Are PC defenses too low?

The system is designed so that the PC's get hit more often than they are used to, and that those chances stay roughly the same when facing level appropriate opponents throughout the entire level structure.

The PC's will also hit thier opponents at about the same rate at each level. This is the effect of a more or less balanced combat game.

In order for the PC's to feel like they have made any progress or not feel like rookie heroes they have to face opponents of 5 or more levels below themselves. A more or less evenly matched contest with regard to party and monster levels will always be a grinding struggle with the PCs requiring healing and the monsters having a lot more hit points.

In short, a balanced combat is less swingy and more predictable from a pure numbers standpoint. This quality makes things easier when planning encounters with a certain desired challenge level but ultimately predictable equals dull after a while.

ExploderWizard said:

This quality makes things easier when planning encounters with a certain desired challenge level but ultimately predictable equals dull after a while.

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And hence the need to invest time and effort in making the other parameters of the encounter interesting and interactive, e.g., terrain, props, environmental features, etc.

Justin D. Jacobson said:

And hence the need to invest time and effort in making the other parameters of the encounter interesting and interactive, e.g., terrain, props, environmental features, etc.

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This is true for any edition of the game, its not new or unique to 4E.

ExploderWizard said:

This is true for any edition of the game, its not new or unique to 4E.

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I suppose I'm risking a threadjack to reply, but while it is not new or unique to 4E, I maintain that it is much more significantly reinforced in the mechanics than it was in prior editions and, hence, more relevant and important. If you are interested in discussing further, I'm happy to take this to a new thread. I think it's an interesting issue.

I feel as DM, it's part of my job to make sure I provide the PC's with a mix of enemies, some hit them a lot, and some miss them a lot. Lower level Brutes are fantastic missers, who can still soak up damage and be a good road block. Higher level controllers and artillery are good hitters, and they play the scary element. Same level soldiers and skirmishers can be avoided with good tactics, but they can mess you up if you have poor tactics.

I find it's best to use the right mix that will let the PC's feel both their strengths and their weaknesses.

What I've noticed as a shift was in 3.x, when an enemy hit the players looked crestfallen. In 4e, when enemies miss me, it makes me feel cool("Ahah, they missed!"). Missing is the exception rather than the rule now, so a powers that impose penalties or give you bonuses to defenses are really rewarding when they work. There's lots of fist pounding when my ranger's disruptive strike or warlock's witchfire nerf the enemy's big AoE or encounter power (our DM tells us what the monster got against what defense, so know whether our powers made a difference or not).

Also, with three strikers in our group and good tactics, usually one or two rounds a fight we'll managed to put together a situation where every enemy is either in a position where they can't attack (1 square away from the nearest PC and prone, dazed and too far away to charge) or they have a penalty(blinded, witchfire, disruptive strike, etc).

One of our shining moments was fighting 4 werewolves and their 4 direwolves, we managed to arrange it so only 3 of the 8 enemies could attack during their turn, and two of those had penalties!

So, like Justin says, it's about strategy, finding ways to deny your enemies attacks and/or give them penalties rather than just "twinking" your defenses so high that enemies just can't hit you.

Hmm, is that really different from 3E?

In my 3E campaign the players like to claim 'AC is meaningless, we get hit all the time, anyway.' And in a way they're right. There's been several encounters with monsters that (would have) had a 95% chance to hit every character!
What I keep pointing out and consider the sole purpose of trying to get a high AC is to avoid getting hit often by enemies using maxed Power Attack.

With saving throws it's the other way around: For most of them, there's almost no chance they'll fail their saves. Admittedly, that's mostly an artifact of the 3E multiclassing rules.


Anyway, considering that 4E pcs have more resources than 3E pcs, what I've read in this thread sounds like everything's nicely balanced.

Jhaelen said:

Hmm, is that really different from 3E?

In my 3E campaign the players like to claim 'AC is meaningless, we get hit all the time, anyway.' And in a way they're right. There's been several encounters with monsters that (would have) had a 95% chance to hit every character!

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I think the difference for them is when you get hit in 3e, you take damage. In 4e when you get hit, your prone, slowed, dazed, immobilized, etc. Basically damage hurts your character but it doesn't hurt your actions.

Some of their comments in the last fight was that there was never a round when they weren't dazed or immobilized, and that's because the two controllers were always hitting.