Disclaimer: This may be in the wrong forum.
I have just started to use Pathfinder classes in playtesting before I introduce them to my group. It seems the AC of martial classes still does not scale well with attack bonuses. Is it just me or have other people gotten the same results?
I find it depends on what you mean by "scales well". Personally, I prefer attack bonuses of fighter types to rise faster than AC bonuses. It makes feats like power attack and combat expertise worth more when you have reasonable excess BAB to spend on them.
Well, fighters at least are virtually untouchable now, provided you take into account the changes.
You gain a bonus on your armour bonus depending on level. That one's a no-brainer and just gives you more for your armour than anyone else.
You also get to increase the max dex bonus, which means that you can put higher scores into dex and profit from it. That one has to be considered from the start, but if you do, you can have dextrous fighters in heavy armour.
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Well, fighters at least are virtually untouchable now, provided you take into account the changes.
You gain a bonus on your armour bonus depending on level. That one's a no-brainer and just gives you more for your armour than anyone else.
You also get to increase the max dex bonus, which means that you can put higher scores into dex and profit from it. That one has to be considered from the start, but if you do, you can have dextrous fighters in heavy armour.
Hardly Untouchable.
Fighter 15th level, DEX 20, Full-Plate +5, Heavy Shield +5 gives an AC of 35
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15. That makes 55% hitting with the first attack, 30% with the second one and 5% hitting with the third one, for a total 90% chance of hitting every turn.
And that is if the attacking fighter has no feat to boost his attack score.
BTW, dextrous fighters in heavy armour were already feasible in 3.5, since any armour you're proficient with does not penalize your attack rolls.
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15. That makes 55% hitting with the first attack, 30% with the second one and 5% hitting with the third one, for a total 90% chance of hitting every turn.
And that is if the attacking fighter has no feat to boost his attack score.
Except that the odds really don't work that way. The odds of being hit at least once are closer to 70%. Not 90%.
You're double-counting a lot of individual cases with your 90% estimate.
Well, fighters at least are virtually untouchable now, provided you take into account the changes.
You gain a bonus on your armour bonus depending on level. That one's a no-brainer and just gives you more for your armour than anyone else.
You also get to increase the max dex bonus, which means that you can put higher scores into dex and profit from it. That one has to be considered from the start, but if you do, you can have dextrous fighters in heavy armour.
Hardly Untouchable.
Fighter 15th level, DEX 20, Full-Plate +5, Heavy Shield +5 gives an AC of 35
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15. That makes 55% hitting with the first attack, 30% with the second one and 5% hitting with the third one, for a total 90% chance of hitting every turn.
And that is if the attacking fighter has no feat to boost his attack score.BTW, dextrous fighters in heavy armour were already feasible in 3.5, since any armour you're proficient with does not penalize your attack rolls.
You missed the AC bonus from Armor Training which at 15th level is another +4 and dodge for +1/+2 depending.
So it's base AC 10 + 13 (for Full Plate +5 ) +7 (for large shield +5) + 5 (for dex 20) +4 (for armor Training) +2 (for Dodge with Acrobatic 10) for AC of 41
So your attack of 25/20/15 is only 20% on the first attack and 5% for the other two attacks. Even if you didn't have acrobatics 10 due to low skill point that fighters get you'd still only hit a 15 or better on the first attack then need 20s for the additional attacks. That's approaching untouchable in my opinion.
That's hardly the high water mark for AC. Consider that this fighter hasn't got a Ring of Protection, amulet of Natural Armor, or anything else that adds to AC.
It's akin to saying that a fighter with a wisdom of 10 can't make his save throws against a completely tricked out wizard. Of course the fighter can't make a save throw against a wizard that has maxed out his DC's if the fighter is at his bare minimum.
Fighter 15th level, DEX 20, Full-Plate +5, Heavy Shield +5 gives an AC of 35
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15. That makes 55% hitting with the first attack, 30% with the second one and 5% hitting with the third one, for a total 90% chance of hitting every turn.
And that is if the attacking fighter has no feat to boost his attack score.
Well, mathematically, it's something like a 70.075% (let's round and call it 70%) " hance hitting [at least once] every turn."
Edit: I see that Bill Dunn beat me to this post. Ninja!
Well, fighters at least are virtually untouchable now, provided you take into account the changes.
You gain a bonus on your armour bonus depending on level. That one's a no-brainer and just gives you more for your armour than anyone else.
You also get to increase the max dex bonus, which means that you can put higher scores into dex and profit from it. That one has to be considered from the start, but if you do, you can have dextrous fighters in heavy armour.
Hardly Untouchable.
Fighter 15th level, DEX 20, Full-Plate +5, Heavy Shield +5 gives an AC of 35
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15. That makes 55% hitting with the first attack, 30% with the second one and 5% hitting with the third one, for a total 90% chance of hitting every turn.
And that is if the attacking fighter has no feat to boost his attack score.BTW, dextrous fighters in heavy armour were already feasible in 3.5, since any armour you're proficient with does not penalize your attack rolls.
You missed the AC bonus from Armor Training which at 15th level is another +4 and dodge for +1/+2 depending.
So it's base AC 10 + 13 (for Full Plate +5 ) +7 (for large shield +5) + 5 (for dex 20) +4 (for armor Training) +2 (for Dodge with Acrobatic 10) for AC of 41
So your attack of 25/20/15 is only 20% on the first attack and 5% for the other two attacks. Even if you didn't have acrobatics 10 due to low skill point that fighters get you'd still only hit a 15 or better on the first attack then need 20s for the additional attacks. That's approaching untouchable in my opinion.
Well, almost right (it's 25% on the first attack - he would hit on 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20), but let's not forget that the attacking fighter gets +3 from Weapon Training and +2 from Greater Weapon Focus.
Also, while it was reasonable to assume a 15th level fighter has only a 20 DEX (if he has more, it won't improve his AC unless that's +5 mithril plate), it's unlikely his STR is only a 20. Chances are he started at 20, or close to it, and is probably at least 26 by the time he's 15th level, or more likely 28. So we should give him +4 more to hit from that.
Now those attacks are 34/29/24 against AC 41, hitting 70%, 45%, 20%.
I think that's a fairer representation.
Oh, but wait, we didn't count the +5 ring of protection or the +5 amulet of natural armor that defender is wearing.
Uh oh, now it's AC 51.
(where did a mere 15th level fighter get all these +5 items, anyway - I kept the pattern going, but really, the original example should have been +4 maximum, maybe even +3 on some of these items).
Now we're back down to your numbers again: 20% on the first attack and 5% for the other two attacks.
Yep, nearly untouchable. Better not use Power Attack or Combat Expertise here, nope nope nope.
Amongst all these maths, let's not forget something important.
We want two equals to be able to hit each other fairly often.
Imagine the worst case scenario: 2 level 20 fighters with 200 HP each, wielding sword and board (longsword does 1d8 +16 damage, call it an average of 20 HP). They both have enormous AC, so high that the only way they can hit each other is with natural 20s.
Each one of them will hit, on average, once every 5 rounds (4 iterative attacks, 4 chances to roll a 20, across 5 rounds is 20 chances to roll a 20). Yeah, statistics don't usually spread out so evenly, but over a long time, it will be close to 1 hit/5 rounds.
That's 20 HP/5 rounds, requiring 50 total rounds to kill each other.
Do you want to roll all those dice?
Now imagine if it's your party of 5 PCs fighting 5 equally difficult monsters that they can barely hit. 50 rounds of 10 people/monsters attacking each other could take all day to resolve.
Now imagine if most fights are like this. You'd never have two encounters in the dame game session.
Sure, that's extremely extreme :)
But if the combat system favors the defender too much, combats will be like that (no, not exactly like that, but long combats taking lots of rounds where many or most rounds result in lots of misses with few or no hits at all.
The more the system favors the defender, the closer the combats will come to my extreme example.
For the sake of resolving combats in a reasonable amount of time, the D&D/Pathfinder combat system favors the attacker (most of the time). Damage occurs every round. Most combats are over in a few rounds, and even the big combats rarely go past 10 rounds unless they were truly huge.
I am fairly sure this was by design.
As for the OP's concern that higher levels favor the attacker even more, I fully support that, too.
High level melee combatants (PCs and monsters) have multiple attacks, and usually (almost always) those extra attacks are at a reduced chance to hit.
Those extra attacks would never hit (well, only once in 20 tries) if the primary attack has less than a 30% chance to hit (thinking of iterative here, many monsters' secondary attacks are better). Might as well take them out of the game if they're going to be that useless.
But if you do, get ready to hear the hue and cry from all the fighters, paladins, rangers, barbarians, monks, rogues, and bards about how you robbed them of their only class feature that let them even try to approximate the deadliness of the spellcasters, and now their high level PC is worthless compared to the party's mage and cleric.
Let them have those attacks, and let them have a better chance to hit than reuiring a natural 20. But then understand that the primary attacks will hit an extremely high percentage of the time.
Also, while it was reasonable to assume a 15th level fighter has only a 20 DEX (if he has more, it won't improve his AC unless that's +5 mithal...
Fighter Armor training increases this by 1 each time remember? This is the reason Fighters can max out AC... +4 armor and +4 max Dex at 15th level. So a Dex of 28 before capping.
There's no reason for a Fighter hell bent on being defensive to forsake Dex... considering the benefits of Acrobatics and a number of other skills, it's beneficial to make it second only to Con for his build.
Sorry about not being clear. I mean does the armor scale well against the creatures that have a CR fairly close to the fighter's level. Higher level fighters are not hard to hit in 3.5.
Hardly Untouchable.Fighter 15th level, DEX 20, Full-Plate +5, Heavy Shield +5 gives an AC of 35
Fighter 15th level, Dex 20 (= +5), +5 (Mithral) Fullplate (= 8 +5 +4 = 17), +5 Shield (+7), +3 Ring of Protection, +3 Amulet of Natural Armour.
Gives an AC of 45. And we can have another +4 for the big magic protectors, +2 for dodge, more dex, probably something from shields with the final version...
Fighter 15th level, STR 20, Weapon +5 gives 3 attacks : 25/20/15.
BAB 15, Str 24 (+7), Weapon +5, Weapon Training +3, Feats +2: 32/27/22. Can get a bit better, mainly with more strength. Needs at least a 13/ 18/20 to hit.
BTW, dextrous fighters in heavy armour were already feasible in 3.5, since any armour you're proficient with does not penalize your attack rolls.
It's a lot more efficient now, since armour training increases max dex, so you can wear (heavier) armour and still get everything out of dex.
That is what I wanted to know. Thanks
(where did a mere 15th level fighter get all these +5 items, anyway - I kept the pattern going, but really, the original example should have been +4 maximum, maybe even +3 on some of these items).Amen that.
A Fighter 15 is supposed to have 240000gp.
Let's say he spends about 1/4 for weapons, 1/4 for armour/shield, 1/4 for boosters, and 1/4 for misc.
53100 gp for an adamantine weapon +5 (cheaper if other material is desired)
9000 gp for a decent bow
1000 gp for some backup weapons (mostly masterwork)
36000 for a +5 mithral full plate
25500 for a +5 shield
25000 for a shirt of resistance +5
64000 for a belt of physical whatever +4
leaves 26400 for a +3 ring of protection and a +2 amulet of natural armour, and then some small stuff.
You can check a sample 15th-level Fighter here.
AC 45, 240.000 gp expended as:
- 97820 for Armor Class
- 55330 for Weapons
- 80000 for Ability and Save boosts
- 6750 for consumables
It didn't even have +5 items (except the main Weapon).
Of course, this is a bit overcharged in defense, but still...