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Post by dmgenisisect on Jun 1, 2017 7:33:21 GMT
Not really a rules question but nowhere seems right under homebrew and this is more of a question then a complete mechanic...
So in general I'm not a fan of Feats (left over bitterness from 3.5) and am super happy with them being an optional rule in 5e, but I've been thinking lately of two ways that I might end up using them in my home-brewed games (or at least a variation on them).
The first way is probably the more interesting so I'll cover it first. One of the other things I disliked from 3.5 was multi-classing (and am again super happy that it's an optional rule), but at the same time often a player wants to include an element from another class for really good RP reasons (but also sometimes optimisation reasons). My idea is to merge these two optimisaiton prone messes into one idea that can (hopefully) be tightly controlled. The basic idea behind this is whenever you get an ability score bonus you could instead replace that with a particular class feature from class you are not in, (ie as a feat get a class feature). This is where I kind of get stuck though, I'm not sure what class features should be available to be taken as feats... I kind of want it to be a chain of feats with no branches (ie. you would take wizard feature 1, then wizard feature 2, and so on instead of wizard feature 1 then wizard feature 2 or 3 and so on). I'm just uncertain about how strong each feature could be and if they should scale with level (or perhaps number of multi class feats from that class?)... If this could be made to work and is balanced then implementing a multisubclass would be pretty simply, it would work the same way as getting class features via feats.
The other thing I see feats used for is getting that left over odd value even (ie. +1 to a stat and something else), the something else is often a skill prof. or expertise and another feature thematic to the skill. I'd like to establish a general way to trade an ability score increase for a something else, and musicus points suggest the following are 'fair trade'; 4 weapon prof., 2 skill/tool/language prof. or 1 skill/tool/language prof. and 1 skill/tool expertise.
I guess the question is do you think either of these would be a 'reasonable' substitution to the feat system as is. Further would allowing both at the same time work (instead of gaining two +s you could get a cross class feature or a + and some proficiencies)?
Let me know what you all think!
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Post by Lexurium on Jun 3, 2017 7:58:24 GMT
TL:DR
Features are kinda boring, Class-features are overpowered in combination, blancing is a hassel, try talking to your players, find out what they want and give them targets to achieve and then award them with special bonuses instead. It is easier and more special to your players. And, as always, follow Matthew Colville on YouTube.
I think I can see where you are comming from, but I really doubt this is a good idea. The main reason for this standpoint is that the amount of work you would have to put in to ensure that all the skills/feats/expertises remain balanced is massive.
I will talk about 5e, because that is the system I know.
If you look at the feats suggested by the PHB, all of them are balanced so that any class can take pretty much any feat and it would at least have some use for that class. The class features are not created in the same way. Allowing your players to have access to all their class features, from level 1-20, and cherry-pick features from another class' feature list would be disastrous to balance. Fighters that fly for no reason, warlocks that can cast eldritch blast up to 1200 feet and so on. Once you go down this route you have to be very carefull which features you allow your players to have, and that is just overly complex and not much fun.
Still, one should strive to accomodate players wishes for having awesome characters when possible. Personally I more or less stole my solution from Matthew Colville. He also dislikes features, mainly because they are so common, they don't make the characters feel special. As an example, his warrior got a cool shield and a kickass greataxe. The player didn't want to stop using the shield to use the greataxe, so Matt talked to his player and they agreed on a course of action that, if the player accomplished certain tasks, would allow him to wield the axe in one hand, freeing the other for the shield.
In another example, another of his players play a monk, so Matt decided that there are certain monks with certain special powers, and who currently holds these powers was determined by single combat between two monks, one looking to take the power from the other. So after a while, his monk PC faced a group of enemies with a monk that could control ravens. The PC's reaction "That's AWESOME", Matt: "Well, try to beat him and see what happens", the PC triumphed and the enemy monk's tattoos transfered to the PC, giving him control of Ravens.
I've used the same tactics myself to get my players invested. I ask them if there is something they feel their PC is missing, something they wish the PC could do, and then I lay out a plan of getting them there. I find it increases their investment into the world when they realize they can get things about their characters through RP.
These things take different forms, like a druid shifting into the same animal multiple times acruing bonuses to that shape, a cleric with deep story-ties to her warhammer gradually unlocking its powers, a sorcerer attempting to achieve godhood and so forth. These things take the place of features and make the characters special and memorable and takes only a modicum of effort on my part, as well as leading to some seriously good RP moments.
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Post by dmgenisisect on Jun 3, 2017 10:22:59 GMT
I probably should have specified this as a 5e homebrew idea, it makes no sense in any other edition...
It also isn't my attempt to solve a particular problem, my players are currently fine with how I'm running the game, (ie. not using feats or multi classing), I was just messing with a potential idea and thought I'd see if anyone had any inputs.
I've been using a similar system to the one you described. I can't remember who I stole the idea from (I think I got it from a One Shot episode...) but I currently use a system of emergent traits, which grant bonuses for achieving and maintaining particular role playing achievements. They create cool bonuses for people who RP as well as fleshing out the world.
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Post by Lexurium on Jun 3, 2017 12:15:31 GMT
That sounds cool, like a more formalized version of what I do. Mind sharing? I'm absolutely going to "borrow" it, but it might help put us on the same page as well  Anyway, now that I'm home I'll take a deeper look and maybe come up with some more coherent ideas  |
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Post by Lexurium on Jun 3, 2017 13:48:21 GMT
Alright, let’s talk about the first idea, using feats to gain class-features.
Class-features are what makes the different classes distinct, giving them certain roles/positions in a group dynamic. As such, they are also hella-powerful for the most part, from multiple attacks to shape-shifting. Before we can make any educated hypothesis on this topic we have to know exactly what it is we are talking about.
The optional rule for feats state that a player may forego one of their ability increases in favour of a feat. If this is to remain the case, most classes will be able to pick a maximum of five feats (the fighter could pick seven). So we need progression-trees that are 3-5 feats long (so that a player can pick them and still increase their main ability somewhat) and remain useful without breaking the game for everyone.
If we break down each class into optional and non-optional features, we have the standard features from the class on one side and the archetypical features on the other. These archetypical features would be things like the “Assassin”-elective for Rogues or the “Eldritch Knight”-elective for Fighters, while the non-optional contains staples such as “Rage” and “Extra Attacks”, for the Barbarian and Fighter respectively (I know more classes have extra attacks, bare with me).
Allowing for a character to continue down another class’ non-optional list without having to multiclass seems ridiculous to me. I imagine with horror what a Warlock could do with Cleric or Sorcerer features, so I will not continue down this path of thought.
If we look at the optional list, the archetypes usually produce 3-5 features that usually become available around the same time most classes get an ability score improvement. Furthermore they are usually not as powerful as non-optional class features.
There are some of these trees that are utterly ridiculous to “branch into”, as it were, such as the druid “Circle of the Moon”, that focuses on shape-shifting, but these could easily be disqualified by the character looking to take the elective not having the basic feature needed to use these abilities. Furthermore it could allow players to take their characters down two archetypes from within their class, allowing more specialisation into what makes their character special. I’m thinking Champion Battle Master, for example, or a Cleric that takes two domains to better represent the dual nature of their deity of choice.
There is no question that this system would be more powerful in the long run than the feats suggested by the PHB, but the RP potential is there. By also imposing the same prerequisite list on these feature-lists as are imposed on the multiclassing options a greater degree of control could be achieved.
Now, this other idea I got kind of hung up on. There is indeed a way to gain proficiencies in skills, weapons, armors and languages through feats, but not expertise. It may be that you meant advantage, and that is true, but not expertise. Expertise is more powerful by orders of magnitude than advantage, since it changes the actual math itself rather than increasing your chances of rolling well.
Going from the feats we can establish that an ability score increase can be swapped for the following benefits:
Proficiency with 4 weapons of your choice, and an ability increase of +1 to either Dex or Str
Proficiency with 3 skills or tools of your choice
You learn 3 languages and gain an ability increase of +1 to intelligence
Since a character can only take the same feat once, this seems to be the limitation of the system included in the PHB. Frankly I can’t quite see the need to take these feats more than once, unless maybe your PC wants to learn every single language there has ever been. In which case I think it would be more fun to RP this quest rather than just investing ability score increases, but I digress.
Removing the ability score increases from the already available feats to make them repeatable seems like a good idea to balance this. From the same token, the skill/tool proficiency should probably be lowered by one. The resulting list would then be:
A player can chose one of these options instead of increasing their ability scores.
You gain proficiency with 4 weapons of your choice. These weapons must be either simple or martial weapons. (This means no ranged weapons.)
You gain proficiency with 2 skills or tools of your choice.
You learn 3 languages.
In conclusion:
While the feats for class features idea might be fun, the proficiency increases seem entirely pointless.
I still believe that the time still required to balance this idea is better invested in coming up with custom feats.
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Post by dmgenisisect on Jun 6, 2017 6:23:30 GMT
That sounds cool, like a more formalized version of what I do. Mind sharing? I'm absolutely going to "borrow" it, but it might help put us on the same page as well Anyway, now that I'm home I'll take a deeper look and maybe come up with some more coherent ideas Well the general idea is that I'm writing two or so emergent feats for each race, and then a whole bunch of them that are more general. I'm still going through and formalising them but here are some sample emergent traits that I like... (Though I think an understanding of my settings Naga may be required to understand their traits). The general principle Mark of the Dragon
Prerequisites: Desert Naga, Jungle Naga, Mangrove Naga, Mountain Naga. Activation: Complete the trails of honour in the city of the sleeping dragon. Sustainment: Uphold yourself in accordance with Nagan honour. Effect: You are marked a Wise One or Clan Chief for female or male Naga respectively. With the sign of the dragon's spirit (a white scale on the middle of the forehead) or the sign of the dragons might (red flame pattern on the primary arm). As a wise one or clan chief you cannot be taken as peace-bound or deathless. Further you can walk among the members of any clan without fear of attack unless you meet them on the field of battle. Each morning you receive a portent of possible futures that day. Roll 2d20 and store their values. You can replace any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check with one of these foretelling rolls.
Debt Beyond Death
Prerequisites: Desert Naga, Jungle Naga, Mangrove Naga, Mountain Naga. Activation: Willingly don armour. Sustainment: Effect remains until you die or cease to fulfil the prerequisites. Effect: Your crushing burden of debt drives you to feats few other warriors can match. You gain advantage on all attack rolls with melee or ranged weapons, and you can add both your strength and dexterity bonus to all damage rolls using a melee or ranged weapon. You have marked yourself for death by donning armour, and have accepted that as your fate, you have disadvantage on all death saving throws, and cannot take short or long rests.
Ravenous Hunger
Prerequisites: Must be a living sentient being. Activation: Consume the fleshing of a sentient species. Sustainment: Consume the flesh of a sentient being once a week. (A week is five days in my setting) Effect: You suffer from unending ravenous hunger. All food or other material you attempt to eat turns to ash in your mouth and nothing seems to abate your hunger. You can attempt to eat something as a melee attack, the target does not get the benefit of any non-magical armour they may be wearing as your bite turns that to ash as well. Your bite attack deals 1d6 necrotic damage. For every day you do not consume the flesh of a sentient creature, you gain a level of exhaustion. For the purposes of having consumed food and drink, only the flesh of sentient creatures count. |
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Post by dmgenisisect on Jun 6, 2017 7:25:32 GMT
In regards to the the feats; The UA article greatly increase the range of possible material to work on in terms of feat design, including Mike Mearls giving his two cents on feat design: UA-Feats, UA-Racial Feats, UA-Feats for Skills. The feats for skills is where I was getting the get expertise from. The other balancing point that I was using is a concept known as Musicus points. A tool I use for balancing 5e races, Musicus points give an indication of how powerful something is relative to getting a +1 ability score bonus. Although I haven't seen anyone use Musicus points to talk about feats it does seem like a logical comparison, and gets essentially the same numbers as you came up with in your posts; trade an ability score increase to gain 2 skill or tool proficiency, 4 weapon proficiency, 1 skill or tool proficiency and 1 skill or tool expertise, (and I hadn't considered granting languages but it does seem that would be good) 3 languages. My intentions was to have this as a modification to the default ability score increase, perhaps something like this... Personal Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1, or you can increase one ability score of your choice by 1 and gain proficiency 4 weapons, 3 languages, or 2 skills or tools. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. This is a default classes progression, obviously classes with different progressions would have slightly different text.Here is my idea for how wizard multi-classing might work... Wizard Training 1Prerequisite: Intelligence 13 Restriction: Cannot be a Wizard You learn three cantrips from the Wizard's spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your spells gained through wizard training. You gain proficiency in the Arcana skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it. Wizard Training 2Prerequisite: Wizard Training 1 You acquire a wizards spellbook containing eight 1st-level wizard spells of your choice. Your spellbook is the repository of the wizard spells you know, except your cantrips, which are fixed in your mind. You have three wizard spell slots to cast your spells of 1st level. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest. You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + the number of wizard training (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. Wizard Training 3
Prerequisite: Wizard Training 2 You gain an additional 1st level wizard spell slot and two 2nd level wizard spell slots and can add two spells to your spellbook of 1st or 2nd level from the wizard spell list. Wizard Training 4Prerequisite: Wizard Training 3 You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than 2. Further you learn a new cantrip from the wizard spell list, you can add two spells to your spellbook of 1st or 2nd level from the wizard spell list, and gain an additional 2nd level spell slot. Wizard Training 5Prerequisite: Wizard Training 4 You gain two 3rd level wizard spell slots and can add two spells to your spellbook of 1st, 2nd or 3rd level from the wizard spell list. |
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Post by dmgenisisect on Jun 6, 2017 7:53:30 GMT
And an example of self multiclassing... Fiend Pact 1
Prerequisites: Warlock Restrictions: Cannot have a fiend as an otherworldly patron The Fiend lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you. | Spell Level | Spells | | 1st | burning hands, command
| | 2nd | blindness/deafness, scorching ray
| | 3rd | fireball, stinking cloud
| | 4th | fire shield, wall of fire
| | 5th | flame strike, hallow |
Prerequisites: Fiend Pact 1 When you reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1). Fiend Pact 3Prerequisites: Fiend Pact 2 You can call on your new patron to alter fate in your favor. When you make an ability check or a saving throw, you can use this feature to add a d10 to your roll. You can do so after seeing the initial roll but before any of the roll's effects occur. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest. I would probably limit the self cross classing to 3 features, as I feel like having too many of the features would be a bit too strong (especially getting the capstone). |
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