New Armor Types

[DracoSuave]

But Toughness also increases the distance between 0 and negative Bloodied (i.e. dead) by 2.5 points per tier. The armor doesn't do that.
The armor might still be better at higher levels but I think Toughness
is probably better at low levels, especially at first level.

Feats for a defender are supposed to prevent people from reaching zero, not protecting you once you are there. I'd rank the 'bonus hp' feats in this order:

Swift Recovery (3/4/5 free hps per surge)
>
Disciple of Stone (5 Temporary Hitpoints per surge, therefore circumstances can negate it, say Inspiring Warlord)
>
Superior Armor (Outright negates 2 or 3+2-4 per tier damage, gear dependant)
>
Toughness (1.25/tier per surge)

Toughness only exceeds Superier Armor if you're using four or more surges on average per combat. If that's the case, you're only doing 3 combat days, really. This could be the case, and thus the order switches. One thing is for certain tho... if you're spending three surges, Swift Recovery is WAY better than Toughness in preventing you from reaching zero.

I think a better discussion is... for a battlemind or fighter, is Superior Scale Armor better than Plate Armor. That's a more interesting discussion.

 

[keterys]

If the defender spends a conservative 2 surges per combat, then they get...

Swift Recovery: 6 / 8 / 10
Disciple of Stone: 10 / 10 / 10
Superior Armor: 5 / 9 / 13
Toughness: 7.5 / 15 / 22.5

Swift Recovery leaps up further if you consider after-battle healing.

Toughness is always better than the superior armor, especially since the superior armor also has an additional -2 check penalty over scale or -1 AC penalty over plate. That said, it may well make a viable second feat.

Ringmail is more viable because there are characters who would want a light version of chainmail anyways. I'd never take the heavy version... but I also tend to take more proactive feats than the ones on the list.

 

[DracoSuave]

If the defender spends a conservative 2 surges per combat, then they get...

Swift Recovery: 6 / 8 / 10
Disciple of Stone: 10 / 10 / 10
Superior Armor: 5 / 9 / 13
Toughness: 7.5 / 15 / 22.5

Swift Recovery leaps up further if you consider after-battle healing.

You're not calculating total maximum hitpoints for the purposes of the evaluation.

The defender's role is to mitigate attacks, and make the undoing of damage more efficient. The extra five maximum hitpoints from Toughness have not mitigated ANY damage. They have not made the use of healing surges more efficient. The only part that does is the increased surge value.

The only time the extra hps from toughness have value in three specific situations:

A- You got knocked down to 1-5 hit points (1-10 paragon, 1-15 epic) exactly, and thus having toughness prevented you from dropping, saving an action (an admitted tangential bonus) The irony of this bonus is that it's only a bonus if you can say you were still standing on your turn. If you still get knocked down before you can take the action you won... then Toughness may have actually cost you hit points because the healing surge you spend to get back up will be short the 5/10/15 extra points that knocked you below 0. Thus your surge spending becomes less efficient.
B- You got knocked to 1-2.5/tier hps above the bloodied line against a monster that deals extra damage to bloodied enemies
C- You got knocked below 0 hps, and dying to being at nevative bloodied actually matters more than death saves.

These are the only times Toughness matters. If you're only spending a conservative 2 healing surges, you only went to bloodied, and A and C are not relevant to the situation. B is very situational. And you know what? B is a situation that could be avoided by say... 3 damage not happening at all. If 2.5 hit points are the difference between bloodied and not... then not taking 3 hit points at all means you never got bloodied. SupArmor is superior in situation B.

In actuality (assuming heroic), Swift Recovery would have erased 6 points of damage, DoS mitigates 10 (provided you don't have other thps at the time you spend those surges), Superior armor mitigated 5, 7, or 9 depending on item quality. (You start getting +3 items at 7th level), and Toughness erased only 2 or 4 damage, depending on rounding of numbers.

To put that in perspective, at second level, a Battlemind with 18 Constitution will have 37 hit points. Assuming +1 armor is fairly fair for this guy.

His surge value is 9.

DoS gave him an entire free surge. Not just free as in he didn't have to spend a surge... but free as in those two actions that were used to allow him to spend surges ALSO gave him a free extra surge at no action or resource cost whatsoever outside of taking the feat.
Swift Recovery gave him 2/3s of a free surge.
Superior Armor gives him over half a free surge.
Toughness gave him two free hit points. Don't go spending those all in one place!

For toughness to start favoring comparably to Superior Armor... you have to be spending four surges that combat. And you know what? Then toughness's other benefits come into play, cause that's all your hitpoints....

...on the other hand, you probably wouldn't be close to death at all with swift recovery or disciple of stone, would you?

Toughness is always better than the superior armor, especially since the superior armor also has an additional -2 check penalty over scale or -1 AC penalty over plate. That said, it may well make a viable second feat.

Except the extra maximum hps from toughness do not translate into additional resources on the same level as the armor. You're looking at feats which are literally granting you entire free healing surges that you're not paying surges OR actions for... and you want to talk about Toughness which does less than any other feat at giving you free healing?

Ringmail is more viable because there are characters who would want a light version of chainmail anyways. I'd never take the heavy version... but I also tend to take more proactive feats than the ones on the list.

Most classes than can use Chain Mail can use Hide Armor... if they wanted to use light armor, they already WERE using light armor.

You do have a point at the higher check penalty, and vs plate for scale classes, I do agree. The first is a playstyle thing tho. The latter is a real question and isn't as easy to evaluate as surge-boosting does for defense.

It depends a lot on how your campaign runs and it's quite situational. All I could suggest is take a note of how many attacks you take, and how many hits you take, how much damage you take, and how many surges you spend to erase that damage, and how many combats that means.

It's statistical stuff, most gamers shouldn't bother, and it's way beyond the scope of this thread.

But... it'd be interesting.


Also, for a Warden, there IS no upgrade like plate from scale... hide is as good as they get, and there's no trade off between a higher tier armor and taking the tough armor.

 

[keterys]

You're not calculating total maximum hitpoints for the purposes of the evaluation.

The defender's role is to mitigate attacks, and make the undoing of damage more efficient. The extra five maximum hitpoints from Toughness have not mitigated ANY damage. They have not made the use of healing surges more efficient. The only part that does is the increased surge value.

If that's all you care about, you end up waaay out of whack for actual evaluation, since it means that the defender should _always_ take Durable before anything else, and I've never seen durable be useful on a defender.

The extra maximum hit points from Toughness keep the defender up during a combat. That's their most important function. That the surge value is also increased is the secondary benefit.

Any other metric results in Durable being a great, perhaps one of the most important, feat for defenders, and even my running and playing in 7-combat epic play has shown that not to be true.

Most classes than can use Chain Mail can use Hide Armor... if they wanted to use light armor, they already WERE using light armor.

Which doesn't help them at all for using Tactician's, Eladrin, or Agile Ringmail... all of which an Int-based class might really be interested in, like a Tactical Warlord, Preservation Invoker, Tempest Fighter, etc.

 

[DracoSuave]

If that's all you care about, you end up waaay out of whack for actual evaluation, since it means that the defender should _always_ take Durable before anything else, and I've never seen durable be useful on a defender.

You're confusing 'Higher amounts of maximum hitpoints/surges' with the real point: More efficient use of surges that are actually spent.

The reason Durable doesn't show up on the list is because the point is not to have more surges on your character sheet... the point is to spend LESS surges. Less surges spent means less actions spent and more healing done with those actions, meaning more attacks negated, meaning more survivability. Durable doesn't make you spend less surges. Its benefit has nothing to do with this.

It's not about having higher hitpoints on the character sheet... it's about making damage not happen.

That's the defender's job. He takes enemy attacks because attacks against him are less effective against him than against others. This is why powers that give temporary hitpoints are good. This is why Shielding Aegis is good.

The concept is erasing attacks and it works in multiple ways.

Higher defenses means less attacks hit. Every attack that misses you erases that attack.
Temporary hit points cause the damage from an attack to simply go away. If an attack's damage is absorbed by temporary hit points you've erased that attack
When a swordmage's aegis of defense is triggered, and they absorb all the damage from an enemy's attack... They've erased that attack.
Higher surge values make those surge values more effective. If your surge value is 10, and a monster hits you for ten damage... but your buddy the defender has a surge value of 20... it takes two attacks to deplete him by one surge value. If he's spending a surge, and you are not, then he has erased an attack

And every time you erase an attack, you've negated a monster's action. And D&D4th edition is about action economy.

Those five hit points from toughness aren't erasing enemy attacks as effectively as other, better feats.

Strikers talk about DPR, defenders should be talking about attacks they've erased from existance and defenders should be looking at as many of them as they possibly can.

The extra maximum hit points from Toughness keep the defender up during a combat. That's their most important function. That the surge value is also increased is the secondary benefit.

You know what else keeps you up in combat? Erasing attacks. You know what does a way better job of it? Erasing attacks.

Toughness only keeps you up if your other defenses didn't. It's NOT about keeping yourself up as a defender. It's about making entire attacks disappear as efficiently in actions and healing surges as possible. If you do that... well... that's going to make sure you don't drop.

Any other metric results in Durable being a great, perhaps one of the most important, feat for defenders, and even my running and playing in 7-combat epic play has shown that not to be true.

Durable doesn't erase attacks. It's to add length to the combat day for most classes.

It's not about who has more surges at the end of the day. It's about effective those surges were used, and the actions used to activate them.

Toughness doesn't do much to negate enemy's actions, or make your own more efficient. The other feats in question DO. That's why they are superior.

Which doesn't help them at all for using Tactician's, Eladrin, or Agile Ringmail... all of which an Int-based class might really be interested in, like a Tactical Warlord, Preservation Invoker, Tempest Fighter, etc.

It's the same AC bonus as Hide. While I do relent it opens up magical armor properties for those characters, fact is, most magical armor properties pale in comparison to raw AC. And if light armor would be better for them in the AC department, well.. they now have some extra options for properties, and that's good for them.

But, they're already in Hide, so it's not like light armor's suddenly opened up as this new option for them.

 

[keterys]

You're confusing 'Higher amounts of maximum hitpoints/surges' with the real point: More efficient use of surges that are actually spent.

Eh, we're in partial agreement there - I don't take _any_ of the feats you mentioned, because I focus on killing the opposition or not taking damage instead.

Heck, the -2 check penalty on the armor is what actually killed it for me - I see no reason to burn a feat that I could spend on something to be more effective, shoring up for extra hit points I almost never need, certainly not to prevent loss of surges I'm barely using*, in order to take a penalty for all the skill checks I make.

* I'll grant, last adventure I did give out at least half of my surges to other characters so it mattered slightly more there.

Less surges spent means less actions spent and more healing done with those actions, meaning more attacks negated, meaning more survivability.

Tangentally... a lot of healing powers have big buffs alongside them, so avoiding spending surges isn't necessarily helpful. For example, my warlord's inspiring word gives +2 attack and +7 damage... if you don't need healing, I'm less likely to give it out.

Those five hit points from toughness aren't erasing enemy attacks as effectively as other, better feats.

Agreed. I just also disagree that you should spend a feat for the armor.

It's the same AC bonus as Hide. While I do relent it opens up magical armor properties for those characters, fact is, most magical armor properties pale in comparison to raw AC. And if light armor would be better for them in the AC department, well.. they now have some extra options for properties, and that's good for them.

Check out the Agile property - that's more raw AC. And teleporters care about what they care about, and buffers care about what they care about. The durable on ringmail is just a kicker to make the switch more palatable, but not enough on its own.

Personally, I don't think any of the new armors are going to see a lot of use.

 

[DracoSuave]

Eh, we're in partial agreement there - I don't take _any_ of the feats you mentioned, because I focus on killing the opposition or not taking damage instead.

A defender who is only concerned with AC is only doing part of the job.

Heck, the -2 check penalty on the armor is what actually killed it for me - I see no reason to burn a feat that I could spend on something to be more effective, shoring up for extra hit points I almost never need, certainly not to prevent loss of surges I'm barely using*, in order to take a penalty for all the skill checks I make.

* I'll grant, last adventure I did give out at least half of my surges to other characters so it mattered slightly more there.

That -2 is entirely dependant on the character. Studded Leather looks awesome. Based on Leather armor? Check. No penalty? Check. Has all the upside of Hide? Check. Negates an entire critical hit? Check.

Taking that armor is in every way better than Hide for a swordmage. Paladins taking a feat to negate one critical hit per turn? That's a viable option!

And you know... if your skills chosen are Heal, Intimidate, and Diplomacy armor penalties don't really mean anything do they?

Thinking of it... I kinda like Tough.

To be fair, if you're barely spending urges... you're probably not being challenged enough. At which point, toughness is probably the worst feat in the world. As well as durable.

Tangentally... a lot of healing powers have big buffs alongside them, so avoiding spending surges isn't necessarily helpful. For example, my warlord's inspiring word gives +2 attack and +7 damage... if you don't need healing, I'm less likely to give it out.

If I'm defendering properly, I'm more likely to receive those benefits. It's not about spending no surges either... that means you're not taking on challenging adventures.

Agreed. I just also disagree that you should spend a feat for the armor.

Check out the Agile property - that's more raw AC. And teleporters care about what they care about, and buffers care about what they care about. The durable on ringmail is just a kicker to make the switch more palatable, but not enough on its own.

Personally, I don't think any of the new armors are going to see a lot of use.[/QUOTE]

 

[UngeheuerLich]

but 5 more hp have to be factored in, as those are 5hp that need not to be mitigated per day. You could well only rest up to 5 under maximum hp and still function in the next fight as well as someone who did not take toughness...

Maybe your surges you spent are more efficient, because you can use up a full surge and you are back to full hp instead of needing to spend a surge to get up to full and maybe wasting 5hp your surge was to big.

Also your surge does not increase by 1.25 with tougness, as it is always 1 or 2... it just happens to be 1 more often than 2...

In the end, it strongly depends on your party composition and playstyle of your DM which feat is worth more... durable, toughness or whatever surge increasing/temp hp giving feat you take...