PHB2 general feats review (heroic tier)

[Cadfan]

Coordinated Explosion
You get a +1 untyped bonus to attacks for bursts/blasts that include 1+ allies.
Somewhat of a WTF? feat. Please tell me how to abuse this (casting Fireball against an ally immune to fire etc). Rather artificial feel to it - how does torching your allies make it easier to hit your foes?
Whatever math imbalance that's behind this feat must surely be fixable another way.
Not allowed - I don't need feats that actually encourage undesirable behavior (of either the jerkwad or the cheese kind)

I think you're missing the point. There are a lot of bursts and blasts that only target enemies. As far as I can tell, this spell's theme is that you and your ally coordinate so that the enemy takes the hit harder than he otherwise would.

This is an alright feat for invokers and clerics. You could also use it by casting spells on top of allies who are immune or at least resistant to them, which in my group at least is considered kosher. We've got a fire and ice themed wizard, and a front line paladin with the feat that pumps up your fire resistance to 8+level. I wouldn't ban this. If your players create problems with it, odds were they were creating problems without a +1 to attack anyways.

Distant Advantage
You gain combat advantage against flanked enemies at a range (your allies can flank for you).
This is weird. In most rpgs shooting into melee is dangerous and difficult; this feat makes it actually advantageous to do so. I'd say this feat single-handedly changes a major rules assumption (that to flank; you must expose your ass).
Not allowed: to me the unviability of the "distance rogue" archetype is a solution, not a problem.

What about spellcasters?

Restful Healing
Healing done AFTER a short rest but BEFORE the next encounter get maximized.
This is very weird indeed. Why would you want to encourage a focus on the non-space between a short rest and the next encounter? This is taking the game into a direction I don't want to go - I far prefer short rests to mean a minimum of administration, so no "playing the system".
Not Allowed (IMC, as a feat I guess it's "meh". Use it if you like)

This doesn't increase focus on the space between a rest and the next encounter. It just means that any clerical healing done while not in combat is slightly more efficient. Saves the party a few healing surges, and costs nothing. Technically you have to wait an extra five minutes or so for healing word to recharge if you want to use clerical healing instead of base level healing surges between encounters, but this doesn't change that.

Surging Flame
After you've hit a fire-resistant target with a fire power, all fire attacks do 5 more damage.
Not sure I see any logic behind this one. This seems to be here so fire-lovers can justify not changing tactics when faced with fire monsters?
It weirdly turns fire resistance into a liability - against fire! WTF? This can't be a good strategy to promote, and it messes with the meaning of "resistance"...
Not allowed - why should I add a feat that just makes a mess of perfectly good and simple game concepts?

1. This feat exists to let people play fire themed characters without being screwed over by resistances. Where you see a player refusing to change tactics, they probably see a game that refuses to allow them to play a viable pyrokineticist.

2. This doesn't turn fire resistance into a liability. The smallest fire resistance I can think of on a monster is 5. This lets you hit with a fire power, deal lesser damage because of the resistance, and then hit for a fire power that's 5 fire damage greater than last round, thereby overcoming some of the resistance. At best you're dealing damage as if your foe didn't have fire resistance, and for any resistance above 5, you're still dealing less. The ONLY way to use this to turn fire resistance into a liability is to gain an ability that lets you ignore fire resistance. And even then, it only works if the amount of fire resistance you ignore, plus the 5 extra damage from this, exceeds the total fire resistance of the target (with adjustment for the first round in which you don't deal extra damage).

The only other thing that I'd add is that... I'm not sure its a good idea to be this particular about allowing or banning material. Why not at least let the players come up with ideas instead of trying to anticipate the ideas they come up with and deciding whether to ban them in advance?

 

[Obryn]

But it has no business taking up space in a completely mainstream/core book like PHB2...

Well, I don't mind a few oddball flavor feats here & there.

At its core, though, remember that it's just 1 point shy of Skill Focus: Healing, and it grants a benefit that some parties might find useful. For some, that's a perfectly good tradeoff. It wouldn't be useful in my group - we have 2 leaders, so healing is cheap - but it might in some others, when the healers are out of their mojo.

edit: Also, I can't think of any other non-Power ways to get someone stabilized without using a Standard action. Administering a healing potion to someone is Standard, as are heal checks as they are.

-O

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Combat Medic
(You stabilize the dying as a minor action instead of a standard action; you also get a +2 feat bonus to Heal)
This doesn't seem to be a very strong feat. Starting on the multiclass path into Cleric seems much more worthwhile. Feels somewhat like a "3E NPC feat".
I'll allow it but won't expect anyone to actually take it.

I think you're underestimating it's usefulness. There have been a couple of times where I've needed to make a heal check to save a downed player...particularly if that play is the Cleric. Having to do that as a Standard action sucks, since it makes it a choice of "Attack, or help him". This feat is something that I might try to fit into my build somewhere as it's a really good way for a Defender to get a chance to help out if things go really bad.

Also, multiclassing Cleric is not the same thing. MC Cleric gives you a once per day power that grants a Healing Surge + 1d6. This is allowing you to stabilize the dying in order to stop death saves as a minor, so that you can still keep doing what you need to do to help the rest of the party (As a Fighter, that means attacking and marking).

Coordinated Explosion
You get a +1 untyped bonus to attacks for bursts/blasts that include 1+ allies.
Somewhat of a WTF? feat. Please tell me how to abuse this (casting Fireball against an ally immune to fire etc). Rather artificial feel to it - how does torching your allies make it easier to hit your foes?
Whatever math imbalance that's behind this feat must surely be fixable another way.
Not allowed - I don't need feats that actually encourage undesirable behavior (of either the jerkwad or the cheese kind)

So a Fighter using Come and Get It to draw in all the spread out enemies and then yelling to the Wizard "Hit them with a bomb now!!!!" is cheesy? If you look at it in a vacuum of "Oh it's just a +1 to hit when an ally is in the burst", I can see that. But allowing it in also allows more interesting tactics, like having the Defender mark multiple opponents to keep them close, and then allowing the Wizard to AoE bomb them. If they try to get away, then the Defender is going to be all over them with CC and CS attacks. What is that other than well coordinated tactics that also happen to involve an explosion?

Distant Advantage
You gain combat advantage against flanked enemies at a range (your allies can flank for you).
This is weird. In most rpgs shooting into melee is dangerous and difficult; this feat makes it actually advantageous to do so. I'd say this feat single-handedly changes a major rules assumption (that to flank; you must expose your ass).
Not allowed: to me the unviability of the "distance rogue" archetype is a solution, not a problem.

Here I think you're just being unnecessarily mean to the Rogue. To even get use out of this you have to have two melee characters already flanking the enemy, so they're exposing their asses plenty.

Secondly, this isn't "most rpgs" and firing into melee is not an issue. If you have a problem with that aspect, then you need to change all the rules and severely hamper the ranger and any other primarily ranged PC as well.

Lastly, how else is a Rogue supposed to get CA at range? Stealth is pretty much about it, which means that a player that wants to play a ranged Rogue (with perhaps a Crossbow or thrown weapons) is only as effective as the terrain that you assign to an encounter. This makes it one of the hardest builds to play, since you don't know from one encounter to another whether he'll even be able to effective or not. This feat at least allows that build to be viable.

Restful Healing
Healing done AFTER a short rest but BEFORE the next encounter get maximized.
This is very weird indeed. Why would you want to encourage a focus on the non-space between a short rest and the next encounter? This is taking the game into a direction I don't want to go - I far prefer short rests to mean a minimum of administration, so no "playing the system".
Not Allowed (IMC, as a feat I guess it's "meh". Use it if you like)

This actually doesn't make sense. The rules specifically provide an example of using Healing Words during a short rest, which means your Cleric is going to be rolling a lot of d6's. For the cost of a feat, they can get rid of those rolls and all the administration that goes with it. So in fact, you're actually going to make short rests go smoother by allowing the feat, not the opposite.

Speed Loader
Reload crossbows for free.
Not Allowed - the defining feature of a crossbow is that takes time to reload, and thus can't be used for D&D automatic fire. This feat erases this. Why even have a crossbow if it effectively works as a bow?!

"Why even have a crossbow if it effectively works as a bow?!" - A bow can't be held in one hand...that's one reason. Plus, they don't have the same range or do the same damage, so it's still not the same.

This feat, I suspect, was mainly for Rogues and Rangers. Rogues, because it allows them to use a Crossbow effectively while freeing up their minor for the weapon switching. Of course, if they have Martial Power they could just use two-fisted shooter...but I'm guessing you've disallowed that one too since it's very similar to this one (although it only works with Hand Crossbows).

For Rangers, it's useful because some people just like the flavor of a Crossbow better, but using a Crossbow means that they have to choose between moving and quarrying because of having to reload each round with a minor.

Surging Flame
After you've hit a fire-resistant target with a fire power, all fire attacks do 5 more damage.
Not sure I see any logic behind this one. This seems to be here so fire-lovers can justify not changing tactics when faced with fire monsters?
It weirdly turns fire resistance into a liability - against fire! WTF? This can't be a good strategy to promote, and it messes with the meaning of "resistance"...
Not allowed - why should I add a feat that just makes a mess of perfectly good and simple game concepts?

Fire is the second most resisted damage type, and usually much easier for a PC to get as a damage type than necrotic (the most resisted). This is simply a way to allow those who use a lot of fire (Tieflings, anyone? Infernal Warlocks?) to have a way to cope with the LARGE number of creatures resistant to their damage type.

 

[Obryn]

Also, just as a note, I love Melee Training because it will finally make my dream character of a Dwarf Pact-Mordenkrad-wielding Infernalock a viable option. Now I don't need to sink points into Strength getting a cruddy basic attack - just a feat I wasn't using anyway.

-O

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Well, I don't mind a few oddball flavor feats here & there.

At its core, though, remember that it's just 1 point shy of Skill Focus: Healing, and it grants a benefit that some parties might find useful. For some, that's a perfectly good tradeoff. It wouldn't be useful in my group - we have 2 leaders, so healing is cheap - but it might in some others, when the healers are out of their mojo.

edit: Also, I can't think of any other non-Power ways to get someone stabilized without using a Standard action. Administering a healing potion to someone is Standard, as are heal checks as they are.

-O

My party has two Clerics. One of them got knocked out early in the encounter, before he even got a chance to use his heals. The other Cleric used a Healing Word on him to get him back up, but one of the DM's monsters had a readied action to hit him if he got back up. When he hit him, it knocked the Cleric out again. So, we had one Cleric with one effective heal, and our other Cleric was failing death saves.

I ended up having to fight my way up to the Cleric to try and help him out. Since I had a choice to either give him a potion (Standard action) or let a dice roll determine if he was stabilized, could spend a surge, or just flub the roll and do nothing (Standard action), I chose to feed him a potion. Personally, I really could've used Combat Medic in that fight, because I would've rather had a chance to roll with a minor and have the possibility of getting him up again, while still having my attack action left to cover his escape (probaly using the aptly named "Covering Attack"). As it was, all I could do was give him the potion and hope that no one got around me.

You should never underestimate the power of bad situations to force novel tactics, or underestimate the power of your players to see value in things that you as the DM do not. Just because you guys think this feat is a bit weak does not mean that every player will...and some might even think it's a gift from the gods that will better allow them to fill their role at the table.

 

[Rughat]

Melee Training
You can use whatever ability you like instead of Strength when making melee basic attacks (Opportunity Attacks).
Not too bad. Though combats aren't won through OAs, so this feat is still kind of low on the priority scale - unless you have a power that lets you do more stuff with opportunity attacks. Then this feat could be awesome.
Allowed - I guess. (I'm hesitating because on the surface it sucks, and if it doesn't suck, it might be gamebreaking)

Another nice thing about this feat: If I'm playing a Warlord and I'm in a party with a Chr Paladin and Dex Rogue, Commander's Strike no longer sucks. Heck, this makes the Warlord flanking with the Rogue really awesome: double your chance to deal sneak attack damage each round.

 

[Victim]

The issue with Combat Medic is that it's usually much better to activate the second wind of dying character, rather than stabilize them. If the action is available.

 

[fissionessence]

I find it intriguing that in the original post, the only feats that were allowed were ones that seemed boring or useless to the OP. The ones that seemed good and/or useful weren't allowed.

In my game, if it's published by WotC, it's allowed (I'll wait and see if my players notice expertise). In fact, if it's from a 3PP, it's also probably allowed. In fact, if you want to make up your own feat, that should be fine, too.

I'm glad not to play under a DM that picks and chooses what he wants my character to look like. (Sometimes campaigns make demands as to races and classes that might or might not exist in the game world, but manipulating the allowed feats to the degree represented in the original post seems pretty extreme, IMO.)

~ fissionessence

 

[Saeviomagy]

Of all those feats, I think combat medic should have been a general "all uses of the heal skill become minor actions" and thrown out the +2. That would have made it a much better and more generally useful feat I feel.

Improved grab and improved bullrush I feel are actually decent feats: attacks that move foes or eat their actions are typically daily or encounter powers, and if you only need to move a foe a single square, or delay him for a half round it can often be a waste to use a limited resource that would fling him 5 or stun him. Getting a +4 to make those actions more certain is a very good thing if you use them a lot.

 

[Nymrohd]

I'll allow them all tbh. Two-Weapon Threat btw is amazing for tempest fighters.