Armor and Extended Rest

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agree somewhat. I am not at all sure how you would make an 'anti-magic zone' in 4e though, lol. There's not actually a definition of 'magic' in 4e at all. Anyway, I'm not really convinced any of that kind of thing is super relevant to the way I would envisage using "you don't have your gear". For one thing I think there's no convincing reason to believe ANY armor is more or less easy to sleep in than any other, unless it is cloth.

Mostly I think the "can't sleep in armor in camp" thing just isn't worth messing with, as others have said. The more interesting scenarios are when the PCs are in 'off time', lounging in their lairs, etc or plot devices like throwing them in jail or something like that. There are the same mechanical questions there, but at least you can provide mitigation and it is easier to structure the adventure in such a way that A) combat isn't the focus, and B) some resources come into the players hands to let them do interesting things.

 

[mneme]

You're the GM -- it's not hard to make a zone that you rule doesn't allow powers with certain keywords to function within it. (it helps that you can restrict your creations to the actual PCs in the game and not worry about things that aren't around). Incidentally, technically cloth armor isn't normal clothing; it's heavy robes and the like that provide some protection when enchanted, though for fashion purposes I prefer to play it as "enchanted clothing." But the problem is that if you deprive everyone of their armor, the heavy armor wearers are hit a lot harder by the restriction.

Good points regarding making "you have no gear" less combat focused--though you still want the possibliy of some combat for that scenario -- after all, the whole point is working around not being reasonably equipped for combat.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, you gave me one. The Warlock is perfectly viable in light armor, save for a very particular build that is not recommended. If we're going to get into nitty gritty arguments about particular builds then why can't I make my Roman Legionaire in Leather armor with STR/CON totally viable? This game cannot account for every possibility, and if a PC decides to take a perfectly viable class and use a particular build that requires some extra feats, then that's their problem, no the system's.

I don't consider dropping half of the powers of a class and forcing a player to bump up a secondary ability score like Int or Dex instead, just so that he doesn't get wiped out in a single round, to be viable.

Every class should be able to easily access any of the powers of that class without having to resort to nerfing their AC or being forced to purchase one or more specific feats to do so.

You might want to be forced to bump up your Dex or Int significantly, and limit your PC Warlock to only Cha powers or only Con powers, but any class that doesn't get to use either no ability score or a primary ability score towards AC is bad game design.

Being forced to use a secondary or tertiary ability score for AC IS a problem with the system because the player doesn't really get a choice and is pretty much forced to spend precious point buy points on AC.

So that leaves one class for which there actually is a bit of an AC problem. That's one out of how many? Let's see...Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard, Warlock, Warlord, Druid, Shaman, Sorcerer, Warden, Barbarian, Bard, Swordmage, (That one Eberron Leader I can't think of), Battlemind, Ardent, Runepriest, Paladin, Avenger, Psion, Monk, Assassin and Seeker? So, that's 24 classes, not counting Essentials stuff. And out of all of that (and assuming I didn't miss any), there's one with a legitimate problem? I hardly think that requires houserules that mess with the entire armor system, when you could just houserule the Barb instead.

And? I also know quite a few that don't do that. More importantly though, why is it necessary for everyone to have some unassailable AC? If we boosted up the Wizard and Sorcerer AC, then they would be approaching Defender AC, which would mean we'd probably have to boost Defender AC in order to compensate so that they can retain their higher AC that creates the choice when they mark. And then the party would basically become unhittable, which would mean boosting the monster's to-hit.

You know what a lot of Wizards and Sorcerers also take? Toughness and/or Durability, since they have low HP and Surges. Maybe we should boost those too? See the problem here? It just escalates a bonus war between the squishies, the Defenders an the monsters.

You don't consider a starting first level Wizard or Psion at AC 14 to be problematic when a Paladin is walking around with AC 20? That's a 6 AC delta in a D20 system on a defense that gets attacked over half of the time.

A mere 2 NPCs attacking the first level Psion at AC 14 (+6 to hit for same level foes) knocks the Psion unconscious ~40% of the time in a single round. For the 20 AC Paladin to get knocked unconscious in a single round ~40% of the time, it takes closer to 6 foes attacking him in a single round.

2 foes. That's not a lot of enemies and one round is not a lot of time. And the odds go up if the foes are higher level.

Just 2 artilleries firing in round one and there's a good chance that the PC Psion is down before his initiative might have even come up.

People sometimes complain about the lowest NAD stat problem that takes 27 levels to illustrate an additional 4 delta on a D20 on a defense that only gets attacked one time in 6. The lowest AC problem shows up at level one, that defense gets attacked at least half of the time, and does in reality create a feat tax for many players of the low AC PCs, but nobody notices that problem.

And bumping AC 14 to AC 16 isn't exactly making the AC unassailable. It's barely bringing it up to an acceptable level (where 3 attacking foes are typically needed to get to the ~40% chance of taking the PC Psion out in a single round). Bottom line: it's a feat tax to merely get to a lousy AC.

PS. I have run two PBP PCs that did not boost their AC, one was a hybrid swordmage|wizard and another was a sorcerer. So, it is doable, but I have never ever seen anyone else do it. Ever. It's fairly rare. We should post a poll.

Yeah, and my Dragon Magic Sorcerer can't get a lot out of powers with Cosmic Magic riders. My STR/CON Fighter using Axes can't really take the Polearm Master Paragon Path. Builds have tradeoffs. If you want a CHA/CON Warlock the tradeoff is that you don't have INT for riders and AC (They use INT, not DEX, BTW. Which is why they can do things like MC Wizard and Swordmage). If you want to build a Feylock that's actually good at using his powers and their riders though, you pump a lot into INT and voila! You have good AC and good riders, no feats required. I know, because my friend build one, and it was sick. He did take Leather armor for a bit, but once he learned how to keep moving so that he could keep Shadow Walk up, he retrained it for something else because he didn't need the AC bump.

There's a difference with not getting the rider to the power and the power not being usable at all.

I never said it wasn't. We had a CHA/STR Pally in our party at one time. Then he spent his one Lay on Hands for the day in the first encounter. He never healed again. He also didn't get some of his riders, which relied on WIS. So again, they do have a tradeoff, it's just not to AC. The PHB also recommends for most of the builds to either CHA or STR and then use WIS as your secondary.

Again, there is a difference between being able to take any power out of the box without spending a feat to do so, and being required to spend a feat to do so. That's called a feat tax for a given build, merely to take one of their own class powers.

If one has to take a specific feat to acquire a power, it's usually called multiclassing.

With regard to a Paladin, yeah, having a low Wisdom can impact Lay on Hands. But there are 7 races that can do either 18 Str 18 Cha 14 Wis, or 18 Str 16 Cha 16 Wis, or 16 Str 18 Cha 16 Wis. Using Lay on Hands 2 or 3 times per day and still being able to use both Str and Cha powers is doable without spending a single feat. Like you say, it was your player's choice to make it less then 2 or 3 times per day.

Again, you said she was descending a rope, not climbing. I merely said that one can descend a rope one handed, because people do it all the time.

All of the time??? I'll bet you can't do descend a rope with one hand. I know I cannot. It's really hard to descend down a rope from an elevated surface with two hands, let alone one hand (not rappel, descend without rappeling gear). I'll bet real money that you cannot do that with 100 pounds of armor and gear on. Your new nickname would be Doctor Splat.

You're giving your Defender's a fool's choice. Lose their AC and protection, or lose their surges, each of which are basically what makes a Defender. If I were a Defender in your game, I wouldn't do a heavy armor build. I like to play heavy armor builds though, which means by your definition I'm "rollplaying" because I'm making my decisions solely on mechanics. Oh, and it also means my surges will suck, so I end up losing those anyway (since STR/CON Fighters need heavy armor due to the lack of DEX). Either that, or I'm gonna tank the crap out of Endurance in order to avoid the loss, which means a feat tax. So explain how that isn't "rollplay" there?

It's just a different set of rules. Depending on campaign, it could be extremely rare to sleep out in a dangerous setting.

You're acting as if the house rule is chopping the arm of a defender off.

Sometimes losing a surge? Oooh. That's broken.

Yeah, you know what happens at high altitude? You get shortness of breath, you tire easily, etc... Then you get used to it, just ask the Denver Broncos.

You call 5,000 feet high altitude?

I would call 10,000+ feet high altitude and 20,000+ feet extreme altitude.

5,000 feet isn't even a mountain. People exert themselves fairly easy at 5,000 feet all of the time. I wouldn't put an Environmental check in for that low of an altitude.

So, in other words, you're placing the worse part of the penalty at low Heroic, which is where most games are played and the players have very few ways to actually deal with said penalty? Very few players even plat at Epic, and at those levels there's sooooooo many other ways to deal with these issues, like having bags of holding full of +6 Summoned Armor that they put on and send away so that they're ready to summon it back if needed. How is that reasonable?

What I find really funny is that you are arguing that low AC isn't a problem or a feat tax for Psions or Wizards, but that low AC once in a blue moon for a defender who isn't wearing his armor is a catastrophe.

Those poor heavy armor PCs. They basically get their AC for free, do not have to assign ability scores for it, and they are being picked on here in this thread.

Oh, and again, how is that fair to say, the STR/WIS Fighter? 18/18 STR/WIS, 12 DEX to keep the REF up (high WIS usually means Polearm, which means no shield, so the 12 DEX is necessary for REF), and that would leave a 10, possibly a 12 for CON (defends on whether he goes 13 DEX for feats, or wants points in CHA). He'll pretty much have to be in Scale, because he's gonna die in Hide. So now he's got a DC 17 check to make, and if he trains Endurance (After Athletics and probably Heal, he'll only have one choice, and something like Perception is very good for Fighters, so that's a guarantee that he will) he'll have a +5 or +6. If he doesn't, then it will be a +0 or +1. And he's got a DC 17 to make. How often do you think that will happen? It's not as trivially easy as you make it sound.

There are always tradeoffs, but a player shouldn't have to make a tradeoff between anything and AC considering that AC is attacked more often in the game system than all of the other defenses combined. Which, btw, nearly all PCs have at least one and often two good NADs.

Not every PC has good AC. Some PCs are screwed in this regard.

Not all PCs have good AC and it's because AC is not always based on primary ability score or given for free without using an ability score.

Battlerager Vigor has nothing to do with this. That was a broken build that got errata'd. I was talking about rollplay versus roleplay, which you brought up. If someone wanted to play a Defender known for their armor, which was as a second skin, and actively wanted to rollplay that they never took it off, even to the point where possibly no one actually saw their true face (think of Master Chief for a modern example, or any number of ancient Greeks for a classical), then they're actively at a disadvantage in your campaign.

No. They just need a good skill or the Durable feat. Either of these can be acquired with a feat (and no feat at all if the skill is just taken). With the house rule, that feat could then be trained out later on.

You sure are blowing up a mountain out of a molehill.

Such a PC would need either a skill or a feat to avoid the issue, but only when in the given set of circumstances and not all of the time? That's unbalanced?

I brought up the Epic Destiny as an example of the ultimate form this would take, but someone truly looking to play that, then they're actively being discouraged by your houserule. Either it will be harsh enough to force people out of their armor, or it will be so weak that it doesn't even matter except for a few builds that get shafted (the STR/WIS Fighter I mentioned). So I just don't see the point of putting something into the game that's so unbalanced purely to preserve some sense of "vermisilitude" that doesn't even actually match up with people who actually slept in heavy armor have said about it!

Not in Epic. Not with the revised house rule.

Honestly, and I'm not saying that you're looking to do this, but most of the DM's that do bring such things up, tend to be the same ones that like to spring stuff on their players unawares. Where, the moment the PC's are in a situation where they're out of they're out of their armor, they're attacked. Such DM's are the very reason why so many heavy armor players are so loathe to actually step out of it.

Our group probably trusts our DMs more than that.

Honestly though, a lot of this argument seems to boil down to some sort of perceived issue with Defenders having higher armor. Thing is, that's not an issue, that's the way the system is designed. Defenders will get attacked more than any other player under normal circumstances, unless the DM always ignores them (in which case, there are other problems). If a Defender is doing their job, then they will help to make to make up for the low AC, HP and Surges of their allies. There's no need to balance this, because it's already balanced in the system. Attempting to layer on some other rule about armor and extended rests messes up this balance, and will unfairly target the heavy armor players. It adds nothing to the game that can't be accomplished via handwaving, and only serves to create the potential for bad situations.

It's a problem if the DM has his NPCs play intelligently and attack the low AC PCs?

Seriously?

It's a major balance problem if a PC in heavy armor sometimes loses a healing surge or two once in a great while because of an environmental condition?

Seriously?

You and I have different ideas of the definition of balance.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're the GM -- it's not hard to make a zone that you rule doesn't allow powers with certain keywords to function within it. (it helps that you can restrict your creations to the actual PCs in the game and not worry about things that aren't around). Incidentally, technically cloth armor isn't normal clothing; it's heavy robes and the like that provide some protection when enchanted, though for fashion purposes I prefer to play it as "enchanted clothing." But the problem is that if you deprive everyone of their armor, the heavy armor wearers are hit a lot harder by the restriction.

Good points regarding making "you have no gear" less combat focused--though you still want the possibliy of some combat for that scenario -- after all, the whole point is working around not being reasonably equipped for combat.

Yeah, I'm sure you CAN make a reasonable 'anti-magic zone', though it is just a bit odd in 4e terms. The whole thing with 'cloth armor' is a bit ambiguous really. Since there is no 'unarmored' state defined and cloth has a 0 armor bonus. Not to say there's no such thing as cloth armor as opposed to 'street clothing', but mechanically it is 6 of one and half dozen of the other. A magically enchanted shirt that gave enhancement bonus for instance would be effectively 'cloth armor'.

My theory on catching the PCs with their pants down, so to speak, is I'd use it more as leverage than for actual fighting, though of course it could turn into a fight of some sort. The local crime lords thugs break in while you're having dinner and "invite you to have a chat wid de' boss" or some such. The point is nobody is ready for a fight 24/7, there will come that day when the party (or a PC at least) is stuck in a bad spot and has to play along or is subject to falling into the hands of someone. It can be a pretty interesting plot, as long as you don't overplay it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, I don't think I agree that high AC is the exclusive purview of defenders, nor that it is wise for non-melee characters to ignore their AC. It works OK usually at lower levels. I can recall a warlock in one game that pretty much avoided being hit for a couple levels in mid-heroic, but he also had to devote some resources to that, it didn't come free. Eventually he discovered that as you get up in levels you simply cannot afford that approach, you NEED a decent AC.

Agreed. It's not about having a super high AC, it's about having a decent AC.

Likewise many defenders aren't really well advised to crank up the AC too much. You need to make sure your punishment is up to par or else you're just decoration. Sure, you'll be able to stand in the line of fire, but without devoting a couple feats to things like CC enhancement and buffing up your MBA the monsters will just walk past you eventually.

I don't totally agree with this. Any DM who often plays his monsters as avoiding the defenders because the defenders have too high of an AC is gaming the system.

Sure, if a given monster fights the same defender more than once, then that monster might eventually learn that this defender is too hard to hit.

But the monsters swinging once (or worse yet, zero times), missing, and then moving on is the DM playing the numbers. This is especially true if the monster is marked or in a defender aura and it just decides to head elsewhere in round one.

I do agree that most monsters should generally target foes in lighter or no armor when possible, but I don't agree that the defender can make his AC too high. The monsters shouldn't know (beyond what is obvious like the defender is in plate and shield) and it should take them more than a few rounds to figure it out. And unless they are hit with an extremely weak attack, monsters shouldn't just assume that a heavily armored defender is by definition, a weak attacker.

I do agree that defenders should up their MBAs and such, but they shouldn't be auto-ignored, just because they upped their AC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, monsters have as much or little ability to gauge defenses of PCs as the players do to gauge the defenses of the monsters. That is they don't KNOW them automatically, but they can take an educated guess, and certainly after a round of monsters whacking on the fighter they're going to have a pretty solid idea of his AC. Sure, that may not make them automatically decide to go attack the wizard, but they will likely think about it. In any case the monsters generally will be smart to engage leaders and controllers if they can.

This also doesn't take into account artillery, lurkers, etc, who are all quite likely to not bother with the melee guy that isn't bothering them and go after the lighter armored back row people that are a direct threat to them. Likewise fliers.

 

[Gondsman]

The GM's not entitled to have fun? Boy, I'd hate to have you as a player.

That isn't what i said. GM's can have fun, I just don't beleive they should seek it at the players' expense. When a house rule makes the game tougher for the player's to be successful, and the GM enforces it just because of his opinions, the game suffers.



And now i digress with arguments....

we always talk of metagaming, playing based not on predictions of monster behavior but on the numbers of the game. Well think on this. What is the ingame meaning of marking? It isn't a -2 penalty that the monsters are thinking about. That mark represents the defender pulling "aggro" or getting the attention of the monsters so that they want to attack him and don't want to attack other people and so won't be as focused on success. Ignoring him just because clothies are easier to hit, smacks of meta gaming on the part of the GM. I'll restate, I'm not saying that the badies never target the clothies, I'm saying that if the bad guys stack damage on anyone, It should be the guy actively saying "Hit me ya bunch of nerds"


Now i do admit, a Defender who doesn't make a nuisance of himself in the damage area is just a hard to hit tree waving his branches in the breeze and there is no reason to attack him, no matter how mad you are at him, when other people are killing you or your friends.


As for sleeping in armor, If you haven't actually tried it, your view will never be more than just another dumb opinion. And the fact that most of the haters in this case are accusing the few who actually claim to have tried it of being liars, with no personal experience to back themselves up, well, i think that sort of speaks for itself.


I figure, if the game designers didn't design a rule to pull people out of their armor for battles in dangerous places, they never meant people to have to deal with purposefully hamstringing themselves with no reasonable benefit.

 

[S'mon]

That isn't what i said. GM's can have fun, I just don't beleive they should seek it at the players' expense. When a house rule makes the game tougher for the player's to be successful, and the GM enforces it just because of his opinions, the game suffers.

Players have told me the opposite - that they hate DMs who try to pander to the players, fudge so they don't kill PCs, etc. And they've told me how much they appreciate my hard-ass DMing style.

OTOH on the specific issue of house rules, yes these do have to be applied carefully, with tact and consideration. And it's a good rule of thumb that you shouldn't use a PC-hurting house rule if a PC-favouring version would achieve the result you're going for.

 

[S'mon]

You don't consider a starting first level Wizard or Psion at AC 14 to be problematic when a Paladin is walking around with AC 20?

No, Wizard-1 AC 14 is not a problem.

Barbarian-1 AC 14/15, or melee/two-blade Ranger-1 AC 14/15, that is a problem.

Edit: At low level, IME a ranged-attack PC might get attacked once in a combat, if the enemy have a controller with AoEF attacks - which typically target Ref or Fort, not AC. If a Wizard-1 or similar PC is drawing multiple non-minion attacks in a single round, then either the DM is incredibly mean or something has gone horribly wrong with PC tactics. The only time I can recall seeing that was with a Wiz-2 IMC 3 sessions ago; she won init vs the attacking wolf pack, stepped forward, and close blast-5'd the wolves with burning hands, killing 1. Then on their init 3 wolves attacked her, the 2 Elites AP'd, bit her twice, and took her down. The little wolf with them then ripped her throat out, all before the other PCs could act.

But if she had just stayed back and used a different (ie, ranged or area) attack she'd have been fine.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, Wizard-1 AC 14 is not a problem.

Barbarian-1 AC 14/15, or melee/two-blade Ranger-1 AC 14/15, that is a problem.

...

The only time I can recall seeing that was with a Wiz-2 IMC 3 sessions ago; she won init vs the attacking wolf pack, stepped forward, and close blast-5'd the wolves with burning hands, killing 1. Then on their init 3 wolves attacked her, the 2 Elites AP'd, bit her twice, and took her down. The little wolf with them then ripped her throat out, all before the other PCs could act.

But if she had just stayed back and used a different (ie, ranged or area) attack she'd have been fine.

You appear to be contradicting yourself. Either AC 14 is ok, or it's not.

Oh yeah, it's ok if the player plays the game in a specific DM prescribed way where the PC is hiding in the back. Check. Got it. Using the cool blast power with an early init is not ok. Hang in the back Mr. Wizard. Don't use your cool power. The game designers think it is better to use ranged bursts instead of close blasts. Check. No, no. Don't ever worry about NPCs attacking from behind.

Don't come to my table. Your hang in the back Wizard with AC 14 would be toast sooner or later. In my game, every PC is attacked sooner or later with multiple attackers (and not just minions).

The reason is because there are x players at my table and every one of those players deserve to be in the encounter crunch spotlight some of the time. Not just the players playing defenders. In fact, AC is so important in my DM's campaign that even the Cavalier's warhorse has a first level equivalent AC of 23 (plus resistance). That works great with Mantle of Unity.

In my DM's mid-Paragon campaign, we rarely fight in smaller rooms (which would help my Ardent|Bard give out temp hit points by staying in the middle). It's often in areas 15x15 or larger. There is no place to hang in the back because there is no back. We often get attacked from all sides. Even if we encounter the foes from in front, it's real easy to melee attack the back PCs when there are not walls in the way because moving closer diagonally away and then diagonally back takes up the same amount of movement. Ranged attacks are even easier. And defenders are super easy to avoid. Which is part of the reason why in 2 campaigns and 15 PCs, we only have one standard non-hybrid defender. Course the main reason is because we have 8 strikers and 1 hybrid striker. The game has evolved, or at least at our table, to be 60% striker parties since heavy striker parties survive easier and strikers are easier for many people to play.

Sure at level one, PCs fight in rooms in towns and small dungeons and such because they are almost always fighting medium or smaller sized foes. But even by mid-heroic, we find ourselves outdoors, in magnificent large caverns, at the top of gigantic towers, etc. with foes coming in from all sides, flying, teleporting, using ranged attacks. In order to allow large, huge, and even larger foes to attack the PCs, there has to be a ton of space and once that occurs, players can totally forget about "hanging in the back". The only time that can occur is if the PCs come through a doorway and the DM doesn't have more NPCs attacking from the rear. Then, low AC PCs can still hang in the back, but it's rare. Or it's at least rare if the DM tries to challenge his players.