Non-AC Defenses

[keterys]

I think the comparison is in giving +1 to your tertiary or whatever stat instead of a primary or secondary, so effectively you're taking a point away from one defense to give it to another, which does seem like a loss. Especially when your secondary actually does something good for you.

 

[Infiniti2000]

There very well could be an argument made about optimizing one stat vs another, but that's not what was said. It was stated that +1 to the deficient NAD was worthless. That is an illogical claim to anyone who wants to the implement the commonly proposed houserule I quoted.

 

[Herschel]

This is better than the bard's above, but considering a level 16 monster has around +20 attack bonus, they still have 50% or better chance of hitting any of these values.

I'm starting to think we need a pretty big buff to all NADs, escalating over level. Something like +1 per 5 levels, increasing at levels 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26.

So what? Not you really, but I'm starting to think many gamers are just whiners who think they should hit the vast majority of the time and they should rarely get hit. Orcus SHOULD pound the snot out of a PC, as should any BBEG at level. They're BIG BAD EVIL GUYS not kinda-big, kinda-bad, sorta-evil guys. PCs also have access to a lot of things BBEG's don't.:

1. A TEAM to buff, provide bonuses and nerfs/status effects, activations, and HEALING that most BBEG's don't. He gets stunned by the controller, it doesn't matter what his attack bonus is, the entire party gets a "free round" of attacks without retribution.

2. Feats to protect certain areas/defenses. Out-of-the-book baddies usually have one fairly obviously much lower defense too but I don't see too many people complaining about Monster X having a low reflex but some do complain because they can't just use their FORT attack on everything without thinking.

Characters don't exist in a vacuum and they don't adventure alone. Examining a single character vs. an encounter is simply inaccurate.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Of course... the most obvious answer is the one no likes to admit because it takes all the fun out of debating the question on the boards here...

The DM should know what his players' abilities are and plan his encounters accordingly.

The DM plans encounters in order to facilitate the fun his players will have playing D&D. If he knows three of his players have crappy Fortitude defenses... then he shouldn't build a whole bunch of encounters in a row that do nothing but target those defenses. One encounter like that in the midst of a bunch of other ones is cool because it generates the "Oh sh*t!!!" factor... but a whole bunch of them is basically him saying "I'm trying to kill my players on purpose". And where exactly is the fun in that?

Now granted, I know full well that most of the debates of this type involve those of you who are the hardcore number-crunchers... the same types of folks who work the spreadsheets to maximize dps in WoW and such... which is why I don't begrudge your findings. From a strictly math point-of-view, I can certainly see, and agree with what you're showing us. But from a "just treat this as a game" point-of-view... you're pinpointing parts of the game that really shouldn't be an issue 95% of the time if the DM and players are working together to create a game of fun. Using a Level+1 Controller to slam a character's lowest defense will certainly occur every once in a while and make for an exciting encounter... but if that becomes a commonplace scenario every single game session... then the GM is just being a dick.

And as Wil Wheaton says...

...don't be a dick.

 

[CovertOps]

Bear with me for a second here, because there's something I'm not following, math-wise. So far, a vast majority of the proposed houserules are +1/+2/+3 at 5th/15th/25th. Right? So, mathematically-speaking how is +1 (from 1st-level) worthless? You can't argue that +1 is both the saving grace and worthless at the same time. In fact, mathematically, +1 to a low NAD FIXES the problem for 15 levels (mores, and fixes it by half (50%) for another 10 levels. So, if you can live with a 5% deficiency, you're good until level 25.

Quick math review:

Level 1-30 monsters gain +29 to everything.

PCs:
+15 from 1/2 Level
+6 from magic (weapon, armor, neck)
+4/+1 from stat bumps

Assuming that you used the 16/16 starting array and had a 12 in your off FRW defense you'd look something like this at level 1:
Fort: 10 base +3 (stat) +1 (class feature) = 14 (assumed primary stat STR/CON)
Ref: 10 base +3 (stat) = 13 (assumed secondary stat INT/DEX)
Will: 10 base +1 (stat) = 11
Also increase 2 (or 1) of those by 1 point for racial stat bump.

At level 30:
Fort: 10 base +3 (stat) +1 (class feature) +6 (enhancement) +4 (level stat bumps) +15 (1/2 level) = 39
Ref: 10 base +3 (stat) +6 (enhancement) +4 (level stat bumps) +15 (1/2 level) = 38
Will: 10 base +1 (stat) +6 (enhancement) +1 (level stat bumps) +15 (1/2 level) = 33

Fort: 39 - 14 = 25
Ref: 38 - 13 = 25
Will: 33 - 11 = 22

Comparing those differences you lose 4 points (20%) on your primary/secondary stat defenses and 7 points (35%) on your tertiary. Assuming no feats and the 5/15/25 bonus applied to those you wind up only off by 1/1/4. So your lowest defense starts out at 3 points below at level 1 (14 - 11 = 3) and by level 30 has lost 4 more points so is now STILL 7 points (35%) below what it should be (roughly). If you don't give the house rule then you're down by 10 points (50%) and have access to +2 each from heroic and +4 more from epic feats for a total of +6 which still puts you down by 20% at level 30 which is still a 1 point loss compared to level 1.

Now...either the loss of ground on defenses vs. attacks is a feat tax on the players (have to keep your defenses up to keep pace with the monster's attack values) or the built in system is TOO good for your better defenses because if you have a 14 at level 1 and take the +2/+4 feat bonuses you'll wind up with (39 (above example) + 6 (feats) = 45 .... 45 (new level 30) - 14 (level 1) = 31 which is now 2 points ahead of the scale.

For a system that was supposed to be designed to reduce swing and provide scalability at all levels they did a piss poor job. Just for fun lets use one of their encounters from the book where they have 3 n+7 lurkers fighting the party. I don't have a book with me, but for that defense that is 4 points low it just became auto-hit (1 excepted of course) because my lurkers have +7 above the party already and you're down 4 so that's +11. According to their own encounter design groups you should be able to use n-4 all the way up to n+7 creatures against the party. If attacks and defenses don't scale correctly (for both monsters and PCs) then this is an epic failure from WotC. As it stands Stalker0 is suggesting in his anti-grind topic (and a good read it is too) you should never use Soldiers as their defenses are too high and you should never use monsters of higher level than the party. All of these factors tell me that their design failed. The only way to truly make what they wanted is if they had made the total of all bonuses be 1/2 level. So for example all PCs would get +1/4 level to everything (skills, attacks, defenses) which would total +7 (28/4=7) with another +6 from enhancement which gives us 13. The last 2 could be stat bumps and if you keep the +1 all at 11/21 then you'd only need 2 more, but you could do something like 5/15/25 bumps to 2 different stats and make an odd starting stat viable. That however is a complete redesign of the system and won't happen outside of house rules and the like.

The basic problem they have in the system is that PCs have variance among them of like +/- 2 and the level variance of monsters gives another +/- 4 (if you only use n-4 to n+4) and another +/- 2 for variation in monsters at a given level. This is a total variation of +/- 8 which is too much for a d20 system to handle and you have this at level 1. When you get to level 30 and add in the attack and defense variations (-2 AC, -4 Attack, primary/secondary FRW defense, and -7 tertiary FRW defense) you're now looking at +/- 9-12 (for purposes of my calculations I'm assuming a middle ground and - for example using the -7 FRW defense - taking half of the difference and calling it +/- 4). I'm not sure I'd want to get rid of difference between PCs so let's keep the +/- 2 there and if we go with a total of +1/2 level for all bonuses then that goes down to +/- 2 and variation in monsters is another +/-2 for a total of +/- 6 which is manageable. In order for this to work, however your leveling mechanics cannot deviate from this at all or you introduce another variance which again stresses the system. The reason Stalker0's anti-grind works is because he is eliminating one of the variances (namely the +/- 4 from creature level).

 

[KarinsDad]

Bear with me for a second here, because there's something I'm not following, math-wise. So far, a vast majority of the proposed houserules are +1/+2/+3 at 5th/15th/25th. Right? So, mathematically-speaking how is +1 (from 1st-level) worthless? You can't argue that +1 is both the saving grace and worthless at the same time. In fact, mathematically, +1 to a low NAD FIXES the problem for 15 levels (mores, and fixes it by half (50%) for another 10 levels. So, if you can live with a 5% deficiency, you're good until level 25.

The +1 is not worthless. It's just better off helping many powers and one NAD as opposed to just one NAD (and the worst one at that).

To start out, foes (who have NAD attacks) are (typically) level +4 to hit a NAD at level one. Without class or race abilities, that's +5 to hit a score that is in the range of 10-14 (typically), 10-16 max with class/race abilities. So, the range to hit by same level foes (who have NAD attacks) tends to be 50% to 80%. Enemies already have a ~60% on average chance of success, right at first level.

For three NADs total, the foes increase by +29 each or +87 over 29 levels. The PC defenses increase by +15 each for level, +4 each for two ability scores, +6 for magic and either +1 or +2 due to Epic ability score increases. So, the foes gain +87 and the PCs gain +72 or +73. They've lost an average of 5 from each NAD (in reality, they lose 3 or 4 on their top two and 8 on their lowest one). The +1 at 5/15/25 only gains back 9 of that 14 or 15 loss.

So, the worst NAD goes from level one 70% to 80% chance to hit (same level foe, let alone higher level foes) up to ~95% chance to hit by 13.

So, I ask you the counter question: What good is boosting the worst stat if by level 13, it's just going to be a 95% chance to hit anyway? +1 doesn't really mean squat. More than half the levels will be at 95% chance to hit.

I really do not understand your "you're good until level 25" comment. It doesn't make sense when one looks at the math.

 

[Turtlejay]

I think examining *just defenses* in a vacuum is a bad idea. Especially comparing 1st to 30th levels. What changes in that span of time? What is the ratio of damage output from a 1st-30th monster? What about the PC's ability to mitigate damage? Or to deal damage more efficiently, shortening combat? What about powers that apply penalties to hit? Or bonuses to defense? What about class abilities, paragon path abilities, and epic destiny abilities (including the ability to return from the dead)? What about teamwork and tactical positioning? What about intelligently playing your character?

There is tons more than this one dimention. Adding this one math 'fix' might even out the FRW defenses, but what does that do to overall gameplay? Was it intended for those defenses to suffer?

My gameplay has not breached even Paragon (made it to 10th. . .now back to 4th) so I have no real world, on the ground experience, barring one-shots. You cannot just assume a smooth, frictionless surface, and then translate that into reality without making some adjustments. Same with this bit of math. going from theoretical to actual means accounting for *everything*.

Jay

 

[keterys]

By coupling status effects to defenses, 4e has made it so it doesn't matter what damage is connected to the attack, the defenses still need to scale somehow.

Penalties to attack can apply, but only to a limited extent because there are far too many ways to not be hit by them, from not being the target of the moment to winning initiative.

Bonuses to defense can apply, as long as they're up a significant amount of the time. If the warlord can do +4 defenses to the group once per day... that matters, but it isn't helping in 2/3 to 7/8 of encounters, potentially. And might require a hit so not apply for the first round or two. Etc.

End of the day, when a creature starts out combat by throwing out a big burst of 'and daze' or 'and stun' you don't really want there to be a high chance of the entire party succumbing. Especially not if it recharges, does damage, etc.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I really appreciate the detailed responses, CO and KD. I'm not sure what I'm missing yet, but I think I need to go off and chew on it for a while. It's likely I jumped to the wrong conclusion somewhere or took something out of context.

 

[KarinsDad]

End of the day, when a creature starts out combat by throwing out a big burst of 'and daze' or 'and stun' you don't really want there to be a high chance of the entire party succumbing. Especially not if it recharges, does damage, etc.

I ran "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" and there was a solo creature in it that could cause PCs to go to sleep if hit and if they failed a save, then they were unconscious IIRC. This power recharged when bloodied, so it took out 3 PCs out of 6 the first time and 2 out of the remaining 3 the second time and it was just the Fighter taking the foe on. None of the PCs made the save.

The players thought that the encounter totally sucked.

As DM, I ruled that a DC 20 Heal check could wake a PC from unconsciousness (the power did not state a way to get rid of the unconsciousness), but the few PCs (and one lower level NPC) trying the Heal check failed every time as well. In hindsight, making the DC lower might have been better (as opposed to ~50% trained chance of success), but still, there are creatures out there where the status effect can be pretty awesome. Daze is not the worst that can happen.


I have also seen similar things with traps where the trap targets a NAD, hits easily, and then a PC is trapped for several rounds trying to get out, typically only with a successful Acrobatics or Athletics check. Sometimes, the escape chance is so slim that a PC might without assistance be trapped for 5 or more rounds.