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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 5319367" data-attributes="member: 63763">The Essential books didn't solve the feat tax, but at least put in some, shall we say, tax "incentives". A - Instead of the old expertise feats, the new ones give a secondary bonus based on the weapon/implement type. Included is a staff feat which combines both weapon and implement expertise in staves. There is also a weapon expertise feat which applies to all weapons and gives a quick change benefit, so that, for example, a rogue that uses a short sword and a short bow only needs a single feat, etc. By giving secondary benefits it makes weapon choice relevant (you "need" to take an expertise feat, but your weapon of choice determines it's rider effect, so it's adding a minor feat to the feat you have to take). Similarly, with NADs you have the old option of "which NADs to help, get the +1 to all, or the +2 to specific NAD?". On top of that, if you have a 15 in one of the stats for that NAD, you can get a feat that gives you a rider in addition to improving that NAD. Those feats reward you for improving the NADs you should already be good at. So instead of getting your NADs up to snuff, you improve your good ones to great to make it hard to hit (perhaps leaving another of your stats to be a weak spot). Ultimately, attack rolls and AC need to scale with level. The heavy/light armor and masterwork quality allowed the armor to scale with level ... the expertise feats were the unfortunate cudgel to fix the math mistake for scaling attack bonuses. Other that those, most other feats that may seem like a tax (at least on all characters) are really just options.</blockquote>

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