'Epic' feats

[Toros]

I would like to add something to Improved Critical. The key trait of the fighters is their amount of feats they get to amass when compared to other classes. The suggestion about improved critical is that only a few melee oriented classes get access to it. Personally I would say it fits the classes with 1/level AB progression and that means only the barbarian and the ranger, maybe Paladin. Perhaps a PrC or two also can make a valid claim.

The level cap line is drawn at 8. To not include those classes to a feat they'd normally take at 9 feels harsh, especially since they have an extremely valid claim to it in regard to martial prowess and experience. When compared to a ranger or a barbarian a fighter will still have very different abilities / specializations if those others also get the improved critical feat. They get free access to more armor and shields. Weapon specialization and 4 extra feats. That is twice as much. True, the others have their benefits too but granting IC will not throw the balance off.

Respectfully, I disagree with the inclusion of paladin. Playing a level 7 paladin/1 Sword Leader myself, I can say that paladin has a /lot/ of advantages over a fighter of equivalent level. Immunities, better saves, the ability to cleanse disease (which also forms a counter to poison), smite evil, and more critically, spellcasting and self-healing.

A level 8 paladin with 14 wis has 2 level 2 slots, and 4 level 1 slots. If he uses his level 2 slots to buff charisma, he could easily have a lay on hands (which is an uninterruptable melee-range heal) that restores 56-64 hp. In addition, said paladin could bring 4 cure light wounds, which heal 13 hp each, for a total of another 52.

108 points of free healing is incredibly useful both for reducing healing costs, saving allies, saving yourself, etc. The benefits of bull's strength are roughly equivalent to weapon focus and specialization for a 1 handed weapon while the buff is up.

Paladin already have a lot of powerful options for e8 feats (great smiting, divine shield/might chains) and I don't think they need more.

I could see it being reasonable on a ranger and a barbarian, though I haven't seen a high level barbarian so it is difficult for me to judge.

[Loreweaver]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Ultimately these decisions will depend upon whatever new feats we can add. In addition to the higher level, PrC and epic feats of NWN, there are roughly 3000 feats in pnp, a portion of which could be adapted to NWN, there are a number of feats which make sense within TER mechanics and of course a small set of requirement-meeting feats - for instance, a Fighter 2/Wizard 6 may need to spend a feat choice on counting as Wizard 8 before they can take Improved Combat Casting and other high requirement wizard feats.
The importance of something like Improved Critical, or the necessity for taking feats in a certain order (whether battle/rp/.. or hp/skill/ab/feat/ability) hangs on the other choices made available.
It is my hope the community will suggest whatever new or non-NWN feats they'd consider interesting to TER, so that these won't be overlooked. Creating a rough draft of these feats would be the first step.

Once we reach that point, the form of the level-up system can be determined and the feats can be organized. I'd like to use NWN's standard level-up screen, but it's quite likely that this is too restrictive for many of the feats. The main alternatives would be either a conversation-based feat purchase, an NPC-based feat purchase where a number of trainers each offer a modest feat tree, or a level-up area where one selects the desired feat placeable.
Another possibility might be the introduction of a random element, where your PC is simply offered three or so feat choices each time and gets to pick only one. This makes it harder to develop in a deliberate direction and might mean you miss out on something you really wanted if you had to pick something else you also really wanted, or that you don't like any of your options. But it's also easier to make a choice and can help diversify the characters.
Rate of advancement and a possibile hard cap will also have to be decided at this stage, of course. A trainer-based system might limit you to a number of NPCs, or introduce a monetary cost as well as an xp cost. Perhaps the number of feats is finite, possibly determined by your class combination. Or maybe the only limitation is running out of feat choices you qualify for.

Balance tweaks would be the last step in the process. This applies both to individual feats and to the viability and identity of different builds. For example, due to spell book limitations it'll be easier or at least less messy to improve warrior strengths than caster strengths so the latter can easily fall behind. And you've already mentioned the fighter's feat-based identity threatening to be diluted by extra feats for all classes. We could for instance give them more unique feats, or look at solutions like lowering the XP requirement for such a class. It's not a choice we can properly make without a clear impression of the feat choices though.

[SatelliteMind]

This is a really interesting way to go about letting players advance in power while still maintaining the server level range, I don't have any suggestions at the moment of specific feats but I want to praise the DM team for coming up with this idea.

[cyberjesterb]

Is this thread worth being stickied? Loreweaver put things very nicely as to where the process for this stands at the moment. I would love to see more ideas come in for what Feats could work in a system like this. Especially as we see more people join with new ideas.

[Feronius]

Honestly? From what I can tell, my first impression is that I really do not like the idea of this proposed system at all.

The idea of there being two characters who have both reached level 8, but in reality are both on a completely different level because one player started playing on the server a lot earlier, that just does not sit well with me. Max level should mean max level. I am just really not in favour of a soft level cap of sorts that favours characters that were created longer ago, making it nearly impossible for newer players to catch up to them because you would be able to gain additional feats almost indefinitely.
If this system does get implemented, I would be in favour of at least having a hard cap on the number of feats you can gain.

Ultimately I think I would still prefer to simply see the level cap raised to 10 over this proposed system. Or for more feats to be added throughout the leveling process, instead of only giving them out after you have hit level 8 several times, because I do agree that allowing characters to have a few more feats would not be such a bad thing.

[Silver Snow]

I think the idea was to have a cap on feat amount or something gained by this system, or perhaps let the player make some choices on what sort of feats they want to draw from via the trainer concept.
Two points for consideration on my end are:
1) Feat qualifications. As AB and skills do not go up, some feat requirements will simply never be met. With this system still only fighters or pure High AB clases can get improved critical for instance. Maybe that's fine, there are probably better examples, but how that is implemented should be considered. Also there are feats such as those that can only be taken at lvl 1 like Ambidexterity and the like that may, depending on individual context, be made available by this system too?

2) Suggesting new feats is great, as LW said there a lot to choose from, but it should be noted that many..if not most of those, live in unbalanced splatbooks. Maybe there is a purpose to narrowing down the books we can reasonably draw form? Many feats may be invalid by setting or campaign edition or power level.

[Kerstman]

I have something else that is to consider. There are many abilities that increase as levels are increased. Some of those are PrC abilities. How will that be done in an E8 system? An example are spirit caller abilities where spirits increase in strength each SC level, but there must be many more that work like this.

[Poisonous]

On Legacy which had e8s, your level was always the same, but you simply got "feats" which added to that without increasing your level. Perhaps some e8s could specifically increase the level used in an ability, for example, maybe "Spirit Boost" which temporarily raises the level of your spirit caller abilities, etc.

[Poisonous]

I would like to say that I hope if e8s or a higher level is implemented, it will be based on something other than the age of the character. Perhaps activity or something can be taken into account? These abilities would reflect a character going "above and beyond" and I do not like the idea of anyone making a character early on and then getting to make use of their high cap.

[Kerstman]

Activity is tricky as well. Some simply have more time and less alts. I'd say a hard cap seems most fair to me since it means all PC's can achieve the same level in E8 just as up till 8. Obviously the cap can be high so it shall take a while before we all get there.