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

[Roy]

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?

The idea is to get the whole level range fine. At level 20 you can expect high 50s from anything that cares about hitting you and is not optimized. +70 is for the optimized things.

At level 20, the beatstick should be able to manage AC 60s, so he gets missed a decent amount of the time and can actually survive close quarters combat. Currently, he can do 49.

With the cost reduction stuff mentioned here, he could get +8 armor and +8 floating shields... giving him 55, and this wouldn't cost significantly more than he's paying now. That's with the most conservative fix presented.

If it were instead to become half price, and +10 he'd be getting +1 (+9 of special properties) armor and floating shield for 50k each, then Magic Vestment makes them both +10, giving him AC 59. If I were to then reduce the cost of natural armor and deflection items in the same manner, that's +10 natural armor for 100k, and +10 deflection for 100k. Tack on the obligatory bullshit defending spikes and a floating stone and the result is he pays about the same for AC as he otherwise would... but now has an AC of 69, so stuff actually misses sometimes. Further, as long as one of the special properties on the armor and floating shield is Ghost Ward, he's sitting on a touch AC of 49, so those miss sometimes as well. At least now he's paying half his total cash, ever on something that actually helps him.

As for the scaling, well that should be fixed by the half price. Armor and shields (including special properties) become 500 gold * bonus squared. So you're getting a floating shield is 4.5k. Or you're getting a +5 armor is 12.5k. Etc. Being able to get these things sooner, combined with the innate exponential scaling will fix most of it. Natural armor and deflection becomes 1k * bonus squared.

I don't really give a fuck about NPC opponents. Either they aren't worth their CR ANYWAYS, or they don't care about AC (and likely not touch AC either). So rather than try to make them work, I'll just admit they are already hopelessly broken and disregard them. They're fucking Monty Hall anyways, so I don't care.

Oh yeah, and in case I didn't already say it - in such a system, Magic Vestment/Barkskin/Shield of Faith become 1/2 caster levels.

PR: If you optimize, you probably aren't optimizing AC, and if you are it likely doesn't matter. So the only valid point there is if you optimize the monsters, they get to PA more and still auto hit, but being auto hit, itself is a foregone conclusion.

RC: Get this 4.Fail drivel out of my thread.

[Lich-Loved]

In the Conan RPG, AC is replaced with both a Parry Bonus and a Dodge Bonus, with different classes advancing at different paces in these two abilities. Core to-hit is based on 10+Parry or 10+Dodge (target's choice with modifiers for each depending on situation - no room to dodge in GM's opinion means a -2 to Dodge Bonus for example). A shield adds +4 to the wielder's Parry Bonus. So, the attack roll becomes attacker rolls d20+BAB+Str bonus and has to meet or exceed defenders Parry or Dodge bonus (a constant number for a given situation, class and level, no d20 roll). Armor is then used to soak (no soak roll - soak is fixed based on armor type and modified by weapon used) on a hit and the net damage is applied in HP to the target.

In my playtesting, this played fast and felt much better than AC/HP do in D&D. I have not pressed the details of the underlying math though to see if it comes apart at some point. Of course the Conan game is free of the buffs/illusion magic that make AC worthless in D&D.

[Roy]

Sounds like something that'd probably work in a simpler game but would break in D&D, due to too many variables involved.

Though given that you were on the Paizo forums, I'm sure you remember my original presentation of this. And while to call it reacted to well would be a lie, was there anything productive pertaining to it mentioned there that could help out here?

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't really give a fuck about NPC opponents. Either they aren't worth their CR ANYWAYS, or they don't care about AC (and likely not touch AC either). So rather than try to make them work, I'll just admit they are already hopelessly broken and disregard them. They're fucking Monty Hall anyways, so I don't care.

This is one of the reasons that the whole 3E paradigm of NPCs as PCs doesn't work.

How about just going the 4E route and give them arbitrary numbers based on CR?

[violence in the media]

I don't really give a fuck about NPC opponents. Either they aren't worth their CR ANYWAYS, or they don't care about AC (and likely not touch AC either). So rather than try to make them work, I'll just admit they are already hopelessly broken and disregard them. They're fucking Monty Hall anyways, so I don't care.

This is one of the reasons that the whole 3E paradigm of NPCs as PCs doesn't work.

How about just going the 4E route and give them arbitrary numbers based on CR?

Because that's total bullshit for anything that derives it's threat from possessing levels in a class. Players will generally be OK with the idea that you can't learn or use a cyclops' special powers because you're not a fucking cyclops. On the other hand, if an NPC wizard busts out a special spell or a Fighter uses a new technique, players are well within their rights to ask how they can go about acquiring those spells and techniques. If they can't possibly learn those things, either because the abilities are arbitrarium or would be too powerful in the hands of a PC, then you shouldn't have given it to the NPC wizard either.

[Lich-Loved]

Though given that you were on the Paizo forums, I'm sure you remember my original presentation of this. And while to call it reacted to well would be a lie, was there anything productive pertaining to it mentioned there that could help out here?

I can't recall anything though I recall the discussion. It is pretty clear that AC just doesn't do crap vs the huge to-hit bonuses out there. Even the Conan system falls apart when looking at a Fighter 10 (Parry 29 with shield assuming 20 STR and no parrying feats) vs a Fire Giant (CR10) with a melee attack of +20. Still, the Fire Giant has 55% chance to hit with its attack under Conan versus whatever it would be under D&D - +3 plate and shield I guess, at a minimum, so AC26 + whatever the fighter can eek out of DEX or purchased items, so 75% chance to hit.

Still, not a bad improvement (sans buffs) for not spending a fortune on items or being decked out like a christmas tree.

[Roy]

I was going to smite RC hard again for bringing that 4.Fail bullshit back into my thread.

I don't really give a fuck about NPC opponents. Either they aren't worth their CR ANYWAYS, or they don't care about AC (and likely not touch AC either). So rather than try to make them work, I'll just admit they are already hopelessly broken and disregard them. They're fucking Monty Hall anyways, so I don't care.

This is one of the reasons that the whole 3E paradigm of NPCs as PCs doesn't work.

How about just going the 4E route and give them arbitrary numbers based on CR?

Because that's total bullshit for anything that derives it's threat from possessing levels in a class. Players will generally be OK with the idea that you can't learn or use a cyclops' special powers because you're not a fucking cyclops. On the other hand, if an NPC wizard busts out a special spell or a Fighter uses a new technique, players are well within their rights to ask how they can go about acquiring those spells and techniques. If they can't possibly learn those things, either because the abilities are arbitrarium or would be too powerful in the hands of a PC, then you shouldn't have given it to the NPC wizard either.

Thank you VitM, for saving me the trouble.

Anyways, the reason why NPCs fail is their gear is tied to power... and they have about a quarter to a third the gear. Of /course/ they're considerably less powerful. Not a quarter to a third the power, since item costs are exponential, but so far weaker, while still being as rich as mother fucking dragons... If you give them less cash, they're even more of a joke. Give them more, and they become somewhat more credible, but considerably more Monty Hall. There's no valid way to fix them. And since there are plenty of monsters who can hit the thing with the other thing, losing out on humans hitting the thing with the other thing isn't really a loss. Either way, there will be plenty of martial minded opponents. The caster NPCs sometimes do ok, and sometimes not. There are also fewer caster monsters, though you can use them too if you care.

LL: Then the issue with the Conan system is it doesn't do enough, but does help slightly. After all, a +3 plate and +3 floating shield totals up to 34k + base costs... and if it's a mithril full plate that's 10.5k right there. So 36k to 45k just for that... If you're actually holding the shield, you're automatically irrelevant, so discussing your AC is pointless. You only have 49k total at level 10... you're still missing a weapon, save items, stat items, utility items... so really, you can't even do that. Maybe if you have a pocket crafter, but that's a variant of Artifact Sword Fix.

[Lich-Loved]

LL: Then the issue with the Conan system is it doesn't do enough, but does help slightly. After all, a +3 plate and +3 floating shield totals up to 34k + base costs... and if it's a mithril full plate that's 10.5k right there. So 36k to 45k just for that... If you're actually holding the shield, you're automatically irrelevant, so discussing your AC is pointless. You only have 49k total at level 10... you're still missing a weapon, save items, stat items, utility items... so really, you can't even do that. Maybe if you have a pocket crafter, but that's a variant of Artifact Sword Fix.

I agree that it is still not enough. Under Conan, a melee brute monster like the Fire Giant hits a Fighter with non magical equipment 55% of the time (a bit more than a 50/50 chance, not bad for a CR10 vs Lv10 matchup so far). Each hit averages 26 points, but the damage is reduce by the fighter's plate and helm by 12 points, bringing this down to 13 points and raised by the Giant's Armor Pierce Rating of his weapon by 3 to 16 points. A 10 fighter has an average HP of 90 (16 CON), meaning he will fall in no more than 6 rounds, probably less given the multiple attacks by the Giant. Power attack from the Giant could speed this up, but putting enough in to matter would significantly reduce the chance to hit. I don't think the contest is close enough to get into all of the gritty details anyway though, because the Fighter is still going to lose every time. What is unbalanced here is that the Fighter's damage output sucks so hard that he can't possibly whittle the Giant's 142 HP away in those same 6 rounds, especially because the Giant's parry rating will be huge thanks to its tremendous strength and the Fighter can't mitigate enough of the Giant's damage to allow whatever damage he does deal to take its toll.

Really, in the end, we don't care if the Fighter wins level-equivalent challenges 1 time in 4 because he can't be hit or because he can soak the damage long enough to kill his foe. In the end, as long as he wins the contest 1 time in 4, then the design goal is achieved. I believe that just focusing on AC is not enough, though. You can do that, but the numbers get wacky right away. Instead, if we focus on the whole approach (difficulty in being hit, doing level appropriate damage, soaking or mitigating damage) you might end up with a better overall system.

This is all just food for thought, not a criticism of the concept you are putting out.

[Roy]

26 - 12 + 3 = 17 damage.

10 + (5.5 * 9) + (10 * 3) = 89 HP.

It would likely only take the giant 2 or 3 rounds to kill the Fighter. Barring a charger build, the Fighter probably won't kill the giant in this time. Not because 142 is a lot, but because it's more than him by far.

In any case, if he's winning 1 in 4 he's still Doing It Wrong, and needs to increase his effectiveness by 100%. That makes it 50/50... which is what it is supposed to be. And a Fire Giant isn't even that good of a beatstick enemy. It's, at best mediocre. Though if we assume Tome rules for attacks it only takes -5s like with naturals. Then it's not so bad anymore. It's also generic and iconic enough to make a good example. Of course, as this is an Iterative Probability based game, you also need to show them vs the best beatsticks as well as generic better ones. They WILL come up at least once, and if your response to any threat that matters is to stay the fuck away from it... why did they hire Mr. Close Combat again?

The reason why this thread focuses on AC is because it is the most glaring problem regarding beatstick survivability. It's all they have, but it doesn't do anything, so they have nothing. The right builds can manage level appropriate saves (not the Fighter class, but beatsticks in general). They'll also have level appropriate damage... the issue is that it's do or die. One round it or it one rounds you. Maybe it will need a second round, and thus give you a second round. But since you're PA bait, probably not. As it is, again an Iterative Probability game, naturally this sort of scenario is highly undesirable for you. If they had something besides the oh too small bag of HP defense, they would not be as screwed over by Iterative Probability, and this would make most of the other stuff fall into line.

[Lich-Loved]

Good points, Roy and thanks for the math fixes (grrr). As I am working on a "non-flashy fighter" and associated rules changes, this thread is very interesting to me.

If they had something besides the oh too small bag of HP defense, they would not be as screwed over by Iterative Probability, and this would make most of the other stuff fall into line.

I believe the answer lies in doing something other than relying on HPs. I want to find ways to make this happen. Reworking AC items will help and I hope I can find other techniques as well.

Anyways, that is my point - there might be more than AC to fill the void if you want to make a change. I'll stop sidetracking your thread - for now :>

[Roy]

As far as I'm concerned, stuff like blocking is just an abstraction for a miss. In any case, not a meaningful difference, so I don't give a fuck.

That just leaves miss chances. Unless these become available to them as well...

Though while we're on the subject... is there anything that adds the ENTIRE bonus of armor to your touch AC? Not just enhancement, I know about Ghost Ward obviously. The whole damn thing. If you have +5 mithril fullplate with this, you have +13 touch AC. Done.

Faelryinth keeps blabbering about some feat that continuously gives you this as long as you have psionic focus... the obvious problem is that he's a lying dumbfuck as usual. The only feat by that name is 'expend focus to get energy resist 10 against one attack' or some bullshit, which in turn requires some other feat that just gives +3 AC vs one attack for your focus.

In other words, he can't even get his Turtle Fail right.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It's probably the 3.0e version of the feat.

[Roy]

It's probably the 3.0e version of the feat.

Source? He does use a lot of outdated stuff from 2.0 when discussing 3.5 as well. Like 'protection' items boosting saves. It's a cloak of resistance. It doesn't boost AC. Conversely, the ring of protection boosts AC but not saves.

[IGTN]

It's probably the 3.0e version of the feat.

Psionic Focus didn't exist in 3.0.

[Psychic Robot]

I think that Fael is thinking of Energize Armor, which is in CPsionic. I can't check because I deleted that turd a long time ago.

[ubernoob]

As far as I'm concerned, stuff like blocking is just an abstraction for a miss. In any case, not a meaningful difference, so I don't give a fuck.

That just leaves miss chances. Unless these become available to them as well...

Though while we're on the subject... is there anything that adds the ENTIRE bonus of armor to your touch AC? Not just enhancement, I know about Ghost Ward obviously. The whole damn thing. If you have +5 mithril fullplate with this, you have +13 touch AC. Done.

Faelryinth keeps blabbering about some feat that continuously gives you this as long as you have psionic focus... the obvious problem is that he's a lying dumbfuck as usual. The only feat by that name is 'expend focus to get energy resist 10 against one attack' or some bullshit, which in turn requires some other feat that just gives +3 AC vs one attack for your focus.

In other words, he can't even get his Turtle Fail right.

Deflective Armor (Races of Stone). As long as you hold psionic focus, you get to add your full armor (but not shield) bonus to touch AC. Requires Heavy Armor Optimization (which requires 4 BAB), which basically does nothing (-1 ACP and +1 to the armor bonus).

Note- Only works for heavy armor, so mithral and such are right out if you use this.

So, it's doable, but not before level six at earliest and it sucks anyways.

[Amra]

I'm not sure that we're necessarily making valid comparisons here. You *don't* expect a Level 10 warrior to beat a CR10 creature 50% of the time, because CR "shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty".

That's a party of adventurers, not an adventurer. I absolutely agree with the fundamental point that AC doesn't stack up against what the monsters are capable of, but - in D&D at least - you wouldn't expect that warrior to win. You'd expect him and three of his buddies to win. As such, the stated design goal in D&D is for that Fighter to be able to take down the Giant and soak up as much punishment as is dished out while he and three other people take it out of the fight, not for him to be able to do so alone.

It's very difficult to deal with that assumption, because of course it's completely up for grabs as to what the rest of the party consists of and what they'll be doing in response to a threat. For instance, if the Fighter has to distract the monster long enough for the Wizard or Cleric to win, it's a different proposition to the Wizard or Cleric making the Fighter unhittable with real defenses so that he can win. If there are four melee Fighters with four pools of hit points and four lots of damage to inflict, the punishment you need your Fighters to be able to soak up and dish out is not necessarily the same as when you've got one Fighter and three Halfling Hurlers.

Part of the reason that D&D appears to succeed in the eyes of so many gaming groups is that beyond the statement that "this is a level-appropriate challenge for a 'party'", the assumptions behind that are invisible and the variables - for all practical purposes - infinite. At no point that I'm aware of are you ever told what is considered a level-appropriate challenge for an adventurer, and the reason for that is basically because the CR system (I'm guessing) assumes a certain level of capabiliity of all types within a party. As such, no solo monster can reasonably be "levelled" against any individual player character because you can't see the assumptions or mechanics that lead to a CR if some of those capabilities are not present.

Even high-level characters, caught individually, can be taken out by a creature many levels lower than them because it just happens to be flat-out immune to - or otherwise neutralises - their main schtick. For full-casting classes this is less often the case, but for characters who don't have access to a flexible suite of spells, they're pretty much hosed; and going by the definition of CR, this was intentional.

[Roy]

I'm not sure that we're necessarily making valid comparisons here. You *don't* expect a Level 10 warrior to beat a CR10 creature 50% of the time, because CR "shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty".

Yes, yes we are. Supposedly, the Fighter is evenly matched with the giant as there is one of each of them, and they are both the same level. So half the time the Fighter dies, and half the time the giant dies. Flip a coin.

Moderate difficulty =/= 50% chance to die. Remember, this is a game of Iterative Probability. You only need to lose once, so if it has a 50% chance of happening you will literally never make any headway. With the party, there's something like a 1% chance of losing... the issue is that the Fighter has far less than a 50% chance of winning by himself, and far more than a 1% chance of dying in a party. In other words, he's not up to par.

While the system does favor puzzle monsters, and intentionally trying to shut people off and calling making some of the group sit around bored 'teamwork', it is not fucking unreasonable to expect a character to counter their own tricks. Both the Fighter and the giant hit the thing with the other thing, and that's all they ever do. So if he can't beat a guy using his own tricks against him, how can he possibly deal with those using other tricks? Exactly. He Fails at life.

[violence in the media]

So why not change the assumption? Wouldn't it be a better situation to have one level 10 adventurer equal one level (CR?) 10 opponent? It would make flexing encounters easier and would be helpful to groups with 2 or 10 players.

I mean, really, what is a level-appropriate challenge for a group of 9 11th level PCs, 8 of which are some form of spellcaster? Sure, it's possible to craft one, but come the fuck on. Can you use a single CR 15 creature aginst them? Should you?

[Roy]

So why not change the assumption? Wouldn't it be a better situation to have one level 10 adventurer equal one level (CR?) 10 opponent? It would make flexing encounters easier and would be helpful to groups with 2 or 10 players.

I mean, really, what is a level-appropriate challenge for a group of 9 11th level PCs, 8 of which are some form of spellcaster? Sure, it's possible to craft one, but come the fuck on. Can you use a single CR 15 creature aginst them? Should you?

Because I'm taking my own advice - if you have to change the whole fucking system around, make your own goddamn system. Then you can profit from it. Except I can't be bothered to actually do that, so I'm just going to say no to stuff like that.

Yes, you could use a single 15. But you shouldn't, because Action Economy + Save or Loses means it likely will never get a turn.

[Amra]

I'm not sure that we're necessarily making valid comparisons here. You *don't* expect a Level 10 warrior to beat a CR10 creature 50% of the time, because CR "shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty".

Yes, yes we are. Supposedly, the Fighter is evenly matched with the giant as there is one of each of them, and they are both the same level. So half the time the Fighter dies, and half the time the giant dies. Flip a coin.

No, no you're not. You can't say that CR is equivalent to level because a given CR explicitly does not equal an even match-up to a single character of that level. You can say that you want a system where CR is equal to level, but that is not the system you're currently making comparisons under. That giant is not Level 10, he's CR10, which is a monster that you'd expect a 10th-level party to be able to beat. Explicitly. In the rules, right there. It's not even an argument we can have.

I'm quite prepared to accept that a system ought to say that CR10 is equal to a 10th-level character, but the system doesn't, say that; it says something else very - even unusually - clearly.

Moderate difficulty =/= 50% chance to die.

Again, not so. A level-equivalent challenge for a party of adventurers is supposed to consume approximately 25% of their resources, not give every party member a 50% chance of dying.

It's fine if you want to say that the system should match up CR and level. However it is not fair to criticise a system for not matching up CR and level when the system tells you that it does not do that. You can't point at a design goal of "not doing a thing" and then say that the system fails when it doesn't do that thing.

You can say that the system fails because it has the goal of not doing that thing; that's an argument worth making, and worth hearing. But pointing out that a CR 10 monster and a Level 10 character are not an even match when the system tells you they are not an even match is fruitless.

[Roy]

RTFM. You are wrong on all counts. Full stop.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm going to put up the boilerplate so Frank doesn't have to.

A party of Level X is supposed to go down fighting half the time against an encounter of EL X + 4. Another way to say this is that a party of Level X is approximately as powerful as an encounter of EL X + 4.

A group of monsters that is twice the size is an encounter of EL + 2. A party that is twice the size faces Encounters which are EL + 2 vs. those who are not.

Doubling a Double is a quadruple. So if you go from a party of four to a party of one, you face challenges of X - 4.

So a Party of one character is supposed to be an even match for a Monster with a CR equal to his level. He is supposed to fight "standard" encounters of his level - 4, and a monster with a CR of his level is an EL of Level - 4 + 4. And this should surprise you in no way because a character of Level X actually is a Monster of CR X.

Note: some characters are at an advantage or disadvantage in a number of situations. This means that your character may well be properly "Level X" despite failing consistently or winning consistently against a specific CR X challenge, so long as in aggregate your wins and losses are roughly equal against a variety of EL X encounters.

[CatharzGodfoot]

That giant is not Level 10, he's CR10, which is a monster that you'd expect a 10th-level party to be able to beat. Explicitly. In the rules, right there. It's not even an argument we can have.

Yeah, "expected to beat" is a little different for "a coin toss".

[RandomCasualty2]

The only thing that invalidate 1v1 CR analysis is if you've got party members that routinely buff each other and you're expected to be buffed to become greater than the sum of your parts.

So if for instance, you had a caster who could cast a spell on a fighter that would make that combo better than 2 wizards or 2 fighters would be alone, then that means that the group synergy is an essential part.

3E though, really don't seem to have that. Certain classes like druids are better than other classes, like monks. But no class combo creates some kind of crazy synergy that throws balance way off.