Editing D&D Optimization (section)

=== Explanation ===
'''Summary:''' As with any number-based RPG, having a larger amount of "+1" to your rolls/scores will make you significantly stronger than someone who doesn't, even if it's just one; however, +1 represents all 4e has to offer via optimization. 

Before you can optimize, you must first understand the game. Explaining [[Pun-Pun]], for example, necessitates discussing snippets of rules from eight or more books, and this is certainly an optimized character for Dungeons and Dragons, where characters must deal with game-bending effects and situations too wild to list here. Thus, the thought processes for optimization depend on the game. This is a factor with what one sees in 4e, where very little can affect characters-- you usually can't take away their hand weapons in this game, and even the 'rust monster' of 4e doesn't permanently really destroy magic items (rather it dissolves them into magic essence which needs to be reforged back into a magic item.)

Primarily, the only thing you can do to a character is hit point damage and applying temporary inhibitors such as slows, dazes, and stuns, so an optimal character might be concerned about having hit points. Unfortunately, the RAW ('Rules as Written', the only thing an optimizer can use to make judgments) for monster damage is so pathetically low, the healing so jaw-droppingly high, that this isn't much of a consideration.

Similarly, characters primarily, almost exclusively, defeat monsters by dealing hit point damage. The other two methods, exploiting weak saves and abuse of the Intimidate rules (both since fixed) are too easily exploited to necessitate any lengthy discussion. 

The primary way characters do damage is by attacking (go figure.) And this leads to our fundamental philosophy of optimization in 4e: +1 to hit is everything. 4e is seemingly an extraordinary narrow game, there's really nothing else that's relevant. All of a character's powers are keyed off scoring hits. If you can't hit, your powers are worthless (again, there is an exception, in the form of the 'pacifist cleric', but let's focus on the other possible characters, some 99.9% of the possibilities).

How bad is it? WoTC created a feat, "Weapon Expertise", that grants, just that, a +1 to hit at low levels (more at high levels, but that's besides the point). This feat, this simple +1 to hit, is so dominatingly powerful that it's considered a 'feat tax', as all characters, even non-optimized ones, MUST take this feat. Many campaigns simply house rule "all characters get weapon expertise for free", because, in fact, all characters must take it at some point, the sooner the better.

Someone ignorant of the system might think +1 matters more at low levels than at high, but, 4e uses a treadmill system. A first level character might have +7 to hit, and will attack monsters with a defense of 18 (i.e., they'll have a 50% chance of hitting). A 20th level character might have a +24 to hit, and this might sound better, but the game is designed to keep characters on a treadmill at all times. A 20th level character will fight monsters with a defense of 35, and so still have a 50% chance of hit.

In other words, "+1 to hit" is just as valuable at first level, as it is at any other level. +1 to hit is EVERYTHING 4e has to offer when it comes to optimization. 

Another example: the most powerful Epic destiny is considered Demigod. Why? Because it grants a +1 to hit, in the way of a flat bonus to all attributes. No other epic destiny offers anything as game-breaking as this +1.

Yet another example: a +5 magic weapon is valued, according to WotC, at 225,000 GP. If bonuses were worth less at high levels, a +6 weapon shouldn't cost much more. Of course, a +6 weapon (i.e., granting an additional +1 to hit) is valued at 1,125,000 GP, a 900,000 GP increase, obviously worth MORE than any other plus, even worth more than all other plusses put together. 

Even WotC acknowledges: +1 to hit is everything in 4e.