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Entire casinos in Vegas are founded as multi million or billion dollar businesses on differences in odds tighter than those generated by a heroic tier Expertise feat.
Which is why I seriously discourage players from taking... "power attack" in heroic tier....
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
I'll admit that Improved Initiative offends me a lot less. It's a single roll that has a tactical / strategic bearing on the combat rather than a purely damaging one.
I still don't see the problem with Expertise as a feat tax.
Taking it before level 6 for most PCs is a waste. Most PCs have at least 3 powerful, neccesary, or staple feats in the heroic tier they they'll take eariler if they were optimizing. Proficiencies, aror, class and racial features will be upgraded first. +1 to attack when you don't really need it is not so important.
By the time you actually need it, you should have over 6 feats. Unless you are heavily optimizing, you should have most to the feats you really want. One of seven or eight feats doesn't hurt you too bad.
It fixes the math at least.
Here's the problem: it's boring. It removes mechanical variety. It makes all PCs that much less interesting.
Sure, it's only one feat slot... but it's not. The Barbarian just got a feat-fix for his AC issues. This isn't a one-time thing, it's how they seem to want to fix many of the bugs in their initial design.
It's sloppy design to patch errors by consuming a resource that should be used strictly for cool stuff.
Cheers, -- N
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Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
I'll admit that Improved Initiative offends me a lot less. It's a single roll that has a tactical / strategic bearing on the combat rather than a purely damaging one.
Yeah, for some reason Improved Initiative seems okay to me.
I guess it's because rolling initiative is effectively an Encounter power. It's nice, but not vital -- though going first is very nice for Rogues.
Cheers, -- N
__________________
Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
The disparity between player bonuses and monster bonuses is blindingly obvious and clearly intentional. People talk about this 'glitch' as if they've discovered a secret, but I think what they've actually discovered is that there's more to the game's math than basic arithmetic. WoTC had a staff mathematician working on this stuff, for crying out loud.
I think that truly analyzing the game's math requires looking at the probabilistic ranges involved in a day's worth of encounters, considering resource attrition, the action economy, and survivability over time... analysis that no one complaining about the 'glitch' has actually done.
the second paragraph is what I have been trying to say...so here said better then I do...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Remathilis
Planescape
It should be given special award to Die Vecna, Die: a module that manages to trash no less than THREE different settings (Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Planescape) in the course of one module.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Remathilis
Those of you who fretted that monsters have too many hp and fights take too long: meet the barbarian. The ULTIMATE "Lets speed this combat up, I need to whiz" class!
Here's the problem: it's boring. It removes mechanical variety. It makes all PCs that much less interesting.
Sure, it's only one feat slot... but it's not. The Barbarian just got a feat-fix for his AC issues. This isn't a one-time thing, it's how they seem to want to fix many of the bugs in their initial design.
It's sloppy design to patch errors by consuming a resource that should be used strictly for cool stuff.
Cheers, -- N
I agree that removing mechanical variety is boring and makes the game less interesting.
Regarding the Barbarian feat-fix for AC issues - we have a Half-orc barbarian with 18 starting dex who hasn't had any big problems due to his AC. The only downside is the relatively low con, but it's not a huge issue. The boring part is that I can't really recommend any other races but Half-orc barbarians, if you aren't going the heavy armor route. In other words - the "fix" here is more of an option.
Getting +1/+2/+3 to hit for up to 30% more successful attacks isn't really an option. You can either take the feat or miss consistently more than the other characters with the feat. There is no way you can get that +3 to hit for all your attacks in any other way. That is what makes it a feat-tax.
Feats like toughness are important, but there are a lot of feats that compete in the same department. For instance the paladin has a feat that gives him wis modifier damage reduction. It's has nearly the same function as Toughness, but does it in another way. You probably want it, but it's not gonna be your first feat. For some builds it's going to be skipped completely, since you are going for avoiding damage instead. It's a good optional feat, but it probably won't be taken by more than 50% of the characters.
The feats I don't like are all the expertise feats, but I don't really have a problem with the Paragon defense feat. It's good value for money, but not every character will take it.
The Epic defense feats looks more like a feat tax than anything. +4 to a single defense, or 3 feats for all of them? As a Defender this is probably invaluable. Feels like a feat tax to me.
As noted above, I feel that the expertise feats are feat taxes. In my current game, that has gotten to level 8 I have banned them (the characters are so optimized that they haven't got any problems hitting), but I will give them the +1/+2/+3 if I see them starting to miss. Missing more than 50% of the time have dragged some interesting fights to a slow burn. Not very amusing. So far it has only happened at level 7 which was a break point. When they got to level 8 with +2 weapons, stat gains and the level bonus, they suddenly had +3 more to hit. I will probably let them get +1 to hit at level 9 or level 11.
As I also said, check in with the other players at the table and the DM about what kind of expectations they have. I not only wrote that; it's in my sig.
As for what I would do?
First, I would wonder why battles were becoming harder and harder, why it felt like we were fighting short-handed. I would start thinking about why it was suddenly harder for all of us to achieve narrative goals.
After a while, I'd presumably notice that your character was not hitting creatures, was absorbing more damage, and was requiring more frequent emergency measures to bail out. Then, I'd try to diagnose why this was occurring. Are you devoting resources to other things that equivalently help out the party? Then, that's fine, provided that you're making sure that other people know not to devote resources to that choice. Are you new to the game and need some help? Are you unhappy with how things are going? Well, then we can figure things out, pretty easily. Some people don't like the mechanics of the game; if I can lend a hand with that and let them shine in other areas, what's the big deal?
BUT: if you're taking magic items others should have to make up for these choices, that's a problem. That's a problem, because that's when your choices impacted someone else's fun.
And if someone's character dies because you can't hit the side of a barn or soaked up all the healing? That's a HUGE problem, because that's when your choices impacted someone else's fun. That's when I get angry.
So, yeah, if your choices are going to impact someone else's fun, the least you can do is let your fellow players know.
Understand my take on this now?
Yeah, it's all about you and what you think someone else's character should be and do. You are accusing people who don't build characters as you want them of badwrongfun. In this post, you make it sound as if YOU should be the decider of how someone else builds there character so it fits in YOUR plan. He even mentioned LFR, where it's OPEN gaming to people of all experience levels, not just people you approve of.
I find your post extremely insulting and if it were the only exposure to your words or personality (which it obviously isn't) that even though I play very "good" characters I would not want to play with you either.
Ok,you didn't actually go that far, you know that, right?
Bottom line here is that feats would be a nightmare if none of them added flat numerical bonuses. I got at least two guys in my group who don't have or want the character builder and really can't keep track of all the stuff their character currently gets from feats, powers, class features and magic items.
IMO, that's because a lot of feats, powers, class features and magic items are poorly designed and non-intuitive, so keeping track of them is a nightmare. I'm pretty good at running complicated characters (I played casters almost exclusively pre-4E), but when I'm building a 4E character there are a lot of feats that I just toss out the window - not because they're not good feats, but because I don't want the bother of keeping track of them in play.
Good "character-rounding" feats are things like Linguist and Skill Training. They're both essentially giving passive numerical bonuses (Linguist gives you +3 to your languages known, Skill Training gives you +5 to a skill). Very small cognitive footprint.
However, they're not in the same category as Expertise and Weapon Focus, because they aren't stacking; instead of piling extra bonuses onto something you're already good at (which is almost always the best choice for the optimizer), they give you new things to be good at.
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 25th October 2009 at 04:06 PM..
I still don't see the problem with Expertise as a feat tax.
Taking it before level 6 for most PCs is a waste. Most PCs have at least 3 powerful, neccesary, or staple feats in the heroic tier they they'll take eariler if they were optimizing. Proficiencies, aror, class and racial features will be upgraded first. +1 to attack when you don't really need it is not so important.
By the time you actually need it, you should have over 6 feats. Unless you are heavily optimizing, you should have most to the feats you really want. One of seven or eight feats doesn't hurt you too bad.
It fixes the math at least.
This is an important point that seems to get ignored by those claiming it's a "feat tax". There the debate revolves around the minimum of +2, many observe it's not necessary until it's a +3. Were it an Epic Expertise feat would it be more palatable? As it's set up now, you can take the feat earlier and it has a scaling benefit. The debate over powers scaling is long and "loud", yet here's something that actually scales properly to make it useful all along.
The debate over powers scaling is long and "loud", yet here's something that actually scales properly to make it useful all along.
Math does not work that way.
If Expertise has to scale to remain useful, then that's proof positive that its a math fix, or broken. Objective, incontrovertible, definitive proof.
Certain things have to scale to remain useful. Damage bonuses, for example, must scale because their effectiveness is proportional to overall damage. To give an example, if you do 10 damage per hit and that gets increased to 11 by a feat, you got a 10% boost. If at a later level you do 20 damage per hit without that feat, that feat needs to give +2 to be equally useful.
Attack bonuses don't work that way. As long as your underlying math is scaled properly, an optional bonus should never, ever scale with level. To give an example, if you hit on a 9+ most of the time and that improves to 8+ due to a feat, you got a 1/12th increase in damage output. If everything scales properly and that feat is not a tax then at a later level you will continue to hit on a 9+ without that feat, leaving aside variance and noise which should move equally in both positive and negative directions. If that feat comes along and gives you the same +1, you get the same +1/12th damage increase. If that feat has scaled though and gives +2, you're getting 2/12ths damage increase. Which is completely unnecessary and is scaling you faster than the underlying math.
This is an important point that seems to get ignored by those claiming it's a "feat tax". There the debate revolves around the minimum of +2, many observe it's not necessary until it's a +3. Were it an Epic Expertise feat would it be more palatable? As it's set up now, you can take the feat earlier and it has a scaling benefit. The debate over powers scaling is long and "loud", yet here's something that actually scales properly to make it useful all along.
No. It's necessary at +1. It's obviously necessary at +2. It's overwhelmingly obviously necessary at +3.
The debate centers around +2 because that's where the difference becomes so obvious, even those who are bad at math can't ignore it.
But really, the +1 was important all along.
Cheers, -- N
__________________
Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
If Expertise has to scale to remain useful, then that's proof positive that its a math fix, or broken. Objective, incontrovertible, definitive proof.
...
Attack bonuses don't work that way. As long as your underlying math is scaled properly, an optional bonus should never, ever scale with level.....
So are you saying the scaling of the feat is the issue and not the feat itself, per se? That's what it sounds like, in a sense. If there were an Epic Expertise Feat that gave a static +3 without the lower tier expertise feats, would that be better? And is it really a math "fix" when there are so many more, bigger and badder status effects at Epic? You may hit slightly less often, but when you do, your boosted famage or nasty status effects make up the difference.
At +1 it's a small enough change to the character that you can go 'Well, I know I'm harming my character by taking this instead of <this other feat>, but I want that other feat more <cause it's funny / entertaining / I'm too cool for math>, so I can accept that I'll be just that little bit worse'
But, please, just talk about +2. It's a lot healthier of a discussion.
Aside: I was at a table recently comparing someone's character to another one I know, and it made me a little sad. One of them knew the math, how to work things, and the other didn't. And that other one was behind by +2 attack and +3 damage. And it definitely showed, all night. The thing that made me extra sad was I couldn't even tell what the other guy took instead during that night of play, cause whatever it was didn't come up.
Anyone else remember when feats were going to be good ways to change the flavor of characters, but there'd be no real difference between the power of characters based on what they took?
But it's not necessary at +1 even to many saying it later is, mid-paragon is where the debate really seems to kick in.
I did actually explain this. +2 is where the necessity becomes obvious to everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllisterH
Necessary to me means that without it, you will be ineffective.
At +1, how is it necessary?
Well, by induction: the +2 is just +1 on top of the (to you) unnecessary +1.
If +1 is not necessary, then +1 is not necessary. Take that +1 away, and the +2 becomes just another +1. Which you've already declared is unnecessary.
Your logic leads to an absurd conclusion.
- - -
Non-inductive, statistical demonstration: Every +1 to attack is +5% expected damage per attack. As your attacks scale up in total damage, this grows significant. Where it starts to matter is where +5% damage -- over every round of a combat -- would have killed a dude who turns around and instead kills you.
The tipping point of where Expertise becomes better than any other feat out there is where you expect to be dealing an average of 10 or more damage per round with attacks -- including daily and encounter attacks.
And that's ignoring the power of status effects which only happen on a hit.
Cheers, -- N
__________________
Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
So are you saying the scaling of the feat is the issue and not the feat itself, per se? That's what it sounds like, in a sense. If there were an Epic Expertise Feat that gave a static +3 without the lower tier expertise feats, would that be better? And is it really a math "fix" when there are so many more, bigger and badder status effects at Epic? You may hit slightly less often, but when you do, your boosted famage or nasty status effects make up the difference.
Not exactly. The scaling is what suggests, very strongly, that this is a math fix. If Expertise didn't scale, then it wouldn't be a math fix, but it would still be an always applicable bonus to accuracy, and it would still be so good that not taking it would be kind of silly.
As for boosted damage or nasty status effects making up the difference even at epic level with Expertise at +3... I doubt it. I'd be really surprised if you could show me more than one or two feats in the entire game that are better than a +3 to hit that applies to all of your attacks. +3 to hit is really, really big.
You can in fact do fine without it in heroic tier. +1 to hit is quite good, and almost all of my characters will pick it up at some point before paragon, but it's not crucial; heroic-tier characters seldom have trouble hitting the monsters, and there are quite a few other feats to grab that are of arguably similar value. (Not many give you as much straight-up combat performance as Expertise, but combat isn't everything.)
It's paragon tier that takes it from "strong feat pick" to "feat tax" IMO. That's the point at which monster defenses are starting to outpace PC attack bonuses, which increases the impact of every +1 to hit. Not coincidentally, it's also the point at which Expertise jumps to granting +2. Starting at 15th level, you will see a major difference between a character with Expertise and one without.
(Think about it for a sec. Action Surge is widely acknowledged as an awesome feat and a big reason to play a human. It gives you +3 to hit... on one attack, every other encounter. Expertise is giving you +2 to hit on every attack. That should put things in perspective.)
At epic tier, when the bonus goes to +3, Expertise stops being a feat tax and becomes feat confiscation. The feat government is going into your feat bank account and taking your feats without even a pretense of letting you file exemptions or deductions. If you try to stop them, they send epic-level monsters to break your kneecaps.
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 25th October 2009 at 11:14 PM..
Hitting in the heroic tier is insanely easy. You can hit soldiers with 9 at level 10 without much work. Also most build have a feat that is more important tha +1 attack/+5% damage. You'll have at least 6 feats before you even need it. I wish my taxes were less than 17%.
Again most builds will have more important feats. Rogue will take Backstabber way before Dagger Expertise, I don't see rogue screaming about that feat tax. My warlock/paladin had a couple of feat he wanted before thinking about this feat. I was grasping for feats before I even needed this one.
Also my belief is that the higher you go, the less likely you fight something your level. Squads of strong but wimpier enemies or a pair of overpowering beast. At those leves you'll be relying of powerful buffs and debuffs more often for accuracy.
Yes, it's a feat tax.
Yes, it's boring.
No; unless you have a long list of feats you really want, Expertise will end up in a higher tier feat slot you never cared or planned for. If you aren't optimizing, you won't need to pick it until you almost ran out of feat you cared about
Personally I made it just +2 and a paragon tier feat but really didn't need to.
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Last edited by Minigiant; 25th October 2009 at 11:43 PM..
Hitting in the heroic tier is insanely easy. You can hit soldiers with 9 at level 10 without much work. Also most build have a feat that is more important tha +1 attack/+5% damage.
+1 to attack is more than +5% damage. If you need a 9 or better to hit, then it's +8.3% damage. If you need 11 or better, it's +10%. If you're fighting a higher-level soldier or solo monster and need a 13 or better, it's +12.5%.
As to your other points, I agree that one tends to run out of exciting/interesting feats by Paragon or so (which is a problem in itself), but the real problem with feat taxes is that players who don't grok the math are likely to end up with gimped characters because they don't realize that Expertise is a necessary fix.
As for fighting "squads of wimpier enemies" as you reach epic tier... I don't really see it. I would expect the distribution to be pretty much the same. In any case, that's a matter for individual DMs and the math should not make such assumptions.
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Last edited by Dausuul; 25th October 2009 at 11:59 PM..
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