Which feats are "taxes"?

[roguerouge]

Ok, so what if that didn't happen? what if without htese feat I was still a powerhouse member of the team?

Look: I've written many times that this is based on a situation in which a player is not holding up his end of the bargain and is not compensating elsewhere. Please read what I wrote.

what if without those feats none of that was true (Becuse it is not always...)

Please read what I wrote: gimping, not achieving the same end by different means.

But my fun might have some feats in mind...but you don't mind messing with that by telling people what the have to take...

not in the least...

You will when you read what I wrote. I have not told anyone what to take. I've encouraged a discussion among players about what they expect. That's not the same thing as a player ordering another player around. This only becomes an issue when you are impacting other players' fun by requiring magic items to make up for your choices or getting other PCs killed to make up for your choices.

I'm presenting a limited case with an end result of a conversation at the table about shared expectations and fairness in resource allocations. Evidently, this is very threatening to you, when it's clearly not controversial to anyone else in this thread. You might want to think about why that is.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Hitting with an attack is going to do more damage than 1d10, unless your a terribly built character at level 1. Weapon focus is better. Not sure if it was a joke, but there ya go anyway.

EDIT: Assumed you meant devastating critical... but I'm pretty sure there isn't much better than that anyway.

There are critical hit feats which allow followup attacks and knock prone. Allow you to retain combat advantage and recharge dailies. And IMHO they are too unreliable if they only trigger 1 of 20.
Triggering twice as often however sounds ok. So expertise becomes a no-brainer from level 15 on. Not before.

Improved initiative is a feat which has to compete with quickdraw. A feat which allows you to draw your bow and get an attack in you otherwise would have not. Or draw a potion, shift and attack. Which in mostbattles is worth more than a +2 bonus to initiative. On lower levels it may also be better than +1 to hit. (Yeah, beeing able to attack can be worth more than a slightly inccreased chance to attack)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

*snip* gimping *snip*

And now we are playing World of Warcraft...

Even the worst built char can pull its own weight if you put your best scores in primary and secondary attribute and don´t wear the worst armor you can find.

16 in main attribute, +2 proficiency weapon and you still hit 50/50 at level 1. Not that i would advise to do so... in general

But imagine a dwarven str/wis cleric who wants to be in melee. (Str 16, wis 18, dwarven weapon training)

He will do good damage on ranged attacks, but if cornered in melee, he will make good use of his mordenkrad. Not hitting so well, but doing tons of damage and healing himself at least 3 times per combat with a minor action. Try to convince this player that he is doing everything wrong.

even with 14 strength he would be dangerous in close combat.

edit: even with 12 strength in combat he will be dangerous. And if i would focus rather on charisma than stregth as secondary attribute i would consider taking expertise for the mordenkrad to compensate.

 

[Minigiant]

I still don't see the problem with Expertise as a feat tax.

1. Taking it before level 6 for most PCs is a waste. Most PCs have at least 3 powerful, neccesary, or staple feats in the heroic tier they they'll take eariler if they were optimizing. Proficiencies, aror, class and racial features will be upgraded first. +1 to attack when you don't really need it is not so important.
2. By the time you actually need it, you should have over 6 feats. Unless you are heavily optimizing, you should have most to the feats you really want. One of seven or eight feats doesn't hurt you too bad.
3. It fixes the math at least.

 

[Dausuul]

It is odd how much of a fervor gets thrown up by this concept every time it comes up.

I'm going to go a step further. Way further.

I think any feat which is inherently boring and just gives a passive benefit that is of a clear and notable mechanical nature is one that taxes the ability of characters to make more interesting and fun builds.

Cause, sure, you can put your guy who can shift on charges and quickdraw and throw his rarely-used weapons further and such against the guy with +2 attack, +2 damage, and high crit. And it'll go the same way every time. And that's not really what was promised from the game system. Or what's in the best interest of the fun of the system.

So, I'd happily see Expertise go. And paragon/epic defenses. And toughness, I guess. And Weapon Focus. Superior Weapon Proficiency. All that boring crap. Give me feat options that add play options, tactics, story. Not another bloody +1.

This stuff's not breaking the game, but from my porch I deem it crap and want it off my lawn.

My view is that feats should either be interesting/unusual stuff that rounds out the character (Skill Training, Linguist, Quick Draw, et cetera), or boring numerical stuff (Skill Focus, Weapon Focus, Expertise, et cetera). But not both.

My preference is for the former, but there is a place for the latter. The problem is that when the two occupy the same build space, the boring numerical feats are almost invariably better picks than the interesting unusual feats.

I suspect the purpose of creating both types of feats was an attempt to appeal to both the min-maxer personality and the role-player personality (what in M:tG terms would be called "Spike" and "Timmy"). The thing is, though, the min-maxers of the world don't need stuff tailored specially for them; they'll work with whatever they're given. If that means figuring out a way to squeeze a combat bonus out of the Linguist feat, so be it.

 

[Felon]

It is odd how much of a fervor gets thrown up by this concept every time it comes up.

I'm going to go a step further. Way further.

Ok,you didn't actually go that far, you know that, right?

Bottom line here is that feats would be a nightmare if none of them added flat numerical bonuses. I got at least two guys in my group who don't have or want the character builder and really can't keep track of all the stuff their character currently gets from feats, powers, class features and magic items.

 

[roguerouge]

And now we are playing World of Warcraft...

Never played it, nor any MMO.

 

[Cadfan]

For the record, I don't think that being a "feat tax" means that without the feat in question your character will be a worthless waste of paper incapable of contributing meaningfully to the group or of being in the slightest bit pleasurable to play.

But seriously, you mock the math gods at your peril. Don't let the fact that attack bonuses are forecast across a 20 point distribution that makes personally noticing the effect of +1 (or +2, or +3) to hit difficult. Its there. Its there, eating away at your character like a canker.

And the fact that you may not personally see it is probably a really, really good argument for not having this sort of problem in the game. Because whether you see it or not, you DO experience it. You don't have a choice on that. And it would be nice if the game designers hadn't put in a penalty for not really grokking statistics. Then everyone could take fun feats and avoid Expertise, and no one would suffer unknowingly for it.

Entire casinos in Vegas are founded as multi million or billion dollar businesses on differences in odds tighter than those generated by a heroic tier Expertise feat.

 

[keterys]

Ok,you didn't actually go that far, you know that, right?

I'm surprised I wasn't called a blasphemer for denouncing Superior Weapons, honestly.

Bottom line here is that feats would be a nightmare if none of them added flat numerical bonuses. I got at least two guys in my group who don't have or want the character builder and really can't keep track of all the stuff their character currently gets from feats, powers, class features and magic items.

Does the character builder really make a big difference for this? I know one guy who prints out his sheet from it and still has no idea For those kinds of characters, slightly more passive things like 'Pervasive Light' and 'Twofold Curse', sure. And even Skill Training. Nothing wrong with having the freedom to go 'Yeah, I'm not that good at it, but I think all that Ale and Whores has trained me up some Streetwise' without going 'Well, or I could get +2 to damage with every attack, hmm'.

 

[Garthanos]

Interesting is in the eye of the beholder sometimes...

Word. Channel Divinity feats, Reaper's Touch, Linguist. Those are interesting feats. Improved Initiative is not.

Improved initiative ... maybe is not interesting... but if you were using it to represent somebody who is unusually aggressive (always looking forward to the fight) ... it might be better than increasing the characters dexterity ;-)

And the Deva ability which allows you to apply their wisdom to initiative implies something different about how their mind operates which I find interesting.