Excerpts: PHB2 - Heric Tier Feats

[Zephrin the Lost]

Also it's not essential that the fire damage being dealt is actually burning the elemental or what have you. The magical flames disrupt the creature's strange form or some other fluff.

 

[Zsig]

so, what can you do to correct it:
use lower level encounters, ban those feats. Just use encounters 2 or 3 levels lower, this also makes advancement on higher levels more slowly, which is also a good effect... problem solved...

You don't need to lower the encounter level, that wouldn't fix the problem as it would still be possible to throw impossible monsters against the characters.

Instead, lower the monsters' level, and while doing that, increase the number of them.

So, for instance, instead of throwing 5 lvl "X" monsters against a lvl "X" party, use 7 or 8 lvl "X-2" monsters.

That wouldn't change the encounter level, while making it possible for players to hit with their attacks.

 

[catsclaw227]

It's possible that all this is by design.

PCs aren't supposed to start out balanced to the monsters. They are purposefully behind, and feats and magic items are there so that the PCs can make choices about what to raise up to a balanced state and what to overcompensate to become advantageous.

These new feats sorta give everyone an opportunity to get closer to "balanced" if they like. Other feats are there to aid power effects, add specialty bonuses or act as other non-to-hit and non-defense feats.

This may be an attempt to "fix math", maybe. Maybe it's another set of feats to give to the classes that don't already have a huge to-hit advantage. Maybe its a sinister plot to take a feat away from the players and cloak it in a "fix the math" veil.

 

[Cadfan]

Technically Flame Surge might not actually make you deal more damage to fire enemies with your fire powers. You might deal "more damage," but still apply the fire resistance. It doesn't say that you negate the resist fire ability, after all. You don't get that until epic tier.

So if this feat gives you, say, +1d6 damage versus fire resistant enemies, and your enemy has fire resist 5, you might still be dealing less damage.

 

[Fedifensor]

This may be an attempt to "fix math", maybe. Maybe it's another set of feats to give to the classes that don't already have a huge to-hit advantage. Maybe its a sinister plot to take a feat away from the players and cloak it in a "fix the math" veil.

One of the design philosophies of 4E was to make it harder for a person to make an ineffective character. Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise run counter to this philosophy. Feats are optional choices, and you can't count on someone taking a particular feat, even a "must-have" feat. Plus, it's in a non-Core book, which means those that don't buy the book are going to miss out (unless they find it via a DDI subscription to the Character Builder).

How does Wizards account for this in their published modules. Say there's a big Epic adventure to slay Orcus. Does Wizards design this assuming that all the players have +3 to hit with their attacks, or not? Their choice will determine whether some parties are presented with a cakewalk, or a TPK.

 

[Obergnom]

You know, they 'might' still fix the feat with eratta... maybe it is a missprint. It could, for example, only apply to daily powers...

well... or maybe it will stay this way and make a lot of people really sad, as it breaks some of the best aspects of 4e... like the "no unoptimal characters" rule... I loved that while it lasted.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Plus, it's in a non-Core book

The cover of PHII says "Core Rules". WotC was upfront from the beginning that the yearly core addendum would be considered part of the baseline of the game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is a feat which you can take with a single classed character... actually it may have worked well if it qualified as a multiclass feat...

one reason not to multiclass at all...

even now it is a choice if you multiclass: or which implement you take it first...

My grief is: its is always better than other feats which give a precious +1 feat bonus only in certain situations...

 

[Cadfan]

My grief is: its is always better than other feats which give a precious +1 feat bonus only in certain situations...

Its not a feat bonus.

Most attack bonuses aren't, actually.

 

[The Little Raven]

I fall into the camp that finds this feat is errata disguised as crunch, so I disagree with your explanation.

If that was their intent, then the feat would add a flat +1 to all attacks, instead of a specific weapon/implement. The feat is intended for the character to focus on a particular weapon/implement, just like Weapon Focus. Signature weapons, and all that.

I don't buy this "They intend it to be an errata to give a +1 bonus to all attacks" when they could have easily done that, and explicitly did not.

Assigning intent to developers is something I find to be rather arrogant.