Feat Tax and Why It Harms the System

[Turtlejay]

<<STUFF>>. . . Interestingly, the players have said that they're underpowered relative to the monsters. From my perspective as DM, I can tell they were never in any real danger.

Could this be the issue? How much is being dedicated to to-hit/defense/other math 'issues' that are only perceived, but never actually realized?

In other words, are these complaints about feat taxes in order to be effective coming from players or DMs? It certainly makes a difference.

Jay

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Could this be the issue? How much is being dedicated to to-hit/defense/other math 'issues' that are only perceived, but never actually realized?

In other words, are these complaints about feat taxes in order to be effective coming from players or DMs? It certainly makes a difference.

Jay

I believe it is...

in 3.5 your hit rate as player is extremely high. At least at first attacks. And against many monsters, you are often not hit at all.

Now your hp take more responsibility to stay up for a while. And monsters need to stay alive longer because everyone has only one attack per round usually.

Monsters staying up 4 or 5 rounds at level 1 is necessary for this encounter power based system to work. And it is expected, that the lifespan increases 3 or 4 rounds over the levels where you get more encounter powers.

and In my experience, a monster goes very fast from full HP to dead if the party wants it to be down fast.

I believe it is just new for most Players that monsters are dealing damage and you can go all out as DM without fear to TPK. My players often complain that i really try to kill them.^^ This is a good thing.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

* Yes I KNOW they said there will be no 4.5, but at this point, I'm starting to think a revised and expanded PHB (with corrected PC math & powers), DMG (with corrected Skill Challenges) and MM (with corrected damage/AC/HP) might not be such a bad idea...

I'd hate to encourage a new sub-edition, but I agree. I've house ruled all these things in my own campaign, but having all these issues officially addressed would make me a much happier player. Too many DMs are too complacent with RAW, IMO, so if I can't change their minds...

Not sure, but it would be a lot simpler if all attacks were just level + 4. 15 from 1/2 level + 6 from a magic weapon/implement + 4 from stat bumps + 3 from expertise gives you +28 over 30 levels, probably going from +5 to +33 if you start with a 20 in your primary attack stat; level +4 makes the bonus spread over 30 levels +5 to +34 and the progression's a lot less ragged.

I''ve heard of DMs doing just this, and frankly, I'd rather be a player under this house rule than under RAW or under the 'free Expertise and defense boosters' house rule. When a DM takes the time to house rule away feat taxes, it sends me a clear "You don't have to power game to play this game. You won't need to take specific options to have fun at higher levels." That message makes me feel much better about the game.

 

[Dice4Hire]

If I thought this were a paorblem, I would jsut ban the feats and adjust the monster's attacks and defenses to compensate.

 

[AngryMojo]

Could this be the issue? How much is being dedicated to to-hit/defense/other math 'issues' that are only perceived, but never actually realized?

In other words, are these complaints about feat taxes in order to be effective coming from players or DMs? It certainly makes a difference.

Jay

I've got a feeling that's the case. All the experiences I've had in higher level play support fights feeling more difficult, with monsters having truly nasty abilities and throwing around buckets of damage, but not actually having a lower success rate for the PC's. The fights don't even take much longer, in my experience. I truly do want to see someone who's run into the to-hit problem in actual play and see what they're doing differently. There are exceptions, of course. I ran a group of 4 against an ancient red dragon that was 4 levels higher than the party, and it was a nail-biter to say the least. The party fighter had the highest to-hit bonus and needed a 14 to hit base, but once the group got into the teamwork swing, everyone was hitting on about a 12, with the fighter on a 10. It was tough to keep the bonuses flowing for a fight that long, but they did make it through. Barely, but they did.

 

[Abraxas]

I've got a feeling that's the case. All the experiences I've had in higher level play support fights feeling more difficult, with monsters having truly nasty abilities and throwing around buckets of damage, but not actually having a lower success rate for the PC's. The fights don't even take much longer, in my experience. I truly do want to see someone who's run into the to-hit problem in actual play and see what they're doing differently. There are exceptions, of course. I ran a group of 4 against an ancient red dragon that was 4 levels higher than the party, and it was a nail-biter to say the least. The party fighter had the highest to-hit bonus and needed a 14 to hit base, but once the group got into the teamwork swing, everyone was hitting on about a 12, with the fighter on a 10. It was tough to keep the bonuses flowing for a fight that long, but they did make it through. Barely, but they did.

I'm playing tonight and we're going against what we believe will be the BBEG. I can try to track how we are hitting - We're 16th going on 17th level. The feeling I have been getting is that we are hitting less often, and that my striker (rogue / daggermaster) hits significantly more often than the other striker (ranger / something that eludes me now).

The party has 1 leader (cleric), 1 defender (fighter), 1 controller (Wizard), and 2 strikers (Rogue & Ranger)

 

[AngryMojo]

I'm playing tonight and we're going against what we believe will be the BBEG. I can try to track how we are hitting - We're 16th going on 17th level. The feeling I have been getting is that we are hitting less often, and that my striker (rogue / daggermaster) hits significantly more often than the other striker (ranger / something that eludes me now).

The party has 1 leader (cleric), 1 defender (fighter), 1 controller (Wizard), and 2 strikers (Rogue & Ranger)

That would be great, if you could track what you roll and how often you hit, we could have some good data in there.

 

[WalterKovacs]

From my experience: H 1-3, P-1 and a bit of P-2)

Rogue Daggermasters are going to be hit machines. Ours started with 20 dex anyway, so the bonus was just gravy (the hand crossbow in the other hand had a lower hit roll, but fired quite often with the tons of critting). The hit 'gap' was even more extreme in our group as the other players didn't max out their to-hit stat (most started with 18, the tactlord actually started with 16) The fighter was using a glaive and the barbarian a greataxe, while the tactlord had a longsword. This put them 2 to 3 behind in the rogue in terms of to-hit numbers. With the rogue constantly seeking out combat advantage in order to get sneak attack off ... it was rare for the rogue to miss.

There was only one player death, and it was in part caused by a PC. The group was at the end of the thunderspire labyrinth module, and were down to very few surges. The warlord dropped unconcious with no surges remaining and it made the whole fight quite problematic. The warlock had a teleport close burst 1 attack, which would hit the BBEG but also one of the allies. He hit the wizard, knocking her to dying as well. The fighter also got hit, leaving the rogue and the warlock along with the BBEG. The fighter was able to regain conciousness off a high death save (go humans!) and help finish the boss off, and the warlord made enough succesful death saves to be stabilized at the end of the fight, but the wizard died.

The only other PC death was where the group disbanded as the rogue ended up getting it's brain eaten by a mindflayer ... which was the PCs first experience with a "kill you when you hit 0 HP" monster.

All the PCs got expertise at some point, but the option only came up when they hit paragon I believe. I don't think they really needed it for P1 (Trolls are not hard to hit unless you target fort) but P2 seemed to up the difficulty a bit after P1 so I'm not sure how it was. It was a pretty good balance as occaisionally the group would run into trouble (especially when ranged attacks were required, as the party was quite melee heavy). Solos however were almost always easy. The only dragon fight that was challenging was the Thunderspire one, because of the traps/terrain more so than the dragon itself. During P1, the running gag was that any Troll with a name would be dead before they had a chance as the Rogue and/or Barbarian would often nova with an action point.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am not sure if P1 is a good place to claim the rogue is king, as the trolls have very low reflex defenses, and it really is a module where the rogue shines. The trolls have good Fort and good AC, but it is a module built for a little rogue to do tons of damage.

 

[M.L. Martin]

* Yes I KNOW they said there will be no 4.5, but at this point, I'm starting to think a revised and expanded PHB (with corrected PC math & powers), DMG (with corrected Skill Challenges) and MM (with corrected damage/AC/HP) might not be such a bad idea...

Given the fact that it wouldn't impact the supplements as much due to the greater modularity, and could be integrated into the DDI so that existing fans would feel less need to pick up the new books, it might not be such a bad idea at that. If they do it this time, though, I think they'll know enough to stick with the "Revised" nomenclature instead of giving into online chatter and going with the ".5" term.