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Is expertise badly designed?
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<blockquote data-quote="Don Durito" data-source="post: 7893617" data-attributes="member: 6687260"><p>It's a strange thing.</p><p></p><p>There isn't really a good reason for it to keep getting better. Nothing that Expertise does requires additional scaling. If it's going to be a bonus over proficiency I can't see any good reason for that bonus to change over 20 levels. I can't see, for example why you wouldn't make it a flat +3 (The equivalent of the old Skill Focus feat).</p><p></p><p>And it doesn't really do it's job that well in many ways. It increases the likelihood of success at a given skill, but there's still a strong possibility of failure (especially early on) at rolls the expert character should still be able to pass). What you really want Expertise to do is give some kind of extra reliability to the roll (the fact that it doesn't do that all that well is why Rogues <em>also </em>need reliable talent).</p><p></p><p>Really the best alternative would be for Expertise to give Advantage. That's actually the best mechanic to do the job. It doesn't push the results up, and it makes less difference at the top end, but adds a lot of reliability. (4E was bascially doing something like Expertise this way later in it's run). I guess they didn't do that because that way anyone can just get advantage with the Help action, or because it removes that leeway for the GM to just give Advantage for whatever reason. (But of course breaking the bounded accuracy means that the person with Expertise benefits the most from Advantage).</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what to do with it - I don't think it's broken - because skills are ultimately a subsystem that it's best to avoid using as much as you can - but I have some issues with it. I'm tempted to put some limitations on what it can be applied to. I don't want anyone having expertise in 'Persuasion' for example, because that just incentivises one person to become the party 'face' while everyone else sits back and stays schtump. (But this is in many ways an issue with the skill itself - nevertheless, where there are issues, Expertise confounds them).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Don Durito, post: 7893617, member: 6687260"] It's a strange thing. There isn't really a good reason for it to keep getting better. Nothing that Expertise does requires additional scaling. If it's going to be a bonus over proficiency I can't see any good reason for that bonus to change over 20 levels. I can't see, for example why you wouldn't make it a flat +3 (The equivalent of the old Skill Focus feat). And it doesn't really do it's job that well in many ways. It increases the likelihood of success at a given skill, but there's still a strong possibility of failure (especially early on) at rolls the expert character should still be able to pass). What you really want Expertise to do is give some kind of extra reliability to the roll (the fact that it doesn't do that all that well is why Rogues [I]also [/I]need reliable talent). Really the best alternative would be for Expertise to give Advantage. That's actually the best mechanic to do the job. It doesn't push the results up, and it makes less difference at the top end, but adds a lot of reliability. (4E was bascially doing something like Expertise this way later in it's run). I guess they didn't do that because that way anyone can just get advantage with the Help action, or because it removes that leeway for the GM to just give Advantage for whatever reason. (But of course breaking the bounded accuracy means that the person with Expertise benefits the most from Advantage). I'm not sure what to do with it - I don't think it's broken - because skills are ultimately a subsystem that it's best to avoid using as much as you can - but I have some issues with it. I'm tempted to put some limitations on what it can be applied to. I don't want anyone having expertise in 'Persuasion' for example, because that just incentivises one person to become the party 'face' while everyone else sits back and stays schtump. (But this is in many ways an issue with the skill itself - nevertheless, where there are issues, Expertise confounds them). [/QUOTE]
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