Buying New Feats

It doesn't matter how many feats your character has, it will never be enough. The House Rules give players the option to 'buy' extra feats with their experience points. This is consistant with the XP cost for creating permanent magical items, and playing a more powerful race. Players should be careful to note the difference between their Earned and Current XP totals on their character sheet (see section on Experience).

The cost of buying an extra feat increases arithmetically the more feats that are purchased. The logic behind this is that an extra one or two feats are not particularly game destabilising, but the more feats a player buys the more advantage that character gains. Buying a carefully selected number feats may open up options to player characters, such as qualifying for prestige classes at earlier levels.

The table below summarises the cost of buying feats in this manner:

The XP Cost in the table is cumulative. A player who buys four extra feats would actully pay 5000 experience points for the privelege (500 + 1000 + 1500 + 2000). A player who purchases twenty extra feats would have to find 105,000 XP. These rules are designed to give players greater flexibility in creating their characters, but abusing them can be expensive.

Limitations

The option to buy a feat with your experience points is not a right. It is entirely at the option of the GM whether he allows this. In general there has to be a good game related reason for the purchase. To take an example from my Iourn campaign, INdran plays the generally uncharismatic monk, Raza. Circumstances conspired to place Raza as rightful heir to the throne of Norandor and the head of a small lycanthrope-hunting army. INdran wanted Raza to have the Leadership feat but he was two levels away from getting a new feat. In these circumstances I ruled that there was nothing wrong with INdran buying a feat with his experience points.

I would also be lenient if buying a feat was essential to qualify for a certain prestige class. This would particularly be the case if the feat was, in and of itself quite useless such as Toughness for the Dwarven Defender class, or True Believer for the Pious Templar. However, simply wanting a feat because it makes your character more powerful is not a good enough reason. It must be justified in game terms.

Also, the maximum number of extra feats that can be purchased in this manner is equal to the character level of the PC (or NPC) in question. Therefore, a seventh level character could not have any more than seven extra feats. Starting characters cannot benefit from these rules as they have no experience to spend.

Epic Feats

The mechanic for purchasing epic feats with experience points works in much the same way. However, because epic feats are so much more powerful than normal feats the cost is doubled. For example, a character whose fifth extra feat was an epic feat would pay 5000 XP for it, not 2500 XP. However, if he went onto buy a sixth feat that was not epic, it would still only cost 3000 XP.