Buying feats?

[Mage Evolving]

I'm running a low level, low magic game and was wondering if allowing my players to buy combat feats (ie pay to train with masters for combat feats) would be a good idea. It's a small 3 person party that is less than optimized so I thought giving them a combat feat might be a viable option.

any suggestions?

[Cheeseweasel]

As long as there's a limit to the gold-to-Feats alchemy, it should work out OK. I've seen this done before; if Feats are just another commodity, that is, you can buy as many as you can pay for, it can get out of hand.

If they occasionally find an instructor who can teach them a Feat for some gold, it shouldn't hurt your campaign. Just be clear about which Feats can be bought, and how many Feats one PC can buy (I'd suggest no more than one every three or four levels, really).

Also, think about whether you intend to let anything other than combat Feats get purchased (any caster in the group may feel left out if it's just combat Feats, since there are very few of those which are of a great benefit).

Anyway... keep it to a limit of some kind, and also think about the game effect beyond the PCs: BBEGs should take advantage of instructors, too; maybe even some minions.

But the basic idea is viable, with a little attention to detail.

Luck!

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Assuming yes, what's a good feat to gold ratio chart? I imagine feats that require prerequisites would be more expensive.

[Lord Foul II]

I'd say that on top of that you can't get ratial feets this way, or feets that in the flavor text call uppon dormant magical potential or something your ancestors could do, and the person you learn from has to have the feet himself

no buying feets that can't be taught,
concider using http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/UA:Test-Based_Prerequisites

and concider either the teacher or the student making a skill check (like profession teacher for the teacher or autohypnosis or an ability check for the student)

you as the DM control which teachers are avalible and what they want to charge for it, one of the traits of a truely great DM is one that will let their players do anything they want.... but make them work for it, like for instance, "you want to buy instruction in that monk combat style, sure, who are you going to get to teach you"
"un I'll just go to the monistary"
"ok do you know where that is"
"um no but you do, and you can tell me"
"how would your character know that"
"um he'll ask in town"
:he does and he finds out after using a sucessful Diplomacy (gather information) check buys a map, uppon reaching the monistary:
*monk teacher*"so you wish to be instructed in the way of the stunning fist, do you, what makes you think you are worthy of my instruction"
:players try to offer sums of money possibly a lot of money, and the DM reminds them that monks spurn material goods, finally they offer to go on a quest to retrive a mystical religious artifact and return it to the monks neting you a plot hook/ark and satisfying the players, every player hates a flat no, even one with an explination, espically if the yes makes sense, this way you space out the aquisition of feets, control which ones are avalible, and you drive them to think outside the box to achive their goals and keep them entertained:

all in all this is a good idea but make sure that you be careful that your players don't teach each other at least not without costing one or both of them something

[Mage Evolving]

Thanks for the advice.

I limited the feat buy to a single combat feat for every 5 levels. All of them are multi-class with a martial aspect so they all seemed to appreciate it. I also made it an expensive proposition that takes weeks of down time to accomplish.

Of course training has its perks. It's offered some great role-playing opportunities, built friendships and contacts with npcs and offers some nice plot hooks.

[IejirIsk]

My 2cp:
Make the feats something a little more rare to take, see if you can get a few new unconventional ideas into play, while a little less realistic, have each trainer have like 5 feats he can train (possibly where pc's have to travel to find others) and each feat can only be taught once, so you dont end with cookie cutter players. If you go with more unused feats, might do more than every 5... love the idea of using contacts for it.