Clutter

[Kzach]

So I just read through the Dwarves DDI article and came here to comment only to find that everybody had already thought what I'd thought and posted it. In other words, I felt there were a lot of feats that were obviously useless or overshadowed.

The term I hadn't come across yet for this phenomena, was 'clutter'.

It immediately sparked the thought that there is a hell of a lot of clutter in the Character Builder. Searching for feats is becoming burdensome. There is so much repetition and redundancy that it can often feel overwhelming to plod through them all.

So I'm wondering if there is maybe a master list somewhere or if maybe we should discuss just which feats are so situational or overshadowed that they really need to be excised from the Character Builder. Or better, a master list of the stand-out feats that overshadow all the others.

We could call it... Advanced Dungeons & Dragons!

 

[Jack99]

Been thinking of doing just that. Once Essentials are out, using that as a base, I am going to make a cleaner version for my players. Of course, it will also give me the chance to weed out certain items and feats that are plain annoying

 

[Aegeri]

You'll be like the architect in the matrix, carefully pulling all the strings and nobody will be any wiser!

 

[darkadelphia]

I just read charop handbooks and ignore anything not listed there. It's much easier to process those options than the thousands of situational, non-applicable, or useless feats listed on CB. I'm sure I'm missing some cool options, but I just don't have time.

 

[DonAdam]

I had some thoughts on clutter here.

I wish there was a much more robust system for including and excluding content in the character builder.

For example, I want to include the swordmage but exclude Realms-specific feats (Ghostwise, Sun Elf, etc.).

I want to be able to exclude things by kind, by setting, by issue, and especially by article.

I want the feats categorized more thoroughly. I like that I can close the window on weapon styles. Too many feats go under "general." I want to be able to exclude by category of feat.

I want some way to see feats that require high ability scores in the character builder so I don't have to have prior knowledge of their existence before setting out to build the character.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Having ALL the feats would be advanced. Having only those you need would be Essential.

 

[jbear]

It would be cool to be able to check off unwanted/uninteresting feats for each character. That way you could just leave a list of feats you could possibly be interested in, sweeping away the clutter. Those that you check off become hidden, much like illegal feats are.

My ranger is very unlikely to be interested in Hafted Defense ever, but there it is. Of course my Polearm wielding Warlord probably wants that feat but will never consider Two-weapon Fighting. So clearing feats would have to remain specific to each character.

 

[Jor-El]

For me, that's the thing with the CB. It's a great tool for crafting your characters...if you already know what you want to build, and are familiar with the options.

But set a player in front of it who hasn't kept up with all the splats and articles, and let them wade through all the options...takes FOREVER.

 

[Nebten]

The problem is so many of them I feel are just useless because they only get activated when you crit and the effects arn't that great. And that seems to be the cheap and dirty way to create a feat: Feat=Crit+ add a condition. I'm going to take a poll this weekend where we will have around 9-10 players at paragon level and see how many of them took a feat that activates with a crit roll. With over 50 feat slots, I'm sure the % will be very low if not 0.

 

[P1NBACK]

It's true. I mostly DM, but sometimes I'll sit down and make up a character. I usually don't follow every new feat or build that comes out, so I get overwhelmed easily.

I like that WotC are starting to combat that by breaking down feats into "types" of feats instead of tiers and races, etc...

So, you might have a category of feats, "These feats impact forced movement" or "these feats make you quicker" or "these feats improve your crits" etc...