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Suzuro
2009-06-30, 12:46 AM
So, I've been looking through the Beta Pathfinder release, and I was curious about a few things.

How do the classes balance out?

Do some of the martial classes still get stiffed? The monk still seems pretty...meh.


-Suzuro

Panda-s1
2009-06-30, 02:48 AM
Well, fighter gets more bonuses to hit and damage as class bonuses as they level up. And a bonus to will saves vs. fear as they level up. The latter is pretty weak, as the max bonus they get is like +4 at 20th level. Other than that, they're still pretty much one-trick-ponies who fall behind the curve.

Rangers get their racist bonuses, but also get bonuses for environment, and rogues get rogue talents allowing them to do different rogue-like tricks.

Monk got hit with a nerf bat, or so they say, which is a shame. It really needed a boost...

Kurald Galain
2009-06-30, 03:44 AM
How do the classes balance out?

It looks like all of the classes are more fun to play now, but they aren't all that much more balanced than they were in 3.0. Then again, fun is much more important than balance, to me.

Nero24200
2009-06-30, 06:07 AM
More interesting? Maybe. More blaanced? Definately not. It's as if when Paizo designed it, they were trying to make so many builds impossible...without actually knowing what those builds were.

Barbarian - Marginately more powerful due to rage powers. But they got nerfed heavily near the end of testing.

Bard - Their current bard can only use bard song so many times, no where near as much as the current. Although being able to maintain songs more easily at high levels is a plus, they also nerfed fair portion of the bard spells. So they're slightly more pwoerful with their music, though they can't last and their spells are worse now.

Cleric - More powerful. They get everything they do in 3.5 and domain powers on top of them.

Druid - Hit with a bit of a nerf bat, but no more so than a shapeshifting druid using the PHB2 varient would be.

Fighter - Contrary to popular belief, is not more powerful. They gave him some better numbers, but thats really it.

Monk - Most of the monks supernatural abilities are based off of Ki points. But well...nothing other than that.

Paladin - Although they're being ambigious about their Smite in the final version, it sounds like it'll last until the opponent is dead or the fight is over. This translates to one of two things to me 1. Smiting will now be overpowering as hell and a "win" button against evil creatures 2. It'll be nerfed heavily, essentially putting the paladin back to square one.

Ranger - It has..favoured terrian. Just about nothing has changed in terms of balance.

Rogue - Again, not much has changed, it's only got more options. In terms of power it's still the same.

Sorcerer - Whilst it might look more powerful at first glance, it's not. Apparently giving the sorcerer things like claws and an at-will blast for somthing like 1D6+5 damage at high levels puts them on par with wizards.

Wizards - More powerful, especially generalist ones who gain bonuses to their spell DC's on top of everything else.

In short, the overpowering classes are still overpowering, underpowered classes are still underpowered. Some classes have more options (or at least the illusion of it, since in my experience it's the same options that are chosen every time) but do little-to-nothing to effect balance.

Eldariel
2009-06-30, 06:23 AM
The major problem with Pathfinder is that the people making it are clueless as to how 3.5 works and don't seem to have spent terribly much time playing the said system. Therefore they don't know what's unfair, what isn't and how to fix it. Instead of boosting melee, they removed the few things worthwhile before and...well, now there's only really lockdown with out-of-core sources that does something.

Without Power Attack & Improved Trip, the only relevant combat options were removed. It's also worth noting that they boned a ****ton of monsters with this new Power Attack, since they have so high Str that they can never hit a thing when Power Attacking, making 50% of MM a cakewalk. And they only fixed Glitterdust & Polymorph-line, leaving Web, Solid Fog, Tentacles, Enervation, Time Stop, Maze, Planar Bindings, Gates, etc. to roam the game. Really, if they just played few games of 3.5 making extensive use of all games and taking impartial notes, they coulda figured the insane stuff out for themselves.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-30, 06:25 AM
More interesting? Maybe. More blaanced? Definately not. It's as if when Paizo designed it, they were trying to make so many builds impossible...without actually knowing what those builds were.

Hm, that's worse than I expected. That's unfortunate. And yes, I've been saying for a long time now that Paizo really tries hard to fix things but really isn't aware of what the problems are that they're trying to fix (the opposite of WOTC, really). I can think of several forumites that should have been recruited by Paizo.

Oslecamo
2009-06-30, 06:46 AM
Hm, that's worse than I expected. That's unfortunate. And yes, I've been saying for a long time now that Paizo really tries hard to fix things but really isn't aware of what the problems are that they're trying to fix (the opposite of WOTC, really). I can think of several forumites that should have been recruited by Paizo.

Or perhaps it's just proof that the "glaring imbalances" people complain so much aren't so glaring as they would like to think.

It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.

WOTC on the other hand took the cheap route by simply throwing out of the window most of the stuff people complained about (save or die, polymorph, summons, mindrape, monsters worcking as PCs, etc, etc), streamlined everything and 4e was born.

Paizo is trying to get balance whitout simply cuting stuff left and right, but they found out that it's much harder than it looks at first glance.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-30, 06:52 AM
It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there.
That's funny considering that 4E was broken days before its actual release :smallsmile:

Mind you, I'm not saying that balance is such a big deal, because it shouldn't be. I am, however, saying that I see no incentive to buy Pathfinder, because whatever they're claiming to fix, isn't, so most of it is just change for the sake of change.

lesser_minion
2009-06-30, 06:56 AM
Or perhaps it's just proof that the "glaring imbalances" people complain so much aren't so glaring as they would like to think.

It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.

WOTC on the other hand took the cheap route by simply throwing out of the window most of the stuff people complained about (save or die, polymorph, summons, mindrape, monsters worcking as PCs, etc, etc), streamlined everything and 4e was born.

Paizo is trying to get balance whitout simply cuting stuff left and right, but they found out that it's much harder than it looks at first glance.

QFT. Many of the deficiencies in 3.x are not actually as glaring as they seem at first glance. Unless you frequent D&D fora, you are unlikely to know about them.

Pathfinder's objective is really to allow the content Paizo has already produced to still be supported. They've decided that turning into "just another games company" is more palatable than contiuing to support D&D.

Fixes are not guaranteed.

At the same time, I think the speed with which some of the problems in 4e came to light may have more to do with the experience of the community in spotting such deficiencies than anything else. Although removing hardness was a somewhat peculiar decision (I'm perfectly happy with bizarre non-Euclidean space, but I like adamantine doors to do something useful like being resistant to forced entry).

Sinfire Titan
2009-06-30, 07:34 AM
Or perhaps it's just proof that the "glaring imbalances" people complain so much aren't so glaring as they would like to think.

It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.

WOTC on the other hand took the cheap route by simply throwing out of the window most of the stuff people complained about (save or die, polymorph, summons, mindrape, monsters worcking as PCs, etc, etc), streamlined everything and 4e was born.

Paizo is trying to get balance whitout simply cuting stuff left and right, but they found out that it's much harder than it looks at first glance.

Or the could, you know, actually listen to CO when CO offers advice? I've seen dozens of CO-savvy posters get flamed off of Paizo/dismissed as Pathfinder Nay-sayers when they tried to point out the obvious problems Pathfinder misses, and the ones it creates (an example would be a thread covering their Cleric fix's healing abilities: When CO tried to tell them that the ability they gave healers was ridiculously weak, the head developer and his horde of followers dismissed it as nonsense).


I can provide thread links for you guys, as I participated (minorly, as I hate the formating and stark whiteness of Paio's website and their posting system requires more effort than I'm willing to put forward) in trying to show them their errors.

Spiryt
2009-06-30, 07:52 AM
Well, Classes are certainly more interesting now. Barbarian can actually choose some abilities as he levels up. :smalltongue:

Tonkarz
2009-06-30, 08:16 AM
It's true that Pathfinder fails to fix the balance issues that exist in the 3.5 rule set... but I'm not sure that was ever their primary goal. Certainly, balance issues aren't mentioned at all when Paizo lists the goals of the Pathfinder rule set in the Beta document. Can they really be faulted for not fixing something that they didn't intend to?

bosssmiley
2009-06-30, 09:01 AM
It's true that Pathfinder fails to fix the balance issues that exist in the 3.5 rule set... but I'm not sure that was ever their primary goal. Certainly, balance issues aren't mentioned at all when Paizo lists the goals of the Pathfinder rule set in the Beta document. Can they really be faulted for not fixing something that they didn't intend to?

Given that Paizo loudly trumpeted their open playtest as giving the fans a chance to help fix the problems thrown up by 3E, I honestly think they can.


Or the could, you know, actually listen to CO when CO offers advice? I've seen dozens of CO-savvy posters get flamed off of Paizo/dismissed as Pathfinder Nay-sayers when they tried to point out the obvious problems Pathfinder misses, and the ones it creates (an example would be a thread covering their Cleric fix's healing abilities: When CO tried to tell them that the ability they gave healers was ridiculously weak, the head developer and his horde of followers dismissed it as nonsense).

I can provide thread links for you guys, as I participated (minorly, as I hate the formating and stark whiteness of Paio's website and their posting system requires more effort than I'm willing to put forward) in trying to show them their errors.

Yep. Watched those threads. Saw people who had the temerity to use maths and stats in connection with game mechanics derided as power gamers, trolls and doubleplusungood badthinkers. As for daring to point out that something Jason was attempting had already been done, and that it hadn't worked first time either... Wow, witch hunt much? :smallannoyed:

The brayherd of mathematically challenged fanboys drowned out any good the open playtest may have been (and that's assuming that the Paizo design staff ever had any sincere intent of using it as more than just an astroturfing device). Hard playtesting? Fault-finding edge cases causing the system to break down? Proper bug-fixing? Sorry, not on Paizo's boards. :smallamused:

On-topic: Last I heard Pathfinder-as-written still supported 3E-style caster fap as a lifestyle choice (although with a rearranged deckchair layout...), and threw the martial classes enough low-value sparkly trinket abilities that the unreflective regard it as a great improvement. It's vaunted improvements and streamlining? Nothing I haven't seen done better in fan work.

(Yes, I am bitter. Just as I am over 4E. I wanted these games to be as good as the preview guff hinted. It's the combination of failure of imagination and reluctance to kill mangy old sacred cows that infuriates.)

Oslecamo
2009-06-30, 09:42 AM
That's funny considering that 4E was broken days before its actual release :smallsmile:


Wich just shows that 4e is much easier to play/breack. Back when 3.0 was released, weapon focus was considered an imba feat for years to come.

Plus it's WOTC fault for making gods as high level commoners so the players can easily defeat them, but that's another story.



Mind you, I'm not saying that balance is such a big deal, because it shouldn't be. I am, however, saying that I see no incentive to buy Pathfinder, because whatever they're claiming to fix, isn't, so most of it is just change for the sake of change.

Well, there are plenty of people out there who like change for the sake of change.

Eldariel
2009-06-30, 09:52 AM
Or perhaps it's just proof that the "glaring imbalances" people complain so much aren't so glaring as they would like to think.

It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.

Actually, all it takes is reading through the PHB and maybe playing a game where you try out all the spells and see how they work. For Polymorph & Planar Binding-line, it also takes reading through the MM. Seeing that D&D 3.5 players are expected read the appropriate sections of the books anyways, all it takes is pretty much knowing how to play the game to know what's busted and what isn't.

Figuring out what's broken in Core really isn't rocket science. Also, figuring out what sucks in Core is likewise not rocket science. Really, it wasn't any Char Ops collaboration that figured out how busted Polymorph or Gate is; those things were known before the Char Ops was really even active. And it doesn't take a genius to tell you that Toughness grows useless fast when the damage taken & HP increases by level, but the bonus of the feat doesn't. All it takes is friggin' reading the PHB.


Paizo is trying to get balance whitout simply cuting stuff left and right, but they found out that it's much harder than it looks at first glance.

What excuse do they have for not listening to people who know what's broken? Last I checked they go "*LALALALALAA* NOT LISTENING!" whenever you tell them there are some balance issues with the spells they should fix.

I'm fairly sure the people over there simply haven't used all the spells in Core in actual games; that's the only real explanation for the rampant ignorance. That said, it's understandable; most people don't bother reading what their spells do and instead just dig up the ones that do damage and pick those.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-30, 10:03 AM
Back when 3.0 was released, weapon focus was considered an imba feat for years to come.


What people said? "ZOMG +5% hit is teh borkenn"?

Oslecamo
2009-06-30, 10:13 AM
Actually, all it takes is reading through the PHB and maybe playing a game where you try out all the spells and see how they work. For Polymorph & Planar Binding-line, it also takes reading through the MM. Seeing that D&D 3.5 players are expected read the appropriate sections of the books anyways, all it takes is pretty much knowing how to play the game to know what's busted and what isn't.


This. I've yet to have a DM who would know even the Core Rules by letter. And that's the DM. In my every RL session players would pick up the PHB when not their turn and then exlaim "Hey this spell/feat is cool!". And not all of them were actually cool.

So no, most people actually don't bother to read the whole book, and those who do many times forget stuff. They just read their class, race, take a quick glance trough the feat session and if a spellcaster a quick glance trough the spell section, and you like pointed it out, spells wich say "damage" stand out from the crowd.

Playing a campaign in wich you try out every spell? Much easier said than done. There's hundreds of them. You can play D&D for years back and forth trough the levels and still not use half of the core spells. And even if you use them you may not immediatily notice the possible combos.

And don't get me started on the MM. The players aren't even suposed to be picking it up in the first place. This is, if you're playing anything but a druid and you're not interested in summons, why would you ever bother to open the MM but to try to metagame?

Kaiyanwang:Weapon focus was considered an auto pick for anyone using a weapon. Some people still pick it.

And if you're starting level 1 as a wizard/sorcerer, then toughness can mean the diference between living to lv3 to get the lv2 spells or making a new character several times and being seriously left behind in exp.

BobVosh
2009-06-30, 10:26 AM
Or perhaps it's just proof that the "glaring imbalances" people complain so much aren't so glaring as they would like to think.

It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.


Wich just shows that 4e is much easier to play/breack. Back when 3.0 was released, weapon focus was considered an imba feat for years to come.

Plus it's WOTC fault for making gods as high level commoners so the players can easily defeat them, but that's another story.

Well, there are plenty of people out there who like change for the sake of change.

I actually think it was with the internet growing. Basically observe lifecycles of various builds: One guy posts a silly strong kobold at level 13 that wins D&D. Then another guy says "we can do this lower level." Now it is a level 1 paladin. Back on dialup days (release of 3-3.5) forums didn't have the numbers. If it wasn't for der infotron it would have been one crazy guy with his kobold.

When 4th ed came out you had swarms of people used to CO work. With a Knowledge: Break the game at +23 it was swift work.

Irreverent Fool
2009-06-30, 10:31 AM
It took an army of fanatic nerds years of worck to find most of them actually. Nerds wich aparently would spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing every monster, feat and spell out there. That's pretty hardcore, and I doubt Paizo would be so cruel as to ask their employees to do so.

They would only need ask their team to hang around on boards such as ours or the many other CO boards for a short period to learn these things.

As for your efforts to disentangle yourself from the 'nerds which apparently...spend 24/7 doing statistics and memorizing', that's a little hostile.

I'll have to admit that over the years I've memorized quite a bit of 3.5 material, but most of the things the community has learned haven't been the results of these creatures to which you refer. The 'broken combos' and such are simply the result of collaboration. Together we may know all the rules but you'll be hard-pressed to find any individual who does.

We come to the boards and share our knowledge and experience with one another. This includes reference tools and anecdotal evidence of massive system failure which only serve to make what we already knew was an unbalanced system even more so.

But yes. It took the army of nerds (and don't you think for an instant that you are not one of us) quite some tome to find all the broken bits. The point is, the Pathfinder team could have drawn on some of that experience quite easily.

I had high hopes for Pathfinder, but it's really not that big of a difference from the PHB. It's not worth the trouble of integrating it into the game in my opinion. You're better off with houserules that are specifically tailored for your group.

Edit: Ninjas! AAUGH!

obnoxious
sig

Oslecamo
2009-06-30, 10:38 AM
(and don't you think for an instant that you are not one of us)

I never denied that I'm one of you, so stop puting words in my mouth. I've fallen a long time ago and now roam the boards trying to save others from this dire fate.

You remember those guys who said too much optimization was evil? They were right. One stops caring about the fluff and starts seeing only numbers. Making characters starts being more fun than actually playing them. You pile up more character ideas that you'll ever have time to play. You waste countless hours on useless discussions on these forums. And you cannot stop.

So yes, Paizo would need to ask their employers to sell their soul to us in order to uncover the darkest secrets, but like I already said that would be too cruel of them. Let them remain in their inoccence and make changes for changes sake, perhaps they'll hit something by luck.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-30, 10:49 AM
Wich just shows that 4e is much easier to play/breack.
Easy to play != easy to break. Try breaking Crazy Eights...


Back when 3.0 was released, weapon focus was considered an imba feat for years to come.
[ citation needed ]

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-30, 10:54 AM
Kaiyanwang:[/B]Weapon focus was considered an auto pick for anyone using a weapon. Some people still pick it.

And if you're starting level 1 as a wizard/sorcerer, then toughness can mean the diference between living to lv3 to get the lv2 spells or making a new character several times and being seriously left behind in exp.

Say, I'm not a big optimizer, and some of of my players took WF even if was not an optimizer. But is quite different from consider it a "must" or a powerful thing.

And yeah, I agree with you, Thoughness can do the difference if you start from lvl 1 (eve if I wouldn't take it anyway). But our examples does not mean that some feat has been designed fairly poorly, at least in the scaling-up standpoint.

IMHO, of course.

Sinfire Titan
2009-06-30, 10:56 AM
You remember those guys who said too much optimization was evil? They were right. One stops caring about the fluff and starts seeing only numbers. Making characters starts being more fun than actually playing them. You pile up more character ideas that you'll ever have time to play. You waste countless hours on useless discussions on these forums. And you cannot stop.

Bull. All it takes is the right flavor, and you actually start caring again. It happened to me twice now, once with the Bo9S and again with Magic of Incarnum. I've an avid optimizer, but I appreciate the flavor of those two books far more than I appreciate the optimization (I even admit that the Incarnate and Totemist are sub-optimal classes for a melee or skill monkey character, but they are enjoyable classes because of their flexibility).

Stormwind Fallacy is correct, Being a good Optimizer does not mean you are a bad RPer, and vice versa. Optimization is two-fold: Character design and mid-encounter tactical warfare. When I RP, I do not think about the numbers, I think about my character. When I build a character, I think solely about economically managing the numbers in ways that provide tactical benefits. I justify it afterwords. Sometimes I let the idea shape my build.

What you are saying is pure Stormwind Fallacy.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-30, 11:10 AM
IMHO, est modus in rebus. I personally think that an amount of optimization not only does not hinder your RP, but helps it (we can say, a well rounded PC could be more RPlayable about, say, his martial knowledge) but I sometimes wonder if people's standard went too far.

I realize that is a tricky question, because frome person to person not only changes the "level of cheese", but even the perception of classes (as a role, as a bunch of mechanics, as something in the middle..).

AstralFire
2009-06-30, 11:12 AM
You know, there was a period of about a year when I really agreed with the sentiment that overoptimization can cause unhappiness.

You know what I really found out? When the mechanics are sufficiently good, that doesn't happen. 'Sufficient' varies from person to person, but for all my optimization, I never ever do anything but straight 20 builds with Swordsage, Wilder (though I generally ask for a change to Psychic Enervation), Psion, Shugenja or Duskblade. I'll at most do a 4-level Fighter dip with Warblade. And with Bard, I always either run it straight or with a 10 level run of the two Bard PrCs in CArc.

You know why? Because I find those classes -fun- mechanically. They have a wide variety of options available to them.

Kyeudo
2009-06-30, 11:37 AM
Pathfinder had some good ideas. I like the Rage points, Ki points, and sorcerer bloodlines. They honestly tried with the Fighter. They just didn't do their research beforehand on the CO boards to figure out where the gaps are in the system. Heck, one read through of LogicNinja's Batman guide could have helped them immensely.

As it is, there are too many moronic fanboys to be head above the crowd. Pathfinder won't be worth anything more than a source of ideas until they learn to tune the fanboys out and listen to their naysayers.

Morty
2009-06-30, 11:49 AM
The one unquestionably good thing about Pathfinder classes is that there's no more dead levels. Every level, you get something new, which even if doesn't make the weak classes stronger is very nice. Casters get it as well, but it's good too - they have some reason not to take some broken PrC as soon as they're able. But that's it, sadly. The Pathfinder classes are nice but in the end, not really different from 3.5 classes.

Suzuro
2009-06-30, 01:08 PM
Well, thank you all for backing up my existing thoughts and boosting my ego even further (O, ye Gods, what have you done?)


-Suzuro

Zeful
2009-06-30, 02:07 PM
It looks like all of the classes are more fun to play now, but they aren't all that much more balanced than they were in 3.0. Then again, fun is much more important than balance, to me.

Except balance between classes is important when hostile NPCs use the same classes, and class system, as the PCs. When the super intelligent enemy wizard removes the group fighter from combat with one spell, then something is obviously wrong with the system.

Panda-s1
2009-06-30, 04:34 PM
Wich just shows that 4e is much easier to play/breack. Back when 3.0 was released, weapon focus was considered an imba feat for years to come.
Oh no, one, count it one build was found to be broken, which hinged on a single daily power, and that power was errated within a week of release. Given how quickly that was created, any other broken builds probably would've shown up by now, but they haven't.

Plus it's WOTC fault for making gods as high level commoners so the players can easily defeat them, but that's another story.
Er, what exactly do you mean by this?

Well, there are plenty of people out there who like change for the sake of change.
Yeah, and as a 4E convert, I'm proud to say I'm not one of them.

Gerbah
2009-06-30, 07:19 PM
We just converted our campaign to test out Pathfinder, and I'll say that, regardless of whether or not everything got "super balanced", it's more fun. Favored Classes actually mean something, since we always glossed over the "lose some EXP while multiclassing" nonsense anyways. Monks actually did receive something, it may or may not be much but it was interesting: A feat tree that slows to 5 ft and dazes the target, then gives the Monk an extra 2 attacks on them, which stacks with Flurry of blows (which can be given an extra attack by spending ki points now, resulting in a lot of attacks). Every class gains something at each level (which can be spells for casters), which is nice. Yeah, there is still the issue that standard attacks for melee characters are no good, plus solid fog wasn't changed. But, polymorph is tweaked, force cage allows a save (and doesn't last for hours like it did) and, well it just seems funner. Being able to play a fighter who can actually put points into perception (spot, listen and search rolled together) is nice.

It's worth a look, but I'm using the beta rules (obviously), so things will get changed a bit more. I'm sure that many people have already pointed out some of the balance issues already, I just kinda hope they don't ignore them. Still, even then it'll just take a bit of effort from the DM to make things reasonable.

Starbuck_II
2009-06-30, 07:38 PM
Yes, the Favored class rule doesn't penalize anymore. his was smart.

I Mean, who made Elves wizard with a Con penalty?

Drow make sense (I can't trust he will heal me so I better take Cleric). But not standard elves.

Pathfinder said: be like stereotypical and now you get a bonus!

Wait, Fighters aren't blind/deaf anymore? I missed that.

Colmarr
2009-06-30, 07:43 PM
The one unquestionably good thing about Pathfinder classes is that there's no more dead levels.

I personally find the idea of "dead levels" interesting and amusing. Why?

Because in my experience a player's expectation adjusts to make the lowest gain a "dead level", regardless of how good those gains actually are.

In my current 4e campaign, we loved hitting levels 2 and 3 because we got new powers. When the time came to hit level 4, my first thought was "Oh, only a feat and some ability adjustments this level"...