How do you feel about the only-general-feats direction of D&D?

[Ainamacar]

I agree that some things are still better as feats or traits and don't need to be power-ized. Speaking to the theme / silo categorization of racial powers, etc., I think there's merit to expanding themes to include:
* utility powers
* feature power
* attack powers
* feats
* ritual/martial practice access
* skill bonuses

A theme wouldn't need to have all of these, of course.

Dwarf Physiology "racial theme" - grants +2 Endurance, +2 CON, +2 STR /WIS, low-light vision, dwarven resilience, stand your ground, encumbered speed, etc.
Dwarf Culture "theme" - grants +2 Dungeoneering, Dwarven language, maybe access to a giant-killing power or feat

(of course, there would be significant balance problems with this as I've presented it...)

The entire structure of 4e could use a bit of a reboot, in my opinion. The essentials classes (love 'em or hate 'em) did move beyond the original AEDU structure, but as we've seen with themes it makes developing mechanics useful for both classic and e-classes a bit problematic. There is a middle ground between the 3e class features free-for-all and the rigidness of classic 4e. I won't pretend that doing it well would be easy.

A first step that might work is to move away from the idea of fixing the kind of benefit one gets (power, feat, ritual access, etc.) to a benefit that comes from a source (class, race, theme, etc.). We already do this to some extent with classes and general feats, but not very flexibly, so every time a good new idea comes up it either has to be shoehorned into the existing structure or simply added on. Both options have some serious downsides. Better to make the basic design more flexible.

Here's an example. Things like feats could fit within broad categories (weapon styles, deception, etc.; I like Destil's list above too) and access to feats would be granted by e.g. a theme. So at 3rd level an apprentice theme might grant access to a metamagic feat (granting flexibility) or a 2nd spell that can be used as the encounter spell of some level (thus granting more flexibility for the same slot). Such a theme would only make sense for someone with existing casting ability. That might be from a class or a different theme, but better would be to make sure that at 1st level the apprentice gives a 1st level encounter spell, or the like.

You can see my thoughts on a dwarf inherent vs. culture idea here. (It's not "themized" or anything). Considering culture as themes, the stuff in the link might be the 1st level benefits only. It also gives an opportunity to let the two bonuses to ability scores depend on race and culture. The recent change to non-human races in 4e where each gets a fixed bonus in one, but can select from two options for the other bonus fits nicely with this idea.

This is an excellent idea. Merge races and themes into one, and give everybody two themes. Then you can have a humans-only campaign without sacrificing an entire axis of character design.

Are you suggesting that anyone who takes two non-racial themes is human? (If not, my bad.) That could work, but I dislike the "humans as default" idea, more for flavor than mechanical reasons. This is partly why I'd like to separate the inherent aspects of race from the cultural aspects. Each character could select a race and two themes, of which at least one is often a cultural theme traditionally associated with their race, but not necessarily. The inherent racial axis of character design is weakened, but since the larger impact on the character as a whole comes from its themes, I think you could still be satisfied.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No they didnt. They introduced whole new categories of feats, introduced redundant feats, pinned more feats into smaller niches and amped up the power of some feats to make them automatic choices.
Then they went and bundled the feats into completely nonsensical categories that are harder to decipher than the feats themselves.
Why was it so hard to separate feats by Race/Class and Weapon/Implement or Attack/Defense? Instead we got "Quick Reaction" and "Vigilant Reflexes", what kind of nonsense is that?

No, if you consider the feats provided in Essentials on their own, then you have new categories and a set of feats which are both minimal in number and actually cover a lot of the basics better than the much larger number of older 4e feats did.

They added extra benefits to the expertise feats because they KNOW that everyone takes them. Now you have a choice of several interesting feats that each do something different. You WILL take one, but you have a choice of what you want to get out of it, much better than before.

As for the categories I believe you would want to consider that the categories should organize by WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, not HOW YOU DO IT. I want to react faster, that is a 'what', and so I look there for a feat to take. See how that feeds into building your character based on concept instead of mechanics? The average player is fuzzy on the mechanics (at least of stuff they haven't used yet). So this is a much better categorization that should (and probably will) totally replace the old categories.

 

[Blue]

If a feat is required to fix a class/race weakness then one of two things are true: 1. the class/race is broken and needs to be fixed at the class/race level, not with a feat, or 2. the weakness is there for game balance, flavor, or both and you are a power gamer who wants all the good aspects of a race/class without taking the bad.

That's fairly harsh. Say I want to play an halfling, but the group needs me to play a defender? (And not into psionics for a battlemind.) Some races by default have good ability mods and/or racial abilities for some classes. This isn't "broken" (you're point #1). Having an option to spend feats (that others are spending to get more powerful) just to have a workable solution isn't being a "power gamer" (you're point #2).

If you only play race/class combos that give you the most plusses, then I can see how race+class feats to make things workable aren't needed by you. But if you want the option of being able to realize any character vision some of the race+class combos are really sub-par and need a little loving just to bring it back to average.

Funny, I like class or race options more than I like class+race options, but your post really touched a nerve. It's not broken nor powergaming to spend feats just to be on an even level with other characters that happened to pick optimal class+race combos.

 

[Dausuul]

Are you suggesting that anyone who takes two non-racial themes is human? (If not, my bad.) That could work, but I dislike the "humans as default" idea, more for flavor than mechanical reasons.

Yeah, that's what I was suggesting. Traditionally in D&D, humans lack the spiffy powers and special traits of other races, but make up for it in versatility and/or raw power. An approach where humans get two background themes, while everyone else gets one background theme plus one racial theme, seems like a pretty good solution; it's the equivalent of the bonus feat and skill that humans get in 3E and 4E.

Three themes would be too much IMO. You can only pile these things so high, and class should remain the primary determinant of a character's abilities.

 

[eamon]

If two feats have the same mechanics, there's one feat too many. If a feat is auto-pick, there's one feat too many. If a feat will never be picked, there's a feat too many. If a feat is specific to a class, it should probably not exist, or preferably be specific to a power source, or be an optional class feature - one that doesn't necessarily need to kick in at level 1.

So even in essentials, they've messed up. Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes? That's too feats too many. Weapon Focus and Implement Focus? That's one feat too many. All the expertises; master at arms? Noise; pure noise. Disciples of? Some are too weak; and there are too many in any case.

See, none of this would be a huge issue on it's own, but heck, WotC needs to make new stuff - that's their business model. So even if it looks like an extra option now is OK, it's really not, because in a year, it won't be.

Also, feats like linguist and Skill Focus need to be silo'd. They shouldn't be sharing the same design space as weapon focus. In principle it's kind of neat that you be able choose between them; but in practice it just leads to discussions of powergaming, or the appropriate balance thereof, and furthermore clutters the feat list yet again.

I think it'd be even easier to fix powers like this, btw: Powers fail as character customization because they're too bland (too similar) and not recognizable enough - which is the case because nobody (sane) knows the other classes powers. Take the decent powers of each class, silo them by power source, and let anyone pick any power. Or even, silo by power source, and let classes take any power from any two specific silos. Whatever you do, trim them down to just a few percent of the powers there are now.

I've also got to say that the swap-powers as levelling mechanic doesn't work for me either. If you need power-levelling in a power, stick it in the power (like in at-wills), for an even greater reduction in number of powers. I find it thoroughly anticlimactic to level up, find out that all new daily or encounter powers of this level are "meh" or straightforward upgrades of previous powers - if there's no choice to be made, please don't get my hopes up. If a power is indeed attractive, and not a mere upgrade, you tend to be forced into choosing from an extremely narrow list. OK, so you started off being decent at pulling and dropping prone; and ten levels later, you're imposing attack penalties and pushing. Not because this make any sense for the character, but well, new levels, and new non-choices mean that get forced this way and that as levels rise by the vagaries of the availability of powers (which is crazy; there are 8126 powers, yet when you level up you generally have no choice or just a choice between two or three powers, after accounting for the build and weapon choice and whatnot).

At will's work. I'm quite happy with those. And I'm happy with the recharge mechanics on dailies and encounters. I'm just not happy with the powers.

 

[Herschel]

I'm of a mixed mind. Feats were the thing that made your race matter past character creation; one of 4e's stated design goals (in Races & Classes) was to do this.

I like racial feats that gave you a reason for not ability matching your racial stat bump and class primes. Feats for things like Genasi Sorcerer, Eladrin Fighter, etc. were pretty cool ideas. The variable stat boost is simpler, obviously, but doesn't fix all the "issues" and encourages simple stat-matching more than anything.

 

[Jhaelen]

How do you feel about D&D's shift towards publishing no feats that are specific to a class, race, build, power source, or role?

It sucks.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In general, I'm of the opinion that feats should be a mostly orthogonal design space (to skills and powers), or they should not exist at all.

There are too many fiddly bits. Game options should be narrative-based, not mechanics-based. Figure out what an interesting thing to do is, then make rules for it; don't make up some rules and then lacquer on some flavor.

Despite mostly agreeing with this, I do have one disagreement: I think this should really be an iterative process, and I think the lack of iteration is the reason why the theory of feats and the practice diverges so much.

Start with an interesting thing to do. Then make rules for it. Now go look at those rules and see if there are some other interesting things that you can "lacquer on". Try some of them. If the lacquer doesn't take very well, then perhaps your new interesting things aren't that hot. Or maybe your mechanics were so focused on your first interesting thing, that they could use some refinement.

Take having a racial feat for eladrin weapon training. I'm not saying it is good or not, but for sake of argument, let's assume it is an interesting concept worth exploring.

1. If we can easily come up with similar feats for other races, expanding their combat capabilities in ways that make sense for those races--ok, then the interest/mechanic angle is plausible.

2. If we keep stepping on other racial capabilities (or not, just to be arbitrarily different, e.g. sworld-wielding gnome cultures)--then the mechanic may be ok, but the flavor limiting by race is not.

3. If we find ourselves making up goofy options to fill in the chart (e.g. humans aren't getting anything that really fits them), then the mechanics are too limiting.

You can't really answer questions like that in one pass. What you want to end up with is: "Here is the exact scope of what I want to cover with the flavor, no more no less. The mechanics cover that, without intruding in some place they don't belong." Once you get that, you don't need new feats for new races. You've already covered the complete scope of what "racial feats" can do, and any new races will fit into that set. (Due to limits of space, you might not have included the complete scope in the initial PHB. But you knew more or less what it was.)

Exception-based design, properly understood, does not mean making up an exception for everything, on purpose. Rather, it means that if you can cover most of what you want with the main design, you won't unnecessarily complicate that main design if you can handle a few outliers with a few exceptions. The skill system, with alchemy tacked on, is good exception-based design. Powers are merely lists put together with some guidelines on effectivness. Not the way I'd have done it, but a valid design choice with a long and illustrious pedigree. Feats are trying to have it both ways, and thus not working well.