rotate between them as needed. It also can't apply to metamagic feats for wizards, since they need to prepare those spells ahead of time. Or can it?

There are too many questions that need to be asked, and too much turf to cover.

[celtois]

for wizards they'd have to have the feat active when they prepared the spell till when they cast it that is why it works better for spontaneous casters in that cause

to be honest yes it's a bit unbalanced but taking advantage of it at low levels is hard and you would have to penalize your self their to be able to use it at later levels even then its limiting cause when your out of Ffp's your out

i understand that their are problems with it but their are problems with most things and 3.5

skill focus feats have always be redundant so I see no reason why their a problem

and for req for other feats and prc's you'd have to keep the feat as that and active other wise you'd lose all class features and other feats the require them

[afroakuma]

There are simply too many issues with it; it makes all character classes "versatile" at best, and min/maxing ninjas at worst. Even at a happy medium, it wouldn't be hard to build a modal fighter who switches between Cleave/Great Cleave/Power Attack and Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot/Far Shot depending on what weapon he's using. Dump stat? Charisma.

For casters it's even more rife for abuse. Need power? Switch to Maximize Spell. Out of blasting? Dodge, Mobility and Run. Dump stat? Strength. And clerics would be the ultimate abusers.

[celtois]

well if makes everyone "broken" then is it really unbalanced?

[afroakuma]

Ever play M:TG? Ask the same question about Skullclamp.

If it makes everyone broken, that means everyone has to take it, or else they are automatically weaker.

So yes, it is unbalanced.

[Innis Cabal]

Yes

Also. Periods. Use them. Every post is a run on sentence.

[Lappy9000]

Shouldn't Adaptable actually do something other than provide a prerequisite for the Fluid Feats?

Really though, man, formatting should look something like this:

Fluid Feat [Fluid]
Taking ability damage and using Fluid Feat Points (FfP), you can swap this feat for any other feat.
Prerequisites: Adaptable Feat.
Benefit: Changing Fluid Feat into another feat is a full round action that provokes an attack of opportunity. Each time you change or activate a fluid feat you take 1d4 points of temporary ability damage. This damage goes away when you change the altered feat back to Fluid Feat. You also gain a number of Fluid Feat Points (FfP) equal to your level.......

If we can't read it, we can't critique it. Speaking of which, I could see something like this being usable if it was specialized and massively toned down. I hate using the term "broken" but this is rather close to game-breaking.

The rules for swapping feats should be more specific than "any other feat." As it stands, a player could home-brew a feat, or use one of the many many overpowered feats out there. You should make a list of the feats that can be swapped. For example, Agile for Acrobatic isn't overpowered at all. Toned down? Yes, but that's what the Fluid feats need.

[erikun]

This is problematic in the same what that wizard spells are problematic.

This is a +5 to every single skill, as you can just change to Skill Focus/Backgroud feat for whatever is appropriate.

This is a +2 DC to all spells, as you just shift Greater Spell Focus to whatever school you're casting.

This is Improved Initiative every battle.

This is +2 hit for every weapon, point blank shot for every ranged attack, and Improved Trip/Sunder/Grapple whenever it comes up.

Ultimately though, this is 3-4 feats (out of 7 obtained within 20 levels) that everyone NEEDS to take it order to be "effective". Adding an option that is basically manditory isn't really adding much; even Improved Initiative is passed over with some people.

If you like the concept, try implementing a "Fluid Feat" system in one of your games (basically giving everyone so many FfP per level) and see how it turns out. See what it is like, and see how you can balance the suggestion.

[celtois]

The only problem with the rewrite is that it fails to show one of the main draw backs of fluid feats. Which is that in battle each round you have a fluid feat as a altered feat you use one Ffp. Other then that the rewrite is far better thank you, I've never been one for wording abilities or feats so its not as unbalanced as people are making it out to be sure you can get the +2 to the dc or too the stat when you need it but as soon as your Ffp are gone poof no more feats. the reason the one feat all it does is allow you to take fluid feat is to balance it a bit more. The other thing is I had another mechanic as well but I would be a fair bit of work for the dm . that rule was for every 30min your character was out of combat with a fluid feat altered it would use 1 Ffp the time with fluid feats adds up so you can't just go for 25 min then 25 min etc.


I like your Ffp system your talking about....hmm maybe...

if I set it up so you get 2* your level of Ffp and your fluid feat point pool only refills when you level up. That could work.

[AstralFire]

Those are far too many points to play with.

[celtois]

for a whole level? if each round is chewing up one a single combat at mid levels with 4 feats active..level 14 would take around 10-12 rounds ....40-48 points a 14th level character has 112 points per level if he only takes fluid feats and adaptable

[afroakuma]

celtois, I appreciate the concept, and it's a unique idea. But as has been pointed out, it's another point system, it's a near-mandatory feat chain, it allows characters to be completely modal -

I could go on, but the point I'm trying to make is that this is unfortunately broken; and I cannot perceive any fix that would make it less clumsy/broken.

It's a unique, original idea; but I cannot see any way to make it work.

[celtois]

I have one last Idea to throw out before I say ah whatever.

making it so when people take a fluid feat they have to pick a "domain" and it can only shift to feats in that domain.

I'm running a game soon and will throw this out their see how it works in whatever incarnation I decide maybe the focus one but I'm not sure

[afroakuma]

The "domain" thing is already going to happen. Fighters don't need metamagic, skill monkeys don't need Whirlwind Attack...

People will constantly rotate between no more than two/three requirement chains or feat types.

[AstralFire]

for a whole level? if each round is chewing up one a single combat at mid levels with 4 feats active..level 14 would take around 10-12 rounds ....40-48 points a 14th level character has 112 points per level if he only takes fluid feats and adaptable

Due to the fact that how many combats required to go up in level varies very largely from DM to DM based on whim, difficulty, and how many non-combat encounters are used... yes. You're giving someone the possibility of near-permanently screwing themselves (especially a 20th level character in a game that doesn't go epic) or going supernova every other fight.

[celtois]

should I stick with the original just 1 Ffo per level.

also in combat a full round is valuable using it to change a feat hurts

[AstralFire]

I would make you decide the feat you're using at the start of each day, no Fluid Points or anything like that. And you would only be allowed to have one such feat, with an additional feat allowing you to change your chosen feat once per day.

So two feats = 1 Fluid Feat, and you can only get one. The first feat would do something like "pick 3 skills at the start of each day, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to these skills for the rest of the day." Sucky, but not as sucky as a feat that does nothing but act as a gateway.
A third feat would let you change your Fluid Feat/Skills once per day, for the rest of the day.