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

[Dice4Hire]

Do you think they would admit that they fouled up the math and the Expertise feats were meant to correct it? I remember when those feats were first introduced, and it was basically proven on the CharOp boards that they were a fix to cover up shoddy math.

That is one side of the argument. It seems no more valid to me than other sides.

The main problem I saw with this 'proof' was it was proof in a vacuum.

 

[FireLance]

There are still plenty of scaling leader bonuses. Rightous Brand was problematic because it scaled with a /primary/ stat, so was quite high from the beginning. If it had scaled with WIS or CHA it'd've been a non-issue.

Actually, I think the fact that righteous brand is an at-will attack is more of an issue than whether the scaling is based on a primary or secondary ability score (since most characters would have secondary ability scores close or equal to their primaries and increase them in step). Scaling bonuses on encounter and daily powers are (IMO) less problematic.

 

[FireLance]

Do you think they would admit that they fouled up the math and the Expertise feats were meant to correct it? I remember when those feats were first introduced, and it was basically proven on the CharOp boards that they were a fix to cover up shoddy math.

The unstated assumption in that argument is that the "to-hit" chances are meant to remain constant over the entire 30-level range. An alternate interpretation is that the game was originally intended to be easier in the beginning and harder at higher levels (shocking, I'm sure) but when the developers realized that a significant number of players expected the hit chances to remain constant, the Expertise feats were added to fix the "problem".

 

[Colmarr]

The unstated assumption in that argument is that the "to-hit" chances are meant to remain constant over the entire 30-level range. An alternate interpretation is that the game was originally intended to be easier in the beginning and harder at higher levels

I'm not an authority on this topic but that does seem contrary to te stated goal of extending the "sweet spot".

 

[FireLance]

I'm not an authority on this topic but that does seem contrary to te stated goal of extending the "sweet spot".

Arguably, the "sweet spot" has more to do with the balance of power between the PCs (the level range where the linear warriors and the quadratic wizards were more equal) and, gameplay wise, where the PCs were not so low level (and so fragile) that they could be killed with a single lucky hit, and not so high level that monsters (especially spellcasting monsters) got rather complex and save-or-die abilities (or save or die unless you had the necessary magical protection abilities) started to dominate the game.

I think that 4E, has addressed these issues fairly well, both pre- and post-Essentials. Depending on who you ask, there may have been other issues, but I don't think that the PC vs. monster balance was really one of them.

 

[Herschel]

If the game would have worked without leader bonuses, no one would have complained, expertise would not have been needed, even though they made a mistake when rescaling the math.

Yep, but the game was designed to focus on teamwork and interdependence of roles so it was expected that leader bonuses would be in play. I do think they underestimated the non-teamwork-oriented crowd as an overall portion of their audience and that their views wouldn't change (enough) to fit a more team-focused game.

Is this a flaw or a feature is what it boils down to.

The teamwork focus is what brought me back to the game in its "current" incarnation.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Even when fokussed on teamwork, i guess the fear of the CoDzilla was something that made the initial design problematic.

The leader could usually not give himself a bonus. Which means, no matter how much teamwork, one character could not fullfill his role: the leader.

I once proposed expertise giving a power bonus to attack rolls. Which would allow leaderless play and a leader fullfilling his role, but made expertise a real choice in a group. (Which does not rule out a different fix for the math gap. I do however believe, it would not have been necessary then. Teamwork would compensate.)

 

[mneme]

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??????

No, for multiple reasons.

The first is that if you have monsters doing pitiful damage, and PCs missing, fights get very long and boring.

Basically, PCs missing = boring.

Monsters doing insignfiicant damage = boring.

For that matter, monsters being overlevelled so they can do damage means the PCs miss -more- = boring and frustrating.

 

[Fifth Element]

No, for multiple reasons.

Well, it really depends on what you mean by "okay." Some people never had a problem with it, so it's not universal.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can disprove part of this arguement... the math part...


the argument goes something like this (I admit i do not belive it so i may mess it up a bit) at level 1 PCs have +x to hit and monsters have Y def, at level 30 the PCs have +x+26 and monsters have Y+30 so the PCs lose 4 pt as they level (5 if there epic destiny does not increase a stat).

Now here is my point... that is so short sighted. See at level 1 my swordmage has 2 at wills, 1 encounter attack, 1 daily attack, and 1 encounter race power. He has no magic items, and only 1 feat (2 if human)

at level 11 that swordmage has atleast 2 new paragon path features, 3 daily powers (most have miss effects, but some may be reliable) 4 encounter powers, 2 utlity powers, and those same two at wills. 7 feats, and most likly atleast 5 items. even if only half of them have powers of there own it is atleast 2 other powers.

A fight at level 11 is very diffrent then a fight at level 1. Infact you mostly have more fights per day too. Now from my own (very limted) experance, at level 1 you range from 1-4 encounters per day with most beign 1 or 2. At level 11 you have 3-4 fights per day with maybe 3 or more other encounters added in...

at level 21 the game changes even more... epic destinies, a few more powers...and bunch mor eitems and feats.



in order to truely do that math out, you need to have avrage PCs and figure out what a true avrage increase is... I tried once to make a level 1 fighter, level 2 fightger, level 3...all the way up to 30 useing the money for creating high level characters.

I found the math was way beyond what I can do. In fact The real problem became synergy. I finaly decided that the only way to do this was to play 30 levels with 5 genric pcs following the parcel rules to the letter...then record the results of each level in both numbers and opion.,.

in the end I decided that we had to go with what we all saw, but what we saw was diffrent. the math was to complex and some of us saw easy mode others saw hard mode...


infact I have seen in the same game, a 20 wis with expertise full blade avenger and a 16 str kopesh non expertise warlord, in the same game as an 18 int 16 dex accurate wand wizard, in the same game as a fighter with a 16 str, and longsword. talk about running the gambit.

avenger at 1st level +9 2d20 rolls
Warlord at 1st level +5
wizard at 1st level +5 vs NADs
fighter at 1st level +7

guess who the only person who ever complained the Def were too high... the avenger.

at level 8 the avenger had a +3 weapon, the warlord was still useing a +1 and the warlord not once complaied about missing... mean while when the warlord had lend might (+1 to attacks he grants) useing warlords favor (+4 to ally attacks) then action point for commander strike on the avenger in flank, the avenger had +24 to hit... the warlord had +13 to hit... the avenger rolled 2d20...

[sblock=monster]Dragonborn Gladiator
Medium natural humanoid , dragonborn
Level 10 Soldier XP 500 Initiative +9 Senses Perception +6
HP 106; Bloodied 53
AC 24; Fortitude 23, Reflex 20, Will 21
Speed 5

[/sblock]

i remember this fight well... becuse with the avenger needing anything but a 1, after the fight he still complained that the monster was too high level...and the warlord player told him off in a huge like 5 min rant about how he needed to grow up...

that game made it to 23rd level and we could count on 1 hand the number of times that avenger missed with aan attack... the warlord and fighter never took expertise, although the fighter did go kensi... so i guess that counts for something...


I have also seen rouge dagger masters with 80%-90% of there powers targeting nads... infact i can in theory buid one that only has 1 at will targeting AC