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

[Plane Sailing]

Absolutely. Racial powers (preferably that you don't have to swap class powers for) would be a great way to go, especially if they were built in to the level progression, e.g. you get a racial power at 2nd, 7th, 12th, 17th, 22nd and 27th or something like that.

To my mind this would have been THE best way to meet their stated goal of making race always matter as the character levels up.

I've heartily disliked the racial feats, as far too often they took a cool idea then locked it into one particular race or class. And since racial feats were competing against other useful feats, the idea of them making someone more dwarfy or elfy rarely came up except in exceptional circumstances anyway IMX.

Two free racial powers per tier would have been a much more interesting way to do it, to my mind.

Cheers

 

[mudlock]

I would love to see most racial feats replaced with racial utility powers, and for most class feats to be replaced with more/better class utility powers.

A power at every level, and everything is a power!

The e-class leveled features kinda bother me; if they're meant to replace daily powers, just have them be a 5th level (or 9th level or whatever level) powers that are "at will" (only they're not always assigned at the same levels as daily powers )

 

[Hawke]

I am not a big fan where feats are in general. There are a ton of feats, and so many of them don't seem to "matter" in terms of character. I hate the feat tax ones, and the sheer choice of random stuff to sift through to get to the meaty good stuff.

Some of the concepts people have pointed out here, I've long agreed. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog with an eye toward revamping 4E for my next campaign to have more of a focus on Themes, Powers, and Feats-that-modify-powers. I really dig racial stuff as options, too, and almost any feat that adjusts racial powers makes me pretty happy.

Playing Dragon Age 2, I saw a lot of the power options that weren't attacks but either upped your existing power choice to a bigger range or more damage OR the generic "+50% lightning damage" to focus your character were both really cool. I think perhaps playing off keywords a bit more, you could really ditch the existing feat structure, and maybe replace it with something that's a little clearer and more adept at making your character stand out the way you want it to.

 

[Ainamacar]

To my mind this would have been THE best way to meet their stated goal of making race always matter as the character levels up.

I've heartily disliked the racial feats, as far too often they took a cool idea then locked it into one particular race or class. And since racial feats were competing against other useful feats, the idea of them making someone more dwarfy or elfy rarely came up except in exceptional circumstances anyway IMX.

Two free racial powers per tier would have been a much more interesting way to do it, to my mind.

Cheers

You know, you're probably right about that. Some racial things would still be better served as feats, but they do tend to be more behind the scenes than powers. I would maybe object to the idea that every character necessarily becomes more "[race]y" (hah!) as it gains levels. Not every elf wants to be the paragon of eldom, and for some that might be exactly the opposite of what they want. A nice solution might have been to have this "silo" of powers be for themes and races. (As silos go, I actually prefer this to the utility power silo, which has never quite sat right with me.) I've also heard some people suggest races as themes, which is an idea with some merit. In an earlier thread I mused on separating the raw physical components of race from their cultural components. Treating those cultural components as a theme might be a cool idea.

 

[dangerous jack]

You know, you're probably right about that. Some racial things would still be better served as feats, but they do tend to be more behind the scenes than powers. I would maybe object to the idea that every character necessarily becomes more "[race]y" (hah!) as it gains levels. Not every elf wants to be the paragon of eldom, and for some that might be exactly the opposite of what they want. A nice solution might have been to have this "silo" of powers be for themes and races. (As silos go, I actually prefer this to the utility power silo, which has never quite sat right with me.) I've also heard some people suggest races as themes, which is an idea with some merit. In an earlier thread I mused on separating the raw physical components of race from their cultural components. Treating those cultural components as a theme might be a cool idea.

All great points.

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...)

 

[Dausuul]

I've also heard some people suggest races as themes, which is an idea with some merit.

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.

 

[Destil]

At this point I think I'd almost prefer them to stop making feats, entirely.

There's over 3000 feats in the game right now. And there was never any thought given to how the feat system works as a whole. Because of that things are a right mess. 4E is becoming a bit of a mass-errataed game anyway. Nuke as many feats from orbit as necessary and rebuild them from the ground up.

 

[Incenjucar]

The 3000 feats include things like "drow long knife proficiency." It's not quite as bad as it sounds.

 

[ourchair]

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.

OTOH option bloat blech, so much so that in my homebrew version of D&D I have completely dropped feats in favor of other mechanisms.

Same here.

I liked the original vision, which was that races that could have been scary, esp. if they were designed according to 2e/3e lines (Thri-Kreen, Dragonborn) instead got nerfed, so that if you wanted to expand a defining aspect of that race (multiple limbs, breath weapons) you used feats.

But at the same time, I didn't like the fact that I'd end up compromising my ability to make my build power-functionally competitive with other characters of my own class because I didn't take certain class feats.

I mean it feels like a waste of a feat to put 'riders' onto a racial power when you can add more functionality to your base class.

Currently, I'm playing a Tiefling Psion and I've deliberately avoided getting Clever Tail and Bloodhunter stuff. Why? They just make my character do cute and useful things that are fundamentally situational.

I feel like I get more from MCing into Wizard, which allowed me to save a class skill slot for another skill and get the Arcana Training for free, making me more skillful, and allowing me to develop a robust 'scholar' fluff/flavor for my character.

Also, feats like Imperious Majesty allow me to substitute a weak stat with a strong one in determining my Initiative and let me slap atk roll penalties in addition to my debuffs as a controller.

In other words, I think feats should target race or class, provide benefits that have useful intersections between two, but as captainspud noted, should never have a requirement of both.

What makes me choose a feat is one which allows me to apply one of my race-class strengths to a NEW situation, rather than add bonuses to SPECIFIC situation.

 

[WalterKovacs]

One thing from Heroes of Shadow was that there was sort of a 'backdoor' racial feat tree for the Shade, since the various "in dim light" feats can easily work most of the time for a Shade that grabs the level 6 utility, but as a generic, is also available to other characters that can easily 'cause' dim light to dark conditions most of the time.

That kind of thing I wouldn't mind as much, racial feats that happen to be available to everyone, but are better for specific classes and races.

In the long run though, I could see that, in print at least, with space at a premium, generic feats give more bang for their buck. A racial or class feat cuts is usable by only a small fraction of characters. However, like support for Runepriest and Seeker are other under supported stuff, they need to make up for the lack of print support by putting that stuff into the magazines, which has different restrictions. Stuff in the magazine is available only to people who also have the compendium and characers builder, so content that references older books isn't a hurdle as the content of those books is readily available. Similarly, a higher page count in the magazine because of lots of feats isn't cost prohibitive in the same way it would be for a book.