Expertise justification?

[AngryMojo]

Sorry guys, I have to play devil's advocate. I don't know why I have to, but I have some bizarre compulsion to do so most of the time.

Expertise feats are circumstantial. Weapon expertise, for example, only applies to attacks made with that category of weapon. Now, before you go off on how you'll always have your favored weapon in hand, hear me out.

Let's say you play a fighter. He's a sword and board fighter, and likes being all defendery. In MP, there's a level 1 encounter power called Shield Bash. This is a power that does not have the weapon keyword, and thus would not receive the expertise bonus. Now, let's say that fighter was also a dragonborn. That fighter's breath weapon would also lack the condition for the expertise feat.

This idea of expertise still being circumstantial really starts coming into play when you have a rogue holding a melee weapon and a hand crossbow, or you play a cleric or paladin.

From what I've seen so far, there are many characters who don't have a problem hitting. Weapon talent sword fighters, dagger rogues, high INT wizards, etc. There was breakdown of basic math stating that at level 30, your typical PC has a +31 to hit while your typical monster has an AC of 44, equaling a 35% chance of hitting. This assumed a +2 proficiency bonus, a +8 ability bonus, a +6 weapon and your +15 from level. Meanwhile, if you play a weapon talent fighter with a sword, you're looking at a baseline +33 to hit. Something as simple as combat advantage will end up giving you a 55% chance of hitting. Honestly, if you've gotten all the way up to level 30 and the only tactic you can come up with is flanking, your DM has been way too easy on you.

I understand where the impression of the expertise feats being a math patch come from, I just don't really see it. The expertise feats are good, don't get me wrong, but I don't really see them as being absurdly broken or must-haves. You can concentrate on accuracy in other ways, and use your feats for other coolness.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think it was KarinsDad who stated he might go with an automatic +1 at Paragon and +2 at Epic which is what I'm leaning towards currently, but I'm trying to keep an open mind about things at this point.

There is a wait and see solution that does not involve a single game mechanics change.

If as you are going through Paragon levels, you start to see grindy lengthy encounters because foes start hitting easier, PCs start hitting less frequently, and foes have too many hit points, the solution is to use lower level foes.

At low paragon levels, that might mean using foes one level lower. At high epic level, that might mean using foes three levels lower.

So, a standard "same level" n encounter starts becoming level -1 and possibly eventually level -2 or -3. You can use what works for your game without changing a single rule. You just change which creatures the PCs meet.

 

[Nail]

Now, the party is only 4th level and leveling only every couple months or so (we only get a chance to play every other Wednesday night ). As such I'm not really interested in what happens with the math at Paragon & Epic.

Me either. In any of the games I dabble in, I'll be lucky to have anyone (me or a player) above 10th level before 2010.

[*]I think giving all players a +1 actually discourages cooperative, strategic play since it's easier for PCs to hit things just by running up and taking a swing at something,....

I disagree. A +1 to hit has zero impact on cooperative play. No one playing 4e (with their eyes open ) thinks they can be a "one man army", and neglect/ignore his or her teammates.....without consequences.

How's our dwarf doing, these days?

As it is, same level creatures become progressively harder to hit as we level up; i.e. we've never hit as well as we did at 1st level. (Pause...and think through the irony of that for awhile. Those playing 3.xe are snickering.....) The hole becomes noticable at about 5th level (with the caveat that much depends on treasure parcels). For our group, the hole is becoming noticable at 4th level.

I think we should do something about it. (Truth in advertising: We're playing tomorrow night.)

 

[SteveC]

Let me start this post with a caveat: I haven't played 4E to level 15 or beyond, so my only experience with this feat is at heroic to low paragon.

With that caveat, I'll continue to argue that Expertise is better in absolute terms than one type of feat: a feat that gives a situational bonus to hit. Any other feat it might be better than or might not.

If your character doesn't have something more useful to take than one of those feats, then by all means, Expertise is a no-brainer. However, after Arcane Power is out, the number of characters who don't have more interesting and potentially more useful feats to buy is pretty small. At this point I'd pretty much limit that list to divine characters from the PHB. For everyone else, there's simply something more interesting and useful for them to take. The characters I play: a drow rogue, a genasi swordmage and a human bard all have plenty of feats to take that are both more interesting and genuinely useful to the group. 5% more likely to hit? Or a bunch of multiclass powers (for the bard) or drow powers (for the rogue) or arcane/genasi powers for the swordmage...all of that is much more exciting than n+1 to hit.

Who is Expertise for? Those characters that find themselves sliding behind the power curve early, or those who don't have full builds out yet (paladin: I'm lookin' at you!) For other character builds...it's easy to find something better to do.

Now when you get to high paragon or epic, I might agree and take it as a no-brainer, but then again I haven't really completed my builds into that range so I can't say for certain.

--Steve

 

[Nail]

Expertise feats are circumstantial.

I appreciate the effort.

I really do.


...but that's an awfully tough mountain you've set yourself up to climb.

"Circumstantial" - in the present context - means there are only a few cicumstances in which you can use the feat. Are you claiming that? 'Cuz if you are, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'm interested in selling.....

 

[Eldorian]

I'm quite convinced that the only reason WotC has never said anything about expertise is because they realize that it's a poor band aid fix to a math problem they're not even sure exists.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Now I am just throwing this out there, so take it as you will, but has anyone done an analysis on the damage at the levels where were you would start to need (relatively) the expertise feats? What I am proposing is that while your chance to hit does drop off, maybe it is balanced by an increase in damage. The only thing I am basing this is off of is anecdotal evidence that combat is actually faster at paragon an epic, but it would be nice to have the data.

 

[DrSpunj]

The hole becomes noticable at about 5th level (with the caveat that much depends on treasure parcels). For our group, the hole is becoming noticable at 4th level.

In what way? We are dead on track for treasure parcels and I have the sheets to prove it! By the end of 5th level every PC will have a magical weapon/implement, armor & neck slot item that's +1, and some will have +2 items. Those are supposedly the only items that truly matter to the math, right? The rest of the treasure is gravy and non-essential (though admittedly very fun!).

And as you're fond of pointing out in threads with a perceived "bad d20", the law of averages is absolute. Can you do the math here & now? I mean, I've seen a lot of posts in this thread and a few others on this topic or the NAD topic that compare the math at level 1 vs level 30, or 5-15-25, but with your statement it sounds like you're ready to show me math that breaks down from level 1 to level 4? Or 4 to 5? I think the lowest I've seen someone claim this feat may be needed to date is "late Heroic" which I think someone else described as 8th level.

So can you or anyone else truly put forth the math to justify this at level 5? I'm very curious to see it laid out as cleanly as possible. I disagree that +1 doesn't affect cooperative play, as every bonus is worth getting as often as you can get it. You kept recommending our Rogue player work on getting CA more often than he did for those few sessions, so +2 is worth working for but not +1?

And, just to be clear given your Truth in Advertising disclosure (which still doesn't affect tomorrow night since the party will not reach level 5!) do you believe everyone should get the feat as written for free? So it's only one weapon/implement/focus that benefits? Ignore those classes that need two of those, or dragonborn or the shield push or the other stuff that's coming down the pipe in Divine Power and later products? Or are you asking for a flat +1 to all attacks for all PCs at level 5? How many House Rules are talking about here?

 

[eriktheguy]

The general consensus is that this feat was created to fix an issue that Wizards originally made in designing 4e. Monsters gain attack and AC faster than players, making higher level monsters imbalanced compared to the same level players. There is an extremely comprehensive discussion on the issue in this thread.
There are also suggested fixes, in which players get bonuses to attack and defenses at certain levels in order to make up for the discrepancy. I would strongly suggest you take a look at it.

And yes, the expertise feats are broken. I would suggest banning them in your campaign, and using one of the fixes from that thread.
Also, the epic defense feats are considered by many to be imbalanced. The thread explains why Wizards probably implemented them to fix PC's defenses which do not scale appropriately with level.
The most popular fix appears to be:

Players get +1 to hit and to Fort/Ref/Will defenses at levels 5/15/25
Players get +1 to 3 ability scores at levels 4/8/14/18/24/28 in stead of 2 ability scores
The expertise feats and epic defense feats (epic fort, ref, will and epic defenses) are banned

Again, the math and logic behind these ideas is contained in the above linked thread, very good read.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The general consensus is that there is no consensus.

hey I fixed it for you...