Feats as loot?

[Mr. Draco]

With the APG published, we've now got tons of awesome feats in the archetypes, and, in fact, maybe even more than most players will ever get a chance to explore.

Given that, and my own proclivities as a DM away from "yet another magic item" as rewards, I've been thinking that it would be incredible (in terms of the variety of rewards you could give out as a DM) to have a rough rule-of-thumb for equivalent power levels between items and feats.

The first difference I see is that since feats are innate (and never switched out, like a magic item might be), they'll act as a ratchet on player power, so you would have to be careful with how many you give out.

Beyond that, though, I haven't gone through and done detailed comparisons between the published items and feats yet, as this thought just crossed my mind, and I wanted to post it here early to get thoughts & feedback from you all.

So what do y'all think? Are there big and obvious problems with giving out feats as rewards?

Alternatively, would it obviously break anything to use the simplest-possible mapping of considering any given feat as equivalent to a permanent item of the same level?

[Nocte ex Mortis]

One of the things that pops out to me immediately is that you can retrain Feats into other ones, so keep that in mind.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think the only potential risk is that if you give people too many feats, "you gained a level and you get to pick a new feat" is less exciting.

But effectively doubling the number of feats a character has is really such a small power boost (but a large versatility boost). So I think the most important thing is that it has to make sense.

[Salamileg]

You could also give out magic items that grant feats when invested. Like say, Doubling Rings of Flurries, that have the effects of doubling rings but also give you the Double Slice feat and are a few levels higher.

[Vidmaster7]

I've done it before in previous editions. It's typically not a Major buff. I think one thing that the designers might have in mind but isn't quite there yet is the idea of awarding rare feats for story reasons. It's less of a buff too when you are choosing the feats they get but it still seems cool from a player perspective.

[Claxon]

Feats in PF2 tend to add options rather than number increases, so they add versatility rather than straight line power in a lot of cases.

There are exceptions, but not major.

I think a good compromise would be doubling the number of feats PCs get.

[Decimus Drake]

Related to the idea of feats as rewards is the giving access to uncommon and rare options. You can do the same with spells.

In my campaign I have the ranger and unusual animal companion as a reward when they were level three on the condition that he took the relevant class feat at level four. Though when they hit level 4 I actually let him switch out a feat he hadn't used the entire game instead.

Giving feats as rewards isn't too dissimilar to the free archetype variant rule in the GMG and there it states: "Free-archetype characters are a bit more versatile and powerful than normal, but usually not so much that they unbalance your game". With this in mind I'd be willing to hand out feats in addition to whatever items I was going to give.

Personally I'd be more concerned with giving out a feat that's useless or doesn't work with the character concept the player has in mind than handing out something that's op. As a player I've been in the position where the GM's given out items with me in mind but not realised a can't use them. It's an awkward place to be.

[lemeres]

Fear gems give you a single use of the fighter feat intimidating strike (or upgrades your existing feat if you have it). There are one or two other talismans that do the same (all fighter feats if I remember right).

There are some feats that are not worth the slot. Those super situational feats- many of which have life saving effects, but you aim not to get into the situation they describe.

I think single use items of this nature are the kind of thing you would want. And if they remain disposable, you can throw a bunch at the players without worrying about too much bloat (...although they might end up with x99 phoenix downs...)

[Moppy]

Pathfinder dev Bulmahn has covered this in a stream.

Go to How to Make Magic Items for Pathfinder and D&D - Jason Bulmahn

TL;DR they think it's fine so long as you don't give the fighter an appropriate-level rogue feat as that would make the rogue sad. Give the fighter a fighter feat they don't have, or a bonus that applies when they use an existing feat, or give them a lower-level rogue feat.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think the biggest hurdle is making it make sense diagetically.

Like if the party helps out someone who wants to repay them, but doesn't have a lot of material wealth to spare they can offer instead to teach you something. If this is a skill feat or general feat, this is pretty easy to justify (though "snare crafting" from the woodland hermit isn't going to universally useful to everyone in the party). But if the hermit is a druid or a ranger it doesn't make a lot of sense that they'd be able to teach monk feats or sorcerer feats or investigator feats.

Likewise it feels fine if the loot pile contains a scroll or manual for a secret technique that a character can study and learn the appropriate feat, but it feels a little artificial if there are 4-5 such manuals in the loot pile specifically for each of the classes in the party.

Probably the best way to manage this is to reach an understanding with the party that bonus feats which are specific to one person in the party are going to be handed out one at a time, but everybody is going to get the same level of benefit eventually.

So the party might help out a hermit who teaches the ranger "Snare Specialist". Then later find a training manual for the monk to learn "Deflect Arrows". Then later give the Bard the ability to learn "Triple Time" and the Wizard the ability to learn "Bespell Weapon".

It's just that making this feel organic can be tricky.

[Lanathar]

I am having this dilemma with my Souls for Smugglers Shiv conversion

There are up to 5 NPCs who you can help with their quests and in 1E they gave small boons

There doesn’t appear to be anything similar in 2E aside from maybe letting them teach a class feat or skill feat

But those are limited by:

- classes of the NPC
- class of the players
- what feats or skill training (pre req in some case) the players have
- what feats the NPCs know / could teach

Really ends up quite limiting
I am leaning more towards them granting a new trained skill but only to one PC. Or maybe a skill feat

It is tricky because I want some kind of boon but there isn’t a lot of precedence outside of the plaguestone Ranger who is clearly supposed to be higher level with the unique feats. But even then some of her training isn’t clearly explained . Like why is her helping with multiclassing into ranger a reward at all when you can just do it normally...
(I may have read that section wrong )