LEB Discussion Thread '10

[Walking Dad]

I don't think the LEB solution not elegant, but boring.

It makes sense for a warrior to be better with one weapon than another. And having to pay full for the lesser benefit of a feat penalizes the players who want to play a specialist in a specific weapon or implement.

Would it really hurt someone if a player could choose for each of his characters to go either with the flat bonus or a specific feat that gives the bonus for a single item, but a small extra benefit?

 

[renau1g]

I don't think the LEB solution not elegant, but boring.

It makes sense for a warrior to be better with one weapon than another. And having to pay full for the lesser benefit of a feat penalizes the players who want to play a specialist in a specific weapon or implement.

Would it really hurt someone if a player could choose for each of his characters to go either with the flat bonus or a specific feat that gives the bonus for a single item, but a small extra benefit?

Yeah, but it also doesn't make sense to get caught in a blast of dragon's fire and survive, or to leap 20 feet at a time, but it's D&D, there's a suspension of disbelief

I haven't seen the Essentials expertise feats, and now won't until sometime that they want to update their CB so really can't comment on the "small benefits" you mention.

 

[KarinsDad]

There is a reason that many of the feats have feat bonuses when it comes to bonuses to hit.

WotC claimed back in 2008 that they weren't going to add a bunch of bonus to hit feats. That was a bit of a misrepresentation when PHB 2 came out. They weren't across the board bonus to hit feats, but conditional ones.

The problem, as it was in 3E and 3.5, is that players would find ways to gain a lot of bonuses to hit and suddenly, they are hitting almost all of the time.

Twin Strike and Oath of Emnity add to the frequency in which players can effectively hit more often as well.

It's bad enough that WotC went back on their word a bit with this and continue to do so (e.g. Accuracy Implements). It's worse if we exacerbate that to LEB with house rules.

 

[Otakkun]

Accuracy Implements are just the answer to Superior Weapons.

It makes sense for a warrior to be better with one weapon than another

Yeah it does. However by majority, expertise has become a fix, not an additional feature. So instead of being better with a particular attack over the other, most players read "you suck with powers that don't use X weapon or implement."

 

[KarinsDad]

Accuracy Implements are just the answer to Superior Weapons.

No, they are not. Same type Superior Weapons do not give a bonus to hit, just a bonus to damage. Accuracy Implements give a bonus to hit. Bonuses to hit are more rare and valuable than bonuses to damage. Apples and oranges.


The original monster manual was set up where AC tended to be (on average over the entire population of monsters) ~1.4 points higher than Fort, ~2.8 higher than Reflex and ~3.3 points higher than Will. Give or take.

So, most bladed weapons were pretty much the equivalent to a normal implement vs. either Reflex or Will and non-bladed weapons tended to be slightly inferior (at least with regard to "to hit").

Implements were not as good vs. Fort as weapons are vs. AC, but it doesn't make sense to make Reflex and Will attacks even better because Fort attacks are worse. It would have been ok to make Accuracy Implements that only worked with Fort powers, but that's not what they did.

With the introduction of MM2 and later monsters, WotC started switching defenses up a lot. Fort tends to not be as high as in MM1, Reflex tends to be higher, and Will tends to be about the same.

But, this doesn't take into account a major advantage that implement users have over weapon users.

If the player of a PC with an implement notices or intuits that one defense is weaker than the others for a given foe, he can have his PC use powers that target that defense. He has 3 different defenses where he can try to target the weakest one. Weapon users almost always attack AC, so they tend to be at a disadvantage here.

So although monster defenses tend to be ~2.5 lower than AC which would give a very slight edge (pun intended) to bladed weapon PCs (and a slight disadvantage to non-bladed weapons), the fact that the implement PC can switch to a weaker defense easily negates this slight advantage.

Adding +1 to hit on top of that advantage is a bit unbalanced. There are a ton of ways to add extra damage, but adding a continuous plus to hit shouldn't be in the game and is power creep.

 

[renau1g]

No, they are not. Same type Superior Weapons do not give a bonus to hit, just a bonus to damage. Accuracy Implements give a bonus to hit. Bonuses to hit are more rare and valuable than bonuses to damage. Apples and oranges.

Only exception is the longspear -> greatspear, from a +2 to +3.

 

[Walking Dad]

Accuracy Implements are just the answer to Superior Weapons.

...

Yeah it does. However by majority, expertise has become a fix, not an additional feature. So instead of being better with a particular attack over the other, most players read "you suck with powers that don't use X weapon or implement."

Sucking? Isn't this a bit hard? Does anyone with a +2 profieciency weapon 'suck' against someone with a +3 weapon? It is the same difference as the expertise feats untl level 15.
And yes, having to use a less familiar weapon will bring less good results.

Only exception is the longspear -> greatspear, from a +2 to +3.

The only easy to find. You could argue that you can use the fullblade as an upgrade to your greataxe.

 

[twilsemail]

Sucking? Isn't this a bit hard? Does anyone with a +2 profieciency weapon 'suck' against someone with a +3 weapon? It is the same difference as the expertise feats untl level 15.
And yes, having to use a less familiar weapon will bring less good results.

When facing Lolth or Ogremoch, I'd rather not be dealing 15% less damage. I'd rather not have a 15% smaller chance of stunning them for the turn. I'd rather not have to face them for a few more turns. In the least I'd rather not do it because of a math error a few years ago that was noticed and then had a bandaid put over it.

I may prefer the Role over Roll in RP, but I'll also acknowledge that missing ain't fun. Let the PCs be heroes. Fix a math error (which LEB already did).

Giving a PC a bonus (+2 to defenses vs. OAs) and a flat +1 to hit with most/all of their attacks is still more powerful than many flavorful feats out there that might do one or the other with more restrictions.

 

[Walking Dad]

You face Lolth or Ogremoch before level 15? And why would you face them with not your preferred weapon/implement?

Giving a feat for free is better, because it comes with some additional flavor than just a flat +1/+2/+3 bonus to everything, brings also more flavor. Yes, fix the math error, but with some flavor, please!

Three level 5 fighters, one with axe expertise, the second with hammer expertise and the last with weaponmaster expertise feel more different to each other than everyone gets just the math fix.

Will players take the feats with no bonus when they could also get toughness, marks an exotic weapon? Probably no, and and opportunity to differentiate characters is lost.

 

[twilsemail]

You face Lolth or Ogremoch before level 15? And why would you face them with not your preferred weapon/implement?

This is rediculous and provocative.

Giving a feat for free is better, because it comes with some additional flavor than just a flat +1/+2/+3 bonus to everything, brings also more flavor. Yes, fix the math error, but with some flavor, please!

This is excessive. There's no reason to give extra benefits because Mr. Mearls isn't an accountant. They provided a method to fix the math error. LEB gives out that fix for free.

If the call is going to be that the new feats are that much an essential part of every PCs diet that we need to have them, I'd support Bob in the call to remove the house rule all-together.