Which feats are "taxes"?

[Nikosandros]

After the release of PHB2, there has been a lot of discussion about "feat taxes", i.e. feats that are considered necessary in order to "make the math work". The most egregious examples are of course the weapon/implement expertise feats.

Since I'm strongly considering the idea of giving those bonuses for free to every character, I was wondering which other feats are considered to be in the same boat. Presumably some of the paragon/epic defense feats, but which ones specifically?

 

[Nifft]

Paragon Defenses (+1 to everything) and Epic Defenses (+2 to everything) are tax.

The new masterwork armors are a similar mathematical fix, but they're free, so don't sweat that.

Implement Expertise, Weapon Expertise, and Focused Expertise: all tax.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Belen]

Taxes? This does not compute.

 

[Crothian]

Math has worked well for a while without these feats and I think math will be working fine lonmg after they are forgotten. These have got to be the most boring feats though that have been made.

 

[Nikosandros]

Math has worked well for a while without these feats and I think math will be working fine lonmg after they are forgotten. These have got to be the most boring feats though that have been made.

I agree that they are very boring, but they are also quite powerful. The only character who hasn't yet taken expertise in my group is the rogue, and that's because she normally hits almost all the time.

 

[Nifft]

In games I run, instead of giving those feats free, I ban them, and instead change all the monsters (-1/-2/-3 to all defenses, -0/-1/-2 to FRW attacks).

Why do I do this? Because weapon and implement attacks are not the only attacks in the game. Aside from racial abilities (like a Dragonborn's breath), there are attacks like Bull Rush which become even more worthless, and then there's everything on page 42 -- stuff that should be cool, but thanks to the lame feat-tax solution, is instead totally suboptimal.

I dislike stuff that turns "cool" into "suboptimal".

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nikosandros]

Your solution certainly has merit.

How do the penalties for monsters work? Is there a minimum level of monsters before you reduce all the defenses by 1 or does it apply to all monsters? I'm assuming that you apply the -2 for 15th level and -3 for 25th level.

 

[Nifft]

Your solution certainly has merit.

How do the penalties for monsters work? Is there a minimum level of monsters before you reduce all the defenses by 1 or does it apply to all monsters? I'm assuming that you apply the -2 for 15th level and -3 for 25th level.

Monster defenses: -1 at 5th level, -2 at 15th level, -3 at 25th level. (All levels are PC levels, never monster levels. This makes it easy for me, because I'm always subtracting the same number from each monster, even in a mixed encounter.)

Monster FRW attacks: -1 at 11th level, -2 at 21st level. (Again, PC level, because mixed encounters.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Herschel]

I don't find any feats a "tax" and think this is ridiculous thinking. It's a build option, nothing more. For example, if I want to play a Stormsoul Genasi Storm Sorcerer, my racial ability stat bonuses are all kinds of wrong even though the flavor is all kinds of right. The racial power of the Stormsoul Genasi essentially works as a great feat for the class, while the actual "feat" actually takes the place of a +2 stat bonus to the attack stat. This mitigates the need for a total min/max stat dump to be viable.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't feel there is a feat tax at all. If there was then the game would be unplayble without them, and since it was about a year into the game that these 'patches' came out it disproves that.

I do think they are powerful, but not game breaking. I do see about half of the time people take them, but since I have seen about half not and still have awsome characters I guess it evens out.

Infact I often hear people (even people calling them taxes) say they have feats they want more then those. I know I can't for the life of me find a feat to drop on my warlord.