Which feats are "taxes"?

[roguerouge]

If your character's not taking obvious feats from core rule books that make him better at his role in the party, you, as a player, are deliberately making it harder on everyone else who plays with you. How this is good team play, I will never, ever understand. Please consult with your fellow players and DM to make sure that there will not be resentment at having to bail you out.

Not everyone wants to play with Robin the Boy Hostage.

 

[Wik]

By all means, defense taxes aren't as important as the Expertise taxes because there are more of them to pay and they don't come as close to actually fixing the math glitch as Expertise does. [Expertise comes within 1 of fixing the math while Paragon & Robust defenses comes within 2; if you take the Fort/Ref/Will boosters in addition though, you can overcompensate which is just as stupid.]

You can't take both Paragon Defences and Iron Will/Lightning Reflexes/Great Fortitude. They both offer a feat bonus to the defence; therefore, they don't stack. Paragon Defences + even one of the specific boosters is wasteful.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If your character's not taking obvious feats from core rule books that make him better at his role in the party, you, as a player, are deliberately making it harder on everyone else who plays with you. How this is good team play, I will never, ever understand. Please consult with your fellow players and DM to make sure that there will not be resentment at having to bail you out.

Not everyone wants to play with Robin the Boy Hostage.

and if I choose diffrent feats then YOU want, you might get mad at me???

so does everyone run all feats/powers/skills by you for approval?

 

[Minigiant]

I argee that it's a feat tax.
But you don't need it 'til about level 14. At that point you'll have 7+ feats and it's not bad.
Taking it before level 6 is pretty crazy to me unless you are playen a PC whoses highest strating ability is 16.

It's like an Inheritance tax. Yes, it's a tax but hopefully you don't have to worry about it for a while.

 

[kaomera]

The system does have a certain amount of give in it. So if you want to play a character with a 16 in your main stat, well, go for it. If you want to ignore Expertise until higher levels, go for it. If you want to use a glaive instead of a greatspear, go for it. Just don't do too many of these things at once. They start to add up, particularly as your level increases.

This has been my experience: the more you try to build a "cool" character, instead of simply an optimized one (and I'm not saying that optimized characters can't be or aren't cool, but there are some characters that ought to be cool that aren't optimized...), the more desperately you begin to need to get these feats, and at that point you're likely in a position of running a losing race to keep up. I'm not talking 10+ vs. 11+ to hit, I've seen plenty of situations where monsters that one character was hitting on an 8+ if not better, another was hitting on a 13+ or worse. a 40% hit rate quickly produces an encounter or even an entire session where you just don't hit once, and that leads to a lack of fun.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I'm amused that some people here feel that, if they ignore a problem really really hard, it'll simply vanish and go away, and nobody will ever have to deal with it again. What a wonderful, magical universe that has to be.

Unfortunately, for those of us on Earth, when a feat is so useful that you feel mandated to take it due to the underlying math having a chip in it, then yes, that's a feat tax. It takes away one of your feats in order to keep the system working.

This isn't about power gaming, and good christ throwing around the word like this makes you look foolish. It's about understanding basic math and seeing that patching a flaw with a feat is a bad idea.

QFE.

I just houserule each PC gets the Expertise feat of their choice at 1st level and move on.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

You can't take both Paragon Defences and Iron Will/Lightning Reflexes/Great Fortitude. They both offer a feat bonus to the defence; therefore, they don't stack. Paragon Defences + even one of the specific boosters is wasteful.

IW/LR/GF don't stack, but the three epic versions do for whatever mysterious reason. Unless they've been errataed. So by blowing four epic feats, your NADs actually gain 2 points of relative value; not many players would find it worth four feats but there ya go!

 

[AngryMojo]

This argument has been going on since PHB2 was being previewed, and I've had the "priveledge" of seeing the debate, and in-game application of both arguments.

I think this might actually be a question of optimization mentality vs. casual mentality. If you're a player that wants to optimize and min-max, you're going to take your expertise feat, and likely your defense feats because when it gets right down to it, they really help out. Meanwhile, if you're of a more casual bent, you're going to aim for the cool and fun feats instead, and just lack a bit in the to-hit and defense department. There's a game out there for both, the optimized party will likely be facing a smaller number of higher level monsters, while the casual players will more likely be facing a larger number of lower level monsters. Assuming a DM that tailors encounters to his party and not the other way around.

Therefore, I propose a little exercise. Not an argument, but a bit of mathcraft that might be a bit fun. Make a character that's optimized, or capable of filling his role extremely well in play without using any of the "tax feats." I mean a character that's actually tested in a group through multiple encounters of different varieties, not some statistical analysis that lacks tactical thought or intangible bonuses that can be granted at higher levels.

 

[billd91]

We need a popcorn smiley because this thread is cracking me up.

I can see a debate about a feat being too good - because then it becomes an option that dominates other options. And in a game, that's not good.

But a feat tax?
I doubt we'd be having this debate if people hadn't be so sure-fired certain that WotC had finally "fixed" the math in D&D.

This whole debate is a problem with expectations and differences in play style. Optimizers will think of any dominating build strategy as a "tax" because it's an obviously superior choice. Players who don't worry so much about optimization won't think of it as a tax... unless they really bought into the math being fixed in 4e and then focus on too narrow a concept of what that fix, what the sweet spot that is supposed to be preserved throughout the whole PC's career, really is.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

We need a popcorn smiley because this thread is cracking me up.

I can see a debate about a feat being too good - because then it becomes an option that dominates other options. And in a game, that's not good.

But a feat tax?
I doubt we'd be having this debate if people hadn't be so sure-fired certain that WotC had finally "fixed" the math in D&D.

This whole debate is a problem with expectations and differences in play style. Optimizers will think of any dominating build strategy as a "tax" because it's an obviously superior choice. Players who don't worry so much about optimization won't think of it as a tax... unless they really bought into the math being fixed in 4e and then focus on too narrow a concept of what that fix, what the sweet spot that is supposed to be preserved throughout the whole PC's career, really is.

Honestly, I wouldn't give a damn about Expertise if it weren't for two things.

1) Every character needs it.

Power Attack was needed for all two hander characters in 3.5. Weapon Finesse was needed for your dex-type attackers. But I don't think 3.5 had a single feat that everyone needed. And in both cases, it altered your character. Expertise is the boring math feat that everyone has to take to keep playing the game.

2) 4e would not shut the hell up about how awesome and balanced their math is wait whoops

Bragging about the superiority of your edition due to the flawless math and then having to release a feat to fix a problem with the math is almost greek in it's delicious hubris.


Anyways, I don't see this as a "casual vs optimization" thing. Some people understand basic goddamn math in the tabletop strategy game built around numbers and basic math. Other people go out of their way to make bad characters because it makes them feel more unique. If anything, the basic math side is the casual one - "Oh hey, the math here is a bit screwy, but this feat fixes that." It's the other side, the side that adamantly refuses to take the feat because oh god I cannot refer to math, that's the hardcore group. The weird hardcore group, that things a game about rolling dice, adding numbers, and comparing modifiers isn't supposed to have math involved.