D&D 4E 4e, Non-Martial Characters, and Limited Feat Choices

[WalterKovacs]

This is a strawman. No one in this thread has ever tried to compare the choice to anything other than the choice of the 3e PH only, with no extra books. Why do people seem to always try to use this strawman in this forum? It's insulting to the other posters in this thread who are trying to make fair comparisons. And 4e is severely lacking in feat choice even with a fair comparison of only PH to PH.

At the same time ... you had 10 fewer levels to accumulate feats, and got them less often.

3.5 feat selection had lots of available powers ... but most people ignored the "+2 to two skills" outside of prestige requirements.

There were a number of martial feat trees. Spellcasters got to choose between metamagic feats, item creation feats and a few others. They were thankfully able to take the "archer" tree a couple times to help out their rays.

In general though ... the big difference is:

(a) Iron Will and such are available right off the bat vs. at 11+
(b) Prereqs are limited to a single 13 outside of Whirlwind ... although arguably, some did force secondary stats. Again, with Whirlwind, your fighter needs 13 Dex and 13 Int to get Whirlwind Attack.
(c) With more feats being given out you "run out" of feats quicker. Many builds will have a hard time finding their 5th or 6th feat in Heroic tier. With only feats at every 3rd level, instead of 2nd, you'd only get 4 feats in Heroic tier. Getting 2 stat points to 2 DIFFERENT stats can mean that by the time you "run out" of options, you may have been able to gain more options through upping stats.

 

[mlund]

How is that fair at all? You removed feats like Combat Casting and Tower Shield prof just because 4e doesn't have those things any more--that makes absolutely no sense.

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me. Your claim that "that makes absolutely no sense" is a purely subjective judgment on par with "that's useless."

Combat Casting is removed because you automatically cast defensively in 4E. Only using Ranged and Area powers provoke Opportunity Attacks now - not casting any old spell.

And then certain feats that Clerics actually take like Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus just vanished off your list with no explanation.

I mistyped Spell Penetration (which I said that I eliminated in the above section) instead of Spell Focus.

Greater Spell Focus I must've jumbled with Greater Spell Penetration. Please, add it back to the list.

There's an element of danger of trying to work in specifics instead of trying to frame your argument in vague terms and then attack everyone that disagrees with you for "misrepresenting" your position - but the latter is poor form.

And why are you doing this at Level 2?

Because I was under the impression we were discussing a Dwarven Cleric having trouble taking their Second Level feat.

Level 2 isn't a feat level for a Cleric.

In 3rd Edition it isn't. In 4E you get a Feat at your second level. In 3E you've also got an appreciable spread of 1-20 levels as opposed to 1-30 levels in 4E. If you want to compare 3rd level in 3E and 4th level in 4E it might be a little better, though you'd have to deal with those pesky 4E stat-bumps opening up more feat options, and the extra multi-class feat options from 4th level.

All the +1 level Metamagics should be in there (you can use them on a cantrip), and since 2 isn't a feat level and your second feat pick is level 3, we should include all +2 Metamagics.

No. I thought I made it an explicit point to exclude Orisons (not Cantrips - clerics don't have Cantrips) since you already afforded yourself the privilege of deeming things "useless." I've never seen a character with prepared spell-slots burn a feat for the privilege of casting a 0-level spell with Meta-Magic attacked. It is, in my judgment "not useful" or worth spending a feat on.

And remember, you also get fewer feats for your character in 3.5, so your selection is much less constrained.

Wait, getting to make more choices constrains your choices because you've already chosen options? I suppose that's true, but I don't think it is actually more restrictive to choose 3 options out of 8 than to choose 2 out of 8 - for example.

there's still at least 16 feats I might take with my 3rd-level Cleric feat selection.

Can't you just come out and explicitly state that you are upset that they took away your low-level Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, and Meta-Magic feat options in 4th Edition then?

- Marty Lund

 

[Rystil Arden]

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me. Your claim that "that makes absolutely no sense" is a purely subjective judgment on par with "that's useless."

Then I have to remove Skill Training from the 4e list because there isn't a skill training feat in 3.5, or remove Astral Fire because there isn't radiant damage in 3.5. It makes sense to compare the edition's feat to that same edition's rules, not to a different edition's rules. Otherwise all of the 3.5 and 4e feats would be eliminated because you don't have those rules in OD&D, or something

There's an element of danger of trying to work in specifics instead of trying to frame your argument in vague terms and then attack everyone that disagrees with you for "misrepresenting" your position - but the latter is poor form.

Please stop derailing this thread with personal attacks. I'd like to keep this thread constructive. I've learned a lot from this thread so far from posters who have made respectful and interesting points of all opinions, even those like Cadfan who don't agree with me on the heavy constraint, and I'm interested to see where it goes. I'd rather it not flame out.

Thanks!

 

[IanB]

What seems to be the real central issue here, and what this thread has so far mostly danced around, is that there is a big difference between what a feat is now, and what it was in 3.x.

Feats are very minor boosts now and are intended to be that way. No longer are feats the central feature that drives a given character build; powers fill that role now.

I think a lot of us who played the absolute heck out of 3.x come into 4e with a certain understanding of what a feat should do, so of course they all look weak to us. They are weak, compared to 3.x feats, but that is entirely on purpose.

 

[Zurai]

What seems to be the real central issue here, and what this thread has so far mostly danced around, is that there is a big difference between what a feat is now, and what it was in 3.x.

Feats are very minor boosts now and are intended to be that way. No longer are feats the central feature that drives a given character build; powers fill that role now.

I think a lot of us who played the absolute heck out of 3.x come into 4e with a certain understanding of what a feat should do, so of course they all look weak to us. They are weak, compared to 3.x feats, but that is entirely on purpose.

No, not really. There are some weak feats, yes, but then you have feats like Action Boost, and many of the feats that were moderate to weak in 3E have been greatly buffed in 4E (Alertness, Quick Draw, Weapon Focus). There's really no difference in the overall power level. Feats are FAR more likely to have a restriction, though - there are only a handful of feats that are open to any character to take, and those feats are the boring, bland, flavorless generic feats.

 

[Hussar]

I've just finished reading the thread, and here's my 2cp

We have a player who has created a character against type, deliberately taking stats that limit his choices, that still has four viable feat choices. With a bit of rejiggering on his stats, he gets six choices. How many choices do you really need?

Now, I understand not liking any of the four choices, that's fair. But, really, we can't get away from the fact that there are 4 (or six) choices that will add to this character. It's not like his choices are limited to 3e style +2/+2 skill bonuses. These are fairly decently useful choices that should see play fairly often.

Never mind that in a standard campaign, other feat choices may come to light as well - like the mounted combat ones.

I'm not really sure I see a problem here. The player's own decisions have limited his choices, but, not outright gimped the character. The choices are viable, just not to taste.

Designing to taste is extremely difficult.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I've just finished reading the thread, and here's my 2cp

We have a player who has created a character against type, deliberately taking stats that limit his choices, that still has four viable feat choices. With a bit of rejiggering on his stats, he gets six choices. How many choices do you really need?

Now, I understand not liking any of the four choices, that's fair. But, really, we can't get away from the fact that there are 4 (or six) choices that will add to this character. It's not like his choices are limited to 3e style +2/+2 skill bonuses. These are fairly decently useful choices that should see play fairly often.

Never mind that in a standard campaign, other feat choices may come to light as well - like the mounted combat ones.

I'm not really sure I see a problem here. The player's own decisions have limited his choices, but, not outright gimped the character. The choices are viable, just not to taste.

Designing to taste is extremely difficult.

Four choices, six feat slots to make those choices (maybe six with stat editing). And the character isn't against type--it's one of the two standard subtypes of Cleric.

Other than being able to take a higher Armour proficiency if desired (and that isn't a huge enough deal to make it worth it), the advice to make Strength a tertiary stat for the Wisdom Cleric is simply poor advice. Beyond 2 feat prereqs for armour/shield profs, there's literally no way that the added Strength is helping out. And really, it isn't a big part of the advice. There's a few people who keep bringing it up in this thread, but it makes little difference in the end, and it's the only way this Cleric is different from the suggested starting build for the Wisdom-Cleric in the PH.

So it isn't that she's such an out-there build. I mean, it's not like I made a Warlock with low Con and low Cha and maxed out Int or something. There should be feats that the Wisdom Cleric can take, since it's one of the two types of Cleric in the book. And this issue has applied to other players in the thread making, for instance, Warlocks. And I've taken a look at trying to build an Eladrin Orb Wizard who plays exactly to stereotype for an Orb Wizard, and the same issue comes up there again.

 

[hong]

You're spending a lot of time worrying about feats when they're so nerfed.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You're spending a lot of time worrying about feats when they're so nerfed.

They're not really so nerfed, per se. Admittedly, there were some kick-ass feats in later 3e supplements and 4e brings it back to a more modest level, but some of the 4e feats are actually quite nice, even at the Heroic tier:

Some of the racials and some of the Martial feats for a Martial character who can use them are fantastic, Wintertouched is nice if you're doing the combo with Lasting Frost, some of the Channel Divinity feats and other class-specific feats are quite useful, Ritual Caster can be huge if you don't already start with it, Shield Proficiency can be helpful, etc.

The feats are balanced around giving a reasonably-nice boost. If exactly what you wanted for a given character was Improved Init, Toughness, and four Skill Boosts, you would be quite happy with the power level of the feats (All of them give either the same or more as they did in 3.5, and Toughness gives both absolutely more and relatively more HP).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Having finally got a look at the books - it does seem to me that the heroic feats are pretty limited, and often very restricted in who can make good use of them, or even choose them at all.

Mind you - I am remembering similar problems when we'd just got 3.5 and started over again: feats from the core rules simply don't do that much (or are 100% mandatory for your concept, one of the two).

I daresay there's some interesting synergies in 4 that did not exist in 3.x too. For instance if I understand correctly, a spellcaster with bluff can gain combat advantage against a foe and then benefit from a +2 to his attack roll (and attack roll seems to be where it's at in 4e - note that there's no +hit feats that aren't seriously limited). Likewise a hiding spellcaster would be able to gain combat advantage.

And from the looks of things, it's not too difficult to get occasional combat advantage from clever use of cover too (which makes initiative important even BEFORE that paragon "combat advantage before foes act" feat).

It also makes NOT being surprised quite powerful.