Prerequisites, Requirements, and Ability Trees

[echoVanguard]

I've seen some statements back and forth about the value of prerequisites and other ability chain or tree constructs. Particularly, I was interested in a statement FrankTrollman made in another thread:

Feat chains as defined rob people, plain and simple.

There is no reason why should be able to get Improved Precise Shot without Precise Shot, however, so the concept of the feat chain is not necessarily devoid of utility.

It's a difficult line to walk. The ability to take an ability later in life that is superior to an ability you had access to earlier in life without first taking that early ability screws people. It screws people who invest in the early ability. But the requirement to invest a lot of feats into a direction before it turns into anything good screws people who even pretend to attempt to diversify.

This is the modern era, one with free multiclassing. Every single god damned time you take a new level you have the option of multiclassing - you have the option of deciding to take new abilities. And those abilities really do have to be good or the game is screwing people. This means that if we are wedded to the feat standard, a feat has to be a viable complete ability all by itself.

If we are really going to give Fighters "a feat" for getting a level, this needs to be game mechanically comparable to getting "a new spell level, two spells known, and four spells per day" like a Wizard gets just for getting to level nine in their class.

And that means that those feats should provide more abilities. Getting "Dodge" isn't enough for a feat. Getting "Dodge and Mobility" is not enough for a feat unless we start handing out more feats at each level.

The chain relations of feats need to be cut back, and if we just lump feats together that will somewhat take care of itself. But that's not all - feats need to scale with level the way that spells do. If your bonus for Greater Magic Weapon goes up when your level does - your bonus from Weapon Focus should go up when your level does.

That being said, I am very interested in examining whether the idea of prerequisites of any kind are worth preserving.

I think that there's a lot of thematic value to prerequisites - it's fun to progress from Impressive Fire-themed Ability to More Impressive Fire-themed Ability, and it builds a certain amount of character identity that goes beyond fluff.

But people have also made the worthwhile observation that it tremendously complicates building a character higher than 1st-level, as well as forcing people to get abilities they might not want to get an ability they do want. You also have potential balance concerns if an ability without prerequisites is stronger than an ability with prerequisites.

The negatives seem to outweigh the positives numerically, but I'm not convinced they're of equal value - prerequisites seem to have potential as a gating mechanism to get better abilities (provided the endpoint abilities actually are better).

Comments, suggestions, or observations?

echo

[hogarth]

Well, I don't particularly agree with Frank's comment...

This is the modern era, one with free multiclassing. Every single god damned time you take a new level you have the option of multiclassing - you have the option of deciding to take new abilities. And those abilities really do have to be good or the game is screwing people.

Frankly, I find the idea of a game where it's literally impossible to make poor choices to be boring, not to mention doomed to failure.

Since I don't have a huge hard-on for trying to make all choices (even stupid ones) equally good, I don't particularly have a problem with feat/ability chains.

[koz]

First of all, ignore hogarth's herp-derp above - it shows a complete misunderstanding of the problem, and that he believes fighters shouldn't get nice things. It has nothing to do with being able to make bad choices and everything to do with the fact that the game seriously tells you that Improved Critical is somehow worth Divination or Divine Power - a joke if I ever heard one.

In all seriousness, prerequisites should die in a fire. All you do by adding requirements to things like feats and classes is encourage build planning (which, in return, discourages organic characters) and create noob traps. Neither of these things is advantageous in any sense, as this basically means that system mastery (which is already a big advantage in a system like any edition of DnD) becomes even more important, and it steepens the game's learning curve by an amount that I don't consider fair to people learning the game.

Secondly, prerequisites don't actually do the job that you want them to do - which is, by the OP's own admission, thematicising and flavouring characters. 'Flavoursome' characters shouldn't be gimped mechanically - and when you introduce prerequisites into the mixture, you basically create the problem that someone who aimed for a certain feat/spell/class/whatever will be better than someone who didn't. This encourages people to stick to a narrow range of options which actually makes thematic characters less likely in every sense.

To make matters worse, how prerequisites are divided in 3.5 (or any version of DnD for that matter) is nothing like fair. Feats usually take it up the ass the most, while spells are practically a cakewalk. Unless and until I see a version of DnD where you have to take Burning Hands and have 5 ranks in Profession (firewalker) before you can take Fireball, most prerequisites on feats and PrCs have no business existing. This is just a matter of fairness - pure and simple.

However, there is one prerequisite that does serve a useful function - a level limit. Essentially, if you want to make it so that people can't get a certain trick ahead of time, just impose a level minimum on it, and the problem is resolved without any need to dick around. If you also make options scale, then you can pick up Dodge or whatever later on in life and not feel like an idiot - kinda like you can with Tome scaling feats, for that matter.

tl;dr - Hogarth doesn't know what the fuck he's on about, prerequisites aren't fair or evenly-distributed within the system, don't actually help thematics, and should all die, with the exception of a level minimum, because it actually does something useful.

tl;dr of tl;dr - Hogarth can go such cock barrels, because prereqs aren't helpful.

[hogarth]

First of all, ignore hogarth's herp-derp above - it shows a complete misunderstanding of the problem, and that he believes fighters shouldn't get nice things. It has nothing to do with being able to make bad choices and everything to do with the fact that the game seriously tells you that Improved Critical is somehow worth Divination or Divine Power - a joke if I ever heard one.

Wait -- you think only fighters can make terrible choices? I've seen terrible wizard choices that would make your hair curl!

All you do by adding requirements to things like feats and classes is encourage build planning (which, in return, discourages organic characters) and create noob traps.

Can you come up with an example of a game that (a) has vertical advancement and (b) doesn't have "noob traps"? I don't think one exists, and I'm not sure one can exist.

[koz]

First of all, ignore hogarth's herp-derp above - it shows a complete misunderstanding of the problem, and that he believes fighters shouldn't get nice things. It has nothing to do with being able to make bad choices and everything to do with the fact that the game seriously tells you that Improved Critical is somehow worth Divination or Divine Power - a joke if I ever heard one.

Wait -- you think only fighters can make terrible choices? I've seen terrible wizard choices that would make your hair curl!

Yeah, sure. Except the wizard who picks up Burning Hands is probably less of an idiot than the fighter who picks up Dodge. Just sayin'.

All you do by adding requirements to things like feats and classes is encourage build planning (which, in return, discourages organic characters) and create noob traps.

Can you come up with an example of a game that (a) has vertical advancement and (b) doesn't have "noob traps"? I don't think one exists, and I'm not sure one can exist.

Just because they exist doesn't mean they should be encouraged. Stop being a disingenuous retard. Prerequisites make a bad thing worse, and by saying what you're saying, you're basically advocating keeping it that way. Fuck that and fuck you too. You genuinely seem to like making the game worse for new players and forcing people to dumpster-dive like crazy.

[hogarth]

Can you come up with an example of a game that (a) has vertical advancement and (b) doesn't have "noob traps"? I don't think one exists, and I'm not sure one can exist.

Just because they exist doesn't mean they should be encouraged. Stop being a disingenuous retard. Prerequisites make a bad thing worse, and by saying what you're saying, you're basically advocating keeping it that way. Fuck that and fuck you too. You genuinely seem to like making the game worse for new players and forcing people to dumpster-dive like crazy.

That's a very long way of saying "no, I can't think of such a game".

[koz]

So basically, you're arguing 'Oh, we can't completely fix a problem, why bother doing it at all?'. While not addressing any of my points and being a disingenuous retard. Cool, just making sure everyone's on the same page here.

[hogarth]

So basically, you're arguing 'Oh, we can't completely fix a problem, why bother doing it at all?'.

Where did I say that? I have no idea where you got that from what I was saying.

To use an example, what do you think of a game like HERO? The typical advancement is something like the Human Torch's flame blast that goes from doing 10d6 damage to doing 11d6 damage for a cost of 5 xp. If the Hulk spent 5 xp on a flame blast, it'd do 1d6 damage, which would be mostly a waste of time. (I'll leave out multipowers for the sake of argument.)

Is that a trap? Not really, in my opinion; it just encourages PCs to focus in one power or set of powers. That's mostly appropriate for the subject matter. It does mean that someone who has no knowledge whatsoever of the game or of the genre might make bad choices, but so what?

[echoVanguard]

Just to clarify, when I say "a thematic character" I mean a character who adheres to a certain theme. For example, a mage who specializes in fire spells is fairly thematic, as is a fighter who specializes in ranged attacks. However, if players aren't given a mechanical incentive to specialize in a particular theme, they usually won't do so - they'll cherry-pick the options which appear best to them. The idea behind specialization is to reward characters for adhering to a particular theme by making them better at their thematic skills than non-specialized characters.

Generally speaking, there are two ways you can do this:

1. Force characters to choose classes which specialize in a fixed area of expertise which is entirely exclusive to them. Examples: Dread Necromancer vs Warmage, or Ranger vs Barbarian.

2. Reward characters who choose related abilities by giving them access to better versions of those abilities. Examples: feat chains, skill specialization, synergy bonuses.

A lot of the outcome hinges on some balance concerns, but I think the goal is sound - you want to be able to draw certain conclusions about characters based on what they do and how they act. In a system where all abilities have related prerequisites, certain situations become possible: if an enemy mage hits you with a top-tier fire spell, it's probable that he or she doesn't have access to a top-tier cold spell, so you might make tactical decisions that rely on that assumption. Similarly, if an enemy fighter unleashes devastating ranged attacks at you, it might be advantageous to quickly get into melee with them because you can assume their melee attacks won't be as dangerous. These sorts of scenarios create simple but profound tactical depth which encourages people to not only build complex and memorable characters, but also use those characters to create engaging and memorable play sessions.

echo

[koz]

echoVanguard: The way you have people create thematic characters in DnD is by use of thematic classes, or basically Option 1, because in that respect, the playing field is level - nobody gets to opt out of it and suck. Option 2 is worse, because an opt-out remains possible, which leads to your character blowing chunks - and this is what organic characters actually end up with half the time.

It should be possible to play a thematic character without sucking, but at the same time, it should not be required to build-plan like mad just to keep up. You basically want more Dread Necromancer and less Fighter. The idea of having 'pick a theme and stick to it' is something I am OK with - the alternative is 'some get to have themes and rock, those that don't pick deliberately or luck into one suck, and that's the end of it', and is not positive.

Furthermore, prereqs don't always actually do what you would like. I don't care what anyone says, the Dodge feat blows, theme or none, and picking it for anything other than 'meets prereqs' is basically a trap, again, theme or none. To make matters worse, a lot of prereqs just aren't thematic at all - Skill Focus (any fucking thing) comes to mind here.

Also: Whatever hogarth said, I'm not gonna respond to - it's clear that he doesn't get the problem and is just raving some random 4rry bullshit at this point.

[ishy]

Feats that blow are a seperate issue.
And yes some feats have stupid requirements, like weapon finesse needing 1 bab.

That doesn't mean all requirements are bad though, it makes sense that a class that progresses your animal companion requires you to have one in the first place.
3.x just went overboard with some requirements.
But I do feel having some can be good for the game.

[koz]

Feats that blow are a seperate issue.
And yes some feats have stupid requirements, like weapon finesse needing 1 bab.

That doesn't mean all requirements are bad though, it makes sense that a class that progresses your animal companion requires you to have one in the first place.
3.x just went overboard with some requirements.
But I do feel having some can be good for the game.

I'm of the opinion that feats that modify class features, if they are a direct improvement, should be built into a class rather than being an option that everyone ends up taking anyway. Feats that modify a class feature should be ACFs and just be done with it.

As far as prereqs, I believe the only one that need exist is character level. Other than this, there is no cause for anything further.

[hyzmarca]

If you're going to have feat chains and ability trees, then you should take a page from just about every ability-tree-having flash game out there and include a refund button.

Instead of taking a feat and keeping it forever, you have feat slots (or feat points if that's you're thing) that act like a wizard's spell slots. During downtime the PCs have the option to empty their slots and rebuild their feat trees.

Can you come up with an example of a game that (a) has vertical advancement and (b) doesn't have "noob traps"? I don't think one exists, and I'm not sure one can exist.

Every game that has a single advancement path ( a lot of video games) that can't be deviated from.

And the aforementioned games that let you reset your advancement at will and immediately respend all of your accumulated advancement points.

The result is that characters can be wildly different from one encounter to the next (you can literally go from dumb-as-bricks he-man barbarian to super-intelligent wizard in a few seconds), but there are no newb traps.

[CCarter]

I think if you want both prereqs and diversification, lower the sucking of the initial feats. Characters then get a choice of doing their primary shtick slightly better by advancing a tree, or adding a new shtick at a more-or-less competent level.

The idea being that situations will arise where a different tactical options (shooting rather than power attacking, or whatever) is ideal, so that the branched-out character gains an advantage over the maxed-out-feat-chain guy.

[MisterDee]

Frankly, if feats are supposed to represent mundane abilities, then they should all be available at level 5 at the latest (and that's for a feat starved class.)

I mean, sure, have a pre-requisite for a feat that's a strict upgrade to another feat. Say, going from Stunning Fist to Killing Fist or something. But of course not that, because giving a monk an actual chance of doing something wizards can do at what, level 9? before level 15 would be overpowered.

But kill the goddamn "boring +1 bonus that you don't really need"-"Shitty Feat you won't even remember to use should it ever come up"-"Marginally useful ability that a fighter should have for free at level-1 but you can't take it until level-4 even if you have the feats for it"-"Absolutely shit attack that only sounds cool, but you need to waste another feat on something that you should never use, and that feat needs you to put a good stat into what should be your dump stat"

(Also known as the Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack-Whirlwind Attack chain, for those who didn't recognize it)

Hey - maybe that's the point of feat chain - to make absurdly sucky crap seem so hard to get that the dude playing the fighter just picks up Weapon Focus and other strict mechanical boosts?

[Ancient History]

Prerequisites have a couple possible benefits, if done correctly.

A power chain, for example, should ensure that a character has a range of abilities suitable to a variety of situations and opponents - instead of blowing up everything with a Nuclear Winter Fireball, sometimes you just want to set a rope on fire.

Feat/weapon proficiency chaining is generally valueless unless it provides an expansion of abilities - while it's nice to stack bonuses until you are the Swordmaster (Halfling Sharpstick), the incremental bonuses become mostly meaningless even at middle levels, when a spell or magic item provides a bigger boost. Feats that give new abilities (psionic wild talent, Track, Research, open up a chakra, etc.) and expand on those abilities are a better value, but unless written carefully the bonus from those feats doesn't level as you do, so their value diminishes in the long run (what good at 2 power points and a 1st level power at level 10?)

And, something D&D3.+ ran into, you can have a fair number of "parallel abilities" - Dodge and Psionic Dodge, Rage and Frenzy, Skirmish and Sneak Attack - which are in more or less direct competition, but which /should/ lead to the same place or receive the same bonuses.

[Parthenon]

What if a feat on a feat chain also improved earlier feats on the chain? So Dodge gives an optional +1 AC bonus but Spring Attack not only lets you attack at any point during a move but also increased the Dodge bonus by 1.

So, a lvl 1 feat is appropriate for level 1, but getting lvl 1, 2, and 3 of a feat chain gives you three feats all appropriate for level 9.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What if a feat on a feat chain also improved earlier feats on the chain? So Dodge gives an optional +1 AC bonus but Spring Attack not only lets you attack at any point during a move but also increased the Dodge bonus by 1.

So, a lvl 1 feat is appropriate for level 1, but getting lvl 1, 2, and 3 of a feat chain gives you three feats all appropriate for level 9.

First you need to figure out what an appropriate thing is for a feat to grant. Should they be granting tiny fucking bonuses, big fucking bonuses, tiny fucking situational bonuses, big fucking situational bonuses, shitty little abilities, or good abilities?

[Seerow]

What if a feat on a feat chain also improved earlier feats on the chain? So Dodge gives an optional +1 AC bonus but Spring Attack not only lets you attack at any point during a move but also increased the Dodge bonus by 1.

So, a lvl 1 feat is appropriate for level 1, but getting lvl 1, 2, and 3 of a feat chain gives you three feats all appropriate for level 9.

First you need to figure out what an appropriate thing is for a feat to grant. Should they be granting tiny fucking bonuses, big fucking bonuses, tiny fucking situational bonuses, big fucking situational bonuses, shitty little abilities, or good abilities?

This is really very important. The biggest problem with D&D is that you have a shitton of feats, and various feats fit into every category you mentioned, which makes it impossible to peg the power level of a feat.


Personally, my ideal if I ever get around to making a Fantasy Heartbreaker of my own, is to have classes that can fill just about any role, but have feats let you specialize to do well in a given role. It would still be possible to mix and match between roles for people who really want to, but ideally you'd want to pick mostly feats for a single role, unless you're going for some sort of hybrid/5th wheel character. So you might have a martial class, the Fighter, who with no feats has abilities that lend themselves to acting as a Defender, Striker, or Controller, and he can switch between these abilities relatively freely (about as easily as a wizard can change spells prepared). But then he takes feats that focus on filling a role for the group.

These feats can be moderate numerical bonuses or metamagic type effects that alter how his powers or class features work. I figure you can even have them with a specific tag, and use them as prerequisite feats. Say you have Whirlwind Attack. It changes from a new ability granted, to the ability to modify any of your normal abilities into an AoE attack, for an extra resource cost. It gets labeled as a striker feat. Instead of it requiring Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack (which is retarded), you make it require 3 Striker Feats. This leaves prerequisites in, but makes them flexible enough that players can more or less get what they want. You can also make some of the feats (generally those that give you a flat numeric bonus), scale based on the number of that type of feat you have. So say you have a feat that grants +damage, instead of a flat +2 damage, you have it grant something like +2 damage per striker feat you possess, and maybe some secondary benefit once you pass X number of striker feats.

[Blasted]

I'd strongly prefer that feats improved with level, rather than required a feat chain.
Many spells either do this, or don't decrease in utility. I see no reason that feats should not be the same.
It removes entirely the issue of feat chains, in that as a feat choice, you're choosing the entire chain. It also makes power per level explicit. At level X you will get Y.

It's the only solution I'm currently happy with.

[echoVanguard]

Instead of it requiring Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack (which is retarded), you make it require 3 Striker Feats. This leaves prerequisites in, but makes them flexible enough that players can more or less get what they want.

This is pretty much how our system works now, but we're a little concerned about some of the valid criticisms that have been raised in this forum (and others) about the value of prerequisites in general. The question at hand is not whether good prerequisite-based systems can be created (they can), but rather whether prerequisites as a general idea are worthwhile. I've put forth my assertions about the value of prerequisites' outcomes, but I'm still very interested in hearing dissenting opinions.

echo

[Seerow]

Instead of it requiring Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack (which is retarded), you make it require 3 Striker Feats. This leaves prerequisites in, but makes them flexible enough that players can more or less get what they want.

This is pretty much how our system works now, but we're a little concerned about some of the valid criticisms that have been raised in this forum (and others) about the value of prerequisites in general. The question at hand is not whether good prerequisite-based systems can be created (they can), but rather whether prerequisites as a general idea are worthwhile. I've put forth my assertions about the value of prerequisites' outcomes, but I'm still very interested in hearing dissenting opinions.

echo

Well it all depends on the rest of the system. Someone pointed out it's totally unfair that you need a chain of feats to get Whirlwind Attack, but your Illusion focused Wizard who hasn't taken any Necromancy spells ever can pick up Energy Drain or Wail of the Banshee as soon as they unlock 9th level spells.

Personally I would have higher level spells require some spells of lower level from the same school, so having combat techniques or feats with similar requirements isn't so anomalous. Removing prereqs altogether is another valid way of handling it, but personally I prefer encouraging some degree of specialization.

[echoVanguard]

Personally I would have higher level spells require some spells of lower level from the same school, so having combat techniques or feats with similar requirements isn't so anomalous. Removing prereqs altogether is another valid way of handling it, but personally I prefer encouraging some degree of specialization.

Right - these are my thoughts exactly, and our ability system was designed with that in mind. Spells require prerequisite lower-level spells exactly the same way that martial techniques require prerequisite lower-level techniques, and in fact use a unified set of power mechanics, draw from the same character option pool, and use a unified resource system.

echo

[DSMatticus]

So, there are a lot of prerequisite systems.

Linear Chains (V;tM disciplines, some D&D feat chains)
These are pretty much terrible. The author is confused; what they meant to write was a single ability which you level up into. V;tM disciplines at least have the added bonus of abilities of different depth costing more, so buying a level 5 ability isn't the same cost as buying the level 1 ability in a new chain, which makes it somewhat salvageable. But mostly it's shit because you're being presented with a series of non-selections. "Do you want a high level ability from your feat chain or to start a new chain and get a low level ability?"

Forward-Forking Chains (some D&D feat chains)
This has the same problem as above, basically, except even worse because you never max out a chain and have to diversify into something new. You just go down the chain to the last split and advance forward from there (optimally speaking). But it also sucks because for every depth 1 ability you write, you will write some huge number more depth 10 abilities because every node forks into multiple more nodes.

Backward-Forking Chains
This is like above, except selections converge. So you might have one depth 10 ability that is reachable from numerous depth 1 abilities. That's better than forward chaining, at least. If you can traverse backwards, then the optimal solution is to rush to the top and then travel along it, selecting the highest level abilities. If you can't traverse backwards, then reaching a final point means starting over.

Forward and Backward Forking Chains
Fuck you, that's needlessly complicated. The rules for traversing it would be mega-unfun. And it has the same problem as backward-forking; either you get to the top and go horizontally or you start over from the bottom all the time.

Tome of Battle (Guess)
In order to take an ability with tag Y, you must have X abilities with that tag already. This one's fairly okay; it means there is some minimum investment in a tag required to stay level appropriate, and you can over-invest and get level appropriate abilities or you can specialize in a few areas at once and get level-appropriate abilities from each. Except, of course, that every area you specialize in also provides a low-level entry tax, where you have to take low-level abilities to build up the number of abilities with that tag in order to keep selecting high-level abilities. So, there's that. And it also has a lot of book-keeping.

Tiered (After Sundown, probably other stuff, whatever)
I like this one a lot. It does a lot of the same things as ToB, but simpler. There are a certain number of levels in a specific field/sphere/tag, and each level has multiple selections. The only requirement for advancement is that you have one ability from the previous level. You can also tell people explicitly how many abilities they have in each tier per level, so you can set the amount of specialization and generalization and in that way you avoid problems like 'low-level abilities have the same purchase value but less value to the player, so they should never select them.' They can't exchange low-level for high-level. I mostly like tiered because 1) it accomplishes specialization, and 2) it does it without forcing later choices to be dependent on earlier choices.

[koz]

DSM: I mostly agree with your take, but I have a bone to pick with your interpretation of the ToB system. It's actually much worse, because it doesn't check whether you have maneuvers from school X, it checks how many maneuvers from school X you have, which is anal and annoying, especially given that a lot of maneuvers turkey-out super-fast. If it actually worked as a binary query, then I'd probably be sorta OK with it, but at present, I think it's dumb.

echo: I've put forward my dissenting opinions. I do acknowledge that Seerow's approach can work, but I believe it's too limiting in the way it does things, and basically just acts as a confusion factor for newbies and extra work for those who are not. Since I am for neither of these things, I believe it to be bad, but if you are, more power to you. However, I do wanna stress fairness - if you have feat chains, or maneuver chains, or your-mum chains, everything must chain. Otherwise, it's not fair, and thus, your system fails on first principles.