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MainBattleTank wrote:

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This is indeed Haru. Yes, my math was off but that wasn't the point.

You must realize that your first post made me feel as though you were blaming your character's death on me...

"Blaming" is not the term I would use; rather, "Related to" is more the term that comes to mind. Haru and Ace, you both seem to think that you can just stack your AC's to the ceiling, and that's it, the GM can't do anything about it. Rest assured that Turin WILL make this a competitive game. He will add opponents that ARE capable of hitting your high AC's. He will NOT merely sit back and watch every monster & villain in the entire campaign miss you repeatedly. You both choose to ignore how this affects other players. If we all had a 35 AC then at least no one is going to get shredded worse than anyone else, but when the upgunned monsters that have a modest chance of hitting your AC 35+ lay into me, I'm swiss cheese, AC 20 or 26 is of little consequence if I'm not at least in the low to mid 30's. You've placed most of your egges in one basket, and you seem to refuse to comprehend how this potentially impacts other players in the group who did not place most of their eggs in the same basket as you did.

You are right that my high AC does force Turin to make stronger monsters. However, I have had a characters in this campaign with a "reasonable" AC as you did. Remember my Druid, he was one-shotted because the monster was able to power attack and still have a fairly reasonable chance to hit me.

I am not at all expecting to be invincible. However, I do expect to prevent power attacks and attacks from mook monsters from landing regualarly. Mooks can nickel and dime you down if your AC is in the low to mid 20's. If you are flat-footed and that happens you can easily be killed. Take the Gargolye encounter as an example. If your AC was 29 flat-footed like mine was a lot more of those attacks would not have landed. They had +11 bouns so basically it comes down to roll a nat 18 or go away. You took 120hp worth of damage when you could have taken more like 40 or 50 even less.

In addition, it makes absolutely no tactical sense to not have your best defense toward what you will face the most. You are immune to disease and poison which cost you well over 30k. How many times is that defense going to save your bacon? I am sure quite a few instances will arise. I will grant you that.

Now let's look at how many times you are going to be in melee with some kind of monster. That is almost always going to happen. Does it not make sense to have a great defense againist that as well. I mean you basically laugh at any poison or disease inflictors. Why not apply the same logic to phyiscal defense.

I had a lengthy post that occurred prior to my most recent one before this that for some reason is not appearing. A vast right wing conspiracy, perhaps...

You probably got auto logged out and lost the post. I really hate when that happens!

MainBattleTank wrote:

One more thing...

I am just a little frustrated about poeple flipping out over a piece of paper. It isn't like you cannot make another one.

This statement is an inaccurate and unfair characterization of me, Haru.

As was the statement you made impling that my high AC as well as others in this campaign was the root cause of your character's death.

That said, I am sorry you feel that way.

I have lost 2 characters thus far in this campaign and haven't made any sort of public out cry over that loss.

These posts have resulted in solving absolutely nothing. I say we scrap our current PC's and reroll fresh ones by the book. I will have a fighter ready for Saturday created in that matter.

One more thing...

I took one for the team by creating this character. Is it the character I want to really play? No... But I do it for the good of the group.

I don't have a super high attack bonus, I don't I dish out hideous amounts of damage, and I don't have any neat tricks like Death Ward or Displacement. My role is simple, meat shield.

If you want we can all create a new characters by the book and continue. I am just a little frustrated about poeple flipping out over a piece of paper. It isn't like you cannot make another one.

Since Yoda and Starmight have previously posted, then I would suspect that the new poster was written by Agent J, or Haru. I’ll go under the assumption that it is in fact Haru. If not, my appologies.

I think that if you wish to chime in with your two cents that you should give consideration to both sides of the argument. As it stands, it appears you only consider the GM’s viewpoint.
To correct your above example, +2 Mithril Full Plate gives you a bonus of +10 (TEN), not +12. As is stood, my armor gave me a total bonus of +8. I carried a +1 Large Shield at the time of my PC’s death. My Flatfooted AC at the time of death was a 20, only 4 points from your recommended 24. Considering how frequently you are asking me to run over and cure you or use a buff spell on your character during combat, mobility is important, and I selected my choice of light armor with this in mind. To help you:) And you criticize me for it...

In all this, you fail to consider my argument in principal. If I were to use your stated logic, if Turin had added a Great Wyrm Red Dragon to the encounter, then it would have also been my fault for not having Fireproof armor as well, I imagine. The scripted adventure is intended for standard PC’s with roughly standard gold piece value equipment. If the GM is going to vary from that, then he needs to consider what the unintended consequences might be. I don’t think Turin did that. That was my issue during the game. And you did not address the other basic premise of my position, which is that the 150,000 gold piece award has sent this game in a direction in which Turin will have to routinely alter scripted encounters if he wants ANY chance of hitting you in combat. It would have been far better to have left things as they were intended, which I recommended at the time.

This is indeed Haru. Yes, my math was off but that wasn't the point.

You must realize that your first post made me feel as though you were blaming your character's death on me for having a high AC. I am sorry but realistically a flat-footed 20 AC will be hit by a CR 7 monster at least 60% if not more of the time. You cannot realistically expect to be buffed, prepared, and winning the initiative in every fight. Therefore, you must have a flat-footed AC high enough to withstand the onslaught till your action comes about.

I agree that mobility is important. However, making it more difficult for the bad guys to hit you in melee comabt is more important in my opinion. If I get out of your effective movement range and get killed that's my fault not yours.

As to you your example of my logic it's obivious you completely missed the point. How often are we going to be facing a fire breathing dragon vs some monster trying to carve your guts out. Hmmm.... Perhaps a ratio of 10 to 1 in favor of getting your skull bashed in. My point is that you didn't plan for the obivous defense againist melee combat. I don't expect everyone to plan for every little situation. However, I do expect people to plan on getting beat on.

Other players like Haru, Jay, and Ben went with the Insanely High AC’s (in the mid-to upper-30‘s).

Let me first start by saying I take exception to the above comment.

In an effort to provide a challenge to those folks Turin upguns this encounter on the fly, and all he accomplishes is to screw me, who’s playing a very reasonable character with a 23 AC, 20 flat footed.

Second, a 23 AC is quite low for a class able to wear heavy armor and carry a shield. A non-magical suit of Mithril Full Plate and a DEX of 16 will achieve that AC alone. This doesn't include a shield you can carry. Please see below.

+2 Mithril Full Plate 14,500 AC +12
+2 Heavy Steel Shield 4,150 AC +4
Having a Flat-Footed AC of 26, priceless.

That my dear friend would cost you 18,650. Not bad.

The issue is that you relied on the assumption that you would either have time prep for battle or get initiative over the monsters, or both. This past Saturday revealed that was an extremely lethal presumption.

I designed a Main Tank that was able to weather most bad situations and survive. I may have a high AC but I don't have a high attack roll nor do I dish out hideous amounts of damage. That was the sacrafice I made to do my part.

In my opinion the encounter was fair given our gear. I also believe it's not the GMs job to compensate for players not investing in good old fashion physical defense.

My 2 cents.