Essentials feat too powerful???

[DonAdam]

Feats have their ups and downs. I want to approach it from two angles: number of feat slots and their general function.

Number of slots:

Things like Weapon Focus and Unarmored Agility are bland, but given the number of feats you choose over the course of a career that's a good thing. 30th level characters don't need 18 extra options, mini-powers, and fiddly bits. Static bonus feats keep you from getting overwhelmed.

Given the number of feat slots, I think Essentials feats are an improvement. If they lead to some genericness it's because there's only really 1 book worth of feats out right now with the new design principles.

General function:

But there's another reason it's difficult to get ride of the "bland" options.

The most important option that feats provide in principle is allowing a character to grow in scope as opposed to scale (bigger bonuses), both vertically (relative to defined class and race roles) and horizontally (through time). Both 3e's skill point system and 2e's nonweapon prof's seemed a little restrictive in that regard; 3e also had feats and open-ended multiclassing, but 4e narrowed both the skill-growth and multiclassing options.

The problem is that now, to allow customizability, you've created a general resource. That's great for Ally who wants a rogue with a little magic, but what about Bob who wants a fighter without the twist? You have two options: make him take feats he doesn't really want, or give him feats that strengthen his role (including things common to all roles, such as defenses or damage).

Thus, in order not to foist things onto Bob you give him to option of using that general resource to pump scale (bigger bonuses) rather than scope (wider options). Which means that for players without niche ideas, you've added a layer of complexity to character design that appears redundant. I.E., why not just build the +1/tier Weapon Focus damage into the structure of the game?

To make it worse, if you've designed those feats well, the players with niche ideas will want them as well.

I don't know how to reconcile these difficulties. There doesn't seem to be a clean solution.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

No one in this thread has come close to convincing me that feats aren't one of the worst additions to the game since it's creation.

Please, honestly: why are feats a good and necessary addition to the game? You don't get to answer this if you haven't actually played a full session of any other version of the game.

How would 4E be a bad game without feats?

Now THERE is an interesting thought. Could you run a 4e game without feats? I think you probably could. You might need to scale down the opposition, but unless someone actually played an entire campaign through every level more than once we could only speculate on its impact. Question is, would anyone want to?

I think feats were originally a good idea until they became marketable nuggets of crunch that players could eat up. But don't blame the publishers; blame the gluttonous masses always clamoring for more. Profitable publishers will always give in to whatever the public demands to ensure they stay profitable. Its a short-sighted strategy but let's not get into that right now.

If you think back to 2e, we saw one of the earliest inceptions of feats in the game system emerge from the various Player's Options books. I don't remember the specifics of it (and I'm not going to dig them out of my garage right now) but the variant rules added another level of customization to allow personalizing the standard options for all character classes, races, and combat tactics. Players could change or enhance the basic, standard features and abilities for their individual characters, making them unique. That's essentially what feats offer now. The only difference is they are now part of the core mechanics rather than an option. But as suggested before, I don't see why you couldn't make a few adjustments in the encounters and play the game without them.

Going back to first and basic editions, things were even simpler. You just picked your character's class, race, assigned random stats, and personalized him with equipment and spell choices. There's a certain attractiveness in its simplicity and straightforwardness that some of us remember fondly, but when it comes down to it, I guess its simply a matter of preference. Too bad there aren't more current options for both.

Personally, I like feats. But I don't believe there's a need to have so many of them continuously pushed out, nor do I think most of them need to exist. They're easy enough to make, obviously. But that doesn't mean the game is going to stagnate unless we receive less than 50 new ones a month, right?

Anyway, I think feats are a great addition to the game. But with the sheer number of them out there now, I long for simpler days when players didn't feel like they need to spend hours combing through all the options and weigh the value of one over the next. Decisions like these are supposed to be fun and easy to make, not labored over and argued about. And that, my friend, is the real failing in all of this. (IMO)

 

[Prestidigitalis]

You must get attacked with Daze and Stun an awful lot.

But the point is, sure. This feat protected your PC and you as a player remembered it (sort of, does your DM tell you the exact totals of his monster to hit rolls? that seems a bit unusual).

But, the feat and nothing else prevented Daze or Stun 9 times so far??? With a bonus of +2 to +4? How many levels?

With maybe 10% of Will attacks doing Daze or Stun (40% in MM total, but the vast majority ~90% are once per encounter not at will due to the potency of Daze and Stun), 1 attack in 9 being a Will attack (MM only, other sources will vary), 8 NPC attacks against a PC per encounter (on average, a bit low for Defenders, high for everyone else), 8 combat encounters per level (it's almost never 10 due to higher level encounters, skill challenges, quest XP, etc.), 15% average bonus by Superior Will at Paragon (10% at Heroic, 20% at Epic).

The small bonus to Will Defense from Superior Will should prevent a PC from getting Dazed and Stunned approximately 9 times in about 90 levels or once every tier (usually 6 months to a year of gaming sessions, not exactly exciting how often it helps against these rare conditions). It'll help out against any Will attack more often (maybe even as often as once per level), but not so frequently against Daze and Stun specifically unless your DM throws a ton of those at the PCs.

Course, Superior Will hasn't been around long enough for most players to play 90 levels, so your experience seems to be an extreme bit of an anomaly.

I think your anecdotal evidence here is just that. Anecdotal and very very atypical.

I doubt the vast majority of players who have taken Will Defense boost feats have had as good of luck with them as you have.

You need to go read the feat description. I'm not talking about being saved from Stunned or Dazed by having the attack miss. I'm talking about making it go away by saving against it at Start of Turn. Superior Will -- look it up.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I don't normally bring this up, but because some of the comments include specific references to me, I will now point out that I am not a "he".

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I don't quite understand the argument that feats like Weapon Focus and Expertise are inherently bland.

Remember back to 2nd edition? Weapon Specialization? Back in 2e, that choice you made said something about your character. You were really amazing with whatever weapon you chose, maybe the best for miles around. WF and Expertise do pretty much the same thing that specialization did, and I think it makes the same statement still. It's all how you think about it.

I agree that it doesn't look like much on paper though. But then, weapon specialization in 2e didn't either.

I am aware that it was more of a "class feature" in core 2e, only for single-classed fighters, but it wasn't long before the splatbooks and kits did away with that, allowing pretty much any "warrior group" class to specialize via kits. Whether this was RAI/RAW or not is moot, since every 2e group I gamed with interpreted this in the same way, all those groups couldn't have been the only ones.

 

[Storminator]

The only problem with removing feats from 4e is that's currently the only way to add more trained skills. Since my game includes at least one skill challenge per session, that would cramp my game's style.

Other than that, I think 4e is very playable without feats.

PS

 

[KarinsDad]

You need to go read the feat description. I'm not talking about being saved from Stunned or Dazed by having the attack miss. I'm talking about making it go away by saving against it at Start of Turn. Superior Will -- look it up.

Hmmm. I just glanced at it previously.

The OP has a good point. Some Essential feats are through the roof.


Edit: A thought just occurred to me. Maybe your DM is throwing a few extra Daze/Stun foes at your group because your PC took this feat. Both because your PC quasi-nerfs their abilities, and because it gives your PC a way to shine.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Hmmm. I just glanced at it previously.

The OP has a good point. Some Essential feats are through the roof.

Yes they are, but only if you start from the PHB baseline and compare. If you took Essentials on its own merits, you could walk away saying "Wow, feats add a lot to the character. Cool concept."

What I'd like to hear from the naysayers is, what customization mechanism would you prefer? Or do you simply feel that powers, skills and magic items are enough?

Edit: A thought just occurred to me. Maybe your DM is throwing a few extra Daze/Stun foes at your group because your PC took this feat. Both because your PC quasi-nerfs their abilities, and because it gives your PC a way to shine.

I don't think so. We are at paragon tier, hitting level 15 at the start of the next session. And incidentally, just because you get a saving throw at the start of your turn, even at a +2 from Resilient Focus, doesn't mean you actually make the save. My character still lost a lot of actions in those encounters.

 

[sigfile]

No one in this thread has come close to convincing me that feats aren't one of the worst additions to the game since it's creation.

And no one will. You certainly seem to have already made up your mind. Still, I enjoy beating my head in to brick walls on Fridays.

Please, honestly: why are feats a good and necessary addition to the game? You don't get to answer this if you haven't actually played a full session of any other version of the game.

How would 4E be a bad game without feats?

Class features are wrapped in feats (moreso Pre-Essentials). Multiclassing involves feats. The ability to customize and emphasize character elements is a good thing. If you remove feats, you're making for some terribly vanilla characters.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes they are, but only if you start from the PHB baseline and compare. If you took Essentials on its own merits, you could walk away saying "Wow, feats add a lot to the character. Cool concept."

It depends on your definition of balance.

Here I am. A player who instead of a starting stat of 20 in Wisdom, took a starting stat of 18 in order to have some points left over to bump up Con and Dex a bit so that Fort and Reflex wouldn't totally be in the crapper. I built my PC 2 years ago.

Another player comes along, puts a boatload of points into only two ability scores, one of them a 20, has a sudden weak NAD because they have two lousy stats, and suddenly, that PC is just as defensive in that Defense as my PC because of a single feat.

If a player has to pay a significant increase in ability score points in order to bump 14 to 15 to 16 to 17 to 18 when designing the PC, it's not very game balancing if someone else can go buy a Defense feat and get some extra bonuses like the Superior Will save before their turn. Granted, the first PC gets a feat too, but the point remains.

Personally, things like the additional ability of Superior Will are almost game breaking depending on campaign. The PC walks around partially immune to some of the most significant conditions of the game.

There is no threat anymore. The game becomes boring when the challenge isn't there. The game is watered down and becomes just a hit point slug fest.

The NPC that could Stun is not much more scary than the ones that cannot because the game designers gave the players a way to quasi-nerf that ability. And, it's not even a magic item that the DM has more control over. It's a feat that forces the DM to look like a dick if he gets rid of it.


Note: The same thing happened between 3.5 and 4E. Although Level/Energy draining was a bit of a pain, some of the most MEMORABLE and nailbiting 3E dungeons were ones like barrowmounds where the players were actually tense going from room to room. Actually apprehensive about some wight or ghost or something coming out and laying the draining smackdown on them.

4E doesn't have this level of encounter intensity and as more feats and powers come out which minimize the little bit of intensity that some monsters have, it becomes more and more a game of "Enter Encounter, Roll Some Dice, We Win".

A PC in one of my PBP games where the PCs were in serious trouble used the power Astral Condemnation and another player posted "Yah, we win!". From one power. Even though the PCs were on the ropes and it looked like a TPK, one power shifted it into a mopup. It really is that bad that some feats and powers and items are encounter resets.

What I'd like to hear from the naysayers is, what customization mechanism would you prefer? Or do you simply feel that powers, skills and magic items are enough?

Well, I would prefer it if any PC could charge a foe and knock him prone based on maneuver rules instead of power, feat or item specialization.

Player: "I want to tackle that guy to the ground."
DM: "Sorry, you don't have the right feat or power for that."

I have no problem with customization, I have more of a problem with the fact that common everyday things cannot be done by these supposed heroes without the proper customization. I also have a problem when each release of a new book makes the PCs bigger and badder and the players start taking fewer and fewer customizations from earlier sources.

To me, this is a marketing gimmick.