Additions to Wizard Bonus Feats Choice

[Steve]

Hello,

As a suggestion, how about adding some additions to the Wizard Bonus Feats (at levels 5, 10, 15, etc.), such as:

- Improved Familiar feat
- Counterspelling line of feats

I'm not able to say if these additions would be seen as too powerful for these Bonus feat levels, but considering they are very Wizard oriented type Feats, perhaps they would actually be appropriate choices to add.

Thank you for considering.

[DaloLorn]

Hoo boy. This was part of the last big controversies while I was still on staff.

Strictly speaking, there's only three classes of feat that belong on the wizard list: Metamagics, crafting feats, and Spell Mastery (though this last one isn't actually available, and Rhi planned to substitute it with something else like bonus spell slots). There was a point during development of the mage patch where Rhi intended to reduce the wizard list to those three feat types and nothing else. No spell foci, no reserve feats, nothing. The epic wizard list would be broader, as is the norm in PnP, but still a fair bit narrower than it is today... and possibly only accessible if you're actually an epic wizard, I can't remember.

After a lot of heated debate, primarily spearheaded by the DMs of the time, this and an adjacent fighter-list overhaul were toned down somewhat. I'm fuzzy on the specifics, but the new lists would still be internally consistent (in a way that the current lists often aren't), only including a feat if it met certain conditions.

Then the mage patch was shelved and we (briefly, as it turns out) transitioned to Git, leaving it all behind.

TL;DR: There are very good cases to be made for any of the possible reactions to this proposal. It's unfortunately not as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be.

[Steve]

Interesting.

I'd be interested in hearing why a Feat such as Improved Familiar would be "out of place" for a Wizard Bonus Feat?

I'm all for strict PnP Rules, but...if peeps want to be strict, then let's be strict, and go across the whole board, for all mechanics!!!

[DaloLorn]

I'm not on staff anymore, nor fundamentally opposed to the notion of fulfilling your request in its entirety, so I'm not really qualified to answer that question. (Not to mention it's presuming that the current staff attitude is that those feats don't belong!)

I was just trying to temper your expectations a bit, is all.