Expertise

Post by **Rary** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:23 am

I'm thinking about removing this feat unless anyone else has a good reason why it should stay.

Weapon masters will get a different feat to replace its loss.

But right now its making AC way over AB.

Casas · Post by **Casas** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:09 am

Define way over? Paladins can have 44 AB.. and truestrikers don't miss anyone. How many builds have 60+ AC that aren't PM/RDD's, or clerics with expertise?

Post by **Rary** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:34 am

Its not a big problem at level 20.

I'm talking more like 7-15 range. AC gets way too high very easily whereas AB costs too much money to increase at those levels.

Paladins get 44 AB, Barbbarians get 40 AB at 20. A level 11 player can get 40 AC. I think without expertise, that would be enough to resolve this solution. Its not a major change either.

Casas · Post by **Casas** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:36 am

Low levels exp is always a problem.. why not just have a script that doesn't give them AC till their BAB is 12+? That would solve most casters too.. 20 mage/cleric have 10 BAB.

Xianio · Post by **Xianio** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:40 am

If you can do it without having to remove the WM class then sure.

It's also a problem far past level 20 in once you get stupidly high gold. Hell part of the reason why my PM/RDD is so insanely powerful against other melee's is because it can reach 60 ac....which it does using expertise. Otherwise a pally can hit me on a 10 with there first and last swings.

Casas · Post by **Casas** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:42 am

What's your PM/RDDs BAB? 12? Expertise is a viable and effective tactic against low AC DR classes.. such as my barbarian. That would give him a bit more power than he already should have.

Xianio · Post by **Xianio** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:06 am

I believe it's 13 I"m not entirely sure though. But that doesn't change the fact that if I didn't have expertise my build would be beatable by other melees, not often but if they rolled well they could. But that's at the entreme end of ac and probably shouldn't be cited as an example as to why expertise shouldn't be in.

Most ac builds reach about 6 lower then my RDD. So that's usually around 50 if they have the cash. That's over 10 higher then most ab's, only a barbarian and a pally really get over that 10 to often (multiclassing for the barb or just pure pally's included). With expertise it becomes 55 which is to high for most classes to handle and in the cases of WM's hardly lowers there effectiveness.

So in conclusion I agree that expertise causes big problems overall. What we could do instead of straight out removing it though is lower it to +3 ac. (Just have a script run that is attached expertise and have it lower dodge ac by 2 whenever expertise is activated.)

Casas · Post by **Casas** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:10 am

Those classes normally have low damage.. such as PM/wizards. My PM wizard has a 51 AC he does little damage, and can't take much damage.. thus AC makes up for it. Not every class has d10 HP.

Post by **Rary** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:12 am

Xianio wrote:So in conclusion I agree that expertise causes big problems overall. What we could do instead of straight out removing it though is lower it to +3 ac. (Just have a script run that is attached expertise and have it lower dodge ac by 2 whenever expertise is activated.)

Would be great if I can change it, but its like stealth. It doesn't call any script that I can modify, so only way around it is to have heartbeat scripts with loops to check for players with it on, then modify them. That is too ugly to do unfortuntely.

It'd actually be easier to make an item that acts as expertise.

Xianio · Post by **Xianio** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:23 am

Well that's an option as well. Probably the best case is either removing it or giving that item.

However if we give an item like that could using it cause 20% spell failure? That would keep mages from using it and would lower cleric ac (which is really high but not horribly unbalanced I don't think) while they were casting. Would also help level off those Truestrikers who use expertise to be safe from being hit while skyrocketting there ab.

So changing it to +3 ac and 20% spell failure I think would be the best of both worlds.

Casas · Post by **Casas** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:25 am

How do servers disable to use of exp while casting?

Xianio · Post by **Xianio** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:31 am

It's an option. Takes a click of a button. However if an item was used that would have no effect on it, so that 20% spell failure is the solution to that potential problem.

Post by **Rary** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:58 am

Casas wrote:How do servers disable to use of exp while casting?

They add it to every spell when cast to check to see if in expertise, then fail. Because every spell fires a script. Unfortuntely not every feat does.

A95 · Post by **A95** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:59 pm

Couldn't you just mod expertise to do nothing like +0 AC -0 ab.

Post by **Rary** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:37 pm

Even better. I can remove it so people can't even take the feat.