Zone/Questchain Completion Feats

[Kaervas]

I was rolling this idea around in my head for quite a while and never got around to posting it.
Reason being, it's quite similar to favor rewards except approached from a different direction.
I think the idea is still subject to this weakness, but I am posting it to get some feedback.

I was looking at the option of gaining more bonus feats along the lines of Draconic Vitality, but rather than being earned via gaining favor, they would be earned for completing certain sets of quests.
The idea is that each distinct quest hub in the game would have one or more sets of quests pertaining to it that would unlock an achievement feat for your character.
The effects of this feat would vary based on the area, but they would all be beneficial to varying degrees and promote thorough play without being as bland as favor grinding.
I have tried, as much as possible, to make these feats grant abilities that are somewhat more flavorful than regular feats.

In addition to the feat gained, NPCs should react to you differently if you had a certain feat, similar to the better prices gained in certain town zones after completing a specific quest chain, though less generic. These reactions should ideally be very distinct, thus creating a stronger illusion of advancement in an otherwise static game world.

All these abilities are tied to quest completion flags and are therefore lost when undergoing True Reincarnation.

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To give a few example feats:

Completion of all the Korthos quests (snowy or sunny side) would grant:
Savior of Korthos
You are empowered with warmth after freeing Korthos from the icy grasp of the mentally dominated White Dragon, Aussircaex, and gain 3 resistance to cold, or improve your existing resistance to cold by 3.
Shattering the Quori Mindsunder has given you some increased insight on the defenses of the mind and you receive +1 to your saving throws versus Enchantments as well as mind-affecting spells and abilities.


Completion of all the sewer-delving Harbor quests would grant:
Muckwalker
Long hours in the dank sewers of the Stormreach Harbor have strengthened both your legs and your gut. Trudging through thick filth and murky water no longer feels as tiring or sickening.
You are no longer slowed when walking in ankle deep liquids.
In addition you receive +2 to Fortitude saves vs Disease and Nausea.

Side note: I think this would be a novel way to work in the ability to walk normally in extremely shallow liquids. It's completely unreasonable that you are slowed down so much while wading, especially when you can tumble or jump instead (which adds unnecessary hassle and looks plain silly).
Furthermore it looks like most monsters aren't affected by ankle deep water and charge at you unimpeded, so it would be a balancing addition.
Now if only monsters could swim and there was underwater combat...

Completion of all the Marketplace quests would grant:
Coin Lord's Lackey
Coin Lord Amanatu's troubles with the Sharn Syndicate, the undead-infested Catacombs, the mysterious seal of Shan-To-Kor, a very patient scorrow sitting at the end of an unnecessarily convoluted series of acid-filled tunnels, you have conquered these challenges and more - and Stormreach has taken notice of you for it.
You are the the talk of the town and not a soul in the area hasn't heard of your deeds.
This feat grants the following ability -
That Was Me, You Know
* At will, you can activate this ability to receive +2 stacking bonus to Haggle and +2 enhancement bonus to Charisma per five character levels for 2 minutes (minimum +2 Haggle and +2 Charisma, maximum +6 Haggle and +6 Charisma).
This ability only functions in the non-hostile environs of the city of Stormreach.
Activating this ability in the Phoenix Tavern or The Rusty Nail also gets you a free drink. Imbibing said drink causes a great deal of swaying and impairment of judgment. Warforged may only look at the tankard morosely. [Binds on acquire, binds to character, exclusive, no base value]

Side note: The town-only charisma bonus is intended to be enhancement - it's an added minor perk for those who don't constantly run around with an at-level Charisma item for the purposes of selling goods. While the potential Charisma is gained slower than equipping an at-level Charisma item, eventually you may forgo hotswapping such an item entirely (for haggle purposes).
The untyped haggle bonus stacks with everything and is the non-class-related benefit of the feat that everyone can take advantage of.


Completion of the Vault of Night series would grant:
Here Be Dragons
After facing a colossal Red Dragon in deadly combat and besting it, not much else can make you tremble.
You gain a +6 morale bonus to saves against Fear and no longer automatically fail saves against Fear effects by rolling a 1, as long as you still exceed the DC of the Fear effect.
Additionally, twice per rest, you may shrug off the effects of Fear. This effect is usable while under the influence of any Fear effect.
Characters with 3 levels of Paladin or higher who possess this feat will instead rally their allies, producing a Remove Fear effect centered on the caster once per day per two Paladin levels.
This feat grants one of the following two abilities -
Rally Self
- Requires less than 3 levels of Paladin
* Activate this ability to dispel all Fear effects on yourself. Usable two times per rest.
Rally Companions
- Requires level 3 Paladin or higher
* Activate this ability to produce a Remove Fear effect centered on yourself. Usable once per day per two paladin levels.

Side note: Level 3+ paladins are immune to fear, hence the variable ability.
This feat may be somewhat undesirable for balance reasons due to it trivializing Fear effects and devaluing items such as the Reaver's Ring (and the secondary effect of Greater Heroism).
It's just an example in any case, I felt it matched up perfectly with my feelings that after facing Velah, not much looked very imposing and awe-inspiring at all.

Completion of the explorer-area walkup quests in Gianthold would grant:
Backstabber
Your dabbling in the faction struggles between the three Storm Legions have taught you much about subterfuge and misdirection. You can use these tricks in battle to great effect.
This feat grants the following two abilities -
Backstabber - Incite
* Three times per rest you may activate this ability to gain 10% increased Hate generation from all sources for 20 seconds.
Backstabber - Pacify
* Three times per rest you may activate this ability to gain 10% decreased Hate generation from all sources for 20 seconds.


Completion of the Accursed Ascension storyline (Crypts 1-3 + Abbot flagging + Abbot raid) would grant:
Champion of the Flame
Hacking and blasting through rattling bone, rotting flesh, and roiling ectoplasm to foil the Black Abbot's nefarious scheme has granted you deadly new strength when dealing with the undead.
Your one-handed physical attacks deal 1d6 additional untyped damage to undead targets. Two-handed attacks (including those from two-handed ranged weapons) deal 2d6 additional untyped damage to undead targets.
Your spells and abilities receive +2 DC against undead targets. Additionally spells with damage die that scale with caster level gain +1 caster level against the undead. This may take a spell above its normal limits.

Side note: Probably too powerful, numbers can be tweaked.

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End note:
I guess I should shove this disclaimer in at the end.
None of these feats are actually necessary (though the wading part of Muckwalker would be darn nice to have and you know it).
The game works as it is, and this is a change that primarily adds flavor/increases immersion.
There are a whole ton of other issues that deserve attention first, and I'm well aware of that.

[Celestialbeast]

And as soon as I can give a lil more rep out +1 Rep to you good person! Well thought out, executed in a decent way, and an excellent idea all around!

/SIGNED!

[Flasharte]

loot favor and xp aren't enough? now we need feats awarded to finish quests.

too bad the quests aren't fun enough to inspire running them just for the inherent amusement.

[Celestialbeast]

Bumping this regardless of what Flash has said. I find this is a novel idea and should be discussed by the community at large. I already know some of you will see this as /easybutton (Perhaps) but I don't mind. Though it is not my idea I would like to see input into something so (Turbine's Favortie Word) EPIC!

[Memnir]

Well thought out and proposed.
I feel bad about giving this a /not signed - but I will anyways. I just don't think it's a good idea, even if presented well.

[Faelyndel]

One of the most well thought-out and well-worded suggestion I've seen however I'm gonna have to go with Memnir on this one and say /not signed.
While I appreciate the line of thought you're on with this, and love the idea of adding some lore type stuff into the game, however giving a feat for completing quests seems... odd. Especially with Korthos, it doesn't quite make sense to give players a feat for completing a series of quests it wouldn't make much sense to not do anyways.

[bobbryan2]

I like the idea, and it's very neat... but...

Your suggestions are about as powerful as the only static favor reward, +10 HP for 150 AA favor. And then you're suggesting tons of these. That's a very large power gap compared to what we have now.

Then, combined with the fact that every character would eventually have all of them and it's nothing more than a power grind.

How I would do it instead...

Completing a quest chain unlocks an enhancement that costs 4 AP. There would be an enhancement for everything from the korthos chain to the mindsunder chain, so maybe 15 or so at end game.

But then make them exclusive, so you could only have one up at a time.

That way you could make them relatively powerful, (or even scaling in power if you did it N/H/E) because you could only have 1 up at a time.

[CE2JRH123]

Minor bonuses are fine.

Fear resistance = good, since everyone runs around with GH and heroic surges is coming anyways.
Low amounts of stacking energy resistance = okay, might want to give out only one or two of these.
Haggle bonus in town = yes
Not having to jump through water = good idea

Hate reduction or increasing, that's too powerful.
Damage and DC bumps, way too powerful.

I like the idea, implementation would be difficult, balancing between useless and awesome.

Might want to make it elite for all quests, rather than simply finishing the chain/area.

[Kaervas]

Thanks for the feedback, it definitely opened my eyes to the various flaws which I overlooked.