TRPG General Chat

DuckTapeAl

13:22

Oh man. I think something's about to go down.

Check out Yamikorune's answer here:

10

Q: Does a Dread negate its own immunity to fear?

At 7th level a Dread gains immunity to fear, but by this point they already have an aura of fear which causes all creatures within to lose immunity to fear and take penalties on saves against fear. Since a Dread would be a creature within 10 feet of itself, would it be affected by its own aura?

I think that's the first time I've seen someone outright diss DSP here.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the rule wording on those powers is straight up terrible though

DuckTapeAl

Fact.

The fact that that question is a valid one means that whoever wrote that class failed at being clear.

Joshua Aslan Smith

so as a basis on his/her answer I think its fair to say, dont use materials written by this publisher as they of lesser quality than Paizo's published products

DuckTapeAl

I don't know that I'd say that.

Paizo isn't great at wording things either.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I dont see anything terribly inflammatory in her answer, its not edition warring or the like

DuckTapeAl

13:27

My general rule whenever I read anything in any tabletop game that doesn't make sense is that the designer wrote it poorly.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ive regularly seen people say and I think its fine to say, use Dragon magazine article items with discretion for 4e because some of them are written quite bad

I would concur with that

DuckTapeAl

It baffles me how often people try and use a tortured version of the RAW, rather than just assuming the RAW is crappy and doing what makes sense.

Joshua Aslan Smith

depends on what game you are playing

4e is lauded by me ant others for the general rigor that its RAW have

and its design focus on RAW

I eschew 3.5 and its scions specifically because the game depends so much more on DM ruling and RAI interpretations

DuckTapeAl

4e is a notable exception.

Joshua Aslan Smith

If I want that kind of world control Ill do dungeon world or fate where themechanics support that kind of thing much better

DuckTapeAl

13:31

Then again, 4e is basically a minis game with the ability to roleplay tacked on.

A buddy of mine once compared 4e to a JRPG: There's combat, and there's non-combat. They can interact to a limited degree, but in general, combat is where all the rules happen.

wax eagle

on that PF question, does PF not have a general rule about whether or not auras affect the generator of them?

seems like it would be important

DuckTapeAl

And combat is done on a very tight set of rules with little ability for the players to change them.

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol strange comparison I think a boardgame is a much more apt comparison

DuckTapeAl

@waxeagle According to Opa, it doesn't.

wax eagle

4e for instance: "A creature is normally unaffected by its own aura."

DuckTapeAl

13:34

@JoshuaAslanSmith The reason I like JRPG more than board game is that in a JRPG, there are tons of cool and interesting things that happen outside of combat, they just use an entirely different and less well-defined set of rules.

Where in a board game, there's just the combat rules.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I 100 percent disagree with your view of jrpgs

but thats fine Im kind of a hater of them

DuckTapeAl

What part of it?

Joshua Aslan Smith

only JRPG I ever got into was chrono trigger and Id probably never replay it today because of how JRPGs work

I guess I disagree because I find combat in jrpgs to be an absolute chore

whereas in 4e I relish it

DuckTapeAl

Well, there is that.

Joshua Aslan Smith

so the comparison is one I cant support because of the dissonance between the two I feel

DuckTapeAl

13:38

That's more a matter of taste than of type, though.

Joshua Aslan Smith

agree to disagree?

DuckTapeAl

You don't like jrpg combat, but that doesn't mean that the separation between jrpg combat and jrpg story isn't similar to the separation between 4e combat and 4e story.

shrug sure.

@waxeagle I've been looking through the pfsrd, and I can't find any rules about auras specifically. I don't think "aura" is a thing in PF.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl huh....things like this continue to make me apreciate 4e :)

and dread 5e just a bit

DuckTapeAl

5e is actually way better put together than 3.x.

I didn't want to bother with it before, but I joined a game, and I'm coming around to it.

wax eagle

I've liked what I've seen so far, it seems to be boiled down well. Hopefully the bounded accuracy mechanic works

DuckTapeAl

13:44

Yeah.

I've definitely found some poorly written stuff, but that makes me feel at home more than it actually affects play. :)

wax eagle

I'm staying out of the playtest materials for the time being waiting to read the starter set when it comes out. I read them fairly thoroughly the first few weeks of the playtest but have only skimmed them since

DuckTapeAl

So, the thing about auras: I've been doing some more reading, and I think the reason there aren't defined rules about them is because the word 'aura' doesn't mean anything from a rules sense.

Like, there are effects than emanate from a creature, but the rules for them are specified in that specific ability, not as a general thing.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl gotcha, so there isn't a generic aura object that all auras inherit from, they all have to create their own mechanic

DuckTapeAl

Exactly.

wax eagle

(we should make RPG designers take programming courses)

11

OOP would help them tremendously

DuckTapeAl

13:48

Speaking as a game designer with a CS-like degree, I don't think that would help. :)

It would certainly help if rpg designers used OOP techniques more often, but there's a big difference between knowing and using in this case.

wax eagle

true

DuckTapeAl

The problem is that, especially for an old game like D&D, there is a tendancy to do things the way they used to be done, and to not significantly change everything, even if it should be changed.

3

Most system updates or overhauls change a few big things, while leaving most of the system intact.

Like, PF could probably have taken some of the good things that 4e was doing and integrated them into the game, especially with the later books.

wax eagle

makes sense. In a way it might actually help 5e that 4e came before. A clean break followed by something closer to 3.5 but free to not repeat as many mistakes due to tradition...

DuckTapeAl

And PF had the opportunity to make non-magic characters actually useful, and they totally dropped the ball.

Exactly.

wax eagle

(though I'm quite concerned that 5e's non-magic classes won't compete at higher levels)

DuckTapeAl

13:56

I'm concerned about that as well, but I'm pretty hopeful.

It's not like in 3.x, where there was a huge power gulf that started at level ~5 and only got worse from there.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl No, I anticipate solid balance through the first 5-10 levels, which is probably OK for most games anyways

DuckTapeAl

And it seems like they're trying to strictly limit the number of spells that anyone has access to.

wax eagle

yep. That should help a lot.

seems like 3.5 casters had too many tools in the toolbox

DuckTapeAl

Yeah.

And there was an awful lot of role dipping in the spell lists.

Like, clerics getting DD spells like Flame Strike.

wax eagle

yeah, 4e did a pretty good job of making role choices meaningful, and letting you pick up a solid secondary role, but you're hard pressed to fill all 4 in a single build and be good at anything

DuckTapeAl

13:58

Yeah.

wax eagle

I know one of the unstated design goals is to go as far afield of 4e as they possibly can, but hopefully they learned some things about what works

DuckTapeAl

My favorite thing about 4e was that every class, even the crappy ones, was reasonably useful all the way to 30.

wax eagle

definitely. Even the worst classes had baseline competence 1-30

DuckTapeAl

It wasn't like, "Oh, you're a fighter? Well, be ready to be a meatshield and nothing else once we hit 6."

wax eagle

not at all, the Fighter is one of the stars of 4e :)

DuckTapeAl

14:02

I played a paladin until level 6 or 7, and god was it terrible.

It got to the point where monsters basically ignored me, because my punishment mechanic was so bad.

wax eagle

:(

DuckTapeAl

But even then, I was useful as a secondary healer.

And I could do secondary striker damage if monsters ignored me.

Magician

@DuckTapeAl Well. Some classes are definitely crappy. But they tend to be weird as well.

@DuckTapeAl Is this in 4e? I haven't played or seen a level 7 paladin, but I've observed a level 25+ one, and it was terrifying.

DuckTapeAl

Yeah. Eventually, because shenanigans, I was able to switch classes and be a warlord instead, and I was way more useful.

It was 4e.

Was he using sourcebooks other than the PHB?

I've been told that paladins can be pretty good if they use other books, but this was before any of them were written.

Magician

It was... If you attack someone else, you deal half damage and get nuked. If you attack him, you're blinded, and he has stupid high defenses, so good luck.

DuckTapeAl

14:05

Christ.

Magician

@DuckTapeAl ALL THE SOURCEBOOKS!

DuckTapeAl

That's way better than the normal punishment.

Zachiel

@Magician define nuked

Magician

@DuckTapeAl Some of this was epic stuff, and everyone gets ridiculous by then. It was perhaps because I haven't observed the character from level 1, that it seemed so powerful.

wax eagle

@Magician I heard stories about Brian's Pally...

Magician

14:07

@Zachiel Well. Not nuked-nuked. But damage was dealt. He dealt a lot of damage, it just seemed it wasn't because he would attack 4 targets at once.

@waxeagle That's the one :D

Montanus Mortis, in all his glory.

I love technology

130 hp, 0 of 14 surges. I think he still has records from the very last battle of the campaign! Sweet.

DuckTapeAl

:( That link reminds me of one of my biggest problems with 4e. I've never had Compendium access, so all of these cool resources that people used were unavailable to me.

Magician

Yeah, DDI was basically required.

DuckTapeAl

Great financial move on Wizards' part, but it meant that I was never going to play 4e seriously.

I played one campaign, which didn't last long, and a couple short campaigns in college that all involved weird shit that a buddy of mine built.

wax eagle

fun, we have a weekly game, DDI just made sense for us

DuckTapeAl

One of the things that was always attractive about tabletop games to me was that you bought the rules once, and never had to spend money again. Spending 70 bucks a year on 4e when I already had a few systems that I liked just seemed like a ripoff.

So, I'm reading that SKRticle that got linked earlier, and jesus christ is he off base.

How did this guy ever get his math license?

This one, btw: seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/keenimprovedcritstacking.html

Magician

14:24

I'm impressed by the level of assholery concentrated in a single sentence there: "I've decided to redo this rant, as it's sorta scattered and makes some assumptions that are correct but some people aren't comfortable with." Didn't read further.

DuckTapeAl

My favorite sentence was the one right before that.

"I respectfully disagree on both points."

Has SKR ever done anything respectfully?

Aaron

This guy is a moron

Oh wait did I say that out loud?

The biggest thing he is not accounting for is the fact that you auto hit if you crit even if you do not confirm said crit.

Or playing a barbarian with the auto confirm rage power. HE would destroy everything.

Zachiel

@Aaron false

DuckTapeAl

No, the biggest thing he's not accounting for is Strength bonuses and Power Attack and all of the other stuff that actually does damage at mid-to-high levels.

Zachiel

@Aaron I guess he's talking 3.5e, not pathfinder

@DuckTapeAl this

redo the math with just a +10 to damage instead of a puny +2 and let's see how the numbers change

Aaron

14:29

@Zachiel Yea I knew that. Is it not true in both systems? (It may be a house rule I thought was a real rule if so I apologize)

DuckTapeAl

It's like, no one cares about a difference in average damage of 2 points.

Zachiel

@DuckTapeAl I care. Greatsword for the win

wax eagle

yeah, too many factors...what about things that trigger on crits? (not sure of the presence of those in 3.5)

Zachiel

@waxeagle (lots of)

DuckTapeAl

@Zachiel Well, yeah, because crit-fishing is a crappy build option.

wax eagle

14:31

I mean I won't begin to argue one way or the other, but when your only talking about base damage, you've missed a huge section of the argument

is a crit always a hit in 3.5/PF? or only a nat 20?

DuckTapeAl

@Aaron Crit confirmation is a thing, but if you're comparing two characters with similar attack bonuses, then they confirm as often as eachother, so it comes out in the wash.

Aaron

@waxeagle I thought so I am checking now though. If I can't find anything I will post a question.

DuckTapeAl

It's only a nat 20.

d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Critical-Hits

Zachiel

@DuckTapeAl I want my damage to be reliable. If I need to fell an enemy on the first round I don't want a 55% chance to fail dealing all the damage I calculated for

Aaron

@DuckTapeAl Thanks.

DuckTapeAl

14:33

@Zachiel Yeah, which is generally the better way to build a character in 3.x.

Basically, in his article, he takes a character that is not at all built to deal damage, and says "See? He doesn't deal damage! The system is broken!"

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol watching penny dreadful and they are drinking absinthe which is emerald green AFTER dripping water over sugar into

shake my head

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith ...is that not supposed to happen?

HA! I just got to a point in the article where SKR goes even further off the deep end.

"... he still loses compared to the greatsword-wielder, even though he spent more money (25gp) on his weapon ..."

Joshua Aslan Smith

an actual emerald green suggest artificial coloring (low quality, possibly hazardous absinthe given the time period)

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith Ah.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl (how on earth does 25 gp matter at all)

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:37

on the right is what a high quality absinthe looks liek straight

and then on left is after water has been dropped over sugar into it

DuckTapeAl

@waxeagle (past level 1, it doesnt)

@JoshuaAslanSmith Interesting.

wax eagle

exactly, and they are well past

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith Is it just the colour of the bottle that makes people think absinthe is supposed to be green?

Aaron

is absinthe a drug or alcohol? I always thought it was some kind of drug?

Joshua Aslan Smith

DuckTapeAl

14:39

@Aaron Well, alcohol is a drug, to the answer is "yes."

Joshua Aslan Smith

this is what it looked like in the epsidoe

wax eagle

@Aaron its a spirit with purported hallucinogenic qualities

Joshua Aslan Smith

whaich made me laugh

absinthe is alcohol

Aaron

@waxeagle I second this motion.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Absinthe

Absinthe ( or ; French: ) is historically described as a distilled, highly alcoholic (45–74% ABV / 90-148 proof) beverage. It is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from botanicals, including the flowers and leaves of Artemisia absinthium (a.k.a. "grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Absinthe traditionally has a natural green colour but may also be colourless. It is commonly referred to in historical literature as "la fée verte" (the green fairy). Although it is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a liqueur, absinthe is not tr...

Aaron

14:40

@JoshuaAslanSmith Thanks.

Joshua Aslan Smith

absinthe contains thujone in small quanitities thanks to the wormwood infused into it

thujone is a hallucinogenic , but its presence is so small (despite being combined with alcohol and thus the doubling effect) that its been shown to be not an issue anymore

Aaron

@JoshuaAslanSmith Ah this is why I thought it was a drug.

DuckTapeAl

That distinction has always confused me. Why is alcohol not considered a drug?

At least, in common parlance.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl mostly just history

Joshua Aslan Smith

most of the history and stories associated with absinthe are really the long-term/near death effects of alcohol poisoning

basically alcohol's regulation and sale has been very different from medicinal drugs

Aaron

14:45

I think the main difference between alcohol and drugs is the fact that drugs can kill you a lot faster if not used correctly. (As long as you are not driving or something)

Joshua Aslan Smith

though it was used as a medicinal drug itself in many ways

@aaron, you can die pretty easily from an alcohol overdoes

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith Except there are a number of other drugs - medicinal and not - that are commonly available over the counter, and which are legally restricted in some way.

Joshua Aslan Smith

plenty of college students do it every year

@DuckTapeAl right but do you go to the pharmacy to by alcohol or do you go to the drug store to buy liquor?

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith I go to the corner store an buy cigarettes, or cough syrup.

Zachiel

My uninformed opinion is that alchool kills your liver way faster than your brain, while still releasing chemicals in your body that produce the intended effects

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:47

those OTC drugs are still sold and provided by pharmacies vs. alcohol as a social event and beverage

if your liver cant work, then you die because a whole lot of toxins that your liver takes care of in your blood stream (like alcohol) remain

for death by alcohol check out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens

DuckTapeAl

Part of it is likely a recent cultural thing. Until the 1800s or so (IIRC), there were a number of other drugs that were both legal and not socially shunned.

Like some opiates, or pot.

Joshua Aslan Smith

alcohol, like coffee or tea, has purposes beyond drinking it for its biochemical effects

DuckTapeAl

But now the word "drug" means something bad, generally speaking, and most people don't think alcohol is an inherently bad thing.

Joshua Aslan Smith

alcohol has a firm foundation as one of the bedrocks of civilization, excess grains could be converted to alcoholic beverages as a way to store calories and as a release

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith That never made sense to me either. Decaf coffee or tea boggles my mind.

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:52

do you not like the flavor of coffee or tea?

or alcohol?

I regularly drink gin, whiskey and rum straight in tumblers, slowly sipping

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith That too. I've heard reasonable theories that state that civilization started because people needed to figure out how to make more booze.

@JoshuaAslanSmith No on all three counts. I've found a few kinds of tea that I like, but they're typically green teas. Black tea and coffee taste super bitter and crappy to me, and I've been drinking both off and on for years.

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah yeah, I love coffee black or black with a small amount of sugar

I exclusively drink tea straight

black teas in particular

earl grey is a favorite

DuckTapeAl

And any form of straight alcohol tastes bad to me. The only alcoholic beverage that I like straight is cider, and that doesn't have any alcohol taste.

I drink black tea with a bit of sugar a lot, but that's only because I'm addicted to caffeine, and I'm not getting free Coke Zero anymore since I got laid off.

Joshua Aslan Smith

no slight against you, but generally Ive found that while alcohol is an acquired taste in many ways, I also feel most people's exposure to liquor is usually in the worst way possible via the most bottomshelf rotgut there is

coke zero is a fave of mine

wax eagle

I prefer diet Dr pepper

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:56

diet dr p is surprisingly good

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith My initial exposure to alcohol was mainly crappy stuff, but I've tried top shelf too, in recent years. It all tastes crappy to me.

wax eagle

right now though I'm drinking Harney and Son's Hot Cinnamon Sunset a lot. Good black tea with cinnamon and clove oil, bit of orange. Doesn't need sugar but its sweetish

Joshua Aslan Smith

I do actually prefer the taste of coke zero to regular coke at this point

DuckTapeAl

I don't trust diet doctor pepper, because the advertising is grammatically ambiguous.

Joshua Aslan Smith

for liquor I always ease people in with cocktails featuring that liquor, maybe highballs, and then increasingly make stronger versions featuring the flavor of the liquor more an dmore

DuckTapeAl

14:57

I've been drinking three pints of iced tea a day for the past few weeks. I use the crappiest tea I can find, it's like a buck for a hundred bags.

Joshua Aslan Smith

my tea brand of choice is usually bigelow

DuckTapeAl

For alcohol, I typically drink cider or iced tea with raspberry vodka.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ive avoided high end tea because there are multiple shops for it in philly and I already spend enough money on high end coffee and liquor as it is

DuckTapeAl

Oh my god. I just got to the end of that SKRticle. He is SO BAD at making viable characters.

It's like he's never player 3.5 before.

*played

Zachiel

@DuckTapeAl SKR was the one that playtested 3.IDK with a int 12 wizard

wax eagle

15:09

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, tea is easy to spend a lot of money on....I've found loose leaf to be too much of a PITA at work, but sachets are perfect and the tea I mentioned sells at target for like 30-40c/sachet

Zachiel

While I understand the "I'm not playing to win, I'm playing to see what happens"... it's strange

wax eagle

seems like you'd want to at least build moderately competent characters...

DuckTapeAl

So basically, he personifies the Stormwind Fallacy.

He thinks that interesting characters must be shitty characters.

Magician

Even if he's not interested in optimizing at all, the topic he chose to tackle has everything to do with mechanics.

Joshua Aslan Smith

who is this?

DuckTapeAl

15:11

Sean K Reynolds.

One of the D&D 3.5 designers, IIRC.

And apparently one of the primary PF designers, according to Wikipedia.

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

article link?

DuckTapeAl

seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/keenimprovedcritstacking.html

AKA "I have no idea how to build a crit-fishing character in 3.5, and thus we should make the most powerful crit-fishing builds even better"

wax eagle

though IIRC he no longer works for Paizo as of...earlier this year?

Zachiel

@DuckTapeAl mmmh I won't get that extreme. He surely thinks that you don't need to get a competent character to have fun and that the compromises people accept to play a powerful character are often detrimental to the character concept (which I think to be true and to which he definitely is an a-h about)

Joshua Aslan Smith

hah

is there anything wrong with critfishing in your opinion?

DuckTapeAl

15:21

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just non-optimal.

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah guess thats a 3.5 issue

DuckTapeAl

Also, it makes certain things harder, as a GM.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith I don't see a problem with his argument, his logic is just abysmal

DuckTapeAl

@waxeagle Exactly.

Joshua Aslan Smith

critfishing is total winsauce in 4e

DuckTapeAl

15:22

I agree that you don't need to make a competent character to have fun, but you can totally make a competent character and have just as much fun.

wax eagle

you can't make an argument that something is balanced by looking at simple damage expressions. You have to talk about riders, additional powers etc etc etc.

DuckTapeAl

I agree that some of the things that people do to optimize their characters at the expense of roleplaying are sort of crappy, but you don't need to do any of that to have a competent character.

It is possible to build a competent character to fit any character concept.

wax eagle

I think that's the part that people who rebel against optimization miss. You don't have to sacrifice all of your competence to be compelling

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith I have no sense of how 4e works at this point. My last serious campaign was PHB only, since there weren't other books at that point.

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah

its a beautiful thing

aside from a few weak and well known for being weak classes (seeker, vampire, witch) its pretty much balanced out and solving a build in 4e is very easy to do with the community, guides, and expertise available at this point

DuckTapeAl

15:27

From what I hear, it's also pretty much assumed that you have DDI if you're playing 4e as well.

Joshua Aslan Smith

a minor bit of powercreep, but I think that its not so much powercreep as making feat taxes less taxing if that makes sense

you dont have to, but to me its what makes the most sense

how I got into it

DuckTapeAl

Ugh. Feat taxes.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I dont own a single 4e book

haha

so like expertise feats

in phb its just you have expertise with this weapon group and get +1 to hit

but now, thanks to essentials there are a ton of cool riders for those feats

DuckTapeAl

A buddy of mine made a mod of 4e where he basically fixed all the shitty math that caused feat taxes, and abolished those feats.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl you can do that with rules intro'd in DS for the most part

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:29

heavy blade expertise gives you +2 to defenses against opp attacks, axe expertise lets you reroll 1 damage die on an attack made with an axe etc. in addition to their +1 to hit

DuckTapeAl

DS?

Joshua Aslan Smith

Dark sun

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl dark sun

Joshua Aslan Smith

introduced an optional ruleset called inherent bonuses

wax eagle

though actually those replace magic item bonuses so they don't quite do the same thing...

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:30

that way you dont need to have items at your level all the time to stay competent

you can still have and use magic items

but you could be level 10

using a level 2 (+1 magic item) sword, but the modifier you would get would instead be +3 from the inherent bonus

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, this mod didn't replace magic bonuses like that (IIRC), it just made it so the basic numbers that attacks and defenses and skills were based on worked.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the only point it falls off with is that at epic/high paragon you start to have access to masterwork armors and those have additional bonuses that inherent bonuses dont

@DuckTapeAl monster math got overhauled for essentials with MM3

as did DRs in general

DuckTapeAl

When was that?

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl 2010

DuckTapeAl

And did that fix the fact that the expertise feats were basically required?

wax eagle

15:34

@DuckTapeAl nah, they still are for the most part

DuckTapeAl

See, that bothers me.

Joshua Aslan Smith

expertise feat is the difference between an 18 and a 20 in mainstat

wax eagle

the key is that they do other stuff now

Joshua Aslan Smith

so depending on your build you could forgo them

a DM could also just houserule you get 1 expertise feat for free

honestly its the easiest thing to do if you dislike expertise feats that much

DuckTapeAl

It's certainly better that they do other stuff, but bad design decisions shouldn't be fixed by dictating one of the options that every character has to take.

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:36

In heroic an expertise feat isnt something I thin is required, it certainly helps though

DuckTapeAl

There was an official guide for writing new feats in 3.5. One of the first big points that they made was that if you make a feat that's so good, everyone should take it, that you've made a bad feat.

Joshua Aslan Smith

but that +1 become =2 and then +3 as you hit the other tiers so it matters by then

but Ive never played in epic so yeah

I dont really want to though

DuckTapeAl

@JoshuaAslanSmith It might not be required, per se, but from what I've heard and read, expertise is better than basically every other feat you could want.

Joshua Aslan Smith

eh?

wax eagle

wow, I need to clean my office, new desk will be shipping soon

DuckTapeAl

15:37

Or at least, there's no build that couldn't be improved by removing one of it's feats and replacing it with expertise.

Joshua Aslan Smith

from a math perspective its the most widely applicable feat

its always on

there are better racial feats depending on the weapon you are using

DuckTapeAl

It's really academic, since it's incredibly unlikely that I'll be playing 4e again, but the idea of a feat that every character has to take bothers my design sense.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Githzerai Blade Master

Heroic Tier
Prerequisite: Githzerai
Benefit: You gain proficiency with all military heavy blades, as well as the bastard sword and the fullblade. Additionally, you gain a +2 feat bonus to damage rolls with these weapons. This bonus increases to +3 at 11th level and +4 at 21st level.

DuckTapeAl

I'll take your word for it that that's a good feat, but if that's your first feat, would expertise be your second? Or your third?

Joshua Aslan Smith

second probably

lvl 2 feat

some people say you should take the damage focus feats as well

Ive never done that

DuckTapeAl

15:42

That's my point. You can probably find a feat that's better for any specific character you could name, but you probably can't come up with 10.

Joshua Aslan Smith

eh theres lots of very specific feats thanks to dragon mag that give you a +1 with a weapon and an implement and have a nice little bonus worked in as well

paladins for example are spoilt for choice between 5 different expertise feats

depending on what kind of weapon they decide to use

but yeah I can understand what you are saying

if its so prevelant then it should just be baked into the characters already

DuckTapeAl

Based on what I've seen in the char op boards, I wouldn't trust the design sense of Dragon MAgazine further than could throw it.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl heh, sometimes good, sometimes bad

Joshua Aslan Smith

eh, there are very few truly broken things from dragon mag

which usually comes down to a few badly worded written items

I cant remember the example item which doesnt work at all

raw

feats and backgrounds and themes from dragon mag are all game

theres a lot of great optional rules supplements in them

DuckTapeAl

It's less that their stuff is broken, and more that their stuff is poorly considered, and allows for other stuff to become broken.

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:46

you talking about OP broken?

DuckTapeAl

This is mostly from 3.5. I tried to avoid char op stuff in 4e.

Joshua Aslan Smith

when I use broken in this context I mean the rules dont work for the items

DuckTapeAl

Yes.

Joshua Aslan Smith

handwave theres plenty of super optimization stuff in the books without touching dragon magazine

frost cheese which anyone can do

and a radiant mafia party

which is in my opinion the highest level of partywide optimization possible

DuckTapeAl

IIRC, there's a combo in the PHB which allows two characters to kill everything in the world as a full-round action.

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:47

everyone deals radiant damage and has ways to make enemies vulnerable to radiant damage

?

what are you referring to

you can only take one free action attack per turn

so there are no infinite chains

also no such thing as a full round action in 4e

DuckTapeAl

It's a thing where one character can grant the other an extra standard, and the other can make an attack to refresh the first one's ability, and somehow they can move as well.

Joshua Aslan Smith

one of those is probably a daily

if not both

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl ah, that's been errata'd then, granted attacks can only happen 1/turn

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep thats what I meant my only 1 free action attack a turn

wax eagle

there were a few silly powers in the PHB that they've toned down quite a bit

(and in the #Source Power books)

DuckTapeAl

15:52

My point was in response to @JoshuaAslanSmith saying that there was broken stuff in core books, and I was agreeing.

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

DuckTapeAl

I can't find it right now. I know they were dwarves, but I can't remember why.

wax eagle

@DuckTapeAl probably easy healing and near free access to superior weapons

DuckTapeAl

No, it was part of the combo, I think.

MAn, this is going to bother me all day.

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