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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fedifensor" data-source="post: 4704725" data-attributes="member: 7289">I'm going to vote for the latter, since I'm not the first person to come to that conclusion about your posts.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.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.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.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%.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.</blockquote>

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