I allow weapon focus to add to BAB for purposes of multiple attacks, and prerequisites. it's worked ok so far.
what do you think?
I agree, the bonus needs to be about a +2 / +3 to really be worth it. Since dodge applies to being attacked by all kinds of weapons and goes up to a +2 at 10th level... A weapon focus restricts the player on the bonus to one weapon so I would say a +2 at first and +1 more at every 10 levels.
imo weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization and similar feats should function for all weapons of a similar type, like the fighter weapon training groups. I might start a new thread on this later.
Yeah, 4 feats for +2/+4 with one weapon is too steep a cost.
Certainly I can't deny Weapon Focus is usually worthless except either as a gateway for Improved Critical or for some very specific builds that make use of every number-crunching twink available.
Hmmm... my two cents:
What if we made the bonus vary according to class' BaB? +1 for poor, +2 for medium, and +3 for high?
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Is Weapon Focus REALLY that underpowered? I don't know that it is. Not all feats should be equal, after all. Weapon Focus is a pretty good feat to take at 1st level, actually. I'm concerned that if we turn it into something supercharged we rob a perfectly good low-level feat choice from low level play.
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James, the problem with melee feats is there is no feat exchange, so if you burn your first few feats on stuff that is good at low levels, it quickly becomes "meh" as the character develops and is a "wasted" feat slot. Even though fighters get 22 feats by 20th level(23 if human), they really do need every one to have some "oomph" if they want to stay viable and flexible at high levels.
I do have to disagree that not all feats should be equal. They all cost the same (so to speak), after all...
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I think some scaling would make it better in the long run.
Sure, have it start at +1 but then have it increase to +2 at some point. Likewise with greater weapon focus, have it start at +2 and then increase to +3 (for a total net bonus of +5). I think that if you're going to be spending feats of focusing with a single specific weapon you should be rewarded for it.
Same deal with weapon specialization (2 damage at first then up to 4) and greater weapon specialization (4 damage at first then up to 6 for a net total of +10).
I've been running it like this in my games for a long while now and I've yet to have any complaints from the players. It lets the fighters feel like they've gotten something for their early feats instead of getting a bonus that's only good for the first couple of levels.
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Weapon Focus already scales, although it's not that obvious. Since it gives you +1 hit, that's basically a +5 percent chance of damage (mostly, although there are corner cases where target AC is so high or low that it provides less benefit). And 5 percent X (damage at 20th level) is significantly larger than 5 percent X (damage at 1st level).
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James, the problem with melee feats is there is no feat exchange, so if you burn your first few feats on stuff that is good at low levels, it quickly becomes "meh" as the character develops and is a "wasted" feat slot. Even though fighters get 22 feats by 20th level(23 if human), they really do need every one to have some "oomph" if they want to stay viable and flexible at high levels.
I do have to disagree that not all feats should be equal. They all cost the same (so to speak), after all...
Frankly, feats and abilities that fade into the background as you grow more powerful are, I think, good for the game. One of the largest problems facing high-level play is the complexity. if EVERYTHING you ever gained as you level up remains equally useful at higher level then all of a sudden at 15th or 20th level or whatever, your character is suddenly way too complex. That might be okay for some players, but it's not for others, and it's CERTAINLY not okay for GMs who don't have the advantage of growing used to a specific stat block's evolution and powers over the course of years of play.
Abilities, spells, and feats that fall into the background as you grow more powerful and are replaced by more powerful options help keep the game from growing unmanageably complex at high level. And if at 15th level, you're bemoaning the fact that you "wasted" a feat at 1st level for a benefit that, at the time was pretty good, but is now a drop in the bucket, I don't know what to say.
If the problem is the conception that fighters loose their oomph... keep in mind that ALL classes have things that start to suck at higher levels, be they self-obsoleting spells like cause fear, sleep, or circle of death, or be they racial abilities (at 20th level, does a gnome's ability to speak with burrowing mammels even count anymore? How about a dwarf's stonecunning?)
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I do have to disagree that not all feats should be equal. They all cost the same (so to speak), after all...
But they don't all cost the same. Something like weapon focus costs one first level feat for some folk, but for others it costs one 2nd level feat, due to the prerequisite. Likewise, a lot of the more powerful feats have prerequisites that make it more difficult to pick.
The alternate, that all feats are available at 1st level and are all equally powerful would make for a pretty anemic and dull system, I think.
I don't think weapon focus is underpowered really, but neither would giving weapon focus to a weapon group be overpowered, personally I like the idea where a fighter is able to handle a good deal of similar weapons with skill, as is no fighter I know will take weapon focus twice anyway. why not allow 'weapon focus: light blades' ?
It will have no effecton game balance, it makes sense and makes the fighter a little happier.
As Tribeof1 said, Weapon Focus scales with increasing damage dealt, and it also increases with iterative attacks, haste attacks, and possibly two-weapon fighting attacks.
Since attack bonus and AC scales nearly equally as you go up in level, that +1 to hit *always* counts. It doesn't need to scale at all - the Fighter scales with *more* feats, such as Greater Weapon Focus. That and their weapon training all stacking on top of each other are quite a huge benefit.
Feats shouldn't scale generally. I can see the exception for the skill feats, but even those I'm a bit hesitant on (the Rogue in my Second Darkness game is going to have about +25 to Stealth at 10th level, +10 of that from feats). They scale through "stacking" and through expanded use.
The comparison with Dodge is a decent one, but remember that Dodge takes a Swift action to use. That means it won't *always* be on at later levels.
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If the problem is the conception that fighters loose their oomph... keep in mind that ALL classes have things that start to suck at higher levels, be they self-obsoleting spells like cause fear, sleep, or circle of death
Unless you're a sorcerer or bard, you can just not pick those spells to prepare at higher levels, unlike the fighter that can't retrain in the PFRPG rules (and may need those sucky feats for gateway purposes).
Why not, as suggested above, scale it? Say, +1 then +2 at BAB of +8, then +3 at BAB of +15, etc?
As for the existing scaling, all plusses to hit scale like that. The question with the feat is opportunity cost, ie, are other feats better? Can I get my plusses more cheaply otherwise?
In other news, I hate fighter-only feats. Hate them.
If the problem is the conception that fighters loose their oomph... keep in mind that ALL classes have things that start to suck at higher levels, be they self-obsoleting spells like cause fear, sleep, or circle of death
Unless you're a sorcerer or bard, you can just not pick those spells to prepare at higher levels, unlike the fighter that can't retrain in the PFRPG rules (and may need those sucky feats for gateway purposes).
Why not, as suggested above, scale it? Say, +1 then +2 at BAB of +8, then +3 at BAB of +15, etc?
As for the existing scaling, all plusses to hit scale like that. The question with the feat is opportunity cost, ie, are other feats better? Can I get my plusses more cheaply otherwise?
In other news, I hate fighter-only feats. Hate them.
as noted before, the + 1 to hit in a way does scale already, since number of attacks and damage increases enough to make a better to hit chance remain significant, a wizard actually stops using some spells but a fighter uses this feat every swing, sometimes more than once in the case of confirming threats. the logic behind the hate for fighter only feats is still not clear to me, they are the fighter's class features allowing other classes to use them makes the fighter less significant, sure the fighter has more feats, but the best feats will be cherry picked by the barbarian, ranger and paladin.
I don't mind the static +1, but would like to see it applied to weapon groups or maybe apply it to 1 weapon every two levels or something along those lines.
I second the weapon groups option, a blade master needs a little love
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Although I don't think Weapon Focus needs to scale (see above), I am a fan of letting it apply to weapon groups for which a Fighter has Weapon Training. I've been testing this out in my playtest campaign and it works well (mostly on the DM side -- the longsword-wielding specialist is actually willing to consider the enchanted scimitar dropped by the BBEG at higher levels). And gives an extra little benny to the fighter.
I recently instituted House Rules in my 3.5 campaign to scale Weapon Focus, Spell Focus and Dodge based upon BAB, Caster Level and Base Reflex Save respectively. They all start at +1 and end at +5 for a 20th level single-Class Fighter, Wizard or Rogue respectively.
Because they are keyed to specific values, they work regardless of Class, multi-Class or Good/Poor variations. Incidentally, "Poor" values top out at +3 for single-Class characters. Theoretically, a multiclass character that hit all their combinations of Poor values wrong could top at +2, I presume.
I avoid splat-books and run a pretty clean game as far as Feats and such are concerned, but I think scaling these three offers something for everyone, while helping circumvent some of the high-level problems of untouchable monster ACs, guaranteed Saves against most spells and topped-out character ACs respectively.
So far the 5th-6th level party I'm running is barely getting up to +2 in their chosen feats, and I currently foresee no unbalancing.
FWIW,
Rez
you removed the greater focus option for spell and weapon then ?
with NPC's getting the same bonus I dont see how it would make for a better game, if you take greater spellfocus too, you can 'top out' at + 6 dc ? some players will suffer from that especially the single classed ones. a + 1 bonus on a D20 roll is 5 % that is not bad for one feat, in some cases it effectively doubles your chance to hit or affect your target, if you also have power attack with a 2-hand weapon you can 'exchange' + 1 to hit for + 2 damage, btw you wont realy notice at low levels, but building balancing encounters at higher levels will become tougher
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If the problem is the conception that fighters loose their oomph... keep in mind that ALL classes have things that start to suck at higher levels, be they self-obsoleting spells like cause fear, sleep, or circle of death, or be they racial abilities (at 20th level, does a gnome's ability to speak with burrowing mammals even count anymore? How about a dwarf's stonecunning?)
Some spells do become irrelevant, like sleep.
However, the casters can simply swap those spells for ones that are relevant.
It's not that Sleep becomes surpassed by spells of level 2, 3, 4, etc, but that it can be swapped for better spells of level 1.
The casters are able to totally reinvent themselves every morning, with abilities that are specially tailored to the objective at hand.
Once you pick a feat, you are stuck with it.
Weapon Focus (longsword) is no use to you, when you find out 'the only blade that can slay The God-Beast' is a falchion.
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I do have to disagree that not all feats should be equal. They all cost the same (so to speak), after all...
But they don't all cost the same. Something like weapon focus costs one first level feat for some folk, but for others it costs one 2nd level feat, due to the prerequisite. Likewise, a lot of the more powerful feats have prerequisites that make it more difficult to pick.
The alternate, that all feats are available at 1st level and are all equally powerful would make for a pretty anemic and dull system, I think.
A feat that can be picked early should scale, even if only modestly. Having a +1 rise to a +2 by character level 10 would not be out of place.
I like the idea of scaling based on BAB, which gives a larger benefit to those classes who will use it more. It also rewards a PC for sticking with martial classes, instead of multiclassing through several half- or three-quarter BAB classes.
Feats that cannot be taken till later, should give a bigger bang for their buck straight away.
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as noted before, the + 1 to hit in a way does scale already
I referred to that in my answer (it's why I was talking about opportunity cost).
Considering +1 as 5% of a d20 is the wrong way to look at it, though, I think, because it ignores the other bonuses and the amount you're trying to get over (and at higher levels, one of the complaints about D&D is that the roll itself becomes less important than the bonuses).
As for me disliking fighter-only feats, the way I prefer it, there shouldn't be only a few good feats for cherry-picking (and the existing fighter-only feats aren't that great anyhow). The other meleers should be able to take good feats and the fighter should be able to take good feats, just more of them. Additionally, feats will be a part of fixing combat, and the problems with combat affect all the meleers.
Weapon focus should progress like the new feat arcane strike
+1 at the begining then +1 at every 5 level to a max of + 5 atlevel 20
these kinds of feats should have some sort of progression
not all of us are fighters with unlimited feats
weaponfocus isn't just 5 % better, that + 1 to hit can make you hit twice as often as a fighter without it in some circumstances that is 100 % increase for you. with greater weapon focus it might increase by as much as 200 %.
comparing a 20 th level fighter with another 20th level fighter without weapon focus isn't fair, they are both extremely skilled and both made weapons and combat into their way of life, anyway.. a single feat should not make you the ultimate specialist, there are alot of ways to improve your weapon skill on a single weapon if you choose to do so, use every feat and class ability towards your focus on that particualr weapon and you have your 20th level specialist.
I think that +1 does scale. It scales with every extra attack you gain. I don't think it needs to scale but allow it for weapon groups would be reasonable.
In my older campaigns, I addressed the Weapon Focus Tree a little differently. I went with the philosophy that +1 is +1.
Weapon Focus: +1 to attack & damage
Weapon Specialization: Total is now +2
Improved Weapon Spec: +3
Greater Weapon Spec: +4
Weapon Mastery: +5
Weapon Grand Mastery: +6
Feats can be taken by a Fighter in order at 1st,4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, & 20th levels.
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Just make Improved Weapon Focus have a larger bonus. The +1 at low-levels works really well, and when Improved weapon focus comes along it will have a larger bonus that stacks with weapon focus. Same for Improved specialization. The base feats are still perfectly viable feats, but I don't think they could ever be passed up if they were +2 or higher.
Also, I kind of like the idea of changing weapon focus based on damage types. If I have a pointy stick I would assume it would work like an ice pick, the pointy end goes in the other guy.
Is Weapon Focus REALLY that underpowered? I don't know that it is. Not all feats should be equal, after all. Weapon Focus is a pretty good feat to take at 1st level, actually. I'm concerned that if we turn it into something supercharged we rob a perfectly good low-level feat choice from low level play.
The same can be said about toughness, but that was still changed. I've played a few first level games (in fact, theres a PBP group I used to RP with who only stuck with low-level games) and those 3 extra hit points where surprisingly useful. If you intend to make a feat like that more powerful (and even more powerful than it's "improved" splatbook version) then I don't see why it can't apply to weapon focus too.