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

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:05 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Maybe what we need is some kind of Prolog-based NPC generation through unification.

Who's a what?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 10:28 pm

Roy wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:Maybe what we need is some kind of Prolog-based NPC generation through unification.
Who's a what?

Give the program a set of constraints (AC > x, CR = y, fire subtype) and it uses a set of rules to tell you if such an NPC can exist, and if so what it is.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 12:52 am

Best way to solve this problem without rewriting the entire game? Right here. I'm sure that it has a number of problems when you dig into the math of it, but what part of 3e doesn't? On the plus side, they managed to do it right, where everyone advances at the same rate so the RNG doesn't asplode.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:45 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Best way to solve this problem without rewriting the entire game? Right here. I'm sure that it has a number of problems when you dig into the math of it, but what part of 3e doesn't? On the plus side, they managed to do it right, where everyone advances at the same rate so the RNG doesn't asplode.

Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.

baduin · Post by **baduin** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 2:23 pm

There are two separate things: the imagined world, and the rules which - only partially and in aproximation - describe it. Characters and monsters do not have AC, BAB, feats etc. They have certain ability to avoid being hit (touch AC), and ability to stop the hit from going through armor (AC).

In the imagined world, CR are simply a short-hand description of danger posed by different monsters, and levels - of power of characters.

Obviously, belonging to a higher level cannot by itself make your armor better - but it can allow you to get better at avoiding being hit (so, it should increase Touch AC). Also, if you have some personal magic, it can make the armor better. Or magical armor can be sensitive to the personal power of characters - this is the solution of Tomes.

Now, there can be obviously no physical rule that say that more dangerous monsters must be necessarily better at avoiding getting hit. In fact, since CR and levels do not belong to the imagined world at all, they can have no effect at all.

If so, why should PCs get better at hitting and avoiding hits at higher levels? Because they need to, in order to be able to fight at that level.

Remember, from the point of view of the imagined world the levels are the result, not a start. You look at a character and ask: how powerful is he? And if he is generally very powerful, but has one glaring hole in his defense, he does not belong to a high level. With monsters this is different: they can have a lot of holes, and still represent a threat justifying a high CR.

PCs must follow different rules, because they are different from the great majority of characters and monsters in the world. They are namely able to fight and adventure in nearly any environment imaginable. Of course, some opponents can be built like PCs, but most shouldn't be. They are dangerous at their CR level only in their own environment. An aquatic monster doesn't have to be able to fight in the Negative Energy Plane. A closet troll must be able to jump out of his closet and hit. He doesn't need to be able to decipher ancient hieroglyphs.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:44 pm

...Ok. What are you actually saying?

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:39 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote: Magic item compendium. Displacement armor property. +1 equivalent bonus, swift action to activate and you get displacement for 5 roudns.

As usual, Beguiler wins. We don't care about AC, but he has a Chain Shirt of Displacement (50% miss chance). He is level 7 or higher.

You cast Greater Mirror Image on every round that you need it. This gives d4+CL/3 (max 8) images + 1 image per round. At level 20, this is 8. At level 7, this is d4+3.

At level 7 our Beguiler activates his armor as a swift action in round 1 and casts Greater Mirror Image between rounds numbered 1 and 2, assuming he doesn't win initiative. He gets an average of 4.5 images, which we'll call 4 because we are being conservative. If a monster tries to hit him, it only has a 1/5 (one image is him) chance of hitting. He also has displacement, so 1/2 hits is a miss. This adds up to a 10% chance to hit. This is equivalent to AC 35 against an Ogre or Hill Giant, and about AC 29 against a normal monster, and ignores most critical hits. This is also on round 1, and for each round not attacked (or Displacement miss) this miss chance goes up by 1 image, and for each round hit, it goes down by one image.

At level 20, you get about d4+6 images (max 8, average 8). Yay, this is a 1/16 chance to hit, or .0625. This is the equivalent of AC 66 versus the Terrasque, and ignores most critical hits.

Also, you are immune to spells that target one person.

This has cost this character 1 4th level spell, 1 swift action, 1 immediate action, and 1250 gp (god that's a pathetic amount of gold...). Considering the cheap cost of the armor, he buys 5 at higher levels.

- side note, images may be ignored if you blind the creature attacking you. If you can blind the Tarrasque as a no-save, no-SR effect immediate action at level 20, you are doing a damned fine job.

amidoingitrite?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:50 pm

Yes. That's how real defenses work. Though +1 Displacement armor is 4k, yes?

The only problem is the enemy could close their eyes and attack your square, just taking a 50% miss chance. In later rounds, this will be stupid as your images can spread out, thus making them swing at the wrong thing and take a 50% miss chance anyways aka no advantage. If it's GMI, well... Then they open their eyes when done.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 5:42 pm

Ah, sorry, +1 and then displacement. Doesn't matter, it is stupidly-cheap for what it does (Quickened CL 5 Displacement 1/day for 4K. Yes.)

GMI?

As a freaking side benefit, this makes you immune to targeted spells.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 6:48 pm

SunTzuWarmaster wrote:Ah, sorry, +1 and then displacement. Doesn't matter, it is stupidly-cheap for what it does (Quickened CL 5 Displacement 1/day for 4K. Yes.)

GMI?

As a freaking side benefit, this makes you immune to targeted spells.

Greater Mirror Image. As in, enemy attacks you, you Immediate action to make images, but it's still aiming at the right square because there's only one possibility. Once you take your turn and move, you can shuffle in and spread out, so that eyes closed + Blind Fight doesn't cap your max miss chance at 25%. That would be embarrassing, to be defeated by such a simple trick.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 7:15 pm

Roy wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:Best way to solve this problem without rewriting the entire game? Right here. I'm sure that it has a number of problems when you dig into the math of it, but what part of 3e doesn't? On the plus side, they managed to do it right, where everyone advances at the same rate so the RNG doesn't asplode.
Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.

That +12 is vs touch attacks and the +20 is vs regular attacks. Nothing is being replaced and it means your beatstick isn't going to be auto hit on touch attacks (the really dangerous attacks) any more. It doesn't fix the problem but your complaint isn't really applicable.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 7:20 pm

Anguirus wrote:
Roy wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:Best way to solve this problem without rewriting the entire game? Right here. I'm sure that it has a number of problems when you dig into the math of it, but what part of 3e doesn't? On the plus side, they managed to do it right, where everyone advances at the same rate so the RNG doesn't asplode.
Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.
That +12 is vs touch attacks and the +20 is vs regular attacks. Nothing is being replaced and it means your beatstick isn't going to be auto hit on touch attacks (the really dangerous attacks) any more. It doesn't fix the problem but your complaint isn't really applicable.

Except that you're going to want a physical suit of armor and floating shield anyways to hold special properties. Like... Ghost Ward, that gives everyone 10 touch AC. Note that only characters who can use heavy armor get 12... everyone else gets less, or the same. So it actually doesn't really change anything. Particularly since most of them will ditch heavy armor for something actually useful... like say, Hit and Run Fighter.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 8:57 pm

Roy wrote:Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.

Everyone gets an additional +1 every three levels. Also, it stacks with other types of AC boosters, which is nice. And it boosts touch AC, which is better.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:17 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Roy wrote:Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.
Everyone gets an additional +1 every three levels. Also, it stacks with other types of AC boosters, which is nice. And it boosts touch AC, which is better.

How does your point address mine again?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:00 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Roy wrote:Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate, and it expects +12 to replace +20. Which just means more auto hits.
Everyone gets an additional +1 every three levels. Also, it stacks with other types of AC boosters, which is nice. And it boosts touch AC, which is better.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that it's still less then most characters would expect from their armor until level 12. And MV doesn't add to Defense Bonus, so in fact you'd be worse off all the way to 20 with any class.

Yes, you get better Touch AC, and worse regular AC then a standard character. And so it's not helpful in boosting regular AC.

It's an armor bonus, just like any other armor bonus, it stacks with anything that wearing armor would stack with. Stacking with other types of boosters is not a selling point.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:45 am

How does your point address mine again?

Except that everyone doesn't advance at the same rate

Everyone gets an additional +1 every three levels

Where are you getting +20 normal AC?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:03 pm

Mithril full plate and floating shield. It'd be 10/10 normal/normal and touch.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:10 pm

Uh, Roy? The variant PR gave only affects the armor class - that is, you can still have a shield. So it expects 19 to replace 20, which, all things considered, is not such a big deal.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:53 pm

Except for the part where you'll still be using armor for special properties... which means you don't benefit. At all. Not even a 'get the better' type effect.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:35 pm

Roy wrote:Except for the part where you'll still be using armor for special properties... which means you don't benefit. At all. Not even a 'get the better' type effect.

You can use your heavy armor vs straight attacks and your new shinny touch AC vs touch attacks. In effect you play the same character with the same AC with the neat little benefit that when you get touch attacked (the attacks that really do fuck your beatsticks over) your AC drops by 8 instead of 20. That looks a whole lot more fair to me.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:29 pm

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:40 pm

Roy wrote:Mithril full plate and floating shield. It'd be 10/10 normal/normal and touch.

Variant Rules wrote:The defense bonus stacks with all other bonuses to AC, including the character’s shield bonus, natural armor bonus, and so forth.

Except for the part where you'll still be using armor for special properties... which means you don't benefit. At all. Not even a 'get the better' type effect.

Variant Rules wrote:Characters may still desire the properties of a specific kind of magic armor or of armor special abilities. Be prepared to create new magic items, such as cloaks, robes, vests, or vestments, to support those desires.

There's also nothing prohibiting characters from grabbing armor and enchanting it up with special properties. The only thing that doesn't stack is the AC.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:56 pm

So, I get that you think levels 1-5 are just about fine, and that at level 20 you should be expecting attack bonuses of about +70.

Are you saying that ignoring touch AC, the armoured character's AC should vary from about 16 at first up to 100 at 20th? Or maybe about 80 to stop power attacking but still allow some attacks.

If so, how the hell is it supposed to scale? Like, +3 AC per level? If so, then attack bonus should go up like that or fighting against NPCs will end up stupid. However if you think that's good then its simple: give a defence bonus to all class levels of +3 or +2 per level.

Why not accept that 1-5 is fine, and work out how to make sure that 6-10 is fine before trying to get level 20 to work?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:58 am

Now we're getting into the problem of re-writing the game. Optimize, and the monsters have to be optimized to hit you. Optimize the monsters, and the players have to optimize their characters so they aren't being auto-hit.

It's a vicious cycle.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:05 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Now we're getting into the problem of re-writing the game. Optimize, and the monsters have to be optimized to hit you. Optimize the monsters, and the players have to optimize their characters so they aren't being auto-hit.

It's a vicious cycle.

Yeah, the bonus accumulation of 3E was just flawed and unfixable to begin with.

Really, you have to go to something more similar to 4E to fix it and put everyone back on the RNG. Though hopefully with a bit more variance than 4E (but not that much more). Sucky thing about 4E is that wizards have about as good AC as fighters.