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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mkill" data-source="post: 5262667" data-attributes="member: 55985">To explain why I think that feats should be general and generic, let me tell you a story. It's a long story, for which I apologize. It's the story of Pyrax, my Dragonborn Ranger.He's a two-weapon fighter with a flail and a longsword. I built him way back, when only the PHB was out. He's not an exotic character by any account. But even after tons of books, he's still shafted when it comes to feats.Just with PHB1, he already had the problem that D&D feats lock you into one weapon choice. For most characters, this doesn't make a difference, but it really shafts two weapon users with different weapon types. If he wants to be good with both longsword and flail, he has to pay double feat cost, or fight with two flails. But the latter would be making an in-character choice for pure metagaming reasons.But maybe later splatbooks would help him? What unfolds is a story of how overspecialized feats.In Martial Power, there is a feat for Dragonborn Rangers (Breath-Resistant Beast). Great, but it's only for Beast Masters. My character is not a beast master.Okay, so what about that Dragonborn book? it had a feat for Dragonborn Rangers, right? Yeah, look at it:Draconic HunterHeroic Tier Prerequisite: Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power, ranger, Hunter’s Quarry class featureBenefit: When you hit your quarry with your dragon breath, you gain a +2 bonus to your attack rolls against that target until the end of your next turn.+2 to attacks against one enemy once per encounter? And I have to hit him with my dragonbreath first, so if I miss, the feat is useless? No thank you. Among 2500+ feats, there is one feat for my race-class combination that I can use, but the feat is an utter waste of a feat slot.Okay, so let's forget about Dragonborn, what about Rangers with flails? Martial Power 2 sure has a weapon style for them, right? Good news, there is not just one, but three!Number One!Ironstar Student [Lesser Style]Heroic Tier Prerequisite: Fighter, ranger, or warlord; proficiency with any flail or maceBenefit: You gain a +2 feat bonus to Athletics checks.When you are attacking with a flail or a mace and you have proficiency with that weapon, you also gain the following benefit.When you use a power associated with this feat and hit an enemy granting combat advantage to you, that enemy takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of your next turn.Associated Powers: Brash Assault, Marauder's Rush, Reaping Strike Uh, wait a second. I don't have Marauder's Rush. In fact, I'm not a Marauder, I'm a 2WF Ranger. And I'm very happy with Twin Strike, thank you! -2 to attacks and only if I have CA doesn't make Marauder's Rush any better, and my Wisdom is only 14 anyway. (Well, if I wanted to impose a -2 to attacks I could take Impending Doom Style instead. Except that it requires Intimidate, which is not a class skill for me.)Let's check #2...Mountain Thunder Student [Lesser Style]Heroic Tier Prerequisite: Fighter, ranger, rogue, or warlord; proficiency with any one-handed hammer, one-handed flail, or one-handed maceBenefit: You gain a +2 feat bonus to Endurance checks.When you are attacking with a one-handed hammer, a one-handed flail, or a one-handed mace and you have proficiency with that weapon, you also gain the following benefit.When you attack an enemy with a power associated with this feat, you can target the enemy’s Fortitude instead of AC.Associated Powers: Brash Assault, Disheartening Strike, Marauder's Rush, Threatening Rush Marauder's Rush... again? No thank you. And most monsters have a Fort that's as good or even higher than their AC, making this feat useless.Rending Chains Student [Lesser Style]Heroic Tier Prerequisite: Fighter, ranger, or warlord; proficiency with any flailBenefit: You gain a +2 feat bonus to Intimidate checks.When you are attacking with a flail and you have proficiency with that weapon, you also gain the following benefit.Whenever you hit an enemy with a power associated with this feat, you slide that enemy 1 square to a square adjacent to you.Associated Powers: Hit and Run, Reaping Strike, Viper’s Strike Now, my Ranger once had Hit and Run, but I trained out of it. The idea of Hit and Run is that you can get the hell out if you get swarmed by enemies, without eating opportunity attacks. However, the power does not help if you miss, and it does not help if there is more than one enemy adjacent to you. When you hit a foe with Hit and Run, you don't want to slide him into an adjacent square, you want to get away from him.In 90% of cases, you're better off just Twin Striking the guy anyway in the hope that you drop him before he drops you.To make a long story short, even though there are all these shiny special feats for Dragonborn Rangers and Rangers with flails, I ended up taking none of them. I took Enlarged Dragonbreath, Dragonborn Frenzy, and Two-Weapon Fighting, and I'm happy with these choices.</blockquote>

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