Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 samprimary Aug 18, 2009 7:06:04	Scenario: Eberron campaign. Four to five players. Before they begin character creation, I am telling them that there are five exclusive features for player characters, and they must decide among themselves who gets what. They're exclusive, so only one player in the campaign can have any one particular feature. I'm sure this ain't perfect. Please read these and tell me what tweaking is required to keep them mostly in line with each other for coolness factor. Marked: The player with this feature has access to the dragonmark feats and may select one for themselves with their level one feat. Dragonmark feats are available to no other players. Adept of Battle: The player with this feature has access to the weapon expertise, implement expertise, weapon focus, and racial weapon specialty feats, and may purchase them normally. These feats are available to no other players. Prodigal Adventurer: The player begins with two free feats from this list: Jack of all Trades, Skill Training(any) and Skill Focus(any). In addition, they can speak two extra languages. Savant: The player begins with one fewer trained skill than they are allowed. The player selects two skills from their remaining trained skills list. The player can re-roll checks using these skills but must accept the second roll, even if it is lower. At 15th level, this is replaced by the ability to roll twice for checks using these skills and take the higher result. Wunderkind: The player spends his 22 ability score build points normally. The player can then spend an additional 6 build points on abilities that are not listed as the key abilities for the character's class.
#2 sleazypickle Aug 18, 2009 7:29:45	I think that Adept of Battle needs to be changed. It doesn't give anything extra to that player, it just takes away from the others. Also, as has been said on these boards before, the expertise feats are nigh-required to keep up with scaling monster defenses. In short, this "bonus" just gimps the other players. IMHO. Edit: Prodigal Adventurer is clearly the best. No drawbacks, just extras. Also, it potentially invalidates Wunderkind. It seems like a couple of these just restrict the other player's choices. I personally think that is a bad idea.
#3 slobo777a Aug 18, 2009 8:23:45	Your options that give out freebies are better than your options that "allow access". For player buy-in, you are better giving out reasonably balanced extras than making restrictions. Otherwsie, I don't see any problem with "only one of you can have this", provided the players are willing. Though I'm not sure I get the point - are these going to be tied to storyline/background . . . i.e. each mechanic has some matching background fluff that will become important?
#4 samprimary Aug 18, 2009 10:21:29	In short, this "bonus" just gimps the other players. Imagine for the purposes of this campaign that I had originally intended to remove the weapon expertise and focus feats entirely, and with that in mind had dampened monster defenses/life roughly equivalent to the bonuses provided by previously required feats. Given this change it means that the individual who takes the Adept of Battle option is essentially able to trade two heroic tier feats to be granted access to a unique higher-than-standard accuracy and damage. Given the strength of these presently required feats, I can't just provide them as freebies. Like the savant trades a skill to get something worth more than a skill, the Adept trades two feats for something circumstantially better than pretty much any other feat in the game. I am torn on it, of course, and want to see your take on the issue. It could very well be that even given the unique advantage that the Adept choice provides in a blanket mechanical fashion to all attack and damage rolls, the trade-off of two feats makes it not as cool as the others. I suppose it would be possible to adjust it so that the Adept is merely trading their level one feat to have automatic access to a +1/tier universal attack and damage bonus. The rest of the players work out fine in this equation too as their performance vs. monsters is equivalent to already having the expertise feat. The adept is just simply better versus them.
#5 pluisjen Aug 18, 2009 10:50:30	I see 4 really fun-looking options, and one that is going to make one character the star during half+ of the battles... Unless combat is roughly 1/5th of the game, that one is really the best pick. (If it is, then it sounds like a pretty nice idea, all in all )
#6 Chimerasame Aug 18, 2009 11:06:56	Restricting access to campaign-specific feats is one thing, but doing it to expertise is more problematic, as those feats are basically a math fix for the game. (Incidentally, my current DM, and I will probably do this as well for my game, gives all expertises for free to everyone at 5th level.) You don't have to do that, but making expertise unavailable to the other characters gimps them steadily more and more as the party rises up to epic.
#7 lady_ishtar Aug 28, 2009 11:38:26	As far as restricting Expertise feats and/or reducing monster defenses, here is what i did: Expertise feats do not exist. Everyone gains +1 to ALL attack rolls at levels 5, 15, and 25. This way all the extra math is on the player side, and i do not have to worry about adjusting monsters. Also important to note is that my games are very combat heavy, thus expertise would come into play very often, making it a must have feat.