I'm a fan of 5e design, as well as the recent move to floating racial ability improvements.
I also love feats, as well as appreciate them as optional. But I've always wanted to be able to take a feat at 1st level, without it being strictly an overpowered add-on.
Partly because of this, I don't like the "Feats as part of Background" direction. I like the idea of a No-Feats PC playing alongside a Feats PC.
So I thought of this simple house rule. Any pitfalls?
* At character creation, all ability improvements are floating: +2 to any, +1 to any other.
* In place of the +2, you may choose any Feat.
* No Variant Human. In place of two +1's, you may choose a Feat.
I second not liking the feats as part of a background direction; it's fine in Strixhaven because everybody has one of those backgrounds but outside of that campaign it's going to be a mess as there'll be no reason to ever take any other background, so yeah, I hate that.
As for the character creation changes I'm less sure of the need for them? I'm not sure about swapping +2 on any race, it's worth keeping in mind that a +2 at creation time isn't quite the same as the two +1's for Ability Score Increases on levelling up; if we assume points buy or standard array then all a +2 really means is that you can hit a 16 more cheaply/easily for a +3 modifier. However when levelling the ASIs are usually pushing scores that are already very high, so in a sense these are more valuable.
I wouldn't get rid of variant human; the free feat on variant human is to compensate for having no racial traits, having to trade the +1's just makes them worse. Remember instead of a feat ordinary humans are getting an additional +4 worth of ability score increases (albeit divided amongst four ability scores). So while regular human is one of the best races for a build that requires decent scores in many abilities, variant human is one of the worst, letting anyone trade two +1's just makes regular human and half-elves a lot better, and they're already really good for certain builds.
Personally I think it's reasonably well balanced as-is; the main issue is that a no-feats character may run out of things to put points into that really benefits them, especially on a class that doesn't require many high scores like an Artificer or Rogue, both of whom on really need one ability score (Intelligence and Dexterity, respectively). The main problem with feats vs. no-feats is that there are some very strong feat combinations; for example, Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master are often more valuable than an ability score increase on a Barbarian, but then Barbarian is also arguably a class that needs feats more than most (especially to compensate for some of their more "meh" features at higher levels).
I dunno, I don't think there's any good common rule that will balance anything; it's more for a DM to examine on a case-by-case basis, i.e- if a character with no feats is struggling, examine why, and maybe tailor a magic item to that character to compensate.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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I'm a fan of 5e design, as well as the recent move to floating racial ability improvements.
I also love feats, as well as appreciate them as optional. But I've always wanted to be able to take a feat at 1st level, without it being strictly an overpowered add-on.
Partly because of this, I don't like the "Feats as part of Background" direction. I like the idea of a No-Feats PC playing alongside a Feats PC.
So I thought of this simple house rule. Any pitfalls?
* At character creation, all ability improvements are floating: +2 to any, +1 to any other.
* In place of the +2, you may choose any Feat.
* No Variant Human. In place of two +1's, you may choose a Feat.
I second not liking the feats as part of a background direction; it's fine in Strixhaven because everybody has one of those backgrounds but outside of that campaign it's going to be a mess as there'll be no reason to ever take any other background, so yeah, I hate that.
As for the character creation changes I'm less sure of the need for them? I'm not sure about swapping +2 on any race, it's worth keeping in mind that a +2 at creation time isn't quite the same as the two +1's for Ability Score Increases on levelling up; if we assume points buy or standard array then all a +2 really means is that you can hit a 16 more cheaply/easily for a +3 modifier. However when levelling the ASIs are usually pushing scores that are already very high, so in a sense these are more valuable.
I wouldn't get rid of variant human; the free feat on variant human is to compensate for having no racial traits, having to trade the +1's just makes them worse. Remember instead of a feat ordinary humans are getting an additional +4 worth of ability score increases (albeit divided amongst four ability scores). So while regular human is one of the best races for a build that requires decent scores in many abilities, variant human is one of the worst, letting anyone trade two +1's just makes regular human and half-elves a lot better, and they're already really good for certain builds.
Personally I think it's reasonably well balanced as-is; the main issue is that a no-feats character may run out of things to put points into that really benefits them, especially on a class that doesn't require many high scores like an Artificer or Rogue, both of whom on really need one ability score (Intelligence and Dexterity, respectively). The main problem with feats vs. no-feats is that there are some very strong feat combinations; for example, Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master are often more valuable than an ability score increase on a Barbarian, but then Barbarian is also arguably a class that needs feats more than most (especially to compensate for some of their more "meh" features at higher levels).
I dunno, I don't think there's any good common rule that will balance anything; it's more for a DM to examine on a case-by-case basis, i.e- if a character with no feats is struggling, examine why, and maybe tailor a magic item to that character to compensate.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.