Anyone else notice the weirdness about Defenses?

[keterys]

So... a gladiator character who used a magic shield and no armor might actually work reasonably, if the enhancements don't stack but shields still get them...

 

[FireLance]

I think the main counterbalance to the armor bonus to AC will be the weapon bonus to hit. Based on what I've seen from the playtest characters, abilities that target Fortitude, Reflex and Will are mostly non-weapon in nature, and do not get an additional attack bonus (unless you have a magical implement).

 

[Stalker0]

It's also worth noting that the only striker (that we know of) who has no way to target an alternative defense (the ranger) has much better accuracy bonuses on his powers than other characters. This part of why I'm not one of the people going "+10 to hit? OMGWTFBBQ"

People were doing that because the power was wrong. It was provided a +10 to attacks AND a 1d10 + 4 for damage. Once they errated it to be 1d10 damage straight up, it became a lot more reasonable.

I will say the whole AC vs defense thing is a concern of mine. If we look at the pregens, in general the wizard has a higher chance of hitting than the fighter does.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm pretty sure that AC being the highest defense is a feature, not a bug. Compare damage dealt by Magic Missile with damage dealt by Cleave.

 

[Gloombunny]

So... a gladiator character who used a magic shield and no armor might actually work reasonably, if the enhancements don't stack but shields still get them...

You can get AC enhancement bonuses on non-armor clothing in 4e, so such a character will be equally viable whether or not shields can can get those bonuses too.

He'll still be subpar to someone wearing armor, though, just not by an amount that increases with level.

 

[Xyl]

There are no +X shields. Problem solved.

 

[keterys]

That is actually how I intend to run my pre-4E rulebook games, but it's still odd

And, really, your gladiator could have +X clothing, but he really should be completely bare chested for the effect

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Alright, let's compare.

Fortitute save: 1/2 level + con/str, +2 if fighter or +1 if paladin (probably).
Reflex save: 1/2 level + int/dex + shield, +2 if rogue or +1 if ranger (probably).
Will save: 1/2 level + cha/wis, +2 if wizard/warlock, +1 if paladin (probably).
AC: 1/2 level + dex + armor + shield

Your AC will be far higher than the other two. Especially since a +1 shield and +1 armor is equal to +2, and a +1 Will/Reflex/Fortitude item is only +1.. The disparity will only grow.

This means that anything that hits against AC is going to be grossly underpowered!

Have they said any way to counteract this yet? Other than this tiny thing (which could be massive if they don't fix it, needing to roll 4 higher to hit AC than Defenses would just be bad), I'm loving 4e...

It gets even worse once you add in the fact that a Fighter needs Constitution as well as Strength, whereas a Wizard can just buy 18 int and play an Eladrin or Tiefling, and be set for life.

Cheers,
SadFish

Well, for one thing, weapon proficiency gives you a +1 to +3 bonus to hit with mundane weapons, depending on the type. That right there neutralizes a lot of the disparity. For example, a level 1 warlock will be slinging spells at about +4 vs. Reflex (with +4 Cha), while a level 1 rogue will be swinging +7 vs. AC with his shortsword (with +4 Dex), or +8 with a dagger (thanks to that class ability).

We've seen a +1 magic shield that said "Enhancement: AC and Reflex," so at the very least those two would scale together for a shield-user (meaning that a spellcaster would want to use attacks against Fort or Will when facing shield-users). However, we've also heard that shields won't give any bonus to AC, so who knows.

 

[Xyl]

We've seen a +1 magic shield that said "Enhancement: AC and Reflex," so at the very least those two would scale together for a shield-user (meaning that a spellcaster would want to use attacks against Fort or Will when facing shield-users). However, we've also heard that shields won't give any bonus to AC, so who knows.

Interesting... this directly contradicts information from the Design & Development: Magic Item Slots article, which says "shields no longer have an enhancement bonus". I wonder which info is wrong?

 

[keterys]

I will say. Shields _not_ having an enhancement -or- that enhancement not stacking with armor makes sense within the balance of the game.

Shield enhancement applying to both AC and Reflex _and_ stacking with the bonus from the cloak/amulet and armor? That'll break the math on AC and Reflex, and pretty fast. Certainly it won't make opting for an extra 2-6 damage per strike by using two-handed make much sense.