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

[Dannyalcatraz]

But didn't you also say you weren't going to be taking the weapon and armor feats until paragon or epic? If so... how is your character fitting your mental image of a traditional dwarf until then?

He'll be falling short of my concept until then. But I don't have much of a choice if I want the PC to take the Paragon Path I want for him and for his combat mechanics to work properly & fully.

Is he not becoming a traditional dwarf until halfway through his adventuring career, or are you just assuming he is one from the beginning, even though you haven't taken the feats necessary to support it?

The latter. In a sense it's like he knows what he wants to be- heavily armored and carrying a top-notch traditional weapon- but he is "in school" that doesn't give him time to learn those skills, so he will have to wait until he "graduates" to do so. It's not an uncommon type of choice in the RW.

There was a person who played linebacker in the NFL, well enough to earn a couple trips to the Pro Bowl. But football wasn't his passion, it was his path. He retired- still at the top of his game- and used the wealth he earned to put himself through med school. He is currently a specialist in sports medicine associated with the NFL.

And if the latter is true... and you are just handwaving the necessity of having a weapon and armor feat until later on in paragon... why bother taking those feats at all (since they pretty much are useless to a starlock/psion anyway?)

Because those feats let the PC achieve what he wants to achieve. He wants to be armored and armed like a more traditional dwarf. It is an aspect of Dwarven society and culture he feels separated from, and will until he takes them.

If he's a traditional dwarf from the beginning (which you are saying he is based entirely on how you roleplay and not by the feats he has)... then you don't actually need the feats at all, now or later.

It is part of the role-play.

He needs the feats because he feels he needs those abilities to make him a Dwarf in every sense of the word. He is meeting an internal goal of matching a cultural archetype.

If I were a member of a society in which men traditionally wove tapestries, but I left at a young age to do something else and never learned the skill, I might still have a desire to learn those skills. If the desire is strong enough, I may well find time later on in life to do so. I may never match the skill of those who have been weaving all their adult lives, but I will feel more connected to my culture. At that point, my inner traditionalistic urges will intersect with my culture's traditional expectations.

That's where this guy's head is.

AND...

In all honesty, there is also a grain of meta behind taking those feats as well. In the 13 years I've gamed with this particular group, not a single caster (or other non-melee) PC has entirely avoided HTH combat. This Starlock/Psion has already been on point thrice; made an unsuccessful AoO with his Warhamme in one instance, and risked an AoO to use a ranged power to help another PC in the second occasion. (In the third, the Archer took the foe down before he could turn around and smack the Dwarf.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

True, DMs have the power to make feat taxes a non-issue. But if you're a player in a RAW game, there's not much you can do but pay your feat taxes. And IME, RAW games far outnumber house ruled games, because many DMs are afraid to deviate from official rules for whatever reason.

Heh... I'd actually say it was the opposite. I think more DMs house rule (or really, more to the point, change/ignore) bits and pieces of the rules as they see fit. Whether that's fudging a roll here or there, going against the suggested treasure allotment at each level, adapting or outright changing monsters, not bothering with errata, giving players additional feats, adding crafting or morale rules back into the game etc. etc. Most DMs I do not believe play everything exactly by RAW, because every DM has their own picadillos on what they do and don't like both in D&D and in rpgs in general. So they have very little problem tweaking a rule here or there as need be.

Most of the DMs who don't tweak rules at all are new DMs (because they don't know enough about their own game where they feel the need or are comfortable doing so). But guess what? Those DMs probably don't even know about how there's this math behind the game and that it's a little off, and that a couple feats found in the second player's handbook are supposedly there to fix it. And even if by some chance they do know about it... they don't have the experience to know whether or not how they are currently playing has been affected by it. So the point for them is moot anyway. It's only the diehards like us who come on message boards such as this who realize and/or talk about the possibility of a feat tax problem. The other 90% of players have no idea.

 

[C4]

Heh... I'd actually say it was the opposite. I think more DMs house rule (or really, more to the point, change/ignore) bits and pieces of the rules as they see fit. Whether that's fudging a roll here or there, going against the suggested treasure allotment at each level, adapting or outright changing monsters, not bothering with errata, giving players additional feats, adding crafting or morale rules back into the game etc. etc. Most DMs I do not believe play everything exactly by RAW, because every DM has their own picadillos on what they do and don't like both in D&D and in rpgs in general. So they have very little problem tweaking a rule here or there as need be.

Dude, let's trade game regions! 4e DMs in my neck of the woods seem to be very...square. Sometimes they'll make an unintentional house rule out of general rule minutia ignorance, or blatantly fudge a roll in the players' favor*, but to intentionally change a rule? *gasp* And to give out free feats?! *local DMs cross themselves*

What kind of hippy commune game am I trying to start?

*That drives me crazy. If you're gonna fudge, do it right and lie!

Most of the DMs who don't tweak rules at all are new DMs (because they don't know enough about their own game where they feel the need or are comfortable doing so). But guess what? Those DMs probably don't even know about how there's this math behind the game and that it's a little off, and that a couple feats found in the second player's handbook are supposedly there to fix it. And even if by some chance they do know about it... they don't have the experience to know whether or not how they are currently playing has been affected by it. So the point for them is moot anyway. It's only the diehards like us who come on message boards such as this who realize and/or talk about the possibility of a feat tax problem. The other 90% of players have no idea.

Yeah, we are a minority of some kind. But if I have a clueless DM, I have no qualms about raising awareness.

 

[tiornys]

1) Because before they created Expertise, the concept of "feat tax" didn't exist. So they had no way of knowing beforehand how bent out of shape some players would get over it... enough so to create a whole new term to define way they were annoyed about.

Not true, actually. You're probably unaware of the outcry over Psionics during 3rd edition, which depended heavily on various feats. The typical battle cry was "FSBNNN"--Feats Should Be Nice, Not Necessary. This is the first instance I'm aware of where feats were termed as taxes, but I wouldn't want to swear that the terminology wasn't in use even before that.

2) Adding a few feats to the game was a lot less of a mess than changing the defenses of every single monster in the game. You want to talk about too much errata... having errata for every single monster would have been ridiculous.

Errata for the monsters would have been ridiculous. A simpler and flavorful fix that avoids many (but not all) of the problems would have been the introduction of "masterwork" weapon and implement materials that gave a +1 (minimum +2 enhancement), +2 (min +4 enh), or +3 (min +6 enh) to attacks (a similar solution would work on neck items for NADs). From a pure game balance perspective, the correct solution was to grant a scaling "half tier" bonus at levels 5, 15, and 25 (and this bonus should have also applied to non-AC defenses).

t~

 

[MrGrenadine]

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.

Interesting--you admit that getting +1 to all attacks is logically better than getting +1 to some attacks, but you also think that the inferior choice isn't less valid? How could it not be?

Besides, Expertise feats are a tax because they're needed to keep the characters hitting at an average rate as determined by the game's designers. Want to hit 55% of the time on average, from lvls 1-30? Pay the tax.

However, if the designers (or the DM) wants to give players opportunities to make choices that go more to character than mechanical efficiency, then the Charm buff shouldn't be +1--it should be +2 or +3. So now the choice is: Do I want my Wizard to have +1 to hit on all attacks, and hew to the base average across the board, or do I want my Charm Wizard to hit more effectively with Charm attacks, and less effectively with all other attacks?

That to me is a choice between two good options--a choice that could lead to more interesting characters, (which is what a terrific feat system would do).

 

[MrGrenadine]

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.

I completely disagree. Mechanics matter.

Powerful Charge is a wash, since its just a damage boost, but in cases where a feat buffs the attack roll, believe me, it matters. A player is going to have a tough time RP-ing her "Death Dealer" fighter if she needs a 15+ to hit. "Die, and return to the Hell from whence you came!" <rolls an 11> "Damn, missed again."

Simply put: You can't RP being good at certain things in the game if the numbers don't add up.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Simply put: You can't RP being good at certain things in the game if the numbers don't add up.

Although you CAN RP delusionally thinking you're good at something...like Dave Lister thinks of his guitar skills...

 

[DEFCON 1]

Interesting--you admit that getting +1 to all attacks is logically better than getting +1 to some attacks, but you also think that the inferior choice isn't less valid? How could it not be?

The point made was not that selecting a lesser feat was just as valid a choice as selecting a better one. It was that selecting a better feat was just as valid and "flavorful" as selecting the lesser one... because they both produced that same exact thing... a +1 bonus to attack with the spells that were meant to be primary for the particular character in question. Just because the lesser feat only applied to a smaller segment of the game's mechanics didn't make it a more "flavorful" option.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Again, you don't need Expertise to have some variation in weapon skill. That's what Weapon Focus and whatnot are for.

Again, I like it that way... and now?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would love 5e to one day have COmbat Exploits and Non COmbat Feats... both having the same feat like things but now fully siloed...

Yes, i hope 5e will be closer to ADnD 2nd edition... there were good things in it, that 3.x lost...