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At this point, it seems that the only time they even have a chance to miss is their last attack in a full round attack. Certainly aren't missing on their first attack.
Average AC to somewhere around ~25-30 depending on the creature
attack bonuses are (raging Barb: 27/22/17), (Swash: 20/15), (Slayer: 21/16/11)
Against AC of 30, the Swashbuckler should be hitting around 55% of the time on the first attack, and 30% on the second. The slayer gets 60%, 35%, 10%.
That seems a long way short of a guaranteed hit every time. Are they generally buffed on top of those numbers?
The Barbarian will hit a lot more than the other two. But, as Matthew Downie said, they're either buffed, or have very favorable dice rolls.
That is more or less what is expected as you get higher in level. Typically the first attack is a sure thing, your second attack is probably more or less similar in chance of hitting as your only attack was when you were first level, and your last attack is probably 50/50 or slightly worse than that.
If you think about it, if the first attack was 50/50, the third attack would require a natural 20 to hit, if that was the intent, why even bother to give a third attack at that point?
As far as whether you should adjust the encounters, the primary question is is everyone having fun. If your players are bored because it is too easy then adjust, if they are loving crushing their enemies easily then don't (of course your enjoyment is important in the question as well.)
Personally I find that the advanced simple template is pretty good for adjusting from the baseline totally unoptimized PCs Paizo seems to design for and the somewhat optimized PCs my players actually play. If your group has a similar level of optimization then I expect that adjusts fine for that, but you also have 5 instead of the expected 4 PCs. Upping the number of foes by about 25% would compensate for that and might make the fights closer to the challenge level you desire.
I don't use XP points, just giving out levels as appropriate as the story advances (especially great for running an AP) but if you do you will have to calculate the XP of encounters as well, and make sure that they aren't getting too much ahead of where they should be.
At level 12 it is pretty much expected that a full martial should be able to hit an AC of 30 on a 2 or better on their 1st attack.
Just off the top of my head, my wife's gnome barbarian had the following weapon profile while unbuffed.
+32/+23/+18 (2d6+34/19-20/x3)
So 95%/70%/45% vs a 30 AC
And that is as a titan mauler using an oversized weapon. A fighter, ranger, or baseline barbarian would be more accurate.
Against AC of 30, the Swashbuckler should be hitting around 55% of the time on the first attack, and 30% on the second. The slayer gets 60%, 35%, 10%.
That seems a long way short of a guaranteed hit every time. Are they generally buffed on top of those numbers?
The enemy ACs are 25-30. Against the 25 case, the first hits go to 80% and 85% respectively. Against the middle of that range it is still well over half the time for the first hit. I would also expect that the swash and slayer often flank together, upping their odds without any other external buffs. With two casters, I would expect some additional buffs as well.
Certainly it is likely, when coupled with the barbs really pretty much sure thing on the first swing, to give the impression that they rarely miss on their first attack.
Yes, a default fighter with no gear or feats has an primary attack bonus that gives about a 50% chance of hitting CR appropriate AC.
CR 12 average AC is 27, so 25-30 is the right range.
a fighter with 18 str from start and never increasing it has a to hit of 12+4+2 = +18, needing a 9 to hit the average AC with their first attack.
Throw in a +3 sword, WF and GWF, and a +2 str belt and you're now at +24 to hit needing a 3 to hit with your first attack.
So yes, Martial characters are supposed to be hitting things, often and for a lot of damage.
AC moves from trying to block the first attack to trying to block the iterative attacks as it doesn't scale like attack rolls do. But enemy HP usually increases far faster than the damage, meaning to do proportionally the same damage to an enemy you need more of your hits to land. Enemies get about 15 HP per level, and players aren't getting anywhere near that amount of damage per level.
As Snowlilly points out, hitting most of the time should be expected.
I personally don't think there's such a thing as martials being too accurate, but I agree with Dave Justus - the most important question is if they're having fun.
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trying to get over the "fear" of killing a PC due to me adjusting the encounter
The first time is the worst, after that it gets easier
eventually you start to enjoy it.....
That's the system working as expected. AC at that level is for blocking iteratives.
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Lady-J,
Your comparison's aren't usually helpful since you play a game very different from most people. As shown in the other thread your games run at about 3x the normal power range for characters.
And it's especially not helpful if you don't show how you're getting your "insane" numbers.
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I'm a first time GM running RotRL AP with some friends. We are nearing the end of book 4 and they have now reached level 12. The group consists of 3 martials and 2 spell casters. The martial characters are the ones I'm interested in. At this point, it seems that the only time they even have a chance to miss is their last attack in a full round attack. Certainly aren't missing on their first attack. Is this expected for this level of characters? To give some numbers:
-I'm already putting the advance template on the creatures they're facing. This is putting the average AC to somewhere around ~25-30 depending on the creature
-The players attack bonuses are (raging Barb: 27/22/17), (Swash: 20/15), (Slayer: 21/16/11)I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I should be adjusting the encounters more because they obliterate monsters due to always hitting, or if this is just how the encounters are supposed to be? Or maybe there is something else entirely that I'm missing.
To give you a comparison, against my lvl 11 group my GM decided to throw a Curveball at us and send an AC 41 creature at our predominately martial group, and then proceeded to get a little frustrated that even that only lasted 2.5 rounds. Between buffs, flank bonuses, and a Trip Master build that knocked him prone pretty easily, as a party we needed on the average a 15+ to hit him while prone and 19-20 to hit him standing. Without the bonuses in play we were pretty much all only hitting on NAT 20. But still when the creature stands there toe to toe and you have 3 melee, an Eidelon and a summoned creature swinging at it, you're getting plenty of changes per round to roll well.
barbs are HP killing machines. Does he have Come and Get me yet to attack first when enemies are attacking him?
Barbs are one of the top of the line martials, they do the job of killing things well, mainly because of pounce letting them full attack a lot.
Did the swash multiclass? he should have 3 attacks like the others.
And yes, you're also see why some martials aren't as good as the barb because of no pounce.
If you want you could always apply the advanced template again to the enemies, seems like it'd still keep them in the right threat range.
+6 from bab +6 from str=12 +3 from weapon training and +1 from weapon focus will get a fighter +16 at level 6 add in +2 from the weapon and you have +18 and thats just a flat fighter nothing else added onto it other than a +2 str belt a +2 weapon and gloves of dueling so no nothing special about it if it where i would of added in atleast another +5-8 somewhereLady-J,
Your comparison's aren't usually helpful since you play a game very different from most people. As shown in the other thread your games run at about 3x the normal power range for characters.And it's especially not helpful if you don't show how you're getting your "insane" numbers.
Well there is the problem. A level 6 character should have 16,000 wealth by level. The gloves alone are 15,000. The belt is 4,000, the weapon is 8,300.
So assuming no other gear you are 170% of your budget.
crafting gear reduces cost by 50% so the gloves are 7500 the belt is 2000 the weapon is around 4000 for a total of 13500 and you have money left for some defense items+6 from bab +6 from str=12 +3 from weapon training and +1 from weapon focus will get a fighter +16 at level 6 add in +2 from the weapon and you have +18 and thats just a flat fighter nothing else added onto it other than a +2 str belt a +2 weapon and gloves of dueling so no nothing special about it if it where i would of added in atleast another +5-8 somewhereLady-J,
Your comparison's aren't usually helpful since you play a game very different from most people. As shown in the other thread your games run at about 3x the normal power range for characters.And it's especially not helpful if you don't show how you're getting your "insane" numbers.
Well there is the problem. A level 6 character should have 16,000 wealth by level. The gloves alone are 15,000. The belt is 4,000, the weapon is 8,300.
So assuming no other gear you are 170% of your budget.
Because every GM allows crafting, and gives you ample time to craft all the items for yourself and your party members, right?
That's also assuming that PCs in your party taking crafting feats, which, depending on their playstyle, and whether the GM permits the feats in the first place, is hardly a guarantee.
the fighter can take the feats himselfcrafting gear reduces cost by 50% so the gloves are 7500 the belt is 2000 the weapon is around 4000 for a total of 13500 and you have money left for some defense items+6 from bab +6 from str=12 +3 from weapon training and +1 from weapon focus will get a fighter +16 at level 6 add in +2 from the weapon and you have +18 and thats just a flat fighter nothing else added onto it other than a +2 str belt a +2 weapon and gloves of dueling so no nothing special about it if it where i would of added in atleast another +5-8 somewhereLady-J,
Your comparison's aren't usually helpful since you play a game very different from most people. As shown in the other thread your games run at about 3x the normal power range for characters.And it's especially not helpful if you don't show how you're getting your "insane" numbers.
Well there is the problem. A level 6 character should have 16,000 wealth by level. The gloves alone are 15,000. The belt is 4,000, the weapon is 8,300.
So assuming no other gear you are 170% of your budget.
Because every GM allows crafting, and gives you ample time to craft all the items for yourself and your party members, right?
That's also assuming that PCs in your party taking crafting feats, which, depending on their playstyle, and whether the GM permits the feats in the first place, is hardly a guarantee.
Really? Does he have the proper feat slots for it? Because you can't spend bonus feats on them, which means any time before 3rd level, he can't because he doesn't have a high enough Caster Level for the feats, so the odds of him taking the feat while having things like Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and so on, are slim.
And that's assuming he has a Caster Level, which he doesn't. So then he can't craft anything until he takes the Master Craftsman feat, which requires 5 Skill Ranks in a Craft or Profession, which can't be acquired legally until 5th level. And even then, it only applies to a specific Craft skill (which means you can't blanket-craft via Spellcraft), and can only be taken once, ever, which means its benefits are limited.
So, regardless of how you try to justify your claim of applicability, you're still too highly-powered for what a majority of players and GMs expect, which means your experience is an outlier compared to the rest and therefore not exactly helpful for those who play games different from yours.
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Lady-J,
You need to realize that your game advice is SO far off balance compared to everyone else game that anything you say is basically useless.
Being able to craft ALL your gear is just absurd. Your stats are absurd, everything about your game is in the highest levels available in the game and is thus absurd.
If you want your advice to be relevant and useful, assume something like a 20pt buy, and not getting a discount on any gear.
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But if you don't follow the guidelines when everybody else is asumed to be doing it, your advice is not going to be very useful.
You play a very different version of the game from what most people here is playing, so many things that you say arent applicable to most games.
you can have a 20 in a stat with even a 10 point buy so not absurd at all and no crafting gear is usually only in pfs which is terrible anyways so no loss there eitherLady-J,
You need to realize that your game advice is SO far off balance compared to everyone else game that anything you say is basically useless.Being able to craft ALL your gear is just absurd. Your stats are absurd, everything about your game is in the highest levels available in the game and is thus absurd.
If you want your advice to be relevant and useful, assume something like a 20pt buy, and not getting a discount on any gear.
While a 20 IS possible on a 10pt, a character that hopes to survive will NOT be pulling a 20 in STR. Cause that would be a 20/10/11/7/10/7. Starting with a 20 str on a 20 pt buy is 20/12/15/7/12/7 so manageable. But your stats in total are absurd, not just having a max'd stat.
And comboing that with only paying 50% for ALL gear, and everything else you have in your game ends with a total of it being absurd.
I've not seen crafting available in any games I've heard of personally, and from people talking on the boards it's a fairly rare to be allowed. But it's especially not allowed on the level you have of being able to craft ALL THE GEAR OF THE ENTIRE PARTY.
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retraining is a thing
Retraining doesn't bypass the limit that you, as a Fighter, don't have a caster level in which to take Crafting feats with, or that you can only take Master Craftsman for one Craft or Profession skill, period, and you can't take the feat multiple times to cover all forms of crafting. If you're going to argue that you can retrain Master Craftsman for each type of craft, then you're going to have to retrain every time you craft something different than what you crafted prior, which costs time (5 days per switch) and money (300g+ per switch), the former eating into your downtime, the latter eats into your WBL, resulting in less crafting money (and crafting time) for the stuff you're proposing (meaning you may not even craft what you propose).
You can try and justify your argument all you like, but the fact of the matter is that your playstyle is too much of an outlier to consider as something typical to a given table, which means suggestions like these aren't very helpful to the discussion.
Because every GM allows crafting, and gives you ample time to craft all the items for yourself and your party members, right?That's also assuming that PCs in your party taking crafting feats, which, depending on their playstyle, and whether the GM permits the feats in the first place, is hardly a guarantee.
House rules may change gameplay.
who said the crafter crafts for the entire party if you want crafted gear you invest in crafting and craft it yourself
You lost me here. Definitely our gaming style is just too different.
Never said the opposite. It's just that I am so used to one style of game that I find hers shocking. But everybody is free to play the way they like, I never intended to sound aaccusatory or criticise her.
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House rules may change gameplay.
Because every GM allows crafting, and gives you ample time to craft all the items for yourself and your party members, right?That's also assuming that PCs in your party taking crafting feats, which, depending on their playstyle, and whether the GM permits the feats in the first place, is hardly a guarantee.
I think that's the point people are making, is it not? That Lady-J house is so different that his expreimces and advice based on them aren't that helpful because they don't really mesh with most people's games.
+3 from weapon training ... at level 6Shouldn't that be "+1 from weapon training" ?
Gloves of Dueling increase the bonus from weapon training by +2, which Lady-J said her fighter has at level 6.
Honestly the Swashbuckler seems kinda on the low side what did he multiclass into?