The sworn enemy feat gives non-combat boosts against a certain group. However, lets say a player wants to play a barbarian that is reeeaaaally good at killing lizard-folk. Sworn enemy doesn’t cover it. There are feats which give attacks an advantage under a particular context but not against a given type of enemy.
So here’s a small proposition:
Get their head Cost: 3 points
Prerequisites
Tier 1-2: none
Description: Maybe you’ve encountered these dark gnomes a lot of times before, or maybe these space orcs have a weakness of which you are very aware. Either way, you’re good at killing them.
Effect: Choose a species, race or faction (undead, orcs, Harlock’s crew, etc.):
Tier 1 - You gain advantage 1 on physical or extraordinary attacks made against members of the chosen group;
Tier 2 - You gain advantage 1 on all banes invoked against members of the chosen group;
Special
In addition to purchasing multiple tiers of this feat, you may take this feat multiple times and select a new group each time.
So here it is! Tell me what you think, if there’s already something that does this (I’ve checked a couple of times just to make sure there isn’t, but we never know!), if it makes sense, etc.
2 tiers would make it very much not worth it on this. You should just be able to take it multiple times.
I actually proposed a couple of options for this at the time when it was being discussed.
This was one:
Cost: 2 points Prerequisites
Tier 1 - 9: None Description
You are expertly focused on fighting with a particular species, race, or faction. Effect
Choose a species … etc etc
You gain advantage 1 per tier of this feat to any non-mental attribute rolls pertaining to your chosen group.
Special
In addition… feat multiple times… etc etc
Not the 3 points for the feat, b/c it is only for a certain group. Maybe 2 is too high?
the etc etc would match the wording on other such feats about taking it multiple times not only to increase the Advantage level but also for different groups.
Makes sense! I was looking for a way to add some sort of progression when upgrading. But the quoted sentence simplifies it.
A cost of 1 might be low? I don’t really know for sure yet. Sworn enemy has a cost of 1, but the feat here is linked to damage/banes, so maybe a cost of 2 is justified. Then again, as you’ve said, it is only for a chosen group.
The reason the Core Rules don’t have this is because it’s very easy to argue that I take “humans” as a racial enemy and then expect to get advantage often.
Also, giving out a bonus like this is problematic because it’s very easy for characters to shape the story around a particular enemy, making this very often come into play.
Whatever you do, definitely do not make this feat cost 1 point would be my advice.
Oh man, I can see a scenario from here: «Well! Your character is level 1, has Favored Enemy (Humans, Tier VI), so there ya go, advantage 6 against humans!»
But to be serious, I suppose a slight modification to the possible groups (something like non-humanoids instead of any) wouldn’t be too game-breaking-ee.
As for the characters’ story, I guess it also depends on where the DM sends the players and what monsters are thrown on the table.
The GM sets the feat cost within the campaign, depending on how common the species/race/faction is (combining damage and banes into one feat):
a. 1 point - rare enemy
b. 2 points - uncommon enemy
c. 3 points - common enemy
d. Not Allowed - very common NPCs, such as “race: human” in campaigns where human is the default race
Unlike Sworn Enemy, this feat can only be taken 3 times for a given enemy.
I know this is an old thread, but something just came up in my game that makes this important. One of my players wanted to play a “turn undead” paladin. His idea of this character was similar to the character he was playing in Skyrim at the time. Unfortunately as mentioned above, Sworn enemy does not give advantage in cases of combat. Thus, I homebrewed this feat for him.
Mortal Foe
Cost: 2
Prerequisites: Tier 1 - Sworn Enemy
Description: Whether through heavy research, or years of fighting, you are particularly skilled at fighting a certain type of enemy. Perhaps you are a holy paladin, devoted to destroying the undead, or a former prisoner of the Ulrak, and during your imprisonment, you learned their weaknesses.
Effect: When making an attack of any kind against a target that can be applied to your Sworn Enemy feat, you gain the advantage bonus that you would normally gain on a mental roll. This combat advantage has a maximum of 3.
Special: If you have multiple instances of Sworn Enemy, this feat must be applied to each Sworn Enemy individually.
Tell me what you think. I limited the maximum advantage to 3 to make the feat not too overpowered. I think that a 2 cost is reasonable, considering this feat is not very versatile at all, and even if the chosen mortal foe is integral to the story, the GM always determines the type of foe the PCs come across. Any decent GM should be able to keep a player using Mortal Foe from becoming a wrecking ball.
In regards to the concern of players selecting a broad group to be their sworn enemy (humans, dragons, etc.) I think the simple solution to this is for the GM to inform the player that it is impossible to be equally good in combat against all the different types of these creatures. For example, when fighting a human monk, one must take a completely different approach to combat as opposed to fighting a human warlock, regardless of them both being human.
Overall I’d say it looks solid. I like that you have tied it to Sworn enemy, and while the cap on the amount of advantage feels artificial to some degree, it still seems necessary to prevent people from getting too many “cheap” advantages from feats.
I suppose the other way to do it, is keep the tied to Sworn, but just change it to a Tier 3 Feat that has a cost of 1.
This way you are still spending a total of 3 Feat points for each advantage (2 from sworn + 1 from this feat). It would change the feat to being a cost of 3 if you want all 3 advantage.
Not sure if that is better than the present way it is worded, but it would make the limit of Advantage 3 not be artificial.
The reason I worded it as such and made it artificial is because it is tied to Sworn Enemy. I think making it cost 3 to get advantage 3 is too expensive considering how limited in scope the feat is. I would look at it as if one was making a piece of extraordinary equipment, by asking the four questions. is it…Common? Versatile? Powerful? Limiting? The ability to be good against one type of enemy is only one of these four, powerful. This feat will make your character powerful, but only in certain circumstances. A perfect example of this is the Helm of Goblin Bane. The helm does only one thing, scare goblins. While it is fairly good at scaring goblins, like the descriptors say, it will not find common use (PCs may not encounter goblins for multiple sessions), it is not versatile (all it can do is make you better at inflicting a specific type of enemy with fear), it is limiting (your advantage can only be applied to goblins). Because the feat requires such specific scenarios, but it still gives combat bonuses, I think it merits a cost 2 and max advantage of 3.