| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
TL;DR: Can each class pick a Class Path early on that gradually grants an entire feat tree’s worth of feats?
So let me start by saying I really like the direction we are going for class feats. I think their layout and silo’ing has made it much easier to parse and select them, with a few notable exceptions like powers, particularly domain powers. I also like that feats DO more, giving you entirely new kinds of actions to perform. There are some duds, and maybe some things which should just be given to the classes by default, but by and large there are lots of feats I want to take at any given level. And I think that good strides have been made in cutting down on feat taxes and onerous pre-requisites.
Some of them are particularly nice because they do a lot of different things and/or scale with level or proficiency. I like those quite a bit. Some of the multiclassing feats really stand out to me in this regard—Dedication feats have loads of benefits, and the “basic X spellcasting” grows as you do.
However… I can’t shake the feeling I don’t get enough class feats. Part of that is that lots of the feats are just that cool and I want them all. But part of this is that some feat trees still exist. And while they feel a lot more logical than PF1 feat trees, I’m not sure I love them.
The Animal Companion feats jump out at me, for example. There are 4 feats to get a pet to its “final evolution.” That’s a pretty significant fraction of your most important character resource. I’m not saying this imbalanced—animal companions could be crazy good in PF1, and they will still be good with all the (probably necessary) nerfs. And one of the big selling points of PF2 is how modular it is. But it is a little bit hard for me to imagine someone who gets an animal companion, as opposed to a much cheaper familiar or bonded animal, and doesn’t want them to eventually be the best animal companion they can be. So why charge 4 feats to fully actualize that? Couldn’t it be one scaling feat?
Barbarian totems are another great example. I can’t think of any person who takes the dragon totem and doesn’t want to breathe fire, fly, and eventually turn into a dragon. That’s why you take dragon totem. So why charge feats for it? Couldn’t there be a single feat that gradually turns you into more and more of a dragon?
Another problem is that PF2 looks to still reward specialization, and it seems like this pushes you to put all your feats into a particular tree or direction rather than branching out. Which is a bummer, giving the great strides PF2 has made in having characters be more well-rounded.
So I think about this, and it occurs to me that there are several reason why they probably don’t want to do to make feats scale this hard. It makes balancing feats against each other harder. Much like free heightening on all spells put too much pressure on sorcerers to only take spells which heightened, this would put a lot of pressure on folks to pick only feats that scale. So you could try and make them ALL scale, but then the feats start getting longer and longer and you can fit less of them in the game. It also makes them potentially more confusing. If every feat gives a player 4 different benefits, some players are inevitably going to accidentally apply the higher level abilities before it is legal to or just forget their huge list of things they can do.
But I think there’s an interesting model on how we could make this work: the sorcerer. I believe bloodlines are the only class feature where a first level choice continues to grant specific abilities at higher levels without needing to continue to buy in, save for barbarian totems. Why can’t other classes get this too? While I’d hazard that not EVERY person who wants a demonic bloodline wants Gluttonous Jaws, for example, every Dragon Totem Barbarian is going to want those dragon powers.
So I’d like to propose a variation on our class structure. In the spirit of PF2’s unified terminology, I will call them “Class Paths.” Every class gets one, though they might have a different name from class to class. A class makes this selection early on—I want to say 1st level for every character but there might be reason to make it second or third for some. When you pick your Class Path, you immediately get a pre-selected appropriate class feat, a power, or something of that nature. And as you level up, all of the feats that would have been part of that feat tree are given to you for free. You are free to spend your feats on other things outside of this specialization, and wind up with a more versatile character without feeling like you are sacrificing core competency.
This is a really easy design space to create content for with our existing system. I also think it will be easy to release more Class Paths later. They are in many ways similar to 5e archetypes, but unlike 5e you still get plenty of choices to make after this selection, and I think it will largely be possible to snag feats from a different Class Path to make your character more unique.
Let’s look at how some of these would look.
Alchemist: Field of Study. Bombs, Elixirs, Poisons. I think this one might need a little work as I don’t know If the current feats support Class Paths as much as other classes do. But this would probably be appreciated by folks who miss PF1 alchemist archetypes by letting you double down on a particular aspect more than the others. If the Elixir path gave you mutagens at 1st level, that might also be neat.
Barbarian: Totem. Any feat with your totem as a prerequisite becomes part of your Class Path and you get it for free. For future proofing, you probably want to list out what feats you get at what level, so you can release more Totem specific feats without making that Class Path broken. The non-totem barbarian feat selection is decently robust, so even without mixing and matching totem abilities I think you’ll wind up feeling pretty cool. A Giant Totem barbarian is going to grow large and later huge without further cost, dragon totem keeps making you dragon-y.
Bard: Muse. Your initial Muse choice continues to you give you appropriate feats. I see no reason you can’t take feats from other muses along the way, too.
Clerics: Dieties and Domains.[/i] Essentially, this would make Domains work a bit more like they did in PF1. You get an advanced Domain power for free eventually, and perhaps a second domain from your deities portfolio.
Druid: Orders. No big surprises here. The Animal Order would give you all 4 animal companion feats, for example.
Fighter: Combat Style. Free hand fighting, Dual Wielding, Ranged Combat, Defender, Heavy Hitter. I think most people will be able to figure out what sort of weapon style they want to use early on. Give them those feats, and then let them pick other stuff to round themselves out. And of course, the fighter should definitely be able to retrain if his combat style doesn’t align with the awesome unique weapons he finds or whatever.
Monk: Martial Arts Style. Crane Style, Dragon Style, Tiger Style, Wolf Style, Monastic Weapon Master, Ki Warrior. I imagine you can tell which feats most of that list correspond to. Monastic Weapon Master would require making some weapon specific monk feats, but that’s easy enough. Now your monk might actually take multiple Stances and switch between them!
Paladin: Righteous Ally. Nuff said.
Rogue: OK FINE I GOT NOTHING HERE USE YOUR IMAGINATION I’m sure there’s something here, I just don’t feel like figuring it out right now.
Ranger: Specialty. Warden, Beast Whisperer, Stalker, Trap Master. I guess you could add Combat Styles, as the Ranger feat list definitely has material to support Ranged, Dual Wielding, and a new Crossbow Sniper, but I thought doing so would make them less distinct from the Fighter. Beast Whisperer is like animal order—it gets all 4 animal companion feats. While I don’t love the Monster Hunter buy in feat, I think the Warden feats have some really cool potential to make a Ranger focused on guiding, leading, and buffing their allies. Trap Master is for snares, obviously. And the Stalker is meant to focus on the various stealth feats like Stalker’s Shot and Camouflage.
Sorcerer: Bloodline. Very little changes here. If anything, you might make bloodline powers something you can feat into from other bloodlines, or give sorcerers another feat or two, or do something else to make this class more flexible.
Wizard: Arcane School See cleric, really.
So, what do you all think?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've advocated something similar in the past and definitely support this general concept. It can be as simple as saying "At levels 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17 you get a bonus class feat, which must be a feat of that level or lower with your Path's trait. This is in addition to your normal class feat progression." Doing it this way would open the door for more customization over time, as more feats get printed in various splats etc, so eventually not all Demon Bloodline Sorcerers will necessarily have to be taking the same 5 feats.
If you take all these feats and turn them into class abilities then a multiclass character won't be able to pick then up unless loads more specific feats are written.
Personally I dislike the way sorcerers are locked into a bloodline and get fewer feat options. I'd rather see things goo the other way, maybe increase the number of class feats available to allow for branching.
Actually, I'm saying all these feats stay as feats. You can just just get some for "free" based on your class path. So a Fighter who takes the Archer class path gets Point-blank Shot for free at 1st level but can choose. To take Reactive Shield, and a Fighter who takes the Defender class path gets Reactive Shield for free but can choose to also take Point Blank Shot.
I also don't want to get a class path to come at the expense of class feats you choose, and I'd love for the sorcerer to get more class feats. That's part of why I think they should be the norm, so classes where it makes less sense to mix and match still get plenty of choices to make because they aren't gaining anything over more free form classes. (Although even for those structured class. I feel like you can make mixing and matching work. Paladin has the Second Ally feat, and Sorcerers could get a Crossblooded feat that lets you buy powers from other bloodlines.)
Actually, I'm saying all these feats stay as feats. You can just just get some for "free" based on your class path. So a Fighter who takes the Archer class path gets Point-blank Shot for free at 1st level but can choose. To take Reactive Shield, and a Fighter who takes the Defender class path gets Reactive Shield for free but can choose to also take Point Blank Shot.Why not just give extra feat slots at certain levels so that players can be as creative as they want with their mix and matching? Why restrict choice in any way?
1) For some classes this is a 50% bump in the number of effective class feats they get. That can potentially make the character creation process much more overwhelming, especially since it may screw with the way the class progression charts flow. I wouldn't mind if everyone just got twice as many class feats, personally. But I suspect this might cause problems for the less system savvy.
2) I struggle to think of why anyone wouldn't want the feats on their path. Again, see the example of the dragon totem. Someone may feel like there are alternative feats outside of that path that are too powerful not to take instead though. Now, hopefully, your character can fully embrace the theme of their class path while still taking those powerful feats and not feeling like you are compromising your character's functionality. Sort of like how cleric's got channel energy separate from their spell points-- they can now provide solid healing without dipping cutting into their options to do other things.
As I discuss in my other thread, I definitely agree with your basic problem here: many desirable builds have obvious prescribed feat trees that make building that sort of character less interesting and more generally players may feel that they don't have enough feats to make functional builds with more than one focus.
"Class paths" may be a good way to expand character options that runs less of a risk of breaking the game through unintended interactions than just increasing the number of class feats. As you say, it also comparably lessens of a processing load for the player.
As far as player processing problems go however, you could allow some classes to just be more complicated and grant extra feats while others have a prescribed list of paths. Like you have already noticed, the rogue does not necessarily have great path possibility (though Brute and the previously mentioned Poisoner might work) so you can just have that class have more nonrestrictive options and players who would be overwhelmed by that sort of thing can just steer clear.
Maybe this is something that I should think about more.
Either way, I really hope there is more room for builds in the final game!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Captain Morgan,
I think this idea could work.
Whatever the final form is for classes, I sincerely hope, that at the very least, a list of feat trees is provided in a sidebar for each build in a class. Using the fighter as an example, it would greatly speed up character creation time if there was a list of feats for each fighting style. This way, a player considering a Two Handed fighter build can quickly review ONLY those feats to see if those feats match up with his concept. As it currently stands, one has to peruse ALL feats to see what works with that build and this greatly slows down character creation and overall makes character creation feel like homework sometimes.
I like this. If anything it feels like the direction PF2 is already going, in that most of the classes already have a specialisation of some sort to select near the beginning, but the mechanism and scale of it is quite variable.
I'd prefer the benefits that each class path provides not be called 'feats'. I appreciate what Paizo were trying to do with feats, increasing the flexibility for characters, but they went too far: because all sorts of bonuses are in the same pot together, there are simultaneously too many and too few feats. There are too many of them to navigate the full list, but too few in a lot of specific lists. So things which a player can choose to take should be called feats, while things that are built into the character selections should not.
As I discuss in my other thread, I definitely agree with your basic problem here: many desirable builds have obvious prescribed feat trees that make building that sort of character less interesting and more generally players may feel that they don't have enough feats to make functional builds with more than one focus.
"Class paths" may be a good way to expand character options that runs less of a risk of breaking the game through unintended interactions than just increasing the number of class feats. As you say, it also comparably lessens of a processing load for the player.
As far as player processing problems go however, you could allow some classes to just be more complicated and grant extra feats while others have a prescribed list of paths. Like you have already noticed, the rogue does not necessarily have great path possibility (though Brute and the previously mentioned Poisoner might work) so you can just have that class have more nonrestrictive options and players who would be overwhelmed by that sort of thing can just steer clear.
Maybe this is something that I should think about more.
Either way, I really hope there is more room for builds in the final game!
I agree that there should be some cases that are more processing intensive. I'm not so sure any of them should be in the core rulebook. PF1 core was really bad about this. Fighter were supposed to be the simplest class but that wasn't true until you got to play them; their builds were some of the most complicated in the game.
I'd rather have the advanced class guides give us these more nuanced classes.
1) For some classes this is a 50% bump in the number of effective class feats they get. That can potentially make the character creation process much more overwhelming, especially since it may screw with the way the class progression charts flow. I wouldn't mind if everyone just got twice as many class feats, personally. But I suspect this might cause problems for the less system savvy.
2) I struggle to think of why anyone wouldn't want the feats on their path. Again, see the example of the dragon totem. Someone may feel like there are alternative feats outside of that path that are too powerful not to take instead though. Now, hopefully, your character can fully embrace the theme of their class path while still taking those powerful feats and not feeling like you are compromising your character's functionality. Sort of like how cleric's got channel energy separate from their spell points-- they can now provide solid healing without dipping cutting into their options to do other things.
Sticking with the barbarian example, I like the idea of a Giant Totem barbarian lugging around a Giant size weapon, not so keen on magically getting bigger when I rage. Feels a bit too Incredible Hulk.
I'd rather pick up some non-totem feats and use the extras to pick up an archetype instead.
If you give people choice then they can still follow the obvious path if they want to.
So I think an easy fix for cases like your giant sword wielder would be opening up the Totem feats and features as Nemis alludes to with the druid treatment. IE, you pick a more appealing totem to your personal tastes but can get giant weapon wielding as a feat.
I'm not sure if a more open ended approach to totems would still necessitate a generic "fury" totem or not, and you might need to fully commit to giant to get the full size growing shenanigans for example. But that should cover cases like this rather nicely.