Proposal: Alter Expertise Related House Rule

evilbob · Mar 3, 2010

ryryguy: Ironically, I believe paladins are not "extra blessed."

(But yeah, I don't think they are blessed by the current rule: I think the current rule is the bare minimum needed to help balance them. That's my opinion, tho, and possibly not germane to the current thread.)

Re: PHB3 - Yeah, I remember they did that with the PHB2. In fact, I remember they hand-picked a few bloggers from some website that was all about blogging about 4.0 and sent those individuals copies of the book early too, just to get some positive press I think. I think they've done that for other books, too.

elecgraystone · Mar 3, 2010

evilbob said:
ryryguy: Ironically, I believe paladins are not "extra blessed." (But yeah, I don't think they are blessed by the current rule: I think the current rule is the bare minimum needed to help balance them.

Well normal paladins would be just fine with either the Versatile Expertise feat or using a Vigilant weapon [4th level] (acts as a weapon AND a an implement). Only racial attacks wouldn't get the bump, and most current expertise feats don't do anything with those anyway.

evilbob said:
Re: PHB3 - Yeah, I remember they did that with the PHB2.

They said they were doing it this time though and that it will continue. It give them a jumpstart in finding any issues before the flood of comments comes in.

Mewness · Mar 4, 2010

I'd like our existing bonus to remain but be changed to a feat bonus as well. It does make some of the attack boosting feats less appealing, but I really like the fact that our scaling bonus applies to things that the expertise and similar feats leave out (racial attacks, grabs, etc.).

CaBaNa · Mar 4, 2010

The nice thing about the "extra" feat, it will give more character flavor.

Sure most people will take the boost to-hit/damage of a focus feat, but some will take guild, tribe, racial, or other feats that can make a character really unique and memorable. (improved grab, skill focus, draconic spellcaster...)

Eliminating the house ruled +1/2/3 solves future issues with odd house rule interaction.

Kamotz is a str/wis cleric, and I vote for removing the "overpowered" house rule, and replacing it with a bonus feat. Also, there are so many paladins, we hardly need a reason to encourage more...

Bonus feat handed out at first is the most desirable, however would likely be given sometime from 3rd to 5th.

renau1g · Mar 4, 2010

I think we try to help with the more distinctive characters by offering 25 PB vs 22 PB, lets you have someone other than 16/16/12/12 or whatever. The bonus feat would likely be selected by most people as Expertise so it's really not adding much flavour.

If a player wants to be part of a guild, he can add it in his backstory. The feat on its own is worse than skill focus, so take skill focus and then say the guild taught you their secrets. Same for tribal. Those feats are only good if a group of players all select them, to get the +5 bonus.

Mezegis · Mar 4, 2010

I think we should keep the current rule of +1, 2, 3 on everything and make it a feat bonus or provide a free feat at level 1 and call it a day.

Too may stipulations and exclusions will just make things complicated.

And we will never be able to balance things since there are some classes that would really want the free feat, and others that really like the +1 tohit for everything. Part of what I like about 4e is that there is something for everyone, which means that on any change, nearly everyone is going to have some type of opinion about how it helps/hurts their character.

If I had a vote, I'd say keep it like it is and not punish people for playing the classes that use lots of different items for their powers. If you want extra feats, you can go human, but no race can offer consistant extra accuracy, outside of stat boosts.

Oni · Mar 4, 2010

renau1g said:
I think we try to help with the more distinctive characters by offering 25 PB vs 22 PB, lets you have someone other than 16/16/12/12 or whatever. The bonus feat would likely be selected by most people as Expertise so it's really not adding much flavour.

Two things here, the fact that L4W offers 25 point buy is already a huge boon, that means either extra accuracy or extra defense above core, not to mention way more lax restriction on feat selection, and then you have the flat bonus across all abilities even racials and grabs (which WotC hasn't deemed necessary to upgrade I'll point out). Too many "give me's" and it just becomes harder to challenge characters. These are little things, but they add up. In hindsight, even though I don't like the feat tax, I would have suggested we gave neither the bonus to accuracy or the extra feat (or 25 point buy for that matter), but the genie out of the bottle so I don't think we can just take it away so I think the extra slot is a better solution.

Secondly, with a flat +1/+2/+3 it adds zero flavor, full stop. If you allow the feat slot then while it may not necessarily add flavor depending on an individuals choices, but at least it has the potential to, which is more than I can say for the current rule.

renau1g · Mar 4, 2010

It is a bit more difficult to challence PC's in general I find as players for the most part have now learned their PC's are are pretty effective with them. The +1 to off defense isn't that big of a deal I find (usually the extra 3 points help bump one of the Off stats).

The point of the Expertise bonus isn't to add flavour, it was to correct a math error that relates to monster defenses scaling faster than PC bonuses. No flavour, but the original feat doesn't either...

Oni · Mar 4, 2010

renau1g said:
The point of the Expertise bonus isn't to add flavour, it was to correct a math error that relates to monster defenses scaling faster than PC bonuses. No flavour, but the original feat doesn't either...

True, but WotC is making efforts to introduce more flavorful alternatives and if we don't change our house rule in the right way we're taking away from that.

Kalidrev · Mar 4, 2010

Flavorful or not, the whole point of the house rule is to correct a math mistake. Changing that house rule should not take away from correcting the math mistake (the whole reason for the house rule).

Because of this, I think it would be best if we simply give out 1 (one) free Expertise feat at a given level (probably 5 to keep things the way they are). This would keep the game both in line math wise, and also with the way that WOTC has made things. Everyone gets a boost to accuracy on the thing they do the most (possibly more than one thing with the Focused Expertise feat). Will it take away from the accuracy of some things like racial powers, grabs, etc? Sure, but WOTC wasn't giving that to us anyway.