BAB vs AC?

[Axel]

Miss chance is better, sure. But AC still is useful at later levels. My last two mid level characters, reaching levels 10 and 9 before the campaigns ended, both had very good ACs and both were frequently missed by enemies because of it.

In response to the above poster:

Critical hit: Unless the guy rolled well both times, a good AC might have prevented the confirmation roll.
Getting hit multiple times: Yes, this is exactly why AC is worthwhile.
Flatfooted: Actually, the "rogue 4 levels higher" line is ONLY to negate Imp. Uncanny Dodge's flanking protection. Uncanny Dodge's flatfooted protection cann't be overcome, and ninja can't sudden strike on a flank, so I think your DM flubbed things to your detriment there, actually.
Mooks: Did you DR make their bow damage fairly negligible, at least?

You were playing a Barb, a class not known for great defenses (other than sheer toughness) to begin with, and then played it up further by neglecting your AC for offense. I don't think that really proves the uselessness of AC at all.

The 100+ critical hit wouldn't have been confirmed if I had a typical AC for the character level. I was mostly not wearing armour as part of the character's theme (I'm bigger and tougher than all of youse!) rather than any sense of character optimisation. That particular character copped at least 3 100+ crits that I can remember, luckily he had 200+HP (pre-rage)when he was retired...

DR did make the mooks attacks less painful. Still, with 15/20 attacks hitting and doing 1-2 points of damage/hit it adds up pretty quickly. Nobody else was taking damage in that encounter, so I suspect it was just intended to mess my barb around. It was still fun though.

In 2nd edition, armour was just plain better than 3.5 I think. There were fewer drawbacks to wearing it (compared to the monstrous skill check penalties full plate and heavy shield impose in 3.5), though I mostly think this was because DM's back then just made decisions on the fly and on the back of how well you could describe your actions. In 3.0/3.5 there was much more use of a skill check as a "crutch". It was also harder to hit tough AC's. Fighters still gained effectively +1 BAB/level (-1 THAC0/level if you prefer...the change in mechanics makes a discussion harder), but super-high bonuses to hit from strength and magic weapons were almost non-existent. I don't remember what an 18/00 used to give you as a hit bonus, but doubt it was much more than +4. By way of example, my barb that I've discussed had a bonus to hit of +10 from strength when raging (Str 30), plus his bonus from high BAB, plus magic weapon bonuses, plus spell buff bonuses... It wasn't uncommon for him to achieve a first attack of +30, the equivalent in 2nd edition of a THAC0 of -10, which was unheard of!

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I don't remember what an 18/00 used to give you as a hit bonus, but doubt it was much more than +4.

18/00 in 1st Edition AD&D was +3 to hit and +6 damage. I'm pretty sure it was the same in 2nd edition, but I never actually played 2nd. (Continued playing 1st, instead.)

In 1st edition AD&D, the most bonus anyone could get to hit from strength was +7 from the system maximum strength of 25 (unless you were Thor, I believe... but he was a god with amazing gloves and a hammer).

In 3.x, a 16 or 17 strength is about as close to the 18/00 of AD&D as you can get. 18 in 3.x is more than 18/00 in AD&D terms.

Ability score bonuses in 3rd edition are rediculous compared to previous editions. Don't get me wrong, though. I like the 3.x system much better than previous editions, including the way ability score bonuses work. I just don't think it should be very easy to get over a 15 in any score (and at most two 15's per character) without extreme magic.

According to the 3.5 SRD, a character with a 30 Strength is able to military press somewhere between 1068 and 1600 pounds over head while standing and can stagger around (walking) at 5' per round with 2,136 to 3,200 pounds. Armor should be worthless against such a phenomenon. Thus, the +10 to hit and the corresponding damage bonus.

If you haven't read it, this essay is well worth the read to see some of the assumptions built into the 3.x system and where and how they interact with "real world" values.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

It's funny how when I take a look at pre-3e how huge of a boon an AC of 0 seems to be. I wonder what design decisions made running around sword-and-board with field plate less amazing?

1) Stats were uncapped and Str was re-jiggered to give bigger bonuses sooner, so attack rolls are higher.

2) Touch attacks dominating the higher levels make shields and armor mostly worthless against many foes; Shield Ward and such help, but it requires more investment for less gain.

3) Power Attack and enhancements thereto made 2HF amazing, and easily-obtainable precision damage/weapon enhancements/other damage sources made TWF amazing.

Basically, 2HF and TWF both saw major boosts in offensive effectiveness while S&B took a massive hit when it comes to defensive effectiveness.

 

[Axel]

Good points about the level of realism for a Strength 30 character. Essentially, in real world terms, his muscles were large enough to use a large car as weights for bicept curls.

I still maintain that past about level 8 or 9 armour is of limited use. It is never useless, but you can gain better defensive advantages by "investing" in other areas.

 

[Runestar]

Animated shields made it no reason to go sword+board ever. When you could have the best of both worlds. Heck, you could even go TWFing+2HFing+sword&board with a 2-handed reach weapon, armour spikes and animated shield!

 

[Jhaelen]

At higher levels AC is mostly useful to counter monsters using Power Attack. If your AC is too low they can hit you reliably using max power attacks. You'll find that the party's cleric(s) will be quickly drained of all their healing power if you neglect your AC.

 

[Runestar]

I agree with an earlier idea that effects like power attack can be used by the DM to adjust attack rolls to the point where AC is still relevant. For example, the tarrasque has +57 to-hit. Normally, this means it auto-hits vs a lv20 fighter with an AC of 43. However, the DM could "cheat" by PA'ing for 25, reducing its attack roll to +32. Though this means the tarrasque has only a 50% chance of hitting, it has 6 attacks, and so should still be able to land some blows. And when they do connect, the fighter will feel it.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Animated shields made it no reason to go sword+board ever. When you could have the best of both worlds. Heck, you could even go TWFing+2HFing+sword&board with a 2-handed reach weapon, armour spikes and animated shield!

Yeah, if anything substantially reduced the role of S&B, it was this, though only at higher levels. However, I have yet to nerf animated shields, and I assume the reason is the same for others, because even though 2HF and to a lesser extent 2WF dominates S&B, they're still melee. Which means they still suck horribly compared to spellcasters at higher levels (ie, right when an animated shield becomes worth shelling out for). So I'm loathe to do anything that would nerf them even more. I'd rather just buff the S&B and the single-handed weapon style (no one mentioned it, but it sucks even worse than sword and board). If I were to nerf animated shield, though, I'd make it work like a dancing weapon and require you to waste turns reactivating it every 4 rounds or so. Pathfinder sort of did this, except nerfed it even harder, to the point where I'd never want the enhancement at all.

 

[CuRoi]

Trailblazer from Bad Axe games has an detailed break down of the system and comes to some conclusions which I think most long time players have always understood intuitively about AC and which people eventually encounter while playing.

At about 9th level, the optimized "main" attack for the melee classes becomes something of an auto-hit versus a typical AC of the same level. Further, the iterative attacks are something of an unnecessary time sink which you can limit by providing less iterative attacks at a higher bonus for the same results.

They offer some sugestions which include limiting iterative attacks and limiting items that provide stacking bonuses/stat bonuses (they further go on to suggest removing item creation feats altogether, something which I have always toyed with.)

So to the OP, yes, it's not just you : ) I think everyone's games hit the same wall. It just depends on how you deal with it. The replies here are pretty much right on the mark.

I run low power games for just that reason - to extend the "challenge" of the core mechanics. Once you get past a certain level the "challenge" mainly becomes rule mastery which has appealed less and less to me in my gaming. IMO the more the game focuses on rule mastery, the less you are focusing on the story elements of the game.

I agree with the concelment suggestions - its the best way to mitigate higher and higher BAB and more attacks per round. However, I've always found the concealment percentile roll a bit of an odd feature in the system. I can't say why, it just seems awkward.

I've been toying with my own 3.5 / 4.0 hybrid (yeah, like we don't have enough of those...) and I have inlcuded something like the Unearthed Arcana Defense Bonus while tunring Armor into DR (another optional rule in the DMG.) Just conceptualizing at the moment, no actual play testing.

 

[CuRoi]

Yeah, if anything substantially reduced the role of S&B, it was this, though only at higher levels. However, I have yet to nerf animated shields, and I assume the reason is the same for others, because even though 2HF and to a lesser extent 2WF dominates S&B, they're still melee. Which means they still suck horribly compared to spellcasters at higher levels (ie, right when an animated shield becomes worth shelling out for). So I'm loathe to do anything that would nerf them even more. I'd rather just buff the S&B and the single-handed weapon style (no one mentioned it, but it sucks even worse than sword and board). If I were to nerf animated shield, though, I'd make it work like a dancing weapon and require you to waste turns reactivating it every 4 rounds or so. Pathfinder sort of did this, except nerfed it even harder, to the point where I'd never want the enhancement at all.

Well, there's that and the fact that feats and class abilities are pretty well weapon-centric when it comes to melee.

I stick mainly to SRD material so I don't know about all of the supplements available, however many of the shield feats seem to be about how to turn your shield into a weapon, despite the fact that a shield is greatly outclassed by weapons.

Some random ideas off the top of my head -

How about more defensive abilities? I've heard of Shieldmate where you protect others with your shield - not sure how it works, but it sounds like a good start.

Maybe a feat exists somewhere that provides Evasion for Shield wielders - the shield takes the brunt of whatever attack...(maybe this forces a save for the shield)

Adding a feat to intercept touch attacks would be nice (yeah I realize if they "touched" your shield, they touched you...but things like magic shields should be able to absorb or protect you from magic. If someone tosses a Scorching Ray and you intercept it wth a shield, has it burned straight through it to damage you? Things like Ray of Enfeeblement and such aren't so clear cut I suppose...

Aside from feats, giving people something to do with standard combat rules if they have a shield would be nice i.e.:

boost the shield bonus if fighting defensively perhaps (sort of like an all out power attack)

boost the shield bonus when using combat expertise (again sort of a counter to the two handed weapon power attack)

Sword and Board was pretty well ignored in 3.5, but I think it wouldn't take much to make it an interesting choice again. It might even go a little towards evening out the AC / BAB chasm the OP is concerned about.