Feats granting NPC qualities?

[Sletchman]

Is there any guidelines to how much XP worth of NPC qualities a feat can / should grant?  I'm thinking of 5xp per feat, maybe more for higher tiered feats.  Oh and these would be specific qualities, not "Hey heres 7xp, cut loose."

Anyone know? Or have any examples of existing feats that do it?

[glimmerrat]

Oh and these would be specific qualities, not "Hey heres 7xp, cut loose."

For a higher tier feat that would work if you limited it to a choice of 10 qualities. You could say that half of all points spent must go on superior attribute if you want to limit diversity even more.

[Wolverine]

You might also want to think about including other mechanics in the feat, not just the quality. Alternately, you could package two or more low cost qualities together.

Example:

Carrot-Rich Diet
You firmly believe that eating carrots helps you see at night. It does, but also gives you a wicked overbite.
Benefit: You gain the Low-Light Vision and Natural Attack (Bite 1) NPC qualities.

How does that sound?

[glimmerrat]

Lol! Someone had damn well better wiki that feat!

[samsimilian]

You might also want to think about including other mechanics in the feat, not just the quality. Alternately, you could package two or more low cost qualities together.

Example:

Carrot-Rich Diet
You firmly believe that eating carrots helps you see at night. It does, but also gives you a wicked overbite.
Benefit: You gain the Low-Light Vision and Natural Attack (Bite 1) NPC qualities.

How does that sound?

 

[Sletchman]

You might also want to think about including other mechanics in the feat, not just the quality. Alternately, you could package two or more low cost qualities together.

Example:

Carrot-Rich Diet
You firmly believe that eating carrots helps you see at night. It does, but also gives you a wicked overbite.
Benefit: You gain the Low-Light Vision and Natural Attack (Bite 1) NPC qualities.

How does that sound?

My first one is sorta:

Shapeshifting Basics
Benefit: You gain the Augmented: Cal 1 Disguise Kit NPC Quality, further all your Falsify: Disguise checks targeting yourself take half the standard time.
Special: You may only use your built in disguise kit on yourself.

That will go into a mastery [granting a cal 2 kit, and reducing penalties] and a supremacy [reduce time to 1 full action, and remove penalties wholesale].

This is one of many I'm working on atm, I'm gonna try and run Mutants and Mastercraft [see what I did there?]

Edit: Love that feat too by the way.

[Crafty_Alex]

Is there any guidelines to how much XP worth of NPC qualities a feat can / should grant?  I'm thinking of 5xp per feat, maybe more for higher tiered feats.  Oh and these would be specific qualities, not "Hey heres 7xp, cut loose."

Anyone know? Or have any examples of existing feats that do it?

Generally, granting NPC qualities through feats is a bit more art than science, as the NPC system was designed to run alongside the player characters, while allowing NPCs to also break some of the constrictions applied to PCs (usually, in order to survive the first 3 combat rounds with a full team ). 5 XP is pretty close to the mark for what a feat should grant, but I would be exceedingly hesitant about giving PCs a pool of XP to add to their character. Glimmerrat's example of superior attribute is a perfect example: generally, +2 to an attribute is considered roughly equivalent to a feat, but if a PC had access to superior attribute and 5 XP, he could grab 5 points in an attribute instead! Likewise, there are "power" qualities which are awesome for masterminds and other special NPCs that can break/un-fun a game pretty quickly in PCs' hands (some of which you'll be seeing pretty soon in Fantasy Craft ). And then there's the consideration that if a feat or game option is open to one PC, and the power level is very high, as a designer you should extrapolate that an entire *team* might grab it. Ugly So a designer, my personal rule is only allow specific NPC qualities through player character options. Just cleaner that way.

All that said, however, you and Wolvie have got the right idea. When a quality or set of qualities are built into an option with a fairly rigid structure which focuses on effects and points, you can do some pretty cool stuff. Fantasy Craft does a number of very cool things with NPC qualities on player characters through Species Feats which can drastically alter the way a PC operates in just a few tweaks. However, those options are always structured (like your feats) to emulate of a specific experience that can't easily be done through other venues.