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i love succubus
And they will love you... for a price... (hint its your levels.)
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A Drow Enforcer is a CR 1 with EAC 16 KAC 18.
A combatant monster array for CR 1 lists EAC 11 KAC 13.
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So don't try to trip or disarm a Drow. got it. noted.
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Looking at the Drow stats, they are wearing Heavy Armor (included in the Gear), normally the gear stuff wouldn't really affect their stats but in this case I think that's the explanation.
Looking at their damage they have normal amount of ranged damage for CR 1, but their melee damage is about 2 points lower on average than the assumed combatant array. Their bonus to hit is also about 3 points lower than what the table for CR 1 states for a combatant array.
So if Drow are a combat puzzle, the answer is to get into melee or use suppressing fire to give your soldier or Solarian their best chance to hit.
Also these are CR 1 creatures. At level 1, you're assumed to be fighting one at a time, maybe two if you want a more challenging fight. By level 3ish you can start encountering Drow in greater numbers.
There's plenty of other examples of CR 1 creatures with EAC/KAC at the 11/13 mark.
Is there an explanation for this particular divergence from the norm, or is it more likely a typo?A Drow Enforcer is a CR 1 with EAC 16 KAC 18.
A combatant monster array for CR 1 lists EAC 11 KAC 13.
If Drow aren't op in some way in every version of them people apparently get upset. (my theory anyways)
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Looking at the Drow stats, they are wearing Heavy Armor (included in the Gear), normally the gear stuff wouldn't really affect their stats but in this case I think that's the explanation.
Looking at their damage they have normal amount of ranged damage for CR 1, but their melee damage is about 2 points lower on average than the assumed combatant array. Their bonus to hit is also about 3 points lower than what the table for CR 1 states for a combatant array.
So if Drow are a combat puzzle, the answer is to get into melee or use suppressing fire to give your soldier or Solarian their best chance to hit.
Also these are CR 1 creatures. At level 1, you're assumed to be fighting one at a time, maybe two if you want a more challenging fight. By level 3ish you can start encountering Drow in greater numbers.
There's plenty of other examples of CR 1 creatures with EAC/KAC at the 11/13 mark.
The damage probably isn't a huge factor, but -3 to hit is a much bigger deal. Could all still be a typo or typos, though.
But as noted, even if it's all correct and intended, and Drow specifically break the normal pattern...that's exactly what it is, a break in the pattern. An atypical exception to the norm.
hmm... CR1 monster array for melee is +5 / 1d6+1+STR. Drow have +5 / 1d4+2.
Ranged CR1 monster array for energy is +8 / 1d4+1. Drow have +8 / 1d8+1.
am I missing something?
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hmm... CR1 monster array for melee is +5 / 1d6+1+STR. Drow have +5 / 1d4+2.
Ranged CR1 monster array for energy is +8 / 1d4+1. Drow have +8 / 1d8+1.
am I missing something?
Hey looks like you're right, except melee damage is listed as 1d6+1+STR, and Drow have 1d4+2.
But as Deadmanwalking says, Drow are the exception rather than the rule and the gear they're wearing explains what's so difficult about the encounter.
Combat Maneuvers are nowhere near the risk of wasting your time. REALLY. If I disarm you of your weapon You have no weapon. If you have a back up then I can disarm that to.
Disarm me you of my weapon? With only about a 50% chance of success?
That's idiotic. Unless you manage to get lucky, you may well miss, get attacked (possibly twice with a full attack), try and miss again, and get attacked again. Try again, succeed, and I pull out a backup weapon and attack you anyways.
You will probably manage it within three tries, but by then I could have attacked you as many as five times--and you haven't even dealt any damage to me yet!
It could also go your way, but I only need to kill your character once. If you kill my NPC, I'll just bring another in the next encounter, and we will see how long your character's luck holds out.
And we haven't even accounted for multiple combatants yet!
Combat Maneuvers are nowhere near the risk of wasting your time. REALLY. If I disarm you of your weapon You have no weapon. If you have a back up then I can disarm that to.
Disarm me you of my weapon? With only about a 50% chance of success?
That's idiotic. Unless you manage to get lucky, you may well miss, get attacked (possibly twice with a full attack), try and miss again, and get attacked again. Try again, succeed, and I pull out a backup weapon and attack you anyways.
You will probably manage it within three tries, but by then I could have attacked you as many as five times--and you haven't even dealt any damage to me yet!
It could also go your way, but I only need to kill your character once. If you kill my NPC, I'll just bring another in the next encounter, and we will see how long your character's luck holds out.
And we haven't even accounted for multiple combatants yet!
The point is if you have no weapon you can't damage me. It may be risky but totally not a waste of time. Lets say that you miss with all of your attacks. Also if I grapple than pin you. You clearly only see kill than move on, kill move on. There may be a situation where you don't want to kill but capture. NOT EVERYONE will continue to fight if the lose their weapon. Not everyone will have multiple weapons. There are people that carry one weapon. Look at how many NPCs alone in Pathfinder had 1 weapon only. Again not everyone will try to keep fighting if they have a weapon. Some people will call it a day when they have no weapon because they know they were beat. IF ALL OF YOU NPCs run the same way then I question you ability to come up with new stuff. How many times have you seen in movies or even real life when someone is disarmed and no real way of winning surrender? Live to fight another day. Think smarter not harder. Combat doesn't always have to be deal damage and move on. You have a very limited view of combat. I hate when I get at a table and people only think KILL KILL KILL.
Unless I am wrong Drow are EAC 16 KAC 18....I don't have Alien Archive yet, but that seems pretty diametrically opposed to the design principles behind the ACs of CR 1 creatures we've seen pre-Alien Archive.
Are they CR 1? And if so are they built properly for the CR guidelines?
And even if that number is accurate and intended, one creature does not a pattern or a norm make. Making your calculations on a CR 7's expected Save DCs based on a Succubus's in Pathfinder isn't a very good idea...
Yes they are CR1 and Alien Archive numbers are the most up to date numbers we have. Things have chnaged since First contact etc.
I also don't have AA yet, but from what I know of SF character creation, is it possible their variance is the result of some Graft or other? I'd have to see the Drow (and/or Enforcer, dunno if that's just a title) Graft.
Yes they are CR1 and Alien Archive numbers are the most up to date numbers we have. Things have chnaged since First contact etc.Unless I am wrong Drow are EAC 16 KAC 18....I don't have Alien Archive yet, but that seems pretty diametrically opposed to the design principles behind the ACs of CR 1 creatures we've seen pre-Alien Archive.
Are they CR 1? And if so are they built properly for the CR guidelines?
And even if that number is accurate and intended, one creature does not a pattern or a norm make. Making your calculations on a CR 7's expected Save DCs based on a Succubus's in Pathfinder isn't a very good idea...
Only 2 of the 7 presented CR 1 creatures have any AC value above 13, and one of them is a robot (so it's literally made of armor). I don't think this is good evidence that the KAC+8 is too high, not saying that it isn't too high but I don't think we can use that info to argue it is since the book suggests that most CR 1 creatures shouldn't have AC that high.
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Yes they are CR1 and Alien Archive numbers are the most up to date numbers we have. Things have chnaged since First contact etc.Unless I am wrong Drow are EAC 16 KAC 18....I don't have Alien Archive yet, but that seems pretty diametrically opposed to the design principles behind the ACs of CR 1 creatures we've seen pre-Alien Archive.
Are they CR 1? And if so are they built properly for the CR guidelines?
And even if that number is accurate and intended, one creature does not a pattern or a norm make. Making your calculations on a CR 7's expected Save DCs based on a Succubus's in Pathfinder isn't a very good idea...
As we noted in the extensive discussion above, Alien Archive apparently strongly suggests a max KAC of 13 for most CR 1 creatures. The fact that there are occasional exceptions to this (including Drow) does not make such assumptions the norm or what you should base character choices and balance on.
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Combat Maneuvers are nowhere near the risk of wasting your time. REALLY. If I disarm you of your weapon You have no weapon. If you have a back up then I can disarm that to.
Disarm me you of my weapon? With only about a 50% chance of success?
That's idiotic. Unless you manage to get lucky, you may well miss, get attacked (possibly twice with a full attack), try and miss again, and get attacked again. Try again, succeed, and I pull out a backup weapon and attack you anyways.
I'd hardly call succeeding at something you have a 50% chance of getting lucky, I don't say I've gotten lucky when I challenge someone to a coinflip and I get it right. Beyond that, failing twice in a row is only a 25% chance, so more often than not you'll get it after the first time by a wide margin. And finally, while many creature you'll be fighting have backup weapons its usually one melee and one ranged, so you're probably not getting their best once you disarm their primary.
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Since flat footed drops the AC of a target, as does harrying fire, do these in turn drop the difficulty to disarm?
My gut instinct is yes, but wanting to see what the consensus here is.
If it does, then this ruleset has again shown its value in team work.
Operative makes it flat footed using one of its tricks, soldier disarms, mechanic kicks weapon away so it just can't pick it up again.
Now Mr Deadly is far less of a threat.
I like Wrath's team work idea. I didn't find a ruling on how long an opponent is flat-footed from Operative's trick attack. I think the SFS groups I've been playing with were having enemies flat-footed for the operative's attack only.
While you're right about Trick Attack itself, Debilitating Trick can make the target Flat Footed for the round after the Trick Attack.
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It's debilitating trick that I'm thinking of. The operative in our home group used it all the time. He'd make an enemy flat footed, the group would focus fire to kill it. Very useful when given the group was a ranged party for the most part, so dropping the AC was important to get around the cover bonuses the enemy invariably had.
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KAC + 8 is too high. Against an enemy with a KAC of 15 my first level character (+3 to combat maneuvers) would have to roll a natural 20 to succeed on a combat maneuver. I don’t think the success rate needs to be 50% against an evenly matched opponent, but a typical success rate of ~25% would be reasonable when no special factors are in play. Even lowering the +8 to +5 would be decent start. I feel that +8 was arbitrarily selected without thought being given to it.A +3 is a not-great attack at 1st level. And more importantly no CR 1 enemy has a KAC of 15. The KAC of CR 1s is more in the 12-13 range.
So, you'd have a 15-20% vs. such a target. 25-30% if you had a +5 to hit (doable in a variety of ways at 1st). And you can get that a lot higher with the right options.
Just how high should an attack bonus be at 1st level?
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A good attack bonus would be +5. Spending a feat likely gets it to +6.
These are the guys likely to be in close and trying combat manoeuvres.
So against the CR 1/2 opponents I've seen in the APs, with KAC of 12, they pull off a combat manoeuvre on a 14.
If the party has de buffed it first (making it flat footed), then a combat manoeuvre goes off on a 12.
It's only one more for a typical CR 1 creature (KAC 13)
Disarming something so it can no longer hit you might be worth it, if it's damage output is bigger than yours and your group can't focus fire it.
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How do you get a +6 before a combat maneuver? The only way I can see to do this is as follows: +1 BAB +4 ability modifier +1 weapon focus = +6. Then you are saying they have improved disarm and a disarming weapon. The only way you can do this at level 1 is if you are a soldier or solarian human with a weapon focus in advanced melee weapons and wielding a taclash. Unless I'm missing something? While this is obviously doable (I just laid out how to do it) it's certainly not the norm.
So no it's not going to be common for a 1st level character to use and be successful with combat maneuvers. On the flip side you're not going to be effected by combat maneuvers often as a 1st level character. I don't see why there is a problem. Once you're a higher level people have had time to stack a few bonuses through feats, and buffs/debuffs and combat maneuvers will be more common.
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Yeah, +6 shouldn't be the first-level baseline, as that is highly optimized. +4 or +5 makes more sense as a standard baseline. +3 does strike me as a little low, but not insurmountable.
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I didn't say +6 was normal. I responded to the question asking what was considered a good attack bonus when considering combat manoeuvres.
+5 is easy to attain.
+6 requires feats.
If you're considering combat manoeuvres at level 1, these are the numbers I'd be looking at.
If you're lower than that, then combat manoeuvres (at level one) probably aren't worth the effort.
Once you go beyond level one, it opens up more options obviously.
Yeah, +6 shouldn't be the first-level baseline, as that is highly optimized. +4 or +5 makes more sense as a standard baseline. +3 does strike me as a little low, but not insurmountable.
I have a BAB of +0 and abiity score bonus of +3. Most classes swart with a BAB of +0. With SF ability score advancement the way it is, it doesn’t make sense to me to start with an 18. I don’t see the problem.
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I have a BAB of +0 and abiity score bonus of +3. Most classes swart with a BAB of +0. With SF ability score advancement the way it is, it doesn’t make sense to me to start with an 18. I don’t see the problem.
It's not a problem per se, but let's examine this on a per class basis:
Soldier and Solarian: +1 BAB makes it at least a +4.
Envoy: Most combat Envoys will have an attack enhancer like Get Em or Clever Feint as an Exploit. Both of those grant attack bonuses.
Mechanic: An Exocortex Mechanic gets bonus BAB.
Operative: An Operative should absolutely have Dex 18. Dex is everything to an Operative.
That leaves only non-combat Envoys, Drone Mechanics, and spellcasters likely to fall at the +3 attack bonus level. That's a fairly narrow subset of characters and definitely not ones who focus in combat.