So, about defenses aka. PHB2 defenses feats

[James McMurray]

I'm starting to think that you don't understand what are we talking here, and math cruch I made shows to us. This is what I wrote in previous post: (from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player (lowest NAD) where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit (this NAD), so with +6 from feats (to lowest NAD) he have (monster) +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit (PCs lowest NAD)). You make your assumptions when i gave you the pure math...

Your pure math is incomplete. I don't know if it's my writing, your reading, or a combination of the two, but what I'm trying to tell you isn't getting across. Lemme try an example.

We've got a monster. It has a +30 to hit vs. Will. We'll call this monster Mr. +30.

We've got two PCs. One has a 32 Will Defense, the other a 29. We'll call them 32W and 29W.

When +30 attacks 32W, it needs a 2 to hit. When +30 attacks 29W, it needs a 2 to hit (because a 1 always misses).

Now we'll bump the PCs up by 4, and change their names to match. When +30 attacks 36W, it needs a 6 to hit. When +30 attacks 33W, it only needs a 3 to hit.

Does that explain it better?

You agree the epic level is bad. So if you don't agree it it's becouse of bad math (of PCs NADs and PCs hitting chance vs. monsters) so what is it?

As I pointed out earlier, it's a combination of conditions that are too good at shutting down actions, monster defenses that are too high to hit reliably, and monster hit points that are too numerous to take out quickly.

No this rules are fine as they are. The problem is that they are comes to offten into play, so they fail to meet they purpose. Every effect that comes to offten into play makes your player frustrated/boring/name it by yourself. I don't see anytihing wrong being stunned by monster attack, I see that it's wrong when I'm always have this effect on my character when the monster hit me. Even if I have +9 vs. stunn effects I still lose the round, and the next round here we go again.

So if stunning could only happen once per combat per attacker, would that be better?

If we talk about the lowest NAD, and take 2 feats it will be still 6... Look to the math, man. Prove me that I crunch numbers wrong and we can talk. Now you think that my math is worthles with makes my little angry, becouse you even not look at it, when you make your conlcusions:/

Your math isn't worthless, it's just not as useful as you think, partly because it is incomplete in modeling attacks vs. defenses (as shown above), and partly because it only models a tiny fraction of the game system, then tries to draw generalized conclusions.

30 % is big diffrence than autohi, right?

Yes, though I'll point out that there's no such thing as autohit.

Not taking this feats will end autohit when monster will target your weakest NAD, right?

They'll stop the 95% hit rate, yes. At least in those instance where they bump your defense high enough that the monster needs a 3+ instead of a 2.

You middle NAD, will be hitted 75% of time withou feats! (5 on die)

Do you mean all the time, or as a general rule? If it's supposed to be all the time, then no way is 75% a good number. If it's general, that seems about right.

Your best NAD will be hitted 60% of time (8 on die) without feats! [I'm talking about late epic plays]

See above.

The effects monsters place on PCs can be very hindering or just eat players actions. If monster can hit player so easly (and do damgae by the same time!) why we even have NADs?

For one, there's never an autohit, so the NADs matter. Second, the conditions themselves keep cropping up as the bad guy, yet it's apparently the math's fault.

Monsters need to be able to deal damage to be a threat. Monsters don't need constant use of action inhibiting conditions to be a threat. Adding a rule that makes the already low damage monsters deal less average damage lowers the only "fun" threat they've got.

Couldn't monster just have more powerful auras etc? Answer: Designers think that luck factor is nice for game (I think that to).

Source?

But when you compare to power of effects monsters can place on PCs on higher levels, and how easy this can be accomplished, you at least must wonder. Isn't there something wrong?

Definitely. But "things happen every round in a fight because monsters can hit easily" isn't the problem. The problem is a subset of those things which are happening, and lowering the overall occurrence of hits lowers the good and the bad equally.

On epic players got many powers and options. They can survive more easily, but it doesn't mean that monsters should hit you more offten. They power is better dmg, better HP and better effects used more often. And this is just fine! They don't need easy hitting to be challanging. This is just ilusion of they power. That just make the game not good. Having no even 5% chance of avoiding monster attack on epic level where you ultra hero... Doesn't sound like ultra hero. Yeah. This i Balor! He need to kick you as! Thats a 5 years old kid explenation wit a lot of ignorance of facts.

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but there's a lot of opinion in it, so I'll just agree to disagree on what is "best."

The game should be fair as possible. Now you can make you highest DEF at -4 diadventage to monster (30 level monster will have to roll 14 on die to hit you). This is good feat option! Very good. Even -2 will be good! But you must spend 2 feats to gain this (Robust Defenses and Epic FRW). Now you middle DEF with those feats will make monster at -1 diadventage (11 on die to hit you), while you lowest will be at +4 adventage (6 on die to hit). Now this are numbers that looks good (like on 1 level of play). But you must spend 4 feats to maintain this! Wihout any DEF feats:
highest hitted on 8 on die; middle on 5 on die; lowest on 2 on die... You don't need to be Sherlock to state, there is something wrong here.

You're laying out very concrete numbers in what looks like an attempt to describe a general scenario. Is this meant as an example, or an average found through data sampling?

Even powers/items don't make it fair, couse they are situational, last for one round, and can't be used again in given encounter.

Check out Adventurer's Vault.

So maybe you will now see what I'm talking here. I have my math + experience on epic. You will never change my mind about that topic if you want give my any real proofs, but just sofistic talking.

Then I guess we're done, since my math + experience doesn't change your mind any more than your math + experience will change mine.

Have fun!

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes, Karinsdad is the only person I've seen say epic isn't easy and he keeps giving examples with PCs that seem like they don't have any feats and never get any benefit from powers.

Actually, it would help if you read what I wrote.

I never once said Epic isn't easy.

I said it isn't hard, but it is grindy, slow, and long. You appear to equate grindy with hard (i.e. not easy). I tried to explain several times that they are not the same. Just because something takes a long time to do does not mean that it isn't easy to do.

 

[Bayuer]

Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.

I roll dice in front of players to. They are not happy when they see what's going on;/

 

[James McMurray]

It was a single test.

You are obviously more experienced than I with Epic level play.

So the Epic level questions to you are:

1) Is high level play grindy?

Definitely, unless you go to pains to make it not be that way. Minions (plus a house rule to make them usable at epic) help.

2) How many average rounds do the standard encounters last? 10? 15? 20? more?

15 or 20.

3) How many average hours does it take to play a standard encounter?

A couple, three if it gets really bad (weakness, insubstantial, lots of action denial).

4) How about an n+3 encounter? How many average rounds does it take and how many average hours? Put another way, how many encounters could you easily fit in during an x hour session?

These actually seemed to go faster, but I tend to use a single solo and either an elite or a few normal monsters in these. When the epic PCs can focus their attention, things die quickly. This is in part due to the debilitating effects they themselves can lay down.

5) Will increasing the PC chances to hit make it less grindy?

Yeah.

6) Will increasing the PC chances to hit save resources that allow for more encounters per day?

Depends on the campaign, but in a generic dungeon crawl one definitely. In our game they tended to still either finish out an entire area in one day, or have just one encounter that day because of plot reasons.

7) Will increasing the PC nads make it less grindy?

Possibly. This depends a lot on the encounters. If the monsters don't stun or dominate, then no. If they do, then probably (though only if the bonus is high enough to make for a noticable difference). If the bonus bumps the defense up to where the monsters start having a hard time hitting, it could actually increase the feel of grinding. But I tend to feel like I'm grinding when I have a bunch of fights against things that can't hurt me just as much as I feel it when battle take a long time.

8) Will increasing the PC nads save resources that allow for more encounters per day?

Possibly, though most of the resources that get used in normal encounters are encounter powers, and epic characters have a lot of ways to get powers back. A long and grinding fight is only a little more likely to make you want to burn a daily, and that's as likely to be caused by boredom overcoming tactics. It's "I'll kill him in 15 rounds if I use encounter powers" vs. "I'll kill him in 12 rounds if I toss in dailies."

9) If increasing the PC to hit and nads makes encounters too easy, what is the best solution for making the encounters challenging without making them grindy again?

I don't think increasing PC to hit makes fights too easy. I think it's a necessary part of getting rid of grind.

IMO the key is fixing the true problems. Monsters that hit aren't a big deal. Losing turns, or having your turns forced on you are the problems. To me, fixing stun and domination is a much better solution than adding bonuses that open the door to power gamed PCs with defenses that are through the roof.

As an example from our campaign, we had a fighter. He was a Demigod, had tons of ways to heal himself, reach, and a really high AC. No matter what monsters were tossed his way, their low damage meant he had nothing to fear. Until they started using stun, domination, or weakness + insubstantial to negate his turns. Even then the fear didn't come from the character fearing death, it came from the player fearing boredom.

If I had to guess I'd say they usually hit him on a 5+, though once when he was ~23rd he fought some 17th level creatures that hit his will on a 2+. Adding +4 would have helped, but with combat advantage and other bonuses, it wouldn't have helped much. He still would have been highly prone to losing turns whenever the monsters targetted him (which because of his marks was pretty often).

If instead a change were made to the boring things that scared the player, and the monsters' damage was bumped so that he feared for his character's life rather than his own entertainment, I think the grind would have almost disappeared.

Although my sample set is small and was n+3, it was very illustrative. Getting hit on a 3 sucks. Hitting only on a 17 sucks.

Sorry, I didn't see the example. It was before I joined the thread. Did getting hit easily suck because the character could be easily killed, or because the player could be easily bored?

Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.

I do that too.

 

[Bayuer]

(from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player (lowest NAD) where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit (this NAD), so with +6 from feats (to lowest NAD) he have (monster) +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit (PCs lowest NAD)).

Your pure math is incomplete. I don't know if it's my writing, your reading, or a combination of the two, but what I'm trying to tell you isn't getting across. Lemme try an example.
We've got a monster. It has a +30 to hit vs. Will. We'll call this monster Mr. +30.
We've got two PCs. One has a 32 Will Defense, the other a 29. We'll call them 32W and 29W.
When +30 attacks 32W, it needs a 2 to hit. When +30 attacks 29W, it needs a 2 to hit (because a 1 always misses).
Now we'll bump the PCs up by 4, and change their names to match. When +30 attacks 36W, it needs a 6 to hit. When +30 attacks 33W, it only needs a 3 to hit.
Does that explain it better?

I no wonder you can't understand what I'm talkin about. This is THE SAME THING!
+10 monster adventage is (Mr. +30 and W30!). The fact that he misses on 1 is so simple, that I didn't even mentioned about it. With Mr. +30 and W32 (+8 monster adventage); Mr +30 and W29 (+11 monster adventage!). Don't want to be rude, but pay more attention what people write and try to understand what are they writing about before you make you post. Now I'm know why you don't undestand half of my arguments... And you says my math is incomplete? And trying to say "you don't include all factors". I will ask what factors I didn't include in this math crunch? About powers I said enought already.

As I pointed out earlier, it's a combination of conditions that are too good at shutting down actions, monster defenses that are too high to hit reliably, and monster hit points that are too numerous to take out quickly.

Ok, so you agree that chance of hitting monsters is too low (thus what some of my math crunch showed!) but you don't agree on second topic, that players DEFs are to low? Interesting. Half of math is bad/half as it should be!

Yes, though I'll point out that there's no such thing as autohit.

Ok, 95% chance of hitting. Better?

Do you mean all the time, or as a general rule? If it's supposed to be all the time, then no way is 75% a good number. If it's general, that seems about right.

Of course there are some variations in this numbers! The fact this number will go up not down. +1 monster level = +5% of hit chance, artilery/soldier +2 to hit = 10% chance. On average (fighting with the same monster level as you character level the math shows that he will be hitted 75% of time on average).

 

[Jhaelen]

And why on earth you don't belive my math crunch? Make 25 level character, take some 25 artilery from MM and see it yourself. I'm not teacher to teach how to look if evidences are right or wrong. You didn't even do so little to make you opinion be supported. What are we talking here, about what mr. x feels about this topic or what are the facts?

Now, don't get insulting, please. I'm not saying your 'math crunch' is wrong, I'm saying it's not properly modeling the reality of the game and thus lead to incorrect conclusions on your part.

To make you happy:
There's exactly one level 25 artillery in the MM: the Primordial Naga, a solo monster.
Now take a typical party at level 25: five characters with all roles being covered.
The Naga has minor at-wills targeting either Reflex or Fortitude with a +30 to hit and a standard at-will targeting AC at +29 to hit.

Now, unfortunately, I don't have a realistic level 25 party available. PHB p.275 gives an example of a level 23 fighter (that's probably unoptimized). If I advance the fighter to level 25 (without changing anything but the level bonus) his defences are AC 41, Reflex & Will 34, and Fort 38 (including the example bonuses from the warlord).

Since the fighter is the party's defender it's most likely he'll be attacked using the standard attack (which is targetting AC). So, the Naga needs a 12 or higher to hit.

If, for some reason it would attack his Fort defense it would be 8 or higher, it it would attack his Reflex defense it would be 4 or higher.

As long as the naga is using its standard attack on the fighter, it will have two minor actions available to attack other party members. One or more of these other party members will have high Reflex defenses and one or more will have high Fort defenses. On average each of the other four party members will be attacked once every two rounds.

Since the naga will be marked by the fighter, it will have a -2 to all attacks against anyone but the fighter.

It will also provoke opportunity attacks every time it uses one of its minor attacks since they're ranged. If it's shifting to avoid these attacks it will only have single minor action left, attacking each other party member once every four rounds.

The naga will be attacked at least five times per round.

So far, only a single pc power (the defense bonus granted by the warlord) is taken into acount, zero terrain features or other circumstances.

Does this look problematic to you, so far?

If I'm playing in an epic campaign and I get hit on a 2 in every encounter the last thing I'll be looking at is these feats. At best they make you get hit on an 8 (if you spend 4 epic feats and the need for a 2 is right on the dot). At worst they have zero effect.

Ha! That's _exactly_ what my players in my 3E campaign are telling me when I ask them why they never take a feat to increase their saving throws!

I think you'd be better served looking for saving throw bonuses and other ways around the debilitating conditions that you're going to get hit with whether your defenses are 6 points higher or not.

You know what: I think you're right.

 

[Regicide]

I don't think increasing PC to hit makes fights too easy. I think it's a necessary part of getting rid of grind.

From what people have said it seems the problem isn't hitting, it's just that the monsters have too many HPs. Maybe they need that many HPs to live long enough to do enough damage to make the party use any resources, because again, from what you and others have said it's not their damage that is even causes a problem it's their afflictions they do such as stun.

It really sounds like the monsters have too many HPs and don't do enough damage. Maybe that was intentional to prevent low HP characters who have crappy defence from falling over dead in one round, but it can make things pretty uninteresting for defenders and fights long.

Increasing to hit won't do a lot to change that, and increaseing defence would actually make it worse. Maybe try cutting their HPs by 33% and upping their damage by 17% or something.

 

[James McMurray]

I no wonder you can't understand what I'm talkin about. This is THE SAME THING!
+10 monster adventage is (Mr. +30 and W30!). The fact that he misses on 1 is so simple, that I didn't even mentioned about it. With Mr. +30 and W32 (+8 monster adventage); Mr +30 and W29 (+11 monster adventage!).

What are you jabbering about? I'm talking about what number the monster needs to roll on a die. I'm pointing out the quite obvious fact that adding 4 to a defense does not always mean adding 4 to the number needed on the die.

Don't want to be rude, but pay more attention what people write and try to understand what are they writing about before you make you post. Now I'm know why you don't undestand half of my arguments... And you says my math is incomplete?

Don't want to be rude, but learn to form a proper sentence if you're going to go through life expecting everyone to have perfect understanding of your writing.

And trying to say "you don't include all factors". I will ask what factors I didn't include in this math crunch? About powers I said enought already.

If my grade school example didn't explain it, nothing I say will.

Ok, so you agree that chance of hitting monsters is too low (thus what some of my math crunch showed!) but you don't agree on second topic, that players DEFs are to low?

Yep.

Interesting. Half of math is bad/half as it should be!

Yep. PC attacks vs. monsters need to be higher to decrease the risk of grind. Monster attacks vs. PCs need to be modified to decrease the risk of grind. But that modifiaction has nothing to do with the math.

See, there's this thing called D&D that we're playing. It's not just a string of to hit vs. defense formulae. There are other factors involved.

Is +4 to defenses a possible fix? sure. But it's nowhere near the best one. It attempts to fix one problem (grind due to conditions) by attacking another (defenses). It opens the game up to powergamers making untouchable PCs, doesn't help characters whose defenses are much lower than the attack bonus, and takes away from the largest source of fun threat at epic levels: damage.

On average (fighting with the same monster level as you character level the math shows that he will be hitted 75% of time on average).

So you're assuming that the monster and PC stand next to each other, alone, and swing?

 

[James McMurray]

From what people have said it seems the problem isn't hitting, it's just that the monsters have too many HPs. Maybe they need that many HPs to live long enough to do enough damage to make the party use any resources, because again, from what you and others have said it's not their damage that is even causes a problem it's their afflictions they do such as stun.

Epic PCs do have a harder time hitting the monsters than they do at lower level. It's because the rise of 1/2 level, stat boosts, and better gear is slightly lower than the +1 per level monsters get. I don't know if Weapon / Implement Expertise was meant to address this, but it looks like it was, and it looks like it does it pretty well (other than charging almost every character 1 feat).

Increasing to hit won't do a lot to change that, and increaseing defence would actually make it worse. Maybe try cutting their HPs by 33% and upping their damage by 17% or something.

Increasing to hit would work in most cases, but decreasing hit points would as well. Upping damage would go a long way towards increasing the fear factor, which takes away from the boredom of long battles.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sorry, I didn't see the example. It was before I joined the thread. Did getting hit easily suck because the character could be easily killed, or because the player could be easily bored?

It sucks due to boredom. More the slim chance to hit than the high chance to get hit (but that sucked because few options were available to prevent it).

As for the example, it is floating around here somewhere. I did it about a month ago.

Thanks for your candid answers. You are the only person posting here that has discussed his Epic level experience.

I am taking away from what you responded with that fixing the to hit (both monster and PC) math, at least for me, is important (and of course, one could fix the math by decreasing the level of the opponents by one at Paragon level and by two at Epic level without changing mechanics at all).

After fixing the math, it then becomes important to play a different game than at heroic:

1) Many Epic creatures fly. Fly down, grab Fighter, fly up, drop Fighter. Sure, it's an old tactic, but one which will freak out players if done occasionally.

2) Have Lava to fall in, or Ledges to fall off, or raging Rivers to fall in, or areas of weird magic, or other more challenging terrain features.

3) No longer play the game on the ground. Play it in the air, play it hanging from the ceiling, play it from on top of pillars, in water, from within pits, or hanging by ropes, etc.

4) Increase the abilities of some monsters. I already do this by adding an arcane or divine class template to Dragons, but something as simple as adding +1D8 damage at Paragon level and +3D8 damage at Epic level would make damage more of an issue. I want players to not want their PC to get hit, just like at first level. Adding teleport or insubstantial to a few monsters can make them more interesting.

5) Create more interesting skill challenges to complement the more interesting combat encounters. Sure, it's easy to fight a monster in front of the PCs. It's tougher to figure out who in the kingdom is spreading the rumors that are leading to civil unrest.


From my perspective, the game feels less grindy if the players are hitting with their powers every other round instead of one round in three or four. The problem with Epic level is the sheer volume of options that the players have. They can react to many different situations. So the trick there is to give them many different situations, especially ones they have never or rarely encountered before. The same ol' same ol' powers might feel grindy, but how to use them should feel unique. At least sometimes.