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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5552717" data-attributes="member: 59248"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/tony-vargas.html" target="_blank">[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]</a> Re "and that's not really a defender anymore" -- sure it is.  Think about what a defender -actually- does, not the way they typically work.  A defender (in addition to anything else they may be doing) has a limited control ability that focuses on superior defenses -- and forces the enemy to either ignore them and face both greater difficulty and consequences -- or to address their defenses and thereby spend greater effort for less of a result.Do you disupte this definition?If you don't, then it's not hard to model a defender without superior -numerical- defenses.  All you need is enough other barriers in the way of addressing you that the choice that the enemy has -- of spending a greater effort to address you vs the greater penalty for ignoring you -- is a real choice.   Being at a distance is a barrier.  Being hidden is a barrier.  Having attack-nullifying utilities (something the wizard -can- pack if they want in spades) is a barrier.  And, yes, having high HP is a barrier and having high numerical defenses is a barrier (and having Font of Life style status defenses is a barrier).  [also, having a wall between the enemy and you is a barrier <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ].  By the same token, I think your "you can attack my warding" abjurer is way too vulnerable.  You've got a "defender" who is automatically tactically lose/lose -- if it's better to attack his allies, the enemy will do that.  If it's better to attack his ward, they'll do that.  But most often (particularly against artillery), they'll just attack him, and since he's a fragile controller with no particular defenses against ranged/area attacks and he is trying to pretend to be a defender, he'll go down.My problem was, particularly if I wanted to make the Abjurer have better defenses in general (particularly against ranged/area attacks), that I needed a reason for someone not to build an Abjurer Controller -- who ignored the warding abilities entirely and just played controller for a whole fight while benefiting from superior defenses.    So if Abjurer comes with some big defenses so you can do your job, it also needs a big drawback so people don't take the package if they aren't going to use it properly; I thought the inability to play striker (given that almost all wizards are secondary strikers) was good here, although it makes enchanter/abjurers absurdly good.  Probably the defense should only work when you've got a ward up, and the damage penalty should work all the time. (the problem with the "the ward reduces the area" is that most spells you cast aren't ward spells).Regarding being vulnerable in melee -- you don't, but it's the easiest way to keep you tactically interesting, and you need something big to balance out aribitrary mark/punish lengths.  Note that my fighter hack in #104 isn't particularly vulnerable in melee -- but he does have lower HP overall in exchange for being a ranged build rather than a melee build (and he can only wear Hide -- but given that he's probably Dex/[Con, Wis, orStr], that's not that much of a drawback).</blockquote>

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