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

[Roy]

Disclaimer: Many of you will read this and think 'No shit, Sherlock'. This is more intended as an easy tag reference for anyone here that needs it more than because anyone here directly needs the information contained therein. So when the inevitable 'AC Fail' thread comes up, serve a bowl of copy pasta and call it a day.

Now, in games there are ultimately two different types of defenses, each with their own subtypes.

In the first type of system, attacks (almost) always hit you, and it is simply a question of degree. That is to say, a low defense character will take more damage from the same attack than a high defense character, but both will be struck with about the same frequency. Nearly every video game uses this system. I say almost because there typically is some sort of evade stat. It's generally low, even on agile types but does give a chance of avoiding a blow entirely.

In the second type of system, attacks always do the same damage, but their chance to connect, or hit you in a meaningful way is dependent on your defense, and agility simply gets thrown into the pile here meaning guy A has a defense of X because of his plate mail, and guy B has a defense of y because he does fucking Matrix dodge shit. D&D, and many of its derivatives use this. Not many other systems do.

Both of these types of mundane defenses have their legitimate applications.

The Fail comes in because D&D 3.5 is supposed to do Type 2 defenses, but in reality does Type 1 defenses due to the fact getting hit is a foregone conclusion barring that 5% 'evade', however the degree of that hit is variable as the lower your AC, the harder the enemy can PA and still connect. In other words, it Fails because it lies, or is simply incompetent depending on how you perceive this failure of the designer.

Further, it Fails because it neither does Type 1 or Type 2 defenses well. Getting hit being a foregone conclusion isn't a problem... provided that you can get your defenses high enough so you aren't taking much damage from those hits. Indeed, the aforementioned video games do this, giving you a strong incentive to keep your gear up to date as it really does help. Likewise, having damage be consistent and accuracy not isn't a problem - assuming that you can get your defenses high enough to reduce that accuracy to a manageable level. 1.0 and 2.0 did this. Later editions of D&D did not... I don't consider 4.Fail D&D for reasons outside the scope of this document. As you cannot do either of these things, it Fails. By being a caster, you can get your 'evade' high enough to be safe, but this in and of itself opens up a six pack of Fail for reasons that are likewise outside the design scope of this first post.

The Tome iterative -5 thing to make weapon attacks like natural attacks at least stops the RNG raping that is -10 and -15 attacks... it also makes BAB actually worth a shit, as you might actually hit on a non Hail Mary with them.

As far as I know though, it doesn't bother giving a shit about AC, instead presuming you'll just one round Rocket Tag it before it does the same to you. Which works in the short term, but gets you raped by Iterative Probability in (slightly longer) short order.

On a side note, I used something similar to this on the Paizils months ago. The devs got so butthurt about it they banned me over it and tried to pass it off as some other, utter and complete bullshit instead.

The main issue is that you can't fucking get enough of it to make enemies care. Now you could try fixing every enemy, ever... or you can just say fuck that shit and fix the problem instead of changing the world so it isn't a problem.

AC is a factor of gear after all.

First, the gear is too fucking expensive. Second, as stated it doesn't do enough.

The weaksauce solution is to therefore reduce the cost of all magical additions to armor and shields to 60% of the norm, which is to say bonus squared * 600 gold, with straight cost stuff also getting the * 0.6 treatment. Also, the armor or shield bonus now maxes at +8, for a total of +13. You still cannot have more than +9 worth of special properties on them. So while before you'd have a +1 (+9 worth of special properties) + possible Magic Vestment armor for 100k, you'd now have a +1 (+9 worth of special properties) + possible Magic Vestment armor for 60k, or alternately a +4/+9 armor for 101.4k. Also, Magic Vestment changes to +1 per 3 CLs (max 8) since I expect people to end up with CL 24th on their buffs. Alternately it could be +1 per 2 levels (max 8) or +2 per 5 levels (max 8) to make it cap at 16 or 20 instead, depending on what is deemed necessary to make it work consistently and reliably against competent enemy beatsticks.

Note, this applies to all AC gear. A +5 natural armor amulet becomes 30k. Same for a +5 deflection ring. Thus, getting the full compliment of AC gear either costs 40% less, or gives you at least 6 more points for comparable cost.

This is dubbed the weaksauce solution because it was intentionally underdone to avoid shocking the Paizils too much. It's very likely further changes are required to make it work, especially given it's still expensive as fuck and now only barely works. So it likely does need to become more extreme.

That's the other point of posting it here. By posting it here, I can get it refined and made more accurate, so as to be a better tag reference. Using some other forum to hang it up, will just attract the whiners to that thread. Which defeats the fucking point.

[Gelare]

Out of curiosity, can someone tell me why getting hit in 3.5 is a foregone conclusion? The other day I made a fighter with AC high enough that a Balor couldn't hit him except on that 5% chance. And everyone else should have Displacement. So where's the math that it's guaranteed hits?

[Psychic Robot]

Displacement = miss chance = better than AC.

In 3e, you're largely relegated to being hit because of monsters' huge attack bonus. That is, unless you sink vast sums of gold into your AC, which cripples you otherwise. You may also choose to use Improved Combat Expertise, but by doing so, you're crippling your damage potential, so the monster is going to ignore you and eat someone squishier.

[NineInchNall]

Out of curiosity, can someone tell me why getting hit in 3.5 is a foregone conclusion? The other day I made a fighter with AC high enough that a Balor couldn't hit him except on that 5% chance. And everyone else should have Displacement. So where's the math that it's guaranteed hits?

Well, there's always the fact that even with AC -> INF, 5% of all attacks will hit. For the most part, however, unless you do some AC whoring (or are a caster) you will be lower on the AC Totem Pole than that.

I mean ...

Paladin 20
+5 mithral full plate
+5 heavy shield
+5 ring of protection
+5 amulet of natural armor

That's the standard, which ends up as 10 + 13 (armor) + 7 (shield) +5 (deflection) + 5 (natural) + 3 (Dex) = 43.

A balor has a 31/30/26/25/21/16 attack routine. A pit fiend has +30/30/28/28/28/28. You're going to get hit there.

And neither one of those is primarily a melee creature.

[Gelare]

Yeah, admittedly the fighter I made was specifically AC-optimized, but still, while having a 43 AC isn't an impenetrable defense, it hardly seems like the auto-hit scenario Roy was talking about. Solars start their attack routine at +35, and they're CR 23. An old red dragon has 24 BAB and 29 Str, so we're talking +33 at CR 20. This is, of course, assuming they haven't used magic to buff themselves into crazytown. If they have, well, there's no doubt you're hosed there.

[shau]

I usually hear about attack bonuses far outstripping AC on the player's side. A balor only has 35 ac, which is pathetic at that level. The monsters that almost PCs tend to be in the lower level range. Your basic tiger makes four attacks at plus 9, which is is really plus 11 because he is going to charge. He also has a bite and improved grab. Good luck stopping that. The Roc is Cr 9 and has a plus 21 attack bonus.

You can keep up with that if you really try, but considering how fast attack increases on the enemies that actually physically attack you adding plusses on your armor and the dodge feat are really overpriced.

[CatharzGodfoot]

At least in the tomes, I think the assumption is that your enhancement bonus to AC exactly counters a weapons enhancement bonus to attack. Your attribute bonus to AC approximately counters your attacker's attribute bonus (but is usually a bit lower). If you assume the full BAB case, what you have left is level vs. level/6* natural armor + level/4 deflection (almost 1/2 level) plus an armor bonus that scales somewhat to level. Ignoring special abilities (which go crazy on both), the RNG is mostly un-fucked. AC vs. attack is still kinda jagged (as soon as dwarves can afford really badass armor, for example), but the two retain rough parity. Shields provide an additional scaling boost, at the cost of some offensive ability for some characters.

Not perfect (certainly not as balanced as 4e), but a good attempt for something 3e-based.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, admittedly the fighter I made was specifically AC-optimized, but still, while having a 43 AC isn't an impenetrable defense, it hardly seems like the auto-hit scenario Roy was talking about. Solars start their attack routine at +35, and they're CR 23. An old red dragon has 24 BAB and 29 Str, so we're talking +33 at CR 20. This is, of course, assuming they haven't used magic to buff themselves into crazytown. If they have, well, there's no doubt you're hosed there.

But see, you compared it against hybrid type monsters that should only be attacking you when you have been stunned.

If you go through CR 20 SRD crap that is actually "make attack roles" oriented, you get stuff like:

Ancient Brass, attacks at +40, before casting any of the spells from his level 15 Sorcerer casting:

So yeah, I think he could probably autohit you.

Wyrm Black: +42 before 13th level Sorcerer casting

And that's with shitty Core feats and toughness six times and crap too.

Tarrasque has +57/+52/+52/+52 ect. A Colossal Half Dragon Bear would have something in the same +5X range.

Something with Blasphemy and Power Word Stun or Insanity at will isn't going to have the same AB as something that actually needs to make attack rolls on targets who can defend themselves.

[Josh_Kablack]

In 3.x edition, Limited Wish reads

Produce any other effect whose power level is in line with the above effects, such as a single creature automatically hitting on its next attack or taking....

So the only reasons people ever miss in 3.x are

• Lack of access to 7th level spells
• Concerns about XP Costs
• DM ruling that "auto-hitting on attack N" is somehow MORE powerful than hitting on "auto-hitting on attack N-1"

[virgil]

The only reason people ever miss in 3.x is because they only attack every other round?

[Gelare]

So the only reasons people ever miss in 3.x are

• Lack of access to 7th level spells
• Concerns about XP Costs

Uh, dude? Not to dispute that claim, but the list of people who lack access to 7th level spells and infinite wells of XP is virtually everybody. I mean, come on, even if you're 20th level, you only get roughly as many 7th levels spells as you have fingers on your right hand, and each Limited Wish - each of which affects only a single attack - takes a standard action to use. You're possibly being ironic, in which case I apologize for missing it, but if you're serious...come on.

[Username17]

Any Wizard or Dread Necromancer can just shake the Dao Tree fro 3 Limited Wishes by casting a planar binding variant. Dao can create iron slabs and can be paid in worked iron, so anyone with fabricate can expect to be able to shake that tree as much as they want. If their three wishes are for Grimaxe to automatically hit on his next attack, his next attack after that, and his attack after he has made two attacks, then Grimaxe will indeed always automatically hit.

-Username17

[Murtak]

I mean ...

Paladin 20
+5 mithral full plate
+5 heavy shield
+5 ring of protection
+5 amulet of natural armor

That's the standard, which ends up as 10 + 13 (armor) + 7 (shield) +5 (deflection) + 5 (natural) + 3 (Dex) = 43.

Fighter 20
Full Plate (+5 due to your friendly neighborhood cleric)
Improved Expertise
Dex 10
---------
Total: 43

With a shield and a Barkskin that's 55 instead. One feat, two non-magical items, three low level buffs.

Or, in other words: Level 20 comparisons in DnD are useless. Everyone who wants to can leave any RNG he desires. Compare up to level 10, a the most.

[Roy]

Whoa there. Full fucking stop.

No using examples of a CASTER enemy auto attacking to try to prove you're protected against auto attacks. You wouldn't call it useful if it made a Wizard miss you with his quarterstaff, nor would you expect him to try to hit you with his quarterstaff instead of casting a win spell. Likewise with the Balor and Pit Fiend.

Further, no using examples of 'no items, no spells, no feats, no tactics, auto attacks only, FINAL DESTINATION'. Dragons may have up to +42 off of BAB and Str alone... but it is just that, off BAB and Str alone. Monsters are very buffable, as most of their bonuses are coming from the same few types. Dragons have as much gear as NPCs of their level. They have good enough spellcasting ability to have some solid buffs for themselves. And they get a full compliment of feats. All of these give you auto attack numbers in the mid to high 50s... just like Big T. Note, this is without even trying. If you did try, you'd get more like +70... or just have then using Wraithstrike, which amounts to the same thing - PA for full and still auto hit.

And between the 6 true dragons and Big T, that's every single level 20 beatstick enemy.

Meanwhile, the absolute max your AC can hit, without Turtle Fail or much self gimping is 49... doing this costs around 380k, or about half your total WBL. So you're using half your cash, for the privilege of being auto attacked and 1-2 rounded by anything that cares about AC anyways. The things that don't care obviously will attack you in some other way, also making it completely useless. If you'd rather have your speed at full and not 2/3rds you need to not self gimp and use a mithril breastplate instead of mithril fullplate. Now you absolute cap at 46.

If you partake of Turtle Fail, then depending on the scenario you either get auto hit ANYWAYS, but now are flailing for piddly shit yourself and therefore useless, or the enemy ignores you while you do the aforementioned flailing and attacks someone else. In either case, you're doing nothing useful. Just leeching XP. And you don't need any help for that.

If you go to lower levels, then enemy attack bonuses are much lower, but since AC is a gold based exponential scaling thing so is that.

After all, basic mithril full plate is 10.5k... you only have 49k gold at level 10, total. You need another 9k and change for an animated shield, so you can use it without self gimping. That leaves about 4k, before you've spent over half your cash on it. And if anything you will be getting less mileage out of it now than you would then for half your cash, as that only amounts to 21 + Dex + 1 or maybe 2 more from bullshit bonuses. Still auto hit. Not so much PA bait, but since you only have, at most a +2 Con item instead of the +6 you'd have at level 20, you only have about 84 HP instead of 214. So they really don't need to make you PA bait to 1-2 round you. They can just do that.

At 1-5 it kinda sorta works, but it also doesn't require huge cash investments to work. And the higher items, such as armors over +1 aren't even a factor yet.

[Murtak]

Meanwhile, the absolute max your AC can hit, without Turtle Fail or much self gimping is 49... doing this costs around 380k, or about half your total WBL.

Druid 20
10 (base)
+19 (Dragon Wildshape)
+5 (Barkskin)
+13 (Beastskin Full Plate +5 - 49K, or 18K with a cleric in the group)
+7 (Animated Tower Shield +5, 64K, or 19K with a cleric in the group)
+5 (Ring of Protection +5 - 50K)
----
59 AC, at the cost of one feat, one second level spell slot and 87K / 163K. And I am sure with a little dumpster diving you can get at least another 10 AC on top of that while not using up more cash.

Edit: By the way, the above already works at level 15 when you can grab Dragon Wildshape. How many CR 15 creatures can auto-hit an AC of 59?

[violence in the media]

Edit: By the way, the above already works at level 15 when you can grab Dragon Wildshape. How many CR 15 creatures can auto-hit an AC of 59?

Any of the ones that can make touch attacks?

edit: This is one of the situations where RPGs in general fail. You know that monsters tend to have good to-hit ratings, so you pump your AC. Your intelligent opponents know that people are going to attempt to pump their AC, and so seek ways to bypass it. You know they're going to try and bypass it, but you don't know exactly how. So you guess and either wind up totally correct, in which case the threat is negated, or you guess wrong and get humped. Either way, you're poorly equipped to react to what your opponent is doing and significantly change your approach in the way you would if you were playing Street Fighter or something.

[Amra]

Yeah, and the ones you care about *do* make touch attacks. Dragons are just going to grapple your ass, and they are going to win until you die from it.

EDIT: Having scanned through the CR15 monsters, AC other than "touch AC" is effectively meaningless for the majority of the beasties on the 15th-level list.

[Roy]

Meanwhile, the absolute max your AC can hit, without Turtle Fail or much self gimping is 49... doing this costs around 380k, or about half your total WBL.

Druid 20
10 (base)
+19 (Dragon Wildshape)
+5 (Barkskin)
+13 (Beastskin Full Plate +5 - 49K, or 18K with a cleric in the group)
+7 (Animated Tower Shield +5, 64K, or 19K with a cleric in the group)
+5 (Ring of Protection +5 - 50K)
----
59 AC, at the cost of one feat, one second level spell slot and 87K / 163K. And I am sure with a little dumpster diving you can get at least another 10 AC on top of that while not using up more cash.

Edit: By the way, the above already works at level 15 when you can grab Dragon Wildshape. How many CR 15 creatures can auto-hit an AC of 59?

Bzzt! Read the rest of the thread. Namely the bit about casters being able to exceed the cap. And about Turtle Fail, namely that Tower Shield.

The former isn't really telling me I don't already fucking know, seeing as several different casters are sitting on about AC 58 for minimal resource expenditure at level 16 or 17. Also, a cohort exceeded the cap because being a Unicorn means getting 6 natural armor and some extra Dex for free. You also lose 1 for being Large, but hey. Of course, being a Unicorn means losing at least 4 HD, so you can expect to be repeatedly owned by things like Blasphemy. Also, you're the size and stature of a horse. Have fun going on most adventures.

Chained Reached Magic Vestment + Chained Reached Barkskin + Persisted Recitation to hit the whole party. Also, Chained Greater Magic Weapon.

Example A: Mithril Breastplate + Floating Heavy Shield + 20 Dex + Defending spikes + Persisted Sirine's Grace off a 32 + the stuff mentioned above = 56, 57 with Haste.

Example B: Inertial Armor +12 (aka, cap breaker by being a caster) + Floating Heavy Shield + 20 Dex + Defending spikes + the stuff mentioned above + a 40 minute Legion's Shield of Faith = 57, 58 with Haste.

Then the Unicorn hits 57 or 58 off similar stuff and an Ioun Stone.

Note, Recitation is technically a cap breaker for the beatsticks, but 51 or 52 still isn't good enough at level 20. 57 is semi useful at 17 though. Enemies actually miss about a third to a half of the time. Which means it's right about where it should be and the design flaw is that so many fucking hoops had to be jumped through to get it, and you can't do it if you are not yourself a caster as it requires Personal range stuff. Too bad that's almost as high as it can get, as the only room left for scaling there is Nimble and +6 Dex item for a +1 on Example A, and another +1 to +3 off further Cha boosting. And a +1 bullshit bonus from a floating rock.

Example B can only further scale off the 1/2 levels Inertial Armor boost... though he does have that free action Warmind ability, and Form of Doom. Otherwise he's capped even with his cap breaker.

The Unicorn still doesn't have a Dex booster, but that's also about the only place where there's any room for improvement.

[Psychic Robot]

Using a druid for any example--save for those in which you are demonstrating that they are overpowered--is automatic fail. Everyone knows that casters take a dump on game balance.

[Roy]

Well in this instance, it doesn't fucking matter as even the casters have a very hard time even getting an average AC. They do have alternatives of course, but that isn't the point.

[Amra]

So what's the best touch AC people are coming up with for levels 10, 15 and 20? 'Cos that seriously is all you care about later on. Casters screwing their melee AC's up to ludicrous heights isn't even terribly relevant; if they're in a position to get hit in the first place they're pretty much doing it wrong.

[Roy]

So what's the best touch AC people are coming up with for levels 10, 15 and 20? 'Cos that seriously is all you care about later on. Casters screwing their melee AC's up to ludicrous heights isn't even terribly relevant; if they're in a position to get hit in the first place they're pretty much doing it wrong.

I've done about 39 at level 12. Basically combine the above tricks with Ghost Ward, Law Devotion, and at least 9 turn attempts so you can do your 4/days with it. Then you get 10 + Dex + 7 profane + 10 ghost ward + 7 deflection + whatever other bullshit bonuses etc.

Something like that. I didn't have defending, I think, which means you could get 50 pretty easily this way.

[Murtak]

Bzzt! Read the rest of the thread. Namely the bit about casters being able to exceed the cap. And about Turtle Fail, namely that Tower Shield.

Maybe I'm just blind because I can't seem to find these bits. Anyways, what is allowed under your interpretation of the rules? You do consider Wraithstrike fair game after all.

That said:
Duelist 10, whatever 10

assuming 18 base Dex, 4 stat increases, +6 Dex item (+9 modifier)

10 base
+11 (defensively)
+9 (Celestial Mithral Chain Shirt +5)
+9 (Dex)
+5 (Amulet of Armor)
+5 (Ring of Protection)
+1 (Dodge)
+7 (Animated Large shield +5)
---
57 AC (would be 76 AC with Improved Expertise)

That is without any dumpster diving at all, no polymorphing, using a single class feature.

[Gelare]

Any Wizard or Dread Necromancer can just shake the Dao Tree fro 3 Limited Wishes by casting a planar binding variant. Dao can create iron slabs and can be paid in worked iron, so anyone with fabricate can expect to be able to shake that tree as much as they want. If their three wishes are for Grimaxe to automatically hit on his next attack, his next attack after that, and his attack after he has made two attacks, then Grimaxe will indeed always automatically hit.

-Username17

I hear you Frank, but that doesn't mean Grimaxe always automatically hits, it means he automatically hits three times for each planar binding variant you have. To pretend that isn't a significant cost is disingenuous at best. I mean, really, you should be doing better things with those Limited Wishes than some crappy single hit with a sharp stick. Granted, you live in a world with Unlimited Rods of Quickened Wish, in which case the only answer I can give is that I've never, ever played in a game where people Chain Bind for More Wishes, and I'm willing to bet that comfortably over 90% of people who play D&D haven't either.


EDIT: Hey Murtak, why isn't that +5 mithril celestial full plate instead? It's still light armor.

[Amra]

So what's the best touch AC people are coming up with for levels 10, 15 and 20? 'Cos that seriously is all you care about later on. Casters screwing their melee AC's up to ludicrous heights isn't even terribly relevant; if they're in a position to get hit in the first place they're pretty much doing it wrong.

I've done about 39 at level 12. Basically combine the above tricks with Ghost Ward, Law Devotion, and at least 9 turn attempts so you can do your 4/days with it. Then you get 10 + Dex + 7 profane + 10 ghost ward + 7 deflection + whatever other bullshit bonuses etc.

That's not bad. Can you get it to scale up from there? BAB seems to be around +18 for the big ticket beasties at around 12th level so that's actually a pretty useful armour class. And can someone *actually* cheese out all of the above tactics, plus the stuff you're listing here, at 12th level? I don't recognise some of the terms so I don't have a handle on how realistic it is for a character to be able to pull this off and still be useful in the first couple of rounds of a fight.