Background Skills / Feats

[Thomas Austin]

I'm developing my homebrew world, and I'd like to give PC's from some cultures bonus feats or skills.

What is a good rule of thumb for good game balance here? I don't think that 2-4 points of Ride for the Whirlwind Rider nomads will unbalance things, but what's too much? Should this kind of bonus avoid combat skills and feats?

TIA,

Tom

[Dreamweaver]

I think that if you keep it consistent across the players you could do anything you want, you would just have to up the encounter CR. In my homebrew I just let the players pick one to the skill bonus feats like acrobatic and stealthy. The only requirement is that it makes sense with their background.

[Fatespinner]

My general rule for awarding bonus feats to starting characters is this: The feat cannot have any prerequisites whatsoever. Not even a stat prereq. It can also only come from the PHB, no splatbook feats, setting-specific feats, or any of that jazz. It may sound limiting, but here's just a few feats from the PHB which have no prereqs at all:

• All of the 'skill' feats (Acrobatic, Agile, Alertness, etc. as well as Skill Focus)
• Blind-Fight
• Save enhancers (Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will)
• Combat Reflexes
• Improved Initiative
• Combat Casting
• Spell Focus
• Spell Penetration
• Endurance
• Several metamagic feats (Extend, Enlarge, Widen)
• Track
• Toughness
• Simple and Martial Weapon Proficiency
• Run

And I'm sure there's a few others too. As a side note, does anyone else find it odd that Spell Focus and Spell Penetration don't have a prereq? As in... it doesn't even say 'Caster level 1'. A fighter, if he wanted, could take Spell Focus (Evocation). It wouldn't do him any good, but he could take it. Odd. The metamagic feats I listed above are similarly strange.

[Dragonchess Player]

You're probably best with one of the "+2 to two skills" feats (possibly even a choice between two or three) as a free feat for each culture/region/upbringing (not just a few). You could even go as far as to make those two skills as "fixed" class skills, no matter what class(es) the character takes. Much more than this starts to add to the power creep and creates imbalances between characters.

[Dragonmann]

The Rise of the Rune Lords players guide has some nice bacground feats: city born, lone wolf...

If I give bonus feats for background, you may want to open it up to include "must be taken at first level" and racial feats. Otherwise feats with no additional requirements are a good start.

[Krome]

If you can come across a copy of Ultimate Feats (forgot who printed it), it has a great section on racial feats that are ideal for nonhuman players.

[mevers]

I would go with the +2/+2 Skill feats, or +2 to a skill and the skill is always class skill for you.

2 Skill points won't unbalance anything, but if you give more, it starts to get a bit much.

But if you are giving all the PCs a bonus feat, it doesn't really matter in the end, as they will all be balanced with each other, which is the important thing.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

You're probably best with one of the "+2 to two skills" feats (possibly even a choice between two or three) as a free feat for each culture/region/upbringing (not just a few). You could even go as far as to make those two skills as "fixed" class skills, no matter what class(es) the character takes. Much more than this starts to add to the power creep and creates imbalances between characters.

I agree with this but would potentially add slightly different combos to reflect the culture in question. So a feat that gave +2 to Riding and Rope Use is fine or Listen and Jump. Of course these bonus skills should play into the culture in question - which is why they might not be as clearly themed as the ones in the PHB.