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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 4448265" data-attributes="member: 45678">This is a meaningless comparison. You are comparing the AC with the total number of hit points of a monster. This has no meaning because what is important is the amount of damage done on each attack. For example, doubling the hit points of a monster simply doubles the number of rounds it will take to kill it regardless of what weapons are used, and does not change the relative value of the weapons. (Actually this is not completely true, due to "overflow" of damage above that necessary to kill the monster - for example if all you were fighting was minions then damage wouldn't matter at all. But this would, if anything, make higher damage more important when fighting higher HP monsters, not less.)Because the additional damage applies on every attack that hits, the appropriate comparison is with the amount of damage of each attack, not the total HP of the monster.Well, I can't tell you if your houserules are balanced without knowing what they are. But anyway, I'll try to explain a little bit better my point about offense being more important than defense.Suppose I have a choice between two powers: one of which gives me +10 to all attacks for X rounds per encounter, and one of which gives me +10 to AC and reflex for X rounds per encounter. Which one is better?If I choose the attack one, I can end up hitting on almost every attack. Since I control who I attack, I can target these attacks to the places where they will do the most good - to the monsters that are the biggest threat. And I can even increase the value of the attack bonus by using action points and multi-target encounters and dailies to apply the attacks to more targets.If I choose the AC and reflex one, then I will be extremely difficult to hit, but that has only limited use, because it only applies when an enemy chooses to attack me, so the enemy has many countermeasures. He can attack someone else first. He can attack my fortitude or will. He can use a power that deals damage on a miss, so that my high AC won't completely protect me.Of course, the bonuses we are dealing with here are much less than +10, and they are passive rather than active. But the point remains the same.Reaping strike can be quite good when faced with very high AC monsters or monsters that only have a few hit points left.Try this experiment. Play the game as normal, and have two fighters on the front lines - one sword and shield, one two-handed weapon.Each time the sword-and-shield man gets attacked vs. AC or Reflex, roll damage for the attack, divide it by 10, and add it to a running tally. This is the expected amount of damage that was prevented by the shield. (To figure out the actual amount of damage prevented, don't divide it by 10 but only include attacks that miss, but miss by 2 or less, so without the shield they would have hit. But the first method gives a result with less variance.)Each time the two-handed weapon man hits, take 1.5 times the number of [W] of the attack and add that to a separate running tally. This is the expected amount of additional damage done by the two-handed weapon. Also, if the two-handed weapon man has Reaping Strike, add the difference between his Strength mod and half his Strength mod to the tally each time he misses with Reaping Strike (against a target that is not a minion). For example, if he has Strength mod +4, then add 2 each time, because the two-handed weapon made Reaping Strike do 4 damage instead of 2.Try this for several encounters and see what your results are.</blockquote>

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