So, about defenses aka. PHB2 defenses feats

[James McMurray]

Having run a game from 21st to 25th, I can say that it seems to me that the epic defense feats are overkill, and could change a sometimes challenging game to a cakewalk.

While it's true that the epic monsters hit really easily, that didn't make for hard fights, just ones where things happened. In over 40 battles, some involving PCs with less than their level in gear, no PC was ever killed. Only a few times was anyone dropped to 0 hit points, and they were almost instantly brought back up by the leader or their own abilities.

If they'd had +2 to +4 on their defenses it would have been even less dangerous for them.

I can't speak as much to paragon level. We played a paragon campaign from 11th to (IIRC) 14th, and it seemed pretty tough, but the GM was of the type who loves to shut off PC abilities and provide terrain that hinders the party but helps (or is at least ignored by) the monsters.

We just started a hero level game at 4th level (4 PCs in Thunderspire Mountain). So far it's been a wiff fest on the part of the monsters. There's only been 3 fights though, so it may not be indicative of how the game will go in the long run.

[Iron Sky]

We've played from level 1 to our current level of 13, and I would say the fights get easier for the most part, not harder. Sure the monsters throw out more status effects, but the players do even more.

Let me preface this post with the fact that our characters are rolled, not point buy. Several of us started with 2 (or 4 in the case of our fighter) 18s. That said, the DM stopped throwing any encounters lower than N+1 at us long ago.


To take last night's game I played in for example, we had three combats.

Fight 1 vs Solo Huge Spider. 3 rounds. By the end of the first round it had the following status effects: Quarry, Curse, Cold vulnerability, -6 AC, Stunned, Blind, Divine Challenge. Round 2: Quarry, Curse, Cold vulnerability, Dazed, Weakened. Round 3: Dead. It got off 2 attacks, 1 of which missed. Our party lost 1 surge.

Fight 2 was complicated. Split party, traps, archers behind arrow slits 50' away... Cost us about 6-8 surges total amongst the party for 1 wounded goblin and 2 dead chull?(giant lobster thingies). This was probably the toughest encounter we've run into since we hit Paragon.

Fight 3 vs 2 Shadow Oozes(Elites). 3 rounds. Second round, one was dazed, the other was stunned(and dazed and weakened, amongst other things). Third round both died. Total party cost: 3 surges.


In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up. If the PCs get their status effects in place first, the fight is easy, often a cakewalk. If the enemy gets theirs in place, it might be difficult. In my experience, fight difficulty is largely determined by the number of monsters that impose status effects.

Large enemy HP do little to make fights longer, unless that monster is also effective at dazing/weakening/etc the party. Few monsters have hit hard enough to make outright damage the primary threat.


Anecdotes aside, as I'm about to start a campaign myself, I'm trying to figure out what to do with all this. The idea of a monster hitting on a 2 seems wrong somehow, but in fights last night we had the paladin and rogue both hit an enemy elite with a 3... and this without Expertise (we just got PHP2, making level 14's feat choice an obvious one for most of us).


With these defense feats at least, they aren't auto-picks for most of us.
My ranger picks feats with one consideration: damage. Used to have TWD, but ditched it at Paragon(when our two defenders joined).
The warlock picks any feats that augment her control powers or damage.
The Cleric has most of the Dragonborn feats and a smattering of random others. He does have light shield prof for defense.
All three of us have the Wintertouched-Lasting Frost combo.
The rogue selects feats based on mobility and damage.
The Fighter picks mostly damage feats. He has plate prof and spec, but that's about it for defenses.
The Paladin has shield spec. The rest are pally feats and a random smattering of others(hammer rhythm, dwarven weapon prof, etc).


Even at +4 untyped, I don't see myself getting the epic feats with my ranger. Maybe will since it's 6 points behind my AC (and will be about 8 points behind by Epic). In a well balanced, tactical party, everyone doesn't need good defenses.

If I get hit by a 2 by some big nasty controller solo, it doesn't matter if he never attacks me 'cause the pally has him locked down the whole fight. The defenders may pick them up, but I don't see our leader or the striker trio more than cherry-picking on or two.

Expertise is a different matter, however...

[jbear]

Lol, I ask myself what a whiff-fest is. Easy for PC's ? Or hard?
I haven't played at epic levels or even paragon to be able to contribute intelligently to the discussion. However, reading Karensdads description of the grind in store in the future for what should be piece-of-cake encounters, I groan inwardly.

Although monsters being able to hit the PC's isn't too problematic, from my point of view. I don't want my players having to deal with hour long boring fights. So I ask myself this:

When you calculate damage, eg. 3[w] + STR and you use a +3 Maul, the plus three is not multiplied by 3. It's just added as a straight 3 at the end. However if it was included in the calculation of the weapons damage, suddenly it's doing 6d6 +9 +STR.
It seems like a fairly simple and logical calculation, and perhaps would contribute to slaying monsters with lots of HP, and contribute to reducing grind when the entire group is doing it round by round

Opinions?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Originally Posted by Bayuer

@AbdulAlhazred
You still talking about diffrent thing that I'am. Roleplaying isn't topic here. We talking about facts. The fact that wizrds gives us overpowered feats that fix the math, and the fact that was bad idee. Thus I give my proposition how to fix that issue, by giving this feats for free, couse this feats are overpowered/must-have/disturbed balance of the game/make the game as it suppose to be from the beginnig.

And what I am saying is that role-playing is a FACT of the game. I can take a feat that raises one of my NADs by 4 OR I can take a feat that gives me a new skill or a +2 or in a few cases +3 on some skill rolls (as an example, there are other examples I could give).

Now that extra skill bonus could WELL be the difference for my party to succeed in a complex level + 4 critical skill challenge that means success or failure of the entire adventure. Just like the outcome of a battle could be. Or it could be the skill bonus I need to do a stunt that knocks the monster into the lava and wins the battle.

It is not clear cut that the NAD bonus feat is always superior. It WILL be superior in a battle where there are no options except beating on the opponent with powers. But if you design good skill challenge encounters and good stunting opportunities and similar things into encounters then PCs will have a choice of things they want to use their skills on.

In my campaign it would be just as critically fatal for a party not to be able to pull off difficult athletics feats or acrobatics, or knowledge checks or anything else even when the DC is +4 levels or more hard.

I understand what you guys are talking about, and YES I have actually designed games, several in fact. Sure, nobody gets every bug out a game, not in the first cut and probably not in the 40th edition when you're talking about an RPG where people do all crazy stuff with the rules.

I just think it should be a choice for the player. Buff his NADs or buff his skills or whatever else. Can't have it all. Yup some specific monsters at some levels will have powers that are NASTY effective against some PCs. Overall the PCs seem to be winning out, even sans using more combat bonus feats. The cyclops example is exactly a perfect example of what I'm talking about though. It is really a pretty balanced encounter. Maybe the PCs have to burn a bit extra resources for your liking, but I can show you encounter mixes at ANY level that are like that. No game designer could EVER balance all possible combinations and it would be foolishness to try.

However, what if one of the PCs with a super high DC skill check could have toppled one of the death titans off a cliff? Maybe he would succeed on that if really put his effort into building his character for skills and not quite so much for melee. Maybe he could fool the titans and get by without wasting a big fight, or find a way to navigate around them. IF the adventure designer is really creative, those options will exist and characters can be built that are VERY unoptimized for full on combat, but still huge assets to the party.

Sadly most adventures don't cater to that, it is a lot harder to write than Room 27, 3 death titans, carnage follows...

[James McMurray]

Originally Posted by jbear

Lol, I ask myself what a whiff-fest is. Easy for PC's ? Or hard?

Whiffing is missing. The monsters were having a whiff-fest, by which I meant they were missing left and right. Part of it was probably just probability though. For instance, the one 5th level monster they fought never hit anyone, while the 3rd level goblins that were with him hit several times (for much more damage because of their rage ability).

I haven't played at epic levels or even paragon to be able to contribute intelligently to the discussion. However, reading Karensdads description of the grind in store in the future for what should be piece-of-cake encounters, I groan inwardly.

Except in the case of solos and insubstantial creatures (or heaven forbid the one insubstantial solo I used) there wasn't much in the way of grinding for our epic game. The players usually focused their attacks on one or two monsters, and the critters dropped fairly quickly. I also had a house rule for minions, and used them quite a bit, which made it so that monsters fell faster.

When you calculate damage, eg. 3[w] + STR and you use a +3 Maul, the plus three is not multiplied by 3. It's just added as a straight 3 at the end. However if it was included in the calculation of the weapons damage, suddenly it's doing 6d6 +9 +STR.
It seems like a fairly simple and logical calculation, and perhaps would contribute to slaying monsters with lots of HP, and contribute to reducing grind when the entire group is doing it round by round

Opinions?

You'll hurt the non-weapon users, most of whom already do lower damage (though with more secondary effects and area attacks). What about instead:

• At-Wills work as normal.
• Encounter powers double the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.
• Dailies triple the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.

It affects all the classes equally, so (among other things) means the Warlock, who normally does the least damage of the 3 core strikers, isn't doubly hurt. It also puts a limit on the characters' ability to output massive amounts of damage.

[jbear]

Originally Posted by James McMurray

Whiffing is missing. The monsters were having a whiff-fest, by which I meant they were missing left and right. Part of it was probably just probability though. For instance, the one 5th level monster they fought never hit anyone, while the 3rd level goblins that were with him hit several times (for much more damage because of their rage ability).



Except in the case of solos and insubstantial creatures (or heaven forbid the one insubstantial solo I used) there wasn't much in the way of grinding for our epic game. The players usually focused their attacks on one or two monsters, and the critters dropped fairly quickly. I also had a house rule for minions, and used them quite a bit, which made it so that monsters fell faster.



You'll hurt the non-weapon users, most of whom already do lower damage (though with more secondary effects and area attacks). What about instead:

• At-Wills work as normal.
• Encounter powers double the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.
• Dailies triple the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.

It affects all the classes equally, so (among other things) means the Warlock, who normally does the least damage of the 3 core strikers, isn't doubly hurt. It also puts a limit on the characters' ability to output massive amounts of damage.

yes, I see what you mean. The casters usually have set damage, so their enhancement bonus wouldn't be multiplied. Doubling or tripling feat damge, enhancement damage and attributes (you mean 3x STR? in the case of daily powers? seems off hand like it could get pretty crazy with the damage and might make it too easy. GOliaths +2 with two handed weapons x3, +3 axe x3 and STR x3: Around +36 dmg could be easily achieved around lv 16 on delivering a Daily Attack. Quite a bit more than I was thinking.

But the idea that the weapons or the implements enhancement bonus was multiplied by the number of dice rolled. In the case of weapons by the number of [w] dmg inflicted (so as to avoid 2d6 mauls having enhancement counted twice). So if a Warlocks daily did 3d10 the enhancement would be counted 3 times, as if each d10 was 1[w].

This would not affect At Wills, generally because At Wills usually only deal 1[w] dmg.
Or 1dSomething dmg.

Anyway, this is getting off the topic and a bit more complicated than I originally thought.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by Iron Sky

In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up. If the PCs get their status effects in place first, the fight is easy, often a cakewalk. If the enemy gets theirs in place, it might be difficult. In my experience, fight difficulty is largely determined by the number of monsters that impose status effects.

Large enemy HP do little to make fights longer, unless that monster is also effective at dazing/weakening/etc the party. Few monsters have hit hard enough to make outright damage the primary threat.

I think you're right that monsters with status effects are stronger. I haven't played at epic, but looking at level 15-25 creatures in the MM I'm struck by how much better some of the ones with status effects or other special abilities are. This is because monsters aren't given enough damage to compensate for not inflicting status effects and/or aren't penalized enough for inflicting status effects or having other special abilities.

Look at the Ghaele of Winter (Eladrin) at level 21, for example. It's pretty fragile as artillery, but it has a (edit- minor action) Close Burst 3 attack at +23 vs. Will that Dazes for the entire duration of the encounter. Using just PH bonuses to FRW, +23 at 25th level is enough to hit a PCs strong FRW defense reasonably often (at level 25, without feats, a 35-36 strong FRW defense seems typical, while a weak FRW defense would be around 29). It can potentially use this attack multiple times.

Imagine adding it to Karinsdad's Death Titan encounter. If a party doesn't know to kill it ASAP (since it flies, this could be hard for a party without serious single target ranged attacks), and it uses this power once when it can catch a few PCs in it, that will make the encounter significantly tougher. What about an extra Giant Mummy instead (level 21 as well)? Not so much.

Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred

And what I am saying is that role-playing is a FACT of the game. I can take a feat that raises one of my NADs by 4 OR I can take a feat that gives me a new skill or a +2 or in a few cases +3 on some skill rolls (as an example, there are other examples I could give).

Now that extra skill bonus could WELL be the difference for my party to succeed in a complex level + 4 critical skill challenge that means success or failure of the entire adventure. Just like the outcome of a battle could be. Or it could be the skill bonus I need to do a stunt that knocks the monster into the lava and wins the battle.

It is not clear cut that the NAD bonus feat is always superior. It WILL be superior in a battle where there are no options except beating on the opponent with powers. But if you design good skill challenge encounters and good stunting opportunities and similar things into encounters then PCs will have a choice of things they want to use their skills on.

Given that Epic FRW gives a +4 bonus to one FRW, Robust Defenses gives +2 to all three, and pre-PH II a character's feats options gave +2 to one FRW defense, would you then conclude that the Great Fortitude line of feats was terrible, since it was 1/3 to 1/2 of the bonus of the current line of feats? So the PH II feats are needed just to make boosting FRW competitive with Skill Training and Skill Focus?

More specifically, how large of a bonus would Epic FRW and Robust Defenses have to give before you concluded that their bonuses were too large?

[Runestar]

Given that Epic FRW gives a +4 bonus to one FRW, Robust Defenses gives +2 to all three, and pre-PH II a character's feats options gave +2 to one FRW defense, would you then conclude that the Great Fortitude line of feats was terrible, since it was 1/3 to 1/2 of the bonus of the current line of feats?

+2 at paragon seems fair (at the time when you are first eligible for it), though I am not sure this bonus should scale at epic (bear in mind that you could easily retrain iron will into epic will (or at least, robust defenses), if you are starved for feats and cannot afford both of them.

So at paragon, you could take the 3 defense boosters and retrain them into their epic versions (there is no reason in keeping the former 3, when 1 epic feat replicates the benefits of all 3, nor do they stack anyways). There aren't that many good or worthwhile epic feats at the moment, so your choices are pretty much made for you.

4 feats for +6 to all defenses. Seems reasonable, too good in fact that I can see many builds wanting them.

[DracoSuave]

To make my point a little better:

You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.

Now, difficulty is experienced through play, and so evidence garnered through play is a lot more indicative of problems than mathematical theorycraft.

That's my point. You can -say- there's a problem because 'the numbers are off' but if people actually playing at that high level aren't finding things unduly difficult, then there -is- no problem. The math might not seem to be 'elegant' and 'properly symetrical' but only if the game is actually difficult to play at high level does a problem really exist.

Scientific method, people. The theory-craft says it is difficult, now it's time to observe to support this thesis. If the observation does not support the thesis, you throw out the thesis and start again.

Even if the 'math says otherwise.'

My thesis is that the 'math' does not break down, per se, but that the values of the math are less important with the more powers and effects and tactics you have at your disposal making up for the shortfall.

[Bayuer]

@AbdulAlhazred
Skill feat is just only pseudo-roleplay feat option in game. Linguist may be better and that's it. We don't talk about skill use couse it will need another thread when we can discuss about it's broken ST ie. Skill Challange. Stop making an examples of roleplaying combat consequences, couse it's not the fact, and almost none use such a fights in they games, couse 4E is mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls.

Originally Posted by Iron Sky

In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up.

That's true. But... If DMG don't have enough experience and don't know the game math etc he will make some mistakes when he design the enoers. He will put to weak monster and thus the challange will be trival (and most of the DMs do such). Guidlines from DMG are to weak, but they are for non-optimized roleplaying parties I think. In other hand when a such DMG want to make a threat to party he will make deadly encounter mixing monsters thats combat effects work very nice.

The both can be true and in both cases having better defenses is needed. In first example it will not change anything. In second it will give players just fair chances to survive.

One more thing. Don't use n=0 or n+1 encounters as guidlines for challenging fights. Don't do so with solos and too many elities, couse they fail to make they designed role. The true is the more monsters in fight, the more challenging it is. One example here:
- Throw on 20 level party this encounter (we will be using easy Wolf Pack (7 skirmishers of level n-4:
- We got 7 Kuo-Toa Monitors (lvl 16 Skirmisher)
They attack is +19 vs. REF and make you stunned (encounter power) (save ends)
Now let's look at playres DEF:
Highest - 32 (13 on dice to hit), Middle - 29 (10 on dice to hit, Lowest - 25 (6 on dice to hit).
Anyone can easly say. They DEF are quite fine, thus this are monsters 4lvl behind the PCs! But there are 7 of them, and this fight is EASY! Make Let's make them the same lvl +23 vs. REF.
Highest -32 (9 on dice to hit), Middle - 29 (6 on dice to hit), Lowest - 25 (2 on dice to hit). Guidlines tells us that there 5 monsters of level n (the same as team level) is standard fight. You can see that someone with realy weak REF (one example: barbarian) will have a though time in this fight. Other will be hurt too. Only to ones with high REF will have some fun from game!

Well I did an easy/standard fight above. Imagine what will be if this will be a hard fight on n+4 level with controller or artillery as buckup. TPK.

Originally Posted by Runestar

4 feats for +6 to all defenses. Seems reasonable, too good in fact that I can see many builds wanting them.

And that's the point! The feats are too good to just pretend they are not exist, and I will take Linguist on 25 level couse I'm roleplayer.

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.

You think we are some idiots here, gathering to just make some teory fiction posts? Man... This problem wasn't on topic until them from two reasons:
- Not many people are playing high paragon/epic tier games and even if, not everybody pay attention to game math etc. The most players just take what a DM gives to them and they are happy, thus is very good! Couse the game is good to them.
- We didn't have PHB2 feats until now, thus not many people did math crunch and state the math is broken. Now we have evidences about this!

And I must dissapoint you. I was playing almost all levels till then (just not late epic games) and I can tell you my feelings that if my DM will not take my advices seriously he will slain our party many times. I just pointed him that this isn't tactic game DM vs. players, but the cinematic game when we fight and monster are to make the game fun. He stopped using encounters as I gave as an example above and make the fights still challenging but not devastating. Good DMG can always make TPK easily if he knows rules, but this aren't n, or n+1 fights (but this can still happen, go above my encounter example).

Standard fight may look fine. Players will surive them withou any problems, but monster hitting on 2 on dice isn't "well he need that, couse the fights are to easy". It's just a terrible design step and math bug.

[DracoSuave]

While I get what you're saying, the math doesn't include damage outlay from the monsters vs player's non-numerical defenses (hp, resistace, etc), and doesn't include things like standard tactics, player powers that are designed to disrupt tactics, etc. 'A monster hits on a 2' doesn't mean anything in a vacuum. 'A monster hits on a 2 and instakills your level 30 character' is a far more holistic statement, and not what I'm getting from this.

Take a wizard for example.

At level 1, he's got 10+Con hps, and monsters can typically do enough to knock him below blooded in a single hit. However, these same monsters have a lesser chance to hit, normally +6 vs an AC that can easily be 16. It's hard to get more precise than that without a definitive Con score, but assuming a con of 14, that's 24 hitpoints. Goblin Warrior, can easily get +6 to hit vs AC, doing 2d6+2 or 9 points on average.

This makes a DPR of 4.5, and an 'Attacks Until Unconscious' for the wizard of 24/4.5 or 5.33 rounds. The lower this is, the higher the relative damage (or threat) of an attack, making that attack have a damage-threat value of 19%.

This same wizard at level 30 will have 130 hps. He'll have +6 armor, +2 from masterwork, +4 from attribute bonuses, and +15 from level, for a total of +27 to 16, or 43 AC.

Orcus has his wand of Orcus, which does 3d12+12 damage for +37 to hit. This means it deals 31.5 average damage with a roll of 6 or higher. 6 or higher means a 75% chance to hit, meaning the DPR of this at-will is 23.625. The threat value of this is 23.625/130 or... 18%.

So... the threat of a level 1 sharpshooter's at-will to a level 1 character is for all practical purposes the same as the threat of a level 35 solo's at-will to a level 30 character... provided you ignore the powers that character has at the ready.

It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important. It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.

This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.

[Bayuer]

'A monster hits on a 2' doesn't mean anything in a vacuum. 'A monster hits on a 2 and instakills your level 30 character' is a far more holistic statement, and not what I'm getting from this.

It's not in a vacum, it's an attack roll versus your PC NAD that will autohit you and make you stunned/dominated and you can't do nothing now.

So... the threat of a level 1 sharpshooter's at-will to a level 1 character is for all practical purposes the same as the threat of a level 35 solo's at-will to a level 30 character... provided you ignore the powers that character has at the ready.

Wy on earth you take powers that hit AC! We don't talk about that. We talking about the NADs and attack versus them and attack rolls of players vs. AC and NADs (that actualy are the same). Anyway what logic is behind comparing normal monster (skirmisher) to Orcus (SOLO BRUTE!)? His dmg is much higher than normal monster, and his attack is much lower. I see you were trying to prove you 'monster threat scales at level' but it is worthless prove. Monsters have auras that make them better and can inflict effects. It's not just a flat damage! Anyone who plays 4E at higher level knows that.

Look at Orcus Touch of Dead (recharge 6) power:
+ 33 vs. Fortitude (when he hits you, you die)
High DEF - 41 (hited on 8 on die), Middle DEF - 38 (hited on 5 on die), Lowest DEF - 33 (hited on 2 on die).

Yeah. That looks damn fine to me!

It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important. It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.
This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.

Player's gain levels and gain more power. They have more options now. The monsters gain levels too, gains more power, but your option as DM are lesser, couse you don't want kill your party! You can't make as challanging options for monsters as the player's have. Higher your level, lowest the options for monster are.

Anyway thx for ignorig my sample encounter from last post! You have there a easy sample what can monsters hitting NADs do, and what? No arguments how this isn't right? It's not a threat? It's overpowered?

[monboesen]

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important. It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.

This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.

IMO this boils down to the point that the game may well be designed to make high level monsters hit much more often than low level monsters. Assuming they face level appropiate PC's.


The likely explanation is that PC's are better suited to dealing with getting hit and hurt a LOT at higher levels. Look at epic destinies, several of them assume that you routinely die one or more times a day.


In that perspective it is not a flaw that some monsters will have a trivially easy time hitting PC's, it is a feature. Part of the way the game subtly changes with levels and tiers.


Disclaimer: Just like most of the posts in this thread this is pure theorycraft as I have not played any 4ed at epic levels yet.

[Bayuer]

IMO this boils down to the point that the game may well be designed to make high level monsters hit much more often than low level monsters. Assuming they face level appropiate PC's.

No it isn't! Look above examples.

[Thundershield]

Originally Posted by Bayuer

No it isn't! Look above examples.

Bayuer does have a point here. While it's okay - at least for some players - that high-level monsters hit the players more often, it does get problematic when NADs fall so much behind that a given defense becomes irrelevant as the monster can only miss on a 1 (and even then only 'cause a natural 1 is an auto-miss).

It takes the whole point of having that defense out of the game. 4E is built around the idea of maintaining a challenge in any given dice roll, as opposed to 3.5 where a 6th-level Fighter/6th-level Dwarven Defender might have an AC around 50, making it impossible for anything to hit him.

To maintain a challenge, there has to be a decent chance for the roll to fail as well as a decent chance for the roll to succeed. I'm not necessarily talking about a 50/50, but at least a 30% for either should persist on a regular basis. It's fine if a power or temporary bonus brings this as low as 10% for failure or success, or possibly even 5% if it's very temporary, but beyond that the point of a given roll becomes a mere formality, the random chance that this roll represents taken out of the game.

I've been considering increasing the way masterwork armor scales (possibly even having masterwork cloth armor at +2) and also make amulets/cloaks/capes and the like have masterwork versions, but I must admit that the idea of giving players +1 to three stats at levels 4, 8, 14, etc. also sounds very interesting.

It would, however, be good to know the developers' view on the problem. Are the PH2 feats just a temporary solution? Are they the final solution? How will this problem affect future content? Is it a problem to them?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Originally Posted by Bayuer

@AbdulAlhazred
Skill feat is just only pseudo-roleplay feat option in game. Linguist may be better and that's it. We don't talk about skill use couse it will need another thread when we can discuss about it's broken ST ie. Skill Challange. Stop making an examples of roleplaying combat consequences, couse it's not the fact, and almost none use such a fights in they games, couse 4E is mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls.

Dude, I think you need to get out more and play in some games with DMs that are not so stuck on hack hack hack. You're missing 3/4 of the goodness of 4e if your games are 'mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls'. The rules looks skewed to you because you are only playing half a character.

I don't know what broken skill challenge you are talking about. Skill challenges work perfectly fine with the errata. There is NOTHING wrong with them. Just like encounter design, you have to make sure the challenge is properly designed. Is the combat system broken because an adult dragon will eat a 3rd level party? No, and neither is the skill challenge system broken because you can make impossible or auto success challenges.

And no, I am not going to stop making examples of roleplaying combat consequences because it IS one of the key things you are missing in your understanding of the numbers. Sorry, that is just the way it is. I'm not going to argue with you endlessly about, but you need to factor into your understanding of character balance the full choices players have. Your analysis is flawed if you don't take everything into account.

The truth of the matter is that the DMG encounter guidelines ARE just guidelines. A DM can make very bad encounters and follow the guidelines. I think we all know that. What I am suggesting is that if a DM is good and they understand all the things that must go into an epic level encounter to make it a good encounter, then well rounded characters can always have fun.

In your Kuo-Toa example the Barbarian should be able to use skills to help defeat the enemy. Maybe there is terrain he can use to only fight one monster. Party teamwork will help him too. The cleric can give him extra saves, the paladin can make the one monster he faces want to go fight someone else, etc. The encounter should also have a way for the Barbarian to use his big athletics skill to defeat the kuo-toa. Maybe he can push a rock onto them, or he can go past them to tip a container of acid on them, etc. There should be moving terrain or other terrain effects so he can keep away from their attacks if the player will use his head and not only hack with a weapon.

Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun.

The math is only broken if the RESULT of using the math is broken. If you use an example of a broken encounter with no stunting opportunity and no terrain factored in then it is the example that is unrealistic, not broken math. If the DM makes an encounter like that, it is a broken DM, not broken math!

There are other considerations too. Epic is not like heroic or paragon tiers. It should not be the same. If all levels play the same, then why have levels at all? Monsters WILL hit a lot more on the epic level of play. It is supposed to be that way. Once you hit high epic level there are also no more higher level monsters to fight. The equal level monsters now must be stronger vs the party because there is no level + 4 monster anymore at 27th level, no level + 3 monster at 28th level, not even a level + 1 monster (except Orcus) at 30th level.

Weak NADs are a feature of epic play. If the players are good then they will adapt to win.

[monboesen]

Originally Posted by Bayuer

No it isn't! Look above examples.

Honestly I'm confused now. Isn't it your argument that NAD trail behind as levels fly by and that at high (epic) levels some attacks will almost always hit your weakest NAD?


All I'm saying is that your theory of faulty math isn't the only one. It could be that the game is designed with increased hitting of NAD as a goal, not a flaw.


There is no doubt characters are far more capable to deal with both damage and status effects at higher levels. As such the group of PC's will not be as hindered by being stunned/other nasty status effect or even killed as they would have been at low level.

[Thundershield]

Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred

Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun.

The math is only broken if the RESULT of using the math is broken. If you use an example of a broken encounter with no stunting opportunity and no terrain factored in then it is the example that is unrealistic, not broken math. If the DM makes an encounter like that, it is a broken DM, not broken math!

There are other considerations too. Epic is not like heroic or paragon tiers. It should not be the same. If all levels play the same, then why have levels at all? Monsters WILL hit a lot more on the epic level of play. It is supposed to be that way. Once you hit high epic level there are also no more higher level monsters to fight. The equal level monsters now must be stronger vs the party because there is no level + 4 monster anymore at 27th level, no level + 3 monster at 28th level, not even a level + 1 monster (except Orcus) at 30th level.

Weak NADs are a feature of epic play. If the players are good then they will adapt to win.

Apologies for cutting your post in half for the quotation, but to stay on topic, I jumped to the part about attack rolls and defenses.

While you do have a point in your arguments, I can't say I agree with it. At no point in the game should the attack rolls of monsters (or players for that matter) be reduced to check for the off-chance you might miss or crit (on a natural 1 or 20, respectively), with the exception of temporary boosts.

And while it is true that you can boost your lowest defenses with the PH2 feats, there's little point to it. Given that your lowest defense is around 33 at level 30, even a +4 feat bonus will only raise the chance a monster will miss you to around 15%. That's effectively only a 10% increase, since the miss chance will always be at least 5%. Sure that's a nice bonus, but you'll rarely notice it in the game compared to getting hit all the time when fighting something targeting your weakest defense.

And then you say that the DM shouldn't abuse the math - as in, he shouldn't use monsters or hazards that target a given player's weakest defense? Given that a party has about 4-5 players, odd are pretty good that each defense will be low on at least one player, so the DM can't use any monsters targeting anything but AC?

You could argue that getting hit all the time is a feature of epic play, but several elements suggest otherwise. Why not simply give the monster auto-hit abilities, then? Saves us the dice-rolling... Although auto-hitting might be a bit nasty for something like Orcus' insta-kill ability, no?

Anyway, I do think balancing the game around maintaining decent hit and miss chances for most any roll is better for the overall experience of the game than simply ascribing this as a "feature" of the game and letting it be.

As for skills and skill challenges, and roleplaying, they're definitely integral and important parts of the game too. They're just not issues in this thread and thus should be discussed in other threads.

[Bayuer]

And no, I am not going to stop making examples of roleplaying combat consequences because it IS one of the key things you are missing in your understanding of the numbers. Sorry, that is just the way it is. I'm not going to argue with you endlessly about, but you need to factor into your understanding of character balance the full choices players have. Your analysis is flawed if you don't take everything into account.

No you analysis is flawed. Roleplay don't have ANY impact on game math! Well maybe giving +2/-2 for nice description and that's in core rules. You still missing the point. RP is nice thing. You made wrong assumptions that I'm hack and slash player. Man. Even if I will be that doesn't change/proove antything. I can say my barbarian has weak REF and he is clumsy, when my REF is low. But not make it as an example o RP imapct on game. He will be hitted in his REF on roll on 2! What RP is that. Monster Attack his REF... ups 2 on die, you'r lucky... no wait. It's hit. Your REF sucks! You are dazed untit the end of encounter and if you'r so RP player that means that it's the only encounter on that session. <BIG SMILE> Yeah, that sounds like a lot o fun for RP players! Uff... it's so good that the player's a clumsy character. There's nothing wrong now. There may be some player's who don't mind this, but... This isn't a standard situation we are talking about. So please, make as many arguments as you, can, but please... <b>arguments</b>.

Even when you use you RP power to make combat much flawed, and you let players drop death titan from cliff you will still use... the math! Skill check, that will say if you succed or not. And this is again so, so not very offten in games, that can't be treaten as big factor that makes game balanced. It's rare and occasional thus --> not important in terms of game balance.

The truth of the matter is that the DMG encounter guidelines ARE just guidelines. A DM can make very bad encounters and follow the guidelines. I think we all know that. What I am suggesting is that if a DM is good and they understand all the things that must go into an epic level encounter to make it a good encounter, then well rounded characters can always have fun.

That doesn't proove anything too. Firstly, he can't avoid autohitting the PCs NADs, couse wizard will have bad FOR, barb DEX, and someone else WILL. Secondly, this will take enormous amount of time and thus it's in conflict with 4E motto: "creating encounters is easy and not time consuming". I can agree tha good DM will need some time to make good/challengig encounters and fun at the same time, but with this math problems is much more problematic than it suppose to be.

In your Kuo-Toa example the Barbarian should be able to use skills to help defeat the enemy. Maybe there is terrain he can use to only fight one monster. Party teamwork will help him too. The cleric can give him extra saves, the paladin can make the one monster he faces want to go fight someone else, etc. The encounter should also have a way for the Barbarian to use his big athletics skill to defeat the kuo-toa. Maybe he can push a rock onto them, or he can go past them to tip a container of acid on them, etc. There should be moving terrain or other terrain effects so he can keep away from their attacks if the player will use his head and not only hack with a weapon.

Show me where this is said in Encounter Design in DMG. Rules are simply. Terran to make fights more interesting. Using terrain by PCs to make them fun, but no out kill if you hurl rocks on monsters. If you playing such a games I no wonder that autohit from monster don't bother you. All what you described and placed as examples are nice additions to battle making it more fun, but not solutions to problem we are talking here.

If you want to talk with people about how RP impacts game make another tread and don't troll here. I will say it for the las time. Facts, facts, facts.

Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun.

If you say that talking this feats is a choice... Well. Good luck Did you even looked at the math from first post? I don't think so. We talking about feats that make the math workable, not the feats for free to maximize PCs power!

There are other considerations too. Epic is not like heroic or paragon tiers. It should not be the same. If all levels play the same, then why have levels at all? Monsters WILL hit a lot more on the epic level of play. It is supposed to be that way. Once you hit high epic level there are also no more higher level monsters to fight. The equal level monsters now must be stronger vs the party because there is no level + 4 monster anymore at 27th level, no level + 3 monster at 28th level, not even a level + 1 monster (except Orcus) at 30th level.

But they are stronger. The have more powers and they powers are stronger! Autohit is not an intended thing from designers. Look at above same examples I posted!

Weak NADs are a feature of epic play. If the players are good then they will adapt to win.

No they aren't. I almost love you ignorance about facts. Seriously

Originally Posted by monboesen

All I'm saying is that your theory of faulty math isn't the only one. It could be that the game is designed with increased hitting of NAD as a goal, not a fl

I know what you were trying to say. I answered no it wasn't the goal. If it was... I can say WotC have poor designers, but like someone else mentioned, some bugs always can happen. WotC knows that and that's way we have defense feats and Expertise in PHB2. Also I don't belive that almost autohitting was made on purpose. Maybe designers didn't think about that problem, and just looked at highest, middle def. Well, it can be true, couse then the hit chance is around 15 on monster dice. But... we have this lowest defence and that's the pure fact that it's autohit and a very big problem. I don't belive it was made on porpose. Also I don't think that hit chance of players (and Expertise feats) and highest DEF weaknes at epic (-2 disadventage; and Paragon Defenses, Robous Defenses and Epic feats) come for vacum. They bonuses make the math suprisly fine.

[KarinsDad]

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

To make my point a little better:

You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.

Now, difficulty is experienced through play, and so evidence garnered through play is a lot more indicative of problems than mathematical theorycraft.

I've done mostly the math, but I also ran a high level test.

The math is obviously incorrect. The math creates a problem where players might not enjoy the game because they are -3 to hit whereas the monsters are +3 to hit. It gets old when a player keeps missing on a 12.

That does not mean that the players cannot win. They can. It just takes forever because the monsters have so many hit points and are so hard to hit.


Here is the point you missed before and keep talking about. The game is not hard at high level. It's not hard. Unlike your claim, that is not what the math shows. The math shows that the game is slow at high level.

The PCs still hit. They just happen to hit 40% of the time instead of 55% of the time on same level monsters. They have to use up more resources to handle easy situations. Granted, they have more resources than they did at low levels and it makes sense that they have to use up slightly more resources. But, the problem is that at 30th level, the delta is 20% in both directions.

On top of that, the monsters do relatively small amounts of damage at high level compared to low level and have excessively high number of hit points at high level compared to low level.

Actual play bears this out. The combats are long. They are many rounds and use up a lot of resources.

Your claim is that people playing high level do not consider it hard. That is correct. The math bears that out.

The game is not hard at high level. It's long and slow and tedious.

They are not the same.


And one final point. WotC added a bunch of feats into PHB II because the math is wrong. They cannot correct the number of hit points for monsters until MM II, but they can correct the math with feats. And, that's precisely what they did.

They also added a bunch of smaller conditional +1 to hit type feats in PHB II to attempt to mitigate the problem.