Which feats are "taxes"?

[Nifft]

This is an important point that seems to get ignored by those claiming it's a "feat tax". There the debate revolves around the minimum of +2, many observe it's not necessary until it's a +3. Were it an Epic Expertise feat would it be more palatable? As it's set up now, you can take the feat earlier and it has a scaling benefit. The debate over powers scaling is long and "loud", yet here's something that actually scales properly to make it useful all along.

No. It's necessary at +1. It's obviously necessary at +2. It's overwhelmingly obviously necessary at +3.

The debate centers around +2 because that's where the difference becomes so obvious, even those who are bad at math can't ignore it.

But really, the +1 was important all along.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Herschel]

Math does not work that way.

If Expertise has to scale to remain useful, then that's proof positive that its a math fix, or broken. Objective, incontrovertible, definitive proof.
...
Attack bonuses don't work that way. As long as your underlying math is scaled properly, an optional bonus should never, ever scale with level.....

So are you saying the scaling of the feat is the issue and not the feat itself, per se? That's what it sounds like, in a sense. If there were an Epic Expertise Feat that gave a static +3 without the lower tier expertise feats, would that be better? And is it really a math "fix" when there are so many more, bigger and badder status effects at Epic? You may hit slightly less often, but when you do, your boosted famage or nasty status effects make up the difference.

 

[Herschel]

No. It's necessary at +1. It's obviously necessary at +2. It's overwhelmingly obviously necessary at +3.

The debate centers around +2 because that's where the difference becomes so obvious, even those who are bad at math can't ignore it.

But really, the +1 was important all along.

Cheers, -- N

But it's not necessary at +1 even to many saying it later is, mid-paragon is where the debate really seems to kick in.

 

[AllisterH]

No. It's necessary at +1. It's obviously necessary at +2. It's overwhelmingly obviously necessary at +3.

The debate centers around +2 because that's where the difference becomes so obvious, even those who are bad at math can't ignore it.

But really, the +1 was important all along.

Cheers, -- N

Necessary to me means that without it, you will be ineffective.

At +1, how is it necessary?

In an encounter with 20 attack rolls, again, it doesn't even net you a full attack.

At epic, certainly it is better as you get for sure one extra attack, but at heroic?

You keep using the word math but the math only says that you get half an attack at the heroic level.

 

[keterys]

At +1 it's a small enough change to the character that you can go 'Well, I know I'm harming my character by taking this instead of <this other feat>, but I want that other feat more <cause it's funny / entertaining / I'm too cool for math>, so I can accept that I'll be just that little bit worse'

But, please, just talk about +2. It's a lot healthier of a discussion.

Aside: I was at a table recently comparing someone's character to another one I know, and it made me a little sad. One of them knew the math, how to work things, and the other didn't. And that other one was behind by +2 attack and +3 damage. And it definitely showed, all night. The thing that made me extra sad was I couldn't even tell what the other guy took instead during that night of play, cause whatever it was didn't come up.

Anyone else remember when feats were going to be good ways to change the flavor of characters, but there'd be no real difference between the power of characters based on what they took?

 

[Nifft]

But it's not necessary at +1 even to many saying it later is, mid-paragon is where the debate really seems to kick in.

I did actually explain this. +2 is where the necessity becomes obvious to everyone.

Necessary to me means that without it, you will be ineffective.

At +1, how is it necessary?

Well, by induction: the +2 is just +1 on top of the (to you) unnecessary +1.

If +1 is not necessary, then +1 is not necessary. Take that +1 away, and the +2 becomes just another +1. Which you've already declared is unnecessary.

Your logic leads to an absurd conclusion.

- - -

Non-inductive, statistical demonstration: Every +1 to attack is +5% expected damage per attack. As your attacks scale up in total damage, this grows significant. Where it starts to matter is where +5% damage -- over every round of a combat -- would have killed a dude who turns around and instead kills you.

The tipping point of where Expertise becomes better than any other feat out there is where you expect to be dealing an average of 10 or more damage per round with attacks -- including daily and encounter attacks.

And that's ignoring the power of status effects which only happen on a hit.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cadfan]

So are you saying the scaling of the feat is the issue and not the feat itself, per se? That's what it sounds like, in a sense. If there were an Epic Expertise Feat that gave a static +3 without the lower tier expertise feats, would that be better? And is it really a math "fix" when there are so many more, bigger and badder status effects at Epic? You may hit slightly less often, but when you do, your boosted famage or nasty status effects make up the difference.

Not exactly. The scaling is what suggests, very strongly, that this is a math fix. If Expertise didn't scale, then it wouldn't be a math fix, but it would still be an always applicable bonus to accuracy, and it would still be so good that not taking it would be kind of silly.

As for boosted damage or nasty status effects making up the difference even at epic level with Expertise at +3... I doubt it. I'd be really surprised if you could show me more than one or two feats in the entire game that are better than a +3 to hit that applies to all of your attacks. +3 to hit is really, really big.

 

[Dausuul]

Regarding the "necessity" of Expertise:

You can in fact do fine without it in heroic tier. +1 to hit is quite good, and almost all of my characters will pick it up at some point before paragon, but it's not crucial; heroic-tier characters seldom have trouble hitting the monsters, and there are quite a few other feats to grab that are of arguably similar value. (Not many give you as much straight-up combat performance as Expertise, but combat isn't everything.)

It's paragon tier that takes it from "strong feat pick" to "feat tax" IMO. That's the point at which monster defenses are starting to outpace PC attack bonuses, which increases the impact of every +1 to hit. Not coincidentally, it's also the point at which Expertise jumps to granting +2. Starting at 15th level, you will see a major difference between a character with Expertise and one without.

(Think about it for a sec. Action Surge is widely acknowledged as an awesome feat and a big reason to play a human. It gives you +3 to hit... on one attack, every other encounter. Expertise is giving you +2 to hit on every attack. That should put things in perspective.)

At epic tier, when the bonus goes to +3, Expertise stops being a feat tax and becomes feat confiscation. The feat government is going into your feat bank account and taking your feats without even a pretense of letting you file exemptions or deductions. If you try to stop them, they send epic-level monsters to break your kneecaps.

 

[Minigiant]

I still don't see the problem.

Hitting in the heroic tier is insanely easy. You can hit soldiers with 9 at level 10 without much work. Also most build have a feat that is more important tha +1 attack/+5% damage. You'll have at least 6 feats before you even need it. I wish my taxes were less than 17%.

Again most builds will have more important feats. Rogue will take Backstabber way before Dagger Expertise, I don't see rogue screaming about that feat tax. My warlock/paladin had a couple of feat he wanted before thinking about this feat. I was grasping for feats before I even needed this one.

Also my belief is that the higher you go, the less likely you fight something your level. Squads of strong but wimpier enemies or a pair of overpowering beast. At those leves you'll be relying of powerful buffs and debuffs more often for accuracy.

Yes, it's a feat tax.
Yes, it's boring.
No; unless you have a long list of feats you really want, Expertise will end up in a higher tier feat slot you never cared or planned for. If you aren't optimizing, you won't need to pick it until you almost ran out of feat you cared about

Personally I made it just +2 and a paragon tier feat but really didn't need to.

 

[Dausuul]

I still don't see the problem.

Hitting in the heroic tier is insanely easy. You can hit soldiers with 9 at level 10 without much work. Also most build have a feat that is more important tha +1 attack/+5% damage.

+1 to attack is more than +5% damage. If you need a 9 or better to hit, then it's +8.3% damage. If you need 11 or better, it's +10%. If you're fighting a higher-level soldier or solo monster and need a 13 or better, it's +12.5%.

As to your other points, I agree that one tends to run out of exciting/interesting feats by Paragon or so (which is a problem in itself), but the real problem with feat taxes is that players who don't grok the math are likely to end up with gimped characters because they don't realize that Expertise is a necessary fix.

As for fighting "squads of wimpier enemies" as you reach epic tier... I don't really see it. I would expect the distribution to be pretty much the same. In any case, that's a matter for individual DMs and the math should not make such assumptions.