Feats Only: An Overview

Someone around here talked about making race just a feat you took at first level. After all, humans get an extra feat at 1st level (in 3rd and 4th eds). It makes sense that race is the equivalent of a feat.

This got me thinking about taking the idea further. In some editions, there are racial classes (whether they're racial kits that make elven knights different from dwarven knights or you actually take a level in "elf"). I really like this, since it kind of fleshes out the "typical" member of a race without making them all 0 level or what have you. It also sets PCs apart from typical members.

So what if you could take your "race" as a feat at 1st level. This includes the basics: elf, dwarf, hafling, human, etc. At subsequent levels, you could take other racial feats that have the "core" racial feat as a prerequisite. So at first level you take "elf" which gives you infravision and maybe something else. Then, when you get another feat, you could take a feat to make you a grey elf, or a drow, or whatever. But you'd have to have "elf" first. So you couldn't be a dwarf and take "drow". Your race would come first, followed by any subrace/culture/environmental stuff. And you could build some type of feat tree if you really wanted.

Taking this further, why not make class a feat as well? What if everyone gets 1d4 hit points per level. But if at 1st level you took "fighter" as a class feat and it gave you 1d10 instead of 1d4. Then you could take other feats that have fighter as a prereq (like weapon training, armor training, more attacks per round, higher damage, etc.)

If you took wizard instead, you get the ability to cast spells, but not any HP bump. Further feats could include better casting, the ability to create magic items, school specialization, etc.

If we combine them, we could potentially link the old "favored" class with a core racial feat ability like, "As an elf, when you gain a new racial feat, you may choose from the elf or wizard feats."

Progression then becomes just a series of feats:

1st level - choose 1 racial feat and 1 class feat
2nd level - choose 1 class feat
3rd level - choose 1 racial feat
4th level - choose 1 "free" feat (something like skill training, movement related feats, improved initiative, multiclass, etc.)
5th level - choose 1 class feat
6th level - choose 1 racial feat
etc...

I want to do some more thinking about this. But I think it might be neat to do. It could draw on the player's option stuff from 2nd ed, 3rd ed stuff, 4th ed stuff as a base and then take things further.