Is this right - AC/To-Hit?

[noinfo]

Seriously? How we calculate the chance to miss is what makes our combat system good?

I always thought it was the active nature of it.

You need to see it as part of a whole. Active fluid combat is very good. Knowing exactly your bonuses and quick calculations and something to aspire too is also very good.

With this change you are marginalising the upper end of the melee spectrum in many ways. My focus is the AC issue because to me I enjoy the maximising of defense and being able to stand alone in melee without babysitting or if I feel like it going off to solo something without the need to be a blue bar caster. Others like that they will only miss on a 1 since they have max geared for this vs many other types. Now we are told we are OP in this, and that with diminishing returns there is LESS desire to make our toons the best they can be in an area. Getting hit 25% of the time on a max defense build? No thanks. Missing alot on a max dps build? No thanks. Before you would watch your gear and swap around as needed, oh I have IH so I am dropping out of CE to PA or I need to swap in high to hit gear or destruction for certain bosses/mobs. Now the focus is on mediocrity as the middle ground can be achieved easy enough by all and with little separating middle from the top there seems little point for those who got a sense of achievement from what they were building.

All the effort with ED etc which is fantastic has just been erroded by the lack of response in the one area you had to get right. You have seen people concerns, there was supposed to be a lets talk AC thread, the one area people have been after forever, so many viable suggestions made and ignored.

I know it is late in the day but consider the things people have been saying and give us the curtosy you have shown to casters.

[noinfo]

Dodge is not getting hit through quick reflexes, keen senses, or use of the Force.

AC is not getting hit because the enemy's weapon can't get past your shield and armor to even scratch you.

This is not the way it has every worked or should work. Gygax would be rolling over in his grave over this change.

[voodoogroves]

Dodge is not getting hit through quick reflexes, keen senses, or use of the Force.

AC is not getting hit because the enemy's weapon can't get past your shield and armor to even scratch you.

That's not actually correct. AC in core D&D is both ... being hit with a blow strong enough to penetrate armor and do damage.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#armorClass

Your Armor Class (AC) represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow on you. It’s the attack roll result that an opponent needs to achieve to hit you.

(1) connect
(2) solidly enough to do damage

In addition, spells like shield and mage armor are really force fields - something people often confuse when talking about the AC of PJ wearers. This extends to bracers of armor, which are crafted permanent versions of Mage Armor.

An invisible but tangible field of force surrounds the subject of a mage armor spell, providing a +4 armor bonus to AC.

Shield creates an invisible, tower shield-sized mobile disk of force that hovers in front of you.

Touch AC (what PNP uses for ray spells) is actually closer to actually being "touched" by the item/weapon. Monks tend to have a touch AC very near their "real" AC ... as their AC is composed mostly of dodgy components and a bit of force-field (from armor bracers).

Touch Attacks

Some attacks disregard armor, including shields and natural armor. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn’t include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally.

Unearthed Arcana and other later books had a variant systems where these were more properly split. The ability for the archer to put an arrow on your center of mass was one thing (call it Touch AC) and the ability of your armor to soak the damage was some form of DR.

In these models a monk type should ABSOLUTELY have a higher "AC" or "defense against being hit" value ... just like people with heavy armor and shields should ABSOLUTELY have a higher "reduce damage" capabilty. Taking it on the shield is still "taking" it ... the shield reduces the impact. You were hit, but you absorbed some/most/all of the damage. etc.



I'd frankly love a system like this in DDO. It's true-ish to D&D lore and would get the to-hit-target (touch AC) down to a reasonable number so being on the die is meantinful. It would also provide for scaling PRR and similar for the devs to use to balance "soak" MMO type capabilities and flat DR (like elemental absorption and resists provide).

[Elaril]

Seriously? How we calculate the chance to miss is what makes our combat system good?

I always thought it was the active nature of it.

It was everything. The to hit, the chances at misses and, most importantly, the game and combat system being based on the actual ddo game and mechanics. Your new system seriously messes with your bread and butter in a less than ideal way in my eyes.

I realize you are all proud of it, and it would be great in another, brand new, MMO, but it will be a disaster in this mmo. Along the lines of NGE disaster, that's how much of a deviation it is from the current system that people signed up for, and actually really like.

If I were you, I'd scrap it and hire someone whose only job is to argue contrary to whatever the popular stance is in Turbine HQ.

[Masadique]

This is not the way it has every worked or should work. Gygax would be rolling over in his grave over this change.

You ever meet Gygax? Because I don't think he would be. From every first hand experience I've heard about him, best friend's dad mainly - Jim is awesome by the way, used to work there before Hasbro bought them out, and constantly talks about how awesome of a guy Gygax was and how much he liked tinkering with rules. Look back at the early game play of DnD. It's changed completely since first edition, he was alive after 3.5, and he never seemed to mind.

Good Guy Gygax
http://sci-fi-guys.com/wp-content/up...ygax_f400a.jpg

Does he look mad to you?

V

Edit: You are completely right about AC though. There were even some pretty awesome charts, which were far too complicated to play with, which determined how you missed/did no damage based on how much you missed by. 5+ was a total wiff, others were a "hit" but not through armor, off a shield, not enough force, etc.

[Jonathrint]

That's not actually correct. AC in core D&D is both ... being hit with a blow strong enough to penetrate armor and do damage.


(1) connect
(2) solidly enough to do damage

I know - I meant in my suggested version. Other than monks, rogues are the traditional light-armor dexers, and Epic Dodge is basically a rogue feat due to the prereqs.

Epic Dodge: Prerequisites

Dex 25, Dodge, Tumble 30 ranks, improved evasion, defensive roll class feature.
Benefit

Once per round, when struck by an attack from an opponent you have designated as the object of your dodge, you may automatically avoid all damage from the attack.

[esoitl]

I have to disagree with this as well.

While an individual +1 or -1 to hit or Armor Class (on monsters) may not have an effect in a specific encounter due to the rounding to maintain the d20 for players, overall, debuffing, to-hit, various tactics, and buffing have a significant effect over the entirety of the dungeon.

For a particular attack, +1 to hit may or may not move you into the next 5% band. Against a different monster in the dungeon, or under slightly different circumstances (you moved into flanking for an additional +2), it might. Taking the entire quest into account, the +1 will make the difference occasionally, increasing your overall damage output.

Many of these bonuses and debuffs are less critical than before, when some characters would be unable to contribute to a fight at all without them, but together they should provide tangible benefits to the damage output of the party as a whole. There's also an interesting twist where AC debuffs (and buffs) are slightly more powerful in general than to-hit.

If we removed the rounding to 5% for players, then every individual +1/-1 to hit and AC would have an effect on player damage output, but then we'd lose the direct tie to the d20, which we're loathe to do. It's quite possible for us to do this, if there's enough call for it. We thought that keeping the d20 with this known behavior was preferable - let us know if we're wrong.

Skipping to-hit buffs like Greater Heroism or Inspire Courage would have dramatically negative effects to your overall damage output as a physical character. Considering the lengths that people are willing to go for an additional +1 damage, I think that it would be bordering foolish to refuse to use buffing and debuffing that increase your overall damage through the duration of the dungeon.

Seriously? How we calculate the chance to miss is what makes our combat system good?

I always thought it was the active nature of it.

Partially, yes, the way you calculate to-hit is what makes it good.
It is a much better system because it is more active than other games, but the system it is based on is a very good system which many players online have used offline for a long time. I think the complaints would be a lot less if it was still worked in a linear fashion, and same with the AC.

I don't know how to change it to extend the AC window, but giving everyone an automatic 25% to-hit and then capping it at a lower than 95% rate is not a good solution.

Some things from bold in the first quote:
1) If a character can't meaningfully contribute, that is the character's fault, not the games.
There should be no reason to punish many players and rework the entire game, just because some characters are not well built...
I had a melee that I brought into an epic quest one night. I had no trouble with 'heroics' but was useless in epic. I couldn't hit, had low DPS, and AC was fairly useless.... I didn't demand the system be changed, I found a way to make it better and went on the road to improving it.

2) People go to large lengths for a +1 damage because they know they will hit 95% of their attacks. After that, it's maintaining a high to-hit in more difficult content, then maximizing the damage per hit. Same as a Wizard will go to large lengths to farm an item for an Eardweller to increase their damage output, melees want +1 damage wherever they can get it.
It's going to be even more important now, because you've made a system where it's not every point of damage that matters, it's every [i]hit[/it] that is going to matter because the hit % is going to drop. When we're hitting less, we're going to want them hitting for a lot more. You've put a precedent on every damage enhancement in the game, and overall reduced the need for to-hit enhancements....

It's a very poor system in my eyes where there can be huge gaps in the abilities of a character on the character sheet that never appear in game. The new system is introducing this and it's not good. The fake d20 is not helping anything until you actually make the d20 mean something. It means nothing when the numbers are just rolling to reference a different system.

[sirgog]

It was everything. The to hit, the chances at misses and, most importantly, the game and combat system being based on the actual ddo game and mechanics. Your new system seriously messes with your bread and butter in a less than ideal way in my eyes.

I realize you are all proud of it, and it would be great in another, brand new, MMO, but it will be a disaster in this mmo. Along the lines of NGE disaster, that's how much of a deviation it is from the current system that people signed up for, and actually really like.

If I were you, I'd scrap it and hire someone whose only job is to argue contrary to whatever the popular stance is in Turbine HQ.

So you think that players should attack at one swing per six seconds unless they are standing still, and players should hit the level cap in just 250 fights against 'same level' monsters?

Some things from the 3.5 ruleset don't work in a real-time game. AC doesn't work beyond about level 5 or 6 in 3.5 unless players and monsters metagame the amount of Power Attack usage around knowledge or estimates of their opponent's AC (which can't be done in a real time game).

This change makes player defenses other than hitpoints, Shield Mastery and incorporeal/miss chance effects relevant and effective for wide varieties of players for the first time since the Shroud was added. The 14 cap was the last time that building for medium AC was viable in this game.

[AbyssalMage]

Wow, I wasn't happy with the AC changes (and I have yet to fully understand that thread either) and the +Hit issues compound the issue.

So basically "AC" and "+ Hit" are irrelevant in the new system and they insist on calling this "D&D based" after the release/update!!!

Just in case the developers don't understand the multiple posts on AC & To-Hit...
The new system you insist on using isn't D&D.

You knew when you took the job that:
*EVERYONE missed/hit 5% of the time regardless of any other factor.
*You had an effective number range between 2 and 19. No matter how many "+'s" or "-'s" you have, it all comes back to 2 through 19. That is D20 and D&D 3.0/3.5.
*If you can't do the math with a 4th grade education, it isn't D20.

Your new system fails all 3 of those. Heck, it even fails (mostly) using 1st and 2nd edition rules. (1st and 2nd edition used d100, i.e. percentile rolls, so that saves you on non-combat)

[Elaril]

So you think that players should attack at one swing per six seconds unless they are standing still, and players should hit the level cap in just 250 fights against 'same level' monsters?

Some things from the 3.5 ruleset don't work in a real-time game. AC doesn't work beyond about level 5 or 6 in 3.5 unless players and monsters metagame the amount of Power Attack usage around knowledge or estimates of their opponent's AC (which can't be done in a real time game).

This change makes player defenses other than hitpoints, Shield Mastery and incorporeal/miss chance effects relevant and effective for wide varieties of players for the first time since the Shroud was added. The 14 cap was the last time that building for medium AC was viable in this game.

This change also fundamentally alters the games mechanics to the point that the only similarity to the game that we all at least partially like is the existing heroic quest objectives. It should be thrown away and never spoken of again, it is that bad. People dont sign up to play ddo to play wow lite, the games mechanics are one of the biggest selling points in my eyes and a solution should be found within them, not by adding an inane diminishing returns curve.

[LeLoric]

This change also fundamentally alters the games mechanics to the point that the only similarity to the game that we all at least partially like is the existing heroic quest objectives. It should be thrown away and never spoken of again, it is that bad. People dont sign up to play ddo to play wow lite, the games mechanics are one of the biggest selling points in my eyes and a solution should be found within them, not by adding an inane diminishing returns curve.

Game still plays very much the same as it does now on live. Have you tried it on lammania? It's hardly noticeable except in quests extremely under your level and those at the very high end of the difficulty spectrum and on live the latter has a worthless ac system currently anyways.

[Zirun]

Oh lordy lordy. Is this thread the epicenter for the impending Dooooo0000ooo0000m-ocalypse?

To-hit becoming entirely pointless with these changes? If things are more complicated than 1-20 numbers it's bad? Moving away from 3.5, even just a little bit, suddenly makes this game decidedly not-D&D?

Seriously?

1) To-hit will not be pointless to acquire. People currently do virtually everything they can for more damage. They do this because defenses are pointless (AC) or require very little effort to acquire (blur, shield mastery, HP) and there are so many sources of to-hit in the game that you don't need all of them for a 95% chance to hit. So people max damage. With the changes proposed, higher to-hit will always be a source of more damage. If you want max damage (which some people will, although less than currently with more defensive values becoming relevant), then you get as much to-hit and damage as you can.

2) It's only more complicated if you delve into the numbers. On the surface, for people that don't care, it's really simple: More to-hit = more damage, more AC = more defense. Will there be situations where more to-hit doesn't give any more effective damage? Sure. But we have those situations now, too. Most people won't care about that, though. And the people that do care about it are the ones who currently optimize and run numbers on everything, anyways. It's a non-problem. Could it be simpler? Sure. The current system is so simple that it doesn't work. But we don't want that, do we? No, we don't. There has to be more complexity. There has to be more numbers thrown in. Or else you'll get something equally broken.

3) Just because things no longer literally hinge on a d20 roll doesn't mean it isn't D&D. I have some friends who play D&D. One time they brought in some other people who had never played before. They made characters and want to be the best boat-makers in the world. So they put all their skill points into boat-making, and they made boats. No combat, no equipment. It's still D&D, though, because that's the heart of D&D: Customization. The ability to do what you want, how you want, when you want. That's why multiclassing is such an important part of DDO (and the main thing that sets it apart from other MMOs).

And when something doesn't fit, what can you do? Change it. If my friends want to be the best boat-makers in the world, do I throw down my fist and exclaim "No! You're in the dungeon of blahdeblah, and you have to fight these goblins, rescue the villagers, and escape!"? Of course not, that would be idiotic. D&D encourages modification to fit what you want to do with it. That's why there are so many manuals, so many campaigns, so many modifications, and so many people playing it in vastly different ways.

Some things just don't fit in an MMO with real-time combat. The attack sequences of P&P, with their decreasing AB for each attack in a round, don't work, because then people simply interrupt their attack chain and get the full AB on every hit. The HP totals don't work, because things would die way too fast when put in a real-time situation. These are departures from the official 3.5 rulebook, and yet people generally seem fine with them.

Another thing that doesn't really work is the d20. Yes, we all love it. It has you on the edge of your seat when you're sitting at a table with your friends. But it's virtually meaningless in a real-time MMO. There are so many dice rolls doing on that each one has virtually no impact unless it's that 1 you rolled on that massive Disintegrate that killed you. We all value the d20 so much, and yet it has no real impact on the game. Except when it's bringing it down. Having a 20-point effective range on hits in an MMO that's constantly adding levels and content simply doesn't work. If things kept going and we got to level 40, 50, etc., the exact same thing would happen with saves; either you go big or you ignore them altogether. That's bad game design.

So what do they do? Change it up. Make it work for the game that's being played. Just like the P&P group that decides to go fishing and do nothing else. Just like the guy who puts all his points into disguising himself to keep people from seeing that he's actually a bear for as long as possible. And yet a fecalstorm is launched because it doesn't stay true to the original game, despite branching off from the original game being a core part of the original game.

Is it perfect? Of course not. I think the free 25% chance to hit thanks to proficiency is too high and should be 5-10% if it's there at all. But there are going to be problems with any system. So long as it makes AC relevant, however, it's hard to mess it up badly enough that it's a net negative effect on the game (not the perception of the game, but the actual game itself).

Not trying to be mean or anything, but I seriously don't get all the furious complaining. Over-reaction is over. Maybe somebody'll explain it to me...

[Faent]

Game still plays very much the same as it does now on live. Have you tried it on lammania? It's hardly noticeable except in quests extremely under your level and those at the very high end of the difficulty spectrum and on live the latter has a worthless ac system currently anyways.

The game does not play "very much the same" for all *high* AC toons in content at their level. It does not, for example, play anywhere near the same for many 90 AC level twenty live toons in Hard or Elite ToD (that's content at their level). Whether it plays the same or not depends on who we're talking about it playing the same for. The obvious should be obvious. Among other obvious truths: when you overgeneralize you overgeneralize.

[Faent]

IMO, the new to hit system effectively throws out the legacy D20 system, and trying to keep it intact serves little purpose. Embrace the new and let every buff/penalty have a measurable effect.

The new system has nothing at all to do with a d20. A system that has nothing to do with a d20 was stuffed down the throat of a poor twenty-sided die, which then screams in pain and agony every time it is rolled by a player.

[LeLoric]

The game does not play "very much the same" for all *high* AC toons in content at their level. It does not, for example, play anywhere near the same for many 90 AC level twenty live toons in Hard or Elite ToD (that's content at their level). Whether it plays the same or not depends on who we're talking about it playing the same for. The obvious should be obvious. Among other obvious truths: when you overgeneralize you overgeneralize.

Ok well 90+ ac toons (I have 3) can pretty much trivialize tod hard and elite right now on live (~85% mitigation if you factor in glancings). My main tank should have 140ac 18% dodge and 40% prr reduction and 10% incorp bonus with the changes. This also trivializes hard and elite tod (>80% mitigation).

That enough degeneralizing for you?

Where it won't feel the same is epic lob where I now have ~20% mitigation now but will have roughly 70% mitigation after.

Sure theres some changes but we are making a pretty significnat change in levels and power level too which affect those feelings of change as much as the new combat sytem.

It's not a perfect system but it's markedly better than now for every one of my characters unless I wanted to farm favor in low teens quests at cap.

[btolson]

I like this much better.

AC is bypassed directly by to-hit + d20.
Any AC not bypassed is added to PRR.
Dodge provides %-chance to avoid attack.

This is simple.
Fixes AC issues by using physics collision detection.
Maintains damage mitigation for high AC characters through a PRR which has a diminishing return.
And as the armor being worn has a base PRR, mitigation still improves across the board for those wearing armor.

+1
I like this approach much better as well; at least +1 to hit will be universally beneficial again and 95% hit rate within practical reach. As it is not too much of a departure from the present build, there may even be enough time to properly implement it prior to launch!

[Faent]

That enough degeneralizing for you?

No. I was careful to write: "The game does not play "very much the same" for ALL *high* AC toons in content at their level." (emphasis added)

It's not a perfect system but it's markedly better than now for every one of my characters unless I wanted to farm favor in low teens quests at cap.

Congratulations on only building toons that, given your desires, were all positively effected by the changes.

[esoitl]

1) To-hit will not be pointless to acquire. People currently do virtually everything they can for more damage. They do this because defenses are pointless (AC) or require very little effort to acquire (blur, shield mastery, HP) and there are so many sources of to-hit in the game that you don't need all of them for a 95% chance to hit. So people max damage. With the changes proposed, higher to-hit will always be a source of more damage. If you want max damage (which some people will, although less than currently with more defensive values becoming relevant), then you get as much to-hit and damage as you can.

The problem is, old system made it pointless to acquire to-hit at a certain level because your values are higher than the monsters AC values. When the levels increase to introduce harder monsters, then you either need more, or are still at a sufficient value.
If you look at the graph Turbine gave, the top of the new curve falls well below what the old linear system had, and there is absolutely no way of getting it beyond that. That's a much different scenario where acquiring to-hit is effectively useless.

Sure, it isn't fair to say to-hit is absolutely useless, but when 25% is baseline to-hit and there is no way of achieving the 95% max to-hit that the d20 system dictates, there's something not quite right.

Bold - that is true in the old system, but now once you get to a certain point, all the to-hit bonuses in the world will still achieve nothing, yet you still have a higher miss% than should exist.

2) It's only more complicated if you delve into the numbers. On the surface, for people that don't care, it's really simple: More to-hit = more damage, more AC = more defense. Will there be situations where more to-hit doesn't give any more effective damage? Sure. But we have those situations now, too. Most people won't care about that, though. And the people that do care about it are the ones who currently optimize and run numbers on everything, anyways. It's a non-problem. Could it be simpler? Sure. The current system is so simple that it doesn't work. But we don't want that, do we? No, we don't. There has to be more complexity. There has to be more numbers thrown in. Or else you'll get something equally broken.

How is it so simple it's broken?
The system works, unfortunately when they translated it to the online format they had to change from a turn based to a live system. They chose to reward more attacks by introducing an upscaling attack bonus. In P&P, it downscales so the third attack has a massive change(+10 opposed to -10). If you take that into account and had a downscaling to-hit, the effective AC window drops drastically and might even work in the current system.

The most reasonable change to make would be to add an alacrity bonus with a downscaling to-hit with a BAB increase to mimic the P&P system. You're getting more attacks in less time, but they hit less frequently as your character is rushing the attacks.
It makes sense.

Some things just don't fit in an MMO with real-time combat. The attack sequences of P&P, with their decreasing AB for each attack in a round, don't work, because then people simply interrupt their attack chain and get the full AB on every hit. The HP totals don't work, because things would die way too fast when put in a real-time situation. These are departures from the official 3.5 rulebook, and yet people generally seem fine with them.

This argument isn't true, unless I misunderstand.
In P&P, the attack bonus downscaled because you are getting more attacks every turn. I'm going to accept the penalty to-hit if I can attack five times to an enemies two. If I chose to interrupt my chain to get full to-hit bonuses, I' sacrificing my extra attacks to do so.
In real time scenarios without a turn, sure I could not utilize my extra attacks with the penalty but this would have to come with a speed reduction to mimic what it's meant to be. It might be difficult to code for online purposes, but making each attack in the chain go faster would be one solution or a pause when the chain got interrupted to mimic the turn passing.... it's doable I'm sure.

Another thing that doesn't really work is the d20. Yes, we all love it. It has you on the edge of your seat when you're sitting at a table with your friends. But it's virtually meaningless in a real-time MMO. There are so many dice rolls doing on that each one has virtually no impact unless it's that 1 you rolled on that massive Disintegrate that killed you. We all value the d20 so much, and yet it has no real impact on the game. Except when it's bringing it down. Having a 20-point effective range on hits in an MMO that's constantly adding levels and content simply doesn't work. If things kept going and we got to level 40, 50, etc., the exact same thing would happen with saves; either you go big or you ignore them altogether. That's bad game design.

Not quite.
Saves are not at all automatic, and there are a lot of classes that they are not automatic for. Especially in epic content and even in elite heroic content now.
It's not bad game design, and your example is not accurate.

Yes there are builds with incredible saves, but those are not every build and every character, so for the majority of characters, saves are not automatic, skill uses are not automatic, to-hit isn't always automatic, spell penetration isn't automatic, SR checks are not automatic, and DCs are not automatic.
The d20 matters and it matters a lot... taking it out or fabricating a d20 like the new to-hit is a bad thing.

Bold - yes it does. Having an automatic 25% and an arbitrary cap is something that doesn't work.

Is it perfect? Of course not. I think the free 25% chance to hit thanks to proficiency is too high and should be 5-10% if it's there at all. But there are going to be problems with any system. So long as it makes AC relevant, however, it's hard to mess it up badly enough that it's a net negative effect on the game (not the perception of the game, but the actual game itself).

Not trying to be mean or anything, but I seriously don't get all the furious complaining. Over-reaction is over. Maybe somebody'll explain it to me...

Bold - the problem is in the formula they use..
(to-hit + 10.5)/(AC * 2) + .25 = to-hit %
If they lowered the auto to-hit, then the cap % gets lowered even further. Instead of capping at 85% to-hit, we cap at 60% and it makes the returns even worse, DPS even worse, and the problem even worse.
It's a bad formula and there is no way to change it without making it even worse.
It makes AC 'relevant' but high ACs are going to be less relevant whereas mid-range ACs will be more relevant. It's more about other sources now - PRR and anything to add miss chances are, arguably, more important now than AC will be.... they could have left the system alone and added these extra factors to produce the same results.

[noinfo]

Ok well 90+ ac toons (I have 3) can pretty much trivialize tod hard and elite right now on live (~85% mitigation if you factor in glancings). My main tank should have 140ac 18% dodge and 40% prr reduction and 10% incorp bonus with the changes. This also trivializes hard and elite tod (>80% mitigation).

That enough degeneralizing for you?

Where it won't feel the same is epic lob where I now have ~20% mitigation now but will have roughly 70% mitigation after.

Sure theres some changes but we are making a pretty significnat change in levels and power level too which affect those feelings of change as much as the new combat sytem.

It's not a perfect system but it's markedly better than now for every one of my characters unless I wanted to farm favor in low teens quests at cap.

So now how does he go in a quest without healers looking over his shoulders? This is one of the areas it falls down on badly. Ac was one of the way to separate melee from blue bar or massive pot dependance now not so much.

[lugoman]

Oh lordy lordy. Is this thread the epicenter for the impending Dooooo0000ooo0000m-ocalypse?

To-hit becoming entirely pointless with these changes? If things are more complicated than 1-20 numbers it's bad? Moving away from 3.5, even just a little bit, suddenly makes this game decidedly not-D&D?

Seriously?

1) To-hit will not be pointless to acquire. People currently do virtually everything they can for more damage. They do this because defenses are pointless (AC) or require very little effort to acquire (blur, shield mastery, HP) and there are so many sources of to-hit in the game that you don't need all of them for a 95% chance to hit. So people max damage. With the changes proposed, higher to-hit will always be a source of more damage. If you want max damage (which some people will, although less than currently with more defensive values becoming relevant), then you get as much to-hit and damage as you can.

Not really true, an improved sunder will result in more damage than a weapon focus.