Feat Taxes, or, It's That Time of the Week Again

[MrMyth]

"Average PC" is an irrelevant concept. You're trying to pin down the minimum.

That seems a relatively flawed approach to game design. Ignoring the effect an option would have for the vast majority of games in order to compensate for a perceived weakness in the one game where no beneficial feat/item/power/PP/ED choices are made? Not exacty a reasonable approach, in my mind.

Now, tiornys's argument (which you've also briefly mentioned before) is definitely the stronger one - the idea that monster hp has scaled enough that this is what compensates for the enhanced abilities of the PCs.

At the same time, I'm not sure that his example... assuming that PCs are still just sitting there swinging with At-Wills with no other effects in play - is really accurate for an Epic party.

I am dealing with facts, is the problem. Designers designed the system and have public statements about it that flat out disagree with your opinion. Those are the facts of the way the system was designed, so, yeah, it is equivalent to telling an Astronaut the Earth is flat, when he's seen it is round.

No, it really, really isn't.

The only fact at hand is whether a PC loses 3-4 points of attack bonus, relative to monster's scaling defenses, over the course of levels 1 through 30.

That is, yes, a fact.

Whether other elements of the system compensante for that (in terms of PC options) or exarcerbate it (in terms of monster hp) is not something you can directly measure and offer up as objective fact. Similarly, the designers having their own opinion on the matter is not the end-all and be-all; while they may have positions of greater authority on the mechanics of the game, they are not infallible by any means.

The problem with your assumption that character powers help mitigate the 4 pt spread is that some of the benefits you're factoring in only work when the PCs hit. Its kind of a vicious cycle: the PCs are hitting on 14+, but *could* be consistently hitting on a 10 or better if they hit with certain powers. However, they need a 14+ to hit with the buffing powers, which means they don't consistently get the buff. And if some of those powers are Encounters or Dailies, the problem is compounded.

Well, yes and no - sometimes the bonuses do require hitting. Quite often they aren't, if the result of utility powers, Effects, feats, items, etc.

And, especially by Epic levels, many PCs will often be able to bring some resources to bear to ensure a specific attack lands. So if you stack up some temporary attack bonuses for one key attack, which then gives a huge attack bonus to every else for the round... well, it is an effective strategy.

Now, not every group, again, will have that exact approach or those exact powers. But almost every group will have some sort of advantage or approach along those lines, and Expertise only really makes sense when one ignores all those other possible resources.

So why not go with a simple, consistent +1/2/3?

Because it isn't an either/or - you put the +1/2/3 into the system alongside all the other benefits. And so suddenly Epic level PCs are regularly hitting significantly more often than they were at Heroic levels.

Now, the argument that tiornys makes is that they need to be able to hit more often, to compensate for enemy hp, and maybe that is, though I'm not convinced.

And the argument that Aulirophile makes is that it doesn't matter if most groups are now hitting far more often then they should, as long as some idealized 'minimum' group is now hitting at the exact same percentage as at level 1... which I don't agree with either, since, again, taking something like that out of the context of the rest of the game just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Aulirophile]

That would matter... if the game had been designed with a maximum power level in mind. It wasn't, just a minimum, a minimum before class/feature/PP/ED/power bonuses. So the argument that it can be optimized around is null: the minimum is designed so that all parties achieve it, even without optimizing. The fact that you can optimize higher is not relevant to the design, since no maximum was stated as a design limitation (though one obviously exists if you follow errata, one-rounding solos is to high).

And Tiorny's example was limited to at-wills solely to demonstrate that at level 21 monsters take more hits to kill with an at-will. Which is what those extra encounter/daily powers compensate for. But only if you hit at the correct percentage. If you don't... well, combats take more rounds, which is specifically counter to the design goal. It isn't a matter of the devs being infallible, but they made their design intentions clear, and those intentions are not met without expertise. So "the system does not work as intended without Expertise" is a fact, and not in any way subject to debate. Earth is round.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

ok, way back when (like day 3 or 4 of 4e) people started doing DPR (Damage per round) math I brought this up, but now I will again...

If at level 1 I have 2 at wills, 1 encounter and 1 daily, and my race ability...

then instead of at will dpr should it not be all of it.

Assume 3 encounters a day, each 5-6 rounds then over the day each character would have 2 action points, so 18 attacks, 1 daily (most likly miss half), 3 as encounter attacks, and 14 as at will...

so then at level 21 we say 6-8 encounters each about 10-12 rounds...so lets go with 6 encounters we can call that with action points 70 attacks. 24 as encounter, 4 as daily, and 42 at will ((again please check my math))

but then we need to take the race power, the item powers, and ultlity powers into account as well (I have no idea how)

but even just basic DPR seams like if you fon't count those daily and encounters seams off...

infact, there is a barbarian encounter at heroic (I think 1dt but it might be 3rd) that does 3w... and most barbarians have large damage per W, so over 3 encounters per day 4 or 5 adventureing days that is going to up the DPR alot... easpacialy when compaired to say a swordmage with a 1w encounter power with a smaller w value as well... when you compair that to both having 1w at wills...

 

[MrMyth]

That would matter... if the game had been designed with a maximum power level in mind. It wasn't, just a minimum, a minimum before class/feature/PP/ED/power bonuses.

Again, that doesn't make sense. You are saying that the game is designed around a base power level that, at Epic levels, ignores the benefits of feats; class, paragon path, and epic destiny features; magic items; and powers? That doesn't seem an exceptionally good approach to game design, or one that will result in a balance system.

So the argument that it can be optimized around is null: the minimum is designed so that all parties achieve it, even without optimizing.

Remember, though, you aren't arguing against the relevance of optimized parties, you are arguing against the relevance of the average party. I don't think either the optimized party nor the minimum party are the relevant baselines for the power level of the game. And when that minimum is specifically designed, as you suggest, to ignore the context of the character's abilities at level 30 compared to level 1... well, as I said, I don't see much use in that approach.

And Tiorny's example was limited to at-wills solely to demonstrate that at level 21 monsters take more hits to kill with an at-will. Which is what those extra encounter/daily powers compensate for.

Again, that is a valid interpretation, sure. It's a reasonable thing to believe in. But you keep putting it forward as objective fact - that all those various benefits add up exactly to being equal to the extra hp monsters have. I disagree with that, and I haven't seen any math that really shows otherwise.

But only if you hit at the correct percentage. If you don't... well, combats take more rounds, which is specifically counter to the design goal. It isn't a matter of the devs being infallible, but they made their design intentions clear, and those intentions are not met without expertise. So "the system does not work as intended without Expertise" is a fact, and not in any way subject to debate. Earth is round.

Ok, I'm going to try and show where this logic breaks down for me.

1) At level 1, combat takes X rounds with a 55% chance to hit.
2) At level 30, characters have a reduced base chance to hit from level bonus, stat bonus, and enhancement bonus, ignoring other resources they may have.
3) At level 30, monsters have more hp.
4) At level 30, characters have significantly more resources, in the form of more powers, feats, items, features, etc.
5) At level 30, the specific powers and recent features they have acquired are more potent than equivalent ones they had at level 1.
6*) Elements 4 and 5, above, are precisely balanced by Element 3, but has zero impact on Element 2.
7*) Thus, combats take more rounds.

Those last two steps are where statements are suddenly being made that are subjective. No math has been shown to prove them true, nor am I certain if one can do so, since one would first have to approximate the value of the benefits of your average level 30 character - no easy task!

Continuing to lay claim to absolute authority, to not just say that you disagree with others, but that they aren't even allowed to debate with you - to say that your opinions are equivalent to saying that the "Earth is round", and the various implications that makes about those who are disagreeing with you...

...well, I'm not too big a fan of that approach to discussion, I have to say.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

1) At level 1, combat takes X rounds with a 55% chance to hit.
2) At level 30, characters have a reduced base chance to hit from level bonus, stat bonus, and enhancement bonus, ignoring other resources they may have.
3) At level 30, monsters have more hp.
4) At level 30, characters have significantly more resources, in the form of more powers, feats, items, features, etc.
5) At level 30, the specific powers and recent features they have acquired are more potent than equivalent ones they had at level 1.

can we all agree on 1-5 as our agreed on basics where we all start?

6*) Elements 4 and 5, above, are precisely balanced by Element 3, but has zero impact on Element 2.
7*) Thus, combats take more rounds.

I personaly have seen 0 proof of these...and this is where the arguments all break down I belive...

since one would first have to approximate the value of the benefits of your average level 30 character - no easy task!

See that is the big problem... how do i compair a level 30 fighter with X Y and Z utlity power to 30 level fighter with A b and C... then how do w find an avrage to call the avrage fighter... then do that to all defenders to get an avrage defender... but then an avrage party has what as a 5th character??

 

[Tony Vargas]

That would matter... if the game had been designed with a maximum power level in mind. It wasn't, just a minimum, a minimum before class/feature/PP/ED/power bonuses. So the argument that it can be optimized around is null: the minimum is designed so that all parties achieve it, even without optimizing.

I'd think a 'minimum' design, non-optimized character wouldn't even have Expertise. Heck, a true 'minimum' design might not even put all the stat bumps it should into it's primary (unthinkable though that may seem). I think for your argument to work, you have to assume some basic optimization - starting with a good primary, bumping it at every opportunity, taking expertise, generally avoiding clearly inferior choices. Otherwise Expertise doesn't even succeed as a feat-tax fix.

And Tiorny's example

At third level, we'll add 1 damage for a magic weapon. That's 4 hits to kill the 1st level skirmisher, and 5.4 hits to kill the 3rd level one.

Now let's look at 21st level (where PC damage just got a boost due to doubling the dice on at-will attacks). A 21st level skirmisher with the same 14 Con has 190 HP. Let's take a PC with a 20 starting stat, boosted to 28 (max possible). A 1d12 weapon (and remember, 2[W] now). +5 enhancement. +4 item bonus from Iron Armbands or similar. And heck, why not a +3 feat bonus from Weapon Focus or similar. That's an average of 32 damage per hit. Which means it takes almost 6 hits to kill the skirmisher.

That's right. It takes MORE HITS for the 21st level PC

was limited to at-wills solely to demonstrate that at level 21 monsters take more hits to kill with an at-will. Which is what those extra encounter/daily powers compensate for.

What about the massive crits you get at higher levels? Epic characters should all be criting on a 19-20 (except for those critting on an 18-20). That d12 2[W] at-will does 43 damage on a crit, +5d (could be d6 or d12s if vicious), plus 3d12 if it's high crit, plus any feats that boost crits. That could average anything from 60 up to 100 damage. Critting on a 19-20 is one in ten swings, not hits, but swings. That's more like 1 in 5 hits. In the course of hitting a monster 6 times, there's a good chance you'll crit it once, doing two or three times the normal average damage, and downing the monster a hit or two early, in 5 or even 4 hits (right back to the 3rd level number of hits to kill).

But only if you hit at the correct percentage.

Right! I'm surprised Tiornys didn't point that out, too. If you're hitting 40% instead of 55%, it takes more rounds to get in those 6 hits... but, it also means that one in 4 of your hits are criticals, so crits become an even bigger part of taking monsters down. You'll still be taking down monsters in 4 hits, but getting those 4 hits, might, in the absence of any sort of additional attack bonuses from leaders and the like, take 10 rounds instead of 7 or 8.

If you don't... well, combats take more rounds, which is specifically counter to the design goal. It isn't a matter of the devs being infallible, but they made their design intentions clear, and those intentions are not met without expertise. So "the system does not work as intended without Expertise" is a fact, and not in any way subject to debate. Earth is round.

It doesn't work as intended /with/ it, either - not unless it's manditory or automatic in some way.

 

[Aulirophile]

Wow, average =! minimum. You seriously need to let that go, that wasn't what the designers did. 4e combat is heavily statistical.... there is a huge difference here you're just not acknowledging. It doesn't matter if PCs are more powerful. The average party is irrelevant. The worst party is all they cared about. They wanted awful, retarded, stupidly built PCs to be effective to a minimum (so long as they followed certain guidelines in the PHB, no 8 in your primary stat), so much so that a whole party of them would still be fine. And they never mentioned a maximum, though again one is evident from errata: one-rounding solos is to much.

It doesn't ignore it, that'd be retarded, it established the minimum with guaranteed resources. Magic items (i.e., enhancement bonuses)? Yep (by the intended design, magic items are not optional in 4e barring inherent bonuses). +Hit items? Uh, no, actually. +Hit powers? No again. +Hit PP? Nope. 55% is the minimum before any of that. Sigh. That is the accuracy side. On the damage side... you have encounter and daily powers (whose damage, it must be noted, scales up as you get higher level versions)! Almost as if they compensate for something! Could it be? Yes, omg, monster HP scales faster then PC at-will damage! Wonder of wonders. Mmmm, I wonder if the developers ever said anything about that... oh, wait, they did, because they told us their design intentions. So glad we cleared that up. Again.

Yes, I do claim absolute authority in an area of facts which I happen to be aware of and you, apparently, are not. People with facts tend to do that. You can have whatever opinion you like, but the developers have stated their intentions, how they derived them, and on and on. The only way to make the system work as intended (and I sincerely hope you understand the difference) is with Expertise. So I'm putting it forward as an objective fact because it is one. Imagine that. Darn developers, designing systems and then saying things about them. One can argue they did it poorly perhaps, but to argue that it isn't the intent of the system is just asinine.

If you want the math, I encourage you to go to CharOp and ask or do it yourself. Until then you're just uninformed. As with most subjects you have two options: continue to be uninformed, and therefore your opinion is as worthless as mine would be to an astrophysicist about astrophysics (knowledge works like that, funny) or go become informed. But I'm not inclined to let be bullied, to continue our metaphor, into saying the Earth is round is my opinion when I'm the astronaut. It is a fact, space capsule is over there, go see for yourself.

 

[keterys]

I think you're harming your case more than you're helping it Aulirophile, and could probably use a vacation from the thread so it can generally cool down without any mention of absolute authority, uninformed, retarded, and other similar indicators, so as soon as I can figure that out, I'll make it so.

In the meantime and for the remainder of this thread, if people could not respond to any of his posts, so this thread can be more than repeated salvoes.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

[edit: I was typeing well teh mod spoke, so I have to redo the post


edit 2:
I think that the fact of the matter is , that the designers left the feats as they are, options. I mean the devs have to realize the benfit of people like myself who don't want to give out a free +1/2/3 to the characters.

I wonder though, inorder to give the benfit of the doubt (maybe there is a math hole). Can we try to put this togather?

I propose we build 2 or 3 groups of characters that can be used as a baseline. kinda like the characters in 3e in the PHB lyda/jozan ect...

Group 1: the basic D&D group (you know they are iconic for a reason)

Human Fighter guardian Build
Hafling Rouge artful dodger Build
Human Wizard Mage Build
Dwarf Cleric war priest Build
Elf Ranger Archer Build

Group 2: the 4e variant (I tried to come up with 5 characters unqie to 4e)

Goliath Warden Earth str Build
Deva Avenger
Wilden Invoker
Shardmind Warlord tac lord
half orc Assassin Excutioner

Group 3: half way between (these are characters that exsited in some prior edtions but not as iconic)

Human Paladin
Teifling Warlock fey pack
Kalashar Psion telpath
Half elf Artificer battlesmith
Mul Barbarian rageborn

then see if we can make say lv1,lv11,lv21,and lv30 to come up with how they handle the levels

 

[tiornys]

Now, tiornys's argument (which you've also briefly mentioned before) is definitely the stronger one - the idea that monster hp has scaled enough that this is what compensates for the enhanced abilities of the PCs.

At the same time, I'm not sure that his example... assuming that PCs are still just sitting there swinging with At-Wills with no other effects in play - is really accurate for an Epic party.

Of course it isn't. In fact, it's not really accurate for a 3rd level party, and it sure isn't accurate for a 7th level party. The point isn't to model play at a given level. It's to establish a metric for determining the ratio of baseline PC damage to monster HP. The decrease in that ratio is, in fact, a necessary and desirable part of the system; it's what makes it possible to have encounter and daily powers that are significantly better than at-will powers without making combat ridiculously easy.

Now, the argument that tiornys makes is that they need to be able to hit more often, to compensate for enemy hp, and maybe that is, though I'm not convinced.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that higher level groups need the increased power level from encounter and daily powers in order to compensate for the increase in the ratio of enemy HP to baseline PC damage. In some cases, that power boost comes in the form of attack bonuses, which can be viewed as damage multipliers, but the power boost can also take the form of directly increased damage through a variety of mechanisms, stronger control effects that prevent or hobble the added attacks a monster makes when it has a longer lifespan, and/or stronger defensive effects that reduce the impact of those added attacks.

Now, it's not practical to directly measure the increased power from encounter and daily powers to say whether or not it's equalizing the HP/damage ratio disparity. It is possible to observe that the average combat length (assuming PC victory) will primarily be determined by three factors: the ratio of baseline damage on hit to monster HP, the percentage of attacks that hit, and the added power level from non-baseline powers. And therefore, it's possible to get useful information out of our model by carefully choosing assumptions.

If, to take a non-arbitrarily chosen and highly relevant example, we want an idea of the upper bounds on combat length from the PC side (to be compared with PC ability to handle incoming monster damage without dying), we would figure our baseline PC damage based on minimum expected combat optimization: 16 starting attack stat boosted every level, "correct" enhancement bonus for the level, a martial weapon or non-superior implement, and average encounter and daily power level. And, if we were picking that example to prove a point, we might make somewhat unrealistic assumptions on the power level of encounter and daily powers, deliberately erring high on that assumption.

So, let's assume that the average encounter power is 3x as strong as an at-will power (which is actually pushing the upper limit on encounter powers, as demonstrated by the scarcity of triple-attacking powers*), and further assume that a daily power is 5x as strong as an at-will.

At first level, assuming a Warhammer vs. AC, our PC averages 8.5 damage with a 55% hit rate. He needs to chew through 30 HP. That takes him 3.53 hits, which will take 6.42 attacks to achieve. His one encounter power counts as 2 extra attacks (three times the power, three total attacks, two extra), so he'll need about 4.42 rounds to kill an enemy. Since standard combat assumes one enemy per PC, we can say that an average combat with unoptimized PC's will take 4.42 rounds at this level (ignoring action points and daily powers for the moment).

At third level, our PC should have a +1 weapon, and consequently has gained 2 points to his attack rate which equals the 2 points added to monster defenses. He now does 9.5 damage and has a second encounter power. He needs to chew through 46 HP. That takes him 4.84 hits, or 8.8 rounds. Each encounter power is 2 added attacks, so the overall expected combat length is 4.8 rounds (again ignoring action points and dailies).

At 21st level, generously giving the PC a +5 weapon and stat boosting ED, our PC has gained 4 enhancement, 9 from level, and 4 from stat to his attack. The monster has gained +18 to his defenses. Our PC averages 23 damage, has 4 encounter powers, and enough daily powers that we'll assume he uses one. He's chewing through 190 HP, which takes 8.26 hits at a 50% hit rate, or 16.52 attacks. Factoring in his 8 extra attacks from encounters and 4 from his daily, that leaves 4.52 rounds of combat. Which seems great! Except we just made a whole host of assumptions that favored this particular comparison and barely held even.

So now let's look at 20th level. At 20th, we'll go ahead and keep the +5 weapon. We lose 2 attack bonus from the epic destiny and the 21st level stat bump, while the monster loses 1 defense. We lose a whopping 7.5 damage. So now we're chewing through 182 HP with 15.5 average damage and a 45% hit rate. That's 11.74 hits and 26.09 attacks, less 12 = 14.09 (!) expected rounds of combat. Of course, this is in some ways a worst case just as the 21st level comparison was a best case.

So let's look at 28th level. From the 21, we've gained 1 from enhancement, 4 from half level, and 1 from stat. The monster has gained 7 to his defense. Damage is 25, monster HP is 246. We're looking at 9.84 hits, 21.87 attacks, or 9.87 rounds, twice as long as the low level combats. edit: oh, and keep in mind that I ignored daily powers in heroic (should be about 1/5th of a daily per combat at low levels), so things are even worse here than indicated by the model, including the comments in the next paragraph.

Keep in mind that this is with an overgenerous estimate on encounter and daily power level, which has more impact at higher levels because those levels have higher dependence on encounter and daily powers (admittedly, I'm ignoring PC synergy and cooperation at all levels, but then I'm also ignoring monster control effects and the fact that those get stronger at higher levels). Therefore, we can conclude that a practical example of the situation is likely to be worse than this model. That is, for a group that does do the minimum combat optimization recommended by the PHB, but nothing more, combats will become more than twice as long as the PCs reach high paragon and epic tier.

*note: keep in mind that a 3[W]+stat attack is not three times as powerful as a 1[W]+stat attack. Stat+enhancement starts out equal to slightly less than [W], and is sitting at about 2-2.5x[W] by epic tier. Therefore, to make a single attack hit as hard as three baseline attacks, you're looking at 4-5[W] in heroic and 8[W] in epic, neither of which occurs on the encounter level with anything like regularity. more edit: since baseline in epic is up to 2[W], you're actually looking at 11[W] to be three times as powerful in epic. Which simply does not happen in terms of pure damage on a single attack (because it would be far to swingy when factoring crits in).