Talk:Tattooed Monk (3.5e Feat)

Tatoos
Some of the high ones seem a bit weak. - Tarkisflux Talk 07:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * 5 + CR for spell resistance is pretty weak. It's not like spell penetration is a very high balance feat that people won't be taking or something. No 7+ or 8+ instead?
 * Once per day Ethereal Jaunt is not a lot, and it's really limited compared to the other options. More times per day is probably too strong, but what about letting them split the rounds up during the day?
 * Similarly, once per day of 3 rounds of minor bonuses, an extra attack with a full attack, and faster movement speed is pretty weak for a level 11 feat bonus. A similar breakup of rounds or multiple uses scaling with craft ranks (like previous abilities), even if it costs a swift to activate, seems more in line.
 * Scorpion is a reasonable debuff, but it's built in such a way as to almost always be wasted when used. If you're up against a warblade, or anyone else, you don't generally know whether they used a strike you'd want to avoid or not. It's guesswork or a last ditch defensive trick, and it feels like a terrible selection. I don't have any thoughts that keep the feel of it though. I think an upgrade of the spider tatoo would make more sense, and adding a Snake to the Dark that gave a small % chance to be missed after you learn what it is feels more appropriate, but it's a bit far from current design.

Before I put in a dislike...
...I figure I'd at least complain in a regular format and give you a chance to tell me I'm full of shit or make changes.

In chat you said that this explicitly didn't follow the pattern of F&K Scaling feats. Which would be fine, except your labelled it a [Skill] feat - an F&K created type with certain expectations. F&K scaling feats were explicitly designed to replace feat chains, where each feat in the chain was a decent thing on its own and thus each new benefit was a level appropriate thing on its own. They were designed to allow people to take a feat and have that be a thing that defined their character from whatever level they acquired it at, and have it keep informing the character through all levels.

This doesn't meet those expectations, or even try to as far as I can tell, as the feat sort of drops off. The top end abilities just aren't level appropriate for the stated balance range, and they don't define your character as much as other abilities you'll be getting at the same time. I would seriously forget about the Dark abilities on here, and about half of the Greater ones. So it might be a High balance feat in aggregate, maybe, but it's not a High balance [Skill] feat because the abilities it grants aren't as useful on the top as the bottom. It's a scaling feat that makes me want a feat chain again. I'd rather pick several times and get decent stuff that defines my character each time than pick this once and get a pile of half-assed stuff. And that makes me sad. It's also tied to a skill that is otherwise near useless and requires you to sacrifice a skill point from something potentially useful, and that makes me more sad.

So I really want to dislike this, because it's not a good [Skill] feat even if it might be an ok regular feat.

There are a couple of ways that I could see this improving. If you wanted to keep this as a [Skill] feat you need to meet the expectations of the type. The balance could be lowered to Moderate and the abilities brought into line with level appropriate moderate benefits when they are granted. Only a few of the Greater ones would need to be toned down for this. Or you could keep the balance as High and bring up some of the upper end abilities.

But since you don't like the F&K scaling style, I don't think either of those are particularly good options for you. Instead, you could just invent a new type, like [Prestige], and drop the [Skill] type. That lets you drop the F&K format entirely and write whatever format you want. With a new type you could just grant abilities at a pace more in line with the replaced prestige classes that would otherwise be granting them. It lets you add in prereqs like "Character level 6, No Other [Prestige] Feats" to keep people from diluting character concepts in the same way as taking too make scaling feats does. And since it's free of expectations, you can define how you want the power level to wind up as aggregate or individual, and complaints against doing it that way are empty since it's your type. I'd still prefer if each granted ability was balance level appropriate for their minimum level of acquisition, especially if you could only take 1 or 2 [Prestige] feats ever, because I don't want to wish that I could take a feat chain instead and get better stuff, but that's a personal preference. - Tarkisflux Talk 17:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Out of curiosity, who decided that there was an expectation of all skill feats to be really, really good? This doesn't have the Tome descriptor, so I'm not sure why you'd assume that there's that expectation built in there. That said, I'm fine with changing the feat--I probably would have done so myself if I knew how to make it so that it could accept anything (including BAB, character level, etc) instead of just skills and so I could make it be at different break points. --Ghostwheel 19:05, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * For the lazy way: read this. I know many casters who don't have Spell Penetration, so 25% SR is still relevant. Also, Tarkisflux, isn't it a little bit odd to compare a single feat with a feat chain? --Foxwarrior 19:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The feat tag used on this was defined in RoW, and making feats that don't follow that intent and definition makes them inappropriate for the tag IMO. There is an expectation for feats with a specific tag to be similar, and I don't think that's unreasonable. That doesn't mean they have to be really really good, as you could make it a moderate balance feat with moderate balance abilities, like most of these already are, and then it's not really really good. Better than regular feats, probably, but that's the whole damn point of this feat type. And you can then say that in your games you can take moderate scaling feats or high regular feats and call it a day.


 * If you want to make it accept different break points, you can just use the normal feat template with a long section for the |benefit= . If you want a set of custom formatting for these sorts of feats, you can make a new template (borrowing from here, or the [Archetype] feats, or whatever) or ask someone to make one for that.


 * And no Fox, it's not odd to compare a single feat with a feat chain given the intended function of the type. [Skill] and [Combat] feats are intended to replace chains. It's in the writeup. - Tarkisflux Talk 19:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * One more thing. The Tome category is not an excuse to ignore or apply a different standard of balance ratings. The balance of a feat is determined on it's own, Tome is just a category to connect it with a set of sourcebooks. Ghost rated most of the Tome [Skill] feats, and set a bunch of them to High. This doesn't keep up with them. Now, maybe Detective (3.5e Feat) and Deft Fingers (3.5e Feat) should be Very High instead, but this compares badly with them and there's no reason it should. If you want to apply a different standard, it needs a different type or you need to make an argument that the type of a feat doesn't mean anything. - Tarkisflux Talk 19:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * If you wanted to make a scaling feat that can key off of whatever you want, at whatever levels you want, and doesn't link to the Tome Skill Feats page in the type, there's a template for that now: Template:3.5e Scaling Feat. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)