D&D 4E 4E's math-- what am I missing?

[charlesatan]

I'm not worried about player AC vs. attack. I'm worried about player attack vs. monster AC. It seems like so much effort was done to get rid of the stupid ramping that occurred in 3rd edition (where when you got to high levels, you didn't bother to do anything outside your specialty), only to add it back in. It just seems dumb to force the PCs into a footrace against monster AC that they really can't keep even with.

Previous post edited to reflect Player Attack vs Monster AC.

 

[Grazzt]

The monsters from the monster manual work off this formula as best I can tell. Same role with +/-n levels means +/-n AC.

Monsters generally follow the guidelines for AC and defenses. If you do the math, most monsters in the MM are close, but vary by +/- several points to one or more defenses (including AC)....and not just the Elites or Solos. Most monsters vary several points up or down.

 

[Surgoshan]

Magic weapons are the key. And feats. Together, those alter the PC's attack bonus so that he can hit higher ACs and the like. that's really all there is to it.

All told you get
+1 every two levels just from leveling
+1 every tier from stat growth
+1 total from levels 11 and 21
+1 every five levels from magic weapons
+2-3 from proficiency
+1 from other feats (every two to four levels)

All told, it comes out to an increase of about +1 per level.

 

[chaotix42]

Monsters generally follow the guidelines for AC and defenses. If you do the math, most monsters in the MM are close, but vary by +/- several points to one or more defenses (including AC)....and not just the Elites or Solos. Most monsters vary several points up or down.

This. For example I noticed a lot Brutes had Ref and Will defenses 1 or 2 lower than the DM guidelines suggest, while having attack bonuses higher than the norm by 1 or 2.

 

[Regicide]

Here's the math:
For Attack Bonuses:
+6 (Magic Item Bonus)
...

So if you were at 10+ to hit, 55% chance, and you were sundered or disarmed... 25% chance to hit. Ouch. I want to be a wizard, thanks.

 

[Deekin]

So if you were at 10+ to hit, 55% chance, and you were sundered or disarmed... 25% chance to hit. Ouch. I want to be a wizard, thanks.

Wizards can just get their implement sundered or disarmed.

 

[MarkChevallier]

All told you get
+1 every two levels just from leveling
+1 every tier from stat growth
+1 total from levels 11 and 21
+1 every five levels from magic weapons
+2-3 from proficiency
+1 from other feats (every two to four levels)

All told, it comes out to an increase of about +1 per level.

I think you are wrong about the bonus levels from feats and from proficiencies. The proficiency bonus applies equally at level 1 as at level 30, so shouldn't be counted to the +15 that must be "made up" for pc attack boosts to match monster defence boosts. From stat growth you get +3 in total, from magic weapons +6, but from feats very, very little is available as a straight, always on attack boost. In fact, I don't think there are any (those that offer an attack roll boost are always conditional on circumstance or on fear/fire power for tieflings).

I think you are supposed to scrape together the missing +6 from powers and effects rather than anything constant (probably not as a bonus but rather as a web of rerolls, defence penalties, bonuses and so forth). Your chance of doing so is something that would really be rather complicated to work out and probably depend a great deal on power choice, paragon path choice and epic destiny choice.

 

[Revinor]

So if you were at 10+ to hit, 55% chance, and you were sundered or disarmed... 25% chance to hit. Ouch. I want to be a wizard, thanks.

Not that disarm or sunder is in 4th edition...

If we are talking about fluff effects, I prefer disarm over dismember or decapitation - both are giving even higher penalties to hit.

 

[Surgoshan]

No, looking at the powers, they're all "ability mod vs defense".

+15 from level
+6 from weapon
+6 from ability mod

That's already 27. Proficiency gets you to 29 or 30, already which brings you into reasonable range for most level 30 defenses. Mobs get level+12-16 for AC, which means you need... 12-16 to hit; hard but doable. I statted out a level thirty rogue who got +15+6+8(dex)+3(prof), or +32. Then the rogue kept getting Combat Advantage, which gave her +3 with a light blade (feat), for a total of +35 to hit any defense you care to name.

Someone else statted out a fighter that only got +31 to hit, and that after Power Attack took away 2.

In order to get less than +30 to hit, you have to make your character well-rounded stat-wise... which opens up a lot of feats your more focused character will miss, which should make up the difference.

 

[MarkChevallier]

I don't think that was the point of the original post.

What he's saying is not "how do I get +30?", but rather, "how do I get +30 over and above my starting to-hit?"

His reasoning being that since monster AC and defences all go up by +1 per level, but PC to-hits go up by half that amount, a scaled or typical monster will beat the curve and become much harder to hit.

We can demonstrate that PCs can keep up a bit by stat increases and items, but not all the way - there remains a discrepancy of approximately +6.