Defenses and To Hits for Your Party ~ Averages

[Aulirophile]

I'm not confused about CriticalBastard's solution; I'm confused as to why you posted a link to it after saying that my solution presents "other issues". I was presuming that CB's thread was your way of showing me those other issues, but now I'm thoroughly confused.

Ohhhh. No, I was presenting a solution with no issues. Your solution opens up feat qualifications with zero sacrifice. A Polearm (insert class here, figher or MC Fighter or Hybrid Fighter) who doesn't need to make any sacrifices to qualify for both Polearm Gamble and Polearm Momentum would be pretty powerful, off-hand. Wizards could get all the Cha and all the Wis based stuff. Swordmages would see some benefit, their mark would still be good and they could take the wis-based PP. You could make a non-lazy Warlord who could still have both high CHA and high INT. Really it is a long list, sometimes the difference in optimized builds between qualifying and not qualifying for a feat is 1 point. Sometimes that means you can't take it till epic (meaning you get it in Paragon with your solution), sometimes that means you can't take it at all.

Long story short: It would be easy for it to result in characters who sacrificed nothing, but gained a ton. It isn't neccesarily going to overpower that character (I don't believe in "overpowered" anything though, really), but it certainly opens up synergies at zero opportunity cost.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Ah! Yes, I can see how a lot of DMs would see more feat qualifications as badwrongfun. We DMs do tend to be a stingy lot. Personally, I think it's a feature rather than a flaw, if anything.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ah! Yes, I can see how a lot of DMs would see more feat qualifications as badwrongfun. We DMs do tend to be a stingy lot. Personally, I think it's a feature rather than a flaw, if anything.

It might be a feature IF the feats were designed with different types of prerequisites or just designed differently to take that into account. As it is it becomes a significant issue. Obviously if you're redesigning the core mechanics you could also rewrite a lot of the feats, but now the effort has gone way up. Of course eliminating all stat boosts creates almost as many problems in the other direction, but I THINK they are a bit easier to fix. Still a lot of work.

Personally I just don't find any of these issues to really be serious enough to bother with. House rules are annoying, everyone argues with you about which way to implement them, they are hard to make work in CB, and just generally an annoyance. Sure, everyone will take Expertise and everyone will take a defense feat, and most builds have some other rather optimum feat choices, but you have a lot of feat slots over 30 levels. Even ignoring the customization aspects of the 'must have' feats there are still plenty of chances for characters to gain interesting and unique feats.

I think the real issue boils down to one of players that want to optimize to the hilt have usually so many feat choices that they get annoyed about not being able to wedge them all in. "If only I didn't HAVE to take this Expertise feat I could add Advanced Fooby Wacking and get infinite attacks! ZOMG Feat Tax!". They aren't exactly wrong, but someone may have missed the point, you had lots of chances to take fun stuff that made your character fun to play. I don't think having more feats makes things more fun. It adds more knobs to turn and some people will like that, but it isn't a design goal of the game to have X number of feat slots.

 

[Colmarr]

This comment explains a lot more about where you are coming from than you have previously revealed -- and that's helpful.

So the question is, what is the consequence of your decision? That really depends on what feats you take instead and on what your DM and the others in your party do.

Not every D&D game is about combat, despite the system's robust rules for it, and not every portion of character design needs to be focused on preparing for it.

At their cores, most RPGs are storytelling engines, and it's equally valid to choose a feat or power for its storytelling potential as for its combat potency.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

At their cores, most RPGs are storytelling engines, and it's equally valid to choose a feat or power for its storytelling potential as for its combat potency.

This remains true so long as you are on the same page as your group.

Say, for example, your hypothetical DM likes to focus on running deadly combats, and you've slotted feats for diplomacy and role playing on your hypothetical character sheet. Speaking hypothetically, but from experience, unless you enjoy constantly rolling up new characters, you may need to reconsider your approach. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Personally I just don't find any of these issues to really be serious enough to bother with. House rules are annoying, everyone argues with you about which way to implement them, they are hard to make work in CB, and just generally an annoyance.

Man, I wish my players would even just mention a house rule once in a while. (I know, I know, 'be careful what ya wish for.') As it is, my group is either too polite to float any opinion at all, or they don't understand the game math, or they're complacent with its flaws like you. Probably, it's a combination of all three.

Actually, scratch that. My power gamer likes to rant via email and blog about a homebrew invention of mine that another of our group's DMs has adopted: the goon. The goon is the missing link between the minion and the standard monster. My power gamer doesn't like them because he thinks they make combat too hard and more importantly, I suspect, simply because they're not RAW.

Other than that though, nobody even comments on my house rules. I'd probably hear more groaning if my rules made things more difficult, but overall they make players' lives easier. Which I guess is the big secret of house rules being accepted by players: use carrots, not sticks.

I think the real issue boils down to one of players that want to optimize to the hilt have usually so many feat choices that they get annoyed about not being able to wedge them all in.

Okay, I know I've told you this like a dozen times on other occasions but I'll say it again: the real issue really is not optimizers. Believe me, the serious optimizer in my group hasn't said a word about 'feat taxes.' Like you, he just accepts that some feats are stupidly good compared to similar feats, and he takes them.

The real issue is that some of us simply want the game to be played by the design tenets that we like, the design tenets that the devs promised us: that no one option should be stupidly good compared to other similar options. That nobody should have to take any specific feats for the game to play as intended. The devs delivered on their promise with regards to 95% of the game, which is why 4e is my favored edition. It's just that last 5% that irks amateur devs like me [and at least one professional dev].

I don't see any good reason to not fix the math holes with true errata, especially in an edition where errata is such an accepted part of the game. Even if the "we fixed it wih feats so that all players can take advantage" line is true, it can be fixed with errata at the same time. (Hint: feat bonuses don't stack!) I've accepted that it's never going to be truly officially fixed, or even widely officially recognized--until 5e gets announced, possibly, so they can use the math hole problem as a selling point for 5e--but I'll always think of Expertise & Family as feat taxes.

 

[Herschel]

This remains true so long as you are on the same page as your group.

Say, for example, your hypothetical DM likes to focus on running deadly combats, and you've slotted feats for diplomacy and role playing on your hypothetical character sheet. Speaking hypothetically, but from experience, unless you enjoy constantly rolling up new characters, you may need to reconsider your approach. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Conversely, if you and your group are good at tactics you don't neeed to dump everything in to combat feats. If you aren't tactically sound, then you need to make up for it with more stringent feat selection. 4E is a game where working together is more important than how much cheese you can pile on.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Conversely, if you and your group are good at tactics you don't neeed to dump everything in to combat feats. If you aren't tactically sound, then you need to make up for it with more stringent feat selection. 4E is a game where working together is more important than how much cheese you can pile on.

Yes, I recognise this. I've been playing RPGs for a very, very long time. I continue to play RPGs because of their cooperative nature. I enjoy cooperation much more than competition. I don't have a poor head for tactics; most of my group is in the same boat.

That said, some DMs I've played with design their encounters around an expectation that the group will be, to a certain extent, prepared (read: optimised to some degree) for combat. If you are in that kind of DMs game, and you play a fluffy diplomat and don't take any combat tweaks, I'm sorry, but cooperation or not, sooner or later, you will die, and probably often. No amount of cooperation can make up for a DM that is out for PC blood.

That is entirely my point. 4e may be better at shoring up the difference between 'normal' and 'optimised' PCs, but it still won't save you in a game where the expectation is that everyone is optimised. And despite what the designers intended, it is still fully possible to make choices that even put your characters into a category below 'normal,' further ensuring your inevitable doom.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I'm sorry, but cooperation or not, sooner or later, you will die, and probably often. No amount of cooperation can make up for a DM that is out for PC blood.

That's true, but if you are playing a diplomat-style character, it might be reasonable to just hide until the combat is over, assuming of course that the weakness of one character isn't enough to turn the encounter into a TPK.

Frodo and the other hobbits were uncommonly brave for little folk, but they spent a lot of time cowering while the big folk did the fighting.

 

[Herschel]

I'm sorry, but cooperation or not, sooner or later, you will die, and probably often. No amount of cooperation can make up for a DM that is out for PC blood.

D&D rule .001: If a DM wants to kill your character, your character will die. No amount of optimization will save it.

Tacos or pizza might.