Heavy fortification not needed

[Kinerd]

Now, why can we have 100% fortification and the monsters cannot?

Have you ever noticed how 0 raid bosses are rogues? It would not be a good thing if 0 player characters were rogues.

I disagree. If heavy fort was more difficult to achieve then classes would only be gimped by the "caster walks around wailing everything with impunity" standard. The game would just require different tactics.

I actually think that some of the "Nerf casters" people would be better off arguing for more difficult to slot fortification for casters so that they would be required to bring a meat shield with them for scroll farming and such. As someone who played PnP 20 plus years ago under a vastly different (and better IMHO) set of rules this actually makes some sense to me.

Casters already walk around with sub-100% fort. Even if they had exactly 0%, they wouldn't "be required" to bring anyone.

[donfilibuster]

The fort item is a lifesaver, like the floating vests on a boat, everyone has one, and you can't go without one.

Now, there's one thing frecuently overlooked: the fortification is a magical property, not an armor property.
You can look that up in the SRD. Point is those to suggest to relate fort % to armor type is missing that aspect.
Even the variant to treat AC like DR doesn't take into account armor type (heavy/med/light), it applies to all forms of AC.
Wearing actual armor is not as relevant in high magic setting as in your tipical d&d or medieval game.
In these worlds a barbarian clad like conan has as much chance vs. a dragon than an armored knight.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I'd love to see some portion of the effectiveness of primary fortification items tied to the difficulty of the quest.

Normal: No change.
Hard: Fortification items function at 3/4 effectiveness.
Elite: Fortification items function at 1/2 effectiveness.
Epic: Fortification items function at 1/4 effectiveness.

However, like someone else suggested, add inherent fortification to different armour types (which isn't affected by the above adjustments). Proficiency with the armour type is required to benefit from the bonus:

Light: 10% bonus.
Medium: 25% bonus.
Heavy: 50% bonus.

After this, items which provide exceptional bonuses would continue to function at full capacity.

Outcome:
More risk for traditionally strong soloing classes (casters).
More value to tanks who can get to 100% fortification in epics.
Clerics will go back to wearing heavy armour (which is good thematically).
Clerics will have something that FvS do not that is valuable (heavy armour proficiency).

[Increase]

The fort item is a lifesaver, like the floating vests on a boat, everyone has one, and you can't go without one.

Now, there's one thing frecuently overlooked: the fortification is a magical property, not an armor property.
You can look that up in the SRD. Point is those to suggest to relate fort % to armor type is missing that aspect.
Even the variant to treat AC like DR doesn't take into account armor type (heavy/med/light), it applies to all forms of AC.
Wearing actual armor is not as relevant in high magic setting as in your tipical d&d or medieval game.
In these worlds a barbarian clad like conan has as much chance vs. a dragon than an armored knight.

This. 100% agree.

I even made a similar reference about Conan (I prefer Hrun tho ) the other day in relation to end-game ac.

[Eso]

when you say easy buton i just think > SP POTS + DOTS + WF CASTER (Sorc/wiz/cler/fvs) = godmode...
i cant say anything about fort,i see daily rogues,clerics and sorc in orien with 75% fort or less,so is strongly needed

[ThePrincipal]

fort need an overhaul

because player have 100% very early in the game, mob based damage is inflated, and if u dont have fort and u get hit with a crit ur are in big danager of being one-shot.

it's also strange that fort comes in 25%, 75%, and 100% with only the newest odd items giving 10% exceptional fort.

i think crit should come from different source types, in small incriments like 5%-50%, and stack accordingly. i also think there should be spell buffs and debuffs to fort.

i'm thinking armor, shield, docent, exceptional, morale, luck, divine, arcane, racial, class...

it should be harder to get 100% protection from both Crits and Backstab. Yet another reason why melee is gimped compared to casting.

[ag_gair_eos_ard]

I think, the devs should fix bugs that have been plaguing this game since release instead of focusing on random drivel.

[SableShadow]

That's because you didn't read what he wrote.

He's asking why Heavy Fort should be in the game at all, not why he should equip heavy fort.

I read it as a troll post. The "easy button" nonsense is kinda a give away. If you *must* find a slot for it, Hvy Fort isn't an easy button, by definition. I'm certainly wrestling with it: first point in build plan, where do I get my fort, and how do I fit everything else in once I get it.

Ran an eVoN6 the other day with one guy who admited to <400 HP and mod fort. You *can* do it...lag was the biggest enemy.

On the other hand I've been in an eTides where the bard had zero Fort and died once per major encounter...to archers.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Fortification is just one of the things about the PnP ruleset which don't translate well to an MMO, but it's too late to change it now.

Players should be susceptible to critical hits, and critical multipliers should not be as high as they are across the board.

[parvo]

Fortification is just one of the things about the PnP ruleset which don't translate well to an MMO, but it's too late to change it now.

Players should be susceptible to critical hits, and critical multipliers should not be as high as they are across the board.

Agreed, except the "too late to frix it" part. I'll add that Fortification is just one of many important things that any player can easily aquire. From a gear standpoint, the game is much more balanced when played without twinking, auction and broker.

If you want to play in a manner where items like Fortification are valuable and more rare, look up a permadeath guild with gear restrictions. Good luck.

[donfilibuster]

In PnP the natural enemy of magic items is dispel magic, this is missing in DDO (it only supress buffs).
You can get your fortification in the nearest magic shop and still be pretty vulnerable.
(and prone to shout caster first! get the shaman! or, maybe, counterspell!)

[Doganpc]

The only problem with heavy fortification is how the Dev's will counter it to make the quests more challenging. It could very well be the next AC, rendered useless against bypassing mobs.

Dogan
Read it here first.

[Meetch1972]

I even made a similar reference about Conan (I prefer Hrun tho ) the other day in relation to end-game ac.

I thought Cohen the Barbarian had more hutzpa!

But anyway, it'll be interesting to see if there's an AC/DR/Fort pass in the works. I wouldn't mind seeing fortification coming from both physical and magical sources. It wouldn't be the first time if Eladrin or perhaps someone else in the know started a thread to discuss current plans.

I understand that changing either one of AC, DR and fortification would be a big enough task in itself, but as they're all aspects of survivability (as are the nature of saves, come to think of it) IMO they either need to make a large number of incremental changes or one sweeping change to effect this.

In the meantime, I've got my minos/belt/whatever and just have to accept that I can't have ALL the survivability options, DPS boosts and threat enhancement/reduction boosts I want in one set of gear, except maybe at L20.

[BitkaCK2]

I think there are 2 separate issues popping up here. The use of fort to balance caster/melee roles and how a piece of cloth robe can stop crits (but not keep from being shredded by normal blows). The latter is easy, Eberron is a setting rife with magic and magical sources of heavy fort are plentiful. The former... ah well that is an interesting can of worms isn't it. The same one slot item for disparate classes... but that cycles back to the latter... hmmmmm.... arrrrrrghhh

iz it can b dr who tyme yet???
bitkaCK2

[Postumus]

How does a magic ring prevent me from getting kicked in the nuts?

Location?

[Increase]

Location?

LOL

Win!

[TempestAlphaOmega]

I'd love to see some portion of the effectiveness of primary fortification items tied to the difficulty of the quest.

Normal: No change.
Hard: Fortification items function at 3/4 effectiveness.
Elite: Fortification items function at 1/2 effectiveness.
Epic: Fortification items function at 1/4 effectiveness.

However, like someone else suggested, add inherent fortification to different armour types (which isn't affected by the above adjustments). Proficiency with the armour type is required to benefit from the bonus:

Light: 10% bonus.
Medium: 25% bonus.
Heavy: 50% bonus.

After this, items which provide exceptional bonuses would continue to function at full capacity.

Outcome:
More risk for traditionally strong soloing classes (casters).
More value to tanks who can get to 100% fortification in epics.
Clerics will go back to wearing heavy armour (which is good thematically).
Clerics will have something that FvS do not that is valuable (heavy armour proficiency).

Your suggestion, while interesting, would seem to require quite a bit of DEV work. You seem to be shooting for an enviroment where most non-melees (as well as some melee) would not be running 100%+ fort at upper levels/epics. This would require a re-work of the damage dished out by mobs unless you believe the majority of the player base would enjoy the occassional (or more) one shot death or the increased SP costs for healing.

Is this type of change something that should be prioritized by the DEV team over finishing out PREs? Where do you see it on the scale of how important is this change to make?