Expertise justification?

[keterys]

Just so someone says it... a 55% chance to hit is needing a 10 on the die. It's an interesting choice for baseline as it matches the save mechanic, the double digit point on the die, etc. It makes it a lot easier to get a good feel for what hits and doesn't very quickly as you see the die lands.

Also, when considering a 'difficult to hit opponent' such as a higher level elite or solo, what should its chance to be hit be before it uses, say, concealment, blindness, or penalties to attack?

For example, a Black Dragon can not only blind many of the PC attackers in effect, it can also impose a -2 penalty to attacks from dragon fear.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

first I can't belive that the base 'always' should be 10...but lets take a look at this another way...we have been useing solos of n+...and you should NEVER expect to hit a solo or a N+ to hit on a 10...

I belive level +14 was avrage AC. so at level 30 44

level 30 fighter

base 15 + (24 str) +7 (class)+1 (prof)+3 (magic) +6 = +32 Vc AC 44 = 12+ to hit...with no power bonuses, no CA, and no paragon path or epic destiny...

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Just so someone says it... a 55% chance to hit is needing a 10 on the die. It's an interesting choice for baseline as it matches the save mechanic, the double digit point on the die, etc. It makes it a lot easier to get a good feel for what hits and doesn't very quickly as you see the die lands.

Also, when considering a 'difficult to hit opponent' such as a higher level elite or solo, what should its chance to be hit be before it uses, say, concealment, blindness, or penalties to attack?

For example, a Black Dragon can not only blind many of the PC attackers in effect, it can also impose a -2 penalty to attacks from dragon fear.

That's the rub, right there. You're looking at a -7 to hit on that black dragon. If you already need a 14+ to hit, that just jumped to 20. Lowering to-hit numbers is definitely more fun. A baseline of 10 to hit is fine, and I'd argue that 9 or 8 is even better.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

Point being, *yes* the math needs to stay roughly the same at all tiers. It is only a 'treadmill' as you put it if the story is basically irrelevant to the game.

Exactly. Well stated.

 

[KarinsDad]

and finally you are argumenting with relative damage

in this cases expertise is great

Not relative damage, frequency of success.

That is a fun metric.

 

[KarinsDad]

Just so someone says it... a 55% chance to hit is needing a 10 on the die. It's an interesting choice for baseline as it matches the save mechanic, the double digit point on the die, etc. It makes it a lot easier to get a good feel for what hits and doesn't very quickly as you see the die lands.

That might be true, but for me that is not the best number.

The best number is 60% for same level foes. This puts n+4 foes at 40%.

Anywhere from hitting 2 out of 5 for a tough encounter to 3 out of 5 for a standard encounter.

The reason I do not prefer 55%, even though it is only a 5% difference, is that it drops the 2 out of 5 to effectively 1 out of 3 (7 out of 20, but close enough) for the n+4 encounters.

I think that is too many miss rounds for each hit round per player for a tough encounter. JMO.


And actually, first level 18 stat heavy blade vs. same level average foe works out to 65%. I'm ok with that because first level PCs have a lot fewer options and are more susceptible to swingy dice rolls.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The point of the fix isn't just to make the average over the whole tier more comparable to the average over another whole tier, it is to smooth the progression out even within tiers. I don't see why any house rule wouldn't just assign the bonuses at the same points that the feat does.

Personally I use levels 11, 15, 21, 25. Why? Because PCs lose 4 attack bonuses by level 30, not 3. Even as a house rule fix, Expertise is inadequate for that reason. And because it only boosts attacks, while defenses need boosting too.

 

[keterys]

The best number is 60% for same level foes. This puts n+4 foes at 40%.

I'm not really convinced that fighting n+4 foes is really all that good an idea anyways, but fair.

That puts the 55% mark at n+1, which I believe polls showed was the average level that people were used to fighting anyways.

 

[KarinsDad]

Personally I use levels 11, 15, 21, 25. Why? Because PCs lose 4 attack bonuses by level 30, not 3. Even as a house rule fix, Expertise is inadequate for that reason. And because it only boosts attacks, while defenses need boosting too.

Your system has some merit, for one thing, it averages the same number better. However, your system also has some negatives. It penalizes PCs in Heroic levels (i.e. below the average) and rewards them in Epic levels (i.e. above the average) whereas it should be the opposite way.

The following chart illustrates this. Longsword, Level 1 18 stat, average AC foe same level, magic weapon boost at typical levels 3, 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26:



Series 1 is +1 at 5/15/25 and Series 2 is at 11/15/21/25.

In Heroic tier, Series 1 has 2 7s (7.8 average) whereas Series 2 has 4 9s (8.4 average).

In Paragon tier, they are identical (8.2 average).

In Epic tier, Series 1 has 6 9s (8.6 average) whereas Series 2 has 4 7s (7.6 average).

The reason to have Epic level be slightly harder to hit is because of the how many more synergies there are at Epic levels than Heroic levels. Instead, your system has Epic level being much easier to hit than Heroic level before counting any synergies.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm not really convinced that fighting n+4 foes is really all that good an idea anyways, but fair.

That puts the 55% mark at n+1, which I believe polls showed was the average level that people were used to fighting anyways.

I was looking at it from the perspective of "which levels do people use at all?".

Except for a few n-1 encounters as filler or a distraction, the range seems to be n to n+4, at least in the WotC adventures.

n+4 to me is the mega-battle that happens once every level or two. However, I also think that n+4 encounters might be ok at Heroic level, but they start getting real grindy at the higher levels and should be used even less often.