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

[Herschel]

The issue with "the math" is in the variety, not the math itself. Take the good old 18 (or even 20) post-racial primary ability score with the +3 proficiency weapon vs. the 16 with the +2 as a simple example. In a campaign, weapon "upgrades" don't usually happen at the same time in a lot of games. If the +3 user gets his "upgrade" sooner, then he's at a +3 for a time. Sure, there are trade-offs as there's definite benefits from allocating points in to other abilities, but not all classes need a lot of tertiary stats also. Certain backgrounds made it so you don't have to put a lot of points in to Constitution to be a functional defender, for example, but an increased number of surges is still very helpful.

With Expertise, that 16/+2 character is on even footing with the 18/+3 at paragon so long as they spend the feat. Without it, the 16/+2 character may feel they're falling behind at the start of the new tier when foe's abilities go up. Expertise gives them a chance to be on even footing. It beats either becoming unhappy with a character and "killing it off" after 10 levels for a new one.

This then opens up a conundrum of tied powers to ability scores and different proficiency bonuses but that's not really the focus of this thread. The "best" alternative would not have been in any way simple or efficient: a wall of pre-requisite text. I mean can you imagine what that would look like?

Heavy Blade Expertise
Prerequisite: Must be wielding a heavy blade with an initial post-racial primary ability score of less than 18 and/or use of a weapon with a proficiency bonus of less than +3. etc. etc.

How cumbersome is that? It was better off just leaving it with less text and letting those accuracy optimizers have their toy too.

There are two feats I generally find closer to "must take" for a character: Toughness for a low-level defender (or potentially Durable) and Speed Loader for a non-striker crossbow user.

 

[Tony Vargas]

With Expertise, that 16/+2 character is on even footing with the 18/+3 at paragon so long as they spend the feat. Without it, the 16/+2 character may feel they're falling behind at the start of the new tier when foe's abilities go up. Expertise gives them a chance to be on even footing. It beats either becoming unhappy with a character and "killing it off" after 10 levels for a new one.

Thing is, the kind of player who comes up with a 16/+2 character is NOT the kind of player who thinks to take Expertise at 1st level (or at all) - they're more likely taking feats related to character background or covering 'blind spots.' Conversely, the 18/+3 character is probaby one the player thinks of as 'specialized,' and Expertise will be topping his list. For that mattter, the player who comes to the table with a 20/+3 character has Expertise at first level, and probably has more tricks waiting in the wings that'll stack with it.

So, far from being a way of putting a sub-optimal 'concept character' back in the running, the existance of Expertise feats puts such characters further behind, in the likely event that they fail to 'pay their taxes.'

 

[MrMyth]

Thing is, the kind of player who comes up with a 16/+2 character is NOT the kind of player who thinks to take Expertise at 1st level (or at all) - they're more likely taking feats related to character background or covering 'blind spots.' Conversely, the 18/+3 character is probaby one the player thinks of as 'specialized,' and Expertise will be topping his list. For that mattter, the player who comes to the table with a 20/+3 character has Expertise at first level, and probably has more tricks waiting in the wings that'll stack with it.

So, far from being a way of putting a sub-optimal 'concept character' back in the running, the existance of Expertise feats puts such characters further behind, in the likely event that they fail to 'pay their taxes.'

This pretty much covers it - the presence of such a feat doesn't narrow the gap, it widens it.

 

[Herschel]

Thing is, the kind of player who comes up with a 16/+2 character is NOT the kind of player who thinks to take Expertise at 1st level (or at all) - they're more likely taking feats related to character background or covering 'blind spots.' Conversely, the 18/+3 character is probaby one the player thinks of as 'specialized,' and Expertise will be topping his list. For that mattter, the player who comes to the table with a 20/+3 character has Expertise at first level, and probably has more tricks waiting in the wings that'll stack with it.

So, far from being a way of putting a sub-optimal 'concept character' back in the running, the existance of Expertise feats puts such characters further behind, in the likely event that they fail to 'pay their taxes.'

I disagree in a larger sense while agree that yeah, that issue will also come up. Look at a Genasi Sorcerer, for example. The flavor of a Chaos or Storm sorcerer fits perfectly for the race, yet their ability boosts don't line up at all. Their are a few feats that help out but simply buying an 18 Charisma would nigh "cripple" the character in a lot of ways. That's not an "out there" character concept. With expertise they can be on par with a Charisma-boosted race from an attack standpoint in heroic, where apparently most games take place. Yeah, the Charisma-based character can also take it, but he doesn't need to take it (technically the non-Charisma doesn't either, but there's more incentive to take it).

 

[Herschel]

This pretty much covers it - the presence of such a feat doesn't narrow the gap, it widens it.

Again, this makes some rather large assumptions in painting gamers with a really big brush, too broad to be accurate. While in some cases this will happen, in others it won't. Throwing up walls of pre-requisite text isn't a useful solution.

As we've seen from all the edition warring, a larger "overhaul" of the system isn't either.

 

[MrMyth]

Again, this makes some rather large assumptions in painting gamers with a really big brush, too broad to be accurate. While in some cases this will happen, in others it won't. Throwing up walls of pre-requisite text isn't a useful solution.

As we've seen from all the edition warring, a larger "overhaul" of the system isn't either.

It's happened in every case I've seen. If you have characters who are already optimized - with 20's in their primary stats and +3 proficiency weapons and other options to boost their accuracy - odds are very, very high that they will take Expertise feats.

If you have players who are more likely to build an average character, Expertise may not even be on their radar - or if it is, may take backseat to elements that help support their concept.

And the DM now has to deal with an even larger difference between the optimized and unoptimized character, and that honestly helps no one.

In the past, the solution I used was to give out Expertise for free. (Trickier, now that we have weapon-specific expertises with additional benefits, and bonuses that now scale at different levels). I suspect my next game will involve just banning the feats entirely, since I have never been convinced they were necessary to fix the math, and have bothered me pretty much from the start.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Another way to look at the problem of Expertise as a 'gap narrower' feat is that it only narrows the gap if the higher-bonus character /doesn't/ take it. That puts the effectiveness of a choice for a less-optimized character in the hands of the optimizer, which isn't that great an idea.

While it might be painting with a broad brush, the examples are still valid. It might not be true of every pair of gamers who bring 16/+2 and 20/+3 characters to the table, but it'll certainly be true of some of them, and balance isn't something that's only a problem if everyone abuses something, it's a problem that at it's worst when some do, and some don't.

If you really want a 'gap narrowing' feat, you will, indeed, need to come up with feats that reward an attack bonus with race/class or multiple-secondary-stat preqs.

Plus, of course, choosing to have an 18 or 20 stat is a major sacrifice in secondary stats, and a +2 weapon has bigger damage, and typically something like high crit or other advantages going for it over a +3 weapon. So gap-narrowing, if enforced, is just erroding the advantage that a player may have sacrificed quite a bit to get.

So, on the one hand, 'gap narrowing' may not be such a great idea. OTOH, Expertise allows for /greater/ gaps. So it's a bad idea either way you slice it, it just adds yet another way one PC can have an attack bonus higher than another. Add up enough of those - weapon, stat, class, feat bonus, stacking bonuses - and you'll get more situations where it's hard to reasonably challenge everyone in the party.

FREX: pre-Expertise, a character could take a 20 primary stat, a +3 prof weapon, fighter to get weapon talent, then Kensai to get another +1 on top of that at paragon. Compared to a 16-STR, +2 prof weapon, no weapon-talent class, that's an already problematic 5-point spread in AB. 3 point spreads were actually quite common at Heroic, too. Adding Expertise makes the spread in the above example potentially as high as 7. Which means if one character hits on a 10 the other hits on a 3 (or, worse, one hits on a 10, and the other needs a 17). Just not workable. Sure, it could, instead, narrow the gap, but the gap is already potentially 0, anyway, so if anyone was up for some restraint, the problem doesn't exist, to begin with.

 

[pemerton]

Since they called it a mistake it seems nonsensical to believe they thought it was better, in the end. You believe they changed something and thought it'd be OK. I believe they changed something and didn't realize the impact it'd have (because, lets face it, it their track record isn't good in that area).

Aulirophile, have you got the actual quote that you paraphrase (in your post on page 1) as "Oops, we change the scaling and didn't notice that it doesn't add to 29 anymore"?

I'm happy to accept that they changed something late in the day about how bonuses are gained/stack/play out. But I guess I still find it pretty hard to believe that they didn't notice that 3 relevant numbers didn't add to 29. That's not a mechanical weakness - it's an inability to do primary school arithmetic!

 

[Mirtek]

This may have been a freudian slip on your part, but this is my sentiment exactly. I'm amazed at how many gamers assume that the game works exactly as intended, even with compelling evidence, professional opinions to the contrary and apparently no agreeing professional opinions whatsoever. I guess some people are just fundamentally content.

I've come to believe that, had 4e been designed with similar math except for a 1/3 level bonus rather than the 1/2 we have, the same gamers would be insisting that the game works just "fine," and that "that's the way it's supposed to be."

However that's only the case if you dare to point out the errors before WotC themselves admit them.

E.g. if WotC hadn't come out and admitted their mistakes with skill challenge DCs and monster damage expressions you would still be called today for daring to criticize the old values

 

[mudlock]

In the past, the solution I used was to give out Expertise for free. (Trickier, now that we have weapon-specific expertises with additional benefits, and bonuses that now scale at different levels). I suspect my next game will involve just banning the feats entirely, since I have never been convinced they were necessary to fix the math, and have bothered me pretty much from the start.

Maybe don't ban them, but remove the attack bonus: the other bonuses from the new expertise feats are pretty cool in their own right, and often quite worth a feat.

(Ditto with the +defense feats. Or at least remove the scaling aspect of the bonuses; a flat +1 may not be so bad. And for people who think the "math fix" is necessary, remove the scaling and give everyone a per-tier +1 to all attacks and defenses.)