Defense numbers should increase faster than offense numbers.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I want to make the caveat that this is true for games that do or claim to do a lot of power scaling, but it didn't fit in the title window.

Combat paradigm shifts down the padded sumo to RLT (or vice versa) sliding bar happen quite a bit and they can be interesting. But for the most part they don't seem intentional; for the most part it seems that game designers envision having combat last a fixed number of rounds of at all play. Therefore, it seems reasonable to keep the defense numbers and the attack numbers to increase at the same rate.

However, there's one glaring problem with this setup. In games that do extensive power-scaling like D&D, keeping defense and attack values scaling at the same rate once you've gotten the first-level values to work out actually recreates Rocket Launcher Tag. The thing is that except for shitty games like 4E D&D, game designers and players have an expectation that certain powers digivolve over time. People will accept a typical action of a level 2 wizard being a ray of flame; they won't accept it at level 18. Any 'flame power' that's not a building-leveling holocaust that burns black with hellfire frustrates and offends us. EDIT: By building-leveling holocaust, I don't just mean a 4E-ish fluff change. I mean things wider area of effect, some status riders, etc..

So the obvious solution seems to be to actually make defense tchotchke like damage reduction and armor class and whatever raise at a greater rate than the offensive kind. That way people can throw out Hellzone Grenades with combat still lasting for four rounds. Like it did at 1st level.

[erik]

I'd think the easy solution would be to give more defensive reroll/soak tokens that can be burned to save your keister as you level and keep everything else about on parity.

[DSMatticus]

@Lago, you are using a definition for "increase faster" that actually means "increases at the same rate."

[jadagul]

@Lago, you are using a definition for "increase faster" that actually means "increases at the same rate."

Nah, he's just pointing out that offense tends to stealth-increase in ways that designers don't notice, so when you look at your numbers for "offense" and "defense" on the character sheet the "defense" numbers need to go up faster.

[DSMatticus]

offense tends to stealth-increase

That's totally consistent with what I said. The fact that it's a stealthy increase does not mean it is not actually an increase.

But besides, look at his specific examples: DR and armor class. Those are matched by damage and attack roll. Damage is a number which just goes up. Lago's said that defense needs to go up faster than offense is only true because he did not include effects of powers (like damage) as part of offense. But that makes no sense, because they are.

[jadagul]

offense tends to stealth-increase

That's totally consistent with what I said. The fact that it's a stealthy increase does not mean it is not actually an increase.

But besides, look at his specific examples: DR and armor class. Those are matched by damage and attack roll. Damage is a number which just goes up. Lago's said that defense needs to go up faster than offense is only true because he did not include effects of powers (like damage) as part of offense. But that makes no sense, because they are.

I agree with you that his point isn't quite what his title literally says. But I think the point is that even if the attack and defense numbers literally scale exactly the same, the offense will get stronger than the defense because the new offensive powers hit more enemies at once or have cooler riders or have weirder harder-to-resist damage types or just general do something cooler. If most characters had active defense abilities that were upgraded as frequently as their active offense abilities this wouldn't be a problem. But offensive abilities are improving in ways other than just raw numbers, so the defense either needs to increase raw numbers faster or scale up in similar non-numerical ways.

[Stubbazubba]

# of attacks, or metamagic feats which increase the # of spells cast per round also change the equation in offense's favor.

[TheWorid]

Would not the more difficult, but more interesting response to attacks getting nicer things be to give defenses nicer things? As in, rather than simply giving bigger numbers to defense, put increasingly more awesome riders on blocks and dodges, counterattacks, special defensive stances, or whatever. More work to write of course, and runs the risk of slowing things down with interrupts (although that depends heavily on how well-written the abilities are), but horizontal ability increase is generally more fun than simple vertical number increase.

[Lokathor]

4e is a wonderful example of exactly how to not do defensive moves and counters. The more stuff that might be activated by people who don't currently have their turn going the more insane gameplay gets.

Which is not to say that counters can never be done, but you have to be really careful about it or things get bad fast.

[TheWorid]

4e is a wonderful example of exactly how to not do defensive moves and counters. The more stuff that might be activated by people who don't currently have their turn going the more insane gameplay gets.

Which is not to say that counters can never be done, but you have to be really careful about it or things get bad fast.

Right, and 4E is the counter-example I had in mind. Still, out-of-turn actions keep people engaged by giving them the chance of doing something even when it is not their turn, so giving out interrupts is a good thing as long as they are not given out like candy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

But besides, look at his specific examples: DR and armor class. Those are matched by damage and attack roll. Damage is a number which just goes up. Lago's said that defense needs to go up faster than offense is only true because he did not include effects of powers (like damage) as part of offense. But that makes no sense, because they are.

I apologize; I'll fix it to make it more clear. I meant the raw underlying numbers though.

As in, rather than simply giving bigger numbers to defense, put increasingly more awesome riders on blocks and dodges, counterattacks, special defensive stances, or whatever.

While I do agree that defenses also need to get cooler over time:

A.) Defensive powers are rarely as cool as offensive powers. People get bored with mirror image and statue much faster than they do with silent image and flesh to stone. The arms race for player engagement is lost before it even really begins.

B.) It's much easier to recycle offensive powers into defensive powers than the reverse. See: the various wall and target-agnostic teleportation powers.

C.) Defensive powers are much harder to balance than offensive powers. An offense only has to choose one effective line of attack while a defensive power has to defend against many more. Even though the PHB and the Spell Compendium have a bunch of shutdown face-rocker defensive powers, defensive powers are just plain harder to use. Energy Admixtured Fireballs is a lot more useful than elemental resistance unless the resistance defends against every line of attack. Few clerics bother with Spell Resistance even though Spell Resistance penetration is rarely a bad option for wizards. Etc..

The net result is that not only does offense scale better than defense in special effects (and thus actual effect) but it's generally desirable for it to do so. This does mean that you have to boost the underlying generic defensive numbers at a faster rate than the offensive numbers unless you want your game to tilt to Rocket Launcher Tag over time.

[TheWorid]

A.) Defensive powers are rarely as cool as offensive powers. People get bored with mirror image and statue much faster than they do with silent image and flesh to stone. The arms race for player engagement is lost before it even really begins.

I can think of a bunch of neat defensive abilities; I agree that it is a bit tougher than than coming up with a variation of shooting lightning at fools, but not impossible, especially in some of the more open fantasy settings.

B.) It's much easier to recycle offensive powers into defensive powers than the reverse. See: the various wall and target-agnostic teleportation powers.

For the purposes of making offense and defense balance, walls and reactive teleports are effectively defensive powers anyways. Moreover, using attacks to counter other attacks is all over fiction: think colliding differently-colored energy beams or shooting an ice bolt out of the air with a fireball.

C.) Defensive powers are much harder to balance than offensive powers. An offense only has to choose one effective line of attack while a defensive power has to defend against many more. Even though the PHB and the Spell Compendium have a bunch of shutdown face-rocker defensive powers, defensive powers are just plain harder to use. Energy Admixtured Fireballs is a lot more useful than elemental resistance unless the resistance defends against every line of attack. Few clerics bother with Spell Resistance even though Spell Resistance penetration is rarely a bad option for wizards. Etc..

Does that not indicate that one of the big ways that defensive moves should digivolve over time is becoming applicable to more situations? For example, starting off with fire resistance, but ramping it up to "thermal resistance" that also protects from cold, and later just flat out "energy resistance" that protects from anything that is not a sword or a psychic assault.

[deaddmwalking]

This does mean that you have to boost the underlying generic defensive numbers at a faster rate than the offensive numbers unless you want your game to tilt to Rocket Launcher Tag over time.

I agree with most of the suppositions, but I'm not convinced that the prescription is necessary.

Particularly, defense is harder than offense because you rarely know what line of attack your opponent has available to them - so you have to prepare for every possible contingency. That's nigh impossible. So offense clearly has a major advantage over defense. This is compounded when the 'anti-' version of a spell is the exact same level of the spell. It makes more sense to prepare Stone to Flesh and hope you incapacitate your enemy than to prepare Flesh to Stone in the off-chance that your opponent 1) uses the spell, 2) it is effective. Effectively the opportunity cost for preparing defensive spells is too high.

But in the example of 3rd edition, I'm not sure that defenses need to scale faster than they already do... I don't know that defenses necessarily scale faster than offenses, but they largely seem to scale at the same rate* (*see explanation and analysis).

First off, most damage is hit point damage. From classes that deal weapon damage, the rate of hit point bloat tends to roughly equal the rate of advanced damage. A character at 1st level with 1d8+3 hit points is good for basically 1 (maybe 2) hits from a Fighter dealing 2d6+6 damage. At 5th level we're looking 5d8+15 versus damage ~3d6+12. At 41 hp versus 22.5 hit points per swing, we're looking at a chance of 1 hit (critical) but most likely 2 hits to bring down the opponent. Effectively, the defense is roughly equal, but slightly BETTER than at 1st level...

Obviously, straight weapon damage isn't the best example because spells really start to break the game, but there's at least a point where that's not obviously true.

With spells it's a little more difficult to illustrate the advantage of defense versus offense because different skills interact with defenses in different ways. Some use AC and hit points; some use saving throws and hit points. Some use saving throws and no other mechanic.

But regarding saving throws, we know that at 1st level the caster is going to be optimized in their primary attribute (the one that boosts the DCs for everyone else). And offensively the wizard will have the option to target a 'weak' save. Since Save DCs are 10 + 1/2 level (or spell level) + attribute mod, Good Saves actually scale pretty well at all levels of play. At 20th level, you're looking at a save of 13-32 before attribute mods and buffs versus a DC of ~30. With a +5 item (that applies to all saves, rather than just one category) and decent attribute mods, you'll usually save on a 10 or better, even against the most difficult saves. Anything of lower level and you're almost immune (if anything, this is an argument for increasing the DCs of low-level spells so they stay relevant).

Most of the 'Rocket Tag' comes from spamming Save-Or-Die (or equivalent) where you can target a weak save. At 20th level with a +6 base, +5 for item and +5 (average for relevant Stat), you're looking at failing the saves roughly 75% of the time...

Basically, it seems the weak saves are where the system tends to break down.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can think of a bunch of neat defensive abilities; I agree that it is a bit tougher than than coming up with a variation of shooting lightning at fools, but not impossible, especially in some of the more open fantasy settings.

I'm extremely tempted to do an 'interesting defensive powers' thread and cross-compare them for common themes. Off of the top of my head, though, the vast majority of the ones that come to mind are those that really futz with the underlying mechanics (like Anti-Magic Field) or do a weird zone of control thing (like Evard's Black Tentacles). Very often both.

Moreover, using attacks to counter other attacks is all over fiction: think colliding differently-colored energy beams or shooting an ice bolt out of the air with a fireball.

Now THIS is something I can get behind. People doing like you said is just plain cooler than using defensive abilities, even if they're not passive. Gaara's Shield of Sand is cooler than his Armor of Sand, even though he can use the latter to transform into a psychotic sand tanuki. Luffy countering Eneru's lightning powers with his rubber body is weaksauce, Luffy countering Eneru's lightning elemental transformation by punching him with a huge electrically conducting gold fist is rad to the max.

Does that not indicate that one of the big ways that defensive moves should digivolve over time is becoming applicable to more situations?

Unless the defensive move does something paradigm-changing like Anti-Magic Field, my gut feeling is that the answer is a strong 'no'. Defensive abilities paradoxically get more boring the more stuff they block out. Using Energy Resistance to throw up a 15 acid resistance when your ranger finds black dragon tracks makes you feel kind of clever, using a similar spell to give you reactive energy resistance when the ranger says it's an unknown form of dragon is rather boring.