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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hashmalum" data-source="post: 1117171" data-attributes="member: 9450">Riiigggghhhhttttt. Just like how D&D is "obviously" too high-magic of a setting, since we're constantly getting people on the boards trying to tone down the magic. And the ranger is "obviously" lame, because we're constantly getting people doing their own alt.rangers or propounding the virtues of someone else's. It gets very annoying after a while.Can you cite a reliable poll, please? "A lot" I can believe, based on the number of times the topic comes up--but as I pointed out above, that by itself means nothing. "At least 50%" is something else entirely.Acrobatic, Alertness, Agile, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Deceitful, Deft Hands, Diligent, Investigator, Magical Aptitude, Negotiator, Nimble Fingers, Persuasive, Self Sufficient, Skill Focus, Stealthy--When you have 18 ranks in a skill, an extra +2 or 3 is nothing to get excited about. Weapon Focus--at 15th level, compare the +1 to hit to the BAB of +11 or +15, plus the magic weapon enhancement bonus, plus the ability bonus. Diehard--A feat that only works when you are from -1 to -9 hit points isn't going to help when the monsters you are fighting are likely to knock you from positive hp straight to dead. Dodge--It only helps against one foe, and the number of foes you face at once will only increase with level. And it's only +1, which means it gets to scale badly in not less than two seperate ways. Brew Potion--Potions top out at 3rd level spells. And that was without even trying very hard.A well-constructed high-level fighter can deal out dozens of points of damage per round. I can't really see that a total of +8 from Weapon Specialization (4 attacks/round at +2 each) is anything to get all that excited about. The 20th level specialized character is likely to have a weapon with a +5 enhancement bonus versus the +1 that the 4th level character is likely to have; the 4th level character's specialization bonus is twice the power of his magic weapon, whereas the 20th level's weapon is more than twice as powerful as his specialization bonus. That's not even counting bonus damage from qualities like flaming, holy, etc., or taking into account the considerably higher Strength the 20th level character will have, or the vastly improved ability of the 20th level character to plow BAB into damage via Power Attack. Admittedly Weapon Specialization scales better than Toughness, but it too eventually becomes obsolete.Mechanically, all the feats you mentioned scale better with level for a variety of reasons: (1) Improved Initiative modifies initiative, which only increases with level very slowly (not at all, in fact, if you don't invest in Dexterity). (2) As level increases, both save DCs and save bonuses increase, but with a narrower range than attack vs. AC, which tends to keep modifiers relevant longer. (3) Weapon Specialization is unusual in that it gets better as you gain more attacks/full attack action from your BAB, which increases as you increase in level--thus keeping it relevant longer; however, this process stops once you get your 4 attacks/full attack. Even so, given enough levels, the usefulness of any of these feats will scale to zero.</blockquote>

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