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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bbjore" data-source="post: 4993564" data-attributes="member: 27539">I've been reading this thread for a while now, and I've been wondering something. Am I really in the minority for thinking that the math isn't broken for both to hit and FRW? I understand that a character's bonuses to these traits don't scale the same way as monsters do, but I think that's the way it's supposed to go. Epic is epic, it's supposed to be harder. You could think of each tier as an increase in the difficulty of the game. It's fairly hard to make a completely ineffective character at the heroic tier. That tier is friendly towards beginners. But by the time you get to epic, I think the game assumes that you will have a certain level of optimization on the part of both your character and your party. I think that makes it fun. Yes, there is a certain discrepancy between a party's attacks and defenses vs. monster attack and defenses, but there are a host of options to overcome these. Epic tier should be D&D 4E hard mode.It is true, that if one were to make a character, and completely ignore their low FRW, it would only increase by 22 over the course of 30 levels (+15 lvl, +6 item, +1 stat). If that defense started out crappy, & then got 8 points worse over time, the character will have a tough time with monster's targeting that defense. So yes, a defense that started out being hit on a 7 or higher is now hit all the time. But the player chose to completely ignore that defense, and the game is designed with the assumption, that you will spend some choices in your character's design shoring up their weaknesses. Over the course of leveling the above character ignored numerous potential ways to increase their weak defense including an additional +4 from abilities, +6 from feats, +3 from items, and numerous power bonuses which are readily available at 30th level from utilities or a leader's abilities. The ability to surpass the gap is already there. I guess that's why I don't understand why people are so certain there needs to be a fix, especially since that as the number of books increases, the methods for combating the discrepancy increases as well. I don't think a player should be able to spend all their choices increasing their offensive abilities without it negatively affecting their defensive abilities.I know many people find the "feat tax" is annoying. I understand it, because I find it frustrating to have to reserve 1 feat slot for weapon expertise & either paragon or robust defenses when I make a character, but I do like that they're still options. I have made characters who chose a single Epic Defense feat instead of Robust Defenses because they didn't need it. I think that's the point of making such things feats. It still makes them optional, and while most people will take them, not everyone does, and I find that with so many feat slots, the requiring that a character spend 2-3 of them on keeping up with the discrepancy over the course of 30 levels to not be too much of a request. I think the game is still quite fun that way, and so far, after playing across multiple tiers and with multiple party configuration, it has been so far.However, this is roleplaying, and its suppose fun. If the math difference interferes with your groups enjoyment of the game, do something to fix it. I have found that the following did increase enjoyment in some of our games.1. Reducing the Expertise Feats' bonuses to a static +1, and giving everyone a free +1 to hit at 15th and 25th level. I did this mostly to allow characters to use secondary weapons effectively at 30th level.2. Giving everyone a free feat at 15th and 25th level, but the feat had to be chosen from a list of non-offensive/combat related ones (think things like Agile Acrobat, Linguist, Skill Training....). This proved to be a simple way to overcome the feat tax, and give character's an excuse to choose less optimal feats that gave their PC a little bit more character.Neither of these were necessary, and I don't use them in all my games, because I don't really think the math is broken at all, especially after the Player's Handbook II came out. But I believe rule #1 is let my players have fun, so that's what I do. Anyways, I know that was long but mostly I really was wondering if I really am in the minority in thinking the math is fine the way it is, and to suggest that perhaps two bonus feats for use shoring up a terrible FRW might be an easier fix than trying mess around with other, less compartmentalized aspects of a character like attributes.</blockquote>

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