Discussion: Improving S&B

[Aesop]

Shield Combat Suggestions

Alchemical Rituals
Have the bonuses be based on Shield or Armor type. I'm for a +1 apply to Light Armor, Cloth Armor, Bucklers and Light Shields, and a +2 for Medium and Heavy Armor and Heavy and Tower Shields.

I also suggest a second tier of Alchemical Rituals that require a Shield Previously Enchanted by the first tier ritual that applies the same bonus and a Blocking DR or Deflection Bonus.

Example:
Alchemical Ritual of Blocking : Ingredients: Bound Alchemically Enhanced Shield, 25 Greater Earth Soul Stones.
Effect: Improves the Blocking DR of the Shield by 2 for Bucklers and Light Shields and by 4 for Heavy and Tower Shields

Additionally there is a Feat in the Players Handbook 2 called

Shield Specialization
We could have this Feat grants +1 AC when using Bucklers or Light Shields and a +2 to Heavy and Tower Shields. This Feat also increases the Maximum Dex Bonus of Tower Shields by 1 and increases the DR while blocking with a shield by 5.

I’d have this feat replace the Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Mastery Feats.


Armor Specialization
Requires BAB +12
Grant DR 2/- with that type of Armor

kinda blah really... maybe the following

Armor Specialization
Requires BAB +12
This Feat Increases the Maximum Dexterity Bonus that may be applied to a given set of Armor by 1. However to keep with the original intent we could give Armors a Natural Blocking DR based on TYpe and have this Feat improve that by 2 as well.

Light Armor: 1
Medium Armor: 2
Heavy Armor: 3

and this Feat could improve that by 2 as well



Passive Shield Blocking
Turbine has added another aspect to Sword and Shield fighting; Blocking DR. Blocking DR is only useful if you completely sacrifice Damage. Sword and Shield Fighting already has the second lowest Damage of all the styles (Ranged being the lowest ... with the exception of 20 sec per 2+ min period of time) so the proposal is to make the Blocking DR do something that is useful outside of standing there and taking shots. Give shields a % chance to "Automatically" block a blow. Each hit taken has a percent chance of having the characters Blocking DR absorb part of the blow.

Example: Robot Chicken a Warforged Fighter has a Blocking DR of 30 and gets struck by his old friend Harry for 65 damage. However using that Tower Shield that he does he has a chance to catch that 65 damage on the shield and turn aside 30 of it and because it is a Tower Shield that he uses its a pretty good chance.


Give a Straight Base Chance Based on Shield Type.

1 Weapon no Shield: 1%
Two Weapon no TWD: 2%
Buckler: 3%
Light Shield:5%
Heavy Shield: 10%
Tower Shield: 15%

Now add in a Feat modified from the PLayers Handbook 2

Active Shield Defense
Requires Shield Specialization
Grants the ability to make Attacks of Opportunity (AoO) while Fighting Defensively without Penalty

Well we don't have AoO in DDO so something different and I think this lends itself well to increase the Passive Shield Blocking with a Shield by 5%


Active Shield Defense: +5%

then modify the TWD Feat as follows


Two Weapon Defense and Two Weapon Blocking: I suggest we combine these into a single Feat.
Two Weapon Defense : Grant the Character a +1 Shield AC when fighting with Two Weapons and increases the Characters Blocking Damage Reduction by 2 points. It also increases the Characters Chance to Passively Block a Shot by 2%.


Improved Two Weapon Defense : Grant the Character a +2 Shield AC when fighting with Two Weapons and increases the Characters Blocking Damage Reduction by 4 points. Passive Blocking improves by 2% while Two Weapon Fighting.

Greater Two Weapon Defense : Grant the Character a +3 Shield AC when fighting with Two Weapons and increases the Characters Blocking Damage Reduction by 6 points. Passive Blocking improves by an additional 2% while Two Weapon Fighting.


TWD line: +2% each

Also change up the THF feats a little to give them a little more oomph

Two Handed Fighting: Improves the Damage of a Characters Glancing Blows. Increases the chance to Passively Block an attack by 1% and improves the effects of a Characters Strength from Strength times 1.5 to Str x 1.65.

Improved Two Handed Fighting:Improves the Damage of a Characters Glancing Blows. Increases the chance to Passively Block an attack by an additional 1% and improves the effects of a Characters Strength from Strength times 1.5 to Str x 1.8.

Greater Two Handed Fighting:Improves the Damage of a Characters Glancing Blows. Increases the chance to Passively Block an attack by an additional 1% and improves the effects of a Characters Strength from Strength times 1.5 to Str x 2.

THF line: +1% each

Additionally have the BAB of a character be a factor in the Passive Blocking. After all ones experience in combat would also improve your awareness and reflexes for parrying attacks

BAB: +.5% each

Also have Armor type factor in as well to complete an all around gathering of factors that will help combatants mitigate the damage

Light Armor +1%
Medium Armor +3%
Heavy Armor +5%


Short Form:

1. Improving mitigation through use of a Passive Blocking mechanic.
a: Progressive Passive bonuses based on BAB combined with bonuses from Feat, and the improving bonuses based on types of Shields that give a percent chance to absorb the damage taken with the character's Blocking DR.
b:A sequence as follows may be a good way to implement.
1 Weapon no Shield: 1%
Two Weapon no TWD: 2%
Buckler: 3%
Light Shield:5%
Heavy Shield: 10%
Tower Shield: 15%

Active Shield Defense: +5%
Combat Awareness: 3% (Increases to 5%)

TWD line: +2% each
THF line: +1% each

BAB: +.5% each

Light Armor +1%
Medium Armor +3%
Heavy Armor +5%

examples:
So a Level 20 Fighter with the Active Shield Defense a tower shield and Adamantine Full Plate would have a 35% chance to Block a shot without actively blocking. With Combat Awareness this improves to 40%.

A Level 19/1 Ranger Monk wearing Robes with the full TWD line would have 17.5% chance to block a shot. With Combat Awareness this improves to 22.5%.


a 20 Barbarian with full THF line wearing a Breastplate would have 17% chance to block a shot. With Combat Awareness this improves to 22%.



a 20 Barbarian with full THF line wearing a Breastplate and a buckler with the Active Shield Defense Feat would have 21% chance to block a shot. With Combat Awareness this improves to 26%.

Shield Bashing (or how to marginally improve S&B Damage):


a:One perhaps two passive Shield Bashing Attacks based on attack sequence. Perhaps on the second and fourth or fifth attack in a sequence have a shield bash hook.

b: The Feat Improved Shield Bash could have a new effect built in that when a character Blocks an attack the amount of damage blocked is reflected back at the attacker.

[Treerat]

Is it a good idea for Turbine to change drastically the definitions and roles of the fighting styles in DDO? Why?

No. How would they go about making S&B competitive damage-wise with someone swinging two weapons faster, getting more effects, and doing more damage? They would either have to massively increase the swing speed or give some other bonus to damage of such magnitude that it would render the question of why have the other styles or fighting? Anything less and we're just still not effective - the only change is that the fanboys will fawn over the "buff" as an excuse to praise Turbine.

Sword & shields defining advantage has always been (and for the first 12 levels was) the ability to go toe-to-toe with the biggest, baddest, and ugliest of monsters around and come out abused but alive through endurance. Give it that, and let it keep that.

Is it OK for Turbine to nerf in this situation? Why? If yes, by how much (or how)? And why?

Nerf, nerf hard, and keep nerfing. One of the things that got DDO into it's current mess was a "bring everyone else up" mentality. In many ways it only made the whole situation worse by stacking potential problems on top of each other until finding the root cause is ****-near impossible, to say nothing of putting together a working solution. Yes people will leave, people are leaving now because they don't want to make robe-wearing "tank" to reach effective AC when they already have a decently geared plate-clad & buick-door wielding fighter or paladin with time, effort, and memories invested into it. Its not a "save the game population versus balance" issue here, its a "short-term pain versus 100% assured death with more damage to game & companies reputation" issue.

Suggestions? Limit bonuses like monk's AC from wisdom and paladins save from charisma to a maximum equal to the level in the class with some modifier. Still valuable to have (how many people ran Titan every 72 hours to get 3 more AC) but no longer something that is a "must have." Those with pure or primary-classes monks & paladins aren't going to notice (when as the last time anyone saw a monk or paladin with 30 wisdom/ charisma?) a limit, but they will sure notice when they and they alone have those high ACs & saves rather than some ranger who gave up basically nothing for the survivability of the paladin & monk.

If you answered no to the previous question, would you change your mind if a full respect system would be implemented? If you answered yes to the previous question, are you in favor of a respect system and would you nerf more if there was one? In both cases, why?

Add a full (and I mean full - name, race, classes, feats, skills, gender, etc) respec system anyway. Rerolling might have been an option at 10 when bound items were a luxury; now those bound items are factored into the developers balancing considerations. Having a character you invested months of care into suddenly go from "hey want to come tank VoD/ Hound for us" to "sorry, we need a real tank" is enough to push someone into saying "screw this, I'll take my $15 a month somewhere else."

Especially since its only a tiny cabal (whose credentials as testers are not exactly awe-inspiring) who have any inkling of what sort of changes might be coming. Add in that Turbine was apparently naive enough to not get 100% control over game decisions (Divine Favor change) in their licensing agreement, and we have a formula for a huge mess of (sometimes conflicting) changes.

Are you scared of inflation? Why?

Better question - are you scared of more inflation? This game is already inflated thanks to the made-up bonuses Turbine threw around, and its only gotten worse with the addition of so much named loot that breaks the rules. Ever notice that the only valuable items now that aren't named loot are WoP, banishers & smiters with a high crit range, and those vorpals & disruptors of the most popular type.

To answer, not really. It already happened, so now its either address the issue, or bury the head in the sand and ignore it until it comes my turn to be hunting chimera's next meal.

Do you think it would be a good idea reduce the AC scores that PCs can reach if mobs' to-hits were also lowered? What about just lowering mobs' to-hits? Justify your answers.

This was needed from Gianthold on. When was the last time someone saw a caster say "**** I'm glad I have some AC - he missed a few swings in there." Right now its either you have the raw hp to absorb the hit, or expect to get flattened if the monster gets through Displacement because 40 AC means exactly squat for survivabilit when trash is swinging with +39 to hit bonuses.

Bring the mobs bonuses down, and while they're at it lower (if not eliminate) the bonuses for sequential attacks for players. If they still insist on a "carrot" approach to keep players from just swinging the first attack while moving, let follow-up attacks have a seeker-type bonus, or come faster (representing the classic setup of a series of attacks to draw the opponent into a bad position). Without those extra bonuses using things like Power Attack goes from a no-brainer to "do will the extra damage make up for the extra misses". It might even encourage people to use feats like trip and stunning blow again since the extra chance to hit on the incapacitated monster would reduce the penalty. Hence encourage a bit more active style of play instead of "swing and pray."

Would you like to see a bunch of feats to improve S&B? Any suggestions? (It can be either in the form of feats or just unrefined ideas that still need to be rethought. It can be as general as "Something giving them DR would be cool." if you want.) If you use feats already existing in PnP, please indicate the book.

Hard on this one. One one hand there are lots of possibilities (spell deflection, spell reflection, meaningful DR, shield-rushing, etc), but one of the two primary sword & shield using classes (paladins) is already feat-starved even with splashing fighter levels.

Possibly make some of them new spells for paladins. For example, if Shield Mastery & Imp. Shield Mastery were made useful (say increasing DR when blocking by 25/ 50%) then Angle Skin could be altered to provide a DR bonus that increases when blocking.

Do you think that S&B could use more DPS, also, to be brought back in line?

Not a huge amount if any. More likely making Shield Bashing actually effective instead of adversely affecting damage. If someone needs to understand just how much damage a 2 x 3 foot panel impacting into flesh can do, go stand in the arc of a car door when it's opened forcefully. Hurts - now keep in mind that a shield would be moving faster without the added resistance of hydraulics, and has a boss that helps focus the force of impact.

Do you think paladins and fighters should become S&B specialists and receive enhancements focused on S&B fight? Explain your answer.

Yes. Rangers get their two-weapon & bow-fighting enhancements, barbarians get two-handed enhancements. Why shouldn't the two full-melee classes who start the game wearing the heaviest armor possible have our own distinctive style of fighting? Now using a few enhancement lines as a "fix" for the problems that make S&B not desirable? Hell no. If Turbine actually fixed the insane-AC that comes from stacking monk wisdom bonuses, uncapped dodge bonuses, etc then using a shield should become a viable way to increase survivability for non-palains & fighters. Fighters & paladins would simply be the classes most likely to be dedicated sword & shield specalists.

Do you think S&B should have the ability (or opportunity) to be protected by other means than AC? If yes, list a few.

Percentage chance to deflect damage spells on a successful save. It could be total avoidance, or increasing the damage reduction from 50% to 75%, or some other combination. The principle is old - the shield-user puts the shield between their body and the attack so it absorbs the brunt.

Would you be in favor of a cap on Dodge AC? Why?
Yes. The original manual even states that dodge bonuses could only stack up to +10. At the minimum enforce that cap, or better yet cut the stacking cap to +5. Without some upper limit on AC monsters either run around unable to hit a high-AC build except on a 20, or able to get a reasonable number of hits on that player, and rendering any less AC pointless. *cough* Giant Hold *cough* Dodge would still be useful (again, how many tanks ran Titan until puking just for the ring), but with a cap it would now be a matter of get to the cap then looking at what changing them allows (freeing up extra slots, clickies, etc) rather than "must have it it to get effective AC."