I don't get Constitution to damage O_o
panto?
Pantomime. A British theatre christmas tradition. A trope in Panto is the "Oh yes he is!" "Oh no he isn't" exchange between characters. "Oh no it/they don't", "Oh yes it/they do" is less common, but still occurs.
I don't get Constitution to damage O_oExtra hardened body?
Wouldn't we incur in the risk of Stats not meaningful? With attacks adding [3w] + stat #4, if you know what I mean?
As far as the monk is concerned I would just create 4 different categories with one primary stat for each:
Str Monk- Uses STR for damage, to hit, AC (and DR) + can sub out his Str bonus for his fort save modifier. Ki abilities reflect feats of strength
Dex monk - Uses DX for damage, to hit, AC (and evasion) + temp (dodge/luck) hit points. Ki abilities reflect feats of agility
Con Monk - Uses Con for damage, to hit, AC, DR and feats of damage avoidance/survival. Ki abilities reflect feats of endurance
Wis Monk - Uses Wis for damage, to hit, AC and all saves. Insight and initiative bonuses. Ki abilities reflect feats of wisdom and mysticism.
Also throw in Ki power use to provide a temp +4 bonus to any of these four stats for variable durations (3 rounds + level/use), doesn't matter what kind of monk. Ki pool points are based off primary monk stat, not Wis (unless Wis monk).
Just some ideas to get rid of MAD.
I've been toying with the idea of (while keeping BAB average) letting the monk apply his Wisdom bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, CMB, CMD, and Init, in addition to the normal stat mod for such rolls. However, the Wis bonus added to such rolls can't exceed BAB.
Essentially a mind-over-matter feel. The idea is that the monk powers all the essential combat statistics through Wisdom and the normal stat mod for each statistic is more or less secondary. The concept works similar to how the paladin applies Cha to all saving throws, but it is more far reaching.
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The APG just makes fighters awesome IMO, gives them striking abilities at fighting. That is afterall their schtick, its the name of the class.
True yet while I think the aPG is a good book some may not want to buy another book just to improve the fighter.
If you dont want to play a fighter thats solely good at fighting then that is a little weird, would you play a wizard if you didnt want the wizard to just have magic? (yes they get schools now but fighters get weird abilities with fighting styles due to the APG)
Never said I did not want to play a fighter that is good at fighting. Just to give him more than just "I pick a target, swing and hit, rinse and repeat". Sure you have some combat manuevers yet imo not relly worth doing. While the APG does help your kind of screwed if you play with a DM that allows only the core. The assumption being that the aPG will always be allowed and sometimes that is just not the case.
I just dont really see this as a problem. And weapon and armor training is not really emulatable by other classes, not to mention the feats that are fighter specific and no other class can take.
The fighter does it a little better yet all it takes is naother class to take one level of fighter and they can take them. Sure is it a wasted level yes but it can be done same thing with the weapon feats. For a fighter who multiclasses to get a decent benefit of another class neeeds to tkae more than one level.
There are alot of things you can argue about why the fighter could use some love (skill point lovers out there) but I really dont see why they should get something like talents or powers.
I have heard this before and I do not understand this inexplicable fear of giving fighters something like talents and powers. Every other class in the game has them yet not the Fighter. I am not saying they should overshadow other classses yet the Fighters need something. Or else Pathfinder will always have the percevied flaw that was carried over from 3.5 about fighters vs wizards. You don't even have to male it an official class. A varaint in the upcoming combat book possibly.
I like fighters yet with the changes that Pathfinder made to the Barbarian and Paladin I see why no one is any rush not to play them over those two classes. They both offer so much more flavor imo.
1: They suck. For the most part.
:D
Why they suck?
The fighter does it a little better yet all it takes is naother class to take one level of fighter and they can take them.
Nope. Most of those feats require a minimum number of levels of fighter which is greater than one.
I would think of the Con Monk as a freak of nature, the kind of monk that (seems) to take supernatural levels of damage or has a high pain tolerance (Walking on fire, etc)
That seems like the seed idea of an interesting monk archetype.
I have heard this before and I do not understand this inexplicable fear of giving fighters something like talents and powers. Every other class in the game has them yet not the Fighter. I am not saying they should overshadow other classses yet the Fighters...
There are alot of things you can argue about why the fighter could use some love (skill point lovers out there) but I really dont see why they should get something like talents or powers.
I like that fighters are generic and rely almost entirely on feats; you can spend the flavor anyway you want. Gruff Bandit Warlord? Fighter can do that. Elvish Sword Master? Fighter can do that. Tactical knight? Fighter can do that. The list goes on. Critical feats, numerous fighting style trees (archery both crossbow and bow, TWF, THF, sword and shield - even polearm and unarmed variants in the APG), combat manuever trees, ect. You can turn the fighter into just about any athletic character you can imagine with flavor to match, especially with the easier cross classing skill system. I think it is already a solid class. If I were to implement powers or talents they'd have to get them far less often than the classes that rely on them as their main trick (after all, other classes get them at the same rate as a fighter's bonus feats, feats are their "talents"). But perhaps something akin to weapon tricks for the exotic weapons master or master thrower from Complete Warrior would be warranted, but I'd rather see something that encourages non-combat abilities if I were to give them anything at all.
I don't get Constitution to damage O_oExtra hardened body?That is what I was getting at - sort of like an Iron Body thing.
I would think of the Con Monk as a freak of nature, the kind of monk that (seems) to take supernatural levels of damage or has a high pain tolerance (Walking on fire, etc)
You mean, hits hard because trained so hard in endurace to make his body harder than normal, developed natural armor and stuff. Now I see. Cool.
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I've been toying with the idea of (while keeping BAB average) letting the monk apply his Wisdom bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, CMB, CMD, and Init, in addition to the normal stat mod for such rolls. However, the Wis bonus added to such rolls can't exceed BAB.
Essentially a mind-over-matter feel. The idea is that the monk powers all the essential combat statistics through Wisdom and the normal stat mod for each statistic is more or less secondary. The concept works similar to how the paladin applies Cha to all saving throws, but it is more far reaching.
Personally anything which gets rid of MAD and gets the monk on two stats would be good. I just listed the four styles to reflect fighting styles based on different core attributes - Dex monk is really slippery and is jumping around, Con monk seems unkillable, Wis monk is the classic old man kung-fu theater mystic monk, Str monk breaks things, etc.
Wouldn't we incur in the risk of Stats not meaningful? With attacks adding [3w] + stat #4, if you know what I mean?
That was the whole point, to reduce a range of stat dependency. If its just going to be one stat that covers everything - most people lean towards Wis, or the options of picking the core stat at creating it doesn't matter. As long as the monk only needs maybe two core stats like all the other classes it would help (plus some extra abilities).
You mean, hits hard because trained so hard in endurace to make his body harder than normal, developed natural armor and stuff. Now I see. Cool.
Exactly - and I know the concept may seem weird, but if you think about it the pally gets to add his Cha to hit with his smite. Why Char - the smite is a force of his personality and relationship with his LG God.
Thought of something else: I would give all the versions of monks evasion, I would give the Dex monk a cool extra check on evasion - make an acrobatic check to get to make an extra Full move after dodging a Fireball (or any evasion check). Literally as the enemy is trying to hit this guy he is getting closer very quickly.
So I could see him moving around quite a bit in a major fight (and closing quickly with the enemy). I don't even like monks but I might actually work on this.
That was the whole point, to reduce a range of stat dependency. If its just going to be one stat that covers everything - most people lean towards Wis, or the options of picking the core stat at creating it doesn't matter. As long as the monk only needs maybe two core stats like all the other classes it would help (plus some extra abilities).
I didn't mean SAD or MAD PCs - but i was talking about my fear of disconnecting mechanics and fluff.
But seeing your example above, I was wrong ;)
Personally anything which gets rid of MAD and gets the monk on two stats would be good. I just listed the four styles to reflect fighting styles based on different core attributes - Dex monk is really slippery and is jumping around, Con monk seems unkillable, Wis monk is the classic old man kung-fu theater mystic monk, Str monk breaks things, etc.
I've been toying with the idea of (while keeping BAB average) letting the monk apply his Wisdom bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, CMB, CMD, and Init, in addition to the normal stat mod for such rolls. However, the Wis bonus added to such rolls can't exceed BAB.
Essentially a mind-over-matter feel. The idea is that the monk powers all the essential combat statistics through Wisdom and the normal stat mod for each statistic is more or less secondary. The concept works similar to how the paladin applies Cha to all saving throws, but it is more far reaching.
You could still do that I think:
1) Primary Wis, secondary Str2) Primary Wis, secondary Dex
3) Primary Wis, secondary Con
4) Primary Wis, secondary any
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I would think of the Con Monk as a freak of nature, the kind of monk that (seems) to take supernatural levels of damage or has a high pain tolerance (Walking on fire, etc)You mean, hits hard because trained so hard in endurace to make his body harder than normal, developed natural armor and stuff. Now I see. Cool.
One of my favorite Monk variants was based off of a Scarred Lands PrC, where an order of Monks sought to emulate the god of the forge, and turn their flesh as hard as steel, reforging themselves into things of iron. Instead of becoming Outsiders at 20th level Monk, they became living Constructs at 10th level in the PrC. Combined with one of the Unearthed Arcana options (Undying Way), or a Dragon magazine version that swapped out some Monk abilities for Damage Reduction like a Barbarian, it was a neat concept.
With the nature of the Monk in 3.X as the first 'transitional class,' that turns you into an Outsider at 20th level, I love the idea explored in some 3rd party products of Monks turning themselves into Constructs (Scarred Lands) or Devils (Green Ronin's Arcana: Societies of Magic). Book of Exalted Deeds would have been a logical place for a Monk PrC that transitioned one into an Angel or Archon, as well, and a Monk-to-Inevitable PrC might have fit a 'Book of Lawful Law' as well.
Guys i love the monk thoughts you want to bring it over to the 800+ post "why all the monk hate thread" so some more ideas can be percolated from this discussion.
Actually, I didn't consider MIC such an improvement.
Yeah, it has cool things but a lot of the items were things like "well, we should have done this through class features, but we cannot admit it, so here's the item".
Like runestaff for sorcerers. People complained about sorceres not versatile, and BAM runestaff.
Moreover, the book as a whole felt even more of magic shop (pictures and METAGAME catchphrases included) and this is bad.
Magic items should be more unique, and be less of a tool.
I allowed the book and in my current 3.5 campaign it fits very well the flavour too, but generally speaking, i wouldn't call it a well made book.
And man, item sets were awful. AWFUL.
I suppose it added charges and stuff for people that "only full attacked". My position is different but.. eh. Whatever.
The worst thing about Pathfinder is that it introduces a thousand small changes, that force you to relearn how the whole system works, without really changing much of anything. It's a pile of (mostly indecisive) houserules, that aren't unified by any grand vision and increase crunch bloat, in exchange for a miniscule payoff in terms of balance and a dubious one in terms of gameplay, even when compared to 3.5 core only.
Not having the necessary items doesn't mean they stop becoming necessary. It just means you stop having them. And since they are necessary, this doesn't end well.
"Necessary" is an interesting term. Players find it "necessary" to push the arms race as much as they can since that gives them advantages in fights. But the DM, reacting to the players, finds it "necessary" to balance encounters by improving monsters (with the advanced template or other means) and/or by combining multiple smaller encounters into a single large encounter.
Welcome to modern D&D.
Kind of my point. Modern D&D is an arms race, and that's the worst thing about it.
At level 11? I'm guessing the DM was throwing very low save enemies at the party? Because getting enemy saves up without cheating isn't that hard...
Enemy to hits?
Whatever the level-appropriate modules called for.
Or the DM just uses whatever level appropriate enemies. And either the PCs have their numbers up because of those magic items and do fine, or they don't and they don't.
It's not about gaining an advantage, it's about not being at a disadvantage. It also isn't an arms race, it's survival.
If by "do fine" you mean "cake-walked through the level appropriate module", then I agree. But if you meant "were appropriately challenged by the level appropriate module", my last 10 years of experience would have to disagree with you - PCs that arms race always have an easy time with level appropriate modules.
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The worst thing about Pathfinder is that it introduces a thousand small changes, that force you to relearn how the whole system works, without really changing much of anything. It's a pile of (mostly indecisive) houserules, that aren't unified by any grand vision and increase crunch bloat, in exchange for a miniscule payoff in terms of balance and a dubious one in terms of gameplay, even when compared to 3.5 core only.
In essence, I agree.
But, I also think that being OGL-compatible limits certain aspects of what could and could not be changed while still conforming to OGL publishing rights.
MC's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved certainly did change more things than PF, but it also didn't/isn't selling as well (perhaps due to the more radical changes?).
There's also Green Ronin's True20 which is slimmed-down D20 with far less 'bloat' and no HPs, etc.
And not to get into an edition-war post, but I have played from 1st-4th edition, and there are still some hang-over gripes from 3/3.5e that are present in PF along with things from 4e that I would have liked to have seen implemented.
So, my gripes with Pathfinder mostly stem from there being too few major changes from 3.5.
Off the top of my head:
1. Spells per Day is just an awful mechanic.
--Yay for Jack Vance, but I still hate it as a "system" as it doesn't make any sort of sense within or externally to the game, and other systems (Earthdawn, Shadowrun) have better solutions.
2. The Bloodline/School powers are limited to X uses per day when (like in 4e) you may as well have just made them limitless.
3. Limiting melee Full-Attack and not limiting spell casters when they cast their 9th-level Kill-All spell
4. BAB variances across classes (4e ditched this, Earthdawn doesn't have it, etc.), especially where there's some debate as to what class "deserves" what BAB.
5. AC as the catch-all for how hard you are to hit when it should be Armor as DR, and Reflex for how hard to you are hit--again, see Earthdawn's Physical and Magical Armor Ratings (as DR) Vs the three (to-hit) defenses of (Physical/Magical/Social). ED has the cleaner/faster system.
6. Skills whose liked attributes don't exactly make sense--for example: Religion should be WIS -or- INT based to reflect the practical knowledge that Divine classes have. Instead, as a knowledge skill you often have the Wizard knowing more about the gods than the Cleric of that particular god. Perception could be a separate stat, not just a skill, Athletics & Acrobatics could include some sub-skills (like Climb, Balance, etc.)
7. Lack of fixed HP per level (this may be house ruled, but why not just follow PFS and set it in stone from the get-go?).
8. AAOs, they do little to help the party, more to harm it, and take up way too much time overall. I've ditched them in my home games and combats are almost back to 2e levels of speed and RPing since everyone's not counting squares and circling/kiting around every baddy when they move.
9. 2-SP classes, "balancing" the classes by offsetting combat prowess with reduced skill points just doesn't work. Keep the restrictive class skill lists, but allow all classes greater balance in the non-combat/RP area of skills.
10. The golf-bag vs DR dilemma of always having to have 'X' to overcome 'Y'.
AND, last but not least, the Healing mechanics.
--Clerics (still) need to be more free to do more things other than just heal. 4e helped this by letting Clerics (or other Leaders) heal and do something else, or heal as part of another action. 4e also lets each class heal itself (Second Wind) and spreads the healing around more.
The over-reliance on one single player/character/class, and the limitations of what the Cleric can do, really slows down the game and limits everyone's fun.
If by "do fine" you mean "cake-walked through the level appropriate module", then I agree. But if you meant "were appropriately challenged by the level appropriate module", my last 10 years of experience would have to disagree with you - PCs that arms race always have an easy time with level appropriate modules.
This is generally my experience as well -- very little in the way of published adventures or even organized play modules is balanced for truly optimized characters. Several organized play campaigns have been infamous for cranking the most overpowered-but-technically-CR'd-appropriately encounters out and that's still the case.
It's not the case that moderately good (mechanically) parties get slaughtered and truly optimized parties survive -- it's more the case that moderately good parties have a good time and truly optimized parties aren't challenged at all.
Casting the whole thing as survival vs. non-survival as some people are wont to do is based on a faulty premise, pure and simple.
:D
Or you could, you know, just use more enemies of a lesser CR..
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If by "do fine" you mean "cake-walked through the level appropriate module", then I agree. But if you meant "were appropriately challenged by the level appropriate module", my last 10 years of experience would have to disagree with you - PCs that arms race always have an easy time with level appropriate modules....
And you are aware the PCs are supposed to win right?
No, the point is to have fun. If your characters are untouchable gods, then walking over encounter after encounter isn't fun, it's boring. I'd rather where I am killed after a hard-fought battle than one where all the bad guys fall like wheat before the scythe.
I really hate the fact that yet another variant of D&D has a 'fixed' AC, meaning that no matter what your level your defences do not improve. A 1st level fighter wearing plate armour has the same AC as a 20th level fighter, all other things being equal. A defence value which improves by BAB is a simple rule and makes the whole thing much more realistic.
And, yes, I know that this is suppossed to be bundled up with HP, a rule which makes no sense. How does Constitution improve your parry?
If your characters are untouchable gods, then walking over encounter after encounter isn't fun, it's boring.
I know several players who enjoy breezing through battles. It's a matter of taste.
:D
Or you could, you know, just use more enemies of a lesser CR..
Ten monsters that can't hurt the PCs aren't any more interesting than four of the same...
I've taken to giving some of my monsters 16's across the board instead of 10's just to give them a little more oomph "without changing the CR." Melee/wizard disparity issues aside, as a general rule my players need an APL+1 encounter just to stay awake, much less feel challenged.
-The Gneech
I really hate the fact that yet another variant of D&D has a 'fixed' AC, meaning that no matter what your level your defences do not improve. A 1st level fighter wearing plate armour has the same AC as a 20th level fighter, all other things being equal. A defence value which improves by BAB is a simple rule and makes the whole thing much more realistic.
And, yes, I know that this is suppossed to be bundled up with HP, a rule which makes no sense. How does Constitution improve your parry?
I know that it makes no sense. The system was designed to be FUN, not realistic.
Imagine a system where your AC improves but your hp remains the same. One lucky hit (like a natural 20) from a goblin could fell your 20th-level character.
More hp with each level doesn't make sense, but I think that it's supposed to simulate a certain kind of fantasy story. I've read several of REH's Conan stories with a line like "Conan had taken enough wounds to fell five normal men, but he kept on fighting."
:D
Or you could, you know, just use more enemies of a lesser CR..
Ten monsters that can't hurt the PCs aren't any more interesting than four of the same...
I've taken to giving some of my monsters 16's across the board instead of 10's just to give them a little more oomph "without changing the CR." Melee/wizard disparity issues aside, as a general rule my players need an APL+1 encounter just to stay awake, much less feel challenged.
-The Gneech
That was an answer a to the "being viable". If the group is less optimized, will consider a threat more weak monsters too.
BTW, IME, mix different encounters, a pair of quite powerful monsters, one big boss and several mooks, and so on, is one of the things making encounters different. and enjoyable.
The way monsters are described, and even more importantly played has a role too. Sometimes with clever tactics you can really wreak havoc with a weaker monster not expected.
You can create false alarms. Or you can simply do not target directly player but things they care for ;)
The big six are, if I recall correctly:
Weapon enhancements.
Armor enhancements.
Shield enhancements.
Natural armor enhancements.
Deflection AC enhancements.
Saves boosters.Of these, you can expect to be hit all the time even with all four of the AC items up to par, so that's not really helpful.
You seem to be playing a different game than me. Let's take a look at recent situation I was facing from Kingmaker module 2...
Tank is Paladin with AC 28 = 10 (base) +10 (+1 Full Plate) +3 (+1 Large Shield) +1 (Dex), +2 (Nat Armor), +1 (Deflection), +1 Dodge
Room 1 - 2 CR5 Trolls which need 20s to hit.
Room 2 - 1 CR5 Troll which needs 20s to hit.
Room 3 - 1 CR5 Troll, 1 CR3 Trollhound. Both need 20s to hit.
Room 4 - 2 CR3 Trollhounds which need 20s to hit.
Room 5 - 1 CR8 Troll with 2 heads. 4 attacks. Needs 19s to hit after party Hastes and paladin smites evil.
Room 6 - 2 CR5 Trolls which need 20s to hit.
Room 7 - 1 CR6 Rock Troll which needs 18s to hit.
Room 8 - 1 CR8 Troll with 3 levels of Fighter. Needs 16 to hit with primary attack and 20s with other attacks after party Hastes and paladin smites evil.
End result: 5 rooms are cake-walks. 3 rooms are a small challenge, but never a true threat.
And you are aware the PCs are supposed to win right?
No. The story is supposed to be interesting and fun to participate in. Ideally the PCs should overcome numerous challenges and win, but there should always be the possibility of failure. And sometimes failure happens.
I think the problem here is that you feel compelled to make it an arms race, when they're already losing.
The arms race is the natural result of the 3.x rules. Some players will resist the temptation to participate, but most won't.
...the default outcome of D&D is that you win the battle but lose the war.
What do you mean by this?
You are aware that is intentional too right?
APL = party level battles means you're fighting something as strong as one of you, except that there are four of you. It's supposed to be easy, because it's just filler. The boss fights, at APL + 4 are as strong as you are. That's where the difficulty is.
Even with that, the default outcome of D&D is that you win the battle but lose the war.
Actually Roy you keep confusing Pathfinder and 3.x.
A mirror match is 4 CR -1 or an APL+3 encounter. If the NPCs have PC point buy and PC wealth by level then they are CR equivalent but GMs should never do that because it increases PC wealth by to much. You''d have to have a ton of no wealth increase encounters to justify it.
APL+4 is beyond the suggested pathfinder difficulty. Not that it can't be done but that the chances of PC failure become pretty high and most groups dislike TPKs.
The CR system errs on the side of caution however. In truth 4 PCs vs 1 monster design which is unfortunately common is a bad design because the action economy breaks so bad in the party's favor.
Factor in the average retinue of a mid-to-high level party, cohorts, called creatures, summons, animated creatures and/or undead, animal companions, etc and it's pretty clear that while the CR system is okay it's highly dependent on playstyle.
Aaron Bitman wrote:
I know that it makes no sense. The system was designed to be FUN, not realistic.
Imagine a system where your AC improves but your hp remains the same. One lucky hit (like a natural 20) from a goblin could fell your 20th-level character.
More hp with each level doesn't make sense, but I think that it's supposed to simulate a certain kind of fantasy story. I've read several of REH's Conan stories with a line like "Conan had taken enough wounds to fell five normal men, but he kept on fighting."
End quote
I imagine the system to run something like 'the lucky hit stabs your fighter in the chest, causing a nasty bleeding wound. You stagger stunned for a moment then recover and swipe the goblin back.'
The lucky hit causes a wound which stuns and maybe causes a penalty until healed. The high level fighter can keep going because he is tougher than the low level goblin.
Improving AC by BAB means that a high level fighter does not have to rely on magic items to improve his AC. He gets better because he is better at it. He can still benefit from being tougher (i.e. hp) and fight on as you have said with Conan. Adding this rule in does not detract from the tough hero theme and does not make it less fun.
As an aside, I have ran several campaigns using harnmaster, which uses a realistic damage system whereby the characters take individual wounds which build up until either the character gets stabbed in the heart or drops from multiple wounds/bleeding. This system was lethal but still fun to play. Unfortunately, the game company concentrated on producing world supplements rather than adventures (which is why I like Pathfinder) so I came over to D&D again (via exalted). I still find the same old combat mechanic which existed in the 1980s when I started playing. This is why I hate it. I hated it then and I hate it now!
The CR system errs on the side of caution however. In truth 4 PCs vs 1 monster design which is unfortunately common is a bad design because the action economy breaks so bad in the party's favor.Factor in the average retinue of a mid-to-high level party, cohorts, called creatures, summons, animated creatures and/or undead, animal companions, etc and it's pretty clear that while the CR system is okay it's highly dependent on playstyle.
This is an accurate assesment of one of the issues with the game CR/action economy thing is far too dependent on playstyle/GMstyle. believe me I got no good suggestions other than a near perpetual testing and tweaking of encounters to find the right mix for your group, and that this may have to change almost every level of advancement, but would love to hear some.
To give an example in our group we usually have 1-2 ecounters per session (not necssiarily on the same day in game which means there is little to no chewing through resources CR's are skewed poorly for us. Now this is a pace that our GM prefers and we as players have enjoyed for the RP stuff we get to do. as such we are doing well in CR+2/+3 encounters.
Does this seem to be a good rule of thumb add +2 to APL for determining CR in a lower number of combats per session/in game day?
If you're only doing one or two encounters between rests, then yes, they should definitely be on the more challenging end of the spectrum. The 3.x assumptions were based for the most part on being in a dungeon environment and taking on four rooms between rests, or a more gradual attrition of resources.
As mentioned above, my group tends to chew right through "average" encounters ... which might argue in my own case to switching to higher-challenge encounters as the default and switching the campaign to "slow-levelling" just to keep them from shooting up in levels too fast from the increased XP budget.
Or at least, doing that in the next campaign. ;) I don't like changing the rules mid-stream.
-The Gneech
+1 full plate = 2,650 gold.
+1 large shield = 1,170 gold.
+2 natural armor item = 8,000 gold.
+1 deflection item = 2,000 gold.Total: 13,820 gold spent on physical defensive items. And the net result of spending 132% of your total wealth solely on physical defense is that your physical defense is good. Well I would certainly hope it is, given that you spent more money than you can possibly have at this point! And a feat, too!
Barkskin gives +2 Nat Armor for 50 minutes at level 5. It's a VERY common buff spell for the tank. So that's only 5,820gp.
And what happens when you fight anything other than plain physical attackers? What happens when the enemy ignores the tin can to attack someone else?
Um, different tactics? And often the terrain doesn't allow monsters to bypass the tank.
The problem is all in your head.
And the other people who see this problem?
It's simple really. Say your chance of dying in a fight is 20%. That means your character's half life is 3 fights. As in 3 combats into the campaign, it's a coin toss as to whether or not your character isn't dead...
In order to get any decent chance of surviving any decent length campaign, you have to get your chance of failure in any given fight to the fractional percentage...
Which means the default outcome of D&D is that you will win the battle (this fight) but lose the war (any decent length campaign). The odds are stacked against your characters surviving. And in order to have a coherent and decent length campaign you have to do something about that.
Early on, it's possible to replace a character and continue the campaign. Eventually, it becomes possible to raise the dead. So how is the war lost?
I still don't get what are you all naive people trying to achieve by discussing things with Roy.
I find it fascinating.
It's blatantly clear his games really suck, but he swears to show us that OUR gamestyle is wrong.
I still don't get what are you all naive people trying to achieve by discussing things with Roy.
I hadn't realized he was a known problem. Explains a lot now that I know.