I said that Feats shouldn't compete with ASI's because that means a player has to choose between making their character more effective and making them more interesting and I don't think that's a good choice to have to make for gameplay.
I'm divided on this.
On the one hand, I agree. I find that the feats aren't very optimised for my character, partly due to the nature of the feats, partly because of the interaction of the rules means that some lose their usefulness. It makes it hard to justify losing +1 spells prepared, +1 spell attack bonus and +1 spell save DC, for example.
On the other hand, I need something to do once I've maxed out my focus ASIs. As a Wizard, I feel like once I've maxed out my Int, I'm just assigning ASIs for the sake of it, which isn't the feeling they were going for. I need something I can choose instead. Doesn't have to be feats, but if they make feats q separate track, they'll have to really populate the list because even picking one currently isn't an exciting prospect.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Main thing I spoke about was how feats competing with ASI's just means that only the 'meta' feats are picked, as most players would rather just boost their numbers than take a flavour feat. Feats could be so much more interesting if they had their own spot.
Main thing I spoke about was how feats competing with ASI's just means that only the 'meta' feats are picked, as most players would rather just boost their numbers than take a flavour feat. Feats could be so much more interesting if they had their own spot.
I also said basically this. ASI are power progression at the cost of customization. Feats are, for the most part though not in all cases, customization at the cost of power progression. It's often not a great trade-off.
Never are. You'd think a company owned by a billion dollar, multinational conglomerate would've had their bosses teach them how to do market research.
This is how you do market research. Wizards isn't interested in reading and analyzing the specific thoughts of a few million respondents. They need to know three things, in as large a dosage as they can.
1.) Do you hate it? i.e. "did we make this bad enough that it's widely unpopular and causing us trouble, and as such we should look into fixing it?" 2.) Do you love it? i.e. "Is this the right kind of feat, should we keep this in mind when designing feats in the future or redesigning Hate-Its?" 3.) Do you actually use it? i.e. "whatever your opinion of it, are you using it anyways? if you use it and hate it, why? What makes you use something you hate? If you love it but never use it, also why? What's causing you not to use something you really like?"
They don't have enough intern hours in the day to read and absorb millions of armchair game dev's thoughts on fixing specific things. They just need to know the community's take on the things overall, get their Satisfaction Percentage numbers, and then let their community team get a read on reactions to the survey or consult people with actual design chops. I can almost guarantee you they're not reading anything in the comment box. If the comment box isn't a placebo they're just junking? They have a system set up to comb comments for keywords and feed back into their aggregate research, i.e. "Sharpshooter was mentioned in 37% of write-in comments; people have serious opinions about that feat, we should probably pay extra attention to it during this 2024 redux process."
Like it, hate it - and trust me, I hate it - this is the only way any of us gets a voice. As just one more data point in the great mindless gibbering mouther that is The D&D Playerbase. Do your survey, hope enough other people agree with you to get your general trend looked at.
Frankly, I only rated maybe five feats as "Satisfactory" or above. 'Bout half the rest were "Slightly Satisfactory', and the rest were some manner of 'nah'. The PHB offerings are mostly mediocre to actively bad, and I dislike it much. Eh.
I guess I should give them credit since this is one of their above average surveys, but still in general they suck ass. They forgot to even advertise this one on their main page lmao.
I think you're conflating market research and gameplay feedback (UA/playtest style). Might seem like they at least overlap, but they don't. And gameplay feedback is not really sollicited from the general public anyway, UA notwithstanding. That's a terrible way to go about playtesting, there's no control whatsoever over the quality of the feedback and no realistic way of extracting actually useful information out of it. I'd be extremely surprised if UA feedback gets more than a cursory glance from a development POV, it's almost certainly used for survey purposes only.
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I think the "half feats" are actually a bad idea. I'd rather it was flipped around, so that you can take an ASI (+2 total) or half an ASI + a feat. This would require retuning of the feats, but would widen the feat options and avoid a two tier feat system which is harder to balance - as is demonstrated by some of the later e.g. TCoE half feats being obviously stronger than PHB full feats.
I think the "half feats" are actually a bad idea. I'd rather it was flipped around, so that you can take an ASI (+2 total) or half an ASI + a feat. This would require retuning of the feats, but would widen the feat options and avoid a two tier feat system which is harder to balance - as is demonstrated by some of the later e.g. TCoE half feats being obviously stronger than PHB full feats.
I'm curious on your wording here. If you say that half feats are a bad idea, but then say that the balance on them should be that you get a +1 ASI and then the feat.....aren't you saying that all feats should be half feats?
I think the idea is to let you freely choose the one asi point, where as most half feats give a specific bonus or limit your selection, such as crusher limited to STR or CON, or Actor only giving CHA.
Whereas I think that no feats should have ability score increases. I think they all need to be rebalanced to be completely independent from ASI's and not require one to give up an ASI to pick a Feat.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I told them all feats should have four options. As an optional rule at each level up, a player can chose one of the options. After 4 level ups, the player would have one complete feat, or 1 to 4 partial feats. I picture this being in addition to the current ASI vs. Feat options players currently have.
To me, this doesn't shoot player power much higher than it already is, but it does give many more options to customize a player and take feats that players normally wouldn't. I've thought about doing something similar to this at my table. Players would start with a weaker standard array, but they would be able to pick half feats at odd levels until level 8.
I said that Feats shouldn't compete with ASI's because that means a player has to choose between making their character more effective and making them more interesting and I don't think that's a good choice to have to make for gameplay.
I'm divided on this.
On the one hand, I agree. I find that the feats aren't very optimised for my character, partly due to the nature of the feats, partly because of the interaction of the rules means that some lose their usefulness. It makes it hard to justify losing +1 spells prepared, +1 spell attack bonus and +1 spell save DC, for example.
On the other hand, I need something to do once I've maxed out my focus ASIs. As a Wizard, I feel like once I've maxed out my Int, I'm just assigning ASIs for the sake of it, which isn't the feeling they were going for. I need something I can choose instead. Doesn't have to be feats, but if they make feats q separate track, they'll have to really populate the list because even picking one currently isn't an exciting prospect.
I kind of have the feeling that most games end just a bit after characters max out their primary ability score. You're lucky that you've gone past this. That doesn't detract from the point of having ASI's separate from feats, but also yes there should be more, and more interesting, feats.
I like feats but some of them are just lame or don't really have much use, like the Lightly/Moderately/Heavily Armored, or the Weapon Master Feat just take a 1 level dip in fighter and boom you make 4 feats useless with a 1 level dip. I also stated get more feats for melee combat so not every melee build id the following Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master/Sentinel and every ranged build is Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert I mean we need more of this and maybe something like the Sharpshooter bonus damage for spells -5 to hit but +10 to damage. As well as I stated that Magic Initiate needs to be updated to the modern spell feats and racial abilities to choose casting stat.
I also told them we need more access to feats either by making them in addition to ASI's or by making them every third level like it was in 3e. I said we didn't need any new feats though as there are already so many compared to how much access we have to use them.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
For the ones that were "too good", I actually just said Satisfactory. GWM, Lucky, SS, etc.
For the Write In part, I mentioned that all of the Armored feats were terrible and needed to be combined into one... and Weapon Master either needs to grant proficiency in all weapons, or expertise in just one... otherwise it's really, REALLY pointless.
I said that Feats shouldn't compete with ASI's because that means a player has to choose between making their character more effective and making them more interesting and I don't think that's a good choice to have to make for gameplay.
I'm divided on this.
On the one hand, I agree. I find that the feats aren't very optimised for my character, partly due to the nature of the feats, partly because of the interaction of the rules means that some lose their usefulness. It makes it hard to justify losing +1 spells prepared, +1 spell attack bonus and +1 spell save DC, for example.
On the other hand, I need something to do once I've maxed out my focus ASIs. As a Wizard, I feel like once I've maxed out my Int, I'm just assigning ASIs for the sake of it, which isn't the feeling they were going for. I need something I can choose instead. Doesn't have to be feats, but if they make feats q separate track, they'll have to really populate the list because even picking one currently isn't an exciting prospect.
I kind of have the feeling that most games end just a bit after characters max out their primary ability score. You're lucky that you've gone past this. That doesn't detract from the point of having ASI's separate from feats, but also yes there should be more, and more interesting, feats.
Using the 4d6k3 method, 57% characters will have a natural 16 or higher for their primary stat, so if they're a single stat wonder, they'll max out at L8 , or L4 if they pick it for their +2 (which is what happened to me). Array will get you there at L8. Point buy can get you there at L8. That leaves your L12 in most instances either going to a secondary slot or a feat. Not everyone will not be bothered about a secondary slot, but there needs to be a solid alternative. Doesn't necessarily have to be feats though - something else will do. Maybe proficiencies or something.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I am leery of such surveys. This is a conservative bunch of Devs and they seem (with MMM as evidence) on a second round of conservativism. So my fear, given that, is that they are far more likely to nerf anything anyone hints might be too good than to boost anything too weak.
What do you mean by Conservative?
As in they're going to write down as few words as possible / release the fewest "new" products possible; or that they want to make the fewest number of new mechanics possible so online develoupment will be easier?
MMM made a better +1 book for AL with updated mechanics for most races. It's a new way to level set the game to bring in new players... why they put it in some dumb bundle I can't say yet, but in general it does have *better* content, even if it is mostly repeats.
I've never played in a 5E game that didn't have feats. I hate having to choose between a boring stat increase and some interesting character defining mechanic that offers new options to game play. Many of those games included house rules to provide additional ways to gain a feat whether it is a bonus feat at 1st level or you gain both ASI and Feat for first ASI choice. My point is that I feel feats and ASI should be de-coupled from each other.
Athlete - The core rules on standing up should be changed to a set feet penalty instead of half movement. It makes no sense for a very agile monk with a lot of speed to lose a lot more movement than a slow creature. This feat feature should be included in core rules in some form already.
Charger - Don't tie the usage of this feat to the dash action. Dash gets used so very rarely, making this feat have very little impact in the average battle.
Crossbow expert - Having a martial feat directly influence spell casting in a major way feels like bad design. Most spell casters take 'crossbow expert', not because they want their characters to be experts with crossbows (most don't even use them) but just so they can cast attack spells in melee range. At the very least this feat should be renamed and worded so it is more ubiquitous about attacking from melee range. It just feels weird to provide all these bonuses to crossbow and then a major spell casting bonus.
Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter - I think the -5/+10 is a bit much early on and should have growth to it instead. Tying this to your proficiency bonus works much better - proficiency bonus to hit / + twice proficiency bonus on damage (ranges from -2/+4 to -6/+12). This gives it a dynamic that grows with the character and level of opposition. Also, you need to give one handed weapons something similar, I know its trying to balance the shield bonus. But not everyone uses a shield with one handed weapons and dual weapons in 5E is horrible and the fighting style only provides a +2 bonus to damage.
Magic Initiate - You need to bring this up to par with modern rulings by allowing the spell chosen to be cast via spell slots if you have them.
Mounted Combat - I never understood why mounted combatants gained a bonus for attacking creatures smaller than the mount. It is actually more difficult. Your body is in a fixed position, you can only attack from one angle, fairly immobile, and you can't properly defend yourself. If you're going to gain a bonus to attack it should be against larger opponents as you are able to reach more critical areas and not just their legs. Also, when I think of mounted combat, I think of charging into battle and gaining a bonus to that initial charge. Lastly, it is much easier to attack a mount and avoid the rider. I think many movies and battle lore has shown this. Perhaps you can provide a bonus to your mounts AC instead showing how good you are as a rider to control your mount in combat. I think interesting movement options would be nice with this feat.
Observant - +5 bonus to passive perception and investigation can destroy campaigns and make certain things very frustrating for a DM. Maybe provide an alternate way to express observant while also granting a more moderate bonus to these skills.
Resilient - Boring. Useful, but boring. Maybe add some other small benefit that is more tangible to the player.Sentinel - I don't like the speed becomes 0 aspect. It is a bit too powerful for a feat that already has some great functionality to it. Maybe just impose a movement penalty of -10 feet instead.
Weapon Master - Gaining proficiency in a handful of simple/martial weapons is hardly the image that I conjure in my mind when I think 'WEAPON MASTER!!" The name of this feat should be changed to reflect gaining proficiency in a few weapons. A second feat named 'weapon master' could actually exude some sort of mechanical mastery over said weapons that a normal proficiency would not grant.
I am leery of such surveys. This is a conservative bunch of Devs and they seem (with MMM as evidence) on a second round of conservativism. So my fear, given that, is that they are far more likely to nerf anything anyone hints might be too good than to boost anything too weak.
What do you mean by Conservative?
As in they're going to write down as few words as possible / release the fewest "new" products possible; or that they want to make the fewest number of new mechanics possible so online develoupment will be easier?
MMM made a better +1 book for AL with updated mechanics for most races. It's a new way to level set the game to bring in new players... why they put it in some dumb bundle I can't say yet, but in general it does have *better* content, even if it is mostly repeats.
I mean by limits on power levels. Greater limits on buff stacking, on item use (a flat 3 item attunement limit), a lot of spells being weaker than in the past, a great number of magic items nerfed compared to prior editions above and beyond attunement limits.... from a mechanics point of view, it is arguably a relatively conservative set of rules.
It is much less conservative in other ways, but mechanically, it is more so.
Ah! Yeah, that makes sense. I'm with ya.
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I'm divided on this.
On the one hand, I agree. I find that the feats aren't very optimised for my character, partly due to the nature of the feats, partly because of the interaction of the rules means that some lose their usefulness. It makes it hard to justify losing +1 spells prepared, +1 spell attack bonus and +1 spell save DC, for example.
On the other hand, I need something to do once I've maxed out my focus ASIs. As a Wizard, I feel like once I've maxed out my Int, I'm just assigning ASIs for the sake of it, which isn't the feeling they were going for. I need something I can choose instead. Doesn't have to be feats, but if they make feats q separate track, they'll have to really populate the list because even picking one currently isn't an exciting prospect.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Filled it in.
Main thing I spoke about was how feats competing with ASI's just means that only the 'meta' feats are picked, as most players would rather just boost their numbers than take a flavour feat. Feats could be so much more interesting if they had their own spot.
I also said basically this. ASI are power progression at the cost of customization. Feats are, for the most part though not in all cases, customization at the cost of power progression. It's often not a great trade-off.
I think you're conflating market research and gameplay feedback (UA/playtest style). Might seem like they at least overlap, but they don't. And gameplay feedback is not really sollicited from the general public anyway, UA notwithstanding. That's a terrible way to go about playtesting, there's no control whatsoever over the quality of the feedback and no realistic way of extracting actually useful information out of it. I'd be extremely surprised if UA feedback gets more than a cursory glance from a development POV, it's almost certainly used for survey purposes only.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
My feedback FWIW:
I'm curious on your wording here. If you say that half feats are a bad idea, but then say that the balance on them should be that you get a +1 ASI and then the feat.....aren't you saying that all feats should be half feats?
I think the idea is to let you freely choose the one asi point, where as most half feats give a specific bonus or limit your selection, such as crusher limited to STR or CON, or Actor only giving CHA.
Whereas I think that no feats should have ability score increases. I think they all need to be rebalanced to be completely independent from ASI's and not require one to give up an ASI to pick a Feat.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I told them all feats should have four options. As an optional rule at each level up, a player can chose one of the options. After 4 level ups, the player would have one complete feat, or 1 to 4 partial feats. I picture this being in addition to the current ASI vs. Feat options players currently have.
To me, this doesn't shoot player power much higher than it already is, but it does give many more options to customize a player and take feats that players normally wouldn't. I've thought about doing something similar to this at my table. Players would start with a weaker standard array, but they would be able to pick half feats at odd levels until level 8.
Just my 2 cents.
I kind of have the feeling that most games end just a bit after characters max out their primary ability score. You're lucky that you've gone past this. That doesn't detract from the point of having ASI's separate from feats, but also yes there should be more, and more interesting, feats.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I like feats but some of them are just lame or don't really have much use, like the Lightly/Moderately/Heavily Armored, or the Weapon Master Feat just take a 1 level dip in fighter and boom you make 4 feats useless with a 1 level dip. I also stated get more feats for melee combat so not every melee build id the following Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master/Sentinel and every ranged build is Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert I mean we need more of this and maybe something like the Sharpshooter bonus damage for spells -5 to hit but +10 to damage. As well as I stated that Magic Initiate needs to be updated to the modern spell feats and racial abilities to choose casting stat.
I also told them we need more access to feats either by making them in addition to ASI's or by making them every third level like it was in 3e. I said we didn't need any new feats though as there are already so many compared to how much access we have to use them.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
For the ones that were "too good", I actually just said Satisfactory. GWM, Lucky, SS, etc.
For the Write In part, I mentioned that all of the Armored feats were terrible and needed to be combined into one... and Weapon Master either needs to grant proficiency in all weapons, or expertise in just one... otherwise it's really, REALLY pointless.
Using the 4d6k3 method, 57% characters will have a natural 16 or higher for their primary stat, so if they're a single stat wonder, they'll max out at L8 , or L4 if they pick it for their +2 (which is what happened to me). Array will get you there at L8. Point buy can get you there at L8. That leaves your L12 in most instances either going to a secondary slot or a feat. Not everyone will not be bothered about a secondary slot, but there needs to be a solid alternative. Doesn't necessarily have to be feats though - something else will do. Maybe proficiencies or something.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
What do you mean by Conservative?
As in they're going to write down as few words as possible / release the fewest "new" products possible; or that they want to make the fewest number of new mechanics possible so online develoupment will be easier?
MMM made a better +1 book for AL with updated mechanics for most races. It's a new way to level set the game to bring in new players... why they put it in some dumb bundle I can't say yet, but in general it does have *better* content, even if it is mostly repeats.
My feedback:
I've never played in a 5E game that didn't have feats. I hate having to choose between a boring stat increase and some interesting character defining mechanic that offers new options to game play. Many of those games included house rules to provide additional ways to gain a feat whether it is a bonus feat at 1st level or you gain both ASI and Feat for first ASI choice. My point is that I feel feats and ASI should be de-coupled from each other.
Athlete - The core rules on standing up should be changed to a set feet penalty instead of half movement. It makes no sense for a very agile monk with a lot of speed to lose a lot more movement than a slow creature. This feat feature should be included in core rules in some form already.
Charger - Don't tie the usage of this feat to the dash action. Dash gets used so very rarely, making this feat have very little impact in the average battle.
Crossbow expert - Having a martial feat directly influence spell casting in a major way feels like bad design. Most spell casters take 'crossbow expert', not because they want their characters to be experts with crossbows (most don't even use them) but just so they can cast attack spells in melee range. At the very least this feat should be renamed and worded so it is more ubiquitous about attacking from melee range. It just feels weird to provide all these bonuses to crossbow and then a major spell casting bonus.
Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter - I think the -5/+10 is a bit much early on and should have growth to it instead. Tying this to your proficiency bonus works much better - proficiency bonus to hit / + twice proficiency bonus on damage (ranges from -2/+4 to -6/+12). This gives it a dynamic that grows with the character and level of opposition. Also, you need to give one handed weapons something similar, I know its trying to balance the shield bonus. But not everyone uses a shield with one handed weapons and dual weapons in 5E is horrible and the fighting style only provides a +2 bonus to damage.
Magic Initiate - You need to bring this up to par with modern rulings by allowing the spell chosen to be cast via spell slots if you have them.
Mounted Combat - I never understood why mounted combatants gained a bonus for attacking creatures smaller than the mount. It is actually more difficult. Your body is in a fixed position, you can only attack from one angle, fairly immobile, and you can't properly defend yourself. If you're going to gain a bonus to attack it should be against larger opponents as you are able to reach more critical areas and not just their legs. Also, when I think of mounted combat, I think of charging into battle and gaining a bonus to that initial charge. Lastly, it is much easier to attack a mount and avoid the rider. I think many movies and battle lore has shown this. Perhaps you can provide a bonus to your mounts AC instead showing how good you are as a rider to control your mount in combat. I think interesting movement options would be nice with this feat.
Observant - +5 bonus to passive perception and investigation can destroy campaigns and make certain things very frustrating for a DM. Maybe provide an alternate way to express observant while also granting a more moderate bonus to these skills.
Resilient - Boring. Useful, but boring. Maybe add some other small benefit that is more tangible to the player. Sentinel - I don't like the speed becomes 0 aspect. It is a bit too powerful for a feat that already has some great functionality to it. Maybe just impose a movement penalty of -10 feet instead.
Weapon Master - Gaining proficiency in a handful of simple/martial weapons is hardly the image that I conjure in my mind when I think 'WEAPON MASTER!!" The name of this feat should be changed to reflect gaining proficiency in a few weapons. A second feat named 'weapon master' could actually exude some sort of mechanical mastery over said weapons that a normal proficiency would not grant.
Ah! Yeah, that makes sense. I'm with ya.