So, about Expertise...

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

The good side of using encounter design to increase hit percentages is that it allows the expertise feat to exist as is without breaking anything.

No it doesn't. You're making an argument that the system is broken because you don't want to play characters with close to the suggested build numbers. DnD is very math based. If the designers built the game so that characters with 14 primary stats would be average in combat, then the character with 20's would all be flying around in leotards. they have to base the math on something so they base it on most pc's starting with an 18. You can start with a 20 and get a slight advantage but you costs yourself a few defense points/secondary abilities. This is pretty acceptable. The game is also about flavor, so more choices = good. making a feat that everyone must take DECREASES choices and HURTS builds that want more flavor. you're clinging to the idea that the game as is is broken (I would argue it is broken for you because L+7 might be too strong for "crappy builds") because you want to believe that your build should work when they can't really design the game to balance encounters with both crappy and non crappy builds.

This is a good question and its answer is very different from just saying "its a must have feat" as a general statement.

If all you care about in making a character is combat optimisation this feat should be within the first 4 feats you take (to allow for build variance) I would estimate, heck its arguable it should be one of the first 2. In part that is because it makes all subsequent feats that optimise damage work better.

Fortunately DnD is not just about combat, and there are lots of other things to do with building a character that is fun to play.

I totally agree. There's definitely room for flavor, and non perfectly optimized characters. There's just a point which when efficiency drops below adversely impacts game balance. This feat is a tax no matter how people try to disguise it. If you try to design encounters around people not having it then the characters who do take it will start to massively outstrip their peers and break the under optimized encounters. It eventually becomes a +3 to hit in all situations. It's obviously game changing at that point. Many would argue it's game changing at 15th level. If a power is broken at 25th level it's still broken.

If there was a feat combo that made a character totally immune to all damage and effects at 25th level is it broken? Does the verbiage have to be changed at level one or can we just ignore that eventually it ruins the game and can't be explained from a balance standpoint until we get there?

 

[ObsidianCrane]

This is another mischaracterization. What choice do people have currently? They can play or not play. The satisfaction example assumes you know there mental state which is ludicrous. A lot of people when looking at the numbers have expressed dissatisfaction with the gradual decline in pc average effectiveness. Where are people arguing they're satisfied and the math is already correct? They're not because everyone already knows there was a flaw in the design. Two if you count gradual erosion of one NAD.

The typical state of forum posters is to only comment when they are dissatisfied. Happy customers are generally busy being happy with the game not griping on an internet forum.

Never take the position of people on a forum as indicative of wider opinion. Companies like WotC have an interest in finding out if such things are wide spread beliefs, and so if they feel its necassary they engage in more market research than listening to maybe 20 people jumping up and down on a forum. (Consider I had never felt there was degredation in the game with regards to hit chance, nor was I aware that people really felt this way before this thread. Yup anecdotal evidence, but so are the few folks talking about it in CharOp forums or where ever people argue this stuff.)

The game works if you build pc's that are close to optimum.

This isn't a fact. Its an opinion that some people believe is true. Unless you are using a different definition of optimum than I am.

Is a 16 primary attack stat close to optimum?
What about an 18 with a +2 prof weapon?

Just trying to get a measure of scale... I mean a 16 attack stat is +2 behind a 20 which is optimum for attack, and the argument in this thread is that Expertise is to good because it provides a +1 in heroic. Similarly with a 20 +3 prof combo, its 2 better than a the 18 +2 prof character..

This combat omptimisation focus leads to a ludicrous extreme of course.. because fighter's and rogues get a +1 attack from their class that is essentially non-conditional they are arguably "broken" and "optimal choices" for their roles. In fact you can even start to break it down by race if you really want to get silly. This is the thing... the game is not intended nor designed to be played at the extreme optimisation level that some people strive for, its just supposed to be played so that everyone can have some fun hanging out with their friends. It works best when all the friends are working at the same general goal and in the same general way. (ie if everyone is playing hyper-optimised that works, if everyone is playing wacky that works, if everyone is playing in between that works, but wacky with hyper-optimised doesn't work so well depending on the wacky (usually))

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

4E's design goal with regards to monsters was "more monsters" not "higher level monsters" the DMG specifically recomends against exceeding the PCs level by more than 3 (DMG pg56-57), and its good advice that some module writers either chose not to follow or just didn't have at their disposal at the time of writing of their module (LFR first 2 rounds of mods basically fall here for example). I expect encounter design in modules will improve over time and the other design goal of "combat feats are not essential" will come more into play and ultimately the only people that will care about feats like the Expertise ones are those who are trying to "break" the game with "super" builds.

You're misreading.

here are the guidelines:
Individual monsters: L-4 to L+7 (where L is the party level) pg 57
Encounter level n-2 to n+4 (where n is the party level) pg 58
here is the hard example It's n+3 and has and L+6 soldier in it. pg 58
Hard Example for 8th-level PCs: 1 war troll (level 14 soldier), 3 trolls (level 9 brute), and 2 destrachans(level 9 artillery). Level 11 encounter, 3,000 XP.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

You're misreading.

here are the guidelines:
Individual monsters: L-4 to L+7 (where L is the party level) pg 57
Encounter level n-2 to n+4 (where n is the party level) pg 58
here is the hard example It's n+3 and has and L+6 soldier in it. pg 58
Hard Example for 8th-level PCs: 1 war troll (level 14 soldier), 3 trolls (level 9 brute), and 2 destrachans(level 9 artillery). Level 11 encounter, 3,000 XP.

Nope.

Levels of Individual Threats: Choose threats within two or three levels of the characters’ level.
Threats in an easy encounter can be as many as four levels below the party’s level.
Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party’s level.

Taken directly from page 56.

The fact WotC cannot follow their own guidelines should be well understood by now Further there is still no L+7 monster in those examples, the worst example is the War Troll at Level +6 (one above the page 56 recomendations).

The War Troll is frankly a rediculous addition to such an encounter and a classic example of the exact sort of bad encounter design that is creating a problem. Lowest defences are 25, PCs will have +5/6 (Item + Level) +4/6 Stat to hit it. +9 to +12 shouldn't be fighting that sort of creature. Defences should be around 20 in the NAD area and 2-3 higher in AC at most. Using examples that encourage bad design and that don't follow the prior guidelines to argue the game is broken isn't actually supportative of your position - it just supports the idea that WotC really didn't understand the implementation of their own game fully when they wrote the final print and released the books. An idea supported by some of the comments in the months since release (like Mearls on Wizards and the Controller role for example).

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

The typical state of forum posters is to only comment when they are dissatisfied. Happy customers are generally busy being happy with the game not griping on an internet forum.

Never take the position of people on a forum as indicative of wider opinion. Companies like WotC have an interest in finding out if such things are wide spread beliefs, and so if they feel its necassary they engage in more market research than listening to maybe 20 people jumping up and down on a forum. (Consider I had never felt there was degredation in the game with regards to hit chance, nor was I aware that people really felt this way before this thread. Yup anecdotal evidence, but so are the few folks talking about it in CharOp forums or where ever people argue this stuff.)

Forum posters represent a lot of the more hard core gamers and frequently there's a slant toward power gamer mentality especially in charop threads. Power gamers are actually the best play testers since they are vastly more likely to search out broken combo's, undercosted, overcosted, etc. This works for CCG players as well. The point being that power gamers undoubtedly brought the math discrepancy to the attention of the powers that be and like any good game designer when presented with the math that something doesn't work they develop a fix. This is that fix. Players here just feel that it's not an elegant fix and it detracts from the game. I think there's a very good case for this being made.

This isn't a fact. Its an opinion that some people believe is true. Unless you are using a different definition of optimum than I am.

It's based upon a lot of mathematical analysis, the game developers own words and the overwhelming empirical evidence. For example I just took a look at the pre made characters in 2 modules. In every instance they used a primary stat number of 16 and a secondary of 14 then added in racial modifiers. The dwarven fighter had a 16/16 build because dwarves down't have +2 str. Every pc with an optimized race to class had an 18 and the other 3 had a 16. So 70% of the builds had an 18 to start. Do you think this is coincidence that the premade characters have 18's? (or 16 if there race doesn't line up with their class). We can agree to disagree here, or you can show me what you base your optimum on. My supposition is that the game was designed to have a 16 ability score in the primary stat (before racial mods) more often than not (it's 100% in what I could find but let me know if you have a different experience). Then race is added and anyone who's read the players handbook can tell you that 70% of the suggested races for a class pump the primary stat.

Is a 16 primary attack stat close to optimum? Yes. It's weak but not awful.
What about an 18 with a +2 prof weapon? Weapon prof is already accounted for by the mathematically higher numbers for AC. These offset to a large degree.

Just trying to get a measure of scale... I mean a 16 attack stat is +2 behind a 20 which is optimum for attack, and the argument in this thread is that Expertise is to good because it provides a +1 in heroic. Similarly with a 20 +3 prof combo, its 2 better than a the 18 +2 prof character..

16 is weak and 20 is strong. 16 is usually caused by racial variance. 20 has a significant cost in that getting a stat to 18 before racial bonus is very costly. How many parties have you been in? DM'd for? I've seen 2 20's and 1 16 primary in about 8 parties. IMO 20 is not the optimum build because of the costs but it is the max attack value which definitely has an upside. Don't include weapon profs as they're accounted for elsewhere. The various weapons have different damages and this has been balanced to some degree by the prof number. comparing 16 to 20 is probably not the right angle to take here as 20 has some costs that make 18 the better choice in most cases. There is a lot of argument that a 20 AC rogue with the right weapons and feats gets ridiculously high to hits. The normal damage is low but this is offset by sneak damage. We could take this thread on a lot of tangents that all involve mathematical analysis.

This combat omptimisation focus leads to a ludicrous extreme of course.. because fighter's and rogues get a +1 attack from their class that is essentially non-conditional they are arguably "broken" and "optimal choices" for their roles. In fact you can even start to break it down by race if you really want to get silly.

You're taking a lot of tangential paths that have been explored in great detail on a lot of forums. There's some math to support rogues being a little too powerful but nothing even remotely approaching +3 to hit for one feat in terms of game impact.

This is the thing... the game is not intended nor designed to be played at the extreme optimisation level that some people strive for, its just supposed to be played so that everyone can have some fun hanging out with their friends.

I totally agree and I've never advocated min maxing here. I've tried to logically explain why the current encounters aren't broken and the pc build was the problem as well as point out the detrimental impact the new feat has on the game.

It works best when all the friends are working at the same general goal and in the same general way. (ie if everyone is playing hyper-optimised that works, if everyone is playing wacky that works, if everyone is playing in between that works, but wacky with hyper-optimised doesn't work so well depending on the wacky (usually))

I agree again. I made the same point that if everyone in your party was a poorly optimized build the dm could cap hard encounters at n+3 and max level monsters at L+6 and probably you would all have a great campaign with little or no troubles. When you mix optimized and crappy builds is when the trouble starts.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Nope.
Levels of Individual Threats: Choose threats within two or three levels of the characters’ level.
Threats in an easy encounter can be as many as four levels below the party’s level.
Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party’s level.

Taken directly from page 56.

[/QUOTE]Yup.
Taken directly from page 57. (emphasis mine)

Level: As you select individual threats to make
up your encounter, keep the level of those threats in
mind. Monsters or traps more than four levels below
the party’s level or seven levels above the party’s level
don’t make good challenges. They’re either too easy
or too hard, even if the encounter’s level seems right.
When you want to use a single monster to challenge
the PCs—or a large mob of monsters, for that matter—
try using minions, elites, and solo monsters instead.

The fact WotC cannot follow their own guidelines should be well understood by now Further there is still no L+7 monster in those examples, the worst example is the War Troll at Level +6 (one above the page 56 recomendations).

this is both opinion and anecdotal. It says N+7 2" to the left of that, this was just one example.

from the wolfpack template page 59 (emphasis mine):
Easy: 7 skirmishers of level n – 4
Standard: 7 skirmishers of level n – 2
Standard: 5 skirmishers of level n
Hard: 3 skirmishers of level n + 7
Hard: 4 skirmishers of level n + 5
Hard: 6 skirmishers of level n + 2

The troll is a good example because it's a soldier(soldiers being the worst case in many instances) and still 6 levels higher than the party. If you think pc's can't handle this encounter you clearly haven't played the game enough. It's got a 25 reflex. 8th level rogues will hit this on about 10, a 7 with combat advantage which they will be working diligently to get. The troll doesn't have a lot of hit points for a 14th level critter but it does have regen. Drop a flaming sphere next to the troll and he's crippled, and coupled with just a few rounds of attention from the rogue this creature will likely perish.

The trolls AC is very daunting but after a few swings the party will know this and the fighter will definitely go elsewhere with his attacks, on the other hand many of his powers have the reliable keyword so he can keep working with the rogue to grant CA which also ups his chances to hit to 13-15.

In your numbers you failed to account for weapon proficiency. Expect about an 11 ATT bonus at 8th level add 4 more for a rogue with dagger and 3 or 4 more for a fighter with his weapon of choice. Nimble blade is +1 with CA so the rogue might have a 18 ATT bonus on combat advantage attacks (he has a couple powers that guarantee at least 1-2 flanking opportunities a combat and the party supplies the rest). I think a 7 to hit with something like Walking Wounded (+ sneak dmg) is pretty powerful. a 5 to hit if the cleric lands a lance of faith on him first.

Incidently the +1 ATT from expertise also helps the party considerably in this encounter. The monster ac creep is already taking effect at level 8 and not having the feat hurts pc's.

The rest of the encounter is still pretty powerful. 5 level 9 creatures but all of them are easily hit by the party. This is no cake walk but the reason it's so challenging is that the bad guys are a level 11 encounter not that they included the wartroll. N+3 = hard. The troll doesn't break the encounter and asserting it does only demonstrates a lack of understanding how the game works. The beauty of this design is that they've actually taken the time to figure out exactly how much the party can take and created both the experience point budget and the two ranges. One for overall encounter difficulty n-2 to n+4 and one for individual threats L-4 to L+7. These three numbers allow the dm to be extremely creative in designing NON-homogeneous groups and therefore extremely interesting and unique encounters. As you decrease the ranges you cut back on choices and flavor. Removing the granularity from the game is not good.

It's exactly because of the time and effort put into designing the monsters/experience budget/encounter ranges that the pc's need to do their part and be pretty close to the expected power level.

 

[Regicide]

PHB2 is not yet published. My character build is producing a +10 to hit and everyone is fine with that. PHB2 is published, my character is suddenly not doing the average expected work anymore because it's not +11? Suddenly I'm dragging the party down because it's not +11? What nonsense.

If everyone else takes it and they're hitting 10% more than you, then yes, you're dragging the party down. You've been shown in this thread that this feat is superior to every other feat. If you want an inferior character then don't take this feat, otherwise you should take it for 5th and must take it for 15th. The fact that this is true for every single character in the game is a problem as has been repeated ad nauseum. It boggles my mind that this thread isn't two posts long, "Is feat is too good?" and "Yes, obviously."

 

[keterys]

Well, there's a decent amount of room for 'Is the hit bonus provided by the feat a (good) corrective action to the system?' and 'Is this overpowered blatant power creep?', since there's a big difference in giving people a hit bonus for free (or reducing monster defenses or level, if that floats your boat) and banning a feat.

 

[Regicide]

Well, there's a decent amount of room for 'Is the hit bonus provided by the feat a (good) corrective action to the system?' and 'Is this overpowered blatant power creep?', since there's a big difference in giving people a hit bonus for free (or reducing monster defenses or level, if that floats your boat) and banning a feat.

I don't see it as corrective because a) people are saying epic encounters are already easy enough, b) my experience with pre-epic encounters also shows it's already easy enough even BEFORE the MASSIVE power creep from FRPG, AV and MP, c) if it was corrective it should/would have been errata to the PHB1.

I think it's obviously blatent power creep. All three of FRPG, AV and MP have had it, why would PHB2 be any different?

The main problem I see is that I can't, as a DM, just look at the stat block of monsters and swap out a couple weak feats for these new uber powerful ones to give the players more of a challenge, I need to pretty much re-jig the entire module, or have them enter it several levels below what the module is meant for which then means the magic items and MUST be re-jigged. I'd like, when I pay for a module, to be able to actually get what I pay for, an adventure I can run, not an adventure I need to fix because my players bought splat books.

 

[WalterKovacs]

The troll is a good example because it's a soldier(soldiers being the worst case in many instances) and still 6 levels higher than the party. If you think pc's can't handle this encounter you clearly haven't played the game enough. It's got a 25 reflex. 8th level rogues will hit this on about 10, a 7 with combat advantage which they will be working diligently to get. The troll doesn't have a lot of hit points for a 14th level critter but it does have regen. Drop a flaming sphere next to the troll and he's crippled, and coupled with just a few rounds of attention from the rogue this creature will likely perish.

So, as long as the group has a dagger based rogue, and a wizard, and someone to flank wth the rogue it should be fine. Not only does each member of the party have to be optimized ... the actual choice of characters has to be optimized as well. Whether or not the troll is going to be a huge threat or a manageable one is based not just on how optimized the party is, but exactly what classes are there. So ... you should know what your party can handle before you throw just ANY "balanced" encounter against them.

The trolls AC is very daunting but after a few swings the party will know this and the fighter will definitely go elsewhere with his attacks, on the other hand many of his powers have the reliable keyword so he can keep working with the rogue to grant CA which also ups his chances to hit to 13-15.

In your numbers you failed to account for weapon proficiency. Expect about an 11 ATT bonus at 8th level add 4 more for a rogue with dagger and 3 or 4 more for a fighter with his weapon of choice. Nimble blade is +1 with CA so the rogue might have a 18 ATT bonus on combat advantage attacks (he has a couple powers that guarantee at least 1-2 flanking opportunities a combat and the party supplies the rest). I think a 7 to hit with something like Walking Wounded (+ sneak dmg) is pretty powerful. a 5 to hit if the cleric lands a lance of faith on him first.

Again ... so long as the group has a rogue, it will be fine. "Having a rogue in the party" should not be a requirement for having a balanced party.

The rest of the encounter is still pretty powerful. 5 level 9 creatures but all of them are easily hit by the party. This is no cake walk but the reason it's so challenging is that the bad guys are a level 11 encounter not that they included the wartroll. N+3 = hard. The troll doesn't break the encounter and asserting it does only demonstrates a lack of understanding how the game works. The beauty of this design is that they've actually taken the time to figure out exactly how much the party can take and created both the experience point budget and the two ranges. One for overall encounter difficulty n-2 to n+4 and one for individual threats L-4 to L+7. These three numbers allow the dm to be extremely creative in designing NON-homogeneous groups and therefore extremely interesting and unique encounters. As you decrease the ranges you cut back on choices and flavor. Removing the granularity from the game is not good.

A DM needs to know their party. They need to know that when you go to the top levels of encounter design it's assuming that the entire party is AT LEAST at the baseline of being optimal, and that this means that many in the party are only going to be hitting maybe 30% of the time unless they can get bonuses, or attack the right defense, etc. If they know that there are PCs that are not "at their best", they need to recognise that and adjust accordingly.

The players and the DM are all playing the same game. If their expectations are not synced up it doesn't matter which one is playing the game wrong. What is important is that they resolve their issue.

The beauty of D&D is that there is more than one way to play it. You CAN have extremely difficult encounter to challenge people who want to have difficult and potentially deadly encounters and test their abilities to build characters able to withstand them. It's also possible for players to try less than optimal ideas (such as race/class combinations that don't yield optimal builds) and for the DM to cut out the most dangerous encounters because the players have increased the difficulty by reducing PC optimization.

The problem comes when PC goals and DM goals, or goals between different PCs, are not synced up. As has been said in the thread, the problem with the feat is if only some of the players take it. The feat is extremely good, and in most groups, everyone will eventually take it, some early in heroic tier, and some later in heroic. Any group that actually has an optimized character taking the feat, and an extremely unoptimized character not taking the feat (The example of the dwarf paladin with 16 charisma and the human fighter with 20 strength was made) is a group that has problems beyond the feat.

It's exactly because of the time and effort put into designing the monsters/experience budget/encounter ranges that the pc's need to do their part and be pretty close to the expected power level.

Because the designers made the game such that there is a very large range of possible encounters, it's their job to play the game correctly and have their PCs fit a narrow mold. If they don't optimize they are playing the game incorrectly and wasting the time of the designers ...

OR, the DM can take advantage of the wide design area and slowly test the boundaries of the party to see what is acceptable for them, not just what is acceptable for the expected power level. Some parties may not be able to take on level + 7 monsters. Also, some parties may be able to take one SOME, but not ALL level + 7 monsters. Guidelines help in encounter design. The statement has more to do with "don't even bother trying level + 8" so much as "you really should try level + 7". If something is at the very top of the power level a party is expected to go up against, you don't just throw it out there without considering what your party can do. A good DM does more than just builds encounters for a party that is hypothetically at the expected power level, and throws it up against their party. Especially if the party has players that:

(a) don't know they are expected to be at a certain power level
(b) don't know what the expected power level is
(c) don't want to be confined by expected power level (race/class combination is particularly important, and multiclassing, especially paragon multiclassing, would be discouraged)

Problems arise from lack of communication about expectation. It's not about players doing it wrong because they haven't built characters capable of being as good as the hypothetical party (like not having a Rogue with the particular at-will power that targets reflex in order to have an easy time against the Troll, for example).