FEATS
This week we were going to wrap up our series on "What Makes a Character", but then I realized the Feat selection process is daunting enough. So we'll talk about Feats today, and then wrap things up next week.
Feats are special abilities that your character possesses, improving traits they already have, or granting them new capabilities.
Before we get to the Feats, lets do a quick review of what we've learned so far:
- In Part I we looked at "What's in a Name". A name needs to have meaning. Whether your character concept is derived from the name, or the name is chosen by what/who your character is, it should have some importance. Anyone can be called Bob or Larry, but Attila or Constantine have certain connotations, and further define your character.
- Part II explored Character Background. What motivates your character to go out and be a "hero". Though not always vital to the game, at least knowing a little about your character's past will help you role play them in-game.
- Finally, Part III explored several areas, Race, Ability Scores, Class and Skills. Though each could have been explored in their own post, they each tie into one another, and each help further define your character. Race defines your external appearance, while also providing racial bonuses. Ability scores determine your mental and physical equities. Class is the job or role you will play in the group. And Skills show what you're good at, like knowledge of biology or crafting a sword.
So where does that put us?
As I stated in Part III, the character we're going to create is a Human Fighter. Why? Because for first time players, this is the most straight forward race and class to have. Humans provide the fewest, yet some of the best features: bonus feat at 1st level, four extra skill points at 1st level and a bonus skill point at every level thereafter. Fighters are great because they have the highest attack ratings, and rely solely on Feats to improve their effectiveness.
We've already chosen a name for the character, Vigo. Which derives from the villain in
Ghostbusters II, Vigo -- the painting that is possessed by the evil spirit of it's namesake. Though this character we're creating is not evil himself, he is brutal in combat. The other part we've determined is the character's background. Vigo is a farmhand and amateur craftsman, who is apart of a village's local militia; as well, he has appointed himself a leader of the village. His ability scores are:
Strength 16 (+3); Dexterity 12 (+1); Constitution 14 (+2)
Intelligence 10 (+0); Wisdom 11 (+0); Charisma 13 (+1)
His scores reflect that he's strong in physical strength, and could probably take a punch or two and keep ticking.
While his skills are the standard set that a fighter has, they are balanced to reflect his time as a farmhand and "leader":
Climb (+3); Craft (+3); Handle Animal (+4); Intimidate (+4); Jump (+3); Ride (+4) and Swim (+3)
As for feats we have a large list to pull from. So, how many do we get to pick at 1st level? Well, we get one for just being a 1st level character. A second one comes from being Human. And a third one comes for picking the Fighter as our class. However, the one given to us for being a Fighter is restricted to a list, determined by the class.
[Before choosing any feat though, it would be best to consult your GM to see what kind of game they're running, so that you can tailor your character accordingly.]
We'll pick the restricted feat first. Looking back on our background, we see that Vigo is known for his brutality on the field of combat. The list of Fighter feats offers
Power Attack. This feat allows our fighter to trade his attack bonus (his chance to hit) for additional damage. When comparing it to his background, the feat fits well. Vigo may not be an effective fighter at times, hitting fewer times then others, but he can occasionally take down a man in a single blow.
His two other feats are not restricted, as long as he meets the prerequisites (usually defined by a minimal Ability Score, Base Attack Bonus or other Feat). Before we go forward with those, let's look at what Feats the Fighter is given at 1st level, these are feats that every fighter is given for just being a fighter. Simple Weapon Proficiency, Martial Weapon Proficiency, All Armor (light, medium and heavy) and Shields (including tower shields). These will come into effect when we look at what equipment Vigo will have, and tells us that we do not have to waste any feats to get armor or most weapons.
There are several feats that we could take with our two slots. So let's see what's out there:
- Any feat that gives a +2 bonus to two Skills would be helpful, especially if we wanted to improve what skills we already have, or to gain bonuses to ones we may need. This list includes, Acrobatic, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Negotiator, and Persuasive (more on what they do in a moment).
- Along that same line, Skill Focus adds a +3 to one skill.
- Feats that help with our Saving Throws (which are rolls we make to avoid certain types of damage -- falling rocks, a wizard's spell, poison, etc.) -- which are Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes.
- Consider taking feats that are not from the Fighter's limited list. As we have 10 more opportunities to pick up feats from that list. Whereas we only have 6 chances to pick up feats that will help add flavor to our character. But picking up more combat oriented feats is not out of the question.
Our Skill list (Climb; Craft; Handle Animal; Intimidate; Jump; Ride and Swim) is limited, but we can improve the skill bonuses we have on them by selecting a feat or two. Our background can once again help us a choose a feat. Vigo is an amateur craftsman and farmhand. Craft would be a decent skill to increase, but Vigo is an amateur, and we'll want to focus more on our other skills first, so we'll skip increasing our Craft skill. So that leaves Vigo's experience as a farmhand -- giving us options to take
Alertness (+2 to Listen & Spot, as farmhands need to keep track of their herd),
Animal Affinity (+2 to Handle Animal & Ride, to help the farmhand in maintaining a horse or pet), or
Athletic (+2 to Climb & Swim, perhaps Vigo likes to swim or rock climb). Vigo is also a self-elected village leader, so
Negotiator (+2 to Diplomacy & Sense Motive) or
Persuasive (+2 to Bluff & Intimidate) would be helpful.
It's really a toss up as to which skill(s) to increase. We could increase the scores in two skills, or select the
Skill Focus feat and get a +3 to one skill. Which I think the latter is a good direction to go in. Vigo's self-appointment to village leader was done through his use of Intimidation. He's okay with the people skills, but the lack in Diplomacy is made up in his Intimidation. Therefore, one of our two feats will go to
Skill Focus (Intimidation). This raises our Intimidation score from +4 to +7! "Iron Fist" Vigo has a nice sound to it, doesn't it?! It also doesn't hurt that we can use Intimidate in combat.
This leaves us with one more feat to spend. As mentioned above, we could use this last feat to increase a Saving Throw by +2, of which are: Reflex, Fortitude, or Will. As a Fighter Vigo gets a +2 bonus to his Reflex Saving Throw, for a total of +3 (+2 for the bonus and +1 for his Dexterity). His Fortitude and Will get no bonuses, so he gets is base Ability Score in each, Fortitude (Constitution ) is a +2, and Will (Wisdom) is a +0. So he could take
Lightning Reflexes for Reflex, or
Great Fortitude for Fortitude, or
Iron Will for Will. But Vigo has never had to face many dangers outside the village, so we will not be taking any of these feats. Again, all this is for flavor.
So, what are we going to get with this second feat? We could get any number of feats, but we can narrow it down to three choices.
1) Improved Initiative, +4 to initiative check (this check determines order during combat, the higher the score the better) -- right now our Initiative is only a +1 (from our Dexterity modifier).
2) Cleave, extra melee attack after dropping target -- Vigo is vicious in melee, so potentially getting an extra attack in a single round would be good.
3) Weapon Focus (choose a weapon), +1 bonus to attack rolls with chosen weapon -- our total melee attack bonus right now is +4 (+3 from our Strength modifier and +1 for being a Fighter), this would give us a +5.
Vigo doesn't mind being slow, because he's big and can take a hit, so we'll leave
Improved Initiative for later, possibly a future Fighter feat.
Cleave is a good choice versus low hit point enemies, but has little use against high hit point enemies.
Weapon Focus is good, especially since Vigo can take points away from his attack bonus, with
Power Attack, to deal more damage. With the potentially limited use of
Cleave, we'll take
Weapon Focus for our second feat.
So we've taken
Power Attack for our Fighter feat to get bonus damage.
Skill Focus for our 1st level feat, to improve our Intimidation. And
Weapon Focus, for our Human feat, to help balance out the reduction from
Power Attack. Any number of feats could have been chosen for Vigo. In a combat heavy game we could have chosen only feats that gave us bonuses in combat, like
Improved Initiative and
Cleave. On the flip side, in a role-play heavy game, we could have chosen
Negotiator and
Persuasive to increase our Charisma based skills -- giving us larger bonuses to our Fighter's skills and cross-class skills.
Instead, we took feats that played off of our background. There's so many alternatives we could have taken too. Especially if we wanted to maintain the illusion that Vigo is not really an adventurer yet. In which
Power Attack would instead be
Weapon Focus, to show that Vigo means business on the battlefield. Then we would have changed
Skill Focus (Intimidation) to
Persuasive; this still gives us a bonus to Intimidation, but also gives a needed bonus to the Bluff skill (which can be used in combat too). The third choice for a feat would have fallen to
Alertness to provide coveted bonuses to Listen and Spot; as a farm hand these are important skills, but also help prevent surprise attacks in combat situations.
On second thought, let's have Vigo go this direction instead. It makes more sense for him to take
Weapon Focus, Persuasive and
Alertness as Vigo is looking for more to life than just the village. He's taken the safe road so far, and it will only take one little quest to put him on the road to adventure.
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Next time on
Dice Harder: What Makes a Character Pt 5 - Gear and Finalizing the character
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