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I just played at a Con - my first time doing so past the first few levels (I don't do much PFS) - and it surprised me how much many players ignore defense entirely.
In my home group - currently at level 7 - the martial combatants have ACs pushing 30, my samurai has resolve points to help with saves, the wizard always has mirror image prepared for someone slips past us, and the Oracle has weird concealment stuff up all of the time. And frankly - as we're nearing the end of the AP, we're behind WBL.
However - at the Con I was nearly that level, and I ran into martials whose AC hadn't crested 20 despite being well built offensively, (so I can't wave it off as someone who doesn't know how to play well), animal companions without even leather barding (no proficiency needed - and only 20-40gp), wizards with no defensive spells, and clerics who dump dex. (I always keep it at 12+ to max AC with full plate.)
I'm curious - how common is this? I know many on these boards tend to focus offensively on the idea that the best defense is killing them before they get to swing (though I tend to disagree), but it seems kind of ridiculous to ignore it entirely.
It may be intentional, so that monsters will actually attack them rather than lower HP party members.
I never get armor for animal companions for stylistic reasons. It's a wild creature, I don't want to put it in the trappings of civilization.
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That said, I tend to favor high defense myself, and see solid defense from my group.
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It may be intentional, so that monsters will actually attack them rather than lower HP party members.
How would the monsters know until they'd already taken a couple swings anyway? They were all wearing armor (besides the wizard in question) - just not much else defensively.
Unless of course - the GM is metagaming.
Being PFS, the players are going to build their characters to be most effective regardless of what other players bring. It's also generally seen that the best way to take less damage is to kill things faster. That being said, since the players aren't able to discuss builds before coming together, they're going to typically make characters that blow things up in 1-2 hits because the alternative is those monsters surviving 3-4 rounds and doing MORE damage to the party.
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It is a few things working together.
1) Preference: Think about a soccer team. How many people want to be the striker scoring goals and how many want to be the goalie stopping the other team from scoring goals?
Same kind of thing. Most people would rather be the one taking the enemy down, so that preference leads them to focus on offense.
2) Mechanics: The system as a whole tends to reward offense more than defense. There are more feats that effectively boost offense. There are more stacking buffs for offense. Offense is easier in this system than defense. You have to work pretty hard to get enough defense to make a significant difference.
A lot of people se virtually no difference between a AC=10 and an AC=25 at mid levels. Most any significant opponent is still going to hit the AC=25 almost all the time. So what did that gain you?
3) RL Time: If you have very many PC's with a bunch of defense (which means less focus on offense), often the fights will tend to drag on forever. Some people don't like that. They want it over in 2-3 rounds whatever the results.
4) No Significant Consequences: Early campaign, it doesn't really matter how much you got hurt as long as you don't quite get killed. Wands of CLW are stupidly cheap and easy to procure. Mid campaign you don't even have to worry too much about death since raise dead becomes available. Late campaign the PC's are so rich that even the resurrections are a meaningless cost.
Taken together, these things push a lot of people to focus almost exclusively on offense.
15+level seems about what i end up with most of the time.
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1) Preference: Think about a soccer team. How many people want to be the striker scoring goals and how many want to be the goalie stopping the other team from scoring goals?
Same kind of thing. Most people would rather be the one taking the enemy down, so that preference leads them to focus on offense.
Lol - that could be why I prefer defensive leaning characters - I always preferred being the goalie.
15+level seems about what i end up with most of the time.
Mine is rarely that high unless it is a melee character. However, I do like to have things like vanish, mirror image, blur, greater invisibility, ablative armor, etc... For defense other than just AC.
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Lol - that could be why I prefer defensive leaning characters - I always preferred being the goalie.1) Preference: Think about a soccer team. How many people want to be the striker scoring goals and how many want to be the goalie stopping the other team from scoring goals?
Same kind of thing. Most people would rather be the one taking the enemy down, so that preference leads them to focus on offense.
I loved the center full back position. I found it greatly amusing to take away the ball and just shut down the efforts of the whole opposing offensive team. But I am definitely in the minority.
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I never get armor for animal companions for stylistic reasons. It's a wild creature, I don't want to put it in the trappings of civilization.
My half-orc cavalier astride his full plate barded triceratops laughs at your "stylistic reasons."
General "wisdom" is that offense >> defense so a lot of players build to ignore defense. I find that defense can be quite valuable but players will build to their individual styles.
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2) Mechanics: The system as a whole tends to reward offense more than defense. There are more feats that effectively boost offense. There are more stacking buffs for offense. Offense is easier in this system than defense. You have to work pretty hard to get enough defense to make a significant difference.
For the characters themselves - yes. However, for gear it's far cheaper to jack up your AC/saves than it is to jack up your accuracy. I generally rely upon the character themselves for most of my offense, and put most of my wealth towards defense.
After all, even aside from Jingasa & + AC Ioun Stone (good when you get them - but not upgradable), you generally have 4-6 defensive items (armor/AoNA/Ring/Cloak/ & potentially shield/belt) and only 1-2 offensive (weapon/belt).
Honestly, I think it's more to do with gamer mentality than anything else. in most things I've played there seems to be the idea that offense is the best defense. It may be true, but unless there's a legitimately effective reason to bulk up (tanking on a game like WoW) I don't think most gamers would lean towards options that, to them, look as though they're "nerfing" their character. Case in point, the group I'm running through Reign of Winter right now has a paladin who is ocassionally dismayed at not droppoing like a thunderbolt from heaven quite like the abyssal bloodrager. But he's never gone into negatives, he rarely gets affected by spells, and between lay on hands and paladin's sacrifice he usually effectively tanks upwards of half the damage for the group in a given combat.
From my point of view, this is huge, because it's pretty much what's keeping the party from dropping against big-hitters the second the bloodrager would drop. The low-AC murder-machine is pretty much an automatic hit for enemies, and he's got a lot of HP but that goes quickly when three or four things focus fire. Conversely, I'm pretty sure the paladin has somewhere around 28 AC at level 8, and he really focused on Charisma, which is at 18 now I think, so his saves are pretty high. And still, despite smite crits pretty much dropping stuff without a second thought, his indominable place on the battlefield is still not quite badass enough for him.
So, I guess YMMV, depending on what kind of character you want to play. I'm of the opinion that unstoppable characters are nicer to pilot through adventures than those that can drop something immediately. There is the fact that monsters do full damage until they're dead, so having a good offense means you're getting rid of sources of damage quickly; eventually something can pierce through even a high AC, and at that point you're still going to take some damage. So it really depends on how you view combat and how you view what's best to mitigate damage and keep on trucking.
Well auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cry
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Well auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after all
Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
Well, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?
15+level seems about what i end up with most of the time.Mine is rarely that high unless it is a melee character. However, I do like to have things like vanish, mirror image, blur, greater invisibility, ablative armor, etc... For defense other than just AC.
As I've heard it, the benchmarks are 15+level for someone actively going into melee (ie- basis for melee bards, rogues, barbarians), 20+level for people actively trying to tank (paladins and fighters, perhaps?) and 10+level for everyone else (mostly so you are not COMPLETELY FREE when an enemy manages to get a full attack in)
While I can understand that by mid levels, you are not taking out the full BAB attack with AC alone most of the time...but that is not the point. The point is that your BAB should be good enough that something that full attacks you can't have guarantees with the second and third iteratives.
With some of the AC's people have noted here, those people would be hit with the entire full attack of a freakin' "normal" TWF rogue that isn't using any special tricks. Hell, maybe by the same rogue using power attack as well.
I can understand focusing on offense...but at some point, minor AC boosting items are chump change.
Well, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
CAGM barb laughs at defensive options with stupid high DR x/- AND hUGE offense
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CAGM barb laughs at defensive options with stupid high DR x/- AND hUGE offense
That is mostly because they often have another line of defense since they can have the hit from CAGM daze as well, stopping the attacks before they happen.
But their AC isn't even that terrible though. The 'typical' barbarian is going to grab beast totem anyway, which cancels out a lot of the problems they usually have through scaling natural armor bonus that cancels out reckless abandon.
If you grab a mithral breast plate or go urban barbarian, you are doing fairly well overall (particularly good if you combine the two; all you need is the armor expert trait). Well, it is at '2 handed warrior' levels at least, which should be able to meet the 15+lvl standard with a bit of effort. Because really- why not have DR, fantastic saves, and good AC? Why give anyone any quarter when it comes to killing you?
Well, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
What defensive options are there to grab? Dodge and ...?
Barbs are designed for one thing.. killing. After all, its a freaking barbarian
CAGM barb laughs at defensive options with stupid high DR x/- AND hUGE offenseWell, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
Yep, and that would be a form of non-AC defense. Throwing a save or lose your full attack is a particularly nasty form of defense too.
It doesn't make sense to neglect defense beyond a certain point. PF uses diminishing returns with regards to gold spent on items. 2k gp gets you a +1, 200k gets you a +10, so that's 100 times the price for 10 times the effect. Eventually you will be in the position where you can either increase your offense by a trivial amount, or bring your defenses up from atrocious to mediocre, because you haven't picked up all the low hanging fruit on the defense side.
What defensive options are there to grab? Dodge and ...?Well, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Improved versions of them, Combat Reflexes (not really defensive, but ehh), Fortified Armor Training, Guarded Stance, Raging Vitality, human luck feats, half-orc/dwarf natural armor feats, Iron Soul (if you're a dwarf), and plenty of other rage powers that do interesting things.
Barbarians have a lot of flexibility. They do a crapload of damage without much investment, and usually there's not much of an appropriate CR that'll stand up to more than maybe two full attacks from a barbarian.
CAGM barb laughs at defensive options with stupid high DR x/- AND hUGE offenseWell, I've seen some pretty effective barbarians that just need power attack and a potion of enlarge person to crank out damage. That's one feat, and how many other options are barbarians grabbing (besides the ubiquitous natural attack barbarian) that really increase damage the same degree as one feat? Why not start grabbing defensive options?Except it usually comes at the cost of your offence. So you take longer to kill it. And the enemy may just end up ignoring you after a few tries because your no real threat and too hard to hit. With no real way to lock things down makes playing a wall hard. A 5 ft wall is kinda a useless wall after allWell auto hitting crits make so that a certain point there is almost no point... especally after the crane wiNg nerf making defense masters cryEh, not really.
Auto-hit crits just means that 5% of attacks are guaranteed to land. But if you buff defense high enough that you only get hit on the natural 20, then that means only 5% of attacks will hit, and then a mere 5% crits will be confirmed, which is a pretty big deal in its own right.
Yep, and that would be a form of non-AC defense. Throwing a save or lose your full attack is a particularly nasty form of defense too.
It doesn't make sense to neglect defense beyond a certain point. PF uses diminishing returns with regards to gold spent on items. 2k gp gets you a +1, 200k gets you a +10, so that's 100 times the price for 10 times the effect. Eventually you will be in the position where you can either increase your offense by a trivial amount, or bring your defenses up from atrocious to mediocre, because you haven't picked up all the low hanging fruit on the defense side.
When people usually say defense they are talking about AC. Most classes have very limited DR abilities and barbarian is not the first thing to come to mind when defense is mentioned. Again, the Best defense is an overwhelming offense
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The thing is, a well-rounded party often has a means of debilitating an enemy to the point that boosting your AC that high isn't entirely necessary. For example, I'm currently playing a combat-maneuver oriented fighter in one of my groups. Between knocking enemies prone, blinding them, and entangling them, my buddies don't get hit terribly often, even though their defenses aren't great. This means they get to focus on being offensive, and our enemies still have a hard time. If we had something like a witch or a God wizard in our group, this would only be compounded.
Being tanky is nice, but it only really matters when you don't have the means to disable or debilitate your enemies. Even then, I've got a backup shield and Combat Expertise if I ever need to really go on the defensive.
You need balance either way, but I'm not sure if most people only think about defense in terms of AC. My players treat saves and miss chance as defense, so they value blur pretty highly, and they usually invest in cloaks of resistance before magic weapons. They also love DR, having seen what Stoneskin and Protection from Arrows can do.
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I just played at a Con - my first time doing so past the first few levels (I don't do much PFS) - and it surprised me how much many players ignore defense entirely.
In my home group - currently at level 7 - the martial combatants have ACs pushing 30, my samurai has resolve points to help with saves, the wizard always has mirror image prepared for someone slips past us, and the Oracle has weird concealment stuff up all of the time. And frankly - as we're nearing the end of the AP, we're behind WBL.
Please excuse me, I'm out of the PRFPG loop since a while, but is that correct? AC 30 at 7th level? Seriously?
I'm not asking for a detailed breakdown analysis or whatever, just checking if it's not a mistake (maybe 17th level).
You know the best debuff in the game? Dead status... turns out that once something is dead it generally stops hitting u... generally..
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Please excuse me, I'm out of the PRFPG loop since a while, but is that correct? AC 30 at 7th level? Seriously?I'm not asking for a detailed breakdown analysis or whatever, just checking if it's not a mistake (maybe 17th level).
As kestral says above - it's not hard. I believe my samurai has pretty much what's listed, only his shield/armor are +1 less & he's wearing a +2 ring which he found. (He's in an AP - not in PFS.) As I said - he's a bit under WBL since in Legacy of Fire you only have time to buy stuff between books, and we're at the tail end of #2. He's had the same AC since the start of the book at level 5.
Around 7 is also when the Jingasa & +AC ioun stone become reasonable - I plan to grab them both before upgrading the AoNA to +2.
An AC of 30 at level 17 would be horrible, even for a wizard. By then it's easy for a wiz to have +8 bracers/+5 AoNA/+5 ring/+5 dex/+1 Ioun/+1 Jingasa. That's 35 pre-buff - and still not trying very hard.
An AC of 15+level isn't HORRIBLE for a non-melee character I suppose, but I can't remember the last non-full-arcane caster I've played which wasn't at 20+level past level 2.
The problem is that defense is somewhat useless. Look, I love fighters; I always build them as durable as possible, and thus I always do myself a disservice. Defenses scale terribly, AC requires too much investment to stay current, saves will often only negate half, and DR is nice but is best a low levels and gets worse as you progress, and you can stack con to oblivion but all you get is the ability to take an extra hit or two.
These things are fairly unimpressive on there own, but are amazing when put all together. The problem is that you become useless. You don't deal damage, and in pathfinder you have almost no way to ensure that you will be targeted. So the game become what a lot of mmos became when they tried to kill the trinity: dps is best.
Healing and defense are sacrificed for faster more visceral combat, some people like this. I feel it takes away from some of the strategy and charm. But hey, I loved the 4e fighter more than any class in any table top game ever; so maybe I am Satan.
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The problem is that you become useless. You don't deal damage, and in pathfinder you have almost no way to ensure that you will be targeted.
This is only a problem when someone in the group insists upon ignoring defense entirely. If the whole group has solid defenses - there are no weak points for enemies to ignore you for.
Sure - you can ignore the monk with crazy defenses and only medium damage output. Do you want to instead go for the very solid AC bard who can cast mirror image in a pinch, the wizard with mirror image already up who will fly away when you close in, the mithril breastplate archer, or the cleric in full plate? (All of whom with the full complement of +armor/AoNA/ring of protection/shield etc.)
Now - if one of those characters ignored defense entirely, they'd be the weak link every intelligent enemy would focus on. The key is to not have said weak link.
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An AC of 30 at level 17 would be horrible, even for a wizard. By then it's easy for a wiz to have +8 bracers/+5 AoNA/+5 ring/+5 dex/+1 Ioun/+1 Jingasa. That's 35 pre-buff - and still not trying very hard.
Actually - I was dumb here - and a bit too slow to try to edit it. I forgot about the +5 light mithril shield. So - a 41 AC without trying very hard.
And how about your weapon and your bag of holding. And consummables... and your belt of Str, amd your dueling gloves... and you headband of wis to help that crappy will save...
This is only a problem when someone in the group insists upon ignoring defense entirely. If the whole group has solid defenses - there are no weak points for enemies to ignore you for.Sure - you can ignore the monk with crazy defenses and only medium damage output. Do you want to instead go for the very solid AC bard who can cast mirror image in a pinch, the wizard with mirror image already up who will fly away when you close in, the mithril breastplate archer, or the cleric in full plate? (All of whom with the full complement of +armor/AoNA/ring of protection/shield etc.)
Now - if one of those characters ignored defense entirely, they'd be the weak link every intelligent enemy would focus on. The key is to not have said weak link.
That is fair, everyone could focus on defense and sacrifice damage but that is not a real solution. People don't want to grind out encounters. I will bring back up game and mmos were they took out the trinity; sure everyone could play tanky...but no one ever does but cause all they does is draw things out. I feel like combats should be less rocket tag, but only in that they last 2-3 more rounds. 4e had the problem of all the classes getting very tanky both inherently and in that they were encourage to all be buff. This led to a huge problem in combats, some where combats in mid to high levels took hours to resolve.
I think that melee should be tasked with being tanky, and they should be given tools to enforce that role. Lets be real honest here. There is NO reason to ever not go for the wizard. If the creature in question has an int of 3 or higher they know magic is serious stuff. Especially in high magic settings like pathfinder there is no reason for you to ignore anyone who can cast spells.
Also wizards and other spellcaster are the be example of defense being a poor trade off. Sure you could cast morror image as a standard action, or you could cast glitterdust and possibly win the combat(or if it is just one target: Blindness is permanent)
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The problem is that you become useless. You don't deal damage, and in pathfinder you have almost no way to ensure that you will be targeted.This is only a problem when someone in the group insists upon ignoring defense entirely. If the whole group has solid defenses - there are no weak points for enemies to ignore you for.
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Now - if one of those characters ignored defense entirely, they'd be the weak link every intelligent enemy would focus on. The key is to not have said weak link.
And it's difficult to ensure there is no weak link in a PFS convention group like the one you encountered, where you don't know ahead of time who you're playing with or how they build. Thus, people shift towards more offense in that context.
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That is fair, everyone could focus on defense and sacrifice damage but that is not a real solution.
*Shrug* - we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I just don't think that you give up all that much offensively by having solid defenses, since every magic item slot has dimishing returns, and most are defense focused. I don't avoid buying offensive items, I just generally buy the next cheapest item that I want - and usually it's a defensive one.
And as to the wizard having mirror image up already - I was going by the wizard knowing he's in a dangerous area, and likely the monk/bard in question already did some scouting. By level 8ish, mirror image lasts long enough, and is a small enough expenditure of resources for a wizard that it's not a bad idea to have up when you know enemies are close.
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And it's difficult to ensure there is no weak link in a PFS convention group like the one you encountered, where you don't know ahead of time who you're playing with or how they build. Thus, people shift towards more offense in that context.
True.
But it's also impossible to know that the rest of the group will be built well enough to kill things fast enough so that you don't die horribly when you have low defenses. :P
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Lately I'm trying to build more defensively. Overwhelming offence and/or overwhelming debilitation of the enemy works, but I'm starting to find it a bit anticlimactic.
I want to see what's so special about this monster/NPC. I want them to put on a show. But I also want to survive and win. So I need to be able to take a few rounds of punishment before we beat him up. (I don't mean to give up on offence, just set it to "medium".)
Although, given how authors are reacting to players focusing on overwhelming offence, monsters are often built to hit really really hard because the writer figures he's only going to get one chance to make an impression before he's mushed. So if I want to do this my defences need to be ridiculously good.
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I did find with my barbarian that by level 11, I had AC 20 once I started raging. Things were generally hitting AC 25-30+ Since it doesn't really matter if they hit me by 1 or by 5, I went for having ways to get blur on demand, (20% miss chance)
Having 5 DR (doublable to 10 as an instant action)
Oracle Misfortune (instant action to negate that crit threat they just rolled)
and an obscene amount of mobility (don't ask, you really don't want to know.)
and a ridiculous number of hit points.
meant I pretty much never missed armor.
Guess I should add:
5) Can be affected by your history.
Some GM's tend to pick a small number of very powerful creatures. In this case, they tend to have a higher to hit bonus then even the monster melee machines and will rarely miss unless you have a really sky high AC.
Some GM's like large numbers of moderate opponents. In that case, your experience will tell you that a decent investment in defense can have a big payoff, but still leave you plenty for respectable offense.
I just played at a Con - my first time doing so past the first few levels (I don't do much PFS) - and it surprised me how much many players ignore defense entirely.
In my home group - currently at level 7 - the martial combatants have ACs pushing 30, my samurai has resolve points to help with saves, the wizard always has mirror image prepared for someone slips past us, and the Oracle has weird concealment stuff up all of the time. And frankly - as we're nearing the end of the AP, we're behind WBL.
However - at the Con I was nearly that level, and I ran into martials whose AC hadn't crested 20 despite being well built offensively, (so I can't wave it off as someone who doesn't know how to play well), animal companions without even leather barding (no proficiency needed - and only 20-40gp), wizards with no defensive spells, and clerics who dump dex. (I always keep it at 12+ to max AC with full plate.)
I'm curious - how common is this? I know many on these boards tend to focus offensively on the idea that the best defense is killing them before they get to swing (though I tend to disagree), but it seems kind of ridiculous to ignore it entirely.
I dont think it is common at all, but pushing 30 at level 7 is also not common.I would not say "not having a 20" = "ignoring".
I dont know how the gear spread works exactly in PFS so I cant really compare it to a home game. Starting at level and working up to 7 also are not the same. I tend to have better gear when I start at a certain level than when I play up to that level.
The wizards with no defensive spells is really strange to me. Maybe they are used to playing under really nice GM's.
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Miss chance is less expensive and a better way to get defense after certain amount of levels. On top of it having a high ac, just mean you aren't targeted as much and your companions end up becoming the targets.
Full spellcasters have the benefits of having spells for defense as they get more spells. Fickle winds ruin an archer day or freedom of movement for protection against grapple. Currently on my cleric, I just cast Magic Vestment and Magic weapon greater every morning with a rod of extend to enjoy all day buffs. Beside that, I don't really bother with AC anymore but well my cleric is level 17 right now.
Many enemies with the grab ability, almost feel like having freedom of movement is mandatory, on top of it, the spell protects you from paralysis.
Guess I should add:
5) Can be affected by your history.
Some GM's tend to pick a small number of very powerful creatures. In this case, they tend to have a higher to hit bonus then even the monster melee machines and will rarely miss unless you have a really sky high AC.
Some GM's like large numbers of moderate opponents. In that case, your experience will tell you that a decent investment in defense can have a big payoff, but still leave you plenty for respectable offense.
I favor large numbers of moderate opponents.
The majority of the encounters my players have faced have still heavily favored rapidly eliminating threats.
The reason for this is that I like the NPCs using reasonably sophisticated tactics. This means that the PCs get to deal with natural weapon users with reach and alchemical weapons backed up by spellcasters and archers, sometimes with really problematic terrain thrown in (archers across a river, say). When the party is getting shot at by archers and many of their defenses can be rendered moot by tanglefoot bags, acid vials, caster SoLs and reach tactics, hoping defense will let you weather the storm is a terrible idea that leads to getting entangled, tripped, flanked and murdered by longspears and ranseurs.
When I am not doing that, it's encounters that revolve around a gimmick or a certain tactic, like stealth ambushing with an AOE SoL, or undead that need to be set on fire to stay down, or plague zombies backed up by a cleric spamming Command, Hold Person and Murderous Command.
Side note: By far the most effective way I have seen so far of preventing damage has been BFC. Entangle turns a horrific wave of plagued undead into a pathetically slow dribble that can be obliterated with concentrated ranged fire since they are only coming at the party one or two at a time. Stone call stops pounce charges and can completely shut down a rush by melee combatants in an ambush situation. Wall of Ice locks out half of an encounter while the other half gets torn to shreds. Same thing for Create Pit. So much better than relying on a high AC and good saves.
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Guess I should add:
5) Can be affected by your history.
Some GM's tend to pick a small number of very powerful creatures. In this case, they tend to have a higher to hit bonus then even the monster melee machines and will rarely miss unless you have a really sky high AC.
Some GM's like large numbers of moderate opponents. In that case, your experience will tell you that a decent investment in defense can have a big payoff, but still leave you plenty for respectable offense.I favor large numbers of moderate opponents.
... hoping defense will let you weather the storm is a terrible idea that leads to getting entangled, tripped, flanked and murdered by longspears and ranseurs. ...
Didn't say anything remotely close to 'hoping defense will let you weather the storm' in my post. I certainly didn't suggest ignoring good tactics.
However, let's assume we have a bunch of bad guys that do not have +367 to hit and 9132 hit points and are instead individually substantially less powerful than the PC's.
A very slight reduction in offensive might will often not significantly affect the number of hits required to take an opponent out of the fight.
Yet that very slight reduction in offensive focus converted to defensive options can make a pretty significant decrease in the number of hits received.
If you are say a 8th-10th level character (focused entirely on offense) wearing a mwk chain shirt and have a dex of 12, your AC is 15. Most of even the crappy opposition at mid levels will hit you almost every time.
I did not say focus entirely on defense, but at those levels it is relatively cheap to have AC of ~25 and say a 20% miss chance (or some other non-AC defense). Now a noticeable number of attacks will not be doing damage to your PC and your reduction in offensive power is probably negligible against those opponents.
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I favor large numbers of moderate opponents.
The majority of the encounters my players have faced have still heavily favored rapidly eliminating threats.
The reason for this is that I like the NPCs using reasonably sophisticated tactics. This means that the PCs get to deal with natural weapon users with reach and alchemical weapons backed up by spellcasters and archers, sometimes with really problematic terrain thrown in (archers across a river, say). When the party is getting shot at by archers and many of their defenses can be rendered moot by tanglefoot bags, acid vials, caster SoLs and reach tactics, hoping defense will let you weather the storm is a terrible idea that leads to getting entangled, tripped, flanked and murdered by longspears and ranseurs.
When I am not doing that, it's encounters that revolve around a gimmick or a certain tactic, like stealth ambushing with an AOE SoL, or undead that need to be set on fire to stay down, or plague zombies backed up by a cleric spamming Command, Hold Person and Murderous Command.
Those sound like fun - and precisely the sort of situations where a solid defense is more valuable than maxxing offense. Frankly - I'm not sure how characters who dump their defenses would survive them.
When I say defense - I don't only mean AC (though that's often the most obvious). Good saves (I like dwarves for just this reason), miss chances, CMD (again - dwarf helps against one of the meaner attacks there), and a decent touch AC are all handy too.
But - being solid at most of those doesn't cost more than a couple points to hit and a few points of damage.