So, about Expertise...

[deleteme123456]

If the Expertise only worked with non-At-Will powers I'd be quite satisfied with it.

By the time you get into mid-Paragon up to Epic the bonus would be helping patch up the gap where it counts, since at that level you are running around with a stack of Encounter and Daily Powers and missing with them too much is a major producer of grindspace.

Meanwhile it could also help make your Encounter and Daily powers work just a bit better in Heroic Tier, where missing with them is more frustrating because you have so many fewer opportunities to use them.

A flat bonus to your At-Will spam attacks, however, isn't something this Feat really needed to do, IMO.

- Marty Lund

Except that if you do run out of encounters/dailies, you really don't want to be missing with your at-wills if you're worried about grinding.

 

[Fedifensor]

Sorry, but it wasn't mockery. Some people really can't enjoy themselves if someone else is better than they are. They'll have to take expertise to "keep up" with everyone else. No different that getting a big screen tv you don't need to keep up with the Joneses. It's part of human nature.

This idea that you have to compete with the other PCs for the spot light isn't helpful. Allowing our own accomplishments to seem small because of the accomplishments of others isn't a virtue.

Now you're telling people how to enjoy the game. People get enjoyment from different things. Some focus on playing a role. Some focus on the enjoyment of winning (or surviving) against tough odds. Some like to tinker with the mechanics to make an efficient character. Some like to have their time in the spotlight. None of these things are 'wrong', as long as the group is having fun. D&D was built to accommodate all of those styles of play, which is why it has retained a broad appeal.

Furthermore, wanting to contribute to a team effort IS a virtue. Saying that someone who feels like they didn't contribute is being petty or small is an insult. We play games to have fun, and if the group's success doesn't hinge on anything your character does, then you're just along for the ride. For many people, that's not fun - and the point of playing a game is to have fun. Who are you to judge people for that?

The whole reason roleplaying games have rules is that the experience has evolved beyond the childhood experience of Cops and Robbers, with people arguing things like "I shot you!" "No, you didn't!" There are rules in the game that provide a structure. An effort is made to provide a balance between players, and between the group and their foes. That's why you have levels, XP values, and so forth. If that's not what you're looking for, there are a ton of story games that offer a different play experience.

What many people in this thread are saying is that Weapon Experience and Implement Experience are so much better than other feats, that it affects the balance of the game. Unless everyone takes the feats, those who don't take them can't contribute as much as their companions, which can make things less fun for those people. If everyone does take the feats, the characters that require both (because they use both weapons and implements) are unfairly taxed by needing a second feat. And even then, those with non-weapon, non-implement powers like Dragon Breath or Earthshock have no way to bring those powers on par with the powers other people are using. There are entire prestige classes built around such powers...should characters built with those classes be behind the curve for no good reason?

 

[Bayuer]

If you will hit with your encounters and dailies then you will don't need at-wills so much.

Well, be realy honest. Almost all of players will take this feat at some point. I don't belive in that crapy talking about "the flaw, man! DnD is RPG!" Yeah, right. DnD is also a combat game. If ther's an option to hit more offten, why don't take it? It's the best feat i saw so far (like Toughness, Weapon Focus, Mulitfeat (gives you free skill training + sth else), Dwarven Weapon Training, Eladrin Soldier, Armor Profinency and Specializations and Iron Will, Lighting Reflex, Great Fortitude and Backstabber and the same feat for Rangers). Come on.

So when it comes time to make you char and you just need to take so many feats to don't be weak at combat there is not much room for flavor feats and now its one more taken:/

I was playing at 22 lvl now and I see the gap of monsters defense and attack bonuses. It's too large. Your defenses aren't too so great so all 4 incrasing them are almost must have (2-3 for sure) couse when an enemy must roll 3 on die to make you dazed etc. that very frustrating.

Like someone wrote on WoTC forums. Make Masterwork Weapons and add them +x to hit (+1 on magic weapn +2, +2 on magic weapon +4, and +3 on magic weapon +6 or so).

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Don't kid yourself. Whether it's Magic the Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons, power creep is in no small part intended to increase Hasbro's sales volume.

This really bothers me. I'm a business owner so I understand the economic realities but power creep as a sales tool destroys the game. It's really awful if PHB1 classes are made obsolete by future releases. The ability to retrain feats and powers could also be a slightly underhanded way of tempting players to buy splat books and "power up" their existing pc's. Personally I'll buy a new book for the variety of pc choices, but if I sense that it's an ever increasing creep I'm much more likely to limit the game to books xyz and not allow any outside powers, feats, skills, items.

It would be like arguing that the attack disparity is negated by using a taclord. It means that every epic party must have a taclord. Regardless of whether anyone wants to play one or not.

taclords are abused on forums as a "modifier" a lot of the benefit from taclords is offset by their personally unimpressive abilities. If you have a different character not pumping up your striker but doing his own damage your expected average outcome is still probably the same. The taclord argument fails to subtract the lost utility of 20% of your party in directly contributing to the encounter and just benefits the striker as having higher damage.

The point is that any character without this feat simply won't be as efficient as those that do. That's all that needs to be considered when judging its power.

Exactly. Hard to reasonably argue at all after 16th level about this feat.

I'm saying that there are a number of reasons not to take this feat, and your character may in fact not be worse of mechanically across the whole spectrum of the game because you don't have this feat.

Define mechanically. The mechanics remain the same it's your efficiency that's significantly impacted. Once you reach +2 to hit, you've reached a point where it's impossible to deny the overwhelming superiority of this feat. It was already superior at +1 but +2 is off the charts.

Put 2 characters with the same equipment and the same attack stat and attacks side by side and the one with this feat will be marginally better at hitting in combat. The size of that margin will depend on the value of the defences the monsters they are fighting have.

over the life of the character this margin starts widen and the law of large numbers make it increasingly likely that the pc without the bonus will die in a situation where the pc with the bonus would not have.

The definition of "must-have", in my eyes, is a measure of effectiveness.

The definition of must have is one of the reasons this thread is going on endlessly. Must have in a utility sense it's obvious that this feat qualifies but must have in a "completes my vision" sense it's not so cut and dried. The verbiage "must have" is simply too ambiguous for this forum in this circumstance because it leaves too much room for interpretation.

Only on the characters created by players that value effectiveness. There will always be people who choose not to take an option no matter how good it is.

I agree. This is a clearer way to say "must have". This feat is probably in the top 3 or 4 in terms of "combat effectiveness" in virtually any build.

Say we multiplied the races by the classes (and their sub builds) and came up with a number of rough builds that one could make. What do you suppose the choice number would be for this feat for most of the builds? At what choice would it have to be in order for it to be considered a "must have" or "broken" or "a patch disguised as a feat"? First choice? Second? Fifth? Tenth? Fourteenth?

this is sort of disingenuous as it leaves room for interpretation. The more intellectually honest question is something like this: if I'm trying to optimize my pc for combat how many feats could I justify taking before this.

The other question allows you to slip in a "concept" as a reason not to take the feat which doesn't really have relevance when deciding if this is a "must have". Obviously if your concept relies upon a lot of feats then this isn't a must have to meet your "vision". That argument doesn't change the fact that this feat has more average combat utility than any other.

My opinion is that if it's not first or second in the majority of the builds, it's not a must have/broken/disguised patch. Because if it's 3rd, or 5th or 8th or whatever, that's an awful lot of feats that beat it out. Even if 99% of characters out there end up with it by level 26 that means that up to 15 other feats beat it out for a player's choice before that +3 just became too tempting.

While I understand your point this isn't the best angle to view things from. Take for example the fact that there is no possible way to argue that 10 existing feats are better. There's a problem with a feat that is better or equal than others in 100% of the possible situations AND it's easier to take (no prereqs) AND it stacks. You can't make any valid argument to support taking nimble blade before this and nimble blade has a pre req and 2 conditions to gain it's benefit. Precise hunter? combat reflexes?

Another thing to remember is that feats are tied to concept. I want to play a warlock/wizard gnome, for example.

This deflects away from the discussion. Your comparing flavor to efficiency. I can make the choice to golf with left handed clubs because I like the challenge or think it's amusing but it won't make me a better golfer.

In any case, if the intent were simply to fix the gap, applying a tier penalty to monster defenses would be simpler and leave more feat choices available to characters.

or just errata +1 to hit at every tier. Why correct every page of the monster manual when you can add one correction?

Put me in that camp.

I too believe most of the best DnD is in the low to mid levels. Clearly subjective but I would rather be fighting against a band of ogres or a local crime lord than be a demigod slaying orcus, high fantasy save the world stuff and spells like wish kind of break the game in terms of fun and enjoyment IMHO.

I think once most characters have 3-4 feats under their belt, they will be hard pressed to find anything nearly as good as Expertise.Every D&D campaign I've ever been in, no matter how much roleplaying was going on, has turned on the meat of combat. D&D is distinguished by being very combat centered.

Failing to take it will definitely have a significant impact on your relative value to the party.

You have one daily until level 5. Getting +3 to hit with that daily > +1 to hit with that daily. In other encounters, you have 1 or 2 encounter powers, again giving you very few options to add the +3 to. Having the most important powers be even more accurate can at least be comparable to having all your powers more accurate. This depends on whether you want higher damage output on average per round, or want to hit with your daily/encounter power.

It's not mathematically accurate to suggest action surge will yield more benefit than expertise. Not even close in fact. More importantly, you must be human to take action surge and humans get an extra feat, so if you really felt strongly action surge was the bomb you could take both.

Action Surge, for example, gives a greater bonus than Weapon Expertise until level 25. If the goal is "hit with daily powers" then it does that job better.

Action surge is usable only once every two encounters and forces you to use your action point on attacking with a daily to gain this benefit. WE is usable on every attack in every combat and this is a factor of about 15 to 1. Even if you weight the daily as being 3 times as good as any other power this means 15 to 9 advantage for WE. Forget about the fact that in encounter 2 you might also have a daily to be used.

Some of them are not mechanically inferior to Weapon Expertise. More so, the extra damage from the racial weapon specializations will arguably give more damage per round than a slight increase in accuracy.

this probably isn't even true in heroic tier and certainly isn't true in paragon or epic and ignores the additional benefit of statuses that more hits also create. Only the dwarven bonuses are likely to be on an optimized character. Is eladrin the race of choice for sword mages?

For example a multiclass feat gives a skill AND an additional power.

and thus you can only take one of them.

The problem is that many, many people in this thread and similar ones elsewhere assume that there is only one player type/motivation. Power Gamer. That the only proper/real/true motivation for choosing a feat is to enchance the characters in-game potency and that any choice made out of a different motivation or from the stance of a different player type is somehow sub-optimal, will produce a "terrible build" or is just generally the wrong way to go.

This is overselling the position with hyperbole. The point being made here is that WE has an overwhelming combat effect relative to other powers. This doesn't just pertain to power gamers it it's germane regardless of your style of play because DnD is pretty combat centric.

In your use of "feat sink" you're demonstrating certain priorities again (specifically of the power gamer variety). By what criteria do we consider spending so many feats on multiclassing to be a "feat sink"?

This seems pretty obvious. It takes 4 feats (3 of which give no benefit other than allowing you to pick a power from an expanded list) to fully multi class. If we can agree that each feat has an opportunity cost associated with it, then he term feat sink replies to the very large cost of using 4 feats to gain 1 skill, one bonus and allow 3 powers to be swapped for powers of a relatively equivalent power.

Such criteria are meaningless for those who are not prioritizing power gaming or min-maxing to the degree you are.

You're using a straw man argument. Misrepresenting the position of the other debater in order to attack the modified version. We're talking about utility not that you have to min max or power game just that this feat is so superior it's impossible to ignore the fact it's superior. You're obviously free to choose any feats you want within the rules but it's impossible to deny that choosing other most other feats instead of this one doesn't have a significant impact on effectiveness.

I'm not convinced it's better than all the alternative feats.

What would convince you? It may not be better than any feat for any build but that doesn't preclude it from being a problem. If it's in the top 4 combat feats for every build is that not a problem? Is there another feat that's in the top 4 combat feats for every build?

For example, a 1st level wizard might be better off with leather armour proficiency.

I agree with this. Name 3 other feats that give more combat benefit for a wizard. My wizard took leather armor at 4th because I wanted to play a fire wizard. I'm at least part power gamer at heart but I like to have a "vision" of my character too so I took astral fire(though not optimal it's the flavor I wanted and goes with my back story) at 1st and multiclass cleric at 2 (a choice with an eye towards surviving combats)

At level 15, it becomes very attractive though. And at 25, even more so. I don't think that something you'll probably want to include by half way through the advancement cycle is somehow a "must have" though. I don't think that qualifies it as better than all the other combat related feats.

two problems with this. First when you say "probably want to have" that belies the fact that there's simply no other choice that even remotely compares after level 15. Second at level 25 and up this feat is irreplaceable, nothing else is even in the ballpark. Just because something isn't broken till the upper levels doesn't make it ok. Characters without it will be attacking at the level of a pc 4-6 levels lower. If your 7th level pc was hitting like a 1st level pc vs 7th level monsters would you think things were broken?

It allows those who want to make a MAD build more viable in combat.

won't the DM have to pump up the encounter difficulty to challenge the pc's who do have this feat thereby keeping the strain on MAD challenged builds?

Either the math for the game was fine before, which means the Expertise feats are unbalanced, or the math wasn't fine, and the Expertise feat is the wrong way to fix the game.

Sums it up quite nicely.

I disagree that everyone needs to prioritize effectiveness in that combat system above other considerations.

No one said it had to be above all other concerns. Everything in building a pc has opportunity costs. The point is this feat is so good that nearly every character will eventually pick it regardless of build or concept. What other feat has that property? Maybe improved init is close but I would guess it's about 70-80% of all builds will take it. Expertise has to be above 95% by level 16.

DMs that put monsters of higher level than the PCs in their encounters.

the game is designed for pc's to face monsters of up to 7 levels above their own. If you're playing builds with a 15 in their primary stat and thinking this feat is not that important I can see why you don't want to be involved with encounters like this, but you're really making our point more than yours here.

I don't consider them no brainer/must have choices unless the DM is designing grindy encounters. As well, there's not a lot of actual play posts where people are complaining about missing in the epic tier. Mostly people complain that epic combats are too easy.

You're disparaging encounters that don't fit the mold you prefer as "grindy" but a lot of people are 180 degrees out from you and feel that encounters that don't seem to have a significant chance of pc's dieing are the real grind. There's a lot of variables not being accounted for when describing people complaining about epic being too easy. Magic item's are a big problem at the highest levels of DnD. They always have been. More importantly is the DM challenging them and running the monsters in an intelligent fashion?

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.

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.

This is mostly hyperbole and superfluous fluff. You seem to be purposely misconstruing the obvious definition of "feat sink" in order to muddy the water.

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.

No it doesn't.

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

no it can't.

It makes more class/race combinations/builds viable.

no, it really doesn't you'll be equally far behind. In fact it makes less builds viable because it's lowering your feats by 1.

It makes more attribute distributions viable.

no, you'll be equally far behind.

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.

this proves that introducing the feat to the game only widens the potential gap between optimized and non optimized characters. That's bad.

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.

Just because you misunderstand a negative doesn't make it a positive it just makes you incorrect.

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.

seems pretty straightforward. this guy is good

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.

Exactly.

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.

I would argue that based upon your play style DnD is primarily a combat game set in a fantasy role playing back drop. The amount of rules devoted to combat in one form or another is probably 3 or 4 to 1 relative to other rules.

On a related note, if you ever read a story from the monsters perspective PC's are effectively a band of thugs raiding and pillaging helpless orc villages HALO 3 monsters all call the hero "demon".

Or more simply "good" is us (humanoids) killing/robbing them at every opportunity and "evil" is them killing us...

 

[grickherder]

Now you're telling people how to enjoy the game.

Umm. No. If that's the conclusion you're coming to, you're either misreading me or I'm not being clear.

People get enjoyment from different things. Some focus on playing a role. Some focus on the enjoyment of winning (or surviving) against tough odds. Some like to tinker with the mechanics to make an efficient character. Some like to have their time in the spotlight. None of these things are 'wrong', as long as the group is having fun. D&D was built to accommodate all of those styles of play, which is why it has retained a broad appeal.

I agree completely. Your paragraph above is a mirror image of a post I made earlier in this thread. You said it better than I did.

Furthermore, wanting to contribute to a team effort IS a virtue.

Once again, I agree completely.

Saying that someone who feels like they didn't contribute is being petty or small is an insult.

If someone can't enjoy themselves unless they are the best out of everyone there, then they are petty or small.

We play games to have fun, and if the group's success doesn't hinge on anything your character does, then you're just along for the ride. For many people, that's not fun - and the point of playing a game is to have fun. Who are you to judge people for that?

Umm. I'm not. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm not talking about when someone isn't doing anything meaningful, I'm talking about when people are doing something meaningful but don't value it as such because someone else is successful too.

I won't play in a game where I'm along for the ride and what I do doesn't matter. You're right it's not fun. I'm obviously not "judging people" for it when I feel the same way.

I'm not saying what you think I'm saying.

What many people in this thread are saying is that Weapon Experience and Implement Experience are so much better than other feats, that it affects the balance of the game.

I understand that, but I disagree. Atleast for the first 14 levels. At level 15 and especially at level 25, I can see it. But as I've said before, I don't consider something I'm not going to take until half way through the advancement cycle to be a must have.

Unless everyone takes the feats, those who don't take them can't contribute as much as their companions, which can make things less fun for those people.

Again, I understand that some people feel this way, but I disagree with their conclusion. The main reason being that as players we usually don't enter conflict that's resolved with the numbers on someone else's character sheet. The stats we oppose are those of the monsters. And if my +12 to hit at level 8 is good enough, I don't suddenly stop contributing when it could be a +13. And if my +12 was good enough, it doesn't suddenly become not good enough because the guy across the table goes up to +14.

Imagine this situation that a lot of people are going to be going through:

There's a group of people playing D&D. They're having a blast playing the game they like. The DM is doing good job with encounters an everyone is having fun, feeling like they are contributing to the team. Boom, PHB2 is released and expertise is now available.

What's really changed? The monsters are all still the same. Everyone is doing fine without the +1. Then a player takes the feat. He leaps ahead of his peers by a mighty +1 to hit. Another player used to hit a given monster on an 11. But with the first player taking this feat, the second player's contribution has been diminished to the point where he only hits the monster on an 11! What a jerk, diminishing my contribution to the team effort like that!

 

[grickherder]

won't the DM have to pump up the encounter difficulty to challenge the pc's who do have this feat thereby keeping the strain on MAD challenged builds?

Only if they DM does it wrong.

the game is designed for pc's to face monsters of up to 7 levels above their own.

While I am generally a fan of 4e and believe that it meets it's design goals, I would say that it fails to accomplish this. Others might disagree, but I find that monsters of 7 levels higher cause many problems.

If you're playing builds with a 15 in their primary stat and thinking this feat is not that important I can see why you don't want to be involved with encounters like this, but you're really making our point more than yours here.

Challenging players by choosing monsters that are harder to hit is a lazy and boring way for a DM to operate. Thank God there's an expertise feat available for those poor souls trapped in grindspace. While it does't address the root problem, it does provide some relief.

You're disparaging encounters that don't fit the mold you prefer as "grindy" but a lot of people are 180 degrees out from you and feel that encounters that don't seem to have a significant chance of pc's dieing are the real grind.

Encounters that don't seem to have a significant chance of pc's dieing are not the opposite of what I consider grindy. You can create incredibly lethal encounters using only monsters +/- 1 level of the PCs. The encounters I disparage as being grindy are the ones where hitting the monsters is hard, there's lots of rounds of nothing happening, often involve a low number of high power monsters and accentuate the whiff factor of 4e.

No it doesn't.
no it can't.

Yes it does. Yes it can. (that was useful)

no, it really doesn't you'll be equally far behind.

Behind whom? Just a hint, you're not fighting the other PCs, you're fighting together against the monsters.

 

[Fedifensor]

Umm. No. If that's the conclusion you're coming to, you're either misreading me or I'm not being clear.

I'm going to vote for the latter, since I'm not the first person to come to that conclusion about your posts.

If someone can't enjoy themselves unless they are the best out of everyone there, then they are petty or small.

The problem is, you state this like it's not only someone who wants to be the best, but someone who simply wants to be an equal. The former is a problem, the latter is not.

Umm. I'm not. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm not talking about when someone isn't doing anything meaningful, I'm talking about when people are doing something meaningful but don't value it as such because someone else is successful too.

Meaningful is relative. I may land the killing blow on a foe, or give someone else a +2 to hit on an important attack...but that isn't always meaningful. Most experienced players can sense whether their presence would have made a difference in the group's success. If it's obvious that the group would have done just as well without their character contributing to the fight, then there is a problem. I've seen this multiple times in LFR, where combats are scaled to party size. In multiple cases, a particular player's presence actually made the fight harder instead of easier, because their net contribution was less than the increase in foes from having an extra player.

I understand that, but I disagree. Atleast for the first 14 levels. At level 15 and especially at level 25, I can see it. But as I've said before, I don't consider something I'm not going to take until half way through the advancement cycle to be a must have.

Or, to turn this around, something that affects 16 out of 30 levels isn't a factor in your opinion. If WotC had published the PHB in three volumes, one each for Heroic, Paragon, and Epic play, I could agree with that. But you're ignoring the effect this addition has on over half of the game. I'd argue it affects those first 14 levels as well...maybe not as much, but the feat is still significantly better than the other feats available. The whole point of game balance is, well...balance. Anyone who compares Weapon Expertise to Nimble Blade can see that balance is out of whack...and Nimble Blade is (or was) considered a 5-star feat for rogues.

Again, I understand that some people feel this way, but I disagree with their conclusion. The main reason being that as players we usually don't enter conflict that's resolved with the numbers on someone else's character sheet. The stats we oppose are those of the monsters. And if my +12 to hit at level 8 is good enough, I don't suddenly stop contributing when it could be a +13. And if my +12 was good enough, it doesn't suddenly become not good enough because the guy across the table goes up to +14.

You're assuming a certain difficulty level and level range in that answer. True, a +1 may mean your chance to hit only goes from 10+ to 11+ if you're fighting an even-level foe. However, that isn't always going to be the case. The sample adventure in the DMG has a 3rd level solo going up against a group of 1st level characters. The solo in that adventure happens to be a brute, so the AC is low for its level and the average character without expertise only needs an 11+ to hit. Replace that with a soldier (same XP value), and suddenly that 11+ becomes 15+. A +1 becomes very valuable at that point, increasing the chance to hit by 20%. If we're talking level 15+ or level 25+, the increase in the to hit chance becomes 40% or 60%.

There's a group of people playing D&D. They're having a blast playing the game they like. The DM is doing good job with encounters an everyone is having fun, feeling like they are contributing to the team. Boom, PHB2 is released and expertise is now available.

What's really changed? The monsters are all still the same. Everyone is doing fine without the +1.

If we're going to play "imagine this scenario", let me offer a counterexample.

The group of players are going through a published module, and having a difficult time with it. Then, the PHB 2 comes out, and most of the group uses the retraining rules to take Weapon Expertise or Implement Expertise. With this new option, they have an easier time, and feel more useful. Great, right?

However, in the process, one character drops a Skill Training feat, even though it was appropriate for his character. The swordmage still misses too often with his implement powers, because he could only swap out one feat with retraining. The dragonborn misses too often with his Dragon Breath, and has no way of correcting this deficit. Finally, one player feels that retraining is silly, and therefore won't take the feat for his character until a new feat slot becomes available.

In short, while the group is better off from this new feat, there is a disproportionate hardship from taking that feat depending on the character (and the player). Some are sacrificing character conception, some have to pay more for the same value, some have marginalized abilities because there is no balancing feat for them, and one is marginalized because he won't rewrite his character to add in the feat. Suddenly, some people aren't feeling like they're contributing their fair share to the group, through no fault of their own. How is this situation better than simply fixing the core problem, which is the scaling issue?

Personally, I feel they should have given a flat +1 bonus per tier to fix the problem, baking it into the core of the system instead of a book that is designed to be an optional add-on. People have been saying give the bonus at 5, 15, and 25...I'd go one step further and say it should be given at the beginning of each tier. When you enter a new tier of play, there's a learning curve because the game introduces new concepts at each tier. Furthermore, at Heroic, you start out with only one big gun for the encounter (and one bigger gun for the day). Hitting more often at that early stage before you have multiple powers per encounter or per day is a good thing.

 

[keterys]

But as I've said before, I don't consider something I'm not going to take until half way through the advancement cycle to be a must have.

Hmm,
Epic Focus
Prereq: Epic tier
Benefit: You gain +10 to attack rolls and +100 to all damage rolls.

Not must have!

 

[chaotix42]

Look at it this way...

Weapon/Implement Expertise = 3.x Dodge that doesn't suck.

Dodge was the gateway feat to lots of other good stuff, but the feat itself sucked pretty hard. This is like Dodge, without being a pre-req for all those other feats, except it doesn't suck. It actually rocks. And then, if you feel you're still not hitting enough, you can advance along the tree and get some more feats that increase your chances to hit. I can still see wanting this feat and Action Surge at the same time, for example.

The only problem I forsee is that my swordmage has to take both feats...

 

[Regicide]

Hmm,
Epic Focus
Prereq: Epic tier
Benefit: You gain +10 to attack rolls and +100 to all damage rolls.

Not must have!

Well since there is already at least one infinite damage per round build at epic, that feat kinda sucks, the +100 damage really doesn't do a lot.