moritheil
First Post
There was a surprising amount of furor over this very simple statement, so I'm branching this off into another thread.
I've shown more than I care to show. I broke the AC down source by source, points by points. That's sufficient for anyone familiar with the books to identify everything. You have yet to sit down with the books and figure it out, which is a laughably simple task, but I won't be blamed for that. Nor do I intend to spoonfeed people who happen to randomly stop by the boards and just want a min/max build without properly understanding how it works. I want to encourage people to be able to min/max themselves, not to rely on other people posting every little detail. It's feed a man a fish versus teach a man to fish.
I claim that the OP's statement that to-hit far outstrips AC is spurious at lower levels, and if anything, it's the other way around. I just happened to throw out some plausible numbers to illustrate my point.
No, it's really not. You certainly know that the effective use of alter self hinges upon having a type other than humanoid. You also know how to get another creature type at first level. I've seen you do it before on these boards. Please don't conveniently forget how to min-max just to make me look bad.
Come on, play fair. You know how to get the optimum AC from alter self. Why would you assume that I did anything else?
You're still fixating on a single word I happened to use. As I said before, that's just semantics and has no real bearing on the issue at hand. If you want my reasoning, it's because some of the AC stuff isn't possible due to lack of resources/feats, etc. before 6th level. What's the fastest to-hit increase over one or two levels? I imagine the fastest it could increase would be around 5 or 6. I'd call an increase of 10-20 much higher than an increase of 5-6 (let me guess, one of your replies is going to take me to task for using "astronomically" when I really just mean "much.") However, I don't know that 5 is the biggest increase possible. Also note that I am ONLY considering literal to-hit increases, because that's what the OP I responded to discussed. I am not interested, for example, in how wraithstrike makes a mockery of high ACs; that issue is well known (and is part of why I wouldn't bother building such a high AC in a character I was running.) It is an effective AC decrease rather than a to-hit increase, and as such has no bearing on the discussion as framed by the OP.
Maybe to you, because for some reason you continually question my motives. It's simple, though. I don't do to-hit optimization. I left it open for someone who really knows their stuff to come in and show how they get more than +56 to hit at 6th level (which is necessary to prove the OP's point - or have you conveniently forgotten that this is a RESPONSE to someone else's assertion and can only be properly understood in that context?)
Furthermore, no one else has attempted that pure to-hit build either. Not you, not Nail, not any of the other respondents. So you might say I've only shown half the argument, but I note that you didn't come right out and show how to do it yourself - instead you relied on a debuff, which is a known and acknowledged weakness of the build. That doesn't prove anything about the rate of increase of AC and to hit bonuses themselves.
I never said, "This character is invincible." I said that I wouldn't build a character like this myself, but it can be done. Furthermore - and this is important, for people like Nail who totally misrepresent what I'm saying - if I can do it, anyone can do it. DnD rules do not change depending on who is playing the game. Nail keeps yammering on about how most "characters" can't do it - despite the fact that I corrected him. I don't care about characters. I said that most PLAYERS can do it (the ones who can't are those who are incapable of either reading splatbooks or correctly performing math.)
The only reasons players don't do it are because either they don't realize they can do it, or they are too lazy to do it. I posted up here to address that first issue. You can address the latter issue yourself.
KarinsDad said:
I've shown more than I care to show. I broke the AC down source by source, points by points. That's sufficient for anyone familiar with the books to identify everything. You have yet to sit down with the books and figure it out, which is a laughably simple task, but I won't be blamed for that. Nor do I intend to spoonfeed people who happen to randomly stop by the boards and just want a min/max build without properly understanding how it works. I want to encourage people to be able to min/max themselves, not to rely on other people posting every little detail. It's feed a man a fish versus teach a man to fish.
I claim that the OP's statement that to-hit far outstrips AC is spurious at lower levels, and if anything, it's the other way around. I just happened to throw out some plausible numbers to illustrate my point.
No, it's really not. You certainly know that the effective use of alter self hinges upon having a type other than humanoid. You also know how to get another creature type at first level. I've seen you do it before on these boards. Please don't conveniently forget how to min-max just to make me look bad.
Come on, play fair. You know how to get the optimum AC from alter self. Why would you assume that I did anything else?You're still fixating on a single word I happened to use. As I said before, that's just semantics and has no real bearing on the issue at hand. If you want my reasoning, it's because some of the AC stuff isn't possible due to lack of resources/feats, etc. before 6th level. What's the fastest to-hit increase over one or two levels? I imagine the fastest it could increase would be around 5 or 6. I'd call an increase of 10-20 much higher than an increase of 5-6 (let me guess, one of your replies is going to take me to task for using "astronomically" when I really just mean "much.") However, I don't know that 5 is the biggest increase possible. Also note that I am ONLY considering literal to-hit increases, because that's what the OP I responded to discussed. I am not interested, for example, in how wraithstrike makes a mockery of high ACs; that issue is well known (and is part of why I wouldn't bother building such a high AC in a character I was running.) It is an effective AC decrease rather than a to-hit increase, and as such has no bearing on the discussion as framed by the OP.
Maybe to you, because for some reason you continually question my motives. It's simple, though. I don't do to-hit optimization. I left it open for someone who really knows their stuff to come in and show how they get more than +56 to hit at 6th level (which is necessary to prove the OP's point - or have you conveniently forgotten that this is a RESPONSE to someone else's assertion and can only be properly understood in that context?)
Furthermore, no one else has attempted that pure to-hit build either. Not you, not Nail, not any of the other respondents. So you might say I've only shown half the argument, but I note that you didn't come right out and show how to do it yourself - instead you relied on a debuff, which is a known and acknowledged weakness of the build. That doesn't prove anything about the rate of increase of AC and to hit bonuses themselves.
I never said, "This character is invincible." I said that I wouldn't build a character like this myself, but it can be done. Furthermore - and this is important, for people like Nail who totally misrepresent what I'm saying - if I can do it, anyone can do it. DnD rules do not change depending on who is playing the game. Nail keeps yammering on about how most "characters" can't do it - despite the fact that I corrected him. I don't care about characters. I said that most PLAYERS can do it (the ones who can't are those who are incapable of either reading splatbooks or correctly performing math.)
The only reasons players don't do it are because either they don't realize they can do it, or they are too lazy to do it. I posted up here to address that first issue. You can address the latter issue yourself.
Last edited:
