Digitalelf wrote: Quark Blast wrote: AC is just poorly thought out. Armor Class in PF is a hold over from the earlier editions where combat was an abstraction, where each round's duration was 1 full minute, and not a mere 6 seconds.
The assumption was that during this minute of time, there was a constant "back-and-forth" of sword-play happening (e.g. dodging, parrying, blocking, etc.), and that the actual attack roll in those editions represented the time that an opportunity presented itself and you were able to find the opening and possibly score a solid hit (and therefore breaching your opponent's armor). Combat is still very much an abstraction, but one that is more fluid and versatile.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
While I think sacred cows should be looked at and not included in any future editions automatically, they also shouldn't be shuttled to the chopping block merely because they are sacred cows, either.
Digitalelf wrote: Quark Blast wrote: AC is just poorly thought out. Armor Class in PF is a hold over from the earlier editions where combat was an abstraction, where each round's duration was 1 full minute, and not a mere 6 seconds.
The assumption was that during this minute of time, there was a constant "back-and-forth" of sword-play happening (e.g. dodging, parrying, blocking, etc.), and that the actual attack roll in those editions represented the time that an opportunity presented itself and you were able to find the opening and possibly score a solid hit (and therefore breaching your opponent's armor). I'm not saying AC wasn't useful in prior editions of the game. I said, QB wrote: It's so obviously broke by 3.PF it's odd that it has only been "optionally" fixed and not hard ruled. Abstracted long combat rounds work okay when it's sword-vs-sword but for creatures that only need a Touch Attack (like a Ghost or a Rust Monster!) a new approach to AC, and the combat round in general, is needed. Yes?
Quark Blast wrote: Digitalelf wrote: Quark Blast wrote: AC is just poorly thought out. Armor Class in PF is a hold over from the earlier editions where combat was an abstraction, where each round's duration was 1 full minute, and not a mere 6 seconds.
The assumption was that during this minute of time, there was a constant "back-and-forth" of sword-play happening (e.g. dodging, parrying, blocking, etc.), and that the actual attack roll in those editions represented the time that an opportunity presented itself and you were able to find the opening and possibly score a solid hit (and therefore breaching your opponent's armor). I'm not saying AC wasn't useful in prior editions of the game. I said, QB wrote: It's so obviously broke by 3.PF it's odd that it has only been "optionally" fixed and not hard ruled. Abstracted long combat rounds work okay when it's sword-vs-sword but for creatures that only need a Touch Attack (like a Ghost or a Rust Monster!) a new approach to AC, and the combat round in general, is needed. Yes? Haven't needed a new approach for forty years. Some people like other ways but nothing is broken or wrong about the original.
Krensky wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Digitalelf wrote: Quark Blast wrote: AC is just poorly thought out. Armor Class in PF is a hold over from the earlier editions where combat was an abstraction, where each round's duration was 1 full minute, and not a mere 6 seconds.
The assumption was that during this minute of time, there was a constant "back-and-forth" of sword-play happening (e.g. dodging, parrying, blocking, etc.), and that the actual attack roll in those editions represented the time that an opportunity presented itself and you were able to find the opening and possibly score a solid hit (and therefore breaching your opponent's armor). I'm not saying AC wasn't useful in prior editions of the game. I said, QB wrote: It's so obviously broke by 3.PF it's odd that it has only been "optionally" fixed and not hard ruled. Abstracted long combat rounds work okay when it's sword-vs-sword but for creatures that only need a Touch Attack (like a Ghost or a Rust Monster!) a new approach to AC, and the combat round in general, is needed. Yes? Haven't needed a new approach for forty years. Some people like other ways but nothing is broken or wrong about the original. Oh yeah, you can totally roll with it.
My thoughts were along the lines of:
Since they changed combat so much with 3.PF it's rather a glaring error that they left AC as before.
Otherwise what DM Rednal said.
Quark Blast wrote:
Since they changed combat so much with 3.PF it's rather a glaring error that they left AC as before.
Otherwise what DM Rednal said. Except they didn't really change combat so much. They changed some of the fluff, but it still works basically like it did before.
There are plenty of other games that handle combat more like you want.
Pathfinder kept AC as it was in 3.x because they were specifically trying to be backwards compatible with the massive amount of 3.x material that had been published. At this point, they still haven't done it because they would break compatibility with the massive amount of PFRPG material that has been published. Something like that may change when/if they decide to finally pull the lever and break compatibility by going to a 2.0 version of Pathfinder.
"Pull the lever, Kronk!"
"WRONG LEVER!"
"Seriously why do we even have that lever?"
Recent threads in General Discussion
|
