D&D 4E 4E feats vs Essential Feats. A list?

[SSquirrel]

Has anyone worked up a comparative list between the 4E and the Essentials feats showing the Essentials feats that are just flat out better than the corresponding 4E ones, as well as the ones that had no previous comparison? Everyone in the Dark Sun game I just joined is using the old CB and after spending a bit of time w/the new CB tonite, the DM doesn't like it at all and wants to disallow all Essentials only feats, since the rest of the group would not have access short of someone paying for DDI.

For those who are curious about why the DM disliked the CB, he didn't like that you couldn't build PCs w/non-standard races (We have a Kenku in the group) and Dark Sun optional classes. He has both a Cleric and a Paladin in the group and I think he has that as a "bringing back a god" campaign theme. So of the 6 pcs in the group, fully 1/2 would be able to be made. The Shardmind Psion, Genasi Swordmage (me) and Human Ranger (my wife) are just fine.

So yeah, if anyone has a list of feats like I was wondering about, I'd love to browse it.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

Has anyone worked up a comparative list between the 4E and the Essentials feats showing the Essentials feats that are just flat out better than the corresponding 4E ones, as well as the ones that had no previous comparison? Everyone in the Dark Sun game I just joined is using the old CB and after spending a bit of time w/the new CB tonite, the DM doesn't like it at all and wants to disallow all Essentials only feats, since the rest of the group would not have access short of someone paying for DDI.

For those who are curious about why the DM disliked the CB, he didn't like that you couldn't build PCs w/non-standard races (We have a Kenku in the group) and Dark Sun optional classes. He has both a Cleric and a Paladin in the group and I think he has that as a "bringing back a god" campaign theme. So of the 6 pcs in the group, fully 1/2 would be able to be made. The Shardmind Psion, Genasi Swordmage (me) and Human Ranger (my wife) are just fine.

So yeah, if anyone has a list of feats like I was wondering about, I'd love to browse it.

You guys do realize that Essentials is just more options for 4th edition. It contains the most up to date errata/updates as well.

So Essentials feats are 4th edition feats.

 

[DracoSuave]

I don't see the correlation between 'Character Builder' and 'Viability of Essentials Feats.'

the subtle subtext here is that relying on CB, new or old, as the source of what is 'legal' or 'balanced' in your game seems to me to be lazy, given that most problems this would create can be solved with a pencil and eraser--you probably need those to game anyways.

 

[SSquirrel]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/mithreinmaethor.htmlMithreinmaethor> Yes I realize this, I pointed out that Essentials characters are equal to 4E ones, they just have several less options.

DracoSuave>They use the original offline CB, thus, they don't have access to the Essentials stuff as it wasn't added to the CB until after the online version came out. Then again neither was Dark Sun. I never used the offline CB tho, so I'm guessing it was more flexible in building characters and let you do homebrew stuff that the new one won't.

 

[DracoSuave]

Ah.

Still, while it's okay for a couple feats and powers here and there, using Character Builder as primary reference often ends in a lot of trouble down the road.

Always use the books, Character Builder is just a tool. Both are buggy, and not always accurate.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Has anyone worked up a comparative list between the 4E and the Essentials feats showing the Essentials feats that are just flat out better than the corresponding 4E ones, ...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5418251-post22.html

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Hello, SSquirrel!

Its ironic that the blog I posted earlier today on this site just happened to be about this similar issue regarding the inherent confusion of the Essentials products. I even used feats as a primary example to try illustrating this point. Coincidence, or fate? You decide!

Seriously, though. I understand where your DM is coming from on this one. It is much easier to completely excise the extraneous and redundant material from Essentials as a whole rather than spend a lot of time nit-picking over what is and isn't acceptable in his campaign. Unlike other supplement material, Essentials carries a lot of conflicting and overlapping options that has left many of us wondering whether it is just a revision or an expansion. WotC tells us one thing, suggesting that everything works perfectly with previous material, but so far has avoided showing us how they deal with it themselves.

Actually, they have been showing us one way: Leave everything else behind and just use the Essentials. Nice.

But going back to your original request, I think the most obvious difference in the new feats are the ones dealing with Weapon and Implement Expertise. The original rules version does basically the same thing as the Essentials version. It provides a feat bonus to attack rolls with a specific weapon group or implement chosen by the player, and increased with every tier. The Essentials version, however, added an extra benefit based on the weapon or implement chosen. Even armor had expertise feats in Essentials which rounded out a very clean and concise collection for the system. The original rules, on the other hand, offered a few variations of the same thing to try and compensate for a few short-sighted ideas, like using weapons as implements for some classes. Overall, the Essentials version were much nicer and clearly superior to the older models.

Beyond that, I believe most of the other feats remained basically the same as before, though some were better worded and clarified for users. The problem most people seem to have (myself included) is deciding whether the revised and improved options of Essentials is meant to override or coexist with the original rules. As I pointed out, WotC hasn't exactly been coming forward with any straight answers and appears to be side-stepping that issue altogether. So basically what it comes down to is individual assessment and initiative.

And do not let people on message boards tell you otherwise; what one group does in their own game is completely their own choice. At least nobody can take that away from us.

 

[SSquirrel]

Thanks for the link Peraion and I will read the blog Jacob. Of course using the CB means you get the post-errata version of spells like Magic Missile whether you want to or not heh. Pluses and minuses to the CB.

On a plus side, the beta Monster Builder seems pretty nice so far. With all the extra spots for more tools, I'm hoping that eventually the CB will return to that method and allow updates w/an account signin.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a contrasting point of view I don't think there is really any significant confusion. Same named elements in Essentials replace existing elements in 4e. Presumably errata may be issued at some point covering that. In the meantime if Essentials rules are available then those elements should follow that text. To keep his life simple the DM may just stick with the pre-Essentials stuff for the time being until CB is entirely ironed out, but it really isn't necessary. The differences are going to be generally minor. Sure, you get some extra benefit with an Essentials Expertise feat, but the benefit is neither unprecedented nor large. In fact in many cases they tend to more designed to make the player's life easier by simplifying ways to get certain effects and often allow for Essentials classes to do things that otherwise they wouldn't be able to do. In a few other cases the newer feats simply obviate the need for having several nearly identical feats (the defense feats for instance). MANY people have played both types of characters side-by-side and have few issues.

Also if you look at the Essentials classes they are a lot easier to build. CB is less needed, though still handy. As Dracosuave says you really need to understand how feats and other features interact anyway since neither CB is entirely accurate and in any case it really pays to understand WHY the character has specific numbers. CB is nice for putting characters together, and it is unfortunate some combinations of elements aren't yet supported, but going over the numbers by hand is never going to go away. Mostly you just save a lot of time filling out the basics with the CB.

 

[GameDoc]

For those who are curious about why the DM disliked the CB, he didn't like that you couldn't build PCs w/non-standard races (We have a Kenku in the group) and Dark Sun optional classes. He has both a Cleric and a Paladin in the group and I think he has that as a "bringing back a god" campaign theme. So of the 6 pcs in the group, fully 1/2 would be able to be made. The Shardmind Psion, Genasi Swordmage (me) and Human Ranger (my wife) are just fine.

IIRC you can build such characters in the new CB if you use the custom/home campaign option. The entire content of 4e is available so you could make a Kenku Cavalier with a Dark Sun theme. But if you select Dark Sun or Essentials it will limit you to the content of those product lines.