Progression for sturdy shields goes like:
Type. Hardness.
--------------
Light. 6
Light. 8
Heavy. 8
Heavy. 10
Heavy. 13
Light. 15
Heavy. 18
Heavy. 17
Heavy. 21
Basically, the level 17 shield is 5 levels higher tier item, costs 14000 gold as opposed to 1800, and is worse in every shape or form.
I get that's why the adamantine ones are (uncommon) due to the material, but shouldn't that be reflected in the stats as well somewhat?
Nearly 10 times more expensive for something that's Objectively worse, irregardless of availability seems terrible.
Don't worry about it too much. By level 12 or 13 all creatures will be doing a minimum of 21 damage and denting your shield anyway.
Draco18s wrote: Don't worry about it too much. By level 12 or 13 all creatures will be doing a minimum of 21 damage and denting your shield anyway. yes, so?
by level 12 or 13, that's already a 72 temp hp /battle (18/dent 4 dents to break a sturdy shield) just from the shield without any other things added on it. By level 12 or 13, you'll have like 150 hp if you're a fighter, less if you're something like a cleric. So, that's already a 50%+ HP increase even disregarding the +2 to AC.
shroudb wrote: Draco18s wrote: Don't worry about it too much. By level 12 or 13 all creatures will be doing a minimum of 21 damage and denting your shield anyway. yes, so? 21 Hardness shield is a level 18 item, yet it can't even deal with the MINIMUM damage from a level 12 creature, whereas a level 1 shield CAN (Hardness 5, damage ranges 2-7).
Draco18s wrote: shroudb wrote: Draco18s wrote: Don't worry about it too much. By level 12 or 13 all creatures will be doing a minimum of 21 damage and denting your shield anyway. yes, so? 21 Hardness shield is a level 18 item, yet it can't even deal with the MINIMUM damage from a level 12 creature, whereas a level 1 shield CAN (Hardness 5, damage ranges 2-7). 1st) this is irrelevant to the topic
2nd)a shield being dented, when it can take 3 dents and still work, or 4 dents and still be repaired for next battle, is ok. Now that we know that max is 1 dent, it's ok since it gives you at least 4 reactions in a battle to mitigrate damage. And the amount is huge, like 50%+ of total HP of a martial, or 60%+ of a divine caster.
(or, to put it in your words, it CAN deal with any creature's damage at least 4 times before it breaks. Dent =/= break)
3rd)this is plainly not true.
a level 12 creature is not "minimum 21 damage", not by a long shot.
as an example, an Adult green dragon (CR12) has attacks that their minimum starts at 9 damage, and even its single most powerful attack, has a minimum of 17. All of which are lower than the equivalent level 12 shield which has 18 hardness.
After level 12 shields, instead of rising in harndess, they inexplicably fall.
if they kept the same progression (18->22, 22->26) it would be about the same, minimum damage wouldn't dent. Instead, it falls from 18->17, only to rise afterwards back to 21.
shroudb wrote: 3rd)this is plainly not true.
a level 12 creature is not "minimum 21 damage", not by a long shot.
as an example, an Adult green dragon (CR12) has attacks that their minimum starts at 9 damage, and even its single most powerful attack, has a minimum of 17. All of which are lower than the equivalent level 12 shield which has 18 hardness.
Lets do some statistics!
Quote: ADULT GREEN DRAGON UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee jaws +23 (reach 15 feet), Damage 3d10+12 piercing plus
2d6 poison
Melee claw +23 (agile, reach 10 feet), Damage 3d8+12 slashing
Melee tail +23 (reach 20 feet), Damage 3d8+12 bludgeoning
Melee horn +22 (reach 15 feet), Damage 3d8+6 piercing
Given these things, and the fact that each takes an action, and monsters work just like players, the dragon is not going to horn-gouge someone when its jaws still work.
So its going to bite people.
94% probability to do 21 damage or more.
How about
Quote: SEA SERPENT UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee jaws +23 (reach 20 feet), Damage 2d12+16 piercing
plus Grab
Melee tail +23 (agile, reach 30 feet), Damage 2d6+16
bludgeoning plus Grab
Again, more likely to bite people than smash with its tail.
95% probability to dent the shield.
Quote: VALKYRIE UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee valkyrie’s spear +23 (magical, reach 10 feet), Damage
4d8+12 piercing
98% probability
How about some level 13s?
Quote: TREACHERY DEMON CREATURE 13
Melee pincer (deadly 2d10, reach 15 feet) +25, Damage
3d10+14 bludgeoning plus Grab
Melee claw +25 (agile, reach 10 feet), Damage 2d10+7 slashing
Melee jaws +25 (reach 10 feet), Damage 4d8+14 piercing
98% on the pincer
99% on the bite
Quote: LENG SPIDER UNCOMMON CREATURE 13
Melee web war flail +24 (disarm, reach 15 feet, sweep, trip),
Damage 3d10+12 bludgeoning
Melee fangs +24 (reach 10 feet), Damage 2d12+12 plus Leng
spider venom
Melee leg +24 (agile, reach 15 feet), Damage 2d8+12 plus
Knockdown
99% on the web war flail
And again, this is using a level 18 item. The strongest, most durable shield in the game can't completely negate a hit from a monster SIX LEVELS LOWER THAN IT.
Quote: After level 12 shields, instead of rising in harndess, they inexplicably fall.
if they kept the same progression (18->22, 22->26) it would be about the same, minimum damage wouldn't dent. Instead, it falls from 18->17, only to rise afterwards back to 21.
I agree, there is a problem there. But it's so minor compared to the fact that shields--even ignoring that one--can't keep up with the increasing damage from monsters. At first level there's anywhere from a 20% to 80% chance to take 0 damage and no dents, depending on the shield you're using and the enemy you're fighting.
With a steel shield:
25% against an ORC WARRIOR
33% against a REEFCLAW and ORC BRUTE
38% against a HUNTING SPIDER
50% against a SEWER OOZE
83% against a BOBCAT, GOBLIN WARRIOR and KOBOLD WARRIOR
100% against a GIANT CENTIPEDE and HOMUNCULUS (a 75% to negate with a wooden shield!)
Draco18s wrote: shroudb wrote: 3rd)this is plainly not true.
a level 12 creature is not "minimum 21 damage", not by a long shot.
as an example, an Adult green dragon (CR12) has attacks that their minimum starts at 9 damage, and even its single most powerful attack, has a minimum of 17. All of which are lower than the equivalent level 12 shield which has 18 hardness.
Lets do some statistics!
Quote: ADULT GREEN DRAGON UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee jaws +23 (reach 15 feet), Damage 3d10+12 piercing plus
2d6 poison
Melee claw +23 (agile, reach 10 feet), Damage 3d8+12 slashing
Melee tail +23 (reach 20 feet), Damage 3d8+12 bludgeoning
Melee horn +22 (reach 15 feet), Damage 3d8+6 piercing
Given these things, and the fact that each takes an action, and monsters work just like players, the dragon is not going to horn-gouge someone when its jaws still work.
So its going to bite people.
94% probability to do 21 damage or more.
How about
Quote: SEA SERPENT UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee jaws +23 (reach 20 feet), Damage 2d12+16 piercing
plus Grab
Melee tail +23 (agile, reach 30 feet), Damage 2d6+16
bludgeoning plus Grab
Again, more likely to bite people than smash with its tail.
95% probability to dent the shield.
Quote: VALKYRIE UNCOMMON CREATURE 12
Melee valkyrie’s spear +23 (magical, reach 10 feet), Damage
4d8+12 piercing
98% probability
How about some level 13s?
Quote: TREACHERY DEMON CREATURE 13
Melee pincer (deadly 2d10, reach 15 feet) +25, Damage
3d10+14 bludgeoning plus Grab
Melee claw +25 (agile, reach 10 feet), Damage 2d10+7 slashing
Melee jaws +25 (reach 10 feet), Damage 4d8+14 piercing
98% on the pincer
99% on the bite
Quote: LENG ... You realise you just proved yourself wrong right?
Your statement was:
"cr12 has MINIMUM damage 21"
You posted statistics where minimum damage is 9. (also, look at attack routines please)
And again:
TOTALLY IRRELEVANT IF A SHIELD GETS DENTED. IT STILL BLOCKS DAMAGE
Yes.
The shield gets dented by a hit.
SO WHAT?
GO DERAIL ANOTHER THREAD PLEASE, ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC
shroudb wrote: You realise you just proved yourself wrong right?
Your statement was:
"cr12 has MINIMUM damage 21"
1) I said "around 12th or 13th," but if you want to get super pedantic about it, the MUTILATION DEMON at level 16 has a mathematically minimum damage of 21, still 2 levels lower than the item and THREE below when a player can be expected to own the shield. It also has a 26% chance to deal 2 dents. The adult green dragon from earlier can only manage this if it rolls perfect max (a 0.1% probability).
2) A 95% chance of dealing more damage than shield hardness is significant when compared to 30% (and that was my point: hardness DOES NOT SCALE APPROPRIATELY)
Quote: ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC Your topic: Shield hardness does not scale correctly.
My post: hardness does not scale appropriately at all.
I've even stated that I agree with your point. I'm also trying to show that the entire progression is messed up.
Quote: IF A SHIELD GETS DENTED. IT STILL BLOCKS DAMAGE 3) You want to look at effective total DR too? Fine. Steel Shield at level 1 blocks 10 damage before losing effectiveness. A fighter will have in the neighborhood of 18 to 23 HP. Lets say 24 just to make this percentage as low as we feasibly can (this is literally a RAW-impossible Dwarf Fighter with 18 CON at first level and we want low so that when we do the 12th level character we have an easy bar to hit). 10 / 24 = 40%
Now lets do the same for a 12th level fighter and a Sturdy Adamantine Shield (a Level 18 item). It has 3 dents available: 1 regular, +1 for sturdy, and 1 (to become broken) and 21 hardness. That gives an effective DR of 63. A fighter at this level will have 12 * (10 + 3) + 8 = 164 hit points, approximately. 16 CON is not unreasonable for this class and 8 hp for race, taking a middle value. 63 / 164 = 38.4%
1.6% off, but we literally had to break the rules to show how ineffective the DR was at 1st. If we use more reasonable values (8 race HP, 14 CON) then the shield's DR rises to an effective 50%. In order to hit 50% at 12th level our character would need to either: Never invest in CON (128 hp, 49%) or not be a fighter (8 hp + 14 CON).
And even here we are being overly generous to the true effectiveness of this item because you're not supposed to have one until 19th level, where you'd have to be a HALFLING WIZARD WITH 10 CON to have only 126 HP. Even a human fighter with 8 con has 179! (35% DR).
And all of that is ignoring that +2 AC is often way better than the DR the shield block offers you, at all levels: that's 10 percentage points fewer crits and 10 percentage points less expected damage from all attacks.
Not 10%, 10 percentage points. When things hit you only about 50% of the time, reducing that to 40% is a whopping 20% less damage on the first attack. At an average damage per attack of around 30, that's 6 damage per creature per round: on average the shield's AC bonus out-performs the DR in about 4 attacks (a single miss as a result of the +2 AC is 30 damage you didn't take, up from the 21 you didn't take when blocking).
Draco18s wrote: shroudb wrote: You realise you just proved yourself wrong right?
Your statement was:
"cr12 has MINIMUM damage 21"
1) I said "around 12th or 13th," but if you want to get super pedantic about it, the MUTILATION DEMON at level 16 has a mathematically minimum damage of 21, still 2 levels lower than the item and THREE below when a player can be expected to own the shield. It also has a 26% chance to deal 2 dents. The adult green dragon from earlier can only manage this if it rolls perfect max (a 0.1% probability).
2) A 95% chance of dealing more damage than shield hardness is significant when compared to 30% (and that was my point: hardness DOES NOT SCALE APPROPRIATELY)
Quote: ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC Your topic: Shield hardness does not scale correctly.
My post: hardness does not scale appropriately at all.
I've even stated that I agree with your point. I'm also trying to show that the entire progression is messed up.
Quote: IF A SHIELD GETS DENTED. IT STILL BLOCKS DAMAGE 3) You want to look at effective total DR too? Fine. Steel Shield at level 1 blocks 10 damage before losing effectiveness. A fighter will have in the neighborhood of 18 to 23 HP. Lets say 24 just to make this percentage as low as we feasibly can (this is literally a RAW-impossible Dwarf Fighter with 18 CON at first level and we want low so that when we do the 12th level character we have an easy bar to hit). 10 / 24 = 40%
Now lets do the same for a 12th level fighter and a Sturdy Adamantine Shield (a Level 18 item). It has 3 dents available: 1 regular, +1 for sturdy, and 1 (to become broken) and 21 hardness. That gives an effective DR of 63. A fighter at this level will have 12 * (10 + 3) + 8 = 164 hit points, approximately. 16 CON is not unreasonable for this class and 8 hp for race, taking a middle value. 63 / 164 = 38.4%
1.6% off, but we literally had to break the rules to show how ineffective the DR was at 1st. If we... My topic is NOT "shield hardness doesn't scale properly (in general)". It is "Specific magic item "sturdy shield" has an erroneous entry".
a)shields never take more than 1 Dent. This has been officially clarified.
So, the only thing that increased hardness does is increased damage absorbion.
a 10 hardness shield and a 20 hardness shield differ only in that one abosrbs 30 damage before breaking and the other 60. (or 40 and 80 respectively for sturdy shields)
yes, they WILL take dents. THAT. DOESN'T. MATTER. They still absorb said damage. They still offer temp HP.
b)As for scalability, up until level 12, it is fine even WITH taking dents. THey are 50% Temp HP boosts.
What matters, and what this thread is about, is not if they get dented, not if they get broken after 4 hits, but a specific magic item having wrong scaling.
an item goes from +1 to +2 to +3 (back) to +2 to +3 as it levels up That's what the thread is about.
It could have been a sword, it could have been an armor. It doesn't matter in this occasion if it's a shield, or how dents work.
what matters is that the effects of an item get WORSE on a particular level up. NOT if shield block is good or bad in general.
that's why i say you're 100% OFFTOPIC.
c)And i do disagree with you on the account of them being bad because they take dents easily. Again, see them as a "per encounter" temp HP boost. And as that, they are pretty damn efficient. (Again, at level 12, it's a 50% increase in HP). If they didn't take Dents, easily, if they had a progression where a level 12 shield had like 25 hardness (to have a 50% of getting dented as an example) they would be NUTS power wise. They would be a free level 3rd spell every round, with the upside of being able to offer 100s of temp HP if needed even against tougher CR every single encounter.
If I'm so super off topic, why haven't you smashed that Flag button yet?
Draco18s wrote: If I'm so super off topic, why haven't you smashed that Flag button yet? frankly? i haven't thought to do so, since I'm never flagging things.
i prefer to talk about them and sort out issues that may arise.
and again, it has nothing to do with if i agree if shield block is fine or not (personally i feel it's fine now after the clarification of only 1 dent/strike regardless of damage) but it's about an item scaling (imo) wrong (as in erroneous, not as in insufficient)
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