I had to ban some feats and change some others and add in masterwork items to rebalance things. I edited the OP to reflect these changes.
This actually makes character creation much more diverse and interesting, I feel. Feats that were once automatic choices for the savvy character builder are now either gone or on par with other feats, making their choice an actual choice. This opens up lots of other options for feats that would otherwise be made entirely redundant and most of these options are far more interesting and diverse, mechanically and thematically.
Possibly the only feats that still remain on the must have list are the Essentials Expertise feats. Other than nuking the bonus to hit, I don't see much of a way around this even by providing masterwork items with a hit bonus, since they're still worth taking for the secondary effects and the fact that the hit bonus is 'always on' rather than item reliant. My only hesitation in banning these feats is that I'm not 100% sure that their secondary effects (which are all quite cool) can be gotten elsewhere.
This actually makes character creation much more diverse and interesting, I feel. Feats that were once automatic choices for the savvy character builder are now either gone or on par with other feats, making their choice an actual choice. This opens up lots of other options for feats that would otherwise be made entirely redundant and most of these options are far more interesting and diverse, mechanically and thematically.
Possibly the only feats that still remain on the must have list are the Essentials Expertise feats. Other than nuking the bonus to hit, I don't see much of a way around this even by providing masterwork items with a hit bonus, since they're still worth taking for the secondary effects and the fact that the hit bonus is 'always on' rather than item reliant. My only hesitation in banning these feats is that I'm not 100% sure that their secondary effects (which are all quite cool) can be gotten elsewhere.
