How about a feat for more skill or action points?

[STROBE]

How about a feat that would let you get more skill points, or action points for enhancements?

Benefits:

1. more options/flexibility in designing/building characters;

2. increased diversity of charaters in game;

3. more opportunities to 'fix/repair' 'mistakes' made in making characters;

4. opportunities to compensate for changes to game mechanics that occur over time;

5. opportunites to 'change mind' about direction of characters, without starting over.

I don't have a good feel for what a feat should be good for, but will throw out a couple of numbers for the sake of facilitating discussion.

Feat to add skill points - how about 10 skill points. Or maybe 5 skill points.

***EDITED after a little more thought: 4 to 5 skill points seems about right to me. Skill focus gives 3 ranks in a skill, which is equivalent to 3 skill points if a *class* skill, and 6 skill points if a *cross-class* skill.***

Feat to add action points - how about 12 action points. That would let someone go 2-4-6 for Enhancement III in an enhancement line. Or maybe just 6 action points to get Enhancement II.

***EDITED after a little more thought: 3 to 5 AP's seems more reasonable considering balance. 2 is too few to spend a feat on, and 6 would give a in some cases Enhancement III in one fell swoop, which I feel is a little too much for a feat.***

I do think that these two feats should be limited to one time each, in the way most feats, like dodge, cannot be retaken.

I don't have strong feelings about this suggestion, so I'm not going to be replying to posts. But I do think this could add a lot of flexibility to players to make/remake characters, and increase the diversity of characters in the world.

[stockwizard5]

How about skill tomes?

[SneakThief]

If you can find a similar feat in a Wizard's publication, you would probably get more traction. I for one am never a fan of Turbine making up stuff on thier own. I understand tweaking something to fit an MMO, but when they outright make it up, they are usually much further off the balanced mark.

PS - I have loved the idea of skill tomes every time they have been brought up.

[neoanderthal]

If you can find a similar feat in a Wizard's publication, you would probably get more traction. I for one am never a fan of Turbine making up stuff on thier own. I understand tweaking something to fit an MMO, but when they outright make it up, they are usually much further off the balanced mark.

PS - I have loved the idea of skill tomes every time they have been brought up.

There is at least one feat in the Eberron Campaign Setting that gives you more action points - I'm at work right now so I can't pull the name, but I know it's in there - "Heroic Spirit" or something along those lines.

As for skill points, I'll have to dig through my library - I'm fairly certain I've seen at least two feats that grant skills - one in an FR supplement and one in the 'core' supplements. I know there are feats that let you treat cross-class skills as class skills as far as point cost goes, which would be analogous to increasing the number of skill points one has.

That being said, I don't think it would be out of line to spend a feat to gain 4 skill points - allow it to stack, like PnP Toughness, even. There aren't that many odd skills in DDO, as there are in DnD.

[krud]

/not signed.

They already have skill focus feats, and the trend since academy training is to not give out too many skill points in any one enhancement. Plus, feats and enhancements are supposed to stack on top of current skills. This new feat would not be able to work that way.

The fact that someone would use a feat in order to get more APs says to me that enhancements are getting too powerful.

[Twerpp]

/not signed.

They already have skill focus feats, and the trend since academy training is to not give out too many skill points in any one enhancement. Plus, feats and enhancements are supposed to stack on top of current skills. This new feat would not be able to work that way.

The fact that someone would use a feat in order to get more APs says to me that enhancements are getting too powerful.

As long as I see Dwarves and Human running around dragonmarked I know that people have feats to burn. I think +AP feats are a great idea, more customization for your character. There are some nice enhancements being worked on a lot of people would like to be able to afford them without compromising too much of what their toon currently has.

[MysticTheurge]

Found it:

Complete Adventurer - Open Minded - Immediately gain 5 skill points.

It's actually significantly different from Skill Focus. Skill Focus obviously gives a smaller bonus (3 vs. 5) but it's also not limited by the normal skill rank maximums, nor is it decreased for cross-class skills.

I don't think it would be a bad feat to add, but I do think it would be tricky from a UI standpoint. (Consider that you can respec feats but not skills, at present, how then do you incorporate a feat that grants more skill points?)

And I don't know about the "If you'd spend a feat on extra AP then enhancements are overpowered" argument either. The same thing could, in theory, be applied to spending a feat on skills (either via Skill Focus or the above skill), but I don't think anyone would argue that skills are overpowered.

[krud]

Since quite a few enhancement chains currently give so much more than many feats, I bet very few, if any, will not take advantage of such a feat. Pretty much guarantees a blanket increase of APs across the board. What's the point of keeping AP progression then?

[MysticTheurge]

Since enhancements currently give so much more than many feats, I bet very few, if any, will not take advantage of such a feat. Pretty much guarantees a blanket increase of APs across the board.

It would, honestly, depend on the exchange rate and what you wanted.

For instance if the feat gives 2 or 3 APs, it would be silly to spend a feat on APs if you're taking any skill enhancements as Skill Focus would be a better use of your feat. Same thing for Mental Toughness and spell point enhancements.

[neoanderthal]

Found it:

Complete Adventurer - Open Minded - Immediately gain 5 skill points.

It's actually significantly different from Skill Focus. Skill Focus obviously gives a smaller bonus (3 vs. 5) but it's also not limited by the normal skill rank maximums, nor is it decreased for cross-class skills.

I don't think it would be a bad feat to add, but I do think it would be tricky from a UI standpoint. (Consider that you can respec feats but not skills, at present, how then do you incorporate a feat that grants more skill points?)

And I don't know about the "If you'd spend a feat on extra AP then enhancements are overpowered" argument either. The same thing could, in theory, be applied to spending a feat on skills (either via Skill Focus or the above skill), but I don't think anyone would argue that skills are overpowered.

Well, it doesn't change the way you assign your skill points, or the list of class skills, right? So when the user spends his feat for something like this, he adds 5 to the current number of skill points available for that level. it's not a +5 per level, it's just a one-time +5. I don't think that would be hard at all to implement.

[krud]

Well, it doesn't change the way you assign your skill points, or the list of class skills, right? So when the user spends his feat for something like this, he adds 5 to the current number of skill points available for that level. it's not a +5 per level, it's just a one-time +5. I don't think that would be hard at all to implement.

It's fine until they respec the feat. Kind of hard to remember which point was a cross-class skill, and which wasn't.

Better would be 3 full skill points (disregarding cross-class skill). If you respec you have to remove 3 full skill points. *edit - this doesn't work either* And, unlike skill focus, it would not allow you to exceed the maximum rank.

*honestly, I can't see this being implemented without a skill respec system in place.*

[MysticTheurge]

Well, it doesn't change the way you assign your skill points, or the list of class skills, right? So when the user spends his feat for something like this, he adds 5 to the current number of skill points available for that level. it's not a +5 per level, it's just a one-time +5. I don't think that would be hard at all to implement.

Like Krud points out, it works as long as you can only take the feat at level up (and not even really then since without some tweaking skills come before feats in the leveling sequence) and you can't ever respec the feat in or out.

Until there's a skill respec, a respec'able feat that grants skill points just can't work.

[neoanderthal]

/not signed.

They already have skill focus feats, and the trend since academy training is to not give out too many skill points in any one enhancement. Plus, feats and enhancements are supposed to stack on top of current skills. This new feat would not be able to work that way.

The fact that someone would use a feat in order to get more APs says to me that enhancements are getting too powerful.

Skill Focus isn't the same thing as giving you additional skill points. You are limited to a maximum of (level +3) points in any skill that is a class skill, and a maximum of ((level +3)/2) in any skill that is a cross-class skill. Aside from item/spell bumps and your stat modifier for a skill, the only way to persistently increase a skill above and beyond this is to take Skill Focus. This grants you a +3 bonus to one skill, with no regard to the maximum ranks you can have in a skill.

Take, for example, everyone's favorite - UMD. If you have a 1st - level bard or rogue, maximum ranks at 1st level are 4. With an 18 charisma, your total skill check is going to be 8. The same Bard or Rogue with Skill Focus (UMD) would have a total skill check of 11. Your other skills are unaffected, and you still can't put more ranks in UMD than level+3, but you get to add a +3 bonus on top of that.

Adding skill points doesn't change the maximums of class or cross-class skills, it just lets you broaden your character's knowledge a little bit.

As far as the AP/Feat balance, insomuch as the AP Enhancements have essentially replaced prestige classes, and to a lesser extent cleric domains, I don't think they're too powerful. I wouldn't hand out a whole bunch for a feat; something like 2 seems balanced. Trading an inherent extraordinary ability you get every three levels for something you get every two levels otherwise doesn't sound particularly overpowering to me.

And, btw, just because some of us have dragonmarks, it doesn't mean we have 'feats to burn'. Not all of us who play this game are zerging min-maxers.

[STROBE]

How about skill tomes?

I really like the skill tomes idea also and in addition to what I've suggested.

Especially if the skill tomes were patterned after the ability tomes. I.E. +1, +2, and +3, with each replacing the previous, and not stacking.

Would be easy to understand since folks are already used to ability tomes. Can envision lots of questing for, trading, and auctioning of these.

[MysticTheurge]

How about a feat that would let you get more skill points, or action points for enhancements?

There's a precedent, at least, for the Skill Points feat. I don't remember what book it's in, but there's definitely a feat that gives spell points. (Maybe Races of Destiny?)

It wouldn't be a huge jump to have one that gave APs instead.