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

[Fifth Element]

Hell, it was in one of the development blog interviews about skill DCs and they mentioned early on they really wanted the game to be consistent, so they hired and etc.

I was hoping for something a bit more precise than "it was in an interview".

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This attitude is utter nonsense. The math is what makes the game playable. Just because you can ignore half the rules in the book and "still have fun" doesn't mean that those rules are fine and that people should just ignore shoddy work.

I really don't understand why people continue to have that oldschool 1st edition AD&D attitude of "All the rules are just guidelines"; it's led to so much pain and suffering in games (personal experiences, obviously) as people haven't evolved to the new edition's style and refuse to change to it.

I do not have an old school mind set at all...

I feel that it is a tight rope we must walk though... see M&M has set bonus limits per level... so after a while all level 10 characters have a +10 to hit +10 damage... and the game bogs down. Now they keep it intresting with trade offs...but even still it is too easy to see the man behind the curtin...


what we have with expertise is close enough...


see at level 1 we are all very close to even... but every choice as we level makes us uniqe... I feel I can make a very useful and powerful character with or with out the 'feat tax' feats...

heck I made a Gnome Slayer... and made the optimizers laugh... but I still was a perfect complamant to the game...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I totally agree--it bugs me, too, when folks feel like you have to optimize. However, the devs could easily encourage players to create off-kilter, interesting, non-optimized characters by adjusting the math so a non-optimized character could still consistently hit 55% of the time, (or more), at high levels. Anything less starts to get into "unfun" territory, especially since the player could be missing with dailies and encounters, (and in 4e, power management is so important).

Also, about Weapon Focus--I personally wouldn't consider any feat that boosts damage as a tax. The attack roll is everything, since powers do so much more than just deal damage, and hitting with a specific power at the right time could be the difference between success and failure.

I personally like those encounter powers that can be used on a hit with an at will. Not hitting with an encounter power is really depressing. Not hitting with a daily is usually no big deal, because of miss effects.

I guess the game would have been indeed be a bit better if encounter powers were more reliable in general.
The martial E-classes are a good example. More than 2 at wills and some boosts with power strike or backstab or assassins strike.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I totally agree--it bugs me, too, when folks feel like you have to optimize. However, the devs could easily encourage players to create off-kilter, interesting, non-optimized characters by adjusting the math so a non-optimized character could still consistently hit 55% of the time, (or more), at high levels.

Keeping the gulf between non-optimized and optimized characters fairly narrow keeps the non- and sub-optimal builds viable enough to see play.

Any option that lets one character pull ahead of another in the areas of most basic functionality (like hitting with your powers), widens that gulf.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Keeping the gulf between non-optimized and optimized characters fairly narrow keeps the non- and sub-optimal builds viable enough to see play.

Any option that lets one character pull ahead of another in the areas of most basic functionality (like hitting with your powers), widens that gulf.

I agree. What I'm saying is the numbers should work so the non-optimizers are hitting 55% of the time, which is the minimum that a character should be hitting. Then if someone has the interest and time to optimize, his or her character will do better than that--say, 60-65% of the time. The benefits of optimizing should be significant, but not so much as to make everything a cakewalk.

 

[TheUltramark]

I asked this in another thread, but it seems more appropriate here

if you need a feat tax to keep hitting as a pc
and you need mm3 monsters to keep doing damage

couldnt you 86 both of them and still be ok??????

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree. What I'm saying is the numbers should work so the non-optimizers are hitting 55% of the time, which is the minimum that a character should be hitting. Then if someone has the interest and time to optimize, his or her character will do better than that--say, 60-65% of the time. The benefits of optimizing should be significant, but not so much as to make everything a cakewalk.

Sure, a swing of one or two attack bonus would be acceptable. That would be a good target. Even a three-point swing wouldn't be terrible.

Add up the difference between a 16 stat and an 18 (or even a 20), a +2 prof weapon and a +3 (or an accurate implement), a class with or without Weapon Talent, and maybe a +1 feat bonus from something like Hellfire blood, and you've already got a potential gulf between optimized and non-optimized characters of 3 or even 5.

Expertise feats add 1-3 to that depending upon level.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I asked this in another thread, but it seems more appropriate here

if you need a feat tax to keep hitting as a pc
and you need mm3 monsters to keep doing damage

couldnt you 86 both of them and still be ok??????

Actually two different matters. And actually, expertise would have not been needed (for most classes) if monsters were not so weak on the damage side.

DM´s used way overleveled monsters to try and threaten the players, because of their low attack damage values. The result was combats where monsters nearly always hit players and put annoying status effects on them, but do very low damage. Players on the other hand had problems hitting enemies. Leader bonuses were usually hard to apply since the leader himself could not boost himself and thus not hit a lot. Double leader parties could make it a bit easier, but then excessive healing also resulted in less scary combats.

So expertise was invented to close the gap and leader bonuses were usually fixed instead of dependent from a secondary attribute so at least leaders can perform reliably.
Increase of monster damage makes the game smoother in general: lower level monsters don´t hit as often and are hit more easily. The result is a combat where players just have more fun.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Actually two different matters. And actually, expertise would have not been needed (for most classes) if monsters were not so weak on the damage side.

DM´s used way overleveled monsters to try and threaten the players, because of their low attack damage values.

Maybe that is why my groups never ran into this... I as a dm use level -2 through level +3 for most encounters and level +4 or 5 for big fights

 

[Herschel]

I agree. What I'm saying is the numbers should work so the non-optimizers are hitting 55% of the time, which is the minimum that a character should be hitting. Then if someone has the interest and time to optimize, his or her character will do better than that--say, 60-65% of the time. The benefits of optimizing should be significant, but not so much as to make everything a cakewalk.

In a perfect world, yes, most definitely, but if this were truly the case many of the same people and others would be complaining about how 'everything feels/is the same'.