Defenders aren't very good at defending?

[direkobold]

So I've been playing a defender (a paladin) and DMing two defenders since just after 4E was released, and they just don't seem to be very good at their jobs. All the other roles feel like their name and stand out with respect to other party members with respect to that role, but not defenders.

Here are my specific issues:

1- AC: With a shield defenders are probably going to have equal or maybe one point on a striker, without a shield it's pretty easy for a striker to have a better AC. If a Defender can't count on having the best AC in the party, i.e. the best defense, then what the heck can they count on? To just use one example (possibly an extreme one) and compare a level 11 elven ranger with a level 11 fighter.

Assuming that the Ranger rolled at least a 17 for dex (giving him 19 to start) and put all his stat bumps to dex he'll have a 22 dex for +6 to AC.

If we further assume that both the ranger and the fighter haven't taken any extra feats and that they both have +3 armor (a level 11 item), then their respective ACs are:

Ranger: +6 Dex, +6 Armor(Hide) +5 Level <Left:19><Right:18> +10 Base = 27 AC
Fighter: +10 Armor(Scale) +5 Level = 25 AC (27 w/ shield)

At a minimum this raises questions about whether a two-handed weapon defender is a viable build.

And of course the only thing keeping leaders from having the same AC as a defender is a few feats (and considering how many you get in 4E that's not that big of a deal). And the only thing keeping a wizard from being being in the same AC position as a striker is one or two feats.

2- Marking: So you can get the attention of one guy, well in your average 4E combat there's a lot more than one guy, and yes there are some encounters and daily powers that allow marking of more than one but their core class ability let's them get the attention of one dude, and it has to basically be a dude that they're adjacent to anyway. Now I don't have any hard math here, but in my experience the defenders do most of their "locking down" in the same way everyone else does. Threating Opportunity Attacks and providing occasional cover vs. ranged attacks.

To put it another way I've seen only a few instances where marking really changed who a monster would have attacked and even fewer where having the monster attack the defender as opposed to someone else really changed the course of a combat.

3- Reflex, Fortitude and Will Defense: I'm sure there's some math to be done here, but just eyeballing I don't see any reason either from the numbers or from play experience to see any reason why the "Defenders" are any better at "defense" in this area then any of the other roles.

4- Hit Points: Here defenders have a clear advantage, but how much of an advantage is it really? I'd say just based on eyeballing it that it allows them to take one, maybe two more hits than a leader or a striker. Now the paladin has lay on hands (which in my experience goes disproportionately towards healing themselves) so that helps on this count, but over all give how much the defender gets beaten on the hit point difference is not that big of a deal. In my play experience the defender gets the lions share of the healing and still goes down more than any other character.

So anyway that's my experience. Other than the defender the classes seem to pull of their roles, fairly well. The defender seems the exception to that rule.

Anyone having a similar experience?

Anyone want to tell me that I'm smoking crack?

Anyone have suggestions for house rules to rectify this problem?

I'm toying with giving defender's a blanket +2 to AC, or maybe going to 7 hp/level, but I'm still in the "watch and see" mode. I'm going to switch from a paladin to a swordmage in the campaign I play in as soon as the FR book comes out, so I'd like to get the experience of playing that defender before I pass judgment on the entire role.

 

[blargney the second]

It's actually fine for the defender to have slightly worse AC than the striker, especially once an enemy is marked. Defenders have much better hit points and way more healing surges, so if they're doing their job right they should be taking more attacks than the striker. The point isn't necessarily to make the attacks miss you - it's to make sure they don't happen at all on your squishy buddies.

 

[Kintara]

Well, at 16th level, with +4 Wyrmscale, the Fighter's AC becomes 10+8+14+2=34
The Ranger's AC becomes 10+8+6+8=32

Anyway, marking an enemy means that you can punish that enemy if it tries to make any sort of attack, including opportunity attacks. That means that it makes it easier for your party members to just provoke and let the enemy try. It's great because it improves the mobility of the other party members. The Fighter can't lock down the entire enemy force single-handedly all the time, but nor would that be advised. The damage the monsters do should ideally be spread out, with more on you than others. Everyone has healing surges to spend, but you just have more and better ones.

 

[direkobold]

Defenders have much better hit points...

Much Better? Just to take the paladin as an example once he gets through putting his high stat's and stat bonuses into str, wis and cha he'll be lucky to have a higher con than the rogue or ranger. So let's say they both end up with a con of 12, that means at 30 level, where the hit point difference is the max, the Paladin will have 207 to the ranger/rogue's 174. That doesn't seem "much better" to me. As I said that's one hit.

...way more healing surges...

Yeah they have a few more healing surges, but particularly when you're talking about the fighter, they don't have anyway to really use them. Once again this is just my experience, but it's pretty rare to run out of healing surges. It's much more common to run out of ways to use them... Perhaps the way we're playing them wrong is that every fighter needs to pack a bandolier of healing potions into every combat. But that doesn't seem like the spirit of 4E either.

all on your squishy buddies.

My whole point is that strikers and leaders aren't all that more squishy than the defenders...

 

[chitzk0i]

To put it another way I've seen only a few instances where marking really changed who a monster would have attacked and even fewer where having the monster attack the defender as opposed to someone else really changed the course of a combat.

This is probably the issue. My DM makes marked enemies attack my fighter almost all the time. Most of the time everyone else is virtually unharmed.

From my point of view, defenders aren't meant to achieve 100% lockdown. Every class has self-protection powers to delay enemies while you kill them. Defenders are meant to tackle the most dangerous monster or pull off monsters attacking injured comrades.

If your DM makes monsters ignore you, play a fighter with potent challenge and the bracers that add damage to your basic attacks. If they still ignore you, revel in your glorious DPS.

 

[direkobold]

Well, at 16th level, with +4 Wyrmscale, the Fighter's AC becomes 10+8+14+2=34
The Ranger's AC becomes 10+8+6+8=32

So the ranger is the equal of the two-handed weapon fighter, that doesn't necessary rebut my point (I really think defenders should always have better AC at least by a point or 2). Also if you assume that that ranger started with an 18 rather than a 17 (obviously not unheard of) the it would be 34 to 33 and we're back in a situation where the striker has a better AC than the Fighter without a shield.

Everyone has healing surges to spend, but you just have more and better ones.

Better Healing surges for defenders? Are you saying that because they have more HP? They're only going to be better by 1 or 2 points once you divide everything by 4....

 

[Nail]

direkobold: Often (it seems to me) "just locking down one opponent" is enough. For those strikers, they have no easy way to keep opponents in one spot, which means the opponents have more choices.

YMMV

I did find it odd that the Defenders don't have the highest AC possible in the game. That should change with the new splatbooks, methinks.

 

[Kintara]

So the ranger is the equal of the two-handed weapon fighter, that doesn't necessary rebut my point (I really think defenders should always have better AC at least by a point or 2). Also if you assume that that ranger started with an 18 rather than a 17 (obviously not unheard of) the it would be 34 to 33 and we're back in a situation where the striker has a better AC than the Fighter without a shield.



Better Healing surges for defenders? Are you saying that because they have more HP? They're only going to be better by 1 or 2 points once you divide everything by 4....

Healing Surge values will differ by more than that:
Fighter 16 (Con 15) 120/4 30
Ranger 16 (Con 15) 102/4 25

Anyway, Rangers kick ass, but Fighters do too.

 

[The Grackle]

If a defender's AC is too high, then monsters can't hit him and they turn their attention to more viable targets.
Defenders defend the whole party, not just themselves.

 

[Victim]

As mentioned, if the defender's AC is too much higher than other characters, then it's worth it for the monsters to attempt to bypass him no matter what, since they won't to damage if they don't.

Since Combat Challenge and Divine Challenge work against OA, the rest of the party is free to move around more against normal monsters. Either the monster gives up its OA, or it takes some damage (or the chance for damage). A solo monster or some elites will have the defenses and HP just to suck it up, but it's usually not worth it for normal monsters. So even when the monsters will happily attack the defender, you can still make use of the mark.

Usually, there's a leader in the group, so the defender's lack of powers to use his own huge surge total isn't that big of a drawback.

Combat Challenge punishes shifting. A number of monsters, especially at low levels, have shifting powers that can be rather annoying or dangerous. At the very least, it should usually mean it takes an extra round to flank the fighter. Even when all the marked creatures will want to beat down the fighter anyway, the anti shift power often gets them to do so from an inferior position.

The paladin can have Bolstering Strike as an at will; so he have often take significantly more damage than his normal HP and defenses indicate.