December Rules Update Available

[DracoSuave]

So the consensus on Footwork Lure seems to be that it no longer works at reach unless you have Rushing Cleats or the like. (You get your shift, but since you can't fulfill the "slide 1 square into the space you left" effect, it doesn't happen.) Unfortunate, but I'll deal.

The other thing that one must note for Footwork Lure is that it no longer works on dwarves. Before it did. Now it's 'slide 0 squares' which means that the dwarven ability to reduce forced movement now can apply to it.

 

[Camelot]

What's up with Targeted Assault? I can see how it was almost useless before the update, but it still seems like a poor feat. How often do you encounter monsters that can mark?

It didn't help that the page number was wrong, they corrected something that wasn't there, and the example was messed up.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What's up with Targeted Assault? I can see how it was almost useless before the update, but it still seems like a poor feat. How often do you encounter monsters that can mark?

It didn't help that the page number was wrong, they corrected something that wasn't there, and the example was messed up.

Yeah, well, the thing is what were they going to do to make it worth taking? I mean basically a feat that messes with monsters that mark is so totally situationally useful that it would be a worthless feat even if it gave you +1000 to-hit anything that marked you. Its going to come up 2 times in your entire career. I guess if you KNOW the BBEG you're going to face tomorrow uses a marking mechanic, then MAYBE it would be semi-useful.

There are tons of feats like that though. I'd consider probably 25% of all feats to be utterly worthless and probably another 25% seriously sub-par even if they will do something for you. Another 25% are good if you have exactly the right build, though often not better than the last 25% which are the bread-and-butter feats. Really though any system like 4e is going to be that way. There are only so many ways to provide generally useful features, so once all those bases are covered the only thing left are at best flavorful but overly situational choices or exceedingly minor variations on what went before.

Personally I wish they would concentrate more on greater diversity within certain existing feat categories that seem still largely just sketched out. There could be a LOT of CD feats for instance, yet we have what, basically not even one for every official god? There could be a lot more racial feats as well to help shore up some of the less optimal class/race combos. There could be more variety of weapon training feats too. I could even see some super specialization racial/weapon choice feats that would be interesting at least and help make some iconic builds more diverse and interesting (without hopefully power creep). There could also be certain things like pact-specific warlock feats to allow certain warlock builds to get a bit more flexibility. Seems like out of the several 1000!!?? feats out there that most are highly forgettable.

Heck how about some "minor divinity" feats that give some flavor to say picking specific aspects of a god to focus on or specific exarchs to venerate? Those would be interesting.

 

[sfedi]

Nice idas Abdul, and 100% nailed it on what's missing.

I don't agree with your "any system like 4e is going to be that way", though.

Is it difficult? Yes.

But not more difficult than making an excellent combat system, as we currently have.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I noticed (didn't last time) that the Dragon mags have listed errata. Does this mean if I go and re-download those mags it will have errata incorporated or will I ave to annotate my current PDFs somehow?

You will have to annotate them. They dont go back and edit the magazines already compiled.

 

[MrMyth]

What's up with Targeted Assault? I can see how it was almost useless before the update, but it still seems like a poor feat. How often do you encounter monsters that can mark?

It didn't help that the page number was wrong, they corrected something that wasn't there, and the example was messed up.

Before the update, it was super-crazy-broken, since it gave you a bonus on attacks against enemies you had marked. (Very easy to abuse for an easy +2 bonus).

After the update, it is a very situational feat, but one that is powerful in that situation. Not one I would often take, but it could depend on campaign - a game where you often are fighting human enemies will likely involve many classed enemies, soldiers, and others who mark. Definitely not a power feat... but I'd rather than over one that was obviously broken.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nice idas Abdul, and 100% nailed it on what's missing.

I don't agree with your "any system like 4e is going to be that way", though.

Is it difficult? Yes.

But not more difficult than making an excellent combat system, as we currently have.

Eh, I think its kind of inevitable. Its one thing when you have a small core of developers building a combat system. Its a pretty tightly knit group and one fairly small chunk of rules that can easily enough be reviewed as a whole (yet still 4e managed to do a rather poor job on the actual rules text). With feats things have got to be a lot tougher to control. How many of the people writing that content can claim to have a good knowledge of all existing feats, probably NOBODY really knows all of them. The utility of some isn't really entirely obvious until you get them out there and being used. Others may just be cases where the devs aren't really aware of how players are actually using certain rules, or play style differences. And then there are the feats in the category of "this was not a bad feat until X better feat was released" or a slight change to the rules may make a feat redundant or much more situational.