[4e] Attack of the Errata Feats!

[Psychic Robot]

At first, it seemed that WotC were going to keep their errata current with 4e. I mean, there were like seventeen pages of it within a month of the game's release, right?

Well, no. Orbizards are still broken. Sure Strike is for remedial math students. And now WotC are back to doing what they attempted to do in 3e: power creep and feats that are their pathetic methods of patching the system.

In PHB2, we see the advent of Weapon/Implement Expertise.

Weapon Expertise
Benefit: Choose a weapon group. You gain +1 bonus to attack rolls with any weapon power you use with a weapon from that group. The bonus increases to +2 at 15th lvl and to +3 at 25th lvl.

Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you select this feat, choose another weapon group.

Implement Mastery does the same thing, but for implements. A +3 untyped bonus on attack rolls for pretty much everything? Hurk. Because math is too hard for Mearls and Co.

Oh, yeah, there's also the Melee Training (or somesuch) feat: it lets you use a stat of your choosing for basic attacks. While not nearly as good as the aforementioned feats, it still lets Tron Paladins hit with their attacks of opportunity.

[Username17]

Oh, yeah, there's also the Melee Training (or somesuch) feat: it lets you use a stat of your choosing for basic attacks. While not nearly as good as the aforementioned feats, it still lets Tron Paladins hit with their attacks of opportunity.

Tron Paladins already hit with their AoOs. They are Strength based. It is Grind Paladins with their Charisma/Wisdom split that needed this. Although wasn't there a feat somewhere that let you use at-will attacks instead of basic attacks that would be strictly better than that feat?

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Tron Paladins already hit with their AoOs. They are Strength based. It is Grind Paladins with their Charisma/Wisdom split that needed this. Although wasn't there a feat somewhere that let you use at-will attacks instead of basic attacks that would be strictly better than that feat?

Heavy Blade Opportunity; when you get an opportunity attack (not action) you can use an At-Will attack with the melee keyword if you are wielding a heavy blade.

Unfortunately, it has a dexterity prerequisite of 15 and is also only available in paragon tier. Laser paladins really, really need the Melee Training feat if they are to be credible as frontliners in heroic tier; otherwise enemies will just casually dance by them as 9 damage per round ain't gonna do shit. Especially if they have a warlord in their party or they have access to Strikebacks (L10) or Backlash Tattoos (L9).

[sake]

I'm actually sad to see that there wasn't a ranged version of the melee training feat so that bows might actually be marginally useful for non ranger characters again.

My favorite of the phb2 feats so far is the one where make they half elves have to wait till level 11 and spend an extra feat just to make their racial not suck...

Plus they added some extra bit onto the feat about paragon multiclassing that doesn't actually fix anything, just insure that there will be only two flavors of paragon multiclassing, utterly worthless and utterly broken.

[Psychic Robot]

Tron Paladins already hit with their AoOs. They are Strength based. It is Grind Paladins with their Charisma/Wisdom split that needed this. Although wasn't there a feat somewhere that let you use at-will attacks instead of basic attacks that would be strictly better than that feat?

-Username17

Strength causes radiant damage? That's...painful to contemplate.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Plus they added some extra bit onto the feat about paragon multiclassing that doesn't actually fix anything, just insure that there will be only two flavors of paragon multiclassing, utterly worthless and utterly broken.

Only half-elves can take it, though.

[RandomCasualty2]

I'm actually sad to see that there wasn't a ranged version of the melee training feat so that bows might actually be marginally useful for non ranger characters again.

Yeah, one thing I hated about 4E was how specialized the weapons were. Like to be an archer at all, you had to be a ranger.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

I'm actually sad to see that there wasn't a ranged version of the melee training feat so that bows might actually be marginally useful for non ranger characters again.

Yeah, one thing I hated about 4E was how specialized the weapons were. Like to be an archer at all, you had to be a ranger.

Dude, what don't you understand? All archers are Rangers! 8)

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wand wizards make decent archers, too. For those occasions when an enemy is really far out of reach.

Certain varieties of fighters are decent archers. Avengers will also make decent archers, too.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Strength causes radiant damage? That's...painful to contemplate.

If Goku can do more pushups to make his Kamehameha better, then a paladin can do more pushups to make their radiant damage bigger.

[Orion]

I'm all for the half-elf feat; Half-Elves previously sucked at most everything; I wouldn't take one even for Warlock. They needed the buff.

[Voss]

Lago, no.

'Decent' means you are doing level appropriate things with your action. Shooting an arrow for basic bow damage (and no special effects) with a lower stat modifier to both hit and damage isn't even level appropriate at level one.

4e design philosophy makes it really damn clear that a normal attack (swinging a sword or shooting an arrow) is something only chumps do. Real characters (which is to say the 'heroes') only ever do Pwnzor Ranga' Speshul Named Attacks. Which, true to the new idiom of 4e, must be shouted when they are attempted.

Of course, 4e encounter design mandates that you will never be out of melee range for more than one round anyway, so it isn't like you will ever *need* to use a bow if you aren't a ranger.

And yes, I'm completely serious. While you can try to do complex encounters in the vein of previous editions of D&D, you have to ignore the way 4e was designed and they way they intended people to play.