PDA

View Full Version : [4e] Feat Tax and Why It Harms the System



Adslahnit
2010-01-11, 07:50 AM
I am here today to enlighten you all on what I consider to be the most reprehensible issue currently plaguing Dungeons & Dragons 4e: feat tax. It is certainly not the greatest problem of the system, but the reasons why it exists and how WotC has chosen to voluntarily ignore it are certainly aggravating. Now, every game comes with its errors, and as much as Wizards of the Coast had taken care to fine-tune the math of the game, there were certain oversights that were not caught by the time the Player's Handbook had shipped out. For example, one of the three paladin builds, the Strength/Wisdom paladin, could not use the Divine Challenge class feature with any efficacy due to it being Charisma-based. WotC had recognized this error soon after it was pointed out by many a player. Their solution? They had introduced the Mighty Challenge heroic feat in Divine Power, a supplement that was released more than an entire year after the Player's Handbook, to grant a paladin the luxury of adding her Strength modifier to her Divine Challenge damage.

You see, WotC is absolutely spineless when it comes to addressing issues like these. When a certain aspect of the game causes inherent underpoweredness for certain characters, they choose not to use their errata/updates to patch the problem, for that would be an admittance of their failure. No, instead, they release tax feats, hoping that the players simple-mindedly look over them and believe "Oh, that would be a wonderful feat for my character!" instead of recognizing them as the ham-handed amendments to fundamental issues that they are. Feats should be optional upgrades, not mandatory patches. What makes these feat taxes even worse is that they are flawed themselves; Mighty Challenge, for example, does not affect Divine Sanction at all, and so a Strength/Wisdom paladin cannot make good use of any powers that impose a Divine Sanction. Let us look over the major feat taxes currently present in the system, shall we now?

Problem #1: At approximately levels 5, 15, and 25, the attack bonuses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster defenses, thereby causing a deterioration of player character hit probabilities as the levels rise.
Solution: Introduce the Implement Expertise and Weapon Expertise heroic feats in the Player's Handbook 2, and later, the Focused Expertise feat in Dragon Magazine #375.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, characters are strongly discouraged from ever using an implement or weapon not covered by the respective tax feat, and characters who use two different types of weapons or implements (such as a paladin with both a magic weapon and a holy symbol) are unfairly forced to take two iterations of these tax feats.

Problem #2: At approximately levels 16 and 26, the Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster attack bonuses, thereby causing an increase in monster hit probabilities against these three defenses as the levels rise. This is due to masterwork armor granting an overall +1 bonus to AC at level 16 and then another +1 AC at level 26, but failing to commensurately increase Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.
Solution: Introduce the Paragon Defenses paragon feat and the Robust Defenses epic feat in the Player's Handbook 2.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers.

Problem #3: Ardents, avengers, artificers, bards, monks, non-Brutal Scoundrel rogues, Wisdom/Charisma paladins who do not have Virtuous Strike, and swordmages cannot use melee basic attacks with any efficacy, thereby denying them the ability to perform charge attacks or opportunity attacks (thus allowing monsters to move around them with little fear of being damaged in exchanged) and use the attacks granted to them by various leader powers.
Solution: Introduce the Intelligent Blademaster heroic feat in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the Melee Training heroic feat in the Player's Handbook 2.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers.

Problem #4: Strength/Wisdom paladins cannot effectively use their Divine Challenge class feature, as it is Charisma-based.
Solution: Introduce the Mighty Challenge heroic feat in Divine Power.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, Mighty Challenge is not compatible with Divine Sanction powers, thereby arbitrarily denying Strength/Wisdom paladins the ability to efficiently use such powers.

Problem #5: The avenger is the worst striker class in the entirety of the system.
Solution: Introduce the Painful Oath paragon feat in Dragon Magazine #382.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, heroic-tier avengers cannot benefit from this feat in any way.

Problem #6: Even with the Barbarian Agility class feature, a barbarian is forced to invest in proficiency with heavy armor in order to acquire a non-abysmal AC defense.
Solution: Introduce the Hide Armor Expertise heroic feat in Primal Power.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversightof the game designers. Also, Strength/Constitution barbarians are inadvertently granted defender-level AC and hit points due to the benefit of the feat stacking with Barbarian Agility, rendering them obscenely durable strikers. Strength/Charisma barbarians cannot make use of this feat at all, and are arbitrarily relegated to taking feats for heavy armor proficiencies that shall never put their AC on par with that of a Strength/Constitution barbarian.

Again, feats should be optional luxuries rather than compulsory patches, and WotC willfully, surreptitiously refusing to repair the mechanical errors that these tax feats solve through their errata/updates in a feeble attempt to save face reeks of unprofessionalism. What is stopping Wizards from biting the bullet and directly correcting their game rather than beating around the bush and forcing taxes to follow their players even into D&D?

Kurald Galain
2010-01-11, 08:01 AM
Problem #1: At approximately levels 5, 15, and 25, the attack bonuses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster defenses, thereby causing a deterioration of player character hit probabilities as the levels rise.
I am not convinced that this was actually a problem. In general, higher-level player characters compensate for this through superior tactics, teamwork, synergy, and Leader assistance. That said, those feats got printed, and they are so obscenely good for every character that yes, this is an obvious feat tax. One of the most common houserules for 4E appears to be to give them for free.


Problem #2: At approximately levels 16 and 26, the Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster attack bonuses,
I do not consider Paragon Defenses and Robust Defenses to be a feat tax. They're decent feats, sure, but given what paragon and epic feats can do I'd rather take something else. After all, the best defense is a good offense.



Problem #3: Ardents, avengers, artificers, bards, monks, non-Brutal Scoundrel rogues, Wisdom/Charisma paladins who do not have Virtuous Strike, and swordmages cannot use melee basic attacks with any efficacy,
For most characters on this list I do not consider that to be a problem. If you're not a defender, then opportunity attacks aren't your primary concern. Indeed, even if you are a defender, I find that OAs are a rarity on both sides of the game table. So Melee Training is far from a feat tax, in that my striker or leader characters simply don't care about OAs.



Problem #4: Strength/Wisdom paladins cannot effectively use their Divine Challenge class feature, as it is Charisma-based.
Paladins as printed in the PHB have worse problems than this. Their primary feat tax would be that vulnerability-to-radiant Channel Divinity.



Problem #6: Even with the Barbarian Agility class feature, a barbarian is forced to invest in proficiency with heavy armor in order to acquire a non-abysmal AC defense.
Low armor class appears to be a class feature of barbarians. I'm not at all convinced this needed fixing. That said, the feat appears to cause more problems than it fixes.

Overall, I agree with you that there is a problem here, but I strongly disagree as to the magnitude of this problem; I think it is mostly limited to the Expertise feats.

Kesnit
2010-01-11, 08:03 AM
So how would you fix it? Throwing out a rant without a solution does nothing. If you are going to complain, the least you can do is provide a solution that others can critique.

Sinon
2010-01-11, 08:11 AM
Problem #1: At approximately levels 5, 15, and 25, the attack bonuses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster defenses, thereby causing a deterioration of player character hit probabilities as the levels rise.Or, to rephrase this, at increasingly higher levels, the game gets harder.


Problem #2: At approximately levels 16 and 26, the Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster attack bonuses, thereby causing an increase in monster hit probabilities against these three defenses as the levels rise. This is due to masterwork armor granting an overall +1 bonus to AC at level 16 and then another +1 AC at level 26, but failing to commensurately increase Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.Higher levels harder.

Runestar
2010-01-11, 08:12 AM
Problem #6: Even with the Barbarian Agility class feature, a barbarian is forced to invest in proficiency with heavy armor in order to acquire a non-abysmal AC defense.
Solution: Introduce the Hide Armor Expertise heroic feat in Primal Power.

I feel that hide expertise was designed to give barb players an incentive to stay in hide armour, which was more thematically appropriate (compared to the idea of a fullplate-wearing barb at any rate).

I suspect the designers had originally intended to have barbs suffer from poor AC (which would in turn by compensated by high hp and lots of surges), but realized there was nothing stopping players from simply wearing heavier armour. So they decided that if barbs are going to have a good AC anyways, might as well make it hide rather than metal armour. :smallsmile:

They still suffer from having 2 poor defenses (since str/con overlap), while other classes typically only have 1 poor defense. Agility only barely makes up for what will likely be a low dex score, to the extent that your reflex defense will likely still be auto-hit at higher lvs.

I believe this is one feature which is better off as a feat rather than a class feature.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-11, 08:13 AM
So how would you fix it? Throwing out a rant without a solution does nothing. If you are going to complain, the least you can do is provide a solution that others can critique.

My solution would be to restrict Hide Expertise to wardens, and to give Expertise for free at level 5. I do not consider the other points that the OP mentions problematic enough to warrant a houserule.

Mushroom Ninja
2010-01-11, 08:20 AM
As annoying as feat taxes in 4e may be, they're nowhere near as devastating as the taxes on some builds in 3.5 (I'm looking at you, Weapon finesse and TWF line).

Boci
2010-01-11, 08:24 AM
As annoying as feat taxes in 4e may be, they're nowhere near as devastating as the taxes on some builds in 3.5 (I'm looking at you, Weapon finesse and TWF line).

TWF was annoying, but weapon finesse could be taken care of by the fey craft template on your weapon. Its found in the DMG II.

Leolo
2010-01-11, 08:28 AM
I do believe that expertise feats are a feat tax in some way.

But, to judge it right: It is a feat tax because it is about one of the best 20 feats. Later in the game one of the best 10, maybe. And depending on your character it is better or worse, but better in the most cases.

Nevertheless, if you are creating a low level character it is not unlikely that you neither have it nor need it.

Obviously you will take it at some point of your carreer, because it is good. But if i would say: "Most adventurers spezialize at one thing during their carreer" this is no very risky bet.

The increasing difference between the players attacks and the monsters defenses is (from my point of view) simple a way to balance increasing leader boni, better ways to get combat advantage and better options to target weak defenses or bring up status effects.

Meek
2010-01-11, 10:44 AM
My solution would be to restrict Hide Expertise to wardens, and to give Expertise for free at level 5. I do not consider the other points that the OP mentions problematic enough to warrant a houserule.

I agree. Defenses seem a rather minor point, especially for the Barbarian. Expertise is really the only feat problem I have with the game.

I guess if you feel pressed, you could offer an additional bonus feat to each player, and have them invest that in their class fixes. But it's not like it's difficult or impossible to reconfigure your build around getting Painful Oath or something.

Break
2010-01-11, 10:56 AM
So how would you fix it? Throwing out a rant without a solution does nothing. If you are going to complain, the least you can do is provide a solution that others can critique.

Seriously?

It's silly to suggest that his rant does nothing, considering that it identifies the problems to begin with. Criticisms without proposed solutions are still quite valid.

Tavar
2010-01-11, 10:58 AM
Plus, the fix seems self explanatory: incorporate the bonuses into the class itself, and fix some of the oversights(like the Paladin Divine Sanction thing).

Nerd-o-rama
2010-01-11, 11:15 AM
I haven't played enough high-level 4e to judge #2, or played with any Avengers to jusdge #5.

#3 and #6, though, I'd call extremely minor issues. Melee Basic Attacks just aren't that important except for (some) Defenders. If you plan to make use of them but don't have the Str, that's when you incorporate melee training. For example, Assault Swordmages need melee basic attacks, so 90% of them are built on Int/Str. Shielding Swordmages don't, so 90% of them are Int/Con. If you decide to make an Int/Con Assault Smage, that's when you need Intelligent Blademaster. It's not a must-have feat, it just makes more different builds viable.

And as far as I can tell, Barbarians' low AC is an intended design feature.

#4: PHB Paladins were just plain pretty terrible. Frankly, I'm willing to pay for a new book to overhaul an entire class, as long as it has other stuff in it.

#1 I'll kinda agree with you on because even if your reasoning isn't true, Weapon Expertise and especially Focused Expertise are so good no one will ever not take them anyway, which makes them badly designed feats.


And of course, all your complaints have existed in pretty much every game system forever, simply because it's easier and more lucrative to print new sourcebooks than to edit your old ones. It also looks less damning to your game design skills than releasing errata half the size of your core book.

Leolo
2010-01-11, 11:32 AM
#1 I'll kinda agree with you on because even if your reasoning isn't true, Weapon Expertise and especially Focused Expertise are so good no one will ever not take them anyway, which makes them badly designed feats.


Of course it leaves the question open if it is still a feat tax when you have many feats every character could reasonable take instead. And that are not less helpfull. It is a question of definition. What is a feat tax? A feat that everyone must have as fast as possible? Or only a feat that everyone wants to have someday?

In fact until lvl 15 there are many better feats. Multiclassing for example. The point why nobody complains that multiclassing is a feat tax is only:

It was in phb1, and is no additional option.

You could also argue that improved initiative is better than weapon expertise, because it grants you an additional attack in many encounters while weapon expertise grants only a 5% higher chance to hit. Or that ritual caster provides a whole new world of options.

There are many choices that are better than weapon expertise until the late paragon levels.

You just have enough feats that you likely will take it at some time because the feats are good for anyone.

Artanis
2010-01-11, 11:38 AM
The increasing difference between the players attacks and the monsters defenses is (from my point of view) simple a way to balance increasing leader boni, better ways to get combat advantage and better options to target weak defenses or bring up status effects.

Pretty much, yeah. One way or the other, the various PC tricks and the discrepancy between inherent advancement largely (but not entirely) balance each other out.

Most of the difference between PC advancement and monster advancement is covered by magic items and stat boosts. There really isn't that much left to cover, and there's an awful lot to cover it with. My guess is that WotC decided that they had overestimated how much effect those extra PC tricks help.

Boci
2010-01-11, 11:39 AM
Seriously?

It's silly to suggest that his rant does nothing, considering that it identifies the problems to begin with. Criticisms without proposed solutions are still quite valid.

And ironically enough, Kesnit criticism of the critism didn't help at all. I'd be more than happy to turn these feats into class features if I were a DM.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-11, 11:52 AM
In fact until lvl 15 there are many better feats.
It is common for 4E players to overestimate the value of +1 to hit, yes. However, +2 to hit for a feat is such an obvious benefit that every character that doesn't have it can easily be improved by adding it. Pretty much the Black Lotus of feats, really.


Multiclassing for example. The point why nobody complains that multiclassing is a feat tax is only:
No, the reason why multiclassing simply isn't a feat tax, is because it isn't a feat but a group of feats.



You could also argue that improved initiative is better than weapon expertise, because it grants you an additional attack in many encounters while weapon expertise grants only a 5% higher chance to hit. Or that ritual caster provides a whole new world of options.
These are pretty bad examples, though. Imp init doesn't do what you claim it does, and ritual caster is bottom tier. Better examples would be Enlarge Spell, or Polearm Momentum, or Sacrifice to Caiphon.

Essentially, any feat that gives you extra options (such as the three above) has the potential of being better than any feat that gives a flat bonus. This was true in 3E and it's still true now. Whether the feat lives up to that potential depends on (1) how often the option comes up, and (2) whether the option does something useful.

Leolo
2010-01-11, 12:03 PM
Pretty much, yeah. One way or the other, the various PC tricks and the discrepancy between inherent advancement largely (but not entirely) balance each other out.

Most of the difference between PC advancement and monster advancement is covered by magic items and stat boosts. There really isn't that much left to cover, and there's an awful lot to cover it with. My guess is that WotC decided that they had overestimated how much effect those extra PC tricks help.

you could also argue, that (at least additional to balance something) they simple wants options to specialize on a weapon. In fact there is not only one reason why there is a feat that let you hit more often with your favored weapon

Tequila Sunrise
2010-01-11, 12:09 PM
You see, WotC is absolutely spineless when it comes to addressing issues like these. When a certain aspect of the game causes inherent underpoweredness for certain characters, they choose not to use their errata/updates to patch the problem, for that would be an admittance of their failure. No, instead, they release tax feats, hoping that the players simple-mindedly look over them and believe "Oh, that would be a wonderful feat for my character!" instead of recognizing them as the ham-handed amendments to fundamental issues that they are. Feats should be optional upgrades, not mandatory patches.
Agreed. I've compiled a few House Rules (http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B13rBX1CAB0XNTEwNjliYWYtY2MwOC00MGM0LTk1M TctNDgxNjBiMjNkODVj&hl=en) and written a Solution (http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B13rBX1CAB0XYmU0MzI3OTUtNjRkMi00NTY0LTg5N TgtYjhkMTQ1ZjllMWI1&hl=en) to make the game run a bit smoother. Can't depend on a corporation to do everything. :smallwink:



Problem #1: At approximately levels 5, 15, and 25, the attack bonuses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster defenses, thereby causing a deterioration of player character hit probabilities as the levels rise.
Solution: Introduce the Implement Expertise and Weapon Expertise heroic feats in the Player's Handbook 2, and later, the Focused Expertise feat in Dragon Magazine #375.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, characters are strongly discouraged from ever using an implement or weapon not covered by the respective tax feat, and characters who use two different types of weapons or implements (such as a paladin with both a magic weapon and a holy symbol) are unfairly forced to take two iterations of these tax feats.
If you do the math, you'll see that PCs lose 4 attack bonuses -- not 3 -- which makes Expertise sad even as a feat tax math fix.



Problem #2: At approximately levels 16 and 26, the Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses of player characters gradually begin to be unable to keep up with monster attack bonuses, thereby causing an increase in monster hit probabilities against these three defenses as the levels rise. This is due to masterwork armor granting an overall +1 bonus to AC at level 16 and then another +1 AC at level 26, but failing to commensurately increase Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.
Solution: Introduce the Paragon Defenses paragon feat and the Robust Defenses epic feat in the Player's Handbook 2.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers.
Again, I'll comment on the math: PCs lose 2 points total from AC and 4 points from NADs. (And 8 points from low NADs.)



Problem #4: Strength/Wisdom paladins cannot effectively use their Divine Challenge class feature, as it is Charisma-based.
Solution: Introduce the Mighty Challenge heroic feat in Divine Power.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, Mighty Challenge is not compatible with Divine Sanction powers, thereby arbitrarily denying Strength/Wisdom paladins the ability to efficiently use such powers.
Hm, that Mighty Challenge sucks as a math fix, if that's what it's supposed to be. Seeing as how it does extra damage rather than just replacing a stat with another stat. I haven't done anything about this issue [yet], 'cause it's only a damage issue rather than an attack or defenses problem.



Problem #5: The avenger is the worst striker class in the entirety of the system.
Solution: Introduce the Painful Oath paragon feat in Dragon Magazine #382.
Problem with the Solution: Pointlessly fills up a feat slot that could have been spent on something other than patching an issue caused by an oversight of the game designers. Also, heroic-tier avengers cannot benefit from this feat in any way.
What does Painful Oath do? I have a player who absolutely loves avengers, but I don't know much about them.

Break
2010-01-11, 12:35 PM
Agreed. I've compiled a few
What does Painful Oath do? I have a player who absolutely loves avengers, but I don't know much about them.

Once per round, you deal additional radiant and necrotic damage to your Oath of Enmity target equal to your Wisdom modifier. It's a free damage spike that works with radiantbombing, and avengers would be mad not to have it, especially considering how weak they are as is.

Kesnit
2010-01-11, 12:37 PM
Seriously?

It's silly to suggest that his rant does nothing, considering that it identifies the problems to begin with. Criticisms without proposed solutions are still quite valid.

Yes, seriously. All the OP did was whine because he found cases where he thinks - purely based on writing and not playtesting - that certain classes HAVE to take certain feats, and that the many feat slots available are not sufficient for a player to take the feats they want because of the perceived feat-tax.

As others have pointed out, several of the detriments the OP mentioned can be overcome by other classes class abilities, are intended, or are minor.

CasESenSITItiVE
2010-01-11, 01:05 PM
Yes, seriously. All the OP did was whine because he found cases where he thinks - purely based on writing and not playtesting - that certain classes HAVE to take certain feats, and that the many feat slots available are not sufficient for a player to take the feats they want because of the perceived feat-tax.

As others have pointed out, several of the detriments the OP mentioned can be overcome by other classes class abilities, are intended, or are minor.

i'm not entirely sure you get break's point. He's (she's?) not necessarily saying the criticism itself is valid, rather that the statement that criticisms need to propose solutions with them is ridiculous

Leolo
2010-01-11, 01:13 PM
It is common for 4E players to overestimate the value of +1 to hit, yes. However, +2 to hit for a feat is such an obvious benefit that every character that doesn't have it can easily be improved by adding it. Pretty much the Black Lotus of feats, really.


Of course, but you will get the +2 bonus only at mid paragon tier, where additional - not neccessary worse - feats occure.


No, the reason why multiclassing simply isn't a feat tax, is because it isn't a feat but a group of feats.


In fact this is also true for the weapon/implement expertise feats, so i fail to see the point in this argument.



These are pretty bad examples, though. Imp init doesn't do what you claim it does,


Of course it does, because if i go first i will get an additional attack before i will die of my opponents hits.

If i could take 5 attacks before i die i will make 5 attacks if i am doing the first attack and 4 if i do not. It is not always that simple, because D&D is not a 1 on 1 game. But it is not as if going first is without benefits. It is the same deal as with having higher defenses. You will hit more often because you will live long enough to have more chances.


and ritual caster is bottom tier. Better examples would be Enlarge Spell, or Polearm Momentum, or Sacrifice to Caiphon.


I allready said there are many, many options better than "i hit 5% better than normal". I would consider all day flight, water breathing and walking, safe rests, plane shift, create your favourite items and raise dead more valuable than to hit +2 but this depends. You could say that some other party member could get the feat without cost, but hey...other party members could do many things, including letting you hit more often. (what you also can get as a class feature)

Hey, you could even hit better and increase your damage with consumables...

The expertise feats are strong. But they aren't the best feats you could have, regardless of your level. They only will be (most likely) one of your first 10-15 feats.

Yakk
2010-01-11, 01:19 PM
With no feats, and no paragon paths, and no epic destiny, but level-appropriate items, progression from level 1 to 30 (29 levels) looks like this:

Attack: +15 (half level) +4 (attribute) +6 (enhancement) = +25/29 (missing +4).
Non-AC defences:
High stat: +25/29 (missing +4)
Low stat: +22/29 (missing +7)
HHL average: +24/29 (missing +5)
HLL average: +23/29 (missing +6)

Light AC, high stat: +15 (1/2 L) +4 (attribute) +6 (enhancement) +2 (MW) = +27/29 (missing +2)
Light AC, low stat: +15 (1/2 L) +4 (attribute) +6 (enhancement) +2 (MW) = +24/29 (missing +5)
Heavy AC: +15 (1/2 L) +6 (enhancement) +6 (MW) = +27/29 (missing +2).

...

I think it is fair to expect a +1 to the above from some combination of paragon paths and deity bonuses.
AC you are expected to burn 1 feat in paragon for +1 to AC. And characters are expected to have at least one "high" stat that contributes to AC if they wear light armor...

This generates:

ATK: +3 missing
NAD: +4/+5 missing
LAC: +1 missing
HAC: +1 missing (note: no expected +1 bump from paragon/epic)

The biggest gap is in the NADs.

I'd propose fixing this by giving out expertise feats for free at level 5, making belts grant an item bonus to fortitude of +1 per tier, head items +1 per tier will, and foot items +1 per tier reflex. Kill the existing items like the vim belt.

Then, remove the paragon/robust defences, remove the expertise feats, ban the epic ___ feats (like epic will), and change the stat formula for non-AC defences to "highest stat bonus, plus 1/2 the lowest stat bonus (rounded down)".

The result is this:
ATK: +0 missing
NAD: +0.5 extra/+0 missing*
LAC: +1 missing
HAC: +1 missing (note: no expected +1 bump from paragon/epic)

* Note: Getting the passive bump for HHL NAD arrangements requires a 12-13 off-stat. Getting the passive bump for HLL is pretty much automatic. Practically, I find that the +0.5 extra overestimates characters NAD bumpage.

Finally, note that str/con barbarians and fighters, in the above system, end up with nearly unassailable fortitude defence, and below-par will and reflex, at level 30 against even-level opponents. I am ok with that.

Leolo
2010-01-11, 02:01 PM
Let's do some example, let's kill an ice devil. He has AC 36, Fort 33, Refl 31, Will 29.

The players could have attacks like

+3 Weapon Prof.
+5 Enhancement
+7 Attribute
+10 Level

They need an 11 to hit his AC. An 4 to hit his Will. There could be even some autohits, because of combat advantage and leader benefits and other things that improves to hit.

Could they also hit worse? Sure. But it is not very likely even without expertise feats and the +2 benefit.

Cybren
2010-01-11, 02:12 PM
I'd propose fixing this by giving out expertise feats for free at level 5, making belts grant an item bonus to fortitude of +1 per tier, head items +1 per tier will, and foot items +1 per tier reflex. Kill the existing items like the vim belt.

That was specifically not done to avoid 'reliance on magic items' (something their design failed to do anyway)

tcrudisi
2010-01-11, 03:18 PM
Let's do some example, let's kill an ice devil. He has AC 36, Fort 33, Refl 31, Will 29.

The players could have attacks like

+3 Weapon Prof.
+5 Enhancement
+7 Attribute
+10 Level

They need an 11 to hit his AC. An 4 to hit his Will. There could be even some autohits, because of combat advantage and leader benefits and other things that improves to hit.

Could they also hit worse? Sure. But it is not very likely even without expertise feats and the +2 benefit.

Except 99% of weapon attacks do not attack Will. Instead, that is up to the implement users, which would have to roll a 7. Of course, this is just a free bonus for implement users, as most of the time Will is 3.5 points lower (based upon MM1 only) than AC.

A more fair comparison is to use the average of level 20 monsters stats. Due to me being a complete geek, I actually have a breakdown of the MM1's monsters by level and their average defenses. Here's level 20, since you quoted the Ice Devil:

AC 34.4
Fort 34.6
Ref 31.1
Will 31.3

So in this example, the players would need a 9-10 to hit AC, same for Fort, or a 9-10 to hit Ref and Will with an implement.

However, it's also very likely that at level 20 the players will have something like this:

+2 proficiency bonus (not everyone defaults to the Fullblade)
+4 enhancement bonus
+6 stat (start with an 18, at level 20 you are at 23, which is +6)
+10 level

Which is +22 to hit, which requires a 12-13 to hit AC and Fort, or a 11-12 for an implement user to hit Ref and Will. And this is ignoring the fact that most players do not fight monsters of equal level, but rather 1-3 levels higher, which pushes their to hit bonus down by 1 or 2 more points. Suddenly, a weapon user is looking at a 13-15 rolled needed to hit.

Mando Knight
2010-01-11, 03:32 PM
Except 99% of weapon attacks do not attack Will.

This. Also, with the possible exception of an Assassin or Ardent power I skipped over, none of the weapon vs Will attacks are at-wills. There are a good number if you pick the right class (Ardents and Paladins come to mind. Rogues, Warlords, and Avengers may also have a few good ones sprinkled in there), but they generally deal low damage, instead triggering some kind of effect instead.

Leolo
2010-01-11, 04:00 PM
Suddenly, a weapon user is looking at a 13-15 rolled needed to hit.

Yes, and it could be harder. Or easier, depending on the build.

The example above wasn't really optimised to hit, and your example is neither. They are supposed to hit worse than optimal. They are supposed to need a leader or other things that grant them a bonus to hit. But even your example needs only a +12 to hit the average AC 34. Without any bonus. No feat taken, no combat advantage needed...no leader, nothing.

A lvl 1 character will most likely have to roll a lower dice roll if he is facing a level apropriate monster, but it is not that much difference. And you will have far more options to target lower defenses and grab boni at higher levels.

It was just an example to show that it is not that hard to hit in 4e, even without expertise feats. Of course they are usefull, and most characters will take them at some point. But if you have an character without them it is ok, and he will not really lack significant power.

Decoy Lockbox
2010-01-11, 04:26 PM
Hm, that Mighty Challenge sucks as a math fix, if that's what it's supposed to be. Seeing as how it does extra damage rather than just replacing a stat with another stat. I haven't done anything about this issue [yet], 'cause it's only a damage issue rather than an attack or defenses problem.

I'm running a str paladin at the moment, been playing for the past year. I worked with my DM to developed a good houserule: at character creation, paladins choose which stat, strength or charisma, to apply to their challenge/sanction. Taking the Mighty Challenge feat simply adds the stat they did not choose earlier to their challenge/sanction damage. So far its been working quite well -- my paladin has 16 charisma, but I havn't taken mighty challenge yet, as there are too many good paragon feats vying for my attention.

I looked over your houserules, and I really enjoyed most of them, especially the innate enhancement and floating bonuses. I think the next time I run a "normal" D&D game (my current campaign is item-less), I'll use your enhancement rules as a sort of nice middle ground between no-item and "christmas tree" D&D. I do have a question though: what bonuses, if any, do characters using non-implement, non-weapon attacks (like the dragonborn breath attack) gain?

I agree that something needs to be done for the avenger. We have an avenger in our party, who used to (ab)use a bloodclaw ex. axe to make up for his somewhat paltry damage output. Now that bloodclaw got hit with the nerfstick, his damage output is, honestly, not much better than my paladin's (who uses a bastard sword + shield). Heck, I'm not even playing my str-paladin the "right way", i.e. high wisdom + holy strike for striker-lite damage. I think this avenger feat everyone is talking about would be nice for him, as well as power attack (which seems quite nice for avengers, what with the crazy accuracy they have).

Do any of you feel that Iron Armbands of Power are sort of an "item tax"? I liked how they got rid of stuff like giant strength belts and headbands of intellect that 3rd edition expected you to have, but the fact that the armbands exist really throws me for a loop. There's no good reason not to use them if you do melee and they clog up an item slot, which sometimes feels like two slots since you can't equip a magic shield while using them.

I've heard a lot of DM's talking about scaling down monster HP to prevent what was called, in the early days of 4e, "the padded sumo effect", and I guess that would alleviate the need for things like the armbands. Still, the fact that they exist is bothersome.

Yakk
2010-01-11, 05:52 PM
A level 1 opponent has 15 AC and 13 other defences.
Level 30 opponent has 44 AC and 42 other defences.

A weapon-wielding character that starts with 16 in their primary stat, puts +8 into it over the levels, and has a +6 weapon with +2 proficiency, has a +30 to hit.

So they need a 14+ to hit.

That same character using an implement power also needs a 14+ to hit.

At level 1, they had a +3/+5 to hit, hitting on a 10+ against an even-level opponent.

---

The worst part is, as noted, monsters hitting PC NADs.

Level 1 monster has a +4 to hit, level 30 has a +33 to hit a NAD.

PC NADs at level 1 vary from 17 down to 11. The 17 would gain +15 (1/2 L) + 6 (E) +4 (stat-up), hitting 42. The 11 goes up by 1 (stat) 6 (E) and 15, to 33.

So the monster goes from hitting the PC on a 13+, to hitting the PC on a 9+ in the high defence, and the low defence from a 7+ to only missing on a 1 (if you play with 1s auto-missing).

Gralamin
2010-01-11, 08:22 PM
Yes, seriously. All the OP did was whine because he found cases where he thinks - purely based on writing and not playtesting - that certain classes HAVE to take certain feats, and that the many feat slots available are not sufficient for a player to take the feats they want because of the perceived feat-tax.

As others have pointed out, several of the detriments the OP mentioned can be overcome by other classes class abilities, are intended, or are minor.

Err Sir, your logic does not follow.

Say, I have a program, thats supposed to count to 100. But it has an infinite loop embedded in it. So it instead counts to 2^16 - 1 before looping back to negative 2^16 and continuing doing so forever.

If someone pointed out to me there was an infinite loop, that would be valid criticism, and the identification of the problem would allow me to easily fix it. It appears you are arguing that it is not valid unless I was given new boundary conditions as well when it was pointed out. This is absurd because the act of pointing out the problem then allows the start of brainstorming a solution.

Similarly, by pointing out all of these problems, we can start brainstorming solutions to each of them - if indeed they need solutions.

Edea
2010-01-11, 08:40 PM
Again, feats should be optional luxuries rather than compulsory patches, and WotC willfully, surreptitiously refusing to repair the mechanical errors that these tax feats solve through their errata/updates in a feeble attempt to save face reeks of unprofessionalism. What is stopping Wizards from biting the bullet and directly correcting their game rather than beating around the bush and forcing taxes to follow their players even into D&D?

First off, I agree with you regarding WotC's bush-beating tendencies. It's annoying to see everything patched with feats if not powerful/adjusted well enough...and yet promptly nerfed, directly, when too powerful/overadjusted.

One reason might be that feats are easier to write, sell, and erase/errata (if they're found to be an overcorrection) then full-blown class changes. Emphasis on sell; if it's a class fix, people will be very pissed if it's not provided as free content, but since feats keep the 'illusion' of these alterations being optional, they can be shoved into the crunch sections of future splats/DDI content to generate more profit (after all, you want access to the patches at your table).

Also, I believe the feat method is less invasive with regards to Living campaigns, which WotC seems to pay far more attention to in 4e than they did with previous editions.

Not saying I support it, I despise feat taxes (which these are, all of the ones you pointed out); just giving a couple sample reasons why they might be doing this.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-12, 02:45 AM
I agree that something needs to be done for the avenger. We have an avenger in our party, who used to (ab)use a bloodclaw ex. axe to make up for his somewhat paltry damage output.
Avenger damage output isn't nearly as low as people claim. True, their damage-per-hit is lower; but they make up for that by hitting way more often. Yes, there is a problem with the class, but no, it's not that bad.



Do any of you feel that Iron Armbands of Power are sort of an "item tax"?
For melee strikers? Yeah, pretty much. A major problem with 4E item design is that there are hundreds and hundreds of items that are mediocre and won't really be noticed much in play, and then there's a handful that are powerful and will be noticed. So it is generally obvious what the single best item is for most slots of any class, and this becomes the benchmark or the item tax. This effect is very noticeable in RPGA, where there's a few items that everyone wants and a load of items that nobody cares about.

Pre-nerf bloodclaw and vet armor are good examples. But even post-nerf, nearly every caster wants a staff of ruin, almost every barb wants a horned helmet, and there's pretty much only two sets of boots that are worth considering in the heroic tier (acrobat's and fencing master's).

tcrudisi
2010-01-12, 03:20 AM
Avenger damage output isn't nearly as low as people claim. True, their damage-per-hit is lower; but they make up for that by hitting way more often. Yes, there is a problem with the class, but no, it's not that bad.

... and there's pretty much only two sets of boots that are worth considering in the heroic tier (acrobat's and fencing master's).

I agree completely about the boots. I was actually going to say something to the effect that there are only 4 sets of good boots and one of them is available at level 2. It was very humorous when, in a recent game where we started at level 21, over half the players started with the level 2 Acrobat's Boots. Yeah, they are that good.

I'm in the camp that say Avengers really are that bad. I've played one and this was back when RROT was not nerfed. I was still horribly out-damaged by the Barbarian. Sure, I'd hit more often, but not enough to make a difference compared to him. Heck, even the Rogue was (overall) out-damaging me.

In my opinion, they give up too much for that increased accuracy. Unless you are really, really cheesing out an Avenger, they won't match any other striker in terms of overall damage. Even then, if the other strikers are cheesing out half as badly, they will still beat the Avenger in overall dpr. It's sad.

Decoy Lockbox
2010-01-12, 09:54 AM
Avenger damage output isn't nearly as low as people claim. True, their damage-per-hit is lower; but they make up for that by hitting way more often. Yes, there is a problem with the class, but no, it's not that bad.

Thing is, rogues are very accurate as well, but do more damage in my experience. And they don't suffer from that debilitating "if you are adjacent to more than one foe you are screwed" thing either.



For melee strikers? Yeah, pretty much. A major problem with 4E item design is that there are hundreds and hundreds of items that are mediocre and won't really be noticed much in play, and then there's a handful that are powerful and will be noticed. So it is generally obvious what the single best item is for most slots of any class, and this becomes the benchmark or the item tax. This effect is very noticeable in RPGA, where there's a few items that everyone wants and a load of items that nobody cares about.

Pre-nerf bloodclaw and vet armor are good examples. But even post-nerf, nearly every caster wants a staff of ruin, almost every barb wants a horned helmet, and there's pretty much only two sets of boots that are worth considering in the heroic tier (acrobat's and fencing master's).

I basically see their approach to items as being similar to WotC's approach to designing magic cards (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5).

I really love the fencing master's boots, both in function and flavor. My paladin is somewhat fencing themed, so they really fit, and the nearly constant +1 ac/reflex from the boots is quite helpful, as is the encounter power.

Duos Greanleef
2010-01-12, 02:25 PM
I'm going to jump in this debate and voice the opinion of many of the non-mathematician DMs and PCs.
To all of you who are saying that as D&D goes up in level, it gets harder:
--I agree with you. You are correct. PCs need to learn to work together as a team better and deal with threats in a more level-headed manner.
To all of you who are breaking down and crunching and re-crunching the numbers:
--I think you're doing to much work.
This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Algebra.
This is a Role-Playing Game, not the Quiz Bowl.
It's not about the math; it's group storytelling.
I feel like forgetting that fact is where most people lose sight and get angry at WotC. That being said, go ahead and rant at them if you want (I love a good rant every so often). However, I don't feel that all of the feats that are being discussed are necessarily taxes for all of us, but appeasement for power gamers that are too busy doing math and trying to weasel out the bigger numbers.
Play the game as a team, have fun with your friends, and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!
:smallsmile:

Draz74
2010-01-12, 02:47 PM
and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!
:smallsmile:

Sorry, what was that last bit? I couldn't hear you over the sound of dice rolling to generate random numbers to be used in the game's mathematical rules.

Like it or not, the game is a math game. (I like that. I see math involvement as a plus rather than a minus in a hobby.) And if math clearly demonstrates that something in the game is more powerful than something else, when they should be equal, singing "La la la I can't hear you and your math!" with your fingers in your ears isn't going to make the disparity go away.

EDIT: Sorry if I'm missing the humor you intended in your post (i.e. with the smiley at the end). People denying/trying to avoid the usefulness of math is a RL pet peeve of mine, and is IMO an unhealthy attitude in general.

Duos Greanleef
2010-01-12, 03:00 PM
Sorry, what was that last bit? I couldn't hear you over the sound of dice rolling to generate random numbers to be used in the game's mathematical rules.

Like it or not, the game is a math game. (I like that. I see math involvement as a plus rather than a minus in a hobby.) And if math clearly demonstrates that something in the game is more powerful than something else, when they should be equal, singing "La la la I can't hear you and your math!" with your fingers in your ears isn't going to make the disparity go away.

EDIT: Sorry if I'm missing the humor you intended in your post (i.e. with the smiley at the end). People denying/trying to avoid the usefulness of math is a RL pet peeve of mine, and is IMO an unhealthy attitude in general.

I can see how it's a pet peeve, everyone has their own play style and mine is more inclined toward RP, than getting bigger numbers.
For instance, I once played a Half-Elf Bard Multiclass Wizard, Multiclass Warlock that wore Scale Armor. By the time that campaign was done, we were at level 11 and I could cast Magic Missile, Vicious Mockery, and Eldritch Blast as At-Will powers. Optimized? I think not. Did it get hit all the time? Sure! Did I hit EVERYTHING in the game? No way!
But was it the best character in the best campaign that I've ever experienced? You bet your bottom copper it was!

And the reason that I'm irked by mathematician rules-lawyers is that I've seen games downright ruined by these types of gamers getting frustrated and angry because their super big numbers couldn't kill everything.

And your apology is accepted. (but I'm not just sticking my fingers iin my ears)

Mando Knight
2010-01-12, 04:34 PM
I really love the fencing master's boots, both in function and flavor. My paladin is somewhat fencing themed, so they really fit, and the nearly constant +1 ac/reflex from the boots is quite helpful, as is the encounter power.

Boots of the Fencing Master are my favorite Heroic magic items of all time. +1 AC/Reflex might not end up really being much, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than boots of +3 Reflex, and shifting 2 as a minor action once an encounter is all kinds of awesome.

Draz74
2010-01-12, 04:49 PM
I can see how it's a pet peeve, everyone has their own play style and mine is more inclined toward RP, than getting bigger numbers.
So's mine. I make sub-optimal build choices to fit character concepts all the time. Doesn't change the fact that bigger numbers are still part of the game.


For instance, I once played a Half-Elf Bard Multiclass Wizard, Multiclass Warlock that wore Scale Armor. By the time that campaign was done, we were at level 11 and I could cast Magic Missile, Vicious Mockery, and Eldritch Blast as At-Will powers. Optimized? I think not. Did it get hit all the time? Sure! Did I hit EVERYTHING in the game? No way!
But was it the best character in the best campaign that I've ever experienced? You bet your bottom copper it was!
Sure, I have no trouble believing that. But unless the campaign style was more goofy-humorous than heroic, I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't have had even more fun with the same DM, the same character concept and abilities, but with numbers that made you able to face nastier challenges and come out on top.

Well, maybe not. I guess there's something to be said for a party composition where some characters get to be the underdogs (e.g. the Hobbits in LotR, or Elan in OotS), for some interesting inter-party roleplay. Or maybe you're just one of those players that doesn't notice or care if the DM is actually toning down the danger level of monsters to avoid TPKs. But I'm not.


And the reason that I'm irked by mathematician rules-lawyers is that I've seen games downright ruined by these types of gamers getting frustrated and angry because their super big numbers couldn't kill everything.
Yeah, rules-lawyering and powergaming definitely can ruin things. But I'm surprised to hear that the mathematical types, in your experience, are the ones who try to pull such shenanigans. In my experience, the analytical people who are patient enough to work through the game theory math (like Yakk in this thread) tend to be the ones who are sensible enough to realize that the game won't be fun if they "win" by breaking it.


(but I'm not just sticking my fingers iin my ears)
Hmmm, well, other than the smiley, it seemed like you were actually telling Yakk and the others that they were doing something harmful by doing a sound mathematical analysis of whether various character statistics scale at the right rate.

Yakk
2010-01-12, 06:38 PM
To all of you who are breaking down and crunching and re-crunching the numbers:
--I think you're doing to much work.
This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Algebra.
This is a Role-Playing Game, not the Quiz Bowl.
It wasn't much work. None of the math above requires more than a Jr High School level of mathematical education -- most of it is elementary school stuff.


It's not about the math; it's group storytelling.
Sure, but systems matter.

You tell different stories when using Exalted mechanics, when using Reign mechanics, when using D&D 4e mechanics, and when using D&D 3e mechanics. Changes in mechanics leads to changes in story.

In particular, if NADs, Attacks and Defences scale at an amortised rate of +1 per level, stories about high level characters involve fewer "Bob is stunned, skip his turn", fewer "I miss again", etc events.

There are other problems with 4e scaling. Monster damage doesn't scale fast enough, for example. These problems can be detected and fixed, and I think that the stories that would result would be more interesting.

I feel like forgetting that fact is where most people lose sight and get angry at WotC. That being said, go ahead and rant at them if you want (I love a good rant every so often). However, I don't feel that all of the feats that are being discussed are necessarily taxes for all of us, but appeasement for power gamers that are too busy doing math and trying to weasel out the bigger numbers.
Huh? Why would doing math imply that I'm trying to get bigger numbers? Or that I'm doing math to increase my character's power?

I'm trying to work out what the numbers should be. In particular, monster damage also has to scale up, and minions need to become more durable, NADs need to scale faster (AC is fine), for high level 4e to play better.

These observations are available from both playing the game, and by doing the math. You could simply roll up a level 30 character and look at how low their low defence is -- it will be low enough that most level 30 monsters who target that defence auto-hit. Then do the same with their high defence; the monster will probably hit more than half the time!

In order to "fix" this, players have to spend feats on content I find boring: static modifiers. Epic Will, Epic Fortitude and Epic Reflexes, plus Robust Defences, or wearing belts/helms/boots that give item bonuses to NADs.

This makes telling stories at epic level harder, and the stories told in the character creation process less interesting.

Play the game as a team, have fun with your friends, and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!
:smallsmile:Why would I stop doing math? I enjoy doing math.

Math is one of my hobbies. As is D&D. I also enjoy doing math about D&D, because that covers two of my hobbies.

Telling someone to "stop doing math about D&D" is similar to telling a painter who plays D&D to stop painting D&D miniatures. It seems pretty silly.

You, personally, may not appreciate how much fun doing math is. That doesn't mean doing math is a chore for other people.

Does that explain my position better?


For instance, I once played a Half-Elf Bard Multiclass Wizard, Multiclass Warlock that wore Scale Armor. By the time that campaign was done, we were at level 11 and I could cast Magic Missile, Vicious Mockery, and Eldritch Blast as At-Will powers. Optimized? I think not. Did it get hit all the time? Sure! Did I hit EVERYTHING in the game? No way!
But was it the best character in the best campaign that I've ever experienced? You bet your bottom copper it was!
Great?

Note that by level 11, the scale of the scaling problem is tiny.

You have +5 (level) +1.5 (attribute) +3 (enhancement) = +9.5 bonus to high defences, attacks and light armor AC over level 1.

Heavy armor is also right on track.

Your low defence is at +5 (level) +3 (enhancement) +0.5 (stat) = +8.5 bonus, which is 1-2 points relatively lower than at first level. Only 1.5 lower than it "should" be.

The problem is that by level 30, this "falling behind" scales up. The "gap" gets larger and more problematic as you gain levels.

The "gap" isn't "the player's character needs moar power", it is that the monsters in the DMG are scaled to players whose defences and attacks are slightly higher than they are in play. This makes the DM's job harder: monsters that attack NAD are stronger than their XP budgets indicate, groups that lack ways to seriously buff to-hit chance can fall into a spiral of infinite wiffs, etc.

Tehnar
2010-01-12, 07:41 PM
I think WotC did a bad thing when they introduced automatic scaling for every ability. I think it kills lots of possible tactics.

To keep it whole general, the basic premise is that you will hit 50% of the time and be hit 50% of the time for 25% of your hp. Nothing wrong with that so far. What bothers me is that you will hit most monsters 50% +-15% of the time. I think it is a too narrow band to allow for any significant tactics.

Basically options like power attacking, using total defense etc are greatly diminished in value.

Also you cant have monsters with a too great difference between two defenses otherwise you break the scaling system. I feel some monsters should have a large variation in their defenses.

Sinon
2010-01-12, 11:04 PM
To keep it whole general, the basic premise is that you will hit 50% of the time and be hit 50% of the time for 25% of your hp. Nothing wrong with that so far.
And it is at this point where I think this whole argument needs to be reconsidered, or, at the very least, this premise has to be called what it is: mere opinion.

The argument is, if I may paraphrase:
Premise 1) At low levels you have roughly 50% chance to hit your opponents.
Premise 2) As you gain levels, this percentage, and the damage you do relative to the opponent’s hp, decreases.
Premise 3) And this is bad.

But wait, why is it bad?
As I said earlier, this sounds like just a lot of verbiage that could be far more easily expressed: At higher levels, the game is harder.

Why is it bad that the game is increasingly harder at higher levels?

At best, this is just an opinion. At worst it’s a different perspective on game design, and I think it may be worth considering, just for a moment, that maybe it isn’t a flaw in the game but rather exactly as they wanted it to be?

I am always leery about fixing that which is not broken.
(Not liked =/= broken.)

IMHO: Even though I have no issues with the above math, players’ decisions are always a variable. Smart play gives you an edge, and foolish play costs you.

At low levels, when PCs and monsters are more closely matched, there’s more room to screw up. At high levels, there’s less, because the game got harder.

Dimers
2010-01-13, 01:05 AM
And this is ignoring the fact that most players do not fight monsters of equal level, but rather 1-3 levels higher ...

If the PCs are able to handle monsters with a CR 1-3 levels higher, they don't need Expertise feats, they just need better-balanced encounters. Should a feat be considered a 'tax' if its effect pushes the character up a magnitude of power? Maybe that's not how the game was intended to be balanced, and Expertise feats actually harmed game balance instead of (so-called) 'fixing' it. Maybe the DM should ban Expertise feats and stick with CR or CR+1. That might also close the NAD gap a point or two.

I'm asking seriously: is there something inherent in the game that makes that a silly notion? I've often heard that PC parties can run roughshod over higher-CR encounters, so it really sounds like the huge boost Expertises provide is unnecessary.

Artanis
2010-01-13, 01:06 AM
You can make things harder at higher levels without knocking the math out of whack. You can do things like give the enemies more mobility, nastier side-effects for their attacks, more immunities and resistances, and whatnot. Doing that means you don't have to alter the math behind the core mechanic of the entire system as you go along.

Since this stuff is in the game anyways, it means the game would become harder even without the math being messed up. Therefor, it would be better for the math to work right so that the difficulty curve can be better controlled.

Sinon
2010-01-13, 07:56 AM
You can make things harder at higher levels without knocking the math out of whack. You can do things like give the enemies more mobility, nastier side-effects for their attacks, more immunities and resistances, and whatnot. You can make things harder lots of ways. I don't see that one is more odious than the other.
Doing that means you don't have to alter the math behind the core mechanic of the entire system as you go along.That this assumption actually does underlie the core mechanic is precisely what I suggested we should reevaluate.

Since this stuff is in the game anyways, it means the game would become harder even without the math being messed up. Therefor, it would be better for the math to work right so that the difficulty curve can be better controlled.It looks to me like people expect the game to be just as hard at level one as at level 30. I do not share that perspective.

That seems to be a disagreement about the underlying philosophy of the game's design - as opposed to a situation where everyone agrees and the designers couldn't do the "Jr High School level math" it takes to get it right.

In previous editions, it seemed like by the time you got to the highest levels, nothing was a challenge any more. I feel like they did a better job this time.

Sir Homeslice
2010-01-13, 11:30 AM
This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Algebra.
This is a Role-Playing Game, not the Quiz Bowl.
It's not about the math; it's group storytelling.
...
Play the game as a team, have fun with your friends, and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!
:smallsmile:

Could you possibly be any more condescending and self-righteous?

ericgrau
2010-01-13, 12:00 PM
I dunno that seems like sound advice to me that while simple is often ignored in theoretical discussion. Do you mean that it is in the wrong context as it is sidetracking from the topic?

Anyway I'm a bit skeptical about the OP's claims simply because I saw similar things in a few 3.5e mechanics and the reason turned out to be because the complainers didn't know how to optimize and ignored multiple basic sources of plusses. I'd like to see a more thorough analysis first that not only compares PC to monster bonuses but also throws in a smart level of boosts to the PCs from various sources before making the comparison. Then other forum members can comment if something is lacking or if players shouldn't be expected to get something. And then address where the problem really exists, and how much should be done correcting it, according to the magnitude measured by the analysis. Instead of, y'know, shooting out a bunch of immediate answers/guesses and seeing which one "sounds right" to the most people.

Theodoric
2010-01-13, 01:02 PM
Could you possibly be any more condescending and self-righteous?
His tone isn't that condescending, and self-righteousness can only really be determined when something is in direct opposition (ie confrontation) to something else, which isn't really the case here/ :smallconfused:

Call it feat tax, the extra to hit is a solid choice regardless, especially at low levels. And its only 1 feat, so it's not really that big of a deal. I wouldn't picked it quite often even if it wasn't necessary.

Mando Knight
2010-01-13, 01:02 PM
Play the game as a team, have fun with your friends, and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!

I don't care much for a gnomish deity, so for the love of Ioun, I'll continue doing math in mah D&D! :smallcool::smalltongue:

Sir Homeslice
2010-01-13, 02:01 PM
His tone isn't that condescending, and self-righteousness can only really be determined when something is in direct opposition (ie confrontation) to something else, which isn't really the case here/ :smallconfused:

Really, because his post basically says "I'm the grand authority on D&D, and what you're doing is WRONG and you should STOP because I'm the GRAND AUTHORITY on D&D! I'm so correct, because I'm once again, the GRAND AUTHORITY on D&D."

Joran
2010-01-13, 02:24 PM
I agree completely about the boots. I was actually going to say something to the effect that there are only 4 sets of good boots and one of them is available at level 2. It was very humorous when, in a recent game where we started at level 21, over half the players started with the level 2 Acrobat's Boots. Yeah, they are that good.



Anyone want to explain why Acrobat's Boots are so good? My curiosity is killing me. Thanks.

Gamerlord
2010-01-13, 02:30 PM
To all of you who are breaking down and crunching and re-crunching the numbers:
--I think you're doing to much work.
This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Algebra.
This is a Role-Playing Game, not the Quiz Bowl.
It's not about the math; it's group storytelling.

Play the game as a team, have fun with your friends, and stop (for the love of Garl Glittergold) doing so much math!


Are you saying that we who attempt to look at the game from a mathematical perspective are not playing the game right?
Besides, this isn't "Group storytelling", it is a role-playing game, that is like saying the story is more important then the rules!

Yakk
2010-01-13, 03:17 PM
To keep it whole general, the basic premise is that you will hit 50% of the time and be hit 50% of the time for 25% of your hp. Nothing wrong with that so far. What bothers me is that you will hit most monsters 50% +-15% of the time. I think it is a too narrow band to allow for any significant tactics.
You hit Alice 65% of the time, and you hit Bob 35% of the time.

Bob lasts about twice as long as Alice.

...


The argument is, if I may paraphrase:
Premise 1) At low levels you have roughly 50% chance to hit your opponents.
Premise 2) As you gain levels, this percentage, and the damage you do relative to the opponent’s hp, decreases.
Premise 3) And this is bad.

But wait, why is it bad?
As I said earlier, this sounds like just a lot of verbiage that could be far more easily expressed: At higher levels, the game is harder.

Why is it bad that the game is increasingly harder at higher levels?
The problem is that having 3/4 of your attacks miss makes your choice of attack matter very little. It also results in anyone who chooses "accuracy above all" ends up having the most effective results.

On the other side, monsters are auto-hitting entire sets of defences (or players are buying up static bonus feats that are not interesting).

In a somewhat neat sense, when your chance to hit is around 50%, each +1 and -1 modifier matters about the same.

When your chance to hit is around 95%, modifiers matter very little.

When your chance to hit is around 5%, modifiers matter a lot.

but also throws in a smart level of boosts to the PCs from various sources before making the comparison
My post neglects:
Leader (temporary) bonuses to hit,
Leader (temporary) bonuses to defences,
Debuffs to monster defences,
...
and that's about it.

One issue with the debuff approach is that almost all debuffs require a hit first... :-)

...


Anyone want to explain why Acrobat's Boots are so good? My curiosity is killing me. Thanks.
Push 1 and knock prone.

Dekkah
2010-01-13, 03:20 PM
Anyone want to explain why Acrobat's Boots are so good? My curiosity is killing me. Thanks.
The main reason is that it is an At-will ability. Having 6 items with dailies is good for versatility, but usually not very efficient because of their limit (1 daily power per day + 1 per milestone). People tend to prefer items with proprieties, At-will power or encounter power.

Of course, being knocked prone doesnt happen all the time, but when it does (also you can drop prone yourself to hide/get cover), being able to stand up from prone as a minor action is great since you still can move your speed and still have a standard.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-01-13, 03:25 PM
I looked over your houserules, and I really enjoyed most of them, especially the innate enhancement and floating bonuses. I think the next time I run a "normal" D&D game (my current campaign is item-less), I'll use your enhancement rules as a sort of nice middle ground between no-item and "christmas tree" D&D. I do have a question though: what bonuses, if any, do characters using non-implement, non-weapon attacks (like the dragonborn breath attack) gain?
If you're just using the innate enhancements, you can leave racial attacks as-is. (Or you can drop the racial bonuses and apply the innate enhancements, to make those powers more smooth.) I'd apply the innate enhancement to grab attacks and ban that feat that grants it a scaling bonus.



Do any of you feel that Iron Armbands of Power are sort of an "item tax"? I liked how they got rid of stuff like giant strength belts and headbands of intellect that 3rd edition expected you to have, but the fact that the armbands exist really throws me for a loop. There's no good reason not to use them if you do melee and they clog up an item slot, which sometimes feels like two slots since you can't equip a magic shield while using them.

I'm on the fence about Iron Armbands and Bracers of Archery -- if I were a WotC editor I probably wouldn't have let them get to press, but they're just damage bonuses. So I'd say that Iron Arbands are an item tax in the same way that Weapon Focus is a feat tax. What I find much more asinine is that only certain character types can benefit from these items. 4e seems to be making up for caster overpoweredness in previous editions by leaving them out of most of the optimization parties in 4e. That's why I wrote Implement Focus, and if my players ever discover Iron Armbands/Bracers of Archery, I'll write versions for all characters.

Duos Greanleef
2010-01-13, 03:28 PM
bad things about my opinion

I apologize for apparently offending everyone.
It was not my intention.
I may be somewhat calloused from my all-but-positive experiences with mathematician gamers.
So again, I apologize.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-13, 04:17 PM
As I said earlier, this sounds like just a lot of verbiage that could be far more easily expressed: At higher levels, the game is harder.

Why is it bad that the game is increasingly harder at higher levels?
At the very least, WOTC is needlessly limiting their design space by ensuring that all level-appropriate monsters can be hit 40-60% of the time and will hit the players 30-50% of the time. For instance, this means there won't be monsters that hit rarely but hard, or monsters that hit often but for small amount of damage.


So I'd say that Iron Arbands are an item tax in the same way that Weapon Focus is a feat tax.
That depends on the opportunity cost. Take any melee character of high heroic or paragon level. Now compare Weapon Focus to the other feats he has available, and it turns out there's several feats that are mathematically better, and several different feats that add options (generally, feats that add options are more powerful than feats that add +X to roll Y, although of course feats that add near-useless options are not).

Now compare Iron Armbands to the other arm slot items he has available. Is there anything mathematically better? Well, no. Is there anything that offers a more interesting option? Not really, either (there are several that do something marginally useful while eating into your item-usage-per-day limit). So the armbands are pretty much a no-brainer for every melee character, whereas weapon focus is not.

tcrudisi
2010-01-13, 04:21 PM
Should a feat be considered a 'tax' if its effect pushes the character up a magnitude of power? Maybe the DM should ban Expertise feats and stick with CR or CR+1. That might also close the NAD gap a point or two.

A feat should be considered a tax if its effect pushes the character to the level where they were supposed to be anyway. That's why the Expertise feats are considered to be a tax. If you just hit level 11 and take Weapon Expertise, will you see a power jump from level 10 due to this feat? Yes. However, this is because the feat has helped your +hit become what it was supposed to be anyway.

If my DMs banned the Expertise feats, most of my groups would still do encounters that are CR +1 to CR +3. But we don't fall for traps when it comes to power and feat selections. We understand what the good selections are and take them. I'm confident that we could easily do that. Just yesterday (with Expertise feats), we did a CR +7 encounter that was designed for a party of 5. We had 4 people: 3 strikers and 1 controller. No one had any ability to heal or mark. The Controller never rolled a single attack roll due to really bad luck. My striker became bloodied. Other than those two snags, we demolished the encounter in 4 rounds (and it only took 4 because he kept bringing in the monsters we killed, which was not factored into the xp cost). What's the difference? We understand how to work as a team. We understand each others strengths and weaknesses and do what we can, as a team, to boost the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses.

I am confused as to how disallowing the Expertise feats will close the NAD gap a point or two. How does taking a feat to increase the players ability to hit by 1-3 points also increase the players NADs by a point or two? The problem with player NADs is that they, like +attack, do not scale up fast enough. This means that the monsters have an easier time hitting the players NADs. Taking away the Expertise feats does not make it any harder for the monsters to hit players NADs.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-13, 04:29 PM
Should a feat be considered a 'tax' if its effect pushes the character up a magnitude of power?
No, a feat should be considered a 'tax' if the question whether any character of a given class should take that feat is properly answered with "well, duh, obviously!"

If every Delta Knight gets five feats, and it is obvious that every Delta Knight should take the Improved Foo Blobble feat, then it is a fair comparison to say that every Delta Knight in fact gets four feats and the class feature of Improved Foo Blobble. This reduces effective choices in character generation, and reduces character diversity, and that's why a significant amount of people dislike it.

Tehnar
2010-01-13, 04:30 PM
What Im trying to say is that you don't have great diversity in the value of your attack/defenses when compared to monster attack/defenses when of a similar level.

You don't have a monster that is really easy to hit but has lots of hp or DR to make up for it. So options like power attacking or using total defense won't see so much play as all monsters are difficult to hit, hit you about the same amount of time and hit roughly for the same amount of damage.

Sometimes it feels like rolling 4,9, 13 yey, 18 yey, 1,4,5,2, 16 yey, 20 yey, uff still not dead, spam that at will some more. I think this is because monsters are made to scale to PC level.

Yakk
2010-01-13, 04:32 PM
The NAD gap is partially patched through the PHB 2 Paragon Defences and ecpic Robust Defences feat-patches.

Giving out free Expertise and Paragon/Epic defences isn't sufficient, however.

Leolo
2010-01-13, 04:52 PM
A feat should be considered a tax if its effect pushes the character to the level where they were supposed to be anyway.

Who decides what level the characters are supposed to be? That definition is at least a little subjective.

And the progression alone is not really helpfull to decide this, because it does not include the versatile options to grant boni or the possibility to attack lower defenses. You will have more of this options at the later tiers. So your base values are supposed to increase at a lower rate than the target values.

Another thing to be considered: There are many feats of an equal power level. Every of them could raise your power level to the point someone may believe the characters are supposed to be.

To do some simplified math: +1 means every 20th attack you will hit one more time than without the boni.

If you would hit every second attack, and kill a opponent every fight, and need approxamately 3 hits to kill someone you will have 1 extra hit about every 3 fights. Depending on your damage you will do about 5 extra damage per fight. (As said above the math is simplified. Depending on the build it could be less or more)

Are there other feats that grant you the same benefit? Sure.

It will increase at higher levels, but then again there are better feats at higher levels.

If you would only have 1 Feat during your carreer the expertise feats would be considered very good, but it would not be considered a clear choice. You will have much more feats, so you will most likely have expertise feats. But you will most likely have other good feats, too.

Tehnar
2010-01-13, 05:20 PM
Its not that just hitting things does damage, it also applies various status effects. If the cleric doesn't hit with his sacred flame, he won't grant that +2 to hit bonus to the ranger who might miss because of that and so on.

The gap in the defenses is not so noticable until you run into monsters that inflict status effects on you. Then when you get stun/dazed/immobilized every turn it gets frustrating fast. Thats why those feats are needed.

Dimers
2010-01-13, 09:30 PM
I am confused as to how disallowing the Expertise feats will close the NAD gap a point or two.

Nooo, nono, I meant that using mostly lower-CR encounters effectively narrows the gap, because opponents' attacks aren't as high as at CR+3, CR+5, what-have-you. If you ignore the existence of Expertises and use lower-CR encounters, a natural side effect is stronger PC NADs.


Who decides what level the characters are supposed to be? That definition is at least a little subjective.

Right. I was suggesting that CR+4 isn't necessarily where the adventurers "should" be. Maybe they "should" be CR+0, where NADs are closer to balanced and Expertise feats aren't necessary for staying on top of your game.

Most of the responses are based on the assumption that Expertise is always available (not a bad assumption, the feats being core and all that). But if they're not or nobody in the party takes them, and you run at lower CRs, you've still got a fine, balanced game. That said, if they are available, I doubt I'd build a character without them, aside from maybe thought experiments. If they're available, they're a tax. If they're not, it doesn't hurt the game.

Decoy Lockbox
2010-01-13, 11:04 PM
If you're just using the innate enhancements, you can leave racial attacks as-is. (Or you can drop the racial bonuses and apply the innate enhancements, to make those powers more smooth.) I'd apply the innate enhancement to grab attacks and ban that feat that grants it a scaling bonus.

What I did is apply inherent enhancement on all attack rolls of any sort -- grab, bullrush, melee, spells, bows, fists, thrown rocks, etc. I looked at the numbers of improvised weapons, grab, etc, and realized that they weren't terribly useful without the bonus. For example, grab is a strength versus fortitude attack, but doesn't get an implement bonus. So the odds of landing a grab at level 30 are going to be 30% worse than at level 1.



I'm on the fence about Iron Armbands and Bracers of Archery -- if I were a WotC editor I probably wouldn't have let them get to press, but they're just damage bonuses. So I'd say that Iron Arbands are an item tax in the same way that Weapon Focus is a feat tax. What I find much more asinine is that only certain character types can benefit from these items. 4e seems to be making up for caster overpoweredness in previous editions by leaving them out of most of the optimization parties in 4e. That's why I wrote Implement Focus, and if my players ever discover Iron Armbands/Bracers of Archery, I'll write versions for all characters.

Yeah, I definitely get the sense that they swung the caster-melee pendulum back in the opposite direction hard. I also made an "implement focus" feat in my game, since I thought the "+1 to two damage types" feats (like Astral Fire) were totally gimp (no offense to Astral Fire if he's reading this).



I apologize for apparently offending everyone.
It was not my intention.
I may be somewhat calloused from my all-but-positive experiences with mathematician gamers.
So again, I apologize.

I don't think you were playing with mathematicians, I think you were playing with d-bags. Or possibly d-bag mathematicians.

This is somewhat beside the point, but D&D is great for teaching mental arithmetic. I remember summing the dice from a 3.5 edition disintegrate spell in my head all the time back in the day. And yet I have people at my table who can't add, say, 15+16 in their heads. And I consider myself pretty bad at math too!

Leolo
2010-01-14, 04:21 AM
That said, if they are available, I doubt I'd build a character without them, aside from maybe thought experiments. If they're available, they're a tax. If they're not, it doesn't hurt the game.

I would not, at least not at every level. If you have it until lvl 15 you will be fine.

But it is not even clear how many characters will be played up to this level. And of course there are also some good paragon and epic feats available.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-14, 05:44 AM
I looked at the numbers of improvised weapons, grab, etc, and realized that they weren't terribly useful without the bonus. For example, grab is a strength versus fortitude attack, but doesn't get an implement bonus. So the odds of landing a grab at level 30 are going to be 30% worse than at level 1.
This is indeed a problem. On the other hand, I've never actually seen anyone use grab in a 4E game, so I'm not sure if that's a problem. Also, if your fighter is using a non-magical improvised club instead of his ancestral weapon, I would expect him to hit less often.


I also made an "implement focus" feat in my game, since I thought the "+1 to two damage types" feats (like Astral Fire) were totally gimp (no offense to Astral Fire if he's reading this).
I agree that the entire line of Astral Fire feats aren't really worth taking (and this has been the case since the PHB was first released). However, according to customer service, if you are using a staff or dagger as your implement, you can use weapon focus to boost your damage on implement attacks.

Overall, DPR for implement users is not so bad considering how many area attacks they tend to get, and how often they target lower defenses than AC.

Yakk
2010-01-14, 01:04 PM
Who decides what level the characters are supposed to be? That definition is at least a little subjective.
Much of that can be reverse engineered from the not-very-thinly disguised base mechanics of 4e.

4e is based off of the idea of getting +1 to hit and +1 to defences every level.

Monster design explicitly states this.

Players are a complex system that ... ends up giving almost +1 to hit and +1 to defences every level.

After 29 levels, things have gone a bit off these tracks. NADs have fallen behind significantly on average, and seriously for particular defences. AC has mostly kept up. Attacks feel behind by a few points (pre-expertise).

Nowhere in the monster design, or looking over actual build monsters, implies that vs NAD attacks are supposed to hit almost twice as often as vs-AC attacks at high levels. Advised damage expressions (etc) don't differ between the two.

NPCs built using the NPC rules suffer similar problems (as opposed to NPCs built using monster rules).

Sure, there are some subjective components to the argument. But there is lots of evidence behind the "average +1 per level" being the fundamental base mechanic of 4e that the other rules exist in support of.

Indon
2010-01-14, 01:39 PM
I am here today to enlighten you all on what I consider to be the most reprehensible issue currently plaguing Dungeons & Dragons 4e: feat tax.

Theoretical scenario:

Say Weapon Expertise feats weren't 'needed' in the sense that you describe, and that the to-hit for players were already exactly where you would like them to be.

But Weapon Expertise still existed.

Would it be any less of a 'feat tax'? It would still be one of the most powerful feats in the game, essentially mandatory for every character, wouldn't it?

I would propose that the 'feat tax' phenomenon is simply about the existence of disproportionately powerful feats, so powerful they seem obvious, and really have nothing to do with any possible flaws in the game's original design.

Yakk
2010-01-14, 03:40 PM
Theoretical scenario:

Say Weapon Expertise feats weren't 'needed' in the sense that you describe, and that the to-hit for players were already exactly where you would like them to be.

But Weapon Expertise still existed.

Would it be any less of a 'feat tax'? It would still be one of the most powerful feats in the game, essentially mandatory for every character, wouldn't it?

I would propose that the 'feat tax' phenomenon is simply about the existence of disproportionately powerful feats, so powerful they seem obvious, and really have nothing to do with any possible flaws in the game's original design.
Then the solution becomes easy: ban the feat as being too good.

It isn't until the number of such feats become large that banning them becomes problematic, or if the feat exists because there is a problem in the original game mechanics, and keeping the feat is better than the alternative. . .

Indon
2010-01-14, 04:19 PM
Then the solution becomes easy: ban the feat as being too good.
Why aren't we banning weapon expertise as being too good to begin with? It's not like 4E is a prohibitively difficult game without it.

Decoy Lockbox
2010-01-14, 05:57 PM
Also, if your fighter is using a non-magical improvised club instead of his ancestral weapon, I would expect him to hit less often.

Well, that would normally be the case but my game is no item + post-apocalypse, so people are running around with tarnished broadswords, rocks and clubs all the time. Weapons can also break fairly easily, especially poor quality ones. So a high level fighter beating a giant's kneecaps in with, say, a small treetrunk wouldn't really be weird. The whole idea is character > items. So far, the magical weapons that the party has encountered usually have a "+1 untyped bonus to hit" property along with the actual cool stuff.



However, according to customer service, if you are using a staff or dagger as your implement, you can use weapon focus to boost your damage on implement attacks.

Yeah, I always assumed that WotC gave sorcerers dagger and staff implements specifically so they could take advantage of this.


Overall, DPR for implement users is not so bad considering how many area attacks they tend to get, and how often they target lower defenses than AC.

In my experience, monster NADs are usually not too much worse than their AC. I suppose for soldiers (AC lvl +16, NADS lvl +12) there is a 4 point gap, but for all other monster types, the gap is either zero (brutes, artillery) or two (controllers, lurkers, skirmishers, etc). I'm sure somebody in CharOp has tables that can confirm/refute this. So what I'm trying to say is that, yes, the wizard is shooting at a defense two points worse than AC, but his attack bonus is also two points worse than the fighter, or three points if the fighter is using a blade.

Artanis
2010-01-14, 06:03 PM
In my experience, monster NADs are usually not too much worse than their AC. I suppose for soldiers (AC lvl +16, NADS lvl +12) there is a 4 point gap, but for all other monster types, the gap is either zero (brutes, artillery) or two (controllers, lurkers, skirmishers, etc). I'm sure somebody in CharOp has tables that can confirm/refute this.

There's one on ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/229092-lots-statistics-monster-manual.html) where somebody did the breakdown for the entire MM. It doesn't appear to have been updated since then, but it should still give a good indication.

Theodoric
2010-01-14, 06:20 PM
There's one on ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/229092-lots-statistics-monster-manual.html) where somebody did the breakdown for the entire MM. It doesn't appear to have been updated since then, but it should still give a good indication.
Well, the first MM did have a faulty way of calculating defenses, it's admitted as such in the DMG2...

tbarrie
2010-01-14, 09:24 PM
What Im trying to say is that you don't have great diversity in the value of your attack/defenses when compared to monster attack/defenses when of a similar level.

You don't have a monster that is really easy to hit but has lots of hp or DR to make up for it. So options like power attacking or using total defense won't see so much play as all monsters are difficult to hit, hit you about the same amount of time and hit roughly for the same amount of damage.

The DMG guidelines suggests that monsters should range from party level minus four to party level plus five. Taking into account the different defences monsters of different roles have, that means a level 10 party can expect to face monsters with AC ranging from 18 to 31. That strikes me as a decent range. (And that's just looking at the DMG's monster creation guidelines; if one were to look at actual monsters, the range may well be slightly wider than that.)

Dimers
2010-01-14, 11:01 PM
... if one were to look at actual monsters, the range may well be slightly wider than that.

And of course there's nothing saying the DM can't homebrew a monster with whatever array of stats he wants/needs.

For that matter, there's a lot saying the DM should homebrew ... like, for instance, players knowing all the published monsters' stats and metagaming based on their knowledge. Spending time on creating monsters appropriate for the players' power level and specific abilities ... that's always a nice thing.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-15, 03:55 AM
In my experience, monster NADs are usually not too much worse than their AC. I suppose for soldiers (AC lvl +16, NADS lvl +12) there is a 4 point gap, but for all other monster types, the gap is either zero (brutes, artillery) or two (controllers, lurkers, skirmishers, etc).
That's a good point.

Okay, let me paraphrase that: DPR for implement users is not so bad considering how many area attacks they tend to get.

Also, Dual Implement Spellcasting and the Staff of Ruin are pretty good boosts, as is that Genasi strength-bonus-to-damage feat. No, they won't out-damage a ranger; but they're probably on par with the rogue.

Tehnar
2010-01-15, 10:33 AM
The DMG guidelines suggests that monsters should range from party level minus four to party level plus five. Taking into account the different defences monsters of different roles have, that means a level 10 party can expect to face monsters with AC ranging from 18 to 31. That strikes me as a decent range. (And that's just looking at the DMG's monster creation guidelines; if one were to look at actual monsters, the range may well be slightly wider than that.)

And that is pretty much in accordance to the monster scaling per level. Really not much variety there for monsters of a same level. What Im looking for is a monster that is level X and has defense Y, and another level X monster that has defense X-10 or more.

Yakk
2010-01-15, 11:25 AM
Why aren't we banning weapon expertise as being too good to begin with? It's not like 4E is a prohibitively difficult game without it.
The situation is already true that "boost your chance to hit whenever you can, or you suck" -- hit chance boosting is one of the best ways to improve a 4e character.

The lower your chance to hit on a 'baseline', the larger the boost you get from hit chance boosting.

There are ways to boost your hit chance that include:
1> Having a 20 or 18 in your attack stat
2> Picking paragon paths/epic destinies that boost your attack stat or your hit chance
3> Using a high-proficiency weapon
4> Using a weapon against NAD defences
5> Picking powers with a hit chance boost
6> Grabbing feats that situationally increase your hit chance. Force the situation.
7> Generally enforcing prone, combat advantage, or other situations that grant a raw bonus to hit.

At level 30, a 16 in attack stat character has a base:
15+6+3+4+2 = +30 to hit.
A level 30 soldier has a 46 AC base.

So the 16 in attack stat character needs 16+ to hit (25%). That is our baseline.

Going to 20 in the stat, a paragon path with +1 to hit, and demigod-esque epic, boosts the effectiveness of this character by +80% -- he becomes nearly twice as effective at connecting.

Now imagine this character had the 'patch' of another +5 to hit from some other source. This character is more effective, with a base 50% chance to hit, yes -- but that isn't what I'm aimed at.

The impact of getting a 20 in the attack stat, demigod + paragon path that boosts hit chance is now +40% more hits.

What the 'free +5' does is move characters away from the valley of wiffs, and in the valley of wiffs (near 0% chance to hit) each +1 to hit is worth more in boosting that character's relative power than in the land of the coin flip (near 50% chance to hit).

Even with expertise around, paragon paths that boost your to-hit and epics that do the same are rather dominant. Building characters with a seriously high primary attack stat is rather dominant at low levels, and gets more so at higher levels because the 'baseline' to hit moves further into the valley of wiffs.

I want to reduce the power differential between the 16 strength character, and the 20 strength character, to make non-stat-bonus races more viable and generally make well rounded characters more viable. I want static modifiers to matter less.

And if your characters default path is strait into the valley of wiffs, doing things to get +1 to hit is too good. Heck, in the land of the coin flip, +1 to hit is a rather great bonus. It isn't until you get near to the plateau of certainty that the +1 to hit becomes not so good.

The above was done comparing against an even-level opponent. A level 35 soldier would be basically a "no, you cannot hit this" for the "default case", making the hit-min-maxed character even more dominant against it.

And even worse, to-hit boosting lowers your variance, and in a game where the typical case is "players win", lower variance is easily as powerful as average boosting.

Making higher level monsters harder by making them harder to lock down with status conditions, have them do more damage, avoid player damage nigh-infinite combos, etc: I think that is a better approach than just making players always wiff, and over-rewarding the boosting of to-hit.

Artanis
2010-01-15, 11:40 AM
To put the stuff about attack bonuses being better when your starting chance to hit is worse in another (less math-filled :smalltongue: ) way...


Imagine you're facing an enemy that takes 10 hits to kill, and your to-hit is so low that you only hit on a 19+. That means it takes ten attacks per hit, so it takes 100 attacks to get those 10 hits and kill the enemy.

Now say you add +2 to your to-hit, letting you hit on a 17+. Four in twenty attacks now hit, meaning it takes 50 attacks to get the 10 hits to kill the target.

By adding +2, you've just cut the enemy life expectancy in half.

Now add another +2 so that you hit on a 15+. Six in twenty attacks hit, meaning to get the 10 hits needed for a kill, you have to make 33 attacks. Compared to before, you've cut the enemy life expectancy by one-third.

Now add another +2 so that you hit on a 13+. Eight in twenty attacks hit, meaning it takes 25 attacks to get the kill. This +2 decreases the enemy's life expectancy by less than one-fourth.

And so on.


Now, the higher you go in level, the worse your to-hit becomes. As level increases, you get pushed further and further up the scale, making each little bonus worth more and more and more.

Decoy Lockbox
2010-01-17, 03:19 AM
And of course there's nothing saying the DM can't homebrew a monster with whatever array of stats he wants/needs.

For that matter, there's a lot saying the DM should homebrew ... like, for instance, players knowing all the published monsters' stats and metagaming based on their knowledge. Spending time on creating monsters appropriate for the players' power level and specific abilities ... that's always a nice thing.

I've homebrewed 100% of the monsters and NPCs my party has faced. Making monsters in 4e is just so dang easy, why not do it? I normally use my copy of the MM for inspiration, if at all.

Yakk
2010-01-17, 10:03 AM
Spending time on creating monsters appropriate for the players' power level and specific abilities ... that's always a nice thing.
Actually, that changes player build choices into a zero-sum game in some sense.

If monsters are always set up so that this particular group of players has a 50% chance of hitting them on average, then spending resources on a +1 chance to hit is actually just taking hits from the rest of your group, instead of making you better able to hit opponents.

Similarly, a non-striker could make the strikers hit more by lowering their own chance to hit (!)

Defeating player agency by adapting challenges to player capabilities is not always a good thing. I'd rather give players the freedom and agency, and have a system in which the players having this agency isn't a problem.

Leolo
2010-01-17, 10:38 AM
At level 30, a 16 in attack stat character has a base:
15+6+3+4+2 = +30 to hit.


I do not know if this calculation is helpfull at all.

A character starting with his main attribute 16 could also have a higher attack base.

15 Level
+8 Attribute
+3 Weapon Prof.
+6 Enheancement
+1 Class bonus
+1 Feat

thats +34. Without weapon expertise, combat advantage or other of the many options to increase the chance to hit.

And this is the problem with all the calculations. If they do not include all factors they are worthless.

For example using a mordenkrad does lower your chance to hit, but it increases your damage per hit. To not focus on a single high attribute may allow you weapon mastery feats and therefore mor critical hits.

And at last combat is not all. To increase your ritual and skill mastery could make you more efficient out of combat. (Sometimes even in combat)