multiclassing was super strong in old AD&D, and it felt pretty nerfed in 3.5/pathfinder. prestige classes were kind of the solution to that except they didn't work well and took for fucking ever to get anywhere in
then pathfinder 2 came out and that system is real good
multiclassing was super strong in old AD&D, and it felt pretty nerfed in 3.5/pathfinder. prestige classes were kind of the solution to that except they didn't work well and took for fucking ever to get anywhere in
then pathfinder 2 came out and that system is real good
Multiclassing in pre 3rd ed was supposed to be balanced by racial level limits. Those are super dumb and the system didn't work well. But the power curve for multiclassed characters was pretty weird due to the huge differences in how much XP different classes needed to level up. If you look real close at "what can this character do" vs "how much xp do they have " (not their level) its a jumpy thing and especially around levels 2-4 single class characters are sometimes ahead. 2nd ed Bards in particular shoot up super fast thanks to getting mage spells at level 2 and advancing in level so fast. Between having 1250 xp (IIRC that was level 2 for a 2nd ed thief) and something like 10k xp or so a bard is a stronger spellcaster than a pure mage with the same XP.
Multi class characters really shine when they are in the 3rd or 4th up through 8th or so level range. In that range they are only about 1 level behind single class characters of the same class (cause of the wonky xp progression) while having the benefits of multiple classes. For anything except thief you start hitting that racial class limit around level 6-8 and from then on the multiclass character is just getting 1/2 or even 1/3 xp for no benefit.
In the very long run of course pure spellcasters are exponentially more powerful than anything else (something that is true of every version of D&D except 4th). If you want to super cheese the ultra late game then the human-only dual class option was the way to go.
I always blast through the mechanical side of character creation, it can take a bit longer to settle on a character idea. And it's more fun to do that within a group setting, anyways.
I suspect when most people are bemoaning how long it takes their players to create a character they're talking primarily about the mechanical decisions required of games like D&D.
3rd ed I totally see that yeah. And any system has a learning curve so the first couple characters are gonna be time consuming no matter what. But 5th ed characters are super easy to roll at least at 1st level. The (in hindsight) absurd multiclassing and prestige class rules of 3rd ed meant that you could super easily make a "wrong" choice at 1st level that would prevent you from doing stuff you might want to do at 5th-8th level. But that doesn't really happen in 5th ed. It's that lack of entanglement with later decisions that keeps character creation manageable in a given system.
I mean, it does.
The multiclass rules in 5th edition are far more punitive and restrictive than anything in 3rd edition.
Multiclassing in 4e was kind of blah when it first came out, but subsequent splatbooks and player handbooks added a lot more interesting multiclass options and then the PHB3 added hybrid classes which is what everyone wishes multiclassing in 3.5/5e was kind of like.
I've made enough characters for one-shots that I can crank em out pretty quickly if I need to. But I usually spend a bit of tims the day before a session coming up with a general character idea (hillbilly swamp sorcerer that hates wizard's! Beastmaster ranger with a rust monster pet! Etc.), then about 30 minutes on race/class/gear/spell selection
Currently my only character idea is an ex-con artist sorcerer who used illusion magic to aid with taking people's money but is now trying to clean up her act.
It's a bad idea because I previously had a lot of trouble with my super charismatic extroverted bard, and she was an asshole who didn't care if people liked her. This one would actively want to be front facing and I don't think i've gotten better enough to play that character.
I need to think up a character to fill out the punch wizard idea, because currently that notepad simply has the words punch wizard circled several times.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
"What if a cat that's like a blink dog?"
"So just a cat?"
"No but like it can teleport and suddenly show up in random places"
"..."
"..."
"...so, just a regular cat?"
I always blast through the mechanical side of character creation, it can take a bit longer to settle on a character idea. And it's more fun to do that within a group setting, anyways.
I'm not great at figuring out which spells are good and which aren't, in almost any setting, so that sort of thing I have trouble with.
I always blast through the mechanical side of character creation, it can take a bit longer to settle on a character idea. And it's more fun to do that within a group setting, anyways.
I'm not great at figuring out which spells are good and which aren't, in almost any setting, so that sort of thing I have trouble with.
Made all the worse for spellcasters that need to make their spell choices at level up only. "Gee, should I take Plant Growth? I bet I could get lots of use out of that."
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Every session involves me seeing how one of the spells I didn't prepare would have been really useful in a situation
I realized after last session that I should replace Ray of Sickness with something else, because unless I upcast it both of my damage cantrips do as much, if not more, damage. Ended up prepping the two new spells I just learned on leveling up, misty step and mirror image. Gonna be the best at not dying/running away (every single first level spell I have prepped is for that purpose as well lol)
Darmak on
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
As a DM I don't like when players make in-depth backstories. Just enough to get your ass into the adventuring party is great. Some problems with excessive backgrounding:
1) It's super easy to end up creating a character who really shouldn't be part of the party. When you look at all that backstory and think "so why would you ever be in a dungeon killing monsters and taking their treasure?" / "so why would you ever be hanging out with these other characters?" it's a problem.
2) What is important and what people remember is the stuff that happens at the table. Going in with Mike the fighter who has a 17 strength and a battle axe vs going in with Shadowvein the Thief-Assassin who wears a dark cloak called Revenge and whose only friend is the savage call of the wild night makes way less of a difference than we'd all like to admit compared to what they do during the game.
3) In my experience it's hard enough getting players to read a page of backstory on the campaign itself. Getting them to remember any kind of detailed backstory (again, as opposed to stuff they did together at the table) for the other player characters is way harder.
On the other hand there are a lot of tabletop RPGs that get printed that are way more about being read than actually played (*cough*planescape*cough*). And there are systems that lend themselves way more to theorycrafting character builds and making up elaborate backtories to go with them than earning those levels / skills / feats at the table (3rd ed / pathfinder I am looking in your direction).
I think these are just examples of bad backstories, rather than an inherent problems with having them. If you're involving others and tying things together, the players are going to be much more invested in eachother and the adventure.
Obviously having each individual player write a page of fiction in total isolation isn't going to produce that, so you work together and give them a strong sense of the kind of story they should be linking into. As Straighzi says, if a game has mechanical incentives to do so even better.
There's a pulp setting (Spirit of the Century, maybe?) where part of coming up with the backstory is coming up with past adventures you've been on with other members of the party
A fun way to improve cohesion and also works thematically, like how Indiana Jones knows all these people around the globe
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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Mx. QuillI now prefer "Myr. Quill", actually...{They/Them}Registered Userregular
Odd, I find that I vastly prefer the way feats are hadled in 5e much more than in 3.5.
I have enjoyed seeing how they can greatly alter a playstyle, like gaining proficiency in tools,
skills, and saving throws or giving non-casters access to some low-level magic through stuff like Magic Adept.
In 3.5 it was like "oh you're playing a druid, take Natural Spell at first, no other option. Fighter, you take Weapon Focus". By contrast our aasimar sorcerer took Weapon Master at 4th since his Dex was at 15 and he wanted to increase it plus he had acquired two pistols and a musket and wanted to be able to use them since his background was Sailor and he pretends to be some sort of swashbuckler or thief most of the time to throw people off from the fact he can toss out Lightning Bolts.
Mx. Quill on
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Those optimization choices still exist
You could essentially do the same thing in 3.5 if you decided you wanted to take non-optimal feats
And that's ignoring the fact that often the most optimal choice in 5e is to not take a feat at all because an ASI will often be more effective
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
The only reason I ever felt like I needed to take a specific feat in 3.X was if I had a specific prestige class I was aiming toward. That level of optimization was just never front of mind for me, and while I could run numbers and figure those things out if I wanted to, that was the province of getting in arguments online, not characters I was actually playing.
Honestly, I love dumb combined fantasy animals a la Avatar. I've drawn some for my other campaigns. I had a Mediterranean inspired nation with porcupine hippos for guard dogs and my players loved it. There were shelled elephants and some others, too. Monsters made by mashing them together are so much fun for me.
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Mx. QuillI now prefer "Myr. Quill", actually...{They/Them}Registered Userregular
And that's ignoring the fact that often the most optimal choice in 5e is to not take a feat at all because an ASI will often be more effective
I suppose I find feats more useful since my wildhunt shifter druid started with 10 Str, 16 Dex and Con, 14 Int, 18 Wis, and 13 Cha. I've only increased Ability Scores by three points by level 13 (+2 Wis at 8th, +1 Con at 12th from picking Resilient), and only plan on one more point for the remainder of the campaign (Skill Expert at 16th, to get to Con 18, gain History proficiency, and gain Arcana expertise).
Our fighter, even with having more ASIs, has only done two feats (Resilient: Dex and Piercer) while our sorcerer's only gotten Weapon Master.
I've many issues with the system, but I liked that in Starfinder you just plain got a feat every odd level (you upgraded stats via implants, which is a separate system), so you never felt like you had to pick between Fun and Effective. And you got enough of them that feats with prereq feats didn't feel impossibly expensive.
[edit] You started with those stats? I mean, if you're rolling for stats and get decent results then yes, ASIs aren't as important, because, well, you rolled your stats well. I don't think comparing the value of feats versus stats has much value if you start with higher stats to begin with.
Glal on
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
Even if we assume you start with absurdly high attributes and thus devalue ASIs, there are feats that are just mathematically superior
Like, Chef is a fun feat
Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter are borderline overpowered
It hasn't really changed, there are feats that you "should" take from an optimization standpoint, and there's stuff you take for fun, the difference now is that with feats being at such a premium I feel as though you're even less likely to take the fun feats
Odd, I find that I vastly prefer the way feats are hadled in 5e much more than in 3.5.
I have enjoyed seeing how they can greatly alter a playstyle, like gaining proficiency in tools,
skills, and saving throws or giving non-casters access to some low-level magic through stuff like Magic Adept.
In 3.5 it was like "oh you're playing a druid, take Natural Spell at first, no other option. Fighter, you take Weapon Focus". By contrast our aasimar sorcerer took Weapon Master at 4th since his Dex was at 15 and he wanted to increase it plus he had acquired two pistols and a musket and wanted to be able to use them since his background was Sailor and he pretends to be some sort of swashbuckler or thief most of the time to throw people off from the fact he can toss out Lightning Bolts.
I fear because of the way 5E is setup, you are less likely to see situations like your swashbuckling sorcerer taking a feat to better their combat skills.
Instead you can be immediately pushed onto a pathway that ends up making most characters feel exactly the same.
-- A Monk, with a huge reliance on Wis & Dex, needs to pretty much only take ASI's (if they have the option for a free feat, they usually get told to take Mobile).
-- A Cleric is pressured to take Warcaster and then just boost Wis through ASI's.
-- A Wizard is pressured to boost Int through ASI's and then... I don't know what other feats a Wizard takes because there aren't really feats designed for them besides ones that give a +1 Int bonus (like Keen Mind).
By folding ability score improvements with feats (and locking them in class level progression as opposed to character level progression) there is actually far more pressure to make a good choice with your feats/ASIs.
I've many issues with the system, but I liked that in Starfinder you just plain got a feat every odd level (you upgraded stats via implants, which is a separate system), so you never felt like you had to pick between Fun and Effective. And you got enough of them that feats with prereq feats didn't feel impossibly expensive.
[edit] You started with those stats? I mean, if you're rolling for stats and get decent results then yes, ASIs aren't as important, because, well, you rolled your stats well. I don't think comparing the value of feats versus stats has much value if you start with higher stats to begin with.
You'd also just straight up get stat boosts in addition to feats and the archetypes. I really, really need to get off my ass and make a Mass Effect conversion since Starfinder is just begging for it.
I mostly consider this the adventure's problem to solve in 5e. If the adventure pushes your game to requiring combat optimization the players will reach for it. If the adventure pushes your game towards skill resolution the players will reach for that. I've gotten multiple players to take the skilled feat and the like because they kept running into skill checks they wanted to help with or thought their character would have caught on to by this point in the adventure.
For the most part I don't push a combat difficulty progression outside maybe the baseline progression of the leveling course. I mostly build to what the players have got so that they're gonna have a number of rounds of combat to run through with maybe a character or two hitting 0 HP. It doesn't matter what combat options the players take, that's what I'm gonna build my encounter to do given whatever options they have. I'm pretty up front about all of this too just to let everyone know they don't necessarily need to optimize for combat. I also regularly run split level parties which adds a whole other dimension to designing and conducting battles.
Odd, I find that I vastly prefer the way feats are hadled in 5e much more than in 3.5.
I have enjoyed seeing how they can greatly alter a playstyle, like gaining proficiency in tools,
skills, and saving throws or giving non-casters access to some low-level magic through stuff like Magic Adept.
In 3.5 it was like "oh you're playing a druid, take Natural Spell at first, no other option. Fighter, you take Weapon Focus". By contrast our aasimar sorcerer took Weapon Master at 4th since his Dex was at 15 and he wanted to increase it plus he had acquired two pistols and a musket and wanted to be able to use them since his background was Sailor and he pretends to be some sort of swashbuckler or thief most of the time to throw people off from the fact he can toss out Lightning Bolts.
I fear because of the way 5E is setup, you are less likely to see situations like your swashbuckling sorcerer taking a feat to better their combat skills.
Instead you can be immediately pushed onto a pathway that ends up making most characters feel exactly the same.
-- A Monk, with a huge reliance on Wis & Dex, needs to pretty much only take ASI's (if they have the option for a free feat, they usually get told to take Mobile).
-- A Cleric is pressured to take Warcaster and then just boost Wis through ASI's.
-- A Wizard is pressured to boost Int through ASI's and then... I don't know what other feats a Wizard takes because there aren't really feats designed for them besides ones that give a +1 Int bonus (like Keen Mind).
By folding ability score improvements with feats (and locking them in class level progression as opposed to character level progression) there is actually far more pressure to make a good choice with your feats/ASIs.
I chose spell sniper for my wizard (he's already got 20 int), and it's been pretty fuckin great. He's only got a 10 con though, so I don't feel like resilient or warcaster or boosting con via ASIs would be worth it. I might boost con just for the hp increase and not take many concentration spells for combat. Or maybe take some fun feat later, I dunno
I always blast through the mechanical side of character creation, it can take a bit longer to settle on a character idea. And it's more fun to do that within a group setting, anyways.
I'm not great at figuring out which spells are good and which aren't, in almost any setting, so that sort of thing I have trouble with.
Oh, I don't care about building a "good" character I just pick what sounds cool
I admit, I didn't dive deep into it, but leafing through 13th Age's corebook at the shop left me... kind of unimpressed? It just seemed to be a sort of point between 4th edition and 5th edition. I didn't get a feeling that there was much point to getting it and bothering to learn it instead of just using the D&D I already have?
Anyway, I've been trying to think of what to run. Thing is, people have already been running most of the stuff I'd like to! We're doing a D&D PBP, we just finished an L5R game, and another is looking for a good module for Star Wars while we do Star Trek Adventures. While we're doing all this variation it would seem kind of blah to just repeat systems!
I've been GMing 13th Age lately so I'll say what I like and dislike about it.
Your impression that it splits 4th and 5th is basically right. It came out just before 5th. The authors say they wanted to split the difference between 3rd and 4th. But they also sprinkled in some more "narrative-first" elements from that style of game, just becoming popular at the time of release. A few things I like and dislike:
-Instead of skills like Athletics and Arcana, you have backgrounds like "Axis Gladiatorial Champion" or "Marathon Participant" or "Eating Contest Winner". The player has a pool of points to spend, up to 5 on any one background. It's a lot more interesting deciding whether "fugitive wanted for murder" applies than Stealth.
-Monsters are easy to run. Most of their special abilities trigger or not based on the unmodified d20 roll of their attack, so you don't really have to manage resources or make so many decisions.
-There's not really a rule for it, but the game encourages the players to be active participants in worldbuilding alongside the GM. A half-orc can decide that most half-orcs are vegetarian. A player tied to the Archmage can say that he has listening posts in every major town, that's how he contacts their character.
-Players create their characters with 3 ties to the Icons, positive, negative, or mixed. This also immediately ties them into the setting and helps define their priorities. goals, and outlook.
-The icon rolls, however, I've only ever found a pain to adjudicate. You're supposed to roll d6 for each icon at the beginning of a session, 6's get positive results, 5's get good results but with a complication. Even with just 3 players I've found myself with 3-4, sometimes 6 results I'm supposed to adjudicate before the end of a weeknight session. I don't think I've ever used them all.
-There's really not much to learn if you know D&D, particularly if you know 4th edition.
-It's not even in the core book, and it's system-agnostic, but 13th Age taught me the concept of the Montage which I really like.
-Character classes have a nice range of complexity, and the talents you pick can make your character more or less complex/improv-heavy as you prefer.
-Damage dice are just by class, so your paladin can uses maces or swords or axes, whatever fits their aesthetic. No weapon proficiencies or traits to worry about.
-The Bestiary is really good
If you run D&D and want something slightly more narrative-focused, it's a good pickup. If you're happy (or unhappy) with D&D, it's not THAT different.
So because of this post I mentioned 13th Age to my DM. We took a look at the core book. Then he took a look at all the others. Then he started inhaling the adventure books.
Now 13th Age is going to be our next game, instead of 5th Ed as we had defaulted to after not wanting to do Pathfinder 2 again.
Two of the players are a bit leery about having to learn yet another new system for the second game in a row, but agreed to give it a try.
The main worry for me is the icon system, which I hold was a mistake on the publisher's part in having be the first damn thing you see when you read through the book.
So yeah, know you've influenced four people's weekly events for the better, because I think even if we end up not liking it and switching back to 5th Ed we'll likely take a few ideas to homebrew into it.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
A Fey Touched Monk that raises Wis and chooses Hex for their spell is ludicrously powerful at low levels
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Also, again, if you roll for stats and thus have extremely high stats from level 1, the calculus on what feats are worth changes a lot
But there are still optimal feats to choose, it's not any different from prior editions in that regard
In my Blades in the Dark campaign, the players had to fix a race at Vreen's Race Track. Racing dogs are large lizards imported from the Dagger Isles. They have dark grey scales and soft pebbly hide. Their limbs are long and graceful, tipped with disproportionately large digging claws. They live in a sandy warren of tunnels underneath the race tracks. Good babies imo.
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Compared to something like third edition or even first edition of Pathfinder, yeah, its a lot simpler.
Some would say that comes with its own issues, where a lot of characters end up looking the same from a lack of game options.
then pathfinder 2 came out and that system is real good
It was mostly just casting foresight on the rogue.
Multiclassing in pre 3rd ed was supposed to be balanced by racial level limits. Those are super dumb and the system didn't work well. But the power curve for multiclassed characters was pretty weird due to the huge differences in how much XP different classes needed to level up. If you look real close at "what can this character do" vs "how much xp do they have " (not their level) its a jumpy thing and especially around levels 2-4 single class characters are sometimes ahead. 2nd ed Bards in particular shoot up super fast thanks to getting mage spells at level 2 and advancing in level so fast. Between having 1250 xp (IIRC that was level 2 for a 2nd ed thief) and something like 10k xp or so a bard is a stronger spellcaster than a pure mage with the same XP.
Multi class characters really shine when they are in the 3rd or 4th up through 8th or so level range. In that range they are only about 1 level behind single class characters of the same class (cause of the wonky xp progression) while having the benefits of multiple classes. For anything except thief you start hitting that racial class limit around level 6-8 and from then on the multiclass character is just getting 1/2 or even 1/3 xp for no benefit.
In the very long run of course pure spellcasters are exponentially more powerful than anything else (something that is true of every version of D&D except 4th). If you want to super cheese the ultra late game then the human-only dual class option was the way to go.
Multiclassing in 4e was kind of blah when it first came out, but subsequent splatbooks and player handbooks added a lot more interesting multiclass options and then the PHB3 added hybrid classes which is what everyone wishes multiclassing in 3.5/5e was kind of like.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
We were in stompin' in swamps and happened upon a rundown shack, but smoke comes from the chimney!
I summon Biblioforma, my sentient spellbook, and they have a peek inside. A Night Hag!
surprise is on our side, so we have the shield golem enter the hut. In the same way a car would enter a house. by moving very quickly into a wall.
golem walked in, picked up the Night Hag and threw her into the open where we all used our strongest abilities immediately.
It's a bad idea because I previously had a lot of trouble with my super charismatic extroverted bard, and she was an asshole who didn't care if people liked her. This one would actively want to be front facing and I don't think i've gotten better enough to play that character.
I need to think up a character to fill out the punch wizard idea, because currently that notepad simply has the words punch wizard circled several times.
It’s not an unreasonable thing in adventure league actually
"So just a cat?"
"No but like it can teleport and suddenly show up in random places"
"..."
"..."
"...so, just a regular cat?"
I'm not great at figuring out which spells are good and which aren't, in almost any setting, so that sort of thing I have trouble with.
I realized after last session that I should replace Ray of Sickness with something else, because unless I upcast it both of my damage cantrips do as much, if not more, damage. Ended up prepping the two new spells I just learned on leveling up, misty step and mirror image. Gonna be the best at not dying/running away (every single first level spell I have prepped is for that purpose as well lol)
I think these are just examples of bad backstories, rather than an inherent problems with having them. If you're involving others and tying things together, the players are going to be much more invested in eachother and the adventure.
Obviously having each individual player write a page of fiction in total isolation isn't going to produce that, so you work together and give them a strong sense of the kind of story they should be linking into. As Straighzi says, if a game has mechanical incentives to do so even better.
A fun way to improve cohesion and also works thematically, like how Indiana Jones knows all these people around the globe
Odd, I find that I vastly prefer the way feats are hadled in 5e much more than in 3.5.
I have enjoyed seeing how they can greatly alter a playstyle, like gaining proficiency in tools,
skills, and saving throws or giving non-casters access to some low-level magic through stuff like Magic Adept.
In 3.5 it was like "oh you're playing a druid, take Natural Spell at first, no other option. Fighter, you take Weapon Focus". By contrast our aasimar sorcerer took Weapon Master at 4th since his Dex was at 15 and he wanted to increase it plus he had acquired two pistols and a musket and wanted to be able to use them since his background was Sailor and he pretends to be some sort of swashbuckler or thief most of the time to throw people off from the fact he can toss out Lightning Bolts.
You could essentially do the same thing in 3.5 if you decided you wanted to take non-optimal feats
And that's ignoring the fact that often the most optimal choice in 5e is to not take a feat at all because an ASI will often be more effective
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I suppose I find feats more useful since my wildhunt shifter druid started with 10 Str, 16 Dex and Con, 14 Int, 18 Wis, and 13 Cha. I've only increased Ability Scores by three points by level 13 (+2 Wis at 8th, +1 Con at 12th from picking Resilient), and only plan on one more point for the remainder of the campaign (Skill Expert at 16th, to get to Con 18, gain History proficiency, and gain Arcana expertise).
Our fighter, even with having more ASIs, has only done two feats (Resilient: Dex and Piercer) while our sorcerer's only gotten Weapon Master.
[edit] You started with those stats? I mean, if you're rolling for stats and get decent results then yes, ASIs aren't as important, because, well, you rolled your stats well. I don't think comparing the value of feats versus stats has much value if you start with higher stats to begin with.
Like, Chef is a fun feat
Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter are borderline overpowered
It hasn't really changed, there are feats that you "should" take from an optimization standpoint, and there's stuff you take for fun, the difference now is that with feats being at such a premium I feel as though you're even less likely to take the fun feats
It feels so boring to just take ASI as a player, especially if you are a class that only gets the choice every four levels.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
THIS IS WHAT I WANT
I fear because of the way 5E is setup, you are less likely to see situations like your swashbuckling sorcerer taking a feat to better their combat skills.
Instead you can be immediately pushed onto a pathway that ends up making most characters feel exactly the same.
-- A Monk, with a huge reliance on Wis & Dex, needs to pretty much only take ASI's (if they have the option for a free feat, they usually get told to take Mobile).
-- A Cleric is pressured to take Warcaster and then just boost Wis through ASI's.
-- A Wizard is pressured to boost Int through ASI's and then... I don't know what other feats a Wizard takes because there aren't really feats designed for them besides ones that give a +1 Int bonus (like Keen Mind).
By folding ability score improvements with feats (and locking them in class level progression as opposed to character level progression) there is actually far more pressure to make a good choice with your feats/ASIs.
You'd also just straight up get stat boosts in addition to feats and the archetypes. I really, really need to get off my ass and make a Mass Effect conversion since Starfinder is just begging for it.
But Mage has utterly consumed my tabletop brain.
For the most part I don't push a combat difficulty progression outside maybe the baseline progression of the leveling course. I mostly build to what the players have got so that they're gonna have a number of rounds of combat to run through with maybe a character or two hitting 0 HP. It doesn't matter what combat options the players take, that's what I'm gonna build my encounter to do given whatever options they have. I'm pretty up front about all of this too just to let everyone know they don't necessarily need to optimize for combat. I also regularly run split level parties which adds a whole other dimension to designing and conducting battles.
I chose spell sniper for my wizard (he's already got 20 int), and it's been pretty fuckin great. He's only got a 10 con though, so I don't feel like resilient or warcaster or boosting con via ASIs would be worth it. I might boost con just for the hp increase and not take many concentration spells for combat. Or maybe take some fun feat later, I dunno
Oh, I don't care about building a "good" character I just pick what sounds cool
So because of this post I mentioned 13th Age to my DM. We took a look at the core book. Then he took a look at all the others. Then he started inhaling the adventure books.
Now 13th Age is going to be our next game, instead of 5th Ed as we had defaulted to after not wanting to do Pathfinder 2 again.
Two of the players are a bit leery about having to learn yet another new system for the second game in a row, but agreed to give it a try.
The main worry for me is the icon system, which I hold was a mistake on the publisher's part in having be the first damn thing you see when you read through the book.
So yeah, know you've influenced four people's weekly events for the better, because I think even if we end up not liking it and switching back to 5th Ed we'll likely take a few ideas to homebrew into it.
But there are still optimal feats to choose, it's not any different from prior editions in that regard