A question to those that give the expertise feat for free

[RangerWickett]

I do wish the options for screwing with the 'default math' were a little more tightly reined in.

Like, if PCs tend to get +x to hit, then monster defenses would tend to be 10+x. PCs might vary from x-2 to x+2, and they might be able to get combat advantage (+2 to hit) and gain some power bonus (max +2 bonus to hit). Monsters with particular roles or gimmicks might have slightly better or worse defenses (8+x to 12+x).

So you end up needing to roll 13 or higher if you're poorly optimized and just attacking a turtle monster without strategy.

11 or higher if you're normal but fighting a turtle, or suboptimal fighting a normal monster.

9 or higher if you're normal in normal conditions.

5 or higher if you're getting combat advantage and are receiving a power bonus.

And occasionally 3 or higher if you're doing everything right, and are targeting a monster's weak defense.

Give the game a normal spread of needing 5 to 11, with a few outliers due to bad builds or weak monsters. On very rare occasions, you might get a higher bonus, due to action points or daily powers. And of course if a PC is forced to use an inappropriate weapon, he might have a harder time, but that's a special situation.

(Also, you can vary it if you have higher or lower level monsters than usual, though I actually rather dislike the "numbers always go up" design, and would remove it if I were designing the game.)


That's what I'd do if I were to do a 4.5. Narrow the number range a bit more, and put a hard limit on how much buffing and debuffing you can apply.

 

[kaomera]

I think that this is really the crux of the whole argument, and the biggest issue I have with it. This perception, this idea that there's a problem here. That's what I disagree with.

I agree with just about everything you point out in your post. I'm not suggesting that 4e wanting a certain level of optimization from players is a problem, but rather that because this expectation is there, players who don't meet it are a problem. I'm not sure I think it's a "great thing" all the time, but I am sure it's a deliberate design goal of 4e.

This goal does a lot more good in the game I'm playing in right now (experienced / educated players with access to all the rules and an interest in knowing how to best use them) than the one I'm DMing (inexperienced players who don't own many 4e books between them). (And it doesn't help that some of my players do seem to feel that they're doing themselves a service by making mechanically non-optimal character choices.)

I wouldn't suggest that because the party has a hard time with some encounters the 4e rules as written should or need to be changed. But that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't change the game I play at my table. I've played in LFR games with groups that where a bad mis-mash of roles & classes with multiple new players and/or badly suboptimal PCs, and when the DM won't do (or let us do - running the heck away from an obvious TPK waiting to happen should always be an option, IMO) anything to balance things it can make for a really unfun experience that isn't actually going to teach anyone at the table anything (other than to avoid that DM / that group / LFR / 4e in general in the future...).

The arguments I see over and over for why the math is "broken" and these accuracy feats are needed, or adjustments to PC attack bonuses or monster defenses are needed, pretty much amount to, "We want to build our characters ineffectively, AND use poor tactics, AND not help each other as a team, but still hit often and win quickly. So, fix the math so we can, k?"

Actually, the argument I've seen the most is "The numbers on PCs don't scale as quickly as on monsters, so the math is obviously broken." I think that's a purely knee-jerk reaction. I saw the same math and thought it was a neat idea. I wondered if it was intended that higher-level play just got harder, or if other bonuses where supposed to pick up the slack; I didn't assume that it was some kind of design error. The statements I've actually seen regarding the math based on actual play have seemed pretty mixed, with some saying 4e gets too easy and others that it's too hard.

I'm kind of hoping that the Essentials books will (at least when used as a self-contained thing) create a bit more of a benchmark for a "normal" 4e game. But even then you have to deal with the fact that different players and different groups want / enjoy different levels of challenge. And there are a lot of ways that a DM can balance the challenge of 4e to his players, there's even ways for the players to do it themselves.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, the argument I've seen the most is "The numbers on PCs don't scale as quickly as on monsters, so the math is obviously broken." I think that's a purely knee-jerk reaction. I saw the same math and thought it was a neat idea. I wondered if it was intended that higher-level play just got harder, or if other bonuses where supposed to pick up the slack; I didn't assume that it was some kind of design error.

Yeah, I can't quite buy this.

It might seem like a reasonable conclusion if monster hit points also did not go up through the stratosphere. They increase by 6 to 10 points per level for standard monsters.

In a 6 round encounter, that means that each PC (every single one, including the Leader) has to do 1 to 2- more points of damage per round, regardless of whether they hit or not. With a 50% chance to hit, that's closer to 2 to 3 more points of damage per attack PER LEVEL.

I don't know about your PCs, but it's real difficult to get every single PC doing about 60 to 90 more points of damage at level 30 then they do at level 1. This is not even taking into account the -4 to hit from the core mechanics.

So, something has to give. What mostly gives is the number of rounds. Encounters start taking more rounds at higher levels, even with the Expertise feats handed out for free. If one does not hand out the Expertise feats, then it can easily becomes a super slow nightmare of 15+ rounds encounters at Epic.

Because no matter how many effects are thrown out, the PCs still have to do a ton of damage at higher levels to take out foes.

 

[Talysian]

I've found that mine do. At level 10 With an encounter / actionpoint encounter power I've had our rogue kick out almost like 80 Dmg. Most of our strikers do quite a bit of damage. A lot of it is based off of build though, with poor power choices/builds it will deffinatly happen. Also WOTC modules are usually pretty grindy. It's always seemed to me that the module designers wern't very good at monster creation/Choice.

May I ask some more about your group? How many pc's what are their class's/Build/Level any house rules? How well optimized do you feel they are?

 

[KarinsDad]

I've found that mine do. At level 10 With an encounter / actionpoint encounter power I've had our rogue kick out almost like 80 Dmg. Most of our strikers do quite a bit of damage. A lot of it is based off of build though, with poor power choices/builds it will deffinatly happen. Also WOTC modules are usually pretty grindy. It's always seemed to me that the module designers wern't very good at monster creation/Choice.

Yes, the Strikers can do a lot of damage in a single round. But, they typically do not do 80+ round after round after round for six straight rounds to make up for the Leader who is doing 20+ damage if he manages to hit. The Defender might do 80+ damage if he has 3 or so foes around him and he just gets lucky and hits all of them.

And yes, we remember many of those action point mega-hits.

But what we don't remember is all of the rounds of missing. We had a Ranger in our group. At least once per encounter, he missed with both Twin Strike attacks. It happens. A 60% chance to hit with Twin Strike means that 16% of the time, both miss. A 50% chance to hit with Twin Strike means that 25% of the time, both miss.

After round 4, most PCs are out of Encounter powers and are relying mostly on At Wills unless they want to use a Daily. How many non-Striker At Wills do 80+ damage in a single round?

Most 30th level standard monsters have ~250 hit points (it generally varies from 200+ to 350+ or so). 5 such monsters is 1250 hit points.

In a 6 round encounter, that's an average of 208 hit points that the PCs have to dish out each round (and this is for a n level encounter, let alone a higher level one). Yup, the 30th level Striker can Action Point dish out 150+ points of damage if he hits for a single round. After that, he might with the right powers and good dice rolls do 100+ points in another round. After that, he's dishing out an average of 60 points of damage if he manages to hit, 0 if he misses. The other PCs are doing less than that.

Course, this doesn't even take into account those times he action point attacks and does zero damage with two attacks.

May I ask some more about your group? How many pc's what are their class's/Build/Level any house rules? How well optimized do you feel they are?

16th level Fighter, Swordmage, Cleric, Druid, Avenger and Sorcerer.

The PCs are fairly well optimized. But none of them are dpr kings from the op boards. With At Will powers, most of them average 20 to 25 points of damage if they hit with the exception of the Sorcerer who averages closer to 45 (due to multiple hits with Chaos Bolt or Blazing Starfire) and the Avenger who averages closer to 40 (due to a lot of criticals). With 40% miss chance, that means that this group is averaging about 105 dpr with At Will powers, Encounter powers will probably be closer to 140 dpr (not just due to slightly extra damage, but a few more multi-target encounter powers than at will powers). With 6 150 average hit point foes (6 PCs) or 900 hit points, this means that it should take 4 (encounter powers) * 140 + 4 (at will powers) * 105 or about 8 rounds to take out 6 same level foes. Action points would lower this about half of a round. That's not too far off of the mark for our encounters. They tend to be 8+ rounds most of the time, but that's because it's often an n+1 or n+2 encounter.

This is with Expertise handed out. Without it, the same level encounter would go up to 9 rounds as the 60% to hit chance goes to 50%.

 

[CovertOps]

To all those who claim Expertise isn't needed:

I did a very long post detailing not so much why Expertise is or isn't needed, but that the feats presence breaks the game by increasing the variance between the "haves" and "have nots". There are only 20 possible results on a d20. If you have PC attacks at some baseline number +/- 3 (build/optimizations) and monster defenses at some baseline number +/- 3 (creature type - artillery, brute, etc. and individual flavor) then you have the core system allowing rolls from 4-16 depending on PC build and monster defense. Adding Expertise to this mix makes the range 1-16, but in reality by the time you hit level 30 the range is more like 5-20. The mid-range attack has shifted from ~10 on the die to ~13 on the die. This level of variation in PC power breaks 4e badly. At the same table you can have a poorly optimized PC needing a 20 to hit and another PC needing a 5. Do you perhaps think that will cause a problem at your table? I can't think of a single one of my players that likes missing every round, but in reality with 4e's target audience it ought to be difficult to build a PC that bad.

Can the system survive the shift from ~10 to ~13 on the die to hit? Yes.
Should you be able to build two different PCs with a variance of 16 to hit? No.

Note: Please don't call me out if my numbers are off ...I ball-parked them from memory. If need be I can recreate the numbers and they won't be far off what I've posted.

Summary: Expertise was a HORRIBLE game element to add in so to make sure my table variance is kept to a minimum I give it to all players by adjusting monster defenses down and disallowing Expertise to be taken. Is it needed? I don't really care. Does it reduce grind? Yes.

 

[Talysian]

At sixteenth level an at will for most should be what 1W+(stat (6) Armbands or equivilent (4) some sort of Feat (2) Magic Item (+4)) so 1 w+14 or so, minimum so yar around 20 ish to 25 and the Attack Bonuses for weapons are looking like +18ish for casters / 20-21 for weapon users without expertise...

So looking at a few soldiers(10)

Average ac is 33, Fort, 31, Ref 30, Will 29

And a few Brutes (10) AC 28, Fort 30, ref 27 Will 26

so without bonuses your looking at a 15 to hit Soldiers and 8-12 for brutes. And everyone else falling in between roughly.

I guess my question is are your pc's fighting foes of higher levels? A lot of Soldiers mixed in? I don't think with a 14-15 on a soldier and 8-12 on the rest look too bad. Especially since I was looking at the minimum.

Are you running homebrew stuff? or Wotc stuff? If so like I said above, a lot of soldiers or higher level enemies? 8-9 rounds is where I would be considering it a grind fest...

Are you guys enjoying things is the game bogging down for you at all? I mean if your enjoying it no biggie, but if you are bogging down do to grind, well you may want to look at adressing it somehone (assuming if thats the case you probably are researching it..)

Mind you these are rough calculations.

 

[Stalker0]

In my opinion there are two separate arguments going on.

1) The players need the "expertise equivalent" in order to be of proper strength to fight the monsters of their level.

2) The players need the "expertise equivalent" in order to maintain the same chance of success with their hitting at high levels.


To the first one I think the answer is emphatically no. Based on my experience and experiences I've heard on the boards, players get stronger vs equivalent level monsters as they gain levels. In other words, you have to offer higher level challenges more frequently in order to provide the same level of challenge.


The second one is trickier to answer. I do believe in the psychology of the hit rate...that players need to be succeeding in the 70% ballpark to feel "good" about their abilities. However, it comes down to the question I have asked many many times...and unfortunately its still a hard one to answer.

How much do high level powers make up for a reduction in the to hit rate?


Enough people have looked at the math and determined that players to hit rates do go down compared to monster's defenses at high levels....when you look at base numbers. To me, this is a closed issue.

But the much harder analysis is how do powers influence the numbers, how about combat advantage, leader buffs, powers that allow weapon attacks vs NADs, etc.

I can say the one time I tried to model a combat for high level (my 24th level mock epic fight) it took a grueling amount of time for me to compile everything, and its definitely not something I would want to do again. It would be nice now that more people are getting to those levels that perhaps people can record attack rates from their fights so we can get some actual numbers on the subject.

 

[CovertOps]

How much do high level powers make up for a reduction in the to hit rate?

Rephrasing:
How much do higher level powers make up for a reduction in the to hit rate?

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is close to 0.

If you have a power or condition that grants you a bonus to hit at first level then this can safely be ignored when trying to determine if "high level" powers make up for a decreasing to-hit rate. This means that all conditions can be ignored such as combat advantage, cover, and concealment. What does this leave? Basically powers of level 2 and above and paragon level feats and above (since by extension all heroic tier feats are available at level 1). I think the few powers or feats that actually meet the criteria are pretty much a moot point. Daily powers only work for one encounter and encounter powers only work for one round and generally only on one ally or enemy so is of limited use.

 

[Samir]

That "+26 to hit AC" guy, I don't really accept him as the "average striker" at 24th level. He seems almost deliberately weak to me. A stock Human Fighter built using nothing but the original Player's Handbook can have an "all the time" +32 versus AC at level 24. Nothing but the PHB! No expertise, no weird items or paragon paths or feats from any other books. (Yes, that's the maximal accuracy character, so it's reasonable to assume that most characters won't have quite that big of a bonus, but still, it's a far cry from +26.)

For starters, your character has a +27 vs. AC without expertise. That's just 1 more than the "deliberately weak" striker. You just happen to use the one PP that lets you hit Fortitude instead. KD covered this pretty well, but I will say that Fighters aren't Strikers. Neither are Wardens. Both happen to have some good options for improving their accuracy.

What about the classes that don't? Warlocks, Barbarians, Monks, and pretty much every leader class in the game? Should we say "oh, I can build a 20-strength Fighter who can get a +32 vs. AC by level 24, screw the rest"?

Then, at epic tier especially, there are the tons and tons of ways to get combat advantage, to grant each other (or oneself) big bonuses to attack (even for the entire encounter), to debuff the enemies' defenses a lot, and so on. Even that "+26 vs. AC" guy should very often be able to take advantage of these things, making it significantly easier to hit.

Certainly, but the fact remains that he's got a 35% chance to hit baseline. That's simply too low.

A 24th level character who is rolling only +26 vs. AC is a Barbarian without expertise. He's got an 18 in his primary stat. He's usually stuck with a +2 weapon so he can pick up mastery by 21st level, and yes, he will miss 65% of the time against a 24th level soldier.

We're talking about baselines here, not "let's just assume he's getting the best leader buffs in the game." Speaking of which, his Cleric friend is going to have a +27 vs. AC (+7 ability, +3 proficiency, +5 enhancement, +12 half-level), so he's only got a 40% chance to hit that soldier and give his Barbarian buddy that ever-so-crucial accuracy bonus.