What ARE feats for? Min-maxing or Role-Play customization

[Emirikol]

Really? What ARE feats for? Min-maxing or Role-Play customization?

I say min-maxing for my players. I've yet in the 3 editions seen them use for anything other than that.

[edit: I can understand the use for prestige classes, but still essentially players are taking that either mostly to min-max or role-play. My players are more likely to do the prestige class thing for role-playing but closely behind just to min-max]
[edit: What percentage of feats in 4E are combat oriented?]
[edit: Are stat-boosting feats the best way to differentiate your character from the next?]

jh

 

[Runestar]

Basically to add more options to your character, so as to better differentiate him from the next.

 

[Wormwood]

In my experience: 75 crunch / 25 fluff

Great mechanisms for either focusing or broadening your character.

 

[irdeggman]

I have seen it done both ways - I don't like the only option for that being "exactly equal" though.

In many, many cases feats are chosen to meet prerequisites for prestige classes and when used as such in general that do not optimize a PC but more frequently end up sub-optimizing it since a lot of the feats required are of the "weaker" kind.

How many times does toughness show up as a prerequisiste feat?

For my sorcerer in one game I went with the fey heritige feats. The low level ones are not optimizing feats at all, but they are prerequisistes for higher level ones which are pretty "powerful". The PC is only a 3rd level character so I don't have a lot of feat choices.

I am curious is your history on this is based on playing higher level PCs (as in starting with higher levels ones with lots of feats) or running a PC from 1st level up.

There are a pretty large amount of posters that reflect the semi-power game mentality of starting with mid to high level PCs (especially in on-line games), IMO. When you don't build a PC from ground zero things change drastically in feat choices, IMO.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Character customization!

So your dude isn't built off the same assembly line as everyone elce's dude.

 

[Umbran]

I say that depends on the player/group. They're a bit multi-purpose.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I voted min/maxing as most of the feats out there aim to give a combat related advantage. While this can also round out the character development/roleplaying side of things as well (as it should), feats are generally too scarce for most characters to "waste" them on something that is seen as "non-effective" [very dependent upon how a group "plays" the game]. It would be good actually if you could split the feats into the two categories and you get one of each whenever you gain a feat. Encouraging both styles of play would seem good to me, rather than forcing players to choose (and deny themselves some of the more interesting options they normally wouldn't; be it combat effectiveness or roleplaying-orientated).

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

P.S. I've speech-marked some of the loaded terms that are sometimes thrown around. Both playstyles are good and valid and proponents of one should not look down upon the other.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

While they may be placed in for more min-maxing, I use them as solely RP-tools.

 

[GeeksDreamGirl]

My dwarf cleric has Light Shield Proficiency. Good for helping out the AC, and she has a Shield of Protection with a nice daily on it.

My half-elf wizard took Linguist to go with her background story. She was raised in a library and is a bookworm. Sure, I could have gone with the Comprehend Language ritual and used the feat for something else, but I decided that if it came to understanding languages, I wanted to be 100% sure I'd understand. I tend to roll poorly in high-stakes situations ;-)

 

[Halivar]

I use my feats, as much as possible, to break out of my classes assigned role. This both an intellectual exercise (still learning 4E) and building 3-D RP for my character.