Achan hiArusa said:
Overthinking is my forte and profession
. I was just wondering, one of the criticisms of 3.5e is the "Christmas Tree Effect" of magic items and I was wanted to know if you account for that. Can I do an encounter with this system in which the players have no magic items or is this system predicated on the CTE? And how would I compensate for lack of magic items?
No, it's not intended to recalculate CRs, or the assumptions built into them, in any way.
Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Oh, that sounds like the next step for Wulf, I don't think he's there yet. Question might be - is Wulf going there?
That does sound like the sort of thing I'd do, doesn't it.
IIRC, Mustrum, it was you and I that were recently discussing average player AC and average monster attack rolls, and average player attack rolls and average monster AC, in another thread.
Let's take a quick peek.
At any given level, a PC is going to have:
- armor enhancement bonus
- shield enhancement bonus
- deflection bonus
- natural armor bonus
Set aside for a moment that according to the wealth-by-level guidelines, you probably can't afford to keep all of those tip-top, but just assume that they all go up (at least through available spells like Magic Vestment, Shield of Faith, and Barksin) by +1 every 4 levels.
And there are 4 sources of AC there, so a PC is going to get a boost of +4 AC (in one lump sum) every 4 levels. It averages out to +1 AC per level, though in actual play it jumps in plateaus.
There are other factors involved (dodge feat, special class AC, tower shield, mithril armor, etc.) but basically a PC who makes a "reasonable" go at keeping his AC topped out is going to have an AC roughly equal to 17+Level.
Take out the magic items and it's basically going to sit at AC 17-20 for the whole career.
But as I pointed out before, once you pass the low levels (the lowest of which you certainly don't have +1 from every available source) then "not getting hit" really isn't the end-all of combat. At the mid-levels and climbing into the teens and top levels, you're pretty much expected to get whacked by the monster's primary attack regardless of your AC. Combat is a game of whittling off hit points, not avoiding attacks entirely.
You could reasonably compensate by (a) removing iterative attacks; (b) removing power attack from monsters (or just forgoing it in an eminently sportsmanlike fashion).
On the other side of the coin, player attacks vs. monster AC, there are basically two sources of magical player attack bonus:
- weapon enhancement
- attribute booster
Here again you can assume a +1 boost every 4 levels from Greater Magic Weapon (if not an actual magic weapon) and a much smaller incremental boost from consistent STR (or DEX) increases (every 4 levels). Even without stat boosting items, it's fair to assume you can scrounge up a bull's strength.
Here's what your attack rolls look like with no magic weapon enhancement (not even greater magic weapon):
Code:
STR bull's str BAB total avg roll avg AC
3 2 6 17 15
3 2 7 18 15
3 2 8 19 16
3 2 9 20 17
3 2 10 21 17
3 2 11 22 18
3 2 12 23 19
4 2 14 25 20
4 2 15 26 21
4 2 16 27 22
4 2 17 28 23
4 2 18 29 24
4 2 19 30 25
4 2 20 31 25
4 2 21 32 26
5 2 23 34 27
5 2 24 35 29
5 2 25 36 30
5 2 26 37 32
5 2 27 38 34
The fighters are still going to have no trouble hitting the monsters with their primary attack; but here again, damage is going to go down unless you do something with both power attack and iterative attacks.
Oddly enough, as a player, I was always more interested in having the party magic item crafter increase the base enhancement bonus on my weapon, and
not adding things like elemental, alignment, and bane damage. But I am not sure in retrospect that was the way to go, or that it was typical of all players-- most players like the flashy effects. At any rate what I am getting at is that the (maximum) +5 to hit bonus you'll miss from your magic weapons isn't nearly as important (eventually) as missing out on +2d6 holy or +2d10 flaming burst or even
vorpal enhancements. Hittin' the monster ain't no thing-- it's how hard you hit that counts.
Last but not least, you can always compensate for magical boosts to AC, attack rolls, and saving throws through Action Points.
But let's not threadjack with this line of discussion any further. I'll be happy to discuss it in another thread.
