So I'm going to be running an evil adventure path (Way of the Wicked). I ran the idea of buyable feats by my players since I remember doing something like that in 3.5. You still got your feats from leveling but you could also exchange XP for them as well. The exchange rate for that was about 250xp. You also had to have enough experience to not "de-level" yourself. The players are up for it but think that the price should scale. Any advice on how to properly scale them? I'm thinking something like this.
1-5 = 250xp
6-10 = 500xp
11-15 = 1000xp
16-20 = 2000xp
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Buying feats is a bad idea.
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Sure, if Pathfinder was made by EA Games.
*badumtsh*
It also is a seriously bad idea because it would completely negate the benefit of at least 1 class. The fighter. Aside from a few very specific fighter only feats the big draw of the fighter is he gets more feats than anyone else. Why would play a a fighter archer instead of a ranger? The fighter is actually better at archery because of all his feats and bonuses (if the ranger isn't fighting a favored enemy).
The idea of buying more feats or in any way gaining additional feats beyond the normal progression just seems terrible to me.
Maybe the only thing I could get behind is allowing characters to pickup storyline and achievement feats for free, because those usually aren't to powerful. Such as the Chainbreaker feat from the Pathfinder Companion: Andoran, Spirits of Liberty
Chainbreaker
Prerequisites: Over the course of at least five different occasions, free a cumulative total of 50+ sentient being held in unjust captivity.
Benefit: When in combat with an opponent that you know owns or trades in slaves , once per round you may add a bonus to damage rolls for a melee attack, ranged attack, or targeted spell against that opponent. This bonus damage is +1 for every four hit dice you have.
Giving your players something like that for their accomplishment in game is reasonable. But allowing them to wholesale choose from all the normal feats would be far too powerful.
1: I think this is a horrible idea.
2: Having said that, as long as you & your players are cool with it then my opinion doesn't really matter.
I'd quadruple the xp cost 1-5 = 1000xp; 6-10 = 2500xp; 11-15 = 5000xp; 16-20 = 10,000xp. and put a hard limit on the number that they can purchase in this manner, perhaps 3-5.
In our homebrew rules, we allow feat training but only from a narrow list of options.
We have 5k feats:
Skill Feats (Alertness, Persuasive, etc. But not Skill Focus)
Combat Maneuver Feats (Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, etc. Not the Greater versions however.)
Metamagic Feats
Alignment Channel
Channel Smite
Command Undead
Elemental Channel
Extra Mercy
Selective Channel
Turn Undead
Iron Will
Great Fortitude
Lighting Reflexes
Dodge
Nimble Moves
Defensive Combat Training
Combat Casting
Exotic Weapon Proficiency
Heavy Armor Proficiency
Tower Shield Proficiency
And 2.5k feats:
Endurance
Eschew Materials
Fleet
Improved Counterspell
Improved Unarmed Strike
Master Craftsman
Rapid Reload
Run
Spell Mastery
Light Armor Proficiency
Simple Weapon Proficiency
Shield Proficiency
Martial Weapon Proficiency (As the feat, so 1 weapon)
Medium Armor Proficiency
0 Level Adjustment Metamagic (Merciful Spell)
It's just a little tweak to the game to adjust to our tastes:
No need to multiclass just to get a proficiency (Although you still need to multiclass to get ALL martial proficiency, i.e. Eldritch Knight)
Incentives to try combat maneuvers (They're rarely used)
Easier access to metamagic, which generally aren't worth a feat.
...and a few other options to customize you're character. Often, it's weaker than buying magic items. It takes a while of upgrading your Cloak of Resistance before you'd consider spending 5k on Lightning Reflexes, etc.
These are the general rules for all campaigns we run in our group. (There's ~6 of us, we take turns GMing different campaigns) GMs are free to expand the list in their campaign, give out a teamwork feat to the party, give feats as loot, or whatever.
I am going to agree with the others and say that i think it's a bad idea to buy feats.
I tried this back in 3.5.
My findings were that if I made feats too cheap, everybody bought feats instead of leveling up. If I made them too expensive, everybody just leveled up. I found the balance to be at about 1/3 the XP you need to gain a level.
So 700 xp to buy a feat at 1st level, 1,000 at 2nd level (one third of the 3,000 XP to get from 2nd to 3rd level), 1,400 XP at 3rd level, etc.
If I were a player using the OP's initial idea, I'd wait til I'm 5th level and fighting CR appropriate battles, then start buying feats. Kill 5 encounters at 400xp each, I could buy 8 feats. I'd just keep pumping XP into feats until the GM made me stop, or until I ran out of useful feats (at which point my 5th level character just might be a demigod).
That brings me to point two. I found that the feat buying should be limited. Some players just wanted to buy lots of feats, other players wanted to go up levels. It got weird. So I set a limit that you cannot buy more than two feats at any level, and if you leveled up without buying feats, you forever lost that chance (in other words, buy them before you level up or don't buy those two feats at all) - you can't just level up to 5th level and then buy 10 feats.
It worked out OK. I did lots of playtesting, such as creating a fighter with 100,000 XP who never bought a feat and creating another one who bought as many feats as he could and then having them fight each other. I did that with several classes. It turned out to be fairly well balanced in that it didn't really favor either side too much. Although I'm sure someone who's a system master with feats will know all the killer combos and find ways to break it, but my players weren't doing that so it worked in my game.
And a final caveat - if all the players burn XP on feats, they will get more powerful without going up in level. This means that the GM will have to start making them fight higher-CR monsters. A group of 10th level normal PCs can be challenged by a CR 11 encounter, but give that same group an extra 15 or 20 feats for each character and you might need to challenge them with a CR 15 encounter instead. And it will be hard to evaluate the correct CR, so plenty of guesswork and trial/error will be needed on the GM's part.
The Chort's list is pretty good. Allowing players to buy arbitrary feats is going to quickly run into problems. (Let's ignore for the moment that these problems already exist in the game---cf. metamagic rods.) But it's fine if you let players spend money or other resources on feats that aren't worth a feat slot. Assuming you lack other house rules fixing feat taxes, it could also be used there. Rather than spending a precious feat slot on weapon finesse, you just spend a few thousand gp (or spend the feat slot at 1st level then buy it back in a few levels).
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The Chort's list is pretty good. Allowing players to buy arbitrary feats is going to quickly run into problems. (Let's ignore for the moment that these problems already exist in the game---cf. metamagic rods.) But it's fine if you let players spend money or other resources on feats that aren't worth a feat slot. Assuming you lack other house rules fixing feat taxes, it could also be used there. Rather than spending a precious feat slot on weapon finesse, you just spend a few thousand gp (or spend the feat slot at 1st level then buy it back in a few levels).
Oh, our campaigns would allow you to buy Weapon Finesse... except we give it to everyone for free, along with Agile Maneuvers. Also, Quick Draw is free as soon as you reach BAB +3, and Strike Back is free at BAB +11.
We did a few other tweaks here and there:
Forge Ring was rolled into Craft Wondrous Items. Craft Wands and Staves were also merged. Since we've made the judgment of allowing crafting to begin with, (Although it's revoked in some campaigns) no need to overly penalize the character who actually takes the feats.
Heighten Spell was eliminated or I guess you could say, given to everyone for free. If you cast from a higher slot, it is a higher level spell.
Two-Weapon Fighting tree is now condensed into one feat. After taking Two-Weapon fighting, whenever you meet the prereqs for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, you get it for free.
The combat maneuver feats do not require Power Attack or Combat Expertise.
...that's most of the changes we made.
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There are certainly way more bad feats than good feats, unfortunately. They really make you swim through the garbage feats to find the good ones.
That said, while I dont mind the idea of getting feats through a means other than a fixed progression, and allowing characters to take something else instead of a feat, I don't think the idea of "spending" XP on a feat and delaying levelup is a good idea. It can result in wildly varying party levels.
I make use of Character Advancement Points, which is a houserule wherein the characters get a number of points to spend on magical enhancements that make their character more powerful, but they still use money to buy utility magic. The number of CAPs they get is based on 75% WBL rounded to the nearest 1000 gp. WBL is now the WBL minus the CAPs. I give them a bit of extra money at the beginning for mundane gear. The point is players will get less upset if some of their gear gets stolen or sundered, and it'll also be less of a big deal if they come into a ton of money. They can't sell the fortress you gave them to buy more combat effectiveness.
Anyways. I'd be more inclined to allow them to spend CAPs on feats, with a limit on how many feats they can have in total (maybe 75% of Character Level, giving them up to 150% of the feats they'd normally have), but I would have feats get exponentially more expensive, and I would roll the entire feat attainment system into CAPs based on those prices, so they could opt for less feats, or taking feats early and taking enhancements later, or what have you.
I haven't figured out the details of how I would want to do it, but its in my future plans.