Magic Vs AC is Very Poor Reasoning

[IronWolf]

The touch attack AC thing was just horribly slow and annoying, mostly because you had to calculate it and it just made some spells stupidly overpowered.

Touch never really needed to be calculated at the table though. It was usually noted on the character sheet and was only fiddled with at character creation and adjusted as new items were acquired. So play was usually, "What's your touch AC?" which was a spot on the character sheet. Not much different than "What's your AC?".

 

[Blackbrrd]

Touch never really needed to be calculated at the table though. It was usually noted on the character sheet and was only fiddled with at character creation and adjusted as new items were acquired. So play was usually, "What's your touch AC?" which was a spot on the character sheet. Not much different than "What's your AC?".

You do have a point, but in 3.x you usually had 3-5 buff spells running so you had to keep track of what spells gave bonus to just AC or AC and touch AC. In addition, you had to keep track of flat-footed AC, or AC while grappling and so on.

"Balancing" the game also became really fun, for instance one character discovered that nets attacked your touch AC and against CR <10 dragons, it was dead easy to hit and the dragon had to use an action to get out of it.

In other words, the old touch attack AC was broken in so many ways in the earlier editions, that I much prefer just having one AC.

 

[IronWolf]

You do have a point, but in 3.x you usually had 3-5 buff spells running so you had to keep track of what spells gave bonus to just AC or AC and touch AC. In addition, you had to keep track of flat-footed AC, or AC while grappling and so on.

Valid points. Buffs could cause you to recall the touch AC rules more frequently and recalc on the fly. I did not find it a major problem, but I can see why it annoyed some people.

 

[Sadras]

Most wizard attacks should be intelligence based versus his target's intelligence or wisdom to suggest that the target could have will, faith or disbelief enough to resist a wizard's attack fully and incur no damage at all.

My thoughts
Faith - no, since the attacks are not Divine in nature
Will - you cannot will a Fireball away, it's a physical conjuration. Perhaps Charm attacks yes.
Disbelief - Illusions perhaps, but it it shouldnt affect Magic Missiles

Also remember this is core, which means the fastest simplest rules will be incorporated, but its a fair point to bring up that perhaps some magic should target other defenses rather than AC.
As I would also prefer to have damage resistance for armour as a add-on Module.

 

[KesselZero]

I agree with the general consensus that magic vs. AC is fine, both because it speeds play and because it makes sense to me that your armor/dodge would help you avoid rays and bolts and whatnot. Saving throws are generally reserved for area attacks-- if you're caught in the middle of a fireball, there isn't really a way to avoid it; you can just hope you can drop to the ground or curl into a ball quick enough to deflect the worst of the burn.

As an aside, I also like the magic vs. AC rule because ultimately I think 4e's four defenses are a bit pointless when it comes to magic attacks. The baseline is that monsters have NADs 2 lower than their AC, and spells have attack bonuses 2 lower than weapons (due to lack of proficiency bonus). So on average the math works out to be identical. Why not just collapse everything into one number? I agree that 4e's defenses add an extra layer of verisimilitude but hey, that's what the return of saving throws is for.

 

[Szatany]

But I'm seeing so many magic spells versus armor class in the play-test. I don't think that is a good thing.

Most wizard attacks should be intelligence based versus his target's intelligence or wisdom to suggest that the target could have will, faith or disbelief enough to resist a wizard's attack fully and incur no damage at all.

Well, weapon attacks arent made against DEX or STR, they are made against AC. This has a serious benefit of not making low DEX/STR characters auto hits and high DEX characters unhittable.
Same should be applied to magic. There should be stat (lets call it MR - magic resistance) that works much like AC. Int/WIS/CHA somehow affect it, and most offensive spells must beat it in order to work.

It really wouldn't be that much different from 3e's Spell Resistance anyway, except every creature would have it (but at low values).

 

[Blackbrrd]

Valid points. Buffs could cause you to recall the touch AC rules more frequently and recalc on the fly. I did not find it a major problem, but I can see why it annoyed some people.

For just myself, recalculating stuff on the fly is ok. I played a cleric-ish character in 3.5 up to level 17, so I used Quickened Divine Power, Righous Might, Quickened Divine Favour, Prayer and whole assortment of spells to buff my character.

Anyway, the biggest problem is that the number is far from static at level 10+ and it tended to bog down the game at times because not everyone likes or manages to recalculate their character with 3-5 buff spells running.

If they in 5e can actually keep spells from giving numerical bonuses, I will be a really happy camper.

Anyway, that's the reasons for me likeing the the change from several types of AC to one, called AC.

I am not so sure I like the saving throw mechanic instead of the REF/FORT/WILL defense from 4e though. Personally, I think they could have done as stated above and rolled them all into AC. Not totally logical, but quick and simple.

 

[Meeki]

I have no issue with the current system of using AC for most things to hit and keeping saves on a few spells; especially since the "casting stats" are being used to calculate the bonus to attacks. Although, I do like the 4e defense system.

This method is more abstract, but definitely helps with speed of turns and, as it seems right now, giving melee characters higher defenses against spell casters at higher levels. I'm assuming the power of spells is pretty similar to the 3.x spells.

It's simple and works for the core game; then again this is the test phase. I like that the game is being designed around simplicity and what the dev's think the average gamer would like rather than the exception.

 

[Dausuul]

To me, it's a question of whether armor would logically hinder the spell or not. For example, there's a very strong case for acid arrow to target AC. When hit by a glob of acid, the guy in a breastplate and visored helm is going to come out a lot better than the guy in a cotton shirt. Most evocation-type spells should work the same way.

On the other hand, a spell like suggestion doesn't care if you're wearing armor. Instead you get a Wisdom or Charisma save to resist it.

In cases where the spell requires aiming but would not be hindered by armor, that's what Dexterity saves are for.

 

[ren1999]

I would allow magic versus armor class as long as you can justify why it should be.

Which means I will allow these spell versus armor class spells in 5th edition.

But "spell resistance" is a very real part of fantasy gaming and will stay in my game as represented by intelligence or wisdom defenses.

You can rule whatever you want for your game.