Painful splattering aka Really Big Stuff Hurts

[Lurker 2.0]

That does seem to be the problem, doesn't it? There's a few high-level monsters where they have such mondo AC (usually thanks to some insane number around +30 natural armor) that even an attack-specialized fighter can't hit them, but they're relatively few compared to the guys with giant attack bonuses; in short, defensive fighting statistically don't work. I think. I'm fairly certain, anyway, just roughly comparing AC/Attack bonuses. (I'd have numbers, but I keep posting late at night... sorry)

Majere: I think I need to clear something up. In the first post, when I say 2H, I mean Two-Handed Weapons (greatsword, greataxe, etc). It was my understanding that TWF was the accepted acronym for Two-Weapon Fighting.

 

[green slime]

True, but this guy isn't going to have much of a chance of hitting the barbarian in return, either. And once the barbarian realizes you can't hurt him and he can't hurt you, he's going to turn his attention toward the guy hitting him with Magic Missiles every round...

And suffer 50% miss chance, if it happens to guess the right square? You assume that the mage is completely without defences, which is not true.

The thing about heaping on the defence, is that it is an excellent way for a fighter to nullify the barbarian's humungous damage advantage while raging. The fighter just needs to increase his AC to the 1/20 chance of hitting, and they both flail at each other. Any time the barbarian tries to hit someone else, is an advantage as well: it is a lost opportunity to damage the fighter. When this occurs, the barbarian has conceded the initiative to the fighter, who can then decide whether to do serious damage to barbarian, maintain a defensive posture, or chase one of the barbarian's allies.

The barbarian ability to rage, is not really a great leap in ability versus a mage. Either you hit and the guy goes down regardless of your increased damage, or you don't (because of defences as mirror image, invisibility, blur), and nothing else occurs.

 

[Bauglir]

The thing about heaping on the defence, is that it is an excellent way for a fighter to nullify the barbarian's humungous damage advantage while raging. The fighter just needs to increase his AC to the 1/20 chance of hitting, and they both flail at each other.

Except the barbarian does a shedload more damage in the event that he does land a hit, especially if he uses full power attack..

Any time the barbarian tries to hit someone else, is an advantage as well: it is a lost opportunity to damage the fighter. When this occurs, the barbarian has conceded the initiative to the fighter, who can then decide whether to do serious damage to barbarian, maintain a defensive posture, or chase one of the barbarian's allies.

If he chooses to drop the defence and go after the barbarian he's only going to get a full attack in his (now relatively undefended) face. He could go after one of the barbarian's allies, but he could have done that to start with, and done it more effectively if he was built for offence. And he's not helping anybody by just standing around defending while the barbarian slaughters his party.

 

[Majere]

Opps, I just says 2H fighting, I ready that as 2W fighting.

TWF does more damage than THF pretty much from the off, especially once you pick up ITF and GWS. If you use a double weapon, then on the odd occasions it isnt better you can use THF anyway.

As I stated before, ac at high levels isnt about not being hit its about not being power attacked. I ran a 17th level group through a CR19 dragon. One guy was a ragining barbarian fruitcake with ac12 and about 250hp. The dragon with +52 to hit (once it buffed iteself) did over 350 hp in one round to it by power attacking for +42 on vevery one of its 8 attacks.
The fighter with ac37 still got hit by all 8 attacks, but the dragon couldnt kill him because it was denied a huge PA on every hit, infact the diference was about 240hp a round JUST FROM POWER ATTACK. Ac has a differnet use at high levels from at low levels.

Majere

As an aside its hard to kill PC's when they have two clerics with a bucket load of heal spells and a staff of healing.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

TWF does more damage than THF pretty much from the off, especially once you pick up ITF and GWS.

*boggle* My experience has been just the opposite.

 

[Lurker 2.0]

Yeah... I wrote this post because I was having problems with a Stonechild PC (Miniatures HB/Races of Stone, 2 HD +4 LA Outsider, +8 Str/Con; this one has a +1 Huge Greatsword, the Monkey Grip feat from CW, and a 26 Str), who was attacking for something around +10, 2d6+13, usually PA at +8, 2d6+17. The best I've *ever* seen TWF done was with an 11th level rogue, who still ended up missing half the time but actually did some damage. All the TWF fighters in my campaigns miss a lot (-10% to hit in exchange for another attack doesn't seem to helpful when you're dealing with guys you need a nat 17 to hit to begin with), and never seem to do more than about 10 damage a hit at *best*, usually about 15 dmg over four attacks (and this is like with a rapier and shortsword, 14 Str; the high-Dex TWF req and the resulting Str tradeoff ends up not being worth the second weapon in the majority of cases I've seen.)

Another argument I meant to post in the beginning: Screw AC. Concealment is the way to go. A 20% miss chance (or 50%) is a 20% miss chance - whether you're fighting a crippled goblin or a +55 power-attacking dragon. So is Concealment overpowered or AC underpowered? Is there a way to make AC buffs more viable, or should I just accept that concealment is gonna be a better deal, and trust that my players aren't gonna munchkinize and always get concealment?

 

[Terwox]

One problem you'll have with statistics is thinking certain things are crazy broken until you see them in action.
Heck yes a dragon will rip up a fighter, shield or no... it's a dragon, after all!
Is a shield negligable? Not really, even once you're really high level and you have an animated shield, that's still -4ac -- you're losing AC bonus paying for the animation enchantment cost. Does -4ac matter? Certainly if you have 65 AC or 61AC and a dragon has +55, that's either 45% to evade or 25% to evade.

Your players, if they munchkinize, will munchinize against whatever you tend to throw at them.

I wish I had some examples. Oh well. I played quite a bit of neverwinter nights on a mindless pvp server, and epic level high ac builds were certainly commonplace -- neglecting AC was very rare. This is PVP though, not PVM... much different... oh well, marginally coherent thought is done, good night.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

One problem with extremely high AC builds (and monsters) is that they eventually hit a wall where the opponents just dump everything into power attack anyway. If you need a 20 to hit anyway, you may as well PA away your entire BAB.

Still, what kind of campaign is constantly throwing dragons at the PCs? I don't know about anyone else, but I see plenty of equivalently-levelled humanoid enemies in the 15+ range. Not to mention undead and aberrations (generally poor attackers who thrive on their special attacks), outsiders (good attackers but with significantly higher CRs relative to their hit dice), and constructs (generally poor attackers with extreme defense).

If the typical encounter is two cloud giants and a venerable white dragon, then sword and board is (somewhat) less effective. If the typical encounter is two human fighters, a hobgoblin monk, an ilithid and a hobgoblin cleric, then sword and board is quite valuable.

Also, the further you move from core only, the more valuable sword and board (and two-weapon fighting) become relative to two-handed fighting. There aren't a whole lot of THF feats and PrCs available; on the other hand, feats like shield specialization and superior equipment like that in Arcana Unearthed can skyrocket a sword-and-board fighter's value.

For example, here's a 10th level human fighter using armor from Malhavoc's Arcana Unearthed and the Shield Focus and Shield Specialization feats from AEG's Feats.

Human Fighter 10
AC: 39, up to 50 when completely on the defensive
Attack: +13/+8 (2d8+5, 19-20, x2)
Equipment: +1 Defending Bastard Sword, +2 Amulet of Natural Armor, +3 Definitive Harness, +3 Articulated Long Shield
Feats: Monkey Grip, EAP: Def. Harness, EAP: Articulated Long Shield, SF: Articulated Long Shield, SS: Articulated Long Shield, WF: Bastard Sword, GWF: Bastard Sword, EWP: Bastard Sword, WS: Bastard Sword, Combat Expertise, Superior Expertise

Now, a glance at some CR 10 monsters is instructive. First is what the monster needs to hit our fighter (with or without expertise); the second is what he needs to hit them (without expertise).
Colossal Animated Object (needs 14 or 20, hit on 2/3)
Couatl (needs 20, hit on 8/13)
Demon, Bebilith (needs 20, hit on 9/14)
Dragon, Red Juvenile (needs 15/20 or 20, hit on 11/16)
Dragon, White Adult (needs 16/20 or 20, hit on 13/18)
Formian Myrmarch (needs 20, hit on 15/20)
Giant, Fire (needs 19/20 or 20, hit on 10/15)
Golem, Clay (needs 20, hit on 9/14)
Hydra, 9-Headed Pyro (needs 20, hit on 6/11)
Hyrdra, 11-Headed (needs 20, hit on 8/13)
Naga, Guardian (needs 20, hit on 5/10)
Rakshasa (needs 20, hit on 8/13)
Salamander, Noble (needs 16/20 or 20, hit on 5/10)
Slaad, Grey (needs 20, hit on 11/16)
Monstrous Scorpion, Gargantuan (needs 18 or 20, hit on 11/16)

I'd say that looks pretty darn good. It also scales, courtesy of Superior Expertise. At 20th level, this character could easily have an AC in the 70s while concentrating on defense, perhaps enough that the tarrasque would need a 20 to hit him.

His AC could easily rise by 21: +10 from superior expertise, +4 for improved armor and shield enhancements, +3 for improved natural armor amulet, +4 for improved defening weapon

 

[Majere]

I made a number of level 20 fighter builds for the fighter vs psi warrior build.
THF cant keep up with TWF if you build your character right, especially if you have the full TWF chain so you are getting 7 attacks (8 while hasted), compared to their 4 (5 when hasted)
Against high ac opponents where only your first 2 or 4 attacks might have a good chance of hitting (Your top 4 attacks are at -2 to the THF's top 2, twice as many attacks each at -2 is a good trade off), you still have 3 attacks for making melee touch roll attacks such as trip, disarm etc (although this requires specialisation in certain weapons, such as TWF with armor spikes in the off hand).
THF can only keep up with TWF at the top level if the monster has a pitiful ac so that the THF gets a significant advantage from their 2for1 PA. If the fighters have an optimal PA ofless than 5-8 then the THF cant really compete.

As the for multiple stat thing, like I said, it costs 36k to qualify for all the TWF chain. 36k at the mid to high levels we are talking about is a drop in the ocean. so no MAD here, just have a standard 12 dex fighter with gloves of dexterity +6 and use the belt slot for a str boosting item.

Majere

 

[Lurker 2.0]

Well, when you start getting into the 30+ Str zone, the 2H tends to have a a significantly better boost than TWF, and since they can spend everything on a single weapon, that ends up boosting their attack mod too. Most importantly, I think, is that TWF doesn't work with the best way that I can see (right now) to avoid damage: Spring Attack (w/ Concealment). TWF can rival/best 2H in damage, but only if they get a full attack; and it seems to me the best way to avoid getting hit and *still* hit the enemy (aka defense without CE) is Spring Attack/other mobility-enhancing stuffs.

But I think I'm beginning to change my mind. I've gotten a lot of good evidence here that making a defensive specialist (S&B all the way!) who can still hit things remains a posibility, so thanks to all those who've contributed. At the least, I now have a number of ideas for nearly-invincible NPCs to throw at my players... that'll teach 'em for talking smack about my campaign setting...