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Can feats be turned off if they do not have "may" or similar conditional language in the text? Or are there feats that are always on, even if there are circumstances when you may want to have them deactivated?
Example: Moonlight Summons
If you don't want your animal to glow, can you turn off the feat?
Example: Shield Slam
If you hit an opponent with your shield, can you choose not to make the Bull Rush?
This question was debated on the Know Direction Podcast tonight. It would be great to get a FAQ on it. (I'm not disagreeing with you, My Self)
This question was debated on the Know Direction Podcast tonight. It would be great to get a FAQ on it. (I'm not disagreeing with you, My Self)
It's not going to happen. Not when doing so would require looking at feats on a case-by-case basis.
You cannot 'deactivate' a feat, but I am not aware of any rule indicating that you must use a 'useable' feat.
So for example fey foundling has an 'always on' abilities, and a boost to your healing. You don't have to use the boost to your healing, but you can't deactivate the vulnerability.
Toughness has no associated 'use' mode, so it is 'always on' and you cannot choose to not use it.
Shield slam, requires you to actively use it, so you can choose not to, same with moonlight summons.
This question was debated on the Know Direction Podcast tonight. It would be great to get a FAQ on it. (I'm not disagreeing with you, My Self)It's not going to happen. Not when doing so would require looking at feats on a case-by-case basis.
But this is a basic general concept, that reasonable people can strongly disagree on. The priority should be given to defining the basics so that people can make their own conclusions on the specific cases.
The text explaining how a feat works:
"Benefit: What the feat enables the character (“you” in the feat description) to do. If a character has the same feat more than once, its benefits do not stack unless indicated otherwise in the description."
The word "enables" there suggests a "may" situation and not a "must" situation. It's the best support I can find for a "you can turn off your feats" and I personally don't find it super convincing.
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I would say that you're not obliged to use "the good stuff", but that you're stuck with the "always on bad stuff".
You don't have to Shield Slam someone across the room, but you can't turn down the pain when your Fey Foundling gets accosted by the cold iron police.
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As one of the aforementioned guys who debated this on Know Direction last night, here would be by proposed "response."
If a feat or ability's benefit is contingent is dependent upon you using a specific action, such as hitting an opponent with a shield bash attack or summoning a creature, you may choose whether or not to apply that feat's benefit each time you perform that specific action.
If a feat or ability's benefit does not depend upon you using a specific action, then that feat's benefit is always active.
So for instance, you can choose whether or not you Shield Slam or give Moonlight Summons to your summoning spells because they depend upon you taking a specific action (making an attack or casting a spell in both cases). My argument to Ryan was that just because you have a feat like Shield Slam or Moonlight Summons, you shouldn't automatically forget how to "do the action" without applying the feat. Feats such as Fey Foundling, however, are always active because their benefit is not tied to a specific action that the feat's owner takes.
AFAIK, there aren't any feats in the "activation" category that would become broken as a result of this ruling. Can anyone think of any corner cases where I'd be wrong?
My 2 cents on the topic:
Feats do not make you forgot how you did things when you did not have the feat.
So if you could summon a creature without making it glow you still know how to do that. It will be up to your GM to rule if the defenses are immutably tied to the glow or not.
Before you learned a more advanced shield bash style you knew how to hit and NOT knock someone back and you have not forgotten how to do that either so the bull rush is NOT mandatory. It would be ridiculous to assume that a knock back shield bash is now the ONLY way you know how to do something.
Feat's are never off OR on. They are knowledge that a character has and that character can choose whether to use that knowledge or not. They have never forgotten the steps.
The rules assume you will take the benefit and if an FAQ is made they will probably say the player can choose when it comes to feats such as shield slam. I think most GM's would default to player choice. However since some feats do say "may" those that do not would require GM permission to not use.
I tend to treat it like a metamagic feat. You can choose to use it or not, but it's an all or one deal.
The only logical by-extension corner case I can see some players ultimately arguing is with things like Power Attack or Deadly Aim:
"Well, if he can choose when to use Shield Slam because he logically can remember how to do it the old way, then my character should be able to remember how to Power Attack for -1 instead of -3!"
That specific, pain-inducing argument aside, I think that the idea that a character could not opt to do a non-Moonlight summons or opt not to make a Shield Bash into a Shield Slam - although possibly RAW (I actually find the wording above about how a feat "enables" you to do these things to be especially persuasive) - is completely absurd. Just because you're better at something doesn't mean you are incapable of the fundamentals.
I know realism arguments are always foolish and weak, but this simply isn't even believable. I, for instance, type at 80 WPM. I can also - amazingly - type at 40 WPM.
Want to be able to hit something with your shield without knocking it out of your allies' AoO range? Too bad, you should have thought of that when you picked the feat
With a few exceptions (listed drawbacks such as on fey foundling) you should NEVER be worse off by taking a feat.
It occurs to me that if the ruling is that certain Combat feats are "always on", then that makes the Brawler even more powerful, because he can forget them at will when they are not convenient, while the poor fighter is stuck with them.
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Unfortunately reasonable people can argue about this because they are reasonable.
You have two cases arguing against each other...
1) What the books say.
2) What is believed the books should say.
A feat that does not say 'may use' or 'activated' or anything that allows a choice in it... does not allow a choice. This can suck, such as the Acadamae Graduate feat. But, we have what we have.
The quagmire is too deep for the Devs to faq it out already. They would have to go through every feat to make a decision. Which would end up being a feat by feat case on what can and can not be 'turned off'.
But, there are reasonable people who realize this shouldn't have to be. That because of the wording, some feats are ridiculous in a real-world setting. Or even an imagined one where characters did not all suffer from amnesia every time they learned something new that said they could not do things the way they did before.
So, there is the argument.
Your best bet is to petition the change for each feat you recognize, seperately and at different times, and hope you get enough player/gm support that the Devs look at your request.