Essentials feats seem a little too good?

[cignus_pfaccari]

Notice that the Superior (defense) feats are generally always worth taking. In particular, the Superior Fortitude giving Resist 3/6/9 against Ongoing damage is pretty huge.

Man, I may have to wiggle some feats around.

Brad

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am regretting that we retired out level 24 game. Man I could have used a lot of the essentials feats on the way up. They are very nice. I think I will not play essentials, but mine it for feats and powers, like a new splatbook

 

[Nyronus]

No, it's not balanced to take feats that are already so 'must have' as to be considered 'feat taxes' and make them even more potent. Yes, it's an example of 'power inflation.'

Neither of those things may be a problem, though. Power inflation is inevitable, and a little surge of power inflation goes a long way towards getting players to accept (nay, demand) a new ruleset. Balance is really nice, but it carries a price. 4e was willing to pay that price, Essentials not so much. Essentials builds, feats, items and so forth seem to be more about faithfully getting accross a concept and just plain being cool than being perfectly balanced with eachother, let alone balanced with what came before. Since Essentials is meant to be a begginer's product and a complete game in itself, it makes some sense to give it nothing but quite solid options, even at the risk of some of them being overpowered: it means that new players run less of a risk of being overshadowed by more 'advanced' players using more complex builds, and that, even if Essentials isn't heavily supported going forward, it won't quickly fall behind any 'power inflation' curve.

Its not really power inflation at all. Your misunderstanding the phrase "feat tax." A feat tax isn't a feat so awesome you really should take, a feat tax is a feat you need to take to be effective. The reason expertise is a tax is because a flaw in the game math makes a 1/2/3 gap between player attacks and monster defenses, unbalancing the game in paragon and epic. To remain even basically functional, players needed to take expertise. In other words, players were basically losing a feat to fix the issue in the game math. Hence, a tax.

By giving an awesome extra effect, making the new expertise worth "two" feats, actually fixes the issue nicely. Hence why their so over-the-top good. Now you get the math fix, and a feat, putting everything where it should have been all along.

 

[nookiemonster]

I think that, if indeed there was a math hole, it would have been better to fix it by restatting the monsters rather than simply giving everyone a feat tax rebate... with the new Monster Compendium bringing new builds of classic monsters it should have done a lot to fix the issue. But I'm sure that has been discussed to death; I'd rather not start yet another debate on the topic here...

I too am a bit worried that the new feats are so good it's a bit of a no-brainer to take them. Ideally, in my opinion, a feat should give you a tiny boost all the time or a big boost in highly specific circumstances, and thus be 'balanced' against each other, and not make any particular feat a standout. Obviously, some feats will be better than others depending on certain games. If you're playing the Against the Giants adventure, the feat that gives you improved AC vs Large or Larger foes is going to be a standout. But otherwise, any particular feat should just be a minor little boost or support the character roleplaying wise.

 

[Jhaelen]

I too am a bit worried that the new feats are so good it's a bit of a no-brainer to take them.

Well, if all of them are no-brainers, then there's no problem

 

[keterys]

Part of me wishes that you got a bonus feat per tier that had to be spent on them, or something like that. Feat choices at early levels feel terribly hampered by the no-brainers.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Its not really power inflation at all. Your misunderstanding the phrase "feat tax." A feat tax isn't a feat so awesome you really should take, a feat tax is a feat you need to take to be effective. The reason expertise is a tax is because a flaw in the game math makes a 1/2/3 gap between player attacks and monster defenses, unbalancing the game in paragon and epic. To remain even basically functional, players needed to take expertise. In other words, players were basically losing a feat to fix the issue in the game math. Hence, a tax.

By giving an awesome extra effect, making the new expertise worth "two" feats, actually fixes the issue nicely. Hence why their so over-the-top good. Now you get the math fix, and a feat, putting everything where it should have been all along.

But this is just not right:

the gap can also be closed with daily powers etc.

New daily powers give such bonuses usually as "effect", not as "hit".

Also monster guidelines have changed in a way, that you can actually face lower level monster, making hitting them rather a non issue...

Having stated that:
I rather like feats giving a bit more bang for their buck now. I also like, that there are powerful feats competing with each other. This makes it feel a lot less like a tax, but a choice you should make in heroic tier...