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Suggestions / Feats
« on: January 17, 2013, 12:08:23 am »
So, a generic feat thread, for minor quibbles not worth their own thread.
Nimble
Not really a problem with the feat itself, though I don't think the name is really fitting its purpose. To me, it seems to imply a more agile or mobile character. This is actually achieved by lowering encumbrance. Because of the mechanics, two otherwise identical characters wearing no armour do not differ in performance, even though one would assume the one with the nimble feat to be more, well, nimble. But as soon as those same characters both wear some heavy armor, the difference begins to show, even though I would expect a heavy burden to limit or even negate the advantage of being nimble. So basically, the situation is flipped from what I would expect, based on the name.
Now, as I said in the beginning, I think the mechanics of the feat are fine, it's just that the name seems weird considering its effects. Perhaps something along the lines of Sturdy Build, Strong Back or something like that would be more fitting seeing as what the feat actually does is help a character to deal better with increasingly burdensome armour.
Recklessness
I haven't actually chosen this feat on any of my characters, so I can't really tell from practical experience wether my hunch is correct or not, however I think choosing this feat would actually weaken instead of improve your character. Perhaps someone who has played with this feat could chime in. In any case, here's my reasoning:
As was stated in another thread, there won't be any kind of companions or followers. As such, all fights will be only the player character against oftentimes multiple enemies. So, for every attack the player dishes out with a 3% bonus to land a crit, they will receive several attacks with a 2% bonus to land a crit in return. Of course, clever positioning and such can limit this problem, but not nearly enough (enemies using guns, no narrow passages/corners) - also, I wouldn't expect a reckless character to utilize such tactics
. So in the end, after taking the feat, it seems far more likely for the player to receive than to dish out a critical hit - and that's bad.
What I would suggest is either increasing the bonus for the player to be significantly higher than the enemy bonus or dropping the bonus for enemies altogether (perhaps renaming it Ferocity, as the name Recklessness indeed does imply some kind of defensive disadvantage for the player). After all, this feat is the only one, aside from Tranquility/Psychosis, to include a tangible disadvantage to the player. Those other two feats are better balanced between advantage/disadvantage as well and basically represent the focus a player wants for their psi abilities: high damage output, sustainability during extended dungeon crawls or middle of the road.
(As an aside, an early Teron demo of Age of Decadence basically had a similar problem with the balance between offensive and defensive skills for the same reason, where you were minced meat if you didn't invest heavily in Dodge or Block, but could easily get by with a middling value for the offensive skill of choice)
Nimble
Not really a problem with the feat itself, though I don't think the name is really fitting its purpose. To me, it seems to imply a more agile or mobile character. This is actually achieved by lowering encumbrance. Because of the mechanics, two otherwise identical characters wearing no armour do not differ in performance, even though one would assume the one with the nimble feat to be more, well, nimble. But as soon as those same characters both wear some heavy armor, the difference begins to show, even though I would expect a heavy burden to limit or even negate the advantage of being nimble. So basically, the situation is flipped from what I would expect, based on the name.
Now, as I said in the beginning, I think the mechanics of the feat are fine, it's just that the name seems weird considering its effects. Perhaps something along the lines of Sturdy Build, Strong Back or something like that would be more fitting seeing as what the feat actually does is help a character to deal better with increasingly burdensome armour.
Recklessness
I haven't actually chosen this feat on any of my characters, so I can't really tell from practical experience wether my hunch is correct or not, however I think choosing this feat would actually weaken instead of improve your character. Perhaps someone who has played with this feat could chime in. In any case, here's my reasoning:
As was stated in another thread, there won't be any kind of companions or followers. As such, all fights will be only the player character against oftentimes multiple enemies. So, for every attack the player dishes out with a 3% bonus to land a crit, they will receive several attacks with a 2% bonus to land a crit in return. Of course, clever positioning and such can limit this problem, but not nearly enough (enemies using guns, no narrow passages/corners) - also, I wouldn't expect a reckless character to utilize such tactics
. So in the end, after taking the feat, it seems far more likely for the player to receive than to dish out a critical hit - and that's bad.What I would suggest is either increasing the bonus for the player to be significantly higher than the enemy bonus or dropping the bonus for enemies altogether (perhaps renaming it Ferocity, as the name Recklessness indeed does imply some kind of defensive disadvantage for the player). After all, this feat is the only one, aside from Tranquility/Psychosis, to include a tangible disadvantage to the player. Those other two feats are better balanced between advantage/disadvantage as well and basically represent the focus a player wants for their psi abilities: high damage output, sustainability during extended dungeon crawls or middle of the road.
(As an aside, an early Teron demo of Age of Decadence basically had a similar problem with the balance between offensive and defensive skills for the same reason, where you were minced meat if you didn't invest heavily in Dodge or Block, but could easily get by with a middling value for the offensive skill of choice)
