This is purely speculative.  I have an evening shift tonight and a head full of RC and 3.5.  What would 3rd edition look like if you tried to strip out the splat and the feats?  And I'm not talking a 4e approach here where the classes just get lots of powers as a unified mechanic.  You would preserve the basic classes as is, keep PrC classes in, retain spell slots, etc.  But outside of PrC you're not making any promises that every character is a their own mechanically unique beautiful little snowflake.

Where would the pitfalls be if you stripped out feats?  For starters, one would have to do something to bring Fighter and Wizard back up to par with other classes, right?

Without a couple of feats, ranged attacks suffer from a lot of penalties.

Spell save DCs would probably be too low.

What else would it look like?

Quote from: winkingbishop;367462Where would the pitfalls be if you stripped out feats?  For starters, one would have to do something to bring Fighter and Wizard back up to par with other classes, right?

As much as Rogues are the skill monkeys, Fighters are the feat monkeys, so I don't know exactly what you would do about that.  They would be virtually crippled, and there would need to be some other way for magic items to exist.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367462Where would the pitfalls be if you stripped out feats?  For starters, one would have to do something to bring Fighter and Wizard back up to par with other classes, right?

You'd have first to look at the feats and decide which ones you want to still be able to work mechanically, despite having no feats. Cleave. How/Can anyone cleave now? Whirlwind attack? Power attack? Et cetera.

Then, for the wizard types, you'd have the metamagic feats. How does the fabrication of magic items work now? Can any spellcaster of a given level attempt and/or the other? Can you still maximize/enlarge/etc spells? How?

In terms of rules balance, you have two possible approaches (and everything between these two extremes):
- One is to care greatly about it and want to preserve it. This means that you'd have to add some "umph" to classes heavily relying on Feats in the original system, like the Fighter, and provide them with new class abillities to play with.
- The Second is the "Castles & Crusades" approach, sort of. You just play the resulting system as it is, and you're not searching to fix every single unbalance in the rules, while re-establishing it in actual play by other means (giving the spotlight equally, providing opportunities say for the Fighter to make a difference in the way the adventure unfolds, whatever).

My take would lie somewhere in between.

For God's sake, Benoist please change your avatar. I have trouble not breaking out in laughter looking at that. And as we all know, RPG forums are serious business.

Quote from: Windjammer;367482For God's sake, Benoist please change your avatar. I have trouble not breaking out in laughter looking at that. And as we all know, RPG forums are serious business.

Well it's kind of the point of the avatar...

Quote from: Benoist;367483Well it's kind of the point of the avatar...

True story.  

Quote from: winkingbishop;367484True story.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNFBbeDSGEY
Enjoy.

Quote from: Benoist;367485http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNFBbeDSGEY
Enjoy.

I hereby mandate that this thread be retitled accordingly into ALL HAIL KING TUT, so people won't miss out this great video because they fear 'nooo, not another boring 3.x discussion... yawn'.

On topic: I think Pathfinder RPG is better at leaving out feats, because you can pick martial classes like Barbarian and Rogue which have a shit-load of options built into them which don't require feats to function. Pathfinder wizards are likewise very feat-independent whereas 3.5 wizards are feat-heavy.

So basically, what I'm saying is that if you want to leave out feats - and prestige classes, btw - and go for core classes without bells+whistles type of campaign, Pathfinder is probably the better choice. And oh, you can leave out combat maneuvers, these are pointless too! Actually, at the rate this post is progressing, Pathfinder with the useless bits stripped out approaches BECMI.

Quote from: Windjammer;367489I hereby mandate that this thread be retitled accordingly into ALL HAIL KING TUT, so people won't miss out this great video because they fear 'nooo, not another boring 3.x discussion... yawn'.

Yeah, that would be funny and all.  But then I would feel guilty about leaving it in the RPG section.

QuotePathfinder with the useless bits stripped out approaches BECMI.

If that were totally true, I might be interested.  Maybe that would be awesome? d20 Rules Cyclopedia.

Oh, and I didn't start the thread with a goal-oriented question.  It's more a thought experiment I suppose.  I wanted something to post/read that wasn't an edition battlefield.  Suppose I started with some combustible subject matter though, my bad.

Also, to compliment the fantastic video clip I present to you: Angry Video Game nerd reviews the Deathstalker series.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367498also, to compliment the fantastic video clip i present to you: Angry video game nerd reviews the deathstalker series.

Best. Thread. Ever.

I would say this pretty much describes microlite20. I know more than just feats have been stripped out, but why not take Microlite20 and just add what ya want back in, seems easier than taking the whole thing and trying to strip feats out.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367498Also, to compliment the fantastic video clip I present to you: Angry Video Game nerd reviews the Deathstalker series.

WOW. In the "so worth shit it's hilarious" department, this definitely made my day!

Rather than leave out feats, I think it would be better to specify packages of feats that go together in certain orders. For example, a fighter with all the mounted combat feats would be a knight. Think of it like second edition kits.

I don't think the wizard needs any help. You could take away his feats and give him one less spell a day per spell level, deny the bonus spells for intelligence, and it would still be fair.

The fighter is just a horrible class. It needs class abilities like the rogue.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367462Where would the pitfalls be if you stripped out feats?

Combat manoeuvres will be more difficult than ever, that's for sure. You might want to do something about those. Everything from Feint to Disarm to Grapple is going to pretty much suck, otherwise. Item creation is simply never going to happen... unless you add it to class features as you see fit, I suppose. Mounted combat is also going to suck, more than ever.

QuoteFor starters, one would have to do something to bring Fighter and Wizard back up to par with other classes, right?

Wizard, no. Should be perfect as is (without bonus feats.) Fighter, well, that class needs to be rewritten in the first place. Now it's simply a (way) more pressing concern. The first thing I would consider adding is a Cleave-like ability, which will shift them a tiny bit closer to their AD&D cousins, funnily enough.

QuoteWithout a couple of feats, ranged attacks suffer from a lot of penalties.

Good.

And metamagic? Feh.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367462Where would the pitfalls be if you stripped out feats?  For starters, one would have to do something to bring Fighter and Wizard back up to par with other classes, right?

Some of the feats should be converted into class abilities that certain classes get or can choose at certain levels.