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Author Topic: Epic Feats: Stat boosts  (Read 4029 times)

APorg

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Re: Epic Feats: Stat boosts
« Reply #25 on: August 13, 2018, 02:43:08 PM »
Addressing the balancing aspect:

A +1 ability gain is normally allowed in the regular game at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 in addition to everything else gained at those levels.  One point in ability is equal to 1/83 of a PC's total (possible) ability points.  This feat is takeable at *every level* in the basic game, starting at level 21, which is only 1 level higher than 20th, but in the basic game it could be in theory taken a total of 20 times.

It's completely false to represent a 6th Ability increase as merely the 83rd or 84th dot. Ability increases most often don't have a linear increase in power, but a quadratic one: melee classes with who get a better Strength bonus get +1 to hit and to damage, casters get more spell slots and higher save DCs, Paladins with Divine Might/Shield get more damage/AC and each use lasts longer. This is why, in point buy, 15-16 costs 2, and 17-18 costs 3. Going by that progression, 19-20 costs 4, 21-22 costs 5, and 23-24 costs 6. So allowing someone to increase their Ability score from 23 to 24 is not a trivial increase, rather a very significant one.

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So if this feat is unbalanced, so is Over-whelming Critical.

Likewise, Greater Weapon Focus, which is equivalent to Epic Weapon Focus in the base game, and here becomes available at 13th level (instead of 21st).

This is a false analogy. You aren't proposing any restrictions on this Ability increase, yet there is a huge restriction to Overwhelming Critical and Greater Weapon Focus: you have to be a pure Fighter, the base class universally acknowledged as the worst in NWN and DnD 3.x in general. Even access to these Epic Feats (including Armor Skin) has arguably not allowed pure Fighters to close the gap on Rogue/Fighters (who get access to Tumble and UMD amongst other things) or their main build rival, Fighter/Weapon Masters or Rogue/Fighter/Weapon Masters.

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One can have a personal preference for each feat, but one can't reasonably argue that the above feats are balanced, and the proposed isn't.

It's a bit ironic to suggest that there is no reasonable argument against you when the main motivation for your own position is a dislike of odd numbers.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2018, 02:44:46 PM by aprogressivist »
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Re: Epic Feats: Stat boosts
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2018, 05:43:45 AM »
I just can't see what adding this will actually bring to enrich the community, at most it's just a case of building your character correctly, at least, it's an odd number on a stat sheet which is a none issue.