Epic 4e play: the system makes it too easy for PCs to hit, instead of too hard.

[Ravellion]

The question is, how is the dpr for this party. Using constantly powers with strong riders probably reduces damage done by a healthy amount (though I guess you could be using riders that increase damage as well). This could always be done anyway. I don't think most people had issues with chances to hit if their party used synergies.
Another question is, how come you are facing epic tier monsters and not being affected by their synergy effects? Epic tier mobs have good access to attack debuffs.

DPR is fine. The rogue does roughly 45-50 damage on average per attack, not counting crits. The other players do less damage, but they hit more often, and the rogue hits always (when he rolls a 1, he rerolls due to epic trickster. Or daggermaster with the use of an action point. When those run out, he starts using his luckblade, which is a lower to hit, but hey, not that much lower). They do have access to wrath of the gods, which gets activated when it matters. There are also plenty of "make a save" utility powers or riders to go around to handle the debuffs (or magic items that help in that regard).

I do think that you can classify this party as having two full leaders, yes, and that helps. The rogue/bard only has the minimum of four bard powers though (1 at will, 1 encounter, 1 daily, 1 utility). The fighter/warlord plays like a fighter, tending towards not using his warlord powers at all untill truly necessary. The cleric really does most of the heavy lifting on the leader front, and the paladin protects him very, very well (even reserving his intercessionary teleportation powers to do so, especially since I now often prioritize the cleric as a target - at lower levels, it was often the rogue).

The healing of the cleric alone is ridiculous. Second Wind has been used twice in the entire campaign: once by the paladin at 17th level in an N+5 encounter, which followed directly on a N+3 encounter without short rest, and one by the rogue at level 18, when he was doing a solo quest .

So maybe what this boils down to is "leaders are really, really good"? I see absolutely no need for a controller in this party. Between the dragonbreath of the warlord and the cleric's solar wrath, minions are cleared easily, even when spread out. The cleric has another area spell as well (lvl 19 Fire storm? His sheet is on my other computer).

The party tries to take targets down one by one, even when that means they aren't hitting vs. the optimal defences (though admittedly, sometimes they fail and spread damage - these tend to be the longer, more boring, combats).

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm tempted to say: 'See, I knew it all along!'

But I really wouldn't have thought that it actually gets easier to hit monsters.
Then again this is 21st level which represents a significent bump (Just like 11th level). It should look slightly better for the poor monsters at level 25 (I'd hope).

The only real surprise to me is that we didn't get more accounts of actual epic gameplay experience yet that fail to confirm the 'broken math'.

 

[keterys]

I don't quite see why a Dwarf Barbarian should have problems hitting? (Ok, compared to the Rogue, you are right)

His to-hit bonus would likely be 5 worse than the example halfling rogue (-2 stat, -1 prof, -1 class feature, -1 no nimble blade), sometimes 7 worse (no CA due to lack of hide in plain sight or whatever), and he'd be stuck going against AC a lot more than the rogue who has very good options against FRW.

Shamans can do perfectly decent things, but they're less about hit bonuses. The bard tends to give out less of them, too, unless it's a warchanter. Warlords are great for hit bonuses and clerics (post DP) are great for defense penalties.

It's very unfortunate how large a disparity there can be between parties for such things. It makes it very tricky to analyze epic play. One group will be 'What, it was a piece of cake - first the cleric did Righteous Brand to give the warlord +9 to hit, then the warlord gave everyone +9 to hit against the solo for the entire combat. Is it even possible to miss at epic?" and another group will go "Our DM put us up against a solo... I needed a 17 to hit its AC. We tried for CA, but it just started stunning and dazing us all so no one could provide flank"

 

[MrMyth]

Or, from those people that allowed them, have they noticed that your PCs now hit perhaps a bit too easily?

This has been my experience. Our group is hitting the high paragon levels, and missing is a real rarity - and even when our DM throws tougher monsters at us, that is when people bust out their own modifiers to overcome the additional defenses. Our last fight was against an enormous monster that was being empowered by a group of druids, who were channeling energy into it (in the form of something like +5 or +10 to all Defenses). We clearly were intended to take them down before focusing on the monster, removing its buffs. Instead, the group still unloaded into it, still hitting more than half the time, even with the extra defenses.

I have disliked the implementation of the Expertise feats from the start, and have always been dubious of the need for them. Now, more than ever, I think they exist to fix a problem that never existed in the first place.

By higher levels, characters just have enough conditional bonuses, or powers that grant bonuses/inflict penalties, or ways to constantly have combat advantage, that they easily make up for the 3 or so points of accuracy that are 'lost' over the course of levelling.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

What I would like to hear though, is whether some DMs really needed their PCs to have these feats? Or, from those people that allowed them, have they noticed that your PCs now hit perhaps a bit too easily?

I'm finding this thread very interesting. I'm one of those who think Expertise is a feat tax -- either it's needed and should therefore be built into the system, or it's not needed and is therefore overpowered. Actually, I noticed the game's mathematical asymmetry before anyone had ever heard of Expertise. And I started giving out extra level up bonuses to attacks and defenses before anyone knew about Expertise. I like to tinker.

Unfortunately, most of my experience has been with heroic and paragon play -- my current campaign is only 6th level. *sigh* I'm giving my players extra bonuses via my solution so that I can ban Expertise and other feat taxes, and so I don't have to worry about enhancement bonuses and strict loot drops.

I'm looking forward to epic play, where I can see how everything plays out myself. I'm doubtful that leader bonuses and such can consistently boost PC chances, though I may be surprised. How many combats do your players normally go through between extended rests?

On a tangental topic, someone recently pointed out that 4e seems to be designed with inexperienced players in mind -- the DMG guidelines suggest that PCs can handle monsters of n-4 to n+7 level. The asymmetry suggests that average monster level should actually be a bit higher than PC level in moderately experienced groups, and much higher than PC level in optimized groups.

 

[MrMyth]

I'm looking forward to epic play, where I can see how everything plays out myself. I'm doubtful that leader bonuses and such can consistently boost PC chances, though I may be surprised. How many combats do your players normally go through between extended rests?

Speaking for my group, which has had similar experiences in PC capability, the group will typically get through 4-5 or so encounters in a day before being at their limit - which usually means one player (often our druid) is tapped out on surges. There of course have been times when the group has gone through more fights, as well as less (though usually for situational reasons - we finish the dungeon - rather than being unable to go any farther.)

Recently the DM has shifted things up, and we have started days where there would be fewer fights, but they would all be in the 'very hard' category.

 

[Ravellion]

I'm looking forward to epic play, where I can see how everything plays out myself. I'm doubtful that leader bonuses and such can consistently boost PC chances, though I may be surprised. How many combats do your players normally go through between extended rests?

Three or four, for story reasons. Usually there's still healing surges, action points and daily powers to spare. I very often string two encounters after another without a short rest too (sometimes letting them keep their buffs, sometimes not, that's about 50/50). I think the most the party has done in one day is six, including three encounters in a row without rest.

 

[SSquirrel]

Hey WotC. If you read this thread remember. Players finding holes in the math does NOT mean start working on a 4.5 "We fixed the math!!" edition. Just take notes for further correction in the eventual 5th Ed.

 

[keterys]

You seen the errata lately? Pretty sure they can just make a lot of changes that way.

Even things like "solos have too many hp" and "elite defenses are too high" already got addressed in the MM2, DMG2, and future products, even if older stuff got left alone.

 

[Elric]

Over in the 4e rules forums there's an interesting thread where Truename's setup a combat simulator (currently still very early in implementation) where we had a year 1 (pre-PH2, expertise, etc) paragon dwarf fighter up to 100% survival rate (I think it lost 1 in 50,000 fights) against soldiers of levels 0 to 3 levels higher than it, five fights per day... even on fights where it needs a 16 to hit the soldier, it's still winning.

The Dwarf fighter in question has Hammer Rhythm and Rain of Steel, which means that the build does a lot of auto-damage even if it can't hit. Also, the soldiers attack AC, so the fighter, who is Con-based, gains extra surges but doesn't suffer anything for low Reflex/Will. Try this with a Human Bastard Sword Str/Wis fighter who didn't take Rain of Steel (for some reason!) and he'd probably die a lot.

One thing not mentioned so far in this thread: there's a lot of variation in monster power levels within a given level/role (and there's variation across roles; soldiers and controllers tend to be the strongest roles). Add a Ghoul Gatherer (E2, L25 controller) to an otherwise trivial level 21 encounter and it won't be easy any more!

I don't think it's been mentioned yet: Certain Justice is too powerful. It's one of the strongest encounter powers in the game. It's going to skew views on the value of Elite/Solo enemies, since it handles them so easily.

Edit- in general, it wouldn't surprise me if the game becomes easier for well-built (for combat) characters at higher levels. The difference between well-built and average-built characters keeps getting larger over time, and for the game to present the same difficulty to average-built characters, it probably has to get easier to those at the top.