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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ObsidianCrane" data-source="post: 4710278" data-attributes="member: 54918">So I go look up the Dragonborn Paladin (the level 25 Elite Soldier).I read the powers and defences and I shrug.I have a level 22 Sorcerer stated out, her primary attack is against Ref and is in blasts and bursts, so she will be including the Paladin in her attacks. At level 22 she has a +23 base attack without Implement Expertise (the implement version of expertise) and +24 with fire attacks, +25 if she used an at will last round. So she needs 9-11 to hit the guy with most of her attacks without any special conditions being imposed by another PC.If she is hanging out with a Chaladin with a 24 Charisma then the Chaladin without feats has a better Divine Challenge than the Death Knight - -2 attack, and does 16 damage if you don't attack the Chaladin, and the Death Knight will take 31 damage if it ignores the mark... guess who the Death Knight will be attacking... The Chaladin at that level also has access to Corona of Radiant Brilliance, Hand of the Gods, Break the Wall (useable if someone else buff's the Paladin's attacks) and whatever else it can do.Chuck a laser cleric in there with Firestorm (and why wouldn't you have it if you are a laser cleric?), any of the level 13 or 15 Encounters for a Wisdom Cleric.. if they are a Radiant Servant then the Death Knight and his undead budies are in for a world of pain. (And that doesn't even have to be optimised for the undead as its a good PP for laser Clerics anyway.)Anyway the point is that "good encounter design" means more than looking at what the DMG says should be in an encounter. It means looking at what the party can do and choosing monsters accordingly.Further working out if encoutners are to hard or whatever also means looking at more than "Character A vs Monster B" and seeing who will win. It means looking at the interaction of a whole party with the whole encounter and figuring out what will happen. In short game play suggests that raw maths comparison is simply not enough.What does this have to do with the Expertise feats: it comes back to the fact that they feats are indeed really good. Definately in the top 6 mechanical feats in the game right now. But the straight, and simple math comparisons that people are using to argue that these feats are "must haves" etc are not absolutes. They are arguments based on limiting the view of the game without consideration for the effects of play.I really hope WotC didn't add these feats because people complained that the "Math" didn't work when their comparisons are often based on either extreme situations, or overly simplified situations. (I mean put a Fighter and a Warlord in the Paladin and Cleric places and the Death Knight is far more dangerous for example, but other combinations its not such an issue (eg Bard or Shaman and Warlord). )I don't like the feats for what they do in terms of the fact that they seem to be against WotC's claims about what they wanted feat design in 4E to be about: mainly not about widening the gap between combat optimised and non-combat optimised characters. But that said I'm also not of the opinion that they are as necassary as people want to say.</blockquote>

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