High Level 4e

[gribble]

I think the problem is that you ran into a monster that the optimized characters needed a disproportionately high number to hit.

I know this wasn't the case, for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, the rest of the party (apart from the ranger) were barely threatened. I think we spent a grand total of 1 or 2 healing surges between us, and a couple of dailies each (given that one of these for my character was the Evards he uses pretty much every encounter, that wasn't much). IME, you need to make Epic characters roll a base of 13+ to challenge them at all. By the time you add in combat advantage and leader buffs, starting at a 13+ you normally end up with an 8/9+ with Epic PCs. As I said above - that was one of the problems for the ranger as well. As a leader, would you rather buff the ranger so his 20 to hit goes to a 16 to hit, or the rogue so his 13 to hit goes to a 9 to hit? I know which I'd choose (and did).

Secondly, afterwards the DM said that it was a level 22 encounter. Well within the range/ability of a level 21 party to deal with.

 

[WalterKovacs]

The group I'm currently running through the WOTC adventure modules is fairly optimized. The Barbarian and Warlord were 16 str to start, the fighter and wizard had 18 in str and int respectively, while the rogue went with 20. The rogue is a daggermaser, so above and beyond everyone else, has the best to hit chance in the party. Even then, the group is relatively balanced with each other. Most of the fights are pretty easy for them, but that is because Trolls consist mostly of Brutes and they are very easy to hit (unless you are going after Fort). They've had two challenging fights recently ... one involving a second encounter interupting the first, and the other involved a roper which rendered most of the melee fighters useless against the 'main' monster and it was hard to hit on it's own.

They haven't hit level 15 yet, but everyone has taken expertise.

The monsters do get more exciting, and the players get a bit more options. so I definitely like the low paragon a bit more than some of the earlier play. I would agree though that homebrew campaigns designed with the PCs in mind might be a bit more challenging than just the 'straight' adventure paths provide. There is a gap between ultra optimized (the rogue) and less optimized (the barbarian/warlord), but even a +3 gap hasn't been that nasty. Even when the warlord was +4 behind, it wasn't too bad ...the rogue was basically +2 above the 'baseline' while the warlord was +1 to +2 behind it. The game is a little forgiving, but not to the point where you can start at 14's in your attack stat AND not take expertise AND not raise them at every chance and be comparable to someone that started 2 ahead, upped it at every opportunity and took a feat for an extra +2.

 

[Oni]

I agree entirely. The player of the ranger has made a series of bad choices - as I pointed out in a earlier post. As in 3e, the gulf between optimised and non-optimsed characters is very wide at high levels. That was kind of my initial point - someone reading the 4e propaganda could be forgiven for thinking that problem had been fixed. It hasn't.

The part I've bolded is largely my problem with your assertions. You keep holding up the worst 4e character I've seen to date as an example as though it represents the norm for a casual non-optimized character and then keep pointing to this enormous gulf in capacity as though it is a common issue. If you put your stat bumps on your main attack stat and picked powers that matched that stat and class out of a hat you'd come up with a decently functional character and I think that says a lot about how robust the balance of 4e is. You can only handhold so much in character creation and advancement though, at some point some actual thought has to be put into it.

 

[Elric]

As a leader, would you rather buff the ranger so his 20 to hit goes to a 16 to hit, or the rogue so his 13 to hit goes to a 9 to hit? I know which I'd choose (and did).

It doesn't matter what the initial numbers required to hit are as long as you wouldn't need "more than a 20" before the bonus or "less than a 2" after the bonus. You should just give the to-hit bonus to the character with the higher damage increase per point of to-hit bonus.

If characters have no miss damage (or additional effects besides damage on a hit), and one attack roll per action, this means giving the to-hit bonus to the character with higher damage. This will tend to be the more optimized character, everything else equal, as the character who ended up with a lower attack bonus probably also ended up with lower damage.

Still, the hit-numbers before you add the to-hit bonus don't have much to do with it.

 

[MerricB]

With 3e, it was quite possible to build a really gimped character like a Wizard 5/Fighter 5/Cleric 5/Rogue 5. That's a PC that is far, far worse than Gribble's ranger.

Try doing that in 4e!

One of the chief complaints about Weapon Expertise was how it made the attack bonus structure of 4e no longer so predictable. I agree with that; I wish it hadn't been printed.

Cheers!

 

[gribble]

The part I've bolded is largely my problem with your assertions.

The "As in 3e", which directly precedes the part you've bolded, is largely my problem with your bolding and subsequent commentary.

Edit to make the post (and whole thread of conversation) a bit more useful to the OP:
To me, the important part of the post is this bit:
Someone reading the 4e propaganda could be forgiven for thinking that problem had been fixed. It hasn't.
Sure, the ranger is a fairly extreme example. But I maintain that I've found it very easy in 4e for a casual player to drop a point of magic here, start with a slightly lower primary stat and drop a point or two there, not pick up expertise and drop another 2-3 points.
In 4e, each point of attack bonus you lose is very costly. Much more so than 3e. When you get to Epic level, those points here and there can quickly add up to a big gap between optimised and non-optimised characters.

I've found it's definitely something to keep an eye on and be wary about.

 

[gribble]

You should just give the to-hit bonus to the character with the higher damage increase per point of to-hit bonus.

Sure, I realise the math behind it, but we're talking about a game here where psychological elements come into play as much as pure math.

I could buff the ranger, and have a 3 out of 4 chance that he'd still miss anyway and my buff would be wasted, or buff the rogue and only have a 1 in 4 chance it'd be wasted... admittedly from a pure math POV, if the rogue rolls high enough to hit without the buff, then the buff is still wasted, but when a player hits you don't tend to think of a buff as a waste so much as when they miss. At least I don't, and I'd wager most players are similar.

And, in this case, the optimised Rogue was dealing far more damage anyway...

 

[the Jester]

I run a game with certain characteristics that tend to exacerbate the gap between the top pc's attack bonus and the bottom pc's attack bonus- the party isn't all the same level, nor do new pcs have nearly the level of gear that established pcs start with.

The warden in my campaign- who is our most recent addition- tends to need a 16 or 17 to hit what the fighter needs a 7 or 8 to hit, but the fighter has been played up all the way from 1st level, so she has good gear and is one of the highest level members of the party. At the time the warden joined, she was 14th and he was 10th. Now, with the gap narrowing (because I tweak the game a little to help lower-level pcs catch up) the warden just hit 14th and the fighter 16th. The gap between them is still a good 4-6 points (I think- not quite sure, since I don't keep a copy of the pcs' character sheets) but narrowing. The fighter has also invested in Expertise, while I don't think that the warden has.

So, yes, there's a gap- but even starting with a pretty extreme gap, it has closed rapidly. One thing that really helped the warden out was after he realized he couldn't hit a monster's AC and he realized that every one of his powers targeted AC, he leveled, took a 'vs. Fort' power and retrained another to a NAD-targeting defense as well (I think also vs. Fort, but it might be vs. Reflex).

Is the gap a huge problem? Not if the player and the dm recognize it and work to avoid having it be the overwhelming determinate of whether the pc can ever accomplish anything. A few brutes make my warden very happy, for instance. Just like anything in the game, it just takes awareness and intention to smooth out this issue.

 

[catsclaw227]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, there's 3 1/2 pages, I wanted to respond to the OP.

I am glad you asked this question and I'm grateful that others responded. I have been wondering this myself lately.

I Dm'ed a converted Age of Worms at the beginning of 4e a year ago, PCs were just entering paragon at 11th level. We played until about 17th level and the game dissolved for player issues, one was relocated - his PC was deeply rooted in the story (my bad, as DM to let a PC have a MAJOR plot point issue) and another PC died. We all decided to start anew with a new player at the table and do Scales of War. They're now 5th level, and just got a nice daily and whooped butt in their first two encounters at this level.

I was also curious what are the sweet spots in 4e leveling as a PC goes up and up and up? What levels really seem to make a difference when the PCs hit them, and the encounter balance is noticeably changed?

 

[catsclaw227]

The warden in my campaign- who is our most recent addition- tends to need a 16 or 17 to hit what the fighter needs a 7 or 8 to hit, but the fighter has been played up all the way from 1st level, so she has good gear and is one of the highest level members of the party. At the time the warden joined, she was 14th and he was 10th. Now, with the gap narrowing (because I tweak the game a little to help lower-level pcs catch up) the warden just hit 14th and the fighter 16th. The gap between them is still a good 4-6 points (I think- not quite sure, since I don't keep a copy of the pcs' character sheets) but narrowing. The fighter has also invested in Expertise, while I don't think that the warden has.

How is it DMing a game with a 16th level Fighter? Is he real sticky? Does he do a lot of damage? I have read that high level fighters, while being defenders, still have the possibility to do do hoards of damage.