New Essentials Builds!

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know this happens for feats, but it doesn't happen for powers.

Well, powers always come at you in small doses. Even the best supported classes have under 2 dozen powers in a given type/level. That IS a fair amount to choose from, but at least you can find them. With feats the grouping is nice MOST of the time, but there are just times when a straight alphabetical listing of all feats would be nice. I suppose the same could be true for powers, though if all I know is the name at least I can find it online and tell where it will show up in CB.

Mostly I just think they kind of blew it with feats. The concept is good and there are a bunch of good feats, but then they tossed in overly generic ones like Expertise and yet at the same time created a VAST number of others that are marginally useful and add little to the game. I think 200 feats could pretty much do it for 4e if they were carefully chosen and worded. Refluffing stuff is so easy anyway that we really don't need 3000 of the silly things.

 

[occam]

Mostly I just think they kind of blew it with feats. The concept is good and there are a bunch of good feats, but then they tossed in overly generic ones like Expertise and yet at the same time created a VAST number of others that are marginally useful and add little to the game. I think 200 feats could pretty much do it for 4e if they were carefully chosen and worded. Refluffing stuff is so easy anyway that we really don't need 3000 of the silly things.

I'm largely in agreement with this. The same problem existed in 3e. In fact, I was kinda hoping WotC wouldn't include feats in 4e when it was first being discussed, replacing the open-ended concept with something more structured that wouldn't be prone to the same kind of bloat. But apparently most people love 'em, and feats are widely considered one of 3e's best introductions to D&D (I would rate other things in 3e much more highly), so I accept I'm outnumbered on this point. But for someone who feels compelled to examine all the options when building a character, more and more published feats leads to slower and slower character creation, in 3e and 4e.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Feats are great as long as they're reasonably balanced with eachother. They serve to differentiate characters is minor or interesting ways, or let a character focus on some speciality to a high (and optional) degree. Stand-out 'must have' feats or 'feat taxes,' or flat-out broken or abuseable feats are problematic. The more feats you put out, the more of them will turn out to be problematic.

With 3000 feats (and we are close to that number), the number of 'must have' feats is enough that the real choice experienced by a player is noticeably diminished. With already-powrful feats being improved, tier restrictions on feats about to be removed, and, presumably, more feats in the pipeline, it's only going to get worse.

 

[Zaphling]

That absolutely could be done. It'd just need to be a bit longer than a similar article offering Rogue feats & powers useable by all 4e Rogue builds would have been. Because Tricks are necessarily exclusive to Theives, while Theives are excluded from attack powers, and feats would need to avoid keying off class features, or have different flavors for differently-featured classes, so you'd have to have a Trick and a power that was substantially similar to the Trick, to open the same option up to all builds.

I think i do believe that Tricks are not necessarily exclusive to Thieves. A 4e Rogue can have them in place of an at-will attack exploit/power. Since it's stated in the Trick that the bonus will only effect if used with a basic attack.

 

[drothgery]

I think i do believe that Tricks are not necessarily exclusive to Thieves. A 4e Rogue can have them in place of an at-will attack exploit/power. Since it's stated in the Trick that the bonus will only effect if used with a basic attack.

No. Essentials Rogue/Thief tricks are 'Rogue Utility' powers without a level. Non-Essentials Rogues do not get any of those, so thieves cannot use standard Rogue at-will, encounter, or daily powers, and other rogues cannot use essentials tricks (or Backstab).

Essentials wizards and clerics pretty much follow the standard 4e power progression, just with more limited choices in the books, so you can swap powers back and forth freely with the pre-Essentials builds. But the martial classes aren't like that.