Talents

[Velius]

This may take a bit to code, but here goes...

Everyone has talents, am I right? Well, I think that when you create your character, you should be able to put in somehow 'my character is talented at this' or 'my character is born with this'.

Well, let me begin like this. I know much about drow, and a lot of people say that drow are meant to grow up and be masters of dual wield, this is not true. There are many different styles of fighting in which drow fight, and here is one of them, called the Draa Velve:

Draa Velve
Only a few dark elves in each city practice the draa velve style because the natural ability needed for this style is very rare. The name means "two sword," and it involves an amazing balance of control between the two hands. Followers of this style fight with a weapon in each hand and use one of the weapons to parry as well as attack, which means the parrying weapon also acts much like a shield. Some dark elves without perfect balance in both hands study the basics of this style, hoping to eventually master it through intense training or magic. Drizzt Do'Urden is a master of this style since he has the natural talent and also because he received training by a house weapon master.

The point I'm getting at? People are born with this ability. Now then, here is what I propose.

When in character creation after you pick your hometown, you are taken to another option and allowed to choose a 'talent' which will make your character more unique. Different talents will be opened up to different race/classes, and you may only pick one.

A talent would boost your ability to do something, raise your resistances, etc. The name may also be misleading for a few (F.E. The ability to resist the cold is not a talent)

A few examples of talents:

Northman's Resistance -
Requirements - must be human
Description - You are from the North and are more resistant to cold than others. This talent raises your cold resistance.

Two-Weapon Mastery -
Requirements - Must be a warrior or rogue
Description - You are very balanced and thus are able to fight whilst armed with 2 weapons better than most. You are given dual wield bonuses when you recieve this talant.

etc.

What do people think of this?

[Horace]

I don't think it'd require any more coding than writing more feats. Since there are few feats that you must get before X level, and generally those have more to do with inherent traits much like the talents you're suggesting.

If we keep them as feats, it also allows players to decide to take a generic feat as opposed to forcing them to pick from a talent list that may not suit them.

[Kregor]

Yes, they're called regional feats in the D&D Forgotten Realms supplements. These are feats that have to be taken at the start of your career (before level 5 in FK) that are tied to a certain hometown or region. You have the option to take it, or not, reflecting that characters from that area have a tendency for it, but it's not a given, and allows the character to spend differently.

And yes, that is a valid suggestion as we're looking into boosting the feat selection now with the new combat and save systems in place.