General consensus on expertise feats

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Unless there's some serious munchkinry, rules-neglect or bad dice juju going on, nobody hits all the time.

Sure. But some people hit often enough. Rogues seem to have few problems there, for example.

 

[tiornys]

Plenty of builds get more mileage out of feats other than Expertise at early levels, in part because some feats are more fundamental to various concepts, and in part because low level characters frequently have a DPH that is low enough (plus a lack of significant riders on hit) to make +1 to damage worth more than +1 to hit. By mid heroic, fundamental feats like Hybrid Talent or Racial Weapon Training should be out of the way, and magical items have likely raised DPH enough to make +1 to hit a better bet, especially since more encounter powers means more access to strong riders.

Besides, the feats are only mildly overpowered at +1 to hit. It's when they scale to +2 that they become ridiculous.

t~

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

However, it's definitely the case that there are diminishing returns. If the player is already putting everything into increasing his character's to hit chance, there's a point when it would simply be better to pick a different feat.

Stalker0 is right: perception plays a big part in these things. It's great that your player is having good luck and that he's not a min/maxer.

Currently I'm playing a ranger in Scales of War. We just hit level 2, and I seem to be hitting more often than everyone else -- 18 Str, two long swords and Expertise. (It turns out I'm not bad at optimizing, despite ignoring CharOp until now.) I'd prefer if my DM just gave the Expertise bonuses to us for free, or banned it because it gets silly sometimes. For example I killed a cave bear almost single-handedly while the wizard and cleric helped and the warden just wiffed. The bear spent the fight attacking me, because the warden landed all of one hit the entire fight.

 

[SabreCat]

If the player is already putting everything into increasing his character's to hit chance, there's a point when it would simply be better to pick a different feat.

If you're putting everything into increasing to-hit chance, why wouldn't you pick Expertise early on, if not first, for feats?

 

[fba827]

My question is this: what is the general consensus about the expertise feats

The general consensus is that there is no general consensus.


(not trying to be flippant, but I think you can tell by the posts in this thread that this is the case; everyone has an opinion for their own reasons. consensus is simply not present)

 

[Flipguarder]

I am in consensus with fba827.

 

[Nifft]

The general consensus is that there is no general consensus.

(not trying to be flippant, but I think you can tell by the posts in this thread that this is the case; everyone has an opinion for their own reasons. consensus is simply not present)

While you are technically correct, for all practical purposes, there are only three camps:

1/ Those who feel there was no math bug, so the feats are unnecessary "power creep".
2/ Those who feel there was a math bug, but don't like the "feat tax".
3/ Those who don't really care (for any of a variety of reasons).

Sure, "opinions are divided" -- but they're divided between dislike, dislike, and apathy.

Cheers, -- N

 

[keterys]

Sure, "opinions are divided" -- but they're divided between dislike, dislike, and apathy.

Totally great post... but there are some players who just want anything that improves their character no matter what, and that subset do like the expertise feats.

 

[Nifft]

Totally great post... but there are some players who just want anything that improves their character no matter what, and that subset do like the expertise feats.

I find those people are easily converted into the "feat tax" camp when it is pointed out to them that, if 4e had "done the math right", their PC would have the same relative attack bonus and they'd also get a free feat slot.

Cheers, -- N

 

[eamon]

The general consensus is that there is no general consensus.


(not trying to be flippant, but I think you can tell by the posts in this thread that this is the case; everyone has an opinion for their own reasons. consensus is simply not present)

Nobody seems to think they're a good idea, however. For the price of a feat, the bonus is too much - whether you hand out the bonus for free or don't, is a pretty minor distinction since there are lots of other ways of adjusting the overall difficulty of the game.

I mean, anybody seriously considering these kind of house rules will be well capable of adjusting the overall power level of a campaign to their wishes - it's no harder than accomodating a slightly larger or smaller party, after all.

Incidentally, though on the topic of math fixes, what's much worse than the attack is the NAD math (before fixer feats) - that's off at level 1, and just gets worse.
[sblock=estimate of NAD-math problems]A typical PC will fairly early on in his career have an AC that's 3-4 higher that his average NAD, rising to around 7 behind towards late game. By contrast monster NAD attacks are a mere 2 lower than ac attacks, and even the AC attacks outpace AC by about 2 over the course of the game... A level equivalent foe will very roughly hit AC on an 11 at first level, NADs on a 8, and by late-game that'll typically be AC on a 9, and nads on a 3. In practice the problem's generally worse since the attacker has more choice in terms of which defense to target, and since it's much easier to pimp AC (get a shield, or a defensive weapon, or use any of a number of class features, choose a paragon/epic destiny that pimps AC), so defenders and others expecting to get hit will likely have even more lopsided defenses (a paladin starts off with an average NAD of slightly more than 5 below his AC, for instance).[/sblock]