Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The Necromancer King 03-01-06, 04:24 AM	This is a bit of a spinoff from the previous Flunch thread. One of the big points made in that thread is that there are entirely too many Feats, and that most of those Feats are... Well, they're dumb. For the most part, the Feats I saw pointed out were those that perform the function of "combat trick." Cleave is the quintessential Combat Trick Feat. It is only useful in a specific situation in combat, and only does one thing. Manyshot is another good example. From the ECS we have Flensing Strike (though I'll go into this one in a bit more detail later), Powerful Charge, Precise Swing, and Silver Smite. A few others are questionable (monk weapon feats in particular). That's four combat tricks in the entire ECS. The feats that we like, the Flunchy feats, are usually a bit different. Anything that manipulates Action Points makes me happy, even if it has nothing to do with the setting itself. I love the new Druid/Ranger and Bard feats that better focus the non-combat abilities of those classes. The training feats are an interesting change to the Favored Class rule. The only thing I could possible wish for would be one for every PHb class. I hate combat tricks. I was horribly disappointed in Exalted for making their powers mostly combat-trick oriented (I still love the idea, though. Magic powers related to skills... Mmmm). I love feats that focus instead on character background, and provide a mechanical reason for having particular affiliations (the Druid/Ranger and Training Feats, Background Feats from FR and Wheel of Time, some of the more Flunchy racial feats, etc.). Were the good folks developing Eberron to focus on these instead of combat tricks, I'd be more than happy to see more feats in every book. I loved the Brelish Education feats hidden in the Five Nations Breland listing, and was sort of hoping for more from each nation. We have enough combat tricks in the Player's Handbook. Let's see some more Feats that focus on characters and the setting instead.
Ohtar Turinson 03-01-06, 09:38 AM	First things first- I'm going to call these feats "flavor feats" rather than "flunchy". I understand that you're mixing the words "crunch" and "fluff", but something about the word offends my sensiblities. Anyway. Combat feats can be flavor feats- especially ones focusing on a specific weapon styles. It can add a lot to a character, especially if it turns a less than optimal weapon into something more viable. Often, they're one trick ponies, but no more so than a minor skill bonus- it's only useful when that skill/ability/whatever comes up. Which isn't to say I disagree with you- Limiting them to a large degree is good, as the ECS has done, as have the Eberron books I've bought. Having too many combat feats after a while seems silly, but that's true about some types of Flavor feats too. (If there's one feat for every education system in all the five nations, that's a lot of really stupid little bonuses... I didn't love the location based education stuff.)