Racial Powers: For those houseruling Weapon/Implement Expertise as 'free feats'

babinro · Jan 3, 2010

I, like many others houserule my characters with the expertise feats in an effort to add more variety to the actual selected feats and to help the game flow in terms of 'the math' for lack of a better term.

My friend's dragonborn paladin is level 18 and his typical attack rolls on weapons are at a +23. However, his racial dragon breath and dragon wrath is only +16. <half level +9, +con17<+3>, +4 for tier>.

This is a pretty large discrepancy that is leading to a lot of misses as we progress. Do you houserule the expertise bonuses to apply to racial powers like dragons breath/wrath as well?
Is there any kind of feat in existence that improve racial attack bonuses? If not, would it be overpowered to simply create a racial expertise feat?

Or, are all these missed attack roles simply a result of a poorly built character? (Str +13, Con +17, Dex +11, Int +9, Wis +15, Cha +25)

For what its worth, the player will be going Demigod at epic, so effectively will eventually get a +3 bonus to attack rolls with the tier increase and ability score boost together.

Any opinions on what, if anything should be done would be appreciated.

sfedi · Jan 3, 2010

Along the Expertise fix I also grant weapon/implement bonuses and Free Expertise bonuses to all attacks: Bull Rush, Racial Powers, etc.

That's to keep them useful as levels go up. As you mentioned.

Stalker0 · Jan 3, 2010

sfedi said:
Along the Expertise fix I also grant weapon/implement bonuses and Free Expertise bonuses to all attacks: Bull Rush, Racial Powers, etc.

That's to keep them useful as levels go up. As you mentioned.

Basically I don't give them the feat. I just give them a +1 to attacks. That way it just effects everything, and helps multiclass characters as well.

BobTheNob · Jan 3, 2010

Our houserule is that players get a +1 to everything at 11 and 21 and the expertise feats give a +1 (there is alot more counter ajustment to it than just that...but that is enough for now).

Under these conditions, your friend would have an additional +1. Not great, but better.

There is also the counter argument regarding dragon breath that it is only a minor action and incredibly useful as a utility power rather than a "killer" power. For instance, using expanded breath (the one that increases the radius) and draconic challenge, our DB Pally uses it more as a marking mechanism.

BTW : The players handbook sais that, for the purpose of to-hit, it can be based on the choise of str, dex or con. Any reason he picked con (instead of str) if it is so low? Is it is Chr based pally build?

DracoSuave · Jan 3, 2010

babinro said:
IOr, are all these missed attack roles simply a result of a poorly built character? (Str +13, Con +17, Dex +11, Int +9, Wis +15, Cha +25)

(Putting + before attribute scores is confusing, made me think those were his base bonuses for those abilities. Try not to do that too much.)

Not really a poorly built character... but his problem is simply from the fact he's not put a lot of points into Constitution. He probably didn't focus all his points into a single secondary, spread them around a bit.

So the problem is, quite simply, he has an attack in a score he didn't put his attribute points into. Of -course- it is gonna suffer. There's no feat that fixes that, there should be no feat that fixes that.

In the case of a Charisma-based paladin, he's probably better off putting more points in Wisdom or Strength. Constitution only gives you a small handful of hitpoints, and a couple extra surges which, to be honest, you don't have a shortage of as a paladin.

Wisdom would make his secondary effects nicer, and Strength would all him to make DC badnasty, while allowing greater flexibility in power choice, AND be useful for Dragonbreath, making it viable all the way up.

Had his Strength been increased as much as his Charisma, and gone that route, he'd have a +20 to hit with his Dragonbreath--being 3 shy of a weapon attack with a minor action that targets NADs is not a bad place to be.

So, his problem is strictly because of how he built his character and distributed his attribute bonuses. Nothing else is broken beside that.

Destil · Jan 3, 2010

A) 3 points of this disparity is hitting non-AC defenses, since there's no proficiency bonus to the breath.

B) I like to take -1 to all defenses at 5/15/25, myself. Since I print the stat blocks of all my monsters from the Adventure Tools this works well and is easy (and the players don't have to house-rule a feat or track the bonus themselves). It also makes things like bull rush more workable.

DracoSuave · Jan 3, 2010

Destil said:
A) 3 points of this disparity is hitting non-AC defenses, since there's no proficiency bonus to the breath.

The rest of the disparity is the fact his attribute is lower than it would be if it were a primary score. The problem here isn't the system, per se, but rather just the fact that he's chosen an off-secondary score for his attack, and spread his attribute points thin. Had he not done this, the scores would probably be a lot more favorable to what he wants to do.

babinro · Jan 3, 2010

DracoSuave: I didn't even realize I did that '+' sign thing, it is confusing now that I look at it lol.

Anyways, I realize the intention of the houserule was to apply expertise like bonuses to everything regardless of keywords. I will simply implement it in this manor going forward. The dragon's breath will still be lower, but should be manageable.

My player did spread out his secondary to wisdom for powers and the like, and so it is expected that his dragon's breath is less useful than if he were a strength paladin.

DracoSuave · Jan 3, 2010

babinro said:
My player did spread out his secondary to wisdom for powers and the like, and so it is expected that his dragon's breath is less useful than if he were a strength paladin.

Well, from that point of view, I think he over-emphasized Constitution, and under-emphasized Strength-- unless he has Virtuous Strike or Melee Training, then he's running into problems on the Basic Attack front. Generally, for a Paladin, you either want to go Strength/Charisma for flexibility in powers and Divine Challenge supremacy, Charisma/Wisdom for defensive powers and secondary effects, or Strength/Wisdom for offensive powers and secondary effects.

With the most number of surges in the game, and more access to additional surges through feats than anyone else that isn't a Dwarf, Constitution isn't as needed for a Paladin. It's only a single hitpoint per point of Constitution. You won't notice it after a certain level.

EDIT: Admittedly, I forgot about the Dragonborn Surge Value add, which does change things a bit. I'd probably have gone into one or the other, but I can't fault him for splitting between the two given that. Sadly, DB will suck, but eh. It's not as important for a defensive pally as it is for a fighter.

That said, have him pick up Draconic Challenge. That'll make his Breath Weapon do a lot more than damage. Free Divine Sanction on all enemies, hit OR miss, will make that breath more interesting.

Wow, Honored Foe is SO GOOD.

Destil · Jan 4, 2010

One thing to note is if you want to really push your AC with a paladin (not necessary, as they already have the best base AC in the game with plate + shield) you want Plate Spec/Shield Spec or which require 15 Con/15 Dex respectively (at paragon).