So, about Expertise...

[Regicide]

Skill Focus: Diplomacy.

Ritual Caster.

Improving a d20 roll isn't a role-playing feat, neither is a feat that lets you cast spells too powerful or esoteric for combat.

 

[Jhaelen]

People throw a little roleplaying into that, but there are zero roleplaying rules in DND. A few roleplaying guidelines, sure. But, no roleplaying rules. As an example, there are XP rules for combat encounters and XP rules for noncombat encounters (only if a skill challenge is involved) and XP rules for quests, but no XP rules for roleplaying.

Roleplaying rules is an oxymoron. How would a 'rule' for granting xp for roleplaying look like?! You cannot have anything but roleplaying guidelines in a (roleplaying) game.

 

[keterys]

As far as concept feats go...

My warlock has a feat which lets him mix it up in melee. He's otherwise in pretty good shape - I keep thinking of picking up Athletics so I could do more physical things in combat in terms of jumping and leaping about, since I don't want to be prevented from doing my insane charge into combat shtick by terrain... but I'm not sure that's really a RP thing, especially if I did it as a multiclass that had little to do with anything I care about.

My warlord has multiclass paladin and plays as a would-be paladin, and that was core to his concept. He has enough skills - I think I'd take Endurance and Streetwise if feats were freely available, but I'm not worried about it. He actually hogs too much of the spotlight in RP and skill encounters anyways. At the moment I'd most want Hurl Breath. It's pure silliness, but it's fun silliness. That... has nothing to do with RP.

My fighter has multiclass cleric and novice power, which let me do his concept. If I could swap a daily at his level, I'd have already done that too I suspect. I'd probably take Shield Push next - it hasn't seemed like it would come up all that often, but it's neat.

My wild mage sorcerer wanted Acrobatics so that was his first feat. Honestly I have no idea what he's taking next - I'd consider improving his Bluff/Diplomacy, but honestly I've had the most fun with the couple encounters I've botched those rolls so a statistical improvement there wouldn't make RP more fun. Maybe Arcane Power will give him more options he wants than +1 to hit - probably even. I guess in the meantime... Lost in the Crowd maybe next? I'm not sure I want to bother to remember it and it wouldn't come up _that_ much for that character, though, so maybe just the improved Second Chance. Meh.

So, yeah, I'd take a convenience feat, a silly-fun feat, a more interesting tactical feat, and pick a random feat out of hat... none of them would help the character more than the +1 attack and none of them would help with RP. Heck, the Hurl Breath one might hurt with RP since I'd have trouble explaining how I'd do it.

Each character has things to contribute to every skill challenge, each is very involved in all RP... in fact, the problem I've been experiencing lately is finding reasons not to hog the spotlight so everyone gets a share. So... yeah, I don't have something more RP worthy to spend the feats on. I took care of those feats already.

And if I hadn't, I'd have done so by slightly higher level.

My newest character is a Deva Invoker and at 1st level he doesn't have expertise - he has spirit talker because I wanted to have a Lantern Angel following me around to chide me for my actions. Not sure when he'll take Expertise - I'd like to pick up one more skill with him for his concept. I would consider Skill Focus for that character, since it would help support me playing him as an infallible know-it-all, but his chance of failing skill checks in those skills is pretty damn low anyways. Otherwise... yeah, I think after that it's the temp hp on his class ability, expertise, and focus feats off the top of my head. So, different variations of combat effectiveness... probably expertise makes sense there. So by 6th, on him too. Maybe as early as 2nd since we're starting up Spellgard and I hear it's pretty much a hackfest so... yeah, may as well pick up the attack first then Insight.

Whee.

 

[keterys]

Fwiw, both characters in the latest WotC Character Concepts article take Expertise nice and early on... 4th and 2nd respectively.

Yeah, this is totally a design feature, not a bug.

 

[Ryujin]

Last week we decided how to handle the Expertise issue and I think that it's fairly measured. My GM agreed with me that it was going to be a must-have and he doesn't want to mess with the RP aspect of the game by having a feat that we'll all end up taking anyway, so he is granting us the feat freely. We won't be getting +1/+2/+3 with ALL attacks, but will with our primary attack tool. It would be nice if I could take Heavy Blades for both Implement and Weapon Expertise effectively in one shot but judging by the way that Character Builder handles it, that isn't how it's intended to work in this instance.

... or perhaps I should make a bug report

 

[grickherder]

The problems occur when three people from keterys's group get together with two people from your group and start gaming with their level 16 characters.

Excellent point. I never thought about it in terms of group dynamics. I think you're absolutely correct about this.

EDIT -- atleast after 15th level when expertise starts scaling. Looking at the heroic tier character sheet files for the PCs in my primary gaming group, I see that they are not incompetent. They haven't had to make weak characters to make interesting characters. I see mostly 18s for starting stats in their primary attack stat. One 20 (the wizard). They're using intelligent weapon choices and have distributed magic items in an intelligent fashion.

 

[grickherder]

The skill challenge system in the DMG is terrible and even it tries to distill roleplaying down to a set of dice rolls.

As they are written, yep the skill challenge rules don't really work like they should. Over time actually using them though, I found they drift into a usable format that encourages/gives structure to role-playing rather than reducing it to die rolls. You can have some very free dialogue with great content when the participants aren't worried about getting the result they want. The dice have been rolled and you know who has succeeded and who has not-- now it's time for a scene where that is the end result, but how it gets there and what spins out of it is up for grabs.

Roleplaying in DND is the small amount of glue between encounters. It's the tool used to set the stage for the next set of combat adventures.

Absolutely. D&D has always been a combat game with free-form roleplaying tacked on. How much emphasis you spend on the free-form roleplaying varies by player and group.

Some people might find this to be a shocking statement, but characterization can happen within the confines of the combat system. Even within the combat system, decisions communicate things about your character to the other participants. If you prioritize such characterization, expertise is a pretty boring feat. All it will communicate is that you are accurate. Feats that let a defender or controller really protect or help others can communicate things about your character's priorities even though they're just doing their job.

Add in a bit of that tacked on free form roleplaying in the form of in-combat dialogue, internal soliloquies, quick narrated flash backs, etc., and you can start using the combat mechanics to do characterization. Powers, feats, class features-- basically everything can be keyed off of to communicate things about the character to the participants of the game with a little bit of that glue that is normally reserved for stringing combat together.

 

[catsclaw227]

when I see people choose math over playing the game I want to cry, and trust me I had a very eye opening experiance just last week.

Really? Do tell, do tell...

 

[keterys]

Absolutely. D&D has always been a combat game with free-form roleplaying tacked on. How much emphasis you spend on the free-form roleplaying varies by player and group.

...and has next to nothing to do with what feats you have.

Feats that let a defender or controller really protect or help others can communicate things about your character's priorities even though they're just doing their job.

Right, which is essentially the problem with the expertise feats - they make you better at protecting or controlling than other options. This is particularly true for controllers. They're _boring_ but they're the most effective options for doing what you want to be doing - so, they let you pull off the stopping movement with your fighter (yay, cool defender) and landing daze on the solo (yay, cool controller) or pull off the cool two-shot kill (yay, cool striker) or land the hit that lets your side save against the enemy's attack (yay, cool leader) better than almost all the rest of the feats.

And they're _still_ boring.

Hence, the term 'feat tax'.

Add in a bit of that tacked on free form roleplaying in the form of in-combat dialogue, internal soliloquies, quick narrated flash backs, etc., and you can start using the combat mechanics to do characterization. Powers, feats, class features-- basically everything can be keyed off of to communicate things about the character to the participants of the game with a little bit of that glue that is normally reserved for stringing combat together.

I'll admit, I am so glad that you were here to let us know that it's possible to RP in combat. Up until now I'd actually been completely unaware - I actually close my mouth when initiative is rolled and don't open it again until combat ends - I communicate all of my character's actions, purely reduced to attack and damage results with a bit of chess-like notation, via filled-in cards I hold over my head when it's my turn.

 

[catsclaw227]

There are RP feats? Really? Seriously, if you're looking for RP, 4E is not for you. It is a combat simulator.

This is where we disagree. I never said there were RP feats. I said that in a good campaign, hitting 1 out 20 times more often is not as fulfilling as taking a feat where I get some RP out of it.

I was replying to this comment:

And I'd _definitely_ rather have other feats on all three of those characters, but it's mathematically imprudent

Clearly, there are feats he would rather take....

Feats like the cold ones if you are making a cold concept character, or toughness or other feats that might not have the mechanical +1 to hit, but have other mechanical bonuses or things that fit your PC more, like Skill Focus feats or even things that make you run faster, or dodge OA better because you want to be a moving target.

These things can help shape your PC and can help you add to the concept you might be going for. Yes, these concepts can convert into roleplaying opportunities.

I already have the feats for my core concept by about 2nd... after that it's just a matter of what little fiddly things I want beyond that.

That's good for you, but maybe for others it's different. I can see waiting until level 15 (when you get a +2 instead), but there are feats that are available until then that might be better for others from a character concept standpoint (and possibly, therefore an RP standpoint).

Feel free to assume a holier than thou attitude if you wish, but it doesn't change the underlying math of the game. After the first four or so levels, many characters are _done_ with feats for their concept. In one game folks were done _after 1st level_ - if you've got the skills you want already, some classes just don't have feats that are all that important to roleplaying.

As is, in one game someone was done with feats she wanted by 3rd level and took a multiclass at 4th cause it was better than nothing. Feats do not RP make.

No holier-than-thou intended. Just that you said you would RATHER take other feats, but this +1 was more mathematically prudent.

My thoughts one how feats can translate into RP are stated above, so we sorta disagree here, but no harm, no foul. Our styles are different.