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I just don't get where you get this fighter needs to be buffed BS. I've never encountered any source material that constantly requires the fighter to get fluffed by the spellcasters to become the hero.
I don't know about you but I want to have adventures that I read and watch.
And none of them have the fighter regularly screaming at his coleagues "MAKE ME HARD. MAKE ME HARD!!!"
LOL! Well put. I think you aren't reading about it because the monsters in books aren't nearly as nasty as the monsters in the game. It is just that simple.
Edit: I guess I could say that the monsters you read about in books and see in movies exist for only one purpose: to make the fighter hero look good. Can you say that is true about your average D&D monster?
You must not read or watch the same fantasy material I do...Well the dragon examples really are not equivalent to D&D foes, are they? The dragons in D&D are pretty nasty, don't have "weak spots" in their armor, are wizards as well as fierce fighters and are especially cunning and intelligent, not falling for foreseeable traps. It is no wonder they fell to "normal" fighters in your examples. You look at these examples and think that the D&D fighter is weaker; I look at the example and say that D&D dragons are much stronger than found in fantasy. Maybe we should make dragons match our expectations rather than making fighters something they aren't in fantasy?
Regarding Drizzt, the much maligned dark elf *very* rarely meets a wizard in his wanderings. When he does, the wizard does nothing like what a D&D wizard would do and nowhere close to what a GamingDen wizard would do. Should the dark elf run into one of those, the novels would come to a very rapid end. He isn't even an example of anything in this case, except what a fighter can do when he never meets a mage worthy of a spellbook.
I just don't get where you get this fighter needs to be buffed BS. I've never encountered any source material that constantly requires the fighter to get fluffed by the spellcasters to become the hero.
I don't know about you but I want to have adventures that I read and watch.
And none of them have the fighter regularly screaming at his coleagues "MAKE ME HARD. MAKE ME HARD!!!"
Most stories don't talk about buffing, because it is a mechanicial concept for a game. That doesn't mean that things like it don't happen. It might be the whispered words of encurragement and love of a lady to her knight before he goes of to war, the destracting intergection by a companian in a persephoni duel in firefly, a priests blessing and council or simply a spell of protection and a prophecy of success. Even a spartan wifes orders to return with your sheild or on it. Relatively little heroic litriture contains examples of distinct spells as are found in D'n'D, including the lord of the rings. Spell craft in traditional story telling has more incommon with the magic of artisia or Mage: The Ascention than the magic of worlds like the forgotten realms. You may not see it, but it is there.
How a system with scaling offense but without scaling defense, got through the WOTC playtesters, I'll never know, but it did, and we should fix it.
I agree.
While the scalable defense is a fair, easily implementable option, I'm curious if anyone has looked into the opposite option; cap, slow or diminish attack bonuses?
While a scalable defense would be better than the status-quo, it would not reduce the gap between low level and high level encounters. Low level threats would be easier to ignore, which is, in my opinion, not a good thing. I believe this is one of the reasons why games never reach high level play (or start at that point if the intention is to play epic).
'findel
If you spend half of your overall wealth on one type of defense when many different types exist your capabilities in that field should be unsurpassed as you are a focused specialist.
A very good point and one that bears repeating. If you spend over half your entire wealth on AC, then it should be more than 30-40% effective against the same CR as your level melee brute.
Some of this could be addressed using feats, which are about the only thing fighters have going for them anyway. Some examples:
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Hellz yes. If they are not there to make the party look cool at the end of things why am I playing?
That's not to say it should be a cake walk, but monster should be designed to allow characters to look cool while they defeat them. And fluffing is not cool
Exactly my point! I think that the monsters in D&D are tough; they're certainly tougher than fantasy source material monsters and thus fantasy source fighters of which the Fighter is a reasonable approximation - well he could use a number of smaller things, but not a wuxia or trinket based rewrite to raise him up to the likes of Conan, Fafhrd or Beowulf - do not measure up. These heroes didn't need those kind of tricks to be moderately effective, why should ours?
Traditionally this is seen as a weakness of the fighter, because it fails to meet expectations given to us by literature, when in actuality the monsters are far tougher than the paper ones slain between the book covers by our trusty fighter-type hero. When they made 3e, the designers intentionally set the resolution of their combat tests at the party level rather than the individual level. This is not the standard approach in fantasy literature; we usually see single heroes going up against foes, not whole groups of characters with wildly different abilities. This allowed for monsters much tougher than their literary counterparts to sneak in undetected, which is fine as long as everyone agrees that the literature-based fighter is part of a group that aids him. As soon as the D&D gamer's paradigm shifted to "I don't want to help anybody", the fighter began to stick out like a sore thumb. The more people play this way, the worse the fighter looks, and the more people play where the fighter is buffed heavily before combat, the less the issue is seen. Neither way is wrong, really. The designers clearly had party-level resolution in mind when designing monsters and deciding on appropriate gear and spell resources available. People can't really be faulted for playing with this in mind. On the other hand, you and CoL raise great points about everyone having something interesting to do and so the fighter player needs some love so he isn't just a spectator or resource drain.
The trick is what to do, exactly. This where I feel the fighter cannot be covered in new magical trinkets as suggested by the OP and where I hope we can avoid wuxia solutions because both of these don't really match my idea of heroic fantasy fighter types. What really should be done (not that it would) would be to give the fighter some things he is crying for (like intercept swift actions, full attack after move and other solutions brought up by game designers far better than me), things that don't corrupt the Conan/Fafhrd model. We then need to seriously rethink monsters, defining them in terms of what these hero types are expected to be able to do against them and then scale everyone around this point, so fighters can "look cool at the end fo the day" as they do in literature. This way, the fighter meets our expectations of fantasy literature and we balance the classes so that the fighter's native abilities are enough to get him by with out calling off camera for a fluffer (great analogy btw). I would like to point out that I use the fighter for the metric because that is what we typically see in fantasy literature. Wizard types are not as prevalent and have a huge variety of mystical powers when they do appear, each custom-crafted to fit the world in which the story unfolds. But fighters are universal, and should be instantly recognizable whether in D&D or in literature as fighting heroes and leaders. We have more artistic license with wizards and other classes since comparatively fewer literary examples exist for these tropes and thus we will step on fewer expectations making wizards fit our world.
The thing is, this isn't going to happen, even though it ought to. It might have been that in AD&D, this proposed scenario was the case. But the game has become a wizard's game nowadays and I don't see anyone willing to put the effort into making the game truer to its literary roots. Since I have conceded that Paizo will not do this, I am trying my best to ensure that the fighter is not buffed to such a shine that, like the wizard, you dare not look upon his awesome brilliance. I want to at least keep the fighter grounded in fantasy literature, giving him every advantage we can find that does not make him unrecognizable as a Conan or Fafhrd archtype when we are finished with him.
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It will present problems of its own, specifically a problem leading to circular improvement of the fighter. It goes something like this:
(1) CRs are based on a party of four (wizard, rogue, fighter, cleric) running with buffs with durations of 10 minutes or higher
(2) XP charts, spells per day and so forth operate under the assumption that a party of four uses about 20% of its resources defeating a foe of CR equal to the average party level
(3) Fighters are seen as weak in this grouping, so they are improved so that that they don't need buffs. This frees wizards to do other things with their slots
(4) The party of four with the enhanced fighter fights a monster of CR = party level, except the enhanced fighter now contributes more and/or the wizard does more since he is further hurting the foe rather than buffing the fighter
(5) This means the CRs are now wrong since less than 20% of the party's resources are used in a CR=party level encounter. So the CRs for all monsters are reset to reflect the party's new power
(6) Now the fighter is relatively weaker again, since what before was a CR5 encounter is a CR3 encounter, and the fighter fails to contribute by himself against a CR5 encounter. So, the fighter needs "fixed" again
The problems stems from the fact that cooperation between the classes is not only assumed in the rules, it is mandated by the CR system. Expected results...
It'll cause problems for the simple reason that if you make some classes more powerful, the base assumptions about power won't work. However, at least the new problem -- everyone contributes more equally and the enemies die easier -- is easier to solve than one in which some classes outshine others and the fighter needs the wizards to survive whilst the wizards would do better without them. The newer problem can be solved with some combination of more monsters, tougher monsters and adverse conditions. The old problem is either unsolved (and the CR system isn't much help, indeed, it's part of the problem) or requires more work from the adventure designer to jury-rig stuff that keeps fighters alive.
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It'll cause problems for the simple reason that if you make some classes more powerful, the base assumptions about power won't work. However, at least the new problem -- everyone contributes more equally and the enemies die easier -- is easier to solve than one in which some classes outshine others and the fighter needs the wizards to survive whilst the wizards would do better without them. The newer problem can be solved with some combination of more monsters, tougher monsters and adverse conditions. The old problem is either unsolved (and the CR system isn't much help,...
If the enemies die easier, then to provide the same challenge level as before the fighter was inflated will require the monsters to get tougher. But when that happens, the fighter will again be outclassed. For example: a fire giant at CR10 now ideally reduces a 10th level party's resources by 20%. With the stronger fighter, this won't occur, so the fire giant is now something like a CR7 encounter and the storm giant moves from CR13 to CR10 to take the fire giant's role as "reducer of 20% of the resources at 10th level". Now the newly enhanced fighter is outclassed by the storm giant's abilities and needs the wizard to help him out again.
Not changing the CR's really isn't an option because CR is tied to XP, and XP is assumed to be gained after a fixed amount of effort (about 13 encounters that reduce a party's resource by 20% per encounter). Reducing the effort required by not adjusting CRs downward to reflect the new fighter's abilities means the game becomes Gauntlet (aka "Mario Mode") where the party just breezes through encounters collecting XP and phat lootz along the way.
Additionally, there is the issue of assumptions of what the fighter's gear and buffs are supposed to be to enhance his new abilities. Should we assume that the fighter enters every fight unbuffed since he is uber now? What will that do to all the games being played where the fighter *is* buffed? Won't it make the encounters incredibly easy? Won't this break organized play (like Pathfinder Society) xp gains and so forth if some people are playing with buffed fighters and some aren't using an outdated CR system that does not properly reflect the challenge faced by the party?
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IMHO I do not think Conan and Fafhrd are high level fantasy warriors. They simply cannot operate at that scale and you do a disservice to warriors if you keep them to that mold throughout the whole 20 levels of play. Currently, high level wizards and clerics are like Gandalf but without the restrictions on their Maiar powers. Wuji, Gilgamesh, Hercules, (Marvel) Thor, Cuchulain, and the Pandavas are high level fantasy warriors. You need warriors who can fly, carve rivers, kill a lot of unworthy foes, can seize narrative control to expedite tasks, etc. This is NOT a bad thing.
You forgot super-saiyan mode ;)
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If the enemies die easier, then to provide the same challenge level as before the fighter was inflated will require the monsters to get tougher. But when that happens, the fighter will again be outclassed. For example: a fire giant at CR10 now ideally reduces a 10th level party's resources by 20%. With the stronger fighter, this won't occur, so the fire giant is now something like a CR7 encounter and the storm giant moves from CR13 to CR10 to take the fire giant's role as "reducer of 20% of the resources at 10th level". Now the newly enhanced fighter is outclassed by the storm giant's abilities and needs the wizard to help him out again.
Your argument appears to depend on the idea that no matter how powerful a fighter gets, the wizard will have to help him. Wheras my thought was that if the fighter gets more powerful, the wizard and the fighter can attack the opponents or otherwise do something directly constructive, rather than try to keep the fighter alive.
Not changing the CR's really isn't an option because CR is tied to XP, and XP is assumed to be gained after a fixed amount of effort (about 13 encounters that reduce a party's resource by 20% per encounter). Reducing the effort required by not adjusting CRs downward to reflect the new fighter's abilities means the game becomes Gauntlet (aka "Mario Mode") where the party just breezes through encounters collecting XP and phat lootz along the way.
Personally, I think that the CR system is pretty broken anyhow, but fixing the xp aspect wouldn't be hard. You'd need a new table, is all (Pathfinder already has a new table, because of different XP progressions, so it's not like the 3.5 one is the key).
Additionally, there is the issue of assumptions of what the fighter's gear and buffs are supposed to be to enhance his new abilities. Should we assume that the fighter enters every fight unbuffed since he is uber now? What will that do to all the games being played where the fighter *is* buffed? Won't it make the encounters incredibly...
I imagine that we should playtest it and find out what happens, rather than construct assumptions in advance. People will work out the best way to play for various purposes...
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Your argument appears to depend on the idea that no matter how powerful a fighter gets, the wizard will have to help him. Wheras my thought was that if the fighter gets more powerful, the wizard and the fighter can attack the opponents or otherwise do something directly constructive, rather than try to keep the fighter alive.
Yes this is one of the two major points I raised, and I agree playtesting will need to be done to try the ideas out. Maybe the CR system (as bad as it is) won't be broken by the fighter changes, but only playtesting can tell you for sure.
So what do we do about the assumptions of the playtest? Should the fighter not be buffed when we playtest? Should the wizard be prevented from buffing the fighter during this playtest? Are buff spells still needed in the game? How do we stop buffing if the game is balanced around unbuffed fighters?
It's all rather rhetorical at this point because I don't ever see a change like this happening in a bazillion years. It will cost too much money and take too much time and then end up addressing the concerns of that percentage of the people that feel the fighter should stand alone and group cooperation is not needed to succeed. While I have no hard numbers, I am guessing the the percentage of people that believe this is the way to play is far smaller than the people that do not mind buffing the fighter before a battle.
So, I guess I am done here. This thread is about making the fighter capable of standing alone without the wizard (and not about fighter's AC really), this idea has been beat to death elsewhere, and I know I can't solve the problem, though I am willing to acknowledge there is a problem from the point of view of those that think cooperative play is not a fundamental aspect of the game. I still firmly believe the fighter can be made better without breaking things overmuch, but that great restraint must be shown or the system will come apart at its bulging seams or turn into a video game like Gauntlet, where monsters die by the score to the players and the only reason one can say the group is "working together" is because they happen to be in the same dungeon at the same time.
Yes I am, but it is only to point out a difference in perspective. For what it is worth, I would like to see the fighter buffed as well, just with the utmost care so he does not become something other than a fighter. Decorating him with more trinkets (as the OP suggested) doesn't fit my idea of fantasy. Making him into "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Ball Z" also doesn't meet my definition of a fantasy fighter.
Problem is, most fantasy fighters never fought gigantic things with no noticeable weak points, that also were flying/invisible/melting metal with their big-area-of-effect breath/slinging awesome spells. Or all of the above at once. Most fantasy fighters were struggling for their lives against local equivalents of an ogre, in fact. In other words, most fantasy fighters were about level 5-6 at most (seriously, above-mentioned Conan or Fafhrd fought human mooks, like, 90% of the time, and their encounters with real monsters were depicted as insanely dangerous and, more often than not, survivable only through exploiting weak points). In DnD, after a certain level, such people simply cannot hope to ever be relevant, unless their abilities grow to functional equivalents of superpowers (super-strength, super-speed, super-agility, super-coordination, super-senses, etc). In area of hitting stuff with their weapons, melee classes already have relatively formidable superpowers, that allow them, for example, to easily cut stone. But only in this area. That's why they are considered one-trick-ponies, and, therefore, inferior. They must be superhuman all around (yes, that necessitates wuxia-like mobility and senses). Or they will always depend on items and generosity of spellcasters to be remotely useful (or at least until spellcasters are nerfed to hell and MM is rewritten completely, and all thoughts of backward compatibility with 3.5 supplements are abandoned). There is no third option.
IMHO I do not think Conan and Fafhrd are high level fantasy warriors. They simply cannot operate at that scale and you do a disservice to warriors if you keep them to that mold throughout the whole 20 levels of play. Currently, high level wizards and clerics are like Gandalf but without the restrictions on their Maiar powers. Wuji, Gilgamesh, Hercules, (Marvel) Thor, Cuchulain, and the Pandavas are high level fantasy warriors. You need warriors who can fly, carve rivers, kill a lot of unworthy foes, can seize narrative control to expedite tasks, etc. This is NOT a bad thing.
To be sure, we need Achilles, Ajax, and Aeneas. We need the Monkey King. We need high level Fighters to make a huge difference when they step onto the battle field with gods.
On second thought, maybe Emperor Elric isn't such an outlier after all.
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I must admit that I'm not quite sure how I would do that within the mechanics. but perhaps fighters should get some ability to "auto crit" under certain circumstances - that could simulate the ability to detect and use weak spots of their enemies. It also would give them a greater damage output without changing the flavor of the fighter.
They must be superhuman all around (yes, that necessitates wuxia-like mobility and senses). Or they will always depend on items and generosity of spellcasters to be remotely useful. There is no third option.
With respect, there is indeed a third option, but it's one that requires a lot of finesse. This is a bit off-topic from defense, but the bigger issue needs to be addressed somewhere. We can design feats and feat chains that give melee guys most of the tools they need, but at the same time present those abilities in terms that are "believable" for a mundane (albeit incredibly highly-trained) warrior. For example,
The point is, we can provide him with powerful tools that don't require him to fly like Superman and shoot laser beams out of his eyes. It just requires a bit more creativity -- but that's arguably a prerequisite for the game in general.
Oh, yeah, and one more thing: we scale combat feats with BAB. Otherwise he's always behind, because a fighter has a lot fewer feats than a sorcerer has spell slots.
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It's all part of the same thing, it seems to me. Fighters need to be harder to wipe out in a round or two by level-appropriate brutes, they need to be able to do more damage in a typical round (ie, one where they may have to move), they need to be relatively unignorable. Doing some of this through feats is natural because it opens up sections of it to other classes but the fighter's faster feat progression gives them the significant advantage (so, I am against them being fighter-specific feats). Other stuff, like making armour a worthwhile investment (as suggested in this thread) should apply across the board and thus should be addressed at the right place, which is armour costs and effectiveness.
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Your idea of helping and my idea of helping is very different.
You seem to want fighters to need spellcasters in order to do there job by fluffing. Spellcasters make fighter adequate to join the battle when they could just be ending the battle themselves. (as the current power structure allows them to)
I want spellcasters to help the fighter by controlling the battle field and softening up enemies so the fighter can do his job easier.
If anything is essential for a archetype to function in the way that buffs seem to be for fighters, than they should directly incorporated into that class.
I said I was done posting in this thread because I felt like my point of view had gotten across and you had all very kindly heard me out. I didn't want to take any more of your time and wanted the thread to get take off again in whatever direction it was going to go, but I feel you have mischaracterized me so I will leave with this correction.
I don't like it one whit that the fighters are reliant upon the mages and would love to see them not needing buffs. I am simply pragmatic enough to see that the game was built around this assumption whether we like it or not, and that PFRPG will not change this because not everyone sees the problem we do (they play with buffs intentionally and without issue) and to really fix the problem means fundamentally fixing problems that lie at the heart of the system that are too costly to fix. My pragmatism then directs me to ask for the next best thing, which is to give the fighter whatever we can without breaking the game (Kirth's ideas here and in other threads have always appealed to me). Turning him into a flying, un-grabbable, force field crushing, invisibility seeing, charm immune, maximum damage output, unavoidable powerhouse while allowing him to be buffed further by priests and wizards and allowing priests and wizards the same number of spell slots they have now (because some slots were by design supposed to be shared with the less capable members of the group and now they are not needed) is a grave mistake. Such a change would need to ripple throughout the system, and those changes will never happen from a cost standpoint alone. So changes of this nature will only end up making the fighter look good while wrecking the other aspects of the game (CR/ECL, xp, WBL and may, through feats, open up the fighter's new awesomeness to classes like the new rogue or priests and druids that really don't need the buff).
I wish I could say I was smart enough to find the happy medium, I am not. I am not enough a designer to find the right balance. But I do know enough to see that changes of this magnitude, however well intentioned, are a bad thing if not carried throughout the system, which I know they will not be.
I believe just as strongly as you in the weakness of the fighter and the fighter's need to stand on his own. I have just surrendered my idealism on the issue and am searching for a more likely set of changes that I know the PFRPG team will actually implement as opposed to a "perfect solution" that I know will not come to pass.
Thanks again for the good conversation on this topic. I really will leave you all to hash this issue as much as you would like.
I think Bagpuss and Kirth have the right on this.
What CoL proposed wasn't all that off the chain, under the monster advancement rules as currently presented. This may be a problem with the current CR system and advancement rules, but these are the tools we have.
Suppose I advance a Dire Lion, or Worg, to a challenge of approximately CR15.
Adding 8 HD to the Worg, making it Large, with a +21 attack, advances it only from CR2 to CR5. Show me a level 5 character which is not going to have a hard time in melee against such a Worg, since it moves twice as fast as any PC not under the effect of magic, and can hit easily the best AC you can buy at this level, and always trip. Now, if I want to advance the Worg further, I can throw 10 levels of barbarian, or even warrior, on it. With 10 levels of barbarian, it now moves faster than any PC can on the ground, is a better tripper than any PC could be, and able to autohit ACs under about 35 or more, much more in Rage. This is a hypothetical CR15 melee critter. If I compare it to an Adult Red Dragon, also CR15, or a Marut, they add a number of special abilities that my Worg Barbarian doesn't have, so are hardly fair comparisons, although the Worg Barbarian is better with his single attack than the Dragon is with all 7 attacks at it's disposal. My Worg is phenomenal meleer with that one attack, though, and shares a number of things in common with a level 15 melee class character, but is likely, in most regards, superior, aside from the fact that a Level 15 PC probably has caster friends.
The Dire Lion makes out a bit better, as it is a better starting chassis, and to get to CR15, it would have to gain a whopping 30 HD, since it can't grab class levels like the Worg. 30 HD adds +15 to Strength, making a total of +41 to hit on the claw attacks, improves reach to 10', and adds a whole mess of hitpoints. Assuming for feats it grabs Improved Natural Attack, Improved Natural Armor, and picks the Multiattack tree with some of it's several feat options. It can't use gear like the Worg, since it has animal intelligence, but in raw melee power it can tear through anything out there like tissue paper.
I could also make a point by RAW advancing Elder Elementals, which are even better through advancement, but I think I have made my point.
To the level 15 casters, the CR15 Worg or CR15 Dire Lion are jokes, unless they get caught off guard by them (which is what contingency is for). Trivial to nullify with any number of spells, limited severely in what kind of gear they can use, and therefore what options it has, because they are quadrupeds. If this uses anywhere close to 20% of a CR15 caster's resources, then the Level 15 caster is doing it wrong. So, not really an appropriate CR15 encounter for a party with a caster in it. Fine, but then why can't a melee character stand near a CR15 melee opponent without serious fluffing? Fairly straightforward ones, at that, with a minimum of special abilities, set up to be a 20% challenge to a level 15 party. Far too deadly here, though, to actually be meleed.
What CoL's proposal does, is opens some portion of armor advancement to allow for melees to stand near level appropriate melee opponents and be able to use AC as a defense. Not christmas treeing buffs off of the melee characters any more than they already are at these levels.
I think Bagpuss and Kirth have the right on this.
What CoL proposed wasn't all that off the chain, under the monster advancement rules as currently presented. This may be a problem with the current CR system and advancement rules, but these are the tools we have.
Just a question...
Why not abandon the CR system and go with the Unearthed Arcana "Set amounts of XP option"? Why not drop CR all together?
You must not read or watch the same fantasy material I do...
To add...
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
Conan
All of LoTR except Saruman and Gandalf (Gandalf was a 5th level wizard, anyone?)
Elric of Melniboné (grey area to be sure, more gish than anything else)Of these, I think D&D draws most from the Newhon stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
Gandalf, freaking Miar? A godling was only 5th level?
Maybe 17th HD Outsider (that explains sword Proficiency too)+ 5 levels wizard.He was basically a Solar who called himself a Wizard.
Gandalf, freaking Miar? A godling was only 5th level?
Maybe 17th HD Outsider (that explains sword Proficiency too)+ 5 levels wizard.
He was basically a Solar who called himself a Wizard.
Show me more than once where he actually accessed his Maiar powers.
Yes, the fight with the Balrog, but beyond that, not so much.
As he interfaced with the rest of the characters, he interfaced as essentially a level 5 wizard, with Shadowfax and miscellaneous advantages which he *did not use* to increase his CR or ECL.
I'd like to settle on some general takeaways from this thread, though...
A) Monster Advancement is horribly broken, and does not create balanced CR appropriate melee monsters, due to limits in the existing lower level melee monsters, despite the existance of the Tarrasque. Although, I can point to Giants and illustrate that simply adding Warrior Class levels is enough to bypass the ...
B) Melee AC caps each level before proper CR ratings, due to the scalar effectiveness of a d20 based system pushed to 20 levels of advancement.
If you spend half of your overall wealth on one type of defense when many different types exist your capabilities in that field should be unsurpassed as you are a focused specialist.A very good point and one that bears repeating. If you spend over half your entire wealth on AC, then it should be more than 30-40% effective against the same CR as your level melee brute.
30-40% is a very generous estimate. Going strictly by creature advancement rules nearly every monster type in the game gains 2 or 3 BAB per point of CR in addition to what they stand to gain from Strength, size increases, items, feats, and anything else that improves their ability to fight. The creatures with potent special abilities grow in HD and thereby grow in mundane power more slowly. However they can simply use those special abilities and attack some sort of defense that is not AC.
To block the true melee brutes even 30-40% of the time would require even more extensive fixes than those proposed by Crusader of Logic because their melee stats scale so quickly that you'd need to top out around AC 65 to qualify for this. The changes in the OP brings it a lot closer to that point, but you would still end up with AC 59 on a dedicated AC specialist who has went a great deal out of their way for the sole purpose of boosting their AC and less than this with a character who better balanced their stats.
That same character would get missed a fairly large percentage of the time by just about everything else though. It's a good start.
In the interests of comparison I present a parallel. A character who has not went out of their way at all to boost AC. They have normal full plate, a normal heavy shield, and a Dexterity of 12 for an end AC of 21. That's it. They also have a Displacement effect always active on their person. This actually is possible via Reach and Persist, however it is intended to illustrate a concept, not to be a literal example. No nitpicking the details. That's...
These very good points were completely missed in all the off topic derailment.
In the interests of full disclosure, LightYagami is you so its weird that you're quoting yourself and telling everyone that your points are good.
Welcome back. Play nice.
*cough*
Yes, well, we combined the accounts.
Light Yagami was a test. Regardless, it was simply an attempt to get back on topic. Not that it was hard to notice in any case.
Now, the original topic?
CoL: As I'm at work, and have no books in front of me, would it be possible for you to post average attack modifiers for monsters by pc level? If this is too much, I understand, and will look at the MM as soon as I get home.
Try this web site:
http://www.cuberocks.net/DnD/CritterFilter/CritterFilter.phpIt will give you average statistics (BAB, HP, etc.) by CR, monster type, etc., etc.
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CoL: As I'm at work, and have no books in front of me, would it be possible for you to post average attack modifiers for monsters by pc level? If this is too much, I understand, and will look at the MM as soon as I get home.Try this web site:
http://www.cuberocks.net/DnD/CritterFilter/CritterFilter.phpIt will give you average statistics (BAB, HP, etc.) by CR, monster type, etc., etc.
Thanks!
The big problem is that if you are fighting a CR20 BBEG, then your encounters leading up to the BBEG might need to consist of multiple CR10-15 critters. There is a big gaping hole in the MM of CR10-16 melee brute critters, outside of leveled up giants, or lower level brutes that the DM puts through the monster advancement rules, like my Barbarian Worg, and the 38 HD Dire Lion. This is a problem, because adding class levels, or adding HD within the monster advancement rules as written, makes for big, dangerous melee threats, that AC doesn't effectively mitigate.
Off-topic stuff about wizards buffing fighters in literature:** spoiler omitted **
Regarding the original topic of AC being too low:
Most of the arguments I've seen so far assume that the fighter is always fighting a single, level-appropriate monster. And while this should happen from time to time, there should also be many fights against level-appropriate challenges consisting of multiple, lower-level monsters.
In most multiple-monster fights, Armor Class works fairly well (not 50% well, but considerably better than auto-hit territory), since the opponents are two to four levels lower than you. And this is really what AC is supposed to be for at high levels. It doesn't protect you from high-level solo monsters; against those, you need buff spells and non-armor defenses. It does, however, do a good job of protecting you from minions and henchmen.
So a good AC is what you use to survive the fights leading up to the BBEG, not the fight with the BBEG himself. It helps protect you from humiliating defeat in the minor challenges that take place early in the adventure, so that you can live to buff up and take on the 'last boss.'
If there are multiple lower level enemies, what happens is they end up having a slightly lower chance of hitting you, but the damage output is much higher. Example: 3 Nalfeshnees will lay down more smackdown than 1 Marilith despite being the same CR. So that does not support that argument. Note that that was an example deliberately made bad, because none of those are very melee focused.
So basically your argument is you should spend around half your total wealth on something that will only be a mook shield. And not even a very good mook shield. Case in point: CR 9 Fire Elemental * 2 + CR 8 Dire Tiger or something like that vs level 15 guy. They actually were missing a fair bit, but were getting in so many attacks as to push the target into two round KO range anyways. And CR 9 + 9 + 8 = 11 or 12, so this is actually a pretty easy part of the overall fight (the other enemies were attacking other stuff). Had they been a bit better mooks, the result would be high to perfect accuracy against him, and many more attacks = dead tank.
Jason B: I can just start copy pasting stuff from the 'Optimization by the Numbers' handbook. However there are multiple issues with this. 1: That handbook counts every single creature in the MM. Obviously not every single creature in the MM is built to be a threat via mundane means, so the entries of monsters that only melee as a last resort, or to finish off crippled opponents or whatever drag down the average as this is simply misleading statistics. 2: It assumes only the listed stats. If an enemy has an 'at will' effect that boosts attack accuracy, it's going to be always on. The averages do not account for this. It also does not account for buffs which some monsters, particularly the stronger ones can apply to themselves. It doesn't account for items, even when the creature is entitled to items or better yet is entitled to items, and has the resources to buy whatever it wants or needs instead of monster guarding chest full of stuff it cannot use syndrome. 3: That handbook actually only accounts for BAB (along with initiative, all 3 types of AC, and all 3 saves). It doesn't consider Strength, or enhancement, or anything else that would boost enemy attack rolls.
For what it's worth, CR 20 averages 29.56 BAB. Again not counting anything else that boosts attack accuracy and taking into consideration Balors and Pit Fiends drag down the average with their non mundaneness. Still telling because it means despite this, CR 20 enemies are inherently about 50% better at fighting than you. Yet, are meant to be an even match. Even though they could do more than trade auto attacks with you in 8 out of 9 cases if they cared.
Edit: Damn ninjas! Well, the post is still useful.
The Outsiders were deliberately a bad example as stated. And if they're designed a bit more intelligently, the Nalfeshnees actually end up with fewer but better attacks.
Half wealth assumes you maxed out your defensive items. Very easily done since Heavy Fort is a requirement and eats up the rest of your armor, then Animated on the Shield to keep it relevant, and +3 of other stuff (Let's say arrow deflection and Ghost Ward). Not even a great arrangement, but there you go. Note this is relevant, because if you just go for the +1 you get the special properties cheaper, and you get more of them. The guy I was arguing against used 70% or some crap. More like 85% if you count Dex +6.
The guy the elementals and tiger were beating the crap out of had around 33. He was still just inside two round KO territory, and his HP were like... 140 something? Thing about being in two round territory? If you want to fight more than 1 round, someone HAS to burn their action casting the spell Heal on you every round. Which is exactly what happened = the Druid was stuck casting Heal (burning expensive resources) to babysit the melee instead of ya know, being a Druid. Which means lots of ass kicking. So called tank is an active liability.
Hell, the elemental + tiger arrangement is low enough in CR to be a routine encounter for the melee guy alone. In other words, he should win easily, and only lose 20% of his resources. Obviously he will take far more than 30 damage so this is false.
Why is looking at mundanes misleading when discussing mundane attacks? You wouldn't use being able to resist a Bard or Paladin's spells as a case against spellcasters in general would you? More to the point they're your mirror match. All you can do is hit the thing with the other thing... and same for them. Except they always win because you lack real defenses and they do it better. Always. The ones that do get tricks use them. Which means those enemies that crippled you? Well you can't fight back, your stats are down, and whatever else. Which means say... A Balor isn't going to melee until the Wizard is Imploded, the Fighter is his slave, the Rogue is Stunned, and the Cleric is Blasphemy locked by the other Balor the first summoned. Or something. If they kill it before it reaches that point, it still means AC doesn't matter. It's just because it's never attacking AC, not because it could negate the concept via crippling effects.
Another thing that a friend and I have tossed around is an increase of base AC equal to 1/4 or 1/2 BAB (my preference is 1/4). I know this is a large change, but it would go a long way to mitigate the issues of scaling BAB versus nonscaling AC.
This sounds like SAGA SW. For two talents (feats by another name specific to class) you can get your level (feel free to look it up and correct me, don't have it in front of me) plus 1/2 your armor's rating. Which is an improvement, most characters half to take the armor rating, unless they do not wear armor (then they get their level - yes high level characters should not wear armor). Armor grants a bonus to reflex and fortitude (SAGA drops the AC concept replacing it with relfex and this is why high level characters might enjoy armor).
COL: Would a system like that help in your scenarios?
Much of the OP's position on this post revolves around the prevalence of Melee Brute's with monstrous TH rolls, the idea that the average Melee will throw himself at such creatures and not be smart and fight them from a distance or with reach. You know, like casters try to do.
Furthermore, he revolves around use of Displacement. The only way this holds any water is if you allow it to be combined with Reach Spell, so it can be cast on others, and Persistent spell, so it is present all day...and of course, all DM's allow all casters to have those feats in all campaigns. Even then, you have the normal vulnerabilities of Dispels, anti-magic, and things like Blindsight making it useless. Hells, even Darkness makes it irrelevant...as does a Blind-fighter.
In actuality, the only way to get this effect is a cloak. Said cloak is not cheap...the base cloak gives only a 20% miss chance. The greater cloak is not only considerably more money, it has to be activated (a standard action) and is only available for a handful of rounds a day (12 or so).
This means that on suprise rounds, it's useless. On normal rounds, the Displaced fellow has to waste an action, while high AC goob can just jump into a fight. So, not only not around at key moments, it uses up precious first round actions.
Mathematically, COncealment is nothing more then another form of damage reduction added to the equation. It is no more or less effective then normal AC. However, Concealment's odd mechanics are generally maximized ONLY if you have low AC.
For instance, if your Enemy is going to hit you 100% of the time, Greater Displacement looks awesome...50% miss chance, = 1/2 dmg. However, as your AC goes up, Displacement gets less and less effective.
IF the enemy is going to hit you 60% of the time, 50% miss chance means the same as a 30% chance to be hit...which is only +6 AC. If you are normally only hit 30% of the time, 50% miss chance is like going down to 15%, or +3 AC.
In short, as AC starts elevating, concealment starts getting worth less and less.
It's not even effective against Sneak attack dmg. "Every rogue will have a blindfold of True Darkness" and concealment is useless against such a thing, right? One magic item to neutralize another. Hells, one feat, pierce magical concealment, and its worthless, too.
Furthermore, logically, if you devote money to concealment, you take it away from AC...which means things should be Power Attacking you for more dmg. This can be quite instructive into the usefulness of a high AC over concealment, especially if the creature has reduced miss chances...he attacks the high AC person for normal dmg, and the concealed person for normal dmg+20 per swing.
AC can be optimized readily. My default Lockdown build gets to AC 35 at 20 without using a shield at all, even an animated one. With a shield, he can hit AC 42 without a problem. Someone who wanted to emphasize a more all-around build and better defenses could easily hit a 49-50, and that's without Defensive Fighting or Expertise to round out tactics the FIghter can use. My standard Shield Fighter build has a walk-around AC at level 20 of 49, 54 against ranged attacks...and a Touch AC of 40...without relying on Polymorph cheese for Natural Armor.
Generally, your ideal AC combo, going with 'normal' stuff, is:
+5 NAt AC = 15
+5 Deflection = 20
+5 Mithral Breastplate, Energized (+5 applies to Touch AC). = +11, = 31
16+ Dex, to take max advantage of your Armor. = +3, to 34
Haste, Luckstone,Dodge or something +1 AC, to 35.
+5 Large Shield, with Shield Spec and Shield ward (+1 AC, Shield to TOuch AC) = +8 AC, to 43.
With +5 Defender Shield Spikes, as desired. = +5 to 48.
Defensive fighting at level 20 with 20 ranks in Tumble is -4 TH, +4 AC. Expertise is +5/-5, or up to +20/-20. Tumble and MObility both exist to minimize AoO's from any source you care to name.
48 AC means that with a minimum of turtling, you can raise your miss chance to 50% or higher without interfering with your chance to hack into the golem significantly. The Golem, or other Melee brute, can Powr Attack the crap out of the Concealed character for huge damage if it does hit...a tactic that rapidly makes the high AC character unhittable if tried against them.
Anything that makes you miss is a yes/no stat...AC and concealment are just different parts of the same coin. It's all math...it all works out the same. As you get higher levels, the ways to overcome concealment become at least as common and effective as those to overcome AC.
This whole post is just another thinly-veiled anti-melee posting (shrugs).
===Aelryinth
+1 Bracers with Full Fortification, as desired.
Much of the OP's position on this post revolves around the prevalence of Melee Brute's with monstrous TH rolls, the idea that the average Melee will throw himself at such creatures and not be smart and fight them from a distance or with reach. You know, like casters try to do.
While I do not wholly agree with CoL points, the idea that the average Pathfinder Beta melee class can do something to high-level monsters in ranged combat (I assume, you mean that by "distance") is laughable. When a slightly challenging encounter for level 10 looks like five 100+ HP creatures at once, three of them with non-inconsequential AC, damage from arrows and bolts (which is expensive to raise even to something as meager as 15-20 per hit) is a joke. In fact, just like with TWF, you need sources of bonus damage, to make ranged work (and with demolishing of rogues' favored gear, good luck to that). As about reach, at these levels monsters are far more likely to outreach you. Finally, unlike casters, melees tend to have far worse mobility than overwhelming majority of high-level monsters, therefore monsters can pick the distance of engagement that is favorable to them.
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The guy the elementals and tiger were beating the crap out of had around 33. He was still just inside two round KO territory, and his HP were like... 140 something? Thing about being in two round territory? If you want to fight more than 1 round, someone HAS to burn their action casting the spell Heal on you every round. Which is exactly what happened = the Druid was stuck casting Heal (burning expensive resources) to babysit the melee instead of ya know, being a Druid. Which means lots of ass kicking. So called tank is an active liability.Hell, the elemental + tiger arrangement is low enough in CR to be a routine encounter for the melee guy alone. In other words, he should win easily, and only lose 20% of his resources. Obviously he will take far more than 30 damage so this is false.
You keep bringing this example up in your posts about why fighters are so bad.
This was actually a Crusader or Knight? if I remember correctly, not a fighter. Also, you admitted he hadn't purhcased well and was playing his character poorly in one of the earlier threads you posted in.
I also remember you telling me he quit not long after because he was too lazy to really uber up which the rest of you seemed to be doing.
I really don't think putting this example up is a good argument for fighters being poor or AC being useless. There's plenty of examples on these boards of people creating much more effective fighter types than the guy who played your example was doing. While it was a real life example from game play for you, and I appreciate you relating real life situations, it's not a prticularly strong case to base your assumptions off.
In fact, to use words you yourself have stated in the past - anyone can build a suboptimal character, this doesn't make the class useless. (or words similar to that effect when you were countering an argument about Wizards being not so effective as stated)
To use this example and say AC is a worthless stat is poor arguing. Anything that decreases the chance of an opponent hitting you by making even the dice roll increase by 1 is a bonus. That represents an additional 5% chance of a miss. It's always amazing how frequently 5% makes a difference, particularly when your back's to the wall.
If everything you put into encounters is auto hitting high AC characters with every attack, you're specifically setting out to make high AC characters appear useless. You could do the same with casters or rogues and suddenly people would be on here arguing how rubbish they are.
It's easy enough to build high AC characters that are effective. The fighting types in my group do it all the time, and they certainly are no where near a 2 round KO. They use tactics combined with good armour and a range of gear to get the job done. Not just stand and trade blows with something created to auto hit them. If the critter they're fighting is hitting them too easily, they alternate fighting defensively and full attacking to keep it on it's toes. If it's having difficulty hitting..well they're set aren't they.
It's worth noting I regularly have 2 or 3 fighter types in my group so they can take turns in going defensive and full attacking.
Cheers
First off, I would like to remind everyone Aelryinth is my stalker troll, who specifically follows me around just to give me BS. This includes starting to insult me in threads I haven't posted in for days, or at all where his name isn't coming up just to be an ass. So suffice it to say he has absolutely no credibility at best, if not negative credibility.
Just to be sure, I actually read the post. Sure enough he's still crying about turtles, making up random BS, and throwing out either low numbers as if they mean something or moderate numbers that were having no offense and therefore being a 5' square of difficult terrain to get ignored.
Would anyone like to take a guess how I developed all my anti turtle arguments? If you said 'shooting down a compulsive liar repeatedly and for great justice' you were correct.
Now that the off topic BS is addressed, back on topic.
Much of the OP's position on this post revolves around the prevalence of Melee Brute's with monstrous TH rolls, the idea that the average Melee will throw himself at such creatures and not be smart and fight them from a distance or with reach. You know, like casters try to do.While I do not wholly agree with CoL points, the idea that the average Pathfinder Beta melee class can do something to high-level monsters in ranged combat (I assume, you mean that by "distance") is laughable. When a slightly challenging encounter for level 10 looks like five 100+ HP creatures at once, three of them with non-inconsequential AC, damage from arrows and bolts (which is expensive to raise even to something as meager as 15-20 per hit) is a joke. In fact, just like with TWF, you need sources of bonus damage, to make ranged work (and with demolishing of rogues' favored gear, good luck to that). As about reach, at these levels monsters are far more likely to outreach you. Finally, unlike casters, melees tend to have far worse mobility than overwhelming majority of high-level monsters, therefore monsters can pick the distance of engagement that is favorable to them.
The above is correct.
And to Wrath: Crusaders are better than Fighters. Period. This one wasn't made that well, but he was also getting compared to stuff 3-4 levels lower than himself collectively and 6-7 levels lower than himself individually. In other words he should be able to defeat them all with no help from his party and only be down about 30-40 HP at the end. So even if his bad choices lower this, (he takes more damage aka more resources expended) regardless he should still be able to win easily with no risk to himself. If it were 15 CRs worth of mooks there, the better made beatstick is still going to get his ass kicked left, right, and center by the things he's supposed to be tanking while the casters do all the real work in a group battle. Note the first example was an individual battle since a single level 15 PC has a party level of 11. 11 vs 11 = routine, trivial combat. The second was a group battle because it was more designed against the group. 15 vs 15 = see above.
More to the point, he did have an AC of 33 which is exactly the same as one used in another example therefore it was directly relevant. Ultimately his build quality is irrelevant to an 'AC is useless' discussion as it's just a numbers comparison. The issue wasn't that he wasn't 'ubering up' it was that he didn't back basic staples and utility items, and instead of getting them with his 80k he lazied out. More likely he lazied out due to pressure to write an actual background for this guy to flesh out his personality and illuminate his motivations and such.
Lastly, given the nature of beatsticks there are no 'tactics' you can use because you ever deviate from your one trick your effectiveness either falls through the floor or becomes nonexistent immediately. Though ToB types are a bit better off here. They can move more than 5' and still do more than scratch the enemy. Doesn't help much when you have 3 enemies poised to AoO your 20' move speed ass, then full attack you anyways because the elementals have enough reach to do it, and tigers can just pounce.
Another thing that a friend and I have tossed around is an increase of base AC equal to 1/4 or 1/2 BAB (my preference is 1/4). I know this is a large change, but it would go a long way to mitigate the issues of scaling BAB versus nonscaling AC.This sounds like SAGA SW. For two talents (feats by another name specific to class) you can get your level (feel free to look it up and correct me, don't have it in front of me) plus 1/2 your armor's rating. Which is an improvement, most characters half to take the armor rating, unless they do not wear armor (then they get their level - yes high level characters should not wear armor). Armor grants a bonus to reflex and fortitude (SAGA drops the AC concept replacing it with relfex and this is why high level characters might enjoy armor).
COL: Would a system like that help in your scenarios?
Without hammering out the details, I can't really say. But from what I've seen of defense systems they either replace armor (actually lowering AC in most cases) or are in addition to it, but the scaling is very linear. Which doesn't solve the problem when the issue is AC is good enough to work at low levels, but the fact enemy accuracy improves by 2-3 points a level every level and your AC improves far less even if you try and make the fool's mistake of sinking like 70% of your wealth into it to become a turtle with a shell defect like that other guy did...
By the way... Remember those two random creatures I made a while back and posted here? The first one gets to PA for 4 and still auto hit Ael's flat footed turtle. Which doesn't sound that impressive until you remember it's doing well over a hundred damage aka two round KO, and is forcing auto pass grapple checks and near auto pass 1 round stun. Second round it finishes the job.
Second one gets +3 to hit from equipment (still entirely unchosen) and buffs then auto hits the turtle. If it gets more than +3 from these sources even better. 18-32/12-22/12-22/11-18/11-18/23-33 = 87-145 (116 average) without equipment which could add 6 per point or something (belt of mighty fists), without PA (see above), without any other equipment or buffs... yeah. Funny thing? This dragon isn't built to melee. It's built to use its breath weapon to maximum effect. It stomps all over the turtle's primary trick with its secondary trick while completely ignoring its own primary trick. Best part about it is one Greater Invisibility on self later and it has a 44 Hide and 32 Move Silently without gear. Congrats, the turtle can't even notice something the size of a small house sneaking up on him and beating the crap out of him.
The third one is an even meaner example. Turtle never gets to see his target, gets auto hit once a round and hit once more by the other attacks, taking around 130 damage a round. He also gets ambushed, taking 130 right out of the gate. Win init or die Mr. Defective Turtle. At least you have enough HP to not die from the initial ambush, which is an improvement over the other guy.
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Aelryinth: Though I agree with your view in general, you forgot to include the fact that miss chance stacks with AC. A high AC character who suffers an unlucky hit can still attempt to negate with miss chance. Whereas the low-AC character benefits more simply because they are forced to engage the miss chance more often, but in the end are still getting hit more than the high-AC/displacement character.
Much of the OP's position on this post revolves around the prevalence of Melee Brute's with monstrous TH rolls, the idea that the average Melee will throw himself at such creatures and not be smart and fight them from a distance or with reach. You know, like casters try to do.While I do not wholly agree with CoL points, the idea that the average Pathfinder Beta melee class can do something to high-level monsters in ranged combat (I assume, you mean that by "distance") is laughable. When a slightly challenging encounter for level 10 looks like five 100+ HP creatures at once, three of them with non-inconsequential AC, damage from arrows and bolts (which is expensive to raise even to something as meager as 15-20 per hit) is a joke. In fact, just like with TWF, you need sources of bonus damage, to make ranged work (and with demolishing of rogues' favored gear, good luck to that). As about reach, at these levels monsters are far more likely to outreach you. Finally, unlike casters, melees tend to have far worse mobility than overwhelming majority of high-level monsters, therefore monsters can pick the distance of engagement that is favorable to them.
Just as a counter arguement and a little amusement.
I present to you the tale of Bold Bold Sir Robin and the iron golem
One day bold sir robin(fighter 1/ expert(coward)2 optimised for cowardice) came across a ruined tower in the wood. His initial thoughts where to run away to be on the safeside, but then the collection of musician hirelings who followed him every where started harping on. So he boldly clambered down, making his way toward the ruined tower. Upon peeking through the door (making his stealth and perception checks thanks to his cowards levels), bold sir robin boldly pissed him self on seeing a huge iron golem within. Normally he would have left well enough alone and scarpered, but upon his return to the musicians they wanted to kno what it was, foolishly(low wisdom) he informed them that it was a giant iron golem, and despite his encouragement to leave quietly and not make a fuss, it soom became clear that his reputation would be in ruin if he didn't do something about the iron golem.
For two days he prepared, stacking wood with the help of the musicians and poring oil on it . He then payed for each musician to be equiped with a single bottle of alchemists fire. Then boldly, pissing him self yet again, sir robin entered the tower and throw a stone at the golem, before running away with the golem slowly following. When the golem followed right into the fire trap and sir robin and the musicians pelted the golem with the alchemist fire, their was much rejoicing as DR is over come by energy damage and the iron golem melted in but a few turns....the moral of the story is that even level 1 commoners can hit touch AC 8