Barbarian and Avenger defenses (Forked Thread: Thaneborn Barbarians)

[DracoSuave]

A suggestion I saw on the WotC boards: restrict Improved Armor of Faith to only work in cloth (e.g., make it an armor bonus).

Then it's strictly worse than Armor Proficiency: Leather until Paragon Tier.


Here's a better suggestion: Make magic cloth armor an Avenger would really want to wear.

 

[Seeker]

20 AC at level 1 is equivalent to plate + shield, and it will automatically get better at levels 11 and 21. Constraining the Improved Armor of Faith feat to a fixed +1 would solve half of the problem, and making Armor of Faith an armor bonus would keep the avenger down to expected striker AC, but with higher HP.

Two problems. The first is that if Armor of Faith is an armor bonus, it needs to get a +1 at Paragon and Epic, the same as every other light armor (because of masterwork armors). The second is more serious: the Avenger can't enchant himself, and would thereby miss out on +6 over 30 levels compared to any other class in the game.

The simplest solution to these two problems is to just let the Avenger wear armor. Now, suppose the Avenger did not have Armor of Faith; clearly, since even the ranged strikers get (at least) leather armor profiency, so would the Avenger. So we have a design question: why the additional point of AC? For clarity: suppose AoF was a +2. Then the difference between the two hypothetical Avengers would be that the AoF Avenger wouldn't be interested in taking shield feats (unless he took two, in which case he's trading feats one-for-one for Reflex), even if both of them could (Strength 13/15, which would be hard to meet for an Avenger). Hide armor also has stat requirements that an Avenger may be uninterested in meeting (Strength 13, Con 13).

So with AoF at +2, the big difference seems to be that an AoF Avenger gets to spend a feat (leather armor profiency) on a +2 to AC that the non-AoF Avenger probably won't be able to to... compensating them for the stat difference (between them and a rogue) we've been postulating, at the cost of a feat. That seems entirely reasonable to me. So why the +1? An Avenger is /also/ behind a rogue in Reflex, with that same stat difference. (We'll assert that the +1/+1/+1 vs +2 balances, for the nonce.) Trading +2 Reflex for +1 AC also seems pretty reasonable to me.

Now the question becomes: why Improved Armor of Faith? Is it strictly power creep? If we suppose it compensates for the rogue's higher damage output, it almost makes sense, because Sneak Attack improves per tier as well. (Assuming, not unreasonably, that all rogues take Improved Sneak Attack *cough* Backstabber.)

So to me, this looks like a reasonable set of trade-offs to turn a pure striker (rogue) into a striker/tank. What's strange is that the secondary role for an Avenger is supposed to be controller...

 

[Cadfan]

The first +1 from Agility is a starting bonus, not a "+1 per tier".

Its +1 per tier. Its just frontloaded slightly. The game is filled with abilities and bonuses that are +x per tier, with the +x granted at level 1, 11, and 21. Its the same as the scaling for non weapon non implement attacks, like the dragon's breath: stat +2 v non ac defense, improving to +4 and +6. Its obviously an effort to match the progression of a magic implement, except with everything frontloaded to the beginning of the tier.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that about Censure of Pursuit. I see its wording "moves away" as meaning "for any square moved, ends up farther", but any interpretation means ranged enemies are screwed. So the two avenger builds are quite unique!

We've had one in our game ever since the demo Avenger PC came out. The two builds are incredibly different. The Pursuit guy wants to keep himself an a single enemy far away from the rest of the fight. If his foe leaves, he wants to chase after him and drag him back out. He doesn't get the bonus damage for enemies fleeing him very often, we've found, but he does get to roll almost all of his attacks twice. The Vengeance guy is the opposite, or at least has the choice of playing the opposite. He can isolate a foe and roll his attacks twice, and he can use his various powers that penalize enemies for being near him to encourage his foes not to wreck his ability to roll twice, or he can intentionally get himself surrounded, use powers that penalize enemies near him, and get bonus damage every time someone hits him.

The only other comment I have regarding the AC issue is that its worth keeping things in perspective. A totally neglected non AC defense only falls behind by three points by level 28 in comparison to a non AC defense that had its associated ability score boosted at every opportunity. A character in hide armor who totally neglects his dexterity or intelligence score only falls behind by three points of AC in comparison to a character who pumps dexterity or intelligence at every opportunity.

The real issue, if it is indeed an issue, is that lightly armored characters can always have greater improvement to their ACs than heavily armored characters because lightly armored characters can take feats to turn themselves into more heavily armored characters, while the characters who started in heavy armor have already maxed out that route of AC improvement.

I'm not 100% sure that's a problem, though, because the only thing it tends to produce are strikers and controllers with defender level AC at the cost of some feats. The closest to abusable in the whole game is probably the Avenger, since he starts out the lowest. And even he isn't SO bad. An Avenger with a 16 starting dexterity or intelligence starts with an AC of 16. He can take leather armor, to give him a base AC of 18. Then he can take the Avenger feat to improve AC, which by epic tier gives him a base AC of 21. That puts him, at the cost of two feats, equal to a paladin who has spent one feat. He can still keep going, if he really wants, by taking hide armor and hide specialization, but those have prereqs he might not like, and he's not getting as big of a benefit out of them as he did from the first few feats. He might have other priorities at this point.

If his AC were significantly exceeding other characters, I might worry. But instead its exceeding the expectations for an Avenger that you might have if you look at the character at level 1. That doesn't bother me as much. At the very least, you can't look at that information and know that the Avenger is unbalanced. A base AC of 21 is reasonable for an epic level character, we know because other characters have it, and many other characters are one point or so off from it.

 

[Obryn]

Now the question becomes: why Improved Armor of Faith? Is it strictly power creep?

I think when you're looking at the avenger, everything needs to be viewed in light of what it will normally do in combat. I mean, the fact that it has such a high AC and a few extra HPs and Healing Surges might look creep-ish, but everything the Avenger can do more or less encourages them to go one-on-one versus a foe. They are huge targets, and can't always count on help from their allies - after all, they need those allies to keep all the other monsters occupied.

-O

 

[bganon]

I
What do you mean by this? How does focusing attacks negate the bonus against his oath target? How is his party unable to get it back? He has a damage bonus against his sworn enemy that works for any attack, even ranged. I mean, if you ask me, this is a good reason to make sure a Pursuit Avenger has a few long-ranged attacks (like Radiant Vengeance) that can reach out and touch the guy who's running away even if he's behind a meatwall.

What I meant is that the Pursuit kicker damage only happens if the target willingly moves away. If the DM decides not to do that, then the party can't do anything about it; forced movement won't work. And in a lot of scenarios I'm imagining, the DM has good reason not to move away: to focus on dropping the Avenger first. Having the monsters focus fire on the striker usually isn't a bad tactic.

I'm imagining a "double line" type fight, with maybe an elite controller guarded by a few soldiers/brutes. The Avenger will be sorely tempted to dash through the line and hit the controller while the party's defenders/leaders keep the guards busy and the party archers/controllers snipe. If I'm DM, at least some of the time I would respond to this by simply having the controller stand still and fire point-blank ranged attacks at the Avenger (who has crappy OAs without specific feats) and then have at least part of the front line collapse back on the Avenger.

In this situation, the Pursuit Avenger is going to have to really work to get any bonus at all. A melee rogue in this situation is also pretty screwed, but at least since they're already behind the front line they have a pretty good chance of setting up a flank and will go down rolling sneak attack dice. Melee rangers actually want to be in this situation to whip out those burst 1 attacks. Barbarians don't care about anything as long as they can swing a weapon.

 

[Josep]

I don't quite know what to make of the avenger AC possibilities, especially as Improved Armor of Faith starts looking like an amazing feat by paragon or epic. On paper, it looks questionable. But I also remember being dubious about the shielding swordmage being effective with such low damage, but play seems to suggest that the swordmage is effective.

The avenger can get really messed up in a couple ways:

• Picks the OoE target (especially from a lack of knowledge about the targets). Without Refocus Enmity, this completely hoses the avenger damage potential until the party gets the sworn enemy.
• The avenger has to focus on a single target, he's less able to take advantage of party positions - front lines, flanks, etc.
• OoE requires a melee attack, and the monster isn't likely to give the avenger a nice safe position to strike at it from (see previous point).

All of that said, I do think the avenger can be very potent with high defenses, possibly too potent. A higher party AC average is always a good thing, as is the ability to switch between working with the group or going after a ranged target.

 

[Josep]

One other thought: CoR actually requires that another creature hit the avenger (not just attack attack), so each feat spent on AC does directly reduce the CoR's striker damage. I still like AC, but at least there is a tradeoff.

 

[Ceraus]

Two problems. The first is that if Armor of Faith is an armor bonus, it needs to get a +1 at Paragon and Epic, the same as every other light armor (because of masterwork armors). The second is more serious: the Avenger can't enchant himself, and would thereby miss out on +6 over 30 levels compared to any other class in the game.

Ah, you're right about masterwork armor. If Armor of Faith was an armor bonus, I would let it stack with the cloth masterwork improvements. As for the +6 over 30 levels, it's an enhancement bonus and stacks with the rest.

... wait a minute. If Armor of Faith was an armor bonus and did not stack with masterwork armor (by RAW, it shouldn't, anyway), then everything would be balanced (in my eyes). The avenger would get as much AC with one feat as rogues and rangers could get with one feat, and he'd still have the advantage of higher HP. I wonder... ?

 

[cmbarona]

I honestly think the Masterwork confusion would be a lot more clear if the AC bonus was listed as a separate Masterwork bonus.

But at any rate, I have no problems with the higher AC. Avengers will often find themselves in tough situations whichever their build. I plan on playing one soon (Pursuit), and I'm interested in the increased mobility afforded to me. I'll probably still take Defensive Mobility on top of Leather Armor prof. and Improved AoF. I intend to be a blur of zealous death on the battlefield, and I like that the mechanics can reflect that.

 

[DracoSuave]

... wait a minute. If Armor of Faith was an armor bonus and did not stack with masterwork armor (by RAW, it shouldn't, anyway)

...it would be strictly worse than Leather Armor Proficiency.

Compare:

Armor of Faith: +1/+2/+3
Leather Armor Proficiency: +2/+3/+4.

The math is actually pretty simple on that.