Level Appropriate

[Username17]

Seriously, even wizards will grab Heavy Fortification once game play goes too far past level 10; and a 'warrior' should have had at least Moderate Fort since level 6-7; and will upgrade to Heavy Fort by level 10-13.

...wat?

This is the kind of quote that comes from people who have been playing montehaul for so long that they don't remember what "standard D&D" even looks like. And yeah, it looks like the Fighters not getting enough equipment, because they don't get enough equipment.

But if you're playing "standard" wealth by level, you only get 49k at 10th level. For everything. And yes, eventually everyone is going to want the 36k padded underwear of Heavy Fortification. Unless you believe in the Bracers of 25k Heavy Fortification from Dragon Magazine, in which case everyone is going to be getting those - Wizards included - around 15th level when the moneypot starts to explode. But no one can afford any of that shit

You do not have Moderate Fortification, or any Fortification, at 6th or 7th level. Because Moderate Fortification costs sixteen grand and the sum total of all your fucking equipment combined is only 13k at 6th level. I am aware that Warriors do not get nice things, and that to stay competitive they have to minmax like nuts and get themselves bullshit like scabards of Greater Magic Weapon. And that's bad for the game. And I agree that people should be getting Light and Medium Fortification in the E6 universe. But under official rules: they don't. No one gets Light or Medium Fortification under standard rules, because they don't get enough money to set aside for any fortification until they can afford heavy fort anyway.

Don't confuse "I houseruled warriors into getting enough basic equipment to fight monsters of their level without ridiculous twinking" with "the printed equipment guidelines actually support warriors being able to afford enough permanent magic items to fight monsters of their level at an even keel."

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

Psst. Psst. All Wizards and Druids run around all day with heavy fortification (among other things) from the heart of [element] spells.

[Orion]

if 4 stone giants are swinging at you, and they are all getting full attacks, for some reason, then the chance of a critical threat happening is only 1 in 3.

Consider the case in which you'r being hit on 2+. Sure, I guess occasionally you'll be in the situation where 8 hits leaves you standing but 9 or 10 puts you away, and fortification is all that keeps you alive. But honestly 8 hits probably curbstomps most people anyway I would assume?

If their attacks have any chance of missing (and being giants, their second swings are much less accurate than their first) then the presence of a critical hit doesn't necessarily mean a damage spike: 3 hits and a crit is very much like 5 hits, and both are reasonable occurrences if your enemies are hitting on 7+ or something. At that point, increasing the chance of a miss substantially blunts the risk of being ganked, and adding AC also causes confirm rolls to fail anyway.

I can't imagine buying fortification if I could get +2 AC for the same price, unless everything *literally* hit me on 2+ even with the bonus.

[Murtak]

Sample Defense Build

Code: Select all

 0) Human               Expertise
 1) Fighter             Alertness, Weapon Focus
 2) Fighter             Dodge
 3) Warblade            Mobility, Battle Clarity (Reflex Saves), Weapon Aptitude, Steel Wind, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, Stance of Clarity
 4) Warblade            Uncanny Dodge, Wall of Blades
 5) Warblade            Battle Ardor (Critical Confirmation), Leading the Attack
 6) Devoted Defender    Elusive Target, AC+1, Harm's Way
 7) Devoted Defender    Defensive Strike
 8) Devoted Defender    AC+2, Deflect Attack +1
 9) Warblade            Improved Expertise, Pearl of Black Doubt, switch Leading the Attack for Tactical Strike
10) Warblade            Close-Quarters Fighting, White Raven Strike

Shield +2, Mithral Full Plate +2, Defending Longsword +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Ring of Deflection +2 (2K left over)

AC = 10(base) +3(dex) +10(armor) +3(shield) +2(defending) +2(natural) +2(deflection) +2(untyped) +1(dodge) = 35

Expertise pushes this to 45. Pearl of Black Doubt on top of it will get you to 50 to 70 AC, depending on the number of opponents. Dumpster diving for luck or untyped bonuses will give you a bit more AC as well. Group buffs will give you almost all of your money back. If you are willing to sacrifice 5 AC you can have a real twohander instead of a defending sword and a shield. Oh, and of course you can parry with your attack bonus, you can take attacks instead of allies, get free attacks on anyone threatening your allies, parry attacks against your allies with reflex saves, you ignore power attack, flanking opponents auto-miss their best attacks and grappling you is not exactly a picnic either.

Getting enough AC is not really the issue - this build doesn't resort to weird tricks, spells or items. All it does is go for AC bonuses. I am sure anyone willing to dumpster dive (or heavens forbid, paly a caster) can get another 20 AC on this build. Still presenting a threat is another matter entirely though. Given a little party support this build could probably run around with some kind of semi-decent twohander and an attack bonus of, say, 25ish, hitting for 30ish, but that simply isn't scary. Going for tripping and Thicket of BLades instead of Elusive Target and Pearl of Black doubt will at least add a reason to actually attack you, but that doesn't work against far too many encounters. At the end of the day AC builds are quite survivable and entirely capable of dominating melee-only encounters, especially of lower CRs, but who really cares about that? The same encounters are already autowins for battlefield control wizards or dedicated summoners and not particularly scary for anyone else.

[Red_Rob]

Well, to be fair, the Wizard can hit in melee almost as well as the hardcore melee characters.

There's no real 'binary' situations. The PCs can all hit their targets in combat, b/c monsters cap out around 20-something AC; maybe 30 something on a "high" AC creature; and PC to-Hit keeps climbing and climbing; with +15 being something even a non-combat PC will acheive. A Bard with say, 8 base str, +5 from Wishes, +4 from buffs; +1 from haste, and a +4 weapon has a +16 to hit (+8 BaB, +1 haste, +4 weapon, +3 str (17 str; 8+5+4). The reason it doesn't matter that the Bard can hit a Balor is not to-hit, but rather damage done per hit. The Barbarian can hack off steaks off of their targets; while a Bard is usually still relying on base weapon damage, weapon magic bonus, and maybe a str mod lower than +10.

Okay, so combat stays on the RNG for the most part, its just hp and damage that scales beyond what non-melee specialists can dish out or receive.

So the recommended range for AC is 'forget about it' since you're never going to get it high enough on most characters and the few that can get it to decent levels have better options anyways.

Roy, you keep making examplesusing only characters and monsters from the very highest levels of the game, which has been characterised in the following ways:

I honestly don't care what happens at level 20. I ran a campaign that high once, busting out the ELH and it was totally batshit insane. To challenge the party there were rooms with literally forty giants in them, and most of them were Cloud Giants on up. This was an actual quote:

Player1: We want you to stop wishing.
Player2: Would you say that you wish I would stop wishing?
Player1: No.

Players were dropping Black Slaads on problems and people had to be True Resurrected in the middle of combat. If the designers ever played the game at 20+ level even for a moment they must have played it with no imagination at all. Twentieth Level Wizard? Twentieth Level Horrid Wilting! Sigh.

There is a sizable contingent on this forum who reliably restate accurate observations of the way D&D breaks down at higher-level play but exaggerated and invoked at levels before it really applies.

High level play is crazy

Given this, whilst I understand your math is sound and AC is worthless at these very high levels, other people seem to show it is viable to put some emphasis on AC up to at least lvl 10 and possibly further. Do you accept this, or do you have some evidence that at lvls 15 and below AC is worthless?

Roy's suggestion of making AC gear cost 60% of its normal cost seems like a pretty good idea.

Does this make AC too cheap at early levels? Most people seem to agree AC works fine up to lvl 5, would reducing the cost before this make PC's unhittable by appropriate CR monsters?

If I'm looking at a rough guideline for level appropriate stats and effects at various levels, is this only going to work out to lvl 10-12 or so? It seems things get a bit wild and woolly past this point.

Or is it just that DnD only works out to lvl 10-12 or so?

[koz]

Does this make AC too cheap at early levels? Most people seem to agree AC works fine up to lvl 5, would reducing the cost before this make PC's unhittable by appropriate CR monsters?

If I'm looking at a rough guideline for level appropriate stats and effects at various levels, is this only going to work out to lvl 10-12 or so? It seems things get a bit wild and woolly past this point.

Or is it just that DnD only works out to lvl 10-12 or so?

Provided you use something like the BoG advice on capping vertical bonus value (and the number of bonuses in general), making AC items cheaper shouldn't actually cause the players to become unhittable.

And as far as DnD only working to 10 or 12, I actually pretty much agree with you. DnD becomes a very different game at that point - so much so that I actually have severe trouble running it.

[Psychic Robot]

I'm going to have to agree with Frank here. Also:

Psst. Psst. All Wizards and Druids run around all day with heavy fortification (among other things) from the heart of [element] spells.

Why are we assuming access to splatbooks again? Personally, I would never allow a ton of the stuff in the SpC because of the power-ups for casters. (Nerveskitter, go away.)

On the plus side, Pathfinder boosts wealth by level, which helps slightly in the AC department:

Code: Select all

2	 1,000 gp
3	 3,000 gp
4 	6,000 gp
5 	10,500 gp
6 	16,000 gp
7 	23,500 gp
8 	33,000 gp
9	 46,000 gp
10	62,000 gp
11	82,000 gp
12	108,000 gp
13	140,000 gp
14	185,000 gp
15	240,000 gp
16	315,000 gp
17	410,000 gp
18	530,000 gp
19	685,000 gp
20	880,000 gp

[Judging__Eagle]

Whoops, Frank, sorry, I was actually... talking about DDO at that point. Not strictly tabletop. X_x

My melee ranger was getting dropped in large fights around level 7, not by actual attacks from monsters, but by crits. You see a bunch of 10's, 20's, and then a big red 60 or 101 go over your head, and you get fed up after a while.

I got a Moderate Fort chain shirt that was a really lucky/cheap buy off of the auction house.

I wasn't going by WBL at all, but rather by when you will notice a difference in wearing such an item, or not wearing it. So, when PCs should be wearing it if they're competent.

Seriously, moderate fort should show up pretty early on, and players who engage in tons and tons of combat will notice a difference between wearing it, and not. Like, dying 6 times in combat during an adventure, or not at all.

In anycase, once you hit wish econ, you just turn undead temporarily (some BS 8th or 9th lvl spell from Libris Mortis) and not give a shit about a ton of things that affect mortal creatures, like drowning, mind effects, massive damage, crits, poisons, fort saves, etc. It does bone your con mod though. >_>

Some people use the MIC gem that gives mod fort; everyone in Koumei's lvl 20 game snagged one it seems, mostly b/c they were cheap as free (13k item).

---

Rob,

Yeah, damage dealt per hit is what keeps the melee PCs in melee, and the casters spamming spells. They've gone down diverging paths, and now shine at what they were only 'sort of' doing earlier.

Given this, whilst I understand your math is sound and AC is worthless at these very high levels, other people seem to show it is viable to put some emphasis on AC up to at least lvl 10 and possibly further. Do you accept this, or do you have some evidence that at lvls 15 and below AC is worthless?

Eh.... to make a viable high AC build; honestly I don't care. The PCs in my level 11 game have shit like Adamantine Breastplate and Mechanus armour and Mithral Suits, or Silk Steel armour. They get armour for stuff like damage reduction, or more strength.

Their ACs are in the high 20's; and they mostly don't care if they get hit. First, b/c they know that they will get hit, and partly b/c they can simply absorb the damage in most combats.

Partly because they have con scores in the high 20's to actually having a con score of 31 or 32. So We're talking about level 11 PCs with 150 (the Monk), or 180 (Samurai and Barbarian) to 200 hp (Scorpionfolk DK); sure, a Fire Giant can chop them up for 70 HP a round; or a CryoHydra can dish out 170 HP in damage that bypasses Damage Reduction; but the PCs rely on killing an enemy before they go down themselves.

Most of them also have DR, so that shaves off considerable amounts of damage taken.

Seriously though, I've built lower level characters with more AC than these characters; but that's b/c monsters you face at level 6-7 can seriously hit an AC of 30 to 40 if they roll well. You need to either pull out the stops with spell buffs and crafted magic items, or start layering on miss chances, or both.

Really, it's all about miss chance past level 6 to really reliably negate enemy attacks.

Also, once you are in 11th level play, PC death is something that is just going to happen. Make sure you brought some True Res scrolls, you'll need them.

[Orion]

What the fuck, JE, what the fucking fuck?

+Ignored

come back when you can pretend to talk about the same game as the rest of us.

[Murtak]

I wasn't going by WBL at all, but rather by when you will notice a difference in wearing such an item, or not wearing it. So, when PCs should be wearing it if they're competent.

You know, artifacts make quite a difference at level 1 ...

[Username17]

Does this make AC too cheap at early levels? Most people seem to agree AC works fine up to lvl 5, would reducing the cost before this make PC's unhittable by appropriate CR monsters?

No. Look, the problem is that wealth by level is exponential and equipment costs are quadratic. This is batshit fucking insane. PR's posted Pathfinder variance doesn't really solve this fundamental problem - a +2 item still costs four times what a +1 item does, while a +5 item still costs 56% more than a +4 item. When you get to 6th level, a level appropriate sword is +2, but you only get half the gold required to buy one going from 5th to 6th level. When you get to 15th level, a level appropriate sword is +5, and you can purchase that bad boy with cash from your 14th level self.

Pathfinder's rule change gives you almost three quarters of what you need to buy a +2 sword at level 6 and enough money left over after buying your extra +5 sword to get an extra +1 or +2 trinket somewhere. This is, in short, not a solution to the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that quadratic costs do exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to do. They reduce the distinction between high level items and make low level items impossibly unaffordable.

Warriors are required by law to start pulling weird bullshit the very moment that they start hitting the +2 benchmarks, because they simply don't get enough wealth by level to hit those. This is why the vast majority of warrior builds become straight up obsolete in the levels 5-7 range. You simply cannot afford basic equipment when it starts costing 4 and 9 times as much when your budget does not grow by that much, or even anything especially close.

The +3 sword you're supposed to have at 9th level costs 18,320 gp. That's more than half your basic WBL, and you still need armor, at least one stat boster, a save bonus cloak, a ranged weapon, and so on. You just cannot afford to fill all the slots you're supposed to be worrying about with anything even vaguely close to level appropriate. Until the levels around 15th level, when all that shit stops being a problem and the game is unplayable for different reasons.

At 1st and second level you can afford to have all the gear you need, because none of it costs a thousand gp. Beyond that, you start being forced to have like one or two level appropriate items at a time. And most Warrior Builds cannot handle that. And pretty much every Wizard build can, because all they really need is a stat booster and a save bonus.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

And yet as awful as it is, it's still better than the treasure parcel system.

[Username17]

And yet as awful as it is, it's still better than the treasure parcel system.

Well yes. For all WBL's many problems, it is at least consistently written enough that we can discuss those problems at all and suggest fixes to them. For the record, the problems are:

• The difference in cost between a low level item and a slightly less low level item is too large.
• The difference in cost between a high level item and a slightly higher leel item is too small.
• Players do not get enough gold at low and medium levels to afford the permanent swag they are told by the game that they are supposed to use.
• Gold == Power is subject to abuse and encourages behavior that we don't like.
• The rubric that items you make yourself count half against your WBL unfairly hoses people who aren't Wizards - which is ironically the people least in need of unfair hosing.
• The rubric of broken and expended items not counting against your WBL limits at all encourages a level of wand nuking that is fucking insane.

Right. We understand these problems. But what are the problems with Treasure Parcels. Well, we don't know, because they aren't described clearly enough to even do numeric analysis on. They don't create characters that are remotely fairly equipped across the team, and they don't make characters that are remotely fairly equipped with new characters of their level. But beyond that, I couldn't tell you, because they commit the primary sin of being internally contradictory such that the wealth they generate can vary by a factor of six just by interpreting things one way or another.

-Username17

[Roy]

Obviously this is entirely campaign-dependent, but how often do you really fight high-level rogues? Nothing in Monster Manual 1 has sneak attack, and in the one game I played up to level 18, NPCs we met at that point tended to be giants, yuan-ti, demons and the like with class levels, not 15th-level human rogues.

And with the exception of the tarrasque, most brute monsters only threaten on 20s. In terms of expected DPS that means fortification is like +1 to AC, if you can get your AC high enough that they don't hit on 1s, or like DR 2/- if they're power attacking. Admittedly, damage spikes are dangerous to PCs, although at high levels death is cheap and you already have that 5% chance of being one-shotted whenever an enemy caster goes.

Admittedly Rogues are not that common. Perhaps because they realized their lifestyle is no longer valid. But in any case if one ever attacks you you will die instantly without that.

It is also worth noting that many sent to assassinate someone tend to be Rogue based for whatever reason... thus, heavy fort allows you to cockblock that.

All in all, a worthwhile use of 35-75k gold. Especially since you are being auto hit by everything that cares.

Seriously, even wizards will grab Heavy Fortification once game play goes too far past level 10; and a 'warrior' should have had at least Moderate Fort since level 6-7; and will upgrade to Heavy Fort by level 10-13.

...wat?

This is the kind of quote that comes from people who have been playing montehaul for so long that they don't remember what "standard D&D" even looks like. And yeah, it looks like the Fighters not getting enough equipment, because they don't get enough equipment.

But if you're playing "standard" wealth by level, you only get 49k at 10th level. For everything. And yes, eventually everyone is going to want the 36k padded underwear of Heavy Fortification. Unless you believe in the Bracers of 25k Heavy Fortification from Dragon Magazine, in which case everyone is going to be getting those - Wizards included - around 15th level when the moneypot starts to explode. But no one can afford any of that shit

You do not have Moderate Fortification, or any Fortification, at 6th or 7th level. Because Moderate Fortification costs sixteen grand and the sum total of all your fucking equipment combined is only 13k at 6th level. I am aware that Warriors do not get nice things, and that to stay competitive they have to minmax like nuts and get themselves bullshit like scabards of Greater Magic Weapon. And that's bad for the game. And I agree that people should be getting Light and Medium Fortification in the E6 universe. But under official rules: they don't. No one gets Light or Medium Fortification under standard rules, because they don't get enough money to set aside for any fortification until they can afford heavy fort anyway.

Don't confuse "I houseruled warriors into getting enough basic equipment to fight monsters of their level without ridiculous twinking" with "the printed equipment guidelines actually support warriors being able to afford enough permanent magic items to fight monsters of their level at an even keel."

-Username17

Well, one thing he did have right. Any wizard that cares gets heavy fort at 9th level for 0 gold.

if 4 stone giants are swinging at you, and they are all getting full attacks, for some reason, then the chance of a critical threat happening is only 1 in 3.

Fail. You know why you fail? Because you are SO CLOSE to figuring it out, but you still are not getting it.

Let me spell it out for you. You have a 1 in 3 chance of dying instantly EVERY SINGLE COMBAT. Guess how long it takes for that probability to approach one? Hint: It's faster than you gain levels, so even if you get raised you are still becoming less and less level appropriate due to lower level + lower gear. Which means it happens even more often after the first.

Also, since even the AC builds are stuck in auto hit territory you aren't really helping yourself. At best AC acts like defense in video games where you still get auto hit but take a bit less damage... except that even then you still take enough damage to often go splat before you get a turn.

Roy, you keep making examplesusing only characters and monsters from the very highest levels of the game, which has been characterised in the following ways:

Yes, I used level 20 examples. It doesn't really matter if I pick a lower level because enemy damage drops as well as your HP, and enemy to hit is still well ahead of your AC.

AC starts to stop mattering past level 5. Past 10, forget about it.

Given this, whilst I understand your math is sound and AC is worthless at these very high levels, other people seem to show it is viable to put some emphasis on AC up to at least lvl 10 and possibly further. Do you accept this, or do you have some evidence that at lvls 15 and below AC is worthless?

Now here is the thing. You can't really put much emphasis on AC 1-5, and still can't do too much at 6-10.

At level 5 you have 9k gold total. So at most you have +1 armor and a +1 shield, which is exactly the same as everyone else (because you need the basic +1 to start adding special properties). Holding the shield is about the most specialization you can do AC wise, except since it means +3 AC/-50% total damage you don't do that, because you've already hit the point where you need high amounts of damage to kill stuff. Level 5 enemies average 56 HP, and you need to take that out in a maximum of 2 rounds.

Well, actually full plate can also be considered that because it slows you down, and you have a hard enough time with enemies just walking around you without reducing your ability to keep up.

But even specialized, your AC is 23. And while that is enough to make enemies miss about a third to a half of the time, it is still not good, only decent.

Now let's go up to level 10. You have 49k total. Keeping in mind at this level you need a weapon and various utility items, getting armor and shield higher than +2 is going to be difficult to afford, even though 9k each does not seem that unreasonable. This is exactly the same as what Magic Vestment guy gets, and he also gets +1 special properties.

So that's an AC of 25, keeping in mind you have heavily gimped yourself by holding a shield at level 10 and slowing yourself down at level 10. Oh and you can probably afford some bullshit +1 natural and +1 deflection bonus so that is 27.

Even the subpar melee brutes have little trouble hitting you. And if you look at the ones that are decent or better they're well into auto hit territory, because even after gimping yourself for AC they only need a +25 to hit to auto hit you. And this should not surprise anyone as to hit scales by about 3 a level, at level 20 it is high 50s, so reversing the math gives us high 20s at level 10.

And beyond that, there is only different degrees of Power Attack bait.

So really, the only way your AC build is going to be more survivable is if the enemies realize you are not a threat and ignore you... which means you might as well not exist. It would certainly be better if you did not, as everyone else would get more XP and loot that way.

Does this make AC too cheap at early levels? Most people seem to agree AC works fine up to lvl 5, would reducing the cost before this make PC's unhittable by appropriate CR monsters?

Getting +1 would cost 600 instead of 1,000. Even applying this twice, there is nothing you can do AC wise with 800 gold.

Upgrading the +1s to +2s would cost 1,800 each, which is only a little less than the next 'normal' +1s from natural armor and deflection items.

No difference at low levels.

At higher levels, it helps your scaling keep up with their scaling, especially when you consider the other part about having +8 armor and shield.

If I'm looking at a rough guideline for level appropriate stats and effects at various levels, is this only going to work out to lvl 10-12 or so? It seems things get a bit wild and woolly past this point.

Or is it just that DnD only works out to lvl 10-12 or so?

No playtesting at all past level 10. Planar Binding is 11. Hm...

I'm going to have to agree with Frank here. Also:

Psst. Psst. All Wizards and Druids run around all day with heavy fortification (among other things) from the heart of [element] spells.

Why are we assuming access to splatbooks again? Personally, I would never allow a ton of the stuff in the SpC because of the power-ups for casters. (Nerveskitter, go away.)

If we do not assume splatbooks are allowed, all non casters are automatically and forever irrelevant. Therefore it is a requirement to have this discussion.

And no it doesn't. Not when it turns around and jacks up the prices for key items, so you pay more anyways (that and those numbers probably include consumables, which means it isn't actually a boost, but more a way to sidestep copyright laws while copy pastaing).

[Judging__Eagle]

I wasn't going by WBL at all, but rather by when you will notice a difference in wearing such an item, or not wearing it. So, when PCs should be wearing it if they're competent.

You know, artifacts make quite a difference at level 1 ...

Eh, artifacts are harder to find, and even if you're playing "free market" D&D, you'll have trouble getting a good item at a good price.

In any case, moderate and light fort are available at very low levels. Like level 6.

You need a PC with Craft Magic Arms and Armour, and some RP requirements though. I've done that in one game in the past, my PC, and an other player's PC were churning out scrolls, wands, magical swag, spell-bombs, magic weapons and magic armour at levels 3+. We were both part of the setting's 'church', and getting spells cast on stuff we were making wasn't that hard to do.

When a +4 suit of armour is 1/2 cost of what other chumps have to pay, you are no longer playing the "same" game as most other people.

When you can cash in a bunch of +1 longswords that some mooks had; and have the Cleric forge up a suit of +1 Moderate Fort Mithral Breastplate, then of course you're not playing the 'same' game as other people.

I think that the tabletop system could actually gain a lot by copying certain elements from the online D&D game though. Treasure at specific locations; the ability to easily dispose of items for wealth, or exchange wealth for items, and having items value vary more when sold in places like an 'auction house'. Games should imitate life, and item values should fluctuate, not pretend that people will always pay static amounts for things that are garbage or actually useful.

Srsly Orion. You speak like someone who has never played D&D. Once you have a single spellcaster who makes magic items, WBL can go fuck itself. Once you've got the minimal amounts of rp that 'organic' characters get, the game (as most people play it) can also go fuck itself.

I guess you've never seen that happen in any of your games, but it's completely within the bounds of the core game to see a bunch of PCs with +4 grade armour, at level 5.

and, yes, Fortification has a min requirement of a 13th level caster, with a scroll of miracle (protip, the XP free version works just fine for crafting). The thing is, there's also shit like Deathknell, and random BS things to boost CL to the stratosphere, and killing chickens for your gods is almost never going to get you in trouble with the law. You just throw a non-stop grill party while you're killing chickens to keep your CLs high for the 16 days it takes to make your suit(s).

Really, the game breaks down, and isn't the same as anyone else's once you realize that players can take advantage of in-setting situations. Then again, the real world works like that as well. -shrug-

[Roy]

And this shit about DDO. What the fuck?

Ok, I like DDO, it's entertaining and all, and satisfies my desire to optimize. However, they aren't the same game at all. Yes, you can run around with moderate fort at level 7 (or even 5!) and if you're a warforged that makes you flat out immune to crits. Every character beyond your first will do exactly that if they are competent.

BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME GAME.

In D&D you don't run around grinding on mobs to twink your alts out.

In D&D the mobs don't have so many HP you need to hit them 20+ times to kill them. (No, 4.Fail is not D&D)

In D&D a lot fewer archetypes are viable, even though more classes are.

You can compare the two if and only if you understand what parts of it translate. And generally that means the concepts will translate but the details will not.

Fortification being mandatory is something that has been translated from D&D to DDO. You get it at lower levels than the latter, but it still doesn't change the fact you get as much as you can as soon as you can and then never remove it. Also, only dumbass noobs neglect it.

The thing is, JE doesn't know what the fuck translates well and what doesn't. He just says some bewildering bullshit about turning D&D into an MMO grind. Dubya Tee Eff?

[Orion]

if 4 stone giants are swinging at you, and they are all getting full attacks, for some reason, then the chance of a critical threat happening is only 1 in 3.

Fail. You know why you fail? Because you are SO CLOSE to figuring it out, but you still are not getting it.

Let me spell it out for you. You have a 1 in 3 chance of dying instantly EVERY SINGLE COMBAT. Guess how long it takes for that probability to approach one? Hint: It's faster than you gain levels, so even if you get raised you are still becoming less and less level appropriate due to lower level + lower gear. Which means it happens even more often after the first.

Er... I'm pretty sure a crit is not instant death. A crit is like being hit again. Since you're assuming people can be hit more than 4 times and stay up, clearly being critted is survivable. Therefore, any effect that prevents one of those 8 attacks from hitting is as good as fortification. Like Blur. Or Barkskin.

Holding the shield is about the most specialization you can do AC wise, except since it means +3 AC/-50% total damage you don't do that.

Unless of course you're a wizard, cleric, dread necromancer,....

And this should not surprise anyone as to hit scales by about 3 a level, at level 20 it is high 50s, so reversing the math gives us high 20s at level 10.

Fuck you with a rake! CR 11 Centipede: +18; CR 10 Scorpion: +21 CR 10 Giant +20/15/10. CR 9 Vrock +15/13, CR 10 Clay Golem +Motherfucking 14

Sure there's also Earth elementals (23 at 9, 27 at 11) and CR 11 Spiders +27.

+to hit does NOT scale smoothly by 3 per level. It DOES vary wildly within a CR, even among "brute" monsters. Your 27 AC WILL substantially reduce the incoming damage from most of these monsters. And if you fight lower CRs it gets even better. If your level 10 guy fights 2 CR 8 Stone giants, their +17 hits you only half the time, their second wswing only a quarter. At that point, since 32k into a +4 Amulet of Natural Armor does WAY more for you than buying moderate fortification.

[Roy]

Obvious Dumbfuck is Obvious.

[Murtak]

Goddamnit Roy, haven't we been over this again and again? Yes, we get it, everyone always hits on a 2+, AC is utterly useless and of course "turtle fail lol".

1) Are you denying that mindless vermin and giants are pure brutes?
2) Are you denying that you were off by ten entire fucking points on these monsters?

Yes, defense builds are generally a bad idea. But they are not a bad idea because they are shredded to pieces. They are not. You can, without dumpster diving, get to 50ish AC at level 10 (yes, while turtling). You can easily get an AC in the mid 30s. 50 AC makes you all but invulnerable to brutes and 35 will prevent half the hits of even the nastier CR 10 monster. Clearly the turtling is doing it's job. Doing something useful while turtling and against non-brutes is the difficult part. Turtling against melee brutes is neither hard, nor does it cause you to lose those fights.

[Username17]

Obvious Dumbfuck is Obvious.

Don't get into meme spam.

The thing is that the statement "You can make a valuable asset to he team as a warrior with a high AC" is not especially contradicted by the concept "AC is obsolete after level 5 or so" because of the the way magic items are costed.

Remember that +2 items cost four times[/b] what +1 items cost, but +3 items are just over twice as expensive as +2 items. When you get into the 10th level world, you can actually start affording shit, a status which will continue to improve as you approach level 15. In the levels 6-8, you honestly cannot afford level appropriate equipment. Also, your Prestige classes haven't come online and you may well be in an actual hole having had to spend feats on total bullshit like Awareness or Skill Focus in order to make prereqs for the Tactical Feats and PRestige Classes you'll be reaping the rewards of shortly.

Believe me, I've stared at and rolled dice for a lot of fucking Same Game tests, probably more than any of the actual designers have. And the value of a well made shield-guy really does sin wave. Out through the first four levels or so, being a guy with a shield and a warhammer basically justifies itself. You don't need any class features and the only special equipment you really need is a +1 warhammer and a +1 bow so that you can fight incorporeals at all. That's unfortunately most of your WBL, but it doesn't really matter since Heavy Armor and Shield in an AC of 21, and that's actually enough to get you through the day at that time in your life.

By level 10 you have enough GP on hand to cover your basics (Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Magic Hammer, Magic Bow, Mithril Plate, Cloak of Protection, and a Handy Haversack) to be able to afford some play items or to invest in a diverse number of stacking bonuses that interlock to form a Voltron of sorts. You have about 4 levels of Prestige Classes under your belt, so they've actually paid off with whatever dividends they do that with. You are required by law to have some sort of magic item or class feature or feat trick that delivers genuine offense, because being a guy with a warhammer doesn't mean shit anymore. But it you want to jack AC high enough to root kite Giants, you can certainly do that.

The problem comes in between those two points. See, the warhammer's d8+ Strength + Enhancement bonus damage stops being relevant after 4th level. You already had to come up with something to put the fear of death into Ettins way back at level 5. And frankly, that's really hard to do without DM-Pity equipment.

And while by level 15 you can get a very high AC, it basically doesn't even matter. Because almost none of the enemies at 15th level actually bother attacking your AC at all. Sure, you can effectively trade blows with such encounters as "20 Dire Bears" (although you'd rather not, and they're going to be rolling enough dice that it could go against you pretty easily), and you can tear the golems in half. But most of the enemies are casters, or casters surrounded by meat shields whose only real purpose is to delay the PCs. Beatsticks with very high ACs only win like 1 in 6 of those encounters, making them clearly and demonstrably underperforming, even if they jack their AC high enough to fight their way through 4 Cloud Giants (which at 15th level, is totally possible).

But it is not, as Roy is attempting to say, a simple function. There are actually two islands of viability, separated by about 3 or 4 levels. Less, if you are playing in a world free of major brute monsters in the upper single digit levels. High AC builds retain viability against horde enemies straight through to about 15th. After that, horde monsters start being Mind Flayers and shit, so it stops working on that.

20th level doesn't matter. And even if it did matter, AC would not, because less than 1 attack in 4 actually has anything to do with your AC. And you can be a strong shield fighter at both 3rd and 10th level. But being a good shield fighter at seventh level is almost impossible. You just don't have access to the kinds of equipment and prestige class features and tactical feats that you need to string together to make "big numbers" strategies work on the defense end. About the only thing warriors can do at that level is jump onto the back of a griffin and lance the fuck out of things so hard that they just fall down dead. Unless they have DM Pity equipment of course. Get yourself an artifact shield at 6th level and you might be able to grind those Ettins down with raw numbers.

-Username17

[endersdouble]

But it you want to jack AC high enough to root kite Giants, you can certainly do that.
-Username17

Please explain how. Not the AC, I buy that. Please explain how a fighter (unless we're assuming some wacky Spiked Chain/Standstill bullshit) makes the Fire Giant fucking care he exists instead of walking by and attacking his teammate.

[endersdouble]

I honestly don't care what happens at level 20. I ran a campaign that high once, busting out the ELH and it was totally batshit insane. To challenge the party there were rooms with literally forty giants in them, and most of them were Cloud Giants on up. This was an actual quote:

Player1: We want you to stop wishing.
Player2: Would you say that you wish I would stop wishing?
Player1: No.

Players were dropping Black Slaads on problems and people had to be True Resurrected in the middle of combat. If the designers ever played the game at 20+ level even for a moment they must have played it with no imagination at all. Twentieth Level Wizard? Twentieth Level Horrid Wilting! Sigh.
-Username17

Am I the only one to whom this sounds totally fucking awesome?

[Hicks]

No, you are not.

[Murtak]

But it you want to jack AC high enough to root kite Giants, you can certainly do that.
-Username17

Please explain how. Not the AC, I buy that. Please explain how a fighter (unless we're assuming some wacky Spiked Chain/Standstill bullshit) makes the Fire Giant fucking care he exists instead of walking by and attacking his teammate.

1) Stand in the way. Not always doable, but when there is a handy gate, use it.
2) Thicket of Blades, Tripping, attacks of opportunity, Stand Still, Stunning and Nauseating strikes - there is a ton of abilities that lets you stop enemies, they are just scattered among a dozen books.
3) Damage. You may not be a dedicated charger, but if you can get your hands on a nice damage multiplier you can still hurt.
4) Party buffs. If you are multiplying the entire party, adding extra damage, increasing saves, handing out extra actions and the like you don't have to do much damage yourself to be a threat.
5) Interposing. Though few in number, there are a couple of abilities that let you take attacks instead of your team mates.
6) Goad.
7) Fear stacking.

I am sure there is more, but that's all I can think of right now.

[Username17]

But it you want to jack AC high enough to root kite Giants, you can certainly do that.
-Username17

Please explain how. Not the AC, I buy that. Please explain how a fighter (unless we're assuming some wacky Spiked Chain/Standstill bullshit) makes the Fire Giant fucking care he exists instead of walking by and attacking his teammate.

That's of course the fifty gazillion dollar question. By investing in any defenses, you're spending resources in making yourself essentially a less appealing target and thrusting upon yourself the mantle of "defender." And "arena trap" is basically never an answer, because you could always just arena trap the enemy in with no PCs at all and then either summon monsters or just shoot arrows into the trapped enemy.

That being said, there are a lot of potential answers.

• Nets. The Steel Net and the Harpoon are pretty damn awesome, and they can effectively force an enemy to deal with the character holding onto the weapon before dealing with the other PCs. Or waste an action cutting the rope, which is just as good since you can do it again. Even if they drag your ass around with their hugeness, they do so so slowly that the more vulnerable PCs can just walk away.
• Tripstar. If the other PCs are wiling to drop an enlarge person on you (or you have access to 1st level spell effects through rings or some shit), you can have a Trip Bonus of +16 without a whole lot of twinking. And that's genuinely enough to push over a Fire Giant if you get a couple shots at it, which with a reach weapon you totally can.
• Standstill Bullshit. Some people think the Psionic crap is part of the game just because some of it is in the SRD. Congratulations if you can convince your DM of that.
• Corridors and Doorways. If your DM is fond of those old-time battlemaps, you're quite often fighting with no open spaces, no no alternate pathways, doorways only, Final Destination. In that case, all you really have to do to draw hate is win initiative and voluntarily stand in the doorway. In these kinds of game, the "tank" characters don't have to "do" anything to enemies at all.
• Spell Storing. If you grab a spell storing warhammer, or you've been milking the party druid for poison, your first hit of the battle can be something ludicrous, which should actually make you appear to be an incredible threat to any enemy who doesn't have spellcraft. This deception won't last very long, but battles don't last very long generally. If you can draw hate and turtle for even a whole round while a flask rogue burns people from 30' off, the battle should be basically over by the time people figure out that you are going to spend the rest of the fight meaningless and invulnerable.

Pulling hate for a sword and boarder is a non-trivial problem at mid levels, and it's damn near impossible at high levels. But it can be done. There aren't a whole lot of viable sword and boarders around, and most people don't really think of "Tower Shield and Harpoon" as a heroic fighter strategy (even if it is a classical Roman fighting style). But they exist. Just barely, but they do.

If someone wants to run around with a rapier and a buckler and stab shit for damage, you should probably just kill their character though.

-Username17