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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Smeelbo" data-source="post: 4655649" data-attributes="member: 81898">Attack Penalties >> Defense Bonuses?What this discussion seems to ignore (except perhaps briefly in one post) is the stacking of attack penalties upon the enemy, especially soloes. I've only been playing 4E a short while, but I have already noticed that penalties generally stack, as long as they are not from the same source, while bonuses stack only if they are of different types. So far example, when developing a starting rogue for the kid that keeps showing up at the comic book store to play, for his other At-Will after Sly Flourish, I suggested Disheartening Strike, which applies a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of his next turn. While this won't stack with other Rattling attacks, it does stack with every other penalty in the book(s). So I think the solution is not primarily building up Non-AC Defenses, especially at the expense of multiple feats, but piling on the attack penalties as high as they will stack. As I understand it, penalties do not stack only if they are from the same or perhaps related power. So multiple Rattling attacks do not stack, even from different opponents. But penalties derived from distinct powers do stack. Even better is the fact that stacking penalties gives increasing returns. An attack that hits half the time loses 20% of its base expected damage for each -2 penalty, so that three such penalties cuts the damage to less than half, and five such penalties (one applied by each player in the group) would diminish the attack to almost nothing. That, I think, is the missing piece of the scaling equation. Smeelbo</blockquote>

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