I've noticed a common thread among those discussing feats. Many people have discussed the fact that many feats taken at low levels become fairly useless at later levels. The biggest cause for alarm seems to be:
The Improved Combat Manuever Feats- Now feats like improved grapple only grant a +2 bonus. This is fine at lower levels but pretty insignificant at later levels.
Skill Bonus Feats- Again, a +2 to a skill is lousy at high levels
Power Atk, Deadly Aim & Combat Expertise- These feats are now all or nothing in terms of the bonus it provides. At higher levels when characters Ability scores have increased, many of my players won't use the feat because a hit is near impossible. This makes the feat a GAMBLE and a feat should never be a gamble considering how important they are.
These are just a few feats that could benefit from being scaleable. The idea that Improved Trip will grow as my character does is very attractive.
For example Improved Trip could simply state- 'The bonus from this feat increases to +4 at 6th level and again to +6 at 15th level. (Those levels are probably a bit off for the bonus increase. I'm just using it as an example)
Feats that progress lend a new level of depth to character planning and growth in addition to solving the problem of feats becoming worthless at higher levels. Many have mentioned this idea in passing. I think it needs more attention.
Thoughts? Options?
If this has all ready been discussed under New Rules or something let me know.
I think that scaling feats is a pretty good idea. It allows fighters to effectively have "scaling class features" as well, just like every other class in the game, and it's an interesting idea.
Though certain feats don't necessarily need to scale - while a +2 to a skill check seems marginal at 20th level, it's still above and beyond what you could normally hit, and skill boosters are very commonly included in methods of maximizing skill checks. I'm not convinced that they'd need to scale like the other things would.
I think that scaling feats is a pretty good idea. It allows fighters to effectively have "scaling class features" as well, just like every other class in the game, and it's an interesting idea.
I wanted to mention Fighter abilities scaling as many people think Fighters at high levels can't hold their own against other clases. (I tend to agree) I didn't want to make my original post too long though.
Thanks for mentioning it. I completely agree scaleable feats will make the fighter class much more competitive at high levels.
A scalable Skill Focus could work, though.
Initially, it could provide a +2 bonus, with a further +1 per 5 ranks in that skill.
It would be up to the player whether or not s/he wants to keep increasing ranks in that skill, and would represent the additional emphasis the character places in that skill.
A scalable Skill Focus could work, though.
Initially, it could provide a +2 bonus, with a further +1 per 5 ranks in that skill.
It would be up to the player whether or not s/he wants to keep increasing ranks in that skill, and would represent the additional emphasis the character places in that skill.
Not a bad idea at all. I may implement this as a house rule to test it out. Currently none of my players feel taking a skill feat is anywhere near as important as combat based feats. I would like to see a balance between the two and this might help.
This still doesn't address the problem of Fighters being weaker at higher levels because their combat feats don't increase the way Class abilities do for others. I'm not sure there's and easy fix.