Scaling Fighter Feats: Know Any Good Ones? Any Advice for Making Them?

[wayfare]

Hey All:

Just wondering if anybody has a list of good homebrewed Scaling fighter feats? The kind that get better with level or BA. I am thinking of doing a project involving these kinds of feats, and I could use good examples or any suggestions people might have for making some!

Thanks for taking a look!

[ngilop]

Frank and K have feats for their Tome of War stuff

Belial has his own Quadratic Feats

I have my own scaling fighter feats

Amechra has her own as well, but dang if i cannot find them POW found them yaay i went up a level in search-fu master!!!

those are IMO ( maybe a bit partial in regards to my own) the best scaling feats ive come across in GiTP.

[johnbragg]

My concern with scaling feats is the weird power-jumps when you start them at high level.

Let's imagine the feat Awesome Armor Class, which boosts AC by BAB. Barbarian 12 takes the feat, and his AC jumps by 12?

I think the game design is that scaling is accomplished by paying the feat tax for Improved XXX, Greater XXX, Perfect XXX every 4-6 levels.

[Blood_caller]

Here is my favorite D&D 3,+ which have alot of scaling feats.

And its not just base attack the feats scale on some scales with HD, some with skill ranks in a specific skill, some with caster level and offcourse some with base attack.

Scaling Feat list on dnd-wiki.org

[Seerow]

My concern with scaling feats is the weird power-jumps when you start them at high level.

Let's imagine the feat Awesome Armor Class, which boosts AC by BAB. Barbarian 12 takes the feat, and his AC jumps by 12?

Let's imagine the Wizard decides to pick up the spell "Polymorph". Wizard takes the spell, and suddenly his AC jumps by 20-30, AND he gains a bunch of other stuff? And he did this 3 levels earlier than the barbarian?

Nerf Barbarians. No mundanes are allowed to get level appropriate bonuses with their resources.

[IamL]

Let's imagine the Wizard decides to pick up the spell "Polymorph". Wizard takes the spell, and suddenly his AC jumps by 20-30, AND he gains a bunch of other stuff? And he did this 3 levels earlier than the barbarian?

Nerf Barbarians. No mundanes are allowed to get level appropriate bonuses with their resources.

That moment I wish these forums had a "Like" button...

[johnbragg]

Let's imagine the Wizard decides to pick up the spell "Polymorph". Wizard takes the spell, and suddenly his AC jumps by 20-30, AND he gains a bunch of other stuff?

And most of us say "That's overpowered."

And he did this 3 levels earlier than the barbarian?

Nerf Barbarians. No mundanes are allowed to get level appropriate bonuses with their resources.

Well, there's mundanes vs casters, and fighters vs other mundanes. Feat taxes are the only comparative advantage fighters have.

Conceivably, giving the Fighter bonus feats every level, and creating a few feat chains worth paying a feat tax for could lift the Fighter out of Tier 5.

But following that path keeps the Tier 4 fighting classes stuck in Tier 4, still watching the casters dominate the game.

[ngilop]

Uhm.. so the fighter cannot have nice things because caster already get nice things and fighter get bonus feats?


that makes no sense to me.


but then again there is no way a mundane class is ever going to be able to do such things as GATE, or shapechange, or planeshift, or animate dead or anything like that.

( note I do have time stop as a feat for mundanes)


SO trying to balance mundanes up to the levels where they rewrite the rules of the universe is beyond poinltess to me, because then you don;t have casters and mundane you have casters and casters posing as mundanes but really they are casting spells.

im fine wth mundanes being in the 'tier' 3 to 'tier'4 range and as long as the player is not a jerk, casters being in the 'tier' 1 and 'tier' 2 slots don't break the game open.

[Just to Browse]

The Races of War section called The Failure of Feats is what ngilop mentioned.

[Seerow]

And most of us say "That's overpowered."

Replace Polymorph with any of a dozen other spells. The Wizard doesn't have to spend 10 spells to get a 10d6 fireball. If he takes Fireball at level 10, it starts at 10d6.

Well, there's mundanes vs casters, and fighters vs other mundanes. Feat taxes are the only comparative advantage fighters have.

...what.

No. That is the sort of thinking that gets us all of the atrocious martial prestige classes out there ("We need to design this for the fighter, so let's make it require 5 feats that nobody in their right mind would ever take!").

If you made every feat worthwhile, the Fighter's competitive advantage is having more level appropriate abilities. Think of it this way, if every feat translated to a spell cast by a Wizard 2 levels lower than you, but at will, a 20th level Fighter would have 18 9th level spells, while everyone else only has 6. The raw power of having those 11 extra very powerful abilities makes it worthwhile.


The problem is when you spend 3-4 of your 11 bonus feats on utter crap to get a single ability that is appropriate for the earliest level you can get it. A fighter has 5 feats by level 4, so a feat chain balanced around taking 5 feats is going to be balanced for the power level of a 4th level character. Now at level 20 your 18 feats translate into 4 tricks that a 4th level character might like to have.

Unless you have scaling feats, following the design you advocate, your options are make various feat chains with different BAB requisites (in which case now your fighter has 1 high level trick, two mid level tricks, and 1 low level trick), or go the route 3.5 did and just make a bunch of feat chains anyone can take and the fighter has around 4 low level tricks. If he's lucky these tricks might synergize into something more useful than the sum of the parts, but most likely not.







Now all of that said, I don't think anything that affects the RNG actually needs to scale. +1 to hit or AC feats are bogus and should be +3 or so at minimum just to be noticeable, but they don't need to scale between first level and 20th to remain useful as long as the rest of the RNG stays somewhat together (it doesn't in 3.5, but that's a whole different issue). But any sort of combat tricks you invest in should remain relevant as you level (ie someone who takes Improved Bullrush should get the non-PA shock trooper benefits for free. Should get Knockback for free. Should probably get something akin to the Brutal Surge magic enhancement and dungeoncrasher. etc); any damage bonuses you get should scale to be a similar return on your investment at all levels, same for damage reduction, fast healing, mobility... basically anything that's not directly affecting the RNG should be scaling.



At least assuming you want feats to do anything along those lines. In D&D 3.5 it's obvious that yes, yes you do want feats to do those things. Mainly because you've been given a class where those feats are the only thing the character gets, and there's precedent for those kinds of abilities, even if the gimped form feats give them in is crap.

Spoiler: off topic tangent

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In my spare time, I've been cobbling together my own system on and off, and decided feats in that incarnation just weren't worth it. Characters have access to abilities through their class that let them do cool new stuff that is level appropriate. So you want to spring attack? Your class should have access to an ability to let you do that. There is no universal feat list to pull active abilities off of. Stuff like Wizard metamagic becomes either class features or extra spells (So for example Maximize might be a spell that requires a 3rd level spell slot, letting you burn a slot on it to maximize your next spell cast). So feats in their 3.5 incarnation simply aren't needed.

There's still room for a minor customization subsystem for stuff like lightning reflexes, skill focus, etc (all those things that are considered crap feats because they provide tiny bonuses, but aren't meaningful like Power Attack/Shock Trooper or Dragonfire Inspiration and other such powerful feats), but removing the name "feat" from those (as well as the normal progression) I think is necessary to avoid the baggage that comes with it.

Tell someone they get a feat every 3 levels, they're going to expect awesome stuff even if there's no reason to (see: 4e feats). Give someone a "talent" every 2 levels, and people are going to assume they're feats, and expect the same thing, even if there's no other similarity (see: several other systems. I think one of the star wars d20 ones qualifies). So the trick is sneaking in the minor bonuses in such a way that people are happy to get them and not just upset that they didn't get what they always felt feats should be

[ngilop]

in regards to seerow's tangent

Spoiler

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Thats what it was in pre-3rd ed, they had for example a 3rd level spell that increases teh duration of your next spell or extends the range etc.
while combat expertise, power attack, srping attack were availe to any and everybody, and fighters got weapon focsu line ( and better)

why they made them feats really made no sense to me, other thna the whoel F THE FIGHTER casters only get d4 HP and no full BaB so they need everything and the kicthen sink for a balanced compromise.

I think you hit a great point Seerow, feats are teh equiv of 0-2nd level spells, the sad part is.. zero level spells are negligabel to the point of being completely ignored at higher levels, for me letting the fighter get feats that can be the equivalent of higher level spells ( i let fighters get a haste effect, a freedom of movement effect and other such feats.)

To me if a fighter can at 20th level perform an action due to a feat thats the equivalent of a 6th level spell, im allright with that.

[Seerow]

in regards to seerow's tangent

Spoiler

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Thats what it was in pre-3rd ed, they had for example a 3rd level spell that increases teh duration of your next spell or extends the range etc.
while combat expertise, power attack, srping attack were availe to any and everybody, and fighters got weapon focsu line ( and better)

why they made them feats really made no sense to me, other thna the whoel F THE FIGHTER casters only get d4 HP and no full BaB so they need everything and the kicthen sink for a balanced compromise.

Spoiler: Response to the response to my tangent

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Well I wasn't going for "Everyone can do everything". Basically think Tome of Battle but with a different core resource mechanic, and a broader scope of capability. Just like ToB offers Cleave in the form of a low level maneuver, I'd expect things like Spring Attack to be low level maneuvers as well. Weapon Specialization and the like would likely fall under a stance-type ability (ie passive always on maneuver that you can choose).

Actually, you know what. Just call the maneuvers feats. Now people who wanted fighters with lots of feats are happy. People who want fighters with level appropriate abilities are happy. The only people who get pissed off are those who were in love with the idea of feats being for everyone, rather than just martial classes. And I'm okay with that.

I think you hit a great point Seerow, feats are teh equiv of 0-2nd level spells, the sad part is.. zero level spells are negligabel to the point of being completely ignored at higher levels, for me letting the fighter get feats that can be the equivalent of higher level spells ( i let fighters get a haste effect, a freedom of movement effect and other such feats.)

Even those are 3rd-4th level spells.

It's a start, and generally better than the pile of crap Fighters get in 3.5, but it's still sitting around the same level as a Paladin with that feat to turn all of their spells into swift actions + better casting ACF (so low-mid tier 4). That's around where the Fighter should be at level 10-11. You want the Fighter to keep up all the way, he should be looking at abilities mimicking 6th-7th level spells at minimum, even if the ability makes absolutely no sense in the context of the real world.

To me if a fighter can at 20th level perform an action due to a feat thats the equivalent of a 6th level spell, im allright with that.

Yeah. The issue is convincing people that it's okay for a Fighter to have the equivalent of an Antimagic Field, Contingency, True Seeing, or Symbol of Fear, Move Earth, or even the dismal Chain Lightning (most of which could be pretty easily fluffed to Mundane equivalents). Much less convincing them to accept the equivalent of Create Undead, Flesh to Stone, Programmed Image,
Legend Lore, Planar Binding, Shadow Walk, or Guards and Wards.

[ngilop]

well i do not mean exact copys of 6th level spells for instance i have in my latest fighter project True seeing for a fighter that at leats 1 GiTPer thinks is nice.

again i do not mean give the fighter 6th level spells as feats, I mean feats that are the equivalent of what youd imagine a 6th level spell is capable of.

I know that msyelf i go against that thoguht and gave fighters the ability to be do time stop as a swift action and thats a what..13th level spell? ( i forget teh cost for quicken)

though Fighters do get a specific legend lore like ability LOL.

Again im supportiave of Wcasters being able to say ' no' to the rules of the universe, to an extent. raising dead, planar binding, those kind of things

i dislike the fact that there are spells that do for example the rogues job.. but less of an investure of personal resources and much MUCH more of a sure thing.

[Amechra]

Amechra has her own as well, but dang if i cannot find them POW found them yaay i went up a level in search-fu master!!!

Last time I checked, I was male...

[Seerow]

Last time I checked, I was male...

Easy mistake to make, between the ambiguous avatar, name ending in an a (typically feminine), and lack of indicator showing under your name. Just saying.

[Amechra]

I know. Just thought I'd mention (and no, I'm not going to make my gender easier to ascertain. Where's the fun in that?)

Also, another form of scaling that should be looked at is... don't have a term for it. But basically, scale based on the number of feats you've got of a given type.

For an example, look up Aberrant feats.

[Seerow]

I know. Just thought I'd mention (and no, I'm not going to make my gender easier to ascertain. Where's the fun in that?)

Also, another form of scaling that should be looked at is... don't have a term for it. But basically, scale based on the number of feats you've got of a given type.

For an example, look up Aberrant feats.

I think that Combat Focus feats work the same way (they have one effect at first, then get a greater effect with X number of them), as well as luck feats (each feat gives extra uses of luck, in addition to the new usage for your luck pool).

These have the potential to be cool, but still run into the problem of not going far enough, and as a result usually falling behind even regular feats. I'm pretty sure I've seen fighter feat fixes dependent on how many fighter feats you already have, but I couldn't give the name for any of them (they all start to run together after the first 5 or 6 years).

[Frozen_Feet]

I've remade every single core feat in the SRD, plus a fair bit of the Epic ones to be usable at earlier levels. They don't scale with level, though, they scale with other feats. See the link in my signature.

Of course, more opinions on whether they count as "good" are welcome.

[ngilop]

Last time I checked, I was male...

My apologies. if I do not know the gender of said person im referring to I go with what the avatar is. as to me that is what the peson wants to be ientified as.. lse whyw ould that be theri face to the world?

so I see a female avatar i refer to a person a a female.

[Amechra]

My avatar is female? Buh?

[ngilop]

yes.. your avatar has long hair, which is typically feminine

is pink and black both feminine colors. pink denotes female babies and black is Yin the color of femininity and darkness.

water your avater is summoning seems to be made from darkness

the way the legs come from the torso, it very indicative of a female's hip bones

the design on the torso is a chalice, again a symbol of femininity

[Ashtagon]

Whatif...

• We keep the current Feat -> Improved Feat -> Greater Feat -> Perfect Feat paradigm
• The first three feats provide a sliding amount of bonus.
• The fourth feat provides a bonus that scales with level/BAB/skill/caster level, as appropriate.

That way, the feat tax keeps the non-martials out of the cool stuff at Perfect Feat, but the Perfect Feat scales appropriately, giving the fighter the cool stuff he needs to be competitive at high levels.

[Xerlith]

Whatif...

• We keep the current Feat -> Improved Feat -> Greater Feat -> Perfect Feat paradigm
• The first three feats provide a sliding amount of bonus.
• The fourth feat provides a bonus that scales with level/BAB/skill/caster level, as appropriate.

That way, the feat tax keeps the non-martials out of the cool stuff at Perfect Feat, but the Perfect Feat scales appropriately, giving the fighter the cool stuff he needs to be competitive at high levels.

Still too weak. Why the feat chain? As it was said before, wizards don't need to take, say, alter self -> polymorph -> PAO -> Shapechange.
I get why you think improvement of feats should be done. But if it must be kept (and sometimes I think it's not that bad of an idea if we want some consistency -but do we?), it'd be best kept as Feat -> Perfect(ed) Feat. Both scalling. Or the second one scalling. Or the first one scalling and the second one giving more options. It's a complex problem.

[Domriso]

I always preferred the idea that no feats require other feats as prerequisites, and instead they have a five-tier scaling. Usually something like "Skill Ranks 0, 5, 10, 15, 20," so anyone can benefit somehow, but having a more skills unlock more abilities.

[Xerlith]

There was actually a "feats as skills" homebrew around here. IIRC it was based on a premise that you get a second skillpoint pool, a "feat point pool" to invest into your feats. More or less like that.

EDIT: I've got a homebrew that rewrites almost all relevant core combat feats, but it's based around the premise of making those feats give more options from the beginning + scalling numerical bonuses.

[Xerlith]

Well, I meant something like that:

Dodge
Prerequisite: Dex 13+
Benefit: You gain a dodge bonus to your AC equal to 1+ 1/5 your Character level.
Additionaly, once per round per point of your Dexterity modifier you may add your base Reflex save as a dodge bonus to your AC against any attack as a free action. If it misses, you may take a 5ft step as an immediate action.

A scalling numerical bonus + some options. It's powerful, but*.


*only if we compare it to the weaksauce core feats.

[Frozen_Feet]

You could also base the scaling on Psionic Body, like I did: each feat is of specified type(s), and supports other feats of related type(s) by giving them both bigger numbers and new functions.

Tying the progression to number and type of feats also has the side-effect of making the scaling more useful to the Fighter as written. It also creates an easier-to-understand optimization framework. Having a hard time choosing what feat to pick for this level? Worry not, just pick a feat of type that is shared by most of your previous feats, that way all of them become more powerful.

[Xerlith]

You could also base the scaling on Psionic Body, like I did: each feat is of specified type(s), and supports other feats of related type(s) by giving them both bigger numbers and new functions.

Tying the progression to number and type of feats also has the side-effect of making the scaling more useful to the Fighter as written. It also creates an easier-to-understand optimization framework. Having a hard time choosing what feat to pick for this level? Worry not, just pick a feat of type that is shared by most of your previous feats, that way all of them become more powerful.

As much as the idea is quite good, it still feels a bit like it's shoehorning characters into something alike to feat chains - and having taken a look at your feats I feel too many of them give just scalling numerical bonuses, with too small number of them offering new in-combat options.
For me it's either to give much more new options right off the bat, then gradually enhance them to stay relevant or, if going the scaling-off-X route, give the options without needing further investition.
I know it's actually hard to invent something else they might be doing - At least I had this problem when creating my reworked feats.

Overall, it seems that first we must come to a consensus what a feat means - something we "just can do", and to do something else, even if similar, we must take anoter feat, or something we're "gradually getting better at and exploring new possibilities", thus opening the feats that gradually give out more options. It comes down to a design choice of course.

And having said that, I never actually got to post mine on the Homebrew forums. I guess I'll do that soon.

[Frozen_Feet]

A feat is a freely-picked class feature. That is the original intent, it's right there in the SRD if you pay attention to it. This is the reason why many of my reworked feats give away many so-called class features. (Such as Psychic Strike and Defending stance)

Xerlith, you are right that many of my feats give scaling numbers as part of their scaling functionality. I've been trying to broaden the effects they give the further I've gotten. Though I'll note some abilities are "hidden in the numbers"; skill checks, especially Epic skill checks, allow you to do more things if you jsut can reach high enough numbers. Those are assumed to be part of the standard play in my fix.

[Amechra]

yes.. your avatar has long hair, which is typically feminine

is pink and black both feminine colors. pink denotes female babies and black is Yin the color of femininity and darkness.

water your avater is summoning seems to be made from darkness

the way the legs come from the torso, it very indicative of a female's hip bones

the design on the torso is a chalice, again a symbol of femininity

That's a guy, mate. The pink is the skin-tone that the avatar maker decided to use. Also, tertiary gender signifiers are fluid anyway. I do like how you brought bastardized Chinese philosophy and the artistic style of the avatarist into the mix; since that is not actually at all pertinent (gender norms aren't universal, you know)... yeah.

But anyway, enough threadcrapping; we should move this into PMs if we want to continue this.