Light Armour Optimisation--a Little Too Much?

[Rystil Arden]

My mistake, tone is difficult at best to judge in this medium.

My statement above was simply observing at what point the feat appears to become "overpowered" in your opinion. It was making no judgement or statement about the "power" of the feat.

I don't personally buy your arguement that it is overpowered. Do you feel that the feat would be "balanced" if it did not include the note to increase the armor value after the armor check was reduced to 0? If so, the feat becomes mostly pointless for anything but a Mithral Chain shirt. I wasn't trying to make a "Mithral Chain Shirt Op" feat, I was trying to make a "Light Armor Op" feat. One that all light armors benefit from.

I also don't buy the assertion that Mithral Chain Shirt is the most popular armor. Certainly, for characters with an 18+ Dex it is a good choice (not necessarily optimal). But I'd be surprised if the majority of characters had a dex that high. Where did you get this information?

Actually, if anything, I'd say removing that note would weaken the feat for Mithral Chain Shirt--it would make the significantly-more-expensive Mithral Breastplate the strongest choice.

As for Mithral Chain Shirt--it and Mithral Fullplate are the most popular armour types, each for its own category of categories. Mithral Breastplate is close behind. I have empirical evidence from my own games, the games of everyone I have ever talked to in real life, and also from what I've seen on the rules forum. I'm actually curious--explain to me why anyone who cares about their AC enough to buy mithral would wear anything besides one of those three? Mithral Chain Shirt is dirt cheap (by mid level standards anyway) and has no drawbacks for anyone except arcane casters, even nonproficients like Psions. Mithral Breastplate is more than twice the price, and it gives +1 AC for -1 Max Dex and 1 more ACP. Still a decent buy for certain character that have lower than 22 Dex and need AC for any price other than slow movement. And for AC at any price, we have mithral full plate, tons of money, it has a not-too-awful ACP (though much worse than the other two) and gives 1 more AC when capped out than any of the others and is easier to cap out the Dex. However, you can only move 20 feet in it.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Hmm...I may be wrong about this, but it also seems that one of your arguments is that the feat is balanced because you just hope that nobody is going to actually have morbid enough Dex to use the feat's extra ability (correct me if I'm wrong about that though!) So in that vein of thought, what would say about the following feats (I've tried to make them weaker compared to the base feat than LAO is compared to Dodge--note also that they don't fulfill feat prereqs, so Brutish Power Attack will not lead to Cleave, and Smarty Pants Spell Focus (Conjuration) will not lead to Augment Summoning):

Smarty Pants Spell Focus:
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select.

Special: You also gain an additional +1 bonus to DC if you have 22 or higher Int.

Brutish Power Attack:
Benefit:

On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.

Special

If you attack with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, instead add twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls. You can’t add the bonus from Power Attack to the damage dealt with a light weapon (except with unarmed strikes or natural weapon attacks), even though the penalty on attack rolls still applies. (Normally, you treat a double weapon as a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. If you choose to use a double weapon like a two-handed weapon, attacking with only one end of it in a round, you treat it as a two-handed weapon.)

If you have 22 or higher Strength, add three times the number you subtracted from attack rolls to your damage for two-handed weapons, or twice the number you subtracted from attack rolls for one-handed weapons.

 

[IcyCool]

Actually, if anything, I'd say removing that note would weaken the feat for Mithral Chain Shirt--it would make the significantly-more-expensive Mithral Breastplate the strongest choice.

Well, Celestial Chainmail remains the best.

With that change, you'd be looking at an armor that grants +4 armor, +7 Max Dex (MCS), and an armor that grants +5 armor, +6 Max Dex (MBP). Doesn't look like the strongest choice to me.

I have empirical evidence from my own games, the games of everyone I have ever talked to in real life, and also from what I've seen on the rules forum.

*Shrug* I've seen MCS on two characters, MBP on 1 character, and MFP on 1 character in 7 games. Clearly, our experiences are different.

I'm actually curious--explain to me why anyone who cares about their AC enough to buy mithral would wear anything besides one of those three?

You mean anyone who doesn't have or plan on getting a +3 or better Dex bonus (+4 or more for MCS and MBP)? Well, I see plenty. It's a waste of money, for one, and if they had the money to waste, they'd spend it on something useful, like Adamantine armor. If they had the Dex modifier to make use of it, they still might not purchase it, desiring to spend the money elsewhere.

 

[IcyCool]

Hmm...I may be wrong about this, but it also seems that one of your arguments is that the feat is balanced because you just hope that nobody is going to actually have morbid enough Dex to use the feat's extra ability (correct me if I'm wrong about that though!)

Consider yourself corrected then . I see no problem with the feat. Yes, someone with a higher Dex bonus gets more benefit out of it, but they can do the same thing with, say, Deflect Arrows.

Smarty Pants Spell Focus:
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select.

Special: You also gain an additional +1 bonus to DC if you have 22 or higher Int.

This is clearly superior to Spell Focus. My feat doesn't give you Dodge, but better, it grants you a different benefit. Surely you can see how your Smarty Pants Spell Focus feat is a flawed comparison?

Brutish Power Attack:

Again, a flawed comparison. Your feats are simply Spell Focus and Power Attack with extras added on. If you can't see how that is different from LAO and Dodge, I'm not sure what to say.

 

[Rystil Arden]

With that change, you'd be looking at an armor that grants +4 armor, +7 Max Dex (MCS), and an armor that grants +5 armor, +6 Max Dex (MBP). Doesn't look like the strongest choice to me.

And they both have no ACP. Thus MBP is better in general due to requiring lower Dex to max out. This is a good thing. The reason I said it comparatively weakens MCS is because an interesting edge effect of your feat causes MCS to completely and totally render MBP irrelevant with the current wording (under current wording, MCS + feat = +5 armour +7 Max Dex, MBP with feat = +5 armour, +6 Max Dex for more money!).

You mean anyone who doesn't have or plan on getting a +3 or better Dex bonus (+4 or more for MCS and MBP)? Well, I see plenty. It's a waste of money, for one, and if they had the money to waste, they'd spend it on something useful, like Adamantine armor. If they had the Dex modifier to make use of it, they still might not purchase it, desiring to spend the money elsewhere.

Now, I did preface with 'someone who cares about AC'. If you don't eventually get 16 Dex, and you are such a person, you are at high risk of dying painfully due to a power attacking foe. The bonus AC from Mithral eclipses the DR from Adamantine before the Adamantine becomes affordable, and for Dex scores above 18, Mithral-ing your CS is less expensive by a factor of 3 than bumping up your +1 to a +2 for the same +1 AC boost--extreme efficiency.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Consider yourself corrected then . I see no problem with the feat. Yes, someone with a higher Dex bonus gets more benefit out of it, but they can do the same thing with, say, Deflect Arrows.



This is clearly superior to Spell Focus. My feat doesn't give you Dodge, but better, it grants you a different benefit. Surely you can see how your Smarty Pants Spell Focus feat is a flawed comparison?



Again, a flawed comparison. Your feats are simply Spell Focus and Power Attack with extras added on. If you can't see how that is different from LAO and Dodge, I'm not sure what to say.

Now, you're assuming they have the 22 Dex to get both benefits from your feat, right? (Just like for my new feats they have to have 22 Int or Str to get both benefits). I'm afraid I'm going to have to answer your last remark there with my own paraphrase, which is unfortunate: I've paralleled the fact that my new feats do not lead to higher feats on the feat chain. Taking that into account, if you can't see why your feat (assuming you have 22 in Dex) is not better than Dodge in every possible way (disregarding the prereq thing), I simply can't understand your thought process at all, and may never be able to do so. Assuming 22 Dex, your feat is objectively better than Dodge--to help me understand, assuming 22 Dex, name one thing Dodge can do that your feat can't. Please--I know I must be missing something here

 

[IcyCool]

And they both have no ACP. Thus MBP is better in general due to requiring lower Dex to max out. This is a good thing. The reason I said it comparatively weakens MCS is because an interesting edge effect of your feat causes MCS to completely and totally render MBP irrelevant with the current wording (under current wording, MCS + feat = +5 armour +7 Max Dex, MBP with feat = +5 armour, +6 Max Dex for more money!).

Yes, MCS and MBP interact oddly at the extremes with LAO. I'm fairly certain that was obvious way back when it was proposed. Your point? (i.e. How does this prove LAO "overpowered"?)

Now, I did preface with 'someone who cares about AC'.

Are you making the statement that anyone who doesn't have (or eventually aquire) a 16 Dex doesn't care about AC? (I'm genuinely confused here, I really don't know what you are trying to say).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yes, MCS and MBP interact oddly at the extremes with LAO. I'm fairly certain that was obvious way back when it was proposed. Your point? (i.e. How does this prove LAO "overpowered"?)



Are you making the statement that anyone who doesn't have (or eventually aquire) a 16 Dex doesn't care about AC? (I'm genuinely confused here, I really don't know what you are trying to say).

Yes, I actually am saying this. And when I say eventually, I do take this fairly liberally. It could be level 16 or even 19 if they are the heavy armour-type. Here's how I figure--if you care about AC, you do not start your character with a Dex penalty. So you have at least a +0 Dex bonus to start In fact, you will most likely have 12 Dex to have at least some bonus. Eventually, you hit a point where raising Dex is monetarily more efficient than buffing your armour with more plusses, plus you may have a caster to do that for you each day. When you hit this point in your career and you need more AC, you will get a Dex enhancing item. If you had 12 Dex to start, then bumping up to 16 Dex is monetarily more efficient than boosting your ring or amulet from +3 to +4. With 10 Dex buy-in, it admittedly takes longer to be more effective, but it is close to +4 to +5 on the ring or amulet and has a fringe benefit to initiative, Reflex saves, and several skills, so is likely a better buy than the amulet for sure, though maybe not the ring.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Apologies--please consider all references of 22 in my feats above to actually mean 24 (As well as in my other statements below)

 

[IcyCool]

I've paralleled the fact that my new feats do not lead to higher feats on the feat chain. Taking that into account, if you can't see why your feat (assuming you have 22 in Dex) is not better than Dodge in every possible way (disregarding the prereq thing), I simply can't understand your thought process at all, and may never be able to do so. Assuming 22 Dex, your feat is objectively better than Dodge--to help me understand, assuming 22 Dex, name one thing Dodge can do that your feat can't. Please--I know I must be missing something here

(Just a note, I'm knocking off work early today (in about an hour), and I have very little interent access on the weekends. I'll be sure to pick this up on Monday though, I'm sure I won't convince you in an hour.

Well, Dodge is better for folks who don't wear armor. That's the only major thing that jumps to mind, aside from the fact that Dodge leads to a very favorable feat chain, but I have to have that hand tied behind my back, so...