I indeed say last time my friend (one of my best friends, actually), was so not interested in optimization, or the combat mechanics in general, to even spend much time reading the 4e rules, but I can tell you that after two months of playing, it was apparent that his druid, with an 18 in his main stat, was complete garbage. This is NOT a wizard in earlier editions with a 12 INT who can't cast high level spells. My friend was a DM in 1e, 2e, and 3.0, as well as an avid dnd nerd.
OK, so how is this 4e's fault? Of course you CAN, if you try hard enough, make a character that isn't much good in combat. It requires a lot more than simply avoiding a few feats though. You say he had an 18 WIS. OK, so basically at that point there's no way by the rules that at level 1 he doesn't have 2 effective at-will attacks. If he can't use those effectively then the player is either not able to grasp basic combat techniques or someone is defining 'complete garbage' in an unrealistic fashion. In either case this is not a critique of the rules, and you will find that in ANY edition of D&D you can make a largely ineffective character.
My argument isn't so much that 4e is unbalanced from the point of view of optimized vs non optimized characters, but, rather, if I may elaborate my stance a bit, that people who do not care for min-maxing can completely bork their characters, who should DIE. Yes, I mean it. If your character is useless, they need to die. Rather, what ended up happening, is that he didn't contribute anything and the DM kept the encounter levels down. This, in turn, meant that the other 4 players, myself included, who have long clamoured for tougher, deadlier, quicker battles, could not enjoy such things as Fourthcore-style house rules.
So, what you're saying is that it is 4e's fault that 3 of the 4 players in your game wanted to play in a different style than the 4th player and this made you all unhappy. This is a table issue and has not the slightest thing to do with the rules system.
After the druid left, the DM, in an effort to reduce 3 hour battles that didn't advance the plot, but enemy HP in half and doubled the damage, whereupon he said, this not only works better, but feels like earlier editions. Then he agreed, if you need such a massive tweak to balance plot/RP time vs combat time, that the system was indeed broken and it was essentially a (bad) combat simulator. You trade off time for...less realism? Many have argued that 4e is gamist instead of simulationist, this is a given. But the game space could have been fixed long ago, by offering classes more out-of-combat utility powers, more uses of skills so that you don't have the DM looking around in vain for tons of rules on how to adjudicate things where there aren't (again, because combat in 4e is the only thing that matters).
So the DM proceeded to make ill-advised hacks to 4e in an attempt to deal with yet another table issue (long fights) which I have in 3 years of running 4e not run into as a big issue (and again they can often happen in other editions too).
There are tons of utility powers with applications outside of combat. Skills can do anything you want them to, and a perfectly good DC system and system for non-combat encounters was provided for exactly this purpose. You don't really say what rules you wanted that supposedly don't exist, so all we can say is maybe your style of playing doesn't match with 4e that well? I don't know. It works great for lots of us, but no game is perfect for everyone and 'tons of rules on how to adjudicate things' would probably spoil it for some of us.
I loved the chess-style 4e combat system, optimizing power and feat selection and so on. Another player, who picks flavorful feats (as many in this thread have mentioned), over mechanically superior ones, might as well just pretend like he's playing a hunchback or a 12 int wizard, for all the damage they'll do. The build was supposed to be a striker, but even with an 18 main stat he was next to useless. Is that a good system?
No, but it is also not 4e. First a druid isn't a striker, it is a controller. It isn't designed to do high damage. It is also absurd that an 18 WIS druid is going to be 'a hunchback'. This isn't a system issue, this is an issue where the player obviously didn't have the same goals as the rest of the players. Yes, the system IS good. I have yet to see an ineffective character and my players largely don't care to play optimization games. Heck, the rogue wields a bastard sword in my last game, and is still reasonably effective.
I can tell you this 100% for sure. Had those feat taxes been baked in, he would have enjoyed his character a lot more, and so would we, having his character in the group. The only thing he was good at apparently was rolling insight checks for an NPC who was clearly on our side the whole time and had no inclination to betray us. He clearly was more RP-oriented, but with pages upon pages of powers, the only thing he kept back on were his skills, which in and of themselves are completely dull. You might say you don't want a mechanical impediment to roleplaying by e.g. having a skill for crafting, but in 4e you CANNOT make money from selling mundane commodities to merchants. 10,000 short swords is worth exactly 0gp according to the rules. How can you roleplay along with that?
So, all his powers are useless even though druids have a quite effective array of powers, and if the PC maintains his WIS and is given normal enhancements there is essentially no way he can be ineffective except he doesn't know how to use his powers and doesn't want to use them. I have news for you, no fiddling with feats is going to save this player from ineffectiveness. He just isn't interested in learning how to fight well, or he's being compared to some hard core min/maxers.
If your DMs running of the game is so utterly and pathetically literalistic that "10,000 short swords is worth exactly 0gp" then what are we to say? This is a problem with the game rules? I'm sorry, this is another table issue. The DM is perfectly well empowered to decide for himself what you can sell something for and the rules are only a guideline which says basically "petty amounts of ordinary loot are basically worthless, don't bother." If you have 10k swords that's a story thing and there's never going to be a set of rules for the value of bulk lots of weapons.
Eventually those of us who see the strings pulling the puppet strings of our characters via these artificial and blatantly gamist limitations on perfectly sane behavior, realize, RPing is removed by the rigidness of the power structure, the lack of non-combat useful powers and skills.
Yes, your deep insight reached that conclusion. Attack Powers are THERE to do things in combat. Combat is supposed to be an important part of the game and powers make it cinematic. Now, remove all the attack powers from your character sheet, you STILL HAVE TONS MORE STUFF on there than in all editions prior to 3.x and you have every option you had in 3.x to boot (though some of them may require you to have PHB2, PHB3, or MP2, etc). You also have a substantial number of powers (even attack ones) that have plenty of OOC uses. 4e is indeed DIFFERENT in the way it deals with this than 3.5, but then 3.5 basically gave most of this to only a few full caster classes, which many of us find quite lame.
Come on, at level 16 a wizard can fly for 5 minutes outside of combat? Really? That's a level 5 wizard with an int of 13 that can do that in earlier eds. After three years of playing, all we're supposed to do is grind, grind, and more grind.
No, there is a perfectly good ritual which will let you fly at that level if you bothered to look. And why is it that 4e cannot do something slightly differently? If anything that isn't identical to 3.5 is bad, then go play 3.5. Heck you can even buy a nice new PF game that is almost exactly 3.5!
And the only thing Wizards has to show for all the bickering in the forums about these damn feat disparities between RPers and "RPers+4e enthusiasts who have a clue about the mechanics" is : "well, use another house rule, but not in our character builder".
Yes, you can't possibly RP in 4e without Weapon Expertise for free. LOL. Sorry, the issue isn't 4e, the issue is somewhere in the controlling mass of flesh between the book and the hand that rolls the dice....
Why should I hold back my wroth against a game company that treats us with such...contempt? The adult thing to do when you mess up is own up to it, fix what you broke, then move on. They haven't done anything of the sort. I agree 100% with the other posters that these feat slots impede role playing. There are just not enough feats to go around to take fluffy ones. We play the game, we get rewards for levelling up...and our reward? We get to spend it on fixing their broken math to keep up with the rest of the group or otherwise keep the rest of the group from enjoying tougher encounters due to the DM not being able to boost the EL because the guy who didn't pimp out his character can't hit worth a damn.
This has been my 4e experience...it's a pain that wizards waffled so long...but not a surprise to me. Instead of fixing this stuff, the come out with even more schlocky expertise feats that just came out. My arguments are borne out of hundreds of hours of gaming and more reading and tweaking and planning.
Wotc went the route of selling more +1/+2/+3 feats for their Dragon magazine / DP Insider clientele, which is easy money. Shoot me for being cynical, but I don't like paying for the same thing over and over again. This is three years they've been re-selling us these damn feat fixes in various forms, from PHB 2 all the way to now.
Aren't you sick of it? Yes, these feats cost you money. Real money. What kind of sucker lets themselves get fleeced many times over? Me, apparently. But no more. This thread confirms it to me, they have no intention of fixing this edition, but want to milk y'all for every last penny they can, and do it in a completely transparent, obvious, and sleazy way.
Yes, yes, anyone who designs a game and has a different opinion of game design and doesn't immediately admit that anything YOU don't agree with must be right and has to be changed instantly is 'treating you with contempt!' I got news for you, the world doesn't revolve around you. Grow up. People have different opinions and ideas about how things should be done, and they have different approaches to designing games. Not all of them work perfectly for everyone, nor can they. Not all players and tables work out well either. This is common and you have to learn to deal with it. Maybe dealing with it means playing a different game. So it goes. I have great fun with 4e, all this hand wringing about Expertise is at most a pimple, you CAN fix it, and if you don't like the way the CB works, DON'T BUY IT! If you don't like the way the game works, buy a different one!
If you instead want to suggest to the people who designed 4e that they can do some things that will make you enjoy it, then by all means POLITELY talk to them. I'd suggest calling them sleazy, dumb, lazy, and arrogant are probably not likely to be successful.
