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Thread: Expertise Feats

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    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Expertise Feats

    If you give versatile expertise as a bonus feat, what other expertise feats are still worth taking, and how would you rate them?

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    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Staff (or potentially Mighty Crusader)- not giving up OAs on ranged/area attacks is worth a feat.

    Light Blade for the damage, but only later- after Weapon Focus, for example.

    Flail for the whole slide/prone package.

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Pretty much any secondary benefit from an Expertise will rely on your power/feat/equipment choices, and most of them can be quite handy in the right situation. Staff Expertise happens to work for more situations, so that's the top of the heap. I'd consider Tome the best of the more specific ones -- well, maybe right after Flail, but certainly before Light Blade. War Wizard, Orb, Bludgeon and Devout Protector can also be strong.

    IMO the only Expertises with always-weak secondary benefits are Axe, Heavy Blade, Holy Symbol and Polearm.
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    Halfling in the Playground
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    Pretty much any secondary benefit from an Expertise will rely on your power/feat/equipment choices, and most of them can be quite handy in the right situation. Staff Expertise happens to work for more situations, so that's the top of the heap. I'd consider Tome the best of the more specific ones -- well, maybe right after Flail, but certainly before Light Blade. War Wizard, Orb, Bludgeon and Devout Protector can also be strong.

    IMO the only Expertises with always-weak secondary benefits are Axe, Heavy Blade, Holy Symbol and Polearm.
    Heavy Blade expertise is extremely useful for my Battlemind given the number of OAs I provoke with Lightning Rush. I agree with the others, especially since polearm builds likely want to try for things like repel charge or gamble.
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    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    Pretty much any secondary benefit from an Expertise will rely on your power/feat/equipment choices, and most of them can be quite handy in the right situation. Staff Expertise happens to work for more situations, so that's the top of the heap. I'd consider Tome the best of the more specific ones -- well, maybe right after Flail, but certainly before Light Blade. War Wizard, Orb, Bludgeon and Devout Protector can also be strong.

    IMO the only Expertises with always-weak secondary benefits are Axe, Heavy Blade, Holy Symbol and Polearm.
    Are you considering the axe benefit weak because it can be replaced by a brutal weapon? Personally I thought it was a pretty cool bonus, but I have not played too extensively.
    for ref:
    Axe Expertise
    Benefit: You gain a +1 feat bonus to weapon attack rolls you make with an axe. This bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level.
    Also, when rolling damage for a weapon attack you make with an axe, you can reroll one damage die that results in a 1, but you must use the second result.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by natiels View Post
    Are you considering the axe benefit weak because it can be replaced by a brutal weapon? Personally I thought it was a pretty cool bonus, but I have not played too extensively.
    for ref:
    It's weaker than Brutal 1, and Brutal 1 is already not that strong.

    Brutal 1 effectively eliminates the potential of rolling a 1, which has a net benefit of adding +0.5 damage per [W]. That's significantly weaker than Weapon Focus most of the time, and Weapon Focus is only middling in power level.

    Axe Expertise replaces a 1 with an average die roll. The math gets a little wonky and you get slightly different results for differently sized die, but on a d10 you gain +0.45 damage per [W] and on a d12 you gain +0.458 damage per [W].
    Last edited by tiornys; 2018-02-16 at 10:26 PM.

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by natiels View Post
    Are you considering the axe benefit weak because it can be replaced by a brutal weapon?
    No, just because it doesn't add much damage. Say you have a d10 weapon like a battleaxe. Using 2[W] powers, you have a 19% chance of the feat triggering at all, and it would improve your damage by an average of 4.5. That's a 0.855 damage-per-hit improvement. The feat will be more impressive with higher-[W] powers, high crit weapons and higher die types, sure ... but how much game time will you be swinging a d12 high-crit axe without the Brutal quality while using 3[W] or 4[W] powers? Not much.

    I also lean away from axes in general because I prefer a +3 proficiency bonus to hit.
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    Pixie in the Playground
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    Yeah, point taken. You guys have convinced me.

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    BardGuy

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Should also be noted that Gouge and Executioner's Axe already have brutal to begin with.

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    I gotta admit, I do love a gouge, with its minimum 4 damage per [W]. I particularly like a gouge of carnage so that rolling at least one '6' adds another slice of pain to the hurtwich.
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    Halfling in the Playground
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    I gotta admit, I do love a gouge, with its minimum 4 damage per [W]. I particularly like a gouge of carnage so that rolling at least one '6' adds another slice of pain to the hurtwich.
    I mean if you are gonna go that route, might as well be a bugbear with a large executioner's axe for 2d6b2 and a carnage weapon...
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wasteomana View Post
    I mean if you are gonna go that route, might as well be a bugbear with a large executioner's axe for 2d6b2 and a carnage weapon...
    Yeah ... *sighs and looks dreamy*
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    I gotta admit, I do love a gouge, with its minimum 4 damage per [W]. I particularly like a gouge of carnage so that rolling at least one '6' adds another slice of pain to the hurtwich.
    That gets kind of weird.

    Carnage reads "When you roll the maximum result on at least one of this weapon's damage dice"; "damage dice" is important here as is "maximum result". The *damage dice* for the gouge is 2d6, not 1d6. As such, I would only allow the carnage effect to trigger when you roll 2 6s on a pair (and, if you're running it in game, make sure the pairs are the same color to ensure that you don't mix pairs accidentally) because that's the maximum result of that specific damage die. If anything, a gouge would be *worse* for carnage because it's rolling multiple dice, which decreases the chances of getting a "maximum result" on any single "weapon damage die" (even if that die is technically multiple dice).
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    No, [W] is 2d6(B2), but the damage dice are actual dice rolled, not [W]s.

    Is why 2d6B1 rerolls any 1 that is rolled, not only if 2d6 adds to 1.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yakk View Post
    Is why 2d6B1 rerolls any 1 that is rolled, not only if 2d6 adds to 1.
    If you want to get semantic, the text of brutal states "When rolling the weapon's damage, reroll any die that displays a value equal to or lower than the brutal value given for the weapon".

    "Any die" is different than "weapon's damage dice". If the text for carnage stated "When you roll the maximum result on at least one die when rolling damage for this weapon", then the individual die (the d6s) rolled as part of the 2d6 weapon damage die for the scourge would trigger it. However, whenever a multiple-dice damage die is referred to, it's still always referred to as a single weapon damage die, which means that carnage, as written, would still require a maximum result on that multiple-dice weapon damage die (since the two dice comprise a single damage die) in order to trigger the effect.

    This is one of those places where I can see both interpretations being potentially valid depending upon how the GM reads it. If there's some errata that for this, I'd be interested to see it though.
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Huh, interesting. LSNED. The rules are solidly in favor of your interpretation. So a carrikal would be the best carnage weapon for a 1-in-6 chance of triggering per [W] but higher damage, then there are several standard d6 weapons, then khopesh for a 1-in-7 chance.

    Seems a bit counterintuitive. A handaxe or light mace is not what I'd expect for something called "carnage". I'll continue to apply it incorrectly for my own games, but won't assume it from any DM I play under.
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    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Staff Expertise - OA immunity and reach
    Crossbow expertise/Wand expertise - ignore partial and superior cover
    Flail Expertise - knock prone instead of sliding with a flail
    Possibly Holy Symbol Expertise to prevent granting combat advantage
    Possibly Tome Expertise for conjuration/summoning builds
    Possibly totem expertise (ignore partial concealment and cover)
    Especially for a Sorcerer War Wizard's Expertise (-5 to hit allies with AoE attacks)
    For the right build Orb Expertise (+1 to push); Hammer expertise is harder but plausible
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    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    However, whenever a multiple-dice damage die is referred to, it's still always referred to as a single weapon damage die
    Where does this happen?

    That's significantly weaker than Weapon Focus most of the time, and Weapon Focus is only middling in power level.
    Oh, as an aside, Weapon Focus is strong enough. A level 30 character who managed 18 copies of weapon focus has +54 static damage.

    Toss in 6 enhance, 6 item, 5 shard and 10 vulnerability and we are talking +81 static damage.

    If they manage 3 taps/round with 1d8 powers and 65% accuracy that is 166.725 DPR, or 5.05 normalized, or 0.6 enemies/round dead.

    2.0 normalized is an acceptable striker level.

    In short, if every one of your feats is as good as weapon focus, you do pretty darn good. Weapon Focus's problem is that it is *boring*.

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    Default Re: Expertise Feats

    Quote Originally Posted by Yakk View Post
    Where does this happen?
    In the Portable Compendium, at least -- I didn't doublecheck the RC. But it gives an example of a two-die "damage die" with 100% clarity while describing how to roll damage.

    EDIT: RC 223, "Weapon Damage Dice".
    Last edited by Dimers; 2018-03-02 at 11:01 PM.
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