Party AC difference

[KarinsDad]

Seriously, dude, your personal insults aside: this here is goalpost moving.

You wanted a low-level power that can prevent movement, and you got one that works from level 1.

Concede the point and let's move on.

-- N

A foe shifts away and charges. Combat Superiority didn't prevent jack (and it's also not a power). Foes should almost never go out of their way to allow an Opportunity Attack, so Combat Superiority should almost never happen in the game system. Why would you as a DM hand out free OAs to a Fighter if the foe has any intelligence at all? The foe does not even need to know about CS and he should still not be handing out free OAs.

And if anyone is insulting, it's the guy who started it by writing:

Sure, PHB pages 75-88.

It's a good read, have fun with it.

and

Page 76, Combat Superiority.

Seriously, go read about the Fighter. Apparently you're in for a happy surprise.

Implying that I haven't read this. Yes, your passive aggressive style slips by the moderators, but that's always been your style to not get in trouble.

Course, the fact that Combat Superiority does not actually prevent a foe from shifting away and does not really answer the question means nothing to you either. You keep claiming it does.


Combat Challenge can punish a single marked foe for shifting away from the Fighter, but a) the foe has to be marked (which is not always the case) and b) the Fighter has to hit (which is not always the case).

On top of that, after the first marked foe shifts away, ALL of the foes, marked or not, around the Fighter can then shift away and charge someone else with ZERO penalty.

Fighters don't stop didley. The game mechanics here only work to prevent movement if the DM wants them to, or doesn't realize that they don't actually work and just rarely moves foes away from the Fighter.

But the goal of the monsters should not be to go toe to toe with the Fighter (or any Defender), at least if the monsters have an Int of 8 or better. The goal of the monsters should be to take out Leaders, Strikers, and Controllers. Typically in this order, but possibly in other orders, situation depending. The monsters should try to gang up on individual PCs just like PCs should try to gang up on individual monsters, but not individual PCs that look like they are the most heavily armored. And this is not specialized knowledge. Most foes should know to not provoke Opportunity Attacks, regardless of whether they know about Combat Superiority. So, shifting away from a Fighter or a Paladin or a Swordmage should be a fairly standard tactic for monsters. Tactics 101.

If you haven't figured this out before, now you know.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ok, I'll only address this point. When one makes this false assumption to begin with, then their entire starting point is offset.


PHB (assuming 18 AC stat primary, 16 secondary):

16: Cleric
17: Fighter two handed weapon
19: Fighter with heavy shield
18: Paladin two handed weapon
20: Paladin with heavy shield
16: Melee Ranger
17: Ranged Ranger
16: Rogue
17: Warlock (concealment which is nearly every round)
17: Warlord
14: Wizard

Mean: 17
Median: 17
Mode: 17

Even putting in an average AC for the classes that vary:

16: Cleric
18: Fighter
19: Paladin
16.5: Ranger
16: Rogue
17: Warlock (concealment)
17: Warlord
14: Wizard

Mean: 16.69
Median: 16.75
Mode: 16, 17

Except for Wizard, the average AC is not 16. The LOWEST AC is 16.

If one looks at other splat books overall, the ACs (and hit points, etc.) for most of those classes are actually a bit higher than most of the PHB ones.

This is not proving my assumption wrong, sorry...

You have counted defenders more than once... if i cherry pick i can prove everything i like...

also i consider a shield as a conscious defensive decision, so it is 16 without shield and 17 with shield...
also i suppose defenders have higher than average AC... in PHB 2 there are some classes which lower the average... just because wizards started with good AC classes, it doesn´t mean it has to be that way forever...

@eamon: D&D 4e works fine for me, thanks. It has the right mixture of combat and noncombat stuff. Just because there is a focus on a balanced combat doesn´t mean i have to play only combat games. I like it when combat works well when it happens. And it does so perfectly. And some imbalances are welcome.

And there is nothing wrong about a best option for combat oriented games. For non combat oriented games martial practise is a feat TAX if you like to call it that way...

If you are that concerned about balance have all your mages start with plate armor. Oh, and all weapons should do 1d12 damage and have +3 to hit. There were enough voices, that all classes are the same anyway... i like diversity and flavor and IMHO different AC etc belongs to this...

so I repeat my question: why do you need a class system if all classes have exactly the same stats? Maybe a different system is better for you ... one without classes at all...

I DO care about balance, and the 4e system does a good job there, not too much and not too little... and mages can wear armor if needed... just one feat away... nothing wrong with that, but plate armor wearing mages by default, no thanks...

 

[blargney the second]

KarinsDad, my fighter has been strongly encouraging monsters to stay the heck put since level 1. It's a combination of class features and powers:

- Combat Challenge means I get to punish them if they go after my buddies. I use a two-hander, so I like to loom over the table with a big grin if the DM looks like he's going after my ally.

- Combat Superiority means I get to stop them from walking away imprudently... and it's quite likely to hit.

- Steel Serpent Strike removes their ability to shift, which means they *have* to provoke an OA if they don't want to be beside me.


The three of those together is incredibly sticky. It's not a foolproof lockdown, but it's pretty damn likely to make monsters think twice about ignoring me. Besides, a perfect lockdown goes against 4e's "no infinite oregano" policy, especially if it's completely at-will.
-blarg

 

[Nifft]

A foe shifts away and charges. Combat Superiority didn't prevent jack (and it's also not a power). Foes should almost never go out of their way to allow an Opportunity Attack, so Combat Superiority should almost never happen in the game system.

Okay, I dunno what you're playing, but it's not the same game that my group plays.

First off, the Fighter can indeed prevent a Charge, by putting himself between the foe's position -- including the places where that foe could Shift. How can a Fighter prevent a Charge? By checking that foe's movement on an OA, with ... wait for it ... Combat Superiority.

Implying that I haven't read this. Yes, your passive aggressive style slips by the moderators, but that's always been your style to not get in trouble.

Hey, if you ask questions like this about the Fighter -- "Where exactly are the low level powers and abilities that prevent the enemy from moving past the front rank?" -- then I have no choice but to assume you haven't even read the first two pages of the class. There's no shame in being ignorant, but don't act indignant when you're called on it.

Fighters don't stop didley. The game mechanics here only work to prevent movement if the DM wants them to, or doesn't realize that they don't actually work and just rarely moves foes away from the Fighter.

No:

COMBAT SUPERIORITY
You gain a bonus to opportunity attacks equal to your Wisdom modifier. An enemy struck by your opportunity attack stops moving, if a move provoked the attack. If it still has actions remaining, it can use them to resume moving.

Let me repeat: an enemy struck stops moving. That's not the territory of DM whim.

But the goal of the monsters should not be to go toe to toe with the Fighter (or any Defender), at least if the monsters have an Int of 8 or better. The goal of the monsters should be to take out Leaders, Strikers, and Controllers. Typically in this order, but possibly in other orders, situation depending. The monsters should try to gang up on individual PCs just like PCs should try to gang up on individual monsters, but not individual PCs that look like they are the most heavily armored. And this is not specialized knowledge. Most foes should know to not provoke Opportunity Attacks, regardless of whether they know about Combat Superiority. So, shifting away from a Fighter or a Paladin or a Swordmage should be a fairly standard tactic for monsters. Tactics 101.

Shifting away from a Fighter is a great idea! ... if your monsters love the taste of axe. If this is actually "standard tactics for monsters", your party's Fighter will benefit greatly from the feats which enhance Combat Challenge attacks, since your DM is going to be handing them out like candy -- especially Staggering Challenge. Try charging while prone.

Shifting away from a Paladin or Swordmage doesn't actually help, so you go have fun with that. You'll suck up the Mark effect of either one anyway, since they're not limited by adjacency.

If you haven't figured this out before, now you know.

Now I know the limits of your tactics, yes.

In my games, the Fighter has proven damn sticky. You're not going to convince me that Fighters can't defend -- I've seen them in action, and they do.

If your Fighter can't defend, then there's something wrong: your DM is screwing him somehow -- perhaps with terrain, perhaps with too many critters that teleport -- or either he or the Wizard aren't good at tactical positioning.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dan'L]

Talking Defender here Dan.

(Sorry I didn't elucidate earlier; I had guests show up and games to play.)

We're talking, as far as I could tell, about whether or not the system can tolerate a large initial spread in party AC. To that point, it really becomes incumbent on those players whose PCs have low AC to take some large part of the responsibility for mitigating that onto themselves.

Particularly in the case of controllers like wizards they should, and do, have their own ways to keep themselves off the tip of someone's sword. (And really, isn't a controller a kind of a Defender working at range, anyway?)

The system gives players the choice to deal with a low out-of-the-box AC in different ways. For wizards, this includes taking feats which can improve their ACs; taking the staff wizard class feature to improve AC; taking utilities like shield to mitigate attacks; take attack powers with effects or zones that hinder the enemy's advance.

Not every way of dealing with low defense scores needs to hinge directly on the numbers, and so in fact not every method does.

Not every character class should be able to shrug off the same kind of attacks equally. A player should try to identify the weak spots of their own defenses and play to shore them up through tactical play and build decisions.

And yes, there will be times when your sorceror will be caught in the corner with too many sharp pokey things invading his personal space. It happens, just like the Paladin getting spammed with v. Reflex at-will attacks. If the DM wants it to happen, it's going to happen.

The question then becomes how does the rest of the group change their tactics to take the pressure off their ally? This isn't something for the crunch of AC to determine, but rather it is a time for individual and party play to have their moment.

So, this is really all a long-winded and rambling way to say that a large relative low-high AC spread isn't intrinsically game-breaking; it just needs more carefully considered tactical play. And the tools for this play can reside (1) within the builds for the entire party and (2) even within the builds for the single characters with low AC.

-Dan'L

 

[Victim]

The fighter can already do some nasty damage. By ignoring the fighter's mark, the monster is adding a fair amount of damage to the group. A free attack per round is always nice, and there a number of feats that buff up the Combat Challenge attack. Feats that I'd say are not spectacular ordinarily, but might be great in KD's game. Paladins have special advantages here, since they can punish every foe violating their special marks instead of just one. It just takes some extra work for them to get multiple Challenges/Sanction.

Moreover, the marked penalty brings up many characters' (everyone but the wizard in fact) AC up to the fighter's average level. Add in the ability of other characters to improve their armor past the baseline and a few feats and powers that increase the marked penalty, and it's pretty easy for attacking 'squishy' characters to end up with lower hit chances than attacking the fighter.

So while it is possible for the monsters to just suffer through the fighter's punishment, I'm not sure it's a good idea. The monsters will generally die faster from giving the defenders free shots, but won't necessarily be defeating players any faster. On the player side, when monsters ignore the defender, it's more often a sustained problem from the non defender running out of surges much faster than something spelling our doom in a single battle. When the monsters executing the strategy aren't the ones seeing the benefit from it, then maybe it doesn't make the most sense.

 

[Mengu]

So, how about this, in the same 11th level game, your front line is an AC 24 Warden, and an AC 32 Fighter. Is this a good spread for the pair of defenders? Behind them you have a pair of strikers, an AC 30 Avenger, and an AC 21 Sorcerer. And your back row is an AC 20 shaman, and an AC 27 Wizard.

If this was a group I was running for, I just don't see how I can challenge the fighter without slapping the warden around, or build encounters more appropriate to the warden, without making the fighter feel invulnerable. Similar dilemma between the avenger and sorcerer as well as shaman and wizard.

Now if in one party I have AC 32 Fighter, AC 30 Avenger, AC 27 wizard, I'd be happy with that. Similarly if in another party I have AC 24 Warden, AC 21 Sorcerer, AC 20 Shaman, I'd again be perfectly content. Put these characters in the same party, and I suddenly don't know how to handle encounter design.

 

[keterys]

So, how about this, in the same 11th level game, your front line is an AC 24 Warden, and an AC 32 Fighter. Is this a good spread for the pair of defenders? Behind them you have a pair of strikers, an AC 30 Avenger, and an AC 21 Sorcerer. And your back row is an AC 20 shaman, and an AC 27 Wizard.

Hmm. All 11th -
Fighter AC 32: 15 + 13 (+3 Plate) + 2 Shield + 1 Spec + 1 Paragon Path
Warden AC 24: 15 + 5 (+2 Hide) + 4 (Wis or Con)
Avenger AC 30: 15 + 3 (+3 Cloth) + 2 (Unarmored Agility) + 5 (Improved Armor of Faith) + 5 (Int or Dex)
Sorcerer AC 21: 15 + 2 (+2 Cloth) + 4 (Str or Dex)
Shaman AC 20: 15 + 4 (+2 Leather) + 1 (Dex or Int)
Wizard AC 27: 15 + 3 (+3 Cloth) + 2 (Unarmored Agility) + 2 (Staff with Staff Fighting) + 5 (Int)

Neat looking at it like that

So... beyond proposing houserules is there really anything to do there, though? I mean, there's an errata request in to clean up the Shaman, cause it's just a mess. Other than that, the spread is 21-32. The 21 could easily be 3 or 4 higher AC, if it chose (+2 feat, +1 enh, +1 stat) - so the question becomes how important is choice? Is it bad for some characters to pass up armor with a higher enhancement, while others pursue it at all costs? Is it bad that some classes don't get either heavy armor or their primary stat to AC?

If this was a group I was running for, I just don't see how I can challenge the fighter without slapping the warden around, or build encounters more appropriate to the warden, without making the fighter feel invulnerable. Similar dilemma between the avenger and sorcerer as well as shaman and wizard.

The warden should get slapped around some, and the fighter should feel invulnerable some. I mean, one put everything into maxing its AC and the other put nothing at all. It may be a stronger drift than you're hoping (again, I'd rather it was about 4), but the warden's lack of a shield probably gives him stronger damage or better tactical options (polearm gamble, frex)

If it's literally that you want house rules. Again, we've got a forum for it. There have been all sorts of topics about normalizing defenses and such. Personally, I'd simplify it to:
Light Armor: +1
Heavy Armor: +1
Shield: +1
Defensive Class: +1

and then shred almost everything else. Which would turn it into:
Fighter AC 29: 25 + 2 (Heavy) + 1 (Shield) + 1 (Defensive)
Warden AC 27: 25 + 1 (Light) + 1 (Defensive)
Avenger AC 26: 25 + 1 (Defensive)
Sorcerer AC 25: 25
Shaman AC 26: 25 + 1 (Light)
Wizard AC 26: 25 + 1 (Defensive - Staff)

I'd consider giving the Warden and Avenger another +1 on top of that, for their class features. Ie, Armor of Faith (Light, +1) and Guardian Might (Light -> Heavy +1), but that's mostly bookkeeping at that point and I suspect not worth doing in the Warden's case, but worth it for the Avenger. But, like I said, that's deep into house rules and 5e territory.

Now if in one party I have AC 32 Fighter, AC 30 Avenger, AC 27 wizard, I'd be happy with that. Similarly if in another party I have AC 24 Warden, AC 21 Sorcerer, AC 20 Shaman, I'd again be perfectly content. Put these characters in the same party, and I suddenly don't know how to handle encounter design.

Frankly, you don't sweat it. Put in level appropriate foes, and let them figure out the rest. Some will get hit more against AC. Some will get hit more against Reflex. Some choose to sacrifice defense for more damage. Control the variables you can, and move onwards. A level 12 skirmisher is +17 vs. AC. He has to roll a 3 to hit the lowest and a 15 to hit the highest. They're still on the same die at least, even if it is a bit ridiculous. Enough so that the fighter will get in a few extra attacks just by virtue of it being worth the enemy's time to just take the hits however he can.

P.S. Nifft - if you ever want to charge past a fighter and you're willing to take the OA, you just move - let him hit (or miss) you, then charge. Can't OA you twice.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So, how about this, in the same 11th level game, your front line is an AC 24 Warden, and an AC 32 Fighter. Is this a good spread for the pair of defenders? Behind them you have a pair of strikers, an AC 30 Avenger, and an AC 21 Sorcerer. And your back row is an AC 20 shaman, and an AC 27 Wizard.

If this was a group I was running for, I just don't see how I can challenge the fighter without slapping the warden around, or build encounters more appropriate to the warden, without making the fighter feel invulnerable. Similar dilemma between the avenger and sorcerer as well as shaman and wizard.

Now if in one party I have AC 32 Fighter, AC 30 Avenger, AC 27 wizard, I'd be happy with that. Similarly if in another party I have AC 24 Warden, AC 21 Sorcerer, AC 20 Shaman, I'd again be perfectly content. Put these characters in the same party, and I suddenly don't know how to handle encounter design.

A difference between highest and lowest AC of 10 (12 without counting fighters mark) is well within the boundaries of a d20 game. At least if you consider beeing hit at about 11 is the average. So there is still a good chance to miss the low AC guy and a reasonable chance to hit the high AC guy.

IF the fighter did everything to be hard to hit, by all means let him be hard to hit. It is a terrible playstyle to increase monster attackbonus constantly as a reaction to the fighter increasing his AC. You punish your player and the whole group for someone trying to fullfill his role.
If you want to challenge the group ina fair way, try to use foes with the same attack bonus, but try to get around the fighter, so that he wished he had taken feats and powers to prevent that. Or attack him with vs will attacks if he neglected his will. Not always, but sometimes. Exploit weaknesses sometimes, but never increase the threatlevel so you can show your player that youcan still kill him by attacking his best defense... so you make every defensive choice obsolete...

 

[blargney the second]

Mixing up the target defenses is good advice. If I had to eyeball a ratio, I'd say attack AC twice as often as any other stat. (ie 40% vs AC, 20% vs Fort, 20% vs Ref, 20% vs Will.)

With a good spread, the characters who are focused on their NADs get to feel some joy as well.
-blarg