HELP! Avenger issue

[keterys]

Sounded like his squishier ACs are actually about 6-8 lower than the Avenger and 4-6 lower than the defenders (27, 25, 19-21 per earlier post)... so to have a 40% chance to hit the Avenger, he'd have an 80% chance to hit his most squishy member and a 50% chance to hit a defender.

I do think people are overly optimistic about how much the avenger has nerfed his damage and attack bonus by getting bonuses to AC. It's definitely nerfed and I think the fighter comparison is a good one, but he'll still hit _plenty_ and do respectable damage. Depending on his Avenger build ignoring him will either bring his damage back to respectable levels or nerf him - if he has the 'I deal more damage when people attack me' to go with his super high AC, enemies will learn to just not bother OAing him pretty quickly.

 

[Lauberfen]

Again, the +2 AC is not massive- for every 10 attack rolls against him, only 1 would have hit a defender with 2 less AC.

And attacking his other defences is not metagaming- within a few rounds it will be very clear to the monsters that he has a high AC, so they'll try other approaches.

 

[tiornys]

This character isn't the best example, but the Avenger's potential AC is problematic. Upgrading from Leather to Hide is extremely expensive for an Avenger, and not necessary. By diverting the stat points this build used on Str and Con into Wis, an Avenger can easily achieve an AC only one less than that of this build and have a strong Wis score as well.

t~

 

[eriktheguy]

And attacking his other defences is not metagaming- within a few rounds it will be very clear to the monsters that he has a high AC, so they'll try other approaches.

I think OP meant that it would be meta-gaming to choose monsters that didn't target AC just because of the avenger.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Personally, I would hit the squishies until they went down. Why attack the defenders or the avenger? Even with the -2 mark penalty they get a +6 bonus to hit the guy with 19 AC compared to the Avenger, or +4 bonus compared to a Defender.

Throw some brutes and some high damage mobs at the party and watch them tear through the squishies. Remember, the defenders only get one immidiate action per round...

 

[eriktheguy]

Personally, I would hit the squishies until they went down. Why attack the defenders or the avenger? Even with the -2 mark penalty they get a +6 bonus to hit the guy with 19 AC compared to the Avenger, or +4 bonus compared to a Defender.

Throw some brutes and some high damage mobs at the party and watch them tear through the squishies. Remember, the defenders only get one immidiate action per round...

The defenders get one immediate action during each enemies turn. If fighter marks more than one enemy he can immediate reaction to attack each. The same is true for opportunity attacks.

 

[Iron Sky]

The defenders get one immediate action during each enemies turn. If fighter marks more than one enemy he can immediate reaction to attack each. The same is true for opportunity attacks.

Negative. Any player or NPC or monster or anything gets one immediate action per turn. Period.

Opportunity attacks are the only ones that are per enemies' turn.

 

[MrBeens]

Negative. Any player or NPC or monster or anything gets one immediate action per turn. Period.

Opportunity attacks are the only ones that are per enemies' turn.

Yes.
Each character gets one immediate action per round (defender reaction to marks is this).
Each character gets one opportunity action per other characters turn (defender reactions to marks is not this)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Let's pretend for a moment that everything is alright with the rules, regardless of whether you agree or not.

This Avenger build is basically sacrificing offense for defense. He does deal less damage (hits less often and hits for less damage) but is hard to hit. He might still deal more damage than a non-Striker. He still doesn't have the recovery ability, hit points and healing surges of a typical Defender.

If the Avenger is too hard to hit, think about what tactics the enemy would need.
1) Do not attack the Avenger.
2) Move so that the Avenger doesn't benefit from his Oath of Enmity (note that this works against every Avenger.
3) Focus fire on "squishier" targets.
4) Attack non AC/Reflex defenses.

You don't necessarily have to adapt the encounters you use, just the way the monsters in an encounter act.

 

[Lauberfen]

I think OP meant that it would be meta-gaming to choose monsters that didn't target AC just because of the avenger.

Ah. Well as the DM, you are a metagame entity anyway- you know the characters stats, and can create challenges accordingly.

I'm not talking about throwing in monsters that make no sense, but there are lots of non AC attacks out there- probably close to half, even at Heroic tier.