Glass jaw of PC defenses

[Zelc]

It's a problem enough when a player has two good defenses. It's even worse when, due to their class, they're forced to pump two stats that boost the same defense (laser Clerics, Str/Con Fighters, Cha Paladins, wand Wizards). Suddenly, they have TWO bad defenses and they're really screwed. If you want to make the ability increases affect more abilities, it should boost at least 4.

There has to be a better way though. Maybe at levels 8, 18, and 28 your worst defense gets a +1 increase? The problem again are the characters who must pump two stats that affect the same defense . The best solution is to somehow mitigate or eliminate the effect of abilities on defenses, perhaps either by starting with a higher and auto-scaling base amount and then adding say half your ability modifier or introducing the equivalent of heavy armor for each defense.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It's a problem enough when a player has two good defenses. It's even worse when, due to their class, they're forced to pump two stats that boost the same defense (laser Clerics, Str/Con Fighters, Cha Paladins, wand Wizards). Suddenly, they have TWO bad defenses and they're really screwed. If you want to make the ability increases affect more abilities, it should boost at least 4.

They've chosen to focus on something other than defenses for their entire career. These aren't classes - they're builds, builds who choose to focus exclusively on two stats, and keep making choices that don't strengthen their weak spots. That's not going to make them unviable - they're just more susceptible to certain types of attack. In return, they get to stay out of melee, pump their healing, have more hitpoints or have vastly more chance of landing that crucial daily on a solo.

 

[Stalker0]

So while it might -look- like the Tarrasque can auto-hit the Rogue with an attack vs Fort, I suspect in practice it won't have such an easy time of it: even if the Rogue herself doesn't have a power that can negate it (leaping dodge, an item power, or just plain hiding), the party Fighter will be laying down marks, the Cleric can easily have another penalty to lay down, and the Wizard may have already confused/stunned it outright.

QFT.

This is the difference between the simple math of low levels, and the real math of epic levels. At low levels, your defenses pretty much are your magic items, your stats, and any other static defense bonus.

At epic levels, you have a lot of daily and encounter powers, and you have to take those into account. Tarrasque hits me on a 2, until I give him a -2 to his attack rolls...so now a 4. Then I use my daily that gives +2 to all defenses for the encounter, so now on a 6. Now I use my power that makes him reroll his attack, etc etc.

Powers are powerful...and more importantly...COMMON at epic levels, and you can't ignore them.

 

[Zelc]

They've chosen to focus on something other than defenses for their entire career. These aren't classes - they're builds, builds who choose to focus exclusively on two stats, and keep making choices that don't strengthen their weak spots. That's not going to make them unviable - they're just more susceptible to certain types of attack. In return, they get to stay out of melee, pump their healing, have more hitpoints or have vastly more chance of landing that crucial daily on a solo.

But these builds don't seem to have any real benefits over other builds who use two attributes that benefit different defenses. Is an Int/Dex Wizard so much more powerful than an Int/Wis Wizard (heh, the -save orb power might just be MUCH better than the +attack wand power) or Cha/Int Warlock that it warrants an extra poor defense? For the Wis/Cha Cleric, is staying out of melee (compared to Str/Cha) or being better with the very few Cha powers (compared to Str/Wis) so awesome, especially considering that the Wis/Cha Cleric can't use perhaps the best at-will power in the game? If the Str/Wis Paladin is more offense-oriented and the Cha/Wis Paladin more defense oriented, why does the Cha/Wis Paladin have a worse Fort defense? It's not like these builds are better than the other builds so they should have a worse defense for balance reasons. They just have an added weakness for no good reason.