Non-AC Defenses

[Jhaelen]

A relevant error in this analysis lies in the bolded part. Also, stun is a best-case status effect for your argument.

Yup, using a solo as an example (at least one that is actually encountered solo) is a particularly bad example, since it's actually a lot more likely the solo will be on the receiving end of the various methods of action-denial, preventing it from using its ability to theoretically stun two pcs per round.

 

[KarinsDad]

Of course not. A bunch of sample characters doesn't 'proof' anything. You'd have to look at every possible combination of race/build/stat array and compare them over level 1 to 30 to 'proof' anything.

Then why did you ask him for proof if you thought it unprovable?

You cannot have it both ways. Either it is provable and hence, you should prove it. Or, it is not provable and hence, you shouldn't ask others for proof.

I could (and actually have done so a couple of months ago), but because of the above it wouldn't do anything to convince anyone who thinks otherwise.

I'd just be accused of picking only those examples that support my view (as was the case a couple of months ago). I've got better things to do with my time, thank you very much.

Post a link to what you wrote before? That cannot be THAT time consuming.

Personally, I think your POV is totally unsupportable. But, I'm willing to look at what you posted. I've been wrong lots of times before.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you are not comparing apples to apples. A HD 8 hill giant should be compared to an 8th level hill giant in 4e. You cannot make direct comparisons of monsters by name only between the editions for this kind of thing.

The level 8 brute would be defeatable by 1st level PC's, although it could kill a character with a few blows if it gets lucky.

Anyway, that is not even how 4e is designed to be played. The idea would be to lower the gian'ts level and make it into an elite or even a solo if it is faced by 1st level characters. Then the fight makes a lot more sense. Later on the characters might meet a similar giant and it would be treated as a regular monster if it suits the story. In any case it is best to keep the monster levels close to PC level.

I disagree. 8th level AD&D is not at all comparable to 8th level 4e. In fact in my view its more like:
AD&D level 1-6 is roughly comparable to 4e level 1-10.
AD&D level 7-11 is roughly comparable to 4e level 11-20.
AD&D level 12+ is roughly comparable to 4e level 21+

So comparing an 8 HD AD&D Hill Giant to a 4e 13th level Hill Giant is already shading things on the side of not using a strong enough 4e monster for the comparison and it would probably be more accurate to use a 15th level monster. Except you won't find any 15th level monsters a low heroic 4e party stands even the slightest chance against.

Also comparing brutes is the least illustrative of what I'm talking about. Any other class of monsters will easily illustrate that 4e monsters power curve is MUCH steeper than that of AD&D monsters considering AD&D's more compressed level advancement.

The point wasn't one of what is good encounter design, that isn't really relevant to my point at all. Sure you can design custom versions of monsters in 4e and have a lower level party take on a "Hill Giant", but actually the very need to do that, which didn't exist nearly so much in AD&D, actually supports the point. In AD&D you could throw a higher level monster at a lower level party (in controlled circumstances) and the party would be able to at least fight it effectively. Not so much in 4e.

 

[keterys]

Also, stun is a best-case status effect for your argument.

I gave several others as well, such as immobilizing defenders and dazing strikers. I'd hope I wouldn't give a worst case example, hmm?

The length of the combat is not fixed, and, in fact, is affected (even effected ) by the outcome of various attacks.

Of course it is, but which of the two characters gets the buff and gets stunned two times more doesn't necessarily change the duration of the fight by an entire round. In fact, given that the high defense character was down to at-wills, the only real possibility to shorten it is if the low defense character gets the bonus, so can use encounter powers that have a stronger effect.

Now, in actual combat with a party, this solo is going to take out the guy that he can hit so easily very quickly

Hardly a given - the stun attack might not even do any damage, but the damaging attack be against a different defense entirely. A dracolich, for instance, can easily take that long to kill and stun a ton and a half of people, but only deal 16 necrotic damage with its breath and none with its glare. Against a character with 10 necrotic resistance, it might not even require a single heal, nevermind one of the three to six the party might have available.

Additionally, stunned is a really exceptional effect here, being one of the least clear-cut cases.

_Least_? It's one of the most clear as to what happens with it - all of the rest are extremely subjective.

If the effects include things such as, say, forced movement (throw em into the ravine over there) or any other primarily offensive effect, it's again far more clear-cut in favor of raising high-defenses.

You still haven't actually shown that. If you don't like stun for some reason, try immobilizing or restraining melee characters out of melee, or ranged characters into melee, or dazing the ranger, warlock, fighter, or swordmage.

As I said before, effects muddy the waters

And yet, they're the most important aspect of any discussion of FRWs being too low.

If you pay attention to damage, you'll get incorrect answers like:
1) Well, PCs aren't taking enough damage now, so improving their defenses is bad
2) If a creature deals too much damage at 20 damage per hit with a 95% hit rate, reduce its damage to 12 instead.

The first is still bad, from a perspective of effects, fun, and fighting futility and frustration.
The second is still bad, because even if you address the average damage you still need to address all those other things.

relying on character-optimization to choose to raise the lowest defense and help balance things is unwise.

Absolutely agreed.

Hence my suggestions to raise the NAD's (particularly the low nad too) as part of the global game levelling mechanics, and not as part of the character customization-choice via feats. Feats just work really poorly for this.

Again, agreed.

You do need to be careful, though - a character might have +1 to +3 from an item, +1 to +3 from masterwork light armor, +6 from feats, under core rules. So any house rules need to potentially adjust to that.

 

[Elric]

And yet, they're the most important aspect of any discussion of FRWs being too low.

If you pay attention to damage, you'll get incorrect answers like:
1) Well, PCs aren't taking enough damage now, so improving their defenses is bad
2) If a creature deals too much damage at 20 damage per hit with a 95% hit rate, reduce its damage to 12 instead.

The first is still bad, from a perspective of effects, fun, and fighting futility and frustration.
The second is still bad, because even if you address the average damage you still need to address all those other things.

This is true in general, but as I said before I don't think it's that relevant as a reason why the following claim is wrong:

When analyzing these things, it's worth keeping in mind that an improvement to a low defense matters less than an improvement to a high defense. Roughly speaking, raising your defense by 10 from hit-on-2+ to hit-on-12+ halves your damage and thus doubles your life expectancy. Then raising your defenses by just 4 or 5 again halves your damage and doubles your life expectancy.

Assuming a monster crit is about 50% more powerful than a hit, eventually, raising your defense from hit-on 19 [expected damage: 5% * a hit + 5% a crit ~ 12.5% a hit] to hit on twenty [7.5% of a hit] is a 40% damage reduction for just one point. Raising it to miss-on twenty [5% of a hit] decreases damage taken by another 33% for one point of defense.

Basically, it just doesn't matter all that much whether a monster hits you on a 4 or a 7 - and it matters even less whether he'll hit you on a 2 or a 3, or, worse yet, on a 1(effectively 2) or a 2 which is truly no change.

In short, there's no point in bothering with the lowest defense unless you can somehow manage to raise it by enough to make it competitive.

Assume that Defense - Attack bonus>=2 before an FRW bonus, and after the bonus, Defense-Attack bonus <=20. The former isn't a given at high levels if you haven't taken anything to improve low FRWs, but I'll ignore that for now.

If you have two enemies, one of whom needs an 18 to hit you on your strong FRW, and the other of whom needs a 2 to hit you on your weak FRW, and they do equal damage, the average damage you take if both attack you once is the same whether you get a +2 bonus to the defense where you're hit on an 18 or the defense where you're hit on a 2. Just because you chose to take a +2 to your stronger defense doesn't mean you can ignore the attacks on your weak defense! That's the problem with this claim.

Two considerations about selection: to the extent you can force enemies that can only attack one defense to attack a strong FRW, it will be targeted more often and it's desirable to have it be particularly high. To the extent that enemies have a choice of who to target, or can target multiple defenses, they'll tend to target weak spots, which favors a more balanced FRW distribution. Also, since players are heavily favored to win almost every fight, shoring up your tougher fights is more valuable than further improving your easier ones.

 

[eamon]

If you have two enemies, one of whom needs an 18 to hit you on your strong FRW, and the other of whom needs a 2 to hit you on your weak FRW, and they do equal damage, the average damage you take if both attack you once is the same whether you get a +2 bonus to the defense where you're hit on an 18 or the defense where you're hit on a 2. Just because you chose to take a +2 to your stronger defense doesn't mean you can ignore the attacks on your weak defense! That's the problem with this claim.

Yep, the low vs. high analysis is limited in this sense. It's still a (smaller) advantage to raise the higher defense, however - after all, you'll target the higher risk enemy first: and once you've killed him, the difference is no longer the same. By contrast, raising the low defense first means that you gain nothing in that second half of the battle. That's assuming you manage to kill even one of the two enemies, and assuming that there's no extreme difference in hitpoints between the enemies, of course.

Two considerations about selection: to the extent you can force enemies that can only attack one defense to attack a strong FRW, it will be targeted more often and it's desirable to have it be particularly high. To the extent that enemies have a choice of who to target, or can target multiple defenses, they'll tend to target weak spots, which favors a more balanced FRW distribution. Also, since players are heavily favored to win almost every fight, shoring up your tougher fights is more valuable than further improving your easier ones.

Yeah, if enemies have full choice here, then raising the lower defense is superior. I'm unsure how many enemies have several (comparably effective) attacks vs. different NAD's, though. And even if they have some choice, as long as they can't choose between all three, you can still try to stonewall the enemy using the right defender (or some other tactic), should you have such a character available (i.e., use a defender with good F+R vs. one opponent and one with good F+W vs. another.) We've even used our wizard as a front-liner vs. wraiths which was quite effective (insofar as that's possible vs. wraiths). I think the party has more control over the tactical situation than monsters do, usually.

Also, it's not necessarily the case that shoring up your weak NADs improves your odds in tough fights and shoring up high NADs improves your odds in easy fights - after all, you're a party, and you (hopefully) don't all share the same weak NAD. You're mostly changing the balance between party members here.

Well, there's admittedly a million and one exceptions to the general rule. But the fact that raising your low NAD isn't particularly viable in the core rules looks pretty clear to me. I think raising your high NADs is probably better, but raising the low ones is certainly hopeless. I think the game would be more fun if NAD-targetting monsters actually occasionally missed in non-exceptional cases.

 

[Elric]

Yep, the low vs. high analysis is limited in this sense. It's still a (smaller) advantage to raise the higher defense, however - after all, you'll target the higher risk enemy first: and once you've killed him, the difference is no longer the same. By contrast, raising the low defense first means that you gain nothing in that second half of the battle. That's assuming you manage to kill even one of the two enemies, and assuming that there's no extreme difference in hitpoints between the enemies, of course.

That example illustrates the general point that absolute damage is what counts, not how much you change the relative damage from a particular opponent or sets of opponents. If you're going to be attacked equally often on different FRWs (for equal damage per hit), the average damage reduction from a +2 to your weak FRW is the same as a +2 to your strong FRW, Defense-Attack bonus<2 or >20 cases aside.

Also, it's not necessarily the case that shoring up your weak NADs improves your odds in tough fights and shoring up high NADs improves your odds in easy fights - after all, you're a party, and you (hopefully) don't all share the same weak NAD. You're mostly changing the balance between party members here.

Right, but to the extent that a party has different weak FRWs, your above case for "killing the one monster that targets your weak FRW first" applies much less as well.

Well, there's admittedly a million and one exceptions to the general rule. But the fact that raising your low NAD isn't particularly viable in the core rules looks pretty clear to me. I think raising your high NADs is probably better, but raising the low ones is certainly hopeless. I think the game would be more fun if NAD-targetting monsters actually occasionally missed in non-exceptional cases.

Raising low FRW in the core rules has big problems. First, eventually your weak FRW is probably going to be so low that Defense-attack bonus<2 pre-improvement applies, wasting most of the improvement, and second, +2 to a FRW from the Great Fortitude line of feats isn't that good to start with.

Using ph II, if a character takes Robust Defenses, that gives +2 to all FRWs, which means that even if the marginal change in your weak FRW is usually wasted, it's still +4 to your strong FRWs. From there, you'll probably get the full benefit of an Epic FRW feat for your weak FRW most of the time. Not that these feats are a good solution; I agree on the need to raise FRW directly in the rules, while toning down some of the stackable bonuses.

 

[Jhaelen]

Then why did you ask him for proof if you thought it unprovable?

You cannot have it both ways. Either it is provable and hence, you should prove it. Or, it is not provable and hence, you shouldn't ask others for proof.

Well, let's see:
Someone stated his opinion as if it was a given fact. I happened to disagree and asked for proof. Why did I do this, if I didn't believe it was possible to prove it?

Do I really have to explain this? It's all rhetorics.

Naturally, I did it to show that the 'fact' was in fact just an opinion. I'm not _really_ sure if he's wrong or not (I just don't think so). So, here's the options:

Prove it one way or another or conclude it's unprovable.*

Post a link to what you wrote before? That cannot be THAT time consuming.

Well, since I'm not a community supporter, I cannot search the forum. I _think_ the argument was almost a year ago, shortly after the PHB2 was published. I don't have a clue how to find that thread after all this time.

*: Well, to be completely honest, I'm pretty sure you could actually prove it one way or another. The number of possible permutations for race/class build/attribute array is finite.

It's just a large enough number that I cannot spend the time to do it - but someone else who does have lots of time probably could.


There's something I still don't get about these discussions:
In 3E, the equivalent of non-AC defenses were the saving throws. Why didn't anyone think it was a problem that many classes only had a single (or even two) strong saving throw(s)?

The standard reply, I guess, would be: 'because everyone knows, that 3E math was totally off!' Which makes me wonder how we could play with this system for ten years (and still are).


On a slightly different topic:
There's something we can now do, which we couldn't do a year ago:
Create a sample party (or even better: use one of WotCs sample parties) and compare it against every encounter in the WotC adventure module series H1-H3, P1-P3, E1-E3. Now, I don't have the complete series, but I'd love to see someone doing this!

I'm really curious whose position this exercise would strengthen!
Will there be any encounters where a pc will be hit on a 2 or an enemy only be hit on a 20?
If so, how many?

That would at least be a semi-objective way to test how broken the 4e math really is.

 

[keterys]

Well, I am a community supporter... but instead I just used the magic of the google. I think you want post #186 in this ginormous thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...bout-defenses-aka-phb2-defenses-feats-10.html

 

[keterys]

There's something I still don't get about these discussions:
In 3E, the equivalent of non-AC defenses were the saving throws. Why didn't anyone think it was a problem that many classes only had a single (or even two) strong saving throw(s)?

The standard reply, I guess, would be: 'because everyone knows, that 3E math was totally off!' Which makes me wonder how we could play with this system for ten years (and still are).

Having needed to roll a 20s on saves vs death in 3e... the math was totally off. It really, really, really was. It's not worth trying to bring it up in any kind of defense and you'll only hurt your case. People play all editions of dnd, and palladium, and champions, and all kinds of stuff.

People even play Monopoly.