1st level feat question

[Noneoyabizzness]

ok starting in a new 1st level game this week, so far dm hasn't restricted any sources rest of the party is

wizard
fighter
rogue
eldarin ranger
and cleric.


as most editions of d&d have taught me, in this instance bard seems like the perfect next man in the group. so am preping a half elf bard,

now my indescion somes between two feats, do I go strength of valor, for my feat or group insight to boost everyone elses init and insight checks

[DontEatRawHagis]

Group insight.

Thats just my opinion though, not sage advice. If I remember correctly the bonus is based on one of your ability scores, make sure you have enough to make it worth while.

[Noneoyabizzness]

Its just a flat +1 to allies

[theNater]

I'd go with the Group Insight. Damage bonuses are relatively easy to come by, while initiative bonuses are much rarer.

[The_Pyre]

Between the two, Group Insight seems like the better choice. Personally, however, I think you'd be better served with a MC feat. That's just me, though.

[tcrudisi]

Strength of Valor is a bad feat. Assuming you heal twice an encounter (your maximum for 15 levels), you contribute an extra +4 damage. That's assuming that your allies even hit. They could miss and lose the benefit. You also have a Cleric in the party. He might end up doing all the healing so you don't even use your heals in combat. That also detracts from the feat.

Between the two, Group Insight is a much better feat.

[Noneoyabizzness]

alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?

[tcrudisi]

alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?

Well, what kind of bard are you? Cunning, Valorous, Prescient?

For general feats, I'd take a look at Improved Majestic Word or one of the Expertise feats. However, there are some incredibly good specific Bard feats. I'm looking at Advantage of Cunning and Extended Prescience.

[theNater]

Strength of Valor is a bad feat. Assuming you heal twice an encounter (your maximum for 15 levels), you contribute an extra +4 damage. That's assuming that your allies even hit. They could miss and lose the benefit. You also have a Cleric in the party. He might end up doing all the healing so you don't even use your heals in combat. That also detracts from the feat.

Between the two, Group Insight is a much better feat.

Strength of Valor triggers off of the Virtue of Valor, not the Majestic Word. It can go off as often as once per round.

I still say Group Insight is better, but Strength of Valor is an okay feat.

[Noneoyabizzness]

Going with valor.

Improved word seems ok, but already putting up temp hp with valor.

[tcrudisi]

Strength of Valor triggers off of the Virtue of Valor, not the Majestic Word. It can go off as often as once per round.

I still say Group Insight is better, but Strength of Valor is an okay feat.

You are correct. I mis-read it when I looked it up. In that case, it is okay. I still definitely prefer Group Insight (when only comparing those two).

Going with valor.

Improved word seems ok, but already putting up temp hp with valor.

There's a huge difference. Virtue of Valor only lets you react with temp hp. Your ally bloodies or kills an enemy? You give him temp hp. It's very reactive. It's not something you have any control over. Improved Majestic Word is proactive: you are healing someone who already needs it. If they need those hp, chances are they are still in the fire (so to speak). Giving them temp hp is definitely a huge boon for them. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that they will be able to bloody or kill an enemy to get the temp hp from your virtue. One last point: even if they do manage to bloody or kill an enemy, there's a very good chance they have already lost the temp hp or that someone else activates your virtue anyway. Those temp hp (in the early levels, I'd say heroic tier) are amazingly good.

[theNater]

alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?

One thing to remember is that in 4th edition, feats are generally pretty small. Getting an "ideal" feat is not going to be very much better than getting an okay feat, and getting an okay feat isn't that much more powerful than getting a terrible feat. If it sounds fun, go for it; you can always retrain it later if it's not working out.

With that said, here are some things that may be worth looking at, depending on exactly how you want to play it:

Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise give you accuracy bonuses; these make your encounter powers more likely to hit, and most encounter powers only provide buffs if they hit.

Multiclass feats are fairly potent, and bards can take multiclass feats for multiple classes. You could pick up a tiny bit of extra healing by multiclassing into warlord or cleric, or (once per encounter) an extra accuracy bonus by multiclassing fighter or avenger, or any of a number of other interesting options. Keep in mind that one of the nice things about multiclass feats is that they provide skill training; they do become less valuable if you are already trained in the skill or skills they provide or if skill use doesn't come up very often in your particular game.

And, of course, class-specific feats are generally designed to make your class better at what it does. With bards being a buffing class, you can't go too far wrong grabbing bard feats. Just keep in mind that damage is generally easy to get(and therefore probably shouldn't be top priority if there are other options that seem appealing), and you'll be fine.

[Daftendirekt]

I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.

[ELC]

+1 Initiative? Um . . . hell . . . maybe multiclass into Warlord twice for the Combat Leader feature and take the Combat Commander feat at paragon. Instant +CHA to initiative for everyone, and I believe Bard can pull it off because of Multiclass versatility (not sure at all though).

Anyhow, for a L1 feat, I suggest an appropriate Expertise feat (Implement, Versatile, Weapon, HotFL improvements): if your attacks aren't connecting, you're not getting their effects.

[Noneoyabizzness]

Food for thought.

Larger reason I thought to go with group over an expertise feat is to give more bonus over the group. But the debuff for vicious mockery happening more frequently might be more useful...

[theNater]

I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.

Well, it's being compared to +2 damage under certain conditions but no more than once per round. Neither of these are exactly game breakers.

When the initiative helps, it really helps(especially for the rogue or wizard). Plus it scales with party size, unlike Strength of Valor, and this party is towards the large size of things.

[Sinon]

Out of curiosity, what's your dilettante power?

[MeeposFire]

Eldritch strike is a good choice for a valor bard.

I also like the half elf Knack for success power since it is leader based and it is very versatile.

[tcrudisi]

I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.

Well, it's being compared to +2 damage under certain conditions but no more than once per round. Neither of these are exactly game breakers.

When the initiative helps, it really helps(especially for the rogue or wizard). Plus it scales with party size, unlike Strength of Valor, and this party is towards the large size of things.

What theNater said. Also: initiative is extremely important. If your entire party goes before the bad guys, that's basically a free round to knock a couple of them out. It's amazingly good. Is +1 great? Well, no, but it's a start. It's certainly better than +2 damage for one person every round. That extra +1 init might make the difference between all your allies going first in round 1. The extra +2 damage will rarely come into play round 1, barring action points. "I bloody/kill it with my standard action." "Okay, by the end of your next round, you get +2 damage on your next attack roll."

Round 1 is the most important round of combat.

[Noneoyabizzness]

Out of curiosity, what's your dilettante power?

Hadn't decided yet. Was thinking eyebite to keep chr
based but knack for success seems promising.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise.

Indeed. It is a pretty bad feat - but of the two the OP suggested, it is less bad than the other one. I could easily recommend half a dozen better feats.

That extra +1 init might make the difference between all your allies going first in round 1.

Well, there's a lot of superlatives in that post, but "might" in this case means "95% of the time, it won't do anything". That means that you can play several sessions without even noticing this feat; and a feat that doesn't make a difference at least once every session is, in my opinion, a feat not worth taking.

[The_Pyre]

Why not take a Warlord MC? Resourceful gives a damage bonus OR some temp HP on an AP. Might come in handy, especially with the extra skill.

[Sinon]

Hadn't decided yet. Was thinking eyebite to keep chr
based but knack for success seems promising.

One of the reasons I asked is because there's the feat, Combat Virtuoso, makes Cha the to-hit stat for your dilettante and any multiclass feats you take later.

Multiclass feats also, often give you the ability to use a class's implements, which dilettante alone is sorely lacking.

Food for thought.

[Noneoyabizzness]

Gah...

So many options...

I spent so much time getting books for the someday playing 4e and now that someday has come so much possible usefulness.

[Sinon]

Just pick what looks fun now. You're first level; it'll be fine.

[salt3d]

The single most useful feat you can take at level 1 regardless of class is [whatever] Expertise. +1 to hit sounds boring but with so many effects triggered by actually hitting in the first place, it will come into play almost every round of combat.

[Kurald Galain]

The single most useful feat you can take at level 1 regardless of class is [whatever] Expertise. +1 to hit sounds boring but with so many effects triggered by actually hitting in the first place, it will come into play almost every round of combat.

Sorry, but no, it won't. +1 to hit makes a difference exactly 5% of the time, so that means it comes up once every 20 attacks. Since you don't make anywhere near 20 attacks every round, that means it won't come up every round.

That said, Expertise is a good feat to take, and certainly much better than Group Sight; but perhaps surprisingly, some feats are actually better than Expertise. The most common examples are Skill Power and Enlarge Spell.

[Daftendirekt]

You know, while Enlarge Spell is nice, it fails on the aspect of wizardry that 4e wizards really excel at: PURE control. My party's wizard took this, mostly because he KNEW it is a great feat. Except as he went for pure, awesome control, about 10% of his powers rolled damage, so the feat was almost completely wasted.

I guess you could make a blaster, but sorcerer is more made for that, and would have to MC to get Enlarge Spell.

[Kurald Galain]

You know, while Enlarge Spell is nice, it fails on the aspect of wizardry that 4e wizards really excel at: PURE control. My party's wizard took this, mostly because he KNEW it is a great feat. Except as he went for pure, awesome control, about 10% of his powers rolled damage, so the feat was almost completely wasted.

That's odd. There are many powers that control while also doing enough damage to be enlargeable; for example, Freezing Burst, Grasping Shadows, Color Spray, and Twist of Space.

[Leolo]

@Annulus: Nevertheless the expertise feats are just feats most of the characters should take as one of their feats. Not neccessary as the first feat. Or the second.

There are enough feats that are strictly better than them for nearly every build. But they are also one few feats that are top10 feats for nearly every build, and thats why sooner or later every character will take one of them.

(Technically even if only 10% of your powers would be affected this still could be more important than hitting additional 1 of 20 attempts, though.)

And as Kurald has said: There are many powers that controlls and do damage.

Also if you are a pure controller there might be still better feats.