Which is better: Offense or Defense?

Kai Lord · Sep 15, 2002

In 3E, is the best defense a good offense or is the best offense a good defense? It seems there are a plethora of ways to deal out "smackdown" levels of damage, but limited ways to soak it up. So are the real 3E champions the guys who can take more, dish out less?

ScarletDuke · Sep 15, 2002

Depends on the person, me personally i like to have a very good defense. If you have a good defense it gives you more time to figure out the best way to attack somethings through experimentation.

Most of the time if you have a good offense it is do to the fact that you have sacrificed in the defense department and you usually only have x amount of time before you are labeled toast.

ThomasBJJ · Sep 15, 2002

I'd go with Defense everytime.

Elder-Basilisk · Sep 15, 2002

A character can get by with just a physical offense and no defense except hit points.

The same is not true of saving throws. Every character needs to have decent saving throws (at least fort and will--the results of ref saves can usually be absorbed by hit points) in order to survive.

As to the original question, it's possible to max both offense and defense and to build characters who are effective at either. It's even possible to build characters who are effective at both (nobody can afford to entirely neglect offense but a two weapon fighting, full plate wearing bastard sword and spiked shield+shield expert fighter is a very effective offensively and defensively). Even so, it is far easier to max a character for offense. Defensive maximization requires careful selection of feats, items, and ability scores. Offensive maximization just requires a barbarian and a greatsword (or a greataxe--fighter levels and weapon specialization etc help too).

Thanee · Sep 15, 2002

Yes, both! Only one is not really good!

Bye
Thanee

Kibo · Sep 15, 2002

I'm going to defer to George S. Patton. Offense, all the way. Attack with overwhelming force leave nothing of your enemy but smoking ruin and the need for a defense if moot. Besides, it much harder to protect than destroy.

Witness the hawkish behavior of the US of late. Sure it's at least partly about re-election in 2004, but it also at least partly based on the premis that the most effective defense is to "vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters." Or maybe that was the greatest pleasure, I can never keep that straight. Say what you will about defense, but history has shown it a poor substitue for offense.

Archer · Sep 15, 2002

All offense and no defense leads to a lot of deaths and very short combats. Eventually it comes down to winning initiative which is too chancy. You want enough defense that you won't go down in 1-2 rounds before someone can bolster you or you can withdraw.

Elder-Basilisk · Sep 15, 2002

Well I don't know about that. It's hard to get a defense that can be relied one to say "even the toughest and most powerful monsters need a 20 to hit me."

It's not that hard to get a defense that can say "The vast majority of monsters need to roll above average to hit me."

Similarly, it's fairly easy to get an offense that can say "I can dish out damage quicker than 90% of the monsters out there."

It's a good deal harder to get an offense that can say "I can dish out damage quickly enough that I will even the toughest monster before it kills me." (It's a bit easier than getting the "even the toughest monsters need a 20 to hit me" defense but it's still not easy--the only way I can manage a 7th level melee character who can quickly take down a dire bear in single combat is to use defensive feats like close-quarters fighting).

Thanee said:
Yes, both! Only one is not really good!

Bye
Thanee

Piratecat · Sep 15, 2002

Kibo said:
Witness the hawkish behavior of the US of late. Sure it's at least partly about re-election in 2004....

Witness the EN World prohibition on political commentary! If you would, please try to steer examples away from real-world political ones.

Kibo · Sep 15, 2002

Archer said:
All offense and no defense leads to a lot of deaths and very short combats. Eventually it comes down to winning initiative which is too chancy. You want enough defense that you won't go down in 1-2 rounds before someone can bolster you or you can withdraw.

Funny you should mention that. The reason Patton favored offense, mobility and agression so much was that it was a doctorine he considered saved lives, and that was the only advantage that mattered. Defensive actions are notoriously costly, and not always on both sides.

With enough offense, you've won before they've rolled initiative. And if you've got a high dex character of a high dex race with thug and improved inititive it isn't hard to have +11, which is better than a fair number of gods and major demons.

There's one player in question who, in pretty much any game system, comes up with insanely effective offense based characters. In a straight combat, we didn't really even need dice, to say nothing of the fact that to see him roll my smoke dice for his character made you question everything you thought you knew about probability. There was almost no defense I could come up with that would asure a villian would even survive the first round of combat and yet seem uncontrived. I got creative, there really wasn't another choice. I've come extremely close in killing the character on a couple of occasions, including one which was by 1 point of a d20. But he was so grossly out matched by that villian on paper that the 3rd edition DMG admonishes dm's who have players beating foes with such disseperate powerlevels that something must be wrong with their game. I side with one of the greatest generals of all time, history, and first hand emperical evidence. But that's just me.