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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1279143" data-attributes="member: 3051">I think you're confusing touch attacks with flat-footed in the math there.  The sneak attack only works if your DEX bonus is denied, which means the EC will still be lower than the old AC by a number equal to your armor AC.Let's take a high-end example.  I've got a character with an EC of 20 (6 of which is tied to your DEX bonus and is lost if flat-footed) and an AC of 10.  The attacker has an attack bonus of +13.OLD SYSTEM:Normally your AC is 30, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (AC 24).  To hit, you'd need to roll an 11 or higher (50% chance).  Of course, your rolled damage isn't reduced.NEW SYSTEM:Normally your EC is 20 with an AC of 10, but Sneak Attack only works if you're denied your DEX bonus (EC 14).  To hit, you'd need to roll a 1 or higher (basically automatic), although each hit would be reduced by 10 damage.So, your system is based on the assumption that these two situations are balanced, that the extra damage dealt on the additional 50% of the attacks that hit is counteracted by the extra 10 DR you apply.  Fine.  I may not agree (see below), but that's okay, it's close enough for most situations.My point was, add in 9d6 Sneak Attack and it gets lopsided.  In the first situation, that 9d6 happens on 50% of the attacks.  In the second, the 9d6 happens on EVERY attack, and is only affected by the AC in the unlikely occurrence that the DR soaks up all of the base weapon damage.  This is not a small difference.  If the majority of a Rogue's damage comes from his Sneak Attack dice, you could be doubling his per-turn damage output or worse.A simpler way to say it: this balance assumes that for your character, +1 attack balances +1 damage (since you're trading your armor and natural armor to DR on a 1-for-1 basis).  It's back to the 3E Power Attack math; if I can only hit 50% of my rolls, it's not worthwhile to Power Attack unless I'm doing less than 10 damage per hit.  In general, Power Attack was counterproductive since the average damage was almost always higher than 20*(your chance of hitting), which means that allowing everyone to effectively "Power Attack in reverse" by trading damage for attack bonus will increase damage.  In most cases this is relatively minor.For high-damage classes like Rogue and Monk, they do a LOT of damage with a low attack bonus.  Reducing the enemy's AC by X is VERY good, even at the cost of X damage.  If I'm hitting only 30% of the time but doing 25 damage per hit (average 7.5 damage per attack), and then the system changes so that 5 AC is traded to DR, I now average 11 damage per attack (55% hits at 20 per).  50% more damage is not negligible.  Since your attack rate raises slower than your damage, this gets worse at high level.At the other extreme, the "finesse" type of fighter that has a very high attack bonus but low damage per hit (like most archers) are severely hurt UNLESS they have a Power Attack-like ability that lets them trade attack bonus for damage.  By your system, someone in plate armor is basically immune to all arrows unless they were from a Mighty Composite bow or a magical one.  While there may be a certain realism to this, it sucks for balance.The same logic applies to critical hits, although it's not as pronounced since average crit damage is never as high as the weapon's base damage.  But, I wasn't talking about critical hit DAMAGE, I was talking about all those other effects that kick in on a crit.  Critical hits would increase in the same ratio as normal hits, so any effect that only happened on a crit would occur far more often.  3E Vorpal was the best example of this, but there are others.</blockquote>

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