Will you still need to take the Feats?

[TwinBahamut]

Thanks to the Paladin Smites article on the WotC website, and the reference to Charisma-based weapon attacks, it seems that 4E is going to seriously move away from Strength being the dominant stat for melee combat. This got me thinking that Weapon Finesse, which did the same thing, is not going to be such a distinct advantage anymore. That combined with a possible extention of the idea behind the removal of the Ambidexterity feat in 3.5E, makes me wonder...

Will feats that exist only to make combat styles available, like Two-Weapon Fighting or Weapon Finesse, be rolled into the basic abilities of characters?

It may be that any character can now use Dex as the attack stat for a light weapon, even without taking a feat. I would prefer things this way, because it means certain styles will not be assumed, and other styles punished with extra feat costs just because they are different.

 

[Remathilis]

Thanks to the Paladin Smites article on the WotC website, and the reference to Charisma-based weapon attacks, it seems that 4E is going to seriously move away from Strength being the dominant stat for melee combat. This got me thinking that Weapon Finesse, which did the same thing, is not going to be such a distinct advantage anymore. That combined with a possible extention of the idea behind the removal of the Ambidexterity feat in 3.5E, makes me wonder...

Will feats that exist only to make combat styles available, like Two-Weapon Fighting or Weapon Finesse, be rolled into the basic abilities of characters?

It may be that any character can now use Dex as the attack stat for a light weapon, even without taking a feat. I would prefer things this way, because it means certain styles will not be assumed, and other styles punished with extra feat costs just because they are different.

Well two options.

1.) Weapon Finesse Remains a feat; allowing you to use light weapons as dex attacks rather than strength attacks.

2.) Weapon Finesse is a talent on the rogue's talent tree that deals with speed and acrobatics

 

[Plane Sailing]

There was an early titbit talking about fighters and their weapon choices, suggesting that the fighters could choose weapons to play to the strengths of different attributes.

I wouldn't be surprised to see things like 'Rapier' being Dex-based weapons as a matter of course (or at least having some Dex based 'powers')

 

[Logan_Bonner]

Generally speaking, your powers use the ability score your class should be good at. So, for example, a rogue's per-encounter power would be Dexterity vs AC (or whatever). So many of the "enabling" feats of 3.X are now default parts of classes.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Generally speaking, your powers use the ability score your class should be good at. So, for example, a rogue's per-encounter power would be Dexterity vs AC (or whatever). So many of the "enabling" feats of 3.X are now default parts of classes.

Thank you for the explanation!

Interesting information... Now I guess we just need to start guessing which classes use attacks based on which ability scores.

 

[neceros]

Generally speaking, your powers use the ability score your class should be good at. So, for example, a rogue's per-encounter power would be Dexterity vs AC (or whatever). So many of the "enabling" feats of 3.X are now default parts of classes.

That's good news.

Now we can use our very finite resources with better choices, instead of needing to take a qualifying feat in order to use the proper attribute.

 

[tombowings]

Thank you for the explanation!

Interesting information... Now I guess we just need to start guessing which classes use attacks based on which ability scores.

Here's my guess at it:

Fighter: Str and Con
Paladin: Cha and Str (and Will)
Rogue: Dex and Int
Ranger: Dexand Str
Wizard: Int and Cha
Warlock: Cha and Dex
Cleric: Will and Cha
Warlord: Cha and Str

 

[Jeph]

Here's my guess at it:

Fighter: Str and Con
Paladin: Cha and Str (and Will)
Rogue: Dex and Int
Ranger: Dexand Str
Wizard: Int and Cha
Warlock: Cha and Dex
Cleric: Will and Cha
Warlord: Cha and Str

Given that we've seen official 4e Wizard feats and Paladin smites that rely on Wisdom, I think you're a bit off in those two cases at least.

 

[Stalker0]

Thanks to the Paladin Smites article on the WotC website, and the reference to Charisma-based weapon attacks, it seems that 4E is going to seriously move away from Strength being the dominant stat for melee combat.

To me this is a nice thing about encounter based balancing.

For example with paladin smites, a heavy charisma based paladin can unleash a lot of pain....for a few rounds. Then without smites he's stuck with his crappy strength. However, he gets all the benefits of that nice charisma, including social combat. The next combat, he's back to smiting.

The strength paladin keeps going and going, unleashing a decent amount of damage every round every combat. In longer combats he outshines the first paladin in combat, but won't be as versatile.

Both types can be theoretically viable depending on how many rounds the paladin can keep smiting, as well as how useful charisma is for other paladin abilities.

 

[Voss]

And the at will and per day abilities he may or may not get.

And, of course, how long encounters are expected to last. If encounters generally last 5 rounds, and a paladin has 5 per encounter smites, he won't ever care about attacking normally.