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Hi forum!
I am writing because I am very curious as to what is the design vision for General Feats have for character building, as at this time I feel they are pulled into different directions without being particularly effective into any niche for a character.
There are not that many General Feats to start off, so I expect we may see more support for them in the future.
That being said, I am not sure what to expect. I see them being used for different things to varying levels of effectiveness at their role, so I'd like to hear your experience with them, but I'd love to hear from designers what is the plan for the future.
Let me preface this topic with a statement: I think General Feats failed to find their niche into character building, because they have an identity crisis.
Here is my categorization of current General Feats:
ABSOLUTE BONUSES
This type of General Feats are able to increase certain innate attributes of a character without any conditionality. They are good at any point of the game.
- Ancestral Paragon
- Fleet
- Incredible Initiative
- Incredible Investiture
- Toughness
- Untrained Improvisation
PLAYSTYLE ENABLERS
These General Feats are focused in enabling playstyles outside of the regular Class-enabled choices.
- Shield Block
- Ride
COMBAT UTILITY
These are oriented towards utility in combat - providing niche bonuses that are too narrow for a full Class Feat, but could be still good to have around contextually.
- Breath Control
- Diehard
- Feather Step
- Skitter
PERCEPTION SKILL FEATS
These General Feats are basically skill feats in term of power level, but since Perception is not technically a skill, they need to be picked up via General Feats.
- Thorough Search
- Expeditious Search
- Supertaster
- Incredible Scout
- True Perception
NON-SKILL UTILITY
These General Feats are "quasi" skill feats but not tied to a skill itself, and provide non-combat utility.
- A Home in Every Port
- Fast Recovery
- Improved Repair
- Hireling Manager
- Keen Follower
- Pick Up the Pace
- Prescient Consumable
- Prescient Planner
DISPOSABLE BONUSES
These types of General Feats grant a bonus to your character that becomes relatively weak/obsolete as you level up.
These are:
- Armor Proficiency: After level 13, it becomes an aesthetic choice.
- Canny Acumen: In a power troth between level 9 and 17 where it provides no bonus.
- Weapon Proficiency: Obsolete by level 11 at the very latest.
My own personal considerations for each of these:
- Absolute Bonuses: These are always good to have around and patch up certain parts of your character. Beginner-friendly and helps you round up characters.
- Playstyle Enablers: PLEASE SIR CAN I HAVE SOME MORE. I feel like current design wants these as archetype feats, but Shield Block is a great example of how they can be successful without being tied to class feats. Maybe you are playing a Ranger and you want an excuse to go 1H + free hand without dipping into archetypes. Maybe you want to go unarmed - is a 1d6 weapon that strong of a boost you should archetype for it? I'd love to see feats here that improve otherwise-weak things like dueling capes and such.
- Combat Utility: These are all over in terms of power level, but there can certainly be room here for more. For example, this could be a great place to have Boarding Assault type of things for Pirate campaigns without needing to foster free archetype or going down on class feats. Stuff to fight ghosts for haunt campaigns, etc. I'd also like to see more sense-related things here, like Blind-Fight - certainly powerful but could be a good high-level option if there's more General Feats for the 10th level mark.
- Perception Skill Feats: I think marking these as general feats is a relic - I don't see why these couldn't be skill feats. Surely, True Perception is quite powerful, but is it any more powerful than other Legendary Skill Feats?
- Non-Skill Utility: These are good, particularly if you have a well-rounded character that wants to contribute more to storytelling than combat. I feel the current choices are too niche and I'd like to see catering to more things.
- Disposable Bonuses: I feel like we should stop seeing these at all, or see "retweaked" versions that improve the way they scale. For example, Canny Acumen feels like it should provide a different bonus after 9th level when everyone has full Expert saves, rather than promise a bonus for 17th level and ask you to rough it out with effectively -1 General Feat. I guess Retraining is a choice, but it also feels like these were afterthoughts.
Thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from all of you too!
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I agree with the broadest strokes of your classifications. But I would combine the two "bonus" categories into one:
CHASSIS SUPPORT
- Armor Proficiency
- Canny Acumen
- Fleet
- Incredible Initiative
- Incredible Investiture
- Toughness
- Untrained Improvisation
- Weapon Proficiency
Because Retraining is explicitly core, I would argue that the former classifications operate from a deficit mindset. But that said, I think some explicit language around "if you later receive improved Proficiency from your Class Features or Class Feats, you may immediately retrain this General Feat into something else" would make things a little bit smoother.
Cool topic!
General feats are the miscellaneous category. they are a lot like archetypes in that they are designed to pull a character in any direction.
Other feats are strongly associated with a selected aspect of a character. Ancestry feats come from the culture or physical potential of the ancestry. Class feats represent developing abilities related to the character's class. Skill feats are manifestations of skills and have a proficiency rank prerequisite in a skill.
For example, Paizo decided to not limit Armor Proficiency to a few classes, because it is intended for characters who want heavier armor than their class trains. Armor has nothing to do with ancestry. While we could associate it with a skill, such as Athletics, wearing armor does not feel especially Athletic and does not require an Athletics skill check. That left it for General Feats. Toughness is even simpler. It related to hit points, which relates to Constitution. No class needs Toughness, because classes have their own hit dice. Ancestries start with hit points. And no skill uses Constitution. Hence, Toughness is a General Feat.
We also have power level considerations. Class feats tend to be stronger than ancestry feats, and ancestry feats tend to be stronger than skill feats. General feats are about as strong as class feats. Thus, if a feat might qualify as a skill feat but is stronger than the skill feats, it becomes a General Feat. Fleet could have been an Acrobatics or Athletics skill feat, but it is too powerful to be a skill feat.
As for new General Feats, they require new concepts that could apply to all classes. The Advanced Player's Guide introduced many new General Feats for more advanced play, such as Hireling Manager. Gods & Magic introduced Numb to Death. The Extinction Curse adventure path, in which players start as performers in a circus, introduced the very niche general feat Additional Circus Trick.
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I certainly agree with your point, OP. General Feats really feel a bit... lost. And the balance between them is really not that great: I almost always see the same 4 or 5 being picked by everyone in slightly different orders.
Also, I just wanted to say that feats that give you nonscaling training in things are one of the worst aspects of the game imo. They're basically disappointment in a bottle, ready to open when you realize you can't properly use that weapon you picked up and liked anymore. I don't think that's very likely but I still hope we can get a real fix to this that doesn't require an archetype and only apply to some options.
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I'd like to see some higher level general feats to boost skills or weapon training.
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I certainly agree with your point, OP. General Feats really feel a bit... lost. And the balance between them is really not that great: I almost always see the same 4 or 5 being picked by everyone in slightly different orders.
The different orders hits really close to home, although I do like how flexible those good ones are.
When was the last we got a handful of new general feats anyway? I’m anxious for more options.
I'd like to see some higher level general feats to boost skills or weapon training.
Higher level general feats in general even.
at this time I feel they are pulled into different directions without being particularly effective into any niche for a character.
That sounds about right to me. They are general feats - feats that may apply to any character. So they aren't locked behind any particular class or ancestry or skill choice.
Also remember that all of the skill feats classify as general feats also. So if none of the general-only feats look appealing, you can pick up a skill feat with that feat slot too.
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at this time I feel they are pulled into different directions without being particularly effective into any niche for a character.That sounds about right to me. They are general feats - feats that may apply to any character. So they aren't locked behind any particular class or ancestry or skill choice.
I will correct my previous statement:
I feel some things are very well supported through General Feats - like stapling a Shield into any character, allowing for lower CON (12?) characters to go into the frontline with Toughness, or helping characters without a good Initiative skill to get further up the totem pole with Incredible Initiative.
I wish more things were supported like that, rather than sticking to the options we have right now...
But I also don't know if the idea is that we should only expect that type of support with Archetypes going forward.
I wish more things were supported like that, rather than sticking to the options we have right now...
But I also don't know if the idea is that we should only expect that type of support with Archetypes going forward.
There are definitely some things missing in general feats that could be added to that. The most notable that I hear about a lot are weapon and armor proficiency beyond trained level.
Archetypes are great and wonderful. But it is nice to be able to get general abilities from general feats. Rather than locking a character into taking an archetype in order to get high-level armor proficiency (for example).
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I wish more things were supported like that, rather than sticking to the options we have right now...
But I also don't know if the idea is that we should only expect that type of support with Archetypes going forward.
There are definitely some things missing in general feats that could be added to that. The most notable that I hear about a lot are weapon and armor proficiency beyond trained level.
Archetypes are great and wonderful. But it is nice to be able to get general abilities from general feats. Rather than locking a character into taking an archetype in order to get high-level armor proficiency (for example).
Conversely, easy access to higher proficiency provided by dedications like Sentinel creates another type of General Feat that may be needed: incentives to stick to, say, Medium Armor.
If a STR-based Barbarian or Ranger could get Heavy Armor proficiency easily, why wouldn't they? It's a +1 AC, allows you to keep DEX low and get good Reflex saves anyway, all at the cheap cost of a 5-feet penalty.
It would be nice to have, say, a General Feat that allows you to bump the DEX Cap of Medium Armor by +1 as long as you meet the STR Requirement.
Sure, it's a +1 AC bonus to all Medium Armor users, but then again, so is giving them Expert Proficiency with Heavy Armor, and that's already a reality... and this one comes at the cost of investing more in DEX.
This would also imply you'd need to toss a bone to Light Armor users, but we can all agree that Investigators, Swashbucklers and Rogues could use a bit of love to help them stay alive.
A similar feat for Light Armor could be the way to go, so they don't transition to Explorer's Clothing later in the game perhaps.