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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Estlor" data-source="post: 5573552" data-attributes="member: 7261">Whoever it was that commented on power creep, I absolutely agree that this is the hidden cost of math fix feats.  The Expertise feats are so good that you run the risk of this becoming the new baseline of a balanced feat.  Suddenly the whole system starts falling apart because you've got, "Learn a new language" sharing the same design space as, "Become proficient in thermo-nuclear bombs.  Once per encounter, you can drop a nuke."For what its worth, the party of 5 PCs I DM for currently has a 3/5ths rate of Expertise feat selection at 4th level.  It was, without a doubt, the most popular 4th level feat choice.  (The two who didn't take expertise were a brawler fighter that took Improved Grab and an artificer who took Crossbow Caster.)Rounding up some miscellaneous comments:Speaking from both sides of the argument, yes, the player does make the active choice to stress mechanics over flavor.  But the decision often isn't, "Do I want an attack bonus with my sword, or do I want to be able to be able to throw my breath weapon," it's, "Am I going to have more fun hitting 50% of the time, or 35% of the time?"  So, in a roundabout way, no, WotC didn't give the player a choice because they built a system around the idea of being able to hit half the time at any given point in your PC's career, but then failed to actually make the math work.  Of course, the kicker that makes things nice and muddy is the fact you have to roll a die before you can hit or miss something, and dice never give you the even distribution of results statistical modeling requires them to in order to develop probability models.  (One of the players I DM for went an entire night where they never rolled above a 9.  The next week, their newly 4th level PC showed up with Orb Expertise.  Go figure?)Of course it is.  However, there is a basic assumption made by 4e when the PHB was released.  A PC, by virtue of being a PC, has already invested the time and effort necessary to learn the ins and outs of their weapon/implement to the point where they are exceptionally skilled with it.  It's called being proficient.  For those who go above and beyond to become true masters of the weapon, you've got Hammer Rhythm, Heavy Blade Opportunity, Deadly Axe and the like.  And for the pinnacle of weapon masters, the the Mastery epic feats that expand your crit range.  What do all of these things have in common?  They give you a neat mechanical benefit without being "mandatory."Now before I'm labeled as a supporter of the "feat tax" camp (maybe it's too late for that), let me say that I feel very differently about the PHB2 expertise feats and the Essentials expertise feats.  The former are an uninteresting math fix hanging around taking up space in my PC's list of feats.  The latter, while still motivated by a math fix, at least give me something interesting, be it an extra push, a bonus on OA, or more damage when I use a weapon in the most appropriate way.  That said, I think it would have been better to give PCs a flat +1 to hit at 11th and again at 21st level and make the expertise feats just provide the extra kicker.  Personally, I'd like to ban Improved Defenses/Paragon Defenses/etc and just leave the PHB1 NAD feats and the Superior suite in the game as they do more than just fix the math.</blockquote>

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