Excerpts: PHB2 - Heric Tier Feats

[twilsemail]

The problem is.... if they introduce the Masterwork weapons now, then the new feats become way too powerful.

I agree, it should have been done as Masterwork weapons. I might house rule this and ban those two feats.

This is exactly what I proposed to my players about a week ago. It's been well received so far and we're voting on it on Thursday. I can't see any reason they'd rather have the feat instead of a masterwork bonus. And, at least to me, it feels less clunky.

 

[CapnZapp]

1) Armor that grants bonus to individual defenses (replacing a higher AC bonus, though)

2) A few other items (non-neck-slot) that increase defenses. I don't know the names off-hand and off-book.

Np, I've found them:

Boots of Quickness, Belt of Vim and Circlet of Indomitability. All three give untyped bonus (up to +3 for level 28 items) to either F, R or W. All three from AV.

And all three boring...

Either the math needs them, in which case each character needs them all, meaning the feet, waist and head slots are no longer available. In this case, hiding them away in the AV is incredibly irritating.

Or it doesn't, in which case the bonuses should probably have shared types with other stuff, as to present a real choice. Alternatively, there could be a rule allowing any single character to benefit from only one of these items at any given time. For example.

 

[SteveC]

First of all, I really like the idea that's been floated here of Masterwork Weapons. When the PHB had Masterwork Armor, my first thought was, "well where are the weapons?" I'm surprised they weren't already in AV.

On the Expertise Issue, I think that we might be blowing this out of proportion just a little bit. In heroic games, this is a good feat, and sort of a no-brainer for classes that don't have a lot of specific feats targeted at them. For classes that do, the feat really isn't that spectacular until you get to that +2 bonus at Paragon level.

I play a Drow Rogue in Living Forgotten Realms, and I'll be choosing to use my Dexterity for Base Attacks long before I take Expertise. Why? Because my typical adventuring party includes two warlords, and they both have the ability to give me bonus attacks, which I ignore because the difference between my strength and dexterity on a to-hit roll is _5 points_. I will eventually pick up Expertise, about the same time as I would have bought Nimble Blade, but there are so many feats that are more useful to a heroic and early paragon Drow character that I'll use first.

A +1 bonus to hit at heroic levels is nice, but it's also not the end of the world if I don't have it. For other types of characters, the feat is much more useful: I'd take it before any of the situational +1 bonuses, especially since it will stack with them.

Is this errata? Sure looks like it. Is it bad design? I'd say no, but I'd also prefer it if they would have introduced Masterwork Weapons/Implements instead.

Just my $.02.

--Steve

 

[deleteme123456]

Masterwork weapons/implements (and this feat) still leave "natural attacks" like a minotaur's Goring Charge or a Dragonborn's Dragon Breath out cold. While those attacks have built-in scaling to compensate for the missing enhancement bonus, it still means that they will lag behind the to-hit curve simply because defense scales enough that there is a gap (as proven and discussed repeatedly elsewhere). That's one of the best reasons to favor the errata "everyone gets +1 at 5/15/25" (that and not screwing swordmages, paladins, clerics, etc. who would need both feats).

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I'm not seeing how you get very much from Melee Training, unless you find yourself making an inordinate amount of opportunity attacks or or charges.

An earlier post implied that it worked with nearly every weapon based attack roll despite the summary text.

Even if that is not entirely accurate, it does make your character much more effective in the presence of a Tactical Warlord who uses Commanders Strike very often.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[evilbob]

Masterwork weapons/implements (and this feat) still leave "natural attacks" like a minotaur's Goring Charge or a Dragonborn's Dragon Breath out cold.

That's a good point. Although I have noticed that these abilities tend to pale horribly against even basic attacks already - so really, this just puts them even further behind. (Same with cleric/paladins compared to non-dual-stat classes.)