Is "Shield" too powerful?

[deleteme123456]

I think the argument can be made that since shield doesn't include the text and the other item does, that shield wasn't meant to. I also think the argument can be made that WoTC is getting better at templating and anticipating questions and is spelling things out more in the powers, so in a vacuum, the presence of absence of the "after the DM tells you the roll" doesn't really change anything. To me it's the high level of the belt vs. the Shield power.

And RAW, I would saw the DM tells you the roll, not the total attack with modifiers, although you can certainly make an educated guess.

 

[Nifft]

4) It only works if the PC can get far enough away. Nothing in the rules indicates that the PC knows what the area of an enemy effect actually is. According to the rules, the DM can run it either way (the player knowing the area or the player not knowing the area) since the rules are silent on this issue.

Drrrrr, that's my whole point. The DM has to attack the PCs in a specific order, else he might let slip that some are outside the effect's area, which implicitly gives the effect's area.

This is about the DM actively hiding information. He has to jump through an additional hoop to screw the Ranger, which is why it's relevant: do you require the screwing of PCs even when it's mildly inconvenient?

1) Is 2nd level.

Since we're discussing information flow, why is level relevant? You've brought it up twice, and you still haven't provided any justification.

it would be totally balanced since HtD is 20 levels higher than Shield.

Again, level has nothing to do with information flow, particularly not for Utilities (which you keep for your whole career).

This quote supports my POV. It does not support the "pro-DM states attack roll out loud" POV. Why? Because "you" refers to the DM when the DM is having an NPC attack, hence, the DM compares the total, not the player (with a literal reading of this rule).

The problem with such a literal reading is that the player might then be entitled to know the defenses of any opponent he attacks. He does the attack comparison, not the DM.

Quid Pro Quo.

However, the solution to this is that one can take this interpretation literally for the DM attacking and not literally for the players attacking since the DM is not forced to run the game in a specific way (unless the rules say so). YMMV.

Looking at your discussion of your interpretation, it's almost like you know it's untenable. Your way would give the players significantly more information. But then, you suggest not actually doing it your way. Now I'm not convinced you know what "your way" really is, except that it requires Wizards be screwed.

- - -

@ infocynic: IMHO it just suggests that WotC's technical editors are getting better (which is a good thing). It doesn't imply anything about previous rules.

Cheers, -- N

 

[WhatGravitas]

Now I'm not convinced you know what "your way" really is, except that it requires Wizards be screwed.

The litmus test is how NPCs and monsters react to PCs:

• If your NPC/Monster has a power giving it a bonus as immediate interrupt, would you expend it uselessly?

If yes: Then proceed with "screwing" wizards.
If no: Let the wizard know whether it has an effect or not.

Cheers, LT.

 

[deleteme123456]

The litmus test is how NPCs and monsters react to PCs:

• If your NPC/Monster has a power giving it a bonus as immediate interrupt, would you expend it uselessly?

If yes: Then proceed with "screwing" wizards.
If no: Let the wizard know whether it has an effect or not.

Cheers, LT.

One of my players has pointed out that rules don't necessarily work the same way for monsters and PCs: consider encounter powers vs recharge powers, and the use of multiple action points for two examples where they diverge.

 

[KarinsDad]

Drrrrr, that's my whole point. The DM has to attack the PCs in a specific order, else he might let slip that some are outside the effect's area, which implicitly gives the effect's area.

This is about the DM actively hiding information. He has to jump through an additional hoop to screw the Ranger, which is why it's relevant: do you require the screwing of PCs even when it's mildly inconvenient?

That's one of the problems of "Magic The Gathering"-type abilities in DND.

If X, then Y.

It's computer programming for a game system that is not run on a computer. Hence, when these types of things come up, it forces DMs who have never in the past had to handle these special types of rules to come up with solutions.


Personally as a DM, I do not want my players to know exactly what my total on the attack roll is. And, I am not forced to (via rules), hence, I do not. I also do not want my players to know the exact defenses of their opponents. If they total a 21 and it hits, they know that particular defense is 21 or less. But, they do not know exactly what it is unless a 20 misses (and even then, they might not know if there were other modifiers that they were unaware of).

I also do not want my players to know exactly how large an area of effect is, just so that they can "auto-escape" an attack. In such a situation, the player will usually (90%+) succeed. But, I don't want to be handcuffed as a DM to say that the player is ENTITLED to know exactly every single safe square on the grid. That turns the game into a computer game. I'm not playing DND to play a computer game.

It's totally NOT about screwing players. It's about limiting players to information that they acquire via in game experience as opposed to auto-handing out information BECAUSE we are playing a game.

In fact when I DM, I roll all D20 attack rolls in front of my players. If they see a 12 on the die, it may or may not hit (situation depending). If it hits, they have a good idea that Shield will stop it. When a 17 is rolled, they have a good idea that Shield will not stop it. But, it is not guaranteed. In fact, my DM rolled a 17 where Shield would have stopped it because my Wizard has a high AC and the foe was a real mook when it came to an OA, but I let it slide because he rolled so high. My DM did not try to screw me here. He didn't chuckle gleefully because I could have stopped the attack. The argument that DMs are trying to screw players because the DM is not allowing a certain interpretation of the rules is invalid. It could happen, but typically, DMs are more mature than that.

Since we're discussing information flow, why is level relevant? You've brought it up twice, and you still haven't provided any justification.

Level is relevant to game balance. You brought up a case of "information flow" of type one at level x and "information flow" of type two at level y and I merely pointed out that since the levels are different and the information flow type is different and the utility of the two powers is similar, it's possible for a DM to balance the level difference of the two powers out by balancing one information flow type against the other.

I'm not trying to justify that a DM has to do this, I just said that he could. If he doesn't do this, it does not mean that he is trying to screw the player with the higher level ability.

 

[WhatGravitas]

One of my players has pointed out that rules don't necessarily work the same way for monsters and PCs: consider encounter powers vs recharge powers, and the use of multiple action points for two examples where they diverge.

While true, this is for me a somewhat different issue.

The Encounter <-> Recharge and PC APs <-> Monster APs have more to do with the mechanics itself.

How you act as DM (with full information) and as player (limited information) is an information flow issue. In one case the monsters are "better" because they're mechanically constructed that way, in the second case, the monsters get a lot better/the PCs got worse not due to the underlying mechanical effect, but rather due to the way information is handled.

If you say it works differently, then the monsters use the information asymmetry to their advantage. By extending this reasoning, you could also say the DM can play monsters with all hidden information PCs don't get, but the DM gets - like knowing what powers the PCs have left, tailoring the strategies to the PCs (i.e. knowing their weaknesses and using it), and so on. Because monsters use different rules.

Which is sounds somewhat silly - i.e. that's not really a "use different mechanics" issue, but mainly a metagaming/DM behaviour-driven issue.

Cheers, LT.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

These powers are already much stronger because you don't have to worry about wasting them on attacks that would have missed anyway. Why do you feel the need to make them even stronger then they already are? When the halfling wants to use his halfling reroll power do you roll ahead the 2nd attack ahead of time and tell him if it would miss or not? Because both of these react to powers that hit you.

I normally just read enworld but after reading this thread I felt compelled/annoyed enough to join and reply. First there's a lot of logical fallacies being applied in this thread some even by the people referencing logical fallacies as part of their argument.

This example above is just one example of some really questionable parallels being drawn.

First the halflings power can impact ANY attack. Even remove a critical hit 95% of the time. The re-roll makes it roughly 50% likely to turn any hit into a miss. The shield power can only block 50% of the attack types (though reflex and AC seem much more prevalent at lower levels so it will frequently be more useful than 50%) but it also is restricted to impacting EXACTLY 20% of attacks. Which means the shield spell is useful 20% of the time against 50% of the attack types. This works out to blocking 10% of attacks (once per encounter) with a residual effect of +4 to those defenses for another round. If you skew the results based upon reflex and AC attacks being ~75% of all attacks that percentage goes to 15%. Now compare this to the halflings power. Roughly 50% of all attacks hit. The halfling can therefore impact 50% of 50% of attacks. This is a 25% overall effectiveness for the halfling power. That's 10% more effective than shield for the math challenged. The shield has a residual effect that it might save you from another attack in the next round. The halfling power has a bonus effect that 95% of the time it blocks a critical hit. We could argue all day about the residual or the critical block being more important but for my purposes I'll call it a wash so we can compare the math heads up. If you make the shield spell into a "guess" by not informing your players, you basically cut it's effectiveness by more than half. If you also make the pc guess if it's even an attack that can be blocked (i.e. vs reflex/ac) you're reducing it by nearly half again. Even skewing the numbers in favor of making better than average choices as to what attacks "are of a type that shield an impact" you're basically reducing shield to in the neighborhood of 5% effective compared to ~25% the halflings power.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Your point is here is not rules and is basically irrelevant to the rules discussion. It's DM preference. Even WotC designers DM differently and they sometimes even DM differently based on what they roll on the dice.

You can take a poll to ask how many DMs have PCs defenses written down, how many ask their players what their defenses are, and how many call out their to hit total and ask if it hits. I suspect the latter will be a very small percentage.

Well, there's a couple problems with this.
First can you cite an example where someone attacks a player who has an interrupt that could be used and doesn't give him a chance to use it? Doesn't give him the information needed to use it effectively? I would say a better parallel would be to force the halfling to use his power before he knew if he was hit. (I'm aware that it's triggered by a hit but it's always effective even if you're hit again you forced the creature to reroll which is the effect that was intended).

More importantly, the line "I suspect" is TOTALLY irrelevant. I suspect you're wrong since it's much faster for the players to track their defenses (and MUCH more likely to be accurate) since it moves some of the bookkeeping off the DM who is already the most overloaded with record keeping.

That's one of the problems of "Magic The Gathering"-type abilities in DND.

If X, then Y.

It's computer programming for a game system that is not run on a computer. Hence, when these types of things come up, it forces DMs who have never in the past had to handle these special types of rules to come up with solutions.

Talk about irrelevant.

I also do not want my players to know exactly how large an area of effect is, just so that they can "auto-escape" an attack. In such a situation, the player will usually (90%+) succeed. But, I don't want to be handcuffed as a DM to say that the player is ENTITLED to know exactly every single safe square on the grid.

can you give an example of an area attack that the players are not entitled to get area? If I cast a fireball burst 3 range 20 on a square, do I not pick the origin square and then a blast goes off? Should the pc's get no visual clue where the origin was?

This is just opinion, but you seem exceedingly intent on dominating the game.

It's totally NOT about screwing players. It's about limiting players to information that they acquire via in game experience as opposed to auto-handing out information BECAUSE we are playing a game.

this is semantics. The pc's are already inherently disadvantaged in combat by the fact that the monsters are being run by one brain. Movements and actions by the monsters are OVERWHELMINGLY more coordinated than the pc's. This is a game, it has weaknesses and strengths based upon it's rules and conventions. One of them being the omnipotent information advantage of the monsters. I served 6 years in the special forces and training to act in a coordinated manner was something we spent endless hours and yet the average goblin war party can easily demonstrate a level of coordination that would make a SEAL team commander drool.

In fact when I DM, I roll all D20 attack rolls in front of my players. If they see a 12 on the die, it may or may not hit (situation depending). If it hits, they have a good idea that Shield will stop it. When a 17 is rolled, they have a good idea that Shield will not stop it. But, it is not guaranteed. In fact, my DM rolled a 17 where Shield would have stopped it because my Wizard has a high AC and the foe was a real mook when it came to an OA, but I let it slide because he rolled so high. My DM did not try to screw me here. He didn't chuckle gleefully because I could have stopped the attack. The argument that DMs are trying to screw players because the DM is not allowing a certain interpretation of the rules is invalid. It could happen, but typically, DMs are more mature than that.

This is the first time in your roughly dozen posts on this thread where you indicate that you let the pc's see the roll but not the modifier. It also belies much of what you have been arguing... what possible justification can you make based upon your previous assertions of spoon feeding for showing the pc's the roll?

Level is relevant to game balance. You brought up a case of "information flow" of type one at level x and "information flow" of type two at level y and I merely pointed out that since the levels are different and the information flow type is different and the utility of the two powers is similar, it's possible for a DM to balance the level difference of the two powers out by balancing one information flow type against the other.

this is tantamount to admitting you have no basis for your position. Where in the rules does it ever imply or state that the information flow should change with level in order to balance the game. This is just fluff. Wildly off target, and somewhat incredible considering your previous posts on rules lawyering, RAW and literal translation. I'm not even going to get into shredding your position on "interpreting" when the rules are literal for the DM but not for the players. You do certainly appear to be a massive rules lawyer when it suits you and I "suspect" you are slightly overbearing at the gaming table.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Well I'm just saying I wouldn't even attempt to narrate a hit before it was clear that it actually was a hit. It's kind of poor narration to say "the minotaur cuts a bloody slash across you with his battle axe causing you to stagger back in pain and collapse on the floor" only to have to say oh wait....no he doesn't really do that, he instead bounces off your shield. None of this has any effect on rules though and is just a personal style thing, much like I'd say the whole narration section of the DMG is.

This makes pretty good sense to me. Narration in a game with interrupts is a little problematic to begin with.

Anyway I just feel that there are powers with automatic effects , and powers that sometimes fail and that this is a design decision. Taking a non automatic power and making it automatic makes it much stronger then it probably should be, and I have not seen anything that I would personaly consider remote evidence for shield being intended to be an automatic power.

Well I would point you to my earlier post citing the math involved comparing halfling reroll and shield. I would say halfling reroll is slightly more powerful than shield if you assume that the pc's know when shield would or would not be effective. If you take away that knowledge shields comparative value to the halfling power is completely negligible.

But this is all just my take on it, if wizards ever posted a clarification on it, I'm not 100% sure they would necesarily support my view (though I obviously I feel it's more likely then not). If after all our discussion you still feel that shield is meant to always work and never be wasted then we just view things differently. Perhaps you will turn out to be correct in the long run.

This is at least a respectable position. It obviously could be adjudicated either way by the powers that be in some future errata release. My perception is that shield would be next to worthless without the information. I think the math supports this.

As a side note, compare shield to cleric utility powers at 2nd level. Shield of faith, bless and cure light wounds are all equally or more impressive than shield (shield with full disclosure). Assuming a party will face 2-3 encounters in an average day allows shield 3 "chances" to be effective. Even if it comes into play all 3 times, I would argue that shield of faith will easily block more damage in one encounter (likely to be a critical encounter since you wouldn't use the daily unless the situation is particularly dangerous).

As an example, a serious combat probably lasts in the area of 7-14 rounds and a party of 4-5 pc's might likely face 8-13 enemies. If you took a low level party (2-3) and put them up against "hard encounter" (dmg page 56 defines a hard encounter as 2-4 levels above the party) so I'm going to look at a level 5 encounter for 5 level 2 pc's. 1000 exp points from the dmg page 57.

that would be 10 goblin warriors, or perhaps 5 goblin warriors, a goblin hexer, 2 goblin sharpshooters and 4 goblin cutters. I think the second instance is a more likely mix (and more threatening to the party in many ways), I'm going to briefly talk about how affective shield of faith would be in the first instance only because it's easier math wise.

10 enemies. 10 potential attacks per round to start. Obviously as the party impacts the goblins (through death and conditions) the number of attacks per round goes down. Just because I have to pick some numbers I'm going to be conservative and reduce the goblins faster than I think likely. Something like this occurs: (10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2) 10 rounds of combat, the party put out 290 damage (not counting the damage lost to overkill) or 29+ damage per round (I would call this 320+ damage by factoring an average 3 overkill per bad guy) for 5 2nd level pc's which is pretty generous in my estimation and discounts the idea that the 10 goblins might actually take some pc's down during the combat and thus lower the parties damage output.

The point of all this is the goblins get 71 attacks in my example. Shield of faith is a level 2 utility. It has a 10% chance of blocking each attack vs AC. In this example it's pretty likely that it would block 6-8 attacks about 90% of the time. Even if half the attacks were not vs AC (goblins not being a good example for this) you can expect shield of faith to block 3-4 attacks per day. Pretty comparative to a best case shield spell with "full disclosure". Take away "full disclosure" and shield is probably likely to block about 1 attack every 10-15 encounters.

 

[KarinsDad]

I normally just read enworld but after reading this thread I felt compelled/annoyed enough to join and reply. First there's a lot of logical fallacies being applied in this thread some even by the people referencing logical fallacies as part of their argument.

This example above is just one example of some really questionable parallels being drawn.

First the halflings power can impact ANY attack. Even remove a critical hit 95% of the time. The re-roll makes it roughly 50% likely to turn any hit into a miss. The shield power can only block 50% of the attack types (though reflex and AC seem much more prevalent at lower levels so it will frequently be more useful than 50%) but it also is restricted to impacting EXACTLY 20% of attacks. Which means the shield spell is useful 20% of the time against 50% of the attack types. This works out to blocking 10% of attacks (once per encounter) with a residual effect of +4 to those defenses for another round. If you skew the results based upon reflex and AC attacks being ~75% of all attacks that percentage goes to 15%. Now compare this to the halflings power. Roughly 50% of all attacks hit. The halfling can therefore impact 50% of 50% of attacks. This is a 25% overall effectiveness for the halfling power. That's 10% more effective than shield for the math challenged. The shield has a residual effect that it might save you from another attack in the next round. The halfling power has a bonus effect that 95% of the time it blocks a critical hit. We could argue all day about the residual or the critical block being more important but for my purposes I'll call it a wash so we can compare the math heads up. If you make the shield spell into a "guess" by not informing your players, you basically cut it's effectiveness by more than half. If you also make the pc guess if it's even an attack that can be blocked (i.e. vs reflex/ac) you're reducing it by nearly half again. Even skewing the numbers in favor of making better than average choices as to what attacks "are of a type that shield an impact" you're basically reducing shield to in the neighborhood of 5% effective compared to ~25% the halflings power.

Talk about "logical fallacies".

1) Shield works until the end of the Wizard's next turn. That has the potential to attempt to stop one attack or five attacks. Second Chance only has the potential to stop one attack per encounter. So, Shield is not quite as lame as you are making it out to be. When a Wizard is surrounded, Shield usually kicks butt on Second Chance.

2) Your math is off. AC and Reflex attacks make up ~73% of the attacks in the Monster Manual. It might be 50% of the attack types, but Shield can affect a solid majority of the attacks in the game.

3) Nothing in the game indicates that a Class power has to have the same utility as a Racial power. Halflings get screwed in several ways (especially in combat), so having a Racial power that is more effective in many circumstances than a Class power is fair and balanced.

4) Your math has another flaw. If the DM asks a player "Does a 23 hit your AC?", the DM is allowing Shield to work 100% of the time when it can on the first attack. 100% is a lot better than your 25% Second Chance math.

5) Wizards can easily have the highest AC and Reflex defense in the game system. Using a better version of arguably the best defensive utility spell (or at least one taken and used a significant majority of the time for those who can) for a class that is already strong in those areas is questionable. Even non-Wizards can get this power. Each DM can do what he wants, but you getting "annoyed" over someone else's opinion on it is silly. Guess your name here is well suited.

Balance is a major part of the game system. If you want to run Shield as an auto-success when applicable defense in your game, fine. I consider that unfair to the other players whose powers are not automatic, but you can do what you want in your game.