D&D 4E Does 4E still really hate shields?

[Stalker0]

This seems to be one of the paradigm changes in 4e.

Many of the feats created are designed to help suboptimal stat builds. For example, there's a wizard feat where all of your save end powers put a -2 on the save. Nice feat, but its a cha 13+ requirement, something a wizard might have to work at a bit.

Several fighter feats have a high dex requirement, something most fighters won't have, etc.

These feats are fine, in fact I like the concept of them, the problem is WOTC put too many of the them in the core book and not enough of the regular kind. If the feat list was twice as long, no one would complain about these feats. If you could get them, great, if not there are a bunch of shiny feats over here to take. But because there are so few feats in the book to begin with, the fact that your choices are narrowed even further by these kind of feats is annoying.

This is an issue a few splatbooks will fix. Once my feat list is twice what it is now, I have no problem with a section of them being designed to improve nonoptimal builds.

 

[DracoSuave]

If you look at the Shield feats, you need Wis 15. WTF?

Only Distracting Shield.

Distracting Shield is a feat that empowers your Combat Challenge. Wisdom is generally the third stat Fighters take. Strength first, followed by the stat based on their weaponstyle, and lastly Wisdom for Attacks of Opportunity. It is natural for a feat that is based on a fighter's reactionary features to be Wisdom based.

In fact, it's the only stat that makes -sense.-

That said, it's not a terrible feat. Getting attacks out of Combat Challenge is not as difficult as you'd think, depending on the DM, and this makes it so that your mark penalty is just a little bit better. -2 to attack rolls on someone who already has -2 to attack rolls is not terrible.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I sorta agree with you stalker0, only I don't think it was to reward sub-optimal builds so much as to make 'optimal' builds less so. Every edition has seemed to take out a little frustration on whatever powergamers were abusing in the previous one (TWF was king in 2e, nerfed in 3e; two-handers were devestating in 3.5, barely worthwhile in 4e). 'Optimization' went over the top under 3.5, and it's gotten slapped just a bit in 4e. It won't last, though. 4e is still basically list-based, and WotC must sell suplements to keep the line going, so the loopholes will be opening up and the broken combos accumulating.

 

[OSD]

Your DM must be throwing you cakewalks for encounters if you think Distracting Shield is useless. -2 to attack rolls might not seems like much, but let's stack them (they are from different sources) and then see what happens.

Illusionary Ambush: -2 to attack if hit.
Marks: -2 to attack if not the target of attack.
Distracting Shield: -2 to attack if hit by CC.
Prone: -2, stick a halfing or something on top of the prone creature (large creature of course) and it STAYS prone if it's surrounded.

That's -8 to melee attack right there. My group last night chopped my Young BlackDragon template up since alot of its attack misses due to the penalties.
The group consist of mostly level 2s. The bonus on the bite is +10. So these penalties basically turned the level 4 solo lurker's attack roll to that of a level 1 PC. And to top it off, the group only managed to get to -6 (no one had distracting shield)

 

[frankthedm]

These feats are fine, in fact I like the concept of them, the problem is WOTC put too many of the them in the core book and not enough of the regular kind. If the feat list was twice as long, no one would complain about these feats. If you could get them, great, if not there are a bunch of shiny feats over here to take. But because there are so few feats in the book to begin with, the fact that your choices are narrowed even further by these kind of feats is annoying.

IMHO the feats are designed that way, not to reward so called "weak builds", but to discourage folks from dumping everything into only two ability scores. There are reasons why the default array starts with the highest stat of 16 before racial mods. If someone decides to play Eighteens and Eights with point buy and only bumps their primes stats at level up, yes, many feats are unattainable and I don't think that is an accident

 

[Victim]

Our GM tends to play monsters rather conservatively in terms of avoiding Combat Challenge attacks (or DC damage), so feats like Distracting Shield don't seem very good to me.

 

[Drowbane]

Fighters seem to still be best off using two-handed weapons... while Paladin's rock the sword'n'board approach.

 

[Parlan]

IMHO the feats are designed that way, not to reward so called "weak builds", but to discourage folks from dumping everything into only two ability scores. There are reasons why the default array starts with the highest stat of 16 before racial mods. If someone decides to play Eighteens and Eights with point buy and only bumps their primes stats at level up, yes, many feats are unattainable and I don't think that is an accident

That's the way I took it too. I rather like the idea.

 

[Gort]

Fighters seem to still be best off using two-handed weapons... while Paladin's rock the sword'n'board approach.

Tide of Iron. Push 1 at will is immensely powerful.

 

[Chen_93]

Tide of Iron. Push 1 at will is immensely powerful.

And as I mentioned shield push is a fantastic feat. With gauntlets of the ram it practically guarantees the opponent wastes their turn if you hit with a CC attack.