Overpowered race?

[MerricB]

Sure, I understand that argument. The trouble with it is that at first level, it's a clear advantage.

No, it's really not.

At 1st level, you've got one daily power. For your Human Rogue who has this extra feat, that's +1 to hit. So, if you assume the Rogue would have had a 50% chance of hitting with Trick Strike before, then he has a 55% chance.

The Elf Rogue can reroll that attack. From a 50% chance of hitting, they go up to a 75% chance of hitting with their most potent attack.

Getting +1 to hit on all attacks is cool. Getting (effectively) +5 on the attack that you really want to hit with? That's very cool.

 

[gribble]

Getting +1 to hit on all attacks is cool. Getting (effectively) +5 on the attack that you really want to hit with? That's very cool.

No disagreement there chief, though you are comparing Expertise to what is widely considered one of the best racial abilities in the game... and even then admitting it is comparable...

 

[Intense_Interest]

No disagreement there chief, though you are comparing Expertise to what is widely considered one of the best racial abilities in the game... and even then admitting it is comparable...

Well, that would mean that one choice couldn't be considered overpowered over another (in my own "strictly better" sense) because they are comparible instead of one being the Paragon of Awesome.

And anyway, we're really just playing with exactly when the extra feat is overpowered.

It isn't levels 1-4, because Elf's reroll on the really cool daily is way more effective than your basic +1, even forgoing the Elf taking the feat to begin with.

It isn't level 8-30, because at that point every character should already have Weapon Expertise and we're now comparing it to the weakest feat the Human has.

So at levels 5-7, when characters have a wider need to support Must Hit daily powers, and there aren't enough feats in the build for the characters to all have Weapon Expertise for certain, Humans are pretty good. I wouldn't personally say overpowered, because of the limited scope of the peak and how much other Racial abilities stack up with all the other bonuses.

 

[gribble]

Well, that would mean that one choice couldn't be considered overpowered over another (in my own "strictly better" sense) because they are comparible instead of one being the Paragon of Awesome.

Except that the choice isn't just between Expertise (bonus feat) and Elven Accuracy. It's between human and elf, and involves other benefits as well. Not least of which is that fact that if the elf is any class that doesn't have Dex or Wis as a primary ability score, the difference between the optimised elf and optimised human will actually be +2 on all rolls to hit, not +1...

And anyway, we're really just playing with exactly when the extra feat is overpowered.

But yes, I agree... at the moment. What about post PHB3 & MP2? How about post PHB4 & MP3?

 

[Runestar]

Actually worse. The trouble is, the bonus feat isn't the most powerful feat they have, because everyone has that feat. The human bonus feat gets weaker as they gain more feats.

Which occurs only when you actually have that many feats, or have taken all the feats you feel are vital to your career path and are left with feats which you feel are redundant (admitably a problem if you use only the PHB, but increasingly less so with the release of more supplements).

Lets say I am playing a barbarian. I have outlined 10 feats which are deemed "must-haves" for every barbarian. But since I clearly can't start with all of them, I will have to rank them in order of priority and take them in order. So the benefit of being a human is that I will always be 1 feat ahead of the other non-human race. And during this time, assuming these 10 feats are more or less equal in importance (in terms of the benefit they bring to the build)...

Not to mention that with the liberal retraining rules, this may mean you eventually get an extra paragon/epic feat over the others, assuming there are some heroic tier feats you wish to keep and don't want to swap out.

This human bonus feat can only grow more useful as more splatbooks are released and players get to access more options, especially if/when players eventually end up identifying more key feats than their character can conceivably take.