What's the big deal with "feat taxes?"

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except that those feats are also skills and/or languages. The existence of the "feat taxes" has also had the peripheral effect of creating power creep in other feats, creating many that are far superior to the original concept of taking an extra language or skill with a whole feat. This is compensatory for forcing certain feats to be taken, for mechanical utility.

The fall-out is far more extensive than just affecting the number and time that you take feats.

'Losing' feats, at Heroic, hurts character concept in favour of mechanics. Using Paragon feats, to take Heroic feats, hurts both concept AND power. Using Epic feats, for the same purpose, is just silly.

I agree with you.

I was just saying that HIS point was that, functionally, what you lose is the Epic feats, the last ones you gain. And functionally, that's accurate.

By the game's structure, you never lose access to a Heroic feat, and you only lose access to Paragon feats if you take 13 or more Heroic ones.

 

[Zaran]

Eh, when I ran a campaign I knew was going to end by 4th level recently, I started all PCs with

+1 Feat Bonus to Attack and Damage
Any superior implement or weapon proficiency desired.

And it led to a much wider variety of feats. *shrug* So, much like inherent bonuses, there are things that could be done. WotC could have a "DMG3" option to just give out some feat bonuses.

This is one of the main reasons why I want to be able to add free feats to the online character builder.

 

[Herschel]

And this is the attitude right here that those of us who either don't believe or don't care about the concept of the "feat tax" use to explain why.

You chose mechanics over flavor on your own. You didn't have to. Wizards gave you the opportunity to do it by providing the feats, but you yourself made the decision to do it. It's understandable why you did... logically speaking, a +1 to all attacks is better than a +1 to charms only... but the idea that it's somehow a less valid choice is in my opinion silly. Because for the most part, feats themselves aren't "flavorful". They're pretty much ALL mechanical benefit, and it all depends on the circle of abilities that get affected by it.

Does having Feyborn Charm as a feat really make your character more of a "charm" character? No. Whether your character is more "charmlike" all comes down to how you PLAY your character. You could take the Expertise feat (which applies to your charms too, after all) and still play the character as though charms were it's focus, and there would be no noticeable difference whatsoever. Someone would have to actually care enough to notice that the attack bonus you used for your charms was the same bonus you used on your other spells and have actually MATTER to them for it to somehow mean your character was less "flavorful" of a charmer because you had Expertise rather than Feyborn Charm.

But most people don't care about the numbers on other people's sheets. So long as you play your fey character as charm-focused... the numbers under the hood make absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Must spread XP but *THWACK* that's not only a home run, that ball's over the fence, past the seats and in the parking lot.

 

[Herschel]

'Losing' feats, at Heroic, hurts character concept in favour of mechanics. Using Paragon feats, to take Heroic feats, hurts both concept AND power. Using Epic feats, for the same purpose, is just silly.

BS

The former is a choice. Expertise, especially for a melee character, is weaker than tactics. Combat advantage, leader bonuses, status effects, monster knowledge, etc. all add up.

For the latter, some times you simply don't qualify for feats until Paragon even from a mechanical standpoint. Take Superior Will, as an example. If all I can squeeze out in heroic is a 14 Wisdom or Con, I can't take it there. But as a defender or leader, it's mechanically worth it to use a paragon feat on it.

There are more examples too. Your statement is made in a vacuum.

 

[Estlor]

Whoever it was that commented on power creep, I absolutely agree that this is the hidden cost of math fix feats. The Expertise feats are so good that you run the risk of this becoming the new baseline of a balanced feat. Suddenly the whole system starts falling apart because you've got, "Learn a new language" sharing the same design space as, "Become proficient in thermo-nuclear bombs. Once per encounter, you can drop a nuke."

For what its worth, the party of 5 PCs I DM for currently has a 3/5ths rate of Expertise feat selection at 4th level. It was, without a doubt, the most popular 4th level feat choice. (The two who didn't take expertise were a brawler fighter that took Improved Grab and an artificer who took Crossbow Caster.)

Rounding up some miscellaneous comments:

You chose mechanics over flavor on your own. You didn't have to. Wizards gave you the opportunity to do it by providing the feats, but you yourself made the decision to do it. It's understandable why you did... logically speaking, a +1 to all attacks is better than a +1 to charms only... but the idea that it's somehow a less valid choice is in my opinion silly. Because for the most part, feats themselves aren't "flavorful". They're pretty much ALL mechanical benefit, and it all depends on the circle of abilities that get affected by it.

Speaking from both sides of the argument, yes, the player does make the active choice to stress mechanics over flavor. But the decision often isn't, "Do I want an attack bonus with my sword, or do I want to be able to be able to throw my breath weapon," it's, "Am I going to have more fun hitting 50% of the time, or 35% of the time?" So, in a roundabout way, no, WotC didn't give the player a choice because they built a system around the idea of being able to hit half the time at any given point in your PC's career, but then failed to actually make the math work. Of course, the kicker that makes things nice and muddy is the fact you have to roll a die before you can hit or miss something, and dice never give you the even distribution of results statistical modeling requires them to in order to develop probability models. (One of the players I DM for went an entire night where they never rolled above a 9. The next week, their newly 4th level PC showed up with Orb Expertise. Go figure?)

Is learning a weapon not an important goal, every adventurer should aim for?

Of course it is. However, there is a basic assumption made by 4e when the PHB was released. A PC, by virtue of being a PC, has already invested the time and effort necessary to learn the ins and outs of their weapon/implement to the point where they are exceptionally skilled with it. It's called being proficient. For those who go above and beyond to become true masters of the weapon, you've got Hammer Rhythm, Heavy Blade Opportunity, Deadly Axe and the like. And for the pinnacle of weapon masters, the the Mastery epic feats that expand your crit range. What do all of these things have in common? They give you a neat mechanical benefit without being "mandatory."

Now before I'm labeled as a supporter of the "feat tax" camp (maybe it's too late for that), let me say that I feel very differently about the PHB2 expertise feats and the Essentials expertise feats. The former are an uninteresting math fix hanging around taking up space in my PC's list of feats. The latter, while still motivated by a math fix, at least give me something interesting, be it an extra push, a bonus on OA, or more damage when I use a weapon in the most appropriate way. That said, I think it would have been better to give PCs a flat +1 to hit at 11th and again at 21st level and make the expertise feats just provide the extra kicker. Personally, I'd like to ban Improved Defenses/Paragon Defenses/etc and just leave the PHB1 NAD feats and the Superior suite in the game as they do more than just fix the math.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But in Paragon, you may well still be assembling the feats that really define your character, and having to spend one on Expertise stings. And, by that point, the benefits of an Expertise feat are worlds above any other option - you don't have to take it, but doing without is definitely felt.

But my point is that feats don't define your character. They just change the numbers on your character sheet.

How you roleplay your character is how you define it. If you want your character to be known as a rash individual who walways charges headlong into battle... you don't have to take Powerful Charge for that to be the case. Or more to the point... you don't have to take it a feat slot earlier, if you decide to go with Expertise instead. The fact that you might take Expertise at level 2 and Powerful Charge at 4 doesn't ipso facto mean your character is any less a charging machine at those lower levels before the feat gets taken. How you roleplay the character and how/when you decide to charge into combat does.

It's the same point I made to Ryujin with regards to his Feyborn Charm feat. If he wants his character to be known as a feyborn charmer... that feat is in no way a requirement. He can still be a feyborn charmer without it. And in fact... if he decided to to forsake Feyborn Charm (a +1 attack bonus to charm spells) to take Expertise instead (a +1 attack bonus to everything)... since that +1 includes all his charm spells, he can still be known as a charm-based character. His attack bonus on charms is the same, regardless of the feat that got him there. And what if that feat never existed in the first place? Does that mean he could never be a fey arcane character who exphasizes charm spells? Of course not. Because the feat does not define him.

Now sure... it'd be nice to be able to have just the right feat with just the right fluff with just the right bonus to be exactly what you want your character to be, because then you could look on your character sheet and see all those pretty keywords that match your character's concept. But even if you did... it doesn't mean jack if you don't actually roleplay it. If Ryujin roleplays his character like your average generic spellcaster even *if* he has taken the Feyborn Charm feat... then having that feat doesn't mean diddly.

So to get hung up on the fact that you have to delay a feat slot or two to take those supposed "character defining" feats that will somehow, someway now bring your character into some sort of roleplay focus is in my opinion just ridiculous. If you can't roleplay your character the way you want him to be regardless of what the little writing says on your character sheet... no amount of feats will help the cause.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But the decision often isn't, "Do I want an attack bonus with my sword, or do I want to be able to be able to throw my breath weapon," it's, "Am I going to have more fun hitting 50% of the time, or 35% of the time?" So, in a roundabout way, no, WotC didn't give the player a choice because they built a system around the idea of being able to hit half the time at any given point in your PC's career, but then failed to actually make the math work.

This is complete BS. Because with the amount of bonuses and penalties available in any single round to any single character, it is impossible for WotC (or anybody) to get things to work out where a hit percentage of 50% or 35% or 40% or 75% or any percent is any sort of achievable goal.

If you're a player and you honestly are thinking "if I don't hit 50% of the time then I'm not having fun"... then I'd ask why you didn't take that 20 in your initial primary stat? Or why you aren't sacrificing yourself to OAs in order to get into flank for combat advantage every single attack? Or why as a rogue you aren't fighting with daggers for that extra +1? Or why you haven't demanded one of your party members play a cleric so they can throw up Lance of Faith and grant you an extra +2 each and every time? There are dozens of bonuses like these that are available to you when building or playing a character if you have this stupid idea that you need to hit a certain AC a certain percentage of the time. And it is quite possible to achieve all of that without EVER taking Expertise.

So no... WotC in no way requires or demands you have Expertise to have an effective character, or a fun character. You may choose to take Expertise because it's easier to get it than any of those other dozens of possible bonuses you have access to... but you do *not* need it. Especially once you get it out of your head that there's some mythical hit percentage that all of a sudden turns the switch in the game from "not fun" to "fun".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So to get hung up on the fact that you have to delay a feat slot or two to take those supposed "character defining" feats that will somehow, someway now bring your character into some sort of roleplay focus is in my opinion just ridiculous. If you can't roleplay your character the way you want him to be regardless of what the little writing says on your character sheet... no amount of feats will help the cause.

Can't really agree with this. Feats most definitely help define the role-playing space of a PC. They don't definitively define the PC in his or her entire, but they do help delineate restrictions and freedoms that make them what they are and how they do things.

Why am I thinking about those weapon and armor feats for my Dwarven Starlock? Because they would help make him look more the "traditional dwarf"...which, given the REST of his background, is something he needs help with.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

And there are people, that believe, that this kind of math discrepancy exists, and that those feats are a feature, and not a bug.

I came to the conclusion, that if you want to excel in combat with your chosen weapon, you should train in it between level 1 and 10...

the defense feats are a different matter... i believe here the system should have been modified to just give +1 bonus to defenses at level 11 and level 21 along with the other increases (you could also increase accuracy here, but it is not really needed... see above)

I don´t want to go into the discussion again, why the discrepancy exists, but i want to say, that there once were encounter long or at will bonuses that increased by level that exactly bridged the gap. If it was coincidence or not, a party with those leaders were expected to have no problems without the expertise feats. BUT the leader himself didn´t hit the broad side of a barn, especially if you consider that those leaders wanted good secondary stats, and that due to the nonletality of monsters at epic tier made DM´s use level + 6 or so monsters regularily, which made fighting terribly boring (at least that is what i heard).
So expertise feats + MM3 monster math improves the game´s performance at high levels considerably!

...

And then I ask again:

Is learning a weapon not an important goal, every adventurer should aim for?

I guess this is the time where I want my 2nd edition back, with weapon and nonweapon proficiencies seperated...
So combat and non-combat feats seperation would be somethig to think about in 5e.

This is becoming more and more of a common sentiment, and I wouldn't mind such a WP/NPW divide at all.

I'm getting a bit lost in the rest of your comments, but you seem to be referencing the "expertise is fun and flavorful!" sentiment. I won't speak for others, but this is why I find that sentiment to be a shallow one:

1) We already have balanced feats that say "I'm really good at kicking butt with this pointy toy." Weapon focus, superior implements, weapon masteries, etc... Expertise doesn't say "I'm really good" -- it says "I'm competent with this toy, and I suck with all the others." Expertise isn't about character definition, it's about getting your character up to par...with one specific kind of toy.

2) Imagine if I wrote a fantasy heartbreaker rpg with several bonus types that were meant to add up in such a way as to make combat fun and balanced. Imagine that you buy my rpg and find that one of those bonuses is, say, +1/3 your level to all attacks and defenses. After doing a bit of basic arithmetic, or after playing for a while, you notice that the math just doesn't work. So you, and others who play my game, tell me so.

Now imagine that my solution to the problem is to write a series of feats that say "You get a +3 bonus per tier to attack rolls with your favorite toy." And to make it easier to swallow, I slap on a line of flavor text about weapon mastery. Would you swallow it with a smile?

No! Of course you wouldn't, because I'm clearly having a lapse in judgment. My feats aren't written to help you define your character; they're written to fix a mistake I made when I wrote the game. And the fix doesn't really fix the problem! Well, the only difference between my mistake and WotC's mistake is a few bonuses. So why should I accept WotC's mistakes as "character definitions," when I'd most likely be out of business?

 

[MrMyth]

But my point is that feats don't define your character. They just change the numbers on your character sheet.

Well, yes, but some of the numbers are pretty key to how one might envision the character. Sure, I can say that my Fighter has been training with the elves and grown skilled at woodlore, but if I haven't spent my feats on Skill Training: Nature and Perception, then when I go walk into the woods I end up eaten by bears.

Seriously, though, I originally felt that one of the greatest strength's or the 4E feat system was its ability to help you assemble character abilities that suited you. You want a skilled, agile, thieving swashbuckler, but don't want to be a thief - you invest in feats that help give you mobility, let you use appropriate weaponry, train you in appropriate skills, and eventually give you rogue type abilities like Evasion and Uncanny Dodge.

Sure, you can act like a swashbuckler before picking all these up, and you certainly don't need 12 levels of feats before you can play the character. But every new feat builds on the previous ones into a visualized whole. Having outside pressure to take irrelevant but mechanically better choices instead is... frustrating.