Am I the only one who thinks this feat thing is running wild (bad pun)?
Can't we cut down on the raw number of feats?
Here is my idea...The skill feats...right off the bat, most skill feats give a +2 to 2 similar skills (those could be brought down as well to speed up play as well). Why not make one feat for skills that allows a player to give a plus 2 to 2 skills in general.
Skill Feat: Benefit: You may add +2 to 2 skills which have base similarities.
Point blank and simple. There are a ton of other feats that this can be done with I am sure.
Any thoughts?
My thought is there aren't many other feats this can be done with. The point of a feat, in most cases, isn't the static bonuses. It's the new options. There's no way to add new options without adding new feats. (It's basically how the 3.x games are set up.)
This is very true, but at the same time there are many feats that so near duplicate one another or just one up the previous feat in a tree that they could be combined or be increased in efficiency by taking it again.
We could cut down on at least a third of the feats this way...no?
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A third? I'd risk saying there is at least twice as many feats as we can possibly need. (This also goes for Archetypes and Spells!)
Feat bloat is a common complaint about PF. It's not unusual to hear people joking that you need 3 feats just to go the toilet. 1 to sit down, another to wipe you ass and a 3rd one to wash your hands.
The skill bonus feats are the most obvious example, but really, there are so many pointless feat trees...
- Remove Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Piranha Strike. Make them a combat option that anyone with BAB +1 can use in combat, like fighting defensively and such. At this point, it's little more than a feat tax, as every single martial character takes them! I'd say the same about Natural Spell, just give it to druids, they all gonna take it anyway. Archetypes who lose wild shape instead gain another feat. Although that's not much of a problem for druids, as they are incredibly strong anyway.
- Fuse similar feats! This could be done to 95% of the Feats with a Improved/Greater version, starting with TWF and going all the way to Improved Combat Maneuver feats. Honestly, unless the Improved/Greater version gives you a very different ability or much, much greater bonus (like Eldritch Heritage), there is no reason for being multiple feats instead of a single scaling feat.
- Which reminds me... Either remove Combat Expertise or its Int requirement. Or at least make it not a prerequisite for so many feats.
- Point Blank shot and Precise Shot could be a single feat. Same goes for Dodge/Mobility.
- Remove feats that "allow" you to do things that you should be capable of doing anyway! Body Shield and Blundgeoner are guilty of this.
- Remove nearly useless feats! Really, when was the last time you saw anyone take Sure Grasp?
The worst of all? The classes hit the hardest by feat starvation and way-too-long feat tress are usually the weaker ones. There are no prerequisites for getting Quicken Spell, Natural Spell or Extend Spell, but try and make a Sword & Board or a TWFer character viable and you need 4~6 feats just to do what you want.
Agreed Lemmy.
The Qtr Staff feat...I hear you. I recently saw that one and I thought, 'What in the nine hells!' Wouldn't that go with Weapon Focus? I mean really!
Unless someone has beaten me to it, I am going to have to go through the feats and make my own 'little' tree of feats.
That's two separate questions though. What feats can be combined just by being too similar (your example of skill feats) vs what feats are too weak to be worth considering. The first is, in my estimation, not that big of a group and the second is highly subjective. (You might get some agreement on the first, but with a few exceptions, don't expect much more than an argument if you pursue the second.)
Point taken MagiMaster.
Agreed...particularly since a lot of the feats that, while offering nice flavor, I wouldn't even dream giving to NPCs...a lot of the racial feats are guilty of this, and there are some that, unless given for free, appear to have little to no purpose, like Quarterstaff Mastery
Hah, 1st thing that came to mind is the Undine racial feat Water Skinned. It is a serious contender for the number 1 most useless feat in the game. IMO, it's not even worth being a trait!
I don't mind "flavor" feats if they are at least decent. Instead of making them feats of their own, make them secondary effects to more useful feats.
Magimaster raised a good point. Although I still believe that most feat taxes and feat trees could be reduced to 1 or 2 feats without any risk of unbalancing the game.
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- Remove nearly useless feats! Really, when was the last time you saw anyone take Sure Grasp?
*monocle pops out*
But how will we distinguish those with system mastery from the unwashed masses?
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you have to keep in mind that feat not suitable for powergamers/op-char are not always useless feats.
for non-optimized players (and NPCs) some feats are fun/suit the BG/fills a small gap/...
so is there a lot of feats : yes. too much? no.
also adding chain feats to all full-BAB is removing options and differences to players .
Actually, I didn't think to mention it earlier, but I agree that collapsing feat trees is limiting options if you change the number of feats people get to compensate, or overpowering if you don't. I'm sure the balance can be adjusted, but it almost certainly won't be simple. (This discussion's come up before.)
I don't think there are too many feats but many should be combat options.
Eg non-full bab chars can fight defensively
FULL bab classes can use combat expertise.
I don't mind the manuvere feats but fighters should get ALL of the improved feats and ALL of the greater feats by level 6
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I'm all for making the most commonly used feats as combat options. In the next game I run I'm making Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Weapon Finesse free to use as combat options.
Experimenting with more feats, but far less special abilities for the classes. Seems to be working.
Feats are not the problem exactly, bloat is.
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Hah, 1st thing that came to mind is the Undine racial feat Water Skinned. It is a serious contender for the number 1 most useless feat in the game. IMO, it's not even worth being a trait!
It is positively overpowered compared to Prone Shooter and Monkey Lunge.
I have no issue with a lot of complexity.
It separates the good players from the bad.
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Why are more options so offensive?
I wouldn't say it's offensive, but for certain feat starved classes it can feel kind of unfair. Unlike some, I generally get one shot to play a PC of a certain class over (let's say) a decade. If there's a feat for that class that "opens" something I think the class should get by default, then now I have one less feat slot to spend.
The feats I actually find offensive are like this. Strike back, for example, was actually just good application of rules knowledge for the entire 3.5 era, "common sense", and good roleplaying to boot! In PF, it's a feat. Rhino charge. Combat Expertise. There are others.
I have no issue with a lot of complexity.
It separates the good players from the bad.
And it makes the game impossible to GM! Who needs GMs anyway?
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And it makes the game impossible to GM! Who needs GMs anyway?I have no issue with a lot of complexity.
It separates the good players from the bad.
I'm always the GM. It isn't really that hard.
Half my enjoyment of being a DM is encounter building and playing with feats.
The simpler the system became, the less enjoyment I would get from prep work.
If a DM doesn't enjoy his prep, his games suffer.
It suffices to say I disagree completely.
Different people, different styles.
I find complexity... I dunno, less complex than most.
It just kind of all makes sense up here probably as a function of playing 3.5 and now PF for so long.
So when I see a giant list of feats I can find the synergy pretty naturally between them.
Might also help that I am an accountant and data entry specialist, my professional skills likely cross over into my gaming.
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I may be the odd one out but for both as a player and a GM I enjoy MORE options, I don't see the bloat issue everyone complains about.
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I'm all for making the most commonly used feats as combat options. In the next game I run I'm making Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Weapon Finesse free to use as combat options.
FWIW, in our campaign we:
Make Power Attack, Deadly Aim, Piranha Strike and Combat Expertise free.
Make Weapon Finesse a weapon trait, not a skill, meaning anyone with proficiency in a finessible weapon can use Weapon Finesse with it.
Get rid of Multishot (how cumbersome/awkward is that?). Instead we add Improved Rapid Shot available at +6 BAB and Greater Rapid Shot at +11 BAB that follow the same iterative rules as Two-Weapon Fighting. We also created Doubleshot, a feat which allows you to fire two arrows at once at a single target any time you make a standard attack action with your bow.
Do away with the 'Improved' feats for combat maneuvers entirely that have a Greater version, featuring only the Greater and Strike versions but setting the Greater feats as a pre-requisite for Strike.
We still have Critical Focus but no longer make it a pre-requisite for the critical feats.
Made Vital Strike applicable any time you make a single attack action, including use with Spring Attack and charges.
Made Unarmed Strike grant an automatic +1 to attack and damage as well as unarmed proficiency.
Combined Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot but applied Point Blank Shot's range limitation to Precise Shot.
We have a feat called Split Focus which is necessary to split your full action attack between two or more foes. Otherwise a full attack action focuses on one opponent (melee or ranged) and once you kill him you lose your additional attacks. If he is slain with your initial attack you still have the option to treat the attack as a standard action. This is in part a balancing agent to make up for all of the free feats being granted and something we thought made sense.
We also have Improved Dodge and Greater Dodge which offer an additional +1 dodge bonus to AC each as well as Light Armor Expertise (+1 to armor bonus when wearing light armor), Medium Armor Expertise (+2 to armor bonus when wearing medium armor), and Heavy Armor Expertise (+3 to armor bonus when wearing heavy armor) - each serving as a pre-requisite for the next in both cases.
Finally we have Lucky which grants a +1 feat bonus to all saving throws.
In short, we made free:
Power Attack
Deadly Aim
Piranha Strike
Combat Expertise
Weapon Finesse
Did away with:
Multishot
Precise Shot
Improved Bull Rush
Improved Dirty Trick
Improved Disarm
Improved Overrun
Improved Reposition
Improved Sunder
Improved Trip
Altered:
Improved Unarmed Strike
Point Blank Shot (combined with Precise Shot)
Critical Focus (as a pre-requisite)
Vital Strike feats (expanded use)
Added:
Improved Rapid Shot
Greater Rapid Shot
Doubleshot
Split Focus
Improved Dodge
Greater Dodge
Light Armor Expertise
Medium Armor Expertise
Heavy Armor Expertise
Lucky
Obviously we don't have fewer feats, but we feel as if we're making better use of the ones we have. A couple of things to keep in mind - we tend to run in a lower magic environment and some of these feats are still in the 'play-test' stage...
Different people, different styles.
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Might also help that I am an accountant and data entry specialist, my professional skills likely cross over into my gaming.
I'm in usability, so I guess both or our perspectives make sense.
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Personally, I didn't see much wrong with the original AD&D and it didn't have Feats. Proficiencies yes, and they made sense. Options then were basically whatever the player could think up and the GM would have them make a role against their stats or attacks...the good old days. There are a lot of good ideas here and I will have to talk with my group about these ideas.
I'm in usability, so I guess both or our perspectives make sense.Different people, different styles.
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Might also help that I am an accountant and data entry specialist, my professional skills likely cross over into my gaming.
Definitely. See, I'm sure in usability you run into the guy who liked the old, complex system because it allowed him to manipulate it more?
I'm that guy. I used to work for Xbox support and whenever they'd make our tools "more user friendly" I hated it because I always lost the ability to control some small thing that I had used to make my job easier.
Not that I don't understand the need for increased usability. I've got a sister that if Apple products didn't exist she would be incapable of using technology. She's not smart enough to use open-ended operating systems.
Definitely. See, I'm sure in usability you run into the guy who liked the old, complex system because it allowed him to manipulate it more?
Interestingly, as a professional consideration I enjoy those challenges the most. Can I retain the functionality while making the process better? At such times as I make houserules, I try to do it without oversimplifying. Ah well.
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After Ultimate Combat, I was pretty much burned out on new feats. No more!!!
I think the worst offenders are actually the combat maneuver feats. I think they help prevent the Combat Maneuver rules (which are a great way to streamline unusual combat actions) from being used to their fullest. All of the "Improved so-and-so" feats add extra bookeeping, and the fact that some require power attack and some combat expertise as a pre-req means that not a lot of people go there, and the more advanced maneuver feats (Things like "Charge through" etc) are almost never touched.
If it were up to me, there would be a single feat called "Improved combat Maneuvers" which would cover ANY combat maneuver and would have no prerequisite. That feat would then serve as the Pre-req for all of the more advanced and specific maneuver feats.
After Ultimate Combat, I was pretty much burned out on new feats. No more!!!
I think the worst offenders are actually the combat maneuver feats. I think they help prevent the Combat Maneuver rules (which are a great way to streamline unusual combat actions) from being used to their fullest. All of the "Improved so-and-so" feats add extra bookeeping, and the fact that some require power attack and some combat expertise as a pre-req means that not a lot of people go there, and the more advanced maneuver feats (Things like "Charge through" etc) are almost never touched.
If it were up to me, there would be a single feat called "Improved combat Maneuvers" which would cover ANY combat maneuver and would have no prerequisite. That feat would then serve as the Pre-req for all of the more advanced and specific maneuver feats.
That's not a bad idea - a +2 bonus across the board when attempting Combat Maneuvers, though I'd shift the 'does not provoke' benefit to the Greater version.
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I agree... *cough, cough choke* with Gorbacz. PF has actually handled this way better than 3.x did.
But to the rest of the conversation, I think there are some shoddily done feats. I know not everything can be open playtested, but sometimes when it comes to the splat feats I really wonder at how they were designed and playtested. Like why does it take 3 feats, a stat requirement, AND a minimum BAB of 6 to be able to use a quarterstaff as a trip weapon? It's a long, sturdy stick, it can't possibly be that hard to learn how to use it to thwack someone behind the knees or stick it out and make someone fall over it.
I do think the number can be overwhelming too, even though there are still fewer feats than in the previous edition. But then that's why the splat books do not have emblazoned at the top "you must use these or die." My rule for home games is, "if it's not in core or APG, ask me first," and leave it at that (I will usually say yes, and if I say no I give good reason). If the players aren't mature enough to handle that request, then they're not welcome at my table.
I do agree feats could be streamlined more and that there are too many "trees" with unnecessary "branches." PF "suffers" from its attempts to remain as backwards compatible as possible with 3.x -- a lot of the feat prereqs were the same prereqs as in 3.x, and changing them could mean a lot of rewriting 3.x characters and monsters more than you'd already have to. I think in retrospect, the issue was probably less of an issue than perceived, but remember when Pathfinder was first being made, there was a glut of 3.x materials being actively used by would-be Pathfinder players, including the early Adventure Paths. The staff had a lot of reason to try and stick to backwards compatibility looking at what were near future issues at the time.
When I GM again, I'm interested in trying out the following:
- Removing the Power Attack and Combat Expertise Prereqs from combat maneuver feats. I might keep the stat requirement, though I might lower those to 11.
- Folding Improved and Greater TWF into TWF -- you just get the extra attack automatically when you hit the appropriate BAB
- Same for the Vital Strike and Penetrating Strike trees -- you just get the improved effect when your BAB increases
- Basically anything that only increases the dice/bonus but does not add a new ability would scale up. So Vital Strike scales because it just adds a new die. But Improved {Combat Maneuver} and Greater {Combat Maneuver} stay separate because the Greater... versions of those feats usually add an extra ability, like provoking an AOO or something.
- Allowing Weapon Focus and Dodge to scale to a small degree with level (this if I run a campaign that isn't treasure heavy.... it's one I have to think about a bit). If I did this with Dodge, I would not allow Acrobatics to provide additional bonuses.
Story Archer: Since you make Combat Expertise free, basically that replaces fighting defensively? Or does fighting defensively still exist for people who want to get the Dodge bonus from ranks in Acrobatics?
A third? I'd risk saying there is at least twice as many feats as we can possibly need. (This also goes for Archetypes and Spells!)
Feat bloat is a common complaint about PF. It's not unusual to hear people joking that you need 3 feats just to go the toilet. 1 to sit down, another to wipe you ass and a 3rd one to wash your hands.
Couldn´t agree more, most Feat Trees are ridiculously long and that doesn´t add options, it takes them away.If you really want to do something new via Feats then you have to spend all your feats on that.
Just forget about everything else you pick one Trick and thats it.
I was trying to build a Vivisectionist recently and the Two Weapon Feint looked seriously juicy,"sacrifice your first attack and get Sneak Attack on the rest of your attacks",seems like a cool thing to have,truly a new option thats worth something.....
BUT
...to be able to pull that stunt off you have to spend like half a dozen Feats, and then another Feat to get good at it .Thats all the Feats this Character would get during his entire career ,just so that he can profit during the last two or so levels,.... and forget about Power Attack ,Weapon Focus or Iron Will ....just can´t do it.
Options are good thing.
Are you also advocating cutting the number of spells available?
Difference being: you don't need spells to do things that might be basic options in another game AND you generally have more spell slots than feat slots.
I had to take my own advice on this one planning out my rogue progression from 8 to 20. Basically, look for a few awesome 'goal' feats that are only available to higher end characters (high BAB, level requirement, etc). You'll obviously need any pre-requisites to acquire those feats. After that, take any feats that bolster those end-game feats even more.
If you can't spot any specific feats, focus on those that help with a specific niche or feature of your class. Failing THAT, I would say you're trying to be a generalist character and then, sure, you can run into choice-coma.
Story Archer: Since you make Combat Expertise free, basically that replaces fighting defensively? Or does fighting defensively still exist for people who want to get the Dodge bonus from ranks in Acrobatics?
In practice it does exactly that. Though in truth it is an incredibly rare situation that anyone in our campaign 'fights defensively'...
I'm intrigued by the thought of lumping together things that iterate, like TWF or VitalS. We might try that ourselves.
- Allowing Weapon Focus and Dodge to scale to a small degree with level (this if I run a campaign that isn't treasure heavy.... it's one I have to think about a bit). If I did this with Dodge, I would not allow Acrobatics to provide additional bonuses.
You could always use acrobatics for how dodge scales, and use other skills as well as BAB and even possibly Saves to scale other feats. They are all capped by level anyway. Just a thought, but it seems that having skills and other related traits work as the scaling device is more descriptive than just using level.
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In short, we made free:
Power Attack
Deadly Aim
Piranha Strike
Combat Expertise
Weapon Finesse
I allow power attacking and deadly aim for free except the penalty on attack rolls is doubled.
Piranha Strike, still costs a feat as usual.
Weapon Finesse, everyone gets it for free.
Combat expertise, changed it to give +2 to hit when fighting defensively.
Did away with:
Multishot
Precise Shot
Improved Bull Rush
Improved Dirty Trick
Improved Disarm
Improved Overrun
Improved Reposition
Improved Sunder
Improved Trip
didn't do anything with those, precise shot is a perfectly reasonable feat and I can't be bothered to make maneuvers easier, maybe it breaks apart beyond lvl 13 or so but so far it works fine in my campaigns
Altered:
Improved Unarmed Strike
Point Blank Shot (combined with Precise Shot)
Critical Focus (as a pre-requisite)
Vital Strike feats (expanded use)
I do not see the point in making unarmed strike better, it is supposed to be inferior in my opinion.
Point Blank Shot is a good deal for a feat.
Critical focus I do not have an issue with, but since I am thinking of changing the crit system (making crits more rare) I might remove it as a prerequiste too.
Vital Strike, completely agree on this change, I will do the same
Added:
Improved Rapid Shot
Greater Rapid Shot
Doubleshot
Split Focus
Improved Dodge
Greater Dodge
Light Armor Expertise
Medium Armor Expertise
Heavy Armor Expertise
Lucky
The rapid shot chain seems overkill to me, done well it is already one of the best combat options and I like melee better, so I choose not to encourage it further.
No big deal on the dodge feat, though I do not put them in game.
The armor feats seem a bit unfair, a heavy armor using fighter will have to sink in 3 feats before getting any benefits :
1) armor expertise +1 any armor (prerequiste light armor prof)
2) improved armor expertise, +2 medium and heavy armor -1 AC penalties (prerequiste medium armor prof and armor expertise)
3) greater armor expertise, +3 heavy armor, -2 AC penalties (prerequiste heavy armor prof, armor expertise and improved armor expertise)
Obviously we don't have fewer feats, but we feel as if we're making better use of the ones we have. A couple of things to keep in mind - we tend to run in a lower magic environment and some of these feats are still in the 'play-test' stage...
A quick few changes of my own for low magic especially, though not directly feat related :
I changed the way saves worked making them 1/2 character lvl without good saves, making it less obvious what a particular characters weakness is and making certain classes less vulnerable in low magic settings in particular.
Giving characters a level based (dodge) AC bonus as the gunslinger class, we dont use this class but if we did probably would add +1 AC every 2nd level instead.
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Feats are not the problem exactly, bloat is.
My point exactly.
Options are always good. False choices, not so much. It's not a real choice if something is so bad you'll never take it (Sure Grasp, Water Skinned), or if its so good you can't help but take it (Power Attack). And that is not even mentioning the feats Amethal reminded me of:
Hah, 1st thing that came to mind is the Undine racial feat Water Skinned. It is a serious contender for the number 1 most useless feat in the game. IMO, it's not even worth being a trait!It is positively overpowered compared to Prone Shooter and Monkey Lunge.
Heh... I had forgotten about those two...
I played a lot of 3.5. Just cause its feat bloat was worse than Pathfinder's, it doesn't mean the problem is not present in PF, or that I have to be happy about it.
I love PF and I loved 3.5. But I this is an issue that both of them have. I love creating charactersm both PCs and NPCs, and I love fooling around in HeroLab. I don't enjoy however, scrolling over dozens of useless feats to find the ones that are actually worth considering.
It's not about complexity. I like complexity.
False choices do not make the game any more complex. They just use space that could otherwise be used for actual meaningful options. A feat so bad noone ever takes is the same as not having it.
Having a bunch of nearly useless feat just so it "rewards system mastery" is bad design.
If every single feat were at least decent, and reasonably balanced, there would be much more complexity in the game. And much more varied characters and builds.
Why do we feel the need to separate good players from bad? It's like playing a Street Fighter game where, let's say, Sagat is too strong and Ryu is too weak, and saying "You know, it's a good thing Sagat is so overpowered and Ryu is useless! It separates good players from bad."
Wouldn't it be more fun if the player could just take whatever character he/she found cool and played with it? Good players would still be much more efficient. Just like experienced RPG players would still shine more than noobs anyway, as they supposedly have better tactical knowledge and know which feats synergize well with each other.
I don't think the game's complexity would be reduced if it didn't have the feats I mentioned.
TWF is a clear example. It takes 6 feats to just catch up with your friend using a greatsword. Why not reduce that feat tree to 2 scaling feats? How does that reduce your options? If you have more feats available, it actually *increases* them!
If you read my 1st post, you can see I don't say to completely remove any of those options. But to simplify them (like fusing related combat maneuver feats into a single scaling one or making Combat Expertise and Power Attack combat options, rather than feats). Again, how does that reduce our options?
Look at Kirthfinder. It's a wonderful PF homebrew that greatly reduced feat bloat, while still mantaining the game complexity.
I changed the way saves worked making them 1/2 character lvl without good saves, making it less obvious what a particular characters weakness is and making certain classes less vulnerable in low magic settings in particular.
Not sure I understood. Does this mean all classes have the same saves? What are the save progressions? What is the difference between good and poor save progressions? And how does this change affect the game?
Giving characters a level based (dodge) AC bonus as the gunslinger class, we dont use this class but if we did probably would add +1 AC every 2nd level instead.
What is the bonus you give them? I considered doing the same thing in my games, the bonus I was thinking of was (BAB+1)/3. I just didn't do it out of fear of unbalancing encounters.
This means that the more combat focused characters (fighters/barbarians) would learn to defend themselves better than the ones who only partially focus on combat (rogues/clerics) or not at all (wizards/sorcerers). It also "ends" nicely. With Full BAB having +7 AC at 20th level, medium BAB a +5, and poor BAB, a +3.
Yeah lump me in the camp that thinks that the Vital Strike Chain and Power Attack (and its brothers) should be combat options and not feats.
I love the idea that Weapon Finesse is a weapon quality. Built into the way the weapon is used. If I am proficient with a weapon I should be able to use it to its best effect without extra training.
I also really dig the idea of feats that "level up" as you do (Two-Weapon fighting, Cleave, Penetrating Strike, etc)
Although I find any feat with fighter only, might as well be a fighter class feature.
I find it strange that Archery gets a "flurry of attacks" feat chain simulating two weapon fighting. (manyshot, rapid shot, etc), why not allow all fighting styles (ie two hander) to take a penalty to hit to get extra attacks?
/minor_rant - Even portraying Archery as a "bullet hell" style archer is kind of off putting. Archers (to me) always seemed to be more of a "Make the Shot" character. The one in the clutch that hits what they aimed for. Not the "Spray and pray" I see in games. /end minor_rant
Feats like Hammer the Gap and Clustered Shots seem like variations of Vital Strike. Vital Strike you get the best to hit while taking a hit on damage. While the others take the penalty to hit on successive shots to increase the damage. The whole mechanic seems to be in place to primarily allow players to punch through DR without the right weapon. Personally I feel that Vital Strike fills that gap more elegantly and works better in both mobile or standing fights. Where as you lose the ability to be mobile as a hidden penalty to the higher damage output of the other two options. Also Vital works with any weapon, ranged or melee.
I see the good ideas that are in feats, I just worry that perhaps some feats should be rolled up into combat options instead or just rolled up into one feat.
If you view building a character as a game in its own right then I think it makes a lot of sense that there are so many options and trap options. The game is all about sorting through this interconnected mess of options and finding the gems.
IMO the character building game is fine, but there should be an option for people who just want to play in sessions and not have a terrible character. Fortunately the class guides take care of this.
Now I could definitely see tweaking things to make more builds competitive. I think the method is basically:
1. Identify which builds *should* be strong
2. Make those builds similarly powerful
3. Sprinkle in trap options
4. Playtest to make sure core builds are still the strongest and are similarly powerful.
This is more or less how CCG design works, and I think there are a lot of similarities between character design and deck design. In fact I wonder if there isn't a way to convert some of the CCG formats into character design formats (ie draft)...
Can't we cut down on the raw number of feats?
In a nutshell, no. Rules basically can't be unpublished. So by definition no, we're just going to see more, not less.
Skill Feat: Benefit: You may add +2 to 2 skills which have base similarities.
So. I've just finished creating a new class called... oh... say the Wizard. I've given him a weird magical buddy called... oh... say a familiar. Whenever that familiar is within arm's reach of the wizard, I'd like him to get a bonus to Perception and Sense Motive.
Now what? I can't just say "a wizard gains Skill Feat any time his familiar is within arm's reach." No. That way lays madness. The wizard can happily pick +2 to Climb and Escape Artist. To prevent that, you'd have to add a bunch of verbiage to the wizard stating that the bonuses granted by Skill Feat can only be applied to Perception and Sense Motive. Then in a statblock instead of saying "Alertness" down in Feats, you'd have to print "Skill Feat (Perception and Sense Motive)", which you'll notice is significantly larger and applies to almost every wizard statblock ever.
While your goal is admirable, there's a number of reasons why similar-but-different rules exist: brevity.
Why is there a feat allowing the use of Sleight of Hand instead of CMB for Disarm, but NOT for Steal?
Heck, the entire Steal mechanic mandated additional feats in order to make it a CMB/CMD issue instead of keeping it a skill issue.
I was kind of questioning that. They instead gave it to the Halfling Filcher archetype in the ARG.
I'd like to get more feats that become more powerful as you level up, like Two-Weapon Fighting that would add an extra attack for every 5 points of BAB the player has. Same goes with the Improved feats that would become Greater over time and such.
Skill Feat: Benefit: You may add +2 to 2 skills which have base similarities.So. I've just finished creating a new class called... oh... say the Wizard. I've given him a weird magical buddy called... oh... say a familiar. Whenever that familiar is within arm's reach of the wizard, I'd like him to get a bonus to Perception and Sense Motive.
Now what? I can't just say "a wizard gains Skill Feat any time his familiar is within arm's reach." No. That way lays madness. The wizard can happily pick +2 to Climb and Escape Artist. To prevent that, you'd have to add a bunch of verbiage to the wizard stating that the bonuses granted by Skill Feat can only be applied to Perception and Sense Motive. Then in a statblock instead of saying "Alertness" down in Feats, you'd have to print "Skill Feat (Perception and Sense Motive)", which you'll notice is significantly larger and applies to almost every wizard statblock ever.
While your goal is admirable, there's a number of reasons why similar-but-different rules exist: brevity.
I see your point. But isn't that the case with feats like Skill Focus, Weapon Fcous, Weapon Specialization, Spell Focus, etc, anyway?
And wouldn't fusing those feats also save a lot of space in book pages? Possibly reducing their price and/or opening up space for more diversified feats/spell/whatever-you-want?
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I remember back during the 3.0/3.5 transition when a lot of +2 to skill X and +2 to skill Y feats were created, some brilliant 3rd party publisher came up with a general form of that feat -- something along the lines of "Pick any 2 skills. You gain a bonus of +2 to each of those skills. Special: You may select this feat more than once. Its effects do not stack. Each time you select this feat, you must select two skills that have not previously benefited from this feat." This one feat eliminated the need for a lot of the feats in 3.5 that were inherited by Pathfinder.