Proposal: PH2 and SORCERER

[Lord Sessadore]

For what it's worth, I'm in favour of either the free Expertise feat or free +1/+2/+3. I could probably be persuaded to the latter, but I was planning to do the former for my RL campaign before we all moved away.

I can see the argument for the latter, though - Cha paladins, swordmages, and other such classes really get a knock if we go with the free feat, as they'll still need to spend a feat for another Expertise to stay fully competitive. I mostly like the free Expertise feat because it has a little more flavour to it than a straight +1 to hit.

 

[ukingsken]

While I do like the flavor more Sess, I really think it should just be a static bonus across the board. The defecit in to-hit bonus is across the board, and the free feat only fixes half that problem for the aforementioned classes. Not to mention its a way simpler fix. At level five your hit bonus from level just becomes 1/2n+1, at 10 its 1/2n+2 etc etc. Simpler then a feat.

As for the backgrounds, I'm kind of in the middle. I think we should allow them as they are powered pretty much equally with existing ones, but I think they need to be well thought out and built appropriately into the background of the character. The ones we have now jive well with the setting, and I'd hate to see that jeopardized. So I don't know how to enforce that, or if its worth enforcing.

 

[CaBaNa]

Expertise:
I like the static bonus as well, but what about people who would take the expertise at level 1? Do they take the feat, and forced retrain when the static +# kicks in?

I have had several character ideas, that in order to be functional, need expertise at first level. (Most of the ideas are classes with sub-optimal race compatibility, Drow Wizard for example...)

Can someone get the free static bonus AND take the feat?

That may be a little overpowered...

Backgrounds:
Everyone picks a region they are from, and gets the regional benefit. As an option a character can replace the benefit (not the region) with one of the PHB2 benefits, RP to match.
That way people still have to entrench themselves in the setting, but are not limited mechanically by it.

 

[Don Incognito]

I believe that the feat has a requirement of at least level 5. Which is odd, because you can't take a feat until level 6.

I don't have my book on me, though, so I really can't say.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

I believe that the feat has a requirement of at least level 5. Which is odd, because you can't take a feat until level 6.

No, you can take it at level 1. It doesn't start addressing a math error until Level 5, though - before that it's pure bonus.

What about adding a feat that just gives you +1, with no scaling?

 

[Lord Sessadore]

How about allowing Expertise to be taken earlier than level 5, but at level 5 it gets overwritten by the static bonus and the feat is 'refunded'?

I'm not sure we should let people essentially get Expertise for free, plus let them take it with one of their feats for double the benefit. At that point, in my opinion, it's starting to go a little overboard.

Plus, this way preserves some of the lure of the more conditional attack bonus feats.

 

[elecgraystone]

I believe that the feat has a requirement of at least level 5. Which is odd, because you can't take a feat until level 6.

Even if a feat has a required level where you don't get a feat, you could always retrain to switch out a feat at that level. Meaning you can pick up a new feat at any level.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Allowing the feat to be taken normally before 5th level is not a bad idea, since as it's been said, that alone makes a few "subpar", fun builds possible. But, it should get overwritten by the flat bonus at level 5 (and thus retrained into a new feat).

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Reading through the discussion thread for Ata's PVP arena, I recalled a power we should take a hard look at. Storm of Blades, barbarian level 13 encounter power. I know, I know, it's level 13, we'll be lucky if any of us get that high, but it does need a bit of fixing.

I believe the house rule Ata implemented for that PVP game (which is admittedly a very different kind of game than L4W and the rest of 'normal' D&D is) was 1/2 Con mod + 1 attacks, as opposed to the RAW attacks = Con mod.

I also notice that they added clauses to the Expertise feats stating that any given weapon or implement can only benefit from one Expertise feat. IE - no more taking WE (axe) and WE (polearm) to get double the bonus with your halberd This is a good thing.

 

[Oni]

Reading through the discussion thread for Ata's PVP arena, I recalled a power we should take a hard look at. Storm of Blades, barbarian level 13 encounter power. I know, I know, it's level 13, we'll be lucky if any of us get that high, but it does need a bit of fixing.

I believe the house rule Ata implemented for that PVP game (which is admittedly a very different kind of game than L4W and the rest of 'normal' D&D is) was 1/2 Con mod + 1 attacks, as opposed to the RAW attacks = Con mod.

I just wanted to point out that I believe Storm of Blades as written is actually less problematic than Rain of Blows.

1. While the number of potential attacks is higher, in practice this it doesn't have the base probability of making as many attacks as RoB's, since one miss ends it.

2. Much harder to do cheesy recursion tricks with.

3. Barbarian multi-classing doesn't currently give access to such stupidly good PP's as the Pitfighter.

4. It's much more stat dependent than RoB's

5. It's actually belongs to a striker class, and that's what they're supposed to do.

That's not to say I don't think it's maybe too good, but if you're not going to nerf RoB's I wouldn't touch this one. The biggest problem with it, is a general problem with the Barbarian class IMO, that maybe it's better to multi-class in and cherrypick than it is to actually be a Barbarian.