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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4704905" data-attributes="member: 82732">Everything is more homogeneous in 4e so far because we haven't had the power creep and broken combos that inevitably surface once 20 splat books are released.  Don't be surprised if this changes.  Bloodmage combos already had to be errata'd for instance.  You're deceiving yourself that this isn't still a problem.If everyone gets better at combat, then combats have to get slightly more difficult to remain equally challenging.  To deny this is absurd. The biggest problem here is this feat allows the suboptimal build to potentially drift further from the optimal build.  Thereby severely detracting from the ability of encounters to be fun for all.  You've erroneously blamed this on the DM repeatedly in this thread but combat is fluid and the sub optimal guy will sometimes have to deal with the more challenging creature.  You seem to aspire to the DM should be able to handle this theory but that's a silver bullet fix which is the definition of bad design.no, your perception that it's easy to make an encounter that challenges everyone roughly equally is a pipe dream if the characters are too far apart in ability.  We're playing a game here, by definition games have a risk of negative outcomes.  DnD isn't about winning and losing per say (there's no competition in DnD so there's not necessarily a winner or loser just positive or negative endings) but dieing is sort of the negative outcome equivalent to losing.  If there's no chance of a negative ending then DnD is no longer a game, it's a story being primarily told by the DM with color commentary added by the players.  Since the DM has erased the possibility of a negative outcome then player actions don't really have a significant impact on the story.  It always ends the same.  If you don't believe in playing the "story" version of DnD and would rather have real risks involved in the "game" version, then we agree.  If not then we're not talking about the same game and this argument is moot.  In the "game" version, being sub optimal increases the risks of pc's being killed.  Trading some level of optimization for flavor is fine but at some point the gap gets so wide that one pc is now a liability.  Given that I want to play in a game with real risks of pc death you have to accept that in some encounters the optimized pc is going to roll badly (maybe be stunned for 3 rounds) and the sub optimal build is going to have to shoulder the threat that the DM might have designed to challenge the optimal build.  When you're missing on a roll of 15 you might quickly realize how important being close to optimal is.  This simply the facts.  Your arguments are mostly subjective fluff with questionable mathematical support.There you go blaming the dm again.  If everyone takes a feat by a certain level it may not be the best thing ever, but it's certainly broken.  No feats should be mandatory in order to stay on par with peers.  It's really that simple, feats should offer choices and diverging flavors and any feat that is so valuable that everyone must have it is a horrible game mechanism.  Your inability to grasp the difference between broken mechanic and "best thing ever" is a little tiring.  It's basically another straw man argument.  No you're simply being ineffective.  This is actually fine if everyone in the party is equally ineffective your DM can easily tailor the encounter level to handle this.  Max encounters at N+3 instead of N+4 and only use monsters up to 5 levels max above party level instead of 7 and the campaign will roll along without a hiccup (perhaps gaining levels a tad slower but hardly noticeable).  It's the wide gap in efficiency that's problematic.situational +2 and every day +2 are not the same.  Admittedly +2 is not going to destroy the fabric of the game, but this feat could turn a gap of +2 at level 1 into +5 at level 25 and that is broken.This is true to a certain extent but if the party is not challenged the game is not very fun.  Adding monsters to the encounter to offset the optimized character and challenge the party can blow up in your face when the optimized character gets unlucky early.  Contrary to grickherder's repeated assertions it's the dm's fault it's impossible to build encounters that handle all the possible situations when the pc's aren't relatively equivalent.  kind of restrictive and sort of a silver bullet.   Agreed that this isn't the "always" but encounters built according to the dmg are based upon challenging characters built with a nearly optimal combat effectiveness.  18 or a 20 is personal choice and has opportunity costs that probably balance things (having slightly weaker defense for example if you have a 20 attack stat).  having a 14 and a 20 is different.  Having a 20 with this feat and a 14 without only exacerbates the problem.    and a double feat tax on some classes/builds. It actually sort of does.Totally on target with both points.It does mean that you will sometimes be unable to pull your weight or the encounters will mostly be a "story" and not a game.  You can't have it both ways, if the encounters are challenging from a game standpoint then being significantly less effective has a very real probability of eventually getting someone killed.Another straw man.  DnD is about combat to a large extent.  Combat in DnD is tactical, but it also has a lot to do with math.  You simply can't deny that in order for encounters to be challenging the math is a factor.  If one character lags behind on math the other character will usually do more than his share and the laggard will do less.  This is ok as long as everyone gets to do their relatively expected amount.  As soon as something bad happens to the optimized guy, then the laggard is left in a situation where he must get lucky an perform above expectations or else the party is in trouble.you're using a buzzword to support your position but missing all the time is part of the "slowness" of grindspace so the non optimized character is actually significantly to blame for grindspace.  You're trying to shift blame onto the dm and the optimized player but that's simply not correct.soldiers are tough.  Probably broken from an experience point perspective (all soldiers should be worth 15-25% more exp) take 4 200 exp soldiers vs 5 200 exp skirmishers/brutes for instance 4 ghouls vs 5 wights.  Or try 4 ghouls vs 4 gnoll marauders(level 5 vs level 6) both are are 800 xp vs 1000 exp.  All that aside you keep trying to blame DM's who use soldiers as bad.  Shoulder the responsibility for your actions. Soldiers are part of the game.  The average party is expected to handle soldiers of higher level than their own on occasion, by YOU making the CHOICE to be SUB OPTIMAL you've hurt the game.  It's not bad encounter design on the DM side it's bad pc design on your side. The expectations are known when you build a pc, so you're basically ignoring the job requirements and then blaming the reality for you being unprepared.  Like a fireman who decides cotton jammies are more comfortable to wear than his bunkers, it's a choice you can make but don't blame everyone else when you get burned.This is where you diverge from the developers and much of the community.  You're also opting for homogeneous encounter difficulty, no climactic battles, and greatly lessened danger.  The campaign I play in uses encounters in the N+2 to N+4 range for 80% of the encounters.  The designers monster level selections mean we sometimes face a BBEG.  When does this happen?  This is fallacious.  For a level 3 party of 5 pc's a level 1 encounter (n-2) could have 2 level 6 monsters.  This means the monsters are pretty much always flanked, and even a level 6 soldier(the worst case) is not out of reach even without flanking.  A Sahuagin Raider has 20AC 19R, 16F, 15W. other level 6 soldiers:Troglodyte: AC 22; Fortitude 21, Reflex 18, Will 19Warforged: AC 22; Fortitude 20, Reflex 17, Will 18I'm really wondering how you see this combat with 5 level three pc's going badly for the pc's or becoming grindy.  EVEN if the pc's use no encounter powers or dailies they would rip up two level 6 soldiers in 4-5 rounds tops.  The only character who might struggle is the +5 to hit vs AC or +3 to hit vs NAD guy who put a 14 in his primary stat.  the rest of the party is going to be hitting on a 12-14 dice roll even without CA.Hardly grindspace, just more arguments based upon emotion rather than fact.Once again, an example of how this feat makes playing more varied builds less viable not more viable.   agreed not particularly true. true, but this supports the problem with efficiency feats. There are too many effective feats for this to be true.  I can name 10+ that will help any character, so no one can possibly "run out" of choices that are valuable, they just run out of imagination to apply them.Hard to argue that all of the following are pretty nice benefits though none of them is critical they all have a significant utility to any build.  improved init, toughness, defensive mobility, jack of all trades, linguist, multiclass, skill training(especially stealth, perception, athletics/acrobatics, healing), winter touched(at level ten assuming someone in the party is likely to grab lasting frost at 11 this feat gives you CA multiple times per combat), any +1 damage feat that applies to your build there's at least one for each build, any racial feat, they're all pretty good and every race has at least one really nice one. every class has a good feat or two as well.This is a very bad argument.  There are too many interesting feats already.  Give me a build and i'll give you 6-7 great feats that significantly improve it.especially as it's used to deflect from the facts and make straw man argumentskeeping up with the joneses doesn't pertain to not failing to win an encounter and thereby get the party killed.  You ceasely blame the results of your actions on others.  If you fail to make a strong character and you die or get the party killed because you made that choice, you are the one to blame, not the dm.  +1 to hit seems small but even one more hit at the right time can mean the difference between vicotry and death.Once again you're denying the problem is your perception that being suboptimal by a significant amount isn't a trade off that has consequences.  I've never made a 20 stat pc so I'm not arguing for the very high end but I've never made a 15/16 stat pc either. Own your decisions.  If you choose to be suboptimal accept that you are responsible for the result when faced with a high defense monster. I get enjoyment from pretty much all of these to some degree. bingo! every player should get his chances in the limelight.</blockquote>

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