First, read this. This isn't a house rule thread, but this article by Paizo's own Sean K. Reynolds gives you a good idea how you might use this popularity contest to make a cool house rule. It should also be a good guide for new players to see the feats that are most popular or unanimously rejected in the core.
Then go here.
Pick a new column, put your name in the top cell, and rate all the core feats... or as many as you can before getting bored. Don't edit other people's columns. I'd rather not have to make it invitation only, but I will if it looks like people are being punks (or robots).
- 11+ Means it is probably too good to be a feat, should be nerfed or split into 2 feats.
- 8-10 is a "good feat" you'd probably find a use for on many characters.
- 5-7 is a "meh" feat, either overspecialized or just underwhelming.
- 1-4 might be a good candidate for a trait instead of a feat, or it's just something that should be a free or a game option, not a feat.
Don't feel like you have to match Sean's answers just because he's awesome. A lot has changed since 3.5.
You can always create a comment on a cell in a googledoc if you feel you need to explain your rating.
Any column that gives all feats the same numbers or stuff like that will be deleted by me.
I kinda doubt anyone has the patience to follow through on this. Here's hoping I'm wrong!
EDIT: I've never done a doc this public before, so let me know if you can't edit the sheet.
I might add in some feats for super weak or super strong feats.
I think an important thing needs to be considered. Just because a feat is always taken does not mean it should be priced highly. Some feats are key parts of the design and are expected to be taken by nearly every character of a given type.
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One little thing I'd take issue with in the article is the notion of using the "old standards" - Skill Focus, Weapon Focus, etc., as the baselines, primarily because they're of wildly varying power within themselves. Most skill focus feats are terrible options mechanically in any adventure that includes any combat at all unless they're being used to qualify for something. (Skill focus to the BEST skills, to ones that reward very high check results, and to ones that have really high standard DCs are of course better than skill focus in other things.) If you're starting from a place where Skill Focus (Profession (Innkeeper)) costs the same as Weapon Focus, you're going to end up with weird results. (As I think many people would agree that Sean does.)
Additionally, while I admire the attempt to use objective principles to determine what's better than what, that once again appears to give kind of wonky results. For starters, it's crazy to value a feat based on it's average value for a character; that leads to things like Natural Spell being given only a 5, which is beyond absurd. I don't think that Natural Spell should have MORE than a 10 - it is essentially a druid feat tax - but it's clearly a full feat. The point costs that many feats end up with makes the system almost read like a satire of attempts to use objective principles to measure the value of things.
Except for:
Principle 4 (whether something is situational is independent of whether it's a penalty or whether it's a bonus, and is what should actually be considered; eliminating a -2 penalty is exactly the same as giving a +2 bonus mathematically, and "better than normal" vs. "now up to normal" isn't a thing. If Precise Shot gave you a +4 untyped bonus when firing into melee, it'd be the exact same feat.)
- the principles are loosely sound, (The unstated but apparently used "given out by lots of classes, so it's clearly not too valuable" principle is also completely bogus), but however they're being applied is pretty clearly producing a lot of noise.
Similarly, prerequisites -do- matter, because they're used by the game already to make feats cost more than a feat. Five ranks in dubious skills, for example, essentially make a skill's effect "Listed effect, plus -5 total spread around whatever skills would have taken if you didn't have to put a bunch of points into Perform (Beatboxing) to take this feat."
I -do- agree that there's a certain elegance and simplicity in, for example, all of the +2/+2 skill feats costing the same, even though they're all clearly not of the same level of power. I'm not sure how I would handle that if I were actually going forward with the system.
I like this... but the jump between 7 and 8 is a bit large.
there should be something in there that is a good feat that you would not always take...
also can I leave notes in the box?
such as AWESOME BLOW (3-this should be an automatic ability against anything 2 size categories smaller than the attacker)
I like this... but the jump between 7 and 8 is a bit large.
there should be something in there that is a good feat that you would not always take...
also can I leave notes in the box?
such as AWESOME BLOW (3-this should be an automatic ability against anything 2 size categories smaller than the attacker)
If you want to comment on a rating, use the googledocs "comment" feature. Basically right click (command-click on mac) and it lets you leave a note in the cell.
Eventually, I will be creating a column that averages the ratings of all the other columns. If you have text in the cell rather than comments, it will throw an error. If you leave text notes anyway, I will change them to comments for you.
The number you put in the cell will be used for the average, so think about it that way.
I do like the basic concept, but 10 points is *far* too many as a mechanic. If you're going to make the feat system more complicated to add balance, you should do so in the simplest way possible.
1) I would favor a 3-point system, not 10. Every feat costs 1, 2 or 3 points to represent poor, average, great or good, better, best (or whatever).
2) I could care less if a fighter used new fighter feat points points from his new level along old feat points from the previous character level to buy a general feat. If a player wants to use a fighter feat to buy skill focus: stealth, because it's a thieves' guild campaign or it fits his stealthy fighter character concept, I say more power to him.
Also, IMHO, Master Reynolds' ratings of some feats value needs to be reconsidered. Enlarge Spells = Endurance = Empower Spell = 5 pts?!? NO WAY!!
People will vote as they please, so don't worry about that.
If you don't like Sean's numbers (and I disagree with quite a few, like over-valuing of TWF) then speak your mind by voting! Vote vote vote!
We have only five voters as of now, including me.
Voting doesn't take long, and you don't need to vote on every feat so this is a good chance to really stick it to your most hated feats, or to promote the ones you like.
actually I kind of agree with a smaller number pool... 5 or 6 points tops.
also... was looking for other feats... Clustered Shots for example is over powered but not represented.
any chance of adding all pathfinder feats from the 4 core books? (yes yes I know there is only 1 core book but many people consider PG, APG, UM and UC core.
I don't want it to be such an intimidating number of feats that people don't jump in.
But if someone wanted to add tabs with the other major releases on them I wouldn't be opposed to that. I just copied and pasted from d20pfsrd.org, thanks guys!
I'm on an iPhone.
I can't seem to generate an additional column.
Of course I have no experience with googleDocs, so I'm likely screwing something up.
I'm all for a 3 or 5 point system. 10 is too many.
Well, a 5 system could just be a 10 system divided by two. :)
But really, since traits are supposed to be approximately half a feat, i thought it wise to allow people to rate 1-5 as "should be a trait."
If people want to use a 1-5 scale, just write (5) after your name in the top column and I'll multiply the results before averaging.
Both, whynot?
Could you add a column that averages the scores for each line?
Sure could.
However, since people ended up adding comments in the cells (despite my request) it will return an error until that's fixed.
I'll get around to it eventually, or anyone with the knowhow can edit it for me. The permissions are all open.