So, about Expertise...

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You know, I'd love to see a designers comment on this.

--

Aside from that, I'd just like to note that the feat is better for people with a lower attack bonus than those with an already high one.

If you have a hit chance of 50 % and gain 2 points to attack, you have a hit chance of 60 % and a 20 % gain in damage.
If you have a hit chance of 75 & and gain 2 points to attack, you have a hit chance of 85 and a 13 % gain in damage.

So even if it's never a bad idea to take this feat, it is more interesting for people that have chosen a lower attack ability score or a weapon with a low proficiency bonus.

 

[Fedifensor]

(Posted from my G1 phone)

Two points to consider:

* Some games can't be fixed with house rules. Living campaigns like Living Forgotten Realms. Convention games where people expect to play D&D, not some homebrew variant.

* There is no feat for non-weapon, non-implement attacks like a dragonborn's breath weapon. Some paragon paths (like the Scion of Arkhosia) utilize these powers exclusively. That's a relative penalty of 1 to 3 points (depending on level) that cannot be overcome.

 

[77IM]

Aside from that, I'd just like to note that the feat is better for people with a lower attack bonus than those with an already high one.

If you have a hit chance of 50 % and gain 2 points to attack, you have a hit chance of 60 % and a 20 % gain in damage.
If you have a hit chance of 75 & and gain 2 points to attack, you have a hit chance of 85 and a 13 % gain in damage.

So even if it's never a bad idea to take this feat, it is more interesting for people that have chosen a lower attack ability score or a weapon with a low proficiency bonus.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis (although I am willing to be persuaded). A fixed increase to hit results in a fixed increase in the expected value of the attack (even if the relative increase looks bigger for the guy who was hitting less).

On the one hand, this means that the guy who was hitting less is putting foes down relatively faster. For a trivial example, if you were hitting 10% of the time and are now hitting 20% of the time, you drop enemies in half the time (or kill them twice as fast); while the guy who was hitting 50% of the time and is now hitting 60% of the time drops enemies in 5/6 the time (or kills them 6/5 as fast).

But on the other hand, in the context of a party of multiple characters fighting multiple enemies -- where you can think of the party's damage output as pooled and the enemy's hit points as also pooled -- either guy can gain 10% to hit and the monsters effectively drop in 6/7 the previous time. (Assuming both guys do the same damage and only their to-hit is different, because it makes the example easier.)

Of course any ability anyone gets is ultimately going to help the party. But if balance is measured by your ability to help the party, then since Expertise helps equally regardless of who takes it, it implies to me that this feat isn't the "boost-the-guy-with-the-low-primary-ability" fix that some people claim.

-- 77IM

 

[Obryn]

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis (although I am willing to be persuaded). A fixed increase to hit results in a fixed increase in the expected value of the attack (even if the relative increase looks bigger for the guy who was hitting less).

Basically, you need to look at it from a different perspective.

Let's say I normally have X% chance of hitting.

If I get a +2 to hit, my absolute chance of hitting is X+10%

That +2 does not mean that I hit 10% more often, though.

If X = 50%, then a +2 bonus gives me a 60% chance of hitting. This is 10% better than it was before, so I hit 20% more often.

If X = 80%, then a +2 bonus gives me a 90% chance of hitting. This is also 10% better than it was before, but in this circumstance I only hit 12% more often.

When I am playing a game and taking on the role of a single character, what I'll notice is that I hit 20% more often (and thereby miss 20% less), not that I have a +10% chance to hit on every roll.

-O

 

[CapnZapp]

You're right 77IM of course.

This feat benefits all characters equally (except a few classes that lose out) and it is strictly better than any other feat in increasing your chance to hit and thus damage potential.

If you don't feel like taking it, it only serves to show your disinterest in optimum play, which really disqualifies you from being taken seriously when we discuss game balance - which is all about the mechanical side of play.

So, while I can see an argument for taking a couple of other feats first, I would expect anyone that realizes the math involved will feel forced to take the Expertise feat at mid-Heroic play or at level 15 at the very latest.

It's as if you just lost a feat slot; only you get to choose exactly when you lose it. Not very flexible in my book.

 

[WalterKovacs]

The cool part is, that if feats don't need to be balanced against each other, some day you might be able to throw away _all_ the old feats to embrace all the new feats.

Maybe for feats extreme power creep is a feat-ure?

There is a difference between one feat being better than other feats, and all new feats (or most new feats) being better than older ones.

It is impossible for all feats to be equally good as all other feats. Part of the balance is that, even if a feat is better, you can only have that feat once, and you'll need to take other feats.

Heck, powers you need to pick one at each level ... feats only have a few level based restrictions (mostly tier, and a few non-tier based restrictions on feats), and thus it's not a matter of "if you don't take this feat at level X you will never take it unless you have no good options at level Y".

Paragon you have one choice of path. Epic you have one choice of destiny. For the most part, you have one choice of power at a level, since you'll usually take the highest level power available. Feats are the one feature that you get he most of, and aren't as "now or never" as other options in character creation.

Thus, it is more flexible in terms of balance. If it is better than other feats it means:

The feat you would normally take at say ... level 8, you instead take at level 10. The feat you take at level 10, which for some characters is probably going to be retrained at 11 anyway, and is probably going to be toughness, or something similar that is generic and "because I have to take a feat" is a feat you don't end up taking.

Does this feat cause people to not take warforged tactics, action surge, nimble blade, weapon focus, etc, etc, etc? Or does it delay the time before it takes those feat by 2 levels? It doesn't really obsolete a feat if you end up taking the obsolete feat anyway.

 

[keterys]

So, a feat that gave +3 untyped damage per tier would be balanced, despite it being more effective than any other damage feat, because you get lots of feats?

One feat doesn't cause you to not take all those other feats. Just one of them, whichever mattered to you least. Of course, the next feat boots off the next one. One after that, another. And six feats later maybe you aren't taking any of those feats, at all.

Does a feat have a major restriction on it that would justify it being better? For example, is it a multiclass feat - the designer playground method for allowing people to take a more powerful feat, but only one? How about is it a race feat, which is a perk of that race and thereby limited? Does it have sizable limitations, such as Spell Focus which is not only limited to one class but also requires an ability score not useful to that class otherwise? Is it an epic feat, of which you only get so many and at a certain pace, and which are often allowed to be just a bit cooler (though not nearly as much cooler as Expertise, but eh)?

Either:
A) Expertise is too powerful a feat as stands, so is badly designed
B) Expertise is a fix for a math problem in the system and is badly designed for that purpose

I don't believe there actually is _any_ other possibility. I'm not expressing hyperbole or railing at the interwebs here. It's bad design, whether it's good intentioned or sloppy balancing.

Now, will it break your game? Of course not. It takes a lot to break a game (like Demigod level 30 a lot). Will it help break the game? Maybe, if A is true. Will it help fix the game? Maybe, if B is true.

Honestly, I suspect it's an improvement in the game to the extent that it makes certain things at epic less based on missing with your normal attacks a lot and people using the super powers were already doing things like using action surge and a pocket TacLord to game the system for their really important attacks... it's just a really badly designed way of doing it. I mean, bad design happens, and it's a shame, but it's fixable - like Blade Cascade, for instance.

Or like how this could have been handled, if it was a fix to an unforseen math trend.

 

[77IM]

Does this feat cause people to not take warforged tactics, action surge, nimble blade, weapon focus, etc, etc, etc? Or does it delay the time before it takes those feat by 2 levels? It doesn't really obsolete a feat if you end up taking the obsolete feat anyway.

Well, that is an interesting thought experiment. I foresee three broad categories of players:

1) Power-gamers who take Expertise early on and are happy as clams because it makes them more powerful.

2) Role-players who delay taking Expertise (possibly indefinitely) so that they can take feats that are more fun, interesting, or appropriate to their concept. This makes them weaker than group 1. But are they so much weaker that it hinders their enjoyment of the game? (VERY few players enjoy playing the weakest link or being overshadowed by the power-gamer, even if they themselves don't care particularly about power.)

3) In-betweeners who would LIKE to take a fun, interesting, or concept-appropriate feat, but who instead take Expertise, delaying the "fun" feats by 2 or more levels. They do this because they know that NOT taking Expertise will cause them to lag behind -- and they know (from experience) that they are not the sort that enjoys playing 2nd fiddle to some power-gamer. But is delaying the "fun" feats so bad that it hinders their enjoyment of the game?


I don't know the answers to the italicized questions in regards to Expertise. But in general, whenever there is some sort of trade-off between character effectiveness and any other thing, the game is imbalanced.

-- 77IM

 

[tiornys]

Unlike epic destinies or paragon paths, feats don't just have to be balanced against each other. There can be feats that are better than other feats because you are still limited in how many times you can take the same feat.

Feats should be as close to balanced as possible, or you stray into poor design philosophy. Feats can have more powerful effects than other feats as long as those feats are proportionally more restrictive in who can take them and/or when their effect can be used. Small amounts of power variance are inevitable since that kind of balancing act is nigh impossible, but large amounts can and should be avoided. Expertise has no restrictions and is an order of magnitude more powerful than existing feats.

Keterys has said basically everything else I wanted to say on this topic.

Since all those "lesser" feats stack with Expertise ... they just mean they will be picked up after someone grabs expertise first. If Expertise was fair and balanced, they still couldn't make other feats that were just as good as it unless those feats were an either/or choice. Regardless of if Expertise is balanced ... two stacking versions would definitely be unbalanced.

You do realize that under RAW, Weapon Expertise already stacks with itself? Apparently the Khopesh, Glaive, Halberd, Longspear, Greatspear, Double Sword, and Urgrosh needed a power boost.

t~

 

[grickherder]

This is a reasonable opinion. Are you also of the opinion that Expertise as written is a fair and balanced feat? If so, please justify in light of the fact that anything comparable is either highly limited in application (Action Surge), or both limited in application and weaker (Blade Opportunist, Nimble Blade, Back to the Wall, etc.).

I think it's fair and balanced until level 15. The scaling is a bit much.

It's certainly a top tier feat, even at heroic tier. If my priorities are to be more effective in combat, it'll be taken some time during the 6 (7 if human) feats available in the heroic tier. The next time a group I'm DMing allows me a break and someone else takes over, I'm contemplating a few different builds:

Gnome Warlock MCed into Wizard. Don't need it. Lots of other cool stuff to take and won't be taking it during the heroic tier for sure.

Deva Avenger. Maybe. If I go with a +3 weapon, I probably won't take it. If I go with a +2, I might-- but after feats that boost AC, my Deva power and other things.

Some feats are better than others and both of the expertise feats are top tier feats. If I was the type of player who really valued the +1 to hit and also really valued other feats because they're more interesting, I'd be torn, annoyed and would turn to a house rule for a solution. But I'm not. Whether or not I'll take it will be on a build-by-build basis and I don't feel a +1 is a must have. Now when it gets to +2 and +3...