Expertise and Improved Expertise

[Relinquish]

I'll let you know, One of my PCs had a base skill of 5 taunt. And his total taunt score broke 20.

[Ebok]

I dont like this for PvE. I second this opinion.

The round-timing to activate expertise is finnicky, sometimes waiting an extra round to re-engage if it is clicked a quarter second too late. I think if monsters start cancelling expertise and such, all you are going to get is more full/half party wipes. The opponents in many of the quests on EfU feature attack bonuses that are triflingly high, leading to the prevalence of the "expertise fighter." What you will, instead have, is a monster detoggling the feat, the player reclicking it on, and occasionally it simply will not work, and the player will be surrounded by monsters with 15AB that do 15 damage a hit. When he is killed in that single round, the whole party will break and everyone will be emo about it.

As for PvP, there are fights where one person turns on Improved expertise and then does nothing else. And the fights take a boring 15 minutes. Then again, this suggestion may not change that fact at all, since when you deactivate expertise, you are increasing their ab by 5 to 10. So... Dust in the eyes hardly works in this situation.

I believe below would be a much better adjustment to see, over some item that may or may not give an edge over someone in PvP. Those that rock at PvP anyway will be ready for it, and those that dont just have another weapon that results in them dieing suddenly.

Much better if Expertise and Imp. were adjusted for the server level range so that they gave 3 and 6 AC instead of 5 and 10.

There are cases where expertise mode sticks. Say... Fear, Hold Person, Knockdown. In PvE the fact that your expertise doesnt drop /can/ save your hide (sometimes). In PvP its rather annoying, and thats honestly the only time I see this item actually being worth its implimentation. imo, the above suggested change to expertise makes sense, followed by having those effects when failed, detoggle the feat.

You want to detoggle someones Expertise? KD them. Fear them. Hold Person. That would seem a much less glitchy way of doing this.

Daze, Stun... If I think of any more I'll toss them up here. Lots of ways to make this work. And! This way, they are on a timer before they can re-establish their expertise-ing.

[ScottyB]

Nihm's suggestion of changing the AC value of E/IE is not possible with my (admittedly outdated) understanding of NWNX plugins.

[artfuldodger99]

Concentration would seem the most sensible skill to make the save with. Never had a PC with this feat so not sure if it is too much of a nerf. I suppose if you have to hit with a touch attack and there is then a save that would be pretty balanced.

[Ebok]

Can you script the disabling effects and abilities to toggle off expertise, stealth, detect mode, and the like?

Disabling effects are as follows:

Stunning, Dazing, Paralysis, Hold Person, Fear, Knockdown ?

((thinking back, maybe it shouldnt disable stealth <_<, that would suck to have to watch yourself die because the monster behind you turned on a fear aura and charged the monster on the other side of you)

[scribjellydonut]

While on the subject it would be really neat if you could script something (and I'm sure that due to limitations this would unfortunately have to be set -before- the battle and not at all during) that allows you to use feat as the PnP version.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Taunt is great, but less useful for certain most classes since it is cross class. This would just allow other classes an option to break through certain types of defenses.

That's an argument against implementation rather than for.
Taunt is an incredibly useful skill, and allowing every class to use it is effectively nerfing the ones that have it as a class skill.

[ScottyB]

Can you script the disabling effects
Stunning, Dazing, Paralysis, Hold Person, Fear, Knockdown ?

Not in any practical sense, no. If we tried to do this then I'm sure we'd spend the next few years dealing with bug reports "this spell/feat/item causes an effect that should de-toggle, but it isn't!"

While on the subject it would be really neat if you could script something (and I'm sure that due to limitations this would unfortunately have to be set -before- the battle and not at all during) that allows you to use feat as the PnP version.

Due to engine limitations, this isn't even possible. I had already said that changing it to +3 AC/-3 AB was impossible. Why would you think that making it +X/-X where X is player-selected (1 to 5) would be any more feasible? (I assume you meant PnP Combat Expertise.)

*rains on everyone's parade*

(FWIW, if we go the sand item route, it should be an AOE cloud that affects everyone, even allies and the user, in some negative way, in addition to the de-toggling.)

[Twelve]

Magic Eye Dust feels like it should remove x points of Dodge AC across the board.Something that causes a distraction should distract everyone, not just people who are 'fighting defensively' (which is what expertise boils down to).
 

+1,000,000  Now, that makes sense

[dragonfire9000]

Do it. Just to stop this discussion, do it.

[Drakill Tannan]

I've never used expetise, and i find it too boring to remain at the front, unable to hit -anything- yet being half-inmortal. So i don't care much. Why not beta-test it? have a week or an alternative server to try this out.

[FanaticusIncendi]

I would like to go ahead and put my two cents in.

Expertise, IMO, is the ability of the character to fight in a strategic manner. Strategy requires brains, hence the intelligence requirement for the feat. They are able to say "I see what you're about to do there" and immediately compensate for the actions of their adversary in a manner that deflects the attack. The downside of course being that in doing so they don't gain any ground over their opponent.

When an opponent lands an attack on a fighter in expertise, it means they have done something that the expertise fighter did not see or expect, or did not have time or ability to compensate for. Whatever that may be. That may very well have been a handful of dust in the expertise fighter's eyes. There are hundreds of styles of fighting and attacks a person may make but only a very finite amount of animations to represent this in the game engine. This is where imagination comes into play. The point is, they got an attack in. The game engine already takes care of this and to implement an additional way to "get around" expertise is superfluous.

I can understand how folks without expertise would be annoyed with the length of time it takes to land a hit on an expertise fighter in PvP, but meanwhile, you aren't getting hit either.

It should be tough to take on a fighter with expertise. They have invested the points in Int and taken the feats... IC to me this represents that the character has spent a good portion of their combat training learning how to anticipate and respond to attacks defensively, rather than spending their time learning how to be a powerhouse of destruction. If you're going to make an item to toggle off a person's expertise, you should also make an item that can toggle off power attack, or cleave, for example.

I think that if people are looking for ways to better engage an expertise fighter in PvP, they should think more about strategy instead of looking for some item that they think will even the playing field.

If you really want to get into PvP with an expertise fighter, team up with a wizard who can cast hold person, or a cleric casting fear or scare (whichever is the higher one). Or an assasin who has a death attack (my high level fighter with Imp. Expertise was killed in seconds because of a death attack from a *spoiler*). All these things will compensate quite effectively for the expertise AND it makes it more fun for everyone because the opponent has involved other people and the person playing the fighter doesn't feel like they lost because a major part of their build was simply disabled.

To address the perception that expertise is somehow an auto-pilot mode for handling mobs... Keep in mind that natural 20's still score hits and that many spell effects disregard armor class completely. So you still have to keep an eye on your buffs and hit points. Using potions, wands and items drops you out of expertise for one to two rounds. You are now surrounded by several opponents who are getting attacks of opportunities or you're manuvering out of melee, which toggles off your expertise and draws the AoOs anyway (plus you have a mob chasing you).

The point is, expertise is not some sort of free ride and I fail to see any balance issues that need to be addressed, thus requiring the addition of the suggested property.

[MindOfMist]

I've never used expetise, and i find it too boring to remain at the front, unable to hit -anything- yet being half-inmortal. So i don't care much. Why not beta-test it? have a week or an alternative server to try this out.

If you have never used something then I'm afraid your opinion might be taken lightly on the subject.

I am against this change for many of the reasons listed above, but to be more specific I will list them quickly.

- Lost stats and feats to acquire this ability

- This is not a 'free ride' as said, and even in expertise a fighter can do a large amount of damage while they are buffed, which they are going to be typically. They also still take a large amount of damage and often times the burst damage from a critical hit  is even more unexpected and causes a quicker death.

- Removing this feats' usefulness only further adds to the Barbarian class that is in all honestly, very powerful here. They already have more HP, better movement, damage  reduction and for most builds, lack only the expertise of a trained warrior while having the ability to enrage and get even more attack bonus than a fighter.

[Kiaring]

For Rage to be extremely useful, CHA points need to be spent, in a manner analogous as to how INT must be dished out if you want expertise. Also, barbarians have terrible AC in comparison to fighters; their movement speed bonus/DR (1 point of physical at level 4 iirc) does not make up for the myriad feats a fighter gets.

This is not a discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of fighters and barbarians/other frontliner types. My two cents is that while I would not be against the addition suggested by Mort, I tend to side with the people who say that Expertise isn't overpowered or imbalanced, just much more easily hated on because it makes battles 'boring' as opposed to two-round hyper-damage bonanzas.

[Kotenku]

I am extremely opposed to the idea Mort presents.

Playing a Frontliner is already deadly enough as it is. The concerns of being healed without invoking AoOs, destructive critical hits, the glitchy way that combat is already implemented in NWN (wherein for no reason at all, your character may move in battle, take 3 AoO's, and lose Expertise, and nearly die for it) make playing such characters obscenely hard. The additional responsibility of a frontliner having to be concerned with monsters stripping him of his only means of survival when he's surrounded by 8 enemies, and taking two attacks per round from each, seems to me the definition of OVERKILL.

On the other hand, in PvP I am not opposed to the implementation of the idea at all. Dirt tossing and so on in the midst of battle is an additional layer of depth to a PvP system which could genuinely use some measure of tactical variety.

Just don't give it to the monsters. Going on difficult Scripted Quests is already a dismal experience to be avoided at all cost.