The redefinition of feats.

[Herschel]

For instance, feats like improved trip or whirlwind attack allowed you to do those things all the time at any time. Apart from the very tiny number of at-will powers, you are limited to doing those kind of things once per encounter.

But certain types of characters do get them as At-Wills. My Swordmage can Whirlwind Attack any time he wants with Sword Burst. Not all "fighters" can do it any more but all "fighters" are not under the same role any more either. If I want to do certain things, I just pick the class/role that allows me to do so.

 

[Stalker0]

But certain types of characters do get them as At-Wills. My Swordmage can Whirlwind Attack any time he wants with Sword Burst. Not all "fighters" can do it any more but all "fighters" are not under the same role any more either. If I want to do certain things, I just pick the class/role that allows me to do so.

This is an important distinction in 4e. In 3e any character can have whirlwind attack, provided they have a 13 int a truckload of feats. So in most cases, whirlwind attack was a class feature of the fighter. However, the fighter's flavor was so generic you could add whirlwind attack to a lot of flavor concepts if you wanted to.

In 4e, you can mimic some of these abilities but through specific classes, however you can do them much earlier in the game. A swordmage can be a whirling dervish right out of the gate. However you take some of the flavor benefit (baggage depending on your point of view) along with it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My problem with the feats is not so much the feats themselves as the organization. I like the idea that certain races can get better things through feats. I loved it in Arcana Evolved, and I have no reason to dislike it in 4E. But with the long length of the class chapter (powers) and the relatively short length of the feat chapter, I see no real reason why the feats are put together. Sure, you can look through one place to get your feats, but that isn't so hot a choice when most of the list is full of things that don't apply. I know--there really isn't a good way to organize them in a book that would solve the issue.

I think the confusion is a sign of a design flaw--not a gaping hole in the design, but a subtle thing that has not so subtle consequences. Namely, they had a really good shot here to make another orthogonal axis in the design but passed on it. You've got abilities. You've got classes (and powers). Ditto races, skills, rituals. Some elements overlap a bit (e.g. fighters want a high strength), but each element is mostly orthogonal to the others. Mix and match, and you get a character. Feats--whether they add new abilities or bonuses it really doesn't matter--tack onto this structure while being highly dependent on it. Multiclassing suffers the same way (perhaps because it is feat based).

Sure, one way to change that is to make feats more generally applicable and have them add new abilities. I think I might have preferred that they rolled obvious race or class options into the races and classes, and then built a separate largely independent axis that incorporated multiclassing, general feats, etc. Or maybe that is merely my design preferences showing.

 

[Remathilis]

This is an important distinction in 4e. In 3e any character can have whirlwind attack, provided they have a 13 int a truckload of feats. So in most cases, whirlwind attack was a class feature of the fighter. However, the fighter's flavor was so generic you could add whirlwind attack to a lot of flavor concepts if you wanted to.

In 4e, you can mimic some of these abilities but through specific classes, however you can do them much earlier in the game. A swordmage can be a whirling dervish right out of the gate. However you take some of the flavor benefit (baggage depending on your point of view) along with it.

Which is a good and bad thing, IMHO.

On the one hand, it allows some classes to have specific feels (rangers as archers, rogues and mobility, fighters and shield-fighting) but it also removes some archetypes (dual-wielding rogues, spring-attacking barbarians). I'd love to see some more archetype expansion and if feats are the method, then something needs to be.

 

[Skallgrim]

Sure, one way to change that is to make feats more generally applicable and have them add new abilities. I think I might have preferred that they rolled obvious race or class options into the races and classes, and then built a separate largely independent axis that incorporated multiclassing, general feats, etc. Or maybe that is merely my design preferences showing.

I think that this idea (incorporating race and class options into the race/class) isn't a bad one, but a bad one for D&D's publishing model.

D&D doesn't produce all of their races, or classes, at one time. They will introduce new races (which fit into old classes) and new classes (which are available to both old and new races) all the time. Thus, it is untenable to roll the race combinations into the classes (since you don't know all the races when you design the class), or roll the class combinations into the races, etc.

In another system (or even in a different business model of D&D) where there are no supplemental books introducing either new races, or new classes, this would be possible, desirable, and probably very well received.

I think that sometimes (in particular, when a person is pretty intelligent, as most of the posters have seemed to be), we (as a group) run up against the tension between good game design, and good product design. A well designed game would include all of the possible character generation rules in the intial rulebook(s). Then, you could produce additional books which showed you HOW to combine those rules to make particular characters, but which did not actually introduce any new rules.

However, that system is really bad for introducing new books which actually sell. Most buyers, over the years, of D&D books seem to really, really want new rules in their new books. Some players will buy a book which is entirely setting and background, but it really, really sells a book when there are new races, classes, powers, and feats in that book. It may make the rule process messier (and boy, does it) but it is a surefire way to boost the potential sales of the book.

GURPS almost accomplished this (they left some stuff out, so had to roll it into Powers, and Magic is it's own ball of twine), but GURPS also sells many, many fewer books than D&D. That is fine, as they are operating under a different business model.


That's a long way of saying that the initial observation is both correct, and perceptive, but probably didn't happen NOT because it was a good idea, but because it conflicted with the way WOTC sells books (which is not to demonize WOTC).

 

[Pseudopsyche]

For instance, feats like improved trip or whirlwind attack allowed you to do those things all the time at any time. Apart from the very tiny number of at-will powers, you are limited to doing those kind of things once per encounter.

Secondly, 4e feats are not all about little bonuses - the wizard feats which allow you to start a close blast Dex mod squares away from you, or the wizard feat which allows you to put Wis mod 'holes' in your burst or blast are pretty major benefits, beyond anything that you saw in feats in 3.5e

Oh, I would certainly agree that 3E feats and 4E feats are very different. I only meant to suggest that the purpose of 4E feats is a subset of the purpose of 3E feats in the very general sense that feats in both versions modify existing capabilities, but some 3E feats also add additional capabilities. In 4E, adding additional capabilities falls squarely under the purview of powers. For that reason, I think that any comparison of 3E feats with 4E feats is incomplete without considering 4E powers.

FWIW I find myself annoyed by the number of race+class specific feats. The big problem is that most of the time you don't really have much of a choice of feats because there are so few things that will actually fit your existing race/class/ability scores.

I wholeheartedly agree. I wish that the PHB devoted the space mostly to feats that are more generally applicable, leaving most of the more specialized feats to Dragon articles or appropriate splats. Of course, I suppose that then people would be complaining that WotC missed an opportunity to help players differentiate the classes and races better!

 

[Pseudopsyche]

On the one hand, it allows some classes to have specific feels (rangers as archers, rogues and mobility, fighters and shield-fighting) but it also removes some archetypes (dual-wielding rogues, spring-attacking barbarians). I'd love to see some more archetype expansion and if feats are the method, then something needs to be.

For better or worse, it looks like WotC is adding archetypes via books like Martial Power, which added dual-wielding fighters and animal-companion rangers. I wonder if they could introduce something in between a class-specific build and a feat, like a dual-wielding build for any martial class. But I suppose that would require all the class builds to be balanced against one another across classes instead of just within classes.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

This is another thing about the new "feats" that adds to my feeling about them morphing into class abilities. Multiclassing into another class via feat is supposed to grant you access to feats which require that class, no? Yet almost all of the feats for a class also require a class ability, thereby locking out multiclassers...

Is this a bad thing? My Druid would love to take 'Enlarge Spell', ditching pretty much any other feat I have in favor of the multi-class... all to turn my Grasping Tide at-will burst 1 into a burst 2. Somehow I think {and my DM agrees}, that would just be nasty.

 

[IceFractal]

Why would it be too nasty? Wizards have a lot of burst spells (including an at-will) that can benefit from Enlarge Spell, and Druids are controllers too. At least half of the class/race specific feats have no actual reason to be that specific - they don't apply to something only that class/race has. Actually, the theory that they restrict them to reduce playtesting needed and increase the number of feats they can print seems pretty likely.

 

[Stalker0]

For better or worse, it looks like WotC is adding archetypes via books like Martial Power, which added dual-wielding fighters and animal-companion rangers.

This is actually one of the major design differences between the two systems.

3e's model is: "We don't know what you want, so we are going to let you throw stuff together until you get what you want." - This mainly through multiclassing. You get a lot of flexibility, but some concepts just fall on their face.

4e's model is: "We will make lots of classes and builds for each archetype, and craft it so it will work great for you. Just give us enough time and splatbooks and you'll have it all" - The idea here is that 4e provides a more limited scope of archetypes, but each one is good to go and will work in the game with no major balance issues. The downside is that people have more trouble making the inbetween archetypes, and have to wait longer to play certain archetypes.

As in most cases, both have their advantages.