Help: Gap between AC and defenses seems too large.

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Better; Barbarians get +1 AC per Tier! (and +1 ref per Tier). It's to give them decent AC even though they're light armor users who don't have Dex secondary -- but it does mean that Whirling Barbarians have ludicrous AC. Your guy can choose to bump AC or bump his riders (unless he's Whirling, but Whirling Barbs aren't that great), so pseudo-defender or better striker.

Sheesh. I thought the penalty for doing really high damage was having low AC. No wonder strikers seem the most popular class in various discussions.

(My group has three strikers, one leader, one controller, and no defenders... I see that all the time on these boards.)

Eagle ("Watcher") shamans don't summon anything eagle-flavored unless they choose (they should) to flavor their spirit companion that way. But they give out basic attacks on both their spirit OA and with an at will; often RBAs that cause the target to grant combat advantage. Watcher shamans are actually mildly Dex-focused, and are the only Shaman build that can reasonably have a high dexterity and thus have a good stealth, but you could easily build one with Int instead.

He's playing an "animist shaman" which is Dark Sun specific.

One of his spirits (elemental spirit) essentially gets OAs, although it's never even been triggered. Another spirit forces all enemies next to it to grant combat advantage, but it can't remain "on-scene" forever. I think he tends to forget that last part, though.

One of his at-will powers gives an ally a free attack.

(expertise) Essentials changed the scaling from 1/15/25 to 1/11/21

I don't know what this means.

*nod* If he's not planning on boosting his dex further, Hide Armor Expertise might be better, as stat > 1 feat (usually). If he is, he can trade his riders for AC and reflex.

Given the gaps between AC and NADs, I think I'll keep that ban on that feat.

 

[mneme]

I'm also wondering; are there expertise AC-boosting feats? The barbarian player wanted to use one, but changes his mind, so I never really hunted that down. And if these feats exist, why? From what IanB is saying, this problem with overly-high ACs only becomes worse with levels. Making that type of feat doesn't seem like a problem solver to me.

As I said earlier -- nope. Well, not except for some wierd gap cases.

There's Unarmed Agility. But that just lets cloth-armor users get nearly the AC of leather armor users without having to switch to leather -- something they could do with a feat.

There's Hide Armor Expertise, but it's mostly terrible. +2 AC _instead_ of your Int or Dex. It was originally too good, but I really wish they'd made it +2/+3/+4, scaling with their, because shamans and barbarians could really use the AC. As it is? It gives a barbarian passable AC in heroic, and fails to solve any problems by epic.

And, back to barbarian AC. Barbarians, overall, have terrible AC. With the exception fo Whirling Barbarians, they have two main stats, neither of which adds to AC. And while they get +3 to AC and Reflex by Epic, plus up to +3 for masterwork, (while wearing light armor), classes that wear heavy armor or have a main stat boosting AC get +9 AC incluidng masterwork. So really, unless a barbarian boosts Dex instead of their actual secondary stat,s they're going to lose out.

Whirling Barbarians are a different category, but generally not really well regarded as strikers. They have crazy AC, though.

Regarding Barbs and Avengers -- they're "durable strikers" -- an unnamed category that Wizards seems to have come up with, who do less damage than (and have less AC, usually) than typical strikers like Rangers and Rogues, but more HP.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

And, back to barbarian AC. Barbarians, overall, have terrible AC. With the exception fo Whirling Barbarians, they have two main stats, neither of which adds to AC. And while they get +3 to AC and Reflex by Epic, plus up to +3 for masterwork, (while wearing light armor), classes that wear heavy armor or have a main stat boosting AC get +9 AC incluidng masterwork. So really, unless a barbarian boosts Dex instead of their actual secondary stat,s they're going to lose out.

Regarding Barbs and Avengers -- they're "durable strikers" -- an unnamed category that Wizards seems to have come up with, who do less damage than (and have less AC, usually) than typical strikers like Rangers and Rogues, but more HP.

"Durable striker" = "brute", I would think But brutes have low AC.

Barbarians do not do less damage. Compared to rogues, they do higher base damage, and pretty much every special attack they have (eg Howling Strike, an at-will) gets bonus damage on top of it. (Throwing out 3[w] as encounter seems quite strong when you're doing 1d12 as that [2].) I wonder how much AC a typical rogue would have? I suspect cranking Dex at the expense of other stats is really common, so they'd usually have higher AC.

 

[mneme]

Note, psi -- this is 4e. -everyone- is supposed to be able to get decent AC.

Things like the Barbarian (who has pretty low AC overall unless the player drops the character's abilities, obv unless Whirling) and the con builds of the Shaman are exceptions; everyone should have reasonable AC, when well built. 16-20 at first level, going up in more or less lockstep until defenders and melee strikers start investing more feats in AC.

That's the other thing--the reason Barbarians and Avengers can have good AC and HP (even thoguh most barbarians have terrible AC) is because they're melee classes. Rogues have good AC, but mediocre HP -- but can operate at range--and do much better damage than any striker except for optimized Rangers. Melee rangers are actually broken; they can't get reasonable AC except by going Str/Dex rather than (as intended) Str/Wis. Ranged rangers are about where they should be aside from too much damage: great AC, mediocre HP, operating at range.

Basically, all the characters operating in melee should be either doing full striker level damage (eg, not Barbarian or Avenger damage) or be durable as hell. The defender kicker is being able to control enemies and prevent them from getting at squishies or the weak; the melee striker kicker is being able to do extra damage.

Also, re rogues vs barbs -- rogues tend to be 20 mainstat builds, but barbs may have to spread things out (particularly to have a decent AC if they want one). Rogue level 1 damage is 1d4+2d6, and if they're in melee, they more or less always hit (combat advatnage, and piercing strike to target Reflex instead of AC). Or they're doing 1d4+2d6+Dex+Cha, and adding an extra 3 points of damage out with every hit; assuming 5/3, and that 's 17.5 damage at first level without feats, striking AC at +11 [with combat advantage. Compare to a barb with decent AC howling strike -- 1d10+1d6+Str[+4], so 14, hitting AC at +9 [I gave them combat advantage too, though by playstyle they'll have it less often but get +1 for charging pretty often]. The rogue's hitting more often for more damage.

Now, the barbarian can do charge optimization, but that's GM/item dependent. And the barb has great spike damage -- but unless most of the monsters are down once the spikes stop falling [and it's not like a rogue has -bad- spike damage; rogues also get status effects with their damage] then they're down to at wil DPR, where the rogue is queen.

 

[OnlineDM]

After reading the development of this thread, I think the issue is clear: So far your party has faced monsters that almost exclusively target AC. If this stayed the same in the future, everyone would rationally do everything they can to pump up their AC, even if it means ignoring NADs. The solution is to bring in a reasonable number of monsters that attack NADs.

I gather that you're having trouble with this because of the setting, and I'll admit that I've never run Dark Sun, so I don't have specific suggestions. But I know that psionics exist there, and I imagine that there are some strange creatures with elemental blasts that target Reflex or Fortitude... it shouldn't be TOO hard to find bad guys that try to kick your party in the NADs.

 

[mneme]

To be perfectly clear, @(Psi)SeveredHead, Hide Armor Expertise would make the barbarian's AC -lower-, not higher. So it would make his NADs (except reflex) higher in comparison and his AC lower. It treats his AC as if he has a Dex/Int of 14, so he could be 19 AC/20 fort/14 Reflex/17 Will with HAE. It's not possible to get a higher AC with HAE than you can without, as it's always trivial to get a Dex or Int of 16 if you're willing to pay for it.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I agree with OnlineDm... and wanted to add something slightly different. So far the majority of the posts above have analyzed the player builds and math.. but my experience may run counter to alot of 'normal' thought about this...

Basically, ask 'so what'?

I have been running a 4e campaign since we converted over around level 5ish. My current group has a nigh unhittable Warlord, a invigorating build fighter, and various squishies. The Warlord I might hit 3 out of 10 tries. Maybe. The Fighter has, at 17th level, taken over 300 points of damage in a single combat *and never got bloodied!*.
The ranger, OTOH, is very squishy, gets hit on a 5 or better most of the time. His build deals tons of damage, often critting in excess of 130 points {also at 17th level}.

I considered working some various changes to encounters to 'challenge' the group.. but then I thought why not let the characters shine. The Warlord loves it when my bad guys rush up and miss. The fighter loves the yo-yoing of his hitpoints. The Ranger loves dishing out damage.
Of course, anything that survives long enough or has advance knowledge will avoid these strength and will deal a huge hurt out on the group by avoiding the warlord and fighter and focusing on the squishies...

But yes, ensure your encounter mix changes up and hits various statagems, defenses, and obstacles. Mix in area effects, terrain, traps. Hit that low Fort once in a while... poison is nice for that.
One very cool thing about 4e is that you can tweak the monsters however you want as long as you put in the flavor text. That giant with the battle-ax? make it a mace and attack fort as the heavy blow thumps down...

Just don't mess with the players expectations too much!

 

[WalterKovacs]

Generally speaking:

There are expertise feats: These give the PCs a bonus to their attack rolls using certain types of weapons or implements. If they are the newest ones, they give +1 at level 1, +2 at level 11 and +3 at level 21. This is addition to a rider effect as well.

There are also improved defense feats: They can either take a single feat that gives +1 to all NADs (That go up at 11 and 21), or they can focus on individual NADs, and get a +2 (that again goes up at 11 and 21). For the single defense feats, there are two versions. The 'better' version needs you to have 15 in one of the stats for that defense, and gives a bonus (fort gives resistance to ongoing damage, reflex gives combat advantage in the first turn of the encounter, will gives a chance to save against stunned and dazed at the start of your turn). The only ways to boost AC are:

(a) Armor proficiency (this includes unarmored agility, which is bascially leather prof, and hide expertise, which is actually weaker than chain prof, unless you are a barbarian)
(b) Shield proficiency (this includes shield bonuses like hafted defense and two weapon defense)
(c) Weapon proficiency (i.e. grabbing a defensive weapon, which even a defensive weapon+two weapon defense or hafted defense is about as good as a heavy shield).
(d) Class feature improvement, like the feat that makes the Avenger's AC boosting feat better
(e) At paragon tier there some armor (And shield) specialization feats.

So, outside of d and e, you have pretty much a fixed range you can be in.

Assuming a best case scenario (20 Dex or Int), you have cloth/leather giving you the same as scale armor, or hide giving you the same as plate. Shield bonuses are between 1 and 2. So, best case you start with 20 AC, and you can't really get 'better' than that.

For NADs though, you should have two 'good' ones, depending on your stat allocation. Your race (in some cases) and class (in all cases) will change things. In many cases the build for a race will either support your best NAD (the Barbarian gets +2 to Fort, so they will likely have a GREAT Fort, and if they bulid Str/Con, there other stats will SUCK. They get the scaling bonus to reflex, but that is to encourage light armor use. A Str/Dex barbarian on the other hand can easily pull off having good AC, Fort and Reflex.

If they don't take any of the defense boosting feats, or attack boosting feats, or defense boosting items (not just the neck slot stuff that is part of the inherent bonus system, but also feet slot for reflex, waist slot for fort, head slot for will, not to mention masterwork armors that give up extra AC to give a boost to a NAD instead), then those will lag behind. The math for AC was 'right' out of the gate, with masterwork and the armor spec feats baked in to make AC scale perfectly. Attack modifiers and defenses didn't do that, so they put in expertise feats, improved defenses, etc.

 

[Kobold Boots]

As OnlineDM states the best solution to the problem is a measured and prepared enemy. In my own games it's not uncommon for the PC group to completely wipe the floor with the group they make initial contact with.

As the enemies start to know the opponent their responses get nastier, and more focused to the party's weaknesses. By the time they get to the main antagonist they should have about half their surges blown and at least a few of their dailies gone.

You'll know what the right way to run your group is when the combats feel the way they should.

 

[eamon]

Going through the responses I'm getting, I wanted to clarify something:

PCs are not boosting their NADs. I'm a little mystified why people thought their NADs are too high. [...]

PC AC scores seem to be too high, NADs are too low, or (probably the real issue) the gap is too large.

Your PC's however have NADs that are higher than average, and have AC's that are lower than average.

There are people worrying about the fact that AC is overvalued, but in your casethis doesn't seem to hold. Your PC have low AC's and relatively high NADs. The two PC's that have a decent AC (22 is not unusually high) certainly don't need punishing for achieving an entirely AC.

You don't need to do anything!