A bit of clarification before launching in full bore. AC is supposed to function as a miss chance of sorts. That is to say, a certain percentage of hits fail to connect, or bounce off the armor, or whatever other fluff description you want that results in it either being a hit or a miss. For a few levels it does that. But offense scales much faster than defense. Between that, the natural 1 = auto miss rule, and Power Attack being an absolute necessity it instead works out like the defense systems in a wide variety of video games.
Everyone has a small innate evade chance, in this case represented by enemies rolling 1s. It is possible to increase your evade via a few means. Aside from this, you are always hit. Defense serves as a buffer of sorts. High defense means you take lower damage and vice versa. Thing about this system is it only works when you can get a high enough defense to be relevant or enemies don't have enough offensive power to tear you apart in very short order or it is not so expensive and inefficient to boost your defense as to not be worth trying.
D&D fails on all counts. Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hit and torn apart in two rounds even if you've went well out of your way to focus on it thereby requiring you to either one round the enemy or have a Cleric behind you casting Heal every round and hope they don't just kill him instead. Even then, Heal doesn't keep up forever. This of course is due to the fact the enemies have such high offense your defense specialization doesn't matter. End result is your defense is not relevant.
Now, most video games are at least somewhat balanced in this regard, as a result keeping armor, helms, whatever up to date isn't a problem. A few however are not. In such games, the only valid options for defense are the ones that result in not getting hit. That means overwhelming alpha strikes to win on round 1, miss chances to get some evade in, and so forth. This is where D&D is.
Now, the solution. First, armors and shields can go up to +9 in basic armor and +14 total. You are still capped at +9 for special properties. You can also get rings of up to +6, and amulets of up to +6.
Second, adjust Magic Vestment to be +1/2 levels, max +9 at CL 18th. Adjust Barkskin and Shield of Faith to be +1/3 levels, max +6 at CL 18th.
Third, reduce the cost of armors and shields by 40% and the rings and amulets by 25%, otherwise following the same formula. It may be necessary to further reduce the cost, the first draft is intentionally conservative.
That means armor and shield costs go as follows:
+1: 600.
+2: 2,400.
+3: 5,400.
+4: 9.6k.
+5: 15k.
+6: 21.6k.
+7: 29.4k.
+8: 38.4k.
+9: 48.6k.
+10: 60k.
+11: 72.6k.
+12: 86.4k.
+13: 101.4k.
+14: 117.6k.
This means that for roughly the cost of a +10 armor or shield you can get +13. It also means a maxed properties armor is +5 lots of special stuff, and not +1 lots of special stuff. End result is your ability to improve AC via these mediums scales better and caps higher, thereby allowing it to be more than a yes/no stat.
Now, the other miscellaneous AC boosters:
+1: 1,500.
+2: 6,000.
+3: 13,500.
+4: 24k.
+5: 37.5k.
+6: 54k.
Now, +6 items are available for roughly the same cost as +5s were before, again helping defense to scale better and cap higher. The effects are intentionally lower than those granted by armor and shields for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the aforementioned two items are much bigger sources and therefore need bigger improvements to maintain the same rough ratio. Also, there needs to be a point to said items.
As this only effects magic items and spells that simulate them, it doesn't change the low levels where AC works as intended instead of as a yes/no stat. It also has a lesser effect in the mid levels where there is a lessened need for adjustment due to the fact it is not as bad just yet. By picking this curve, the problem becomes self correcting to a great extent. It just goes where it is needed on its own.
Another effect of this is that it only costs slightly more to keep an armor and a shield at level x than it did to keep one of the above at level x before. This helps AC to have a point, and helps shields to have a point. Yay for incidental benefits.
Weapon costs obviously stay the same, as it is clearly counterproductive to fix 'offense scales faster than defense' then turn around and speed up offense as well.
Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hit
Can you please, please mention which level range you are talking about? For instance, this statement is patently false at level 1.
|
i promise to read this thread when i return home after work (its long)
but i feel like you that sometimes attack is so high that you need ridiulous amounts of defense to actually get some protection
some years ago i experimented with some evasion and low ACs...but all armors gave some Damage Reduction
it was an interesting experiment (i know there are already games andsettings that do this)
Fact A: Characters in general received more hits
Fact B: Characters received less damage
this 2 things made combats longer, but forced players to think of a few different strategies
for a single 2nd level fighter with an arrow and a headstart over 3 orcs it was a close combat... but he finished the 3 of them
all his arrows hit, but the damage was not much only one orc fell to such arrows (a critical) the other 2 which were also hurt were finished with his sword after inflicting some damage
it was a long combat, and the fighter sustained heavy damage... but it was damage that otherwise without the DR would have killed him
or the orcs... making a memorable battle something closer to 3 or 4 rounds
PS: mmm considerin, maybe criticals should enter without applying DR... mmmm
I've already houseruled that the fighter's Armor Training class feature applies to shields as well (so long as they are actually held, not just animated), and stacks if armor is worn. A 15th level fighter with +5 full plate and a heavy +5 shield would therefore have AC 39, not including bonuses for deflection, Dex, natural armor, etc. I also rule that armor training raises the max Dex in addition to lowering the armor penalty, so the above fighter could have up to +5 Dex bonus to AC (for AC 44, not including deflection, natural armor, Dodge, etc.).
Getting AC into the 40's at levels when your enemies have a +30 attack bonus isn't impossible, it's just usually not cost-effective when compared with the greater efficiency of maxing out your offensive capabilities -- kill the enemy quicker, and he'll hurt you less. The tweaks I've introduced don't fix the disparity, but they help a little bit. My hope is that a slew of really useful defensive sword-and-shield feats will be introduced as well.
A bit of clarification before launching in full bore. AC is supposed to function as a miss chance of sorts. That is to say, a certain percentage of hits fail to connect, or bounce off the armor, or whatever other fluff description you want that results in it either being a hit or a miss. For a few levels it does that. But offense scales much faster than defense. Between that, the natural 1 = auto miss rule, and Power Attack being an absolute necessity it instead works out like the defense systems in a wide variety of video games.
Everyone has a small innate evade chance, in this case represented by enemies rolling 1s. It is possible to increase your evade via a few means. Aside from this, you are always hit. Defense serves as a buffer of sorts. High defense means you take lower damage and vice versa. Thing about this system is it only works when you can get a high enough defense to be relevant or enemies don't have enough offensive power to tear you apart in very short order or it is not so expensive and inefficient to boost your defense as to not be worth trying.
D&D fails on all counts. Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hit and torn apart in two rounds even if you've went well out of your way to focus on it thereby requiring you to either one round the enemy or have a Cleric behind you casting Heal every round and hope they don't just kill him instead. Even then, Heal doesn't keep up forever. This of course is due to the fact the enemies have such high offense your defense specialization doesn't matter. End result is your defense is not relevant.
Now, most video games are at least somewhat balanced in this regard, as a result keeping armor, helms, whatever up to date isn't a problem. A few however are not. In such games, the only valid options for defense are the ones that result in not getting hit. That means overwhelming alpha strikes to win on round 1, miss chances to get some evade in, and so forth. This is where D&D is.
Now, the solution. First,...
A few things you don't take into account
Firstly, you assume there are autohits, these generally only apply for the first attack or so in a series of attacks.
Secondly, while it is easier to get hit at higher levels, at higher levels you also have an absurdly high number of hit points as well. At first level in normal D'n'D a single blow can kill you, but at the same time the chances of being hit aren't that high (or at least no were near as high as it is at higher levels). At high levels you'll be hit easily, but at the same time one blow will never kill you, in fact several repetative blows aren't likely to down a typical character.
Thirdly, yes armour and sheilds are expensive to get and enchant, they're still only half the price to enchant weapons.
Fourthly, does this take into account characters that specialize in defence? E.G Sheild bearing, expertising using, defencive fighting and full-plate-wearing warriors?
Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hitCan you please, please mention which level range you are talking about? For instance, this statement is patently false at level 1.
This post indicates you have not read my entire post. When you have done so, your question will have been answered for you.
Fourthly, does this take into account characters that specialize in defence? E.G Sheild bearing, expertising using, defencive fighting and full-plate-wearing warriors?
Sadly, as CoL and others have pointed out elsewhere, there's usually nothing keeping enemies from simply walking past and ignoring those heavily-armored fighters. Which is why useful protection needs to be coupled with either (a) an Intercept Enemy mechanism, (b) a LOT of damage potential, or both.
D&D fails on all counts. Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hit and torn apart in two rounds even if you've went well out of your way to focus on it thereby requiring you to either one round the enemy or have a Cleric behind you casting Heal every round and hope they don't just kill him instead. Even then, Heal doesn't keep up forever. This of course is due to the fact the enemies have such high offense your defense specialization doesn't matter. End result is your defense is not relevant.,...
I disagree with this element of your premise. This has not been the case in my experience.
Do you consider the Monster statistics by CR on page 294 of the PRPG to be accurate? ie a CR 5 High attack monster has +10 to hit, CR 10 High attack +18, CR 15 High attack +24? because if so it is relatively easy to have a character in 3.5 at those levels with an AC meaning they are missed 70% of the time with a main attack and 95% with others, in PRPG the fighter gets up to 95% against the main attack fairly quickly.
I know that AC doesnt matter against all foes but to those it does matter against IMO it was fine in 3.5 and the fighters boost is too powerful in PRPG.
More stuff.
"Firstly, you assume there are autohits, these generally only apply for the first attack or so in a series of attacks."
When fighting monsters, either all of their attacks are at the same (full) bonus, every attack except the primaries is at full - 2, or every attack except the primaries is at full -5. They also have more BAB and Strength than you if melee (obviously if not melee, the point if moot). Therefore yes they do auto hit. Iteratives don't come up much for enemies, and the ones that it does come up for are also the less dangerous ones aka humanoids. Because humanoids are gear dependent, and NPCs get a lot less gear for obvious reasons. So yes, there are auto hits. Quite a bit. As in on every single melee brute.
"Secondly, while it is easier to get hit at higher levels, at higher levels you also have an absurdly high number of hit points as well. At first level in normal D'n'D a single blow can kill you, but at the same time the chances of being hit aren't that high (or at least no were near as high as it is at higher levels). At high levels you'll be hit easily, but at the same time one blow will never kill you, in fact several repetative blows aren't likely to down a typical character."
Enemies also have more attacks. You still get torn apart in two rounds. I listed multiple examples in one of the other AC threads where the 'AC specialist' weighing in at 49 was still auto hit by level appropriate stuff and taking well over 100 damage in one round, which is to say he was losing about 80% of his max HP in that time frame.
"Thirdly, yes armour and sheilds are expensive to get and enchant, they're still only half the price to enchant weapons."
Doesn't matter. You're still sinking around 300k into something that still is only worth a crap by virtue of whatever armor and shield properties you pick and not the base 20 AC from +5 armor, shield, ring, amulet.
"Fourthly, does this take into account characters that specialize in defence? E.G Sheild bearing, expertising using, defencive fighting and full-plate-wearing warriors?"
My examples were a counterpoint to a build by Dragonchess Player that had already heavily gimped itself to score the aforementioned AC 49, that still didn't do a damn thing. I would consider that a 'defense specialist' seeing as he wasted multiple feats and took a lot of junk class levels such as Dwarven Defender to do it. I do not consider defensive fighting or Expertise valid because turtles are non threats. You're supposed to be making the enemy pay attention to you, not have even more incentive to ignore your tin can ass and walk briskly. Since the enemies are supposed to focus on you as a defensive build, and you are actively discouraging them from doing something they already don't want to do, you are Doing It Wrong and Shooting Yourself In The Foot.
D&D fails on all counts. Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hit and torn apart in two rounds even if you've went well out of your way to focus on it thereby requiring you to either one round the enemy or have a Cleric behind you casting Heal every round and hope they don't just kill him instead. Even then, Heal doesn't keep up forever. This of course is due to the fact the enemies have such high offense your defense specialization doesn't matter. End result is your defense is not relevant.,...
I disagree with this element of your premise. This has not been the case in my experience.
Do you consider the Monster statistics by CR on page 294 of the PRPG to be accurate? ie a CR 5 High attack monster has +10 to hit, CR 10 High attack +18, CR 15 High attack +24? because if so it is relatively easy to have a character in 3.5 at those levels with an AC meaning they are missed 70% of the time with a main attack and 95% with others, in PRPG the fighter gets up to 95% against the main attack fairly quickly.
I know that AC doesnt matter against all foes but to those it does matter against IMO it was fine in 3.5 and the fighters boost is too powerful in PRPG.
Those numbers are horrifically inaccurate. Those might be averages. Except the averages are dragged down by the various enemies who are not dangerous via their mundane combat prowess, because it includes the entire MM.
I don't know why the writer would make that big an error, but if they honestly believe enemies are that weak they clearly have not read their MM. This also explains many of the other failings evident in the text.
Seriously. +10 attack is about a CR 3 melee brute. Maybe. Definitely not 5. Random example: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direWolf.htm That's actually 11.
+18 might be around CR 7 or so. Maybe 8, but not 10. No specific example offhand, but check your MM.
+24 attack at CR 15? Lol, what? Maybe if you're a freakin' caster wizard or something... ok, slight exaggeration but correct numbers are in the 30s, at least.
Lastly, PF Fighters are nerfed, same as every other non caster. Straight number boosts are an illusion to conceal this. *casts Resurgence* Reroll that Will save.
|
Funny thing is I have never really experienced this. In several games.
Keep my AC fairly high for my level, but the GM still hits on occasion but certainly never hits ALL the time.
I can easily pop my AC and defenses up using Tower Shield and Total Defense to keep anything from hitting me.
I soloed a 9 headed cryo-hydra, when it was a few levels higher than me. I took some good damage, but when I needed to turtle down to chug some healing potions the hydra had no chance to hit me. At least none worth worrying about.
When I see threads along these lines I often wonder how much is real mechanics problem and how much is GMs "boosting" their attacks.
I can tell you from play testing Burnt Offerings so far, the poor little Goblins have almost no chance to hit the PCs. Their AC is just too darn high to be easily hit. And the same goes as a player up to level 22.
I assume that the majority of most D&D players just stand there and trade blows instead of using maneuvers and defensive options balanced by full attacks. Kind of like Rock-em-Sock-em Robots.
One thing I would like to note with this is that the monsters get the boost too, making it even tougher for those fighter classes to hit them.
This post indicates you have not read my entire post. When you have done so, your question will have been answered for you.Defense as defined by AC is incredibly expensive to get and you still get auto hitCan you please, please mention which level range you are talking about? For instance, this statement is patently false at level 1.
I read it the first time.
Please let me know when being auto-hit begins. I presume you don't have an answer, but you might surprise me.
|
I read it the first time.
Please let me know when being auto-hit begins. I presume you don't have an answer, but you might surprise me.
It's obviously for 'high level' (whatever you understand by that, which might vary from person to person, I guess) from this: "...it doesn't change the low levels where AC works as intended instead of as a yes/no stat. It also has a lesser effect in the mid levels where there is a lessened need for adjustment due to the fact it is not as bad just yet. By picking this curve, the problem becomes self correcting to a great extent. It just goes where it is needed on its own."
I pretty much like the general thrust of the solution. In the end, it has to be possible to scale ACs with To Hits and I'd like actual armour and shields to be as much a part of that solution as possible (and I guess that if shields become relevant, sword and board becomes a better option, making up for the lack of damage with survivability?), although spells are obviously going to be a part of it, too.
It's obviously for 'high level' (whatever you understand by that, which might vary from person to person, I guess) from this: "It also has a lesser effect in the mid levels where there is a lessened need for adjustment due to the fact it is not as bad just yet. By picking this curve, the problem becomes self correcting to a great extent. It just goes where it is needed on its own."
Exactly; I have no idea what the original poster means by "high level" or "low level" or "not as bad" or "auto-hit".
|
|
Mostly, I think that people are talking about something that starts somewhere between 12th and 14th level, when talking about 'high level'. 16th level, say, is pretty unambiguously high level and would do as an exemplar of the problem.
As for 'autohit', I understand it literally to mean 'hit except on 1' or more generally to mean 'overwhelmingly probably hit'.
Those numbers are horrifically inaccurate. Those might be averages. Except the averages are dragged down by the various enemies who are not dangerous via their mundane combat prowess, because it includes the entire MM.
I don't know why the writer would make that big an error, but if they honestly believe enemies are that weak they clearly have not read their MM. This also explains many of the other failings evident in the text.
Seriously. +10 attack is about a CR 3 melee brute. Maybe. Definitely not 5. Random example: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direWolf.htm That's actually 11.
+18 might be around CR 7 or so. Maybe 8, but not 10. No specific example offhand, but check your MM.
+24 attack at CR 15? Lol, what? Maybe if...
I have always considered the Dire wolf to be a well above average CR 3 melee brute (in fact it would be close to if not the strongest CR 3 melee creature in standard 3.5) and would consider the ogre to be a more reasonable high melee brute. However I dont disagree that the numbers seem a little low, IMO only about 1 or 2 points. I will however check my MM maybe tonight.
It appears IMO your premise for your statement about AC being irrelevant is based upon an assumption that the attacks for standard monsters are much, much higher than the standard rules. In this case I would agree. If you attack your PC's with creatures who have a to hit that is so high their AC doesnt matter, it doesnt matter.
However in my experience not only does it matter it is crucial and enormously important. The Low AC ranger for example is so much chopped liver if he tries to do the defensive job of the high ac fighter.
As to your comment about the fighter being nerfed- IMO the fighter (and those that fill it's role) are the most specialised class in the game- this tends to mean they require other more flexible support classes to retain maximum effectiveness. However up until very high level (15th + where things get a little unpredictable) they fill their role admirably. (Sidetrack- dont fighters just wander around with magic circle vs evil so they cant be effected by a whole school of will save magic? IMO this effect of protection from evil to grant effective immunity to a whole school of magic at 1st level is crazy)
(Please dont take my 'fighters are tuff' somment to mean I dont think they could do with a boost in their ability to 'be the intercept guy' and 'shake off the mental control' I just have to deal with massive AC guys in my games all the time and they are nigh-invulnerable in normal fights)
|
|
16th level, say, is pretty unambiguously high level and would do as an exemplar of the problem.
To be fair, there's not anything of CR16 that will definitely across-the-board autohit in the MM -- Greater Stone Golem has two +42 attacks doing an average of 31hp each, which isn't too shabby for 'moronic melee brute'. It is, however, expensive to even have much of a chance of avoiding it. Of course, you could be fighting CR16 at level 13...
EDIT: On reflection, I guess that +42 to hit is pretty high.
|
Having done several fairly lengthy playtest sessions with a mid-level Pathfinder Fighter, I can say without a doubt that AC actually scales too quickly with the exception of specific brute warrior monsters.
When Hill Giants and Shield Guardians need a 16 to hit, and the NPC Warriors need a 20, I don't think the AC system needs any more boosts.
|
|
Having done several fairly lengthy playtest sessions with a mid-level Pathfinder Fighter, I can say without a doubt that AC actually scales too quickly with the exception of specific brute warrior monsters.
When Hill Giants and Shield Guardians need a 16 to hit, and the NPC Warriors need a 20, I don't think the AC system needs any more boosts.
He is talking about high level, though. Not sure how much difference it makes -- I haven't played much high level stuff in 3.5 -- but the numbers for the melee brutes do look pretty bad at higher level. In any case, are you talking about total AC, or AC from armour, then?
Funny thing is I have never really experienced this. In several games.
Keep my AC fairly high for my level, but the GM still hits on occasion but certainly never hits ALL the time.
I can easily pop my AC and defenses up using Tower Shield and Total Defense to keep anything from hitting me.
I soloed a 9 headed cryo-hydra, when it was a few levels higher than me. I took some good damage, but when I needed to turtle down to chug some healing potions the hydra had no chance to hit me. At least none worth worrying about.
When I see threads along these lines I often wonder how much is real mechanics problem and how much is GMs "boosting" their attacks.
I can tell you from play testing Burnt Offerings so far, the poor little Goblins have almost no chance to hit the PCs. Their AC is just too darn high to be easily hit. And the same goes as a player up to level 22.
I assume that the majority of most D&D players just stand there and trade blows instead of using maneuvers and defensive options balanced by full attacks. Kind of like Rock-em-Sock-em Robots.
Turtles are non threats. Your DM coddled you by making it not just ignore your non threatening, inefficient, resource wasting butt. Non threatening due to the turtling. Inefficient and resource wasting because you are actually using healing potions. Clarification added to indicate statement of fact, not insulting.
Maneuvers, barring unnerfed trip are wastes of actions. Defensive actions are either wastes of actions, or turtling which gets you ignored. Rock em Sock em Robots is the name of the game, like it or not. Thinking anything else is deluding yourself.
One thing I would like to note with this is that the monsters get the boost too, making it even tougher for those fighter classes to hit them.
This is only true if they have magic equipment, and even then their much lower wealth means they get less. Also, the ones that have magic equipment, barring dragons are the ones that need it the most. And dragons really don't have a reason to use armor or shields, which just leaves whatever very minor benefit they can get from the amulet and the ring.
End effect on monsters is near zero. You'll still hit them on a 2. At least with your full accuracy attacks. Unless of course they can buff themselves, because monsters are extremely buffable.
More edits: The reason why this occurs is because offense has a steeper scaling curve than defense. So while at level 1, you have about oh... +5 to hit vs AC 16-18 or whatever go up about 4 levels and the offensive stats are around 5-10 points higher, whereas the defensive stats are only about 3-5 points higher. Then it keeps going from there. At the low levels, AC actually causes some attacks to miss barring auto misses. Get into say... level 6-10 and sometimes AC is helping you a little by say... making the enemy hit on a 4 or better instead of a 2 or better, and sometimes it's just auto hitting. You start seeing the AC as video game defense thing here, as the only thing it's managing to do is lower the damage from the auto hits a bit. Auto hit defined as hitting on any possible result except a natural 1, and then only because 1s auto miss. Beyond level 10, the only question is how much PA allowance the enemy has while still hitting you on a 2. This number ranges from 'not that much, therefore it only almost kills you in one round' to 'quite a bit, if it gets its claws and teeth on you you're screwed, even if you are a so called tank'.
This is what is meant by at low levels AC does its job, at mid levels it's failing but not so bad, and at high levels it is very blatantly apparent.
The purpose of this change is to raise the curve by which defense scales to be closer to the offense scale. It allows for up to 10 points more AC for a bit more than the 300k you were paying before. That way you spend 300k on something to protect you and enemies actually miss sometimes.
|
|
Funny thing is I have never really experienced this. In several games.
Keep my AC fairly high for my level, but the GM still hits on occasion but certainly never hits ALL the time.
I can easily pop my AC and defenses up using Tower Shield and Total Defense to keep anything from hitting me.
I soloed a 9 headed cryo-hydra, when it was a few levels higher than me. I took some good damage, but when I needed to turtle down to chug some healing potions the hydra had no chance to hit me. At least none worth worrying about.
When I see threads along these lines I often wonder how much is real mechanics problem and how much is GMs "boosting" their attacks.
I can tell you from play testing Burnt Offerings so far, the poor little Goblins have almost no chance to hit the PCs. Their AC is just too darn high to be easily hit. And the same goes as a player up to level 22.
I assume that the majority of most D&D players just stand there and trade blows instead of using maneuvers and defensive options balanced by full attacks. Kind of like Rock-em-Sock-em Robots.
Turtles are non threats. Your DM coddled you by making it not just ignore your non threatening, inefficient, resource wasting butt. Non threatening due to the turtling. Inefficient and resource wasting because you are actually using healing potions. Clarification added to indicate statement of fact, not insulting.
Maneuvers, barring unnerfed trip are wastes of actions. Defensive actions are either wastes of actions, or turtling which gets you ignored. Rock em Sock em Robots is the name of the game, like it or not. Thinking anything else is deluding yourself.
He was solo against the hydra, so it didn't really have a choice to ignore him except by just leaving, which is even better for him in terms of getting a chance to heal.
Ok, ignoring the obvious question of why he is soloing a Hydra... he just picked one of the very few examples that can support his argument due to lots of attacks, but low accuracy. As opposed to say... lots of attacks and good accuracy which is a hell of a lot more common.
I've edited my previous post with more stuff, and since I got ninjaed it is now necessary to pick it up from here.
A bit of background here. In that high AC characters don't wear armor thread I said something to the effect of 'if you want high AC, be a caster because they do it and everything better, however the point is moot because AC is not a valid defense, you need miss chances for that'. I also put something in there somewhere about the many failings of heavy armor, but that isn't related to this subject so don't derail my topic. As is typical around here, the responders ignored everything after the first part and only replied to it because it was easier to argue against. By playing it off as the entirety of my argument, said opponents were happily filling fields with many straw men.
About the only productive part of it was Dragonchess Player produces an 'AC specialist' who topped out at exactly 49 AC, level 20. Said character had to heavily gimp itself to even get that much via multiple wasted feats (the heavy armor optimization line), a lot of junk class levels such as 10 levels of Fighter above the usual 2 level dip, and Dwarven Defender levels. There was also some Battlesmith thing I still haven't looked up. That means 3 more wasted feats (look at the Dwarven Defender prereqs).
Now, I'm running a campaign. As such, I design creatures to use in said campaign whenever I have time to do so. So these next two creatures were not made specifically to counter him. They were simply the last two monsters I had built. Just pull out the statblock and reference the appropriate lines. These are good enough examples of stuff you're expected to deal with at these levels.
Now the first example was a CR 17 non core creature, which I applied Half Fiend to for thematic reasons. Half Fiend does little to boost its offensive effectiveness as it doesn't have the Charisma to support the SLAs which just means there's a few defensive, support, and flavor effects, and some stat boosts. That's it. Half Fiend adds +3 and is quite weak for what it gives if you don't have high Charisma for save DC purposes, therefore this is an example of a weak CR 20.
By default it auto hits AC 45. However one free action later and it auto hits AC 47 instead. Since it is a free action, it can obviously use it before it ever attacks, therefore this is actually the correct default. Not bad for something that is effectively 3 levels lower but has a +4 strength.
But wait, there's more.
Its preferred combat tactics are to hide in ambush, then get a surprise round and standard action Pounce on whoever is closest. Assuming the so called tank is doing his job, that's him. This thing has a +30 on the check to not be found (and since size penalties are lower in PF, it'd do better there. BSF can't pass. Even Wisdom types with perception skills maxed still have a roughly coin toss chance, especially considering it can be up to sixty feet away, therefore there is a penalty of up to -6 due to distance. Charge bonuses mean this creature is just good enough to auto hit AC 49. Except it's attacking flat footed AC, which means no +3 from Dex, and no +2 from Dodge. That's an allowance to PA for 5. As in add 5 to every hit. So far it is doing 22-32 (claw), 22-32 (claw), and 15-30 (bite). Also add 2-12 to each of those if Mr. So Called Tank is good aligned, which given the typical game he probably is.
This thing has Improved Grab on its bite. In 3.5 this means Mr. So Called Tank has a grapple modifier of around 30-32 vs a +55. He can't pass. In PF this means Mr. So Called Tank forces a DC 45-47 check to grab him. 30 BAB, 44 Strength, Huge. It still automatically succeeds.
A successful grapple allows for rake attacks. Two, to be exact. Each is doing 21-28.
So far we have 22-32/22-32/15-30/21-28/21-28 damage. That is 101-150 damage. 106-180 damage if good aligned. That is an average of 143 vs good and 125.5 vs neutral or evil. His build I think required good, I'm not sure. See above about typicality of PC alignments.
Also since that bite hit, Mr. So Called Tank needs to make a Fortitude save to not be stunned for 1 round. Seems easy enough, except the DC is 42 and his modifier is significantly lower than that. It's not quite auto fail, but there's not a great chance of success. If he gets stunned he's now even more vulnerable on round 2 to getting torn apart. Trying to cast Heal just means the thing knows where to find its dessert. Mr. So Called Tank never even got to act.
Now, compare to real defenses like those miss chances. It actually has a > 5% chance to not hit you now. Make that bite miss and the two rakes automatically miss (it can't auto grab you and use them). This also means no high DC Stun. The only valid defense is not getting hit.
The second creature, and the more recent one is a CR 19 core dragon. In its current state it is auto hitting AC 45, however...
1: Being a CR 19 creature, it should be compared to level 19 characters. Shave a level off the build, its numbers might drop a bit.
2: At the time of that posting, it was only partially made. It still had over half its feats unselected for example.
3: It is not using any of its triple standard wealth to bolster itself. Mostly because I hadn't done that part yet. And still haven't, which reminds me... I need to take care of that. I'd like to take this moment to remind you triple standard treasure is what humanoid NPCs get. It's not good enough for them because gear is all they have power wise and it's still about a quarter what PCs get. Throw it on a much more solid chassis like this dragon here, and you get a big can of whoop ass, just waiting to be opened.
Suffice it to say getting another +4 by the time it's done is not that difficult. And these are the completely unprepared numbers. As stated before, monsters are very buffable. Dragons can buff themselves via their Sorc spellcasting and their UMD class skill combined with that wealth. Since the chance you will surprise a dragon is basically nil, they are always prepared when it counts. Even if you did somehow manage to catch one offguard, and it didn't just escape because ya know, dragons are smart long term buffs means it still isn't completely unprepared. All this is still academic as any buffs are just gravy at this point.
That AC 49 however? Completely maxed out. Not buffable at all. All buffable categories are already maxed. No matter how well prepared he and his party are, he can never do better.
This is why AC only acts as effective DR (and if you use the DR variant it does the same thing except less effectively) and not as the intended sort of defense where you actually block some attacks, or have them bounce off your armor, or whatever.
|
To Sum Up:
CoL as DM can kill your character. In the surprise round.
You can't do anything about it, other than play a Wizard/Cleric/Druid and be immune to attack.
Funnily enough, almost the exact same thing happened just recently in a game I'm playing in.
Went like this: Invisible Wizard character moves up to the party, hits party bard with Sudden-Maximized Disintegrate.
DC 23/24 Fort save, Touch attack that practically auto-hits (Invisible Flat-Footed Ranged Touch attack...), does 196 Damage that destroys the body on death.
Minimum monster actions: Check
Maximum PC Damage: Check
Dead PC: Check
Un-retrievable Body short of level loss: Check
Fun: Oddly missing. hm...weird how that worked out.
-t
If I could still edit my topic title and original post, I'd put a big disclaimer in there about how you should not post in this thread if you are just going to make up random crap to attack me and not address the actual issues.
Psionic Hamster, I will give you one response. Further off topicness and attacks on your part will be reported. 196 isn't divisible by 12, therefore I am not inclined to take your argument seriously. Given the history of these boards my first thought is you just made up something you thought sounded plausible to give me a hard time. However I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 192 and just typoed or something. Ok. That's 32d6, 192 Maximized. The Wizard is level 16, therefore the party is around level 14, perhaps higher. You're complaining about a save in the low to mid 20s? Utterly trivial, barring natural 1s. In which case Mr. Wizard does a whopping 30 damage and blows his 1/day ability. Oops. So that attack may 'auto hit' but it practically 'auto fails' to work. Unless of course the Bard is incompetent. I remind you Bards are casters for this purpose, therefore getting saves up is simple.
Your wizard probably isn't very good at stealth, so he's not that hard to detect either. My ambush guy is potentially avoidable. Just Mr. So Called Tank isn't doing it. It's a CR 20 melee brute. All it can ever do is attack, therefore it kind of has to actually be good at attacking. When compared to the only other CR 20 melee brute, it is inferior on every count. Yup. Weaker than Big T, despite the total garbage for resource usage on the latter. The other CR 20 stuff is mixed threats. Like Mr. Dragon.
|
Now, the solution. First, armors and shields can go up to +9 in basic armor and +14 total. You are still capped at +9 for special properties. You can also get rings of up to +6, and amulets of up to +6.
Second, adjust Magic Vestment to be +1/2 levels, max +9 at CL 18th. Adjust Barkskin and Shield of Faith to be +1/3 levels, max +6 at CL 18th.
Third, reduce the cost of armors and shields by 40% and the rings and amulets by 25%, otherwise following the same formula. It may be necessary to further reduce the cost, the first draft is intentionally conservative.
Rather than do that, you could do what I did in my campaign and simply adapt the Defense rules from Unearthed Arcana. They scale pretty well and still allow so room to tinker. They also fit with the idea that a front line character, like a fighter, needs a better AC than a controller like a wizard. So a fighter starts with a +6 bonus to defense and goes up to +12 at 20th level while a wizard starts at +2 and advances up to +8. It's easy, it's cheap (nothing to pay for) and it doesn't require a rule change. That would be my solution.
|
|
Crusader of Logic,
If you add the Half-Fiend template to a monster and then call it effectively 3 levels lower, you've missed some logic. It has bonuses against good creatures, strength, etc. which add to its Challenge Rating; you would be doing your players a disservice to treat the templated creature the same as a base creature. Your CR 20 creature is actually CR 23; it is not hard to imagine it is going to do significant damage to a lvl 20 PC, but the point has been rendered moot.
Also, psychichamster may have made a better example if the spell had been Polar Ray or similar magic that does not allow a saving throw. I believe he was trying to point out that an NPC does not need a high strength and BAB to be a surprise danger.
Your own example of a 'typical' high CR threat appears to be a dragon, which is virtually always more challenging than other creature types. They are stronger, tougher, and smarter by design than other creatures, and in no way a typical threat. Taking the AC 49 PC example, a CR 20 black dragon has a +44 to hit, or a 25% failure rate if it doesn't buff itself or power attack. 25% is better than auto-hit, but still quite nasty to a tasty PC. That PC is forcing the dragon to attack more accurately instead of dumping say +25 into Power Attack, which gives him greater survival chance for the cleric to restore him and perhaps survive the one or two rounds it will take his high-level magic users to kill/neutralize the beast.(I'm assuming tactics and logic on the part of the high-armor PC here)
-----------------------------------------------------------
I accept the fact that attack power scales faster than defense for monsters. For my own games, this means that PCs in higher levels cannot afford to continually resort to the same rock'em sock'em robots tactics that worked for them in every dungeon room at low level. A high level adventurer has to play smarter to continue to survive, because his/her enemies are smarter/tougher/stronger too. Sure, you'll still have encounters with the greater stone golem, but it isn't going to ignore the fighter when he uses Improved Combat Expertise (or similar feats/abilities) for +20 AC either.
Lastly, in my own games as player or DM, the PCs have not had trouble with 'auto-hit' monsters. Their AC is usually enough to significantly reduce hits taken (even the spellcasters pay attention to their AC scores) which reduces damage taken. If I asked them about this issue, I would probably get blank stares followed by, "No, the game didn't seem unbalanced to me." I can see this being a problem for some gaming groups, but I do not believe it is a weakness or flaw in the system overall. For those groups, David Fryer's solution (from UA) makes a lot of sense to me.
|
|
Crusader of Logic,
If you add the Half-Fiend template to a monster and then call it effectively 3 levels lower, you've missed some logic. It has bonuses against good creatures, strength, etc. which add to its Challenge Rating; you would be doing your players a disservice to treat the templated creature the same as a base creature. Your CR 20 creature is actually CR 23; it is not hard to imagine it is going to do significant damage to a lvl 20 PC, but the point has been rendered moot.
I think that he's saying that it's a CR 17 creature with the half-fiend template, thus he's calling it a (weak) CR 20 (basically the approach you endorse, just that the base creature isn't CR 20 as in your post but rather CR 17).
Exactly; I have no idea what the original poster means by "high level" or "low level" or "not as bad" or "auto-hit".
Try starting at CR10, with a Fire Giant for roughly a mid level melee opponent (ignoring scenarios which favor rock throwing, which can be dangerous). Attacks at +20, and can be assumed to be a solid point of reference for CR10 melee enemies. Against a character invested in defense partially at level 10, and not assuming any particular class features, with a +2 Full Plate of Light Fortification gives a max AC of 22, and adding the fun of a +1 Bashing Spiked Heavy Shield (which can be a useful threat, looking at the Benny the Fighter thread) would make it 25. Assuming Amulet of Natural Armor +2, and maybe a Ring +1, for AC of 28, unbuffed, for about 40% of the character's WBL, 24530 gp without a crafter in the pocket. This character will be hit 60% of the time on a standard attack, unless somebody can buff him, and takes about 15.3 damage from each round, on average, assuming single attacks and PFRPG Power Attack, where Power Attack becomes useless here for the giant. If the giant cares to full attack, that jumps to 26.225, assuming Light Fortification takes care of the criticals. A Gargantuan Scorpion, also CR10, turns in some impressive numbers against AC 28, but I will leave that math to someone else.
An 11-headed hydra does even better, at an intimidating 50.6 damage per round on average against the unfortunate sucker who blew 40% of his expected wealth on AC boosters, assuming normal probabilities. That's with only a +16 to hit, but 11 attacks, all the time. A number of the other opponents at CR10 are True Dragons or Outsiders, and if these low special ability melee opponents give Mr. "40% wealth for AC 28" a hard time, then I don't even want to start trying to factor in the problems that a few spell-like abilities and flying would give him.
In short, I think CoL is right, and towards the mid to later points of the game (read: CR10+), the wealth cost of AC is simply not cost effective for the net gain. Lowering the cost of AC at these higher points might improve the utility of AC as an investment stat throughout the progression.
Crusader of Logic,
If you add the Half-Fiend template to a monster and then call it effectively 3 levels lower, you've missed some logic. It has bonuses against good creatures, strength, etc. which add to its Challenge Rating; you would be doing your players a disservice to treat the templated creature the same as a base creature. Your CR 20 creature is actually CR 23; it is not hard to imagine it is going to do significant damage to a lvl 20 PC, but the point has been rendered moot.
Incorrect. I stated it was a CR 17 with a +3 template added, then specifically clarified that as the template adds very little for those 3 points of CR the end result was a weak CR 20. Offense wise, all it gets out of Half Fiend is +4 Strength. It then gets some minor defensive stuff, the best of which is Unholy Aura as a SLA and utility/fluff effects also via SLAs. However, given its low Charisma it gains little benefit from these so trying to say... cast a DC 19 Save or Die via Destruction is just wasting an action. 95% fail rate, and all that.
There's also a 1/day smite for +20 damage I forgot to mention. That just increases the chances of a one round KO (a two round kill is assured regardless). Overall it doesn't affect the example much, or favors my points depending on circumstance.
Had I instead given it those 3 points of CR via better templates, or simple advancement rules it would have gotten better stats. 6 HD for example on this thing would mean another 59 HP over what it has now, 6 BAB, 2 Strength, 2 feats, even better skill modifiers, save DC increase of 2 points... Yeah. Would be 3 points, except half fiend adds 2 Con. Net gain.
Also, psychichamster may have made a better example if the spell had been Polar Ray or similar magic that does not allow a saving throw. I believe he was trying to point out that an NPC does not need a high strength and BAB to be a surprise danger.
Sudden Maximized Polar Ray only does 96 with no save. Which means it's only a third better than a second level spell. As a result, it can be done without the NPC nova potential that is Sudden Metamagics. That probably won't kill the Bard. It will come pretty close though, seeing as he has a little over a hundred HP, higher if above level 14.
Your own example of a 'typical' high CR threat appears to be a dragon, which is virtually always more challenging than other creature types. They are stronger, tougher, and smarter by design than other creatures, and in no way a typical threat. Taking the AC 49 PC example, a CR 20 black dragon has a +44 to hit, or a 25% failure rate if it doesn't buff itself or power attack. 25% is better than auto-hit, but still quite nasty to a tasty PC. That PC is forcing the dragon to attack more accurately instead of dumping say +25 into Power Attack, which gives him greater survival chance for the cleric to restore him and perhaps survive the one or two rounds it will take his high-level magic users to kill/neutralize the beast.(I'm assuming tactics and logic on the part of the high-armor PC here)
Dragons were the examples I used because dragons are what I most recently designed. Know what the three most common creature types in the MM are? If you said Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Outsiders you'd be correct. Now, care to venture a guess as to which are the most dangerous? If you said the same damn things, you are also correct. Unless you are trying to argue that these so called tanks should in fact be irrelevant against the threats that matter... not merely that they are, that they are intended to be... Yeah.
Note however the first creature is a pure melee brute. All it can ever do is move and attack, not necessarily in that order. In other words, it's like the PC melee brute, except better.
The second is a mixed threat because it also has some spell casting ability, and a decent breath weapon.
So you have one straightforward encounter that owns the so called tank in 2 rounds by pure numbers (note, that was only PAing for 3 and it was still doing well over a hundred a round with 95% accuracy) and one encounter that can own the so called tank in two rounds in a straight number contest, but has actual options at its disposal thereby ensuring an auto win.
By the way, your math is wrong. +44 vs 49 = 80% success rate (5 or better). Those are the numbers for a dragon not using any of the 10 or so feats it is entitled to and not using any of the wealth it is entitled to. Triple Standard = exactly the same as humanoid NPCs. The only way to make that a fair comparison is if you strip every feat and item off the so called tank. Obviously this is not a valid example. Therefore, you must consider the dragon using the resources it has available to it.
I do want to know what tactics and logic Mr. One Trick is supposed to be using, seeing as anything he hasn't specialized in his entire adventuring life is going to be automatically inferior at best, if it works at all. All he can really do is leech off the others and hope the DM takes pity on him and decides to play super genius monsters as complete idiots. Yes, super genius. Int 18 = IQ 175-184. And that's a low end example. Though my first example only had Int 8 (IQ 75-84), that still doesn't change the fact both you and it are limited to hitting the thing with the other thing, and it both hits the thing with the other thing better and takes being hit with the other thing better.
I accept the fact that attack power scales faster than defense for monsters. For my own games, this means that PCs in higher levels cannot afford to continually resort to the same rock'em sock'em robots tactics that worked for them in every dungeon room at low level. A high level adventurer has to play smarter to continue to survive, because his/her enemies are smarter/tougher/stronger too. Sure, you'll still have encounters with the greater stone golem, but it isn't going to ignore the fighter when he uses Improved Combat Expertise (or similar feats/abilities) for +20 AC either.
Ok. One problem. They don't have a choice. You instead try something else, you heavily gimp your own offense while doing jack crap for your defense. That's the way the game works. Yes, you need to play smarter. You don't have the tools to play smarter. At least not as a meatshield. So yeah, that thing you're doing with the AC there? Not only is it not doing crap for you, your role is entirely unnecessary to boot. Oops.
Also, everyone owns things that are completely devoid of intelligence (that golem) as all it can ever do is auto attack the closest enemy. So congrats, you can do what a Commoner can. Except this isn't worth bragging about. Oops.
Lastly, in my own games as player or DM, the PCs have not had trouble with 'auto-hit' monsters. Their AC is usually enough to significantly reduce hits taken (even the spellcasters pay attention to their AC scores) which reduces damage taken. If I asked them about this issue, I would probably get blank stares followed by, "No, the game didn't seem unbalanced to me." I can see this being a problem for some gaming groups, but I do not believe it is a weakness or flaw in the system overall. For those groups, David Fryer's solution (from UA) makes a lot of sense to me.
Then they are still low level, or perhaps you're giving them about double the normal treasure and they haven't capped their ACs yet. Regardless, permanent investments that grant diminishing returns are textbook examples of Logic Fail.
A big disclaimer in there about how you should not post in this thread if you are just going to make up random crap to attack me and not address the actual issues.
By this reasoning, you should not have posted.
I was sort of interested in the OP. I got this far before deciding you are wasting my time by not even bothering to address people's legitimate scenarios if they conflict in any way with your dogma.
People are suggesting where their experiences differ from yours. You need to refine your argument to make it clear how this isn't relevant to your point. You shouldn't send people (myself included) back to your OP with a magnifying glass when you can just say "I am discussing this level range."
You are smart, please work with us. I'm not asking for happy hippy bulls**t, just answer questions, even if you disagree with the premise. It is totally reasonable to explain WHY you disagree with the premise of a scenario, and how that excludes it from your analysis. It isn't cool to assume that everyone on this board should have already studied your prior assertions in order to benefit from your wisdom.
I'm still following this, so please, strive for clarity.
Exactly; I have no idea what the original poster means by "high level" or "low level" or "not as bad" or "auto-hit".Try starting at CR10, with a Fire Giant for roughly a mid level melee opponent (ignoring scenarios which favor rock throwing, which can be dangerous). Attacks at +20, and can be assumed to be a solid point of reference for CR10 melee enemies. Against a character invested in defense partially at level 10, and not assuming any particular class features, with a +2 Full Plate of Light Fortification gives a max AC of 22, and adding the fun of a +1 Bashing Spiked Heavy Shield (which can be a useful threat, looking at the Benny the Fighter thread) would make it 25. Assuming Amulet of Natural Armor +2, and maybe a Ring +1, for AC of 28, unbuffed, for about 40% of the character's WBL, 24530 gp without a crafter in the pocket. This character will be hit 60% of the time on a standard attack, unless somebody can buff him, and takes about 15.3 damage from each round, on average, assuming single attacks and PFRPG Power Attack, where Power Attack becomes useless here for the giant. If the giant cares to full attack, that jumps to 26.225, assuming Light Fortification takes care of the criticals. A Gargantuan Scorpion, also CR10, turns in some impressive numbers against AC 28, but I will leave that math to someone else.
An 11-headed hydra does even better, at an intimidating 50.6 damage per round on average against the unfortunate sucker who blew 40% of his expected wealth on AC boosters, assuming normal probabilities. That's with only a +16 to hit, but 11 attacks, all the time. A number of the other opponents at CR10 are True Dragons or Outsiders, and if these low special ability melee opponents give Mr. "40% wealth for AC 28" a hard time, then I don't even want to start trying...
I'd like to take the opportunity to point out that this is another example of a character who has focused on AC to the point of gimping himself. It's not as bad though, since the only flaw aside from the cost factor is that he is actually holding a shield instead of making it float and is apparently wielding a light weapon in the main hand since the shield is a one handed weapon for bashing purposes. That also means TWFing sans bonus damage, aka suck.
With that out of the way, more math. And some corrections. The giant has 65% accuracy. +20 vs 28 = 8 or better. The giant gets Standard treasure, so it's possible it has better. The giant is an example of a fairly weak CR 10 melee brute. By fairly weak, I mean below average but not by a large margin. Given that the giant's accuracy is 65%, those averages are probably higher. I didn't look to see if the math was right on that segment.
The scorpion hits at 12-22/12-22/7-17 with +21/+21/+16 accuracy. The end result is an average of 46, and a weighted average of 29.2. That's not so bad, seeing as he has 84.5 HP and can therefore take 3 rounds of this. But there's also poison in that tail. DC 23 vs a save modifier around oh... 12 or so? That's 7 base, 3 Con, 2 resistance. Coin toss. He loses, he automatically drops by 4.5 Con. That's 20 HP gone. Possibly 30. I'm ignoring the secondary saves because the fight will be over before 10 rounds is up, and making a DC 23 Heal check with Take 10 is incredibly simple with even a few ranks (invested when the skill was still worth a damn). Once he fails one save, he now has a 60% chance (or higher) of failing the next. Yeah.
Note that once a claw hits, it auto grabs as Mr. So Called Tank only gets about a +15 or so to resist vs a modifier of +37 in 3.5, and is a DC 30 check when the Scorpion has a size modifier of... I believe +4 for Gargantuan, 31 Strength, and 15 BAB in PF for an end modifier of exactly +29. 1d20+29 vs DC 30 = still auto pass. Once grabbed, it gets to do free claw damage with a successful grapple check, which means it's automatically doing that amount of damage. No more missing.
Colossal Animated Objects are also CR 10. Lots of HP, object rules, and near auto hit attacks. (it's exactly one point short of negating 40% of your resources by default, instead settling for 90% accuracy) Have fun.
Hydras are fun too. See, they attack with every head with their AoOs too. Which means you can't even approach them without them knocking off over half your HP. Oops. And Hydras are one of the best examples for people trying to argue against me due to their low accuracy but high number of attacks. Still, best isn't good enough.
Edit: Toyrobots, when people ask me questions that I have preemptively answered in the first post, I'm not inclined to accord them much credibility as they are either disagreeing with something they do not even understand or have fully read, or are intentionally being obstinate to give me a hard time. I devoted several lines to the effect of levels on the data given, and several more lines explaining exactly why this fixes what it needs to by being tied to magical enhancements which play no role at the lowest levels and take on a snowball effect from there so as to steepen the curve of improvement. It doesn't affect the lowest levels, where AC works anyways. Then it affects things a little around level 5 or so where near auto hits are coming in. 5 more levels later, you're getting a moderate benefit to offset a moderate chance of auto hits. Beyond that, both offense and defense scale quickly with my examples given.
Now the first example was a CR 17 non core creature, which I...
Out of curiosity, what CR 17 non-core creature are you using? Because, as you know, non-core creatures are not all created equally, and some tend to be overwhelmingly more powerful than MM creatures of an equivalent CR.
Also, does the creature hide in plain sight? My biggest complaint about ambushes is that they don't usually work in RAW...you need cover or concealment to hide, and having cover or concealment between you and the hapless PC means you don't have a charge lane.
Apologies if this seems like a threadjack; I'm just looking for some further information.
And to get back on track, I also think that AC scaling needs to be better done. I've played quite a bit of high-level 3.5 play, and it seems that every attack is either "I'm going to hit you on 2+" or "I'm only going to hit you on a 20." That implies bad scaling to me.
|
|
What about piling some standard DR on as well as the AC? Although I guess that will have its own binary nature, either immunising the armour-wearing character from hits from some creatures or else not being much use; not sure where the sweetspot would be, given the relatively large variability in opponent damage roll potential.
See edit.
Now the first example was a CR 17 non core creature, which I...Out of curiosity, what CR 17 non-core creature are you using? Because, as you know, non-core creatures are not all created equally, and some tend to be overwhelmingly more powerful than MM creatures of an equivalent CR.
Also, does the creature hide in plain sight? My biggest complaint about ambushes is that they don't usually work in RAW...you need cover or concealment to hide, and having cover or concealment between you and the hapless PC means you don't have a charge lane.
Apologies if this seems like a threadjack; I'm just looking for some further information.
And to get back on track, I also think that AC scaling needs to be better done. I've played quite a bit of high-level 3.5 play, and it seems that every attack is either "I'm going to hit you on 2+" or "I'm only going to hit you on a 20." That implies bad scaling to me.
It was a Rage Drake, a CR 9 creature I advanced to CR 17. Normally MM3 stuff is better than core stuff, and advancement rules power up creatures nicely. Note however that its melee stats are roughly comparable to the core creature that is one level lower, therefore in this instance it does not qualify as 'overwhelmingly more powerful' or more powerful at all really. The only odd effect advancement had was making the Stun DC 42 due to it being HD and Strength based. Still, it only has 30 HD. The CR 19 dragon has 29. Still comparable. The core dragon also gets more options than hitting the thing with the other thing, so if anything the non core creature turned out weak, due most likely to that Half Fiend template diluting it.
With that said... Hide in Plain Sight just allows you to hide while being observed. It doesn't negate the need for cover or concealment, you're thinking of some other ability. Regardless, it doesn't have it. I figure it'd hide in the dark within a big bush or something since it does have the senses to support this. Or it simply goes first and jumps on the lead person that way, getting flat footed benefits and PAing accordingly. Not like it'd have a hard time jumping over something given that it gets that as a default skill, tied to its highest stat.
Back on topic, allowing an extra up to 10 points of scaling is enough to take it from auto hit to having a decent chance to miss while still costing almost the same, that way investing around half your wealth into it is actually somewhat justified.
|
|
Know what the three most common creature types in the MM are? If you said Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Outsiders you'd be correct. Now, care to venture a guess as to which are the most dangerous? If you said the same damn things, you are also correct.
Just wanted to point out something. Those creature types may be the most common in the book, and they also may be the most dangerous, but they are not the most commonly occurring monster in everyones game. Certainly not mine. My games generally gravitate toward aberrations and oozes, another DM usually uses elementals and constructs, and another uses undead and fey.
I agree that in higher levels the AC - To Hit problem seems a bit out of hand, but at that point, it's to be expected. We simply cannot employ the same 'trade blows' tactics that worked in lower levels, we have to act smarter. And that doesn't make the fighter obsolete, he has other options available to him other than "I'm going to hit it with my pointy stick". Combat Maneuvers can help, a lot. Don't have a mage that doesn't have grease available? No problem, disarm or trip. And the fighter doesn't have to expend any resources to do so, and he's probably much better at CMB than the party mage.
Simply, AC matters less (which i'm in agreement about), and tactics matter more. (trying to fix ac at higher levels i'm against)
What about piling some standard DR on as well as the AC? Although I guess that will have its own binary nature, either immunising the armour-wearing character from hits from some creatures or else not being much use; not sure where the sweetspot would be, given the relatively large variability in opponent damage roll potential.
DR is a horrible concept for the reasons you mention. It either ends up being too low to matter (see: DR 3/Adamantine, PF Fighter 19, Barbarians...), head scratch inducingly Whiskey Tango Foxtrot like this where you end up blowing anywhere from 15k to 51k to get a weak mook shield at levels where you have long since ceased to give a **** about said mooks and would want a meaningful mook shield in any case. Or you slide the other way and end up negating every enemy that relies on large numbers of relatively low damage attacks (that would be most of them).
If DR was instead you take x% less damage, it'd work because percentages obviously scale automatically. It'd require 3rd grade math to adjudicate, but that shouldn't be too much to expect of any D&D player. On the off chance it does, I hear calculators still cost one USD. Solve it that way.
I'd like to take the opportunity to point out that this is another example of a character who has focused on AC to the point of gimping himself. It's not as bad though, since the only flaw aside from the cost factor is that he is actually holding a shield instead of making it float and is apparently wielding a light weapon in the main hand since the shield is a one handed weapon for bashing purposes. That also means TWFing sans bonus damage, aka suck.
Nah, he's actually doing something useful with the shield, namely 2d6 damage+1, plus whatever else he sees fit to throw on as weapon enchantments, like a +1 bashing keen vicious heavy spiked shield, since bashing lets you enchant it as a +1 weapon. Maybe even let him wield it two handed, ala one handed weapon two-handed, to get the full benefits of the nerfed power attack. He really doesn't need another weapon, because a +1 bashing heavy spiked shield is actually not a shabby weapon in it's own right, in PFRPG, with Shield Slam and Shield Master. If you must have him TWF, then he uses Improved Unarmed, for more fun.
I'm getting ninjaed a lot here and having to chain post, which is really freakin' annoying.
Know what the three most common creature types in the MM are? If you said Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Outsiders you'd be correct. Now, care to venture a guess as to which are the most dangerous? If you said the same damn things, you are also correct.Just wanted to point out something. Those creature types may be the most common in the book, and they also may be the most dangerous, but they are not the most commonly occurring monster in everyones game. Certainly not mine. My games generally gravitate toward aberrations and oozes, another DM usually uses elementals and constructs, and another uses undead and fey.
I agree that in higher levels the AC - To Hit problem seems a bit out of hand, but at that point, it's to be expected. We simply cannot employ the same 'trade blows' tactics that worked in lower levels, we have to act smarter. And that doesn't make the fighter obsolete, he has other options available to him other than "I'm going to hit it with my pointy stick". Combat Maneuvers can help, a lot. Don't have a mage that doesn't have grease available? No problem, disarm or trip. And the fighter doesn't have to expend any resources to do so, and he's probably much better at CMB than the party mage.
Simply, AC matters less (which i'm in agreement about), and tactics matter more. (trying to fix ac at higher levels i'm against)
Ok. So some DMs focus on the minority. Alright. Let's roll with that.
Your games focus on Aberrations and Oozes. Oozes are not creatures, they are hazards. There is no reason to ever fight one, as they actively screw you over for doing so. Leave it in its pit or whatever. Also, pretty sure they stop scaling after a certain point. Aberrations are also one of the strongest types in the game. Just not because of melee prowess. Instead you need to worry about various SLAs and such. Though there are a few in there that simply have more HD so as to manage a good attack bonus on 3/4th BAB and lots and lots of tentacles (natural attacks) hitting at full bonus or close. Point still applies.
Elementals and Constructs? More beat stick types. Seriously, take a look at those Earth Elementals sometime. They're among the best melee brutes, pound for pound in the game. Other types aren't much worse off. Constructs aren't much worse off, at least assuming they have an Intelligence score and can therefore take some feats. Which is about the only way it'd make sense really, since you don't just 'find' an Iron Golem or whatever.
Undead? It either has lots of special abilities and doesn't care about hitting with normal attacks with the extreme example being a Lich, or is somewhere on the "BRAINS..." end of the scale meaning it lacks those special abilities, but has up to 4 HD per CR so even on half BAB it still gets +2 a level, not counting Strength and whatever else. A 10 headed hydra zombie is CR 6 for example. Have fun.
Fey are simply not melee. Period. AC ends up irrelevant because you're too busy making saves instead. Saves are of course a meaningful defense regardless that you can get up to respectable levels with a much cheaper investment.
Are you honestly arguing that maneuvers are remotely possible beyond the first few levels? Even in 3.5, your one trick (tripping) gets negated increasingly often by the simple fact enemy average Strength and Size is steadily increasing faster than you can keep up. In PF, it's worse of course both because your default success rate starts off lower, and the fact that enemy BAB is scaling faster than yours is also screwing you over. So please do waste your actions on 0% success rate trips and 0% success rate disarms (even if the thing was actually using a manufactured weapon, and not negating your disarm for 16 gold, you still have a 0% success rate).
Tactics may matter more, except you don't access to those things because you have One Option Ever Period. Oops. You do something besides stab it in the face, you automatically waste your action. And as anyone who knows their stuff will tell you, actions are a resource. They are the most important resource you will ever have, which is also why anything that increases the quantity and/or quality of actions you can take such as Shapechange > Choker, Quicken Spell, or the Belt of Battle is awesome by default.
So essentially what you are doing by arguing against me is denying that Fighters should ever be capable of getting nice things. I don't expect that viewpoint is very popular, even among those who will argue against me simply for the sake of arguing against me.
If DR was instead you take x% less damage, it'd work because percentages obviously scale automatically. It'd require 3rd grade math to adjudicate, but that shouldn't be too much to expect of any D&D player. On the off chance it does, I hear calculators still cost one USD. Solve it that way.
Agreed, but I would rather deal with integers on principle. Any way you suggest we could scale it to level with integers instead?
Nah, he's actually doing something useful with the shield, namely 2d6 damage+1, plus whatever else he sees fit to throw on as weapon enchantments, like a +1 bashing keen vicious heavy spiked shield, since bashing lets you enchant it as a +1 weapon. Maybe even let him wield it two handed, ala one handed weapon two-handed, to get the full benefits of the nerfed power attack. He really doesn't need another weapon, because a +1 bashing heavy spiked shield is actually not a shabby weapon in it's own right, in PFRPG, with Shield Slam and Shield Master. If you must have him TWF, then he uses Improved Unarmed, for more fun.I'd like to take the opportunity to point out that this is another example of a character who has focused on AC to the point of gimping himself. It's not as bad though, since the only flaw aside from the cost factor is that he is actually holding a shield instead of making it float and is apparently wielding a light weapon in the main hand since the shield is a one handed weapon for bashing purposes. That also means TWFing sans bonus damage, aka suck.
Oh, he's not a TWF and is therefore getting 1.5x Strength. Ok, then he's effectively using a two handed weapon with a floating shield. Except instead of buying the floating shield, he buys some other must haves. Cost ends up about the same, so no advantage there. Even so, his AC focus is simply not justified. You should also pick something better than Keen for obvious reasons.
Edit: Making it straight number based is not possible due to the wide variety of potential single hit damages depending on if its a multi hitter or focuses on fewer, stronger attacks. It either ends up irrelevant or as auto negation. Only way it ever would be possible is via 4.0 style blandification. At which point you might as well drag it outside with a shotgun, because it's as good as dead already.
|
|
If DR was instead you take x% less damage, it'd work because percentages obviously scale automatically. It'd require 3rd grade math to adjudicate, but that shouldn't be too much to expect of any D&D player. On the off chance it does, I hear calculators still cost one USD. Solve it that way.
Heh, I can see the point of it (I don't know how well it actually models what armour really does, except that it presumably can't be worse than the AC system is for modelling, and it does have the benefit of autoscaling). Of course, some people like the new Power Attack nerf because it reduces the agonising mathematics required to decide how much to PA for...
A reduction from each dice of damage, which would be easy to adjudicate, wouldn't be much use against creatures where the largest component of their damage is the modifier (it would also have to allow negative damage from a dice or else would have to be capped at 0 for each dice, which would be somewhat annoying in play).
I can't, off-hand, think of a way to make DR work interestingly without the sort of on-the-fly calculations you mention and while that doesn't bother me (I'm a theoretical physicist* and, more importantly, have played a lot of Rolemaster) I imagine it rules it out for a lot of people. It's frustrating, because it feels to me like armour ought to behave in a DR-type way (for some form of DR that makes sense; I'm just defining it as something like 'hit reduction').
*Shamefully, more of a computer programmer nowadays...
|
|
So essentially what you are doing by arguing against me is denying that Fighters should ever be capable of getting nice things. I don't expect that viewpoint is very popular, even among those who will argue against me simply for the sake of arguing against me.
Thank you for pointing that out to me, I see what you mean. In terms of fighters only having one option, what would you do to fix that?
If I could still edit my topic title and original post, I'd put a big disclaimer in there about how you should not post in this thread if you are just going to make up random crap to attack me and not address the actual issues.
Psionic Hamster, I will give you one response. Further off topicness and attacks on your part will be reported.
Nothing Psionic Hamster said was an attack and I'm not quite sure to whom you'd report off topicness. You have a hard time keeping your arguments impersonal--try harder to keep them impersonal.
Heh, I can see the point of it (I don't know how well it actually models what armour really does, except that it presumably can't be worse than the AC system is for modelling, and it does have the benefit of autoscaling). Of course, some people like the new Power Attack nerf because it reduces the agonising mathematics required to decide how much to PA for...
A reduction from each dice of damage, which would be easy to adjudicate, wouldn't be much use against creatures where the largest component of their damage is the modifier (it would also have to allow negative damage from a dice or else would have to be capped at 0 for each dice, which would be somewhat annoying in play).
I can't, off-hand, think of a way to make DR work interestingly without the sort of on-the-fly calculations you mention and while that doesn't bother me (I'm a theoretical physicist* and, more importantly, have played a lot of Rolemaster) I imagine it rules it out for a lot of people. It's frustrating, because it feels to me like armour ought to behave in a DR-type way (for some form of DR that makes sense; I'm just defining it as something like 'hit reduction').
*Shamefully, more of a computer programmer nowadays...
Well what armor actually does is let you get hit without getting hurt. That would mean that the fluff for the miss is 'it bounces off your armor' and not 'you dodge it' except for that auto hit bit. Though it also has the effect that if you do get hit, it at least absorbs some of the force (which is where a percentage based DR would come into play).
Seriously though. Anyone who cannot handle minus x and plus x * 2 has no business playing D&D as it is and always has been a game for the intelligent, not third grade dropouts. Seriously, how do said people even manage and enjoy playing if they are incapable of such basic arithmetic? Clearly they'd be better off with whatever video game that does the math for them.
Nothing Psionic Hamster said was an attack and I'm not quite sure to whom you'd report off topicness. You have a hard time keeping your arguments impersonal--try harder to keep them impersonal.If I could still edit my topic title and original post, I'd put a big disclaimer in there about how you should not post in this thread if you are just going to make up random crap to attack me and not address the actual issues.
Psionic Hamster, I will give you one response. Further off topicness and attacks on your part will be reported.
His response started with misrepresenting my position (yes, that again) and quickly proceeded into stating that I'm some sort of Killer DM doing something wrong and is out to get my players instead of just ya know... making creatures, using them, and reporting the results. I'd say that qualifies as an attack.
Also, where was I being personal in telling him to chill out with the attacks? I didn't even reflectively smite him. Eh.
Edit to Jason B: Simple solution. Ignore version 1.0, use version 2.0 (Tome of Battle).
Significantly more difficult and less effective solution: Start jacking feats up considerably, at least on the mundane side. If you are a Fighter, you get about... 21, and that's it. Any other mundane type, you get 10 and some class features that range from don't bother to decent. Currently though there's very few feats that actually give you much, especially if you only look at core. Pathfinder further shortens this list. If each feat for a mundane character was doing at least double, and perhaps triple what it was doing now, it'd go 2-3 times further. Therefore, you could potentially have 2-3 options instead of one.
There's a lot more that is required for that, as currently even if you did make a mundane guy with multiple options they'd end up all about the same, or at least countered by the same things (High Strength and Size negates all maneuvers for example, Pathfinder adds high BAB as another negation factor) so all you've done is water yourself down, not actually give yourself more options.
A full fledged speech on the subject needs its own thread to be created at a later time when I have the information sorted better in my mind. This one is getting derailed pretty badly by all involved, including myself.
|
|
Though it also has the effect that if you do get hit, it at least absorbs some of the force (which is where a percentage based DR would come into play).
Yeah, I'm down with damage mitigation, I'm just wondering whether it's more like straight reduction or a percentage reduction in 'reality' (that's not the defining issue here, of course; if it is a straight reduction then for the reasons we discussed above, it's pretty useless in the game and that may not be silly, though, given that armour would probably be pretty useless against melee brutes if they did exist. Clearly, we need armour that works in the game).
Personally, I'd be happy to get some more maths to reduce the binary role of Armour Class.