Feat Taxes, or, It's That Time of the Week Again

[MrMyth]

Well, again... my point was never that this wasn't true. My point has always been the reason some people have given as to why the creation of the feats were bad, I have thought is kind of ridiculous.

Fair enough. I do certainly get what you are saying - if a player feels the need to take Expertise instead of an RP feat, wouldn't they feel the same urge with Superior Weapon Proficiency or similar choices? And there may be some truth to that.

Still, though, I think the sheer difference in power level makes Expertise stand out. Especially once you hit Paragon and the bonus as started to ramp up - I might take every other choices based on what fits the concept, but by that point, at least one feat pretty much feels reserved for Expertise. I might not feel the lack of Toughness or a Superior Weapon, but would definitely feel the lack of Expertise.

I think the reason why this continues as it does is because of one salient point... those that argue the latter half of that quote are arguing for something that can't exist. It's too late. The math already got screwed up. Expertise exists. Both of these points are true and unchanging. So to keep stating in threads like this that WotC shouldn't have screwed the math up in the first place, or that they should have found a better solution than Expertise to fix it... is to argue for nothing. In fact, you really aren't arguing, you're just venting.

Just to clarify, I'm pretty firmly in the camp that the math isn't broken in the first place. The few numbers that diminish on the PC side of the fence by epic levels are more than made up for by the greater number of powers and, generally, the sorts of benefits and capabilities that are being thrown around by that level, even accounting for enemies also having more potent abilities. That was what I suspected from the start, and my experience has largely born it out.

Now, I won't say that my experience is universal or that I know any of this for an absolute fact. But I think that if WotC had never released the Expertise feats, the game would not have suffered in the slightest. It is one of several areas where I think WotC made a kneejerk response to a problem, and even if there was a problem in need of fixing, the response was disproportionate to the cause. (See also: Skill Challenge DCs and their first 'fix'.)

That said, its true that WotC isn't likely to just remove the Expertise feats from the game at this point, and instead has largely focused on amping up the power level of other feats to try and match them. (Which I'm not especially a fan of either). While also amping up the danger and difficulty of monsters so they aren't overwhelmed by the power creep of the characters.

There certainly doesn't seem to be any quick and easy solution that would fix things for the game as a whole - though, in my own game, I'm relatively confident I can remove the Expertise feats entirely without any real damage done.

I admit you may be correct that no matter what we argue, this is an area of the game that isn't likely to change at this point - Essentials has shown that rather than back away from this decision, WotC has pretty much embraced it wholesale.

Of course, my original input here was mainly to try and counter the position you seemed to be mocking people for - and I don't think you intended any insult, and were genuinely just pointing out what seemed like an absurdity to you. But it came across as assigning a straw man argument to the other side of the debate, and then mocking them because of that.

And so I felt the need to weigh in, and offer up both other legitimate reasons for a dislike of the feat, as well as to point out that the Expertise feats are potent enough that, honestly, it isn't that simple to compare them with other 'good' feats. And, having made that case, that probably would have been the appropriate time for me to let the matter lie and depart the thread, but I've never been especially good at that.

 

[MrMyth]

Here's where your (and others') point completely breaks down: Optimizers aren't the be all/end all of game play. Pure optimizers are the disgusting, narcissistic funk on the bottom of your shoe whose only goal is to milk every mathematical bonus out of the game in a vain and misguided attempt to "prove" their smarter than the designers and "win" the game. You take them in to account but you can't let them limit you otherwise you have an incredibly sterile game that even semi-well-adjusted people will avoid. So the Op-weenie crows "I just hit on a 3 for 872 r0xx0rs damage per round" while other gamers just roll their eyes and have fun doing something cool. No big deal.

Yeah, I'm... not sure that is an accurate depiction of folks who optimize. Nor do I think there is some sort of binary between "fun and entertaining player invested in RP and character development who you enjoy playing with" and "optimizer who is about nothing but numbers and damage."

Many, many players enjoy both making effective characters and ones that have an interesting concept and background and investment in the story. And, indeed, even a character who focuses only on optimized mechanical options can still roleplay his character well and isn't just out to 'win' the game - implying otherwise falls into the Stormwind Fallacy, the idea that optimization is somehow directly opposed to roleplaying.

In an actual game, all of these are sliding elements on a vast spectrum that changes from player to player. And that's precisely why this becomes an issue, for all the reasons noted above, which you've basically avoiding addressing. Should the game designers plot everything out solely for the mindset of the optimized crowd? Probably not... but it probably should certainly be on their minds.

The ideal should be to present balanced options that also retain whatever flavor or usefulness they set out to provide. Ignoring the potential for optimization is hardly good game design, since even those who aren't out to 'win the game' could stumble upon broken combos that disrupt their group's enjoyment - or result in characters being extremely unbalanced in comparison to each other.

Sure, you can still have fun in the non-combat scenes in such a case, but shouldn't every also be able to have fun and contribute in combat, too? That's one of the goals of 4E, and I don't think it serves the edition well to move away from it.

That said, I'm certainly not claiming that this is going to be an inevitable problem in every game. But it does present problems, along the lines of the ones I discussed, in many games, and the potential for harm is undeniably there.

 

[TheUltramark]

ya know...before I started coming to this board, I thought I knew a little about D&D.

I have no clue what dev's are, or avp's or any of those other deals I am totally lost.
PLEASE, someone explain what the feat tax is, and what is all the talk about math about? is it just several modifiers added together????

I mean, if I am not "into my game" as much as I should be, I certainly would like to correct that.

 

[Kinneus]

ya know...before I started coming to this board, I thought I knew a little about D&D.

I have no clue what dev's are, or avp's or any of those other deals I am totally lost

"Devs" are mysterious, magical monsters that live on the coast. They have the power to rewrite reality at their slightest whims. Depending on who you ask, they're either benevolent creator-gods, bringing the joys of magic and adventure to the masses, or horrible, evil tyrants that drain heroes of their power with their feared "Pee-dee-effs of errata." Some think they're just drunken lunatics, slashing at the laws of the world with their quills at random.

Whatever your view, they are an ancient and mysterious force to be feared and respected.

 

[Aulirophile]

ya know...before I started coming to this board, I thought I knew a little about D&D.

I have no clue what dev's are, or avp's or any of those other deals I am totally lost.
PLEASE, someone explain what the feat tax is, and what is all the talk about math about? is it just several modifiers added together????

I mean, if I am not "into my game" as much as I should be, I certainly would like to correct that.

Devs is short for Developers, people who make the game.

On average Monsters have the following defenses Level+14 AC, Level+12 NADs. There are differences in role and elite/solo, but let us ignore that for a moment (as the difference is expected by the system).

A level 1 character hits 15 AC (14+1, so a level 1 monster) on a 9 on the die. That is the expected minimum to hit vs even level (and there is no designed maximum, except miss on a 1 barring rerolls, so 95%), if you need a 10+ to hit a level 1 standard something is wrong.

At level 30 they hit a 44 AC monster (14+30) on a 13 on the die. This is not intended. Expertise plugs the gap (+3), making you need a 10+ on the die. The other +1 in theory comes from an stat boosting ED (which is why very few EDs without a stat boost are competitive, but that is another issue).

The devs acknowledged this scaling was a mistake because of a change made late in development (and if someone else's post in this thread is true that very little paragon/epic playtesting was done no wonder the effect was missed). So that point is not really debatable, and the math is pretty clear anyway given that we know combat has certain built in statistical assumptions (including a certain number of expected rounds per difficulty of encounter that is basically not possible to achieve without expertise a statistically significant amount of the time).

This exact same scaling issues applies to: Skills, Initiative, Defenses. It is systemic, but in many ways the accuracy issue is the most egregious (followed by one NAD and sometimes two being auto-hit at epic for PCs).

The issue is more complex then that and if you really wanted to read about it I'd be happy to provide some links.

[MENTION=78357]Herschel[/MENTION]: Wow, welcome to ignore. Even if optimizers were that way, and they aren't, I'd rather hang out with them then someone who talks about people that way.

 

[Herschel]

1. Yeah, I'm... not sure that is an accurate depiction of folks who optimize.....Many, many players enjoy both making effective characters and ones that have an interesting concept and background and investment in the story.

2. The ideal should be to present balanced options that also retain whatever flavor or usefulness they set out to provide. Ignoring the potential for optimization is hardly good game design, since even those who aren't out to 'win the game' could stumble upon broken combos that disrupt their group's enjoyment - or result in characters being extremely unbalanced in comparison to each other.

3. Sure, you can still have fun in the non-combat scenes in such a case, but shouldn't every also be able to have fun and contribute in combat, too? That's one of the goals of 4E, and I don't think it serves the edition well to move away from it.

4. That said, I'm certainly not claiming that this is going to be an inevitable problem in every game. But it does present problems, along the lines of the ones I discussed, in many games, and the potential for harm is undeniably there.

1. It's exactly as accurate as claiming people who don't take expertise feats are ineffective because of it and that people who don't optimize are playing the game wrong. When I build a character, I'm probably around maybe 75% "optimized". I do well in combat, but I leave some stuff "on the table" in lieu of other things and actually play with a party instead of only looking at my own character. I also enjoy the tactical side of the game. These give me a lot of bonuses.

2. Ideal is a paradigm that can't be met because of the sliding scale of customer expectations. Sure you want to account for optimization but you can't let it rule you. Look at it this way from an expertise standpoint:

Initial view: "Every optimizer is going to take this feat if we release it as-is"
reply: "So? Let them have their fun, this also opens up a lot of options for character design. Would you rather we release it with needlessly complicated blocks of prerequisites?"

Reply: "No, that would be ridiculous. You're right, it's better to just put forward as-is and let the optimizers have their fun."

3. Again, you're basing your stance on a false assumption that players have to have expertise to be effective. This simply is not true. They may need it to be fully optimized, but that's not the same thing. Expertise and effective are not mutually exclusive traits.

4. The postential is always there, I agree, but only when people aren't mature enough to handle it. In that case, some issue will always come up and if expertise is off the table, they'll move on to the next issue du jour.

 

[Herschel]

@Herschel : Wow, welcome to ignore. Even if optimizers were that way, and they aren't, I'd rather hang out with them then someone who talks about people that way.

It's no different than you always telling people they are wrong if they don't build characters your way. That was the point: to see how the people bashing non-optimizers like being put on the other end of it.

 

[TheUltramark]

Devs is short for Developers, people who make the game.

On average Monsters have the following defenses Level+14 AC, Level+12 NADs. There are differences in role and elite/solo, but let us ignore that for a moment (as the difference is expected by the system).

A level 1 character hits 15 AC (14+1, so a level 1 monster) on a 9 on the die. That is the expected minimum to hit vs even level (and there is no designed maximum, except miss on a 1 barring rerolls, so 95%), if you need a 10+ to hit a level 1 standard something is wrong.

At level 30 they hit a 44 AC monster (14+30) on a 13 on the die. This is not intended. Expertise plugs the gap (+3), making you need a 10+ on the die. The other +1 in theory comes from an stat boosting ED (which is why very few EDs without a stat boost are competitive, but that is another issue).

The devs acknowledged this scaling was a mistake because of a change made late in development (and if someone else's post in this thread is true that very little paragon/epic playtesting was done no wonder the effect was missed). So that point is not really debatable, and the math is pretty clear anyway given that we know combat has certain built in statistical assumptions (including a certain number of expected rounds per difficulty of encounter that is basically not possible to achieve without expertise a statistically significant amount of the time).

This exact same scaling issues applies to: Skills, Initiative, Defenses. It is systemic, but in many ways the accuracy issue is the most egregious (followed by one NAD and sometimes two being auto-hit at epic for PCs).

The issue is more complex then that and if you really wanted to read about it I'd be happy to provide some links.

[MENTION=78357]Herschel[/MENTION]: Wow, welcome to ignore. Even if optimizers were that way, and they aren't, I'd rather hang out with them then someone who talks about people that way.

ok, i get that NAD's are fort, ref, & will but does it stand for non-armor defense?

as far as "the math" - I assume that at 30th level, magic and other "outside modifiers" arent taken into account?

Also - what is the intended hit% for monsters?

 

[Aulirophile]

Well, _I_ don't even visit any threads where someone is asking for 'a build'. I don't believe in 'builds', I believe in characters that have abilities that match their backstory.

This is like being surprised by a CO board member suggesting your ranger should take twin-strike.

None of my characters have any expertise feats. One of my characters has the 'Dragonborn Sorcerer' feat (the one that grants +1 attack/damage if a power's damage type matches your dragon breath's type) but that's only because I only gave him Cha 14 (+2 racial for 16).

And imho, that's the only legitimate reason for the existence of the expertise feat: To make sure your character stays viable even if you've made suboptimal choices when creating the character.

Is this a good time to point out that Draconic Spellcaster is an Expertise feat and a Focus feat rolled together?

You took an Expertise Feat by another name, still fixing the math.

 

[Aulirophile]

ok, i get that NAD's are fort, ref, & will but does it stand for non-armor defense?

as far as "the math" - I assume that at 30th level, magic and other "outside modifiers" arent taken into account?

Also - what is the intended hit% for monsters?

All expected static modifiers are taken into account. Other things are intended to be bonuses on top of the minimum, not intended to bring you up to the minimum.

Yes, NAD = Not Armor Defense.

Well, monsters range from 95% hit to 5% hit, depending on the PC, in practical terms (a monster attacking a Str/Con Warden's Will who hasn't taken Improved Defenses and doesn't have any item bonuses to defenses, can basically hit on a 2+). Simultaneously, in the same group, a Cha-primary class with Superior Will and an Item bonus to Will the monster might need a 16-17+. However monsters attack gain a bonus of +1 per level (rather then 1/2 level+stuff), so they never have this scaling issue of not being at their intended hit%. The monsters relative attack bonus is static. Since, without investment, PCs lose defenses as they level and in some cases to the point where it just isn't ever possible to catch up to where they were, relatively, at level 1, monster hit% isn't an issue in the current dynamic.