Obsolete feats and deprecated content

[DNH]

With some discussion over the last day or two concerning obsolete feats and deprecated content, I was wondering if anyone has taken the time to go through the game's various elements and note what superceds what. For example, Resilient Focus trumps Human Perseverance and makes the latter obsolete, or Heavy Blade Expertise trumps Weapon Expertise (Heavy Blade).

I noted in another thread that the CB should really do this for you, tagging certain content as "Deprecated" and not allowing its use (perhaps pointing to similar content) unless a checkbox (Allow Deprecated Content) has been checked. But we all know that's not about to happen any time soon, so I thought I could just house-rule it instead.

So anyway, if anyone has a list of feats (or powers or abilities or anything) that have been superceded by others, please feel free to pass it on or point me at it.

Thanks.

 

[webrunner]

There was a thread a few months ago, about it:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/298920-obsolete-feats.html

This post particularly: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/298920-obsolete-feats-2.html#post5418251 is a good list, but I cant' vouch that it's complete.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

This post particularly: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/298920-obsolete-feats-2.html#post5418251 is a good list, but I cant' vouch that it's complete.

It should be pretty much complete for all feats that were published before March 2011. If anyone finds an obsolete feat that's not on the list, please post it either here or in the old thread. Thanks in advance.

 

[Dice4Hire]

This is the kind of stuff that really should be on the character optimization boards, for those who are DDI users (and thus have all the books), and those who play in anything-goes games.

However, I do not think most players are there. Maybe one or two, but not all three.

But more to the topic, yes, there are feats that are underpowered, or obsolete, but that is partially WOTC learning the game themselves. They did this in 3.5 also.

 

[BobTheNob]

My favorite bugbear.

WOTC recently replied (in rule of 3) that the "suggestions" area in feat selection is how they choose to deal with this. i.e. the software will put forward your best options.

It has to have been the most woeful response to a complaint I have ever seen a company give.

1. So often the "suggestions" are strictly not what we want for our characters. Does the software have a "psychic" module that it can read our minds? There is no way of converying to the suggestions what our intention is!
2. The list is still massively bloated, which means if it isnt in the suggestions area (90% of the time given that suggestions are most often wrong) we still have a painful search ahead of us
3. The list is still massively bloated, making for painful load times in CB
4. How does this help people not using CB?
5. WOTC, are you listening to your customer base wants, or dictating what you believe?
6. What about inappropriate feats, such as campaign specific where we are useing homebrew, making for an ill match. Or feats that we wish houseruled out?
7. What about feats that arent obsolete, but are so woeful or ill-conceived (early days Dragon 4e content, Im looking at you!) that no-one ever takes them anyway.
8. (CB specific) What about when I am, for instance, putting together a character focused on Hevay blades, why oh why oh why keep displaying "Devestating Axe" to me????

...Im stopping now, just so many gripes about this.

I cant help but feel that WOTC's demonstrates that they are underestimating this issue. 3066 feats (just check compendium) is just too much for any game and its making things painful.

 

[Lalato]

This makes me think that it would be interesting if you could list feats by popularity in the CB.

 

[DNH]

This makes me think that it would be interesting if you could list feats by popularity in the CB.

This is such a good idea that it seems almost impossible to understand why it hasn't already been implemented. I remember some comment by some WotC person a while back (might have been Mearls) that having the *online* CB now meant that they have access to so much data on how the game is being played and how the content is being used. Even showing a simple count of times a given feat is selected for a completed character would be a big help to most people and that will certainly be possible. A step beyond that (more useful but also more complicated to implement) would be for users to be able to indicate what they think of a feat, perhaps on a five-star rating scale or something.

Good thinking, Lalato.

 

[andy3k]

I emailed Wizards and asked for a frequency list of feats, along with a simple example. They emailed back promptly, saying that they do not divulge customer information.

 

[webrunner]

They can keep older feats, that's fine. I just think they shouldn't be as prominent and should have a note on them to tell people, maybe you should use one of the new expertise feats instead, for instance?

like, have a "Depreciated feats" category, and in that category each one says "Replaced: The feat _____ supercedes this one. You may retrain this feat to that feat for free with no penalty at any time."

 

[Lalato]

Added levels of granularity for a listing by popularity would be...

*for your specific class
*as rated by others (as suggested above)

Oh yeah... and I love the idea of a Deprecated Feats category in the CB.