I would say it depends on the 3pp. Perhaps a DM should be wary but there is plenty of good 3pp out there. It is up to the DM to make sure things remain balanced. Even core only builds can "break the game" if the DM lets players get away with it. The Limited Wish/Geas combination comes to mind. 1500 gold for an auto win against most opponents.
I have a character like this. A monk using Crane Style. Please realize that I've spent most of my feats in defense, so my offense is not very strong.
Most fights, I think after attacking me for 1-2 rounds, most intelligent creatures would move onto my squishier friends.
Actually, that's my greatest fear, being ignored and killing everyone else around me, with me unable to do much about it.
My real vulnerability is being flatfooted. Eventually I will roll a low roll on initiative and when I do and if I'm in front, I will be plowed.
Invisibility also works, but hitting me one time usually isn't enough.
Spells and special abilities work, eventually I will fail.
A "20" always hits and creatures that do significant damage can eventually take me down. With my low damage, I'm unable to solo some monsters that a 2H fighter would beat. Truth is, my hit points aren't that high.
Not sure I like the advice on the website, I want my GM focused on story based sessions, not throwing a monster menagerie at us just to hurt me.
Bottom line GMs, this is a tanking character and if you're not allowing this character to tank, it's not terribly effective.
Force armors (bracers, rings, shield, mage armor, etc) grant both a high standard AC and a high touch AC, and they also apply to your CMD. Throw in good DEX and/or ways to add other stat bonuses to your AC (insight bonuses, etc) and you become untouchable.
No they don't. All they do is provide AC. They apply to flat footed AC and to incorporial touch attacks. They absolutely do NOT apply to touch AC or to CMD.
The only one that applies to touch AC and CMD is the Ring of Protection, which grants a Deflection bonus as opposed to the armor and shield bonuses of the others.
Incorrect.
From the PRD:
A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD.When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn't include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally.
Luck, insight, and most miscellaneous AC boosts apply to both touch and CMD.
There were a few other posts following this as well...
My point was general, and I didn't in any way mean that my list was exhaustive and definitive.
Generally speaking, there are spells, items, and effects that some characters utilize that improve not only your standard AC, but also touch, flatfooted, and CMD defenses as well. If his character was utilizing that sort of stuff it was important to know.
Also, just as importantly, not every GM limits players to items in the books (I understand PFS limitations). Original item creation is a viable form of play (even if the players have to commission an item with an NPC) and allows players to come up with items like bracers that use a sacred and/or deflection bonus instead of, or perhaps in addition to, an armor bonus.
We now know that the OP is using a class from a 3PP source that forces attackers to reroll attacks at the expense of ki points for the character. We don't know what other variables may be in play.
(Edited a typo)
Maneuvers, maneuvers....maneuvers...
Maneuvers do ignore armor and armor spells (mage armor and shield).
Having said that, high dex characters often have a very high CMD as well, since dex bonuses and dodge bonuses affect CMD. So yeah, unless you are a Tetsori monk, you're not grappling with me.
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Quickened true strike + enervation (or ray of enfeeblement, or some other really ugly ranged touch) can wreck your day.Good point about true-strike. I thought about it but then thought "naa, too clunky." But now that you mention it, a hit every other round when the alternative is no hits at all is actually pretty good.
That was sort of the point of the exercise. My GM is new, so I am helping him diversify his tactics.The best answer. Don't.
The GM should learn better.
There are no tactics built to handle the character you are playing. This is why you shouldn't allow 3PP classes.
Esp. Using a module.
Modules are usually easy mode as it is. Bring in 3pp, of which 90% are booked, and it falls apart.
This comment is fail at best and actively harmful at worst.
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A DM who can not handle a decent AC character is not very experianced and is whining over nothing.
AC is meant to block iterative attacks as well as a majority of "Mook" attacks. The DM who thinks every enemy should be able to hit you or every fight needs to be a near death experience has a flawed perception of the game.
Incorperals, Swarms, or anything that has a touch attack or special ability.
Combat Manuevers
Spells that target saves only, Areas, or ranged touch attacks...or just touch attacks.
Environment challenges
Sundering your Armor/Magical Gear
AntiMagic Field to suppress all magical sources of AC
A DM who just starts b#@**ing about AC or a PC cause they don't think playing within the rules is fair is just someone I don't want to be dealing with.
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Core Clerics and Druids **** all over APs. Most 3PP classes I've seen are actually just bad (as in poorly written and often underpowered), while the shining gems like Dreamscarred Press' psionics rules are actually better made than most of Paizo's material.
Using the environment and other conditional modifiers can render highly defensive characters worthless.
Another thing he can do is start killing everyone else, beats he can hit them. Tks isn't wow, he doesn't HAVE to attack you. Eventually you will have to decide to either intercept those attacks yourself or fight without your allies.
Swarms
lots and lots of Swarms
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The problem isn't the AC. It is the high AC combined with a 3PP class that forces a reroll on any attack that succeeds.
Still sounds like an inexperienced DM problem. First for Allowing 3PP classes he doesn't know what they do. And for not coming up with viable solutions instead of complaining about a PC.
With how many answers others and myself has listed. AC should never be a reason to complain about a PC.
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The problem isn't the AC. It is the high AC combined with a 3PP class that forces a reroll on any attack that succeeds.
Still sounds like an inexperienced DM problem. First for Allowing 3PP classes he doesn't know what they do. And for not coming up with viable solutions instead of complaining about a PC.
With how many answers others and myself has listed. AC should never be a reason to complain about a PC.
I will admit that reading this, forcing a reroll on all attacks is actually a huge issue, especially combined with high AC.
As stated, there's ways around it (area attacks, attacks against saves, swarms, etc), but when the main form of attack most enemies share is a simple vs. AC attack, it can become an issue. Personally, I think this character being basically 'immune' to mooks isn't a bad thing, but when that AC is trivializing every encounter, it could be an issue that needs discussing.
If it's really becoming a huge problem, you might want to scale it back yourself to give your GM a chance, as they might be inexperienced in some ways, and your system mastery is proving too much for them.
As always, it's a cooperative game on both sides of the table.
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Swarms, auras or any types of auto hit damage.
Touch attacks, sunders, etc for high AC armor based types.
Grapples, trips, Dirty Tricks vs high AC dex/dodge based types.
And don't forget feints! A successful feint denies Dex, so that also eliminates dodge bonus and several others that have that caveat.
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Indeed, with the DM being new to the system (already admitted) and running an AP (probably for the first time) he made a mistake allowing 3PP to begin with because he would have to modify the game, heck, in this situation, if I were that DM, I'd be banning things that weren't Core simply because there is a hefty learning curve once you open the floodgates.
I don't like to look at all 3P as unbalanced as there's a good bit of it that isn't, and from what a lot of people have said, DSP is quite good in their balance. I haven't checked it out for reasons I'm not going to go into during this thread, but knowing that it's related to Pathfinder, there's always going to be ways to optimize it 6 ways to sunday.
HWalsh is right that for a first time GM, using something like this can be daunting, so really even if you're going to use 3P, keeping your optimization tepid at best is something you should consider to help them ease into things. I wouldn't go as far as to limit to core only, but there is a consideration needed for someone new to GMing, especially from an AP which are traditionally known as 'easier' adventures for high op players.
The problem here is that while a lot of us are more familiar with the standard PF tricks, 3P tricks are a lot harder to spot due to that lack of familiarity, thus making them harder to deal with. A lot of people also have to wonder if it's actually a 'trick' so to speak (a solid combination of abilities made to work together) or simply the content being broken, as has been a fear of 3P content forever.
Sure there's other ways to deal with things like this, but I think the OP knows that they're causing problems (intentionally or not), and needs to police themselves a bit here. It goes into the "Yeah, you made a great build, it's real A+ stuff. Now can you tone it down so we can all play on a more even field?" territory of cooperative gaming.
Your GM can use it as a time to help learn new tactics against high AC, but it's also up to you to help them with that if your character is being disruptive to the game through optimal choices made.
(1) Mooks attack rest of party. (2) Mooks aren't worthless. (3) Player choices are allowed to matter. (4) Profit.
What I was gonna say. Go after the turtle's support network. See how tough he is with a party that is chewed up and out of resources.
Also, status effects are a thing. Even something as simple as a grease or create Pit spell can really ruin the day of a heavily-armored character.
If your DM is playing this as an MMO - where the 'tank' actually gets to tank as a matter of course - he's the one doing it wrong.
Feh.
Tell the GM there's always a 5% chance to hit and to stop complaining because those odds are just fine. A mere 95% chance of failure is hardly reason to complain.
Feh.
I am playing a Stalker from Path of War. I have an ability that lets me spend a ki to make attackers roll twice and take the lowest for 1 round per point of wisdom modifier I have.
So not quite 5% :p
The rest of the party has 20+ ac, and we are level 4.
You're wondering if your AC is too high. Yes, probably, also this ability is out of whack unless it's a high level one.
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It reads like a rather hefty ability. Although you could probably do some calculations to estimate the typical effect; since 5E pushed the "bounded accuracy" concept there's been a lot of attention focused on the impact of "roll twice take [best/worst]" abilities.
IIRC, the average effect was somewhere around a +3, but the effect was more pronounced around the extreme values of the spectrum. In this case, enemies are only a little less likely to get a '10' but a lot less likely to get a '20'. Normally 1/20 rolls is a crit threat; in this case only (1/20 * 1/20) = 1/400 rolls is a crit threat. That's quite significant.
Doing that for [wisdom modifier] rounds every time you spend a point of ki is quite a lot. Since most combats tend to be decided one way or another in about three rounds, it takes only 1-2 ki per combat to have this protection all the time.
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Well on average math wise the the average warrior would hit at level 4 AC 18-19 with MWK & Weapon Focus with some level regularity thats taking a str score of 14-15 into account.
A Barbarian at level four might hit higher even with the roll twice ability while raging.
Depending on the module your GM is running a few tweeks to the module should work well. Perhaps even a few Shadow Rat swarms to keep you and the others on your collective toes :3
The DM who thinks every enemy should be able to hit you or every fight needs to be a near death experience has a flawed perception of the game.
I’d like to agree with you, but I get the impression that most DMs and not a few players feel that way. To many people I know it seems that taking lots of damage is the clearest proof that you’re having fun.
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The DM who thinks every enemy should be able to hit you or every fight needs to be a near death experience has a flawed perception of the game.I’d like to agree with you, but I get the impression that most DMs and not a few players feel that way. To many people I know it seems that taking lots of damage is the clearest proof that you’re having fun.
There is a lot of Players and DMs out there who see decent damage and go OMG way to OP. They are just waiting to write something off as OP. Left and Right I run into them. Like a guy who specializes in Scorching ray to be able to average of 85 damage at Level 7. The DM was like "that's too OP please reroll your character." When I laugh and think how easy that is to accomplish on a Mounted Lancer. Which I'm sure the same DM would say that it is too OP as well.
I just feel people just don't really know the Definition of OP in Pathfinder.
It is not Really good damage
It is not a incredible AC
It is not Walking away from a fight with little to no damage on your character.
Its not Having a 1-3 trick pony character.
Those are typically a result of a decent to well built character. Not an OP one.
I'm coming to a point where all I am doing is running into people who are ready to call everything OP that isn't weak and half dead after every encounter.
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Like a guy who specializes in Scorching ray to be able to average of 85 damage at Level 7.I'm just curious now - how did that guy pull that off? I can only figure out how to get up to the 60's. Based off of the Wayang racial trait combo for metamagics? (sorry for the tangent)
Dip 1 level orc-draconic crossblooded sorcerer/ admixture evoker wizard x.
I was actually talking about TAKING lots of damage, not dealing it. Comparing damage from a lance which attacks regular AC with that of a ranged touch attack seems a little misguided to me, but that's probably a subject for another thread.
As for the Scorching Ray tangent, I'll take the bait too. I'd guess that he's probably boosting his caster level with Spell Specialization (+2), Varisian Tattoo (+1), and...something else I can't think of at the moment...
Assuming you can find that other +1 caster level then with CL11 you'd get 3 rays for 4d6+8 each and an Empower Spell could probably get your average damage into the 90s.
Having said that, high dex characters often have a very high CMD as well, since dex bonuses and dodge bonuses affect CMD. So yeah, unless you are a Tetsori monk, you're not grappling with me.Tetori?
Lore warden, druid or barbarian have super cmb, my barbarian grapple and pin titans...
No character can stand his bonuses..
My response was to maneuvers in general, not to special classes. My monk's CMD gets pretty high, into the 35-40 range when using a Ki point, so I still feel it would be challenging. Maybe a Tetori or Lore Warden could do it, if so I question why it's fun to play a character that has no chance to fail.
Having said that, GMs can't make every opponent a Lore Warden or Tetori monk, so this is not really a helpful discussion.
Having said that, high dex characters often have a very high CMD as well, since dex bonuses and dodge bonuses affect CMD. So yeah, unless you are a Tetsori monk, you're not grappling with me.Tetori?
Lore warden, druid or barbarian have super cmb, my barbarian grapple and pin titans...
No character can stand his bonuses..My response was to maneuvers in general, not to special classes. My monk's CMD gets pretty high, into the 35-40 range when using a Ki point, so I still feel it would be challenging. Maybe a Tetori or Lore Warden could do it, if so I question why it's fun to play a character that has no chance to fail.
Having said that, GMs can't make every opponent a Lore Warden or Tetori monk, so this is not really a helpful discussion.
It doesn't have to be every encounter. Just a couple to shake things up and cause some trouble for the "invulnerable" character.
There is a lot of Players and DMs out there who see decent damage and go OMG way to OP. They are just waiting to write something off as OP. Left and Right I run into them. Like a guy who specializes in Scorching ray to be able to average of 85 damage at Level 7. The DM was like "that's too OP please reroll your character." When I laugh and think how easy that is to accomplish on a Mounted Lancer. Which I'm sure the same DM would say that it is too OP as well.
I just feel people just don't really know the Definition of OP in Pathfinder.
Yeah, if there's one thing years of playing, GMing, and reading forums has taught me, it's that everyone has an opinion on what's OP and 90% of them are wrong. Just look at all the threads we've had where folks thought the Core Monk (Sooo many attack!!!) or the Core Rogue (Sneak attack dice!!!) were grossly OP and needed to be nerfed.
How to hurt PC who have too much AC:
Gas.
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Feh.
Tell the GM there's always a 5% chance to hit and to stop complaining because those odds are just fine. A mere 95% chance of failure is hardly reason to complain.
Feh.
I am playing a Stalker from Path of War. I have an ability that lets me spend a ki to make attackers roll twice and take the lowest for 1 round per point of wisdom modifier I have.
So not quite 5% :p
The rest of the party has 20+ ac, and we are level 4.
Dm allows thrid party content and then complaints about how he cant handle it, i think that pretty much answers itself
@Avoron - I should have thought of Bloatmage Initiate! Metamagic rods can be pretty powerful though I've mostly resorted to them when I was missing a few caster levels and needed a little extra pop to help me keep up.
@VRMH - We've had some players with gas problems at some of our tables in the past, and it hurts everybody.
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You could Mind control the guy and let the rest of the party solve the problem for you
When I GM, I bump up the attacks of the more challenging monsters so they can, at the very least, hit the highest AC character in the group on a roll of '18' or higher. Then I have those monsters ignore the high AC character, and attack the squishier targets.
I let the players know in advance that I will do this, and it tends to discourage the creation of characters with obscenely high AC.
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When I GM, I bump up the attacks of the more challenging monsters so they can, at the very least, hit the highest AC character in the group on a roll of '18' or higher. Then I have those monsters ignore the high AC character, and attack the squishier targets.
I let the players know in advance that I will do this, and it tends to discourage the creation of characters with obscenely high AC.
So... you punish the players who know how to build good characters? Unless a foe has taken a couple swings at a target - how do they even know that they have high AC?
If the highest end monsters are needing an 18 to hit on their first iterative, the PC generally has no offense, no control, and no utility.
EG: CR 12 (+21 attack bonus, 27AC) at level vs a lvl 12 fighter. so a non-boss, easy melee bruiser for example.
I'd like to see a level 12 fighter build with 39+ AC that is managing to do area control, party protection, target-threatening and reasonable damage. If he wants his own iteratives to be relevant he'll need +20 or more to hit on first attacks, since he's facing AC 27.
AC 30 is easy enough. 39? not so much, not while producing anything other than an unhittable lump.
I don't think the 18+ rule is particularly necessary: it makes monsters' iteratives a fair bit stronger than is really needed. AC is meant to be good at shrugging off the later iteratives.
S-s-s-sunder.
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If the highest end monsters are needing an 18 to hit on their first iterative, the PC generally has no offense, no control, and no utility.
EG: CR 12 (+21 attack bonus, 27AC) at level vs a lvl 12 fighter. so a non-boss, easy melee bruiser for example.
I'd like to see a level 12 fighter build with 39+ AC that is managing to do area control, party protection, target-threatening and reasonable damage. If he wants his own iteratives to be relevant he'll need +20 or more to hit on first attacks, since he's facing AC 27.
AC 30 is easy enough. 39? not so much, not while producing anything other than an unhittable lump.
I don't think the 18+ rule is particularly necessary: it makes monsters' iteratives a fair bit stronger than is really needed. AC is meant to be good at shrugging off the later iteratives.
Should be doable as Investigator.
[10]
[19] mithral breastplate +3 (armor/enhancement to armor)
[20] jingasa (luck)
[22] mutagen (natural armor)
[26] dex14+cat's grace (dex)
[31] barkskin CL 12 (enhancement to natural armor)
[35] potion of shield of faith CL 12 (recycle with Alchemical Allocation) (deflection)
[39] extract of shield (shield)
[40] dusty rose prism ioun stone (insight)
This certainly doesn't break the bank. Altogether it's just a bit over 20K.
So... you punish the players who know how to build good characters? Unless a foe has taken a couple swings at a target - how do they even know that they have high AC?When I GM, I bump up the attacks of the more challenging monsters so they can, at the very least, hit the highest AC character in the group on a roll of '18' or higher. Then I have those monsters ignore the high AC character, and attack the squishier targets.
I let the players know in advance that I will do this, and it tends to discourage the creation of characters with obscenely high AC.
I want the players to have effective characters, characters that can do more than stand there and not be hit.
Sure, a monster will attack the high AC character, but unless the monster is mindless, the monster moves on to easier targets.
The main point I am trying to make, is that as the GM, I try to persuade the players not to make a character with obscenely high AC, letting them know the monster's attack will scale upwards if they do so, and that it will just make the others in the group more vulnerable in comparison.
A character built solely to have an unhitable AC is not a 'good character'. So much of Pathfinder is based on AC, that such a character breaks the game, making the game pointless.
Without a challenge, there is no game, and there is no fun, at least for me. It would be like playing a video game in 'god mode', it would be fun for a few minutes, but then you would get really bored with it. As a GM, or a player, I don't want to play in 'god mode' all the time, it isn't fun or challenging, and there would be no sense of accomplishment.
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A big part of the discussion in this thread is how a DM can challenge characters despite high AC. Saying that you want the players to have effective characters isn't a very good excuse unless there's evidence that having a high AC means a character can't be effective in other ways, something which clearly isn't true. Punishing the other players instead of the one with the high AC also seems pretty backwards to me.
I'm not aware of any builds which can't do anything besides "stand there and not be hit", but I suspect that you also might not enjoy playing a character who is very hard to hit but also very good at hitting back with weapons, spells, or other powers. As I'd mentioned before, many people seem to equate taking lots of damage with having fun. I guess it is some kind of thrill seeking.
I get my enjoyment of the game primarily out of roleplaying, talking in funny voices, and figuring stuff out, so "close calls" to maintain excitement aren't something I need a lot of. They also seem to come up on their own over the course of a campaign without anybody really forcing it. To me it sounds like maybe you're just projecting what you like onto what the players should like.
Anyhow, isn't arbitrarily boosting monster attack bonuses kind of like DMing in "god mode"?
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First, this is a thread on high AC, not a whiney thread about how you're intimidated by 3pp. My 3.0 FTR popped a 27 AC at level 4. A fellow player whined about my math and I handed him the character sheet, got it back corrected to AC 28.
The problem is not 3pp, fear of 3pp or even optimization. In most cases, I hear on these boards, it settles into relative poor GM skills and experience. Every real compliant boils down to some imbalance of experience between players and GMs. Remember, every nifty trick your players produce is a template for next week's encounters. My above example is the bstrd stepchild of 3 earlier players, one of which was the math checker above. The next game, the checker ran had 3 underlings the players could not phase at AC23. Until the PCs learned to cope, he repeated variations on the encounter.
No GM should blithely allow game breaking material to wreck his game, even with Gygax and Arneson approving and a Papal Bull. Smokin' hot babes in skimpy bikinis are conditional here. In the above example, all was CORE without a single splat book.
Why do I use 3pp? It improves the game.
Why do I nix crap, even from CORE? Because the writers are not on any 'divine list' I know of and grandfathered in some of the worst ideas and mechanics from four decades ago. "They had to for continuity" is a horrid excuse and I hate myself for not producing better ideas.
Should be doable as Investigator.
[10]
[19] mithral breastplate +3 (armor/enhancement to armor)
[20] jingasa (luck)
[22] mutagen (natural armor)
[26] dex14+cat's grace (dex)
[31] barkskin CL 12 (enhancement to natural armor)
[35] potion of shield of faith CL 12 (recycle with Alchemical Allocation) (deflection)
[39] extract of shield (shield)
[40] dusty rose prism ioun stone (insight)This certainly doesn't break the bank. Altogether it's just a bit over 20K.
That's actually pretty respectable to run 30AC, even if the extra 10 really assumes 3 rounds of pre-buffing for 40AC, but at least its available.
My comment was mainly about tanks, and an investigator is going to have trouble maintaining a high attack bonus consistently. They can burn their inspiration pool up pretty quickly trying to do that, but its not something you have much of.
I'm honestly not familiar enough with the class to pooh-pooh it properly though: what can you do (threat wise) as an investigator to make that High AC relevant to hit you over anyone else?
On topic:
There are some basic ways to reduce AC, like flanking, feinting, nets, aid another, tripping, sunder and so on. This is before you even think about spell effects.