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<blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 4805840" data-attributes="member: 994"><p>You and the rest of the party are victims of your own success here, me thinks, given last night's "by the skin of our teeth" battle.</p><p></p><p>7 PCs (only 2-3 I'd really consider optimized, IMO), all 4th level against Kobolds: 4 lvl 6 soldiers, 5 lvl 5 skirmishers and 6 lvl 3 minions. This was in a cave using Paizo's Darklands? Flipmat, open cave with 4-5 large pillars breaking up the terrain. By XP this was a Level+3 to Level+4 encounter and the party had already fought through 3 previous encounters this "day". I think 2 of them had used a daily power in previous battles but mostly they were at full capacity except for used Healing Surges; every PC had an Action Point available. The TacLord was importantly down to 2 Surges entering this battle.</p><p></p><p>From the 2nd round I was able to get CA for the mobs attacks about 80% of the time. From round 1 my dice were <span style="color: Red"><strong>hot!</strong></span> And I'm very glad I always roll in front of my players because even I was surprised by how many 15+ rolls I made. OTOH, my party had <span style="color: Gray">Beshaba's own luck</span> throughout the battle and missed I think with about 75% of their attacks (a handful were admittedly by 1 where Expertise could have tipped the balance).</p><p></p><p>Even with that skewed distribution of rolls dramatically in my favor with a Hard encounter by the XP guidelines I was able to bloody about half the party but by the end even the TacLord was still standing due to a timely <em>Cure Light Wounds</em> from the party cleric. At multiple times <strong>Nail</strong> had bonuses to attack typically of around +3 or +4, and at times was able to add +6 or more (but please correct me if I'm wrong here, <strong>Nail</strong>, I know Righteous Brand, a Warlord +1 power and CA came together on at least 1 attack you made) and other PCs were able to get similar bonuses at times using good teamwork. There were so many bonuses for party members flying around for both attacks and damage that everyone was consistently adding another +1 or +2 to their not-quite-final totals whenever they called out their results (whereupon our TacLord or Cleric would remind them about another bonus which they usually hadn't factored in), which did turn several near misses into successful hits.</p><p></p><p>If the party had rolled even average they would have hit a lot more often than they did with the bonuses they had. If I had rolled average the foes would've missed a heckuva lot more. I'm concerned that this "Hard" encounter would not have been nearly as much fun (my primary consideration!) if the dice weren't <em>strongly</em> in my favor last night.</p><p></p><p>Regardless, at level 4 I do not see a "need" for Expertise and the math seems to back that up until late Heroic or even into Paragon levels. I certainly hope this campaign makes it that far but I think Expertise series of feats are an extremely poor attempt at fixing anything and at this time don't feel comfortable with them as an option. We'll need to revisit the need again if the party levels up that high, however.</p><p></p><p>But I am really happy that you're having fun! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite6" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":cool:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DrSpunj, post: 4805840, member: 994"] You and the rest of the party are victims of your own success here, me thinks, given last night's "by the skin of our teeth" battle. 7 PCs (only 2-3 I'd really consider optimized, IMO), all 4th level against Kobolds: 4 lvl 6 soldiers, 5 lvl 5 skirmishers and 6 lvl 3 minions. This was in a cave using Paizo's Darklands? Flipmat, open cave with 4-5 large pillars breaking up the terrain. By XP this was a Level+3 to Level+4 encounter and the party had already fought through 3 previous encounters this "day". I think 2 of them had used a daily power in previous battles but mostly they were at full capacity except for used Healing Surges; every PC had an Action Point available. The TacLord was importantly down to 2 Surges entering this battle. From the 2nd round I was able to get CA for the mobs attacks about 80% of the time. From round 1 my dice were [COLOR="Red"][b]hot![/b][/COLOR] And I'm very glad I always roll in front of my players because even I was surprised by how many 15+ rolls I made. OTOH, my party had [COLOR="Gray"]Beshaba's own luck[/COLOR] throughout the battle and missed I think with about 75% of their attacks (a handful were admittedly by 1 where Expertise could have tipped the balance). Even with that skewed distribution of rolls dramatically in my favor with a Hard encounter by the XP guidelines I was able to bloody about half the party but by the end even the TacLord was still standing due to a timely [i]Cure Light Wounds[/i] from the party cleric. At multiple times [b]Nail[/b] had bonuses to attack typically of around +3 or +4, and at times was able to add +6 or more (but please correct me if I'm wrong here, [b]Nail[/b], I know Righteous Brand, a Warlord +1 power and CA came together on at least 1 attack you made) and other PCs were able to get similar bonuses at times using good teamwork. There were so many bonuses for party members flying around for both attacks and damage that everyone was consistently adding another +1 or +2 to their not-quite-final totals whenever they called out their results (whereupon our TacLord or Cleric would remind them about another bonus which they usually hadn't factored in), which did turn several near misses into successful hits. If the party had rolled even average they would have hit a lot more often than they did with the bonuses they had. If I had rolled average the foes would've missed a heckuva lot more. I'm concerned that this "Hard" encounter would not have been nearly as much fun (my primary consideration!) if the dice weren't [i]strongly[/i] in my favor last night. Regardless, at level 4 I do not see a "need" for Expertise and the math seems to back that up until late Heroic or even into Paragon levels. I certainly hope this campaign makes it that far but I think Expertise series of feats are an extremely poor attempt at fixing anything and at this time don't feel comfortable with them as an option. We'll need to revisit the need again if the party levels up that high, however. But I am really happy that you're having fun! ;) :cool: [/QUOTE]
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