As one rises in level BAB goes up naturally with level but AC does not.
also there are many more static attack bonus feats than defensive feats.
the end result is that you hit far more often and do far more damage at higher levels than at lower which makes sense but leads to encounters that can end much to quickly.
I know that this is not a deal breaking issue for people but i wonder if its something that can be done better.
any ideas?
I am personally a fan of a style I read about in which things like BAB and AC do not rise naturally with level. a player can take feats and the like which will raise these things but generally speaking a fighter at level 1 will have an attack bonus of 1 + ability bonus + weapon/feat/spells and a 10th level fighter will have the same 1 + ability + weapon/feats/spells. in other words a player doesnt get a better chance to hit (or a higher AC) simply bassed on level. its feats, equipment and other enhancements that have the greater effect.
so what makes the higher level character better? higher hitpoints and higher damage and most importantly access to better loot.
the result of this is that being higher level does not make you impossible to hit or make your attacks impossible to miss. it simply makes you more resilient and more effective.
but I am not sure that that is the answer as it requires much more modification to the game at different levels
What sort of success ratio are you looking at?
Because if you are missing with your highest BAB attack at 15th level your iteratives are going to be pointless.
That's really the issue. Unless you change the way iteratives work you have to have primary attacks become very accurate.
I am personally a fan of a style I read about in which things like BAB and AC do not rise naturally with level.
This sounds a lot like the "bounded accuracy" of D&D Next. They dropped the concept because, as it turns out, it doesn't interact well with other systems in the game.
For example, a first level Fighter is probably going to have a +4 bonus from Armor. A 20th level Fighter will have +14 (+5 Full Plate)... and +5 Deflection... and +5 Natural... and, well, you get the idea. Even ditching other ways to get bonuses we are looking at a 10 point spread, which is just too much for this system to work. You'd have to totally rework the game, probably switch Armor to DR, and basically rebuild things from the ground up. Such a project would be quite major, and beyond even the changes a Pathfinder 2.0 would bring.
yea i get the impression its a simple change with a lot of complicated fall out.
and yet. when I am looking at an AP and the level 13 enemy has an AC of 21 and the players have Attack bonuses of +20 I feel that it doesnt balance well, these are not trash mobs but under bosses and side quest leaders.
within the current system (or any viable system) at high levels its possible to create incredibly extreme stats. you can create a guy with huge bonuses to hit, ac, high hitpoints, monstrous damage etc. but the measure of success should not be the +70AC of some focused outlyer but rather the more average statistics that a player would achieve.
when bab goes up every level but AC does not its more likely that AC becomes irrelevant than is it not? or am I missing something in the game that keeps it all balanced.
NOTE: I tend to not play many high level games just due to the time involved. I think level 3 to 8 is the sweet spot and would play E6 if I could. so I may not have enough high level experience to fully understand the realities of that environment.
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the end result is that you hit far more often and do far more damage at higher levels than at lower which makes sense but leads to encounters that can end much to quickly.
This is deliberate.
1) If you had the same low hit rate at higher levels that you did at lower levels, you'd never feel like you were getting better at fighting ("I'm level 15 and I'm still missing 50% of the time with my main attack, just like at level 1").
2) If attack bonus didn't outpace AC, your iterative attacks would have a very low chance of ever hitting... so low that you probably shouldn't bother rolling them at all.
If you don't like the attack bonus scaling while armor class doesn't, you can always borrow the Defense Bonus variant rules from Unearthed Arcana.
(Note that the defense bonus does not stack with armor, but does stack with all other defensive items.)
I would love to see some numerical analysis on this. Maybe just focus on fighter, and on what his 'typical' AC and +hit are level by level. It'd be interesting to see where the crossover happens.
Personally, I don't think divergences such as this are necessarily bad, in games. If you flatten everything too much, then what's the point of going up levels at all?
this is how D20 is designed, your AC does not generally increase but your mitigations do (IE HP bloat and DR) as you level.
To fix that would would have change fundamentally how combat works in D20 games.
HP would have to be much lower if you could increase defenses as you level.
A good example is a game like GURPS.
In GURPS your HP, doesn't increase dramatically, what does increase is your ability to negate damage (through active defenses like dodging and parrying to passive ones like DR). So as you go higher in power, you allocate you character points to improve that stuff, but HP never gets super high, and typical strike from a longsword can do knock you down 3/4 HP or more if it hits you.
With that being said, GURPS is very different mechanically than D20 for combat.
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AC Doesn't scale because HP scales while damage doesn't.
That's not necessarily true. Damage typically does scale as you progress through access to more potent weaponry, increased stats,the various bonuses associated with leveling (spells, feats, weapon training, iterative attacks, additional sneak attack die, etc.). Damage certainly doesn't scale as fast or evenly for all classes since it doesn't have a direct level/damage correlation for all classes, but it is happening.
good point soulgambit and ssalarn
I just read a few articles on the bonded accuracy thing and I agree with the benefits but understand the faults.
I also think SKR made a great point about feeling like your hitting more.
however, when players hit more AND deal more damage defence becomes essentially meaningless. the goal is simply to stack as much damage as possible so that you can crush the big baddy in one round. while that may make the players feel more powerfull it also makes the challenge seem more petty. in order to counter this the enemies also have higher chance to basically destroy the players in one attack which is also less fun.
off the top of my head I wonder if the system can be tweeked to focus differently.
proof of advance is less about being more accurate and more damaging and more about the options and abilities and counters a character brings to a battle.
for example where a 1st level fighter has about a 50% chance to hit. a 10th level fighter has 3 50% chances to hit or 2 60% chances or 1 75% chance or he can make 2 attacks and save one to parry, or he can actively defend his ally who is casting a big spell.
note.. i am not an expert on numbers or really trying to say I am right. I am just juggling ideas feel free to tell me I am wrong but please dont be offended or offensive.
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I will say one thing as we discuss this. In 4E defenses did scale at the same rate as attack and it was... actually kind of boring. You always had roughly the same chance to hit, or be hit, or succeed on a check, at all levels of play. I do like feeling like you're advancing as you play. I'm personally okay with a high level fighter pretty much always knowing he's got a 75% chance or better of connecting with his primary attack. The problem I agree exists though, is combat being drastically shortened t higher levels. I know that my friend who GM's, and myself, have doubled the number of hit points some monsters have to bring them more in line with expectations of the duration and threat a given monster should pose. He had to bump a colossal CR9 Titan Centipede from 135 hit points to nearly 300 just to keep it from going down in the first round of combat when the Barbarian and Sohei would have otherwise destroyed it. That may be associated with some of the power creep from the large number of sourcebooks available, but it's not an unusual phenomenon in our games to see a party capable of dismantling threats 1-4 CR's above their level in a single round, oftentimes before some of the party member's have even taken their first turn. And we only run a 5 person group.
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What sort of success ratio are you looking at?
Because if you are missing with your highest BAB attack at 15th level your iteratives are going to be pointless.
That's really the issue. Unless you change the way iteratives work you have to have primary attacks become very accurate.
The build I have on hand has a 68 AC and +38 to-hit. He has an option between 6 primary natural attacks or 38/33/28 iterative with a bardiche. (Only a 15 BAB, no 4th iterative.)
He also has +38 reflex as his lowest unbuffed save and evasion. With self buffs he can break 80ac and +50 on all saves.
looks like he is talking about a level 20 build.
but who cares about a level of play that you never actually level up to.
even at level 10 things get pretty ridiculous.
If your going to raise AC equal to BAB the question becomes which BAB? full, 3/4s 1/2?
I think one of the problems is not so much that its bad to get better its that there is no moderation.
what I mean is... it seems as if the alternatives are: 4e where you never get better at hitting enemies of your level or PF where by level 10 you dont really have a reason to ever miss (except on secondary attacks and BBEGs)
can there not be a middle ground where a fighter goes from hitting 30% at level 1 to say 60% at level 10? the penalty for follow up attacks can then drop from -5 to -2 or -3 per additional attack so that the last attack is not utterly useless. (I always thought that -25% each iterative was a bit excessive)
in other words without totally changing the system AC goes up over time at say 1 combat experience bonus to AC every 2 levels but the penalty to secondary attacks is only -2 each attack.
thus an 11th level fighter with 10 stats no armor and no weapon bonus would have something like a 15 base AC and swing for +11/+9/+7 rather than the current system where he would have 10 base AC and swing for +11/+6/+1
does that make any sense?
Iterative attacks, if you're going to raise AC with your BaB, then you make iterative attacks utterly pointless. Now I do think that some classes should get bonuses, like the fighter should get something like a parry bonus in addition to his increased max dex with armor training, but that's not where the problems lie in a lot of these places.
Please what build is this, what level, and is it PFS legal/Definitely not PFS legal - it's impossible to have a BAB higher than your level, and the build has more than a BAB 12.
Actually +38 to hit at level 15 is quite achievable, even with a BAB of 13
Actually +38 to hit at level 15 is quite achievable, even with a BAB of 13
Nobody said +38 to hit was impossible at level 15. What was said was that, since the BAB is 15, the level is at least 15, which means it can't be PFS-legal because PFS doesn't go above level 12.
Actually +38 to hit at level 15 is quite achievable, even with a BAB of 13Nobody said +38 to hit was impossible at level 15. What was said was that, since the BAB is 15, the level is at least 15, which means it can't be PFS-legal because PFS doesn't go above level 12.
"Post-Retirement" PFS characters can get up to 17 or 18 now.
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Actually +38 to hit at level 15 is quite achievable, even with a BAB of 13Nobody said +38 to hit was impossible at level 15. What was said was that, since the BAB is 15, the level is at least 15, which means it can't be PFS-legal because PFS doesn't go above level 12.
Well, not in regular scenarios. You can get to 15 (and above) by running sanctioned modules.
fair points.. but to get back to the topic I dont think that +38 AC is a reasonable bonus to AC at level 15. in fact I dont think +19 can be expected without very specialized builds.
I think there is a problem with that. I dont think that AC and TO HIT should raise at the same level but I also dont think that chance to hit should be essentially guaranteed.
managing the rise in hit bonus or raising AC at a reasonable level while modifying the iterative attack penalty seems like a relatively easy to implement and viable option.
am I missing something?
has any on tested anything like this at all?