ITT: We cover AC brand Fail. (D&D 3.5 mostly)

[Parthenon]

(Almost posted this in another thread)

So I tried Roy's suggestion for armour prices. I found that what it did was change the life expectancy for a Fighter 10 fighting a Fire Giant or a Colossal Animated Object from three rounds to four. Is that extra round enough to make the chance of doing enough expected damage to kill them about 50%?

I mean, a Fire Giant has 142hp. The Fighter would need to reliably do about 40 damage per round with Roy's suggestion or about 50 damage per round without. How much damage should the Fighter be able to do? The RoW Barbarian does probably about 60-70 damage per round without optimisation, so basic Fighters would do a bit less.

[Kaelik]

But no class combo creates some kind of crazy synergy that throws balance way off.

Wu Jen Incantatrix + a large number of Wizards/Clerics.

[ubernoob]

But no class combo creates some kind of crazy synergy that throws balance way off.

Wu Jen Incantatrix + a large number of Wizards/Clerics.

Why a wu jen? Isn't that just an advantage of having an incantatrix around period?

[Kaelik]

But no class combo creates some kind of crazy synergy that throws balance way off.

Wu Jen Incantatrix + a large number of Wizards/Clerics.

Why a wu jen? Isn't that just an advantage of having an incantatrix around period?

All Incantatrixes are awesome, but if you have a Wu Jen in your party, that character is not so good, but all the Wizards can take good PrCs like IotSFV, or Archmage, ect instead.

The trick is the spell Body Outside Body, Wu Jen only spell, make several clones of the character. They don't get SLAs or Spells, but they do keep his Supernatural and Extraordinary abilities.

Both Metamagic Effect and Cooperative Metamagic are Extraordinary.

So a single Wu-Jen Incantatrix can Persist over a hundred spells himself. He just doesn't have as many good spells himself to Persist.

[Roy]

(Almost posted this in another thread)

So I tried Roy's suggestion for armour prices. I found that what it did was change the life expectancy for a Fighter 10 fighting a Fire Giant or a Colossal Animated Object from three rounds to four. Is that extra round enough to make the chance of doing enough expected damage to kill them about 50%?

I mean, a Fire Giant has 142hp. The Fighter would need to reliably do about 40 damage per round with Roy's suggestion or about 50 damage per round without. How much damage should the Fighter be able to do? The RoW Barbarian does probably about 60-70 damage per round without optimisation, so basic Fighters would do a bit less.

How much cash did you assume he spent on armor and possible floating shield, and what was the result? Without knowing that, I can't analyze it.

[RandomCasualty2]

But no class combo creates some kind of crazy synergy that throws balance way off.

Wu Jen Incantatrix + a large number of Wizards/Clerics.

ok so maybe there are a few... but it's not really like the game itself is based on different class synergy. The majority of classes don't really contribute that much to other classes. One could make the argument about rogues and greater invisibility, but since rogues can cast that shit on them themselves, it's probably not that great an argument.

[Parthenon]

True. I assumed an idiot player using the suggested wealth placement, so did it like this. My first thought was to ignore animated, but I knew you'd immediately say "Turtle Fail" even though enough idiots try to use it...

49k gold
If possible, use less than 24.5k

Fighter HP: 9d10 + 10 + 30 = 80

"Turtle Fail" Fighter with your suggestions

+4 Full plate: 1650 + 8,000
+4 Shield: 250 + 8,000
+2 Natural Armour: 4,000
+2 Deflection: 4,000
Dodge
Armour Spec
Shield Spec
Improved Armour Spec
Expertise
Total: 25,900 + 5 feats
12 + 6 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + Dex(1) + 1-3(3)
Total AC: 40

Fire Giant Damage:
+20/+15/+10 (3d6+15)
Needs to roll 20/20/20
Damage = (0.05 + 0.05 + 0.05) * 25.5 = 3.85 damage per round.
Or, if they are full power attacking
Damage = (0.05 + 0.05 + 0.05) * 47.5 = 7.125

Fighter unconscious in 12 rounds if giant full power attacking, 21 rounds otherwise

Basic Fighter with Animated Shield with your suggestions

+4 Full plate: 1650 + 8,000
+2 Animated Shield: 250 + 8,000
+2 Natural armour: 4,000
+2 Deflection: 4,000
Total: 25,900gp
12+4+2+2+Dex(1)
Total AC: 31

Fire Giant Damage:
+20/+15/+10 (3d6+15)
Needs to roll 11/16/20
Damage = (0.5 + 0.25 + 0.05) * 25.5 = 20.4 damage per round.

Fighter unconscious in 4 rounds

---

+3 Full Plate: 1650 + 9,000
+1 Animated Shield: 250 + 9,000
+1 Natural: 2,000
+1 Deflection: 2,000
Total: 23,650
11+3+1+1+Dex(1)
Total AC: 27

Fire Giant Damage:
+20/+15/+10 (3d6+15)
Needs to roll 7/12/17
Damage = 1.35 * 25.5 = 34.425 damage per round.

Fighter unconscious in 3 rounds

This is only done basically with little to no optimisation. Your suggestion increases the AC by 4 which increases the life expectancy by 1 round and leaves the more armoured Fighter unconscious rather than dead. Interestingly, increasing the AC by 1 would give an extra round of life.

The 'Turtle Fail' approach triples the time taken to die, more if they aren't full power attacking

---

At first glance the idiots form of optimisation would look like this:

Standard

+2 Greatsword: 300 + 8,000
+2 Str: 4,000
Str: 15 + 2(levels) + 2 = 19
Power attack
Weapon Focus
Weapon Spec
Greater Focus
Greater Spec

Attack:
+18/+13 (2d6+12)
Fire Giant AC: 23
Fire Giant HP: 142
Damage per round:
0PA: (0.8 + 0.55) * 21 = 28.35 -> 6 rounds to kill
1PA: (0.75 + 0.5) * 23 = 28.75 -> 5 rounds to kill
2PA: (0.7 + 0.45) * 25 = 28.75 -> 5 rounds to kill
3PA: (0.65 + 0.4) * 27 = 28.35 -> 6 rounds to kill

5 rounds to kill the Fire Giant

---

The Turtle Fail Approach:

+2 Longsword: 300 + 8,000
+2 Str: 4,000
Str: 15 + 2(levels) + 2 = 19
Power attack
Weapon Focus
Weapon Spec
Greater Focus
Greater Spec

Attack:
+11/+6 (1d8+7) +10 (1d6+5)
Require:
[12/17/13] to hit
(0.45+0.2)*11.5 + 0.4*8 = 10.61

+14/+9 (1d8 + 10)
0PA: (0.65 + 0.4) * 14 = 14.7 -> 10 rounds to kill
1PA: (0.6 + 0.35) * 15 = 14.25 -> 10 rounds to kill

10 rounds to kill the Fire Giant.

By using your suggestion and only the most simple of feat choices, the Fighter would die most of the time. - Gets killed in 4 rounds, takes 5 rounds to kill

By using Turtle Fail and your suggestions, the Fighter would mostly win. - Gets killed in 12 rounds, takes 10 rounds to kill.

This suggests that for beginner players, your suggestions actually help the simple optimised AC whores more by making them more likely to win than simple damage whores.

Other peoples analysis would probably differ, but a lot of this was done as I was writing this.

[Roy]

By using Turtle Fail, the enemy ignores him and attacks someone else. Thus it is automatically irrelevant. Remember, he has a hard enough time 1: Convincing the enemy he is a threat. and 2: Dealing with the attention he does get without actively running counter to 1. And in doing so, prevents 2 from ever happening.

In both cases, the Fighter is useless to a party, as before he's killed the giant they have. The guy with a two hander is considerably more useful, because he comes closer to killing it on his own, without needing a win spell to do it for him. And this is just a routine encounter. If it's a harder encounter, 2 giants. If it's a serious battle, 3 or 4 giants. Or maybe some other equivalent stuff. Whatever. Then consider the giant is a somewhat below average type match and is still winning pretty well... Yeah. So expecting him to be able to deal with one giant over the course of the battle isn't even unreasonable, as it is very likely, at least once he will have to do exactly that. And if he can't, Iterative Probability > him.

[RandomCasualty2]

Turtle fail fighters can be effective, but only if the terrain and opposition warrant it. You need the following:

• Some kind of choke point that the fighter can block. And I don't mena just threaten, but physically block with his space so they enemy needs to bull rush him to get by.
• enemies whose best attacks are melee attacks
• if the enemies can fly, a low ceiling is required.

now, those conditions actually aren't as uncommon as you might think, especially at mid to lower levels. Though the problem happens to be that when those conditions aren't met, the character is pretty much useless.

But nonetheless, a great deal of MM monsters in 3.5 are nonflying brutes that suck with ranged weapons or can't use them at all. Giants, hydras, minotaurs, dire animals, giant vermin, golems and so on.

Further, if you're fighting in a dungeon, there often is a choke point that you can pull back to, and large monsters like giants take up a really big space, so that means they're potentially easier to block than a swarm of rats. Now they can bull rush you, but because bull rush in 3E pretty much sucks, you're getting them to waste actions just to get by you.

So the turtle failer isn't going to necessarily be terrible. You can't expect him to actually get any kills, but that's not his purpose anyway. He's there just to keep the enemy from getting into melee with the casters.

[Roy]

In other words, 5 foot square of difficult terrain. We've been over that. Reach still works. Move around works if the space is any bigger.

And when dealing with the closet trolls themselves, they can probably auto attack you to death regardless. Just jump out of the closet, open with a Pounce.

If the closet troll is outside of the closet, well you're still down there taking damage for no reason, while it gets kited to death. Possibly by fliers.

Lastly, the casters probably have the best defenses in the party. Turtle Fail guy? No, not really. Unless we're talking level 1, where everything dies in 1 hit.

[RandomCasualty2]

Lastly, the casters probably have the best defenses in the party. Turtle Fail guy? No, not really. Unless we're talking level 1, where everything dies in 1 hit.

Well, the casters can have the best defenses. That's true. If they devote a lot of slots towards defensive magic. But this is often times a bad idea, because the casters are supposed to be the ones killing people, not leading the attack and soaking hits. So if your 6th level wizard has blink, displacement, mirror image, shield and mage armor as prepared spells, you're not leaving too much for actual offense unless you can count on always resting after each fight (which makes casters super broke anyway).

[imperialspectre]

Well, the casters can have the best defenses. That's true. If they devote a lot of slots towards defensive magic. But this is often times a bad idea, because the casters are supposed to be the ones killing people, not leading the attack and soaking hits. So if your 6th level wizard has blink, displacement, mirror image, shield and mage armor as prepared spells, you're not leaving too much for actual offense unless you can count on always resting after each fight (which makes casters super broke anyway).

Since when? 3.5 wizards need one or at the most two spells to do their job for an encounter, and their job almost never include actually killing people. That's for the other classes to worry about.

Grease. Glitterdust. Acid Fog + Cloudkill (or just Acid Fog). Hell, even a haste spell is going to make the encounter a lot easier, and a slow spell on the enemy is going to be pure win quite a bit of the time. Any one of those spells is often enough to make the rest of the encounter a matter of mopping up. So it's a safe bet that the arcanists can keep a few defensive spells memorized.

[RandomCasualty2]

Since when? 3.5 wizards need one or at the most two spells to do their job for an encounter, and their job almost never include actually killing people. That's for the other classes to worry about.

Ok maybe Kill was a bad choice of words. But I pretty much consider a guy who got glitterdusted to be killed by the wizard, even if the fighter does the finishing blow on a blinded guy.

[Orion]

Random

I haven't looked at in depth, but I imagine two wizards can buff their defenses quite a bit and still have more combined firepower than a wizard/fighter team.

[ubernoob]

Random

I haven't looked at in depth, but I imagine two wizards can buff their defenses quite a bit and still have more combined firepower than a wizard/fighter team.

It's happened on more than one occasion in my groups. Especially if you're pulling in the incantatrix cheddar to persistify everything.

[imperialspectre]

It's happened on more than one occasion in my groups. Especially if you're pulling in the incantatrix cheddar to persistify everything.

So true. Persist Greater Mirror Image, a Reached Greater Invisibility (that's assuming the normal restrictions on what you can persist even apply when you're applying the metamagic after the spell is already cast on someone), and a Reached Displacement, and whoever's planning on attacking has to deal with something like a 1 in 32 chance of actually hitting. And that's three slots per person, leaving plenty of space for metamagicked-up Scorching Rays, Enervations, and other things that kill people really fast.

Ok maybe Kill was a bad choice of words. But I pretty much consider a guy who got glitterdusted to be killed by the wizard, even if the fighter does the finishing blow on a blinded guy.

You're not necessarily wrong on that, but it doesn't matter because the wizard only has to cast a couple spells per encounter to do that job, and the spells can be very low level for a long time. And grease and glitterdust start to be not quite as mindblowingly awesome right about the time that they can be quickened cheaply or superseded by freezing/acid fog + cloudkill. [/quote]

[Roy]

First off, who broke the fucking thread?

Second...

So true. Persist Greater Mirror Image, a Reached Greater Invisibility (that's assuming the normal restrictions on what you can persist even apply when you're applying the metamagic after the spell is already cast on someone), and a Reached Displacement, and whoever's planning on attacking has to deal with something like a 1 in 32 chance of actually hitting. And that's three slots per person, leaving plenty of space for metamagicked-up Scorching Rays, Enervations, and other things that kill people really fast.

You're Doing It Wrong. If the enemy cannot see you, GMI and Displacement don't work. If they can see you, obviously invisibility isn't working. So you either have whatever miss chance from your images, or a flat 50% from being invisible. You might also have Displacement, depending on how they're seeing invisible creatures.

RC: When the fuck would they actually need all those spells at level 6, either in general, or to have the best defenses? HP wise, they're 21 behind at most, and more likely 15 or so... just using a single Mirror Image is going to easily block more damage than that, as two hits will make it pay for itself and then some... it blocks 3-6 hits. Also, they have no reason to ever be in melee range, and certainly not to be full attacked... just not needing to be next to the enemy to do anything automatically makes them survive better. They will certainly have the best saves which is what you really care about, and also the best touch AC or at least the best effective touch AC, factoring in the real defenses that are miss chances.

Then you consider they actually remove enemies from the battlefield with Glitterdust and Web and whatever else instead of scratching away for lol HP damage... Yeah.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Just like to say:

False Life is a level 2 spell. It lasts 1 hour/level. The loss of a level 2 spell slot when you can cast level 5 spells is pretty insignificant (yes, levitate is useful, but you can't use any spell with a saving throw that isn't quickened from this category in a real combat).

HP of a level 10 rogue with 12 con = 6(first die) + 10(con) + 9d6 = 47.5
HP of a level 10 wizard with 12 con with False Life = 4 (first die) + 10 (con) + 9d4 + d10 (FL) + 10 (FL) = 52
HP of a level 10 rogue with 12 con = 8(first die) + 10(con) + 9d8 = 58.5
HP of a level 10 fighter with 12 con = 10 (first die) + 10 (con) + 9d10 = 69.5

There is a usually a decent difference between the hp of the standard fighter and the wizard. The wizard, however, is not the most fragile one in the party at level 10.

However, at level 10, the monsters that can't cast Suggestion or Evocation spells are doing around 16-25.5 (fire giants kill you) in damage, with the average around 16. You can reasonably expect to be able to take 2 rounds of average full attacks and squeak by with average con, unless you are a rogue. A fighter (or other d10 HD character), can expect to take one more round than a wizard in a full attack.

Anyways, at level 10 you expect to be behind around 20 hp from the fighter. You get the worst HD in the game, but you get stuff to mitigate it as well. False Life, Greater Mirror Image, and Displacement Armor pretty much make you get hit less and able to take nearly as many full attacks.