The best of feats, the worst of feats...

[BASHMAN]

Some overlooked good feats:

1st Multi-Class Feat (if you meet the prereqs)
Skill Training
Skill Focus

Skill Training WOULD be a good feat IF it trained you in 2 skills. You would never think you wasted a feat taking it then. It also wouldn't pale in comparison to the initiate feats (essentially only ever taken AFTER an initiate feat has already been taken as is).

 

[Goumindong]

I'd slightly disagree about retraining these feats. The fact that they give proficiency as well as a damage bonus is still useful for many characters. Especially for Dwarves (allowing a cleric to pick up proficiency with warhammer and maul), less so for Eladrin (who get Longsword anyway).

Dwarves get warhammer and throwing hammer prof as a racial already. They get the rest of the hammers and axes with the feat.

 

[SSquirrel]

Ok I haven't really focused on the later tiers at all, but here's a few comments.

Heroic tier:
The good:
- Armor Proficiency feats (+1 AC with a feat is a pretty good deal for most classes - if you can swing the ability requirements)
- Quick Draw
- Lost in the Crowd (this feat alone makes me want to play a halfling)

AP:Leather is a steal for casters. My wizard is L8 and has an AC of 25. Quick Draw is a nice ability by itself, made even nicer w/the +2 Init bonus. Lost in the Crowd rocks, I can easily imagine a Halfling Fighter or Paladin with this.

The bad:
- Pretty much all Channel Divinity feats (the original abilities of both cleric and paladin are already pretty good)
- Group Insight (aren't half-elves bad enough already?)

Pelor's ability is the best of the bunch. Group Insight does kinda suck, but man can you make some diplomacy twinks in this game

The interesting:
- I think Powerful Charge has potential. Charging gives you a lot of extra movement and +1 to the attack roll, and Powerful Charge gives +2 to the attack. Even a basic melee attack becomes quite scary!

Powerful charge has the possibility of being very good indeed. Maybe do something weird like a Fighter multi-classed into Fey Pact Warlock. Use a warlock power to teleport away from the combat and charge back in with an action point. Even nastier if you have some of the action surge feats. I admit this sounds weird, I just thought of it while I was typing

 

[Goumindong]

Group Insight is not used a a diplo twink, its used for the init, add in everyone taking improved init, and the warlord feat that lets you add your int/cha bonus instead of 2 to everyone's rolls as well as starting off with either cha or int at 16 and pumping it you can end up with +10-13 init for everyone in the group before dex and level.

Its pretty specific, but its not that bad.

 

[Danceofmasks]

It's not bad as a diplo twink ... get every "assistant" closer to passing their aid another check, and you can get a horrendous total.

edit: whoops, thought the convo was about something else entirely.

 

[NorthSaber]

Why is this feat bad ... it looks pretty good to me. A +1 stacking bonus to Init and Insight for the whole party, what's not to like?

For a 3.x feat it would actually be quite good, but I just don't find it up-to-par compared to the other 4e feats. That +1 may never make a difference, and even if it does, the chance of it happening is pretty slim.

I just don't see my character ever taking this feat, unless I was making a leader type that does everything to boost his allies. Even then it would be pretty low on my priority list.

 

[clearstream]

I'll put another word of love in for Skill Training. Given the consolidation of the skills (each matters more than in 3.x), the increased relevance of skills in the system (e.g. skill challenges), the relative paucity of bonuses to skills, and the +5 you get instead of +3, I think Skill Training can be very useful in the right campaign. Similarly, even if people aren't crazy about the multiclass feats as a way to multiclass, they're great if you are interested in skill training that could be acquired along with a free class-related perk.

The basic multiclass feats rule when it comes to skill training. A skill + a random other benefit! My favourite is the Ranger multiclass, since that gives you free Perception and Hunter's Q will count for many d6s of extra damage per encounter (against one target ofc). The second best is probably Cleric.

In many common scenarios high perception let's you know 'bad things' are about to happen before they happen to you, and Alertness is probably the better boost to that than Skill Focus, and Improved Initiative let's you go first when the bad things happen. I'm also liking Quickdraw as an alternative to Improved Initiative.

Finally, Ritual Casting just for the munchkin-ness of being able to open locks with my Int, raise the dead, cure afflictions, etc, etc, yawn.

-vk

 

[Baumi]

? - Surely, by definition, you only get a surprise round when you're prepared and they're not, hence you'd have a weapon ready.

It could help if you readied the wrong weapon. Last Session I played as a Fighter who went in front of the party with Shield and Battleaxe ready. We entered a Room where we got surprise (to my surprise ), but I couldn't attack because they were simply out of charge reach and I would have needed a minor Action to ready one of my Javelins.

 

[Mengu]

There are two Channel Divinity feats that I think are stronger than people are giving credit for.

Melora's Tide - At the end of many encounters, you will have at least one person bloodied, and needing around 3 healing surges to heal up. Melora's Tide reduces that number to 2. If anyone is knocked unconscious, it can save 2 healing surges for that person. Throughout 4-5 encounters in a day, that's at least an extra 3-4 healing surges you didn't have to spend. This is well worth a feat, especially for a cleric. I would just about never use Divine fortune, if I had this feat (except maybe in that one big last encounter after which you know you'll need an extended rest).

Raven Queen's Blessing - Since paladins are more likely to take targets down, this feat combined maybe with the cleric multi-class feat turns a paladin into a leader. For a party with no leader, or a party with only a tactical Warlord as a leader, the Paladin with Raven Queen's Blessing can easily help fill that role.

 

[Seeker_of_Truth]

For a 3.x feat it would actually be quite good, but I just don't find it up-to-par compared to the other 4e feats. That +1 may never make a difference, and even if it does, the chance of it happening is pretty slim.

I just don't see my character ever taking this feat, unless I was making a leader type that does everything to boost his allies. Even then it would be pretty low on my priority list.

In a party of 5 it has a better chance of affecting the initiative order in the party's favor than Improved Init. You rated that as a top teir feat. It's unquestionably a leader style feat, but why limit it leaders only, it's not like it works any differently when the warlock takes it.