(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Okay, that seems to be fine then.If the player's fine with it, that's cool - I just want to point out that if you're building encounters around his build, well, that's not a normal build ;-).
Yes, sorry 'bout that, I forgot to account for the occasional shield and racial bonuses. Those raise the average non-AC defense to 17.
Wow, then they've really spread their stats around. Take the barbarian:
19/17/16 FRW. If you remove the class bonus, the level and inherent bonus that's +4/+4/+3 apparently based on stats and other feats. If it were only stats, that's an 18/18/16 stat spread, which at 1st level pre-racial might have been 15/15/16 - that makes for weak attacks, and it's still higher than point buy. So he's probably got something like Iron Will - leaving +4/+4/+1 to ability scores; possibly pre-racial 16/16/13. That's still fairly well spread; you've got to realize that such a PC spent one of just three feats improving a NAD by two and raised a tertiary stat (costing him attack bonus+damage, and for little other gain) to get those NADs. That's a steep price to pay.
He has a Strength of 19, and did not take Iron Will. His feats are Goliath Greatweapon Proficiency (Gain proficiency, +2 damage with two-handed simple or martial melee weapons), Markings of the Victor (Roll twice for first attack roll each encounter), Battle Awareness (MC: Fighter, Intimidate; immediate interrupt basic attack once per encounter)
I've run two 4e campaigns. The first was shortly after it came out. No one had the character builder. This one I started last year, and virtually every PC was built with it.
I'm wondering if the builder is accurate. I've only actually caught one error - the builder was nerfing the telepath's damage by one, but now it seems like the numbers aren't really making sense.
On the topic of the difference between NADs and AC being greater that 2 on average:
Well, it's just the way the math works out.
I have to wonder why WotC invented the AC-boosting feats then. If PC AC scores weren't too low, and the Armor Expertise feats are "fix-feats", why invent something to fix a problem that doesn't exist?
Have you read Stalker0's guide to anti-grind? In particular, beware of over-leveled monsters. It sounds like you're not using many of those at all, but the DMG recommendation of up to 7 levels over the party is very harsh and makes for poor play.
I already learned that lesson in my first campaign. The final boss, Kalarel, was 4 levels above the party and a solo (which at the time gave him +2 AC). He also only had one encounter power. That wasn't fun. (That's what happens when a DM new to a system uses a monster "as-is".)
I'm not sure this is such a good idea. Their AC's are around 20 (ignoring the defender for a moment), and a level 4 monster might have an attack of +9 - you'll hit them 45% of the time. That should be enough to challenge them; and realize that at level 4 their defenses are unusually high because it's an even level and they just got an inherent boost.
At level 7, their defenses will be just 1 higher, and you'll hit 55% of the time - this is enough to remain challenging.
The 4th-level "sweet spot" wasn't an issue I hadn't considered. But I think I'll have to sprinkle in more NAD-targeting monsters anyway, if only to challenge the rogue. (The last encounter he was in, he did drop, but that's only because one opponent had a damage-dealing aura, and another was able to do auto-damage in a small AoE every time he used an implement power.)
Most attacks are against AC - that makes it important. If you shift towards using NADs (and note that's not that easy since that's not typical heroic tier monster design), you'll be encouraging them to focus even more on NADs, and diminish the ability of the defender to do his job, and diminish the impact of the psion's choice to eshew armor.
Basically, it sounds like they've got attack-bonus issues; which, if they spread around stat points, isn't unexpected. Handing out expertise for free sounds very reasonable. They could probably optimize their attack bonus a lot better; but it's perfectly OK that they don't as long as you're aware of the fact that they might have more difficulty with overlevel monsters than usual.
With the exception of the shaman, their builds are actually pretty standard, and nobody is deliberately focused on boosting NADs. I don't think they've spread about stat points oddly. The math might be valid (or not, I'm going to take a closer look at the Character Builder, a program I've never used before and it's looking buggy to me) but even if their NADs are high, that's not causing me any encounter design problems at all.
I'm going to have to target NADs at least a little; I've got an odd situation where the rogue's AC is higher than the defender's. I could try to stick those extra vs NAD attacks onto soldier-punisher abilities, rather than making things like "Furious Bash" only a standard encounter attack power. (But not too often, given the rogue's very low Fort/Will defenses.)
I don't see how they can optimize their attack bonuses either. Everyone but the shaman put an 18 into their attack stat, although nobody has a "+3" weapon like a sword.
The PCs' attacks seem a tad low. By that level, most of my party had...
2 (1/2 level) + 4 or 5 (stat) + 1 (expertise) + 1 (enhancement) = +8 or +9 vs NAD, and +10 to +13 vs AC.
As I hadn't wanted to make Essentials stuff available to PCs just yet, they didn't have access to Implement/Weapon Expertise. So they're looking at +2 (lvl) +4 (stat) +1 (inherent) = +7 vs NAD and +9 vs AC (since nobody but the rogue has a sword-like weapon). This puts them on the low end of acceptable attack bonuses. (I haven't seen any evidence of math errors on the attack bonuses, either.)
It looks like nobody's taken either Expertise or Improved Defenses, right?
-O
Right, but I'm thinking of handing out the attack expertise feats for free now.
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