The Advance TL;DR: How many feats on average do you think a character "should" have within a 20 level career? How many ASI's do you feel are reasonable to sacrifice for the feats? Also, do you support bonus feats? By that, I mean feats that are either granted anywhere from 1st to 20th level (possibly interspersed with the Ability Score Increases), or feats that are awarded for things like Downtime Training, or Alternate Quest Rewards, etc. And if you take the time to reply, what method do you prefer for generating ability scores in your games? Obvious admission: Characters can have different benefits from feats based on their class and intended build, but rather than try to break down all the possibilities, I'm just looking for a generic average with a give or take available.
The Breakdown and why I'm asking:
Some of my most recent activity has been spent looking at character generation methods for Player Character's, especially within regards to their ability scores. This is related but tangentially I think. To clarify, I believe that starting with higher ability scores will without surprise contribute to player's feeling free to pick feats sooner, and probably more feats than they otherwise would have. Once player's have gotten their one or two primary abilities to a 20 (maybe 16 (?) for a Tertiary score), feats have greater value than ability increases as what those other score increase are really boosting are saves and skills, which are more easily boosted with feats like Skilled, Prodigy, Resilient, and Lucky.
Now, I like Feats for both my characters and my players. I feel they further customize and empower the Player with choices, not raw POWER (though certainly that comes in there too). And I personally *really* like having more options available, for both my monsters and my players. I remember my fighters in 3rd edition and the dozens upon dozens of feats it felt like they had. But obviously it's a new edition. So before I start house ruling anything in relation to feats for my own game, I wanted to consult the broader community.
Currently, I've set up a party that is midway through Curse of Strahd's Death House with a custom 37 point buy, where the lowest score is 8, highest ability bought can be a 17 prior to racial or other bonuses. An example array from that would look like: 17, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8. The idea there was to avoid issues of disparity between the party as well as the adventure as intended, as well as to encourage feat selection at earlier levels. But I've considered alternate ideas as well. Heck, I recently considered assigning a single free discretionary Ability Score Increase to *all* the feats, which would stack with the feats that already provided a bonus. The main difference between the standard ASI's and the feats would basically come down to you not being able to attach both increases to the same stat, but overall it was better to just grab a feat by far. (I *considered* this, I have not implemented it)
And obviously I wonder about Feats granted in limited form, perhaps a feat somewhere between levels 1 to 3, and then allowing for Downtime Training or Alternate Rewards to quests completed, etc. I balk a little bit at the Alternate Rewards for two reasons: firstly, I don't want character builds to be constrained by whether the party did or did not complete this contract, save this merchant or princess, or fetch and deliver this pound of sausage quite as quick as they should have. Secondly, I feel that those kind of Alternate Rewards of advanced training are more intended to be the sort of thing you gain maybe once or twice in a full 20 level campaign (maybe twice, maybe). And we all know how often Campaigns intended to run from 1st to 20th level actually get that far.
In the poll, I chose 5 or more. :P I suspect that lead won't hold up.
I voted 0 because I don't allow feats in my games. I feel they muddy what is already good set of abilities each class/sub-class gets.
Feats are very specialized in 5e, and are used to enhance a particular ability of a sub-class. So you're likely going to be very sparing with taking a feat to enhance that 'one thing' you want your PC to be able to do. A boost in ability stat is so much more broadly versatile. In 3e edition, feats were much more important in keeping your PC competitive in combat. 5e's different math makes it much less important to have situational buffs.
But again, I don't allow feats in my games so my experience is limited with them.
Well, I figure players will use 2 ASIs to get their primary stat up to 20, and the rest on feats. So the biggest number of feats would be for a Variant Human fighter who would then end up with 6 feats. There's a bunch of other classes that would naturally end up with 3, fighers are really pretty ridiculous.
So I think the average would be somewhere between 3 and 4, with 3 as the most common number but with occasionally more.
Well, I figure players will use 2 ASIs to get their primary stat up to 20, and the rest on feats. So the biggest number of feats would be for a Variant Human fighter who would then end up with 6 feats. There's a bunch of other classes that would naturally end up with 3, fighers are really pretty ridiculous.
Eh, there probably aren't six feats that are more valuable to a fighter than +2 Con, and classes with MAD issues (such as Monks and Paladins) might well not take any feats.
The Advance TL;DR: How many feats on average do you think a character "should" have within a 20 level career? How many ASI's do you feel are reasonable to sacrifice for the feats? Also, do you support bonus feats? By that, I mean feats that are either granted anywhere from 1st to 20th level (possibly interspersed with the Ability Score Increases), or feats that are awarded for things like Downtime Training, or Alternate Quest Rewards, etc. And if you take the time to reply, what method do you prefer for generating ability scores in your games? Obvious admission: Characters can have different benefits from feats based on their class and intended build, but rather than try to break down all the possibilities, I'm just looking for a generic average with a give or take available.
The Breakdown and why I'm asking:
Some of my most recent activity has been spent looking at character generation methods for Player Character's, especially within regards to their ability scores. This is related but tangentially I think. To clarify, I believe that starting with higher ability scores will without surprise contribute to player's feeling free to pick feats sooner, and probably more feats than they otherwise would have. Once player's have gotten their one or two primary abilities to a 20 (maybe 16 (?) for a Tertiary score), feats have greater value than ability increases as what those other score increase are really boosting are saves and skills, which are more easily boosted with feats like Skilled, Prodigy, Resilient, and Lucky.
Now, I like Feats for both my characters and my players. I feel they further customize and empower the Player with choices, not raw POWER (though certainly that comes in there too). And I personally *really* like having more options available, for both my monsters and my players. I remember my fighters in 3rd edition and the dozens upon dozens of feats it felt like they had. But obviously it's a new edition. So before I start house ruling anything in relation to feats for my own game, I wanted to consult the broader community.
Currently, I've set up a party that is midway through Curse of Strahd's Death House with a custom 37 point buy, where the lowest score is 8, highest ability bought can be a 17 prior to racial or other bonuses. An example array from that would look like: 17, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8. The idea there was to avoid issues of disparity between the party as well as the adventure as intended, as well as to encourage feat selection at earlier levels. But I've considered alternate ideas as well. Heck, I recently considered assigning a single free discretionary Ability Score Increase to *all* the feats, which would stack with the feats that already provided a bonus. The main difference between the standard ASI's and the feats would basically come down to you not being able to attach both increases to the same stat, but overall it was better to just grab a feat by far. (I *considered* this, I have not implemented it)
And obviously I wonder about Feats granted in limited form, perhaps a feat somewhere between levels 1 to 3, and then allowing for Downtime Training or Alternate Rewards to quests completed, etc. I balk a little bit at the Alternate Rewards for two reasons: firstly, I don't want character builds to be constrained by whether the party did or did not complete this contract, save this merchant or princess, or fetch and deliver this pound of sausage quite as quick as they should have. Secondly, I feel that those kind of Alternate Rewards of advanced training are more intended to be the sort of thing you gain maybe once or twice in a full 20 level campaign (maybe twice, maybe). And we all know how often Campaigns intended to run from 1st to 20th level actually get that far.
In the poll, I chose 5 or more. :P I suspect that lead won't hold up.
[space reserved for mulling brain cells later]
I voted 0 because I don't allow feats in my games. I feel they muddy what is already good set of abilities each class/sub-class gets.
Feats are very specialized in 5e, and are used to enhance a particular ability of a sub-class. So you're likely going to be very sparing with taking a feat to enhance that 'one thing' you want your PC to be able to do. A boost in ability stat is so much more broadly versatile. In 3e edition, feats were much more important in keeping your PC competitive in combat. 5e's different math makes it much less important to have situational buffs.
But again, I don't allow feats in my games so my experience is limited with them.
It's generally not worth taking feats until your primary stat hits 20; secondary stats are typically limited value so feats compete.
Maybe it's just me, but did I set up the poll badly? It looks weird. ??
Well, I figure players will use 2 ASIs to get their primary stat up to 20, and the rest on feats. So the biggest number of feats would be for a Variant Human fighter who would then end up with 6 feats. There's a bunch of other classes that would naturally end up with 3, fighers are really pretty ridiculous.
So I think the average would be somewhere between 3 and 4, with 3 as the most common number but with occasionally more.
Eh, there probably aren't six feats that are more valuable to a fighter than +2 Con, and classes with MAD issues (such as Monks and Paladins) might well not take any feats.