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This is a question about making Campaign Backgrounds for converting older APs.
At the same "level" , are ...
* - Class Feats > Racial Feats
* - Racial Feats > General Feats
* - General Feats > Skill Feats
As in, is using a "racial feat" - for example the Dwarven "Vengful Hatred" for non-dwarven characters too powerful?
The reason being that some traits did give situational combat bonuses (as well as the ability to cast cantrips, etc), and trying to maintain the flavor of those traits has proven challenging.
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Too be honest I consider the current general feats a huge letdown in comparison to some of the stronger racial feats e.g. humans Natural Ambition. Not a single general feat lets you a) increase a profiency above trained (exception from the rule is the somewhat level and class dependant general feat Canny Accumen), b) increase skill proficiency above trained, c) grant access to a class feat.
Not quite sure about skill feats yet, however the stronger ones like Battle Medicine to me seem much stronger than most general feats too. I have done a bit of character planning for my cleric and it looks like I will trade almost all my general feats for skill feats or end up taking some fluff feats like Ride..
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I concur with shroudb. Class feats are the most powerful, general feats the least, with skill feats and ancestry feats being comparable depending on what they do. Ancestry feats do some things class feats do, which skill feats do not so they probably end up on top.
I think giving out things like vengeful is reasonable in a conversion if it fits, since there's a range of power within the ancestry feats and that is one of the weaker ones I feel.
Too be honest I consider the current general feats a huge letdown in comparison to some of the stronger racial feats e.g. humans Natural Ambition. Not a single general feat lets you a) increase a profiency above trained (exception from the rule is the somewhat level and class dependant general feat Canny Accumen), b) increase skill proficiency above trained, c) grant access to a class feat.
Not quite sure about skill feats yet, however the stronger ones like Battle Medicine to me seem much stronger than most general feats too. I have done a bit of character planning for my cleric and it looks like I will trade almost all my general feats for skill feats or end up taking some fluff feats like Ride..
You make it sound like the Feats are riddled with "trap options." :(
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I agree with the above, but it depends. Some of the legendary skill feats are crazy strong even taking into account that they're two levels higher than the best currently available ancestry feats.
You make it sound like the Feats are riddled with "trap options." :(
Considering that you can revamp your char in downtime mode fortunately the "trap options" in PF2 are quite limited.
A thing about campaign traits in PF1 is that, broadly speaking, they started out pretty much the same as normal traits (Council of Thieves had one solely as a tax if you're playing a Tiefling), but they got progressively more powerful as time went on. Since the expectation is "everybody is going to take one" then this isn't really a problem.
As long as the entire party is going to be taking one of the campaign backgrounds, doing something similar where the campaign backgrounds are uniformly more powerful than the CRB backgrounds, isn't really a problem. It's only going to be a problem if someone really wants to play something which is not represented by one of the campaign backgrounds. But if this comes up, you can probably work with the player.
It shouldn't be a problem giving extra stuff to PCs as long as it's handed out uniformly. Like if you're running Skull & Shackles in PF2, feel free to just give the entire party the pirate dedication for free (once it exists.)
As long as the entire party is going to be taking one of the campaign backgrounds, doing something similar where the campaign backgrounds are uniformly more powerful than the CRB backgrounds, isn't really a problem. It's only going to be a problem if someone really wants to play something which is not represented by one of the campaign backgrounds. But if this comes up, you can probably work with the player.
You've indirectly pointed out another problem though. Judging what is approximately equivalent is harder then it sounds.
I'd go with yes. Ancestry > Class > General > Skill imho.
You get few ancestry and they come with curveballs such as spellcasting or limited arsenal of scaling weapons and crit specialization. General can be downgraded to skill but not skill to general, so skill is weaker. Class can get you every expert weapon or armor proficiency, but general can only give us trained.
in terms of pure "strength"
it's class>racial>skill>general
but since you can use General feats to pick up Skill feats as well, it overall goes like:
Class>racial>general>skill
NOT because general are stronger than Skill, but because General also include skill.
Skill feats are all over the place though, from the cool Catfall & the awesome Legendary ... to the truly pointless terrain specialisation.
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Skill feats are all over the place though, from the cool Catfall & the awesome Legendary ... to the truly pointless terrain specialisation.
Um...it's a ghillie suit crawl ability that lets you effortlessly sneak into guarded camps as long as there's a 25' gap between sentries. It's perfect for solo scouts during the transition from exploration to encounter mode.
If nothing else it lets the GM explain why those NPCs were able to show up 15' away from your sleeping PCs despite the guard they posted. No, you don't get to roll. Quit bunking down in snow, rubble, or underbrush, guys. Oh, you're surrounded by dozens of miles of frozen forest? Too bad.
Skill feats are all over the place though, from the cool Catfall & the awesome Legendary ... to the truly pointless terrain specialisation.Um...it's a ghillie suit crawl ability that lets you effortlessly sneak into guarded camps as long as there's a 25' gap between sentries. It's perfect for solo scouts during the transition from exploration to encounter mode.
If nothing else it lets the GM explain why those NPCs were able to show up 15' away from your sleeping PCs despite the guard they posted. No, you don't get to roll. Quit bunking down in snow, rubble, or underbrush, guys. Oh, you're surrounded by dozens of miles of frozen forest? Too bad.
Reign of Winter Adventure Path =
Suddenly everybody wants that worthless auto-Stealth feat."Patrol coming, gang. Let's step off the path and all go invisible. Again." And again, and again. Lol.
As for the OP, some of the Ancestry feats give strong, unique abilities so it's hard to compare to the class feats that have broader appeal (especially at 1st level).
And yes, both are way above general & skill, except those also have exceptions. I think Fleet & Toughness (because both stack w/ everything) make sizable impacts.