Lets' Talk: AC

[grodon9999]

I agree that AC needs to become a more realistic option for people outside of the 1% or so who focus on it, but I don't know how much of a solution it is to the other issues. It will help, yes, but I don't think it will be a solution.

UMD is tricky...it's hard to keep it up for mid-combat healing on a non-bard/rogue/arti, and Concentration becomes a factor, even if you do have excellent AC.

If you want to complete easy button and not have to work for anything you play a caster anyway.

What self-healing do you have on your ranger? I've stopped wearing my Torc on my paladin most of the time, but I definitely miss it. I used to be able to keep myself healed through just about anything that wasn't Horoth or LoB, but without it, I find I'm running out of SP much too fast. Part of that also has to do with CE's stupid double SP cost, but not all the time.

My pally only turns on CE for Hard Lob for that reason, even just keeping up DF and Zeal with the CE penalties is really friggin silly. I did have to effectively self-heal in an Elite VOD once in a terrible group, I was able to do it but it did cost me two pots.

Ranger has no-fail Hjeal scrolls with 1 item swap and Maximized (no quicken) CSW. With healing amp I get about 200-250 on a CSW. I also have silver-flame pots. It's enough that I can get away with being a lot more reckless than a smart person would be

[bigolbear]

I need to ask do you even have a high AC character?

Point 11 first . . . no, just no. Non ful-BAB classes have a hard enough of a time getting their to-hit to matter. All that would do make anything that isn't a full-****** DPS a waste of a party slot.

Regarding point 10 . . . even with all your proposed nerfs you realize actual AC build would be even MORE invulnerable than they are now? You'd lose maybe 10 points and horoth would lose like 40 to-hit.

So you're right, this is brutal but no, it would not work. You'd manage to get all the nerd-rage of a drastic on-paper nerf with none of the benefits of actually fixing the issue.

I most certainly have had AC characters, and at various lvl caps. The only current AC character I have is lvl 9(tr)

non full bab classes have trouble hitting? Really? I beleive i stated this change for 'outside epics'.
Mob AC realy could use a raise.. I mean with a progressive attack chain players have little trouble hitting reliably.
Ive played my fair share of rogues, my fair share battle clerics and I even have a spell sword or 2. Not only do i not NEED to use divine power to hit reliably in most 'non epic' content I also dont have to turn off power attack.

I find it hard to beleive that 'non full bab' have issues with to hit on a regular basis - I play enough to know. And perhaps we shouldnt be looking at the situation as we should always hit, perhaps its right that mob AC should vary some what and some mobs should actualy be hard to hit because other wise mob ac is just as pointless as ours is.
Not suggesting EVERY mob has uber AC, but some should have - and i mean trash, not just bosses.

Regarding stacking: I do think that without stacking dodge modifiers, without insight modifiers, with a lvl cap on wisdom based AC that the truly HIGH ac guys will be brought back to within 10 points or so of a non dedicated tank that atleast tries for AC.

A stalwart defender wil have 9 more AC than a comparable fighter assuming there in stance and can fill out the DEX. (just ran through the compendium for that so blame it if the numbers off by a point or 2)

Again assuming they can fill out the dex - thats only gona be 12 more than a cleric that bothered to take towersheild proficiency.

so 9 to 12 points... If an average mob is set to be hitting around the mid point then its a 75% chance of hitting that cleric and a 25% chance of hitting that fighter, and around 50% of hitting the kensai fighter.

ALL THE REST IS GEAR. And if you care about your armour then your going to have that gear. Limiting the stacking of armour bonuses to (non stacking)dodge, (non stacking)natural, armour and sheild + (non stacking)modifiers from spells means the whole situation is easier to control and predict because variance is lower. It also has the advantage that a high AC character doesnt need as many slots dedicated to AC, thus not gimping them selves so much.

Monks AC benefits are balanced in comparison to a fighter with a sword and sheild, infact there a little lower in comparison.


Variance.. here lies the heart of the issue.
The variance of armour is about 90 points..... that is AC0 to AC90
The variance of the D20 roll is 20.

The 2 solutions that WILL work is either
A: reduce the variance of armour
B: increase the variance of the d20 roll.

I dont think that the d20 should be messed with, DDO has already diverted wildly from it roots and this is core.
There for the only remaining solution is to reduce the variance of armour. The simplest way to do this is reduce the number of factors that add to it, and the easiest way to do that is to remove stacking of certain types and remove certain types all together.

Its not going to be nice for the players, but it will be good for the game.

[sephiroth1084]

Actually, the difference in AC between a Stalwart and a cleric is more like:
3 Stalwart AC with shield
4 Stalwart Defensive Stance
2 SD max Dex in heavy armor
1 Dodge feat
2 Mobility feat
2 FAM (FAM III is too expensive, so I'm not counting it)
5 CE
2 SD ToD set bonus
____
21

The cleric could maybe pick up Dodge or Mobility, but they certainly don't have the feats to spare for stuff like that.

[noinfo]

********. They've nerfed plenty of other things that put people up in arms. And a nerf to casters doesn't have to be a direct one. It doesn't need to take the form of, "Your spell now costs 10x as much as it used to," or, "You can now only use Wail once per 10 minutes." They already did nerf casters a bit, extending the cooldown of Wail and FoD, but they packaged it with huge buffs to them at the same time.
No, they shouldn't. They should be about this powerful, but there is a difference between having the power available, and being able to use it at will and without reservation or impediment.

Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords did the most of any 3.5 material to try and balance non-casters with casters at end game by giving melee things like +100 point strikes, insta-kills, AoE attacks, light CC, debuffs, and self-healing/status-removal...and still didn't accomplish the task.

I'd like to see some of that worked into DDO, but even if we somehow got all of it (and we won't), melees still won't be anywhere near being balanced with casters against non-red/purple names.

AC doesn't necessarily free you from needing a healer. It makes your own healing options more effective, but when most players can't get enough healing out of CSW pots to offset grazing hits damage, we will have simply moved the bar, without removing the issue.

2 Separate issues
Grazing hits need to go.

[noinfo]

I most certainly have had AC characters, and at various lvl caps. The only current AC character I have is lvl 9(tr)

non full bab classes have trouble hitting? Really? I beleive i stated this change for 'outside epics'.
Mob AC realy could use a raise.. I mean with a progressive attack chain players have little trouble hitting reliably.
Ive played my fair share of rogues, my fair share battle clerics and I even have a spell sword or 2. Not only do i not NEED to use divine power to hit reliably in most 'non epic' content I also dont have to turn off power attack.

I find it hard to beleive that 'non full bab' have issues with to hit on a regular basis - I play enough to know. And perhaps we shouldnt be looking at the situation as we should always hit, perhaps its right that mob AC should vary some what and some mobs should actualy be hard to hit because other wise mob ac is just as pointless as ours is.
Not suggesting EVERY mob has uber AC, but some should have - and i mean trash, not just bosses.

Regarding stacking: I do think that without stacking dodge modifiers, without insight modifiers, with a lvl cap on wisdom based AC that the truly HIGH ac guys will be brought back to within 10 points or so of a non dedicated tank that atleast tries for AC.

A stalwart defender wil have 9 more AC than a comparable fighter assuming there in stance and can fill out the DEX. (just ran through the compendium for that so blame it if the numbers off by a point or 2)

Again assuming they can fill out the dex - thats only gona be 12 more than a cleric that bothered to take towersheild proficiency.

so 9 to 12 points... If an average mob is set to be hitting around the mid point then its a 75% chance of hitting that cleric and a 25% chance of hitting that fighter, and around 50% of hitting the kensai fighter.

ALL THE REST IS GEAR. And if you care about your armour then your going to have that gear. Limiting the stacking of armour bonuses to (non stacking)dodge, (non stacking)natural, armour and sheild + (non stacking)modifiers from spells means the whole situation is easier to control and predict because variance is lower. It also has the advantage that a high AC character doesnt need as many slots dedicated to AC, thus not gimping them selves so much.

Monks AC benefits are balanced in comparison to a fighter with a sword and sheild, infact there a little lower in comparison.


Variance.. here lies the heart of the issue.
The variance of armour is about 90 points..... that is AC0 to AC90
The variance of the D20 roll is 20.

The 2 solutions that WILL work is either
A: reduce the variance of armour
B: increase the variance of the d20 roll.

I dont think that the d20 should be messed with, DDO has already diverted wildly from it roots and this is core.
There for the only remaining solution is to reduce the variance of armour. The simplest way to do this is reduce the number of factors that add to it, and the easiest way to do that is to remove stacking of certain types and remove certain types all together.

Its not going to be nice for the players, but it will be good for the game.

Mob AC increase? Maybe but remember if they have good AC perhaps they dont need the x10 of our hp totals.

Capping wisdom bonus to AC? This is perhaps the most distorted thing that can be suggested. Where do these magic stat points come from? Lets cap enemy AC and HP and cap max possible str as well. How many sources of str do we have in this game? Look what happened when they tried to remove 1? (Madstone boots)

The problem is when turbine ballances for the extremes such as a monk that can reach 115 ac, what do you suppose either his dps or hp are like? If the mobs max hit is only 85 (+65) this characters is still only being hit on a 20 like those with an AC of 86 but with far greater sacrifices. Variance in dice rolls not caps.

[Habreno]

Actually, the difference in AC between a Stalwart and a cleric is more like:
3 Stalwart AC with shield
4 Stalwart Defensive Stance
2 SD max Dex in heavy armor
1 Dodge feat
2 Mobility feat
2 FAM (FAM III is too expensive, so I'm not counting it)
5 CE
2 SD ToD set bonus
____
21

The cleric could maybe pick up Dodge or Mobility, but they certainly don't have the feats to spare for stuff like that.

Its only 3 AC from CE. Everyone gets Defensive Fighting which is 2 AC.

And 18 is not that much when a pure 20 can hit a 95 fully fester leaving a SD with mid 100s.

[2x4]

I most certainly have had AC characters, and at various lvl caps. The only current AC character I have is lvl 9(tr)

non full bab classes have trouble hitting? Really? I beleive i stated this change for 'outside epics'.
Mob AC realy could use a raise.. I mean with a progressive attack chain players have little trouble hitting reliably.
Ive played my fair share of rogues, my fair share battle clerics and I even have a spell sword or 2. Not only do i not NEED to use divine power to hit reliably in most 'non epic' content I also dont have to turn off power attack.

I find it hard to beleive that 'non full bab' have issues with to hit on a regular basis - I play enough to know. And perhaps we shouldnt be looking at the situation as we should always hit, perhaps its right that mob AC should vary some what and some mobs should actualy be hard to hit because other wise mob ac is just as pointless as ours is.
Not suggesting EVERY mob has uber AC, but some should have - and i mean trash, not just bosses.

Regarding stacking: I do think that without stacking dodge modifiers, without insight modifiers, with a lvl cap on wisdom based AC that the truly HIGH ac guys will be brought back to within 10 points or so of a non dedicated tank that atleast tries for AC.

A stalwart defender wil have 9 more AC than a comparable fighter assuming there in stance and can fill out the DEX. (just ran through the compendium for that so blame it if the numbers off by a point or 2

Again assuming they can fill out the dex - thats only gona be 12 more than a cleric that bothered to take towersheild proficiency.

so 9 to 12 points... If an average mob is set to be hitting around the mid point then its a 75% chance of hitting that cleric and a 25% chance of hitting that fighter, and around 50% of hitting the kensai fighter.

ALL THE REST IS GEAR. And if you care about your armour then your going to have that gear. Limiting the stacking of armour bonuses to (non stacking)dodge, (non stacking)natural, armour and sheild + (non stacking)modifiers from spells means the whole situation is easier to control and predict because variance is lower. It also has the advantage that a high AC character doesnt need as many slots dedicated to AC, thus not gimping them selves so much.

Monks AC benefits are balanced in comparison to a fighter with a sword and sheild, infact there a little lower in comparison.


Variance.. here lies the heart of the issue.
The variance of armour is about 90 points..... that is AC0 to AC90
The variance of the D20 roll is 20.

The 2 solutions that WILL work is either
A: reduce the variance of armour
B: increase the variance of the d20 roll.

I dont think that the d20 should be messed with, DDO has already diverted wildly from it roots and this is core.
There for the only remaining solution is to reduce the variance of armour. The simplest way to do this is reduce the number of factors that add to it, and the easiest way to do that is to remove stacking of certain types and remove certain types all together.

Its not going to be nice for the players, but it will be good for the game.

This frames the AC issue as we know it. (Yes it has a PnP iteration)

The thing is: why do we have to overthink it so much? The math is clear. Don't see any mathematics that oppose what has been posted. In fact, Thrud proposed putting the math behind the vale (so to speak)

So could someone now distill DDO AC down to the basics? Are we there now?

[Natashaelle]

... 18 is not that much [difference to an AC value] ...

Spoken like a true worshipper of the "AC is useless" religious cult ...

[Vanquishedfo]

its simple the devs made a monty haul campaign based on the archaic D&D D20 rules that where so outclassed by most other publishers that they rushed into 3.5 then 4 and now 5E to try and get back the players who have long since said see you wizard wannabes.

I tend to in my PnP D20 use a blend taken from several D20 games using modified 3E rules. One of the cornerstones is the Conan D20. This uses physical based armor as a form of DR, gives weapons all various forms of penetration, makes weapon finesse completely by pass the DR as a form of balance for the agility fighter, and uses an opposed defense roll and gives two options with interesting differences.

Dodging draws from dex and is much akin to the AC system we know now. Every class gains some inherent increase to this defense die roll as they lvl up, classes like rogue and ranger tend to get alot more by the end then others. Armor puts limits on this just like a dodge bonus from dex.

Parrying draws from strength, and just like dodging will increase as you lvl, with classes like fighter getting a substantial bonus typically. However parrying also requires the use of weapon or shield, and puts heavy wear on them and in the PnP system is indeed meant to create substantial risk of weapon or shield being broken if used to defend to much. This is ofcourse why conan is one multiclassed baddazz with levels in barbarian,rogue,woodsman(thier ranger) and armsman( fighter), gave him tremendous ability in diverse fighting styles which should be the goal of any real adventurer.

This makes for a much more interesting and dynamic PnP D20 combat system and I feel would do alot to improve DDOs as well.

[sephiroth1084]

2 Separate issues
Grazing hits need to go.

They actually serve a purpose. While I don't like the logic that brought them about, I can appreciate their role in the game now. All getting rid of grazing hits would do is solidify the devs' fear of AC characters becoming invulnerable.

And 18 is not that much when a pure 20 can hit a 95 fully fester leaving a SD with mid 100s.

Are you even reading this conversation? Do you know anything about AC?

An 18 point difference is a completely different die. If the SD is getting hit at all the uber-geared cleric will be getting hit on a 2+. That's part of the problem with AC now--that the game (or at least as much of it that is balanced at all) around the characters who have all the AC, making it utterly pointless for anyone else to bother with it.

[grodon9999]

They actually serve a purpose. While I don't like the logic that brought them about, I can appreciate their role in the game now. All getting rid of grazing hits would do is solidify the devs' fear of AC characters becoming invulnerable.

Are you even reading this conversation? Do you know anything about AC?

Grazes can stay IF it's a mean of getting AC to work in epics. Elite Horoth Grazed me for 75 last night . . . invulnerable my ass!

An 18 point difference is a completely different die. If the SD is getting hit at all the uber-geared cleric will be getting hit on a 2+. That's part of the problem with AC now--that the game (or at least as much of it that is balanced at all) around the characters who have all the AC, making it utterly pointless for anyone else to bother with it.

Enter the 2-40 variable (or that thingy that Cyr proposes that I don't understand).

[Astraghal]

Just make different armor types have scaling DR vs grazing hits. Robes get zero, scaling up to Fullplate, which gets say 30 or 50, whatever is enough to cancel out most grazes. Adamantine might give another +10 or so for its hardness etc. It would also probably have to apply to mobs, but that's just one idea. Feats or Enhancement lines could provide ways to penetrate this DR, perhaps as part of the fortification debuff from Improved Sunder. Or as incrimental stacking bonuses on the THF feats, but basically tiered so you can get it cheaply and easily on a melee class.

[sephiroth1084]

Grazes can stay IF it's a mean of getting AC to work in epics. Elite Horoth Grazed me for 75 last night . . . invulnerable my ass!

Agreed.

Enter the 2-40 variable (or that thingy that Cyr proposes that I don't understand).

I'd actually like to see an even bigger range than that made useful.

[grodon9999]

Just make different armor types have scaling DR vs grazing hits. Robes get zero, scaling up to Fullplate, which gets say 30 or 50, whatever is enough to cancel out most grazes. Adamantine might give another +10 or so for its hardness etc. It would also probably have to apply to mobs, but that's just one idea. Feats or Enhancement lines could provide ways to penetrate this DR, perhaps as part of the fortification debuff from Improved Sunder. Or as incrimental stacking bonuses on the THF feats, but basically tiered so you can get it cheaply and easily on a melee class.

Once again . . . armored bracers are ARMOR. Your body is surrounded by a force field, you are wearing ARMOR. This is a black-letter rule, read the item descriptions.

That said. . . I'd be cool with the ARMOR bonus working as DR against grazing hit (and ONLY grazing hits). PJs would get 8 and armor would get 17. i'd be cool with the actual shield BONUS applying to this as well instead of the ridiculously silly shield-mastery rules we have now. This actually makes a hell of a lot more sense than what we have now where the current system greatly favors casters over melee.

Any mitigation where the criteria is simply the TYPE of armor or shield and not the actual defensive value of such armor/shield is ******** and needs to be removed from the game.

[Meriadeuc]

Elite Horoth Grazed me for 75 last night . . .

I think you mean "Grazed". How much damage does one of this real hits do if he can "graze" you for that much?

[grodon9999]

I think you mean "Grazed". How much damage does one of this real hits do if he can "graze" you for that much?

On Elite? He hits like a truck. I think I've seen 150+ on a full hit. Sulu can hit the same on elite. Hard LOB is also 100-150 a shot.

Most of Horoth's grazes are between 40ish to 50ish, but I saw several 70s last night. We had some issues with team Sulu so that fight went' 18 minutes so I got to do a lot of "research" into the matter.

[sephiroth1084]

I think you mean "Grazed". How much damage does one of this real hits do if he can "graze" you for that much?

Over 100 on elite.

[Meriadeuc]

That said. . . I'd be cool with the ARMOR bonus working as DR against grazing hit (and ONLY grazing hits). PJs would get 8 and armor would get 17. i'd be cool with the actual shield BONUS applying to this as well instead of the ridiculously silly shield-mastery rules we have now.

Does the type of shield you are using (or not using) reduce the magnitude of grazing hits now? I seem to remember something like that being part of the description when they were proposed, but I've never been able to tell if it really works that way or not. If the shield type does have an effect, what type are the shield spell and the tempest (shield) AC bonus considered to be?

[Meriadeuc]

I think I've seen 150+ on a full hit.

So (if I understand how it works correctly), that would imply that his damage is composed of 50% base damage and 50% bonuses of various sorts? I suppose that is "realistic" in a sense, although it's pretty out of whack with high-end player damage (which is probably about 10% weapon base and 90% bonuses).

[grodon9999]

Does the type of shield you are using (or not using) reduce the magnitude of grazing hits now? I seem to remember something like that being part of the description when they were proposed, but I've never been able to tell if it really works that way or not. If the shield type does have an effect, what type are the shield spell and the tempest (shield) AC bonus considered to be?

No, but shield mastery helps a lot regarding this as does the static DR you get as a defender when you have a shield equipped.


With what I'd like to see the most DR (for crazing hits ONLY) a monkey-splash whould be able to get would be 12. 8 armor and 4 from a shield wand. A heavy armored toon with a tower-shield would get much more, 17 from armor and I think 11 (?) from his shield?

so that 75 point graze would hit the PJs guy for 63 and the heavy armor guy would be 47, that's noticable and starts to add up.

Shield mastery should be changed to add more DR versus grazes and the % reduction needs to go. It's a BS mechanic that benefits casters more than tanks.

I don't see grazes as a being a bad thing, it's an existing mechanic that can be changed to make a more balanced game than what we see.