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

[Torchlyte]

I've built three characters with these books and each time I've been annoyed with the limited feat selection. My new plan is to allow my players to go ahead and take Paragon feats.

Good idea? Bad idea?

 

[WalterKovacs]

I have experienced similar issues ... and one thing to note ... the martial characters aren't that much better. There may be a lot of feats for them ... but a lot of the feats are focused on specific weapons, so they'd really only take one. They have a lot of options for "build types" ... but each character will really only have 1 main weapon type, so most of the feats are still limited. They increased the number of feats you received ... but I've found just about all my characters multiclassing in feats just to make use of the feats.

Human Warlock: Took his pact feat, the human feats, defensive mobility, improved initiative, Fast Runner [at 10, retrained at 11] and Skill Training in Perception [could just as easily be a multiclass feat I guess].

Halfing Rogue: Warlock multiclass, Backstabber, Improved Init, Two Weapon Fighting, Acolyte [power swap, utility], Two Weapon Defense. Basically just took the TWF/TWD for the minor defense increase.

Tiefling Warlord: Tactical Assault, Arcane Initiate, Shield Prof, Weapon Focus, Improved Init, Jack of All Trades

Of course, this is just planning things out ... I'm not entirely sure how it goes in fplay. But the feat choices are narrow enough that the few 'generic' feats are going to pop up quite often.

 

[Jack Colby]

I noticed it, and with a martial character, too. It all depends on your concept/build. I don't think it's a serious problem yet though, it's just a limitation. No doubt that will be "fixed" very soon, and we will have more feats than we even know what to do with.

 

[Starfox]

I realized there was a problem, but not that it was quite that bad. A large part of the problem seems to be the restrictive feat prereques. Feats like Armour prof(scale) or Astral Fire having prereques of 13 doesn't seem to high untill you actually start making characters, or worse, just give yourself the stats you want without putting thought into feats.

Irritating.

Maybe you should have looked at what feats you wanted and assigned stats accordingly.

This is a HUGE problem. Wasn't 4E supposed to alleviate the need to plan ahead and make a build at 1st level which you then stick to? Seems that got lost along the way.

I might well rule-zero attribute prerequisites on feats. But each rule you feel you have to zero makes the overall game structure that much weaker.

 

[cdrcjsn]

If you notice, the new point buy encourages people to get a 13 score in various abilities rather than maximizing just one or two scores.

If you do that, there is less constraints on feat selection.

Part of the design?

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I noticed it, and with a martial character, too. It all depends on your concept/build. I don't think it's a serious problem yet though, it's just a limitation. No doubt that will be "fixed" very soon, and we will have more feats than we even know what to do with.

Strangely, I've had a much different experience.

So far I've had the time to build two characters, one Eladrin Wizard focused on Ice Powers (level 11), and one Dwarf Fighter focused on glaive use (level 20). And in both cases, I have not felt a lack of available options at any point. There was never a point where I said, "oh I guess I have to take this one, everything else is junk."

In the case of the wizard, I've had but one feat slot in the heroic tier that I had a "well I guess I could take this one" decision to make. And in fact, it was more like "well, this one works better than this one, so it's cool." It wasn't like I felt like I had inferior choices to make.

My heroic feat choices were, in no particular order: expanded spellbook, armor proficiency- leather, burning blizzard, armor proficiency- hide (that's the one that was debatable), wintertouched, and durable (which got retrained at 11). At level 11, I picked up lasting frost and retrained durable into spell focus.


Likewise with the dwarf fighter, I actually ran out of feat choices in the heroic tier and ended up deciding not to retrain several of those feats as I progressed into paragon levels. I did, however, begin to run out of "must haves" at level 16, so my last paragon feat (back to the wall) does fall into that "ok this works I guess" category. However, if I advanced into epic levels, this would, no doubt, be the first to get retrained.

My heroic feat choices were: Combat reflexes, Potent challenge, Blade Opportunist, Power attack, Weapon focus, and toughness (which goes away in paragon levels).

For paragon feats, we have: Heavy Blade Opportunist, Polearm gamble (from retraining), uncanny dodge, Dwarven Durability, Spear Push, Combat Anticipation, and Back to the Wall.


I basically consider at least one (often more) of the six feat choices from each tier as being meant for retraining at the next tier. So, any feat that's placed in there is only temporary in my eyes.

Although, I do agree that once a few splats come out, we'll have more feats than we could possibly know what to do with.

 

[Graf]

Someone who took wintertouched!

I also immediately wanted to make and Icy Controller wizard.

Seriously though... while I appreciate the complaint and I think it's valid (dwarf hammer fighters, eladrin spearfighters get awesome feats, ranged clerics have little) there -are- other options.

what about training skills?
Perception, Insight, & Athletics can never be too high. And after you train them you can get +3 to them with feats.
If your DM is into skill challenges you can buff diplomacy as a wise cleric easily.

I think of feats more as "character rounding" than really adding a lot of combat punch.

 

[N0Man]

Honestly, I don't think your complaint is greatly exaggerated. It sounds like you made a non-optimal build, and ignored the help given in the PHB for building your character. The 3 Key Abilities for a cleric are Wisdom, Strength, and Charisma. The 4E cleric class isn't a primary melee class, but it's designed to be able to at least hold its own with some minor skirmishing. You might want to take note of the fact that many powers of the Clerics do include "Weapon" as a keyword. It's fine if you want to play your Cleric as melee-free, but I think you need to accept that you are imposing a limit on yourself, and that it's unfair to criticize the game system for that.

By the description of your character, I wonder if you chose to make your Wisdom 18. You can do that and get 2 other stats at 13 or above (as you described), but that's it. You will have base level Int, Dex, and Str (which again goes along with what you describe). If you did this, then again you have to realize that you are getting a bonus in one thing at a pretty big cost elsewhere. The cost of going from 16 to 18 is the same as the cost of going from 10 to 15 on another stat. So, if you made that kind of sacrifice to gain that kind of attribute focus, you have to expect it to limit yourself in other ways.

Maybe you didn't go for a starting Wisdom of 20, and I'm totally wrong on that guess. Though, if you didn't go for a 20 Wis, then it should have been pretty easy to get 3 skills above 13 (even if you did still insist on getting more than 13 for Con).

However, I would have considered revising that concept a tiny bit. If you had picked up just 13 in Str (again, a Cleric Key Ability) then you would open heavier armors to help protect you. You could pick up Light Shield as well. You still don't have to be a melee character, but it can allow you a little extra defense.

You would open up the ability to multiclass, such as take the Warlord multiclass and then one encounter a day, you can get a 3rd heal. At level 4, you could swap an encounter power to gain another power for utility or more healing.

Plus, picking up skill feats are not bad options at all. Your Wisdom will compliment your Dungeoneering nicely. Nature is also Wisdom based, and has the benefit of opening up additional Rituals.

I'm also kind of baffled as to why you'd be so dismissive to Toughness. It might not be an exciting power, but "only one level worth of HP"??? How many levels worth of hit points would it take to make a feat useful? I think 1 extra level of hit points is pretty nice!

In addition, it really stuck out when you said that you aren't going ot pick Dodge Giants because there aren't any Giants in the Keep... It's not just for Giants, it's for large creatures, and are you seriously picking your feats just based on your current adventure?

It would be nice if there were a small number more caster feats that were based on Wis or Cha, but I think you are limiting yourself unnecessarily on some of these options.

 

[Torchlyte]

N0man, the problem with your argument is that the Paladin-I-mean-Cleric then suffers from MAD.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

If the feats suck so bad, multiclass with all those empty slots?