Playing the Same Game

[Crissa]

Once a winged creature is no longer falling - the wings no longer function for lift, and therefore no longer affect speed or direction.

Featherfall takes over lift and makes a winged creature into Flight (Clumsy) that can't fall and can't accellerate, which is a slight better than a non-winged creature would be when under feather-fall.

Basically it means you just have longer to go (rounds, maybe) before touching the ground and gaining cover and recovering from your fall. If you were taking flak enough to cause you to break concentration... You want to be sitting around in this stuff?

Though, if we make Flight into a concentration action - why don't we do that with all Movement? That would give a decent mechanic for why people don't cast/fight on the run, and give an advantage/disadvantage to being a slow/mobile fighter.

-Crissa

Flight (Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Clumsy) if I'm remembering right; I don't think my d20 book actually defines them, though they didn't change from 2nd, I don't think... And how far do you fall in a round, anyhow?

[Crissa]

Someone brought up attack sequence...

If we folded Power Attack, Finesse into standard manuevers - we do the same with iterative attack, right?

What would be more balanced - trading additional attacks for accuracy penalties or damage penalties?

• The problem with iteratives now is that they:
  
• Top out based on Character Level; and
  
• Start missing the 'you must be this tall to enter' score.

Right?

• So my gut says:
  
• Make melee damage go down based upon number of iterative attacks;
  (Halve? Total damage should remain nearly consistent with the single attacks.)
  
• Make ranged combat do the opposite; Lose accuracy, retain damage.
  (So that you would expect to miss often enough that total damage would remain about the same.)

Basically, fold the combat-stance feats - the ones that do simple things - into a basic list of maneuvers anyone can try; while turning iterative attacks into something which slowly become more and more attractive if you focus your character build towards them.

What do you think of this theory?

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1151739996[/unixtime]]But stalling affects the X and Y axis. If getting stalled out was a real threat from ranged attacks on fliers - that would make even feather fall an unattractive position. You're stalled until you hit the ground, so the feather fall just makes you take longer to get out of a position that's obviously bad for you (although it does protect you from falling damage, it does nothing for the arrow damage).

But you dont' have to be that high up in the air. 50-60' up is pretty much fine and you'll hit the ground with one feather fall in the round you cast it and then can be back up in the air the very same round.

As far as flying height goes, as long as you're out of jumping range, you're good. There's really no need to be 500' feet up. You can just as easily be 500' south and 60' up.

[User3]

1151468407[/unixtime]]What if flying was just really dangerous?

If having a net meant that you could make dragons reliably crash for lots of damage, would dragons get into the fisticuffs that we want them to get embroiled in?

-Username17

I think the problem isn't so much flying dragons as flying dragons, with lots of hit points and high saves and AC, that can reliably kick your ass w/o getting close to you. If Breath Weapons and Spells couldn't be used while flying, you'd be looking at dragons that would at a minimum be using flyby attacks or dropping down every few rounds to breath on people.

What about skill check to do anything except fly while flying? Flight would be a different power, more of a pure travel power instead of a combat power.

[Crissa]

1151969652[/unixtime]]If Breath Weapons and Spells couldn't be used while flying, you'd be looking at dragons that would at a minimum be using flyby attacks or dropping down every few rounds to breath on people.

That's what I was suggesting.

We can't cast spells while running or walking... Why could you do that while flying?

This definitely is something which needs to be covered by the feat system. That's what I meant by it requiring some sort of feat or concentration check.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1151969652[/unixtime]]
What about skill check to do anything except fly while flying? Flight would be a different power, more of a pure travel power instead of a combat power.

The skill system is far too abuseable. I'd prefer feats or something that required you to be high level, so we could ensure that only people we wanted were doing it.

If we had to have a low level monster that could do this thing as its shtick we could give it the flying combat feat as a racial bonus feat.

[dbb]

In fairness, I think the granularity of the action system is partly the problem here. Technically, we can't swing a sword while running without buying Spring Attack, so it's no surprise we can't cast a spell while walking, either. We can move and then cast a spell, though, which my mind sometimes interprets as "casting a spell while walking".

I think dragons using breath weapons on the wing is sufficiently part of the source material that removing it would feel wrong. Doesn't really work for me.

Spellcasting in flight ... it depends. I think a blanket ban on spellcasting in flight is not a good idea, if only because spellcasting on, say, a flying carpet is a lot like spellcasting while in a boat or a carriage, which is quite reasonable (IMO). Perhaps it should be forbidden below a certain maneuverability class?

--d.

[Crissa]

I think 'being on a magic carpet' is different from 'winged flight'...

There's Flying (running), riding, and being carried. When you're being carried, you're expending no movement actions, which is how Master Blaster works.

I suppose a simple chart that equated flight maneuverabilities to movement actions would solve a good deal of the spellcasting.

But I still wish cone effects were blockable.

-Crissa

[Josh_Kablack]

Okay, taking a stab at the basic question asked while I was away (before I read the rest of this thread)

1150842587[/unixtime]


So abilities/non-abilities for:

Bard:
Fighter:
Knight:
Samurai:
Swashbuckler:

Anyone care to fill those blanks? What do people want those classes to provide when dealing with the following EL 10 challenges:

A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant
A Young Blue Dragon
A Bebilith
A Vrock
A tag team of Mind Flayers
An Evil Necromancer
6 Trolls
A horde of Shadows.

Right now they provide as close to nothing as makes no odds against any of those, what should they be doing? In which of those encounters should people be saying "Boy, I'm glad we had a Bard." In which of those encounters should people say "Good thing you're a Samurai, eh?"

-Username17

Bard:
vs:
A hallway filled with magical runes. - identifes the nature of the runes from his lore, or ancient epic. May or may not be able to bypass, but can at least ascertain the consequences of triggering.
A Fire Giant - can joke with/befriend/charm easily.
A Young Blue Dragon - total snake charming action
A Bebilith - get his lute eaten in place of his armor while he runs away
A Vrock - make a deal for souls, give false orders from demon lord or otherwise trick/befuddle.
A tag team of Mind Flayers - resist their influence slightly better than others, maybe communicate with them, but nothing special
An Evil Necromancer - counter the magics of death with the music of life.
6 Trolls - similar to, but dumber than the fire giant. Should be able to put to sleep with a spell.
A horde of Shadows. - hold at bay for a time with magic music

Fighter
A hallway filled with magical runes. - Be clueless, but able to survive whatever foul sorcery they dish out.
A Fire Giant - arm wrestle to a standstill while the rest of the party sneaks the golden goose out of the tower.
A Young Blue Dragon - lasso, hogtie and break to use as a mount.
A Bebilith - break free of the webs, survive the poison and hack up with sword chuckery, maybe losing some armor in the process
A Vrock - KO with one puch, if the vrock is stupid enough to get in close
A tag team of Mind Flayers - hold out against their enchantments long enough to have a decent shot of taking at least one down.
An Evil Necromancer - Running across the room and cleaving in twain before the necromancer finishes his incantation. See Conan vs. Evil Wizard, episodes one through ninety-six
6 Trolls - Pummel into unconsciousness after a long and boistorous fight worthy of Vahalla
A horde of Shadows. - be able to throttle them one at a time, but perhaps be overwhelmed by the numbers of the horde

Knight:
A hallway filled with magical runes. - charge through on his horse faster than most of them can harm him
A Fire Giant - Run through with his lance if he has his horse, otherwise be able to goad into fighting stupidly
A Young Blue Dragon - Be equal to in melee, but have problems with the way metal armor conducts that lightning breath
A Bebilith - Run through with his lance if he has his horse, otherwise lose a bunch of armor in a close fight
A Vrock - be able to see through it's mirror image, and if pure and chivalrous, be immune to its foul magics like stunning screech, spores and dance of ruin. He should be able to protect his companions from these magics as well.
A tag team of Mind Flayers -
An Evil Necromancer - Be pulled from his horse by a horde of skeletons, but if chivalrous be immune to the necromancers death spells, and able to protect his companions from it.
6 Trolls - Run any one through easily, outdistance the pack on his horse easily.
A horde of Shadows - if pure and chivalrous, the night should be immune to their Str drain, and he should be able to protect his companions from it.

Samurai:

A hallway filled with magical runes. - Beg the forgiveness of the spirits guarding the hallway in a way that reaches an honorable compromise.
A Fire Giant: Win a close fight through superior dedication
A Young Blue Dragon: Redirect the creatures attacks upon itself
A Bebilith: Ignore the poison until after the fight, retain his armor now matter what, turn the webs back upon the creature and call upon the spirits to keep the beast here instead of letting it escape into the nether planes.
A Vrock: prevent the beast's dishonorable escape, provide an instant remedy to his companions for the demon spores and resist any temptation of demons, for he is pledged to his lord
A tag team of Mind Flayers: Be immune to their compulsion, but slowly stagger under their mind blasts
An Evil Necromancer: Free the bound spirits of the Necromancer's horde to return to an honorable rest.
6 Trolls: deal enough sword damage to outpace their regeneration, should they cluster.
A horde of Shadows. Call upon the spirits of his ancestors as a horde of light spirits to overcome the horde of darkness

Swashbuckler:
A hallway filled with magical runes. Trust to reflexes and evasion to carry him through safely.
A Fire Giant: dance around, while goad into a rage that leads the giant over a cliff or other obstacle.
A Young Blue Dragon: Sneak past and rescue the princess, staying one step ahead of the lightning when seen. The swashbuckler loses in melee here.
A Bebilith: having no armor but decent defenses the swashbuckler wins a defensive battle if he is not webbed and does not succumb to poison.
A Vrock: The swashbuckler hopes to bluff/trick or sneak past, because while he wins in melee, he can't counter the Vrock's oddball abilities well
A tag team of Mind Flayers: The swashbuckler resists the stunning mind blasts, but his impulsive nature does not fare so well with the suggestion/charm
An Evil Necromancer: The swashbuckler hopes to use his reflexes to swap the Necromancer's Diabolical Device with musicbox during the ritual of awakening the undead army. When that fails, the swashbuckler is just as good against hundreds of skeletons as he is against the Cardinal's mooks.
6 Trolls: the swashbuckler can hold them off at the pass all day, can acrobatically bypass them, or tie them up in a chandelier, but can't deal damage fast enough to slay them in a straight up fight.
A horde of Shadows. the swashbuckler can slip by or outmanuver easily.

[Oberoni]

I like the idea of a Samurai being an "honor elemental" almost. Cool.

[User3]

I like how bards are still supposed to suck

[Josh_Kablack]

That's because absolutely no concessions to balance were made in my hypotheticals, that's all how I see the flavor side working.

Although in my defense, the bard does get to pick up one or two allies out of that set of encounters while nobody else does. At some other point I'll rant about the 3rd ed. nerfing of enchantment magic as a PC weapon.

[Nidhogg]

Bard:
My current problem with the bard is that his mechanics are ass-backwards. Why the hell does he even *have* Bardic Music when there he has perfectly good spellcasting abilities. Take away Bardic Music, give him lots of (non-suckage) buff spells, and make that his niche.

A hallway filled with magical runes:
Under current mechanics: The Bard makes a Bardic Knowlage check, horribly fails the riddiculously high DC, and the Rogue or Wizard end up doing it all. The Bard will sing to make them do better, because at level ten, they hand out Bardic Music uses/day like candy at a parade, but it doesn't matter anyways, because a +2 bonus means jackall when the Rogue already has a bonus higher than the (riddiculously low) Disable Device DC.
Under ideal mechanics: The Bard will make a Bardic Knowlage check, actually pass the DC, and be able to tell what the runes do. He may not be able to disarm them, but he can probably cipher a way to get around them without triggering fiery death.
A Fire Giant:
Under current mechanics: The Bard will Suggest that the giant could use a nice, long walk. If he successful, he will loot it blind, otherwise, running and hiding are in order.
Under ideal mechanics: Pretty much the same, except that running and hiding will actually work, and there will be much less Bard to scrape off the stone floor.
A Young Blue Dragon:
Under current mechanics: Sing while the fighter does everything.
Under ideal mechanics: Cast buff spells that actually have a noticable effect. When the melee fighter tries to take all the credit, the Bard will point out that it was *his* spell that made the Figher's weapon insta-rape the dragon.
A Bebilith:
Under current mechanics: The Bard's poor fortitude, coupled with an elf's poor CON score (because, lets face it, all Bards are elves), means a horrible, poison-filled death.
Under ideal mechanics: I don't know, reason with it maybe?
A Vrock:
Under current mechanics: The Vrock Heroisms and Mirror Images himself, then teleports in, beats the Wizard to death in the surprise round, and then uses his next action to stun everyone with a poor Fort save. Since there is no way that anyone is hitting someone who can Mirror Image at will, he has a gay 'ol time while he and his summoned Dretches pick apart the poor Bard and the rest of his party.
Under ideal mechanics: The Bard casts a buff that gives everyone blindsight or something. The Fighter has a chance, and beats the crap out of the otherwise wimpy Vrock.
A tag team of Mind Flayers:
The incredibly broken Mind Flayers stun all of the casters, while anyone whom actually passes thier Fort saves get Plane Shifted to Carcerai or the Outer Realms, or something. They promptly eat the brains of the survivors, everyone looses, and there is no way around it.
An Evil Necromancer"
Under current mechanics: The Bard cowers behind the Cleric, because all of weapons are Piercing, and with his poor damage bonus, he has trouble overcoming the DR of challenge rating 1/2 skeletons. His spells are all Illusions and Enchantments, so he pretty much sits there singing. Not that it matters, because his crappy buffs don't do enough to make a difference.
Under ideal mechanics: The Bard starts Charming the big things, whom are no longer uneffected by mind-influencing spells (because it is stupid that intellegent undead are still uneffected). The Bard is praised as a hero even as his army of undead turncoats beats thier former master in to a thick paste.
6 Trolls:
Under current, *and* ideal mechanics: The Bard gets them all confused with various compulsion effects, and then when they are finished killing eachother, the Wizard casts Flaming Sphere and mops up the survivors. Treasure all around!
A horde of Shadows:
Under current mechanics: Suck and die.
Under ideal mechanics: Charm them and shadowswarm the big evil guy.

Fighter:
A hallway filled with magical runes:
Undear current AND ideal mechanics: The Fighter wades through them all and takes pretty much no damage because he invested in enchanting his armor with all of the elemental resistances.
A Fire Giant:
Under current AND ideal mechanics: A well built fighter will put the fear of God in to a fire giant. If the giant has more hitpoints, attack bonus, average damage/round, or AC than the fighter, then that fighter has done something wrong.
A Young Blue Dragon:
Under current mechanics: The fighter should be statistically better than the dragon, but the dragon has an overwhelming number of attacks, as well as the ability to easily kite the fighter. If the DM plays the dragon like a combat monster, then it will loose after a hard fight. If the DM plays the dragon like a tricky bastard, then he'll be high above the fighter raining down breath weapons every few rounds. Even with his energy resistance, the breath weapon will whittle down the fighter. Better hope he has a ranged weapon, or he's rather screwed.
Under ideal mechanics: The fighter does a little worse in a straight-up fight, and much better in a ranged combat.
A Bebilith:
Under current mechanics: If the Beblith manages to hit the fighter with its claws (unlikely, but possible), then the fighter has no chance in hell. The poison has a low enough DC that it will probably not be an issue, but if it comes in to play, then the fighter may as well curl up and die.
Under ideal mechanics: The fighter beats the living daylights out of the creature, but has to shake off some poison and armor damage. He will have quite a bit of downtime, but at least no Ressurection will be needed.
A Vrock:
Under current mechanics: The vrock may be a wimp, but the fighter will never be able to hit the sucker. The fighter dies, but the fight takes a riddiculously long time to pan out.
Under ideal mechanics: Pretty much the same, except the fighter lives and the vrock dies. The battle could go either way, but in the end the Fighter's better threat range pays off, and he inflicts some serious overkill damage on the demon.
A tag team of Mind Flayers:
Under ideal AND current mechanics: The fighter gets sent to the Far Realms, and gets eaten by a Lovecraftian monster.
An Evil Necromancer:
Under ideal AND current mechanics: The save DCs on Necromancy spells are pretty much all Fort based, so no worries there. Skeletons and zombies don't have the HP to stand aganst a fighter, so unless the necromancer has a trump card, the Fighter ends up wading through a sea of sucky monsters, beats the Necromancer within an inch of his life, and then beats him some more. Good thing the DM always forgets to give these guys teleportation spells.
6 Trolls:
Under ideal AND current mechanics: Whatever. The trolls don't have the attack bonus to hit a Fighter decked out in full plate. The fighter takes out his +1 Flaming toothpick and laughs as he pokes them to death.
A horde of Shadows"
Under ideal AND current mechanics: There's no way around this. The fighter runs away screaming while the Cleric rolls his eyes and pulls out the beat stick.

Knight, Samurai, Swashbuckler: All of these classes are pointless. The Cavalier and Duelist are mechanically better than the core classes ment to replace them (which is kind of sad, really), and the Samurai is totaly misrepresented anyways. These classes are totaly not needed.

[squirrelloid]

Nidhogg: That must be the most inflated view of a fighter i've ever seen.

A hallway full of runes:
Current: Lets face it, the highest trap CR is 10. These aren't blasting miniature poodle puppies, these are save or die german shephards. The fighter tries to walk through it and gets owned.
Ideal: Same as above, this isn't the fighter's schtick.

Fire Giant
Current: A F10 has BAB+10, Str 20 (16 +2 levels +2 enhancement), WF(Spiked Chain), and a +2 weapon. His attacks are at +18/+13 and deal 16 damage on average. His trip attempts are at +9 (+4 improved trip). He has 10' reach. He probably has a backup ranged weapon (longbow+1) and ~ 16 dex (tops) for +14/+9 to hit and 1d8+6 damage (average 10.5). He probably has mithril Platemail +2-3, a RoP+1, and perhaps an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 for an AC of 26 with 16 dex. Note this is a best case scenario as it assumes the fighter has gotten to choose virtually all his magical items rather than getting handed out treasure and having to barter for what he wants. I'm being generous, so the fighter has a 16 Con too +item of +2 Con, for E[hp] = 10 + 5.5*9 + 40 = 99.5hp.

The Fire Giant on the other hand has AC23 (8 touch), is Large with 31 str, attacks at +20/+15/+10 with a Greatsword (3d6+15, average 25.5), and makes his trip checks at +14. The giant has boulders as a backup throwing weapon at +10 dealing 2d6+10+2d6 damage (average 24). The fire giant lives in warm mountains, meaning the fighter almost certainly couldnt bring his horse. The giant has 10' reach. He has 142hp.

The giant has spot +14 and almost certainly sees the fighter first. (The fighter has at best spot +6 since spot isn't in class, and probably doesn't have any at all - assuming +0 wis mod). Combat probably starts at about 100' separation.

Surprise Round: Giant throws a boulder at the fighter, hitting 35% (flatfooted) of the time. E[damage] = .30*24 + (crit chance) .05*.35*41 + .05*.65*24 = 7.2+.7175+.78= 8.6975 damage

Round 1: Fighter wins initiative (+3, +7 with imp init vs +1 for Fire Giant). The fighter expects to take .15*24+.05*.2*48+.05*.8*24 = 5.14 damage/round at range, while he expects to deal .50*10.5 + .05*.55*31.5 + .05*.45*10.5 + .25*10.5 + .05*.3*31.5 + .05*.7*10.5 = 9.8175 damage. Alternately, in melee he expects to take an AoO moving in, and for any round he's in melee he expects to take 42.075 damage per full attack (no PA) and deal 22 per full attack. He very clearly wants to stay at range. However, the giant will close to melee quickly moving 30' and throwing a rock round 1 and charging round 2 if the fighter doesnt close. If he chooses to run away his expected damage with a single ranged attack goes down to 6.3525, and the giant eventually catches him (he moves 20' in medium armor).

Conclusion: The fighter gets seriously whupped by the giant. Even if the fighter somehow gets the surprise round, (despite bad spot, listen, hide, and move silently) he still loses. And all optimized fighters specialize in spiked chain, because its the best weapon in existence.

In theory: Fighter beats down the giant somehow?

A Young Blue Dragon
Current: This is even more convincing than the Giant. The dragon trashes the Fighter, especially if it can fly. It still sees the fighter first (remember that nonexistent spot check? yeah), breathes away half the fighters hp (bad reflex save, no biscuit), and turns him into chop suey. This isn't even close.
Ideal: ...?

A Bebelith
Current: The Bebilith gets surprise (plane shifts in), hits 70% of the time (85% on the surprise round) with its bite for 16 damage, has a decent chance of winning initiative (+5), and the fighter has >50% chance of failing that saving throw vs the poison (DC24 vs base 7+4 Con = +11). If it hits with both its claw attacks (happens with P(.45)^2 = ~20%, 36% if it wins initiative in the first round) it can seriously hose the fighter's armor. Of course, the poison probably finishes the fighter off around round 8 if damage hasn't yet, and the Bebelith can Plane Shift away if the fighters taken a bunch of hits to wait for the poison to finish it on the secondary damage. The fighter just loses, big time.
Ideal: Laughs at the poison and at least gives the demon a run for its money.

Note: "...poison has a low enough DC"? DC24 at CR10? This is a straight class Fighter we're talking about here - you expect him to make that? Consistently? Rofl.

Vrock
Current:Hits 50% of the time, stuns the fighter more than likely (DC22 Fort), has mirror image at will so the fighter never nails it, and has an autohit AoE damage effect around it that it can use as a free action 1/3 rounds. Its piddly damage, but the fighter can't run and can't hide and gets ground away trivially.
Ideal:...?

Mindflayer
Current and Ideal: Yeah, you have the right idea here - the fighter should not win this one.

Necromancer
Current: Wait, you think the necromancer touches a spell that allows a save? How about Enervation for 1d4 negative levels (no save), repeatedly, while flying. Every negative level penalizes the fighter with a -1 to just about every die roll with a d20, including saves. And the fighter can't fly, and his ranged weapon isn't going to be very competitive, especially after ~round 3 when he's taken an average of 7.5 negative levels. Note the fighter's touch AC is 14, which is pretty trivial to hit. Fighter loses bigtime. Cleric necromancers pull out all the stops with divine metamagic cheese - this isn't even close. A cleric necromancer is still a cleric, it just means he prepared Animate Dead *yesterday*. So yeah, that trump card? Its called choosing good spells.
Ideal: ?

6 Trolls
Current: only +9 attack, but lets be honest, theyre still hitting 20% of the time, and they can all get at the fighter at once. 12 attacks each hitting 20% of the time is going to start to hurt. And he better have brought some fire with him.
Ideal: Honestly, this should be the fighter's schtick...

Shadows
Current and Ideal: Yeah, this is a definite loss.

[User3]

So, a character is supposed to go 50--50 vs. a creature of equal CR. But a character is supposed to be much better at fighting a creature of one type than another.

So, if you assume three creature types (closet troll, mind flayer, and marulurk), a character of one of the basic roles might have a significantly better chance at fighting one of the creature types, and a significantly worse chance against the other two. A 'multiclassed' character will be worse than the pro at his shtick, but equally strong against another creature type.
In effect, a multiclass character really is about a level worse than a single-class one, but assuming an even challange distribution he stays equal in terms of successes.

Does this work more like a probabalistic rock/paper/scissors, or does the 'paper' player usually beat the paper tiger, but fails against the earth elemental more often than not?

Also, how good should a character be against weaker creatures? For example, a single shadow will still kill the Fighter 10, but I don't think this should be the cause (and I get the feeling that most of you agree). So what should the numbers look like, and when should things get to be nearly forgone conclusions?

[Nidhogg]

1152511517[/unixtime]]Nidhogg: That must be the most inflated view of a fighter i've ever seen.

You clearly don't know how to build a good one. A good fighter needs to be able to get the most out of every gold he gets, and benifits the most from magical buffs (especialy the ones that can be made permanent).

A hallway full of runes:
Current: Lets face it, the highest trap CR is 10. These aren't blasting miniature poodle puppies, these are save or die german shephards. The fighter tries to walk through it and gets owned.
Ideal: Same as above, this isn't the fighter's schtick.

I'm assuming that by 'hallway full of runes', the effects are going to be similar to Flame Trap, or various other spells that make magic runes go explody. I think at around level 10, Symbol of Pain is about the worst rune-based trap you can hope to expect. Since there are a hallway full of these things, I'm assuming that they are a number of weaker traps, rather than something that inflicts insta-rape upon a poor (Will defficient) Fighter.

Fire Giant
Current: A F10 has BAB+10, Str 20 (16 +2 levels +2 enhancement), WF(Spiked Chain), and a +2 weapon. His attacks are at +18/+13 and deal 16 damage on average. His trip attempts are at +9 (+4 improved trip). He has 10' reach. He probably has a backup ranged weapon (longbow+1) and ~ 16 dex (tops) for +14/+9 to hit and 1d8+6 damage (average 10.5). He probably has mithril Platemail +2-3, a RoP+1, and perhaps an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 for an AC of 26 with 16 dex. Note this is a best case scenario as it assumes the fighter has gotten to choose virtually all his magical items rather than getting handed out treasure and having to barter for what he wants. I'm being generous, so the fighter has a 16 Con too +item of +2 Con, for E[hp] = 10 + 5.5*9 + 40 = 99.5hp.

The problem is that this fighter is made from suck and fail. His AC is OK, but where this falls down is in his choice of weaponry. Spiked Chains lack damage potential, because tripping or disarming is almost never worth giving up an attack (especialy disarming, because sundering things is SO EASY, and you don't have to worry about big nasty picking up his sword again). While he could dual-wield, and own all ass, but that's just too damn expensive, so lets give the Fighter a great-weapon instead. Next, no self-respecting twink takes one class all the way through, so a Prestige Class is in order. Now our Fighter 10 becomes a Fighter 7, Kensai 3. Kensai levels let him spend dick-all on his weapon, so now he has a +1, Screaming, Icy, Greatsword, and it's Large size, because he has Monkey Grip. Now he can take the money that he would have spent on a weapon, and buy stat-boosting gear with it. Str = 26 (18, +2 from levels, +6 from his Belt), a con of 20 (16 + 4 from equipment), and a Dex of 16 (16 base, or 14 +2, it doesn't realy matter). The party Wizard perma-Enlarges him with the party's expense fund, so now he is Large size, and his weapon is Huge.

Now, he deals, 4d8+2d6+23 (2d6 staged up is 2d10, staged up is 4d8, +12 from 1+1/2 Str, +10 from 5 points of Power Attack, +1 from enchantments, +2d6 elemental damage). His attack bonus suffers a bit from Power Attack, but not more than a Cleric can buff him, and big things tend to have low AC anyways. His AC will be around what you stated (because he has money to spend on protection gear to compensate for size), with a few extra points if he hangs around Clerics or Paladins, and his HP will range from 69-150 (in my experiance, he'll probably end up in about the 120 range, because my players are buggers, and never seem to roll low for hit points).

The Fire Giant on the other hand has AC23 (8 touch), is Large with 31 str, attacks at +20/+15/+10 with a Greatsword (3d6+15, average 25.5), and makes his trip checks at +14. The giant has boulders as a backup throwing weapon at +10 dealing 2d6+10+2d6 damage (average 24). The fire giant lives in warm mountains, meaning the fighter almost certainly couldnt bring his horse. The giant has 10' reach. He has 142hp.

The fighter, being Lawful Good, walks right in to the Fire Giant's lair, opens the door to his bed chamber, and sees big ugly stanting there in full combat regalia (because that's how you find most monsters in a dungeon crawl). Whomever wins Initiative charges the other, and than they sit there bashing eachother like the dumb combat monsters that they both are. The Fighter has a better threat range, and a bigger peni... er, sword, so he wins.

The Fighter wins no contest, and that's with a crappy two-handed twink build, nor is it including half of the feats at a fighter's disposal. If I wanted to make a good build, it would have involved Two-Weapon Fighting and dire picks, but then I would have actually opened one of my books. Oh, and the spiked chain looks a lot better on paper than it actually is. Double bladed weapons are the suck.

A Young Blue Dragon
Current: This is even more convincing than the Giant. The dragon trashes the Fighter, especially if it can fly. It still sees the fighter first (remember that nonexistent spot check? yeah), breathes away half the fighters hp (bad reflex save, no biscuit), and turns him into chop suey. This isn't even close.
Ideal: ...?

If the dragon flies, then the Fighter looses. If the dragon tanks, then the dragon looses, but just barely.

A Bebelith
Current: The Bebilith gets surprise (plane shifts in), hits 70% of the time (85% on the surprise round) with its bite for 16 damage, has a decent chance of winning initiative (+5), and the fighter has >50% chance of failing that saving throw vs the poison (DC24 vs base 7+4 Con = +11). If it hits with both its claw attacks (happens with P(.45)^2 = ~20%, 36% if it wins initiative in the first round) it can seriously hose the fighter's armor. Of course, the poison probably finishes the fighter off around round 8 if damage hasn't yet, and the Bebelith can Plane Shift away if the fighters taken a bunch of hits to wait for the poison to finish it on the secondary damage. The fighter just loses, big time.
Ideal: Laughs at the poison and at least gives the demon a run for its money.

Bebliths mean serious pain for any 'run up and bash things' characters like a Fighter. For the Fighter to win, he needs to make liberal use of Expertise, because against Demons, Armor Class is key.

Note: "...poison has a low enough DC"? DC24 at CR10? This is a straight class Fighter we're talking about here - you expect him to make that? Consistently? Rofl.

I assume that he is with a party (because CR is a very poor way to guage a solo encounter), and that he has been smart enough not to go straight Fighter, because not taking a PrC at the earliest opportunity is usualy suicide. If the party has a communal 'treasure pile', this is where the Fighter nabs the Cloak of Resistance for the adventure. If the party doesn't, he had better hope he's traveling with a Rogue or Monk.

Vrock
Current:Hits 50% of the time, stuns the fighter more than likely (DC22 Fort), has mirror image at will so the fighter never nails it, and has an autohit AoE damage effect around it that it can use as a free action 1/3 rounds. Its piddly damage, but the fighter can't run and can't hide and gets ground away trivially.
Ideal:...?

Yea, a Vrock lays the rape down on a Fighter. No way around it.

Mindflayer
Current and Ideal: Yeah, you have the right idea here - the fighter should not win this one.

Nothing beats a Mind Flayer. Plane Shift at will is about as broken as it comes.

Necromancer
Current: Wait, you think the necromancer touches a spell that allows a save? How about Enervation for 1d4 negative levels (no save), repeatedly, while flying. Every negative level penalizes the fighter with a -1 to just about every die roll with a d20, including saves. And the fighter can't fly, and his ranged weapon isn't going to be very competitive, especially after ~round 3 when he's taken an average of 7.5 negative levels. Note the fighter's touch AC is 14, which is pretty trivial to hit. Fighter loses bigtime. Cleric necromancers pull out all the stops with divine metamagic cheese - this isn't even close. A cleric necromancer is still a cleric, it just means he prepared Animate Dead *yesterday*. So yeah, that trump card? Its called choosing good spells.
Ideal: ?

I assume all encounters take place within a dungeon. When a Necromancer is specified, I also assume that means a specialist Wizard, and not a Cleric who uses Necromantic spells. Anyways, if indoors, then the Necromancer will have trouble flying, and also have issues with his minions getting in the way. If outdoors, than the spellcaster always wins, no contest.

6 Trolls
Current: only +9 attack, but lets be honest, theyre still hitting 20% of the time, and they can all get at the fighter at once. 12 attacks each hitting 20% of the time is going to start to hurt. And he better have brought some fire with him.
Ideal: Honestly, this should be the fighter's schtick...

The fighter just needs to knock them out with massive subdual damage. When everyone is down, then the Fighter does a coup-de-grace on all the trolls.

Shadows
Current and Ideal: Yeah, this is a definite loss.

When the enemy can hide in the ground and grab your leg until you die, there realy is no contest. Fighters don't kill the incorporeals. Period.

[erik]

I believe that for the purpose of this exercise the 10 fighter is actually supposed to be a 10 fighter with equipment and abilities available to the fighter. Not a prestige classed character with permanency'd spells.

If we're comparing characters who are expected to be buffed up by other character types, then the whole comparison notion goes to pot.

I dunno how the Kensai works, but if that sword is huge from the permanent enlarge person, then it still is gonna go back to large the moment he ever drops it. Which will happen one day. He could just as easily get the sword perma-enlarged too, but like the rest of this build notion, it totally goes against the spirit of a 10 fighter using his own class abilities to succeed.

If you want to go all out, then have him poly any object'd into a permanently superior form. But again, that defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

Try it again with a 10 fighter using his own devices. And good luck.

[squirrelloid]

1152519748[/unixtime]]

1152511517[/unixtime]]Nidhogg: That must be the most inflated view of a fighter i've ever seen.

You clearly don't know how to build a good one. A good fighter needs to be able to get the most out of every gold he gets, and benifits the most from magical buffs (especialy the ones that can be made permanent).

Spiked Chain is by far the best weapon available for a fighter built to take a generic encounter. Because combat control >> damage in a large number of fights, and especially true against classed characters. The spiked chain fighter hoses the greatsword fighter. Further, the Great Sword doesn't do appreciably more damage, but does get a slightly better critical range.

A hallway full of runes:
Current: Lets face it, the highest trap CR is 10. These aren't blasting miniature poodle puppies, these are save or die german shephards. The fighter tries to walk through it and gets owned.
Ideal: Same as above, this isn't the fighter's schtick.

I'm assuming that by 'hallway full of runes', the effects are going to be similar to Flame Trap, or various other spells that make magic runes go explody. I think at around level 10, Symbol of Pain is about the worst rune-based trap you can hope to expect. Since there are a hallway full of these things, I'm assuming that they are a number of weaker traps, rather than something that inflicts insta-rape upon a poor (Will defficient) Fighter.

This is a CR10 encounter, not a CR5 encounter. Its going to be something really nasty, its the worst trap type that exists. (Traps don't get above CR10). This means it can use higher than 5th level spells because it can be detected and disarmed, making even 9th level spells not as dangerous as if something was casting them. I think a triggered Insanity is perfectly reasonable, and even a little underpar, at CR10. Not to mention a bunch of other SoL spells for the fighter (confusion, otto's irresistable dance, etc...).

Regardless, a 200' pit is a CR10 trap (20d6 damage). By analogy, a single rune that deals 20d6 (70 average damage, reflex for half) is also appropriate. The fighter fails his save and loses a lot of hp. This is definitely a loss, since whatever is after the hallway is going to eat him.

Fire Giant
Current: A F10 has BAB+10, Str 20 (16 +2 levels +2 enhancement), WF(Spiked Chain), and a +2 weapon. His attacks are at +18/+13 and deal 16 damage on average. His trip attempts are at +9 (+4 improved trip). He has 10' reach. He probably has a backup ranged weapon (longbow+1) and ~ 16 dex (tops) for +14/+9 to hit and 1d8+6 damage (average 10.5). He probably has mithril Platemail +2-3, a RoP+1, and perhaps an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 for an AC of 26 with 16 dex. Note this is a best case scenario as it assumes the fighter has gotten to choose virtually all his magical items rather than getting handed out treasure and having to barter for what he wants. I'm being generous, so the fighter has a 16 Con too +item of +2 Con, for E[hp] = 10 + 5.5*9 + 40 = 99.5hp.

The problem is that this fighter is made from suck and fail. His AC is OK, but where this falls down is in his choice of weaponry. Spiked Chains lack damage potential, because tripping or disarming is almost never worth giving up an attack (especialy disarming, because sundering things is SO EASY, and you don't have to worry about big nasty picking up his sword again). While he could dual-wield, and own all ass, but that's just too damn expensive, so lets give the Fighter a great-weapon instead. Next, no self-respecting twink takes one class all the way through, so a Prestige Class is in order. Now our Fighter 10 becomes a Fighter 7, Kensai 3. Kensai levels let him spend dick-all on his weapon, so now he has a +1, Screaming, Icy, Greatsword, and it's Large size, because he has Monkey Grip. Now he can take the money that he would have spent on a weapon, and buy stat-boosting gear with it. Str = 26 (18, +2 from levels, +6 from his Belt), a con of 20 (16 + 4 from equipment), and a Dex of 16 (16 base, or 14 +2, it doesn't realy matter). The party Wizard perma-Enlarges him with the party's expense fund, so now he is Large size, and his weapon is Huge.

First of all, the whole point was that a F10 should be a CR10 'monster'. But that aside, you've spent too much money on equipment - he *cannot* have a belt +6 because its worth more than any single item he can own according to the DMG. I think you're also over your total wealth allowance.

Further, your stats are too good. You've done a 36 PB (32 if we assume 14 dex), which is on the high power end, and thats not even including mental stats (which you've relegated to 8s at this point).

And this is the fighter on his own - perma-enlarge is the wizard owning, not the fighter; heck, it even costs the wizard xp. I'll also note your fighter/kensai has burned xp for his weapon, so he's actually level 9, not 10, when he becomes CR10 by total xp awarded.

Now, he deals, 4d8+2d6+23 (2d6 staged up is 2d10, staged up is 4d8, +12 from 1+1/2 Str, +10 from 5 points of Power Attack, +1 from enchantments, +2d6 elemental damage). His attack bonus suffers a bit from Power Attack, but not more than a Cleric can buff him, and big things tend to have low AC anyways. His AC will be around what you stated (because he has money to spend on protection gear to compensate for size), with a few extra points if he hangs around Clerics or Paladins, and his HP will range from 69-150 (in my experiance, he'll probably end up in about the 120 range, because my players are buggers, and never seem to roll low for hit points).

The fighter is on his own, so no cleric. His attack bonus goes down by -2 for monkey grip and -5 for power attack and he's scraping up +10/+5 against AC23 for the fire giant. The Fire Giant hoses him big time. The fire giant also gets an AoO when the fighter moves in to attack. Spiked chain at least means they both have 10' reach. I'm pretty sure your build also expects to deal less damage if we only consider the impact of the fighter.

Honestly, i'm starting to think tripping the giant is the fighter's optimal strategy.

The Fire Giant on the other hand has AC23 (8 touch), is Large with 31 str, attacks at +20/+15/+10 with a Greatsword (3d6+15, average 25.5), and makes his trip checks at +14. The giant has boulders as a backup throwing weapon at +10 dealing 2d6+10+2d6 damage (average 24). The fire giant lives in warm mountains, meaning the fighter almost certainly couldnt bring his horse. The giant has 10' reach. He has 142hp.

The fighter, being Lawful Good, walks right in to the Fire Giant's lair, opens the door to his bed chamber, and sees big ugly stanting there in full combat regalia (because that's how you find most monsters in a dungeon crawl). Whomever wins Initiative charges the other, and than they sit there bashing eachother like the dumb combat monsters that they both are. The Fighter has a better threat range, and a bigger peni... er, sword, so he wins.

Uh... huh? The giant has darkvision 60', so if they're inside the giant totally sees the fighter's torch before he sees the giant (even if it is a dull gray ioun stone with flaming torch cast on it instead of a real torch). If they're outside the giant *actually has a spot worth talking about* and sees the fighter at 100'+. The giant gets a surprise round. They're both using great swords and keen is too expensive at this point, so they have the same threat range. And the fighter is slower, so if the giant wants it can just run away, or chase down the helpless fighter.

The Fighter wins no contest, and that's with a crappy two-handed twink build, nor is it including half of the feats at a fighter's disposal. If I wanted to make a good build, it would have involved Two-Weapon Fighting and dire picks, but then I would have actually opened one of my books. Oh, and the spiked chain looks a lot better on paper than it actually is. Double bladed weapons are the suck.

TWF is the suck because it requires a bazillion feats and penalizes the fighter for doing so even beyond that (additional -2 to hit, second weapon must be light or that becomes -4, and the second weapon only gets 1/2 str i believe. Plus the cash sink in a cash limited world. Yeah, TWF is a waste of feats).

Spiked chain is one of two 20th fighter builds i could ever see anyone actually playing, because the chain-tripper is marginally good. At least as far as fighters go.

A Young Blue Dragon
Current: This is even more convincing than the Giant. The dragon trashes the Fighter, especially if it can fly. It still sees the fighter first (remember that nonexistent spot check? yeah), breathes away half the fighters hp (bad reflex save, no biscuit), and turns him into chop suey. This isn't even close.
Ideal: ...?

If the dragon flies, then the Fighter looses. If the dragon tanks, then the dragon looses, but just barely.

The fighter averages 100hp

Looking at the SRD, a Young Blue Dragon is only CR 6? Despite that, it opens up with a breath weapon (6d8 averages 27 damage and the fighter fails his DC 18 reflex save). It doesnt have a prayer of hitting, so it runs away until its breath weapon comes back online and comes back and does it again. Rinse, wash, repeat. If they're inside, the Fighter never even *sees* the dragon, he just gets zapped by a bolt of lightning every so often. (Compare move speeds - 40' dragon, 20' fighter in med armor; if the dragon is generous and the fighter starts running, he might let him go). The dragon doesn't even need to fly. He certainly doesnt melee.

Now, if we assume a CR10 dragon, the fighter loses in melee too. A CR 10 Juvenile Red Dragon casts as a 3rd level sorceror, which means he can take his AC of 24 and increase it to 32 with mage armor and shield. This totally hoses the fighter by itself. It hits 50% of the time, though honestly it can pin the fighter without trying. (Grapple +29 vs fighter's +15, and this is before the dragon has chosen feats). Its breath weapon does 8d10 which averages to 44, or almost half the fighter's hp, and the fighter almost certainly fails the DC 22.

A Bebelith
Current: The Bebilith gets surprise (plane shifts in), hits 70% of the time (85% on the surprise round) with its bite for 16 damage, has a decent chance of winning initiative (+5), and the fighter has >50% chance of failing that saving throw vs the poison (DC24 vs base 7+4 Con = +11). If it hits with both its claw attacks (happens with P(.45)^2 = ~20%, 36% if it wins initiative in the first round) it can seriously hose the fighter's armor. Of course, the poison probably finishes the fighter off around round 8 if damage hasn't yet, and the Bebelith can Plane Shift away if the fighters taken a bunch of hits to wait for the poison to finish it on the secondary damage. The fighter just loses, big time.
Ideal: Laughs at the poison and at least gives the demon a run for its money.

Bebliths mean serious pain for any 'run up and bash things' characters like a Fighter. For the Fighter to win, he needs to make liberal use of Expertise, because against Demons, Armor Class is key.

Note: "...poison has a low enough DC"? DC24 at CR10? This is a straight class Fighter we're talking about here - you expect him to make that? Consistently? Rofl.

I assume that he is with a party (because CR is a very poor way to guage a solo encounter), and that he has been smart enough not to go straight Fighter, because not taking a PrC at the earliest opportunity is usualy suicide. If the party has a communal 'treasure pile', this is where the Fighter nabs the Cloak of Resistance for the adventure. If the party doesn't, he had better hope he's traveling with a Rogue or Monk.

The assumption here is a F10 by himself.

Also note that expertise doesnt begin to make enough of a difference - either he reduces himself to uselessness or the demon owns him. Because the demon hits more often than he does, and gets more attacks (more chances at 20s).

Vrock
Current:Hits 50% of the time, stuns the fighter more than likely (DC22 Fort), has mirror image at will so the fighter never nails it, and has an autohit AoE damage effect around it that it can use as a free action 1/3 rounds. Its piddly damage, but the fighter can't run and can't hide and gets ground away trivially.
Ideal:...?

Yea, a Vrock lays the rape down on a Fighter. No way around it.

Mindflayer
Current and Ideal: Yeah, you have the right idea here - the fighter should not win this one.

Nothing beats a Mind Flayer. Plane Shift at will is about as broken as it comes.

Necromancer
Current: Wait, you think the necromancer touches a spell that allows a save? How about Enervation for 1d4 negative levels (no save), repeatedly, while flying. Every negative level penalizes the fighter with a -1 to just about every die roll with a d20, including saves. And the fighter can't fly, and his ranged weapon isn't going to be very competitive, especially after ~round 3 when he's taken an average of 7.5 negative levels. Note the fighter's touch AC is 14, which is pretty trivial to hit. Fighter loses bigtime. Cleric necromancers pull out all the stops with divine metamagic cheese - this isn't even close. A cleric necromancer is still a cleric, it just means he prepared Animate Dead *yesterday*. So yeah, that trump card? Its called choosing good spells.
Ideal: ?

I assume all encounters take place within a dungeon. When a Necromancer is specified, I also assume that means a specialist Wizard, and not a Cleric who uses Necromantic spells. Anyways, if indoors, then the Necromancer will have trouble flying, and also have issues with his minions getting in the way. If outdoors, than the spellcaster always wins, no contest.

And how is enervation not a necromancer. Ok, no flying? We use greater invisibility, and we can slow the figher (will save - and you have an 8 wisdom, right?) to make full attacks unlikely. Heck, this is a one shot necromancer, i can probably burn enough feats to get sudden quicken and hose the fighter in two rounds. Please remember the fighter has a move speed of 20 and enervation has a range of 50' at these levels. Cast enervation, back up 30'. The fighter never catches the necromancer to lay on the smack down. (You're the one who insisted high AC through Plate Mail in your first post - nothing justifies having heavier than light armor, you need to be able to move). Even so, the fighter can't see the Greater Invisibility'd Necromancer. There is no way a F10 or meleer 10 can beat a wizard 10 with good spells unless they're fighting in a closet. Wizards don't go into closets.

6 Trolls
Current: only +9 attack, but lets be honest, theyre still hitting 20% of the time, and they can all get at the fighter at once. 12 attacks each hitting 20% of the time is going to start to hurt. And he better have brought some fire with him.
Ideal: Honestly, this should be the fighter's schtick...

The fighter just needs to knock them out with massive subdual damage. When everyone is down, then the Fighter does a coup-de-grace on all the trolls.

Missing an extra 20% of the time (-4 penalty for subdual) doesn't seem worth it to me. But someone should probably run the numbers to make sure. This combat bores me, to be honest.

In conclusion, don't accuse me of building a bad fighter (i didn't, i proposed one of the best fighter builds i've seen), and then assume the monsters are playing stupid. Especially when a number of them (dragons, necromancer) are much smarter than the fighter.

Also, i suggest you look at the rules on appropriate treasure and wealth by level guidelines since you seem to think the fighter has cash to burn and can have arbitrarily expensive items. (stat+6 doesn't become available till something like 13th or 14th level, and the fighter has so much stuff he wants that he probably can't even afford to shell out for +4 at 10th because its a substantial fraction of his cash).

[RandomCasualty]

The main thing we should worry about first is what kind of flavor concept we want to assign these classes. I'm not talking about backstory flavor, but rather, what do we see when we think about say, a knight.

Do we see the guy charging the dragon on horseback? Or do we see something like Parn from Lodoss War?

Who are our fighter and swashbuckler archetypes? And what the hell do we want a "fighter" to be now anyway? If we're introducing tons of other fighting classes for different styles, do we even need a base fighter anymore?

The thing is that at one point or another, we've seen warrior types beat almost every monster in the book. Evil wizards, demons, humanoids, undead, dragons, giants, we've pretty much seen it all.

For this reason, we should first try to get our base concepts on the same page.

[erik]

Missing an extra 20% of the time (-4 penalty for subdual) doesn't seem worth it to me. But someone should probably run the numbers to make sure. This combat bores me, to be honest.

The reason it is subdual is because the Trolls only take subdual damage from stuff that isn't fire or acid damage. Not due to a -4 penalty to do so. The hit chance was 20%, not the additional miss chances. Other than that tho, yer spot on here. F10 with appropriate equipment and class features of his own, versus "equivalent" CR 10 challenges. These should be more or less fair fights. As is, the F10 is a liabililty.

[squirrelloid]

1152558097[/unixtime]]

Missing an extra 20% of the time (-4 penalty for subdual) doesn't seem worth it to me. But someone should probably run the numbers to make sure. This combat bores me, to be honest.

The reason it is subdual is because the Trolls only take subdual damage from stuff that isn't fire or acid damage. Not due to a -4 penalty to do so. The hit chance was 20%, not the additional miss chances. Other than that tho, yer spot on here. F10 with appropriate equipment and class features of his own, versus "equivalent" CR 10 challenges. These should be more or less fair fights. As is, the F10 is a liabililty.

Oops, yeah you're right. Sorry, i wasn't quite awake yet, and i still think of trolls as i did in 2nd edition for the most part (the damage was real, but they just healed it) since i don't use regenerating monsters very often.

[Draco_Argentum]

Second nitpick, squirrelloid, around here Dragons get their CR pumped by 4 so that it is reasonable instead of a sick joke to make new DMs TPK.

RC is right, fluff wise fighters are meant to beat everything. I'd actually pick caster types as what he should be strong against. Right now casters are close to mirror matches and they own brutes. If fighters were owning brutes and losing to casters they'd be worse than casters.

[squirrelloid]

1152571415[/unixtime]]Second nitpick, squirrelloid, around here Dragons get their CR pumped by 4 so that it is reasonable instead of a sick joke to make new DMs TPK.

RC is right, fluff wise fighters are meant to beat everything. I'd actually pick caster types as what he should be strong against. Right now casters are close to mirror matches and they own brutes. If fighters were owning brutes and losing to casters they'd be worse than casters.

4 CR? That seems like quite a bit. Especially since the wizard is *soloing* dragons of his CR (as published) by level 10. Admittedly, there are ridiculously overpowered spells, like shivering touch.

Now, i can understand published CR 2-8 dragons being under-CRed, but by 10 they're about right afaict. So long as you can counter the flying part. (And if you can't do that by level 10, goodnight).

It still stands that the YBD owns the fighter and the fighter never even sees it.

[Crissa]

This argument seems to have missed the entire point of the thread... What a wasted page.

[Username17]

4 CR? That seems like quite a bit.

Not really. A Dragon is officially CRed at the level it takes to be an equal challenge for the entire party - which means that they are CRed at 4 CR less than any other creature would be pegged to.

And really, the Young Blue Dragon is giving up nothing on the other CR 10 encounters.

The only reason that Dragons can be bested at all by wizards is that despite their almost complete lack of weaknesses - they actually do have one: they have a shit Dexterity. So if you have something crazy, you'll be able to kill them good and proper.

But even with that "weakness", they still don't have crappy Reflex saves or anything. Their Reflex saves are actually really good because they have substantially high hit dice for even their adusted CRs and they have all good saves.

Only by attacking their Dexterity directly do they have any weaknesses at all, and a dragon on the wing can often avoid the two effects in the whole game that do that in a reasonably effective fashion: finger darts and shivering touch. And let's face it, both of those are broken spells from obscure supplements and most DMs won't let you have them.

Really, on the list of EL 10 encounters, the "CR 6" Blue Dragon is probably second only to the pile of shadows in terms of consistently boning just about every 10th level character.

-Username17