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

[Aulirophile]

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.

Except the developers stated why Expertise was put in the game and it had nothing to do with anything you mentioned.

Sigh. You'd really think the developers outright stating why Expertise was put in would be enough to correct this sort of . But no...

 

[wayne62682]

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.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

I was on the front line of that fight here and on the op board... Heck even on the errata boards

I remember no one was willing to do the math out entirely even when I explained the flaw in there math.

I know some people declared victory on both sides but no real consensus ever reatched


There was nothing "proven" just everyone having different options and talking past each other

 

[Dice4Hire]

Except the developers stated why Expertise was put in the game and it had nothing to do with anything you mentioned.

Sigh. You'd really think the developers outright stating why Expertise was put in would be enough to correct this sort of . But no...

I think more people are unhappy as it is a feat people need to take. It can take a lot of fearts to fix the math, assuming you are one hwo thinks it needs to be fixed.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

fearts

Is that a sniglet for feat + fart?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Except the developers stated why Expertise was put in the game and it had nothing to do with anything you mentioned.

Sigh. You'd really think the developers outright stating why Expertise was put in would be enough to correct this sort of . But no...

Yeah, the gap was closed, because they noticed there is a gap. And expertise was brought in to close it.

But they did also state: Righteous brand fixed to +3, because leader bonuses should not scale with level.

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.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But they did also state: Righteous brand fixed to +3, because leader bonuses should not scale with level.

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.

 

[Aulirophile]

Yeah, the gap was closed, because they noticed there is a gap. And expertise was brought in to close it.

But they did also state: Righteous brand fixed to +3, because leader bonuses should not scale with level.

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.

If the game worked as intended without Expertise, this wouldn't be a discussion, that is true. This has nothing to do with Leader bonuses (or any bonuses) however, as those were always considered in addition to the minimum, and not a method of maintaining the minimum. If you can bring up class/leader/racial/etc bonuses to hit as part of the discussion around why Expertise is needed then you just don't have your facts straight, because they aren't in any way relevant to the facts at presented by the developers.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I just bring up leader bonuses, not race or class or anything. The dscussions back then always went this way:

"But at higher levels there is a gap between to hit and defense"

"Yes, but there is increased synergy and leader bonuses that make up for it"

"But at level 1 you already get a high leader bonus"

"But it gets higher as you level"

"But the leader himself needs to hit first to apply such bonuses, and not all leaders can give out that good bonuses"

"Damn. You are right. This needs to be fixed..."



There may be the other discussion:

"Hey, +15+6+4 equals 25, not 29"

"Oops, math fail on our part"

I only noticed the first type of discussions. The second may be true or not. I guess you have heard that on your seminar, i never read such a statement anywhere.

 

[Jhaelen]

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.

Nothing was proven, neither basically nor in any other way. All attempts at proving it have fallen short because they used too simple models, basically excluding everything that might get in the way of their 'proof', afaik.