Excerpts: PHB2 - Heric Tier Feats

[Mr. Wilson]

Right. And at epic tier, when you're hitting on a 12+ while your allies hit on a 9+, you will either change your mind, or grow steadily more frustrated without realizing why. You'll have a dim sense that you fail more often than everyone else, and that everyone else is better than you. You personally will probably then take the feat, but there's a lot of people out there who will blame their character class or their DM or otherwise not understand that this feat wasn't really optional if they wanted to not suck in comparison to the rest of their party.

I think this is another interesting point. The Boards are going to be inundated by "My class is broken" posts once this feat is published when all of a sudden their friends are hitting 5-15% more then them during combat.

 

[ppaladin123]

I don't think you need to take weapon/implement expertise at first or second level. The math on the "to-hit" modifiers is such that characters start to fall behind versus enemy defenses in late paragon, early epic levels. It can probably wait until then but it eventually becomes crucial.

The problem is that as it stands characters are going to have to roll a 14-15+ to hit epic level threats (like the ancient red dragon). This feat looks like a way to restore the "hit on 11+" assumption that the game is supposedly based on.

I should point out that there are ways to get around this already in place. The most obvious is to get combat advantage (harder for ranged classes) and to use action points in the presence of a tactical warlord. Of course, your party shouldn't need a tactical warlord just to get by in the epic tier.

 

[ryryguy]

I agree with most of the comments about weapon expertise. I'm not sure I'm fully cognizant of the math problem, but is it basically a weapon attack vs. AC issue? It'd be easiest to fix by dropping monster AC by 1,2 or 3 across the board, wouldn't it? Though I suppose it would be difficult to errata that efficiently - you can't errata every other monster...

The feat only applying to a certain weapon group seems like a pretty weak limitation. What characters routinely use weapons from different groups? I guess characters who use weapons but don't specialize to favor particular weapons with particular powers or feats might use whatever the latest best magic weapon found as treasure, but it's still pretty weak.

I'm a little disappointed by Improved Grab which is only listed as giving a +4 on grab attempts. Not that I miss 3e grapple, but I'd like to see more grapple related options. Maybe I'll just have to wait for the monk.

 

[Shadeydm]

I hope the +3 initiative bonuses listed on Thirst for Battle and Wild Senses are feat bonuses and not untyped.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah it looks a lot like errata disguised as crunch.

A very worrisome trend.

Like the +2 masterwork armors added to AV - these should have been added to PHB errata!!

 

[Minigiant]

I hope the +3 initiative bonuses listed on Thirst for Battle and Wild Senses are feat bonuses and not untyped.

Stackable +3 init isn't that bad really. You'll rarely stack higher than +7 ATM.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

A very worrisome trend.

Like the +2 masterwork armors added to AV - these should have been added to PHB errata!!

Except, in the case of the masterwork armors, I always got the impression that they didn't fit into the PHB. It was like they had always planned to have those armors, but ran out of space in the PHB and just felt that they could just move them to the AV.

Of course, I've been told that all of the masterwork armors from AV are reprinted in the PHB 2 by the people who have it in the thread at rpg.net. It seems they feel they need to have them around to correct the math and more people will have it this way.

 

[CapnZapp]

Of course, I've been told that all of the masterwork armors from AV are reprinted in the PHB 2 by the people who have it in the thread at rpg.net. It seems they feel they need to have them around to correct the math and more people will have it this way.

That only strengthens my resolve, of course:

Errata should come free, end of story.

You should not be expected/forced to buy additional books just to get errata.

Publishing those masterworks armor in PHB2 resolves this issue as little as publishing them in AV2.

I realize you're thinking "AV is a supplement while PHB2 is core, and many people are going to buy all the core books".

That doesn't change the fact that both issues we're discussing now have an impact on those customers who only play with PHB1, and have no plans on ever getting any more books than the original three.

So WotC: put those masterworks in the PHB errata!
(And while you're at it errata that feat so you get +1 at 5th level, +2 at 15th and +3 at 25th level for your fav grouping of weapons or implements for free, no feat required!)

 

[vagabundo]

I'm not sure that this is going to be a problem for most groups - most wont play into the late paragon or early epic IMO anyway - but the the disparity with equipment, other feats, class features and combat situations will probably disguise it.

This all goes to hell in a hand basket if you have one or more min-maxers in your group though. But, as a DM, they wreak my head anyway.

 

[Nymrohd]

hmm does an untyped bonus stack with itself even when it comes from the same source? Not sure about it.

Anyway, weapon expertise is most certainly errata disguised as a fix. The thing is, a characters attack bonus already is anything but linear. It is too damn jumpy yet everything included (magic weapons, weapon expertise, ability increases) your character gains close to 30 points of attack power as he levels up (27 or 28 if he gains a +2 from ED). Would it not be better/cleaner if the attack bonus only scaled with level? I am seriously considering house ruling it like this: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...s/251862-forked-thread-fix-stat-polarity.html