Touch attacks: is it just me..?

[hong]

from 1st to ~9th level. I'll let you decide if that is limited

Duh.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, my direct experience is a 2+yr game (weekly), from 1st to ~9th level. I'll let you decide if that is limited (but given the rules have only been out a bit over 3yrs, unless you have time to play more than weekly, it'd be hard to better us by much more than 50%).

Well, speaking as a DM of a 3+ year game, whose players are now 21st level, I would argue that you and your group are atypical. My group doesn't meet every week, and we only run 4-6 hour sessions...and we use book standard advancement with virtually no house rules. The party is a group of six, and we used Forge of Fury and Sunless Citadel as written (as well as Heart of Nightfang Spire, for the most part).

That said, a high intiative is unimportant....after the first round. As hong pointed out, by 10th level, it becomes critical to strike first. Tell the Arcane Archer and Shadowdancer in my game that initiative doesn't count, and they'll look at you oddly. The shadowdancer gets big benefits out of going first, as she can usually catch opponents flat-footed or throw down a scroll with dimensional anchor or the like to alter the combat field in the party's favor. The archer can usually take out a significant opponent or throw them on the defensive at the start....and making that Blackweave Warlock choose to Dim Door away, rather than throw another Horrid Wilting, is a big deal.

In high level play, particularly, a battle is often decided within the first round, even if it isn't certain for several more rounds. Getting off that Greater Dispelling before the Lich makes his move may another party member to penetrate his defenses. And so on, and so forth. If the Lich wins the initiative, and he casts a quickened Feeblemind and then a Maze on someone...you're in a world full of hurt. Worse if it's an Imprisonment. And woe be the party who looses initiative to an eye tyrant. Kiss three of your members goodbye, if the dice are unkind. Prismatic Spray, anyone? How about losing to that Fighter/OOBI and being flatfooted? See Piratecat's story hour for what happens there.

My players are quite cautious, as our story hour (linked below) would show you. However, they know that there are times when they won't hold the element of suprise, or they won't be able to control the battle. When that happens, Initiative counts. Big time.

 

[mmu1]

Well, my direct experience is a 2+yr game (weekly), from 1st to ~9th level. I'll let you decide if that is limited (but given the rules have only been out a bit over 3yrs, unless you have time to play more than weekly, it'd be hard to better us by much more than 50%).

In other words, you've played in one game with people who either don't know how to or don't want to play high initiative characters, and even though you've played for two years, you never DMed and you have no variety of experience whatsoever. I'd say that qualifies as extremely limited - you definitely don't get a sense of perspective from doing the same thing (wrong) for two years.

 

[Mystery Man]

Well, my direct experience is a 2+yr game (weekly), from 1st to ~9th level. I'll let you decide if that is limited

yep.

In high level play, particularly, a battle is often decided within the first round, even if it isn't certain for several more rounds.

Hell with my players at 12th level if I'm not running invis, in the air and at least 100 ft away and lose the initiative my monsters are gone the 2nd round.

of course that is just stuff "out of the box" at an EL 12 or lower.

 

[woodelf]

In other words, you've played in one game with people who either don't know how to or don't want to play high initiative characters, and even though you've played for two years, you never DMed and you have no variety of experience whatsoever. I'd say that qualifies as extremely limited - you definitely don't get a sense of perspective from doing the same thing (wrong) for two years.

Just for the record, I've got 20 years GMing experience under my belt, with one 8yr (8hr weekly games) AD&D2 campaign, several shorter campaigns in various systems, one-offs in literally dozens of systems, and large swaths of time where i was running 2, 3, or 4 weekly games, and a couple of original games nearing publication. I've probably got 6yrs time put in as a player (always the GM, never the player...), and have played in almost as many different games as i've run. Not to mention the several dozen other games i've read or watched others play. I've played with a large variety of groups--heck, only one other player was constant for that whole D&D3E game. And i regularly run games for people who are new to me and/or new to RPing in general (weekly for the last 6 years, plus conventions, for example). So i've got a *vast* variety of experience. It just doesn't happen to be much of it with D&D3E.

You're welcome to say that i have an extremely limited persperctive when it comes to fine nuances of D&D3E--it's probably true. But the person who only (or mostly only) plays D&D3E is the one with a lack of perspective--i may lack knowledge of the rules, but not perspective. In fact, i'd say it simultaneously gives me a less-narrow view of things, because i'm comparing to games where quickness/initiative actually have an impact beyond the first round. Heck, from what i've seen of the fluid initiative system in Spycraft (haven't had a chance to actually play it), even that is a vast improvement, while well within the structure of D20 System. Can a lot happen in the 1st round of a battle in D&D3E, especially at high levels? Yes. Does that make high initiative "very important"? IMHO, no. The fact that the first round *can* be decisive does not, IMHO, overshadow the fact that in all later rounds initiative is essentially meaningless. Add in the fact that the die roll has more impact on initiative than the modifiers, and it becomes pretty much a crapshoot, so that the Dex impact on initiative is considerably less significant than whatever impact initiative has on the game.

Which was really my original point, made oh-so-poorly: counting the fact that Dex impacts initiative as a "major" factor in the importance of Dex is significantly overstating the case. And since initiative is rolled considerably less often than attack rolls, the averaging nature of multiple die rolls is far less apparent. As i said, my +7 initiative made my character almost always last in the round, while the guy with the +1 was usually 1st or 2nd--just because he usually rolled well, and i usually didn't.

-----
Now, as for your implied attack: so, tell me how i *should* take advantage of initiative for a sub-10th level character? And how these strategies are still of help if i roll a 2 for my initiative? Maybe i'm forgetting something, but is there any way to guarantee even a >10 initiative total? In my (apparently limited) experience, the problem isn't using the high initiative, it's getting it in the first place. As i said before, there was one definite case where we got the drop on someone and used the surprise round to devastating effect (i forget, but i think we also mostly won the initiative for that encounter), cleaning up what should have been a very tough foe in something like 3 rounds--Dispel Magic, lead with heavy ranged attack spells, protected monk zips in and keeps the spellcaster busy, the whole works. Within the limits our characters imposed, i think we did pretty well. But there's nothing you can do to make sure you get the initiative, is there? How does one create/play a "high initiative character"? I know how to play one with a high initiative bonus, but, as i have demonstrated empirically, that doesn't guarantee (or even strongly influence) a high initiative total.

 

[WizarDru]

You're welcome to say that i have an extremely limited persperctive when it comes to fine nuances of D&D3E--it's probably true.

I'll assume you were addressing mmu1, since you quoted him. I was directly answering your statement, as mentioned above. I wasn't calling your credentials into play, nor implying a lack of knowledge or skill...merely that your 3E group's play style is not the norm, based on what you've described. In the 3+ years since the 3e debuted, I've been in three games, two as a DM, one as a player (and some RPGA events). In that time, the main game has reached 21st level, the secondary game has reached 7th level, and the third game has advanced several levels (from 4th to 6th, and then to 10th). And we don't play every week, as I mentioned. I think you'll find that most folks on the board here are 30+ years old, and all have Basic D&D or AD&D experience, at the least.

The only reason your experience is relevant is that you haven't played above 10th, where the game play is significantly different than prior to 10th. That doesn't make your opinion invalid, but your view is somewhat skewed. If you don't have characters who are getting Initiative scores in the high 30s/low 40s, you aren't as likely to see the relevance.

Which was really my original point, made oh-so-poorly: counting the fact that Dex impacts initiative as a "major" factor in the importance of Dex is significantly overstating the case. And since initiative is rolled considerably less often than attack rolls, the averaging nature of multiple die rolls is far less apparent. As i said, my +7 initiative made my character almost always last in the round, while the guy with the +1 was usually 1st or 2nd--just because he usually rolled well, and i usually didn't.

Well, to be fair to takyris, he listed Initiative as "- Initiative: Major in my opinion, although I'm open to debate" which leaves him some wiggle room. I would personally list it as 'potentially major, depending on play style'. I think the nature of your combat set-ups and the frequency of combat in your game is a major factor in your opinion of Init's worth. If you're always encountering the enemy with no suprise, and not dealing with high mobility, powerful ranged spells or powerful ranged attackers as often, you won't see as much value in it.

That said, on average, a higher init character will act first. It sounds like he tradtionally rolls well and you traditionally roll poorly...which says more about your dice and the law of averages than the mechanic. On average, I see the high Init characters, such as the DEX28 rogue with Improved Init and the DEX 30 Arcane Archer at the top of the init line. I almost always see the DEX 12 Cleric and DEX 10 Paladin at the bottom. There are rare instances where this isn't the case, but overall, it holds true. The cleric rarely has the opportunity to go before the enemies do...which means he is at risk from enemy spellcasters and effects before he acts. If you encounter a devil or demon with Teleport at will, and he goes first and teleports right into your midst, the spellcasters now have their actions dictated by the monster. Cast on the defensive or 5' step and cast? If that Wight assasain strikes first, you may be looking at serious ability drain before your fighter can even move. That Inevitable may have just shot your archer or rogue with an enervation: now your cleric either needs to cast a restoration (wasting a spell opportunity) or leave them at risk.

You are entirely correct that after the first round, a high initiative is meaningless. But that first round can be huge. In the most recent combat in my game, the characters faced off against a mixed group of Slaadi, including two White Slaad. The Whites have the ability to cast Finger of Death at will, several Epic spells once per day, and have some horrific attacks. Loss of initiative to them can mean an instant 20d6 area attack against the party, at the very least, or a melee attack at +48 that will do 2d6+18 and then 2d4+18 for 9 more rounds.

 

[takyris]

Hey, Woodsy,

Since everyone else is chewing you out over Initiative -- which, in my campaign, was only UNimportant at the medium levels (say, 6-9th?) because of the fragile nature of people at low levels and the nasty save-or-die stuff at higher levels -- lemme just hit some of the other stuff.

re: Dex is overwhelmed by armor: Obviously, you haven't played in a campaign with a Bard who got the mithral breastplate in order to max out his Dex AND armor bonuses. As Cat's Grace has been shortened in 3.5, it's even more important that your AC be as high as possible naturally -- and that means "high dex". It's important for defense for every class except those who plan to wear armor but not tank -- which usually means clerics. It's a should-have for wizards and a must-have for just about everyone else who isn't in full-plate -- and at higher levels, those full-plate people are getting mithral full-plate and can take advantage of a higher dex anyway. Beyond that, at mid-levels and above, ranged touch attacks get nasty, and armor doesn't help against those. If you don't wanna get hit by that wizard's ranged touch attack, you want as many different levels of defense as possible -- Dodge bonuses, Deflection bonuses, concealment (from Blur or Displacement or actual concealment), and Dex.

re: Dex is overwhelmed by other saving throw bonuses: See, every little bit helps. It all adds up. You make a lot of saves over the course of your career, and you make a lot of saves by only one or two. If you don't think Dex is important to your Reflex save, keep track of how many you make by the amount you get from your Dex, or less, in the next few sessions. If you've got a Dex 11 character, sure, not really a deal, but my Dex 16 guy makes a fair number of saves by 3 or less.

re: If the game isn't broken by making it a feat, why would it be broken by giving it to someone for free: because you are giving people a feat for free, and in so doing, you're horking up the game balance. You're not just talking about touch attacks -- you're talking about all melee attacks made with light weapons. That's what I was arguing against. You're giving everyone Weapon Finesse for free. Remember when I made the big list? Remember what the biggest Strength-power was? You're basically cutting that in half in order to make your flavor-text happy -- you don't like the way it SOUNDS for Strength to modify the attacks made by somebody with a dagger (unless he has training in light weapons, i.e. Weapon Finesse), so you want to give him the feat for free. Why not give everybody Expertise for free? Why not give them Power Attack? How about Spring Attack? It makes no sense to me that somebody couldn't run up, attack, and then run away in real life, so why not give everyone Spring Attack? Heck, anyone can swing a sword around in a circle, so let's give 'em Whirlwind attack instead.

 

[Voadam]

While I think getting the drop on opponents is very important, I think it would be good idea to try dex as the attack modifying stat for all attacks instead of str. It always seems wierd that a high dex fencer is not as accurate as a high strength fighter with the same rapier (unless he spends a feat to get weapon finesse).

 

[takyris]

Voadam, not to be snarky,but did you read the whole thread?

Criminey.

I'm 'a just say two things one MORE time AGAIN:

1) In D&D, strength is muscular coordination and hand-eye IN ADDITION TO raw power -- it's "what you've got AND how well you can focus it", which is why we can have halflings who are effectively stronger than humans with a dagger, even though the halfling can only carry half as much. Dexterity is ranged ability and very-fine-motor-skills work. So if you're using a weapon and the accuracy is coming from your arms and wrists, it's STRENGTH, and if the accuracy is coming from your fingers, it's DEXTERITY. As you increase in skill (and your BAB goes up), it's both in larger degrees.

2) Fencers CAN get their accuracy from fingertips alone, but it's a heck of a lot easier to teach somebody how to use his shoulders and hips and arms and wrists to generate that striking accuracy and power -- which is, in D&D, strength. A high-dex fencer who does not have Weapon Finesse is dodging a lot, using a lot of foot-motion to avoid attacks, but is ultimately still using his arms, shoulders, hips, and wrists to generate power. The Weapon Finesse guy has learned how to use his fingers to generate a little more striking accuracy.

Please stop changing the rules in order to make them fit your incorrect flavor text.

 

[woodelf]

re: Dex is overwhelmed by armor: Obviously, you haven't played in a campaign with a Bard who got the mithral breastplate in order to max out his Dex AND armor bonuses. As Cat's Grace has been shortened in 3.5, it's even more important that your AC be as high as possible naturally -- and that means "high dex". It's important for defense for every class except those who plan to wear armor but not tank -- which usually means clerics. It's a should-have for wizards and a must-have for just about everyone else who isn't in full-plate -- and at higher levels, those full-plate people are getting mithral full-plate and can take advantage of a higher dex anyway. Beyond that, at mid-levels and above, ranged touch attacks get nasty, and armor doesn't help against those. If you don't wanna get hit by that wizard's ranged touch attack, you want as many different levels of defense as possible -- Dodge bonuses, Deflection bonuses, concealment (from Blur or Displacement or actual concealment), and Dex.

I was more thinking of the fact that armor limits dex, and you can get a higher AC with armor alone than Dex alone. Speaking just of characters, not enchantments (because those can be applied to Dex or armor pretty much equally). Best Dex: 18+elf+5increases=25, or +7--and that's pretty extreme; Best armor: full plate + large shield=+10--and that's fairly trivial to acquire, and still allows you to use one point of Dex bonus. Given the relative availability of money vs. high stats and level-up stat increases, getting a +8 via armor is trivial, while doing so via Dex is nigh impossible, and involves much higher opportunity costs (all those other stats you didn't increase, or put the high score into). So, i'm not trying to say that bonuses to AC from Dex are a non-issue, just that for those who most need them (the warriors) the game steers you towards armor as the more-optimal choice. While it's true that every point helps, for every character, it seems to me that if someone decides to attack the wizard the difference between a high and average Dex is gonna be getting hit by 5 points and getting hit by 8--not beween not getting hit and getting hit. In general--obviously on a given attack it could amke the difference.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but can't you get significantly better dodge bonuses from magic and spells than from Dex at high levels, when the ranged-touch attacks become a real problem?

re: Dex is overwhelmed by other saving throw bonuses: See, every little bit helps. It all adds up. You make a lot of saves over the course of your career, and you make a lot of saves by only one or two. If you don't think Dex is important to your Reflex save, keep track of how many you make by the amount you get from your Dex, or less, in the next few sessions. If you've got a Dex 11 character, sure, not really a deal, but my Dex 16 guy makes a fair number of saves by 3 or less.

This is absolutely true. Over all, every bit helps. But the die roll is flat, so you're just as likely to make it by 11 as by 2 (well, within the range of possibilities). Which means a +3 is still only +15%--a measurable bonus, but hardly that significant in a game that considers +2 the standard "there's a modifier" modifier. My point isn't that the Dex modifier to Ref saves doesn't matter at all--oviously it does--but that it is relatively small and can easily get lost in the various other modifiers. Particularly the die roll itself.

re: If the game isn't broken by making it a feat, why would it be broken by giving it to someone for free: because you are giving people a feat for free, and in so doing, you're horking up the game balance. You're not just talking about touch attacks -- you're talking about all melee attacks made with light weapons. That's what I was arguing against. You're giving everyone Weapon Finesse for free. Remember when I made the big list? Remember what the biggest Strength-power was? You're basically cutting that in half in order to make your flavor-text happy -- you don't like the way it SOUNDS for Strength to modify the attacks made by somebody with a dagger (unless he has training in light weapons, i.e. Weapon Finesse), so you want to give him the feat for free. Why not give everybody Expertise for free? Why not give them Power Attack? How about Spring Attack? It makes no sense to me that somebody couldn't run up, attack, and then run away in real life, so why not give everyone Spring Attack? Heck, anyone can swing a sword around in a circle, so let's give 'em Whirlwind attack instead.

Partly, it's a matter of degrees. I think the game is much more broken by making the swashbuckling archetype difficult-to-impossible (note the proliferation of classes/prestige classes, and particularly the Unfettered in AU, that are there primarily because you can't really create a character who trades off power for finesse in D&D3(.5)E, without getting a raw deal), than by making giving everyone this ability that happens to be classed as a feat in D&D. From my perspective, i'm cutting the effectiveness of Str in half (maybe--i'd actually argue less-than-half, but that's another matter) because it's twice as powerful as the others. The 3E designers seemed to think so, too, based on their guidelines for racial ability modifiers. [Mind you, i'm not trying to invoke authority here--you're welcome to disagree with them, as i do on many matters, or point out flaws in their reasoning. I'm just trying to point out that someone who is probably a bit more familiar with the nuances of the mechanics than i am has come to a similar conclusion.] Oh, and btw, one of my biggest complaints with the feat system is the way it implicitly limits options, and not letting everyone have the equivalent of things like Combat Expertise and maybe Power Attack are exactly the sorts of things i have a problem with. If it were up to me, simple tradeoffs between power and accuracy, or attack and defense, would be stock options (well, the latter even sort of is), just as much so as the choice between attack and full attack currently is. And Spring Attack is another one that shouldn't be necessary, but is just an artifact of the freeze-frame effect of D&D3E combat. Again, if it were up to me, the turn-order system would be such that everyone can do that.

Would balance be altered? Obviously. Would it be broken, or lead to an imbalanced game? IMHO, no, so long as everyone had it, and it wasn't a surprise (so no one was gipped couse they paid for the feat, or somesuch. It'd still be balanced just in a different way--just as allowing charge to bend the general rules for movement and attacks makes the balance of strategies different than if it didn't.