Homegrown feats

[kirksmithicus]

Has anyone created their own set of feats or allowed players to come up with their own feats for characters? If so what have you allowed in your game?

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Yes i have. I'm pretty much cool with anything that adds depth to a character and his background. It has to make sense and not be terribly unbalanced for me to concede a request. As far as a few examples go, my list is up north. I havent had a request to do so in a few years.

[nijineko]

i rarely use custom feats, with certain exceptions. background feats, regional feats, and the like that develop an interesting aspect of the character i'm willing to look over. the other main exception is the bonus feats i hand out during my campaigns.

i also have been working on an alternate set of feats for combat. but i haven't gone live with those yet.

[kirksmithicus]

I don't know about 3.x but 4E does not have "flaws" I was looking through my LOTR game and thinking about incorporating those into the 4E. Does 3.x have "flaws" as well as feats?

[Grumpy Old Man]

Guilty of making feats, I make my own world and campaigns and if a special feat is called for the character that could use it can get it as a bonus after they have completed a really good piece of playing. At the same time I have placed magical artifacts that didn't look like much in a position to be picked up by players, their choice if they wanted it or not. My rules Lawyer passed it up as not being elegant and his character died because without the item and for not heeding the warnings posted in plain common he couldn't get out of the maze in the dungeon. Plus he let his greed get in his way and picked up a crystal ball that he had been told in plain language by his DM, (me), not to touch or move. A castle fell on him just before the volcano it was built on erupted. Naturally it was my fault that his Wizard/Bard/Ranger died.

[nijineko]

I don't know about 3.x but 4E does not have "flaws" I was looking through my LOTR game and thinking about incorporating those into the 4E. Does 3.x have "flaws" as well as feats?

yeas, 3.5 has an entire flaw system. you can look it up here. there are various expansions to it throughout differing dragon magazines.
if you need a list of those, try this. =D they are listed under feats.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Guilty of making feats, I make my own world and campaigns and if a special feat is called for the character that could use it can get it as a bonus after they have completed a really good piece of playing. At the same time I have placed magical artifacts that didn't look like much in a position to be picked up by players, their choice if they wanted it or not. My rules Lawyer passed it up as not being elegant and his character died because without the item and for not heeding the warnings posted in plain common he couldn't get out of the maze in the dungeon. Plus he let his greed get in his way and picked up a crystal ball that he had been told in plain language by his DM, (me), not to touch or move. A castle fell on him just before the volcano it was built on erupted. Naturally it was my fault that his Wizard/Bard/Ranger died.

I've run into players like this. I've also played in games with players like this. They eventually killed the party and/or themselves with their stupidity. Of course, i always seem to ask them when all is said and done: "What were you thinking?" or "What exactly did you think was going to happen? And what you say is true, they always blame someone else for their actions. Yep, frustrating.

[Kalanth]

My players are sticklers for the books. Even if I made one up it would be more likely that I would be using it than they would be.

[Webhead]

My players can be a "sneaky" bunch at times, so letting them develop homebrewed feats is probably not a good idea. They have a way of making seemingly innocuous abilities and bonuses come back to bite me later on.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Uh uh, not the players because the superman players will eat the game. Any feat I made up was game specific and limited to a particular situation. The best one showed up as 3 tattoo's on the players neck. When he used it one of the tattoo's disappeared but it let him jump plane to plane to follow an anti-Paladin Lich and fight him. If he got mortally injured he was flashed back to his party where the healers could get him on his feet again. If he died the 3rd time he was dead. The only good thing was that any damage dealt to the Lich was permanent. By limiting this feat to something like a temporary spell they couldn't build a super character around it.

Most were permanent feats and were likewise restricted to certain situations. Sadly after giving some of the feats, explaining the feat and giving them a typed sheet detailing the feat they would forget they had it making things harder for them than needed or tried to use it in ways not appropriate and then I was the rear end of the donkey because they couldn't do what they wanted to with them.

There were treasures I made up that were so popular that they were requested later in other games. For instance my little rusty teapot. When held over a mug it poured out a strong Dwarf Whiskey which was not only good anti-freeze for cold nights on the tundra but made a great fire starter even for wet green wood. Only gave a pint a day and only after sunset but it was enough to knock 2 regular Human types on their glutes or make a party of 4 sing foolish and talk stupid.

I took seriously the old advice to use the rules as Guidelines and use my own creativity. The core book set is my skeleton but I put on the meat and add the flavor to it.

[DMMike]

I try to stick to PHB feats, since I can't even count the others. Although I like me some morale rules, so I include a (possibly) new feat:

Fearless
Prerequisite: +1 Will
Benefit: You gain +4 to saves made against fear effects.
Normal: You are a yellow chicken little.