So, about Expertise...

[keterys]

Would there be a downside to just including the bonus automatically? Wouldn't that also solve the problem?

And again, the problem isn't necessarily with the powergamers taking it. It's with some people _not_ taking it.

 

[grickherder]

Would there be a downside to just including the bonus automatically? Wouldn't that also solve the problem?

Is there really a problem that needs to be solved? People are only having boring encounters where they feel like nothing they do works when the DM designs a bad encounter and includes monsters of too high a level. In the epic tier when people are supposedly the most behind in term of monster defenses, there's all sorts of posts about how combats are easy.

And again, the problem isn't necessarily with the powergamers taking it. It's with some people _not_ taking it.

Really? If a player is satisfied with how often they are hitting why isn't that good enough for you?

 

[keterys]

As a DM I care a lot about when the system is slowly screwing itself up... I hate when someone can accidentally say, halve their character effectiveness, through lack of attention to feat choice or I can go to run a session and not know if a level 4 will be more effective than a level 7, etc.

Fwiw, I'd similarly complain about a feat that was 'Gain a +5 bonus in a skill of your choice. Increase that bonus to +10 at 15th and +15 at 25th'. It's a roughly comparable example if you look at existing feats.

Course, more amusing of a comparison might be 'Gain a +3 bonus in all skills you're trained in. Increase that bonus to +6 at 15th and +9 at 25th'.

 

[Eldorian]

You're killing me here. Fine. I'll bite.

Right. According to what criteria does once consider the feat "eaten"? People take feats to accomplish things with their characters. If those feats accomplish those things, then it doesn't matter if some guy on the internet says it's sub-par or a poor build because it doesn't give the best bang for the buck for what the guy prioritizes. If I don't care about prioritizing combat potency and am happy with my character's baseline abilities, attack stat, etc., and I sacrifice feats that would give me an effect I want to take combat feats, than those combat feats are a feat sink.

It takes feats to do paragon multiclassing. That was the point, plain and simple. Smeelbo was saying that despite the fact he's never seen a paragon multiclass that he likes, even if there is one out there that he would like if he knew it, it's undeniable that paragon multiclassing uses up a lot of feats, i.e. is a feat sink.

No, I don't think I can be convinced to join the "Expertise! Oh no! It's the end of the world!" crowd. You're right about that.

You strawman the argument that the feat is a bandaid fix for a problem inherit to the math of the system. NOTHING that happens in DnD is going to make me think it's the end of the world, nor any other sane person.

I like weapon/implement expertise. It accomplishes a lot of good things for a lot of different players with different goals.

It makes taking a class with a race that doesn't have a bonus to the primary attack stat more viable.

It can compensate for bad DM encounter design (monsters with too high defenses for the PCs-- see the only you can prevent grindspace thread).

It makes more class/race combinations/builds viable.

It makes more attribute distributions viable.

It can be used to make a weapon specialist (lots of people dig their characters having signature weapons)

It can allow for a +1 to hit when a player who's new to the game didn't make optimal choices during character creation.

Quite frankly, the upsides to these feats are staggering. And the downsides? That some power gamers are going to consider it an auto-include? I think I'll live.

You seem to lack the concept of "relative". The character with the 14 in his attack stat that takes expertise is still a crappy character.. relative to a guy with an 18 and the feat. Crappy as in combat ineffective. The DM, in order to provide a challenge for the guy who made the obvious choices for combat effectiveness (the PHB tells you which races are good for which classes, and how to allocate your stats in order to function as these classes), will make the game too hard for the character with the crappy attack stat. If the crappy stat guy can take the feat, then the good stat guy can, and the problem remains.

Every character should be considered relative to the sort of default build. Make the character with an 18 starting in his primary stat (including racial bonus) pick feats which obviously improve his performance (such as superior weapons, expertise, weapon focus, backstabber or whatever).

If the system allows you to make a character that is much more effective than that character, the system has failed. If the system doesn't make it obvious how to make that character, the system has failed. If the obvious choices are the same for every character, then the system has failed. If there aren't viable alternative choices to the obvious, the system has failed ME. EVERY race/class combo benefits from expertise. It's usually in their top 5 choices for improving combat effectiveness.

The problem here is that it fails ME. I don't want to take the same feat with every character I make, because it is such a good feat that I'd be severely limiting myself if I don't take it. In fact, unless I desperately need an armor feat because I start with cloth or need to move up to heavy armor because my build lacks an AC stat, I'll probably take expertise at first level with 80%+ of my future characters. I'm basically saying here that the only thing better than +1 to hit, is +2 or more to AC.

And NO ONE should fool themselves into thinking DnD was ever a game that wasn't about killing things and taking their stuff. There are few things other than combat I need rules about in an RPG. Most of the rules are for combat, most of the feats too, and most of the feats and powers you choose are going to be for combat.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Of course it´s easy to ban a troublesome feat. That´s not the point.

The point is if this feat is errata under disguise, or a truly bad feat.

If it´s errata, then you don´t want to ban it, on the contrary, you want to bring in the fix, but not in this crappy form. Just give out the bonus to everyone.

If it´s not errata, then ban it, as you said.

But what happens if you don´t know which of the two is?

You discuss it here

Or it's not a crappy designed feat nor errata.
It could be:
- An Example of what Core Rules means. This feat was always in the design space of 4E feats, but they decided against adding it in the first PHB. (maybe for "nefarious" reasons like "they will buy DDI or PHB 2 like there was no tomorrow!")

- A feat that is as required as getting a good implement or weapon for your character. For example, before 15th level, it actually competes with a feat like "Weapon Proficiency" - because gets you access to superior weapons that can have a higher proficiency bonus, too. (Of course, they stack, but until 15th level, both are an equally good feat choice.) Weapon Proficiency feats taken at 15th level are probably way too late, since you might have already picked all your weapon-related powers and feats by them.
There is of course no similar (at least obvious) example for implement wielders.

 

[jasin]

Or it's not a crappy designed feat nor errata.
It could be:
- An Example of what Core Rules means. [...]

- A feat that is as required as getting a good implement or weapon for your character. [...]

If either of these are true, it's still a crappily designed feat, since it reduces (reasonable) choice and distinction between characters.

 

[Mengu]

I'm not buying the "there are other useful feats, so this feat is fine" argument. I don't think anybody is saying "you get expertise, you win D&D". Yes, there are plenty of feats that are useful, or character defining. But this feat can very easily create significant discrepency between characters who take it, and characters who don't.

One example is, take someone who wants to play a dwarf charisma paladin with a battleaxe, and they want a balanced spread of stats, starting with a 16 charisma. This character will have a +5 attack with his battleaxe, and does 1d10+5 damage. Now take a human fighter who polarized his stats for a 20 strength and took expertise and bastard sword. This fighter has a +10 attack, and does 1d10+5 damage.

Currently the paladin and fighter in my group have a difference of 3 points of attack bonus, and even that difference seems significant enough that the paladin considers the fighter to be the more important character for the group, and often refuses magic items and offers them to the fighter. I really don't want to deal with any feats that increase the gap, which will become even more significant at mid-paragon tier.

 

[Wepwawet]

Currently the paladin and fighter in my group have a difference of 3 points of attack bonus, and even that difference seems significant enough that the paladin considers the fighter to be the more important character for the group, and often refuses magic items and offers them to the fighter.

What? That's stupid! That will only increase the gap between the two even more!
The fighter should be the one giving magic items to the paladin, them keep them both useful and balanced

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I'm late to this melee, but I'd like to put in my two cents anyway.

This notion that it's a bad feat because "everyone takes it" seems strange to me.

1. Not everyone takes it at the same level.
2. Not everyone takes it for the same weapon group or implement.
3. Not everyone takes it for only ONE weapon group or implement.

Therefore, its impact is different for different characters.

If someone wants to house rule it into a static bonus awarded to every character for all weapons and implements, that's fine with me. But it's not the same thing.

And even if it were... Is it *really* such a horrible thing to have a feat that everyone takes? I love feats, I truly do. I think they were the second best thing about 3e (first was skills). I wish WotC had granted a new feat every level, just because I love the fun of finding just the right feat. But you know what? If I have to give up a feat to get a powerful bonus to my attacks, instead of getting it for free, I'm okay with that. It's only one feat.

 

[WalterKovacs]

If Expertise really is a fix to the tier gap, then addressing the tier gap directly by tweaking the system, say by issuing an Errata to the Monster Manual with a -1 penalty to monster defense per each mid-tier would have been much cleaner and fairer to the player base.

Are you honestly suggesting that an errata that applies to nearly every monster (except for those level 1 through 4 basically) is really cleaner? Would new monsters have the errata built or would it use the old math and just have the DM always cut the defenses in all situations.

The feat may not be the best method, but this suggestion is much worse way to fix the issues. It ammounts to errata'ing every monster of level 5 or higher, which requires the DM's change every monster stat block they already have, and requires any new monster stat blocks to specify that they've included the stat changes and therefore not to change them a second time.

An errata to give the PCs a boost to their attack at each level ending in 5 would be another example that would be a lot easier. It's easier to change a character sheet than a monster stat block.