Obsolete Feats

[Ryujin]

Dragon's not really the worst offender anymore, given the shear number of feats obsoleted in essentials (generally by purely superior feats and or those with easier prerequisites). But since it's pretty much purely digital I wouldn't shed a tear if all the worthless stuff therein was either brought in line (every at will with rare exception should deal 2x die damage at epic) or removed entirely if worthless.

Consider all of the feats that were pretty much designed as obsolete. Here: You can either have a feat bonus that's conditional, or the same feat bonus that's constant. Which do you want?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I wish they would do an edition change to 4.5 where so they could take out the chaff. That's what Essentials effectively was, but because of the "no edition change" promise they need to leave everything in and compatible.

I think it's really hurting the game to have so much junk floating around. Especially with the rampant content addition from Dragon. I'm not saying get rid of the old classes, but would you rather buy a book to update the new classes to Essentials format with no new content, or have an edition change where they could clean up and then have a book with with improved content? The business plan for income stream still needs to include constant new material for sale, why not make it improved and cleaned up material?

Wizards has learned a lot about 4e since they first designed it, I'd love to see 4.5. Yes, people would complain about having to by boos, but that's what Wizards needs you to do anyway. More people concentrating buying fewer 4.5 core books means they can focus more time on those instead of on coming out with a lot of different books that will only get picked up by some percentage of gamers.

I can sympathize with this, of course I think what the 4e devs would say in response is that they can't afford to abandon the existing customer base like that. If you want this cleaned up 4e that much then the way to get it is to play nothing but Essentials. It really IS a lot cleaner that way. You give up some fun options, but you also get rid of all the cruft.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

The Tribal feats are pretty awful, too - "Hey, if we ALL spend a feat slot on X, we can each get a bonus just barely better than taking (skill focus/improved initiative/etc)!" I know those haven't been replaced by better alternatives, but I'd love to remove them for uselessness.
-O

As soon as I begin to type my defense of that one Tribal "Mountain" feat...the one giving a boost to Surge Value that most of our party had during our trek through Heroic....I realize that Swift Recovery is the overtly better choice and I do a 180' and have to agree.
...Until I look it up. The Enduring Mountain Tribal feat says when you spend a Surge, you gain 2 extra + 1 for each ally with the Feat. Swift Recovery: Requires Endurance and gives a Feat Bonus +3 that Scales up per Tier. One's easier to get but is optimal if you can Con more folks into taking it, the other's Superior (more so at later tiers) but requires Skill Training. Apples & Oranges. (Disclaimer: I admit most of the Tribal Feats do exist in a weird "Why would I take that" land but my point is not all of them.)

It's been mentioned above but weakish feats that stack with other feats? Golden.
-Jared

(This Text Does not Exist: In my Dream Update, Expertise Feats are no longer feats but Class Features/Freebies given to Characters. Mostly because I have no idea if the Encounter designers assume every player has them when they make Monsters, they're a Math Combat Fix, or if they're a legit boost meant to increase accuracy/speed of combat/fun when you don't miss. If that makes any sense. Seriously, when they first started showing up, I thought it was to help balance out characters who had a 16 in their main stat or something. Now they're a class of Feats you pretty much HAVE to take, or so peer pressure goes. If they're actually mandatory, why aren't they free? This is a tangent & my apologies for such)

 

[Destil]

Consider all of the feats that were pretty much designed as obsolete. Here: You can either have a feat bonus that's conditional, or the same feat bonus that's constant. Which do you want?

This is a big part of why I banned expertise out of the box, but I think a bunch of these are now unnamed bonuses last I looked (i.e. Hellfire Blood, Warforged Tactics).

Still, with the cleaned up implement rules all the +1/2/3 to two damage type feats can just go die in an (astral) fire thanks. Even if not strictly always better.

 

[Ryujin]

This is a big part of why I banned expertise out of the box, but I think a bunch of these unnamed bonuses last I looked (i.e. Hellfire Blood, Warforged Tactics).

Still, with the cleaned up implement rules all the +1/2/3 to two damage type feats can just go away, thanks, even if not strictly always better.

They were cleaning up those also. Things like Feyborn Charm went from unnamed bonus to feat bonus, which significantly nerfed my my 20th Fey/Darklock. I was already well below what Wizards considered to be the appropriate hit and defense bonuses.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Re Enduring Mountain: Because it stacks with the other +HP / surge feats, there is no reason not to take it if that's a priority, though of course it is most effective if you are in a group that all takes it.

Another Tribal feat that could be useful is Bloodied Spear, which adds to attack and damage on OAs. It's worse at Paragon and worse still at Epic because it's a feat bonus and the incremental utility will be lower. There is also the issue that some PCs just never have occasion to perform OAs, so they will be taking the feat primarily to help out other party members.

The best one of all might well be Midnight Stalker -- when stealth is needed, everyone needs to be stealthy.

The rest of them are all pretty crappy.

 

[Mapache]

There's also a few feats like Barreling Charge, which now do literally nothing because of rules changes. (It's now just a restatement of part of the universal Charge rules.)

 

[Mengu]

I would be perfectly fine with any of the following:

- retire some feats
- classify some feats as "half feats" that you can get two for one.
- classify some feats as "powerful" that you can only get at certain levels, say 2, 6, 10.
- revisit old feats and do a combination of retiring, or updating of those that are not on par.
- any other solution that declutters the feat field, and/or makes it more difficult to make poor choices.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

- classify some feats as "half feats" that you can get two for one.
- classify some feats as "powerful" that you can only get at certain levels, say 2, 6, 10.

I've thought of that before, too, but frankly it seems like the kind of "complexity" that WotC only ever introduce in an Unearthed Arcana (aka Arcana Unearthed) tome of optional doodads.

 

[Runestar]

I smell a new splatbook on the horizon.

Feat compendium - containing a streamlined list of revised feats.