So, about Expertise...

[GMforPowergamers]

I've played with hundreds of people for nearly that long as well and I have never seen:

1) A PC marriage in a campaign.

2) Two PCs or a PC and NPC fall in love.

3) A PC ever respect a rival. Rivals = enemies.

I have never ever ever seen the level of roleplaying the hopes and desires of a PC that people sometime claim happens in their games. I have never seen it on any of the videos on YouTube. I have never seen it at a gaming store where people come in and play. I have never seen significant immersion in character beyond the adventuring goals du jour.

Ever.

snip
E. YMMV.

well I have seen al three of those things. I have seen PCs marry eachother, I have seen PCs merry (mostly to NPC) and I have not only seen rivals respected, but I have seen PCs go to one villian and make a deal to fight a bigger threat. Heck I saw a PC go to the vampire (BBEG of the campaign) and yell at his tower "DO you want to rule a dead world" to get him to help stop the tarrasque...

 

[catsclaw227]

well I have seen al three of those things. I have seen PCs marry eachother, I have seen PCs merry (mostly to NPC) and I have not only seen rivals respected, but I have seen PCs go to one villian and make a deal to fight a bigger threat. Heck I saw a PC go to the vampire (BBEG of the campaign) and yell at his tower "DO you want to rule a dead world" to get him to help stop the tarrasque...

I have also had PCs fall in love with NPCs, PCs negotiate with their enemy for a greater threat, PCs decide that falling from favor with their god was the "right thing to do" in a campaign (purely for RP reasons), I've had combats STOP because of roleplaying events occurring, and then the combatants come to an agreement and eventually friends.

I've seen LOTS of RP level events that have shaken up the "kill things, take their loot" trope and crushed it under their heel.

D&D has evolved in many ways over the years, yet in almost EVERY campaign I have been involved with (not one-shots, but campaigns) have had RP dominating moments. And none, since I was 14 years old, have been more about "kill things, take their loot" than story, plot and experience.

 

[grickherder]

The problem for the Rogue is the 16 Dex results in 1+ less to AC.

It's true that rogues are the striker with the biggest AC problem. A 15 AC for a melee character at level one is bad. A 16 isn't wonderful either, but it's standard for a rogue. As one sided as 18 before racial upgrade stat arrays are, I think it might be appropriate for a tiefling rogue. I'd probably go for 10, 13, 18, 11, 10 14, artful dodger after racial mods.

16s in primary attack stats are definitely less of an issue for those who don't also need a higher bonus for AC.

If a ranged rogue is more of the player's concept, the tiefling becomes far more viable. Distant advantage for the combat advantage at range. Avoiding melee as much as possible. But a melee one, I'd go with an 18 dex anyway as 15 AC is awful for a melee character.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I've played with hundreds of people for nearly that long as well and I have never seen:

1) A PC marriage in a campaign.

2) Two PCs or a PC and NPC fall in love.

3) A PC ever respect a rival. Rivals = enemies.

I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I have seen all three situations described above happen in a D&D game. I accept that I have only seen #3 happen once, but I have had PCs having romantic sidequests at least once per campaign (initiated by the players themselves).
I once even had two PCs becoming rivals for the attention of another PC!

I find that I can keep both my male and female players interested in the game if I alternate sections of exciting combats with sections of deeply immersive social roleplaying.

I use both the usual heroic fantasy tropes and romance novel tropes to keep my players coming back, hungry for more

 

[Ulthwithian]

A couple of observations here.

I understand the mathematical argument, and a sensible consensus regarding the scaling of the feat seems to have been achieved.

However, to those who say that everyone should be given the feat, and are saying that because the feat is 'the best'... there is always a 'best' feat. It is a dangerous argument you make. It is simplified in this case because of the underlying math, but there are always 'best feats' to take. Giving them out for free is incorrect. You have simply replaced what was 'best' and thus 'required'. It really doesn't matter what the 'best' is. E.g., I've heard Nimble Blade brought up here for Rogues. Do you give all Rogues Nimble Blade for free? If not, isn't it true that 'all Rogues will take it, and is thus some form of feat tax'?

I realize that Expertise is most likely to close a design loophole, and that can muddy the waters here. But to go down the road of 'free feats' is not the best way of handling this situation, I think. Also, I hope that everyone here who says Weapon Expertise is a required feat uses a +3 proficiency weapon. If not, your argument (until level 15) is, essentially, that you want to ignore the built-in weapon balance of 4E. That argument will not pass muster with me.

I would think a restricted (and thus balanced) form of Expertise would be to apply it only to basic attacks. (Careful Attack and Sure Strike would then be erratta'ed to gain at least some scaling, or become basic attacks.) This would also benefit those 'basic attack' powers that some classes get. (I refer to Magic Missile, Eldritch Blast, et al. here.)

 

[keterys]

I don't think that making basic attacks more powerful than at-wills is really a desirable design outcome.

It is pretty easy for folks to basically decide for themselves: A) I'm okay with people getting the bonus to attack or B) I'm not okay with people getting the bonus to attack, and then giving the bonus for free or banning the feat.

Really, I think it's more just problematic for two situations
1) By RAW campaigns, like Living Forgotten Realms
2) People who can't or won't do or care about the underlying math

The first has, honestly, a host of other problems as well. The second only matters if it leads to disparities between the PCs in effectiveness or if the DM doesn't balance around the capabilities of the party. Both of those are problematic, and I suspect more likely but by no means certain in the second case.

But, really, I doubt anyone is going to convince anyone else of anything on the 17th or 18th page of this thread. It's probably okay to move on, wait to see what's said or done next officially, and turn on the apathy blinders in the meantime

 

[Ulthwithian]

keterys: Do you think that giving the attack bonus to a basic melee attack would make it better than an At-Will? I find that hard to believe. It might make it an option you would consider, but I doubt it would be better. Of course, it steps on the toes of OA feats, but it's at least restricted, right?

 

[keterys]

Depends on the class - some classes don't have, say, Twin Strike to fall back on. So yeah, I could see Fighters and Swordmages making basic attacks for instance.

You already see this happening sometimes when the bracers of bonus damage to basic attacks show up.

Either way, encouraging basic attacks doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Regicide]

However, to those who say that everyone should be given the feat, and are saying that because the feat is 'the best'... there is always a 'best' feat.

There doesn't have to be a "best" feat. It is quite possible to have "situationaly best" feats without any "always best" feat.

4E funnels everything in the entire game though a d20 roll in order to have an effect or not and then requires those rolls to fall within an 18 pt range because of the d20. Due to this, anything that influences that roll becomes "always best" because it impacts everything else in the game.

A mechanic like the doomguard's where it gets a +2 on the next attack if it misses would have been better. I'm sure there are lots of ways that are better still that could have turned this into a situationally useful feat instead of an always useful.

 

[tiornys]

A couple of observations here.

I understand the mathematical argument, and a sensible consensus regarding the scaling of the feat seems to have been achieved.

However, to those who say that everyone should be given the feat, and are saying that because the feat is 'the best'... there is always a 'best' feat.

I just want to point out that although many posters to this thread, myself included, believe both that these feats are too powerful, and that the fix these feats probably represent should be applied to the math through errata, there's a large difference between that correlation and the causation you imply. I most certainly do not think the feats should be given to everyone because they are overpowered.

I think the feats should receive errata because they are too powerful. Period. Regardless of whether or not anything is done about the math scaling problems, these feats should not exist in their current form.

I also think these feats represent an admission by WotC that they didn't intend for the math to decay as it does. Between that, some personal experience, and various anecdotal evidence, I think it's best for the game if the math gets fixed. If you agree, the best way to fix it is to apply it to all attacks for all characters, because any other approach changes the relative balance between various builds and powers.

I'm willing to concede the second issue. Not everyone agrees that it's better for the game to adjust the math. I can respect that.

I'm not willing to concede the first issue. Unless someone can convince me that the feats are not overpowered (good luck!), I will continue to call for errata to reduce their power level. My reasons for this stance can be found in the thread.

t~