HP are still king?

[fuindordm]

I've been mulling over my Raider of Oakhurst playtest. As a DM, one of the things I liked about it was that my monsters were actually hitting the PCs. Their chance of hitting any given PC was typically in the range of 40% to 60%, so the combat naturally had a lot of ups and downs.

What worries me a bit is that everyone has gotten a nice boost to their attack rolls, but no one has really gotten a boost to their defenses. We still see the same range we did before, only slightly inflated by using the best of two scores to calculate each one.

In 3e, the fact that AC went up much more slowly than attack rolls really skewed mid-level play. As far as I experienced things, there were only two viable strategies for fighter types: pour every possible resource into boosting AC (which would typically reduce the number of hits on you from equivalent monsters down to the 20-30% range), or ignore AC and pour every possible resource into damage. The middle ground was a losing strategy.

Ultimately, for almost all characters survivability was determined by HP rather than AC (or in the case of Wizards, magical spells such as Invisibility and Stoneskin).

Take the dwarf warrior: she is justifiably proud of her AC20, but even the kobold minions were usually hitting her on a 13+ with flanking. The "real" opponents were getting through that armor even more often. Her HP were high, but at 1st level not enough to defend her against getting surrounded and beaten on.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing... it was certainly fun (well, for everyone but the dwarf).

What I am saying, is that it feels like ACs above 20 are still a lot more difficult to achieve than they should be. Dedicated defenders need to be able to shrug off minions, and know that their armor has a good chance of protecting them from opportunity attacks and such.

If it can't do this, then fighters will still rely on HP more than armor--which I don't think is a good thing.

 

[loseth]

We still see the same range we did before, only slightly inflated by using the best of two scores to calculate each one.

I missed this! Tell me more! (sorry for threadjacking)

 

[hong]

I'm pretty sure that among the fighter's bag of tricks will be powers to reduce damage, negate attacks, etc. Ditto for the paladin, with extra nimbus-o-light special effects.

 

[BeauNiddle]

I missed this! Tell me more! (sorry for threadjacking)

Fort is base + best modifier of STR or CON
Ref is base + best modifier of INT or DEX
Will is base + best modifier of WIS or CHA

It's why the order of the stats has changed (con and dex changed place)


To the OP:

Rogues (and possibly other strikers) get bonuses to avoiding OAs. Defenders get more healing surges than other classes. HPs are still king.

The magic items have been toned down so fewer things add to AC anymore so it looks like everybody is expected to get hurt in battle. It's just some people can survive more punishment than others.

Speaking as a DM who had to try and hit one or two people in maxed armour in the midst of a group of 'normal' armour then I'm glad they've toned it down. Upping the attacks of the enemies meant the normals got flattened, leaving the attack bonuses alone meant the maxed people never got challenged.

 

[Steely Dan]

Fort is base + best modifier of STR or CON
Ref is base + best modifier of INT or DEX
Will is base + best modifier of WIS or CHA

You may also apply your Int to AC, instead of Dex, when wearing light armour.

 

[Fifth Element]

You may also apply your Int to AC, instead of Dex, when wearing light armour.

Isn't this because AC = Reflex defence + armour bonus, and that you don't get Dex bonuses when wearing heavy armour?

 

[Revinor]

As long as no other parameters are changing, same hit probabilities should stay forever in 4e. Every second level you get a bonus to hit, every second level you get a bonus to all defenses - so chances are exactly the same. If you specialize your character in defenses and get few extra points there, this few extra points will be as important on high levels are they are on low levels.

Looking at the monsters, they can mostly hit themselves in the range of 5-15, which sounds ok - some of them are more focused on defense, some on attack.

I'm more scared that 4e will scale so well, they you won't be able to really notice a difference between the combat on 1st and 21st level.

 

[ltbaxter]

What worries me a bit is that everyone has gotten a nice boost to their attack rolls, but no one has really gotten a boost to their defenses. We still see the same range we did before, only slightly inflated by using the best of two scores to calculate each one.

No, I think they're going for a *far* more uniform approach that will scale over all levels.
As you note now, base chance to hit is going to be 50%. I think it's going to stay that way the entire time, with some latitude to focus on AC or damage but it'll shift things a few 5%, not a lot.

At first lvl, toHit vs AC is 10+prof+strMod while AC is 10+armor+dexMod.
For equal str and dex, typical proficiency of 2, typical armor of leather, and it's a near coin toss.

At higher levels, I don't know we know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that *all* defenses, Fort, Refl, Will and AC will go up by +1/2 lvls on a flat basis (to avoid christmas tree characters), and that pluses on weapons and armor and powers will even out. Pluses will be a lot harder to come by. If base to hit is 50%, getting +5 more than other characters will increase your damage output by 50%. Getting +5 more AC will likely be very difficult, and would reduce damage from attacks vs AC by half - but monsters will have more defenses to target than just AC.

Looking at monster stats for higher levels, I'm guessing the "effective" increase in all defenses and toHit will be close to +1/lvl (+1/2 just from level alone, +1/2 from items, powers, stat bonuses, etc.)

 

[Steely Dan]

Isn't this because AC = Reflex defence + armour bonus

It doesn't quite work out that way, as you do not get your Ref bonus (if you have one, such as the rogue: +2) to AC, only to your actual Ref score.

 

[Cadfan]

Ultimately, for almost all characters survivability was determined by HP rather than AC (or in the case of Wizards, magical spells such as Invisibility and Stoneskin).

Technically, survivability is a function of both HP and AC, and the function is multiplicative, meaning that each improves survivability based on the other.

Your survivability is basically [hit points] divided by [[chance of being hit] times [expected damage from being hit]].

Lets say that I am hit by a particular enemy on a 13+ (40% of the time), that enemy does an average of 10 damage per hit, and I have 40 hit points. My survivability is an average of 10 attacks.

If I gain 8 hit points, my survivability goes up to 12 attacks.

To get the same effect by increasing AC, I would need approximately +1 AC, so I was hit on a 14+. Rounding is happening here for clarity, strictly speaking I get a survivability of about 11.4.

But if I increase my hit points by 8 AND I increase my AC by +1, I get a result that is better than the sum of the individual boosts. I get a survivability of about 13.7.

That may not seem like much, but we're only dealing with +1 ac and 8 hit points. The effect gets bigger very quickly once you start playing with larger numbers.

So... my basic point is just this. You can't think about hit points without thinking about armor class, and vice versa. Neither one means much without the other, because what really matters is expected damage per round, and they both factor into that about equally. A low hit point character with high AC is doomed sooner or later, and a high hit point character with a low AC runs out of hit points very quickly.