Feat Tax and Why It Harms the System

[ForceUser]

The Expertise Feats definitely are. They are must-haves for every character (as in, if you do not take them, you deliberately gimp yourself ).

The rest... not so much.

Bye
Thanee

The DM in the game I play banned the expertise feats and baked in attack upgrades to compensate.

As someone who plays an avenger in an ongoing campaign, I did feel bummed that I had to take a feat to fix the fact that charging and opportunity attacks were pathetic compared to my Wis-based attacks. It did feel like a feat tax on what are basic combat options. As for the avenger being weak---hah! No. I've seen a lot of strikers in play, and mine works just fine.

 

[Sebastrd]

I just want to say thank you to everyone in this thread, OP excluded, for bolstering my faith in role players Thanks, guys!

To the OP: None of your assertions seem to bear out in actual play of the game. Math exercises are fun, and I enjoy them as much as the next nerd; but from what I've seen, there are a lot of hidden factors you aren't including in your math (buffs, defuffs, combat advantage, etc.) that only show up in actual play. My suspicion is that the designers noticed those factors in their playtesting, and adjusted things appropriately. Cheers

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wow... just when we thought we had gotten over the whole "feat tax" thing and all those threads dropped off several pages back... here comes a new one! It's not quite thread necromancy... but rather thread cloning! Taking the DNA from a long-forgotten thread and using it to grow a new one. And just like real clones... the new one has the exact same problems that the original had.

 

[Obryn]

I went ahead and gave all the PCs in my game expertise bonuses at levels 5, 15, and 25. I've banned the feats as a result.

Honestly, I disagree with the rest of your list. I haven't seen WotC reluctant to make changes and revisions across the board in their updates.

-O

 

[Dice4Hire]

OP: Honestly, just respond to an old thread instead of making a new one. You said nothing that has not been said before.

As for the tone, it is a bit more unique, I grant, far more biased and vitriolic than most.

The entire problem with the Expertise "Feat tax" is that you are assuming the game should work one way, and since it does not work the way you think it should, something that makes it work more how you like (that is not built into the math already) is a feat tax.

99% of people who say the character's to-hit scores fall behind monster defenses are looking at the character as a single entity. They ignore teamwork, and bonuses that other players can hand out. Honestly, some of my fighter's to-hit bonus is represented on other player's sheets. People who post these kind of threads do not consider that.

Frankly, if someone gives the +1 at 5, 15 and 25 without doing something about all the other bonuses characters hand each other then the characters never miss their enemies, even against the monster's strongest defenses. Now if that is how these people want to play, more power to them, but it seems akin to the "Monty Haul" games of yore, all reward and no risk.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Its not a bug, it is a feature...

one year of actual playng has proven, that the game does work even if it doesn´t look so...

a paladin who maxes str and wisdom and has really good base attacks, and many uses of lay on hands, but has no good divine challenge...

a charisma paladin is seriously lacking in the base attack department...

so both need to take the appropriate feat (although the charism paladin has the option to pay a power tax)

A high strength is a useful ability for any fighting character. Even if you only want to throw a Javelin to engage the target...

A paladin which has more balanced stats (16/14/14/13/10/8) which is about 18/16/15/15 after racial will do well enough without taking any feat. If you want to powergame, pay your taxes...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

To some of us it seems like opinion not fat like you present it as.

And I disagree with the premise. We are currently at high-paragon level and I'm not seeing the issue of the characters falling behind in their ability to hit. Instead, I'm seeing relatively low numbers on their dice still hitting quite often (except when facing Soldiers, but that's the point of that monster role). And their is a whole thread here about Epic-level characters having too easy of a time hitting their targets.

Math exercises are fun, and I enjoy them as much as the next nerd; but from what I've seen, there are a lot of hidden factors you aren't including in your math (buffs, defuffs, combat advantage, etc.) that only show up in actual play. My suspicion is that the designers noticed those factors in their playtesting, and adjusted things appropriately. Cheers

I just needed to QFT all three of these.

God knows I am the biggest voice in them bot being called taxes, nore should Wotc build them in... but this thread totaly convinces me I am right in feeling both...

I know I would not wnt to play in a game where every character got all of those bonuses...it would feel wat to easy...

 

[Kzach]

So, what you're really saying is that WotC is responsible for world hunger, the greenhouse effect, the oppression of minorities, and killing baby dolphins.

Gotcha.

 

[Remathilis]

IMHO, there are taxes and there are taxes.

Expertise was a Tax. As was X Defenses. They were there to plug holes in The Math(TM) because fixing the problems the proper way (giving +1 to hit at 5/15/25 and +1 defenses a 16/26) would have made WotC look WORSE for saying "Oops sorry, screwed up. Here's the Fix!"

UNLIKE, say, WoW (hey, a contrast of 4e & WoW coming up!) WotC can't retro-patch the hit-probabilities and Stealth-Errata the classes so that none (well few) are the wiser because a TTRPG has to have all the gears and tubes on the table.

Now, some of the other "taxes" I see are more "optional". Not having Melee Weapon Training isn't a deal-breaker, but it does seem stupid. (My rogue uses dex with all his dagger strikes EXCEPT when instinct takes over. ) Still, my sole time running a Dodger-rogue my palette at 10th level included MWT and WE; two of my feat choices filled to do what I think the rogue should be able to do anyway.

The last ones show the problem with WotC's math and ability scores. I imagine WotC assumed most PCs would have an even spread of scores (akin to the default array) so that a 16 or 18 was Ok, and you could have a 14 in a secondary, 12 in a tertiary and do just fine. That's not the case. Most people seem to think that you MUST have an 18 or 20 in your prime, a 14-16 to Secondary, and your other scores are minimal because your never going out of your Build. (For example its suicide to try to take battle-cleric powers with a lazer-cleric). So they began to patch so that your prime score does ALL the heavy lifting. Why? The Math(TM) which forces you to have such an uber-high score in order to hit-anything!

WotC could fix a lot of these problems by fixing the math and how it scales, but that would require 5e to do. So until then is Feat-Patches or Houserules.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Why? The Math(TM) which forces you to have such an uber-high score in order to hit-anything!

So starting with a 16 or starting with a 20 means the difference between absolute defeat and total victory?

Hogwash.