Everyone would play human because that one feat has suddenly become the most important racial ability ever. Oh and only fighters can be archers because pretty much every part of archery requires a feat.Ranger can pick archery feats with their style bonus feats
Monk archetype Zen archer still works as well
Zen Archer would be the only real alternative to fighters, since they get so many feats so quickly.
A ranger would have to take Precise Shot at level 2, wait until 6 for Rapid Shot, until 10 for Manyshot, and until 14 for Improved Precise Shot. They would never get things like Snap Shot, Clustered Shots, Hammer the Gap, Point Blank Shot, or Shot on the Run. Meanwhile, a fighter could have Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot by level 2 or 4, Manyshot by 6, and Improved Precise Shot by 12, with the other feats worked in at 8 and 10 if desired.
Only fighters and monks (and maybe one or two archetypes) would ever get Combat Reflexes.
The problem won't be that certain concepts will be hard to emulate, it will be that certain concepts are IMPOSSIBLE to emulate, while others will require multi-classing to do so.
And as for PF in 5-10 years in regards to feats, I don't know what you're suggesting, that we'll have too many feats by then? We have too many now, with too few slots to take many of the more narrowly interesting ones, but with online databases it's not all that difficult to search through everything for stuff you'd like, or use the forums to discover things you didn't know about. Kind in mind, I've played quite a bit of Star Wars Saga Edition, which has more options scattered across more books, and which DOESN'T have a very good database, and whose community has basically been dead for a few years now. That's kind of a pain in the ass, but I still would prefer that to the proposal here.
I'd try a no feats game or two. Might be interesting.
Sounds like fun. I'd give it a go.
Well...i guess id give it a shot, but i doubt my group would for it.
I would certainly be interesting if people who played this or similar with less/no feats and then came back to PF Vanilla to find they'd had new insights into their PF gaming.
I would certainly be interesting if people who played this or similar with less/no feats and then came back to PF Vanilla to find they'd had new insights into their PF gaming.
Insight is probably not the right word. Relief and not having to compromise or greatly delay character concepts as much is probably a better way to put it.
Other then a bizare thought experiment I really dont see what there is to gain by this. You wont gain diversity by essentially eliminating tons of concepts from the game and forcing people to multiclass into the same couple classes to accomplish basic things.
If you are looking to simplify the game, there are ways to do it, but the way to do it is not to strip a major part of the game and leave the rest of it that depends on expects that part of the game in tact. If you want to eliminate feats, you need to go back and re-write each and every class and much of the combat rules with that in mind.
This is actually a pretty interesting idea. One problem is that d20 based systems in general seem built on the premise of "you can't do X without Y", and in many places Y is a feat and X is something you want your fantasy character to be able to do. I think it'd be a great idea to reduce the number of feats and roll some current feats into actions that anyone can do. If you could rework the rules for your table to let PCs do feat-only things without the specific feat (trade places with an ally in combat, take a blow for an adjacent ally, etc.) I think you could manage to have a fairly interesting game. I'd never fully take out feats myself but reducing the number of things a PC needs a feat to be able to do is something that I keep wanting to do on occasion.
Just curious what would happen if you removed the general feat choice every odd level from the game. Just yanked them out and replaced them with nothing.
Classes that grant bonus feats still grant those feats but the general feats choice is gone.
Would it have a significant impact on play ?
Sure feats have been around forever, its a core part of your character but could you just as easily have a fun and enjoyable character without them ?
would it drastically change the relative power of classes in any significant way ?
Has anyone ever run a campaign with no feats ?
You'd make me happy. I consider Feats to be the worst part of 3.X+ editions.
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You do make some interesting points Yeti1069 let me propose some counters to what you've said.
I dispute that a weapons DEFINE a character sure they can support it but they don't outright define it. You used Indiana Jones as an example sure he had a whip but that didn't define his character as a character he's still the iconic adventuring archaeologist without the whip. Sure people identify the whip with Indi but the character still works without it. Similarly Conan the barbarian would have been just as iconic if he been holding an huge axe or a huge hammer instead of a huge sword. Swap out the Ninja turtles weapon with 4 other ninja weapons and it still works their personalities wouldn't be significantly different if their creators had given them different ones.
More iconics in that thread Fafrhd and the Gray Mouser always carried with them Gray Wand and Cats Claw respectively. But those actually weren't named magical swords, it was the name they gave to the sword they had in hand. Lieber actual calls that out in the text of the story, and I imagine his motivation was to make the dialog more energetic then saying "sword" all the time, the point remains, the characters are iconic, and it is their personality that drives them, and putting another type of weapon in their hands wouldn't have changed that.
That being said, the counter point is Legolas, and Robinhood, neither would be as possible or logical with a crossbow or a sling.
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Question: Do we even need feats?
Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssohdeargodpleasedon'ttakemyfeatsaw aycauseINEEDSthemtheyaresohelpfulandprettyandshinyandnicethatIjustwanttocol lectthemallandplacethemintoaniceboxwithaprettyribbononit!
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I would definitely play this kind of game if:
certain feats are intertwined into the class itself, like how Scribe Scroll is with the wizard. From my experience as a player and DM since day 1 of 3.0, players generally trend towards the same type of character most of the time and always take the exact same feats over and over again and it's always the best ones. the cleric player is ALWAYS going to take selective channeling for example. The wizard player is ALWAYS going to take quicken spell eventually. Monks, bards, and rogues ALWAYS take improved initiative, combat reflexes, dodge, and weapon finesse. If you use a bow, you're ALWAYS going to take point blank shot. And it's the same few feats, over and over and over again. At least the 30 or so different players I've played with over the years have been this way. No one takes lightning reflexes, or iron will, or deft hands, or alertness or those kinds of feats.
If anything, I think that feats are the most BORING parts of Pathfinder and that it's the archtype system that makes each character unique.
Even my younger players are noticing this. Maybe it's because they aren't optimizers?
The only alternative I can think of is instead of Feats you just Say I wanna do this ok make a roll Dufficulty 10 15 20 whatever... And go from there
Which is basically how the earlier editions worked. You said what you wanted to do, the GM asked for a roll that s/he thought was appropriate to the act, you rolled, the GM decided whether or not that was good enough.
Good if you trust your GM, I guess, but it's not a stable, set-in-stone system, it relies almost completely on fiat calls.
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Actually, just about every single fighter takes iron will that I've seen, and most people I know don't take melee bards, they build them with a bow and just focus on casting most of the time. Other than on the boards I don't think I've ever seen a bard with combat reflexes, dodge, and weapon finesse. Ranged option is just better on them.
wow, I've never seen it actually ever taken before, by any player. Maybe in those early days, there could've been a couple that I just don't remember, but definitely not in the past few years.
Granted I've seen very few bards, but those that did see play were more like swashbucklers than archers. But again, other than on the boards, I think that there are few players that play for optimization and just play this game for the fun of it with their buddies.
And, not to mention, there's absolutely nothing inherent in a game having a more in depth character creation system than "roll stats, pick class, roll HP, done" that results in less (or more) imagination or character development in the game itself.
Taking feats out at odd levels would completely nerf the game system and make it extremely limited and boring. And to say that classes would still get bonus feats just imbalances and breaks it altogether. Not a good idea.
Well the Hero Complex has been warped dramatically over the years...
When this game starting back at good old 1.0...
The game worked differently
I want to do A... Ok Roll... Result = A B or C
depending on what you wanted to do...As the game developed we moved away from the Imagination and true Character Development to Character CREATION....
To many Options that require this that and the Other... Characters Complexity used to be personalities and alignment and in depth Would my character do...
Now all it is basically opening a Menu Ordering some abilities
I attack I win I loot the Room Next.... I have seen so many games and players that it is repetition of certain actions and they almost start playing for everyone.
This is all very true, and I do miss that about 1st and 2nd edition. Its one of the things I loved about them. 3.x and Pathfinder however have vastly different rules and ways of handling things, and feats are an important part of how those mechanics work and resolve.
I will say this though, there are a lot of feats for things that really shouldn't need to be a feat - like grappling someone and using them as a shield or knocking someone backwards with a shield. That is a completely different thread for another day.
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Overall I think it's doable and would be something different to try. This is definitely the first time I've heard of this particular house rule. But I would confer with your group to make sure they wouldn't balk at the idea. As this forum has shown, there's alot of folks that will not enjoy doing this at all. And there are some that will.