Talk:Variant Weapon Focus (3.5e Feat)

Balance Level

This isn't wizard. It's rogue. For all of the same reasons that Ghost's version, which does the exact same f@#$ing thing for different people, is. If he thinks that is Rogue level, we can be consistent and make this one rogue level as well. I understand that he doesn't like who it gives the bonus to, and that he's working on an alternate framework where having a real BAB matters more than having a high to hit number, but neither of those are actually relevant to the balance level of this feat. As such I have changed it to an appropriate level. - TarkisFlux 20:02, January 1, 2010 (UTC)

*shrug* I don't really care anymore. Hopefully those who are interested in the feat have the curiosity to look on the talk page to see why the feat isn't a good one, since by itself it can push characters off the RNG. Just as a side note, my version follows my philosophy on game design in that it attempts to bridge the gap for classes rather than widen it. Widening the gap leads to imbalance in power levels, and can lead to frustration in players, where they find that they miss very often or that someone else is much better than them and continually hits, or for DMs in cases when one person consistently carries the spotlight in rogue-level games and the DM feels required to throw monsters that the rest of the party can't handle just to challenge that character. Another problem for the DM is that the feat on its own stops attempts at standardizing the system, since numbers that were supposed to be towards the middle of the RNG are suddenly completely off.

(You'll note that this is the same thing that happens when the whole group's playing at the fighter level and someone brings along a rogue-level character, or when the whole group's playing at the rogue level and someone brings in a wizard-level character. Hint hint? :-P)

By balancing everything to the rogue level, I attempt to balance the game so that no one stands out head and shoulders (eg. above the RNG) over anyone else, or dominates the game. This feat allows one to do that; therefore, regardless of whether it's rogue-level or wizard-level or even if we label it fighter-level, it's a bad feat since it can easily lead to frustration in the actual game, where some people are far stronger than others, so much so that the others feel underpowered compared to the full-BAB character with this feat. --Ghostwheel 21:31, January 1, 2010 (UTC)

I kinda have to agree with Ghostwheel here. Mathematically, Weapon Focus is actually a significant DPS increase - not ENOUGH, maybe, but kinda significant. A +5 bonus is just way too big, and RNG breaking. WF's main problem is that it's boring, not that it isn't good. As an idea, maybe this should give a (small, non-scaling) bonus to hit, and then give a bonus to hit on the iterative attacks? Getting iterative attacks at only -4, or similiar might be a good idea for a feat, but I haven't run the numbers. Karrius 22:28, January 1, 2010 (UTC)

I won't argue that this is a great feat, and if I were using Tome or Ghost's iterative attacks I wouldn't let this near my game because it doesn't fix anything. But in a standard iterative attack game, I just don't care about widening the gap for attack rolls as much as I care about not wasting well over half of the die rolls, and it works to correct that. As for pushing them off the RNG, well that depends strongly on whether you're looking at primary, secondary, or tertiary attacks, on what sorts of challenges the characters face, and all sorts of other game and balance level dependent things that no one actually talks about before they talk about pushing you off the RNG. I don't think it "breaks the RNG" for rogue level games, but when I say that I specifically mean that I don't think it substantially raises the average success rate of your aggregate attacks in the round above the level where you need to have them to even compete if you take a full attack action. It has some unfortunate side effects in the single attack arena that could cause it to actually "break the RNG" according to the definition I used above in conjunction with other optimization tricks, just like it could "break the RNG" under the above definition under non-standard iterative attack rules, but I'm willing to pay that price for the lack of missing. Not that I would ever use this feat because I don't use standard iterative attacks, but the point stands.

As to the idea that this pushes you head and shoulders above others and allows you to consistently carry the spotlight, well he's absolutely right that it can do that in melee/ranged (one area per feat per weapon) against an actual AC, since we barely care about bonuses against touch ACs. And if that's the only thing that you're concerned about, then this is a terrible thing. But as there are touch attacks and AoEs and chaff throwing and all sorts of other areas where this doesn't substantially benefit people, leaving people who can still contribute and still be awesome in their own areas, and I don't actually care if people specialize in a particular area of combat, I genuinely believe the worry to be vastly overstated for anything that would occur in play. This shouldn't be taken as me disagreeing with Ghost's design philosophy, since I do agree in large part, I just don't feel that every class should be at the same point on the curve in every area, and most of the complaints leveled against this feat are basically that. Hell, Ghost's lack of favor is basically complaining that the full bab guy who focused on his to-hit is way better at hitting things than the medium bab guy who didn't... which doesn't seem an issue with the feat so much as with the rogue build (I imagine he has touch attacks, and even if he doesn't his numbers should be 2 better anyway since it was indicated that he was flanking). Keeping things close together is one thing (and a hard thing at 20 because of different scaling rates, but that's a different issue), but keeping things the same is just crazy. The idea that you shouldn't allow the thugs to be better thugs than non-thugs or to focus on thugy things strikes me as ridiculous, expecially since they tend to suck in other areas of the game. If all you play is combat I guess you might be concerned about that, but that isn't the game that I know or play. - TarkisFlux 23:42, January 1, 2010 (UTC)

If the point is to help the iterative attacks, rather than push all attacks up, then I think Karrius had a great idea in lowering the penalty of iterative attacks. That said, it sounds like there's enough dissent that perhaps we should put the balance level to a vote? --Ghostwheel 16:57, January 2, 2010 (UTC)

If you feel that strongly that a +5 bonus for a full BAB class is a wizard level feat while a +5 bonus for a med or poor BAB class is a rogue level feat, then by all means put it up for a vote in the forums. Or better yet, go convince TK to just put a balance level on it, weigh in on the discussion, and adjust it as appropriate. - TarkisFlux 17:26, January 2, 2010 (UTC)

"why the feat isn't a good one" is where I stopped reading because it's wrong and bringing too much opinion to cry with. --TK-Squared 17:29, January 2, 2010 (UTC)

While you're here, want to chime in on the intended balance point? - TarkisFlux 17:37, January 2, 2010 (UTC)

Ratings

Blocked Rating

Rithaniel likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

Block Reason: This is a legacy rating from before our current ratings scale. While the reasons should be valid, it is not counted in the ratings on the article page because of the inaccurate scale.This feat is an excellent replacement for the normal weapon focus feat, and provides a substantial bonus at each level in the game. All in all this feat is of excellent quality, and should, in my opinion, be the standard used in many levels of the game

	DanielDraco dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
	After some analysis with the help of Ghostwheel, I'm dropping my favor from this feat. Since this feat has no balance point defined it defaults to a rogue goal, but it is firmly planted in the high wizard range. It's like putting a multiplier on BAB -- it makes a slight advantage even bigger, which is bad in a system that already isn't balanced in that respect. See below for details.

Tarkisflux likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

This feat is significantly stronger than it's standard, moderate balance, counterpart and will carry a thug class into later levels without wasting rounds missing with most of their attacks. It's just a straight numbers feat though, and as such not particularly interesting. That said, if you're using a variant of iterative attacks, such as those in the tome series or Ghostwheel's, or have put a stopper in the font of bullshit bonuses floating around the game (rather like this), I wouldn't use it. But in a standard game with free-for-all bonuses and near useless 3rd or 4th hand iterative attacks, this is a completely reasonable, if bland, addition to help carry a fighter or monk level class a bit farther.

	Leziad is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	A pretty interesting alternative for the original crap, this feat is actually worth taking.

Ghostwheel dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

All in all, this feat is a poor one. It helps characters who need the least help (full BAB characters) and while helping those who need the most help the least (medium BAB frontliners), and can push the former characters completely off the RNG when compared to the latter. Let's take the worst case example, a barbarian with this feat and a rogue without. The Barbarian's attack bonus at level 20 is going to be 20 (BAB) + 16 (Str) + 5 (Magical Weapon) + 5 (Weapon Focus) for an attack sequence of +41/+36/+31/+26. On the other hand, a traditional rogue flanking without this feat at level 20 has the following: 15 (BAB) + 12 (Dex) + 5 (Magical Weapon) - 2 (Two-Weapon Fighting) for an attack sequence of +30/+30/+25/+25/+20/+20. As you can see, if the barbarian has any chance of missing whatsoever on his first attack then the rogue will virtually never be able to hit. On the other hand, if the rogue has a chance of hitting with any of his attacks, the barbarian will auto-hit at least once, if not more. Effectively, by itself, this feat has broken the RNG when comparing these two characters where there would be a gap of less than 10 between them without the feat. Scaling bonuses should go to things that aren't based on the RNG. Giving scaling bonuses to things that rely on the RNG can easily break it, especially when characters already have ways to raise themselves on it a decent way (such as the barbarian through rage). This feat does just that, and thus cannot be favored.

Balance Issues

Ummm... have you actually done the math? It doesn't go to the rogue balance point--at all. +1 to attack is an increase of ~10-25% damage, depending on the AC of the enemy and your damage. Now imagine how much +5 would do, and calculate in that it has the potential to break the RNG on top of that. It balances well at the wizard level, since at that point you're not really caring about the RNG, but not so much at the rogue level. I know the feat "looks cool", but people need to actually do the math IMO --Ghostwheel 02:35, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

I had not done the math. Extrapolating from your analysis, I've found that the iterative progression is the only factor in the percent change. Average damage doesn't affect the percent change, nor does the attack bonus (as long as the enemy's AC is still the highest pre-feat bonus +10). Overall, the results are this: at +1, the increase in damage is 16.67%; at +2, 33.33%; at +3, 50%; at +4, 66.67%; at +5, a shocking 83.33%. So, while the core feat's +1 bonus might not be worth it, increasing it to a peak +5 is far above a rogue balance. --DanielDraco 05:17, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Son of a wiggly toadbottom, for those not watching the Eiji Show Eiji finally got tired of listening the debate over this so he's finally putting his two cents in on this. The short story- I'm with the "rogue level" group. And now the long story why. And why?

First level, all you're getting is a +1. That's the same as Weapon Focus, hardly overpowered. Whatever damage increase it gives is pidly, Weapon Focus standard is fighter level.

Ok, move on, mid levels, +2, +3ish. The bonus is bigger. That's good, there's apparently even more average damage, but we're still not too vastly stronger than the fighter. This whole arguement of almost doubling (83%) your damage is at +5, so let's look at that. That's at level 17. At that level, meteors are flying and people are pretending their superman. The monsters do fine. They have DR, resistances, etc. More importantly they have the hp for it. Their Con score grows and it grows very fast the more HD you have. What was it... each level is supposed to be a doubling of strength? I forget... anyway, the point I reach is at low levels, the +1 is small and comparable to other feats, and at high levels, it's managed to keep pace with the inevitable explosion in enemy strength and hp. It is the main reason the standard Weapon Focus fails to deliver, it's fine for low level but becomes irrelevent at higher levels, where you're still only hitting 5% better than normal, when you NEED to bit hitting much more often to produce the damage output you need to keep up with the others.

I'm not going to get into the whole drama of the bronze star business, I don't care, it's fluff and glitter and means a lot of nothing. Anyway, 2 cents, plus tax. -- Eiji Hyrule 07:07, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Also, that extrapolation fails. Badly. Ghost's numbers are for a single case and a +1 bonus and have no bearing here except for the exact condition that they represent (which I feel is overstated for that matter). If you could pick an average damage boost, which you can't as it's a game dependent parameter, it wouldn't mean what you think it means against the people you think it means anything against. If you want real numbers you need to make a graph (because you don't have static numbers), and look at the ACs of people where you get the bigger bonuses, consider how much missing you're going to be doing at that level anyway, and then decide if you still think it wizard level or not. - TarkisFlux 07:25, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Hey, look, a graph: link. - TarkisFlux 08:31, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Very, very awesome. Being able to see it really makes a difference--I think I'm firmly on the "weapon focus as-is is fighter/rogue and the variant is wizard level" side though, since I think the increase in damage is fine and you don't usually have to roll a 1-2 or 19-20 to hit things (since that often leads to magical tea party). --Ghostwheel 08:34, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Defiant to the end, eh Ghosty? → Rith ^(talk) 09:47, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Defiance has nothing to do with it. The graph simply drives my point home. When requiring around a 13 to hit, the variant weapon focus can provide up to almost a 100% increase in damage--definitely not rogue level. --Ghostwheel 18:37, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

This wasn't as clear as it could have been, but that to hit number is for your primary attack, your secondary attacks will hit on the number 5 higher than than, and any tertiary continue along the same lines. So at a 13 to hit, your secondaries hit on 18s and any tertiaries you have hit on 20s. Which for Ghost's example data point (BAB +17 thru 20 at 13 to hit) means you would be missing with ALL of your attacks in the round about ~46% of the time without the bonus. With it, you're only missing with all of your attacks in the round ~17% of the time. Which means that somewhere approaching 100% increase translates to you going from wasting approximately half of your rounds doing nothing to you only wasting around a 6th of them. And in those terms and against an opponent stacked against you to begin with... I just can't treat that as wizard level. At all.

Later this afternoon I'm going to rework this as a graph that shows average hits per round as a function of primary attack to hit number, showing the non-weapon focus case, the +1 always cases, and the variant weapon focus cases. Which will probably be on three graphs so that it's legible. Because that's how I look at these increases, not as a damage bonus, but as a decrease in the amount of wasted rolls on tertiary, throw away attacks. That it comes with some damage boost is not inconsequential, but rather a feature of making subsequent tertiary attacks not a waste of time. - TarkisFlux 19:58, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Except that many of the attacks at high levels *are* supposed to miss, since each one carries so much damage. Take, for example, a level 6 barbarian who power attacks for 2. His damage could easily be 42 on average if both attacks hit (7 from greatsword, +1 magic, +9 str, +4 power attack, all that multiplied by the number of attacks that hit). This means that if both attacks hit, a barbarian can take down a purely melee-monster (the Ettin) in two rounds all by himself, with little chance of being hurt (thus not passing the SGT). When lower-iterative attacks miss, the other party members can also contribute to taking down the monster. That said, that's one of the things "fixed" in my [attack variant], but as it is in D&D 3.x without Tome, one is supposed to miss with the majority of one's attacks at higher levels, and only hit with them a small amount of the time.

By giving such a large boost to damage, you effectively allow meleers to take down equivalent CR creatures down in 1-2 rounds (as long as the creatures don't have some sort of "I win" wizard-level spells), something that makes them more in the wizard-level category (not passing the SGT, since they aren't going to die themselves in 1-2 rounds) rather than the rogue-level category (where they have around an equal chance of dying). --Ghostwheel 20:11, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

You should know that you can't SGT individual challenges Ghost, and your entire example is worthless because that's what you did. You are allowed to specialize and be better than your fellows at some tasks, as long as you suck at others. You're not supposed to be able to deal with everything on the list, but it doesn't matter if you can deal with some things on the list really really well. If it were any other way every entry in the SGT would be "toss up" and it wouldn't matter what you brought against what. I don't care if a melee brute can take a melee monster in single combat most of the time, getting in and hitting things is his schtick. If he can't do that WTF can he do?

But I absolutely agree that most of your iterative attacks are supposed to miss, in a fighter level game where you don't get nice things. Since this fixes that and doesn't unbalance your win/loss ratio in a complete higher level SGT, it's a rogue level feat. - TarkisFlux 20:27, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

You're also supposed to miss pretty often in a rogue-level game. Warblades, crusaders, swordsages, psywars, and duskblades (all examples of rogue-level classes) aren't supposed to hit every single time, whether they're making full attacks or a single strike for massive damage. The only thing it "fixes" is much of a chance of a meleer missing, which isn't fixing anything--just making it so there's very little chance of missing compared to other people in one's party. --Ghostwheel 22:18, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Well, at least 2 of those aren't even full bab classes, and really only get the benefit of being a full bab class without the extra attack by taking the feat. Which means that they aren't hitting more than their full bab party members and sorta invalidates your argument with respect to them, but whatever.

You don't want people hitting on every attack. I agree, they're not supposed to, but I'm not claiming that you stop missing often with this variant. Let's go back to your hit on 13 example since that has such an egregious boost in your opinion, which is the BAB 17-20 line with 4 attacks and a +5 bonus from this feat. Each round that you full attack, you land, on average 0.65 hits if you have to roll a 13 or better for your primary without this feat. So if you get to full attack for 3 rounds, you hit on 2 of your 12 attacks on average. With the +5 bonus from this feat that rises to 1.25 hits per round. Go 4 rounds, get 5 hits out of your 16 rolls on average. That's still not impressive or worrisome, but it is about twice as good as you got before and generally results in your BAB meaning something on most rounds (like it's supposed to). There's not very little chance of missing compared to your party, there's still a big chance for all of you to miss and you will still be doing substantial missing (almost 3 in 4) even with this feat against well armored creatures. And against less armored creatures this feat provides a much smaller benefit. I honestly don't understand why you're getting all riled up about those numbers, you're claiming that against an opponent moderately well armored compared to your bab you should be hitting less than 5 in 16, less than ~1/3 of the time. And claiming that if you do hit that often you're playing in a wizard level game instead of rogue level (if potentially optimized) game. I don't agree with that at all. - TarkisFlux 00:50, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

(Defiance has everything to do with it, considering that this chart proved that your math was faulty, and that your arguement had much less holding that you assumed it did, yet you still claim that you are correct. That is what defiance is, word for word.) Now then, said melee classes only pass the SGT due to little tricks of their own that they have hidden up their sleeves. Take away these little tricks, and they would fail miserably. Though, you add this feat in to the mix, and they become a good bit more competent at passing the challenges they... already passed. This doesn't change their balance level cause they still pass as much of the SGT as much as they did before, only they are more competent at it now. Now, I'm sure that, with a little optimization, this could, with a stretch, creep up into wizard level, but that's optimization. With optimization, a monk can be dancing around with wizards. Wizard level is the level where optimizations thrive, and wizard level is a level that can only be reached via optimization. The wizard class, by itself, if not optimized, can really suck ass. So, argueing that something is OP due to the fact that, with optimization, it could get into wizard level, is self defeating, since you're trying to get into wizard level when you optimize. At least with this feat, you have the oppurtunity to be close to being strong, unlike with the original feat. → Rith ^(talk) 01:02, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

First, melee classes don't "only pass the SGT due to little tricks". Take a decently built version of any of those classes I mentioned above, and they can all pass the SGT based on things they get as class abilities. That doesn't make them "little tricks", but staple abilities that everyone of that class gets. There's a difference there. Furthermore, the +5 to attack with another thing or two can easily push a class over the RNG, something that wizard-level abilities do. That this ability gets them halfway to breaking the RNG on its own makes it wizard-level. Tarkis, that might apply to iterative attackers (and even then, I'd say dealing double the damage that melee classes already do at high levels with a single feat is wizard-level) but you still haven't addressed the issue of someone with a single attack, like a charger or someone who uses Diamond Nightmare Blade and similar effects. Your graph as-is shows how much of an increase in average damage said characters get, and getting a +50% boost to damage from a single feat doesn't make it rogue-level. Unless we're saying that damage doesn't matter at all in a wizard-level game, but that's a different argument entirely. --Ghostwheel 01:11, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Well, I apoligize that you have been misled on the meaning of 'wizard level', but feats that are labelled 'wizard level' are labelled so because they invite godlyness to the game. An example of such a thing would be Divine Metamagic. How in gods name, does this compare to Divine Metamgic in the least? Now, I beleive you are the only person on this website who actually thinks normal weapon focus is rogue level, but even you have to admit that it sucks royally, and, if we are attempting to assert that it is rogue level, then it has to be the single lowest rogue level thing in existance. Although, this improvment upon weapon focus makes it actually reasonable for it to be called rogue level, maybe even high rogue level, which is where you play your games if I'm not mistaken. Now then, as I said before, with a bit of optimization, a bard can give +22d6 damage to each attack that their allies make. With a little optimization, you can charge and get 28 attacks. With a little optimization, a barbarian can make everything in the world run away. With a little optimization, wizard level is easily punctured into, and so, the statment 'with a little optimization, this can be wizard level' is moot, and rather asinine. Also, take away a warblade manuveurs, and set him up against a fire giant, see how that works out for ya. → Rith ^(talk) 01:34, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to inform you, but the balance points are a fairly grey-ish area, and this is one of them. If you think a boost of around 15% to damage is rogue-level, it's rogue-level for you. If you think a boost of around 50% to damage is rogue-level, it's rogue-level for you. A number of people agree, so please don't make use of logical fallacies like incorrect over-generalizations in order to try to prove your points--it convinces no one. Further, making a reference to any actions I take or have taken in the past to prove a point is another logical fallacy, ad hominem to quoque. Please refrain from logical fallacies, kthx? Furthermore, as I mentioned before, warblades have class abilities called "maneuvers". These are not "little tricks", but staple abilities. An analogy is saying, "Take away a wizard's spells, and set him up against a fire giant, see how that works out for ya." So not a piece of good evidence either. As for how it compares to, say, Divine Metamagic, let's take one of the most-persisted spells when one uses DMM, Divine Power. In essence, this spell gives a +5 attack roll to clerics by level 20--and miracle of miracles, the weapon focus variant feat gives a +5 to attack roll for any full-BAB character by level 20! And I've never said that the feat wasn't worth taking--though even if I did, bringing it up to try to prove your arguments is a logical fallacy, as I've said before. Logical fallaces are bad, mmmkay? --Ghostwheel 01:57, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Well, right off the bat, I apoligize if I unwittingly made fallacies, I should attempt to be clearer in my posts, but this does not give you the right to make fallicies back. Now then, Divine Power is a good use of that feat, if you want to be melee, but you're forgetting certian details on the matter. Divine Power give +8 to hit, not +5 (str increase), and gives you bonus damage, and extra hp. On top of this, you have the ability to cast Dictum still, while being the only class that can even get Divine Metamagic. Now, lets look at some more shameless uses of Divine Metamagic, starting with Time Stop. Okay, you have 14,400 rounds to do stuff, enjoy yourself. Now there is Greater Spell Immunity, making you immune against your greatest foe. This is all before you even both getting into the endless supplies of splat books which contain all these hundreds of spells that clerics already know which can be broken with just Divine Metamagic Persist alone. So, yes, of course this feat is on par with it, that makes perfect sense. Now then, I never said that you didn't think the feat was worth taking, I just said that the feat was balanced for rogue level, to which you replied 'balance levels are grey', in which case your entire questioning of people favoring this article was pointless, since it's their opinion what is rogue level and what isn't, as you just claimed. → Rith ^(talk) 02:53, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

You'll note that the +6 to Strength is an enhancement bonus, meaning that warriors and such will have an item that does the same. So not really, it's more like +5 to attack. Now, by that rationale, most (virtually all) feats don't count as wizard-level. After all, even things like Blitz or Insightful Strike or tome twf don't count as wizard level, since none give you that kind of power. Would it be correct to say that you believe that none of the above feats qualify as wizard-level? --Ghostwheel 06:55, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

“	We generally don't give classes credit for things they may or may not have (items) when considering their power.	”
—Jota Bota Fo Fota

While this comment was made about classes, it can generally be assumed the same on feats. Therefore, the mixture of (DMM+DP) gives something that someone else has to reach to achive, with little to no effort on the clerics part. Though, of course, you seem to have missed my point, my arguement was that Divine Metamagic wasn't broken because you could get +5 to hit, as you claimed it was, but that it was a stretch cause you were getting +8 to hit, an extra attack, and bonus hp, and that it was broken cause of the other stuff you could do with it. Now then, the feats you just mentioned fall into the middle category, where you get +8 to hit, an extra attack, and it's difficult to say that it's rogue level, but that's the only reason you lay claim that it's wizard level, now, these 'borderline' feats that have a good bit of power, as they should, considering that feats are such rare commodities, are actually much more powerful than this feat, which is simply a verticle bonus that is big enough for you to actually care about, and was intended as such. Now then, I've grown tired of this discussion, so, BLAH. (Also, I'm beginning to think that feats should not be labelled with balance levels, considering the bullshit that results from them, and the fact that people live in bubbles where fighters shouldn't nice things, and they object when they do.) → Rith ^(talk) 10:27, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

First, that statement is true for the majority of items; the exceptions are the big six, of which ability boosting items are part of. That said, those feats do give vertical boosts to characters. Extra attacks? Vertical, since it lets you do the same thing better/more often. Bonuses to AC? Completely vertical boost. Adding to damage? Same thing. Also for doubling crit ranges. Lower penalties for iterative attacks? Also a vertical boost to hit. Using abilities apart from str for attack rolls? Same thing, since you're also getting a boost to attack. Fighters should get nice things. But those nice things should give them more options (see: maneuvers), rather than simply boosting the abilities that they already have or pushing them off the RNG. There's a difference there, and the feats I mentioned almost all give straight boosts to the vertical power of characters, introducing few new options for characters to take. A good example of a feat that gives a horizontal boost to power is stand still, since it opens up new options. Those feats are very powerful, and are wizard-level in power, but they don't give many new options. It's incredible to see people who live in bubbles where they think that everyone should break the RNG at every turn and think that everyone should have close to unlimited power--wait, see? Straw mans, over-generalizations and logical fallacies in general are fun, aren't they? Please refrain from them, for they weaken any argument you make. Now, I've shown how just a few things can break the RNG. Have you shown anything similar? Use numbers and stop using logical fallacies, please. --Ghostwheel 10:44, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

You made the 'big six' up yourself. So, your arguement there is 'items shouldn't be counted unless I say so', which is a fallacy. Also, I apologize for not using numbers, I've only taken college level english/arts courses so far in my college career, so I'm not as high gear with them as you and others may be. Though, armed with my english, I shall attempt to fight back. Now then, you say fighters should get more possibilities, and have a plethora of options, and be able to have any trick up their sleeve at any given point in time. Now, what use is having the perfect status effect when you miss with it due to bad luck? Maybe from the point of veiw of someone who gets lucky on dice rolls and rolls 20 all the time, more options seems like more power. But to someone who rolls 2's and 4's all the time, they really freaking need actual competence, and not the possibility of competence. After all, what good is having a nice thing, when it never gets used? I guess I'm stating to see the difference between 'broad' class design and 'focused' class design. Broad centers itself on 'I will win if I get lucky', where focused centers itself on 'Screw luck, I actually want to able to do this'. → Rith ^(talk) 12:00, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

When people speak about "level-equivalent equipment" for fighter types, what comes to mind? Str-boosting items? Enhanced weaponry? Things like that are examples of the items that virtually all meleers get. That said, there will always be outliers. We can't account for those, since they'll be the exceptions. But most people roll averagely. We use averages, because we're not going to run the same scenario hundreds of times (even thousands of times, if we want to be statistically correct and lower the percentage of error). Thus, we're left with taking the averages. Another way to say the above is, "I will win as long as I use good tactics and play things to my advantage with a little luck as long as the DM doesn't throw things way over my head at me," and "Who cares about luck, just about no matter what happens as long as the DM doesn't throw crazy things at me, I'm always going to win." With the latter, there is little point in actually running combat, since the outcome is a foregone conclusion most of the time and it comes down to who goes first. (Which, incidentally, is often the case in wizard-level combat.) --Ghostwheel 12:07, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

See, you missed my point again, though, to be honest, I could have been clearer. My point was not 'what about the outliers?', it was 'what about what actually happens?' Considering that you could always step up to bat, take a swing, and miss, using broad style, but broad style assumes you're going to swing again, and makes it so that, if you do hit, you'll hit with what you want to hit it with. Though, now we are getting into the RL tag arguement again, and you have already made the assumption that RL tag is 'wizard level', despite the fact that you make optimizations that play RL tag, and call them 'rogue level'. Seriously though, make up your mind on that. Meanwhile, this discussion has gone WAY off topic, and I'll close my personal part in it with a heavy sigh as someone makes a three page long report proving me wrong in some inane way. Thank you. → Rith ^(talk) 14:16, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

I didn't miss the point; the point is, that they're outliers and don't matter. Check out a standard bell curve graph. See the little bits at the end of the graph that are a couple of standard deviations away from the mean? The ones that occur only ~2% of the time? Those are the outliers. Those will always be exceptions. But the majority of rolls will be towards the middle and those are the ones that you make rules for, for the most part. --Ghostwheel 18:57, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

If you want to shift into single attack boosts from this feat, we can do that. That graph doesn't show it at all, and since no one brought it up until right now and the argument you started basing this entire thing off of was using iterative attack numbers I haven't done it. But it's easy, you just can't think of it as a damage boost. It's a likelihood to hit boost in that case, like Spell Penetration or Spell Focus, because if you hit you deal the same damage as you would without the feat. As such it's a much smaller boost than the iterative attacks one for most to hit numbers, since you don't have additional attacks providing additional benefit. It's a much larger bonus at cases that would be edge cases without the feat, but that's not surprising. It's also not worth getting all bent out of shape about it unless you regularly fight opponents that you need to roll 20s to hit. Note that even in these cases, it does absolutely nothing to their damage in a round, it just makes them more likely to deal it so their average would go up.

And I don't agree that double, on average, the damage against guys you previously missed a lot anyway is a serious complaint. It's like complaining that +2.5 to your save DC (which is the same thing as this in half progression save land, except it's easier to get) somehow unbalances your caster because they hit so many more targets so much more often.

Also, you use "off the RNG" in ways that I'm not used to. I'd appreciate it if you could clarify. - TarkisFlux 01:50, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Check out the first post here--basically, when someone's off the RNG, they're basically playing "Magical Tea Party" in that they don't need to roll to hit people if other members of the party need to roll to hit the enemy. They just say, "I attack that enemy," and the DM replies, "Aight, roll damage," if the other characters have a chance of hitting said enemy.

Oh, and +2.5 to the DC of a spell is INCREDIBLE--come on IRC and I'll explain? --Ghostwheel 01:59, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll pass on the chat for now. I understand just fine what you're getting at, I just think you're overstating it. If you think that that big a boost to spell DCs is huge then we don't really have much to discuss on the matter anyway. I think it's substantial, but nothing deserving capital letters. I'm going to chalk this up to differences in what you and I think rogue and wizard levels actually are and move on (like I did with your insistence that RL tag was wizard level). Which I think sums up nicely our difference of opinion of this feat in general. You're getting a bit hung up on some fairly specific numbers that are actually big increases but are the exception to circumstances and so don't mean as big an increase in practice (especially on average). And I'd guess that it comes back to you thinking that rogue level is lower powered than I do.

As a side note, if you want to define "off the RNG" as "I don't need to roll anymore to succeed" that's fine, it's just not the definition I use nor is it the one I generally see being tossed around. I'll work with it, but you can't say that's MTP. MTP is just making shit up, specifically outside of a rule set. Convincing someone to give you something without a diplomacy check and just plain talking is MTP. Arguing the physics of magic with an NPC in game is MTP. This feat might lead to auto-success in rare cases, but that's not the same thing by far. "I don't need to roll anymore to succeed" includes taking 10 and just making shit happen, which are auto-successes in exactly the same way. They're both well within the defined rule set, and so can't be MTP by definition. You can dislike it of course, and we'll disagree about that as well I guess. - TarkisFlux 04:40, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

I know this discussion has pretty much ended, but I said I'd put up average hits per round graphs, and here they are. I also redid the others to make things more clear / consistent.

• Single Attack Increase Graph
• Single Attack Hits Graph
• Full Attack Increase Graph
• Full Attack Hits Graph

I think the hits graphs are more instructive than the increase graphs, because they don't suffer inflation when you get to the high edge and you start dividing by a small number. Still, make of them what you like, and design your homebrew accordingly. - TarkisFlux 01:41, November 21, 2009 (UTC)

weapon focus grapple? why not just have them take improved grapple instead?--NameViolation 22:54, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Alternate Version

Because I'm so kind and vigilant, I haven't read anything any of you have actually said. But, here's an alternate version that I want to look at.

Variant Weapon Focus [General, Fighter] Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, Base Attack Bonus +1.Benefit: Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for purposes of this feat.You gain a competence bonus to your attack equals to your base attack bonus divided by six (rounded up), as shown in the table below, when using the selected weapon.

Table: Attack Bonus

Base Attack Bonus	Attack Bonus
+1 — +6	+1
+7 — +15	+2
+16 — +20	+3

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon. A fighter may select Variant Weapon Focus as one of his fighter bonus feats. For all purposes of qualifying for feats and prestige classes, this feat is Weapon Focus.
bewm, headshot. --TK-Squared 13:05, January 13, 2010 (UTC)

Same thing, smaller bonus. Has a smaller impact on standard attack actions, which is good, and also a smaller impact on tertiary iterative attacks, which is less good. It's likely more palatable to your critics though, if that's worth anything. - TarkisFlux 18:22, January 13, 2010 (UTC)