A tuneup for Defender PREs: Add Mettle

[Junts]

Both defender prestige lines are rather expensive a little clumsy to acquire in terms of their feat and enhancement costs, and outside of their stance benefits their upgrades aren't great (this is particularly true for paladins, who don't get 1 ac per tier like fighters do). Recent reductions to the costs of some enhancements to ease PRE requirements haven't helped because these lines tend not to require Improved Skill enhancements, so they're a bit more expensive and the return on them isn't so good.

The main attraction of tier 3 of both lines is the tower set bonus for each. Outside of this, tanks are generally gaining more benefit from more levels of another class (particularly fighters).

To this end, I propose the addition of an ability that commonly appears on defensive- and protection-oriented 3.5 Prestige classes: Mettle.

Mettle is modelled on evasion and, while it's probably more powerful than evasion in pen and paper D&D, it would generally be less strong on DDO.

Mettle negates the effects of any fortitude or will-based spell with a fort: partial or will: x saving throw (the same way evasion negates all damage on reflex: half saving throw). For example, it would negate the damage dealt by making a fortitude save against finger of death, or remove the shaken effect gained after saving against Fear. This would be a more potent ability with the changes coming to instant death effects, but it still wouldn't be that powerful: players have access to immunity abilities for almost all of these, and fortitude-based and will-based direct damage spells are quite rare (ice lance, disintegrate, etc, all of which do very low damage on a successful save already). This would give defender types an edge in the kinds of situations where they tend to be the weakest - where they may have already died and are being called on to quickly recover a situation and probably aren't fully buffed. The extra protection isn't that significant in any particular situation, but it'd add another level of defense to these classes against non-damaging effects that they presently lack, as they don't gain any non-class benefits against anything but physical attacks.

This wouldn't be the broadest protection out there, but it'd be situationally useful, and its the logical place to use an ability of that nature.

[chodelord]

one way to fix defensive prcs

1 require a shield to be in a defensive stance
2 remove the speed penalty
3 have defensive stance turn off if power attack is turned on
4 add doublestrike capability when in defensive stance 3/6/9% (either stacks with or is checked independently of other doublestrike sources like zeal and level 20 fighter capstone)

and I'll have to double check but I believe tier 2 and 3 of DoS improves the AC aura by one each time effectively making it as good as stalwart

[Junts]

one way to fix defensive prcs

1 require a shield to be in a defensive stance
2 remove the speed penalty
3 have defensive stance turn off if power attack is turned on
4 add doublestrike capability when in defensive stance 3/6/9% (either stacks with or is checked independently of other doublestrike sources like zeal and level 20 fighter capstone)

and I'll have to double check but I believe tier 2 and 3 of DoS improves the AC aura by one each time effectively making it as good as stalwart

How the hell is that an improvement? I use my stance with PA and a 2hander a lot more often than I use it with CE and a shield: most of the time, the CE and the shield are overkill. Your change basically says "defensive stance is for bad ac builds".

Only tier 3 of DoS improves the aura by 1: they gain a net of 3 ac from their PRE (outside max-dex and stance), paladins gain 1.

[chodelord]

well each tier of dos should definitely increase the armor aura, that would be a good start

but dont you think power attack and defensive stance are a bit contradictory? I mean power attack is swinging for the fences and giving AIMING for the increase in damage, might as well allow rage in defensive stance if you think that makes sense

but forgetting power attack, other than for boss fights where you don't move at all, dont you lose more damage from your movement rate loss being in def stance then you gain from the +4 str? as in if you werent in def stance you would get to your target 3 swings sooner?

[Junts]

well each tier of dos should definitely increase the armor aura, that would be a good start

but dont you think power attack and defensive stance are a bit contradictory? I mean power attack is swinging for the fences and giving AIMING for the increase in damage, might as well allow rage in defensive stance if you think that makes sense

but forgetting power attack, other than for boss fights where you don't move at all, dont you lose more damage from your movement rate loss being in def stance then you gain from the +4 str? as in if you werent in def stance you would get to your target 3 swings sooner?

You generally lose more damage from losing inspire recklessness due to the stance than you gain in damage from the str (unless you need the str for to-hit). However, using the stance is rarely an issue unless you are in a situation with very rugged terrain, because the movement speed penalties on defensive stance, like other self-inflicted penalties (ie the proc on the docent of defiance, etc) do not disable tumbling like crippling/harried/etc do, and you can consequently tumble around at full speed quite easily. Further, you gain several uses per day that aren't used for any other useful purpose, so toggling it on and off is not a major issue either.

Recklessness means I don't activate stance that often (and sometimes you intentionally cant because of the +50% threat generation), but defensive stance isn't necessarily incompatible with power attack for actual play, or even for tanking purposes: after you have enough ac for the mob to miss you, futher ac does not help you. Further damage does. Defensive stance is, conceptually, standing your ground in one spot and defending it. There's nothign that says you have to hit like a girl while doing so.

Anyway, this is beside the point: my suggestion is to add another passive active effect to the 3rd tier enhancement that would give (both of them, paladin and fighter) another defensive benefit in a niche where they presently don't recieve any: indirect effect magic.

[SteeleTrueheart]

Gee Junts, you make me work hard digging up my memory.

The only reference I have in book form is in Complete Divine, the first level class feature of the Pious Templar PrC. (An update of the Templar PrC from DotF in v3.0)

Reading the effects of Mettle the following spells in DDO would be affected:
(sorry if I missed some)

Cause Fear
Chaos Hammer
Chill Touch (maybe)
Cloudkill
Deific Vengeance
Destruction
Disintegrate
Fear
Finger of Death
Frost Lance
Greater Shout
Harm
Holy Smite (Not relevant here)
Inflict spells (all 8)
Necrotic Ray
Negative Energy Burst
Order's Wrath
Phantasmal Killer
Prismatic Spray [Green only]
Prismatic Ray [Green only]
Ray of Exhaustion
Scare
Shout
Slay Living
Sonic Blast
Sound Burst
Unholy Blight

Now if you give this to any PrE then you potentially give this to any build that can have evasion as well. On a paladin/monk or rogue who already will have godly saves, this would make the character almost immune to spells.

I think Mettle would be best suited as a capstone ability choice of a non-evasion class(es) although I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it as part of the Occult slayer PrE set for Barbs.

[Junts]

Thats a pretty good list, but I'll throw out this question.

How many of those spells are already negated by a common immunity spell (fom, deathward, etc), or have a completely negligible effect if the saving throw is made (like disintegrate)?

Immunity when saving to harm and inflict spells would probably be the biggest boon, and death ward already provides that benefit at all times.