Just a few days ago, something happened in my campaign; the Rogue character lost all of his belongings, everything. Being a Rogue 7/ShadowDancer 8 with 22 Dex, he had an insane Reflex Save (+18 if I'm not mistaken) but a very low AC (17 since he had dodge).
Now, with Improved Evasion there was almost no spell that required a Reflex save that could harm him, and he could avoid basically all but the most killer-insanely-high-DC traps.... But anyone could hit him easily, any 12° level fighter could wack the crap out of him, never missing a blow. And also, just by changing a Reflex-save trap by one that required an attack roll, he'd never avoid it.
This got me thinking how flawed the system is... a Reflex save represents a character ability to avoid being hit by something, to dodge stuff thrown at him, it's his ability to get out of harm's way... now.. AC uses a Character's DEX, but... shouldn't it use Reflex instead? Why doesn't a character never gets better at avoiding sword blows but gets better at avoiding fireballs and deadly traps??? Makes no sense.
Back in the example, the Rogue could dodge spell blasts and deadly traps, but couldn't dodge a sword blow by a fighter 4 levels lower than him . Even worse, similar traps, only because they use different systems (one with Reflex Saves another with Attack roll) had completely different effects.
It seems, if I'm not mistaken, that in D&D 4th ed. AC is somewhat related to Reflex... or they get bonus from same source.. not sure though.
Anyway, I would be very glad if the Devs would include something like this in the PRPG, AC based on Reflex or something, though I greatly doubt they will...
Any thoughts?
No. 4e does something vaguely like this (touch ACs are gone, you attack reflex instead; and everyone gets a flat bonus to his AC depending on level, but then again, you get a flat bonus to everything depending on level, in that game), but Pathfinder won't.
The reason for this is easy: The old system works well enough, and a change like this will destroy backwards compatibility.
But there are optional rules for a class bonus to AC out there, just take a look at those, or at how d20 Modern does things.
In 4e some attacks are based on some saves, and you gain a flat bonus to all your saves and all.
And while I agree with you, because it's a little strange anyway, I should say that characters with a high reflex shouldn't have a better AC if the characters with low reflex don't gain more ac too.
This is because the armor proficiencies. The characters with high reflex tend to use light armor, and the ones with low reflex tend to use heavier armor. Now, everyone knows that high ac characters tend to use light armor. If you give some bonus, like, +1 to ac for every +5 to reflex (this is purely THEORICAL), then they would have a very much better ac than the ones with heavy armor.
While I don't think this kind of thng will be adressed on PFrpg, you could always use optional rules on your game. The very best of them on my opinion is the defense bonus. You may have to tweak it a little to fit your game, but basically everyone gains a defense bonus to AC based on their armor proficiencies. Then, characters with light armor gain less, and the ones with heavier gain more.
This also helps a little to solve the problem with characters at high level always being hit by themselves, because attack goes up as you level up and ac does not.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
Now, everyone knows that high ac characters tend to use light armor.
What? How? I've always wanted a high AC low armor pirate style, but just can't get it. With only Core (core pathfinder in this case) and the Complete Series, how do you do it?
Thinking about what I said myself, I realized that everything that requires a Reflex save are things that draw the character's complete attention to avoid, he's not worried about hitting the "thing" back, just getting out of the way (fireballs, traps, etc...). In battle, one is not only concerned about dodging blows but also at hitting back, paying attention also to the opponents defense.
With that in mind, I came up with a simple house rule that satisfied me and the players and made sense: When in Total Defense, that is, when not attacking and only worried about avoiding being hit, a character gains the higher between his Reflex and the default flat +4 to AC (if you think about it, why does everyone get +4?), not counting Dex twice of course.
Now, this doesn't change the game much since fewer classes have good Reflex, only having Base Reflex > 4 at 15th level. And, a feat or other ability that raises the save by a little should also help in such a situation. As for the classes with high Reflex, if all they want is to avoid being hit and not fight back, they should be good at dodging things...
Now, everyone knows that high ac characters tend to use light armor.
That's one of those Everyone Knows like Everyone Knows The Earth Is Flat. It's just not true.
If you want to win AC, you become a fighter and get mithral full plate. And a large shield - no, make that tower shield. And then the works. You can use up to Dex 25 and still get everything out of your armour.
In order to top that without armour, you need to get quite a bit of dextertity:
Tank: Armour + 13, Training + 4, Dex + 7 (plus the rest which doesn't matter) = +24
Nudist: Armour +8 (bracers), Dex +16.
+16, that's quite a lot. You need Dex 42 for that (and 44 to be better). I can get to 36(18 roll/purchased, +2 race, +6 item, +5 increase, +5 inherent).
Of course, you can go Monk, to use both dex and wis, and class. But again, you lose the shield.
But then you're a monk!
Min/maxing does not awser anyting. You could be a fighter with your best stat on this, with this item and that thing and bla bla combo bla bla!
Now, what I was saying is the point, that at least I and many people see, that characters with high ac tend to use light armor.
The COMMON fighter or paladin does not have dexterity 18+, and he does not use a tower shield because of the penalty to attacks, since the COMMON (not the think about the min/maxed to have high ac) wants to attack.
The common paladin for example have so much to invest in terms of equip and stats that he can't afford a higher dex.
The common rogue, however, can invest in lighter-than-normal medium or heavy armor, tends to have Dodge or feats that enhance his armor, can get a Shield spell easily on him, or even using a mithril or anything like that shield so that he don't have skill penalty, and many other things.
So, my dear Kae, it's about that OFTEN, and TEND to have higher acs. It's the case of my actual campaign, and of many I've seen. If you created you warrior to be the ac monster by min/max, you surely can, but personaly, I don't think many players even try to do that.
So no, I think that light armor guys should not have anymore bonuses.
Take no offense, for I meant none.
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The difference between AC and Reflex is a small, but noticeable one.
Armor Class, as you pointed out, involves avoiding an attack as well as trying to maneuver to hit the offender back. More precisely though, AC is a target for the attacker. In another way, AC is the DC of the attack roll. You are measuring the attacking character's skill at landing a blow.
Reflex, on the other hand, is a measure of a character's skill at getting the heck away from something unsavory (pain or otherwise). When you roll a Reflex save, your DC is set by the offending spell/effect.
So a subtle difference, but noticeable all the same. And like was said, it won't change in PRPG for compatibility reasons.
**As far as the pirate character, you want a 3.5 Swashbuckler with at least 5 ranks in Tumble and Improved Combat Expertise. ImpCE stacks with fighting defensively, and having the ranks in Tumble gives you bigger bonuses when fighting defensively.
Not sure if the Tumble bonus translates to PRPG though.
No. 4e does something vaguely like this (touch ACs are gone, you attack reflex instead; and everyone gets a flat bonus to his AC depending on level, but then again, you get a flat bonus to everything depending on level, in that game), but Pathfinder won't.
The reason for this is easy: The old system works well enough, and a change like this will destroy backwards compatibility.
But there are optional rules for a class bonus to AC out there, just take a look at those, or at how d20 Modern does things.
Some things don't make sense, but they are that way for game balance. An example of this is that improved critical, which is based off of a character's skill with a weapon, and Keen, which is a magical ability dont stack. If you go to page 110 or 111 in Unearthed Arcana it gives an optional system for AC to increase for characters that don't wish to wear armor. It might also be in one of the online SRD's, but I dont know if the chart is online for sure or not.
After edit: This was supposed to reply to the original post.
If you want to win AC, you become a fighter and get mithral full plate. And a large shield - no, make that tower shield. And then the works. You can use up to Dex 25 and still get everything out of your armour.
In order to top that without armour, you need to get quite a bit of dextertity:
Tank: Armour + 13, Training + 4, Dex + 7 (plus the rest which doesn't matter) = +24
To be fair, Fighter Trainer wasn't in 3.5: though it is in Pathfinder.
Prior to that Tower shields sucked for Dex bonus because of dex limit.
Nudist: Armour +8 (bracers), Dex +16.+16, that's quite a lot. You need Dex 42 for that (and 44 to be better). I can get to 36(18 roll/purchased, +2 race, +6 item, +5 increase, +5 inherent).
Of course, you can go Monk, to use both dex and wis, and class. But again, you lose the shield.
But then you're a monk!
Monk jokes aside.
How much did you spend on +5 Mithral full plate Armor?Now he could be a rogue:
Base 10 +13 (assuming 36 Dex)Dex, +1 insight ioun, +5 Ring, +5 NA, +5 Animated heavy Shield +8 Bracers = 49 AC.
Back to main issue of OP:
a few days ago, something happened in my campaign; the Rogue character lost all of his belongings, everything. Being a Rogue 7/ShadowDancer 8 with 22 Dex, he had an insane Reflex Save (+18 if I'm not mistaken) but a very low AC (17 since he had dodge).
Now, with Improved Evasion there was almost no spell that required a Reflex save that could harm him, and he could avoid basically all but the most killer-insanely-high-DC traps.... But anyone could hit him easily, any 12° level fighter could wack the crap out of him, never missing a blow. And also, just by changing a Reflex-save trap by one that required an attack roll, he'd never avoid it.
Explain how belongings were lost.
D&D is very equipment centric (since 1st kinda).
Have you tried fighting defensively (yes it helps).
Min/maxing does not awser anyting. You could be a fighter with your best stat on this, with this item and that thing and bla bla combo bla bla!
Actually, min/maxing helps the nudist more than the tank: Shield and armour are pretty straightforward, even mithral armour, but if you want to forego armour, you need to boost Dex to the hilt.
The COMMON fighter or paladin does not have dexterity 18+,
Neither does the common rogue. 18 is extraordinary. 18 is min/maxed and/or high-level.
The common rogue, however, can invest in lighter-than-normal medium or heavy armor, tends to have Dodge or feats that enhance his armor, can get a Shield spell easily on him, or even using a mithril or anything like that shield so that he don't have skill penalty, and many other things.
A paladin might not have dodge, but a fighter will probably have it - they have feats to spare.
No rogue can get a shield spell cast easily on him, since that spell is personal. And even then, the paladin can get the same.
So, my dear Kae, it's about that OFTEN, and TEND to have higher acs.
Whenever someone calls me "dear Kae", I get the impression that he doesn't mean it at all.
Also, you forget some important parts:
No, the paladin won't have high dex, but he will have heavy armour. Maybe not right away, he'll probably start with something lighter, but wait until level 3 or so, and it will be full plate.
Many also get heavy shields. That's AC 20 right there, even with dex 10. Often, they have at least dex 12 to take advantage of the armour's max dex.
And for fighters, this gets even more pronounced: they often don't need anything powerful in the mental stats, so they can push dex in addition to str and con - and in Pathfinder, they get a nice incentive to do so with their armour training.
They might not go all the way to dex 30 or so, but a 14 to 16 at the first level is a definite, and after that, they boost it with their belt. That means that they can use medium to heavy armour and still get full use out of their dex. Add mithral to the mix, and it's even more.
And this doesn't involve much min/maxing.
It's the case of my actual campaign, and of many I've seen. If you created you warrior to be the ac monster by min/max, you surely can, but personaly, I don't think many players even try to do that.
I saw it differently: If you want high AC, go mithral full plate and shield. With the new fighter, that's even more true than before. He's easily among the top 3 of AC monsters, maybe even the best. If you want to beat that, you do have to min-max.
To be fair, Fighter Trainer wasn't in 3.5: though it is in Pathfinder.
I know. Before that, fighters and paladins hat pretty similar situations, but now fighters are in the lead.
How much did you spend on +5 Mithral full plate Armor?
35500
Now he could be a rogue:
Base 10 +13 (assuming 36 Dex)Dex, +1 insight ioun, +5 Ring, +5 NA, +5 Animated heavy Shield +8 Bracers = 49 AC.
Against that, I pit a fighter:
Base 10, +17 armour (+5 mithral full plate with weapon training +4), + 7 dex (base 16 +6 item +2 raises or race) +7 shield (+5 heavy shield, or +5 animated heavy shield, if you want, but it's not necessary), + 1 insight (ioun stone), +5 deflection (ring of protection +5), +5 natural (amulet of natural armour) = 52. If you want, throw in dodge, too.
Needed equipment:
035500 Mithral Full Plate +5
025150 Heavy Shield +5
144000 Belt of Physical Perfection +6
050000 Ring of Protection +5
050000 Amulet of Natural Armour
005000 Ioun Stone
309650 Total. Still 570350 gp over for weapons, a cloak of resistance, and some stat books, and it includes a Belt that boosts all stats at once.
That rogue will have to spend 391650 to get the stuff you mentioned, and of course will have to get an 18 in dex.
Explain how belongings were lost.
That would take a long time, let's just say he messed with the wrong guy.. very wrong guy.. but well.. the player is very stubborn and wan't that clever... so.. trying to deceive a lich-demi-god didn't go quite well...
D&D is very equipment centric (since 1st kinda).
Yes, I know that too well. And it has always bothered me, "it's about the sword, not the arm that wields it", the saying would go to D&D, contrary to the classical. That is one of the main reasons I'm switching to Pathfinder, with the classes more powerful, there will be less dependency of magical stuff to balance the game.
I wasn't looking for such complex builds, lol.... the Swashbuckler with Improved Combat Expertise was closer to what I was looking for, not there yet, but something like that. Again, I don't like being dependent on magical items, so I look for more Class/Feat options... without going into weird prestige classes from exotic supplements.
So, again, that house-rule I made up, I'm pretty happy with it, I think it'll work out. Though I still think there should be some kind of Base Defense Bonus (BDB).