Feats that characters Should Already Have

[littha]

contradictory class features leads to not doing the same thing all the time, which keeps the game fresh, and is therefore good game design.

So monks being unable to use their flurry and fast movement at the same time is good games design?

Association fallacy, and a straw man argument no less.

Actually Reductio ad absurdum but you get points for trying.


You said:

In fact, I'd say the opposite is true: contradictory class features leads to not doing the same thing all the time, which keeps the game fresh, and is therefore good game design.

My point is that contradictory class features are not good game design as you propose. It is entirely dependent on the actual feature and how it is presented.

Wildshape is presented as a distinct feature from spellcasting, thus having one lock the other out is bad because it is viewed as a restriction of features. Stances on the other hand are presented as a selection of features, you are granted the choice rather than a restriction which is why it is a better designed feature.

Your major problem here is that you are associating the power of a feature with how well it is designed. Wildshape (with natural spell) is in a good design space, it is however very strong. This just means that the designers either didnt care about balance or were incapable of making it, it does not make the feature itself badly designed.

[FlaminCows]

Association fallacy still applies.

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    Premise A is a B
    Premise A is also a C
    Conclusion: Therefore, all Bs are Cs

The Monk's abilities are contradictory.
The Monk's abilities are badly designed.
Therefore, all contradictory abilities are badly designed.

Which means I get points for succeeding, too. I agree, though, that reductio ad absurdium is more specific in this case, and I will use it next time such a thing comes up. Its good that you have a good humour about it. 

My point is that contradictory class features are not good game design as you propose. It is entirely dependent on the actual feature and how it is presented.

Wildshape is presented as a distinct feature from spellcasting, thus having one lock the other out is bad because it is viewed as a restriction of features. Stances on the other hand are presented as a selection of features, you are granted the choice rather than a restriction which is why it is a better designed feature.

I think you're on to something with the presentation issue, however, presentation is just presentation. You can, as Oslecamo noted, present the Druid's ability as "spellcasting stance" and "beast stance". The thing is, "wild shape or spellcast" is a choice, while "wild shape AND spellcast or just spellcast" isn't one. I'll agree that they could have presented it in a more pleasing way.

[littha]

I am fond of Reductio ad absurdum as a debating technique. It isn't a fallacy though

Regardless I was trying to point out that you had made the Association fallacy there. You were asserting that all contradictory abilities were good, thus I proposed a counter point that opposed that via the monk. I should have been clearer with my posts, it has been a long day...

[FlaminCows]

I wasn't asserting all contradictory abilities were good, just that contradictoriness itself could be a good trait. There's more to what makes an ability well-designed than just one trait, and I would never assert that all contradictory abilities are good just because they are contradictory. Indeed, contradictoriness isn't good for all abilities either, many abilities really go well together too. It seems I should have been clearer with my posts, too.

I wish there was a "handshake" smiley on BG. So, :handshake:?

EDIT: a pic works better.

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[Jackinthegreen]

And hope he doesn't reply with

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[linklord231]

Did I say Natural Spell wasn't a problem?  I didn't mean to.  Like with most things, it's only a problem if it's a problem.  Yes, I know that's a truism.  But it's like this:  Natural Spell, like Incantatrix, charging, dragonwrought, and many other things, can be extremely powerful.  But that's not inherently bad.  If a druid is using natural spell to shorten his self buffing time, let him.  He's expending resources (in the form of a feat and any buffs he casts) in order to be good at melee.  That's fine.  If he's using it to try to blend in with the local wildlife and avoid attacks, that may be too powerful for your game.  That's fine too.  But banning natural spell in its entirety is unwise.  You're illegitimizing an entirely valid use of the feat in order to undermine a subjectively cheesey one.

Besides, like I mentioned, there are other ways to power down the druid without taking away options. 

[veekie]

Fundamental and most glaring are the basic combat style stuff:
Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse, Two Weapon Fighting, Spring Attack, Improved Unarmed Strike and Point Blank Shot should outright be a function of BAB as they are. These are the roots of extremely extensive feat trees, and are basically fundamental to combat training to begin with. While the Fighter might be touted as versatile, the above feats are what prevents carrying a golf bag of weapons to suit every situation(nevermind enchantments for now)

The special maneuver series(trip/bull rush/disarm/etc) meanwhile are split. They have intrinsic value on their own, but the big entry barrier is that they provoke AoOs. Make THAT aspect a feature of BAB difference and you might have something more dynamic out of them.

Caster feats...I wouldn't really touch them on this matter. Casters have tons of room for feat slots, since they aren't tying up 2-3 feats at a time for particular style requirements.

[nijineko]

almost forgot to mention, in 2nd ed, wizards and all sub-variants received pretty much all the item creation feats as class features.

[Endarire]

I give everyone some version of POWER ATTACK and COMBAT EXPERTISE (to a max of your BAB).  Anything that makes you less likely to land an attack are just gimmes, if PA or/and CE provide them.

[wotmaniac]

I'm thinking that the [Ambush] feats should be automatic, contingent on having the requisite # of SA dice.
I also like the idea of having similar options available en lieu of simply doing extra damage on a critical.

almost forgot to mention, in 2nd ed, wizards and all sub-variants received pretty much all the item creation feats as class features.

IIRC, I believe it was just a 5th-or-6th-lvl spell

[Tonymitsu]

Though I agree with the concept of the thread, I think some of your premises are a little flawed.

What I mean is, for example, Two-Weapon Fighting. Fighting with two weapons in D&D incurs huge penalties by default, so huge that it might as well be impossible to hit unless you spend a feat on it. Yet in real life fighting with two weapons is far from unusual, and certainly not too difficult. A person with a rapier wouldn't even question using a dagger in the off-hand unless the terms of the fight forbid it. Apart from the real-life argument, there is also the in-game one — that fighting with two weapons takes up too many feats compared to what it can do.

This is the first problem I ran into.
Yes Dual Wielding incurs massive penalties in D&D. There is a good reason for this: it's because they were trying to accurately reflect real life.
Have you ever tried to fence with more than one weapon? Or fight any fight at all with more than one weapon? It's hard. For exactly the same reason that juggling is hard. The human brain simply isn't naturally wired to simultaneously keep track of two or more things functioning independently of each other at the same time. Most Florentine instructors will tell you flat out that you cannot even start to learn to fight wielding a weapon in each hand until you are equally proficient at fighting with one weapon in either hand.
So do I find those feats unnecessary?  Not really, no. It's much easier to swing a baseball bat than it is to duel with two swords.

That's just one example, and your ideas don't necessarily need to have a real-life component. I think the benefits of the Battle Blessing and Swift Call feats from Complete Champion should be default for the Paladin because they improve two abilities that the paladin gains after level 3. The Paladin is a dip class as it is, and characters with more levels of Paladin need some extra goodies. Also, allowing the paladin to use most of his magic as Swift action allows him to use it and fight at the same time, which makes the Paladin feel more like a Paladin.

So wait, a paladin is a guy who fights with his weapon and casts holy magic at the same time? I thought that was a cleric?
I also thought the whole point of the paladin was a martially inclined crusader-for-justice/knight-in-shining-armor archetype. I'm honestly of the school of thought that paladin's should even have a spell list, just a set of god-granted abilities (like lay on hands and turn undead).  Things that can duplicate the effects of spells, sure, but without having to prepare them ahead of time.


The question then arises; if these feats that shouldn't be feats provide no noteworthy mechanical benefit then why bother making the class features? Why not just remove them as feats (and prerequisites)?
The other problem I have is where to draw the line. You could easily end up with a list of every single printed feat that provides almost no noteworthy mechanical benefit that people don't take simply because there are better options. While that's inherently not a bad thing, if you take them away as feats and instead make them class features it sort of flies in the face of the concept of a modular character design system.

[SolEiji]

Though I agree with the concept of the thread, I think some of your premises are a little flawed.

What I mean is, for example, Two-Weapon Fighting. Fighting with two weapons in D&D incurs huge penalties by default, so huge that it might as well be impossible to hit unless you spend a feat on it. Yet in real life fighting with two weapons is far from unusual, and certainly not too difficult. A person with a rapier wouldn't even question using a dagger in the off-hand unless the terms of the fight forbid it. Apart from the real-life argument, there is also the in-game one — that fighting with two weapons takes up too many feats compared to what it can do.

This is the first problem I ran into.
Yes Dual Wielding incurs massive penalties in D&D. There is a good reason for this: it's because they were trying to accurately reflect real life.
Have you ever tried to fence with more than one weapon? Or fight any fight at all with more than one weapon? It's hard. For exactly the same reason that juggling is hard. The human brain simply isn't naturally wired to simultaneously keep track of two or more things functioning independently of each other at the same time. Most Florentine instructors will tell you flat out that you cannot even start to learn to fight wielding a weapon in each hand until you are equally proficient at fighting with one weapon in either hand.
So do I find those feats unnecessary?  Not really, no. It's much easier to swing a baseball bat than it is to duel with two swords.

+1 this.  I've done some TWF and it is quite hard.  Balancing the weight of the weapon becomes surprisingly tiring.  That said, I think TWF should exist as a feat.  As one feat.  It's not worth three.  Scale TWF to include all TWFing feats.  That's enough to allow you to continue getting more feats to improve your TWFing beyond "I use two swords".

[veekie]

The question though, is if it's hard in terms of off-hand penalties or ability to dual wield at all?
Can a professional warrior be expected to acquit himself well if fighting with sword and fist/foot, or paired lighter weapons? Fighting styles of history indicates that while primary, aggressive use of dual weapons is uncommon, the off hand weapon serves an important defensive and opportunistic role. Having a second weapon means that if they tie up their defense on your main arm, your off hand would be the limb taking a presented opportunity.
Does it actually require such superior dexterity to learn at all?(Consider how common the required 13+ in Dex would be). Consider that someone with Dex 11 or 12, would be facing an impossible gap due to the missing feat, but it is done. It takes less manual dexterity to wield two weapons in a threatening manner(in the sense that it is likely to do SOME harm from sheer quantity alone), than to actually be ambidextrous and write with both hands.

In my view, dual wielding intrinsically carries enough penalization to function as can be expected. Even with the most ideal setup you are still looking at a -2 penalty to both arms, a 10% drop in accuracy, and overall reduced damage from both weapon size and diffused strength.

[Empirate]

The question though, is if it's hard in terms of off-hand penalties or ability to dual wield at all?
Can a professional warrior be expected to acquit himself well if fighting with sword and fist/foot, or paired lighter weapons? Fighting styles of history indicates that while primary, aggressive use of dual weapons is uncommon, the off hand weapon serves an important defensive and opportunistic role. Having a second weapon means that if they tie up their defense on your main arm, your off hand would be the limb taking a presented opportunity.
Does it actually require such superior dexterity to learn at all?(Consider how common the required 13+ in Dex would be). Consider that someone with Dex 11 or 12, would be facing an impossible gap due to the missing feat, but it is done. It takes less manual dexterity to wield two weapons in a threatening manner(in the sense that it is likely to do SOME harm from sheer quantity alone), than to actually be ambidextrous and write with both hands.

In my view, dual wielding intrinsically carries enough penalization to function as can be expected. Even with the most ideal setup you are still looking at a -2 penalty to both arms, a 10% drop in accuracy, and overall reduced damage from both weapon size and diffused strength.

Now you're mixing real-life and game balance arguments. For game balance reasons, I'd allow TWF w/o feat cost - but then, I rather like the other route: make TWF special, and powerful in its own way, but make it require a feat. That way, TWFing for a non-sneak attacker (dragonfire inspirer etc. also count) becomes a viable combat style instead of the suck.


Also, I absolutely love the ambush feat idea... or would love it, but there's really only Staggering Strike and maybe Disemboweling Strike (if your opponent has 12+ HD) that are worthwhile - the rest is either highly situational (making the benefit of getting it for free marginal), or the debuff is so slight that you'd rather do full damage.

[LordBlades]

contradictory class features leads to not doing the same thing all the time, which keeps the game fresh, and is therefore good game design.

So monks being unable to use their flurry and fast movement at the same time is good games design?

I heard Tome of Battle's stance system to be pretty popular. Only one at a time. Similarly the druid could and should have a casting stance and an animal "stance", not both at the same time.

Such an idea would lead to an interesting druid mechanic (although such changes would probably need to be accompanied by a 'no casting while polymorphed' rule for balance's sake) but IMO it would require a closer look to the duration&number of uses for Wild Shape.

As it stands atm, with few uses/day and long duration, Wild Shape is a feature that encourages sticking with it for long periods of time, not dancing in and out of it to cast. Atm a Buff>Wild Shape>Dismiss Wild Shape>Repeat is simply not sustainable for more than a couple of combats daily until high levels. Without natural spell, it would probably be more effective for a druid wanting to melee to dip something with Turn Undead and DMM Persist his buffs.

[veekie]

Now you're mixing real-life and game balance arguments. For game balance reasons, I'd allow TWF w/o feat cost - but then, I rather like the other route: make TWF special, and powerful in its own way, but make it require a feat. That way, TWFing for a non-sneak attacker (dragonfire inspirer etc. also count) becomes a viable combat style instead of the suck.

Problem is it's neither. TWF as it is, is only good for hyper aggro assault, but making it better(AND more realistic, D&D TWF < RL TWF with the exception of specific builds) is to make it generally applicable, etc. That goes beyond the scope of this thread though. It's about feats you should expect on any trained warrior(which is all PCs) after all.

[FlaminCows]

Yes Dual Wielding incurs massive penalties in D&D. There is a good reason for this: it's because they were trying to accurately reflect real life.
Have you ever tried to fence with more than one weapon? Or fight any fight at all with more than one weapon? It's hard. For exactly the same reason that juggling is hard. The human brain simply isn't naturally wired to simultaneously keep track of two or more things functioning independently of each other at the same time. Most Florentine instructors will tell you flat out that you cannot even start to learn to fight wielding a weapon in each hand until you are equally proficient at fighting with one weapon in either hand.
So do I find those feats unnecessary?  Not really, no. It's much easier to swing a baseball bat than it is to duel with two swords.

Well, actually the reason I cited Two-Weapon Fighting first is that I have tried to fence with two weapons, and it is as the other posters described: the small, off-hand weapon is an opportunity thing. You still mostly use the primary hand, but having something light in the off-hand and using it isn't any more difficult than using just a rapier, at least in my experience. I would compare using two swords to juggling (theoretically, I haven't tried it), but equating  using a sword and a dagger to juggling is just silly.
There's also that the penalty for two-weapon fighting without the feat is minus four for the main hand and minus eight for the off hand with a light weapon, and the penalty is two points worse with a medium one. I'm sorry, but there is no way to justify that steep of a penalty, even if the PC really was juggling. The -2/-2 that you take with TWF while using a light weapon in the off hand is still a significant penalty, and -4/-4 is even moreso. It is plenty enough to represent the difficulty of it.

So wait, a paladin is a guy who fights with his weapon and casts holy magic at the same time? I thought that was a cleric?
I also thought the whole point of the paladin was a martially inclined crusader-for-justice/knight-in-shining-armor archetype. I'm honestly of the school of thought that paladin's should even have a spell list, just a set of god-granted abilities (like lay on hands and turn undead).  Things that can duplicate the effects of spells, sure, but without having to prepare them ahead of time.

The thing is, the reason I suggested Battle Blessing is because of the crusader archetype. Allowing him to use magic as a swift action means that he is going to actually be fighting while he gets those bonuses, rather than just standing there casting a spell and then going back to fighting afterward. As for lay on hands/turn undead vs prepared casting, thematically I don't see any difference between the two. A god-granted ability is a god-granted ability. Preparation for a paladin is like prayers and oaths sworn at dawn to his god, the abilities his gods grants reflect which oaths he swore and what he asked for in prayer. That's how it feels to me, at least.

The point is, swift action magic lets him do the whole "martially inclined" thing, as he can still fight on his turns even if he uses his divine power. To me, when a paladin is spending a standard action to Turn Undead he is behaving much more like a cleric then when he quickly invokes divine magic in the midst of melee, at which point he is being more like a paladin.

The question then arises; if these feats that shouldn't be feats provide no noteworthy mechanical benefit then why bother making the class features? Why not just remove them as feats (and prerequisites)?
The other problem I have is where to draw the line. You could easily end up with a list of every single printed feat that provides almost no noteworthy mechanical benefit that people don't take simply because there are better options. While that's inherently not a bad thing, if you take them away as feats and instead make them class features it sort of flies in the face of the concept of a modular character design system.

I agree with that part. If you go back to my original post, you'll notice that all of the ones I used as an example did provide a significant mechanical benefit.

[phaedrusxy]

I can't believe no one has said Able Learner yet. Just from a bookkeeping perspective, everyone should have that. If you've ever built a multi-classed character starting above 1st level from scratch, you should know what I mean... You still have the cross-class cap. So it's not like you're losing the distinction between class and cross-class skills. It just makes everyones lives a bit easier.

[zugschef]

I can't believe no one has said Able Learner yet. Just from a bookkeeping perspective, everyone should have that. If you've ever built a multi-classed character starting above 1st level from scratch, you should know what I mean... You still have the cross-class cap. So it's not like you're losing the distinction between class and cross-class skills. It just makes everyones lives a bit easier.

ehm... nobody mentioned it, because the skill system itself sucks so hard.

[Libertad]

I can't believe no one has said Able Learner yet. Just from a bookkeeping perspective, everyone should have that. If you've ever built a multi-classed character starting above 1st level from scratch, you should know what I mean... You still have the cross-class cap. So it's not like you're losing the distinction between class and cross-class skills. It just makes everyones lives a bit easier.

I agree 100%.