# So, about defenses aka. PHB2 defenses feats



## Bayuer (Apr 4, 2009)

I think that this is even greater problem than Expertise. Let's see how this look:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4735419-post1.html

So we can see that our NADs are terribly designed. When PHB2 comes out we see some fixes to this problem. Paragon Defenses gives +1 to all NADs (it's feat bonus). On epic we got Robust Defenses (+2 feat bonus to all NADs) and Epic For/Will/Ref (+4 to single defense).

So if you look at the math crunch it is clear that this feats are the same math fix like Expertise. What's more important I think that they are more problematic than Expertise and more needed.

One of your NADs can be auto-hitet at epic! Your middle hitted on 5-6 on die. Even you best and optimized NAD will be hiteted on 8-9! That's big problem and I wonder why there's no post about that. So you probably will need to take Paragon Defenses (or one or two of this feats: Iron Will, Lighting Reflex, Great Fortitude at paragon. Later on epic you will definitly take Robust Defenses couse this feat is just great. +2 to all NADs is superior. Then you will probably need take one Epic F/R/W feat to you lowest NAD and maybe second for you middle NAD. That will use another 2-3 feats for you character.

I just really hope that WotC will not give us plenty more "must-have" feats, to make the math works, couse this will make the characters so boring and predictable.


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## Nymrohd (Apr 4, 2009)

I'm inclined to agree. A one-feat tax to fix attack issues is bearable (and if WotC claims this is not a fix then obviously expertise is extremely overpowered). A 4 feat tax to fix defenses is just ludicrous. Certainly there are many powers that can improve our defenses and reduce enemy attacks (I think every class has some tbh). And I am fairly certain they more than make up for monster abilities and still come out as a net gain for the party. But unlike the delta between monster attack/PC attack and even monster AC/PC AC for most classes, the one on NADs  is far broader. I would expect that my primary NAD will get hit less as I level, my secondary will stay about the same throughout the levels and my tertiary will get hit somewhat more. But the changes to hit chance should be about 2-3 points at most, not 4-5. I think 4-5 is just not fun.

The thing is, this does not affect just players, it affects the group. When the leader or even the defender uses up a high level power to save a striker from an attack, he should almost always manage to do just so. If the shaman uses up his Fate Weaver's Shield and you still end up getting hit on a roll of 12, this devalues that power to the Shaman as well. A leader should always have the feeling that he can save his teammates if he uses up his stronger resources.


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## Elric (Apr 4, 2009)

Your weak FRW defense gets much worse over time losing 7 points over 29 levels, with your stronger two FRW defenses (assuming you spread ability boosts to 2 stats that boost different saves) losing 4, just like to hit.  In general, losing FRW is more bearable than to-hit in that a large proportion of attacks go against AC, but pre-PH II losing 7 points on your weakest FRW puts you at "often get hit on a 2+, even if you took the appropriate Great Fortitude type feat."  

Another thing that's not mentioned as much in these discussions is that your FRW defenses tend to be easier for monsters to hit than AC from the get-go.  This is because monsters average about 1.5 less on attacks vs. FRW than vs. AC, (statistics from kerbarian's excellent thread, here), but AC tends to be 2-4 points higher than FRW for starting characters (sometimes even more- Plate and Shield Paladins, for example).  

However, it doesn't seem like FRW attacks are weaker than AC attacks to compensate for being more accurate; FRW attacks inflict more status conditions, among other things.  So having PCs lose that many points on non-AC defenses can be quite problematic against monsters with very strong FRW attacks (think Bodak Reavers).  A further downside to PH II's fix is that it's almost entirely in the form of epic feats, so level 20 PCs are in just as much trouble against the Bodak Reavers as they were before, but then they get a major jump in power when they hit epic.

Karinsdad's house rule, which I think is very clever, was to give +1 to hit and to FRW defenses at levels 5/15/25, and to also change it so that at levels 4,8,14,18,24,28, characters get +1 to three ability scores, not two ability scores. 

You could even give characters +1 to all defenses (as before, but include AC) at levels 5/15/25 instead, remove Masterwork Light Armors, scale down Masterwork Heavy Armors by 2 points of AC over 29 levels, and end up with all of a character's main attributes scaling at the same rate (with only the Masterwork Heavy Armor fix required as a specific kludge).  

Then you can ban the PH II Expertise feats and most of the PH II FRW increasing feats as well, since they're not needed for the game to scale appropriately.


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## Bayuer (Apr 4, 2009)

Elric all what you ares saying is true. The completly math crunch was in first post and here's the link again: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4735419-post1.html

Your optin how to fix it is ok, and was almost the same as mine. But. I considered that, giving feats for free is much simpler than tha giving flat bonuses at given level and banning feats. Anyway, the problem is real and we need to make a soltuion for this quick.


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## Elric (Apr 5, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Elric all what you ares saying is true. The completly math crunch was in first post and here's the link again: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4735419-post1.html
> 
> Your optin how to fix it is ok, and was almost the same as mine. But. I considered that, giving feats for free is much simpler than tha giving flat bonuses at given level and banning feats. Anyway, the problem is real and we need to make a soltuion for this quick.




I think the reverse is true: giving set bonuses at certain levels is simpler in general than using newfangled feats to try to fix the math.  You're already getting a +1 bonus on even levels, so now you have to add a few more +1s over your character's lifetime (though these +1s don't add to initiative/skills, even under my proposal above).  However, I can see how adding (free) existing feats can be easier with something like WotC's Character builder than modifying the numbers directly. 

As I said in your other thread, the Expertise feats are not a good way to give characters a bonus to hit.  Even giving every character an Expertise feat for free at level 5 as you suggest in your other thread doesn't do the trick.  Problems include: it doesn't apply to powers like a Dragonborn's Breath, characters with both an implement and weapon face a feat tax (and a character like a Swordmage-multiclass wizard-Wizard of the Spiral Tower faces an even larger tax).  You could give every character three free Expertise feats at level 5; that would solve all "feat tax" problems, but it's rather awkward.  

To get a smooth progression on FRW using free feats, you're going to need to give out a lot of free feats at different levels.  Just giving characters epic feats from PH II for free at level 21 isn't going to cut it, and neither is free Paragon Defenses at level 11, plus free Robust Defenses/one Epic X feat at epic, as you suggest in the other thread.  You'll end up with a huge spike in character power at level 21 from the free feats (and characters get the ability to take further Epic X feats), when you should be aiming for a more gradual progression.


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## Atanatotatos (Apr 5, 2009)

Mmm I think having high NADs is choice among many. There are other ways to defend yourself, depending on your build.
For example, a Battlerager/Dreadnought wouldn't want to spend feats on defenses, since he'd have so many hps he wouldn't have to worry much about damage; dreadnought would take care of the saves, and a couple well-picked items/feats can prevent him being dazed/stunned/dominated.


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## Bayuer (Apr 5, 2009)

Atanatotatos said:


> Mmm I think having high NADs is choice among many. There are other ways to defend yourself, depending on your build.
> For example, a Battlerager/Dreadnought wouldn't want to spend feats on defenses, since he'd have so many hps he wouldn't have to worry much about damage; dreadnought would take care of the saves, and a couple well-picked items/feats can prevent him being dazed/stunned/dominated.



So? One paragon path and now the warden and that's it. Are you saying that fact that this option egzist, autihiting one of you NADs with monster attack is ok? Even Dreadnought can't take damage to get the off dominated/stunned effect, so popular at epic level, where the problem is very huge.

@Elric
Well you could give Epic F/R/W feat for free at lower level. Lets say, 15?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 5, 2009)

I'm going to have to agree with Atanatotatos (does that rhyme with potatatoes? . 

IMHO you guys are thinking about the whole game the wrong way (and I don't mean to use 'wrong' to mean 'bad', just "wrong from my perspective"). Characters should be all about choice. 4e has already eaten away a LOT in terms of choices by the whole 'treadmill' approach to power. Players should be able to choose between high NADs, high AC, high to-hit, etc. You want to give them everything and make every character mathematically perfectly identical to every other one. Why not just make a rule that says "everyone has AC X F/R/W Y of N starting and it increases by M per level" and just make armor etc fluff? It seems to me that's basically what you're trying to do.

Instead just give the players control of their characters! If they want to spend all their feats on having high NADs then that is their choice. If they don't, then they can do other interesting things, like have better skills or some role-playing oriented feature added to their characters. You guys do remember role-playing don't you? lol. Sometimes I wonder! It is like some combat related number is the only thing that matters in the game anymore. Pick monsters and scale encounter difficulty to match the choices the players make instead of shoehorning them into a specific set of numbers just for the sake of the fact that it means they can take on a specific level of delve. If all your players want to do is fight, they WILL take the feats that will make them excell at that, and that is absolutely fine. If they don't, then they'll have a bit weaker defenses and need to pick and choose which fights to fight and which ones to RP their way through or around (which is usually more challenging overall).

I know I'm going to get a storm of "but you just don't understand, the numbers are broken" responses to this, complete with the specific example of such and such at thus and such level math and all the usual "feat taxes are evil". Meh. So it goes. I think all of that is missing the point. 

Sure there is going to be a power discontinuity between level 20 and 21 and between 10 and 11 too, but that was pretty much baked into the game when they decided to use tiers for controlling access to feats and having PP and ED tack onto your character at a fixed level. Maybe it makes the game system slightly imperfect in some sense, but so what if the PCs will get toasted by bodaks and 20th and they can wipe the floor with them at 21st? Use that as a plot tool! Players are smart. They can read the books and do the math just as well as the DM can. If there is an issue where they may blunder in where they shouldn't go yet, then work some kind of 'test' into the structure of the adventure that will clue them to that or even push them onto a short side adventure to get the required XP. Or just work in a quest that triggers in the appropriate place and levels them up.

Also it is pretty easy to throw PCs a few 1 shot bonuses when needed. Terrain that buffs NADs (activated by solving a skill challenge or something maybe), etc. 

Of course it is your game, and I don't really honestly mean this post to put down other people's points of view, just to point out that it isn't the only way to look at it by a long shot. Maybe people are too wrapped up in these numbers. The numbers should be your helpers, not something you have to wrestle with. Hope this perspective is at least interesting. Now, go on with your tweaking and have fun


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## Runestar (Apr 5, 2009)

> Instead just give the players control of their characters! If they want to spend all their feats on having high NADs then that is their choice. If they don't, then they can do other interesting things, like have better skills or some role-playing oriented feature added to their characters. You guys do remember role-playing don't you?




So what does roleplaying have to do with regards to creating a mechanically viable character? It is not as though by doing so, I am gimping my ability to roleplay my PC in any way.

If anything, an unoptimized PC will actually hinder my ability to roleplay, since he may not be capable of accomplishing what his fluff would otherwise suggest. 

Nor can one roleplay if he is dead. The most beautifully roleplayed PC is just another lawn ornament if he fails all 3 saves against the medusa. And it is not the best thought out fluff which saves you from being putty at the hands of a dragon, but cold hard stats.


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## Bayuer (Apr 5, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> If they want to spend all their feats on having high NADs then that is their choice. If they don't, then they can do other interesting things, like have better skills or some role-playing oriented feature added to their characters. You guys do remember role-playing don't you? lol. Sometimes I wonder!



High? Making the NADs hittable at 50% when you spend all this feats is for you a choice? I will say. LOL! If this feats will give you choice to make them better than average I could agree with you, but... If you don't take this feats your character will be too easy target for monsters. Hitting you on 5 is bad. Hitting you on 2 is... Your opinion is based too much on personal *feelings*, not facts.

Anyway I'm a pure role player. But I don't see any facts in this. Flaw can be done as DMG/PC want. But the math is still very bad. All this feats are still must have and even when you feel katharsis when bodak hits you FOR when he roll 3 on die, it's doesent prove anything.

@Elric.
Well maybe adding +1 on 5,15,25 lvl to attack and defenses will not be so bad...
When you will change Weapon Focus to just +1 flat bonus or just ban it from the game. And the other feats will be stil avalible, the game will have more sense.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 5, 2009)

We just see things VERY differently. The way I see it you guys are having a problem not because the game is somehow broken, but because you are putting a lopsided emphasis on only one aspect of play. Of course if the only way to succeed is by slagging monsters in situations where the only options are which powers to blast things with then you have created this problem. It isn't a problem that is inherent to the rules system.

Try creating adventures where the ultimate encounter is a level + 4 skill challenge. It is just as much a high difficulty encounter as throwing the most brutal possible monsters at the party, but as the rules are written your super combat expert characters WILL FAIL. They should fail because they are one sided characters and the reason they're one sided is that that's all they were ever asked to do! Every problem's solution that they ever faced was whipping out their trusty brutal superaxe and hacking things up.

Combat encounters can also involve a lot more stunting opportunities and mixed skill challenge and combat elements instead of just a battlefield with monsters to kill. I'm not saying a good proportion of encounters shouldn't be mainly combat, but a good proportion should be the other type too.

When you simply give everyone all the various numbers that your totally combat-dominated games require, you're solving your adventure design issue, but what about the type of game I'm talking about? It would be unplayable by your approach since the characters will certainly have all the skills they need, given that they got every combat benny for free.

I think at least a part of the blame for this rests with the 4e designers, especially WRT the DMG. They did pay lip service to non-combat elements of the game, but they failed to emphasize that these needed to be just as critical as combat. The various module authors have followed suite and pretty much created canned adventures that always revolve around mostly only what you can do with your sword. I'm sure it requires a lot less thought and creativity to build adventures like that, and they simplify play, but that doesn't make them superior game design.

Good 4e REALLY requires a LOT from DMs in terms of adventure design. Just like it requires a lot from players if they want to succeed. I think the vast majority of DMs have just been encouraged to take the easier path, and then it shows up problems. They aren't necessarily problems with the design of 4e. They can also be the result of limited adventure design channeling the party too much in one direction IMHO. I just would be disappointed if the game system itself gets munged into a shape where that is the only way you can play it, and I'm actually glad to see that the 4e core design team seems to understand that.


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## Elric (Apr 5, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> We just see things VERY differently. The way I see it you guys are having a problem not because the game is somehow broken, but because you are putting a lopsided emphasis on only one aspect of play. Of course if the only way to succeed is by slagging monsters in situations where the only options are which powers to blast things with then you have created this problem. It isn't a problem that is inherent to the rules system.
> 
> Try creating adventures where the ultimate encounter is a level + 4 skill challenge. It is just as much a high difficulty encounter as throwing the most brutal possible monsters at the party, but as the rules are written your super combat expert characters WILL FAIL. They should fail because they are one sided characters and the reason they're one sided is that that's all they were ever asked to do! Every problem's solution that they ever faced was whipping out their trusty brutal superaxe and hacking things up.




Part of the point of building these fixes into the rules is to avoid having players who don't take certain overpowered feats be underpowered relative to the other party members who do.  You've got that backwards- the character who benefits most from building these fixes into the rules isn't the character who would have taken Weapon Expertise and Robust Defenses anyway- it's the character who wouldn't have taken either, but from a mathematical effectiveness standpoint, should have.  That's why I propose banning the overpowered PH II feats in addition to building their benefits into the rules.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 5, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> We just see things VERY differently. The way I see it you guys are having a problem not because the game is somehow broken, but because you are putting a lopsided emphasis on only one aspect of play.




You must never have designed a game product. I have. Several times.

Designers cannot catch everything when they first design a game. Many times, they only discover something after the product has been released and used.

Just think about what we are talking about here. 3 Epic feats that add +4 to defense. Not +1 or +2 like practically every other bonus in the game system.

+4.

That's HUGE. The only reason to add a feat that works 24/7 for the PC and is that large is because the game math is broken.

No other reason.


Before release, WotC stated on several occassions that there would be very FEW bonuses to hit in the game system since this is an area where syngeries broke down in 3E and allowed for mega-PCs builds. They explicitly stated that.

They then turn around in PHB II and add in feats that add +1 to +3 to hit.

+3. Where else in the rules is there a +3 to hit that works 24/7?

Sorry, but the game math is broken and WotC is trying to fix it without interfering with the core math.

You can believe otherwise, but the facts speak for themselves.


Ditto for Adventurer's Vault and PHB II for Heavy Armor. The Heavy Armor math was broken in mid-paragon level, so WotC added a bonus to the masterwork portion of heavy armor in those levels in both of these products. Any DM that uses the original magical heavy armor rules in the PHB is screwing his players whose PCs use heavy armor.

However, this is a case where WotC could fix the math without resorting to feats. Like Elric stated, that is definitely preferable.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 5, 2009)

So far, all I've seen are threads that claim that encounters of your level are too easy.

Then I see threads like this saying that the math is too far stacked in favor of your opponents just because feats exist to bolster certain aspects of your character, making encounters too difficult.

Either encounters are too easy, or encounters are too hard.

All this mathcraft ignores interactions between powers, how rogues synergize, tactics, etc, etc; things that can't be determined by a spreadsheet but which come up each and every encounter.

Not every feat is a bug fix in a game where chainstunning Orcus is a viable tactic.


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## Elric (Apr 5, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> So far, all I've seen are threads that claim that encounters of your level are too easy.
> 
> Then I see threads like this saying that the math is too far stacked in favor of your opponents just because feats exist to bolster certain aspects of your character, making encounters too difficult.
> 
> Either encounters are too easy, or encounters are too hard.




It is very easy to reconcile these two perspectives.  Those threads: at low levels, encounters at your level are too easy.  This thread: as you gain in levels, the math goes against the PCs, which means PCs who are only slightly optimized will fall behind relative to where they were.  Done.



> All this mathcraft ignores interactions between powers, how rogues synergize, tactics, etc, etc; things that can't be determined by a spreadsheet but which come up each and every encounter.
> 
> Not every feat is a bug fix in a game where chainstunning Orcus is a viable tactic.




While it's true that there are increasing extra bonuses to hit as you gain levels, these bonuses tend to be only on encounter and daily powers (Righteous Brand is an exception and is, not coincidentally, too powerful for at-will).  If you design a character who dual wields Reckless/Bloodclaw weapons with Iron Armbands of Power and the game's best multiattack powers, a few to hit bonuses is all you need, but I see AV's strongest weapons as more poor design as well.

Yes, it's also true that parties heavy on stun powers will have an easier time with solos (easier still with a Champion of Order's Certain Justice power, or an Orb Wizard, but unlike stun powers, which are generally reasonable, both of those are overpowered), but I'm not sure what that proves.

As Karinsdad said, +4 to FRW on a feat as an untyped bonus (he didn't emphasize the fact the bonus is untyped and not a feat bonus) screams "math fix."


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## Ghost0 (Apr 5, 2009)

Is it possible by anyone's standards to adjust monsters' to hit and defenses to make up for the discrepancy? Instead of adding all of these feats or flat bonus boosts over levels, perhaps the DM could take on the unbalance and compensate by just adjusting the scores of the creatures?


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## KarinsDad (Apr 5, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> So far, all I've seen are threads that claim that encounters of your level are too easy.




There is a difference between "not challenging" and easy.

I think you are getting confused between the two. They sound similar, but are miles apart.

High level encounters are not necessarily challenging. The monsters hit for too little damage, they have too many hit points, and players have too many ways to help each other out.

So, the encounter is not challenging. It easily takes 20+ rounds to play as the players drudge through the mega hit points of the monsters.

But, no real challenge. Not easy, just time consuming and resource consuming.

It's obvious that very little (if any) Epic playtesting was done pre-release.

As an example. Take an encounter with 3 25th level Death Titans versus 5 25th level PCs. This is between an n and n+1 encounter XP-wise. The creatures are the exact same level as the PCs. It should be a walk in the park for 5 25th level PCs. Not easy, but pretty much typical.

The PCs have to eat through almost 2000 hit points of the monsters (including soul shards).

The monsters have to eat through <700 hit points (1000+ with heals) of the PCs.

The monsters hit the Legion plate and heavy shield specialized defender on a 12 (due to the aura).  45% of their normal attacks hit, so they average about 20+ points of damage per round against the defender, more against other PCs. Attacks versus AC are not a problem. At 60+ points of damage per round and healing surges, it takes the 3 monsters less than 20 rounds (maybe 18) to kill the PCs. Not including their Soul Devourer or Soul Burst powers.

The defender hits back on a 14.

The PCs each average maybe 35 to 40 points of damage with Encounter and Daily powers and have about 12 such powers (including items). But, these powers only hit about 50% of the time max (if that high, including synergies, the aura hampers melee PCs quite a bit). That's 1125 of the 2000 points they have to do and 12 rounds to do this damage.

The PCs each average maybe 25 points of damage with At Will powers. Again with a 50% chance to hit, it takes 14 more rounds to do this damage or a combined total of 26 rounds.

From this, it would seem like this is a lopsided fight strongly in favor of the monsters. But, although it takes the PCs more rounds to kill their foes straight up, their foes are often stunned or slowed or immobilized or dazed or caught in area effect powers which gives the PCs an edge. The PCs can focus fire against a single foe (5 vs. 3) than the monsters can and change the action economy easier. The PC's synergies end up winning this fight.

The encounter was challenging in that it took a lot of resources to win, but it was not suppose to. It was not an n+3 encounter, it was not even n+1. And, it took about 20+ rounds to play out. How boring.

The reason is that the PCs are not hitting as often as they should be and the monsters have too many hit points. At this point, the PCs have a 15% less chance to hit than they did at level one. A 15% better chance to hit means that the combat ends 3 rounds earlier at a minimum and probably closer to 5 or 6 rounds earlier.


This encounter also did not use the PC's Epic Destiny Class Features. Just the PCs powers. The class features give the PCs the edge to win this relatively close on paper fight (but not as close in game).

The encounter is challenging in that it uses a lot of resources, but it is not challenging in that the players feel like their PCs are going to die. The PCs are not going to die here. They are just going to use a lot of resources.

But they are going to use a disproportionate amount of resources against a less than n+1 encounter than they should. If they do not use up quite a few of their Daily powers, the encounter will drag out further and their healing will not keep up.

And, this less than n+1 encounter easily takes 20 rounds to complete. That's a LONG time.


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## Bayuer (Apr 5, 2009)

@AbdulAlhazred
You still talking about diffrent thing that I'am. Roleplaying isn't topic here. We talking about facts. The fact that wizrds gives us overpowered feats that fix the math, and the fact that was bad idee. Thus I give my proposition how to fix that issue, by giving this feats for free, couse this feats are overpowered/must-have/disturbed balance of the game/make the game as it suppose to be from the beginnig.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Then I see threads like this saying that the math is too far stacked in favor of your opponents just because feats exist to bolster certain aspects of your character, making encounters too difficult.



I said that the math is broken on higher level. Did math crunch. Compared it to feats from PHB2 and conclusion was simple. That is very bad math fix made by WotC. I don't say monster are to easy/too hard. I just comparing this simple facts togheter to make simple conclusion: something it's very bad here, and it's the math of 4E. 

There are almost none option how to suddenly avoid monster attacking you NADs if he needs roll 2 on dice to hit you. Even if you could get cover/concealment and +4 from your ally this is still ocasional and work not very offten (alies don't always grant you bonuses to you NADs). The monster uses his at-wil in next turn. Bam. You suck. Dominated!



			
				Ghost0 said:
			
		

> Is it possible by anyone's standards to adjust monsters' to hit and defenses to make up for the discrepancy? Instead of adding all of these feats or flat bonus boosts over levels, perhaps the DM could take on the unbalance and compensate by just adjusting the scores of the creatures?



That's too problematic solution. If make monster attack weaker, then characters whos NAD targeted by monster is the highest possible, the PC will be almost never hit. The fix is here. The feats from PHB2, by this is bad fix! That's the problem.


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## Elric (Apr 5, 2009)

Ghost0 said:


> Is it possible by anyone's standards to adjust monsters' to hit and defenses to make up for the discrepancy? Instead of adding all of these feats or flat bonus boosts over levels, perhaps the DM could take on the unbalance and compensate by just adjusting the scores of the creatures?




You could, for example, say "All monsters of level 5-14 get -1 to defenses and attacks vs FRW; make this -2 for levels 15-24, and -3 for level 25 up."  This would be similar to giving the benefits to PCs directly.

Two problems:

1) It's way too much work unless you're building your own monsters.  Imagine trying to use a published adventure, or creatures out of the MM.  If you can fix things with the PCs changing things once, that's a lot easier than changing the monsters every time.

2) It makes there certain levels of monster (5/15/25) that don't benefit adequately relative to their level 4/14/24 counterparks.  This is already a bit of a problem for PCs, and this extends it to monsters as well.  For example, a level 14 party fighting level 15 monsters isn't at a disadvantage on hitting/being hit relative to their level 13 counterparts fighting level 14 monsters.  If you give the PCs the pluses to hit on their levels, you don't have this problem, because everyone scales by roughly 1 point to hit/defenses per level.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 5, 2009)

Ghost0 said:


> Is it possible by anyone's standards to adjust monsters' to hit and defenses to make up for the discrepancy? Instead of adding all of these feats or flat bonus boosts over levels, perhaps the DM could take on the unbalance and compensate by just adjusting the scores of the creatures?




The advantage of adjusting the PCs instead of the monsters (with the possible exception of high level monster hit points) is that it only has to be done once every 40 gamings sessions or so (10 encounters per level / 2 encounters per session * every 8 levels a PC would be modified) instead of every single encounter.

The DM does not have to constantly modify the 4 dozen or so monster that the PCs encounter each level for every single encounter. Instead, the PCs are modified every 8 levels or so (e.g. a typical house rule is to add +1 to hit and +1 to non-AC defenses on levels 5, 10, and 15, so these would be 10 levels apart).

Much easier on everyone.


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## James McMurray (Apr 5, 2009)

Having run a game from 21st to 25th, I can say that it seems to me that the epic defense feats are overkill, and could change a sometimes challenging game to a cakewalk.

While it's true that the epic monsters hit really easily, that didn't make for hard fights, just ones where things happened. In over 40 battles, some involving PCs with less than their level in gear, no PC was ever killed. Only a few times was anyone dropped to 0 hit points, and they were almost instantly brought back up by the leader or their own abilities.

If they'd had +2 to +4 on their defenses it would have been even less dangerous for them.

I can't speak as much to paragon level. We played a paragon campaign from 11th to (IIRC) 14th, and it seemed pretty tough, but the GM was of the type who loves to shut off PC abilities and provide terrain that hinders the party but helps (or is at least ignored by) the monsters.

We just started a hero level game at 4th level (4 PCs in Thunderspire Mountain). So far it's been a wiff fest on the part of the monsters. There's only been 3 fights though, so it may not be indicative of how the game will go in the long run.


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## Iron Sky (Apr 5, 2009)

We've played from level 1 to our current level of 13, and I would say the fights get easier for the most part, not harder.  Sure the monsters throw out more status effects, but the players do even more.

Let me preface this post with the fact that our characters are rolled, not point buy.  Several of us started with 2 (or 4 in the case of our fighter) 18s.  That said, the DM stopped throwing any encounters lower than N+1 at us long ago.


To take last night's game I played in for example, we had three combats.

Fight 1 vs Solo Huge Spider.  3 rounds.  By the end of the first round it had the following status effects: Quarry, Curse, Cold vulnerability, -6 AC, Stunned, Blind, Divine Challenge.  Round 2: Quarry, Curse, Cold vulnerability, Dazed, Weakened.  Round 3: Dead.  It got off 2 attacks, 1 of which missed.  Our party lost 1 surge.

Fight 2 was complicated.  Split party, traps, archers behind arrow slits 50' away...  Cost us about 6-8 surges total amongst the party for 1 wounded goblin and 2 dead chull?(giant lobster thingies).  This was probably the toughest encounter we've run into since we hit Paragon.

Fight 3 vs 2 Shadow Oozes(Elites).  3 rounds.  Second round, one was dazed, the other was stunned(and dazed and weakened, amongst other things).  Third round both died.  Total party cost: 3 surges.


In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up.  If the PCs get their status effects in place first, the fight is easy, often a cakewalk.  If the enemy gets theirs in place, it might be difficult.  In my experience, fight difficulty is largely determined by the number of monsters that impose status effects.

Large enemy HP do little to make fights longer, unless that monster is also effective at dazing/weakening/etc the party.  Few monsters have hit hard enough to make outright damage the primary threat.


Anecdotes aside, as I'm about to start a campaign myself, I'm trying to figure out what to do with all this.  The idea of a monster hitting on a 2 seems wrong somehow, but in fights last night we had the paladin and rogue both hit an enemy elite with a 3...  and this without Expertise (we just got PHP2, making level 14's feat choice an obvious one for most of us).


With these defense feats at least, they aren't auto-picks for most of us.  
My ranger picks feats with one consideration: damage.  Used to have TWD, but ditched it at Paragon(when our two defenders joined).
The warlock picks any feats that augment her control powers or damage.
The Cleric has most of the Dragonborn feats and a smattering of random others.  He does have light shield prof for defense.
All three of us have the Wintertouched-Lasting Frost combo.
The rogue selects feats based on mobility and damage.
The Fighter picks mostly damage feats.  He has plate prof and spec, but that's about it for defenses.
The Paladin has shield spec.  The rest are pally feats and a random smattering of others(hammer rhythm, dwarven weapon prof, etc).


Even at +4 untyped, I don't see myself getting the epic feats with my ranger.  Maybe will since it's 6 points behind my AC (and will be about 8 points behind by Epic).  In a well balanced, tactical party, everyone doesn't _need_ good defenses.

If I get hit by a 2 by some big nasty controller solo, it doesn't matter if he never attacks me 'cause the pally has him locked down the whole fight.  The defenders may pick them up, but I don't see our leader or the striker trio more than cherry-picking on or two.

Expertise is a different matter, however...


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## jbear (Apr 5, 2009)

Lol, I ask myself what a whiff-fest is. Easy for PC's ? Or hard?
I haven't played at epic levels or even paragon to be able to contribute intelligently to the discussion. However, reading Karensdads description of the  grind in store in the future for what should be piece-of-cake encounters, I groan inwardly. 

Although monsters being able to hit the PC's isn't too problematic, from my point of view. I don't want my players having to deal with hour long boring fights. So I ask myself this:

When you calculate damage, eg. 3[w] + STR and you use a +3 Maul, the plus three is not multiplied by 3. It's just added as a straight 3 at the end. However if it was included in the calculation of the weapons damage, suddenly it's doing 6d6 +9 +STR.
It seems like a fairly simple and logical calculation, and perhaps would contribute to slaying monsters with lots of HP, and contribute to reducing grind when the entire group is doing it round by round

Opinions?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 5, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> @AbdulAlhazred
> You still talking about diffrent thing that I'am. Roleplaying isn't topic here. We talking about facts. The fact that wizrds gives us overpowered feats that fix the math, and the fact that was bad idee. Thus I give my proposition how to fix that issue, by giving this feats for free, couse this feats are overpowered/must-have/disturbed balance of the game/make the game as it suppose to be from the beginnig.




And what I am saying is that role-playing is a FACT of the game. I can take a feat that raises one of my NADs by 4 OR I can take a feat that gives me a new skill or a +2 or in a few cases +3 on some skill rolls (as an example, there are other examples I could give). 

Now that extra skill bonus could WELL be the difference for my party to succeed in a complex level + 4 critical skill challenge that means success or failure of the entire adventure. Just like the outcome of a battle could be. Or it could be the skill bonus I need to do a stunt that knocks the monster into the lava and wins the battle. 

It is not clear cut that the NAD bonus feat is always superior. It WILL be superior in a battle where there are no options except beating on the opponent with powers. But if you design good skill challenge encounters and good stunting opportunities and similar things into encounters then PCs will have a choice of things they want to use their skills on.

In my campaign it would be just as critically fatal for a party not to be able to pull off difficult athletics feats or acrobatics, or knowledge checks or anything else even when the DC is +4 levels or more hard.

I understand what you guys are talking about, and YES I have actually designed games, several in fact. Sure, nobody gets every bug out a game, not in the first cut and probably not in the 40th edition when you're talking about an RPG where people do all crazy stuff with the rules. 

I just think it should be a choice for the player. Buff his NADs or buff his skills or whatever else. Can't have it all. Yup some specific monsters at some levels will have powers that are NASTY effective against some PCs. Overall the PCs seem to be winning out, even sans using more combat bonus feats. The cyclops example is exactly a perfect example of what I'm talking about though. It is really a pretty balanced encounter. Maybe the PCs have to burn a bit extra resources for your liking, but I can show you encounter mixes at ANY level that are like that. No game designer could EVER balance all possible combinations and it would be foolishness to try.

However, what if one of the PCs with a super high DC skill check could have toppled one of the death titans off a cliff? Maybe he would succeed on that if really put his effort into building his character for skills and not quite so much for melee. Maybe he could fool the titans and get by without wasting a big fight, or find a way to navigate around them. IF the adventure designer is really creative, those options will exist and characters can be built that are VERY unoptimized for full on combat, but still huge assets to the party.

Sadly most adventures don't cater to that, it is a lot harder to write than Room 27, 3 death titans, carnage follows...


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## James McMurray (Apr 5, 2009)

jbear said:


> Lol, I ask myself what a whiff-fest is. Easy for PC's ? Or hard?




Whiffing is missing. The monsters were having a whiff-fest, by which I meant they were missing left and right. Part of it was probably just probability though. For instance, the one 5th level monster they fought never hit anyone, while the 3rd level goblins that were with him hit several times (for much more damage because of their rage ability).



> I haven't played at epic levels or even paragon to be able to contribute intelligently to the discussion. However, reading Karensdads description of the  grind in store in the future for what should be piece-of-cake encounters, I groan inwardly.




Except in the case of solos and insubstantial creatures (or heaven forbid the one insubstantial solo I used) there wasn't much in the way of grinding for our epic game. The players usually focused their attacks on one or two monsters, and the critters dropped fairly quickly. I also had a house rule for minions, and used them quite a bit, which made it so that monsters fell faster.



> When you calculate damage, eg. 3[w] + STR and you use a +3 Maul, the plus three is not multiplied by 3. It's just added as a straight 3 at the end. However if it was included in the calculation of the weapons damage, suddenly it's doing 6d6 +9 +STR.
> It seems like a fairly simple and logical calculation, and perhaps would contribute to slaying monsters with lots of HP, and contribute to reducing grind when the entire group is doing it round by round
> 
> Opinions?




You'll hurt the non-weapon users, most of whom already do lower damage (though with more secondary effects and area attacks). What about instead:


At-Wills work as normal.
Encounter powers double the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.
Dailies triple the normal bonuses from feats, attributes, and enhancements.

It affects all the classes equally, so (among other things) means the Warlock, who normally does the least damage of the 3 core strikers, isn't doubly hurt. It also puts a limit on the characters' ability to output massive amounts of damage.


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## jbear (Apr 5, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Whiffing is missing. The monsters were having a whiff-fest, by which I meant they were missing left and right. Part of it was probably just probability though. For instance, the one 5th level monster they fought never hit anyone, while the 3rd level goblins that were with him hit several times (for much more damage because of their rage ability).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yes, I see what you mean. The casters usually have set damage, so their enhancement bonus wouldn't be multiplied. Doubling or tripling feat damge, enhancement damage and attributes (you mean 3x STR? in the case of daily powers? seems off hand like it could get pretty crazy with the damage and might make it too easy. GOliaths +2 with two handed weapons x3, +3 axe x3 and STR x3: Around +36 dmg could be easily achieved around lv 16 on delivering a Daily Attack. Quite a bit more than I was thinking.

But the idea that the weapons or the implements enhancement bonus was multiplied by the number of dice rolled. In the case of weapons by the number of [w] dmg inflicted (so as to avoid 2d6 mauls having enhancement counted twice). So if a Warlocks daily did 3d10 the enhancement would be counted 3 times, as if each d10 was 1[w].

This would not affect At Wills, generally because At Wills usually only deal 1[w] dmg.
Or 1dSomething dmg.

Anyway, this is getting off the topic and a bit more complicated than I originally thought.


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## Elric (Apr 6, 2009)

Iron Sky said:


> In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up.  If the PCs get their status effects in place first, the fight is easy, often a cakewalk.  If the enemy gets theirs in place, it might be difficult.  In my experience, fight difficulty is largely determined by the number of monsters that impose status effects.
> 
> Large enemy HP do little to make fights longer, unless that monster is also effective at dazing/weakening/etc the party.  Few monsters have hit hard enough to make outright damage the primary threat.




I think you're right that monsters with status effects are stronger.  I haven't played at epic, but looking at level 15-25 creatures in the MM I'm struck by how much better some of the ones with status effects or other special abilities are.  This is because monsters aren't given enough damage to compensate for not inflicting status effects and/or aren't penalized enough for inflicting status effects or having other special abilities.  

Look at the Ghaele of Winter (Eladrin) at level 21, for example.  It's pretty fragile as artillery, but it has a (edit- _minor action_) Close Burst 3 attack at +23 vs. Will that Dazes for the entire duration of the encounter.  Using just PH bonuses to FRW, +23 at 25th level is enough to hit a PCs strong FRW defense reasonably often (at level 25, without feats, a 35-36 strong FRW defense seems typical, while a weak FRW defense would be around 29).  It can potentially use this attack multiple times.

Imagine adding it to Karinsdad's Death Titan encounter.  If a party doesn't know to kill it ASAP (since it flies, this could be hard for a party without serious single target ranged attacks), and it uses this power once when it can catch a few PCs in it, that will make the encounter significantly tougher.  What about an extra Giant Mummy instead (level 21 as well)?  Not so much.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> And what I am saying is that role-playing is a FACT of the game. I can take a feat that raises one of my NADs by 4 OR I can take a feat that gives me a new skill or a +2 or in a few cases +3 on some skill rolls (as an example, there are other examples I could give).
> 
> Now that extra skill bonus could WELL be the difference for my party to succeed in a complex level + 4 critical skill challenge that means success or failure of the entire adventure. Just like the outcome of a battle could be. Or it could be the skill bonus I need to do a stunt that knocks the monster into the lava and wins the battle.
> 
> It is not clear cut that the NAD bonus feat is always superior. It WILL be superior in a battle where there are no options except beating on the opponent with powers. But if you design good skill challenge encounters and good stunting opportunities and similar things into encounters then PCs will have a choice of things they want to use their skills on.




Given that Epic FRW gives a +4 bonus to one FRW, Robust Defenses gives +2 to all three, and pre-PH II a character's feats options gave +2 to one FRW defense, would you then conclude that the Great Fortitude line of feats was terrible, since it was 1/3 to 1/2 of the bonus of the current line of feats?  So the PH II feats are needed just to make boosting FRW competitive with Skill Training and Skill Focus?

More specifically, how large of a bonus would Epic FRW and Robust Defenses have to give before you concluded that their bonuses were too large?


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## Runestar (Apr 6, 2009)

> Given that Epic FRW gives a +4 bonus to one FRW, Robust Defenses gives +2 to all three, and pre-PH II a character's feats options gave +2 to one FRW defense, would you then conclude that the Great Fortitude line of feats was terrible, since it was 1/3 to 1/2 of the bonus of the current line of feats?




+2 at paragon seems fair (at the time when you are first eligible for it), though I am not sure this bonus should scale at epic (bear in mind that you could easily retrain iron will into epic will (or at least, robust defenses), if you are starved for feats and cannot afford both of them. 

So at paragon, you could take the 3 defense boosters and retrain them into their epic versions (there is no reason in keeping the former 3, when 1 epic feat replicates the benefits of all 3, nor do they stack anyways). There aren't that many good or worthwhile epic feats at the moment, so your choices are pretty much made for you.

4 feats for +6 to all defenses. Seems reasonable, too good in fact that I can see many builds wanting them.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 6, 2009)

To make my point a little better:

You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.

Now, difficulty is experienced through play, and so evidence garnered through play is a lot more indicative of problems than mathematical theorycraft.

That's my point.  You can -say- there's a problem because 'the numbers are off' but if people actually playing at that high level aren't finding things unduly difficult, then there -is- no problem.  The math might not seem to be 'elegant' and 'properly symetrical' but only if the game is actually difficult to play at high level does a problem really exist.

Scientific method, people.  The theory-craft says it is difficult, now it's time to observe to support this thesis.  If the observation does not support the thesis, you throw out the thesis and start again.

Even if the 'math says otherwise.'

My thesis is that the 'math' does not break down, per se, but that the values of the math are less important with the more powers and effects and tactics you have at your disposal making up for the shortfall.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

@AbdulAlhazred
Skill feat is just only pseudo-roleplay feat option in game. Linguist may be better and that's it. We don't talk about skill use couse it will need another thread when we can discuss about it's broken ST ie. Skill Challange. Stop making an examples of roleplaying combat consequences, couse it's not the fact, and almost none use such a fights in they games, couse 4E is mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls.



			
				Iron Sky said:
			
		

> In 13 levels of 4e, I'd say status effects make the combat, not damage - and this only gets more true as the levels go up.



That's true. But...  If DMG don't have enough experience and don't know the game math etc he will make some mistakes when he design the enoers. He will put to weak monster and thus the challange will be trival (and most of the DMs do such). Guidlines from DMG are to weak, but they are for non-optimized roleplaying parties I think. In other hand when a such DMG want to make a threat to party he will make deadly encounter mixing monsters thats combat effects work very nice.

The both can be true and in both cases having better defenses is needed. In first example it will not change anything. In second it will give players just fair chances to survive.

One more thing. Don't use n=0 or n+1 encounters as guidlines for challenging fights. Don't do so with solos and too many elities, couse they fail to make they designed role. The true is the more monsters in fight, the more challenging it is. One example here:
- Throw on 20 level party this encounter (we will be using easy Wolf Pack (7 skirmishers of level n-4:
- We got 7 Kuo-Toa Monitors (lvl 16 Skirmisher)
They attack is +19 vs. REF and make you stunned (encounter power) (save ends)
Now let's look at playres DEF:
Highest - 32 (13 on dice to hit), Middle - 29 (10 on dice to hit, Lowest - 25 (6 on dice to hit).
Anyone can easly say. They DEF are quite fine, thus this are monsters 4lvl behind the PCs! But there are 7 of them, and this fight is EASY! Make Let's make them the same lvl +23 vs. REF.
Highest -32 (9 on dice to hit), Middle - 29 (6 on dice to hit), Lowest - 25 (2 on dice to hit). Guidlines tells us that there 5 monsters of level n (the same as team level) is standard fight. You can see that someone with realy weak REF (one example: barbarian) will have a though time in this fight. Other will be hurt too. Only to ones with high REF will have some fun from game!

Well I did an easy/standard fight above. Imagine what will be if this will be a hard fight on n+4 level with controller or artillery as buckup. TPK.



			
				Runestar said:
			
		

> 4 feats for +6 to all defenses. Seems reasonable, too good in fact that I can see many builds wanting them.



And that's the point! The feats are too good to just pretend they are not exist, and I will take Linguist on 25 level couse I'm roleplayer.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.



You think we are some idiots here, gathering to just make some teory fiction posts? Man... This problem wasn't on topic until them from two reasons:
- Not many people are playing high paragon/epic tier games and even if, not everybody pay attention to game math etc. The most players just take what a DM gives to them and they are happy, thus is very good! Couse the game is good to them.
- We didn't have PHB2 feats until now, thus not many people did math crunch and state the math is broken. Now we have evidences about this!

And I must dissapoint you. I was playing almost all levels till then (just not late epic games) and I can tell you my feelings that if my DM will not take my advices seriously he will slain our party many times. I just pointed him that this isn't tactic game DM vs. players, but the cinematic game when we fight and monster are to make the game fun. He stopped using encounters as I gave as an example above and make the fights still challenging but not devastating. Good DMG can always make TPK easily if he knows rules, but this aren't n, or n+1 fights (but this can still happen, go above my encounter example).

Standard fight may look fine. Players will surive them withou any problems, but monster hitting on 2 on dice isn't "well he need that, couse the fights are to easy". It's just a terrible design step and math bug.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 6, 2009)

While I get what you're saying, the math doesn't include damage outlay from the monsters vs player's non-numerical defenses (hp, resistace, etc), and doesn't include things like standard tactics, player powers that are designed to disrupt tactics, etc.  'A monster hits on a 2' doesn't mean anything in a vacuum.  'A monster hits on a 2 and instakills your level 30 character' is a far more holistic statement, and not what I'm getting from this.

Take a wizard for example.

At level 1, he's got 10+Con hps, and monsters can typically do enough to knock him below blooded in a single hit.  However, these same monsters have a lesser chance to hit, normally +6 vs an AC that can easily be 16.  It's hard to get more precise than that without a definitive Con score, but assuming a con of 14, that's 24 hitpoints.  Goblin Warrior, can easily get +6 to hit vs AC, doing 2d6+2 or 9 points on average. 

This makes a DPR of 4.5, and an 'Attacks Until Unconscious' for the wizard of 24/4.5 or 5.33 rounds.  The lower this is, the higher the relative damage (or threat) of an attack, making that attack have a damage-threat value of 19%.

This same wizard at level 30 will have 130 hps.  He'll have +6 armor, +2 from masterwork, +4 from attribute bonuses, and +15 from level, for a total of +27 to 16, or 43 AC.

Orcus has his wand of Orcus, which does 3d12+12 damage for +37 to hit.  This means it deals 31.5 average damage with a roll of 6 or higher.  6 or higher means a 75% chance to hit, meaning the DPR of this at-will is 23.625.  The threat value of this is 23.625/130 or... 18%.

So... the threat of a level 1 sharpshooter's at-will to a level 1 character is *for all practical purposes the same* as the threat of a level 35 solo's at-will to a level 30 character... provided you ignore the powers that character has at the ready.

It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important.  It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.  

This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

> 'A monster hits on a 2' doesn't mean anything in a vacuum. 'A monster hits on a 2 and instakills your level 30 character' is a far more holistic statement, and not what I'm getting from this.



 It's not in a vacum, it's an attack roll versus your PC NAD that will autohit you and make you stunned/dominated and you can't do nothing now.



> So... the threat of a level 1 sharpshooter's at-will to a level 1 character is for all practical purposes the same as the threat of a level 35 solo's at-will to a level 30 character... provided you ignore the powers that character has at the ready.



Wy on earth you take powers that hit AC! We don't talk about that. We talking about the NADs and attack versus them and attack rolls of players vs. AC and NADs (that actualy are the same). Anyway what logic is behind comparing normal monster (skirmisher) to Orcus (SOLO BRUTE!)? His dmg is much higher than normal monster, and his attack is much lower. I see you were trying to prove you 'monster threat scales at level' but it is worthless prove. Monsters have auras that make them better and can inflict effects. It's not just a flat damage! Anyone who plays 4E at higher level knows that.

Look at Orcus Touch of Dead (recharge 6) power:
+ 33 vs. Fortitude (when he hits you, you die)
High DEF - 41 (hited on 8 on die), Middle DEF - 38 (hited on 5 on die), Lowest DEF - 33 (hited on 2 on die).

Yeah. That looks damn fine to me!



> It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important. It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.
> This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.



Player's gain levels and gain more power. They have more options now. The monsters gain levels too, gains more power, but your option as DM are lesser, couse you don't want kill your party! You can't make as challanging options for monsters as the player's have. Higher your level, lowest the options for monster are.

Anyway thx for ignorig my *sample* encounter from last post! You have there a easy sample what can monsters hitting NADs do, and what? No arguments how this isn't right? It's not a threat? It's overpowered?


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## monboesen (Apr 6, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> It isn't the chance to hit of a monster that is important.  It's the chance to hit and the damage it does -relative to the hps of the target- that actually matters.
> 
> This is what I mean by the statement that examining the to-hit mechanics alone are not enough to get the right picture.





IMO this boils down to the point that the game may well be designed to make high level monsters hit much more often than low level monsters. Assuming they face level appropiate PC's.


The likely explanation is that PC's are better suited to dealing with getting hit and hurt a LOT at higher levels. Look at epic destinies, several of them assume that you routinely die one or more times a day.


In that perspective it is not a flaw that some monsters will have a trivially easy time hitting PC's, it is a feature. Part of the way the game subtly changes with levels and tiers.


Disclaimer: Just like most of the posts in this thread this is pure theorycraft as I have not played any 4ed at epic levels yet.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

> IMO this boils down to the point that the game may well be designed to make high level monsters hit much more often than low level monsters. Assuming they face level appropiate PC's.



No it isn't! Look above examples.


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## Thundershield (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> No it isn't! Look above examples.




Bayuer does have a point here. While it's okay - at least for some players - that high-level monsters hit the players more often, it does get problematic when NADs fall so much behind that a given defense becomes irrelevant as the monster can only miss on a 1 (and even then only 'cause a natural 1 is an auto-miss).

It takes the whole point of having that defense out of the game. 4E is built around the idea of maintaining a challenge in any given dice roll, as opposed to 3.5 where a 6th-level Fighter/6th-level Dwarven Defender might have an AC around 50, making it impossible for anything to hit him.

To maintain a challenge, there has to be a decent chance for the roll to fail as well as a decent chance for the roll to succeed. I'm not necessarily talking about a 50/50, but at least a 30% for either should persist on a regular basis. It's fine if a power or temporary bonus brings this as low as 10% for failure or success, or possibly even 5% if it's very temporary, but beyond that the point of a given roll becomes a mere formality, the random chance that this roll represents taken out of the game.

I've been considering increasing the way masterwork armor scales (possibly even having masterwork cloth armor at +2) and also make amulets/cloaks/capes and the like have masterwork versions, but I must admit that the idea of giving players +1 to three stats at levels 4, 8, 14, etc. also sounds very interesting.

It would, however, be good to know the developers' view on the problem. Are the PH2 feats just a temporary solution? Are they the final solution? How will this problem affect future content? Is it a problem to them?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> @AbdulAlhazred
> Skill feat is just only pseudo-roleplay feat option in game. Linguist may be better and that's it. We don't talk about skill use couse it will need another thread when we can discuss about it's broken ST ie. Skill Challange. Stop making an examples of roleplaying combat consequences, couse it's not the fact, and almost none use such a fights in they games, couse 4E is mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls.




Dude, I think you need to get out more and play in some games with DMs that are not so stuck on hack hack hack. You're missing 3/4 of the goodness of 4e if your games are 'mostly about attack rolls and damage rolls'. The rules looks skewed to you because you are only playing half a character.

I don't know what broken skill challenge you are talking about. Skill challenges work perfectly fine with the errata. There is NOTHING wrong with them. Just like encounter design, you have to make sure the challenge is properly designed. Is the combat system broken because an adult dragon will eat a 3rd level party? No, and neither is the skill challenge system broken because you can make impossible or auto success challenges.

And no, I am not going to stop making examples of roleplaying combat consequences because it IS one of the key things you are missing in your understanding of the numbers. Sorry, that is just the way it is. I'm not going to argue with you endlessly about, but you need to factor into your understanding of character balance the full choices players have. Your analysis is flawed if you don't take everything into account.

The truth of the matter is that the DMG encounter guidelines ARE just guidelines. A DM can make very bad encounters and follow the guidelines. I think we all know that. What I am suggesting is that if a DM is good and they understand all the things that must go into an epic level encounter to make it a good encounter, then well rounded characters can always have fun.

In your Kuo-Toa example the Barbarian should be able to use skills to help defeat the enemy. Maybe there is terrain he can use to only fight one monster. Party teamwork will help him too. The cleric can give him extra saves, the paladin can make the one monster he faces want to go fight someone else, etc. The encounter should also have a way for the Barbarian to use his big athletics skill to defeat the kuo-toa. Maybe he can push a rock onto them, or he can go past them to tip a container of acid on them, etc. There should be moving terrain or other terrain effects so he can keep away from their attacks if the player will use his head and not only hack with a weapon.

Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun. 

The math is only broken if the RESULT of using the math is broken. If you use an example of a broken encounter with no stunting opportunity and no terrain factored in then it is the example that is unrealistic, not broken math. If the DM makes an encounter like that, it is a broken DM, not broken math! 

There are other considerations too. Epic is not like heroic or paragon tiers. It should not be the same. If all levels play the same, then why have levels at all? Monsters WILL hit a lot more on the epic level of play. It is supposed to be that way. Once you hit high epic level there are also no more higher level monsters to fight. The equal level monsters now must be stronger vs the party because there is no level + 4 monster anymore at 27th level, no level + 3 monster at 28th level, not even a level + 1 monster (except Orcus) at 30th level. 

Weak NADs are a feature of epic play. If the players are good then they will adapt to win.


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## monboesen (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> No it isn't! Look above examples.





Honestly I'm confused now. Isn't it your argument that NAD trail behind as levels fly by and that at high (epic) levels some attacks will almost always hit your weakest NAD?


All I'm saying is that your theory of faulty math isn't the only one. It could be that the game is designed with increased hitting of NAD as a goal, not a flaw.


There is no doubt characters are far more capable to deal with both damage and status effects at higher levels. As such the group of PC's will not be as hindered by being stunned/other nasty status effect or even killed as they would have been at low level.


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## Thundershield (Apr 6, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun.
> 
> The math is only broken if the RESULT of using the math is broken. If you use an example of a broken encounter with no stunting opportunity and no terrain factored in then it is the example that is unrealistic, not broken math. If the DM makes an encounter like that, it is a broken DM, not broken math!
> 
> ...




Apologies for cutting your post in half for the quotation, but to stay on topic, I jumped to the part about attack rolls and defenses.

While you do have a point in your arguments, I can't say I agree with it. At no point in the game should the attack rolls of monsters (or players for that matter) be reduced to check for the off-chance you might miss or crit (on a natural 1 or 20, respectively), with the exception of temporary boosts.

And while it is true that you can boost your lowest defenses with the PH2 feats, there's little point to it. Given that your lowest defense is around 33 at level 30, even a +4 feat bonus will only raise the chance a monster will miss you to around 15%. That's effectively only a 10% increase, since the miss chance will always be at least 5%. Sure that's a nice bonus, but you'll rarely notice it in the game compared to getting hit all the time when fighting something targeting your weakest defense.

And then you say that the DM shouldn't abuse the math - as in, he shouldn't use monsters or hazards that target a given player's weakest defense? Given that a party has about 4-5 players, odd are pretty good that each defense will be low on at least one player, so the DM can't use any monsters targeting anything but AC?

You could argue that getting hit all the time is a feature of epic play, but several elements suggest otherwise. Why not simply give the monster auto-hit abilities, then? Saves us the dice-rolling... Although auto-hitting might be a bit nasty for something like Orcus' insta-kill ability, no?

Anyway, I do think balancing the game around maintaining decent hit and miss chances for most any roll is better for the overall experience of the game than simply ascribing this as a "feature" of the game and letting it be.

As for skills and skill challenges, and roleplaying, they're definitely integral and important parts of the game too. They're just not issues in this thread and thus should be discussed in other threads.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

> And no, I am not going to stop making examples of roleplaying combat consequences because it IS one of the key things you are missing in your understanding of the numbers. Sorry, that is just the way it is. I'm not going to argue with you endlessly about, but you need to factor into your understanding of character balance the full choices players have. Your analysis is flawed if you don't take everything into account.



No you analysis is flawed. Roleplay don't have ANY impact on game math! Well maybe giving +2/-2 for nice description and that's in core rules. You still missing the point. RP is nice thing. You made wrong assumptions that I'm hack and slash player. Man. Even if I will be that doesn't change/proove antything. I can say my barbarian has weak REF and he is clumsy, when my REF is low. But not make it as an example o RP imapct on game. He will be hitted in his REF on roll on 2! What RP is that. Monster Attack his REF... ups 2 on die, you'r lucky... no wait. It's hit. Your REF sucks! You are dazed untit the end of encounter and if you'r so RP player that means that it's the only encounter on that session. <BIG SMILE> Yeah, that sounds like a lot o fun for RP players! Uff... it's so good that the player's a clumsy character. There's nothing wrong now. There may be some player's who don't mind this, but... This isn't a standard situation we are talking about. So please, make as many arguments as you, can, but please... <b>arguments</b>.

Even when you use you RP power to make combat much flawed, and you let players drop death titan from cliff you will still use... the math! Skill check, that will say if you succed or not. And this is again so, so not very offten in games, that can't be treaten as big factor that makes game balanced. It's rare and occasional thus --> not important in terms of game balance.



> The truth of the matter is that the DMG encounter guidelines ARE just guidelines. A DM can make very bad encounters and follow the guidelines. I think we all know that. What I am suggesting is that if a DM is good and they understand all the things that must go into an epic level encounter to make it a good encounter, then well rounded characters can always have fun.



That doesn't proove anything too. Firstly, he can't avoid autohitting the PCs NADs, couse wizard will have bad FOR, barb DEX, and someone else WILL. Secondly, this will take enormous amount of time and thus it's in conflict with 4E motto: "creating encounters is easy and not time consuming". I can agree tha good DM will need some time to make good/challengig encounters and fun at the same time, but with this math problems is much more problematic than it suppose to be.



> In your Kuo-Toa example the Barbarian should be able to use skills to help defeat the enemy. Maybe there is terrain he can use to only fight one monster. Party teamwork will help him too. The cleric can give him extra saves, the paladin can make the one monster he faces want to go fight someone else, etc. The encounter should also have a way for the Barbarian to use his big athletics skill to defeat the kuo-toa. Maybe he can push a rock onto them, or he can go past them to tip a container of acid on them, etc. There should be moving terrain or other terrain effects so he can keep away from their attacks if the player will use his head and not only hack with a weapon.



Show me where this is said in Encounter Design in DMG. Rules are simply. Terran to make fights more interesting. Using terrain by PCs to make them fun, but no out kill if you hurl rocks on monsters. If you playing such a games I no wonder that autohit from monster don't bother you. All what you described and placed as examples are nice *additions* to battle making it more fun, but not solutions to problem we are talking here.

If you want to talk with people about how RP impacts game make another tread and don't troll here. I will say it for the las time. Facts, facts, facts.



> Now the PHB II feats let him also have the choice to boost his weak defense. Maybe he has a potion to do that too. If all numbers to hit are always close to a certain number then all he needs to learn to do is hack. The game is not any longer about anything except DPR and defenses and status effects. It is not so much fun.



If you say that talking this feats is a choice... Well. Good luck Did you even looked at the math from first post? I don't think so. We talking about feats that make the math workable, not the feats for free to maximize PCs power!



> There are other considerations too. Epic is not like heroic or paragon tiers. It should not be the same. If all levels play the same, then why have levels at all? Monsters WILL hit a lot more on the epic level of play. It is supposed to be that way. Once you hit high epic level there are also no more higher level monsters to fight. The equal level monsters now must be stronger vs the party because there is no level + 4 monster anymore at 27th level, no level + 3 monster at 28th level, not even a level + 1 monster (except Orcus) at 30th level.



But they are stronger. The have more powers and they powers are stronger! Autohit is not an intended thing from designers. Look at above same examples I posted!



> Weak NADs are a feature of epic play. If the players are good then they will adapt to win.



No they aren't. I almost love you ignorance about facts. Seriously



			
				monboesen said:
			
		

> All I'm saying is that your theory of faulty math isn't the only one. It could be that the game is designed with increased hitting of NAD as a goal, not a fl



I know what you were trying to say. I answered no it wasn't the goal. If it was... I can say WotC have poor designers, but like someone else mentioned, some bugs always can happen. WotC knows that and that's way we have defense feats and Expertise in PHB2. Also I don't belive that almost autohitting was made on purpose. Maybe designers didn't think about that problem, and just looked at highest, middle def. Well, it can be true, couse then the hit chance is around 15 on monster dice. But... we have this lowest defence and that's the pure fact that it's autohit and a very big problem. I don't belive it was made on porpose. Also I don't think that hit chance of players (and Expertise feats) and highest DEF weaknes at epic (-2 disadventage; and Paragon Defenses, Robous Defenses and Epic feats) come for vacum. They bonuses make the math suprisly fine.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 6, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> To make my point a little better:
> 
> You have people using math (but not actual play) to suggest that the game is hard at high levels, and you have people using play to suggest that the game is not hard at high levels.
> 
> Now, difficulty is experienced through play, and so evidence garnered through play is a lot more indicative of problems than mathematical theorycraft.




I've done mostly the math, but I also ran a high level test.

The math is obviously incorrect. The math creates a problem where players might not enjoy the game because they are -3 to hit whereas the monsters are +3 to hit. It gets old when a player keeps missing on a 12.

That does not mean that the players cannot win. They can. It just takes forever because the monsters have so many hit points and are so hard to hit.


Here is the point you missed before and keep talking about. The game is not hard at high level. It's not hard. Unlike your claim, that is not what the math shows. The math shows that the game is slow at high level.

The PCs still hit. They just happen to hit 40% of the time instead of 55% of the time on same level monsters. They have to use up more resources to handle easy situations. Granted, they have more resources than they did at low levels and it makes sense that they have to use up slightly more resources. But, the problem is that at 30th level, the delta is 20% in both directions.

On top of that, the monsters do relatively small amounts of damage at high level compared to low level and have excessively high number of hit points at high level compared to low level.

Actual play bears this out. The combats are long. They are many rounds and use up a lot of resources.

Your claim is that people playing high level do not consider it hard. That is correct. The math bears that out.

The game is not hard at high level. It's long and slow and tedious.

They are not the same.


And one final point. WotC added a bunch of feats into PHB II because the math is wrong. They cannot correct the number of hit points for monsters until MM II, but they can correct the math with feats. And, that's precisely what they did.

They also added a bunch of smaller conditional +1 to hit type feats in PHB II to attempt to mitigate the problem.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

@KarinsDad
+1
That's one of the factor I didn't mentioned before.

I will just add that when monster have easier time hitting you NADs and place effects on PCs, the game become much longer, couse that just hinder PCs more, not make the game more challanging. In fact, it makes game more boring.


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## BartD (Apr 6, 2009)

How would it work to just pick monsters from 1/2/3 levels lower from levels 5/10/25? That should on average reduce their attacks and defenses by 1/2/3 and hence work pretty much like the feats.

I do not have enough experience with this to evaluate the effects fully, but how do you think it would work out? Is it a big problem that this will also reduce monsters' attacks against AC?


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Look at Orcus Touch of Dead (recharge 6) power:
> + 33 vs. Fortitude (when he hits you, you die)
> High DEF - 41 (hited on 8 on die), Middle DEF - 38 (hited on 5 on die), Lowest DEF - 33 (hited on 2 on die).




Just thought I should point out that you don't die when he hits you. You're knocked to 0 hit points. At epic level that might actually make you _more_ powerful.



> Player's gain levels and gain more power. They have more options now. The monsters gain levels too, gains more power, but your option as DM are lesser, couse you don't want kill your party! You can't make as challanging options for monsters as the player's have. Higher your level, lowest the options for monster are.




Have you run an epic level campaign? I have, and I can tell you with no fear of uncertainty that PCs are a heck of alot more resilient than you seem to think they are. The epic level GM has an insane amount of options for what he throws at the party, and unless he specifically builds encounters to beat them, they are unlikely to walk away with worse than a few bruises.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

> Just thought I should point out that you don't die when he hits you. You're knocked to 0 hit points. At epic level that might actually make you more powerful.



Ok they are dying. That means if you were have 200+ HPs you have no 0 and you laying unconcious on the ground. For the comment to second part of post...  Yeah, there are some options like Deva have, that with feat gives him +2 to dmg and attack until the end of encounter, but... 



> Have you run an epic level campaign? I have, and I can tell you with no fear of uncertainty that PCs are a heck of alot more resilient than you seem to think they are. The epic level GM has an insane amount of options for what he throws at the party, and unless he specifically builds encounters to beat them, they are unlikely to walk away with worse than a few bruises.



I was player on epic levels and created adventure but didn't have time to run it yet. Yeas, fights get easier, so your XP for encounter should rise too. Giving a n-1, n fights on epic is pointless, couse it's to easy, but becouse of our math gap, you can't make to many n+3,n+4 fight's couse they will last for 2h-3h and if you make too challengig fight, many of players will simple be boring.

I don't said that the fights are to hard. I just says that math is bad. I'm full aware that the fights will be easier with the math fix, but I think that's what it suppose to be from the beginning. The standard encounters (level n to n+2 aren't big threat to PCs, and it is said in DMG as well). 

As KarinsDad said. The most factor is time. Look at heroic. Everything goes smooth. At paragon it can be smooth too, but the combats take more and more time. Epic make very long fights. PCs will have options to take a way a bad effects but they hinder them too much and takes away precious time. Not hitting them offtem makes that worser. And as I said before. You can easily make TPK on epic, more easily than on paragon.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> For the comment to second part of post...  Yeah, there are some options like Deva have, that with feat gives him +2 to dmg and attack until the end of encounter, but...




Take a closer look at the epic destinies. Most characters will get power boosts when they're first knocked to 0 hit points. Very few of them will actually hit 0 for more than a microsecond.


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## Elric (Apr 6, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> That's my point.  You can -say- there's a problem because 'the numbers are off' but if people actually playing at that high level aren't finding things unduly difficult, then there -is- no problem.  The math might not seem to be 'elegant' and 'properly symetrical' but only if the game is actually difficult to play at high level does a problem really exist.
> 
> Scientific method, people.  The theory-craft says it is difficult, now it's time to observe to support this thesis.  If the observation does not support the thesis, you throw out the thesis and start again.
> 
> ...




We can pick some stronger tests of "the game's math doesn't work well" than "is the game too hard at high levels?"  Suppose that FRW attacks were incredibly rare; then since AC scales well no amount of messing up FRW defenses would noticeably impact the game, yet the math could still break down. 

Let's try the following hypothesis: "Attacks against FRW defenses becomes weaker over time compared to attacks against AC to compensate for the fact that FRW attackers scale better (and tend to be more likely to hit to start with)."

I'd definitely reject this hypothesis.  There doesn't seem to be a weakening of FRW powers in general and the nastiest effects at higher levels all tend to target FRW (Bodak Reavers, Ghaele of Winter, Aboleth's Domination effects, etc.).  Yet these monsters don't suffer much in their to-hit bonuses on these powers relative to monsters with much weaker attacks (compare the Death Hag to a Bodak Reaver, for example).

Lastly, the fact that we have the Epic X feats giving a +4 _untyped_ bonus to these defenses is serious evidence in favor of the designers considering FRW scaling a problem.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 6, 2009)

BartD said:


> How would it work to just pick monsters from 1/2/3 levels lower from levels 5/10/25? That should on average reduce their attacks and defenses by 1/2/3 and hence work pretty much like the feats.
> 
> I do not have enough experience with this to evaluate the effects fully, but how do you think it would work out? Is it a big problem that this will also reduce monsters' attacks against AC?




I think this is a very nice suggestion.

I would reduce monsters by 1 level at Paragon (11) and 2 levels at Epic (21) for the same XP. Dropping them by 1 at level 5 is a little much.

Effectively what this does is have PCs run into the same level monsters at levels 10 and 11, and again at 20 and 21.

In my personal campaign, this is not very workable due to the fact that I want the PCs running into Orcus and Tiamat and such at levels 28+, but this is definitely a nice solution.

AC drops by 2 by level 30. Having it drop by zero is no big deal, especially if the defenses still drop by 2 and the hit points drop.

This is probably the best no change to the mechanics solution that I have heard.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 6, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Take a closer look at the epic destinies. Most characters will get power boosts when they're first knocked to 0 hit points. Very few of them will actually hit 0 for more than a microsecond.




No doubt.

But, Orcus is still hitting some PCs with that power on a 2. Once it recharges, he would have a very good idea who to attack with it a second time. In fact, he is intelligent enough to have a very good idea who to attack with it the first time.

Getting hit on a 2 is just BAD game design no matter what other justifications are thrown into the mix.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Maybe, but that second hit won't kill them either. It'll barely slow them down unless for some reason they're without a Leader and nobody else has any way to get the person a healing surge.

It might be bad design, it might not. "Bad" is a value judgement, so impossible to quantify. What it definitely isn't is a threat to the types fo characters Orcus will be facing.

I know this is the EnWorld rules forum, so math is God. But personally, math is completely unimportant when it does nothing to help model the situation. In this example, it doesn't, because the hit is a tiny fraction of the actual encounter, and can actually make Orcus die sooner if his swing lands.

I don't doubt in the slightest that the math at epic is different than the math at hero or paragon. What I doubt is that it's a "bad design" because of it. One set of equations looked at in isolation is meaningless when attempting to pass judgement on an entire complex sytem.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Take a closer look at the epic destinies. Most characters will get power boosts when they're first knocked to 0 hit points. Very few of them will actually hit 0 for more than a microsecond.



I'm lookin at them now. Well, some extra save, spend healing surge... Anyway we going off topic. That don't change anything. Just minor add-ons. The problem is not when you go to 0 HP, but with hitting monsters and monsters hitting DEFs.



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> Maybe, but that second hit won't kill them either. It'll barely slow them down unless for some reason they're without a Leader and nobody else has any way to get the person a healing surge.



Barley? Without the Leader the game will crush PCs. Have you ever played withou Leader on higher leveles? Withou Leader the party will be dead in few simple encounters.

Again. We don't talking about killing PCs and hit points. We talking about the math so stay on the topic please. About monsters challenge and how they powers are compared to PCs powers I was talking already. 



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> I know this is the EnWorld rules forum, so math is God. But personally, math is completely unimportant when it does nothing to help model the situation. In this example, it doesn't, because the hit is a tiny fraction of the actual encounter, and can actually make Orcus die sooner if his swing lands.



Yeah. And you are probably roleplayer who thinks we are all powergamers, and we just make our build better, and better... (Moto! Moto!)
The math is everything. This are powers, auras, hitting, damage. Everything! Better hit (provied by Expertise with is math fix) makes battle shorter. Better defenses (provided by Robust Defenses Epic FRW) makes the monster not autohit weak defenses! Thus the game is more challanging cous player don't know if he will be hit or not. In curent situation it is:
DMG - The Orcuc recharged his power.
Player - Yeah! Let's see if he can roll 1! 

I understand that many of you think it's a feature of Epic play. I could agree with you if there will not be feats from PHB2 that suddenly make everything work on 50/50 hit chance of everything. Anyway. This are facts. You only say, what if or maybe is should be that.
Skill Challanges was fine to? Stealth Rules? Many overpowered powers? We saw errata. Math was broken. We have PHB2 feats! Hurray!


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> I'm lookin at them now. Well, some extra save, spend healing surge... Anyway we going off topic. That don't change anything. Just minor add-ons.




Obviously we're looking at different things. Just in the PH alone:

Demigod: when you hit 0, heal to 1/2
Archmage: When you die you heal to full, become insubstantial, and gain phasing, but you get some limitations.

If you look outside the PH, things get nicer for many of the EDs.



> The problem is not when you go to 0 HP, but with hitting monsters and monsters hitting DEFs.




Why is this a problem? Apart from "bad math = bad".



> Barley? Without the Leader the game will crush PCs. Have you ever played withou Leader on higher leveles? Withou Leader the party will be dead in few simple encounters.




Um, please read what I wrote. That's exactly what I said. It won't bother them _*unless*_ they don't have a leader.



> Again. We don't talking about killing PCs and hit points.




I was replying directly to a post about Orcus's wand attack. A post which you made. 



> We talking about the math so stay on the topic please. About monsters challenge and how they powers are compared to PCs powers I was talking already.




So I have to stay on topic, but I'm not allowed to reply to your posts? How do I do that?



> Yeah. And you are probably roleplayer who thinks we are all powergamers, and we just make our build better, and better... (Moto! Moto!)




Haha, yeah, that's probably it. ::



> The math is everything. This are powers, auras, hitting, damage. Everything!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## KarinsDad (Apr 6, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Actually, the fact is that Epic play works well with the current math. In fact, as others have said, there's not much challenge to it beyond the grind. Anything that lowers that challenge (such as increasing PC defenses) is a bad thing.




Well, you do have more epic experience than I do. I thoroughly enjoyed your epic campaign read.

But, let me ask you some questions.

Would modifying the math decrease the grind of epic levels? Would the PCs hitting 15% more often and not getting hit 15% as often require that they use less resources per encounter, hence, increasing their chances to more quickly wipe out foes in every encounter?

Wouldn't that drop an encounter from 20 rounds to 15 rounds and improve upon the grind?

Isn't the math problem a part of the Epic Grind problem by definition?

Sure, part of it is monster hit points. But isn't it part math problem as well?

You seem to be arguing FOR Epic Level grind by arguing against the math problem fixes.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Making the PCs hit more often or harder would be great at reducing grind. Lowering monster hit points would work as well. 

Making monsters hit less often would have much less of an effect on grind, except in the case where the monsters are stunning, dominating, or weakening since none of the other common status effects will stop you from dealing damage. The hit point damage the monsters do isn't a big portion of the grind, as it either has 0 effect on the character's combat worthiness, or is healed via a minor action and/or a side effect of another attack.

What increasing PC defenses would have done to our campaign is make the encounters that felt dangerous (but really werent) not even feel that way. The only times the players got worried was when a monster was able to do one of those. Weakening was just an annoyance, and didn't really scare them apart from "great, we'll never kill this thing." Even stunning was only scary because it meant you had to sit there and do nothing. The real fear came from domination, because it meant that they were now facing a real threat: another PC.

Upping defenses isn't the way to fix epic levels. The way to fix epic levels IMO is threefold:

1) Make PCs hit more often. The damage they can deal is fine, it's the whiffs that make a fight go from fast and furious to "when will this end".

2) Make monsters hit harder. This way the PCs have something to fear besides just themselves or boredom.

3) Fix problematic conditions. This could be a few separate lines, but they're all related so I put them under one heading.
 a. Reduce the frequency of stunning attacks or their durations. This makes some monsters still scary, but it'll be because they're combining stunning with big attacks, not because they can chain stun you and make you go watch TV.
 b. Make domination shorter duration. With monsters dealing more damage there's less of a need to turn the party against each other.
 c. Never, never, never, ever put Insubstantial creatures in a fight alongside creatures that can weaken on a hit. (This includes ones that have both in the same package). Nothing slows a fight down faster than PCs doing 1/4 damage. Even stunning everyone over and over again isn't as bad as this, because at least when you're stunned your turn is on autopilot and goes by fast.

I've never seen it in play, though before I had epic experience I created a creature that did it... insubstantial + weakening + swarm. Just. Don't. Do. It.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

I should also say that the previous post is all from the GM's perspective. In most fights grind wasn't a problem for me, because I've got something I have to be doing no matter whose turn it is. The players might have different ideas of what should and shouldn't be changed.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 6, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Making the PCs hit more often or harder would be great at reducing grind. Lowering monster hit points would work as well.
> 
> Making monsters hit less often would have much less of an effect on grind, except in the case where the monsters are stunning, dominating, or weakening since none of the other common status effects will stop you from dealing damage. The hit point damage the monsters do isn't a big portion of the grind, as it either has 0 effect on the character's combat worthiness, or is healed via a minor action and/or a side effect of another attack.




But we are not talking AC here.

The problem defenses are Fort, Reflex, and Will.

Most monster attacks that affect those DO some type of condition.

The math fixes do not propose to decrease the number of successful monster attacks on AC (56% of the attacks in the MM). They propose to decrease the number of successful monster attacks on the other defenses (by 15% or so).


The issue of monsters being challenging is really non-sequitor to this discussion, although many people keep bringing it up.

To make monsters challenging, the DM has to go out of his way to create encounters that are interesting with monsters whose conditions do synergize with each other and to introduce interesting terrain to make the standard "go up and beat on the monsters" either less available or with a downside.

The Fighter who has to stand on a small ledge to fight the monster is vastly different than the one in the middle of the room. If there is a chance that the monster can knock the Fighter off the ledge, the player of the Fighter might feel dread, excitement, fear, whatever. That's what makes an encounter challenging.

Not "How many conditions can I put on the PCs?". Sure, conditions can make an encounter interesting, it's just that there are only so many Stun encounters the DM can introduce until it becomes less interesting and the players have set tactics to counteract it.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> But we are not talking AC here.




Nor am I. Except for a few examples, all monster attacks deal damage. I'm suggesting that damage be increased. Not just damage for attacks vs. AC. Damage for all attack. You'll note I never mentioned Armor Class in my suggestions.



> The problem defenses are Fort, Reflex, and Will.




They're not really problems though. It's the few boredom inducing effects that are typically tied to those defenses that are problematic.



> The math fixes do not propose to decrease the number of successful monster attacks on AC (56% of the attacks in the MM). They propose to decrease the number of successful monster attacks on the other defenses (by 15% or so).




I don't know where you're coming from with the AC angle. I'm not talking about AC.



> The issue of monsters being challenging is really non-sequitor to this discussion, although many people keep bringing it up.




I bring it up because it is a side effect of the feats in question. If you only want to talk about math, fine, but don't expect to get much headway on "fixing" a rules system.



> To make monsters challenging, the DM has to go out of his way to create encounters that are interesting with monsters whose conditions do synergize with each other and to introduce interesting terrain to make the standard "go up and beat on the monsters" either less available or with a downside.
> 
> The Fighter who has to stand on a small ledge to fight the monster is vastly different than the one in the middle of the room. If there is a chance that the monster can knock the Fighter off the ledge, the player of the Fighter might feel dread, excitement, fear, whatever. That's what makes an encounter challenging.




All very true. But I'm not sure what this has to do with secondary defenses and broken math.



> Not "How many conditions can I put on the PCs?". Sure, conditions can make an encounter interesting, it's just that there are only so many Stun encounters the DM can introduce until it becomes less interesting and the players have set tactics to counteract it.




That's exactly what I'm saying, and why one of my proposed fixes would be to limit the number of stunning attacks players see.

I get the feeling that we agree for the most part, but that one or both of us isn't really seeing what the other is saying and thinks that we don't. At least, I can say I agree with 90% of this post.


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## Herschel (Apr 6, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> So far, all I've seen are threads that claim that encounters of your level are too easy.
> 
> Then I see threads like this saying that the math is too far stacked in favor of your opponents just because feats exist to bolster certain aspects of your character, making encounters too difficult.
> 
> ...




This, and what AbdulAlhazred has been saying.

If Tiamat almost auto-hits a PC, GOOD! She should, she's a friggin' DEITY. Character interaction is a mighty powerful tool in the party's arsenal. I see a whole lot of 3e think still going on. PCs aren't solos any more. PCs have similarly powerful friends. Work together and think. It's amazing what an actual team of characters can accomplish.


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## Elric (Apr 6, 2009)

Herschel said:


> This, and what AbdulAlhazred has been saying.
> 
> If Tiamat almost auto-hits a PC, GOOD! She should, she's a friggin' DEITY. Character interaction is a mighty powerful tool in the party's arsenal. I see a whole lot of 3e think still going on. PCs aren't solos any more. PCs have similarly powerful friends. Work together and think. It's amazing what an actual team of characters can accomplish.




A (level 18) Bodak Reaver can hit on a 2 using its death gaze attack vs. a dazed/weakened level 18 PC with weakest defense Fortitude (+22 to hit with CA, vs. weak Fort defense going by PH of around 24; 10 base + 9 levels + 1 ability + 4 magic).  It's not just a higher level solo.  More generally, to repeat what I said earlier:



Elric said:


> We can pick some stronger tests of "the game's math doesn't work well" than "is the game too hard at high levels?"  Suppose that FRW attacks were incredibly rare; then since AC scales well no amount of messing up FRW defenses would noticeably impact the game, yet the math could still break down.
> 
> Let's try the following hypothesis: "Attacks against FRW defenses becomes weaker over time compared to attacks against AC to compensate for the fact that FRW attackers scale better (and tend to be more likely to hit to start with)."
> 
> ...




Some monsters are too easy (e.g., Death Hags as level 18 soldiers go).  However, the solution isn't to have monsters that attack AC and/or don't inflict status conditions be too weak, while monsters that attack FRW and/or inflict status conditions be comparatively much stronger at the same levels.  That leads to large disparities between monsters of the same level and makes encounter design more difficult.  

For example, the GM who sees his level 18 party crush 5 death hags with barely a scratch might respond by throwing 7 Bodak Reavers at them instead (still a level 18 soldier, right?).  If FRWs scale appropriately, then a GM who finds that his AC attackers aren't strong enough to challenge the party will be much less likely to accidentally wipe them out with FRW attackers.

Edit- As can be see by WotC's errata to the MM, they've realized that some monster's damage is too low and increased it accordingly (Ogres, Death Giants, Hill Giants, and so on).  So if this errata succeeds in making AC attacking primarily damage monsters more appropriately threatening, then there won't be any need to "balance out" average difficulty of encounters by including FRW attackers who are much more threatening by comparison.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

@James McMurray
I don't forbid you to post, just to make it on topic. Anyway I don't replie on most of you text, couse it will make discussion stay not on topic. Btw Orcus was an example of another person, and I just pointed him, that his recharge power is deadly. The same wiht epic destinies features that gives you something when you drop to 0hp. We never discused it, you make it as an argument, but it is just not important. We talking still about feats from PHB2 and PCs defenses.



> [The problem is not when you go to 0 HP, but with hitting monsters and monsters hitting DEFs. ]
> Why is this a problem? Apart from "bad math = bad".



You say that you're fine with autohit from monsters, ok. That's your choice. But saying over and over, that it's what designers was thinkig about from beginnig is wrong:
1) The feats from PHB2 egzist. They are now in play. They are much stronger than anything before them (I'm talking about NADs feats) and they placed just fine to the math gap I'm still talking about.
2) When you look at the math with works ok with AC and scales with level, and compare it to NADs, you can see that ther's something wrong. Even worse, the NADs attack are better than AC attacks, becouse they offten do some damage, and place effects on PCs. Well, I gave you examples above, but treat MM as references here.



> The math is a tiny fraction of "everything." Or does your group just take out their calculators when a fight starts and immediately determine who is going to win? No tactics. No weighing of which powers to use. No movement. None of the hundreds of other things that go into determining how a combat will end.
> 
> Sounds boring to me.



Ok. Player takes all def feats and expertise. You're saying now that he don't have options and is boring? One don't exculde other. With defense feats from PHB2 your player will not have less fun. He will have much more fun, couse he will know that Orcus will not hit him with his great power at 2 on die. He will have much more better combat experience when his attacks will hit offten (by offten I mean at almost 50% on roll). This is the same at heroic. Becouse you have better options characters wont die so offten as on heroic. Experience from game should be equal about chances to hit/being hit if the characters fight the same level monster.



> Making monsters hit less often would have much less of an effect on grind, except in the case where the monsters are stunning, dominating, or weakening since none of the other common status effects will stop you from dealing damage. The hit point damage the monsters do isn't a big portion of the grind, as it either has 0 effect on the character's combat worthiness, or is healed via a minor action and/or a side effect of another attack.



Almost EVERY monster on epic have some effects with they attack powers. This was calculated to make monsters more challanging (that and better HPs) and the same philosopy is behind PCs powers. And, man. We don't talk about damage but hitting NADs and effects! You make more and more arguments about monster threat. What fights are we talking about. n, n+1, n+2? Thats easy fights, well designed can be dangerous but not at epic. Even n+3, n+4 fights can be easy to well equpied players, but then again: The feats are here, they are solution to math fix. Dot. 

My and my players made a n+6 fight with Eladrins that give daze (end of encounter) and my barbarian was weakend (eoe). This fight was on 16 level if I remember it right. We have only 3 PCs (one was leader) and we win. Nobody died. But the fight takes about 3,5h! Becouse we are good tactic players we manage to win, but when you have such a boring fight, when monster hit you with nasty effects with no efforts and you have problems hitting enemies. That's boring!



> Upping defenses isn't the way to fix epic levels. The way to fix epic levels IMO is threefold:
> 1) Make PCs hit more often. The damage they can deal is fine, it's the whiffs that make a fight go from fast and furious to "when will this end".
> 2) Make monsters hit harder. This way the PCs have something to fear besides just themselves or boredom.
> 3) Fix problematic conditions.



Ok so we agree. Epic levels are broken. Finaly! PCs can hit more often - Expertise! Problematic conditions? Yeah. Let's redesigne all monsters and ignore that they can hit you on 2 on die. That's much better solution. And let's just say. It's ok to them to autohit if his at-will attack will dominate player just for one round. That will not change anything and I'm now suer you know that. Sorry, but the solution is already here. The defense hits.

You maybe lost in all this off-topic. The problem is not that the math is bad, couse it was fixed by PHB2 defenses and expertise feats. They way that this repair to 4E math was done, is the major problem. Anyway, I don't have more arguments to you. If you still want to have last word, go ahead, but you just will have to ignore to many things, thus logic to me.


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## Stalker0 (Apr 6, 2009)

I think most of the defense feats are fine.

Lightning Reflexes etc and Paragon defenses seem fine to me. Its a good bonus, but not so good I consider it automatic. The epic robust defense is pretty strong, but imo there are a lot of epic feats I want to take.

The +4 feats I think are broken. They stack with everything else and provide such a large bonus that I feel they are a bit automatic, at least for your weakest defense.

I much prefer the other feats that are +2 feat bonus to a defense and then a secondary effect (like unyielding fort). A much more solid and interesting feat.


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## keterys (Apr 6, 2009)

One of the amusing things about trying to use Orcus as an example is that he's a Brute, so his attack bonuses are sometimes very low. Soldiers might have attacks 4 higher, for instance.

I think one of the trickiest things about these feats is that you're going to see a huge change in defenses in the 21-24 range, but before that and after that, oh well. Man, I hate feat patches.

I do think there are some deeper problems in monster and power design in a lot of cases - like monsters that just don't do enough damage, at all, or the ability to swing attack or defenses by 7-10 in one go, but it's very valuable to get the baseline right then work around that.


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## Bayuer (Apr 6, 2009)

@Stalker0 and what you think about the math? You think it's broken? I saw you made some very nice mathematic calculations about skill checks and Skill challanges. I will be realy happy if you say something about this issue.

@keterys
I agree about Orcus, but this was an example of another user, well bad example. Some brutes are to weak to me. They don't do enough damage most of the time.


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## Mistwell (Apr 6, 2009)

Meh.  I am having a hard time getting worked up about this issue.

Right now, I do not plan on taking any of these feats (including expertise).  I just find other feats to be superior.  Eventually I will probably find room for some of them, but right now they just don't interest me.

Will this make me more vulnerable in higher levels? Sure (a bit), but I doubt I will even notice it.


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## James McMurray (Apr 6, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> @James McMurray
> I don't forbid you to post, just to make it on topic. Anyway I don't replie on most of you text, couse it will make discussion stay not on topic. Btw Orcus was an example of another person, and I just pointed him, that his recharge power is deadly. The same wiht epic destinies features that gives you something when you drop to 0hp. We never discused it, you make it as an argument, but it is just not important. We talking still about feats from PHB2 and PCs defenses.




I'm talking about "the game as a whole". You're talking about "this tiny fraction I dislike. So I'll return the favor and ignore your post as well.

If you only examine a piece of a complex organism, you will never understand the whole, and will come to many incorrect conclusions. If you don't understand that, there's no point in us discussing further, because I am very much of a holistic mindset when it comes to rules. 

Happy gaming!


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## Stalker0 (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> @Stalker0 and what you think about the math? You think it's broken? I saw you made some very nice mathematic calculations about skill checks and Skill challanges. I will be realy happy if you say something about this issue.




My issue is that every math analysis I have seen at epic levels doesn't really consider powers in great detail. And there's a good reason, powers make the analysis very hard!!

At low levels, assuming powers don't make a big impact is reasonable. Powers aren't that impacting, and they are pretty rare in the combat.

At higher levels this is no longer the case. My group has just hit 11th, and I've seen several fights when its all dailies and encounters, no at wills. I would imagine that trend continues into epic.

You can't look at the math in a vacuum. If you are commonly seeing powers that can add +4 defense here, subtract -4 attack there, add this protection, vulnerability, etc you can not make conclusions about the system without seriously taking this into account.

I'll give you guys an example from my group. Two of my players both have a power that gives an enemy a -7 to their attack roll! That's a pretty large impact right there.

So without solid inclusion of this in the math analysis, I would fall back to playtest experience to see what is going on.


I will say this however, that I definitely disapprove of using feats to fix math errors. If the math truly is a problem, it should have errata, not band aided with feats.


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## keterys (Apr 7, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> At low levels, assuming powers don't make a big impact is reasonable. Powers aren't that impacting, and they are pretty rare in the combat.




Hrmm, Frigid Darkness (3) which gives combat advantage and -Int to AC, Lead the Attack (1) for (1+Int) to all attacks, Witchfire (1) for -(2+Int) to attacks, or Disrupting Strike -(3+Wis).

Low levels look like they've got the same type of thing to me...



> I will say this however, that I definitely disapprove of using feats to fix math errors. If the math truly is a problem, it should have errata, not band aided with feats.



Definitely - either the math is bad, and it should be fixed a different way, or it's _not bad_ and the feats are themselves bad, with the huge untyped bonuses. Either way, it's a real shame.


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## Runestar (Apr 7, 2009)

Could the feats have been deliberately made optional to account for the swingier nature of epic level gameplay?

If your party has a dedicated leader who has no problems doling out huge attack bonuses and dishing out massive attack/AC debuffs on the foes, then maybe you won't need purported patch feats such as weapon expertise and the epic defense feats.

But if you find that your stats are still lacking for same reason (maybe no one in your party wants to play a leader), you can then take those feats to shore up your inherent weaknesses and make up for the shortage. They leave it to your good sense to decide if you really need them.

If it was made a mandatory patch, everyone would get the bonuses, regardless of whether they felt they really needed it or not.


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## Stalker0 (Apr 7, 2009)

keterys said:


> Hrmm, Frigid Darkness (3) which gives combat advantage and -Int to AC, Lead the Attack (1) for (1+Int) to all attacks, Witchfire (1) for -(2+Int) to attacks, or Disrupting Strike -(3+Wis).
> 
> Low levels look like they've got the same type of thing to me...




While the amount of power use is certainly lower, you do make a good point that there are still some solid buff and debuffing that goes on at the low levels.

Ideally, the math of every level would include power use, as not assuming their use already creates weaknesses in the model. You probably could make some estimation assuming the standard 4 roles in the party, and what powers each role is likely to take.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> You can't look at the math in a vacuum. If you are commonly seeing powers that can add +4 defense here, subtract -4 attack there, add this protection, vulnerability, etc you can not make conclusions about the system without seriously taking this into account.
> 
> I'll give you guys an example from my group. Two of my players both have a power that gives an enemy a -7 to their attack roll! That's a pretty large impact right there.
> 
> So without solid inclusion of this in the math analysis, I would fall back to playtest experience to see what is going on.




The question comes up:

How many powers does the average group have that give a bonus to hit or a bonus to defense or penalizes the opponents, AND, how long do those powers last?

It's great to give an enemy a -7 to their attack roll. If it is only a single attack roll, then 1 encounter in 3 (assuming it is an encounter power), that power does something to compensate for the math problem. 2 encounters in 3, that power does nothing to compensate for the math problem.

If it is a daily power and does not last for multiple rounds, then it helps one attack per 3 days.

So, one cannot just assume that the synergies of powers compensate for the math issue that people are definitely aware of.


One thing we do know (due to the math problem):

At level 30, there is a penalty to hit of 4 on every single attack.
At level 30, there is (typically) a penalty to the best defense of 4 on every single attack against that defense type.
At level 30, there is (typically) a penalty to the medium defense of 4 on every single attack.
At level 30, there is (typically) a penalty to the medium defense of 7 on every single attack.

So as a rough estimate, 100% of PC attacks are at -4 and 44% (non-AC attacks in the MM) of monster attacks are at -5 (on average) at that level. Shy of feats or Paragon Path abililties to overcome this by 1 or 2 pre-PHB II feats.


Are there really that many +x powers that compensate on average for all attacks made by the PCs and nearly half of the attacks made by the monsters for an entire encounter? To my knowledge, most bonuses and penalties are not for the entire encounter. They tend to be to the end of the next turn.


When one considers that most high level encounters last for many turns (often easily 15 to 20+), a power that lasts until the end of the next turn lasts for a very short portion of the encounter.

Ditto for powers that require a "to hit" in order to gain a bonus (e.g. Lance of Faith or Righteous Brand). The fact that they hit less often means that they also give their bonus less often.


So yes, it is important to consider powers. And powers, especially powers that create conditions, do help the party. But, monsters have powers too. Monsters can have auras or attacks that penalize the party or stun them or whatever. They just typically do not have as many such powers.

One cannot just assume that the synergies of powers make up for -1 PC to hit and -1 PC defenses (not AC) of each tier.


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## Stalker0 (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> One cannot just assume that the synergies of powers make up for -1 PC to hit and -1 PC defenses (not AC) of each tier.




You also cannot assume that the synergies of powers do not make up for the loss in bonuses, especially based on math that makes the faulty assumption that powers don't have a strong influence in the combat.

Basically it would be awesome if someone tried to do a scientific study of the effect of powers on the math. Its a hard analysis, I did all those calculations with skill challenges a while back and those numbers had far fewer factors to consider. Even with that, it took me a lot of calculations and modeling to make any hard conclusions. The effect of powers is a much bigger beast.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> You also cannot assume that the synergies of powers do not make up for the loss in bonuses, especially based on math that makes the faulty assumption that powers don't have a strong influence in the combat.




Actually, I think I can. For three reasons:

1) The bonuses that you have been talking about are mostly sporadic in nature. Many of them last for only a single attack or often at best to the end of the PC's next turn.

The penalties I am talking about occur in every encounter. Every round. For every PC.

So, I think the burden of proof has to be that powers do indeed overcome that known penalty, not that they do not.


2) One very important factor here is that WotC put in +4 feats which stack with everything to boost defenses (and you yourself stated were broken) along with a feat that give +3 to hit (after WotC explicitly stated that plus to hit feats and abilities would be rare).

Bottom line: it appears that WotC thinks that the high level math is broken.


3) People who play Epic have indicated how grindy it is. Part of the reason for that is obviously because high level monsters have too many hit points. But, the fact that PCs have -3 to hit and -3 to 3 of their defenses is obviously another factor in the grindiness. If they could hit easier and not get hit as often, they would use up fewer resources per encounter and the encounters would be shorter in duration.


The information we have is not that the PCs cannot handle high level encounters. They can. It's that they hit infrequently, get hit frequently, and have to use many resources and many rounds to overcome the hit points of the monsters. This causes a grindy situation. But because they have so many options and powers, they can handle it. It's just slow and long and resource heavy and grindy.


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## keterys (Apr 7, 2009)

Which is interesting, because it implies that higher level math should be redressed... and then the monsters should be made more dangerous (and not, obviously, via more defenses and hp 

Part of the problem, I'll say, are things like Legion's Hold... I can understand where they might have thought monsters getting higher relative defenses was a good idea with things like that around.


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## Elric (Apr 7, 2009)

keterys said:


> Which is interesting, because it implies that higher level math should be redressed... and then the monsters should be made more dangerous (and not, obviously, via more defenses and hp




Very similar level/role monsters have a wide range for how powerful they are.  I've already mentioned Bodak Reavers vs. Death Hags at level 18 Soldier.  Looking to epic, compare the Swordwing and Dragonborn Champion (which is 1 level higher).

The Dragonborn Champion has 1 worse AC for its level and slightly fewer HP for its level.  Its FR are a little better for its level, and its Will is much higher.  It is quite a bit less mobile, since its flying is clumsy.  However, it has very good resistances, its at-will does more damage (20 vs. 16) and includes a very likely to hit secondary that stuns and knocks prone and its other special abilities are better as well.  There's no comparison.

Similarly, I think the Pit Fiend (level 26 Elite Soldier) would be noticeably stronger than Doresain the Ghoul King (level 27 Elite Skirmisher) even without the Pit Fiend's very powerful summon ability.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

keterys said:


> Part of the problem, I'll say, are things like Legion's Hold... I can understand where they might have thought monsters getting higher relative defenses was a good idea with things like that around.




Maybe.

Or, maybe it is just a decent Daily power. Say one did have a 50% chance to hit with it and was able to get 8 enemies in the radius.

2 dazed for one round, 2 stunned for one round, 1 dazed for two rounds, 1 stunned for two rounds, 1 dazed for three rounds, 1 stunned for three rounds.

Give or take.

So sure, it slows up the monsters. But in 20 round encounters and 8 monsters in the encounter (probably at least 120 monster rounds), this stuns for 6 monster rounds and dazes for 6 monsters rounds. That's 5% to 10% (and closer to 5%) less attacks by the monsters. Or, the equivalent of -1 to hit over the course of the encounter for all of the monsters.

In the course of 4 encounters in the day, it's the equivalent of -0.25 to hit over the course of the day for all of the monsters.

It's definitely a nice spell, but it's probably not as potent as it seems. It lasts for very few rounds in an entire adventuring day. 1 to 3 rounds for some monsters out of a 60-80 round adventuring day.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

Elric said:


> Similarly, I think the Pit Fiend (level 26 Elite Soldier) would be noticeably stronger than Doresain the Ghoul King (level 27 Elite Skirmisher) even without the Pit Fiend's very powerful summon ability.




I think Soldiers in general are the best combat monsters. It's hard to compare most soldiers with similar level anything else and find them lacking. They might do less damage, but they stick around a lot longer in which to make up for that.

If the PCs are having too easy a time at any level, throw some soldiers into the mix.


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## Elric (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I think Soldiers in general are the best combat monsters. It's hard to compare most soldiers with similar level anything else and find them lacking. They might do less damage, but they stick around a lot longer in which to make up for that.
> 
> If the PCs are having too easy a time at any level, throw some soldiers into the mix.




Soldier AC-level is 1.7 points higher than Skirmisher AC on average (from kerbarian's excellent thread of statistics), and Fort-Level is 2.2 points higher than Skirmishers, which is the biggest relative Defense disparity.  Kerbarian doesn't have statistics on to-hit by role, but we can assume roughly the same is true of to-hit bonuses.  That means a Skirmisher 2 levels higher than a Soldier should be better on average with all its to-hit and defense numbers, except a tiny loss in Fort.  

Even a one level difference for Skirmisher ahead of Soldier should make up most of the number gap.  So raw durability based on higher defenses shouldn't explain more than a 1-level gap.  That said, it's easy to explain why Doresain is so weak; he has pitiful offense unless he uses his Recharge 6 power, and little else that he can do.  A Pit Fiend has a strong double attack routine, multiple powerful Auras, useful minor action abilities, and a very strong summoning power, on top of the excellent to-hit and defenses that come from being a Soldier.  

The Dragonborn Champion and Swordwing from above are both Soldiers.  The Bodak Reaver and Death Hag are both soldiers.  Even within a role, there are major disparities, because the monsters have similar base numbers for level and role without considering how special abilities can change their power (Needlefang Drake Swarms are perhaps the most egregious example).


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## Jhaelen (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> I think that this is even greater problem than Expertise.
> [...]
> I just really hope that WotC will not give us plenty more "must-have" feats, to make the math works, couse this will make the characters so boring and predictable.



I disagree. I also don't understand why you people get so worked up about the issue.

These aren't must-have feats and I think the math works well enough. You're right though, that the feats are boring which is yet another reason why I don't see many players taking them.

3E had similar feats (adding +2 to a saving throw). No player in my games ever took one of these. At least they were useful for monsters (since they don't add complexity)... but in 4E?

Now, do you think, the 3E feats indicated that the 3E math didn't work?


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## MrBeens (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Maybe.
> 
> Or, maybe it is just a decent Daily power. Say one did have a 50% chance to hit with it and was able to get 8 enemies in the radius.
> 
> ...




I think this analysis is why there are 2 camps in this discussion - the maths vs the game.

Legions hold boiled down to that in the maths and dismissing it as a insignificant bump in the overall scheme of things vs Legions hold looked at in the game where it is a way to take a number of monsters out of the fight for a few rounds so the party can concentrate on other monsters.

Seriously, just play the game and ignore the maths. You'll probably have more fun.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> What about instead:
> 
> 
> At-Wills work as normal.
> ...



I see what you're trying to accomplish. However, making dailies too attractive only weakens the 4E design where the "15 minute adventuring day" was (rather successfully) eliminated.

That is, if Dailies get much better than in the core game, this might mean players feel forced to stop for a rest when these have been used up, even when they otherwise would not have to (plenty of surges left etc...)


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## CapnZapp (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Making the PCs hit more often or harder would be great at reducing grind. Lowering monster hit points would work as well.
> 
> Making monsters hit less often would have much less of an effect on grind, except in the case where the monsters are stunning, dominating, or weakening since none of the other common status effects will stop you from dealing damage. The hit point damage the monsters do isn't a big portion of the grind, as it either has 0 effect on the character's combat worthiness, or is healed via a minor action and/or a side effect of another attack.
> 
> ...



Great advice!

But... I still haven't understood why you're arguing against NAD fixes...? 

Even if it because you feel it is beside the real issue and/or focusing on the wrong problem, why do you keep bringing up the issue in this thread?

Or, more to the point: if we for the moment disregards those other points you bring up, *do you feel it would hurt the game to fix Non-Attack Defenses?*

Because if you don't - and perhaps even agree it provide some benefit even if these benefits aren't as crucial as your own points - then perhaps you could allow the discussion to proceed? 

I am sure you can see how attacks that hit on a 2 make some of us wince...?


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## CapnZapp (Apr 7, 2009)

Runestar said:


> Could the feats have been deliberately made optional to account for the swingier nature of epic level gameplay?
> 
> If your party has a dedicated leader who has no problems doling out huge attack bonuses and dishing out massive attack/AC debuffs on the foes, then maybe you won't need purported patch feats such as weapon expertise and the epic defense feats.
> 
> ...



But this would mean the designers have resigned from their responsibilities?

If you don't "need" an option but you are allowed to take it anyway *chances are you break the system*.

As a designer, you can't leave it up to the system to balance itself. That simply doesn't work.

_(The proper way of solving the example situation you're bringing up is to make the feat and the leader power give bonuses of the same type, so that they don't stack.

Now you have a situation where the party with the dedicated leader can skip the feat other parties would love to take, without making it possible for a minmaxer in the first party to take the feat anyway. 

Thinking this through before publishing those feats and powers is what we pay designers to do...  )_


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## CapnZapp (Apr 7, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> My issue is that every math analysis I have seen at epic levels doesn't really consider powers in great detail. And there's a good reason, powers make the analysis very hard!!
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You can't look at the math in a vacuum. If you are commonly seeing powers that can add +4 defense here, subtract -4 attack there, add this protection, vulnerability, etc you can not make conclusions about the system without seriously taking this into account.



But do we really need to do this (very hard) analysis?

Can't we simply look at the PHB2 feats and assume WotC has crunched the numbers for us and come up with the conclusions we are already assuming? That indeed the math is broken?

How else explain the presence of those feats? We all agree they are fairly broken (i.e. over-powered) taken at face value. The consensus seems to be that only by explaining them as math patches can we justify including them in our games...?




_Edit:_ Like KarisDad said: 


KarinsDad said:


> Bottom line: it appears that WotC thinks that the high level math is broken.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I think Soldiers in general are the best combat monsters. It's hard to compare most soldiers with similar level anything else and find them lacking. They might do less damage...






Elric said:


> Soldier AC-level is 1.7 points higher than Skirmisher AC on average (from kerbarian's excellent thread of statistics), and Fort-Level is 2.2 points higher than Skirmishers, which...



Sorry for interrupting, but really I think this is a separate discussion, not really relevant to the issue at hand. 

In fact, I think that "monsters are far from perfectly balanced" is something we all agree to. So I would like you to not allow yourselves to get side-tracked like this. 

Your posts on the central issue, on how to increase non-attack defenses are far too interesting...!


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## Bolongo (Apr 7, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> *Non-Attack Defenses*



Just a quick note: that's not what the acronym stands for. Because that wouldn't make any sense -  a defense against something that's not an attack? 

It's Non-Armor Defenses, or Non-AC Defenses.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 7, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> But do we really need to do this (very hard) analysis?




It isn't necessary to do a thurough analysis.  But it helps if you're making a point that mathematical computations are broken if you actually mathematicly prove the brokenness.  Otherwise you're only theorizing, and have no stand point to make a statement as tho it were fact.

Without mathematical proof, you merely have opinion.



> Can't we simply look at the PHB2 feats and assume WotC has crunched the numbers for us and come up with the conclusions we are already assuming? That indeed the math is broken?




No, you can't.  You can rationally come up with the conclusion that developers wanted to produce epic versions of the Lighting Reflexes-style feats, either by increasing the bonus given, or spreading the bonus out amongst all three NADs.  Without some form of mathematical evidence that the numbers don't work, you cannot make a statement that the feats prove the brokenness of the math with any real authority.  (and no, to-hit bonus anayisis is not sufficent evidence to mount a proof that the system is broken; This requires either a rigorous mathematical examination of all pertinent variables, or observation of a sample of test cases in order to prove a trend.)



> How else explain the presence of those feats? We all agree they are fairly broken (i.e. over-powered) taken at face value. The consensus seems to be that only by explaining them as math patches can we justify including them in our games...?




We don't all agree, and saying so is an incorrect statement that is designed to exclude those that disagree with you from the argument.  It is no more valid than me saying 'We all agree that the math isn't broken.'  What is true is that I see a thread of some people declaring them broken, and other people saying that high level play isn't just decided by to-hit bonuses and that it's a lot more complicated than that.  Fact is, these feats already existed in 3rd edition and functioned -exactly the same.-  The only difference is that you got them earlier.

When I start seeing errata to how to design monsters and assign defenses, and errata to problematic monsters with high attack bonuses, that's when I can believe the 'math is borked and wizards knows it' conspiracy.



_Edit:_ Like KarisDad said:[/QUOTE]


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> These aren't must-have feats and I think the math works well enough. You're right though, that the feats are boring which is yet another reason why I don't see many players taking them.



Post some arguments why they don't "must-have" feats? Even in 90% roleplay 10% combat game, when you have the only fight in that night, and the enemy rolls an attack, and hits you on 2 die, and you are dominated/stunned and can't do nothing, it's not fun! Even if you can deeply describe what your character feels when his under such an effect.



Jhaelen said:


> Now, do you think, the 3E feats indicated that the 3E math didn't work?



Even blind man can say that 3E was so broken and gives so many overpowered things that this shouldn't be on topic. Anyway, it's not comparing older editions to 4E.

About powers that impact the game. Sure, some of them gives bonuses/penatlties. Most of them are small or last until the end of next turn. Even classes that gives to hit bonuses, gives it to malee attacks only, with hurt NADs attack. I don't saw any other power like Lead the Attack that gives (1+INT on all attack rolls until the end of encounter, but just versus single target). It's 1 lvl warolord daily. Now if we go to epic level we will not see any power like this. There are some minor +hit powers that last for one attack or untile the end of next turn. But this is only warlod. The str cleric with overpowerd rightous brand can work from 1 lvl too givine +4 on 1lvl to melee attack and +7/+8 on epic. There are no more builds that gives to hit (maybe bard I didn't looked into it). Even so, the to hit options works from 1lvl, when the math looks fine. On epic there aren't daily powers that grant ongoing bonuses to hit (I'm lookin at warlord). So you can conisder that if powers have such a strong impact from the beginning of game they influence on game mechanic is not important, couse we can assume it will be much the same as on 1 lvl, and even with scaling it will be fine, couse on epic our to hit chances decrased by 3/4 (the same amount to hit powers will grove +3/+4).

I'm lookin at 29 daily power of warlord now. Stand Invincible. You and each ally within 5 squares of you gain a +4 power bonus to all defenses and resist 5 to all damage until 
the end of your next turn. Sustain Minor: The effect continues. Now that's great daily! +4 to all DEFs (even AC) make it very cools. But it gives +4 bonus to AC, with at this level will be much better than our NADs. So the monster will have real hard times hitting our AC. If so for AC, the same should by for NADs. But without feats our NADs, still be very behind, even with this bonus. Let's just say that on epic NADs attacks are very offten.

@James McMurray
Well my english isn't good (it's not my primary language) and maybe you didn't understand my. I didn't ignore your post, I just ignore (I will not answer) on things that wasn't related to topic. As you can see I did replay to your posts. I didn't want to be rude or something. Anyway pity you didn't answered to many of questions I asked in my post.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

DracoSuave said:
			
		

> It isn't necessary to do a thurough analysis. But it helps if you're making a point that mathematical computations are broken if you actually mathematicly prove the brokenness. Otherwise you're only theorizing, and have no stand point to make a statement as tho it were fact.
> 
> Without mathematical proof, you merely have opinion.



Didn't I pointed you your arguments were wrong? The pure math crunch is done. The feats from PHB2 are here. They fit into gap making math good. About powers I wrote above. What any proofs you need more? People belive in religions withou proof, you have 3 here 



> No, you can't. You can rationally come up with the conclusion that developers wanted to produce epic versions of the Lighting Reflexes-style feats, either by increasing the bonus given, or spreading the bonus out amongst all three NADs. Without some form of mathematical evidence that the numbers don't work, you cannot make a statement that the feats prove the brokenness of the math with any real authority. (and no, to-hit bonus anayisis is not sufficent evidence to mount a proof that the system is broken; This requires either a rigorous mathematical examination of all pertinent variables, or observation of a sample of test cases in order to prove a trend.)



There are such a fets that make Lighting Reflex etc. better at epic. But this aren' Epic RFW feats. They give +4 bonus without "feat bonus" and we have Robust Defense.


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## MrBeens (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Didn't I pointed you your arguments were wrong? The pure math crunch is done. The feats from PHB2 are here. They fit into gap making math good. About powers I wrote above. What any proofs you need more? People belive in religions withou proof, you have 3 here
> 
> 
> There are such a fets that make Lighting Reflex etc. better at epic. But this aren' Epic RFW feats. They give +4 bonus without "feat bonus" and we have Robust Defense.




I agree 100% with what Draco said above.
What you keep failing to understand is that just because you have crunched some numbers, that is not a 100% "proof" that the system is broken as you keep on claiming.
There have been many other people in this thread stating the fact that they have run epic level games and have not noticed a problem, along with other people pointing out that your pure maths are flawed as they don't take in to account all of the other variables.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

MrBeens said:


> I agree 100% with what Draco said above.
> What you keep failing to understand is that just because you have crunched some numbers, that is not a 100% "proof" that the system is broken as you keep on claiming.
> There have been many other people in this thread stating the fact that they have run epic level games and have not noticed a problem, along with other people pointing out that your pure maths are flawed as they don't take in to account all of the other variables.




A few bad assumptions here:

1) We did not just run numbers. I ran a high level test as well.

2) Nobody in this thread has stated that they have run an epic level game and not noticed a problem. This is a falsehood. I went back and re-read all of the posts. The only person to state that he ran high level was James and he said that high level was grindy and giving the players +3 to hit would have lowered the grindiness because they miss a lot.

His concern is that increasing nads will make high level too easy.


High level play is extremely grindy. Anyone who has not run a high level game might not realize this. The maths here bear that out. The feats that WotC added to PHB II bear that out.

So far, the best the opposing POV has to show is: you have not taken into account every variable, hence, your math is wrong. Err, no.

The math illustrates the grindiness of Epic play and so does anecdotal evidence so far and so does the fact that WotC added the feats to PHB II.

The evidence is on the side of the math.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Post some arguments why they don't "must-have" feats? Even in 90% roleplay 10% combat game, when you have the only fight in that night, and the enemy rolls an attack, and hits you on 2 die, and you are dominated/stunned and can't do nothing, it's not fun!



But that's pure conjecture on your part! (and the ratio of combat to roleplaying in a game is completely irrelevant to this discussion)

I'll believe they're must-have feats if I happen to play an epic level campaign and the pcs are hit on a 2 in every encounter. Until then (or until someone else can provide some empirical data that supports your view) I'm unconvinced.


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## Runestar (Apr 7, 2009)

> But this would mean the designers have resigned from their responsibilities?
> 
> If you don't "need" an option but you are allowed to take it anyway *chances are you break the system*.




I am thinking more that perhaps, they are trying to break away from creating a 1-size-fits-all template that applies equally to all gaming groups. Maybe some groups don't care for complicated tactics. They just want a straightforward beatdown encounter based off attrition. Release feats to plug these "perceived" gaps for parties that don't run according to their playtest assumptions (eg: play a leader, have at least these stats and powers by lvXX, main stats below 16 etc), then leave it to the individual DMs to work out if these feats will make the characters too powerful, or simply prevent them from sucking too much.

At least, that is the only reason I can think of beyond blatant power creep to sell more copies of PHB2. I can't believe that no one caught on to the issue of every PC having at least one defense that was virtually auto-hit by monsters of that lv (so I assume it was expected and deemed necessary).


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## Elric (Apr 7, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Sorry for interrupting, but really I think this is a separate discussion, not really relevant to the issue at hand.
> 
> In fact, I think that "monsters are far from perfectly balanced" is something we all agree to. So I would like you to not allow yourselves to get side-tracked like this.
> 
> Your posts on the central issue, on how to increase non-attack defenses are far too interesting...!




Really?  No one responds to those posts of mine 

Though I didn't specify this at the time, I think that post is relevant as a counterexample to the idea that if epic level combats aren't too tough, FRW doesn't need to be fixed.  Karinsdad used Doresain in his test fight, and he was 60% of the exp budget for the encounter.  When you do that, you're not going to end up with a particularly challenging fight simply because his offense is so weak (grindy, yes; challenging, no).  It's not hard to see why Doresain is so weak, as I pointed out, and that has nothing to do with FRW scaling.  

By comparison, if you refuse to fix FRW scaling on the grounds that epic level encounters aren't that challenging (because many epic monsters are built like Doresain with damage output that is too low), then when you do use the Dragonborn Champion it will have its secondary Stun succeed 95% of the time against weak F defenses and 65-70% of the time against strong F defenses (on an equal-leveled opponent), turning an already strong ability even stronger than it would be if FRWs scaled appropriately.  

As I've said multiple times, but no one has yet responded to, 



Elric said:


> We can pick some stronger tests of "the game's math doesn't work well" than "is the game too hard at high levels?"  Suppose that FRW attacks were incredibly rare; then since AC scales well no amount of messing up FRW defenses would noticeably impact the game, yet the math could still break down.
> 
> Let's try the following hypothesis: "Attacks against FRW defenses becomes weaker over time compared to attacks against AC to compensate for the fact that FRW attackers scale better (and tend to be more likely to hit to start with)."
> 
> ...


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> I see what you're trying to accomplish. However, making dailies too attractive only weakens the 4E design where the "15 minute adventuring day" was (rather successfully) eliminated.




True. I didn't think much about the suggestion, just tossed it out as an alternative to the original idea which would have left non-weapon users out in the cold.



CapnZapp said:


> Great advice!
> 
> But... I still haven't understood why you're arguing against NAD fixes...?
> 
> Even if it because you feel it is beside the real issue and/or focusing on the wrong problem, why do you keep bringing up the issue in this thread?




Isn't that what this thread is about? 



> Or, more to the point: if we for the moment disregards those other points you bring up, *do you feel it would hurt the game to fix Non-Attack Defenses?*




Yes. The reason is that it's an attempt to fix one or more problems and fails at all of them.

If it's trying to fix the grind problem, it's a horrible fix. The only time it will change the duration of a fight is when the monster has an effect that completely debilitates the target, has a low enough attack bonus that +4 actually changes things, and the party has none of the many abilities which get rid of conditions.

If it's trying to fix the problem where monsters with powerful at-will conditions (such as stunning) make a fight boring, it fails because +4 to the defense is at best a 20% change, and sometimes will be less than that. If, as has been claimed, monsters hit on a 2 anyway, there's not that big of a difference between hitting on a 3-6 instead. If they actually hit on something worse than that, then the fights will be even swingier than they can already be, because whether or not the monster's bigger attacks hit comes down to luck.

If it's trying to fix "the maths am bad" then it's a shot in the dark against an unknown target. "The math is bad" is notan actual problem. It's the effects of the math being bad that are or are not an issue, and while fixing the math might be the best solution, it might be that fixing the things the math enables is much better. 



> Because if you don't - and perhaps even agree it provide some benefit even if these benefits aren't as crucial as your own points - then perhaps you could allow the discussion to proceed?




It's a thread on a forum. Nothing I say can stop anyone from posting about what they want to post about.



> I am sure you can see how attacks that hit on a 2 make some of us wince...?




I can see how the idea of it is scary, but it raises two questions:

1) Why is it scary? Is it just the idea of it, or are there actual negative effects of attacks hitting on a 2 that aren't themselves tied to another bad rule?

2) If hitting on a 2 makes you wince, what's so great about hitting on a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 instead; and charging the PCs 3 feats to get that minor benefit?


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> 1) We did not just run numbers. I ran a high level test as well.




How many parties, levels, encounters, and trials per party vs. encounter combination did this test use?



> High level play is extremely grindy. Anyone who has not run a high level game might not realize this. The maths here bear that out. The feats that WotC added to PHB II bear that out.




I don't think the feats WotC added have anything to do with Grindiness, but more to do with "we get hit too often, which can't be good. Fix it." Being hit left and right is not the cause of most long fights. It's not hitting often enough and/or hard enough that causes that. +2 - +6 for PC defenses doesn't change that except in very specific cases. 

If the intent was to fix a general "epic fights grind" problem, wouldn't they have used a generic change to do so rather than one which only affects some combats.



Jhaelen said:


> I'll believe they're must-have feats if I happen to play an epic level campaign and the pcs are hit on a 2 in every encounter. Until then (or until someone else can provide some empirical data that supports your view) I'm unconvinced.




If I'm playing in an epic campaign and I get hit on a 2 in every encounter the last thing I'll be looking at is these feats. At best they make you get hit on an 8 (if you spend 4 epic feats and the need for a 2 is right on the dot). At worst they have zero effect.

I think you'd be better served looking for saving throw bonuses and other ways around the debilitating conditions that you're going to get hit with whether your defenses are 6 points higher or not.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

Jhaelen said:
			
		

> But that's pure conjecture on your part! (and the ratio of combat to roleplaying in a game is completely irrelevant to this discussion)



Yeah. The style of play is irrelevant to discussion! At least someone undersood that.
And this is my point. When I played on paragon I was hitted on 3-4 on die, couse my barb REF was low. I was playing on epic and even well optimized chars were hitted offten. Man. Empirical data  I didn't taken this from space. I did math after I saw epic monsters hit NADs too often and PHB2 feats came out. And why on earth you don't belive my math crunch? Make 25 level character, take some 25 artilery from MM and see it yourself. I'm not teacher to teach how to look if evidences are right or wrong. You didn't even do so little to make you opinion be supported. What are we talking here, about what mr. x feels about this topic or what are the facts?



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> I'll believe they're must-have feats if I happen to play an epic level campaign and the pcs are hit on a 2 in every encounter. Until then (or until someone else can provide some empirical data that supports your view) I'm unconvinced.



At first, thx for not answering again about some facts I did in previosu post. Maybe they was realy so strong, you couldn't answer. Anyway.
Epic FRW gives +4 to singe. Robust Defenses +2 to all. So from hitting on 2 on die, he can hit if he rolls 6 on die (from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit, so with +6 from feats he have +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit). Thats much more diffrence than autohit. Chances are still weak to avoid being hitted but look at other defs. Your highest will be hitted now on 10 on die (not 8, couse you have Roboust Defenses feat). Your middle DEF will be hitted on 7 on die, 11 if you take Epic feat). I didn't take this numbers from vacum. If we fight agains artilery (my stats are for Skirmihser), situatuon is much worse, becouse artillery has +2 to hit compared to skirmihers. Do the math yourself. This feats are needed.



> If it's trying to fix "the maths am bad" then it's a shot in the dark against an unknown target. "The math is bad" is notan actual problem. It's the effects of the math being bad that are or are not an issue, and while fixing the math might be the best solution, it might be that fixing the things the math enables is much better.



So the math is broken or not? There are better ways to fix this. But we have PHB2 and this is the official fix. Fixing the PCs NADs is easier solution than, change every single monster power in MM. Even then we still have problems, becouse how make monster attacks compared to lowest NAD and highest NAD.



> I can see how the idea of it is scary, but it raises two questions:
> 1) Why is it scary? Is it just the idea of it, or are there actual negative effects of attacks hitting on a 2 that aren't themselves tied to another bad rule?
> 2) If hitting on a 2 makes you wince, what's so great about hitting on a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 instead; and charging the PCs 3 feats to get that minor benefit?



1)When you will be autodominad/stunned etc. the game is less fun to you. You are completly eliminated from game and can't do nothing to make this stop. It's like 3E save or die ability, but your save is always failed.
2)6 on die gives 30% chance of not being hitted, what gives you some hope. It's always better than autohit and makes the game more fair, more fun, more balanced. And it can be flawed now as "I'm clumsy and don't have god Reflex" better than "I'm clumsy just don't hit my REF couse I will have nothing to do on session". And one last thing, this feats aren't suppose to be feats. This is very bad fix, and should be incorporated to rules not as an option to PCs. Many of them will not even bother to see how the math works and what impact on game will have to not take this feats. That should never be an issue with well balanced game. Player whos not understand the math or don't want to get to numbers will sooner or later understand that this feats will make his character much better. Feat tax is always bad and that's way I make this thread.


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Epic FRW gives +4 to singe. Robust Defenses +2 to all. So from hitting on 2 on die, he can hit if he rolls 6 on die




Not always. If he would normally hit on a 1, but doesn't because a 1 is an automiss, then adding 4 means he will hit you on a 5 or better. If the difference is larger, adding 4 could mean he still hits you on a 2.



> There are better ways to fix this. But we have PHB2 and this is the official fix.




If you assume that +4 to defenses for the cost of a feat is a fix. I don't.



> 1)When you will be autodominad/stunned etc. the game is less fun to you. You are completly eliminated from game and can't do nothing to make this stop. It's like 3E save or die ability, but your save is always failed.




So the problem is tied to other problematic rules, and not necessarily an issue with attacks hitting frequently? If domination and stun worked differently, would hitting on a 2 still be as scary?



> 2)6 on die gives 30% chance of not being hitted, what gives you some hope. It's always better than autohit and makes the game more fair, more fun, more balanced.




It's not always a 6 on the die, and you're still mostly assured of getting hit. Is that small glimmer of hope worth an epic feat?


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> Not always. If he would normally hit on a 1, but doesn't because a 1 is an automiss, then adding 4 means he will hit you on a 5 or better. If the difference is larger, adding 4 could mean he still hits you on a 2.



I'm starting to think that you don't understand what are we talking here, and math cruch I made shows to us. This is what I wrote in previous post: _(from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player (lowest NAD) where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit (this NAD), so with +6 from feats (to lowest NAD) he have (monster) +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit (PCs lowest NAD))._ You make your assumptions when i gave you the pure math...



> If you assume that +4 to defenses for the cost of a feat is a fix. I don't.



You agree the epic level is bad. So if you don't agree it it's becouse of bad math (of PCs NADs and PCs hitting chance vs. monsters) so what is it? 



> So the problem is tied to other problematic rules, and not necessarily an issue with attacks hitting frequently? If domination and stun worked differently, would hitting on a 2 still be as scary?



No this rules are fine as they are. The problem is that they are comes to offten into play, so they fail to meet they purpose. Every effect that comes to offten into play makes your player frustrated/boring/name it by yourself. I don't see anytihing wrong being stunned by monster attack, I see that it's wrong when I'm always have this effect on my character when the monster hit me. Even if I have +9 vs. stunn effects I still lose the round, and the next round here we go again.

[qute]
It's not always a 6 on the die, and you're still mostly assured of getting hit. Is that small glimmer of hope worth an epic feat?[/quote]
If we talk about the lowest NAD, and take 2 feats it will be still 6... Look to the math, man. Prove me that I crunch numbers wrong and we can talk. Now you think that my math is worthles with makes my little angry, becouse you even not look at it, when you make your conlcusions:/

I will explain it as clear as I can, and my english skills will let me.
30 % is big diffrence than autohi, right?
Not taking this feats will end autohit when monster will target your weakest NAD, right?
You middle NAD, will be hitted 75% of time withou feats! (5 on die)
Your best NAD will be hitted 60% of time (8 on die) without feats! [I'm talking about late epic plays]
The effects monsters place on PCs can be very hindering or just eat players actions. If monster can hit player so easly (and do damgae by the same time!) why we even have NADs? Couldn't monster just have more powerful auras etc? Answer: Designers think that luck factor is nice for game (I think that to). But when you compare to power of effects monsters can place on PCs on higher levels, and how easy this can be accomplished, you at least must wonder. Isn't there something wrong?
On epic players got many powers and options. They can survive more easily, but it doesn't mean that monsters should hit you more offten. They power is better dmg, better HP and better effects used more often. And this is just fine! They don't need easy hitting to be challanging. This is just ilusion of they power. That just make the game not good. Having no even 5% chance of avoiding monster attack on epic level where you ultra hero... Doesn't sound like ultra hero. Yeah. This i Balor! He need to kick you as! Thats a 5 years old kid explenation wit a lot of ignorance of facts.

The game should be fair as possible. Now you can make you highest DEF at -4 diadventage to monster (30 level monster will have to roll 14 on die to hit you). This is good feat option! Very good. Even -2 will be good! But you must spend 2 feats to gain this (Robust Defenses and Epic FRW). Now you middle DEF with those feats will make monster at -1 diadventage (11 on die to hit you), while you lowest will be at +4 adventage (6 on die to hit). Now this are numbers that looks good (like on 1 level of play). But you must spend 4 feats to maintain this! Wihout any DEF feats:
highest hitted on 8 on die; middle on 5 on die; lowest on 2 on die... You don't need to be Sherlock to state, there is something wrong here.

Even powers/items don't make it fair, couse they are situational, last for one round, and can't be used again in given encounter. So maybe you will now see what I'm talking here. I have my math + experience on epic. You will never change my mind about that topic if you want give my any real proofs, but just sofistic talking.


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## Regicide (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Yeah. The style of play is irrelevant to discussion! At least someone undersood that.
> And this is my point. When I played on paragon I was hitted on 3-4 on die, couse my barb REF was low. I was playing on epic and even well optimized chars were hitted offten. Man. Empirical data  I didn't taken this from space.




  Yes, Karinsdad is the only person I've seen say epic isn't easy and he keeps giving examples with PCs that seem like they don't have any feats and never get any benefit from powers.  It's the powers that have bigger numbers tacked on them at higher levels, so it's no surprise that if you ignore them then the base numbers don't look right.  It would be no different if you had level 25 characters running around with +0 weapons.  Everything would look like it was off by 5.



Bayuer said:


> At first, thx for not answering again about some facts I did in previosu post. Maybe they was realy so strong, you couldn't answer. Anyway.
> Epic FRW gives +4 to singe. Robust Defenses +2 to all. So from hitting on 2 on die, he can hit if he rolls 6 on die (from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit, so with +6 from feats he have +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit). Thats much more diffrence than autohit. Chances are still weak to avoid being hitted but look at other defs. Your highest will be hitted now on 10 on die (not 8, couse you have Roboust Defenses feat). Your middle DEF will be hitted on 7 on die, 11 if you take Epic feat). I didn't take this numbers from vacum. If we fight agains artilery (my stats are for Skirmihser), situatuon is much worse, becouse artillery has +2 to hit compared to skirmihers. Do the math yourself. This feats are needed.




  Going from anything but a 1 to a 6 to hit reduces DPS from 95% to 75%, thats a 21% drop in dps. (ignoring crits)
  Going from a 14 to hit to a 20 to hit reduces DPS from 35% to 5%, thats an 86% drop in dps.  (ignoring crits)

  If characters weren't too easy to hit before the feats they will certainly be too hard to hit after.  There is only an 18 pt window due to the d20, a 6 point swing in that range is a lot.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> How many parties, levels, encounters, and trials per party vs. encounter combination did this test use?




It was a single test.

You are obviously more experienced than I with Epic level play.

So the Epic level questions to you are:

1) Is high level play grindy?

2) How many average rounds do the standard encounters last? 10? 15? 20? more?

3) How many average hours does it take to play a standard encounter?

4) How about an n+3 encounter? How many average rounds does it take and how many average hours? Put another way, how many encounters could you easily fit in during an x hour session?

5) Will increasing the PC chances to hit make it less grindy?

6) Will increasing the PC chances to hit save resources that allow for more encounters per day?

7) Will increasing the PC nads make it less grindy?

8) Will increasing the PC nads save resources that allow for more encounters per day?

9) If increasing the PC to hit and nads makes encounters too easy, what is the best solution for making the encounters challenging without making them grindy again?


Although my sample set is small and was n+3, it was very illustrative. Getting hit on a 3 sucks. Hitting only on a 17 sucks.

Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.



I roll dice in front of players to. They are not happy when they see what's going on;/


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> I'm starting to think that you don't understand what are we talking here, and math cruch I made shows to us. This is what I wrote in previous post: _(from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player (lowest NAD) where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit (this NAD), so with +6 from feats (to lowest NAD) he have (monster) +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit (PCs lowest NAD))._ You make your assumptions when i gave you the pure math...




Your pure math is incomplete. I don't know if it's my writing, your reading, or a combination of the two, but what I'm trying to tell you isn't getting across. Lemme try an example.

We've got a monster. It has a +30 to hit vs. Will. We'll call this monster Mr. +30.

We've got two PCs. One has a 32 Will Defense, the other a 29. We'll call them 32W and 29W.

When +30 attacks 32W, it needs a 2 to hit. When +30 attacks 29W, it needs a 2 to hit (because a 1 always misses).

Now we'll bump the PCs up by 4, and change their names to match. When +30 attacks 36W, it needs a 6 to hit. When +30 attacks 33W, it only needs a 3 to hit.

Does that explain it better?



> You agree the epic level is bad. So if you don't agree it it's becouse of bad math (of PCs NADs and PCs hitting chance vs. monsters) so what is it?




As I pointed out earlier, it's a combination of conditions that are too good at shutting down actions, monster defenses that are too high to hit reliably, and monster hit points that are too numerous to take out quickly.



> No this rules are fine as they are. The problem is that they are comes to offten into play, so they fail to meet they purpose. Every effect that comes to offten into play makes your player frustrated/boring/name it by yourself. I don't see anytihing wrong being stunned by monster attack, I see that it's wrong when I'm always have this effect on my character when the monster hit me. Even if I have +9 vs. stunn effects I still lose the round, and the next round here we go again.




So if stunning could only happen once per combat per attacker, would that be better?



> If we talk about the lowest NAD, and take 2 feats it will be still 6... Look to the math, man. Prove me that I crunch numbers wrong and we can talk. Now you think that my math is worthles with makes my little angry, becouse you even not look at it, when you make your conlcusions:/




Your math isn't worthless, it's just not as useful as you think, partly because it is incomplete in modeling attacks vs. defenses (as shown above), and partly because it only models a tiny fraction of the game system, then tries to draw generalized conclusions.



> 30 % is big diffrence than autohi, right?




Yes, though I'll point out that there's no such thing as autohit.



> Not taking this feats will end autohit when monster will target your weakest NAD, right?




They'll stop the 95% hit rate, yes. At least in those instance where they bump your defense high enough that the monster needs a 3+ instead of a 2.



> You middle NAD, will be hitted 75% of time withou feats! (5 on die)




Do you mean all the time, or as a general rule? If it's supposed to be all the time, then no way is 75% a good number. If it's general, that seems about right.



> Your best NAD will be hitted 60% of time (8 on die) without feats! [I'm talking about late epic plays]




See above.



> The effects monsters place on PCs can be very hindering or just eat players actions. If monster can hit player so easly (and do damgae by the same time!) why we even have NADs?




For one, there's never an autohit, so the NADs matter. Second, the conditions themselves keep  cropping up as the bad guy, yet it's apparently the math's fault. 

Monsters need to be able to deal damage to be a threat. Monsters don't need constant use of action inhibiting conditions to be a threat. Adding a rule that makes the already low damage monsters deal less average damage lowers the only "fun" threat they've got.



> Couldn't monster just have more powerful auras etc? Answer: Designers think that luck factor is nice for game (I think that to).




Source?



> But when you compare to power of effects monsters can place on PCs on higher levels, and how easy this can be accomplished, you at least must wonder. Isn't there something wrong?




Definitely. But "things happen every round in a fight because monsters can hit easily" isn't the problem. The problem is a subset of those things which are happening, and lowering the overall occurrence of hits lowers the good and the bad equally.



> On epic players got many powers and options. They can survive more easily, but it doesn't mean that monsters should hit you more offten. They power is better dmg, better HP and better effects used more often. And this is just fine! They don't need easy hitting to be challanging. This is just ilusion of they power. That just make the game not good. Having no even 5% chance of avoiding monster attack on epic level where you ultra hero... Doesn't sound like ultra hero. Yeah. This i Balor! He need to kick you as! Thats a 5 years old kid explenation wit a lot of ignorance of facts.




I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but there's a lot of opinion in it, so I'll just agree to disagree on what is "best."



> The game should be fair as possible. Now you can make you highest DEF at -4 diadventage to monster (30 level monster will have to roll 14 on die to hit you). This is good feat option! Very good. Even -2 will be good! But you must spend 2 feats to gain this (Robust Defenses and Epic FRW). Now you middle DEF with those feats will make monster at -1 diadventage (11 on die to hit you), while you lowest will be at +4 adventage (6 on die to hit). Now this are numbers that looks good (like on 1 level of play). But you must spend 4 feats to maintain this! Wihout any DEF feats:
> highest hitted on 8 on die; middle on 5 on die; lowest on 2 on die... You don't need to be Sherlock to state, there is something wrong here.




You're laying out very concrete numbers in what looks like an attempt to describe a general scenario. Is this meant as an example, or an average found through data sampling?



> Even powers/items don't make it fair, couse they are situational, last for one round, and can't be used again in given encounter.




Check out Adventurer's Vault. 



> So maybe you will now see what I'm talking here. I have my math + experience on epic. You will never change my mind about that topic if you want give my any real proofs, but just sofistic talking.




Then I guess we're done, since my math + experience doesn't change your mind any more than your math + experience will change mine.

Have fun!


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Yes, Karinsdad is the only person I've seen say epic isn't easy and he keeps giving examples with PCs that seem like they don't have any feats and never get any benefit from powers.




Actually, it would help if you read what I wrote.

I never once said Epic isn't easy.

I said it isn't hard, but it is grindy, slow, and long. You appear to equate grindy with hard (i.e. not easy). I tried to explain several times that they are not the same. Just because something takes a long time to do does not mean that it isn't easy to do.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.



I roll dice in front of players to. They are not happy when they see what's going on;/


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> It was a single test.
> 
> You are obviously more experienced than I with Epic level play.
> 
> ...




Definitely, unless you go to pains to make it not be that way. Minions (plus a house rule to make them usable at epic) help.



> 2) How many average rounds do the standard encounters last? 10? 15? 20? more?




15 or 20.



> 3) How many average hours does it take to play a standard encounter?




A couple, three if it gets really bad (weakness, insubstantial, lots of action denial).



> 4) How about an n+3 encounter? How many average rounds does it take and how many average hours? Put another way, how many encounters could you easily fit in during an x hour session?




These actually seemed to go faster, but I tend to use a single solo and either an elite or a few normal monsters in these. When the epic PCs can focus their attention, things die quickly. This is in part due to the debilitating effects they themselves can lay down.



> 5) Will increasing the PC chances to hit make it less grindy?




Yeah.



> 6) Will increasing the PC chances to hit save resources that allow for more encounters per day?




Depends on the campaign, but in a generic dungeon crawl one definitely. In our game they tended to still either finish out an entire area in one day, or have just one encounter that day because of plot reasons.



> 7) Will increasing the PC nads make it less grindy?




Possibly. This depends a lot on the encounters. If the monsters don't stun or dominate, then no. If they do, then probably (though only if the bonus is high enough to make for a noticable difference). If the bonus bumps the defense up to where the monsters start having a hard time hitting, it could actually increase the feel of grinding. But I tend to feel like I'm grinding when I have a bunch of fights against things that can't hurt me just as much as I feel it when battle take a long time.



> 8) Will increasing the PC nads save resources that allow for more encounters per day?




Possibly, though most of the resources that get used in normal encounters are encounter powers, and epic characters have a lot of ways to get powers back. A long and grinding fight is only a little more likely to make you want to burn a daily, and that's as likely to be caused by boredom overcoming tactics. It's "I'll kill him in 15 rounds if I use encounter powers" vs. "I'll kill him in 12 rounds if I toss in dailies."



> 9) If increasing the PC to hit and nads makes encounters too easy, what is the best solution for making the encounters challenging without making them grindy again?




I don't think increasing PC to hit makes fights too easy. I think it's a necessary part of getting rid of grind.

IMO the key is fixing the true problems. Monsters that hit aren't a big deal. Losing turns, or having your turns forced on you are the problems. To me, fixing stun and domination is a much better solution than adding bonuses that open the door to power gamed PCs with defenses that are through the roof.

As an example from our campaign, we had a fighter. He was a Demigod, had tons of ways to heal himself, reach, and a really high AC. No matter what monsters were tossed his way, their low damage meant he had nothing to fear. Until they started using stun, domination, or weakness + insubstantial to negate his turns. Even then the fear didn't come from the character fearing death, it came from the player fearing boredom.

If I had to guess I'd say they usually hit him on a 5+, though once when he was ~23rd he fought some 17th level creatures that hit his will on a 2+. Adding +4 would have helped, but with combat advantage and other bonuses, it wouldn't have helped much. He still would have been highly prone to losing turns whenever the monsters targetted him (which because of his marks was pretty often).

If instead a change were made to the boring things that scared the player, and the monsters' damage was bumped so that he feared for his character's life rather than his own entertainment, I think the grind would have almost disappeared.



> Although my sample set is small and was n+3, it was very illustrative. Getting hit on a 3 sucks. Hitting only on a 17 sucks.




Sorry, I didn't see the example. It was before I joined the thread. Did getting hit easily suck because the character could be easily killed, or because the player could be easily bored?



> Regardless of whether it was fun for your group, I KNOW that it will not be fun for mine because as DM, I roll all to hit and damage rolls in front of the players. They will know that they got hit on a 2.




I do that too.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> (from my math on 30 lvl monster have +10 adventage to hit player (lowest NAD) where +0 is where he need to roll 10 to hit (this NAD), so with +6 from feats (to lowest NAD) he have (monster) +4 adventage thus he needs to roll 6 on die to hit (PCs lowest NAD)).
> 
> Your pure math is incomplete. I don't know if it's my writing, your reading, or a combination of the two, but what I'm trying to tell you isn't getting across. Lemme try an example.
> We've got a monster. It has a +30 to hit vs. Will. We'll call this monster Mr. +30.
> ...



I no wonder you can't understand what I'm talkin about. This is THE SAME THING! 
+10 monster adventage is (Mr. +30 and W30!). The fact that he misses on 1 is so simple, that I didn't even mentioned about it. With Mr. +30 and W32 (+8 monster adventage); Mr +30 and W29 (+11 monster adventage!). Don't want to be rude, but pay more attention what people write and try to understand what are they writing about before you make you post. Now I'm know why you don't undestand half of my arguments... And you says my math is incomplete? And trying to say "you don't include all factors". I will ask what factors I didn't include in this math crunch? About powers I said enought already.



> As I pointed out earlier, it's a combination of conditions that are too good at shutting down actions, monster defenses that are too high to hit reliably, and monster hit points that are too numerous to take out quickly.



Ok, so you agree that chance of hitting monsters is too low (thus what some of my math crunch showed!) but you don't agree on second topic, that players DEFs are to low? Interesting. Half of math is bad/half as it should be! 



> Yes, though I'll point out that there's no such thing as autohit.



Ok, 95% chance of hitting. Better?



> Do you mean all the time, or as a general rule? If it's supposed to be all the time, then no way is 75% a good number. If it's general, that seems about right.



Of course there are some variations in this numbers! The fact this number will go up not down. +1 monster level = +5% of hit chance, artilery/soldier +2 to hit = 10% chance. On average (fighting with the same monster level as you character level the math shows that he will be hitted 75% of time on average).


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## Jhaelen (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> And why on earth you don't belive my math crunch? Make 25 level character, take some 25 artilery from MM and see it yourself. I'm not teacher to teach how to look if evidences are right or wrong. You didn't even do so little to make you opinion be supported. What are we talking here, about what mr. x feels about this topic or what are the facts?



Now, don't get insulting, please. I'm not saying your 'math crunch' is wrong, I'm saying it's not properly modeling the reality of the game and thus lead to incorrect conclusions on your part.

To make you happy:
There's exactly one level 25 artillery in the MM: the Primordial Naga, a solo monster.
Now take a typical party at level 25: five characters with all roles being covered.
The Naga has minor at-wills targeting either Reflex or Fortitude with a +30 to hit and a standard at-will targeting AC at +29 to hit.

Now, unfortunately, I don't have a realistic level 25 party available. PHB p.275 gives an example of a level 23 fighter (that's probably unoptimized). If I advance the fighter to level 25 (without changing anything but the level bonus) his defences are AC 41, Reflex & Will 34, and Fort 38 (including the example bonuses from the warlord).

Since the fighter is the party's defender it's most likely he'll be attacked using the standard attack (which is targetting AC). So, the Naga needs a 12 or higher to hit.

If, for some reason it would attack his Fort defense it would be 8 or higher, it it would attack his Reflex defense it would be 4 or higher.

As long as the naga is using its standard attack on the fighter, it will have two minor actions available to attack other party members. One or more of these other party members will have high Reflex defenses and one or more will have high Fort defenses. On average each of the other four party members will be attacked once every two rounds.

Since the naga will be marked by the fighter, it will have a -2 to all attacks against anyone but the fighter.

It will also provoke opportunity attacks every time it uses one of its minor attacks since they're ranged. If it's shifting to avoid these attacks it will only have single minor action left, attacking each other party member once every four rounds.

The naga will be attacked at least five times per round.

So far, only a single pc power (the defense bonus granted by the warlord) is taken into acount, zero terrain features or other circumstances.

Does this look problematic to you, so far?


James McMurray said:


> If I'm playing in an epic campaign and I get hit on a 2 in every encounter the last thing I'll be looking at is these feats. At best they make you get hit on an 8 (if you spend 4 epic feats and the need for a 2 is right on the dot). At worst they have zero effect.



Ha! That's _exactly_ what my players in my 3E campaign are telling me when I ask them why they never take a feat to increase their saving throws! 


James McMurray said:


> I think you'd be better served looking for saving throw bonuses and other ways around the debilitating conditions that you're going to get hit with whether your defenses are 6 points higher or not.



You know what: I think you're right.


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## Regicide (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> I don't think increasing PC to hit makes fights too easy. I think it's a necessary part of getting rid of grind.




  From what people have said it seems the problem isn't hitting, it's just that the monsters have too many HPs.  Maybe they need that many HPs to live long enough to do enough damage to make the party use any resources, because again, from what you and others have said it's not their damage that is even causes a problem it's their afflictions they do such as stun.

  It really sounds like the monsters have too many HPs and don't do enough damage.  Maybe that was intentional to prevent low HP characters who have crappy defence from falling over dead in one round, but it can make things pretty uninteresting for defenders and fights long.

  Increasing to hit won't do a lot to change that, and increaseing defence would actually make it worse.  Maybe try cutting their HPs by 33% and upping their damage by 17% or something.


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> I no wonder you can't understand what I'm talkin about. This is THE SAME THING!
> +10 monster adventage is (Mr. +30 and W30!). The fact that he misses on 1 is so simple, that I didn't even mentioned about it. With Mr. +30 and W32 (+8 monster adventage); Mr +30 and W29 (+11 monster adventage!).




What are you jabbering about? I'm talking about what number the monster needs to roll on a die. I'm pointing out the quite obvious fact that adding 4 to a defense does not always mean adding 4 to the number needed on the die.



> Don't want to be rude, but pay more attention what people write and try to understand what are they writing about before you make you post. Now I'm know why you don't undestand half of my arguments... And you says my math is incomplete?




Don't want to be rude, but learn to form a proper sentence if you're going to go through life expecting everyone to have perfect understanding of your writing.



> And trying to say "you don't include all factors". I will ask what factors I didn't include in this math crunch? About powers I said enought already.




If my grade school example didn't explain it, nothing I say will.



> Ok, so you agree that chance of hitting monsters is too low (thus what some of my math crunch showed!) but you don't agree on second topic, that players DEFs are to low?




Yep.



> Interesting. Half of math is bad/half as it should be!




Yep. PC attacks vs. monsters need to be higher to decrease the risk of grind. Monster attacks vs. PCs need to be modified to decrease the risk of grind. But that modifiaction has nothing to do with the math.

See, there's this thing called D&D that we're playing. It's not just a string of to hit vs. defense formulae. There are other factors involved. 

Is +4 to defenses a possible fix? sure. But it's nowhere near the best one. It attempts to fix one problem (grind due to conditions) by attacking another (defenses). It opens the game up to powergamers making untouchable PCs, doesn't help characters whose defenses are much lower than the attack bonus, and takes away from the largest source of fun threat at epic levels: damage.



> On average (fighting with the same monster level as you character level the math shows that he will be hitted 75% of time on average).




So you're assuming that the monster and PC stand next to each other, alone, and swing?


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Regicide said:


> From what people have said it seems the problem isn't hitting, it's just that the monsters have too many HPs.  Maybe they need that many HPs to live long enough to do enough damage to make the party use any resources, because again, from what you and others have said it's not their damage that is even causes a problem it's their afflictions they do such as stun.




Epic PCs do have a harder time hitting the monsters than they do at lower level. It's because the rise of 1/2 level, stat boosts, and better gear is slightly lower than the +1 per level monsters get. I don't know if Weapon / Implement Expertise was meant to address this, but it looks like it was, and it looks like it does it pretty well (other than charging almost every character 1 feat).



> Increasing to hit won't do a lot to change that, and increaseing defence would actually make it worse.  Maybe try cutting their HPs by 33% and upping their damage by 17% or something.




Increasing to hit would work in most cases, but decreasing hit points would as well. Upping damage would go a long way towards increasing the fear factor, which takes away from the boredom of long battles.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Sorry, I didn't see the example. It was before I joined the thread. Did getting hit easily suck because the character could be easily killed, or because the player could be easily bored?




It sucks due to boredom. More the slim chance to hit than the high chance to get hit (but that sucked because few options were available to prevent it).

As for the example, it is floating around here somewhere. I did it about a month ago.

Thanks for your candid answers. You are the only person posting here that has discussed his Epic level experience.

I am taking away from what you responded with that fixing the to hit (both monster and PC) math, at least for me, is important (and of course, one could fix the math by decreasing the level of the opponents by one at Paragon level and by two at Epic level without changing mechanics at all).

After fixing the math, it then becomes important to play a different game than at heroic:

1) Many Epic creatures fly. Fly down, grab Fighter, fly up, drop Fighter. Sure, it's an old tactic, but one which will freak out players if done occasionally.

2) Have Lava to fall in, or Ledges to fall off, or raging Rivers to fall in, or areas of weird magic, or other more challenging terrain features.

3) No longer play the game on the ground. Play it in the air, play it hanging from the ceiling, play it from on top of pillars, in water, from within pits, or hanging by ropes, etc.

4) Increase the abilities of some monsters. I already do this by adding an arcane or divine class template to Dragons, but something as simple as adding +1D8 damage at Paragon level and +3D8 damage at Epic level would make damage more of an issue. I want players to not want their PC to get hit, just like at first level. Adding teleport or insubstantial to a few monsters can make them more interesting.

5) Create more interesting skill challenges to complement the more interesting combat encounters. Sure, it's easy to fight a monster in front of the PCs. It's tougher to figure out who in the kingdom is spreading the rumors that are leading to civil unrest.


From my perspective, the game feels less grindy if the players are hitting with their powers every other round instead of one round in three or four. The problem with Epic level is the sheer volume of options that the players have. They can react to many different situations. So the trick there is to give them many different situations, especially ones they have never or rarely encountered before. The same ol' same ol' powers might feel grindy, but how to use them should feel unique. At least sometimes.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> Now, don't get insulting, please. I'm not saying your 'math crunch' is wrong, I'm saying it's not properly modeling the reality of the game and thus lead to incorrect conclusions on your part.



If taken my post as insulting I apolagize. It was not my intention.



> Does this look problematic to you, so far?



Yeas indeed! This warlord power we are talking about (that gives +4 to all defs is 29 daily so we don't have it now!). Secondly this is solo artilery so ithings get more complicated. Normal monsters team will have first line (soldiers, brutes) and second line (arilery), but that is not important. Let's crunch your example.

Fro my calculatins (math crunch) he will have 40AC, highest DEF at 36 (actualy 35 in build and it's Fortitude) one middle and one lowest (or second meddile couse some clases fawor that). So the middle at 33 (here is 31) and the lowest at 29. We assume he didn't take any defenses feats, so his Will be actualy 29 (as my lowest defense). So his defenses should be AC40, FOR36, REF33 and WILL29 (but let's make it 31). Naga to hit vs. NADs should be 28 +2 from artilery and it is realy +30 in Naga entry, so the math is ok here. The AC is fine by RAW so we don't need to calcute this. Even if some one need to do so, this Naga is Artilery so it's to AC hit chance is lower than other monsters (it should be +30 on average), Nagas is +29.

I agree in this fight mark will do much. But in fights were are more monsters hitting NADs and first and second line this will be not much factor, couse defender will can't mark artilery so easily and often he will not even try to do so.

Even if this will be a fight at 29 level and warlord will use his power (Stand Invincible) that gives +4 to all defenses, you must still rember that this is a daily power! And can apply to only one fight, but it will be porobably saved for the final battle. If you don't have warlord I don saw any other power whose looks like this on other PHB leaders and paladin class. So it is very, vetry situational.

Let's crunch this numbers.
minor (ranged)+30 vs. Refleks - 2d6 +11 and 10 ongoing fire damage (save ends)
minor (ranged) +30 vs. Fortitude - 3d6 + 11 and the target is pushed 2 squares.
standard (recharge 5,6) (close blast 5) +30 vs. Fotitued - 5k6 +11 dmg and slowes (save ends)
standard -  five bite attacks
standard - +29 vs. AC - 4d6 +9 dmg

Naga hits FOR of this fighter at 6 on die (his highest, most optimised defense!) So that is 70% ot time (monster has +4 adventage).
His REF will be hitted at 3 on die (his middle defense). So that 85% accuracy (monster have +7 adventage).
Well this monster don't attack Will but it will be hitted on 2 od die (monster have +9 adventage).

Let's take form simplifiaction that other will have the same stats (they will vary in with DEF but that is not much important).
All attack will be at -2 becous of fighter mark.
So FOR will be hitted on 8. REF on 5 and Will on 3.
Much better, but not as impresing as it should be.

This is 5 players party (all melee fighting). So there will be 5 OA when Naga will make his minor attacks. But this is pure fantasy. In real party there will be 3 (max. for just melee characters) and becouse of Nagas attacks not everyone will be adjacent to she. Even so she will probably shift (giving free attack to fighter) so there will be only 1-2 OA. Anywya that's not important. You have all numbers there. Damage is huge. Hitting is easy. If she uses his close blast 5 attack, even fighter with his strong FOR will be hitted on 6 on die. His highest DEF!

You make a very specific example here. Nagas AC is 41. Fighter attack at this level (without any feats will be +26 by average (26 in stat - +8, +5 magic, 12 level, 3 profinency; 1 fighter, 1 kensai, 2 combat adventage), so +32 with very, very to hit optimised chacater and with CA. On average it will be +29/+30 with CA and +27/28 withou it.
+32 vs. 41AC - 9 on die to hit (55% chance; +1 player adventage).
+30 vs. 41AC - 11 on die to hit (45% chance; -1 player disadventage)
+28 vs. 41AC - 13 on die to hit (35% chance; -3 player disadventage)
So we will take average to hit that is +28. 35% chance to land a hit. Becous CA is situational! On 1 level you chance to hit is at +1 adventage (+3 with Combat Aventage!).

So the Naga provokes Combat Challange, shifts away (sword and shield fighter will do when hit an 30dmg on average? 40? Naga have 1200HP - she will not even feel that hit).
And now even there still 2 PC next to here and she provokes OA (another 40 dmg from hit making it now 120; this gives naga 10 round of living, but only if all attack will hit she, and that will not be so easy becous of average 35%/40% hit chance. Now she easily hits players for 20 dmg in firs minor, 18 + 10 ongoind on second and make AC atack. Offten she will make shes devastating FOR attack close blast 5 hitting on 6 or less on die, and doing 28dmg to each enemy + slow or use bitting attacks. The dmg given, taken is not important here. The fact how easily Naga can hit enemies is very, very broken and this is my statement from the beginning. maybe this Naga will be not much threat to PCs, solos have tendency to not make this well. But making it's hitting so easily is an answer to that.

Let's look at another artilery example. 24 lvl artillery - Greater Flameskull.
We will make it 25 lvl so shes to hit vs. NADs will should be +30, it's actualy +28 (as an average to hit vs. NAD at this level), maybe designers didn't ad +2 for artillery I don't know.
The highest DEF of PC - 36, middle - 33, lowest - 29.
+28 vs. 36 - hit on 8 on die (+2 monster adventage)
+28 vs. 33 - hit on 5 on die (+5 monster adventage)
+28 vs. 29 - hit on 2 on die (+9 monster adventage)
This attack makes 2d8+10 dmg (19 dmg on average) and makes target dazed until start of skull next turn, so nobody can help you with this effect.
But this are easy monsters. Look at those who dominated/stunn/weaken and have powers like Bodak, Wraith, Orcus etc.

Now give some backup at first line, scull, and some other monster with nasty effects and here we go again. Hitting NADs is too easy to monsters at epic withou feats. Hittingem then too, but I didn't have time to make more examples. So yea, it looks problematic to me, but in the way you were trying to show. Sorry. Defense feats are must-have or must-have for people who know what are consequences of not taking them.



> > Originally Posted by James McMurray View Post
> > If I'm playing in an epic campaign and I get hit on a 2 in every encounter the last thing I'll be looking at is these feats. At best they make you get hit on an 8 (if you spend 4 epic feats and the need for a 2 is right on the dot). At worst they have zero effect.
> 
> 
> ...



Probably they don't know how much impact this was having in long term. Maybe it looks weak but when you have to face one fight. If character will be hitted one time, this will not have any effects. But when hitted 100 times, it will means that 10 of this attack will be a miss, 90 still a hit.


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## Elric (Apr 7, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> I don't think the feats WotC added have anything to do with Grindiness, but more to do with "we get hit too often, which can't be good. Fix it." Being hit left and right is not the cause of most long fights. It's not hitting often enough and/or hard enough that causes that. +2 - +6 for PC defenses doesn't change that except in very specific cases.
> 
> If the intent was to fix a general "epic fights grind" problem, wouldn't they have used a generic change to do so rather than one which only affects some combats.




One might think WotC would fix problems through errata rather than feats, but they did create the Expertise feats which are, compared to Pre-PH II options, more overpowered than the FRW boosting feats.  As I have said repeatedly, the untyped bonus on Epic FRW, like the untyped bonus on the Expertise feats, screams "math fix."



> If I'm playing in an epic campaign and I get hit on a 2 in every encounter the last thing I'll be looking at is these feats. At best they make you get hit on an 8 (if you spend 4 epic feats and the need for a 2 is right on the dot). At worst they have zero effect.
> 
> I think you'd be better served looking for saving throw bonuses and other ways around the debilitating conditions that you're going to get hit with whether your defenses are 6 points higher or not.




You seem to have two perspectives in this thread that are hard to reconcile; first, if FRWs scaled more appropriately but the PH II FRW boosting feats didn't exist, the game would be too easy, and secondly, that it's not even clear the PHII FRW boosting feats are worth taking.  

I agree with you that taking Epic [weakest FRW] alone isn't as appealing as it might be because you're so far behind by default that the first +2 bonus might be wasted much of the time because you're still only missed on a natural 1.  However, due to Robust Defenses, a character spends 1 feat for +2 to each FRW, at which point even your weak FRW feat should generally be high enough that a +4 further bonus won't be wasted.  For your stronger two defenses, any pluses to FRW should matter from the start.  Is a +4 bonus to a FRW that will almost always matter against a relevant attack roll still too small to be taken?

Suppose that a level 30 character post-PH II spent 4 feats on Robust Defenses and Epic FRW, compared to a pre-PH II character who spent 3 feats on Great Fort/Lightning Ref/Iron Will, but benefited from a very generous house rule (+1 to FRW at levels 5/15/25, plus boosting 3 stats at 4/8 levels).  Compared to the monsters over 29 levels, the post-PH II character is ahead 2 points in his two strong FRWs and behind 1 point in his weak FRW.  The house rule/PH feat character is ahead 1 in all his FRWs.  That means on average the characters are the same on FRW defense, and the post-PH II one has spent 1 more feat.

Take out the 4/8 third attribute bonus and the pre-PH II character ends up having spent 1 fewer feat, but with 3 points lower total FRW.  So removing the PH II FRW feats and giving characters a +3 bonus to FRW doesn't leave the character who takes the Great Fort line of feats any stronger, really.  

It might be the case that if you gave out +3 to FRWs and banned Robust Defenses/Epic FRW, characters would stop taking the remaining FRW boosters, and their character power would be higher than this comparison indicates.  I don't see that as a bad thing, though; it means that characters don't have to expend a significant number of feats to get FRW that scales more appropriately.



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> Check out Adventurer's Vault.




AV has a lot of overpowered items that help trivialize the game (some of which are slowly being errata'd), but if you compare it to the PH it seems clear this was due to a lack of playtesting/bad design rather than a conscious desire to make items much more powerful than they had been in the PH.  I wouldn't count the Opal Ring of Remembrance, for example, as an indication that (some) characters hit enough at high levels on their own.


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## Bayuer (Apr 7, 2009)

> What are you jabbering about? I'm talking about what number the monster needs to roll on a die. I'm pointing out the quite obvious fact that adding 4 to a defense does not always mean adding 4 to the number needed on the die.



Firstly, when moster have +10 adventage this means that he will no even have to make roll to see if hit can hit. But he can roll 1 with is automiss, so monster hits on 2 on die. Anyone who knows the basic rules knows that monster need 2 on die, even if his bonus to hit is huge. And I was using authit and roll 2 on die as synonym! Man. Then again, this is so obvious, and I wrote about this two times already: +6 to singe DEF from feats at epic - monster can hit you on 6! (NOT ON 8). Do you see it now? (+10 monster adventage -6 from feats = +4 adventage = 6 on die to hit!) I already did what you saying. Do I have to tell you everything? You can't figure it out from numbers? If you will not be such a "this math crunch is not including everything and I will ignore it" guy, you will look at math crunch and see that +10 monster adventage is the best as it can on 30 lvl. There can be +11 but this mean you base state connected to you lowest DEF was 10 at 1 level. Well if it is artilery it could be +13 (but this is almost not possible). And that's it! I use terms "adventage", "disadventage" to make it easier to see what huge diffrences are in the math! So, please. Don't troll here.

Another part of your post is so insulting that I don't want to make it go further and I will not go on fight with you (I know I probably should, becouse I'm nervous and don't tolerate such a behavior, but I just don't want to throw away this nice thread to trash, and make it civil war, becous of you ignorance. I was trying to not be to rude to you. My writing in english isn't good, as I posted above, so what is your probolem. Facts are to owerhelming? You must have the last word? Take a break, seriously.



> Is +4 to defenses a possible fix? sure. But it's nowhere near the best one. It attempts to fix one problem (grind due to conditions) by attacking another (defenses).



Make up your mind. We from beginnig saying about this! This is the worst solution they can give to us. And what, suddenly it is a solution? Man. 



> It opens the game up to powergamers making untouchable PCs, doesn't help characters whose defenses are much lower than the attack bonus, and takes away from the largest source of fun threat at epic levels: damage.



O man. What untouchable characters are talking about? I see how you ignor my post now. Here, I will refres your memories:


			
				Bayuer said:
			
		

> Not taking this feats will end autohit when monster will target your weakest NAD, right? [EDIT: 2 on die (95%), happy?]
> The game should be fair as possible. Now you can make you highest DEF (EDIT: When you take Robust Defesnes and Epic FRW feat) at -4 diadventage to monster (30 level monster will have to roll 14 on die to hit you). This is good feat option! Very good. Even -2 will be good! (...) Now your middle DEF with those feats will make monster at -1 diadventage (11 on die to hit you), while you lowest will be at +4 adventage (6 on die to hit). Now this are numbers that looks good (like on 1 level of play). But you must spend 4 feats to maintain this! Wihout any DEF feats:
> highest hitted on 8 on die; middle on 5 on die; lowest on 2 on die... You don't need to be Sherlock to state, there is something wrong here.




Yeah I understand that in fact this is battle, you suddenly forgot about this. Sure, why not.



> So you're assuming that the monster and PC stand next to each other, alone, and swing?



They can stand, dance, looking at vacum, reading our post etc. 
Players and monster have options. Have tactic, powers, both sides can have Combat Adventage etc. And even then that will not change anything, couse the RAW math will be the same. As I said before, there are some variations in numbers but they don't have much impact on this numbers. Just think about it.


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Elric said:


> One might think WotC would fix problems through errata rather than feats, but they did create the Expertise feats which are, compared to Pre-PH II options, more overpowered than the FRW boosting feats.  As I have said repeatedly, the untyped bonus on Epic FRW, like the untyped bonus on the Expertise feats, screams "math fix."




Even if it is, that doesn't make it the best option, merely the one they chose.



> You seem to have two perspectives in this thread that are hard to reconcile; first, if FRWs scaled more appropriately but the PH II FRW boosting feats didn't exist, the game would be too easy,




Because monsters don't do enough damage when they're hitting 9 times out of 10. Make it 5 out of 10 with no other changes and the little threat we've got disappears.



> and secondly, that it's not even clear the PHII FRW boosting feats are worth taking.




If, as as been said in this thread, you're going to get hit on a 2 by attacks with debilitating conditions, those feats aren't worth it. You'll still get hit on an 8 at best, and still get slapped with the conditions (most of which grant CA, meaning you're now being hit easier).



> Is a +4 bonus to a FRW that will almost always matter against a relevant attack roll still too small to be taken?




If it means you're still getting hit on a 3 - 6? Definitely. At least IMO. I'd rather shore the weakness up other ways and use the feats for offence, giving my enemies fewer chances to hit me.



> Suppose that a level 30 character post-PH II spent 4 feats on Robust Defenses and Epic FRW, compared to a pre-PH II character who spent 3 feats on Great Fort/Lightning Ref/Iron Will, but benefited from a very generous house rule (+1 to FRW at levels 5/15/25, plus boosting 3 stats at 4/8 levels).  Compared to the monsters over 29 levels, the post-PH II character is ahead 2 points in his two strong FRWs and behind 1 point in his weak FRW.  The house rule/PH feat character is ahead 1 in all his FRWs.  That means on average the characters are the same on FRW defense, and the post-PH II one has spent 1 more feat.
> 
> Take out the 4/8 third attribute bonus and the pre-PH II character ends up having spent 1 fewer feat, but with 3 points lower total FRW.  So removing the PH II FRW feats and giving characters a +3 bonus to FRW doesn't leave the character who takes the Great Fort line of feats any stronger, really.
> 
> It might be the case that if you gave out +3 to FRWs and banned Robust Defenses/Epic FRW, characters would stop taking the remaining FRW boosters, and their character power would be higher than this comparison indicates.  I don't see that as a bad thing, though; it means that characters don't have to expend a significant number of feats to get FRW that scales more appropriately.




All very true, but there's another forum for house rules. 



> AV has a lot of overpowered items that help trivialize the game (some of which are slowly being errata'd), but if you compare it to the PH it seems clear this was due to a lack of playtesting/bad design rather than a conscious desire to make items much more powerful than they had been in the PH.  I wouldn't count the Opal Ring of Remembrance, for example, as an indication that (some) characters hit enough at high levels on their own.




It was a direct reply to the quoted statement that items which grant defense bonuses are single use and short duration, not an attempt to use AV to prove anything about the game's math.


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## James McMurray (Apr 7, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Firstly, when moster have +10 adventage this means that he will no even have to make roll to see if hit can hit. But he can roll 1 with is automiss, so monster hits on 2 on die. Anyone who knows the basic rules knows that monster need 2 on die, even if his bonus to hit is huge. And I was using authit and roll 2 on die as synonym! Man. Then again, this is so obvious, and I wrote about this two times already: +6 to singe DEF from feats at epic - monster can hit you on 6! (NOT ON 8). Do you see it now? (+10 monster adventage -6 from feats = +4 adventage = 6 on die to hit!) I already did what you saying. Do I have to tell you everything? You can't figure it out from numbers? If you will not be such a "this math crunch is not including everything and I will ignore it" guy, you will look at math crunch and see that +10 monster adventage is the best as it can on 30 lvl. There can be +11 but this mean you base state connected to you lowest DEF was 10 at 1 level. Well if it is artilery it could be +13 (but this is almost not possible). And that's it! I use terms "adventage", "disadventage" to make it easier to see what huge diffrences are in the math! So, please. Don't troll here.




LOL

If you did actually say that, then we've been in partial agreement all along. No need to get feisty. However, you may want to practice your English if you're going to get mad at people for not being able to understand you.



> Another part of your post is so insulting that I don't want to make it go further and I will not go on fight with you (I know I probably should, becouse I'm nervous and don't tolerate such a behavior, but I just don't want to throw away this nice thread to trash, and make it civil war, becous of you ignorance. I was trying to not be to rude to you. My writing in english isn't good, as I posted above, so what is your probolem. Facts are to owerhelming? You must have the last word? Take a break, seriously.




There's the jabber again. Please either say what you mean or don't bother. It's hard enough slogging through your posts as it is, but I'm trying to come to an understanding here, so I do it anyway.



> Make up your mind. We from beginnig saying about this! This is the worst solution they can give to us. And what, suddenly it is a solution? Man.




I give up. I have no idea what you mean.



> O man. What untouchable characters are talking about? I see how you ignor my post now. Here, I will refres your memories:




Homework assignment: make a build with the highest defenses you can.

For the rest, this is my train stop, I'll get to it later if I don't forget.


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## Bayuer (Apr 8, 2009)

> It was a direct reply to the quoted statement that items which grant defense bonuses are single use and short duration, not an attempt to use AV to prove anything about the game's math.



And? There are some items giving +2 do single DEFs. 4E designers were saying that there will bo other magic items that will give bonuses to NADs. And they break they word. Anyway if this is an option to fix math it's still very bad, cous you lost many interesting items just to make you NADs high.




> ~Is +4 to defenses a possible fix? sure. But it's nowhere near the best one. It attempts to fix one problem (grind due to conditions) by attacking another (defenses).
> ~Make up your mind. We from beginnig saying about this! This is the worst solution they can give to us. And what, suddenly it is a solution? Man.
> ~I give up. I have no idea what you mean.



I mean you claim that +4 is a fix! Even not the best one. It all what I'm trying to say here. The math/grind shoudln't be fixed by any feats and this is what we have now. The Wotc should give flat +1 to all attacks/defenses other than AC at paragon and another +1 on epic. Or +1 on 5lvl, 15lvl and 25lvl and now you will need to take only one feat at 21lvl to fix you worst NAD and this will be fair solution! Maybe not perfect but much better.


@About your homework. Look above. You can find it. It's in quoted part of my previous post! You can make you NADs being hitted on 14, 11 and 6. If you use items from AC add +2 to this and you will have 16, 13 and 8. And this is heavy optimisation. You will lost 4 feats (from 18) and 3 item slots (from 7 - not including armor, weapon and neck).

Look at Naga crunch above. You can easly see that hitting NAD is not just only about effect but effects and damage and sometimes just for damage.


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## Elric (Apr 8, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Even if it is, that doesn't make it the best option, merely the one they chose.




I agree.  My point is that "using feats to fix the game's math problems, if it has math problems, is a bad idea; so WotC wouldn't do it, which means that the existence of these feats doesn’t indicate that WotC believes there to be math problems" isn't a good argument in light of Expertise.  In light of Expertise, the untyped bonuses on Epic FRW indicate another "math fix."



> Because monsters don't do enough damage when they're hitting 9 times out of 10. Make it 5 out of 10 with no other changes and the little threat we've got disappears.




This is a major exaggeration.  Characters lose 2 over 29 levels vs. AC and an average of 5 over 29 levels vs. FRW (some of which doesn't matter, as you point out, because the monster already hits on a 2 and then gains further still).  So if it started at 9 out of 10 and FRW scaled as well as AC does, then it would be 7.5 out of 10 for the subset of attacks that target FRW.



> If it means you're still getting hit on a 3 - 6? Definitely. At least IMO. I'd rather shore the weakness up other ways and use the feats for offence, giving my enemies fewer chances to hit me.




I was trying to rule out the case where if you take Epic FRW for your weak defense, it doesn't make as much of a difference because before taking it you would have been hit on a 1 but for the auto-miss rule (edit: I see the problem: I said "matter" when I meant "matter in full").  I do think that with Robust Defenses, your weakest FRW generally won’t be so weak that you’d typically get hit on a 1 but for the auto-miss rule (at which point boosting it via Epic FRW is worth almost the full +4 value).  So, you'd agree that a +4 bonus, when it applies to your stronger FRWs, which were not being hit on a 2 prior to taking said Epic FRW feat, is too large?



> All very true, but there's another forum for house rules.




I thought you were arguing that an HR fix for FRW would make the game too easy, even if that fix included getting rid of the PH II feats.  I used this comparison to show that the game isn't necessarily getting any easier with a house rules fix than it is by including the PH II feats.  

But I might have misunderstood; are you saying that the existence of a fix to FRW, either in the form of house rules or these PH II Feats, makes the game too easy, but it isn’t going to help your weakest FRW because it will be best to take these feats to help out your strong FRWs, as the weakest one is a lost cause?



> It was a direct reply to the quoted statement that items which grant defense bonuses are single use and short duration, not an attempt to use AV to prove anything about the game's math.




Well, if you think of the PH items as a baseline, then the AV items that have constantly active abilities shouldn't be greatly superior to PH items (unless you think the PH items were significantly underpowered).  For example, the Shadow Band in AV is a constant defensive buff item, and it's too powerful.  The game's math should not be balanced around having items of that power level.  I’m inclined to say that the plethora of AV items granting static (and often untyped!) FRW bonuses are also poor design (and may also be intended as math fixes).


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## Bayuer (Apr 8, 2009)

I was wonder what NADs have any given classes. I was bulding characters at 25 lvl, when NADs HIT is at +28 on Average (+30 artillery):


> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 25
> Tiefling, Warlock
> Eldritch Blast: Eldritch Blast Charisma
> ...



FOR 4 on die; Ref 5 on die; Will 8 on die.



> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 25
> Half-Orc, Rogue
> Build: Brawny Rogue
> ...



FOR 6 on die; REF 8 on die; Will 2 on die



> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 25
> Human, Warlord
> Commanding Presence: Inspiring Presence
> ...



FOR 8 on die; REF 4 on die; Will 6 on die.
//All builds are withou DEF feats. Add Robust Defenses and Epic FRW and you will have much more resonable numbers.//

If this will be our solo naga, all hits will be at +2 bonus.
At late epic (29/30 lvl) all this rolls will need to be about 2/3 lower!
As you can easily see, this isn't just raw math and statitcs hipothesysi.
Also if you will use higher level monsters this will have much impact of hit chance (for every level higher than the party, monster gains +1 to hit; n+3 monster will have +3 to hit). This makes game more and more broken. But if you take feats the threat from the same level monster will be balanced. If you want make the monster more challenging just give the party higher level monster and all will be as you want. As for now, the math is very bad without feats. I don't know what more proofs you people need. I made some many calculations I just feel exhausted.



			
				Elric said:
			
		

> Huh? Do you mean "if you're still getting hit on a 7+?" I was explicitly ruling out the case where if you take Epic FRW for your weak defense, it doesn't make a difference because you still get hit on a 2. I do think that with Robust Defenses, your weakest FRW generally won’t be so weak that you’d typically get hit on a 1 but for the auto-miss rule (at which point boosting it via Epic FRW is worth something). Let me try an even simpler question, though: is a +4 bonus too large for a feat when it applies to your stronger FRWs, which were not being hit on a 2 prior to taking said Epic FRW feat?



James is forgetting that situation when you take Epic FRW feat and have almost no benefit from this feat is only on late epic (29/30 lvl). But at this point you probably taken this feat anywa and also Robust Defense. Anyway, having so low DEF will not happen offten. Much probably you will have to middle DEFs, with are just 2/3 point better, so that's don't change much (from +10 monster advenatego to single DEF, we have two DEFs with +7 monster adventage - 3 on die to hit us).


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## James McMurray (Apr 8, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> They can stand, dance, looking at vacum, reading our post etc.
> Players and monster have options. Have tactic, powers, both sides can have Combat Adventage etc. And even then that will not change anything, couse the RAW math will be the same. As I said before, there are some variations in numbers but they don't have much impact on this numbers. Just think about it.




Ah, ok then. If tactics, powers, and positioning don't matter in your D&D you're either a troll, an idiot, or so far from my D&D that there's no wonder we aren't understanding each other. In any case, there's no point in going further, and no point in us trying to talk further. bye!


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## James McMurray (Apr 8, 2009)

Elric said:


> I agree.  My point is that "using feats to fix the game's math problems, if it has math problems, is a bad idea; so WotC wouldn't do it, which means that the existence of these feats doesn’t indicate that WotC believes there to be math problems" isn't a good argument in light of Expertise.  In light of Expertise, the untyped bonuses on Epic FRW indicate another "math fix."




They could be. I love to speculate on others' motives, but tend to avoid assuming I know what they were. It could just have been someone wanting to extend the paragon feats and forgetting (or purposefully omitting) the type. It could have been a crappy math fix. It could have been something slated for PHB 1 but cut in favor of more "fun" options.




> I was trying to rule out the case where if you take Epic FRW for your weak defense, it doesn't make as much of a difference because before taking it you would have been hit on a 1 but for the auto-miss rule (edit: I see the problem: I said "matter" when I meant "matter in full").  I do think that with Robust Defenses, your weakest FRW generally won’t be so weak that you’d typically get hit on a 1 but for the auto-miss rule (at which point boosting it via Epic FRW is worth almost the full +4 value).  So, you'd agree that a +4 bonus, when it applies to your stronger FRWs, which were not being hit on a 2 prior to taking said Epic FRW feat, is too large?




It's too large for a general rule. It could be fine (or even needed) for some characters.



> I thought you were arguing that an HR fix for FRW would make the game too easy, even if that fix included getting rid of the PH II feats.  I used this comparison to show that the game isn't necessarily getting any easier with a house rules fix than it is by including the PH II feats.
> 
> But I might have misunderstood; are you saying that the existence of a fix to FRW, either in the form of house rules or these PH II Feats, makes the game too easy, but it isn’t going to help your weakest FRW because it will be best to take these feats to help out your strong FRWs, as the weakest one is a lost cause?




I'm saying it depends on the house rule. These feats aren't enough, because if you're already getting hit on a two or better the difference is minor. Even if the feats do work, and fix the problem perfectlym they apply a surcharge to every epic character. That's a bad thing (as I think most here have agreed).




> Well, if you think of the PH items as a baseline, then the AV items that have constantly active abilities shouldn't be greatly superior to PH items (unless you think the PH items were significantly underpowered).  For example, the Shadow Band in AV is a constant defensive buff item, and it's too powerful.  The game's math should not be balanced around having items of that power level.  I’m inclined to say that the plethora of AV items granting static (and often untyped!) FRW bonuses are also poor design (and may also be intended as math fixes).




I don't like the AV items with constant defense buffs. They're often unnecessary at the level they're given, not flavorful enough to make them fun, smack too much of the 3.x bonus items that everyone had to have, and violate a promise made by WotC.


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## Stalker0 (Apr 8, 2009)

James, what is your current party makeup. I'm curious to know if you have a lack of strikers, which could be the cause of grind (not excusing that mind you, just want to know).


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## Elric (Apr 8, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> They could be. I love to speculate on others' motives, but tend to avoid assuming I know what they were. It could just have been someone wanting to extend the paragon feats and forgetting (or purposefully omitting) the type. It could have been a crappy math fix. It could have been something slated for PHB 1 but cut in favor of more "fun" options.




It seems quite unlikely it was an accident, given that every other feat granting just static FRW bonuses has been a feat bonus (that I'm aware of).



> I'm saying it depends on the house rule. These feats aren't enough, because if you're already getting hit on a two or better the difference is minor. Even if the feats do work, and fix the problem perfectlym they apply a surcharge to every epic character. That's a bad thing (as I think most here have agreed).




I agree that if the monster's attack bonus=your FRW, and you get hit on a 2+, but now Epic FRW means you get hit on a 4, the feat doesn't look that attractive.  I disagree that going from 95% hit to 75% hit is less improvement for a feat compared to, say, going from 70% hit to 50% hit on a strong FRW.  I think once you get past the "feat lowers getting hit chance by <20 percentage points" stage, it's more valuable to boost weak FRWs than strong ones.  The reason is that if a DM tends to target your weak FRW more often than your strong ones, shoring those up is more valuable by comparison.

Even if these feats worked well as a fix at epic levels (which, like most posters on this thread, I don't think they do), you'd still have the problem that PH II has changed almost nothing before level 21.  By level 20, a character will have lost 5 from his weak FRW and 3 from his strong FRWs.  Giving characters a major power boost from these feats at epic is a problem as well.  



> I don't like the AV items with constant defense buffs. They're often unnecessary at the level they're given, not flavorful enough to make them fun, smack too much of the 3.x bonus items that everyone had to have, and violate a promise made by WotC.




Agreed.  Having to acquire a laundry list of static buff magic items for a high level character was an incredible chore in 3.x.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 8, 2009)

I still think the math isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.

Yes, that monster can automaticly dominate you. * Is this as pressing a problem when your leader can automaticly remove the condition from you as a minor action, or make it so that you suffer from it a turn at most as he buffs your saving throw to crazy levels?*

This is the point I'm trying to make... you -claim- the math is off, but did you take Leaders into account with this math?  At first level you might just have one power that raises defenses a little, but as you gain levels, you get more and more options to adjust those defenses in a more favorable duration.  Utility powers become more and more available for more and more fights, not just for the Leader, but for -everyone-.  *It just seems natural to take a few encounter powers amongst the party to make those conditions less painful. * 

Maybe the math isn't designed around a single calculation, but around the fact that 50% to dominate a player *is not the same level of threat to a level 30 character as it is to a level 1.*  Things might -need- to hit more often to compensate for the ever increasing ability to shrug them off without a struggle.

*Hell for some 30th level characters with certain reputable destinies, a monster with an encounter power ranged attack with 100% chance to hit that said 'target player dies' isn't a threat.*


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## Bayuer (Apr 8, 2009)

James said:
			
		

> Ah, ok then. If tactics, powers, and positioning don't matter in your D&D you're either a troll, an idiot, or so far from my D&D that there's no wonder we aren't understanding each other. In any case, there's no point in going further, and no point in us trying to talk further. bye!



Insulting again? Bravo. 
Describe me what impact on game have postitiong, tactics and powers? Well to be specific, what YOU think about this. And I can understand you didn't get my joke from previous post, but man. Do you think monsters are maindless? 

They will have soldiers and brutes to support second lines (artilleries etc.) what makes things even worst for players. Players can interract with monster tactic. This is so obivious again! Gain Combat Adventage, cover etc. This is can be achived by anybody in fight. Powers don't have many impact on game (bonuses they give are rare and situational), and can't be used forever. Give me some facts or I will say your'e an idiot (you proved your logic isn't too good before with topic about: 6 on die - +10 monster adventage thing).



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> I still think the math isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.
> 
> Yes, that monster can automaticly dominate you. Is this as pressing a problem when your leader can automaticly remove the condition from you as a minor action, or make it so that you suffer from it a turn at most as he buffs your saving throw to crazy levels?



Well I don't think I need to include all things here. I'm trying to explain to James too and I hope some of you will understand that. Of course if you have leader in your teamt things will be simpler, so you can play on epic only with leader in party? When we are on first paragon levels, leader have almost the same options with powers that gives saves as later, but the effects aren't so nasty and common. What makes epic diffren than paragon are NADs that are hitten more offten, effects are more nasty and the leader don't have much more options to give saves. Yes leader will have more options, but they are compared to frequency of NADs attacks. Less on paragon, more on epic. This doesn't mean monsters attacking NADs need more easier to hit player, becouse they will be useles. They wont. They will be still threating, but the game will be more fair.



> Maybe the math isn't designed around a single calculation, but around the fact that 50% to dominate a player is not the same level of threat to a level 30 character as it is to a level 1. Things might -need- to hit more often to compensate for the ever increasing ability to shrug them off without a struggle.



I fully understand you statement (and James). Hopefuly for him you give some clear ideas, so thx for that. If designers will want to achive such a think, they must have in mind that nasty effects will make the game less fun, becouse if you will be hitted by at-will dominatings/stunned attacks the player can't do nothing and will be boring or even angry. Even when we have powers granting saves, that don't make things so simple, that you can say it is epic feature. Sooner or later options will end and the player will sit and get more bored. And don't forget about powerfull damaging attacks like with naga above that hit NADs too. Attacks hitting NADs also do nice damage and offten places some effects on PCs. And the second thing. PHB2 feats. Why they here then? For powergamers? I could agree if this could produce NADs above average, not NADs on average level.

Draco look at Naga, or sample characters I made on 25 lvl. Without feats thing aren't too good. On 30 lvl this is a completly disaster. Your heroes should get much stronger, not easier target to monsters. Well, maybe this is the reason why monsters bother to attack epic characters

So if you're right and this is realy feature of epic play (with I realy don't belive, and I'm sure thet this is just another bad math planning from WotC) you must always have leader in your party. That's not good too. In 5 players party maybe someone will play leader, but in my party where we for the most the time plays with only 3 players it's realy hard.


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## James McMurray (Apr 8, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> James, what is your current party makeup. I'm curious to know if you have a lack of strikers, which could be the cause of grind (not excusing that mind you, just want to know).




We haven't played in a while, and the party went through several incarnations, but they were always careful to stay balanced. IIRC, versions were:

- fighter (with near striker damage output), cleric, artificer, warlock, wizard

- fighter (same one), warlord, artificer, warlock, wizard

- swordmage, barbarian, warlord, artificer, wizard

There was never a time when a role didn't have at least one representative in the group. And the players of the fighter turned barbarian and warlock turned wizard both power gamed their characters more than I power gamed the encounters. The cleric/warlord and wizard/swordmage were about on par in terms of power gaming, and the artificer's player did the best he could with the weak playtest class he chose.


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## James McMurray (Apr 8, 2009)

Elric said:


> It seems quite unlikely it was an accident, given that every other feat granting just static FRW bonuses has been a feat bonus (that I'm aware of).




It's a possibility, but unless the designer comes forward and explains his reasoning there's little point to speculation.




> I agree that if the monster's attack bonus=your FRW, and you get hit on a 2+, but now Epic FRW means you get hit on a 4, the feat doesn't look that attractive.  I disagree that going from 95% hit to 75% hit is less improvement for a feat compared to, say, going from 70% hit to 50% hit on a strong FRW.  I think once you get past the "feat lowers getting hit chance by <20 percentage points" stage, it's more valuable to boost weak FRWs than strong ones.  The reason is that if a DM tends to target your weak FRW more often than your strong ones, shoring those up is more valuable by comparison.




Maybe it's just personal preference. I'd rather not spend an epic feat to go from "I'll get hit just about every time" to "I'll get hit almost every time." Especially when there are so many proactive choices available.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 8, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> I still think the math isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.
> 
> Yes, that monster can automaticly dominate you. * Is this as pressing a problem when your leader can automaticly remove the condition from you as a minor action, or make it so that you suffer from it a turn at most as he buffs your saving throw to crazy levels?*




Can the Leader do this every round?

Isn't it possible with multiple monsters that the Leader is needed for something else?

What if the group does not have a Leader?

What if the Leader is the first PC dominated?

Look at my signature below. It has nothing to do with Readied Actions.

It has to do with people claiming that in game solutions are the solution to mechanical problems. The in game solutions rarely work because not all situations are the same, nor are all party makeups the same.



DracoSuave said:


> This is the point I'm trying to make... you -claim- the math is off, but did you take Leaders into account with this math?  At first level you might just have one power that raises defenses a little, but as you gain levels, you get more and more options to adjust those defenses in a more favorable duration.  Utility powers become more and more available for more and more fights, not just for the Leader, but for -everyone-.  *It just seems natural to take a few encounter powers amongst the party to make those conditions less painful. *




We are willing to discuss here. Since it is your claim that Leaders get all of these wonderful powers that adjust defenses, go do the homework to make up a list of these powers and write up what a typical leader might have in buff, debuff, and healing powers.

Then, we can sit down and see how many times a leader could actually get rid of conditions in a 20 round Epic encounter. Is it 1 round? 5 rounds? How many rounds and times a leader can actually buff. Can he give a bonus of +2? +5?

If you want to add some math to your POV to counter the known math flaws, you have to do some work instead of just making the claim without anything to back it up.

One final point. The math is off. That's a fact. What is in dispute is whether the synergy bonuses, powers, and other game mechanics at Epic level make up for the math problems.



DracoSuave said:


> *Hell for some 30th level characters with certain reputable destinies, a monster with an encounter power ranged attack with 100% chance to hit that said 'target player dies' isn't a threat.*




Until the power recharges and the PC gets hit with it a second time.

So far, you are making claims that the math is fine without any real backup. Saying that the defender can automatically fix something is flawed in that the defender might not be able to fix it.


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## keterys (Apr 8, 2009)

No matter what, even if the current powers and abilities make up for the math disparity... it would be a better game if the disparity wasn't there in the first place. Hitting on 2s is just not a design feature.

Worst case, you'd be better having much less accurate monsters with Miss: effects, so that at least the roll was meaningful.


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## Elric (Apr 8, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> I still think the math isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.
> 
> Yes, that monster can automaticly dominate you. * Is this as pressing a problem when your leader can automaticly remove the condition from you as a minor action, or make it so that you suffer from it a turn at most as he buffs your saving throw to crazy levels?*




I'm most familiar with Warlords among leaders, since I've played one.  Shake it Off is a level 2 encounter utility, and for a 16-18 Cha Warlord has a 70-75% chance of success at that level; scaling doesn't impact the power's overall effectiveness much.  The PH Warlord doesn't have that many good powers that grant additional saving throws (some of the utilities are standard actions, which is a huge limitation).  I'm not aware of any Warlord abilities that buff saves to crazy levels, except as a one-time effect.  

Non-clerics lack an at-will that grants saving throws, so as combats become longer your encounter/daily powers have to cover more rounds of combat.  If the monster inflicts more conditions in a combat faster than your ability to get rid of them increases, its conditions can, roughly speaking, affect the combat more and not less.    



> This is the point I'm trying to make... you -claim- the math is off, but did you take Leaders into account with this math?  At first level you might just have one power that raises defenses a little, but as you gain levels, you get more and more options to adjust those defenses in a more favorable duration.




I didn’t take into account potential buffs in the math, and never claimed to do so.  You raised this issue on the first page of the thread, and I responded there.



Elric said:


> While it's true that there are increasing extra bonuses to hit as you gain levels, these bonuses tend to be only on encounter and daily powers (Righteous Brand is an exception and is, not coincidentally, too powerful for at-will).  If you design a character who dual wields Reckless/Bloodclaw weapons with Iron Armbands of Power and the game's best multiattack powers, a few to hit bonuses is all you need, but I see AV's strongest weapons as more poor design as well.




The same applies to defensive buffs.  Furthermore, as encounters become longer, short-duration encounter power effects make up a smaller proportion of each fight.



> Maybe the math isn't designed around a single calculation, but around the fact that 50% to dominate a player *is not the same level of threat to a level 30 character as it is to a level 1.*  Things might -need- to hit more often to compensate for the ever increasing ability to shrug them off without a struggle.




Let’s look at my oft-repeated hypothesis here:



Elric said:


> "Attacks against FRW defenses become weaker over time compared to attacks against AC to compensate for the fact that FRW attackers scale better (and tend to be more likely to hit to start with)."
> 
> I'd definitely reject this hypothesis.  There doesn't seem to be a weakening of FRW powers in general and the nastiest effects at higher levels all tend to target FRW (Bodak Reavers, Ghaele of Winter, Aboleth's Domination effects, etc.).  Yet these monsters don't suffer much in their to-hit bonuses on these powers relative to monsters with much weaker attacks (compare the Death Hag to a Bodak Reaver, for example).




Do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks?  I maintain the answer to this is “no.”


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## Bayuer (Apr 8, 2009)

James McMurray said:
			
		

> We haven't played in a while, and the party went through several incarnations, but they were always careful to stay balanced. IIRC, versions were:
> 
> - fighter (with near striker damage output), cleric, artificer, warlock, wizard
> 
> ...



With two leaders in team I no wonder you couldn't make to much threat to you players. They have strong backup. They could go easily on epic. So if you're saying that your experience on epic is based on this teams, you can have you rights here, but that doesn't mean that everybody plays wit 2 leaders in party...

I you have only one leader or no leader at, all things get more dangerous. Playing without leader on epic could be in fact very deadly.



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> Originally Posted by Elric View Post
> It seems quite unlikely it was an accident, given that every other feat granting just static FRW bonuses has been a feat bonus (that I'm aware of).
> 
> It's a possibility, but unless the designer comes forward and explains his reasoning there's little point to speculation.



That's true in some manner, but when you compare Epic FRW to any other feat that gives NADs bonuses, you can easily see that this bonus is huge. Making it no named bonus makes this feat more powerful. Look at Expertise. You agree that hitting chances are too low on Epic, and Expertise fix this. Using analogy, you can be pretty sure that Epic FRW are the same fix. Until Expertise we didn't have such a strong to hit feats.



			
				James McMurray said:
			
		

> Quote:
> I agree that if the monster's attack bonus=your FRW, and you get hit on a 2+, but now Epic FRW means you get hit on a 4, the feat doesn't look that attractive. I disagree that going from 95% hit to 75% hit is less improvement for a feat compared to, say, going from 70% hit to 50% hit on a strong FRW. I think once you get past the "feat lowers getting hit chance by <20 percentage points" stage, it's more valuable to boost weak FRWs than strong ones. The reason is that if a DM tends to target your weak FRW more often than your strong ones, shoring those up is more valuable by comparison.
> 
> Maybe it's just personal preference. I'd rather not spend an epic feat to go from "I'll get hit just about every time" to "I'll get hit almost every time." Especially when there are so many proactive choices available.



And that's why this feats are broken. They should be incorporated to rules and the players will not have such a feelings. Anyway you will probably not end in situation where your lowest NAD is so weak, the it will be hitted on 2,3 on die, even with Epic FRW feat. In the worst case it will be 4 on die, but anyway that just prooves that there is something wrong with this feats and the math itself, just becouse such a situatuin is allowed in game.

[qupte=KarinsDad]
If you want to add some math to your POV to counter the known math flaws, you have to do some work instead of just making the claim without anything to back it up.[/quote]
+1. It is easy to say, your calculations are wrong becouse you didn't include some factors. I asked James many times, what impact on game have tactic, positioning and still didn't see the answer. 

The true is that even if Drako will give us a 6 utility powers of his leader, that can give saves, the monsters target NADs more offten on epic. You can have simple analogy. On heroic monster don't target NADs offten, you have not many powers granting saves. On epic you have more powers granting saves, becouse monsters target NADs more often.



			
				KarinsDaD said:
			
		

> One final point. The math is off. That's a fact. What is in dispute is whether the synergy bonuses, powers, and other game mechanics at Epic level make up for the math problems.



I think, and this is my statemant, that when PCs power grows, the same thing happen to monsters strength. And the strength of monsters is: more offten NADs targeting, more HP so they can stand longer in fight. PCs gain more power to. Feats, paragon paths, magic items, epic destinies and powers. But even then they can't have at-will stunn power. This is reserved to monsters, so they can be more challanging. And I think that this scales good. Monster have auras, give penalties, monster leaders buff monsters (I wonder why anyone mentioned about this) etc. So the monsters are stronger enought without +2 hit vs. NAD. PCs resources aren't endless and sooner or later even well prepared party will kneel in front of NADs hitting monsters. And if you say that hitting the monsters is too low (and Expertise is solution), you also must understand that having Robust Defenses and Epic FRW feats, isn't there for powergamers.


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## James McMurray (Apr 8, 2009)

Elric said:


> Do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks?  I maintain the answer to this is “no.”




I'd definitely have to agree. The attacks vs. AC don't deal near enough damage to make up for the conditions imposed by most attacks against FRW. And since their secondary effects are usually a little forced movement and/or knocking prone, there's even less reason to worry about them. It takes at least 4 hits from a creature to deal as much damage as your leader will heal with a minor action, so unless you're surrounded or facing some sort of quesinart, attacks versus AC usually don't matter much.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 9, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> This warlord power we are talking about (that gives +4 to all defs is 29 daily so we don't have it now!).



Actually it isn't. The PHB wrongly attributes the power to the warlord. The power used in the example is 'Hallowed Ground', a cleric 16 utility power that also increases the party's attacks and saving throws by 2.

If it had been the power you mentioned, all defenses would have been 2 higher than I wrote in my previous post. But, anyway, I think you're missing the point:
This power is just an example for all the powers that will be available to a party of that level. Your math is not taking the existence of _any_ of these powers into account. In other words:

Your math only works for partys without a resource they're expected to have.


Bayuer said:


> Secondly this is solo artilery so ithings get more complicated.



Actually, I think it's easier, there's fewer variables to take into account 


Bayuer said:


> Normal monsters team will have first line (soldiers, brutes) and second line (arilery), but that is not important. Let's crunch your example.



Well, you've been the one asking for a level 25 artillery monster. As I mentioned, there aren't any others in the MM 


Bayuer said:


> The AC is fine by RAW so we don't need to calcute this. Even if some one need to do so, this Naga is Artilery so it's to AC hit chance is lower than other monsters (it should be +30 on average), Nagas is +29.



Well, imho, real example >>> hypothetical example.


Bayuer said:


> I agree in this fight mark will do much. But in fights were are more monsters hitting NADs and first and second line this will be not much factor, couse defender will can't mark artilery so easily and often he will not even try to do so.



I disagree. Experienced players who are tactically savy (and they will be, otherwise they wouldn't have reached level 25 in the first place!) will always use their abilities to best effect. If the fighter isn't close-up to the naga, he'll be fighting something that is an even greater threat (which in this particular example is unlikely, unless the encounter is of a significantly higher level: about level 28-29).


Bayuer said:


> Even if this will be a fight at 29 level and warlord will use his power (Stand Invincible) that gives +4 to all defenses, you must still rember that this is a daily power! And can apply to only one fight, but it will be porobably saved for the final battle. If you don't have warlord I don saw any other power whose looks like this on other PHB leaders and paladin class. So it is very, vetry situational.



See above.
If the party has a leader it's extremely likely they will have a power similar to the one mentioned above. If you haven't found any, you weren't looking (there are, btw. also powers that will cause additional attack penalties which serves the same effect as increasing the party's defenses AND will stack).

You're right though, that, generally, powers that have effects that last for the entire encounter will be daily powers. But:
You have a party of five characters. At level 25 each of them will have 4 daily powers and 6 utility powers which may or may not be daily powers.

Now, 4E doesn't mention how many encounters you'll typically have in a single day. In 3E it would have been 4 encounters,  i.e. on average each character would have one daily and one or two utility powers left.

If they had already blown all of their daily powers it's unlikely they would have continued and thus wouldn't even have this encounter in the first place!

Finally, you're simply dismissing encounter powers. Each character will also have (at least) four encounter powers. Even if each power's effect only has a duration until end of next turn or (save ends), that's still four rounds for which your assumptions won't be correct.


Bayuer said:


> Let's crunch this numbers.
> [...]
> Let's take form simplifiaction that other will have the same stats (they will vary in with DEF but that is not much important).



BEEP! I disagree. It's extremely important to remember that not everyone in the party will have the same weaknesses. If the party is balanced, on average, one or two characters will have REF or WILL as their highest defense.


Bayuer said:


> All attack will be at -2 becous of fighter mark.
> So FOR will be hitted on 8. REF on 5 and Will on 3.
> Much better, but not as impresing as it should be.



Says who?! You're forgetting the distinct advantage the party has in the number of actions over the naga. The naga's attacks have to more accurate than the party's to compensate for that! Otherwise it wouldn't do enough damage to be a threat.


Bayuer said:


> This is 5 players party (all melee fighting). So there will be 5 OA when Naga will make his minor attacks. But this is pure fantasy.



... which is why I didn't say, there would be 5 OAs... and, as I already mentioned: shifting to avoid AOs isn't free: it will cost the naga one of it's minor actions which it could have used for an attack. A monster that isn't attacking isn't a threat, regardless how high its to-hit chance is!


Bayuer said:


> If she uses his close blast 5 attack, even fighter with his strong FOR will be hitted on 6 on die. His highest DEF!



Well, I think, hitting on 8 is probably closer to the truth, but anyway: remember, this requires a standard action and can only be used once every three rounds on average (it's recharge 5,6).


Bayuer said:


> You make a very specific example here.
> [...]
> +32 vs. 41AC - 9 on die to hit (55% chance; +1 player adventage).
> +30 vs. 41AC - 11 on die to hit (45% chance; -1 player disadventage)
> ...



And again, you're not taking into account any powers that might increase the fighter's attacks. As mentioned above, even the level 16 utility would add 2 to all attacks. 

Anyway, actually, this is a closely related but different discussion. THIS thread is about the PHB defense feats, right?


Bayuer said:


> The dmg given, taken is not important here. The fact how easily Naga can hit enemies is very, very broken and this is my statement from the beginning.




You cannot look at the attack bonus in isolation. Attack and damage are always related. It's why the avenger's damage output is similar to the other strikers without requiring situational bonus damage. If attack chance and damage weren't related the avenger wouldn't be a striker 

The naga's damage is actually quite low compared to the damage from encounter powers available to a level 25 party. Especially the damage from its minor actions is closer to the party's at-will damage. So, since the naga has fewer actions, it _needs_ greater accuracy! 

This isn't brokenness, it's balance!


Bayuer said:


> Let's look at another artilery example. 24 lvl artillery - Greater Flameskull.
> [...]
> This attack makes 2d8+10 dmg (19 dmg on average) and makes target dazed until start of skull next turn, so nobody can help you with this effect.



Well, I'd rather not, at least not in this post. I'd also recommend to take advancing monsters out of the equation. I'd rather look into monsters as written, because they're closer to the designer's intent.

Yes, daze is a nasty effect. But it only affects a single character and the party will have similar effects available to them. So, unless the party's encountering more greater flameskulls than there are characters in the party, I wouldn't be overly worried.

Flameskulls also have a very distinctive weak point: they're undead. You'll probably dismiss this, because you haven't modeled this in your simplified math (and probably can't), but it's an important aspect of this particular monster. It's an easily recognizable weakness that _will_ be exploited by the party.


Bayuer said:


> But this are easy monsters. Look at those who dominated/stunn/weaken and have powers like Bodak, Wraith, Orcus etc.



Yes, bodaks and wraiths are particularly nasty monsters (although they share the weakness mentioned above: they're undead).
Now the question is:
Are these monsters nasty because of broken math or because of the way these monsters have been designed?

The needlefang drake swarm is an often cited example for a (very) difficult monster. Does this have anything to do with the math? Nope.

In other words: Not all monsters are created equal. There'll always be some that are more difficult than others, so you'll have to be careful when designing encounters.


Bayuer said:


> Defense feats are must-have or must-have for people who know what are consequences of not taking them.



It may be obvious by now, but for the record: I'm unconvinced 


Bayuer said:


> Probably they don't know how much impact this was having in long term. Maybe it looks weak but when you have to face one fight. If character will be hitted one time, this will not have any effects. But when hitted 100 times, it will means that 10 of this attack will be a miss, 90 still a hit.



Well, opinions vary on this. Many players think that the best defense is a good offense. Looking back at my experience with 3E, I'd have to agree. Is it also true for 4E, epic or no? Only time will tell.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 9, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> One final point. The math is off. That's a fact. What is in dispute is whether the synergy bonuses, powers, and other game mechanics at Epic level make up for the math problems.



Well, almost.
'The math' _seems_ to be off because it doesn't take synergy bonuses, powers, and other game mechanics at Epic level into account.

I'll say this:
If 'the math' was fine, how important would it be how good a party's tactics are? Why continue playing into epic levels if things don't get more challenging? Where's the satisfaction in a math that will make sure you're going to always win encounters without giving your very best?

My theory: The math is set up to be in favour of the pcs in the beginning of their career to make sure they'll survive into paragon levels even if they're still making bad decisions regularly. It's a safety net for inexperienced players.
It would be wrong to assume the math has to be identical in the epic tier. It's one of many reasons why new players should not start with epic characters. They need to grow into the increased challenge that is epic level play.

Now PHB2 offers a couple of feats intended for those players who prefer to have an easier time or want to start at levels that would otherwise be beyond their ability. So, in a way, it's good the feats are available, but they aren't for everyone and definitely aren't a must have.

Another point:
People have been mentioning how (in heroic level games) encounters don't really seem to be challenging (for experienced players), unless using encounter levels that are about 3-4 levels higher than the party.

Will the same be true in the epic tier? I don't think so.
And that's a good thing because there are fewer monsters available at high levels. If you wanted to create a challenging encounter for a level 30 party you'd have a problem if you had to pick level 34 monsters...

Now, obviously, I cannot prove that my assumptions are correct. Maybe you're right and the 'pre-PHB2' math in the epic tier isn't the math the designers wanted it to be. I'm fairly certain they didn't playtest the epic levels as thoroughly as heroic and paragon levels. But until we have more examples of organically grown parties and their experiences, it cannot be decided. Time will tell. Maybe the DMG2 (or DMG3) will give us more insights.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 9, 2009)

keterys said:


> No matter what, even if the current powers and abilities make up for the math disparity... it would be a better game if the disparity wasn't there in the first place. Hitting on 2s is just not a design feature.



Well, I have yet to see a _realistic_ example of this. That this may theoretically be the case in selected, isolated situations doesn't mean it's a real problem in a real game session.
And even if it does happen: Will it really be that bad if a single monster can hit a single character's weakest defense every time? Looking back at earlier editions of the game, every character always had a weakness to certain categories of effects. It's a feature of the game that a character will always have a weakness - flawless characters are boring!
As long as not all characters have the same weakness, that's _fine_.
It will just mean, that a situation feared by one character will be no problem for another character and vice versa. It will give every character to shine in different circumstances.


keterys said:


> Worst case, you'd be better having much less accurate monsters with Miss: effects, so that at least the roll was meaningful.



Maybe. That would be a different way to balance things. I think it would work, too. I wouldn't mind if more monsters used this approach, as long as it's not all monsters.


----------



## Bayuer (Apr 9, 2009)

@Jhaelen
At first the werall tactic thing is important in game, but it's not THAT important. Of course in this fight, players will have adventage, becouse it's fight 5 on 1. But when you take 5 on 5 fight things will change. I understand importance of tactic in play, but don't forget monster use tactic to. You take example from MM, fine.But this is just one example. Example that favors PCs, couse solos aren't that threat as they should be. But this is another topic.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Actually it isn't. The PHB wrongly attributes the power to the warlord. The power used in the example is 'Hallowed Ground', a cleric 16 utility power that also increases the party's attacks and saving throws by 2.



But this will we 29 lvl wher the gap is higher.
Ok. All players got +2 to all defs.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> This power is just an example for all the powers that will be available to a party of that level. Your math is not taking the existence of _any_ of these powers into account. In other words:
> 
> Your math only works for partys without a resource they're expected to have.



That's is true. But even this +2 to all stats don't change much.



			
				Bayuer said:
			
		

> Naga hits FOR of this fighter at 6 on die (his highest, most optimised defense!) So that is 70% ot time (monster has +4 adventage).
> His REF will be hitted at 3 on die (his middle defense). So that 85% accuracy (monster have +7 adventage).
> Well this monster don't attack Will but it will be hitted on 2 od die (monster have +9 adventage).



FORT hitted on 8 (+2 monster adventage).
REF hitted on 5 (+5 monster adventage).
WILL hitted on 3 (+7 monster adventage).


			
				Bayuer said:
			
		

> Let's take form simplifiaction that other will have the same stats (they will vary in with DEF but that is not much important).





			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> BEEP! I disagree. It's extremely important to remember that not everyone in the party will have the same weaknesses. If the party is balanced, on average, one or two characters will have REF or WILL as their highest defense.



And this is right. Some characters will have weak REF some FOR. Example of fighter was just for simplification.
Now player that is hitted on 3 on die in FOR (5 with mark) will take more damage. The same for REF player. And there is realy big chance to have 3 weak FOR etc. You can't tell exacly who will have what, there are too many variations in classes/races, but definitly there will be some characters that will be hitted on 3 (with Hollowe Ground) (5 with mark). And this what you and me was talking about. You didn't discover America, sorry.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, you've been the one asking for a level 25 artillery monster. As I mentioned, there aren't any others in the MM



So that means you are right, and I'm wrong. 
What if I will say take me 24 or 26 artillery. I was talking about any late epic artillery. But if we are going to argue about such a small things, this discussion will not give us anything good.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, imho, real example >>> hypothetical example.



Numbers can vary but +1/-1 dosen't change anything. This is simple flawe issue or just fact of multiattack of Naga. We are talking about average so there is all ok if some numbers are +1/-1 diffrent.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> I disagree. Experienced players who are tactically savy (and they will be, otherwise they wouldn't have reached level 25 in the first place!) will always use their abilities to best effect. If the fighter isn't close-up to the naga, he'll be fighting something that is an even greater threat (which in this particular example is unlikely, unless the encounter is of a significantly higher level: about level 28-29).



Fighter will probably defend weakest characters don't charge onto artillery, becouse monster first line will crush players second line. Experienced DM will use inteligent monsters as best as he can, so that dosen't change anything.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> See above.
> If the party has a leader it's extremely likely they will have a power similar to the one mentioned above. If you haven't found any, you weren't looking (there are, btw. also powers that will cause additional attack penalties which serves the same effect as increasing the party's defenses AND will stack).
> 
> You're right though, that, generally, powers that have effects that last for the entire encounter will be daily powers. But:
> You have a party of five characters. At level 25 each of them will have 4 daily powers and 6 utility powers which may or may not be daily powers.



Ok, so give all PHB powers that bost NADs. Let's get some facts.
Hollowed Ground is 16 lvl utility daily power. Power on level where the NADs don't have big gap. So look at this level if we are saying anything about this (and other) power impact on game. Saying that this is still good power at 25 lvl is bad, becouse at this level we should have powers that gives us better bonus to defs, if your theory is right. Look at powers in PHB and show to us, that you have right. Giving one example at lower level dosen't prove anything. +2 on heroic and +2 on epic as you can see don't have the same value. And I and many people was thinking that it have, becouse the math is fair.

Only leaders will have powers that will give huge bonuses. Some classes like Swordmage, have powers that boost their NADs, but are there so many of them.

Two questions:
1. So you are saying that I need leader to play on epic? Only them have good powers that can boost PCs.
2. You are saying that if I want to be good at epic I need to take any NADs related power?

If both answers are yes, and your arguments goint into that way, I must say. This is even worst than feat tax.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Says who?! You're forgetting the distinct advantage the party has in the number of actions over the naga. The naga's attacks have to more accurate than the party's to compensate for that! Otherwise it wouldn't do enough damage to be a threat.



Call down. The solo, elitte and normal monster have the same to hit chance based on it's role and level. Don't get to flawed here. If I will place 5 monster hitting NADs, all of them will have to hit chances based on they rolle. And don't forget that even if players fighting solo, that dosen't mean that there will be no other monsters in fight. Even disgners says that solo doesen mean that this will be only monster against PCs. Anyway making such a fights isn't smart thing to do. Experiences DM knows that. Solos alone aren't so threatening.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, I think, hitting on 8 is probably closer to the truth, but anyway: remember, this requires a standard action and can only be used once every three rounds on average (it's recharge 5,6)



Aren't you the one who says that average calculations aren't too good?  This is luck factor. But this strong attack that all PCs.




			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> You cannot look at the attack bonus in isolation. Attack and damage are always related. It's why the avenger's damage output is similar to the other strikers without requiring situational bonus damage. If attack chance and damage weren't related the avenger wouldn't be a striker
> 
> The naga's damage is actually quite low compared to the damage from encounter powers available to a level 25 party. Especially the damage from its minor actions is closer to the party's at-will damage. So, since the naga has fewer actions, it _needs_ greater accuracy!
> 
> This isn't brokenness, it's balance!



This is false statement. You can't compare PCs average damage to monster average damage! This are two diffrent things.

Avenger isn't good at damage dealing. Look on the forums, there are better strikers than him. And striker isn't always about dmg, it's about hitting too. Look on wizards forums. Anyway, this is off-topic.

And again. Solo, elitte and normal monster have the same chance to hit based on they level and role.

Balance is the last thing that I will search in this statement.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, I'd rather not, at least not in this post. I'd also recommend to take advancing monsters out of the equation. I'd rather look into monsters as written, because they're closer to the designer's intent.
> 
> Yes, daze is a nasty effect. But it only affects a single character and the party will have similar effects available to them. So, unless the party's encountering more greater flameskulls than there are characters in the party, I wouldn't be overly worried.
> 
> Flameskulls also have a very distinctive weak point: they're undead. You'll probably dismiss this, because you haven't modeled this in your simplified math (and probably can't), but it's an important aspect of this particular monster. It's an easily recognizable weakness that _will_ be exploited by the party.



LOL. You joking right? Ok just normal to flameskull to hit chance. The PCs NADs on 24 level are the same as on 25lvl. So:
+27 vs. 36 - hit on 9 on die (+1 monster adventage)
+27 vs. 33 - hit on 6 on die (+4 monster adventage)
+27 vs. 29 - hit on 2 on die (+8 monster adventage)

This is single monster. Add 4 more and we can have more fun. Add 4 more and we can have hard fight. Now this will be fair fight don't you think? Stunn/dominated/weaken/restrain/ongoing damage. All easily placed by monsters...

About undead type. Withou divine character (cleric, avenger) nothing will change... This is small factor to be considered seriously. Or you're saying the cleric is the only leader woth taking. 

//Sorry for my english. I didn't have time to look at post again, and as I said before. It's not my primary language.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 9, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Two questions:
> 1. So you are saying that I need leader to play on epic? Only them have good powers that can boost PCs.




Um, yes.

You should have a leader to play in every tier, heroic, paragon, or epic.  The DMG even says so, and points out that of all the roles, the leader is the least dispensible.  Of -course- the game is balanced around you having one.



> 2. You are saying that if I want to be good at epic I need to take any NADs related power?




No, there are other ways around the same problem.  But the fact is, you should -as a leader- take the powers that befit your role.  Some defensive powers do help a lot.



> If both answers are yes, and your arguments goint into that way, I must say. This is even worst than feat tax.




Welcome to Fourth Edition party optimization.  



> Avenger isn't good at damage dealing. Look on the forums, there are better strikers than him. And striker isn't always about dmg, it's about hitting too. Look on wizards forums. Anyway, this is off-topic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Bayuer (Apr 9, 2009)

> While monsters are more accurate at higher levels, they deal less and less of a chunk of your hit points, while the party's ability to heal those hit points grows and grows. While hits at heroic level would have knocked you down to bloodied, at epic, they might not even take you below a healing surge. As a result, they have to hit more often in order to carry the same threat value. You might disagree that this is fun, but that is what game balance is about. In return for lesser effective threat-per-hit, the monsters instead hit more often.



Not less but your leaders ability to heal is better and PCs don't lose too many hit points. And what fights are we talking about? Standard? It is obvious they are easy fights even on heroic. The problem goes live when you make a n+3/n+4 fight with n+4/n+5 monsters that hit your all NADs when they roll 3 on die... If you're still saying that this a an epic feature I will say it is worst ever made heroic game in history! It's like fighting in flooded room every time. The water comes from everywhere, there's no escape and you must knock the doors in x rounds or dead will come for you.

Also give a quotes about some facts. Where on DMG there is written you must have leader in party. I don't have too much free time to look at book and search and about avenger I was reading on WotC forum that him and barabrian are weaker strikes, but this isn't thread about that.



> And effects, as previously stated, are not as much of a threat at epic levels because your party should have ways to deal with them. It might be saving throw bonuses, either through powers or through feats or both, it might be in outright condition-removal, or it might be through hit-negation. But as much as you deny it, all classes get -some- of these things, and all leaders have them in spades.



Yes they have, becouse monster have more NADs targeting powers that gives more powerfull effects. They don't need to hit offten. There can be two reasons you games aren't challenging at epic:
1) Your GM (or you as GM) don't make hard fights to your optimized party. If you have 3-4 fights in a day, whom levels are n, n+1 and maybe n+2, they will never be a threat to your party. If you will make 4 fights in a row all beginning from n+2, now we can talk! Even n+4 fight that will be only fight in a day will not be threatening, becouse players have all resources. As I said before, with my players I got through n+6 fight (the only fight in day) on 16 level, where monsters hitted my NADs almost all the time. This was the most boring fight I ever saw. It lasted for 3,5h! (3 players in party) Add 1h if this will be 5 players party. It was so boring, becouse I have almost no chances to avoid monsters NADs attacks. I have problems hitting them in response. So yes, well organized party can do almost anything, but when monster always hits you it's so wrong and not fun. Standing just there and praying to leader to give me a free save before I lose my next turn. Yeah. This is heroic game I was dreamed about.
2)You give to weak monsters and don't use many combos and combinations. You don't think what  players will do in given fight, don't use terrain etc. You can make two fights in a row without an short rest, backup comes into play, artilleries are on high clif while soldiers/brutes fight the team 6m below.

Anyway I will say. More level your party have, the more easy is the game. I din't ever said the game is too hard, becous monsters hit you too often. I said that this is bad becouse they hit you too often. KarinsDad mentioned about grind and he's completly right. If monster couldn't hit you so often and you will hit them easier in response, the grind will be less factor. In fact you could thorw n+6 fights with high level monsters on party and the game will be threatening again, and not boring and long. In current situation the game is not good on epic at all. It's grindy and don't have fun factor included anymore.

Ok whe can talk about powers. Powers tax or leader tax on epic. If you must optimise every character to have more save options, give attack penalties options it makes game on epic not very varied. This is wrong too. Anyway please if you are so completly sure that powers are included in our problem make a whole list of powers that can help players on higher levels. But use PHB only, becouse you are saying core game was fine as it was. PHB2 gives us overpowered feats and could give much stronger powers/leaders.



> Then don't. But take some of the powers in the classes that enhance their defense (and not necessarily Defenses) against these shinanegans. Your Ranger takes powers that automaticly say 'No, that actually missed me'. Your Paladin goes Charisma instead of Strength so he can use his debuff powers rather than simply Massive Damage (TM). Your wizard takes hit-debuffs.



Even then your resources will end sooner or later! They aren't compared to monster attack chances. Ok maybe players will have 5 round with powers that boost them. What with another 15 rounds of fight at epic? Cross fingers and pray?

This thread was about PHB2 feats. Almost none of opposite fraction ever mention about them. They are in game, they give us powerfull boost that can't be compared to anything what was in game before. If you look at Iron Will etc. and PHB2 feats the only thing you can do i just simply smile. Well if this feats aren't math fix, they are strongly overpowered. But looking at the same thing about Expertise and the gap the fit into, I must say that this looks as math fix to me. Suddenly when you take Expertise -3 gap from epic to hit chance dissaper. When you take Robust Defenses you highest DED is hitted on 10-9 on attack, middle on 7-6 and the lowest possible on 2-3 (but as I posted before there is almost not chance to have so weak NAD, we must completly forgot about it and don't invest into atribute related to this NAD, so the most offten we will be hitted on 4-5 on die with this NAD). When we take Epic feats for middle and lowest NADs, hitting chances change to 10-11 fon die for middle and 6 (or 8-9 if you don't let lowest NAD to fall much behind). So as you can see the math is good now. Too many coincidence to me.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 9, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> Insulting again? Bravo.
> .......Of course if you have leader in your teamt things will be simpler, so you can play on epic only with leader in party? .....




Not exaxtly because that's but one of the options in dealing with the situation, but having a leader is very beneficial. Either have one or suffer the ramifications of your choices. It's the same thing as the thread about playing without an INT-based PC. 

Every player makes choices about their character and 4E is all about working together. If players as a group choose not to have something covered, that's a "them problem". As Draco Suave and others have poinhted out, there's a lot of ways that almost auto-hit is mitigated.


----------



## Elric (Apr 9, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> My theory: The math is set up to be in favour of the pcs in the beginning of their career to make sure they'll survive into paragon levels even if they're still making bad decisions regularly. It's a safety net for inexperienced players.
> It would be wrong to assume the math has to be identical in the epic tier. It's one of many reasons why new players should not start with epic characters. They need to grow into the increased challenge that is epic level play.
> 
> *Now PHB2 offers a couple of feats intended for those players who prefer to have an easier time or want to start at levels that would otherwise be beyond their ability. So, in a way, it's good the feats are available, but they aren't for everyone and definitely aren't a must have.*
> ...



(bolding mine)

WotC is going to have an article on the Expertise feats at some point relatively soon, I believe.  I would be very surprised if they gave this rationale for the feats.  

"The game could use an 'easy mode', so we introduced these overpowered feats, but don't take them if you're experienced players and don't want the game to become too easy."

That said, if that was truly their rationale when they designed the feats I think they'd be reasonably likely to lie and come up with something more appealing, like "we needed a math fix and didn't want to issue errata"   Still, assuming we take that article at its word, this will be settled in due time.


----------



## Neubert (Apr 9, 2009)

What I don't like about being hit on a 2, even though it is the weakest defense, is that it simply does not feel heroic.
Of course, I wouldn't mind if a solo was targetting my lowest defense and it could hit on a 2, and perhaps even elites. But in my mind, I would have an average, standard monster hit me with roughly the following rolls:
Highest defense: 12-14
Medium defense: 9-10
Lowest defense: 5-7

In my mind, it shouldn't pay off for the monster to target my best defense, it should be at a disadvantage, whereas targetting my worst would obviously give it a better chance at hitting (though never on a 2+).


----------



## keterys (Apr 9, 2009)

Honestly I'd much rather it was more like (for both sides)
Hard: 11-14
Moderate: 9-12
Easy: 7-10

That'd be pretty good as far as probabilities and such go for integrating with powers.


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## James McMurray (Apr 9, 2009)

Neubert said:


> What I don't like about being hit on a 2, even though it is the weakest defense, is that it simply does not feel heroic.
> Of course, I wouldn't mind if a solo was targetting my lowest defense and it could hit on a 2, and perhaps even elites. But in my mind, I would have an average, standard monster hit me with roughly the following rolls:
> Highest defense: 12-14
> Medium defense: 9-10
> ...




I like that idea, though we could quibble over exact numbers. To do that though, you'd have to drastically increase the damage being delivered.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 9, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Maybe you're right and the 'pre-PHB2' math in the epic tier isn't the math the designers wanted it to be.




WotC intent can easily be determined from the evidence.

WotC over and over again stated before the release of 4E that the sweet spot is the same no matter what level the PCs are at. They were not talking about challenge, they were talking about to hit and being hit. Go back and listen to the old podcasts.

WotC "fixed" heavy armor in AV and in PHB II for the Paragon level sag. There is a delta of 2 between pre-fix and post-fix in one case. Obviously, they want the math to be consistent.

After stating many times last year that they were not going to put many "bonuses to hit" in the game, WotC "fixed" to hit in PHB II not with one feat, but with 7 different ones (1 all of the time, 6 conditional). In PHB, there are 2 feats that are conditional IIRC.

Their to hit philosophy totally changed here.

Finally, they added a feat that adds +2 to 3 defenses (a total of +6) and three feats that add +4 to one defense and stack with anything. +4 in a D20 system is HUGE.

If this does not shout "fix" to some people, it's probably because they are not looking at the big overall picture and remembering the WotC claims and promises from nearly a year ago.

If the game system was perfect, there would be no need for errata. Obviously, no game system is perfect. Assuming that WotC "knew what they were doing" when the recent changes are in direct contradiction with their statements from last year indicates that they found a problem.



Jhaelen said:


> I'm fairly certain they didn't playtest the epic levels as thoroughly as heroic and paragon levels.




Agreed. What is more bothersome to me is that they apparently did not take out the 15 minutes to create a math spreadsheet. Otherwise, they would have found the Heavy Armor Paragon sag in 2 seconds and fixed it pre-PHB release.


----------



## Regicide (Apr 9, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> If this does not shout "fix" to some people, it's probably because they are not looking at the big overall picture and remembering the WotC claims and promises from nearly a year ago.




  Actually, it shouts "break" to me.  Because they didn't put the proper caps in with stacking penalties you are now in the situation where 5 characters can each slap -2 to hit (or worse) penalties on a monster (illusionary terrain, marks from range etc).  If your defenses are pushed up to needing a 10 to hit already because of these feats the monster is well and truly boned.

  The synergy is epic is already utterly crazy.  If the party concentrates on lowering the target's attack rolls and slaps a stoneskin on the battlerager, not only does he ignore so much damage the monster can't hurt him, but the monster can't even HIT him in the first place!

  You won't see that sort of thing in LFR, but when you have a play group and they sit down and actually help each other plan their characters, you need to start tossing either a LOT of monsters at them or L+6 to even challenge them.


----------



## keterys (Apr 9, 2009)

It would be an awful lot easier to balance things if penalties didn't stack, ever, and bonuses were a lot more strictly controlled, it's true.

Be a lot easier to have this discussion, too, since you'd be able to more easily predict the bonuses and penalties being thrown around.


----------



## Elric (Apr 9, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Actually, it shouts "break" to me.  Because they didn't put the proper caps in with stacking penalties you are now in the situation where 5 characters can each slap -2 to hit (or worse) penalties on a monster (illusionary terrain, marks from range etc).  If your defenses are pushed up to needing a 10 to hit already because of these feats the monster is well and truly boned.




You seem to be discussing this in the context of solos.  I think it's pretty well known (see the thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/253587-d-d-solos-just-not-threatening.html) that solos are poorly designed in that many status effects are too effective against them, and at higher levels characters have access to many of these effects, making this a significant problem.  

Additionally, AC already scales pretty well at epic levels and is by far the most attacked defense.  As I have said many times, there are stronger tests of whether the game's math is off (in the PH) than whether the game becomes too easy at higher levels (edit: of course, I don't endorse the PH II feats as a good way to fix these problems).  

In particular, do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks? I maintain the answer to this is “no.”



> The synergy is epic is already utterly crazy.  If the party concentrates on lowering the target's attack rolls and slaps a stoneskin on the battlerager, not only does he ignore so much damage the monster can't hurt him, but the monster can't even HIT him in the first place!




I think this is mainly a problem with the Battlerager.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 9, 2009)

Regicide said:


> The synergy is epic is already utterly crazy.  If the party concentrates on lowering the target's attack rolls and slaps a stoneskin on the battlerager, not only does he ignore so much damage the monster can't hurt him, but the monster can't even HIT him in the first place!




You keep making these outrageous claims.

And, you keep not supporting them.

Post the builds that can change a monster that could previously hit on a 4 can suddenly "can't even HIT him in the first place!".

Without evidence to back this hyperbole up, you are just blowing smoke here and very few people are going to take you seriously.

Post some builds. Indicate what powers that are so wonderful with respect to synergy to the point that mega-monsters suddenly cannot hit. I don't think you will (or can) do it at all, let alone be successful in doing it. But, the rest of us can wait.


----------



## Neubert (Apr 9, 2009)

Hmm, I just lost my post, so this one will be a little more brief and to the point (distant cheers of "yay!").



keterys said:


> Honestly I'd much rather it was more like (for both sides)
> Hard: 11-14
> Moderate: 9-12
> Easy: 7-10
> ...




I think 10 for the easy defense is a little high. I am thinking of characters without any feats (Iron Will, Great Fortitude) to boost their defenses.




James McMurray said:


> I like that idea, though we could quibble over exact numbers. To do that though, you'd have to drastically increase the damage being delivered.




Of course, exact numbers would have to be determined through discussion/analysis.
Also, whatever values are chosen, I would like a little leeway for "buffs" and "debuffs" to affect defenses.

In regards to damage, I can't really comment on that, as I am sorely lacking 4e experience. My primary focus is on balance, but I have read about how easy/grindy the higher levels seem, and I am all for making it a little more challenging for the players.


I was going to suggest that elites should hit players on a roll of 2 less than a standard monster, and solo 4 less. Meaning if a standard monster would have to hit the hard/medium/easy defense on a 14/10/6 (again, example values), an elite would have to roll 12/8/4 and a solo 10/6/2.
The reason for my suggestion was that I was under the assumption that elites and solo's had a higher to-hit than average monsters. I was surprised however, when I looked through the DMG's guidelines for turning monsters into elite and solo versions, and didn't find anything to that extend. A quick lookup of the 5 level 10 soldiers (2 elite, 3 standard) in MM revealed the same.
Perhaps they should have, perhaps not. However, I believe that discussion would be off-topic.


----------



## Regicide (Apr 9, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> You keep making these outrageous claims.




  I contend you are.



KarinsDad said:


> And, you keep not supporting them.




  What you quoted was specific and supported.



KarinsDad said:


> Post the builds that can change a monster that could previously hit on a 4 can suddenly "can't even HIT him in the first place!".




  I said 10.



KarinsDad said:


> Without evidence to back this hyperbole up, you are just blowing smoke here and very few people are going to take you seriously.




  The ones that have actually played in epic do.

Here, because I'm so nice...

Rogue Rattling Strike (or any rattling)
Paladin Enfeebling Strike
Fighter mark
Wizard Illisionary Terrain
Blade Banshee hitting with 2 or more attacks
Bard Vicious Mockery

  There is a potential -12 to hit with just class abilities or at wills.  That trick costs the party NOTHING.  No resources spent, no magic item bought, no feats to acquire it, no action points used, nothing, and almost all of it is available at level 1.  Action points, encounter powers and the like can push that number much higher, and several of them, the rogue in particular, can push that number another -4 or -6 for attacks targeting them.  Other powers such as dazing can help too.

  The cheapness of that trick lets the party buy other things like AC lowering powers (much more common than lowering to-hit powers, it's practically trivial to lower AC by 10) or tricks, like...  slow + push powers that slow the target then push them out of combat so they can't even fight.  Stun powers to keep an opponent perma stunned etc.  But that is a different topic.


----------



## keterys (Apr 10, 2009)

Neubert said:


> I think 10 for the easy defense is a little high. I am thinking of characters without any feats (Iron Will, Great Fortitude) to boost their defenses.




It's the upper bound for Easy, maintaining a 4 difference between high and low under normal circumstances and 7 difference in extreme cases. That's a pretty good range. Especially since people like to use monsters higher level than the party fairly often and if it's a +3 level, then it needs at most a ~7.

So, your 1st level greatweapon fighter's Reflex is his "Easy" target and will range from 10 to 13 most likely (and that 13 is a human with 14 Dex). Attacks against Reflex from 1st level monsters will range from +2 vs. Reflex to +6 vs. Reflex, giving an overall attack range of 1st vs 1st of needing a 4 (absolute worst match) to needing a 11 (absolute best match). 



> I was going to suggest that elites should hit players on a roll of 2 less than a standard monster, and solo 4 less.




In truth, this would make sense to a certain extent... after all, a level 4 elite could instead have been a level 8 normal (both 350 XP), so there's a certain implied deficit there and the math gets interesting when comparing effective hp, attacks, defenses, etc.

I suspect they wanted to give stuns and dominates and such to elites and solos without having to worry that they were overly accurate. I think they could have gotten away with it by just giving a -2 penalty to some attacks in those circumstances, but ah well.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Here, because I'm so nice...
> 
> Rogue Rattling Strike (or any rattling)
> Paladin Enfeebling Strike
> ...




The key word here is "potential".

To get the -12, all of these have to affect the same monster simultaneously. Most encounters have multiple foes, not a solo.

But, just because I am nice, we'll assume a same level 25 solo controller, lurker, or skirmisher. We'll assume starting stat of 18 advance stat every time 25 stat (+7), +3 weapon proficiency, 1/2 level (+12) and +6 items = +28 versus (level + 16 solo) AC 41 or +25 versus other defense (level + 14 solo) 39.


Paladin Enfeebling Strike: 40% chance of success. If the Paladin marks the target, the Fighter cannot also mark the target and since I am being nice, I'll give you the 100% chance of -2 Paladin mark plus 40% chance of the Paladin Enfeebling Strike.

Fighter Mark: 0% chance of success. He cannot mark the same creature as the Paladin.

Rogue Rattling Strike: I assume you are talking about Disheartening Strike. Let's assume a 100% chance of Combat Advantage here (generous to your POV). Let's assume a Dagger (+1). 55% of -2 (but dropped 8 to 10 points of damage from Sly Flourish).

Wizard Illusionary Terrain: I assume you are talking about Illusory Ambush here. Int vs. Will. 35% of -2. 

Ranger Eladrin Blade Banshee (a very specific build): 40% * 40% = 16% of -2.

Bard Vicious Mockery: Cha vs. Will. 35% of a -2.


If instead of using Encounter and Daily powers, the entire party (except the Fighter and possibly the Ranger) use At Will powers, the debuff of the solo is:

Attacking the Paladin: .4 * -2 + .55 * -2 + .35 * -2 + .16 * -2 + .35 * -2 = -3.62

Attacking anyone else without attacking the Paladin: -2 + -3.62 = -5.62.


This is against a same level solo. That is considered a standard n encounter. Not hard at all.

The problem is that except for the Fighter or Paladin mark, these penalites are conditional (and even the marks are conditional on not including the defender in the attack). They do not occur every round. In fact, even if used every round (which would not be the case), they occur in a minority of rounds.

If we do not consider a solo or an elite, then the chances of any given -2 increases by 10% due (except for Blade Banshee which increases by 8%) to the fact that such foes are at level +14 / level +12 instead. On the other hand, not all 6 PCs will be attacking the same foe either.

If we consider a higher level encounter, these odds drop.


So, the solo monster is at +3 due to the math bug and the PCs using debuffs and not other options give it -3.62 against the Paladin.

Oh wait, you wanted the Battlerager Fighter in front instead. Ok, Enfeebling Strike is 0% (only works with a Paladin mark) because only the Fighter mark forces the solo to attack the Battlerager for a result of -2.82 against the Fighter.

Your mega -12 in reality is a -2.82 and takes specific builds, actions, and level of solo to accomplish (higher level solos will not be penalized as much due to higher defenses). And in a more typical situation, not every PC is trying for a debuff (at least not in real games).


Now, what happens if there are 6 same level standard foes against 6 PCs.

6 opponents at +3 (math bug) = +18 overall versus 6 PCs that give: -2 (Fighter) -2.5 (Paladin) -1.3 (Rogue) -.9 (Wizard) -.5 (Ranger) -.9 (Bard) = +8.1 overall.

The creatures get the +3 math bug on 100% of the attacks. The PCs get the -2 debuff for many of them, only if they hit the foe.

Not looking as good with a more typical same level encounter. There are more bonuses for the foes (due to the math bug) than penalties (due to the debuffs).


And the problem becomes even more pronounced for encounters higher level than the PCs.


The math does not support your POV using YOUR selected powers and class features, even for an same level encounter (1 solo or 5 normal creatures).



			
				Regicide said:
			
		

> If the party concentrates on lowering the target's attack rolls and slaps a stoneskin on the battlerager, not only does he ignore so much damage the monster can't hurt him, but the monster can't even HIT him in the first place!"




Your claim, not mine. So far, -2.82 to hit on average is FAR from "can't even HIT him in the first place".

So far, you are not blowing anyone away with your examples.

Would you like to try again?


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## Regicide (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Paladin Enfeebling Strike: 35% chance of success.




  Yeaaaaah... Well in the case of "worst paladin in the world" they'll obviously want to use a different tactic.  



KarinsDad said:


> If the Paladin marks the target, the Fighter cannot also mark the target




  Those are interesting house rules.  Marks overwrite.  

  I'm not bothering to read the rest of your post.  You're obviously not playing the same game I do.  Judgeing by everyone but you saying epic is easy, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one is.


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## Elric (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The key word here is "potential".
> 
> To get the -12, all of these have to affect the same monster simultaneously. Most encounters have multiple foes, not a solo.
> 
> But, just because I am nice, we'll assume a same level 25 solo controller, lurker, or skirmisher. We'll assume starting stat of 18 advance stat every time 25 stat (+7), +3 weapon proficiency, 1/2 level (+11) and +6 items = +27 versus (level + 16 solo) AC 41 or +24 versus other defense (level + 14 solo) 39.




At level 25, 1/2 level is +12.  However, assuming +6 items at level 25 is probably a little generous, so figure that's worth -0.5 or so   Also, against most non-flying solos there should be a pretty good chance that each character has combat advantage, particularly at higher levels where mobility is greater than at lower levels and monsters are bigger, making multi-flanking easier.



Regicide said:


> Those are interesting house rules.  Marks overwrite.
> 
> I'm not bothering to read the rest of your post.  You're obviously not playing the same game I do.  Judgeing by everyone but you saying epic is easy, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one is.




The fighter can mark the target and override the Paladin's mark, but Karinsdad has already given the Paladin's mark a 100% chance of success.  So the fighter's chance to improve on the to-hit penalty from the Paladin's mark is indeed 0%, which is clearly what Karinsdad meant by this.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Regicide said:


> I'm not bothering to read the rest of your post.  You're obviously not playing the same game I do.




Yes. In your game, these PCs get -12 to the solo because they all get -2, regardless of whether they hit or not.



I'd run away too if I tried to claim that the PCs could give -12 to the monster.


Note: The odds of that are: .4 * .55 * .35 * .16 *.35 * = 0.004312 or about 1 round in 232 (assuming that the Paladin marks and the creature attacks someone else).

Not good odds of it happening dude. For one thing, the PCs would not be lemmings and all be debuffing.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Elric said:


> At level 25, 1/2 level is +12.  However, assuming +6 items at level 25 is probably a little generous, so figure that's worth -0.5 or so   Also, against most non-flying solos there should be a pretty good chance that each character has combat advantage, particularly at higher levels where mobility is greater than at lower levels and monsters are bigger, making multi-flanking easier.




Fixed the first issue.

I used +6 items because they are possible at level 25 and I did not want to be accused of skewing the numbers in my favor. Course, such a (6 PC) group should only have 7 such +6 items when they acquired level 25 (a few more as they adventure at level 25), but 6 of those would not typically all be weapons/implements.

The second issue is debatable. Sure, it ups the odds a bit if it occurs. On the other hand, the Wizard attack is ranged, so he typically will not get CA. I gave CA to the Rogue and either the Fighter or Paladin's mark does not count. So sure, I could up the Bard, Paladin, and Ranger by 10% each (9% for the Ranger since both have to hit), but that only ups it by 29% (i.e. -.58 penalty on average).

shrug

He's still totally wrong. He barely can wipe out the math bug if 5 PCs are all trying to debuff. Let alone if any of the 5 are trying something else.


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## Elric (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Fixed the first issue.
> 
> I used +6 items because they are possible at level 25 and I did not want to be accused of skewing the numbers in my favor. Course, such a (6 PC) group should only have 7 such +6 items when they acquired level 25 (a few more as they adventure at level 25), but 6 of those would not typically all be weapons/implements.
> 
> ...




Another point I forgot to mention: the Wizard with Illusory Ambush will almost surely have Psychic Lock by epic levels, making it a -4 penalty.  This is only going to add -0.7 more on average, though.  

On a related note, if PCs are trying to avoid being hit vs. AC, even with a strategy of debuffs picking up +6 armor is much more effective than a +6 weapon, since with Masterwork bonuses it scales their AC ahead by 2 for light armor or 3 for heavy armor (compared to their +5 armor).


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Elric said:


> Another point I forgot to mention: the Wizard with Illusory Ambush will almost surely have Psychic Lock by epic levels, making it a -4 penalty.  This is only going to add -0.7 more on average, though.




True. On the other hand, a Wizard with Illusory Ambush is not even allowed in many campaigns. Several DMs I know do not allow Dragon material because it gets out of hand so easily, but I was giving him every break to prove his point.

But Vicious Mockery is also psychic, so the Bard would get it.



Elric said:


> On a related note, if PCs are trying to avoid being hit vs. AC, even with a strategy of debuffs picking up +6 armor is much more effective than a +6 weapon, since with Masterwork bonuses it scales their AC ahead by 2 for light armor or 3 for heavy armor (compared to their +5 armor).




Yup.

Course, replacing +6 weapons/implements with +5 in order to get +6 armor instead of +5 helps AC a lot, but hurts the other three defenses when debuffing. All debuffs drop by ~0.5.

So, AC +2 or +3 becomes AC +1.5 and AC +2.5 whereas the other 3 defenses drop by 0.5 (assuming full debuff mode, -3.62 becomes -3.145). A slight gain for heavy armor, a total wash for light armor.


One of the interesting things I see about the indirect splat book fixes for the math bug are that some of them actually make the game slightly harder to play.

3 of the powers he picked were from the newer books: Disheartening Strike, Blade Banshee, and Bard Vicious Mockery. All 3 of these powers (and Illusory Ambush) require the players or DM to do bookkeeping as to whether a given foe has the penaty to hit or not.

However, these are "until the end of my next turn" type powers. These are slightly more difficult powers to keep track of.

The bookkeeping for powers which have a save is slightly easier. One puts some token on the miniature and at the end of the target's turn, the save is either successful or not. If so, the token is removed.

Powers that affect until the end of the attacker's next turn have slightly heavier bookkeeping (something that I am positive that WotC never took into account, or they would have used a different model).

The target has to keep track of WHICH opponent hit the target with each bonus, penalty, or condition.

Let's take this example here of the solo vs. the 6 PCs. The order of initiative is:

1 2 3 4 5 6 S

If every odd numbered PC succeeds with a hit that causes -2 until the end of the attacker's next turn, the solo (S) is at -6. The solo takes its turn and we are back to 1 who moves and provokes OA. Solo is at -6. Then 2 moves and provokes OA. Solo is at -4 because 1's end of turn occurred. Ditto for the rest of the PCs.

One needs to keep track of the fact that conditions or penalties 1, 3, and 5 were on the solo and what condition or penalties were caused by which PC. If the group forgets who hit, they might accidently have the solo at -6 when PC 2 provoked OA.


I noticed this phenomon when multiple NPCs who could all Daze (causing Combat Advantage) multiple PCs with area effects. Each PC could have been affected by differing actual attacks and it was important to not just bookkeep the condition, but to also bookkeep who caused the condition so that the PCs would come out of Daze at the proper time and no longer be providing CA.

When the DM's creatures have these types of powers, it is easiest if the players keep track of which creature hit them bookkeeping. When the PCs have these types of powers, it is easiest if the DM keeps track of which PC hit which NPC bookkeeping. 


WotC simplified the condition system with the normal save mechanism, but actually added bookkeeping for conditions, bonuses, or penalties that occur until the end of the attacker's next turn. Opps.


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## Bayuer (Apr 10, 2009)

James McMurry said:
			
		

> > Originally Posted by Neubert View Post
> > What I don't like about being hit on a 2, even though it is the weakest defense, is that it simply does not feel heroic.
> > Of course, I wouldn't mind if a solo was targetting my lowest defense and it could hit on a 2, and perhaps even elites. But in my mind, I would have an average, standard monster hit me with roughly the following rolls:
> > Highest defense: 12-14
> ...



You understand that this is what you get when you use PHB2 defenses feats?

Wihtout feats:
Highest defense: 8-9
Medium defense: 5-6
Lowest defense: 2

With Robust Defense and three Epic feats:
Highest defense: 14-15
Medium defense: 11-12
Lowest defense: 6-8 (becouse monster adventage is +10/+8 at the end of epic level).

And I can agree. Maybe the monsters aren't such a threat to players at epic, but this is designers misscalculations and doesn't have anything to do with the "2 on die feature of epic monsters" as the problem to solve this.



			
				Regicide said:
			
		

> Actually, it shouts "break" to me. Because they didn't put the proper caps in with stacking penalties you are now in the situation where 5 characters can each slap -2 to hit (or worse) penalties on a monster (illusionary terrain, marks from range etc). If your defenses are pushed up to needing a 10 to hit already because of these feats the monster is well and truly boned.



So why hitting AC is at 50% chance? Most monster still hit AC on epic. Why nobody complains about that. Why monster don't need roll 2 on die to hit PCs AC? Becouse this will be broken. Hitting NADs have worst effects than hitting AC. They deal damage and gives effects. And this is epic monster feature? No way.

I agree that on epic you need to throw bigger fights on PCs becouse they have great power ther. I think that better solution is to make n+6 fights with higher level monster that can hit you at about 50% of time, than fewer monsters than can hit you on 2 on die. With option is better for players and more fun?


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## Elric (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> True. On the other hand, a Wizard with Illusory Ambush is not even allowed in many campaigns. Several DMs I know do not allow Dragon material because it gets out of hand so easily, but I was giving him every break to prove his point.
> 
> But Vicious Mockery is also psychic, so the Bard would get it.




I agree with this sentiment, but Illusory Assault is in Arcane Power, according to people who already have the book.  So it's going to be pretty standard on wizard builds in the future.



> Course, replacing +6 weapons/implements with +5 in order to get +6 armor instead of +5 helps AC a lot, but hurts the other three defenses when debuffing. All debuffs drop by ~0.5.
> 
> So, AC +2 or +3 becomes AC +1.5 and AC +2.5 whereas the other 3 defenses drop by 0.5 (assuming full debuff mode, -3.62 becomes -3.145). A slight gain for heavy armor, a total wash for light armor.




It's not a total wash for light armor, since AC is attacked much more often than each FRW.  If AC and each FRW were attacked equally, then it would be a wash.  This example is also in the case of solo opponents- in a fight against 5 opponents, the debuffs are less effective, but the armor is not.



> One of the interesting things I see about the indirect splat book fixes for the math bug are that some of them actually make the game slightly harder to play....




You have a point.  The powers that only inflict penalties to hit would be easier to run as (until end of monster's next turn) and wouldn't significantly impact their power.  However, for powers like Daze, you generally want the effect to run until the end of the player's next turn so, among other things, the whole party (including the character who caused the effect) can get combat advantage from it.


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## Nail (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> However, these are "until the end of my next turn" type powers. These are slightly more difficult powers to keep track of.



Good point.  These are becoming more and more difficult to accurately track in the games I play in.  So far we've got it handled, but....

I thought 4e was supposed to be the "dumbed down" version of 3e.    It's _more _complicated, not less.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Nail said:


> Good point.  These are becoming more and more difficult to accurately track in the games I play in.  So far we've got it handled, but....




How do you do it? I posted a query here a month ago, but nobody responded.

So far, the best I have found is that the DM keeps track of which PC hit for the monsters and the players keep track of which monster hit for their PC.

I was hoping someone had a better, easier to use system.


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## keterys (Apr 10, 2009)

I've been puzzling over durations a little bit lately myself, mostly because I hate the whole '(start/end) of (your/its) turn' notation cluttering up everywhere...

I've been thinking it might be easier/better if everything was
round = Until the end of your own next turn, usually only intended for buffs 
turn = until the end of the target's next turn
save = as normal

But you'd want to change a bunch of powers I suspect... gain combat advantage for a round fine, daze a turn or saves depending on the power.

But it might be easier to just _assume_ round/turn above - at the end of your next turn you lose all buffs unless they said otherwise, and same for penalties. Then you don't need to state duration at all unless it's save, encounter, etc.

Which would be nice.


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## Regicide (Apr 10, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I'd run away too if I tried to claim that the PCs could give -12 to the monster.






  Most of which is already happening because of the feats automatically.  If even 2 -2's hit the monster and the players have those feats the monster's damage is cut by 2/3s.  If more than 2 -2s hit the monster becomes so utterly incapable of dealing damage from attacks it poses no challenge at all.

  In other words because of those feats the synergy given means that, as a DM, you need to throw about twice the number of solos at the players to deal the same amount of damage as you would before those feats.

  You don't consider that broken, fine.  We'll agree to disagree.  I consider having to put 2x the number of opponents on the board or crank their level up significantly because players take those feats and take advantage of them to be a problem.


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## Elric (Apr 10, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Most of which is already happening because of the feats automatically.  If even 2 -2's hit the monster and the players have those feats the monster's damage is cut by 2/3s.  If more than 2 -2s hit the monster becomes so utterly incapable of dealing damage from attacks it poses no challenge at all.




For 2 -2's hitting a monster to cause the monster to lose 2/3 of its damage, the monster would have to hit 30% before these -2 penalties were applied.  That seems extremely unlikely to occur with a solo attacking FRW, even with the PH II feats allowed.  

Indeed, you started with the assumption that these feats would be problematic if they pushed a monster's to-hit to hitting on a 10, which is 55% of the time, much higher than the 30% figure implied above.  



Regicide said:


> Actually, it shouts "break" to me.  Because they didn't put the proper caps in with stacking penalties you are now in the situation where 5 characters can each slap -2 to hit (or worse) penalties on a monster (illusionary terrain, marks from range etc).  If your defenses are pushed up to needing a 10 to hit already because of these feats the monster is well and truly boned.




55% is a realistic number for average chance to get hit on FRWs by an even-level solo (with level+5 vs. FRW to hit) at level 25, if the character takes Robust Defenses and all three Epic FRW feats, and has one other relevant bonus (Heavy Shield, Human, prioritizes FRW items so he has a +6 item already).

This said, Karinsdad and I haven't been arguing in this thread that the PH II feats are a good idea; just that there is an underlying problem of FRW scaling badly against monster to-hit.  I'm not defending Robust Defenses, Epic FRW, and (tangentially) Expertise as balanced feats.



> You don't consider that broken, fine.  We'll agree to disagree.  I consider having to put 2x the number of opponents on the board or crank their level up significantly because players take those feats and take advantage of them to be a problem.




As I said when you first brought this up, AC already scales pretty well.  If you have a solo that attacks AC (and AC is more attacked in the MM than FRW put together), then the PH II feats don't affect anything and the tactics you mention would be applicable to all solos that attack AC.  To quote what I said then:



			
				Elric said:
			
		

> You seem to be discussing this in the context of solos.  I think it's pretty well known (see the thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/253587-d-d-solos-just-not-threatening.html) that solos are poorly designed in that many status effects are too effective against them, and at higher levels characters have access to many of these effects, making this a significant problem.
> 
> Additionally, AC already scales pretty well at epic levels and is by far the most attacked defense.  As I have said many times, there are stronger tests of whether the game's math is off (in the PH) than whether the game becomes too easy at higher levels (edit: of course, I don't endorse the PH II feats as a good way to fix these problems).
> 
> In particular, do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks? I maintain the answer to this is “no.”


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## Regicide (Apr 10, 2009)

Elric said:


> For 2 -2's hitting a monster to cause the monster to lose 2/3 of its damage, the monster would have to hit 30% before these -2 penalties were applied.  That seems extremely unlikely to occur with a solo attacking FRW, even with the PH II feats allowed.




  After, not before.  Hitting on a 5+ before feats is taken to 15+ if the players take the feats and then start using attacks that give -2 to hit for a further -4.

  A monster that you'd expect would do 30 on a round that it hits goes from 24 average damage per round hitting on 5+ down to 9.  The monster has become little more than a punching bag.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 10, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Most of which is already happening because of the feats automatically.  If even 2 -2's hit the monster and the players have those feats the monster's damage is cut by 2/3s.  If more than 2 -2s hit the monster becomes so utterly incapable of dealing damage from attacks it poses no challenge at all.




Must be the advanced math here again. 

-4 only cuts down damage by two thirds if the monster only hit on a 15 or higher to begin with. Since that almost never happens at high level, even with the feats, ...

Same level 25th level monsters tend to hit PC AC on an 11 (assuming best +6 PC heavy armor). There are no +4 feats for AC, hence, the best one could get this to 14 is Shield plus specialization. 15 is tough to get this to.

Same level 25th level monsters tend to hit PC NADs on a 2 through a 6. So, the two feats (+6) could get this up to an 8 to 12 range, but not 15 too often. It would never get it near 15 for higher level monsters.



Regicide said:


> In other words because of those feats the synergy given means that, as a DM, you need to throw about twice the number of solos at the players to deal the same amount of damage as you would before those feats.
> 
> You don't consider that broken, fine.  We'll agree to disagree.  I consider having to put 2x the number of opponents on the board or crank their level up significantly because players take those feats and take advantage of them to be a problem.




I consider two x as many monsters bad too (although it probably would not come to that, see math above). Hence, no feats. Just core fixes.

+4 on a feat is broken by definition. +6 on two feats is even worse. One PC is getting hit on a 2. Another PC is getting hit only on a 12 or even slightly higher. That's too large of a range with the feats.


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## Elric (Apr 11, 2009)

Regicide said:


> After, not before.  Hitting on a 5+ before feats is taken to 15+ if the players take the feats and then start using attacks that give -2 to hit for a further -4.
> 
> A monster that you'd expect would do 30 on a round that it hits goes from 24 average damage per round hitting on 5+ down to 9.  The monster has become little more than a punching bag.




This is an extreme counterfactual, though.  You're comparing a party that has used many more resources on abilities that are best in this exact circumstance to a party that has used none of those resources.  The 5+ to 15+ math is also somewhat off in favor of the PCs, but I won't go into great detail here.

As I said when you first brought this up, AC already scales pretty well. If you have a solo that attacks AC (and the stat I've heard is that AC is more attacked in the MM than FRW put together), then the PH II feats don't affect anything.  The tactics you mention are already applicable against all solos that attack AC.

There are stronger tests of whether the game's math is off (in the PH) than whether the game becomes too easy at higher levels, particularly when considering solo encounters that have their own design flaws.

In particular, do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks? I maintain the answer to this is “no.”


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## Regicide (Apr 11, 2009)

Elric said:


> As I said when you first brought this up, AC already scales pretty well. If you have a solo that attacks AC (and the stat I've heard is that AC is more attacked in the MM than FRW put together), then the PH II feats don't affect anything.  The tactics you mention are already applicable against all solos that attack AC.




  So basically what you're saying is that PCs being able to neuter FRW attacks don't matter because AC is attacked more.

  While AC being a more common attack makes FRW defense less desirable for the cost of 2 feats you can get +2 to all and +6 to one is pretty cheap.  The cost of marking an enemy or using at wills that give penalties to hit is negligible, so for opponents that rely on FRW attacks are pretty boned.  I wouldn't be surprised if the +4 feats are errated to not stack with the +2 to all, because both types are too good and the combination much too good.


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## Elric (Apr 11, 2009)

Regicide said:


> So basically what you're saying is that PCs being able to neuter FRW attacks don't matter because AC is attacked more.




I've said many times that I don't think these feats are balanced or an appropriate solution for FRW scaling issues.  What I am saying is that there are stronger tests of whether the game's math is off (in the PH) than whether the game becomes too easy at higher levels, particularly when considering solo encounters that have their own design flaws.

In particular, do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks? I maintain the answer to this is “no.”


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## keterys (Apr 11, 2009)

Out of curiosity... do you actually play at epic, Regicide? It would be useful to know if your objections are based on your own experience or not.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 11, 2009)

Actually, more importantly, given that a party's opportunity to deal with inconveniences is much greater at level 30 than it is at level 1, how would -you- balance that so that a party can be adequately challenged at higher levels?

If you think that things should get -easier- for the players as you get into the epic tier, then I submit you might not understand what the epic tier is supposed to be about.


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## Elric (Apr 11, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Actually, more importantly, given that a party's opportunity to deal with inconveniences is much greater at level 30 than it is at level 1, how would -you- balance that so that a party can be adequately challenged at higher levels?




Is this in response to my point above?  PC AC scales 2 points worse than the monster's to-hit over 29 levels.  Certainly I don't think it's true that  "Since AC doesn't scale 4-5 points worse than monster to-hit there's no way to create challenging epic-level opponents who attack AC."  By extension, FRW does not have to scale by an average 5 worse than to-hit to create challenging opponents who target FRW.



> If you think that things should get -easier- for the players as you get into the epic tier, then I submit you might not understand what the epic tier is supposed to be about.




When have I said that the game should be easier in the epic tier than at earlier tiers?


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## DracoSuave (Apr 11, 2009)

Elric said:


> Is this in response to my point above?  PC AC scales 2 points worse than the monster's to-hit over 29 levels.  Certainly I don't think it's true that  "Since AC doesn't scale 4-5 points worse than monster to-hit there's no way to create challenging epic-level opponents who attack AC."  By extension, FRW does not have to scale by an average 5 worse than to-hit to create challenging opponents who target FRW.




The thing is, this problem has yet to be proven to be unbalancing.  Players getting hit is just -one- number and variable out of many.  The argument has focused purely on a single number and pointed out 'This r a problem, yes?' without actually -proving it.-

So let's.  Level 3 S&B Human fighter, 14 Dexterity, 15 Constitution, 16 Reflex defense, 42 hps.    Kobold Wyrmpriest, level 3 artillery, +6 vs Reflex (10 or better to hit, or 55%), 1d10+3 damage.  Average damage per hit, 8.5.  Expected DPR, 4.675.  %Threat value to fighter: 4.675/42 = *11.131%.*

Level 24 Fighter, 16 Dexterity, 17 Constitution.
+6 item, +11 level.  Total Reflex Defense:  33.
Hps: 110.

Great Flameskull:  2d8+10, and dazed, +28 to hit. (5 or better to hit, 80% to hit).  Average damage per hit: 19.  Expected DPR: 15.2. %Threat: *13.8182%*

So, compare.  Heroic monster's threat: 11%.  Epic monster's threat: 14%.  Not a huge difference.

And then consider:  Abilities that heal are more effective at higher levels, and there is more of them.  So, that 14% threat is less of a danger than it would be at level 1.

Seems to be the math is *exactly how it should be.*




> When have I said that the game should be easier in the epic tier than at earlier tiers?



  That comment wasn't directed at you specificly.  But someone else felt he didn't feel 'heroic' at epic levels.  I dispute that's the point behind higher levels.  You're saving the world at that point.  Sounds like it should be difficult labor at best.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 11, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> The thing is, this problem has yet to be proven to be unbalancing. Players getting hit is just -one- number and variable out of many. The argument has focused purely on a single number and pointed out 'This r a problem, yes?' without actually -proving it.-




All we have to go on is:

1) WotC claimed pre-release that the sweet spot was the same for all levels. This was listed as a design goal. Hence, since this is not true, it appears that WotC is now adjusting for the sweet spot with feats.

2) Many players do not like getting hit on a 2 or only hitting on a 16. It feels wrong.

From that, it appears that the burden of proof is for those who claim that the sweet spot should no longer exist at Epic level due to the plethora of PC abilities.


So, the counter claim appears to be: Sweet spot? What sweet spot? The rules do not discuss a sweet spot, so although the WotC designers talked about it for months pre-4E release, it doesn't have to exist. Uh huh.

My reponse. Prove it. Prove that the original design goals are not still the design goals.



DracoSuave said:


> That comment wasn't directed at you specificly.  But someone else felt he didn't feel 'heroic' at epic levels.  I dispute that's the point behind higher levels.  You're saving the world at that point.  Sounds like it should be difficult labor at best.




When I think Epic combat encounters, I think Tiamat, Vecna, even wimpy Orcus.

30th level demigod PCs get hit very very easily by these "deities".

One thing you keep discussing is that "a party's opportunity to deal with inconveniences is much greater at level 30 than it is at level 1".

Of course it is.

What you keep failing to discuss is that "a monster's opportunity to deal with inconveniences is much greater at level 30+ than it is at level 1".

I look at Tiamat and think: "Heck, she hits so often and so easily that I cannot even dream of having her consorts with her".

Her Aura alone does 25 points of damage per round in a range of 10 and is mostly unstopable. How the heck can I use her if she hits 30th level PCs on a 2 with 2 of her 5 heads and hits on a 6 with her other 3 heads? She's easily doing 75+ points of damage per round versus multiple PCs who have 175 to 200+ hit points and debuffing them as well.

Sure, the PCs can cure like mad or jump back up partially healed due to an Epic ability or power, but they will run out eventually.


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## Elric (Apr 11, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> The thing is, this problem has yet to be proven to be unbalancing.  Players getting hit is just -one- number and variable out of many.  The argument has focused purely on a single number and pointed out 'This r a problem, yes?' without actually -proving it.-




Suppose we started from the premise that FRW attacks were fine as is, with their better scaling being an internal part of the system's math, and looked at my question "In particular, do you think that attacks against FRW become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks?  I maintain the answer to this is no.”  

You haven't said whether you think the answer is no or yes here.  I think the answer is "no", and if you thought otherwise you'd have probably said so by now, so we'll go with that.  

If I look at AC attacks and think "These AC attacks don't get anything versus FRW attacks to compensate for the fact that FRW attacks are way more likely to hit.  However, I think that FRW attacks are just right.  Clearly, AC scales much too quickly and this was a mistake!  It should lose 4-5 points over 29 levels instead of 2 points so that attacks against AC don't fall behind compared to FRW.  Scrap those Masterwork Armor fixes!"

Now, I don't think that.  I think that WotC simultaneously messed up by making many epic monsters deal too little damage, and also messed up by making FRW scale so poorly.  From what I can see the DMG gives no guidelines on scaling AC attacks differently from FRW attacks- there's not a single mention about this in the "creating monsters" section.  There's nothing like "at higher levels, make AC attacks use a higher damage table than they would at lower levels given the attack and the monster's role."  

WotC has also errata'd a number of MM monsters to increase their damage totals.  They messed up Masterwork Heavy Armor's progression (but not its overall scaling) in the PH and added more MW armors in AV and PH-II, solving the problem (this is a very strong indication that "AC is too high" wasn't on their minds).  They messed up the Death Giant on the first try, and they messed up FRW scaling on the first try and they messed up the fix on their second try, PH-II. 

Do you think that the better scaling of FRW attacks was an intentional part of the game's internal balance between FRW and AC attacks?  The preponderance of the evidence suggests that WotC is trying to fix previous mistakes (if doing so in a terrible manner with the PH-II feats).



> Level 24 Fighter, 16 Dexterity, 17 Constitution.
> +6 item, +11 level.  Total Reflex Defense:  33.
> Hps: 110.
> 
> ...




Nitpick: the level 24 fighter's HP is badly off.  It's unreasonable to assume a +6 FRW item at level 24; level bonus is +12, though, so these cancel out.  As a Human with a Shield, he's much better off than most characters for their weakest FRW, so he's hit 80% of the time.  His HP are 153 + Con= 170.  The average DPR as a percent of HP goes down to 9% with these corrections.  

Of course, the Great Flameskull also dazes the fighter for a round 80% of the time.  No more opportunity attacks or immediate interrupt attacks, you grant CA, and you're only going to get a standard action a round (you may have to do a lot of charging, and you're not going to get much out of stances without being able to keep enemies near you).  Your leader?  He can't do a thing to remove the daze.


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## Neubert (Apr 11, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> That comment wasn't directed at you specificly.  But someone else felt he didn't feel 'heroic' at epic levels.  I dispute that's the point behind higher levels.  You're saving the world at that point.  Sounds like it should be difficult labor at best.



I suppose it was my comment about being hit on a 2 that does not feel heroic.

As you mention, the party may grow in power and be able to deal with inconveniences more easily at level 30, but the threats to them should also grow evenly in power.
I don't believe the game should be any easier at the higher levels. It may be different tests and tasks you encounter (such as saving the world rather than the village), but I am sure we can all agree that people also play to be challenged.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 12, 2009)

Elric said:


> Nitpick: the level 24 fighter's HP is badly off.




You're right.  But my error was in a direction that, upon correction, only increases my point.



> It's unreasonable to assume a +6 FRW item at level 24




Not at all.  You start getting them at level 22.  By level 24 you have 6 +6 or better items.  And, if the math disparity is as bad as claimed, you're damn right I'll want mine to be a neck-slot!



> ; level bonus is +12, though, so these cancel out.  As a Human with a Shield, he's much better off than most characters for their weakest FRW, so he's hit 80% of the time.  His HP are 153 + Con= 170.  The average DPR as a percent of HP goes down to 9% with these corrections.




9%, is a lot worse than what I had.



> Of course, the Great Flameskull also dazes the fighter for a round 80% of the time.  No more opportunity attacks or immediate interrupt attacks, you grant CA, and you're only going to get a standard action a round (you may have to do a lot of charging, and you're not going to get much out of stances without being able to keep enemies near you).  Your leader?  He can't do a thing to remove the daze.




Of course, in this case the flameskull, in order to weaken the fighter's Defenderness, would have to be exclusively targetting the fighter.

I'll give you fifteen minutes to figure out how this isn't exactly a problem, and may be, in fact, -what you want.-  

Regardless, the daze is a trade-off for the much lower damage outlay.  It'll take three hits from this kid before the fighter even has to consider spending a healing surge.

But the general point still stands.  Getting hit more often is a trade-off for the greater proportion of damage the monsters do.

I'll also agree that certain monsters had their damage dice doubled in order to become threats.  This, of course, shows that Wizards is willing to issue errata to cover problems like the FRW-hit-disparity.  

*They haven't done so.*

What does that tell you?


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## Elric (Apr 12, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> You're right.  But my error was in a direction that, upon correction, only increases my point.




Indeed.  I don't refrain from pointing out your errors when your errors weaken your point.  I'm not a lawyer or debater tasked with advancing a particular side of this argument; rather, I've taken a position based on my judgment of the situation.  There's no value in strengthening my position with false premises, or strategic omissions.



DracoSuave said:


> I'll also agree that certain monsters had their damage dice doubled in order to become threats.  This, of course, shows that Wizards is willing to issue errata to cover problems like the FRW-hit-disparity.
> 
> *They haven't done so.*
> 
> What does that tell you?




Three questions.

Many brutes were very poorly designed, even at levels at which scaling issues for AC and FRW hadn't yet arose (Ogres, at level 8, received errata).  Even counting the errata to the MM to fix some badly designed brutes, I would argue that attacks against FRW do not become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks.  You've avoided answering this question a lot of times.  *1) *What do you think?

It seems quite clear the designers decided to use PH-II epic feats with untyped bonuses to deal with the perceived issue.  It's very hard to come up with an explanation for the Expertise feats that doesn't involve "math fix", and Epic FRW being untyped screams "math fix" as well, particularly in light of Expertise.  However, just because I haven't seen an explanation for the Expertise feats that doesn't involve "math fix" doesn't mean there isn't one.  If there were such an explanation, it would certainly cast doubt on the "huge untyped bonus from feat==math fix" line of reasoning.  *2) *Got any in mind?

As I said before, it's also very hard to find any evidence that FRW attacks were intended to scale better on to-hit and AC attacks were supposed to scale better in other ways to compensate.



> From what I can see the DMG gives no guidelines on scaling AC attacks differently from FRW attacks- there's not a single mention about this in the "creating monsters" section. There's nothing like "at higher levels, make AC attacks use a higher damage table than they would at lower levels given the attack and the monster's role."




*3) *Why would the DMG be completely silent about what would have been a major (intentional) factor in the design of higher level monsters?


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## DracoSuave (Apr 12, 2009)

Elric said:


> Three questions, and one further nitpick.
> 
> Many brutes were very poorly designed, even at levels at which scaling issues for AC and FRW hadn't yet arose (Ogres, at level 8, received errata).  Even counting the errata to the MM to fix some badly designed brutes, I would argue that attacks against FRW do not become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks.  You've avoided answering this question a lot of times.  *1) *What do you think?




You've made a blanket statement, that you -would- argue.  However, in truth, you haven't.  The method for doing so is easy--calculate the threat value of various brutes' attacks over levels.  You've made a statement that can be proven without providing evidence to back this point.  I can't respond to dispute or rebut your statement because, in truth, you haven't presented any premises to dispute/rebut.

You're presenting theories as facts, and that's not the same as presenting facts.  See below.



> It seems quite clear the designers decided to use PH-II epic feats with untyped bonuses to deal with the perceived issue.




It also seems there is no issue, given the only -actual- evidence presented.  Everything else has been an incomplete argument, disputed when real math gets involved.



> It's very hard to come up with an explanation for the Expertise feats that doesn't involve "math fix", and Epic FRW being untyped screams "math fix" as well, particularly in light of Expertise.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## keterys (Apr 12, 2009)

Either they're fixing a math disparity, or they're completely overpowered. Either way, they're junk.

The theory that it's necessary to increase monsters' chance to hit by ~6 against FRW to make damage catch up doesn't hold up when considering status effects. If you're making it more likely to players to be continually dazed and stunned to catch up monster damage, you're addressing the wrong problem. Up the damage of creatures if need be.


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## Elric (Apr 12, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> You've made a blanket statement, that you -would- argue.  However, in truth, you haven't.  The method for doing so is easy--calculate the threat value of various brutes' attacks over levels.  You've made a statement that *can* be proven without providing evidence to back this point.  I can't respond to dispute or rebut your statement because, in truth, you haven't presented any premises to dispute/rebut.




(Did you mean "can't?")

One could do all sorts of calculations to try to get at an answer here.  However, this is a question that it is possible to answer without having done a ton of calculations off of tables in the DMG.  To quote James McMurray, who's on your side of "causing FRW to scale more like AC would be bad", but agrees that "attacks against FRW do not become weaker over time relative to attacks against AC in a way that compensates for the better scaling of FRW attacks"



James McMurray said:


> I'd definitely have to agree. The attacks vs. AC don't deal near enough damage to make up for the conditions imposed by most attacks against FRW. And since their secondary effects are usually a little forced movement and/or knocking prone, there's even less reason to worry about them. It takes at least 4 hits from a creature to deal as much damage as your leader will heal with a minor action, so unless you're surrounded or facing some sort of quesinart, attacks versus AC usually don't matter much.






> Here's a simple explanation.  Those feats are parallels for the equivalent Epic feats from 3.x.  People wanted feats to bolster their stuff, Wizards decided to do so.  There's no evidence presented that it's a 'fix' when Wizards has shown -multiple times- that they're willing to institute fixes with errata.
> 
> Popular demand?  Look at all the Char-Op.  It's -all- based on maximizing to hit, and maximizing defenses.  Char-Op players -are- a signifigant number of players of D&D, and perhaps Wizards wanted to toss them a bone?
> 
> That's the easiest explanation.




WotC is going to have an article addressing the Expertise feats.   I would be very surprised if they gave this rationale for the feats.  That said, if that was truly their rationale when they designed the feats they'd almost surely lie and come up with something more appealing, like "we needed a math fix and didn't want to issue errata"   Still, assuming we take that article at its word, this will be settled in due time.



> So, the effective threat to hps of a single hit goes down as the monster goes up in level.
> 
> So, for the monster's attacks to have equal effectiveness over levels, the chance to hit -must- go up as the monster gains levels.




There's no reason to assume the game is shooting for equal effectiveness for monster attacks in average percentage of PC HP across levels.  In the PH it's certainly not the case that PC damage scales as quickly as monster HP, and unlike monsters who gain on to-hit vs. AC and even more so on FRWs, PCs lose on static to-hit against monster defenses as level increases (this isn't to say that the rate at which the number of rounds per combat increases is necessarily fine- see the threads on grind).  

I think you also missed the thrust of my argument.  Set aside Brutes; they're just one monster type.  FRW attacks scale by 5 better over 29 levels; AC attacks by 2.  Yet the DMG doesn't tell you to construct monsters any differently at level 28 if they attack FRW instead of AC compared to how you'd do it at level 4.  There is nothing like "use higher damage for all attacks against AC than attacks against FRW if you're building a level 20+ monster, since the FRW attacks hit more often compared to AC attacks than they used to." 



> To hit FRW and to hit AC should according to the same page be within 2 points of each other for a monster.  Using light armor as a base (as heavy armor is balanced with light armor in mind) we can see clearly that:
> 
> For cloth wearers, the disparity between AC and Reflex (best save for light armor wearers) is 0 at heroic, 1 at paragon, and 2 at epic.  For leather, it's 2/3/4 and for hide it's 3/4/5.  Everything else is derived from statistics that affect both AC and FRW.




Using a character's strongest FRW lessens the problems that arise.  In particular, if you compared a character's weak FRW you'd end up with a very different conclusion.  

Additionally, the way you've done this with "Cloth/Leather/Hide" armor obscures the fact that level 1 PCs generally have AC 2 or more higher than average FRW.  However, this is a problem relevant from the start, not one intrinsic to the scaling.



> ...*Your 'fix' was already included in the PHB1.  It's called Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, Great Fortitude.*




There are feats that boost AC in the PH as well.  In general, you can get +1 to AC with one feat (+2 if you take Leather Armor Proficiency).  AC is attacked much more than any given FRW.  Is +1 to AC significantly worse than +2 to one FRW in a way that would lead you to conclude that Lightning Reflexes is a "fix", while Armor Specialization is not, or are the FRW bonuses +2 simply as result of AC being more attacked than FRW, so feats that boost FRW should give a larger bonus?  I think it's the latter.



> If these boosts aren't valuable because of poor scaling, then they aren't exactly fixes for the problem, are they?
> 
> You can't have a case where they are logically fixes for the problem and yet, are not valuable -because- of the problem.  This is a logic fail.




I actually edited the part you responded to out of my post before your response was posted because I didn't want to sidetrack the thread.  That said, the PH-II feats are not valuable because of particularly poor scaling; they're valuable because the bonuses are so large.  There was even an entire discussion earlier in this thread about why taking Epic [your weak FRW] alone isn't as valuable because you already get hit on a 2+ and now you might get hit on a 4+ or so (the first two points of the bonus being wasted).

In PH going from +5 heavy armor to +6 is worth an astounding +4 AC, while +5 to +6 neck slot is worth +1 FRW.  That's vastly better for Armor than for a Neck-slot.  Even in AV, you're getting +3 AC compared to +2 Fort/+1 Ref/+1 Will for Scale (only +1 FRW for Plate).  This goes back to my point above: if you think that Lightning Reflexes is a "fix" because +2 to a particular FRW is worth more than +1 AC, then you might weight +4 across FRWs higher than +3 to AC.  

Similarly, in PH to-hit bonuses are even harder to get from feats than boosts to defenses.  This reflects the fact that +1 to-hit  (not even counting the extra damage) is worth more than +1 to each FRW.  For example, you could take a higher level weapon, and one Great Fort/LR/IW feat and end up close to even on FRW defenses, but there's no feat the fighter could take with a higher neck-slot item that would leave him with a comparable to-hit bonus.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 13, 2009)

So, you're claiming that the feats are a fix, and -simultaneously- that the feats fix nothing?

Also, the reason I did brutes was because finding two different monsters with the same role and level at epic tier means you pick brutes.  But putting that aside, every monster I tested had AC and FRW two points away from each other at the same level.  You're claiming that this is not true--can you provide an example where two monsters of the same level and same role do -not- have AC attacks two points above FRW?

I've sat down, did the math.  AC and FRW -are- two apart in my Monster Manual.  You can dispute this only by providing a counter example.  This argument is going -no where- with blanket declarations.  Try some evidence.  Try presenting a case using -facts-.

My theory, in truth, is simple.  The FRW feats are designed to do two things:  1)  Catch weaker FRW defenses up with stronger FRW defenses.  2) There's more feats boosting AC than FRW, but the AC boosting feats are of less magnitude.  This is so that you -can- boost your non-AC defenses, should you choose.  The same people who think AC-boosting feats are mandatory would find these feats valuable for -exactly the same reason-.

Now, regarding your 'FRW is 5 better, AC is 2 better' statement.  As we've already established, the -actual- number is that FRW is 1-3 points off AC.  1-3 averages out to 2.  Which means -any fix- would be in the +1-+3 range, wouldn't it?  I mean, that's the -obvious- answer, fix it by the amount of disparity!

And what feats are in the +1-+3 range?  The paragon boosts.  The Epic feats are more to cover weaknesses you've borne up to that time.

I mean, you're assuming that the math is all based around all characters running around in Hide and/or Plate armor.... perhaps the game wasn't balanced around maximizing your AC all the time?  Perhaps the disparity between FRW and AC is because *when you minmax your AC, your AC is going to be higher than normal!*


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## Elric (Apr 13, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> So, you're claiming that the feats are a fix, and -simultaneously- that the feats fix nothing?




No, my position on this has been quite consistent.  Let me try to summarize my views: The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the PH-II feats are intended to fix the scaling of FRW being so poor in the PH.  Using overpowered epic feats in PH-II to do this is bad.  

Taking Epic [your weakest FRW] before Robust Defenses isn't necessarily that good compared to taking Epic [stronger FRWs] because you're so far behind that +4 won't help as much as you think.  For many characters/opponents you won't get the full benefit of the feat because the monster would have hit you on a 1 if not for the auto-miss rule, pre-feat, so some of the benefit of the +4 from the feat will be lost.  This is even more true of smaller bonuses, like a marginal +1 to your weakest FRW from a higher level neck-slot item at epic, if going by PH-alone.

Robust Defenses improves your weakest FRW without having this problem (since it also provides +4 to your stronger FRWs), and once you take it, chances are that taking Epic [your weakest FRW] is nearly as good as the others Epic FRWs, and could even be better depending on the degree of selective targeting of your weak FRW.  +4 AC is going to be much better than +1 to each FRW, whether your FRWs scale reasonably well or not.  AC is attacked far more than each FRW, so despite the generally worse status conditions that FRW attacks inflict, +1 to one FRW isn't as good as +1 AC.



> Also, the reason I did brutes was because finding two different monsters with the same role and level at epic tier means you pick brutes.  But putting that aside, every monster I tested had AC and FRW two points away from each other at the same level.  You're claiming that this is not true--can you provide an example where two monsters of the same level and same role do -not- have AC attacks two points above FRW?
> 
> I've sat down, did the math.  AC and FRW -are- two apart in my Monster Manual.  You can dispute this only by providing a counter example.  This argument is going -no where- with blanket declarations.  Try some evidence.  Try presenting a case using -facts-.




I never claimed this.  I did claim that PC defenses tend to have AC more than 2 above FRW at level 1.  For example, looking at WotC's KotS pregens gives an average of 3.7 higher AC than FRW at level.  Excluding the two outliers, the Dragonborn Paladin and Human Wizard, leaves this essentially unchanged at a 3.8 average.  This average is made a little higher by only having one striker among these PCs, but including, say, an Elf Archery Ranger and Tiefling Feylock wouldn't substantially alter this general conclusion.



> .Now, regarding your 'FRW is 5 better, AC is 2 better' statement.  As we've already established, the -actual- number is that FRW is 1-3 points off AC.  1-3 averages out to 2.  Which means -any fix- would be in the +1-+3 range, wouldn't it?  I mean, that's the -obvious- answer, fix it by the amount of disparity!




AC goes up by 27 from level 1 to 30.  FRW goes up by an average of 24 from level 1 to 30 (22, 25, 25 in particular if you spread stat bonuses to two stats that affect different FRWs).  Monster to-hit goes up by 29 from level 1 to 30.  That is where I am getting the 'FRW is 5 better and AC is 2 better' statement from.  Monsters gain an average of 5 more to-hit against FRW and 2 more to-hit against AC than the players gain in defensive bonuses.  

It looks like you thought that my scaling argument was based on monster to-hit going up faster for FRW attacks than AC attacks, rather than monster to-hit going up relatively faster for FRW attacks relative to PC defenses than for AC attacks relative to PC defenses.  I spelled this out on page 1 in my first post in the thread.  Your first post was on page 1 of this thread.  I'm not sure why you didn't have this in mind; this is the essential analytical framework that people who say that FRW scales poorly are working with.

Looking at your previous post makes it pretty clear you had this misconception in mind: 


DracoSuave said:


> EDIT:
> 
> I'm going through the Monster Manual, and doing some quick comparisons between equivalent level monsters' FRW attacks and AC attacks.  So far, just looking at Terrasque and Red Dragon, the pattern of 2 off seems to mostly fit.  Comparing Crownwing and Storm Gorgon (both brutes of the same level) also shows a 2 point difference between an attack vs AC and vs FRW.
> 
> It appears that 'these feats are an obvious fix' isn't obvious when looked at with any level of rigor.


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## Bayuer (Apr 13, 2009)

I just saw this previev:
Monster Manual 2 Excerpts: Adamantine Dragon

21 lvl solo soldier
+26 vs. REF
Highest - 7 on die
Middle - 4 on die
Lowest - 2 on die

Now the defender -2 to attack doesn't mean anything, becouse dragon makes 5 attacks and one of them will be targeted into fighter. Now this is nice monster attacking NADs. 
4x 1d12 +8 dmg on hit plus one 2d8 + 8 damage, and ongoing 10 damage (save ends) in turn


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## keterys (Apr 13, 2009)

It's got notable burst damage, too - I mean in true silliness you can have start of combat bomb of frightful presence to stun and get another +2 to attacks, AP for breath, next round AP again and do 8 claws... so 8d12+64+3d12+6+15 or 157.5 damage at 90% hit... or enough to drop most any non-defender, which is pretty decent.

More damage if you just claw, but the fright + breath are cool to use


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## Jhaelen (Apr 13, 2009)

Alright. So I took a step back and tried to look at these issues with a fresh mind.

What is complicating this discussion is that you cannot isolate a single aspect (PC defenses) and make any conclusions about the underlying math of the system.

Some aspects that are relevant to this discussion:
1) The gap between AC and the other defenses
2) The gap between a character's highest and lowest defense
3) The gap between the PC defense progression and the monsters' attack bonus progression

To tackle these issues, I wanted to take a slightly different approach and look at some concrete examples. So I created example characters for all the PHB1 classes using PHB1 races using the standard array (16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10). I then examined their stats at levels 4, 14, and 24 and compared them against sample encounters straight out of the MM1.

For level 4 I used the following encounter:
- 1 human mage
- 2 human bandits
- 2 gravehound zombies
- 3 zombie rotters

For level 14 I used the following encounter:
- 1 githzerai mage
- 1 githzerai zerth
- 4 githzerai cenobites

For level 24 I adapted the encounter template for the flameskull:
- 1 greater flameskull
- 1 eladrin lich
- 2 rakshasa dread knights
(I did this because the greater flameskull has been mentioned as an example before)

I assumed a party of five covering all roles plus a second striker, because I think that's the most common setup. I didn't make any attempt to min-max them, I just did some of the more obvious optimizations.

I've scribbled some 6 pages full of notes but I don't want to bore you with the minor details (and I'm too lazy to type it all up) and just tell you about my findings.

At this point, I'd like to thank DracoSuave for his post #179. What he wrote is similar to my calculations.

Getting back to the different aspects I mentioned above:
1) The average gap between AC and other defenses remains fairly constant across levels. Defenses are on average 3-5 lower than AC.

2) The average gap between highest (non-AC) defense and lowest increases across levels. Depending on how well the selected race fits to the important abilities for a given build the gap starts with a difference of 2-4. This difference increases by 1 with each tier, so at epic level the gap is 4-6.
As DracoSuave already mentioned, this is easily compensated by taking one of the PHB1 paragon feats granting +2 to a defense.

As an aside: Though obvious in hindsight, I found it interesting that the gap will be larger if the race fits well to the build, assuming you use your stat increases to only increase the two most important abilities for your build.
I think for builds with a slight MAD it might be a reasonable variant to use your second stat increase to alternate between two abilities.

3) The average chance for the monsters to hit characters increases across tiers:
At heroic tier: 45% (30-35% to hit AC, 55-60% to hit other defenses)
At paragon tier: 60% (50-55% to hit AC, 65% to hit other defenses)
At epic tier: 65% (45-50% to hit AC, 80% to hit other defenses)

For characters it's the opposite: their average chance to hit drops across tiers:
At heroic tier: 80%
At paragon tier: 60%
At epic tier: 45%

Then I used those numbers to calculate the (normalized) average damage output:

For a monster: 
- 4.5 at heroic levels, 
- 9 at paragon level, and 
- 14 at epic level

For a pc: 
- 9 at heroic levels, 
- 12 at paragon levels, 
- 15 at epic levels

One thing that's worth noting: I didn't include anything but static effects in the calculations for the pcs. I also only used the characters' at-will powers for this.
I did assume, though, that the party's strikers would be able to add their bonus damage on every attack.

Next I compared the monsters' total hit points to the party's total hit points. I added 50% to the party's hit points, the equivalent of two healing surges (without applying any other bonuses).

Total monster hp:
- 223 for the level 4 encounter, 
- 785 for the level 14 encounter, and 
- 1066 for the level 24 encounter.

The level 24 encounter is worth mentioning because both the flameskull and the lich can regenerate hit points, the lich can heal itself once, and the rakshasas have an aura that makes healing surges less effective.

Now I looked at the expected number of rounds these combats would take and decided that at least for the paragon and epic encounters critical hits might be relevant for the calculation (the expected number of rounds is 13 - 14, i.e. there'd be about 6 - 8 crits).

I also recalculated the DPR taking some of the monster abilities into account:
- I assumed area effects would on average hit half of the party
- I added the lich's aura damage
- I took the rakshasa's increased accuracy into account
- I included the effect of the githzerais' trace chance ability

The new DPR numbers:

For a monster: 
- 5 at heroic levels, 
- 9.5 at paragon level, and 
- 15 at epic level

For a pc: 
- 9.5 at heroic levels, 
- 13 at paragon levels, 
- 16.5 at epic levels

The net result, though remains the same: comparing the dpr values the party will win every encounter even if they're using only at-will powers!

This leaves one question open: what about non-numeric affects, like the daze powers that are involved in some of these encounters?

I actually think they don't matter a lot. I'd rather say the odds are stacked in the pcs' favour when you're looking at paragon or even epic tiers:
Pcs start out with fewer or the same number of powers than monsters and quickly overtake them:
- at L4 a pc has at least 2 encounter, 1 daily, 1 utility powers and can use 2-3 item dailys*
- at L14 a pc has at least 4 encounter, 3 daily, 4 utility powers and can use 3-4 item dailys*
- at L24 a pc has at least 4 encounter, 4 daily, 6 utility powers and can use 4-5 item dailys*
*: depending on the number of milestones reached. I think 3-5 combat encounters should be feasible for a party. They'll typically also have at least one skill challenge per day.

This means, the party as a whole can use an average of 3, 6, or even 8 daily powers in every encounter.
Considering some of the very powerful effects that can last for the entire encounter, I have a hard time believing epic parties will have any trouble with level equivalent encounters.
Add the paragon and epic abilities and things look better still! They'll have ways to deny enemy actions and ignore attacks and damage or negate it with healing effects.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I also expect experienced players to be prepared for all kinds of encounters. E.g. they _will_ have ways to deal radiant damage to the lich every round, even if they don't have a divine character in the party (which for a pure PHB1 party is unlikely).

This is something I've seen in my 3E campaign a lot:
When encountering a certain monster type or specific combat tactic the first time, my players may have a hard time. But they immediately realize this, analyze the reasons for their problems and take steps to prevent having these problems ever again:
They'll retrain feats & skills, learn new spells and powers, buy items, and/or take levels in other classes.

In 4E they'll do exactly the same thing and probably be doing fine.

I'd only expect problems if
- an encounter is of a significantly higher level than the party, and/or
- the number of enemies with action-denial abilities is higher than the number of pcs.

Anyway, my conclusion remains the same: the math works.

It just works in different ways than people expect. The guidelines as presented in the DMG1 are somewhat misleading, because they don't give you the whole picture. But wasn't that to be expected, considering the goal of these guidelines? I.e. to present a simple rule-of-thumb which can be used to modify existing monsters and create new ones.

So what's the reason for the PHB2 feats if they aren't a math fix?
Imho, they are a fix for bad or disadvantaged character builds. 

Choosing a MAD build with two abilities that add bonuses to the same defense and min-maxing the character can lead to problems in the epic tier that a player may not have been aware of when creating the character. So the feats are a way to fix those specific problems particular characters may have without the player having to create a new character from scratch.

But they're neither required nor must-have for balanced characters created with a bit of foresight. Players worried about their defenses may of course take them to be hit (slightly) less often, but this is only a perceived problem.

Likewise Weapon Expertise is not required by game math but it _will_ help to take some of the grind factor away that will become noticeable at high levels. Shortening combats will probably mean they're more enjoyable for players. But it will also make epic combats a lot easier. Then again, they'll allow a DM to use more difficult encounters. 

So, all in all, they may have a positive net effect.


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## Elric (Apr 13, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Getting back to the different aspects I mentioned above:
> 1) The average gap between AC and other defenses remains fairly constant across levels. Defenses are on average 3-5 lower than AC.




As has been stated many times, by default over 29 levels PCs lose 2 on AC relative to monster to-hit and lose 4 on their two strong FRWs relative to monster to-hit and 7 on their weak FRW relative to monster to-hit (for an average FRW loss of 5).  So AC should scale better.



> 3) For characters it's the opposite: their average chance to hit drops across tiers:
> At heroic tier: 80%
> At paragon tier: 60%
> At epic tier: 45%




These numbers are much larger than the general trends.  Players don't lose 7 points of to-hit bonus by level 24 compared to level 4.  They only lose 4 to-hit over 29 levels as to-hit goes up 25 while monster defenses go up 29.  You're comparing monsters with different roles and elite/non-elite status, which alters this quite a bit.  AC is essentially constant at 14+level for the average monster in the MM at all three tiers; see http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/229092-lots-statistics-monster-manual.html (indeed, the DMG, in the creating monsters section, has Skirmishers, the baseline combatant in terms of numbers, at AC=level+14).  



> Then I used those numbers to calculate the (normalized) average damage output:
> 
> For a monster:
> - 4.5 at heroic levels,
> ...




The epic level numbers are clearly wrong when compared to each other.  If the lich's aura hits one PC, that's +5 damage per round, across 5 monsters= +1 DPR/monster.  The Rakshasa ability is worth +25 percent points hits if base to hit is 50% (an essentially identical +24.75% at 45% to hit); at 6 attacks across the 2 Rakshasas, this averages 1.5 extra hits, for 11.5 each, which is over 15 extra damage.  Without the lich's aura, we're already at +16.75 damage over 5 monsters, which is at least +3 DPR per monster per round, not the +1 you have listed.  So given all of these easy to spot errors, I tend to doubt your numbers in general.

You also seem to have missed that the Githzerai Cenobite has an at-will attack that stuns.  This is a rather important ability.  In short, this type of analysis with encounters at different tiers is tough to adequately control for other variables with in the best of circumstances, and this isn't a good example of the genre.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 13, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Here's a simple explanation.  Those feats are parallels for the equivalent Epic feats from 3.x.  People wanted feats to bolster their stuff, Wizards decided to do so.  There's *no evidence* presented that it's a 'fix' when Wizards has shown -multiple times- that they're willing to institute fixes with errata.




Err, wrong.

There is one piece of designer evidence that has been presented, but has been totally ignored by people who do not believe that WotC is creating a feat math fix.


WotC stated on multiple occasions before the 4E release that they wanted the sweet spot to work at all levels.

Not just heroic levels, all levels.



> There are certain band of levels where sort of the *math and complexity* of DND is just right. Characters have the right number of options, monsters have the right complexity, *combats last the right number of rounds*, rounds of combat last the right amount of time.
> 
> So what we want to do is find the realities of the game that make those places the sweet spot and replicate that across *the band of levels*.
> 
> YouTube - D&D 4th Edition: Behind the Scenes, Part 1






> We're making all levels of play equally fun and playable.
> 
> YouTube - Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Part 1




PCs do not get hit on a 2 in the heroic tier. PCs do not need a 17 to hit in the heroic tier. It's extremely unlikely that the designers think that getting hit on a 2 is fun. It's extremely unlikely that the designers think that 20+ round encounters are fun.

The sweet spot claims by the designers is solid evidence of designer intent and goes against the claim that there "is no math problem".


They did not want 8 round encounters at low level and 20 round encounters at high level. They said that problems like these caused the lack of sweet spot below level 7 and above level 14 in the 3.5 game.

Listen to the GenCon announcements and interviews to find out designer intent.

This information is straight from the designers.


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## Bayuer (Apr 14, 2009)

@Jhaelen
You made some math. That's nice. But:
1)Compare AC to DEF of PCs and damage that is dealt with both attacks.
Flameskull (24 lvl Artillery):
+28 vs. REF; 2d8+10 dmg and the target is dazed until end of next monster turn.
Highest (36) - 8 on die
Medium (33) - 5 on die
Lowest (29) - 2 on die

Fell Wyvern (24 lvl Skirmisher):
+29 vs. AC; 2d8+10 dmg or 2d6+10 dmg and knock target prone
Plate (without shield) (40) - 11 on die
Hide (without shield) (37) - 8 on die

EDIT: There is also Raksasha Dread Knight on 24 lvl (Soldier)
+29 vs. AC; 1d8 + 7 damage (Rakshasa makes two attack rolls) and she can make 3 attacks if two hit the same target he is dazed (save ends)
Plate (without shield) (40) - 11 on die
Hide (without shield) (37) - 8 on die

When you campare Flameskull attack to Wyvern attack you can see that they are the same but Flameskull gives also an effect! My question is:

Why attacks that give the same amount of damage + effects are fine to you? You can easily see that the gap is too huge to simply say "this what it suppose to be!". Monsters that hit AC are so... useless, becouse they hit chance is lower and they do the same amount of damage. If hitting on 2-5 was what 4E designers have in they minds, why they did AC targeting of monsters attacks on Epic tier? They should just do all attacks target NADs or scall AC the same as NADs. The fact they didn't... Bingo. They just forget about NADs and then PHB2 comes out and we have defense feats to fix this issue.

Even if you will still be saying that this is what it suppose to be (you must just don't see the obvious facts in this thread if so):
2)Why we have PHB2 feats? they are too good! +6 to NADs on Epic? Man. It's huge! So:
a) Feats are broken
b) They fix the math in very bad way

If I haven't seen the Adventurer's Vault masterwork armors fix I can say maybe a) is true. But when they fixed something that was already good (compared to NADs attacks) the obvious thing is that only b) can be correct.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 14, 2009)

Elric said:


> The epic level numbers are clearly wrong when compared to each other.  If the lich's aura hits one PC, that's +5 damage per round, across 5 monsters= +1 DPR/monster.  The Rakshasa ability is worth +25 percent points hits if base to hit is 50% (an essentially identical +24.75% at 45% to hit); at 6 attacks across the 2 Rakshasas, this averages 1.5 extra hits, for 11.5 each, which is over 15 extra damage.  Without the lich's aura, we're already at +16.75 damage over 5 monsters, which is at least +3 DPR per monster per round, not the +1 you have listed.  So given all of these easy to spot errors, I tend to doubt your numbers in general.
> 
> You also seem to have missed that the Githzerai Cenobite has an at-will attack that stuns.  This is a rather important ability.  In short, this type of analysis with encounters at different tiers is tough to adequately control for other variables with in the best of circumstances, and this isn't a good example of the genre.



Thanks for looking over the numbers!

You're right, I did make a couple of mistakes. One of them being that I first added up all damage and then multiplied the whole lot by the average to hit chance. This is obviously wrong if some of the damage doesn't have a miss chance, like the lich's aura.

Regarding the rakshasas, it seems I forgot to include the additional damage I had calculated for the increased accuracy and more frequent crits. When I posted, I didn't use the totals I had calculated before; instead I added up the various damage sources again which gave me smaller numbers.

In my original notes I had a dpr increase of 6.5 but the dpr increase for pcs was higher, as well. I didn't these because I thought I had made an error in the original calculation 

But as mentioned, these numbers won't be completely correct either...

Regarding the stun at wills of the githzerai cenobites:
Yep, I did notice them, but how do you include these in a dpr calculation?


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## Elric (Apr 14, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Regarding the stun at wills of the githzerai cenobites:
> Yep, I did notice them, but how do you include these in a dpr calculation?




I would calculate damage using that power rather than their other at-will since it's much better against most characters than their power that targets AC and does 1d8 extra, but doesn't stun (not sure what you did here). Once I did that, I definitely wouldn't say 



> This leaves one question open: what about non-numeric affects, like the daze powers that are involved in some of these encounters?
> 
> I actually think they don't matter a lot. I'd rather say the odds are stacked in the pcs' favour when you're looking at paragon or even epic tiers:




  At level 14, unless the PCs start uncorking all of their dailies (and they shouldn't have to do this, it's an even level encounter), having four +14 vs. Fort at-will stun attacks among the opposition will be much better than the status conditions the PCs churn out.  This is somewhat mitigated by the fact this is a level 14 encounter, so the Cenobites are lower level and thus less likely to hit than they would be if they were used in a lower level encounter; remove the Zerth and make this a lower level encounter and it should get comparatively tougher for its level.



			
				Bayuer said:
			
		

> When you campare Flameskull attack to Wyvern attack you can see that they are the same but Flameskull gives also an effect! My question is:
> 
> Why attacks that give the same amount of damage + effects are fine to you? You can easily see that the gap is too huge to simply say "this what it suppose to be!". Monsters that hit AC are so... useless, becouse they hit chance is lower and they do the same amount of damage. If hitting on 2-5 was what 4E designers have in they minds, why they did AC targeting of monsters attacks on Epic tier? They should just do all attacks target NADs or scall AC the same as NADs. The fact they didn't... Bingo. They just forget about NADs and then PHB2 comes out and we have defense feats to fix this issue.




This idea is what I've been trying to get at.  FRW attacks scale relatively better in chance to hit than AC attacks, but there's no indication that the effects on a hit are weaker to compensate.  However, I specifically didn't want to make monster comparisons of this sort because monsters of different roles should have different offensive abilities, FRW vs. AC scaling issues aside.  In particular, Artillery, which tends to target FRW more often than Skirmishers, should have stronger attacks (and ranged attacks) to compensate for worse defenses and lower HP.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 14, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Regarding the stun at wills of the githzerai cenobites:
> Yep, I did notice them, but how do you include these in a dpr calculation?




For something like Stun which prevents Actions, you estimate how often they will be used, figure out how often they hit, and then lower the DPR of the PCs by how many rounds they are stunned (based on their chance to get out of stun as well) * the average DPR of the PCs during those rounds.

Conditions like Stun can be estimated. Conditions like Slow, not so much.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 14, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Err, wrong.
> 
> There is one piece of designer evidence that has been presented, but has been totally ignored by people who do not believe that WotC is creating a feat math fix.
> 
> ...




I'm not going to dispute this information at all.  I agree with it.  What I disagree with is the idea that the '50/50' hit rate creates that sweet spot.  In fact, given the damage presented by monsters according to all sources, a 50/50 attack rate would -not- present that sweet spot, and cannot.

I fully agree with the 'sweet spot' theory, and the math shows it *cannot happen with a solid 50/50 attack rate.*  The mistake is thinking that the hit rate must remain constant over all levels.  That is simply -not true- and cannot be true when player resources are constantly improving.  

If they wanted 50/50, then monster damage would scale with healing power (it doesn't), or at very least, with party hp (it doesn't).

Summary:  The 'Sweet Spot' isn't referring to having the same to-hit rate for monsters and players, and insinuating that it does when the very same math uses the term '*math and complexity*.'  Complexity.  That implies that it's not reduced to one number.


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## Bayuer (Apr 14, 2009)

DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Summary: The 'Sweet Spot' isn't referring to having the same to-hit rate for monsters and players, and insinuating that it does when the very same math uses the term 'math and complexity.' Complexity. That implies that it's not reduced to one number.



If this is true, then monsters attacking NADs are much stronger than monsters attacking AC. This makes a situation where "balance" of monsters overall power isn't achieved at all. So if this was a intentional move, then designers should at least mention about this in section about making encounters and XP. They didn't say even one word about monsters hitting NADs being stronger. Why?

And don't looka at NADs attacks as "effects" attacks, becouse they make both and as I posted above, damage of NADs attacks is good and offten NADs attacks place also effects. So what is the sens of making some monsters more strong, withou saying about this and giving them the same XP value?


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## keterys (Apr 14, 2009)

Just so I'm clear... damage being screwed up as too low would justify the attack bonus being too high?

The game being broken in more than one area doesn't justify it being broken in the one being talked about - it being 4 times as easy to land a stun effect on a PC from heroic to epic tier isn't a feature, it's a bug.


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## James McMurray (Apr 14, 2009)

keterys said:


> The game being broken in more than one area doesn't justify it being broken in the one being talked about - it being 4 times as easy to land a stun effect on a PC from heroic to epic tier isn't a feature, it's a bug.




But is it a bug of the hit rate or the stun effect?


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## Bayuer (Apr 14, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> But is it a bug of the hit rate or the stun effect?



Hit rate. When you compare damage dealt by NAD targeting powers and the AC targeting powers you can see that damage is the same, but NAD attacks also gives nasty effects.

I don't see the "feature" of epic play as a one monster makes his at-will stunn/dominate attack and exclude one character from game, so the other have more challanging fight. I think it's ok when some players will lose one turn once couple rounds, but not almost every round.


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## Tellerve (Apr 14, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Yeaaaaah... Well in the case of "worst paladin in the world" they'll obviously want to use a different tactic.
> 
> 
> 
> Those are interesting house rules.  Marks overwrite.




Whaa?  Have you not read the multiple times it is stated that a new Mark supersedes a mark that was already in place?  phb 77 In the Combat Challenge paragraph and then read phb 91 in Divine Challenge power.  

You're the one using house rules letting them stack.


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## keterys (Apr 14, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> But is it a bug of the hit rate or the stun effect?




It is a bug of the hit rate that it hit in the first place. As I stated earlier, it is not a design feature for PCs to be hit on 2s. 

Which is not to say that it's bad to have automatic hit effects, damage shields auras, damage on Miss effects, etc... those are all good. At least if you include major status effects you know what you're doing there 

But the d20 roll has to be meaningful. Much like save DCs in the 40s was bad in 3e (sure, maybe I'll luck out and get the 20 and not fail) as were save DCs in the low teens later (So, my magic weapon triggers and he has to make a DC 13 Will save for it to do anything... I mean, really, this is what makes it special?)

Now, I'm also fine with less stun effects in the game, sure, but there are people who find stun effects preferable and miss instant death effects - so to each their own there.

*sigh* All of these talks are making me think I may have to do an awful lot of math before I go much further on some monster things. Though we do certainly have plenty of monsters already that are all over the place.


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## eprieur (Apr 14, 2009)

They already tell us in the DM guide what the "expected" balance is. When you design defenses AC is always 2 points higher then NAD defenses for most types. Soldiers have AC 4 pts higher then NAD and Brute and Artillery have lower AC equal to their nads.

The basic NAD defense of every monster is lvl +12.

For PCs it is actually more complicated but if you look at monsters again in the DM guide, you see they all have attacks that are 2 points higher for AC then NAD except for controllers who have 1 more atk vs NADS then the other roles.

That's how you should balanced the monster. If you look at the platinum dragon you see exactly that.

A lvl 21 soldier should have +28 atk vs AC and +26 atk vs NADs. (lvl +7).

Then to that, NAD and AC attacks are lowered by 2 if you attack multiple creatures:
*Reduce the attack bonus by 2 for powers that affect multiple creatures.

Which give +26 vs NAD for single target attacks and +24 vs NAD for multiple target attacks for a lvl 21 soldier.

This can only be remotely balanced if PC defenses are somewhat in the range of -2 for NAD vs AC. If this is not the case then balance failed. When you are in the range of NAD being 10 lower then AC it's in the range of broken. 

It's also totally mess with the balance in the monster manual. Like some other people mentionned, any monster that target NAD instead of AC will be greatly overpowered vs their counterpart that target ACs even if the DM guide tells us that they should be somewhat balanced.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 14, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> I'm not going to dispute this information at all.  I agree with it.  What I disagree with is the idea that the '50/50' hit rate creates that sweet spot.  In fact, given the damage presented by monsters according to all sources, a 50/50 attack rate would -not- present that sweet spot, and cannot.




Just because monster damage is out of whack does not indicate anything.

The sweet spot is about fun, not about monster damage.

If monster damage is too low even without adjusting the math and at the same time, PCs have an easy time getting hit, it means that the sweet spot should be pushed closer to 50/50 for the enjoyment of the players and that the monster damage should be increased.

If monster hit points is too high even without adjusting the math and at the same time, PCs have a hard time of hitting, it means that the sweet spot should be pushed closer to 50/50 for the enjoyment of the players and that the monster hit points might not need to be decreased (because PCs are hitting easier).

It does not mean "screw the players". They are going to get the "have to roll a 17 to hit" sweet spot that we give them.

That POV is just plain assine. WotC would lose market share with that POV and therefore, it is obvious why they added the Expertise feat. To fix the math and not tick off their players.



DracoSuave said:


> I fully agree with the 'sweet spot' theory, and the math shows it *cannot happen with a solid 50/50 attack rate.*  The mistake is thinking that the hit rate must remain constant over all levels.  That is simply -not true- and cannot be true when player resources are constantly improving.




What math would that be? I haven't seen any math that illustrates that. I have seen claims that since PCs get more powers, the math should be worse.

But, how is that sweet spot? How is missing on a 16 fun in any way, shape or form?

Nobody said anything about it remaining constant. We are talking about it not going crazy though. +7 is crazy. +2, no big deal.

You claimed that there was no evidence.

Let’s review what evidence we have:

Fact: High level combat tends to take 15 to 20 rounds.
Fact: WotC in the pre-release explicitly state that they do not want long encounters because it is outside the sweet spot.
Fact: Having a -4 to hit or having the monster have a +4 to +7 to hit lengthens the encounter by definition.

Number of rounds of combat was explicitly listed as part of the sweet spot. It doesn’t make sense that +/- 8 rounds of combat is the sweet spot at low level and 15+ rounds of combat is the sweet spot at high level.

This is solid evidence of being out of the sweet spot that you ignore. From your position, 20 rounds encounter ARE the sweet spot. Sorry, but that’s just silly.


Fact: Many if not most players do not have fun with the PC getting hit on a 2.
Fact: WotC added two new feats that can change that so that the PC gets hit on a 6 to 8.

If getting hit on a 2 were in the sweet spot, WotC should not have added these feats. It would just be part of the game. There would have been no need, but evidently WotC saw a need. Not only did they see a need, but they saw a need for +6 more to defenses and +3 more to attacks. +3 and +6 are HUGE mods in a D20 game system.

Why add such imbalanced and large bonuses if there were no need? Doing so without a need would be tantamount to blowing balance out the window. +6??? That’s so huge and unbalancing if the game were balanced to begin with.


Fact: WotC adjusted the heavy armor tables in Adventurer’s Vault and PHB II.
Fact: The math indicates that there is a problem if one does not make an adjustment.

It’s apparent that WotC is making changing to fix math problems. Here is one example. Why would we conclude that the feat changes are not another when what they do is significantly adjust the math by definition if used.



DracoSuave said:


> If they wanted 50/50, then monster damage would scale with healing power (it doesn't), or at very least, with party hp (it doesn't).




One cannot assume this. The general consensus for people who have played high level is that monster damage at high levels is low, monster hit points at high level are high, etc. We cannot make any assumptions about how monster damage should scale with healing power when all indications are that monster damage is screwed up.

Claiming that this is so is the equivalent of claiming that that sweet spot is correct for high level and we have high level players that disagree with this. 20 round high level encounters shouts disagreement with this.

The bottom line appears to be that they screwed up high level and are now fixing it. Just like they screwed up heavy armor paragon level AC and fixed it.



DracoSuave said:


> Summary:  The 'Sweet Spot' isn't referring to having the same to-hit rate for monsters and players, and insinuating that it does when the very same math uses the term '*math and complexity*.'  Complexity.  That implies that it's not reduced to one number.




Obviously there are many factors.

But, it’s also obvious that the math is one of those. They fixed the math for Heavy Armor at Paragon level. Obviously if the math were not a factor, they would not have done that.

They stated that both math and complexity are important. That means not just complexity as you are implying.


And, their very actions (adding the feats and fixing the heavy armor) indicate that a major adjustment is needed.

Not that they wanted PCs that already have good defenses to use two feats and rarely get hit on a given NAD. That's nonsensical.


As a wise man once said: "If it looks like a horse and smells like a horse and sounds like a horse, I'm not going to go looking for a zebra".

Occam's Razor. We take the simplest explanation that fits the evidence, not the complex one that satisfies our personal POV.


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## Jhaelen (Apr 15, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> @Jhaelen
> You made some math. That's nice. But:
> 1)Compare AC to DEF of PCs and damage that is dealt with both attacks.
> Flameskull (24 lvl Artillery):
> ...



Well, the thing is: you're still looking at a single monster in isolation. But this is useless, unless you're proposing the party will always encounter 5 monsters of the same type. Instead I'd propose to look at level-equivalent encounters, preferrably straight from MM1.

Ideally, every encounter will have some monsters that are slightly tougher than average for their level and some that are slightly weaker. If you're averaging across every possible encounter, this will definitely be the case.

In my previous L24 encounter example I simply picked random monsters. Now, I looked through MM1 to look for L24 sample encounters, and look what I found on page 50:
level 24 encounter:
- 1 Dragonborn death knight (L25 elite soldier)
- 1 Great Flameskull
- 1 Fell Wyvern
- 6 Abyssal Ghoul myrmidons

That's pretty perfect, I'd say. So I'm going to use this as my L24 example encounter.

Since my previous method was producing inaccurate results, I've now recalculated the average party DPRs by role. I also decided to ignore any minions since they tend to have lower defenses than standard monsters and will only be relevant for a very short part of the encounter.

Apart from that I used the same basic assumptions as before, i.e. strikers being able to add their bonus damage every time and the controller being able to hit 2 enemies with every attack. The party still consists of one of every role + 1 striker. Everyone only uses basic attacks.

I'll ignore the monster's side for the moment to make sure you agree with the numbers for the Pcs first.

Here's the new results:

L4 (see MM1 p.163):
Average chance to hit: 75%
Leader: 65%
Defender: 70%
Controller: 80%
Striker: 85%

Average DPR of a single PC:
10.36 + 1.065 (crits) = ca. 11.5; that's 57 for a party of five.

Comparing that to the monster hp total of 223 the combat would be over in 5 rounds (this includes 1 round using second wind).


L14 (see MM1 p.131):
Average chance to hit: 65%
Leader: 60%
Defender: 60%
Controller: 70%
Striker: 72.5%

Average DPR of a single PC:
12.4 + 2.0 (crits) = ca. 14.5; that's 72 for a party of five.

Comparing that to the monster hp total of 785 the combat would be over in 12 rounds (this includes 1 round using second wind).


L24 (see MM1 p.50):
Average chance to hit: 52.5%
Leader: 45%
Defender: 45%
Controller: 55%
Striker: 65%

Average DPR of a single PC:
17.24 + 3.4 (crits) = ca. 20.5; so that's 103 for a party of five.

Comparing that to the monster hp total of 874 the combat would be over in 10 rounds (this includes 1 round using second wind).


Let me know if you'd like to know anything else about these numbers before I look at the other side of the equation.

P.S.: To be honest the calculation for the monsters is probably going to be a bit tricky. I'd definitely appreciate some help with these. Since all of the monster stats are in the MM that shouldn't be a problem.


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## keterys (Apr 15, 2009)

You'll probably lose some DPR to folks stunned by cenobites, in the L14. Which is sad, since it's already 12 rounds. Also, all of the gith have iron mind which likely results in several missed attacks.

What is it that you're trying to prove or for which use do you intend that data, Jhaelen? 

I mean, you did already establish that hit chances went down, as expected. I imagine it's not hard to similarly prove that chance to be hit increases, as expected?

Though, hmm, it appears that all of the githzerai actually have low attack bonuses for their level, so that's slightly flawed - 1 or 2 low on the cenobite, 1 low on inner spark on the zerth though the rest are fine, 2 low on the mindmage. Though I guess ignoring cover and concealment maybe makes that up in some way.

That plus all of the gith can attack someone who is dazed or stunned or prone for combat advantage, until all of the cenobites and the mindmage is dead. Man, this gets needlessly complex quickly.


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## Regicide (Apr 15, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Just because monster damage is out of whack does not indicate anything.




  It's not out of whack.  It's in whack.  Their DPS is consistent when you take to hit into account.



KarinsDad said:


> The sweet spot is about fun, not about monster damage.
> 
> If monster damage is too low even without adjusting the math and at the same time, PCs have an easy time getting hit, it means that the sweet spot should be pushed closer to 50/50 for the enjoyment of the players and that the monster damage should be increased.




  You claim 50/50 is a sweet spot and fun.  You're completely wrong.  Getting pounded for 3 rounds for high damage isn't fun.  Getting missed for 3 rounds and taking nothing isn't fun.  50/50 isn't a sweet spot, it isn't fun.  Having wildly unpredictable combats with random death isn't fun.  It's why they fixed criticals from doing a potential double damage, it's why they removed massive damage saves, it's why they dumped save or dies.  50/50 with high damage *IS* *NOT* *FUN*, it's random death.  It is 100% intentional that damage lowers and hit rate increases on players because it sucks if it isn't.

  PC's hitting monsters is a different story.  50/50 can work.  It's not as good as a higher hit rate, I think someone posted some psych tests that show a 66/33 is actually more "fun", but either way it can work.  Besides, players have a lot of options for making it easier to hit the opponent, and if they want to make it very easy to hit, they can use powers and feats that will do it.




KarinsDad said:


> Fact: High level combat tends to take 15 to 20 rounds.




  Nope.  That isn't a fact, nor is everything you said that follows.  HARD combats take longer, regardless of level, easier combats are shorter.  Many high level combats are frequently over in 5 rounds or less.  High level combats can TAKE A LONG TIME because people have 30 power cards in front of them and if they're inexperienced or clueless and they screw around reconsidering every power every round once their turn comes up, but the number of rounds doesn't necessarily increase.



KarinsDad said:


> Fact: Many if not most players do not have fun with the PC getting hit on a 2.




  Wrong.  Utter rubbish.  Players don't like not having control.  Getting hit on a 2 doesn't mean lack of control, falling over dead randomly means lack of control.  Getting hit on a 2 if anything gives MORE control because it's more predictable.  

  If a player doesn't know if ending a turn beside a monster means he'll die or not, THAT isn't fun for them, they have less control over their character as a result.  If the monster rolls 3 hits on 50/50s and does 90 damage and outright kills them because they moved beside it, that sucks.  If it instead rolls 3 hits on a 95/5 and does 45 damage but they live, that doesn't suck.



KarinsDad said:


> It’s apparent that WotC is making changing to fix math problems. Here is one example. Why would we conclude that the feat changes are not another when what they do is significantly adjust the math by definition if used.




  At the cost of feats.  Are we then to assume that WotC feels players have too many feats so they're fixing that math too?  If not then it's not a fix.



KarinsDad said:


> One cannot assume this. The general consensus for people who have played high level is that monster damage at high levels is low, monster hit points at high level are high, etc. We cannot make any assumptions about how monster damage should scale with healing power when all indications are that monster damage is screwed up.




  WotC has to make monsters that don't 1-shot wizards but at the same time aren't completely feeble and can challenge battleragers.  Monster damage can be pretty ugly to a wizard, it's just we as players compare it to the battlerager.  Good, the battlerager is doing it's job.

  Besides, if theres one mantra for 4E it's "let he players win."  There are AT LEAST 2 epic destinies now that situationally pretty much make players unkillable regardless of the damage thrown at them.  Epic play is pretty much off the handle already.  I think people are pretty much going to stop even looking at it soon for comparisons and stop campaigns when they hit 20.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 15, 2009)

Regicide said:


> You claim 50/50 is a sweet spot and fun.  You're completely wrong.




HAHAHA. 

The designers came up with the idea of a sweet spot to make the game fun. Sometimes one hits. Sometimes one misses.

That's fun.

Hitting most of the time, not fun.

Hardlly ever hitting, not fun.

Getting hit most of the time, not fun.

Hardly ever getting hit, not fun.

You seem to be focused on the concept of 50/50. I'm not. 60/40 is ok. 40/60 is ok.

95/5 is not.

And, since you claim I am wrong, I can easily prove it.

Have your monsters hit your PCs 85% of the time. Have your players hit the monsters 15% of the time. See how well the players like getting the snot beat out of them.

Then, turn around on the next encounter and change the odds. See how well the players like winning so easily.

You are so focused on your POV that you are missing the reason the designers wanted a sweet spot across all levels. The entire point of the sweet spot is to not be at an extreme. Not too many rounds per encounter, not too much time per round, hitting not too easy, hitting not too hard, not too many options, not too few.

It's all about balance.

And the designers knew that fixing the math across all levels would be the first step. One needs a good foundation to build a house. The foundation starts with the math.

All well designed systems start this way. Bad math = bad design. Engineering 101. No different for a game system.


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## Nail (Apr 15, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> You seem to be focused on the concept of 50/50. I'm not. 60/40 is ok. 40/60 is ok.
> 
> 95/5 is not.



As an aside:  "Have the designers ever specificly said where they think the FUN hit-miss ratio is?"

I thought I had read 50/50.....Maybe "Races & Classes"?  Dunno.....(EDIT: Skimmed through it, and...nope.)


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## DracoSuave (Apr 15, 2009)

So I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and I put together a character just to see where its defenses lie.

21st level Human Sorcerer/Arcane Wellspring/Demigod.

24 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 26 Charisma.

Relevant feats:
Armor Prof: Leather
Shield Prof: Light
Shield Prof: Heavy
Robust Defenses (to replace Iron Will and Great Fortitude)
Shield Specialization

At level 21, getting +5 gear for neck and armor is trivial.  (Ritual Caster is but one way to do it)

AC 38, Fort 35, Reflex 34, Will 38.

Now, firstly, my best NAD is not lagging anywhere behind my AC.  It is, in fact, -ahead- of the curve.  But that's beside the point.  I went through the list of level 21 monsters to see who -could- hit this guy with a better chance than 10 or better.

*I didn't find one.*

So, I looked at the DMG for inspiration.

Soldiers have the best attack vs NADs at Level+5, with decending attack as follows:  Soldiers L+5, Artillery L+5, Controllers L+4, Lurkers L+3, Skirmishers L+3, and Brutes at L+1.  At level 21, that means a +26 to hit for Soldiers and Artillery, then +25 for 'trollers, +24 for Skirmishers/Lurkers, and +22 for Brutes.

The soldier then, with +26 needs 8 or better to hit according to this.  Compare this to level 1 where the soldier would be needing a +6 to hit a NAD...

However... often that lowest NAD isn't a 14.  It's usually a 10 or at most 11 or 12.  That means that the soldier's geared to hit on a 6+ at level 1!

Moving further, a lot of level 1 monsters actually have a +9 to hit AC, meaning that the only way to get 50/50 parity with them is to have 19 AC or better... which leaves out a -lot- of classes, especially those that aren't sporting a shield, or plate, or AC bonuses from class.

If you're complaining that soldiers are hitting on a 6 or better against your weak defense at epic level, maybe you weren't paying attention to when it had that against you at heroic?

But of course, -all this- is based on the idea that it's your -worst- NAD that is the problem.  But people here are saying it's the -best- NAD that's lagging behind.

Well, this same Soldier's hitting this sorcerer's best NAD (not that soldiers go after Will often) on a 12 or better.


Can some one point out where the system broke here, because I -cannot find it-.

Oh, and yes, this guy WILL be taking the Epic feats, because a 4 point swing at his level is certainly -not- trivial... and neither will his Divine Miracle allowing him to spam Sudden Scales every round for +11 to whatever Defense is hit....

You're worried about characters being autohit, I'm worried about how the heck this guy can go down in the first place!


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## DracoSuave (Apr 15, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> HAHAHA.
> 
> The designers came up with the idea of a sweet spot to make the game fun. Sometimes one hits. Sometimes one misses.
> 
> ...




Now you need to prove:

a)  That the numbers are in fact, 95/5 (they aren't in any character I've build) 

b)  That if the numbers are 95/5, that this isn't the result of -extremely- poor character design.  *No game system can make up for a lack of design-prowess on the part of the player.*  Make a foolproof system and a bigger fool will bring proof it isn't.


----------



## keterys (Apr 15, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> ...




You realize, of course, that you chose the race with the best defense bonus, took a feat that is being pointed at as part of the problem, and went with a heavy shield and specialization build, and demigod, and a +5 basic magic neck when it's actually fairly unlikely to occur, on top of having a base 14 in a tertiary stat which is actually fairly abnormal?

I mean, it's mostly a valid example, but I'm not sure it's any better than the opposing side of the argument using the following example:

21st Dwarf Laser Cleric / whatever / not demigod with a +4 neck (because he only has a 20th, 21st, and 22nd item and at least one of the 21st/22nd is his holy symbol, so he'll hang onto that +4 survival cloak or whatever)

Con 17 / Dex 10 / Wis 24 (Cha 22)

All sorts of non-defense feats, like all the domain ones from divine power, channel divinity, toughness, dwarven durability, etc

AC 33, Fort 27, Ref 24, Will 33

Not exactly a valuable contribution to the discussion, though.

P.S. If it helps, an equal level soldier would need a 5 to hit AC, 2 to hit Fort and Ref, and a 7 to hit Will. An equal level brute would need 9 for AC, 6 for Fort, 3 for Ref, 12 for Will. In the extraordinarily likely event of fighting a creature 3 levels higher, that'd be 2/2/2/4 for the soldier and 6/3/2/9 for the brute.


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## Regicide (Apr 15, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> AC 38, Fort 35, Reflex 34, Will 38.
> 
> Now, firstly, my best NAD is not lagging anywhere behind my AC.  It is, in fact, -ahead- of the curve.  But that's beside the point.  I went through the list of level 21 monsters to see who -could- hit this guy with a better chance than 10 or better.




  Which is why Epic isn't exactly hard.  But people are comparing to L+4.  A naga for instance would be hitting on a 4.  Without the +2 FRW defenses that would be a 2.  And thats on a character thats spent 3? feats on upping AC/reflex defense.  Few other characters are going to have defenses that high... at least without the new feats.


----------



## DracoSuave (Apr 15, 2009)

keterys said:


> You realize, of course, that you chose the race with the best defense bonus, took a feat that is being pointed at as part of the problem, and went with a heavy shield and specialization build, and demigod, and a +5 basic magic neck when it's actually fairly unlikely to occur, on top of having a base 14 in a tertiary stat which is actually fairly abnormal?




Had I gone Dragonborn, the will would be one point off, reflexes as well.  Only 1 point difference each.  Fort would be on target.

Half the stated problem is people specializing in armor and AC.  I did as well... in a different direction, being mindful of my weakness and seeking to mitigate it.  Why would I do a dumb-ass Hide armor build when Shield is easier and gives you more to work with?

+5 basic magic neck is unlikely to occur?!?  By that point you'd have access to 10 +5 or better items, one of which could be a neck.  But then again, what you call 'unlikely to occur' I call 'Ritual Caster'.  A feat only -1- person in the party needs to take.  In this example he's only sporting a +4 weapon (not signifigant to the point), because his attack bonus was pretty high, and one thing he's not hurting for is damage.

A 14 is abnormal?  Given that the only feat with -major- requirements he'd want is Light Blade Mastery, and that's -way- out of reach, he doesn't have to worry about rocking his other attributes.  His primary and secondary for his class is -covered-, so his weaker NAD is the next focus, because -that's smart.-

Robust Defenses is a problem?  That was in instead of Great Fort and Iron Will, which he has -more- than enough feat room to put back in.  Here I thought the problem was the feats that gave untyped bonuses.  But if Robust D is a 'problem', they can be exchanged for GF, IW, or their epic +2 to certain save varients.





> I mean, it's mostly a valid example, but I'm not sure it's any better than the opposing side of the argument using the following example:
> 
> 21st Dwarf Laser Cleric / whatever / not demigod with a +4 neck (because he only has a 20th, 21st, and 22nd item and at least one of the 21st/22nd is his holy symbol, so he'll hang onto that +4 survival cloak or whatever)




Crusader weapon covers your weapon and your holy symbol.  And if your NAD is your achilles heel, you're foolish for ignoring it and going for armor instead.



> Con 17 / Dex 10 / Wis 24 (Cha 22)
> 
> All sorts of non-defense feats, like all the domain ones from divine power, channel divinity, toughness, dwarven durability, etc
> 
> ...




You only get one divinity feat, one toughness, one dwarven durability.

So you have feat-room to get yourself where you need to go.

But then again, you're complaining you have no defense while you're dumping all your defense in exchange for hit points.  What do you need a 17 Con for?  Those extra couple hitpoints don't help you when you have defenses made of paper.  Toughness is -overrated- in a build like this; it's better in a build when you get hit less often.  Put some of those Con points into Strenth, pick up shield feats, get your reflex up to a less terribad level, because -you have the feat room to do it.-

Seriously.  It isn't hard to get good defenses in this game.  You just have to -bother to take them- with the feat room you have.


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## Elric (Apr 15, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> So I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and I put together a character just to see where its defenses lie.




This is a rather revisionist way of looking at it, since one page ago you thought that people were saying FRW scales poorly relative to AC because monster to-hit goes up faster for FRW attacks than for AC attacks, rather than the correct reason, which is that PC FRW defenses go up more slowly than AC.  



> 21st level Human Sorcerer/Arcane Wellspring/Demigod.
> 
> 24 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 26 Charisma.




You cannot achieve this stat array at level 22 as a human while starting with 22-point buy.  In particular, you can’t start with 16,16,14 on 22 points.



> Relevant feats:
> Armor Prof: Leather
> Shield Prof: Light
> Shield Prof: Heavy
> ...




Robust Defenses and Shield Specialization both provide feat bonuses that do not stack, so the Reflex defense calculation is incorrect.



> Now, firstly, my best NAD is not lagging anywhere behind my AC.  It is, in fact, -ahead- of the curve.  But that's beside the point.  I went through the list of level 21 monsters to see who -could- hit this guy with a better chance than 10 or better.
> 
> *I didn't find one.*
> 
> So, I looked at the DMG for inspiration.




I didn’t need to pull out the DMG for inspiration.  I pulled out the MM, looked at the very first monster listed for level 21 in the index, the Ghaele of Winter, which has +25 vs. Reflex on its at-will, which means it hits this guy (even with the invalid stat array and incorrect stacking math) on a 9 or better vs. Reflex.  Done!



> Moving further, a lot of level 1 monsters actually have a +9 to hit AC, meaning that the only way to get 50/50 parity with them is to have 19 AC or better... which leaves out a -lot- of classes, especially those that aren't sporting a shield, or plate, or AC bonuses from class.




Nope!  There’s not a single level 1 monster in the MM that has +9 to hit AC.  To be fair, I also checked Manual of the Planes, Draconomicon and Open Grave and there aren’t any there either.  Furthermore, 50/50 parity against a monster that has +9 to hit AC would require a 20 AC, not a 19 AC.



> Oh, and yes, this guy WILL be taking the Epic feats, because a 4 point swing at his level is certainly -not- trivial... and neither will his Divine Miracle allowing him to spam Sudden Scales every round for +11 to whatever Defense is hit....
> 
> You're worried about characters being autohit, I'm worried about how the heck this guy can go down in the first place!




Divine Miracle leads to characters that are too powerful?  I never could have guessed.  

Gentlemen, this thread has been fun, but I’ve got to bounce.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 15, 2009)

Elric said:


> This is a rather revisionist way of looking at it, since one page ago you thought that people were saying FRW scales poorly relative to AC because monster to-hit goes up faster for FRW attacks than for AC attacks, rather than the correct reason, which is that PC FRW defenses go up more slowly than AC.




Actually I made the claim that FRW was -always- two off from AC, and that your best FRW will be increasing at more or less than the same rate as your AC.  Big world of difference.



> You cannot achieve this stat array at level 22 as a human while starting with 22-point buy.  In particular, you can’t start with 16,16,14 on 22 points.




Me Facepalm there.  Still, build is one reflex off with -1 to reflex, and the feats are still quite doable.  It only cares that you hit 15 Dex at level 11, for reasons I can't honestly remember at this time.



> Robust Defenses and Shield Specialization both provide feat bonuses that do not stack, so the Reflex defense calculation is incorrect.




I didn't stack Robust Defenses and Shield Spec, tho you are right the math is off (because of the Dex thing above, which I admit is my error)

Armor Class	
38 (+10base, +10level, +7ability, +0racial, +1feat, +3armor, +2shield, +4enhancement,+0class)
Fortitude	
35 (+10base, +10level, +7ability, +1racial, +2feat, +0armor, +0shield, +5enhancement,+0class)
Reflex	
33 (+10base, +10level, +2ability, +1racial, +2feat, +1armor, +2shield, +5enhancement, +0class)
Will	
38 (+10base, +10level, +8ability, +1racial, +2feat, +0armor, +0shield, +5enhancement, +2class)

Regardless, yes, his -worst- FRW is 'low', but at level 21, with monsters needing 9 to hit it... let's see... he can still get another +1 from enhancement, -1 from armor tho, but +5 more points from levels, monsters getting +9 means that he'll be, at level 30 (in theory) needing a 5 or better to hit.  Fortunately, even without Demigod he still has his powers to cover his arse.

Meanwhile, the other defenses are -above the curve.-  So while -one defense- of his is low (as it should be), the monsters are playing catch up-  His armor is going to go up another +7 points, his Will and Fort still have +6 room to go.



> I didn’t need to pull out the DMG for inspiration.  I pulled out the MM, looked at the very first monster listed for level 21 in the index, the Ghaele of Winter, which has +25 vs. Reflex on its at-will, which means it hits this guy (even with the invalid stat array and incorrect stacking math) on a 9 or better vs. Reflex.  Done!




True.  But 9 to hit is a far cry from the auto-hit the forum is crying about.



> Nope!  There’s not a single level 1 monster in the MM that has +9 to hit AC.  To be fair, I also checked Manual of the Planes, Draconomicon and Open Grave and there aren’t any there either.  Furthermore, 50/50 parity against a monster that has +9 to hit AC would require a 20 AC, not a 19 AC.




I relent this point, it isn't a level 1 monster that I was thinking of.  It was a level -2- monster with +9 to hit.  (Goblin Sharpshooter).  

Granted, that's still a 19 Ac for parity at level 1... -1 to hit for a level 1 version, or +1 for the level gain for the player.



> Divine Miracle leads to characters that are too powerful?  I never could have guessed.
> 
> Gentlemen, this thread has been fun, but I’ve got to bounce.




Oh god, yes it is mighty.  But it's in the game, and there are other epic destinies that get you to that level of power as well, just through different means.  'So long as you ignore the stuff that's in the game, monsters are too broken' is a flawed argument, ya?


----------



## keterys (Apr 15, 2009)

> +5 basic magic neck is unlikely to occur?!? By that point you'd have access to 10 +5 or better items, one of which could be a neck.



Presumably you mean a party of 5 would have access to 10 - of those 10 items, perhaps 1 or 2 is a +5 neck, so he's got a 1 or 2 in 5 chance? Alternatively, they could effectively disenchant 4 of the 10 items to use enchant item at 21st level (but no earlier) to make a bland +5 magic neck? That seems awfully unlikely to me over someone having ye olde +4 Cloak of Survival, Stormwalker's Cloak, Healer's Brooch, etc.

Again, it's not that your example was invalid. It was just as valid as my example. Nowhere remotely _near_ the median, so not very helpful for the discussion.

And even in that maximized case, a Lvl + 3 soldier still hits Reflex on a 3  Not that it's really possible to stop every instance of such, but it's funny nonetheless.


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## Bayuer (Apr 15, 2009)

[quoteracoSuave]
AC 38, Fort 35, Reflex 34, Will 38.

Now, firstly, my best NAD is not lagging anywhere behind my AC. It is, in fact, -ahead- of the curve. But that's beside the point. I went through the list of level 21 monsters to see who -could- hit this guy with a better chance than 10 or better.[/quote]



			
				Regicide said:
			
		

> Which is why Epic isn't exactly hard. But people are comparing to L+4. A naga for instance would be hitting on a 4. Without the +2 FRW defenses that would be a 2. And thats on a character thats spent 3? feats on upping AC/reflex defense. Few other characters are going to have defenses that high... at least without the new feats.



Firstly you taken Reboust Defense with is one of math fixing feats! Secodnly Shield Spezialization don't stuck. You can't have 16,16,14 as starting array (16,16,13,11,10,8 array), so your stats will be S24 Con13 Dex15 Int10, Wis12, Cha26. Shield Spezialization cost you 2 feats! That's huge. 2/18 feats taken. Why do you thing that Iron Will and any other paragon defense feat isn't fix? You can easily see that you state them as must have for your build... And this is all we talking about. And on 21 lvl you will not have for sure +5 neck item! On 22 lvl we can agree, but not 21lvl. If someone will take it at this level, he must understand that this +1 is very, very needed.

And this is heavy optizmied build! With Demigod and Shield taken (I don't see sorrcerer running with heavy shield and leather armor but this is not important flaw).

And epic isn't hard becouse of that, but becouse too many healing options and option you can take extended rest and you power is crushing in fghts L,L+1.

I did the same character with Character Builder and...:


> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 21
> Human, Sorcerer, Arcane Wellspring, Demigod
> Spell Source: Dragon Magic
> ...



Here is version with +5 neck, AC items:


> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 21
> Human, Sorcerer, Arcane Wellspring, Demigod
> Spell Source: Dragon Magic
> ...



And here with Rebous Defenses and Shield Spezialization:
Dex 15 is prerquiste for Shield Spezialization but since we have retrain option so on 21 lvl we can have 2 epic feats... So:


> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> level 21
> Human, Sorcerer, Arcane Wellspring, Demigod
> Spell Source: Dragon Magic
> ...



This version where you spend 5 feats! 5 feats to make your stats better! WOW! 
21 lvl Soldier have +28 vs. AC; +26 vs. NADs.
Your probably stats: AC: 35 Fort: 32 Reflex: 31 Will: 35
AC on 7, Fort on 6,  Refl on 3, Will on 9. And this is 21 lvl, where gap just starting to show! On 30 level this numbers will be strongly worst:/

And let's see version with feats (+4 magic neck, AC items):
AC: 36 Fort: 34 Reflex: 33 Will: 37
Ac on 9, Fort on 8, Ref on 5, Will 11.

You probably will invest in Epic Ref on 22 lvl. this will make Ref hitted on 9.
Feats spended to achive this: Leather armor, Armor Specialization (or Shield Specialization), Light Shield, Heavy Shield, Reboust Defenses, Epic Reflex - 6 from 18 total feats!
On late epic you will probably take another Epic feat for your FOR so thats 7/18 feats lost...

As you can see Draco, withou Rebust Defense you NADs sucks. you calculated this feat so you think it's needed. And this is what we were previously saying. This feat is must have! Just like Weapon Expertise... So 8/18 feats spended just to make math work. Man. And on 21 lvl gap isn't realy huge. Rebust makes it more solid as I stated before. You best NAD is now abouve averaga is it was on 1 lvl.

Anyway I must agree with Elric. There aren't any new facts in this thread, so there's no more any reason to take it further.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 15, 2009)

keterys said:


> You realize, of course, that you chose the race with the best defense bonus, took a feat that is being pointed at as part of the problem, and went with a heavy shield and specialization build, and demigod, and a +5 basic magic neck when it's actually fairly unlikely to occur, on top of having a base 14 in a tertiary stat which is actually fairly abnormal?




Of course. He is not trying for a median build to be "fair", he's trying for a tricked out one to support his POV.

Elric beat me to pointing out that his starting point buy was too large.

And you pointed out the +5 to defense item.

Something that was not pointed out is that this is level 21. This is the best Epic level for this (along with level 22 where there are no changes).

Let's look back just one level to level 20:


Level 20:

AC 36, Fort 32, Reflex 29, Will 35. No Demigod. +4 item instead of a +5 item. No Shield Specialization. All ability scores one lower. No Robust Defenses for Reflex.

Against AC: Level +3 through Level +7.

Same level creatures hit on a 9 through 13.

Against NADS: Level +1 through Level +5

Same level creatures hit on a 4 through 14.

Average against weakest NAD: Level +4

Same level creatures hit on a 5.


Level 21:

AC 38, Fort 35, Reflex 33, Will 38.

Against AC: Level +3 through Level +7.

Same level creatures hit on a 10 through 14.

Against NADS: Level +1 through Level +5

Same level creatures hit on a 7 through 16.

Average against weakest NAD: Level +4

Same level creatures hit on a 8.

Note: At level 21, the PC is still has Iron Will and Great Fortitude since he had to retrain Shield Specialization and took Robust Defenses, so he has to wait to retrain out IW and GF.


The tricked out PC with as many boosts as possible, especially in his weak Reflex Defense, has a nice range here at level 21 because all of his NADs increased by 3 (or 4) for a single level. His range at level 20, not so good. His range as he goes through Epic again will start to drop.

This assumes that the PC takes Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes and then takes two extra retrains to train them out.

Note: I did not have time to check if Draco used +4 armor or +5 armor. I also did not have time to double check my math.


Do this for level 30 with no PHB II feats and see what you get.


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## Nail (Apr 15, 2009)

As has been pointed out, the turn-over levels for each tier are poor, poor, poor examples for build-testing.  Very poor.  If you do the math across all levels, there's a "saw-tooth" pattern with attacks, defences, etc....with levels 1, 11, and 21 being at the top of each of the saw teeth.

Far better to use mid-tier levels, like 5, 15, and 25.


...and what's with this fixation with 30th level?  Precious few of us will play to that level, and even fewer will stay at that level for any significant amount of gaming time.  Knock it off!


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## KarinsDad (Apr 15, 2009)

Nail said:


> ...and what's with this fixation with 30th level?  Precious few of us will play to that level, and even fewer will stay at that level for any significant amount of gaming time.  Knock it off!




I will get to that level. I WILL!!!!

Dagnabbit. 

Actually, level 29/30 is worse case scenario. The PC has no more offensive/defensive gains at that point (shy of backfilling any +5 magic items to +6).


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## Bayuer (Apr 15, 2009)

Nail said:
			
		

> ...and what's with this fixation with 30th level? Precious few of us will play to that level, and even fewer will stay at that level for any significant amount of gaming time. Knock it off!



I will reach that level and then become god. Then I will return to our realm and make designers of 4E pay for what they done! Bwhahahaha


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## cdrcjsn (Apr 15, 2009)

Wait, who said that monsters should only have a 50/50 chance to hit at higher levels?

PCs have even more ways to heal, often without taking up surges, as they go up in levels.

If anything, monsters should hit MORE often if you want to keep the balance.

And high level combats don't take 10+ rounds (at least not at 18th level).

The only times I've seen that happen was when the encounter was built like it was a 3e encounter (with an EL of 2-4 higher than the party's average level).

Or if you fight a room full of insubstantial controllers that dominate/blind/stun/daze your party...round...after...round.


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## keterys (Apr 15, 2009)

Ah, the Phane. Nothing like an insubstantial elite that stuns, dazes, and weakens (pretty much all at the same time), with a ~3 round duration on the weaken. You want to do damage? Craziness!


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## Jhaelen (Apr 16, 2009)

keterys said:


> What is it that you're trying to prove or for which use do you intend that data, Jhaelen?
> 
> I mean, you did already establish that hit chances went down, as expected. I imagine it's not hard to similarly prove that chance to be hit increases, as expected?



You're right of course. But the numbers are not the much conjured spectre of 'you get hit on a 2' and 'you only hit on a 20'.

I specifically disagree with the OPs conclusions because
- they're based on the DMG guidelines to design monsters
- the calculations don't properly model a standard party in a standard encounter
- the calculations neither take powers, nor terrain, nor tactics into account

Basically, my original position is that calculating to-hit chances and dpr is not a useful tool to decide if encounters in the epic tier are unbalanced. To prove my point I decided to play the OPs game.

Surprisingly, I found, that even when I'm just crunching the numbers, I come to completely different conclusions.



keterys said:


> Though, hmm, it appears that all of the githzerai actually have low attack bonuses for their level, so that's slightly flawed



And that is a perfect example of what I'm criticizing in this argument:
The githzerai are _not_ flawed because they don't exactly match the numbers given in the _guidelines_ for DMs when they want to design their _own_ _new_ monsters. Do you really believe that the numbers in the DMG are the ones the designers used for the MM1 monsters?

If they used them at all, they were only used as a starting point. Then, after eyeballing the results and maybe some playtesting they tweaked the numbers to get the result they wanted.

I also believe the guidelines are simplified to make them easy to use. OF COURSE they don't give you all the minor details required to properly create a balanced monster.

Apart from that: No guidelines can do that because difficult encounters can sometimes turn into a cakewalk if a single specific power is available to the party and successfully used. The opposite can also happen (though less likely, imho).



keterys said:


> That plus all of the gith can attack someone who is dazed or stunned or prone for combat advantage, until all of the cenobites and the mindmage is dead. Man, this gets needlessly complex quickly.



Well, if the githzerai represent a flawed design it's because of their at-will stun ability. But that's a problem with the stun condition and _not_ with flawed math.


Nail said:


> As an aside:  "Have the designers ever specificly said where they think the FUN hit-miss ratio is?"
> 
> I thought I had read 50/50.....Maybe "Races & Classes"?  Dunno.....(EDIT: Skimmed through it, and...nope.)



I don't remember anything of that kind. I do remember a poll on these boards asking what was generally considered a 'good chance' to hit. IIRC, the average was at about 60%.


cdrcjsn said:


> Wait, who said that monsters should only have a 50/50 chance to hit at higher levels?



Well, KarinsDad did.


cdrcjsn said:


> PCs have even more ways to heal, often without taking up surges, as they go up in levels.
> 
> If anything, monsters should hit MORE often if you want to keep the balance.
> 
> ...



And that is exactly the point I'm trying to make and which my calculations so far seem to support.

The math works. It just doesn't work the way many people expected.

KarinsDad asked two interesting questions:
1) Do the increased resources (items, powers, abilities) of pcs make up for the attack/defense disparity?
2) Are epic level combat encounters fun?

Originally, I thought the answer to 1) would be: Yes they do.
After my calculations I'm inclined to say: The increased resources aren't even necessary to make up for the disparity. The math works even without them. So, basically, they're just there to make encounters more fun.

2) I'm not actually sure about this one. Epic level combats ARE on average longer than combats in the heroic tier. Not hitting as often is also probably less fun than hitting often. So, I'm inclined to agree, it might be worth trying to change the numbers so combats become shorter and pcs hit more often.
But these changes have to be offset by something, otherwise things become _way_ too easy.

As a slightly related afterthought, there's one oddity I noticed:
In the epic tier (and probably before that) effects that last for a single turn are actually _worse_ than effects with a duration of (save ends). There's tons of powers, items, and feats that grant extra saves or improve saves.
But there's very few ways to actually negate conditions. The only PHB power I found was the Warlord's Level 22 Utility Power 'Heart of the Titan'.

There are other ways to avoid getting affected by them though:
There are quite a few immediate interrupt powers that can help.
And of course: Gaining the initiative and making sure the monsters don't even get to use their nasty powers.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 16, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Well, KarinsDad did.




Actually, I said that they should be closer to 50/50 than they currently are.

PC AC at first level is typically 14 to 20 without any feats with same level monsters hitting on a 6 to 16. Right in the middle of the chart, slightly on the high side.

PC AC at 30th level is typically 41 to 47 without any feats with same level monsters hitting on a 4 to 14. Slightly on the low side of the chart.

This is good because there are a few ways to bump AC up by a few points (e.g. just taking Leather Armor to replace Cloth takes these to 8 to 16 and 6 to 14), but (and this is the important point) players do not HAVE to bump up their AC with feats if they do not want to and the AC defense is still viable.

So the question becomes, why is a 2 AC drop good and a 4 to 7 NAD drop also good? Or put another way, why are attacks against AC approximately the same curve and NAD ones shifted so significantly?

Ditto for to hit.

Why is it fun to hit a same level foe only on a 15 when the PC used to hit a same level foe on a 12?



Jhaelen said:


> KarinsDad asked two interesting questions:
> 1) Do the increased resources (items, powers, abilities) of pcs make up for the attack/defense disparity?
> 2) Are epic level combat encounters fun?
> 
> ...




1) I do think that the PC's additional abilities do a LOT. The Epic encounters are not that challenging. They are long, but they are not challenging. PCs almost always have some rabbit they can pull out of their hat for any given situation. But with the increased number of hit points at Epic level, it seems reasonable to adjust the PC to hit math in order to drill through monster hit points faster.

2) I think they can be a lot of fun. But, I do think that they are longer than they need be (well out of the sweet spot) and I think a lot of that is because PCs do not hit as often and monsters hit too often.

The bottom line here is that PCs do get so many options at higher levels. My contention is that the monsters should have stronger attacks and slightly more options to compensate for that. Even something as simple as increasing recharge rate would help quite a bit.

I think the math should work right out of the box. I think the new feats are there because the math does not work right out of the box. I think the low number of monster options (to help the DM) and the weak high level monster attacks allow the opposing POV supporters to think it is balanced. I don't think it is.

Like I said before, the foundation should be the math first and then the potency of monster attacks should be determined. Not the other way around.



Jhaelen said:


> As a slightly related afterthought, there's one oddity I noticed:
> In the epic tier (and probably before that) effects that last for a single turn are actually _worse_ than effects with a duration of (save ends). There's tons of powers, items, and feats that grant extra saves or improve saves.
> But there's very few ways to actually negate conditions. The only PHB power I found was the Warlord's Level 22 Utility Power 'Heart of the Titan'.




Not only are they more difficult to get rid of, they are also more difficult to do bookkeeping on. Lose lose.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 16, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> [quoteracoSuave]
> AC 38, Fort 35, Reflex 34, Will 38.



As you can see Draco, withou Rebust Defense you NADs sucks..[/QUOTE]

Without Robust Defense and without the Paragon level Defense feats, you mean.  Yes, without spending feats on your defenses they will be low.  That's a no-brainer.  

One:  You can't really use level 25 or 26 for comparison for broken defenses.  That's the level you get abilities that say, literally 'You cannot die.'  There's no defense more powerful than that.

Do your numbers crunch -that- tidbit in?  That many Epics cannot die?

Without Robust Defenses, I'm still in Iron Will and Great Fortitude, and Shield spec for +2/+2/+1.  I noticed you didn't include those feats in your character build.  At all.  Good job.

I suppose you -could- look at it that I took a lot of feats to boost defense... I look at it that I had a -lot- of feat space that I could -spend- on defense.

Look at it this way... in the build I have I have room for other feats as well to boost whatever side of my character I want.


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## ObsidianCrane (Apr 16, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> The math works. It just doesn't work the way many people expected.



Pretty much 100% right. (Because its not just about raw math but total game interaction.)



Jhaelen said:


> As a slightly related afterthought, there's one oddity I noticed:
> In the epic tier (and probably before that) effects that last for a single turn are actually _worse_ than effects with a duration of (save ends). There's tons of powers, items, and feats that grant extra saves or improve saves.



True at all tiers in my experience. S/E effects are often bigger in effect, but the EoNT effects are far better generally because they always stick.
(Also a string of bad luck with a S/E effect can ruin an encounter for 1 or 2 players, eg being stunned for 4 or 5 rounds. While EoNT effects can be countered by shifting targets etc to spread the effect around.)


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## KarinsDad (Apr 16, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Without Robust Defense and without the Paragon level Defense feats, you mean.  Yes, without spending feats on your defenses they will be low.  That's a no-brainer.




Then why is it not that way for AC?



DracoSuave said:


> One:  You can't really use level 25 or 26 for comparison for broken defenses.  That's the level you get abilities that say, literally 'You cannot die.'  There's no defense more powerful than that.
> 
> Do your numbers crunch -that- tidbit in?  That many Epics cannot die?




Totally non-sequitor to the NADs defense discussion. And yes, Epics can die.



DracoSuave said:


> Without Robust Defenses, I'm still in Iron Will and Great Fortitude, and Shield spec for +2/+2/+1.  I noticed you didn't include those feats in your character build.  At all.  Good job.




I noticed that you did not use a median build, but instead used a slightly tricked out build at the best possible Epic level for your POV. What percentage of PCs have Demigod? What percentage of PCs have a Shield? What percentage of PCs have +5 neck items at level 21? What percentage of PCs can boost all 3 NAD defenses because they can use one stat for AC and Fort, and then use a Shield for AC and Reflex? And, what percentage of PCs have all of these?

And why didn't you pick level 20 where all of those NADs would have been 3 lower?

Effectively what you did was do a build where you could balance all 4 defenses. That's not quite typical.

Not so good job at being objective.

When one wants to investigate balance, one should take a low end build, a median build, and a high end build and see if the system works for them all.



DracoSuave said:


> I suppose you -could- look at it that I took a lot of feats to boost defense... I look at it that I had a -lot- of feat space that I could -spend- on defense.
> 
> Look at it this way... in the build I have I have room for other feats as well to boost whatever side of my character I want.




And that's fine for a PC, but not really that relevant either.

What's relevant is that your example is on the far extreme of average PCs.

Not every 21st level PC has those types of defenses, so your example, while interesting, doesn't illustrate much other than that a PC can be tricked out to have reasonable defenses.

To me, it seemed like you went out of your way to support my POV.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 16, 2009)

If it's possible to push the envelope and be ahead of the curve, and it's possible to do titsall nothing and be behind the curve, then it's possible to go a more median route and be -where you want to be.-

Let's repeat that.

If -more- effort puts you ahead, and -no- effort puts you behind, then -some- effort can put you nicely in the middle.  The sweet-spot.  Where you want to be.

Or are you -honestly- insinuating that it's 'all-or-nothing'?  Just like you're honestly insinuating that Robust Defenses is a math fix while claiming the paragon tier level feats that provide the -same number- aren't?


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## KarinsDad (Apr 16, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Now you need to prove:
> 
> a)  That the numbers are in fact, 95/5 (they aren't in any character I've build)
> 
> b)  That if the numbers are 95/5, that this isn't the result of -extremely- poor character design.  *No game system can make up for a lack of design-prowess on the part of the player.*  Make a foolproof system and a bigger fool will bring proof it isn't.




PC starts with a 12 in an ability score. He doesn't raise it because he is raising two other scores. 12 is not unreasonable.

His ability score at level 30 is 14. He has a +6 item. His defense is 33.

The Tarrasque has a +32 Fort attack (and this is a Brute, Brutes have the worse to hits against NADs).

The Ancient Red Dragon has two +35 Reflex attacks (and a +35 Will attack). Even if the PC took Lightning Reflexes, he would still get hit 95% of the time.


And what if the PC is fighting a higher level foe?


So, I just *proved it*. Same level Epic attacks can hit 95% of the time, let alone higher level Epic attacks.

I'll bet that you will claim that this is extremely poor character design. 


Sure, the PC could average his ability score boosts and up the 14 to an 18 (and lower another defense by 2). He would still get hit 95% of the time with the Paragon feat (+35 vs. 37).

But, this is not an unusual PHB I build. Sure, some people trick out their builds. But, everyone does not do this.


By definition, this PC would NEED the PHB II +4 feat to have a reasonable defense. If the feat is NEEDED and is not in PHB I, then by definition it is a fix.


One other point. Let's look at all of the Epic levels for a Brute (worst to hits vs. NADs) and an Artillery (best to hits vs. NADs) for this 14 ability score PC (assuming he gets a +5 item at level 23 and a +6 item at level 27) and he takes the Paragon +2 feat:

21: 28 75% 95%
22: 29 75% 95%
23: 30 75% 95%
24: 31 75% 95%
25: 31 80% 95%
26: 32 80% 95%
27: 33 80% 95%
28: 34 80% 95%
29: 34 85% 95%
30: 35 85% 95%

Same level foe. Chances of getting hit increase with any higher level foes.

So, it can often be 95%, especially since Epic foes can often get Combat Advantage or be in groups which have other ways to raise to hit.


And yes, not every monster in the MM follows the DMG guidelines 100%. They often drop the to hit, especially for close and area attacks that can hit multiple foes.

Then again, not every encounter is against same level foes. 95% is not that uncommon against the weak NAD.

Note: The assumption here is that the class and/or racial bonuses to the weak NAD is 0.


This wasn't that hard to prove.


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## keterys (Apr 16, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> And that is a perfect example of what I'm criticizing in this argument:
> The githzerai are _not_ flawed because they don't exactly match the numbers given in the _guidelines_ for DMs when they want to design their _own_ _new_ monsters. Do you really believe that the numbers in the DMG are the ones the designers used for the MM1 monsters?




I'm not saying the githzerai are flawed... I'm saying you choosing them as the example combat is flawed. It's an entire group that is behind the average that is generally followed. It's very normal for some to be higher or lower, but it's not helpful for testing to pick an entire group that is lower  The fact that they're going to have combat advantage basically _always_ easily makes up the gap but it's hard to factor into your testing. Similar to why I said DracoSuave's example PC was inherently flawed for testing (and the counterexample I gave). You can't test using outliers and respect the data that much.

I mean, I also suspect that fights average at least n+1 (and possibly higher in some games), as well, so it'd probably be most useful to look at n+1 fights against a party for testing purposes, but really... as I said things are really complex enough.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 16, 2009)

No, but if your outliers are either too good, or too bad, then you have a situation where somewhere in between is 'just right'.  So... the question should not be 'Why is the bad so bad?' or 'Why is the good so good?' but rather 'Where is the middle ground and what can we do to attain it?'

16/16/12 might not be the means to that end.


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## MrBeens (Apr 16, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> PC starts with a 12 in an ability score. He doesn't raise it because he is raising two other scores. 12 is not unreasonable.
> 
> His ability score at level 30 is 14. He has a +6 item. His defense is 33.
> 
> ...




But your guy there with the weak defense has 3 other defenses that would be much better. The system is designed for any given character to have 1 or 2 good defenses one or 2 medium and 1 poor by default.
You are working under the assumption that a character being easily hit on their worst defense is a bad thing.
The new feats are there to give people the OPTION to balance out their defenses if they desire - they are not required.

You guys have been arguing back and forth for 11 pages now, each one "proving beyind a shadow of a doubt that the other one is wrong".
You are both right (in a way) - it just depends on your point of view.

PS I happen to agree with Draco


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## KarinsDad (Apr 16, 2009)

MrBeens said:


> But your guy there with the weak defense has 3 other defenses that would be much better. The system is designed for any given character to have 1 or 2 good defenses one or 2 medium and 1 poor by default.
> You are working under the assumption that a character being easily hit on their worst defense is a bad thing.
> The new feats are there to give people the OPTION to balance out their defenses if they desire - they are not required.
> 
> ...




So, you think a same level 95% chance to hit is ok throughout all of Epic (and even earlier)?

You think that's anywhere NEAR a sweet spot?

You think that a player *who takes a feat to up his defense* should still be hit 95% of the time? You think that's fair for a player who isn't into the math like the people on these boards and just wants to play the game?

I think people on your side of the fence are arguing to argue. How can you think that this is fair to an average player who just wants to play?


Here's how the conversation went:



			
				KarinsDad said:
			
		

> You seem to be focused on the concept of 50/50. I'm not. 60/40 is ok. 40/60 is ok.
> 
> 95/5 is not.
> 
> ...




I wonder if Draco thinks that 95% is ok for a player who took a feat to shore up his weakness.


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## Bayuer (Apr 16, 2009)

Jhaelen said:
			
		

> I specifically disagree with the OPs conclusions because
> - they're based on the DMG guidelines to design monsters
> - the calculations don't properly model a standard party in a standard encounter
> - the calculations neither take powers, nor terrain, nor tactics into account



They based on the DMG guidlines and I used medium monster to this calculations. You see. Skirmisher have almost all of his stats in middle. That's why I used this numbers. Now some monsters are flawed and balanced by designers to be more fun, and some numbers my vary, but it's not -5 to +5 changes! It's -2 to +2 for attacks and it's ok! You find one monster that attack isn't the same as in DMG guide. So what if almost 99% of them are correct?

Ok so give me this? You think that you DPR calculation is showing something? It shows even less, becouse it's not including many factors. The fight is too situational. I just made simple (even baby can do it I think, calculation, nothing realy big) and saw that when levels go higher the chance of hitting NADs compared to hitting AC is drasticly lowered. I just don't buy that this is what designers have in they mind, if this was realy what they intended they change they minds, becouse we have PHB2 feats.

The calculations don't take it into account becouse monsters should always have more benefit from terrain or slighty better than PCs, cover etc. can be maintainded by everyone, monsters to have tactics, powers are temporary and they occasional (unless some players just take every NADs boosting powers with aren't too many). Amazingly there are more powers that boos you AC than NADs... What for if they are good enought!
---
Maybe it's time to sumarize, why I thing math is broken:
1)Average math shows that your NAds, AC and to hit chance is lower than on epic. The gap is huge for NADs specialy.
2)The attacks vs. AC compared to NADs attacks do the same damage, but NADs attack place nasty effects and have very, very easier time to hit than AC attacks.
3)The PHB2 feats came out and they fix the gap my math showed to me. To be realy precize I think paragon +2 feats are alos feat fixes (or at least must have feats).
4)Fight on epic becouse of this math gaps make game longer and grindy.
5)Hitting on 2-5 isn't fun at all! Hitting in response on 15+ too. As KarinsDad said I don't think that this is sweet spot designers were talking about.
6)I saw too many errated thing that should work from beginning. a) The first example are Skill Challanges that even after errata are so bad... I don't know who do the math there, but he just made so many mistakes. b)Adventurers Vault masterwork armors.

About Epic being not difficult. It's the designers fault again that they gave to many healing options and the DMs who thorws n-1, n fights on epic party! With current math I no wonder why, becouse the more compex fights will last toooooo many time. If the math is fixed you could make PCs fight at n+1 fight (as easy) and so one and all will be just fine!

Cheers!


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## keterys (Apr 16, 2009)

For example, a lvl 26 Phane could stand next to the lvl 26 orb wizard, trickster rogue, laser cleric, archer ranger, fey warlock _etc_ all with Fort around 29, 31 with the PHB1 feat, with its +29 close burst that stuns and dazes/weakens on the aftereffect, so it'll also have combat advantage most of the time, and have a 95% chance to stun them every round... and even if they do still have an ability to give out free saves that far into the combat, they'll just be dazed and weakened afterwards... and it can just restun again on its turn. Every turn.

I'm sure that'll be enjoyable to those players  

But, hey they can get the +4 from PH2 to that weak defense to stop the death spiral.

And the fighter with his Fort 38, 40 if he took the feat will probably take the +4 as well. In every single one of the three spots. Cause then it'll need to roll more like a 13/15 to hit him and every other round he can do his job by not being dazed or stunned


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## Nail (Apr 16, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I will get to that level. I WILL!!!!
> 
> Dagnabbit.



I hear ya.



Bayuer said:


> I will reach that level and then become god.




In 3.xe, I know that many of us managed to play through to 20th level...and on into Epic.  It's rare, but it happens.  So...a toast: see you at 30th! <clink glasses>


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## Jhaelen (Apr 16, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Actually, I said that they should be closer to 50/50 than they currently are.



Okay.



KarinsDad said:


> So the question becomes, why is a 2 AC drop good and a 4 to 7 NAD drop also good? Or put another way, why are attacks against AC approximately the same curve and NAD ones shifted so significantly?



For the same reason it's good for monsters, I guess. Your weak NAD(s) will not be attacked in every encounter. Your weak NAD could be zero and you would never notice the effect if it's never attacked by anyone.

When I created my set of sample pcs there's only been one character that actually had a NAD drop of 5: the halfling rogue. For all other race/class combos the NAD drop was at most 4. Simply choosing appropriate combinations will help to alleviate the problem. If the player is sensitive about the problem he will create the character in a way that will minimize his weaknesses.



KarinsDad said:


> The bottom line here is that PCs do get so many options at higher levels. My contention is that the monsters should have stronger attacks and slightly more options to compensate for that. Even something as simple as increasing recharge rate would help quite a bit.



We are actually in agreement here.



KarinsDad said:


> I think the math should work right out of the box. I think the new feats are there because the math does not work right out of the box. I think the low number of monster options (to help the DM) and the weak high level monster attacks allow the opposing POV supporters to think it is balanced. I don't think it is.



And this is where we disagree 


keterys said:


> I'm not saying the githzerai are flawed... I'm saying you choosing them as the example combat is flawed.



Ah, I'm sorry then. If that's what you meant, I'm inclined to agree.







keterys said:


> as I said things are really complex enough.



Indeed!


MrBeens said:


> You guys have been arguing back and forth for 11 pages now, each one "proving beyind a shadow of a doubt that the other one is wrong".
> You are both right (in a way) - it just depends on your point of view.



Maybe. I'm getting a feeling I'm not going to convince anyone no matter what numbers I come up with...


KarinsDad said:


> PC starts with a 12 in an ability score. He doesn't raise it because he is raising two other scores. 12 is not unreasonable.
> 
> His ability score at level 30 is 14. He has a +6 item. His defense is 33.



Again: This is a completely theoretical construct. First: if the character chooses to completely neglect one of his NADS, he _deserves_ to be hit 95% of the time in the end game (if he should ever get there, which I doubt). Extremely low NADs are a direct result of too much min-maxing. If the player decides to put his two weakest ability scores into stats that define one of his defenses and he never increases any of them, whose fault is it that the NAD is low?

That's like complaining that your Fighter never hits after putting a 10 into Strength.

Now, it's true that there are character builds that concentrate on two stats that add to the same defense. This means you've been put at a disadvantage by the build's design and are going to be in trouble if you don't take some measures to increase your other defenses. And that's precisely the reason why there are new feats that increase defenses: To fix certain, disadvantaged builds.


KarinsDad said:


> The Tarrasque has a +32 Fort attack (and this is a Brute, Brutes have the worse to hits against NADs).
> 
> The Ancient Red Dragon has two +35 Reflex attacks (and a +35 Will attack). Even if the PC took Lightning Reflexes, he would still get hit 95% of the time.



The Tarrasque's Fort attack is not an at-will and it can no longer be used when it's bloodied. And what if you're facing the Tarrasque and your weak NAD is Will?

The dragon's Will attack is usable once per encounter. And if you avoid flanking the dragon, it's Reflex attacks aren't at-will either.


KarinsDad said:


> So, I just *proved it*. Same level Epic attacks can hit 95% of the time, let alone higher level Epic attacks.



Well, you proved, that, yes, same level epic attacks _can_ hit 95% of the time, but not that they actually _will_ in a realistic encounter.


KarinsDad said:


> I'll bet that you will claim that this is extremely poor character design.



How did you guess? 

Let me ask you a question: *How do you feel about aura powers that do auto-damage?*
Isn't it incredibly unfair and a sure sign of broken math that they will hit you 100% of the time, no matter how high your defenses are?


KarinsDad said:


> By definition, this PC would NEED the PHB II +4 feat to have a reasonable defense. If the feat is NEEDED and is not in PHB I, then by definition it is a fix.



Define reasonable!
You're also ignoring the effect of powers again. And I won't let the argument count that you may have run out of dailies or picked the wrong-party setup or whatever. You're talking about a level 30 party here! They will _never_ be in a fight against an Ancient Red dragon if they're completely unprepared.


KarinsDad said:


> Note: The assumption here is that the class and/or racial bonuses to the weak NAD is 0.



I noticed


----------



## Jhaelen (Apr 16, 2009)

*takes a deep breath*


Bayuer said:


> They based on the DMG guidlines and I used medium monster to this calculations. You see. Skirmisher have almost all of his stats in middle. That's why I used this numbers.



All right. Take a function with n variables, each of which may range from negative infinity to positive infinity. Obviously choosing a zero for every variable will give you a good idea about the function, since zero is right in the middle of the parameter range, right?


Bayuer said:


> So what if almost 99% of them are correct?



Surely, you don't expect me to take that guess seriously, right?


Bayuer said:


> Ok so give me this? You think that you DPR calculation is showing something? It shows even less, becouse it's not including many factors. The fight is too situational.



Well, actually my calculations include more factors than yours, like actual characters 


Bayuer said:


> I just made simple (even baby can do it I think, calculation, nothing realy big) and saw that when levels go higher the chance of hitting NADs compared to hitting AC is drasticly lowered.



I'll ignore the rudeness for a moment to point out that this is precisely why I don't think your calculations show anything useful: they're simple. Too simple. You simplify a complex problem until it's no longer properly modeled by your numbers.
If I simplify the range of possible colors by assuming that the red, green and blue components of a colour are either zero or one, I get a total of 8 colours. Do you believe that's an accurate representation of the possible colour range?


Bayuer said:


> About Epic being not difficult. It's the designers fault again that they gave to many healing options and the DMs who thorws n-1, n fights on epic party! With current math I no wonder why, becouse the more compex fights will last toooooo many time. If the math is fixed you could make PCs fight at n+1 fight (as easy) and so one and all will be just fine!



Damn those stupid designers! If only they'd hired you to do the math for them! 

I'll be happy to hear about your proposed solution 


keterys said:


> For example, a lvl 26 Phane could stand next to the lvl 26 orb wizard, trickster rogue, laser cleric, archer ranger, fey warlock _etc_ all with Fort around 29, 31 with the PHB1 feat, with its +29 close burst that stuns and dazes/weakens on the aftereffect, so it'll also have combat advantage most of the time, and have a 95% chance to stun them every round... and even if they do still have an ability to give out free saves that far into the combat, they'll just be dazed and weakened afterwards... and it can just restun again on its turn. Every turn.
> 
> I'm sure that'll be enjoyable to those players
> 
> But, hey they can get the +4 from PH2 to that weak defense to stop the death spiral.



Not really, since it would still be a 75% chance to stun them every round (if your assumed 95% chance was accurate, which it doesn't seem to be since none of my eight example characters on level 24 had a defense lower than 31 (32 if human)).


keterys said:


> And the fighter with his Fort 38, 40 if he took the feat will probably take the +4 as well. In every single one of the three spots. Cause then it'll need to roll more like a 13/15 to hit him and every other round he can do his job by not being dazed or stunned



Well, even if the fighter is only hit every other round it would still be a fight that's dragged out, compared to others fights at that level that don't invlove stun powers, right?

Have you checked out the thread about the dracolich?

I think, the problem is the stun condition, not the to-hit chances. (Too) High to-hit chances just exacerbate the problem, they're not the cause.


----------



## keterys (Apr 16, 2009)

Even if the fighter were only dazed and weakened, he's still not able to do his job.

And yes, you can find my posts in the dracolich thread about how I think stun should be mostly stricken from the system 

As for why your 8 characters all had 31+, I have no idea. I can say that a 25th to 26th level character of the several builds I listed will have a Fort of approximately 29-33, and that the Phane will hit them more than 90% of the time and very often 95% of the time. 13 to 15 Con, +0 to +1 class bonus, +0 or +2 feat bonus, +12 to +13 from level, +5 from item. Feel free to give another +1 from race if you want.

Fwiw, it's _not_ min/maxing to spend your stat points in such a way that you end up poor in one defense. It's just an aspect of system design.


----------



## Bayuer (Apr 17, 2009)

Jhaelen said:
			
		

> All right. Take a function with n variables, each of which may range from negative infinity to positive infinity. Obviously choosing a zero for every variable will give you a good idea about the function, since zero is right in the middle of the parameter range, right?



Too many jokes and insults... Ok.
I opened DMG, looked at the guidlines how to make monsters. Even babe can sit here and look at the numbers and tell that Skirmisher stats are in medium range of all stats...
Attack vs. AC (Skirmisher: Level + 5  Brute: Level + 3  Soldier: Level + 7  Lurker: Level + 5  Controller: Level + 5  Artillery: Level + 7). So as you can see the range is from 3 to 7. That's why 5 is correct number to calculate the average to hit bonuses vs. AC for all monsters. This number can vary but they will never be lower than level +3 and higher than level +7. 

Let's look at... well 21 lvl monsters from MM. Compared to DMG average numbers should look like this:
Skirmisher +26 vs. AC; Brute +24 vs. AC, Soldier +28 vs. AC; Lurker +26 vs. AC, Controller +26 vs. AC and Artillery +26 vs. AC

Her's what MM states:
Ghaele of Winter (Artillery) +25 vs. AC (-1 from average)
Larva Mage (Ellite Artillery) +26 vs. AC
Giant Mummy (Brute) +24 vs. AC
Dark Naga (Elite Controller) +24 vs. AC (-2 from average)
Deathpriest Hierophant (Elite Controller) +24 vs. AC (-2 from average)
Tormenting Ghost (have no vs. AC attacks)
Angel of Valor Legionnaire (Minion) - +26 vs. AC
Legion Devil Legionnaire (Minion) +26 vs. AC
Wild Hunt Hound (Skirmisher) +26 vs. AC
Yuan-Ti Anathema (Elite Skirmisher) +26 vs. AC
Fire Titan (Elite Soldier) +26 vs. AC (-2 from average)
Marut Blademaster (Soldier) +27 vs. AC (-1 from average)

As you can see my average math works just fine when I say that most common attack bonus of 21 lvl monsters vs. AC is +26! Ok I will just make you a favor and count the NADs attacks the same way for you.

From DMG this are the average numbers:
Attack vs. other defenses (Skirmisher: Level + 3  Brute: Level + 1  Soldier: Level + 5  Lurker: Level + 3  Controller: Level + 4  Artillery: Level + 5). We take our example on 21 lvl and this is what the average stats should look like:
Skirmisher +24 vs. AC; Brute +22 vs. AC, Soldier +26 vs. AC; Lurker +24 vs. AC, Controller +25 vs. AC and Artillery +26 vs. AC

Her's what MM states:
Ghaele of Winter (Artillery) +25 vs. REF (+1 from average) +23 vs. WILL (close burst; +1 from average)
Larva Mage (Ellite Artillery) +24 vs. WILL (-2 from average) +24 vs. FOR (-2 from average) +26 vs. WILL +24 vs. REF (area attack)
Giant Mummy (Brute) +22 vs. FOR (close burst; +2 from average)
Dark Naga (Elite Controller) +25 vs. WILL (close burst; +2 from average) +26 vs. WILL (close burst; +3 from average)
Deathpriest Hierophant (Elite Controller) +24 vs. WILL (-1 from average) +24 vs. FOR (close burst; +1 from average)
Tormenting Ghost (Controller) +24 vs. REF (-1 from average) +24 vs. WILL (-1 from average) +24 vs. WILL (close burst; +1 from average)
Angel of Valor Legionnaire (Minion) (no NADs attacks)
Legion Devil Legionnaire (Minion) (no NADs attacks)
Wild Hunt Hound (Skirmisher) (no NADs attacks)
Yuan-Ti Anathema (Elite Skirmisher) +24 vs. REF (multiattack power; +2 from average) +26 vs. FOR (close burst; +4 from average) 
Fire Titan (Elite Soldier) +24 vs. REF (-2 from average) +24 vs. REF (close burst)
Marut Blademaster (no NAD attacks)

As you can see my simple math works again. I stated that +24 will be average NAD bonus to attack at this level and... suprisely it is true!

I just found the Ghaele of Winter attack. I will post it here for you:


> Chilling Defiance (standard; at-will) ✦ Cold, Healing
> Close burst 3; targets enemies; automatic hit; the target takes 10 cold damage and is slowed until the end of the ghaele’s next turn. The ghaele of winter regains 2 hit points for each enemy who takes damage from this power.



I hope that will be final answer that hitting on 2 wasn't intended. We already have autohit powers! And don't forget about auras that are nasty and make monsters more threatening! Creating zones by monsters is a fact to.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, actually my calculations include more factors than yours, like actual characters



Actually I made some characters to see how my math works. I will post them again:


> I was wonder what NADs have any given classes. I was bulding characters at 25 lvl, when NADs HIT is at +28 on Average (+30 artillery):
> 
> 
> > ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
> ...






			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> I'll ignore the rudeness for a moment to point out that this is precisely why I don't think your calculations show anything useful: they're simple. Too simple. You simplify a complex problem until it's no longer properly modeled by your numbers.
> If I simplify the range of possible colors by assuming that the red, green and blue components of a colour are either zero or one, I get a total of 8 colours. Do you believe that's an accurate representation of the possible colour range?



Big smile again. I will ask it very polite... If NADs attacks vs. PCs DEF have better chances to hit than AC attacks, do the same amount of damage and offten place nasty effects on PCs this is too simple evidence to you, to be true. Come on. We are not a babies here. If you want talk about complexity ok.
Cover/Concealment -2 to PCs and monsters to attack.
Superior Cove/Total Concealment -5 to attack for PCs and monsters to.
Combat adventage the same. Monsters can get it more offten becouse of nasty effects.
Tactics? Well, PCs will do they best. Why not monsters? They make ambushes, use terrain for they adventage etc.
Powers. Most powers that give bonuses to defenses gives bonuses to AC only... There are very few powers that give bonuses to NADs! Attack penalty powers and giving to hit bonuses powers are incorporeted to special builds and avalible from 1 lvl of play, so this is obvious they have the same impact on game thrue all 30 lvls. Do you want to add something to this? If so make it more clear to me, what complexity I forget in my simple calculatons. You see... If powers will have such a big impact to the math on epic play, we will not have them avalible at lvl 1, but on paragon or epic! Why swordmage have power that give him his warding to other NADs on heroic? Why we have rightous brand at-will of STR cleric that can give +4/+5 to melee hit at first level (and +8 at late epic)? why is  Distrupting Strike on heroic? You see this is why I ignore to powers impact, becouse they have the same impact on heroic like on epic!



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Damn those stupid designers! If only they'd hired you to do the math for them! I'll be happy to hear about your proposed solution .



Please don't be sarcastic. Maybe they will need you as a public relationship guy...
Anyway. There are threads like "Can a player get to many healings" "Solos not threating" "Grind" etc. I didn't take those assumptions from... vacum  Yeah, it's definitly my new favorite word.

And if we have a discussion here why you don't answer to my arguments? You simply can't or what?
Maybe it's time to sumarize, why I think math is broken:
1)Average math shows that your NAds, AC and to hit chance is lower than on epic. The gap is huge for NADs specialy.
2)The attacks vs. AC compared to NADs attacks do the same damage, but NADs attack place nasty effects and have very, very easier time to hit than AC attacks.
3)The PHB2 feats came out and they fix the gap my math showed to me. To be realy precize I think paragon +2 feats are alos feat fixes (or at least must have feats).
4)Fight on epic becouse of this math gaps make game longer and grindy.
5)Hitting on 2-5 isn't fun at all! Hitting in response on 15+ too. As KarinsDad said I don't think that this is sweet spot designers were talking about.
6)I saw too many errated thing that should work from beginning. a) The first example are Skill Challanges that even after errata are so bad... I don't know who do the math there, but he just made so many mistakes. b)Adventurers Vault masterwork armors.
7)The autohit powers already exist! There are auras too and zones in the game. We got plenty of autohit powers already.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 17, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Again: This is a completely theoretical construct. First: if the character chooses to completely neglect one of his NADS, he _deserves_ to be hit 95% of the time in the end game (if he should ever get there, which I doubt). Extremely low NADs are a direct result of too much min-maxing. If the player decides to put his two weakest ability scores into stats that define one of his defenses and he never increases any of them, whose fault is it that the NAD is low?




What does the player do?

He wants to play a Wizard. He needs good Intelligence. The book also tells him that he needs Wisdom and Dexterity. So, he beefs up Wisdom and Dexterity after Intelligence. The book tells him that Eladrin make good Wizards. So, he takes an Eladrin. Oh boy, +1 Will and +2 Will for Wizard. He also put 12 into Constitution because that's hit points baby.

He's not Jhaelen. He does not know the ins and outs of the game system.

He just puts together what looks to be a reasonable Eladrin Wizard. He then bumps Intelligence along with Wisdom and Dexterity because the book told him to do that.

He takes the Paragon level Great Fortitude feat. It doesn't help at all. He is still getting hit all of the time when that Fort is targeted.

So, I ask again. How exactly is this player supposed to get three balanced NADs?

There is only ONE feat in the book and that one does not help significantly. He followed the guidelines in the PHB and still got screwed. He is even more screwed if he doesn't bump Int at every opportunity because of the to hit math problem.

You are sitting here blaming him. I blame the game system. The game COULD have 3 ability score increases every 3 to 4 levels instead of 2. That would help alleviate the issue and there is nothing to indicate that this is unbalanced.

The game system COULD have been designed like any other good system. Work out an incredibly stable system mathematically first, then add the extras instead of the other way around.

And it is easy to see that this was not done. If this had been done, the designers would not have had to fix Heavy Armor.

The designers would not have had to add in ridiculously potent permanent +2 to all 3 defenses, permanent +4 to a single defense, and permanent +3 to hit feats. I cannot even comprehend how people cannot see how mathematically unbalanced these are in a game system that is littered with only permanent +1s and +2s (for a single game element, not 3 defenses simultaneously). To suddenly throw permanent +3s and +4s into the system shouts screw up correction.

I think people are so used to the old 3E concept of +4 here and there (e.g. prone +4) that +3 and +4 do not seem as large as they actually are. Either that, or the power gamers are just having wet dreams over these feats.

4E cut the modifiers in half from 3E, just to get down to +1s and +2s. To suddenly throw in permanent +3s and +4s is a 180 degree turn around in bonus modifier philosophy.

In fact, when one reads of the vast plethora of different ideas and systems that they tried out and later discarded, it is not surprising that they got a mathematical hodgepodge out of it in the end.



Jhaelen said:


> Let me ask you a question: How do you feel about aura powers that do auto-damage?
> Isn't it incredibly unfair and a sure sign of broken math that they will hit you 100% of the time, no matter how high your defenses are?




Aura damage does a lot less damage than attacks.

Aura damage can partially or fully be negated by magical items.

There are ~23 Auras in the MM. There are ~219 Reflex, ~138 Will, and ~184 Fort attacks in the MM.

The weak NAD does not have these advantages to this level. They tend to take 2 to 4 times the amount of damage of an aura with the same monsters, often take a conditional as well, and happen a LOT more often.

An aura is a rare annoyance. A weak NAD attack, especially when the monster concentrates on that PC is a lot more serious and a lot more frequent.

This is an apples and oranges comparison.


----------



## DracoSuave (Apr 17, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> What does the player do?
> 
> He wants to play a Wizard. He needs good Intelligence. The book also tells him that he needs Wisdom and Dexterity. So, he beefs up Wisdom and Dexterity after Intelligence. The book tells him that Eladrin make good Wizards. So, he takes an Eladrin. Oh boy, +1 Will and +2 Will for Wizard. He also put 12 into Constitution because that's hit points baby.




What does he need the Wisdom and Dexterity for?  Let's use a lick of sense here.  He needs Wisdom for Thunderwave/Orb and Dex for Wand.  If he's not in Wand, he needs it for exactly 0 powers.  Wisdom is used on one power, and only needs to be pushed to the limit for one build... a push of 2 squares is -just fine- at heroic.

And then he put 12 into Constitution, because that's defense, but he's decided he doesn't want his actual -defense-.... again.  Cognitive dissonance.  16/14/14 starts him where he needs, no matter what.  16Int/14Wis/14Dex-or-Con.  Done.



> He's not Jhaelen. He does not know the ins and outs of the game system.




He doesn't have to.  It doesn't take meticulous study of the system to understand that you're gonna get attacked and you need to be concerned about getting hit.



> He just puts together what looks to be a reasonable Eladrin Wizard. He then bumps Intelligence along with Wisdom and Dexterity because the book told him to do that.




Shouldn't be a problem.



> He takes the Paragon level Great Fortitude feat. It doesn't help at all. He is still getting hit all of the time when that Fort is targeted.




I'm sure the answer 'If you get hit all the time, take powers that undo that, and position yourself out of dodge' won't satisfy you.  Of course, the feat that grants a bonus vs area/ranged/close attacks will help a -lot-.  There's a certain point where you think to yourself 'I r getting hurt, I need moar defenses.'  And because of retraining, it is -never- too late to address that.

Oh, yeah, Wizards get -multiple- utilities per level as well to choose from too?



> So, I ask again. How exactly is this player supposed to get three balanced NADs?




No one claimed he could or -should- get three balanced NADs.  What is claimed is that it is possible to get your least NAD to a level where it is not completely useless.  And it is.



> There is only ONE feat in the book and that one does not help significantly. He followed the guidelines in the PHB and still got screwed. He is even more screwed if he doesn't bump Int at every opportunity because of the to hit math problem.




I just named another, total 3 point change on his achilles heel.  3 point difference on a NAD is -equivalent to 6 level gains.-

Now watch this.

16/14/14 in three seperate NADs.

Level 4 17/15/14 = +3/+2/+2
Level 8 18/15/15 = +4/+2/+2
Level 11 19/16/16 One booster feat = +4/+5/+3
Level 14 20/17/17 Two booster feat = +5/+5/+5
Level 18 21/18/17 Two booster = +5/+6/+5
Level 21 22/19/19 +2feat = +6/+6/+6
Level 24 23/20/19 " = +6/+7/+6
Level 28 24/20/20 " = +7/+7/+7

I'm in ur character gen balancing ur NADs

Everything else after this is rhetoric.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 17, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> What does he need the Wisdom and Dexterity for?  Let's use a lick of sense here.  He needs Wisdom for Thunderwave/Orb and Dex for Wand.  If he's not in Wand, he needs it for exactly 0 powers.  Wisdom is used on one power, and only needs to be pushed to the limit for one build... a push of 2 squares is -just fine- at heroic.
> 
> And then he put 12 into Constitution, because that's defense, but he's decided he doesn't want his actual -defense-.... again.  Cognitive dissonance.  16/14/14 starts him where he needs, no matter what.  16Int/14Wis/14Dex-or-Con.  Done.




He's not Draco. He's not real familiar with the ins and outs of the game.

He just started playing the game, created his Wand Wizard, and thought he needed the ability scores in the Wizard write up. Int and Dex required as far as he knows. That doesn't leave much for both Con and Wis.

I picked this simple example because out of the box, this player just decided to create a Wand Wizard and he's screwed on a NAD because of it (Fort will be terrible, Will and Reflex will be mediocre).



DracoSuave said:


> I just named another, total 3 point change on his achilles heel.  3 point difference on a NAD is -equivalent to 6 level gains.-
> 
> Now watch this.
> 
> ...




Rhetoric?

Let's look at all of the Epic levels for a Lurker/Skirmisher (second worst to hits vs. NADs), and an Artillery/Solider (best to hits vs. NADs) for this +6 to defenses at level 21 PC for his NADs (assuming he gets a +5 item at level 23 and a +6 item at level 27):

21: 30 75% 85%
22: 31 75% 85%
23: 32 75% 85%
24: 33 75% 85%
25: 33 80% 90%
26: 34 80% 90%
27: 35 80% 90%
28: 36 80% 90%
29: 36 85% 95%
30: 37 85% 95%

Note: I dropped Brute (lowest to hit vs. NADs) since Brutes tend to not have that many attacks versus NADs. Lower the first column by 10% to get Brute percentages.

Granted, the PC's best NAD will be +2 to +3 higher due to class / racial ability score and his second best NAD will be a point or so higher.

This balanced PC of yours has TWO NADs that can get hit 95% of the time, especially if the monster has ways to get other to hit bonuses (like special powers, flank, blind, daze, dominated, prone, restrained, stun, or minions doing Aid Another) or a way to lower the defenses of the PC. Higher level monsters. There are a lot of ways to get the odds to or closer to 95%.

And even the best NAD will get hit in the 70% to 85% range from 5 same level monster roles out of 6 at level 29 and 30 unless he has a racial bonus (or possibly something like a Shield modifier for Reflex) to it. This too can get to 95% with higher level monsters and conditions.

Even a DND Pro like you had a tough time balancing this guy.

Two NADs that are now in this boat, not one. And this is the irony of the situation, he HAD TO TAKE two feats, just to get these percentages as low as he did. Two feats, just so that he is not at 95% with same level monsters. Two feats that for the most part, don't help against higher level monsters.

Hmmmm.


Will Jhaelen still state that this PC is poorly designed now that someone with your POV designed him? Or will he merely blow off such high to hit percentages as "just part of the game"? WotC designed the game this way, so by definition, it MUST be perfect as is.


----------



## keterys (Apr 17, 2009)

Most wizards I've seen arrange to have a 12 in Charisma so they can pick up Spell Focus in paragon, too.

Also most will end up taking orb as a second implement, at which point wisdom is quite important, and a wisdom of 18 or so is always good for spell accuracy. Arcane Reach's 15 Dex requirement also probably catches the eye.

Using a normal array for a wand wizard that suggests something like 16 Int, 14 Dex, 13 Wis, 12 Cha, 11 Con, 10 Str. All depends on whether you use standard array, but it is the rule to use it, and especially for new players it's often done.

So, yeah, that's where a new player who reads what it says for wizards to do and looks at the feat options might end up. Oh boy does its Fort suck, even if you bump it a _lot_.


----------



## Jhaelen (Apr 18, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> He just started playing the game, created his Wand Wizard, and thought he needed the ability scores in the Wizard write up. Int and Dex required as far as he knows. That doesn't leave much for both Con and Wis.



Excellent example because it actually supports my opinion:

The PHB2 feats that boost defenses have been created for this player. As I've already pointed out they're intended as a fix for disadvantaged builds that require two high abilities that add to the same defense.

The existence of the feat is a good thing, because a player who doesn't plan far ahead (which is the default assumption in 4E) might not realize at lower levels, that he neglected one of his defenses so that he would be auto-hit in epic levels.
But about mid-way in the paragon tier, he will have noticed.

P.S.: you mentioned there were items allowing you to ignore aura effects. Could you please point out an example? I'd definitely like to have one of those for my PC (even though you believe they're so rare as to be neglectable).


----------



## Jhaelen (Apr 18, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> I hope that will be final answer that hitting on 2 wasn't intended. We already have autohit powers! And don't forget about auras that are nasty and make monsters more threatening! Creating zones by monsters is a fact to.



*blinks*
I'll start with the easier second comment: I already mentioned auras in my previous post. Yes, they're auto-hit powers, and apparently, nobody is worried about _those_.

About the first comment: Thanks for the example! Now how is this different from a power that (almost) auto-hits a character with a single, particularly low defense?
I'll give you a hint: It isn't auto-hit against characters for which the targeted defense is high.



Bayuer said:


> Actually I made some characters to see how my math works. I will post them again



Thanks, I must have missed those. Do these already include feats?
If they don't, then the lowest defense can (and probably will) actually be 2 higher.
But it's interesting that the the rogue has the lowest defense of all them. Even though I picked a different race/build for my example rogue it was the one with the lowest defense overall.

Now there's just one next step for you to take: Imagine that your example characters are a party of adventurers encountering a mix of monsters in a level-equivalent encounter. Then you have a meaningful example. If you don't think a single encounter is representative, pick several different ones. At level 24 I found 17 different sample encounters in the MM1, there's probably a similar number of example encounters for level 25.


Bayuer said:


> Big smile again. *I will ask it very polite...* If NADs attacks vs. PCs DEF have better chances to hit than AC attacks, do the same amount of damage and offten place nasty effects on PCs this is too simple evidence to you, to be true. Come on. *We are not a babies here.* If you want talk about complexity ok.



Apparently, politeness means something else in your area.

Since I'm sure we all agree that we aren't babies here, you can stop pointing it out in every post. Otherwise, I'll have to assume that you think your position is so weak that you feel unable to defend it without resorting to rudeness.

I'd have to check if attacks vs. NADs are actually more likely to have nasty effects than attacks vs. AC.
But the reason why NAD attacks have a better chance to hit than other attacks should be obvious, since it's the same reason why a PC's attack powers targetting NADs have a higher chance to hit: They're _meant_ to be more accurate.

For the easiest example compare the rogues at will powers 'deft strike' and 'piercing strike'.
Which one does more damage?


Bayuer said:


> Cover/Concealment -2 to PCs and monsters to attack.
> Superior Cove/Total Concealment -5 to attack for PCs and monsters to.
> Combat adventage the same. Monsters can get it more offten becouse of nasty effects.
> Tactics? Well, PCs will do they best. Why not monsters? They make ambushes, use terrain for they adventage etc.



I mostly agree. I disagree, though, that they generally get combat advantage more often.

You don't take one important advantage for the pcs into account:
When a monster drops, it's dead.
When a pc drops, she's dying.
This means she's probably going to be back up on her feet right away (or in the worst case after a couple of rounds).

Monsters may often have the advantage of picking the place where a combat encounter starts. But that doesn't mean the pcs will have to continue fighting on the monsters' terms.
In contrast to 3E, retreating is often a valid and useful tactic in 4E.



Bayuer said:


> Powers. Most powers that give bonuses to defenses gives bonuses to AC only... There are very few powers that give bonuses to NADs! Attack penalty powers and giving to hit bonuses powers are incorporeted to special builds and avalible from 1 lvl of play, so this is obvious they have the same impact on game thrue all 30 lvls. Do you want to add something to this?



Sure!
First: at higher levels you'll find more powers that actually mean your NADs are irrelevant, e.g. immediate reactions.
Second: You'll have _more_ powers available at higher levels. This means you'll be able to have ecnounter-changing daily powers available in _every_ encounter.
Third, many powers grant an advantage based on a character's ability scores. Last time I checked this means the bonus will typically be higher in paragon and epic tiers.


Bayuer said:


> Please don't be sarcastic. Maybe they will need you as a public relationship guy...



 Touche!


Bayuer said:


> Anyway. There are threads like "Can a player get to many healings" "Solos not threating" "Grind" etc.



Yep. Did you actually read them?
The first one is about problems encountered by a DM trying to use only 'meaningful' encounters (i.e. level+4 or higher) which lead to his players picking every conceivable method to improve their healing resources and taking extended rests after every encounter.

The second, well, the second, how is that discussion relevant here? The only relevance I see is that it could be interpreted to mean that solo monsters aren't dangerous even though they have attacks that auto-hit the pcs all the time and inflict nasty conditions on them. Is that what you meant?

Regarding the last: are you referring to the 'Does anyone else feel "the grind"?'. Actually, it contains lots of empiricial evidence that "the grind" is often a home-made problem. Of course it also contains examples that will support your position. I guess this means we're either both right or both wrong, huh?



Bayuer said:


> And if we have a discussion here why you don't answer to my arguments? You simply can't or what?



Well, what arguments are you referring to? The ones that I feel are entirely theoretical and are completely irrelevant in a realistic encounter? Yep, I keep ignoring those.
The arguments that I consider relevant, however, I have already addressed.


Bayuer said:


> Maybe it's time to sumarize, why I think math is broken:
> [...]



Well, you've summarized your points before. If you carefully examine my previous posts you will notice that I disagree with some of them and agree with others. But all in all my conclusion is different from yours.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 18, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Excellent example because it actually supports my opinion:




Uh huh. Right. 



Jhaelen said:


> The PHB2 feats that boost defenses have been created for this player. As I've already pointed out they're intended as a fix for disadvantaged builds that require two high abilities that add to the same defense.




Yes, it is a good thing. It's a good thing that they fixed the NAD math.

I don't like using feats to fix math, but at least they recognized the problem.


But, those feats were not created for just that type of PC, but for all PCs. Take for example the balanced PC (that you conveniently ignored ):

21: 30 75% 85%
22: 31 75% 85%
23: 32 75% 85%
24: 33 75% 85%
25: 33 80% 90%
26: 34 80% 90%
27: 35 80% 90%
28: 36 80% 90%
29: 36 85% 95%
30: 37 85% 95%

Those feats help this type of balanced build as well, especially considering how easily higher level foes hit nearly all of the time against the balanced NADs. Hence, the fact that WotC added them actually supports our POV since the math is broken as per this balanced example (which was not mine). 



Jhaelen said:


> The existence of the feat is a good thing, because a player who doesn't plan far ahead (which is the default assumption in 4E) might not realize at lower levels, that he neglected one of his defenses so that he would be auto-hit in epic levels.




Actually, you have that totally backwards. Before release, the designers stated that the elegance of 4E is that one does not HAVE to plan their PC far ahead.

One can retrain feats and powers and such so that if one does not plan ahead, he is still ok.

This is not the default assumption. Sure, many players do this, but one is not supposed to be forced to do it.



Jhaelen said:


> P.S.: you mentioned there were items allowing you to ignore aura effects. Could you please point out an example? I'd definitely like to have one of those for my PC (even though you believe they're so rare as to be neglectable).




Actually, I did not claim that. We were talking about aura damage.

"Aura damage can partially or fully be negated by magical items."

For example, many auras do necrotic damage or fire damage. Black Iron Armor would protect nicely against these types of aura damage.


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## Old Gumphrey (Apr 18, 2009)

16/14/14? For a wizard? Lame. Sounds made-up to support an argument. So I put 16 int/16 wis/14 dex, progressing to 24/20/20, and that somehow fixes my defense problem at epic levels? No.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 18, 2009)

16/16/14 isn't doable, as noted before.

But, regardless.  Your secondary stat:  Wisdom.  You're not looking for that to be high until epic if you're orbizard anyways.  -2 vs -3 isn't that big a deal at heroic.  So 14 isn't lame.  Regardless, you're not worried about defenses when you're lockdown.  Autohit monsters don't autohit when they're permastunned.  But if you're not going for permastun, there's not a lot of difference between 14 and 16.

Con... Are you trying to tell me +1 to your defenses once per encounter is somehow better than your defenses balanced in -all- encounters?

Dex is the problem child, admittedly.  If your going for a Int/Dex build you're going to suffer in the defensive department no matter what you do.

But for Con and Dex, what are you losing -exactly- by going 14?


Also, to KarinsDad:  Did you forget the part where the advice that tells you where to spend your attributes for a wizard says for a control wizard:  "Putting a good score in Constitution can help you stay alive by increasing your hit points and healing surges, *as well as contributing to your Fortitude defense*," and for war wizard: "Even if you don’t, Constitution increases your hit points, healing surges, a*nd Fortitude defense*."  The advice says:  Hey.  Mind your Fortitude.

But let's look at that final array, 24/20/20 (before racial).

That's, as noted before, +7/+7/+7.  Epic geared out to level 30, that's 7+15+6+10=38.  Solos have a bonus to hit, so they're not really indicative of a normal creature of that level.  Red Dragons are more accurate... they're SOLO, they're -supposed to be-.  

Godforged Collosus is the last non-solo in the book.  +30 vs Reflex, or an 8 to hit.
Earthrage Battlebriar, +30 vs Reflex, an 8 to hit
Atropal, +29 vs reflex and +27 to reflex, an 9 to hit or an 11.

(Granted, elites also have a bonus to hit, but as you can see, it's far from the autohit)

Of course, that's -before- counting your racial/class modifiers.

Granted, yes, the level 30 solo needs 3s to hit you on that -before racial/class- modifiers.  But it's a -solo-.  It doesn't have an aura, and those 'auto hit powers' are not -at-wills-.  It isn't 'hitting you every round with auto hit powers' because it -can't-.  

Let not -facts- get in the way of a good fear and loathing argument mind you.


----------



## Runestar (Apr 18, 2009)

> Con... Are you trying to tell me +1 to your defenses once per encounter is somehow better than your defenses balanced in -all- encounters?




Not entirely unreasonable. It is not really feasible to focus on boosting all 3 NADs evenly (because it just means that your foe will have a fairly easy time hitting you regardless of which NAD it targets), so you may find yourself better off simply by focusing on your 2 key NADs all the way (these 2 are more or less determined by your class' main stats), being resigned to the fact that your weak NAD is a virtual auto-hit from foes, and working to negate the possible side-effects. 

This way, at least attacks targetting your 2 strong NADs will have a very low chance of getting through. 

For example, an orb wizard who has concentrated in int and wis would have good reflex/will defenses. Knowing that he will almost always get hit by any attack targetting fort, he may instead try to mitigate the status effects normally associated with successful attacks, such as stun. 

At epic, he will be getting another +6 to reflex/will from those epic feats. Ironically, he may not even bother with fort at all, if the enemy is still going to hit on a roll of 2 or more.


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## Bayuer (Apr 18, 2009)

Jhaelen said:
			
		

> *blinks*
> I'll start with the easier second comment: I already mentioned auras in my previous post. Yes, they're auto-hit powers, and apparently, nobody is worried about _those_.



No nobody but players who knows the math and rules. As an example my parties playing on epic didn't worry about auras (many healings) and they focues to avoid effects, becouse they were annoying. Not every aura do damage! Someg gives penalties to attacks etc. Anyway this is what makes monsters more challenging! Not ability to easier hit vs. NADs.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> About the first comment: Thanks for the example! Now how is this different from a power that (almost) auto-hits a character with a single, particularly low defense?
> I'll give you a hint: It isn't auto-hit against characters for which the targeted defense is high.



But you forget about something. Even your best NAD will be hitted on 8 at late epic. It is you best NAD that at least should be hitted on 10! Your lowest fall 6-7 behind if they are balances... Both will be hitted on 2. If you will adjust only you primary and secondary defenses then medium will be hitted on 5-6 and lowest on 2. As you can see this isn't balanced as it should be. I understand the logic of flaws but this isn't flaw. It's just to big gap between highest and lowers NADs.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Thanks, I must have missed those. Do these already include feats?
> If they don't, then the lowest defense can (and probably will) actually be 2 higher.
> But it's interesting that the the rogue has the lowest defense of all them. Even though I picked a different race/build for my example rogue it was the one with the lowest defense overall.
> 
> Now there's just one next step for you to take: Imagine that your example characters are a party of adventurers encountering a mix of monsters in a level-equivalent encounter. Then you have a meaningful example. If you don't think a single encounter is representative, pick several different ones. At level 24 I found 17 different sample encounters in the MM1, there's probably a similar number of example encounters for level 25.



There aren't any feats in this build as you can see. Why? Becouse we are talking here that feats fix the math! And if you are saying that this builds should have feats included then you just simple agree with me, that this feats are fixes and must-have feats what is almost the same thing.

I don't have to calculate all possible encounters. I was already playing at epic. I can say that the only threatening fights are on first levels of heroic. Later you have to many power to be killed (but it still can happen). You see I think everybody knows that fights L-1, L and L+1 are to easy for PCs to be taken as an example. This fights aren't to kill PCs. They are for PCs to win them. If you (and other in this thread) are trying to convince others that even this fights should be dangerous they are just not read DMG to good. But now you are trying tho convince me that fights will be more threatening if monsters can hit players easier. It is true. But not the same level monsters!

Let's look at this example. The same level monster hit PC AC at 12+ on die and atack makes 2k6+8 dmg. The same monster targeting his best NAD will hit PC on 10, mediums on 3-5 and do the same amount od dmg + effect (yes I still bring this up, becouse it is so obiovous that there is something wrong with NAD attacks compared to AC attacks and in the same way, with balance of monsters). Now this speaks for itself. Now I want to make the fight more threating. I will give them higher level monster. L+5. AC is hitted on 7. Best NAD on 5 and the middle on 2... What a nonsesne.

If you take feats (Rebous Defenses and Epic feats for your lowest NADs). Higher NAD hitted on 12, medium on 9-11. When i now throw at them L+5 monster it makes sense!
Best NAD hitted on 7 on lowest on 4-6! This is how I make fights more threatening and how DMG descibe this.

Now. This feats fixes are just bad. They are must-have feats. Withut them you are just punch bag etc.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> I'd have to check if attacks vs. NADs are actually more likely to have nasty effects than attacks vs. AC.
> But the reason why NAD attacks have a better chance to hit than other attacks should be obvious, since it's the same reason why a PC's attack powers targetting NADs have a higher chance to hit: They're _meant_ to be more accurate.



It's not the same. PCs have hareder time to hit monsters NADs! (-3 to attack gap on epic). Please go and look to MM and you will see this. This adamantine Dragon from experct is just killing, Phane posted by KarinsDad etc.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Yep. Did you actually read them?



Yes a little. I can say you in my games grind exist, all in my group says that solos are not dangerous and leader is must-have becouse of saves and healing (we don't even need to use Healing Potions) in fights.



			
				Jhaelen said:
			
		

> Well, what arguments are you referring to? The ones that I feel are entirely theoretical and are completely irrelevant in a realistic encounter? Yep, I keep ignoring those.
> The arguments that I consider relevant, however, I have already addressed.
> 
> Well, you've summarized your points before. If you carefully examine my previous posts you will notice that I disagree with some of them and agree with others. But all in all my conclusion is different from yours.



Well maybe you answered them, but in this huge post fights people can just lose what everybody was trying to say. If you be so kind, please respond to all of my points and we can already end this thread.


----------



## Neubert (Apr 18, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> [...] Solos have a bonus to hit, so they're not really indicative of a normal creature of that level. [...] (Granted, elites also have a bonus to hit, but as you can see, it's far from the autohit) [...]



 Actually, I thought that solos and elites had a bonus to hit, but I recently learned that was not the case. In the DMG, "creating monsters" section (p. 185), under creating new elites/solos, there is no mention of changing the to-hit. Of course, the designers haven't always followed their own rules in regards to monsters, so empirical data might show something different, but I didn't see any glaring differences between solos, elites and regular monsters when skimming the MM.


----------



## Bayuer (Apr 18, 2009)

DracoSuave said:
			
		

> 16/16/14 isn't doable, as noted before.
> ...
> But let's look at that final array, 24/20/20 (before racial).



No it isn't. The best you can do before racials is 16,16,13,11,10,8!
The final array will be 24/20/19 (before racial).



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> That's, as noted before, +7/+7/+7. Epic geared out to level 30, that's 7+15+6+10=38. Solos have a bonus to hit, so they're not really indicative of a normal creature of that level. Red Dragons are more accurate... they're SOLO, they're -supposed to be-.



OMG! What a nonsense you are saying here. SOLOS don't have any bonus to attacks! Neither Elites! And you bonuses will be +7/+5/+4 from abiliti scores. Now if you will put here racial bonuses you can make it +7/+6/+5. With Demigod. +7/+7/+6, but this is so, so specific build. It is made to make NADs high, nothing else. Your to hit chance is lower than it should be. You don't have any other stats high! And you can manage this only at 30 level. At lower levels you will not have such a nice stats. Anyway your NADs will be 38, 38, 37. Average monster to hit on 30 lvl vs. NAD is... +33. 5 on die, 5 on die, 4 on die. WOW! When you AC is hitted on 9 (or 11 when you use plate and shiedl).



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Godforged Collosus is the last non-solo in the book. +30 vs Reflex, or an 8 to hit.
> Earthrage Battlebriar, +30 vs Reflex, an 8 to hit
> Atropal, +29 vs reflex and +27 to reflex, an 9 to hit or an 11.




Godforged Collosus is ELITE BRUTE! His average to hit vs. NAD is 2 lower than Skirmishers. And he is 29 level. On 30 level it will have +31 to hit vs. NAD (where +33 is average). Everything is ok here!
Earthrage Battlebriar is 28 lvl ELITE BRUTE! He have +30 vs. REF (trample; should be +29).
Atropal is 28 lvl ELITE BRUTE! +29 vs. REF (at 30 it will be +31).

All axamples you made was for Brutes whos NADs attacks are lowest in game. I can say now that you are not giving AND arguments here just trolling. What is sense of comparing 28 lvl brute with 30 lvl PC! Man.

Let's look at normal monsters in MM, shall we?
Ancient Red Dragon (Level 30 Solo Soldier) +35 vs. REF (to hit is exacly as it is stated ind DMG); +35 vs. REF (close blast 5!; +2 from average - should be +33 with multitarget power)
Now you gave us some evidences here! Alle PCs hitted on 3 (wit close blast 5) on die for... 4d12+10 dmg.
Tarrasque (Level 30 Solo Brute) +33 vs. REF (trample; +2 from average but it makes very little dmg)
All NADs hitted on 5, one one 4.

And this is why I think my calculations works fine. They are average! In middle. I don't need to make examples to prove them. As you can see it is easy to give brutes and say. Many your math is wrong. In respond you have soldier and wow! My math is even better than I was think...


----------



## keterys (Apr 18, 2009)

On a totally different tact... is there anyone who thinks it likely that by 30th, a character who has access to the PH2 feats will *not* have spent 4 of his 16 feats to secure +6 to all 3 of his defenses?


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 18, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Also, to KarinsDad:  Did you forget the part where the advice that tells you where to spend your attributes for a wizard says for a control wizard:  "Putting a good score in Constitution can help you stay alive by increasing your hit points and healing surges, *as well as contributing to your Fortitude defense*," and for war wizard: "Even if you don’t, Constitution increases your hit points, healing surges, a*nd Fortitude defense*."  The advice says:  Hey.  Mind your Fortitude.
> 
> But let's look at that final array, 24/20/20 (before racial).
> 
> That's, as noted before, +7/+7/+7.  Epic geared out to level 30, that's 7+15+6+10=38.  Solos have a bonus to hit, so they're not really indicative of a normal creature of that level.  Red Dragons are more accurate... they're SOLO, they're -supposed to be-.




Solos do not get a bonus to hit.

The reason the Red Dragon is +35 is because it is a Level +5 Soldier. 30+5=35.

So, I was off by 1. Big deal. 90% same level with no bonuses, no conditions, or higher level. It's only same level 95% if the PC is not completely balanced across defenses (which many PCs in actual games are).



DracoSuave said:


> Godforged Collosus is the last non-solo in the book.  +30 vs Reflex, or an 8 to hit.
> Earthrage Battlebriar, +30 vs Reflex, an 8 to hit
> Atropal, +29 vs reflex and +27 to reflex, an 9 to hit or an 11.
> 
> (Granted, elites also have a bonus to hit, but as you can see, it's far from the autohit)




Elites do not get a bonus to hit either.

Godforged Colosus, Earthrage Battlebriar and Atropal are Brutes. They are level +1 to hit. Brutes are the only monster that do not attack NADs reasonable well.

Nice skewing of data though. You compared level 28 and 29 Brutes (the weakest vs. NAD monsters) against the weak NAD of a level 30 PC. 

No wonder you believe as you believe.



DracoSuave said:


> Of course, that's -before- counting your racial/class modifiers.
> 
> Granted, yes, the level 30 solo needs 3s to hit you on that -before racial/class- modifiers.  But it's a -solo-.  It doesn't have an aura, and those 'auto hit powers' are not -at-wills-.  It isn't 'hitting you every round with auto hit powers' because it -can't-.
> 
> Let not -facts- get in the way of a good fear and loathing argument mind you.




Yes, let's not make stuff up to support our POV.


----------



## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

Bayuer said:


> No it isn't. The best you can do before racials is 16,16,13,11,10,8!
> The final array will be 24/20/19 (before racial).




Please pay attention:



DracoSuave said:


> Now watch this.
> 
> 16/14/14 in three seperate NADs.
> 
> ...




_editted, damn I made a math error_

Note.  Balanced NADs.  And they are balanced at the level of the highest NAD.

Argue that if you like, the proof is above.

'But you can't!'

But I did.  Done.  And in a way that is perfectly viable.  



> OMG! What a nonsense you are saying here. SOLOS don't have any bonus to attacks! Neither Elites! And you bonuses will be +7/+5/+4 from abiliti scores.




+7/+7/+6.

[/quote] Now if you will put here racial bonuses you can make it +7/+6/+5. With Demigod. +7/+7/+6, but this is so, so specific build.[/quote]

No, no Demigod necessary.



> It is made to make NADs high, nothing else. Your to hit chance is lower than it should be.




Putting a 16 in your primary stat, +2 from race = 18.  So no.  It is -exactly- where it should be.



> You don't have any other stats high! And you can manage this only at 30 level. At lower levels you will not have such a nice stats.




Prove you need a 16 in your secondary at level 1 before racial adjustments.  You can't.  Because the effect is -secondary.-  Abandon this dogma that your secondary must be tricked to the max.  That is the -real- math problem here.  You are pimping your offense at the expense of your defense.



> Anyway your NADs will be 38, 38, 37. Average monster to hit on 30 lvl vs. NAD is... +33. 5 on die, 5 on die, 4 on die. WOW! When you AC is hitted on 9 (or 11 when you use plate and shiedl).




Again, pay attention.  +7/+7/+6 before racials and class.

And AC isn't hit on 9 if you're taking armor feats.

And comparing average hits of monsters' encounter powers is Fear and Loathing.  They CANNOT HIT YOU EVERY ROUND WITH ENCOUNTER POWERS.



> Godforged Collosus is ELITE BRUTE! His average to hit vs. NAD is 2 lower than Skirmishers. And he is 29 level. On 30 level it will have +31 to hit vs. NAD (where +33 is average). Everything is ok here!
> Earthrage Battlebriar is 28 lvl ELITE BRUTE! He have +30 vs. REF (trample; should be +29).
> Atropal is 28 lvl ELITE BRUTE! +29 vs. REF (at 30 it will be +31).




Well, find some level 30 non-solo monsters in the MM.  Do it.  YOU CANNOT.



> All axamples you made was for Brutes whos NADs attacks are lowest in game. I can say now that you are not giving AND arguments here just trolling. What is sense of comparing 28 lvl brute with 30 lvl PC! Man.




Good point.  I should use the normal soldiers at level 30.  How many are there?  Zero?  Good point indeed.



> Let's look at normal monsters in MM, shall we?
> Ancient Red Dragon (Level 30 Solo Soldier) +35 vs. REF (to hit is exacly as it is stated ind DMG); +35 vs. REF (close blast 5!; +2 from average - should be +33 with multitarget power)
> Now you gave us some evidences here! Alle PCs hitted on 3 (wit close blast 5) on die for... 4d12+10 dmg.
> Tarrasque (Level 30 Solo Brute) +33 vs. REF (trample; +2 from average but it makes very little dmg)
> All NADs hitted on 5, one one 4.




Solos are not Normal monsters.  They are solos.  Who's making numbers here?  And those are with encounter powers.



> And this is why I think my calculations works fine. They are average! In middle. I don't need to make examples to prove them. As you can see it is easy to give brutes and say. Many your math is wrong. In respond you have soldier and wow! My math is even better than I was think...




Well, show me the ability of those solos to hit your NADS every round at will.  You can't.  Because they don't have at-wills like that.

But that's okay.  We can -pretend- their non-at-will powers are launched every round at will if it makes you happy.

I won't.

I don't dispute the idea that they included certain feats as math fixes to balance the NADs, not one bit.  I call those math fixes 'Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes.'  I suspect they originally planned for characters to balance out three attributes, not merely two.  But char-op monkeys like to push their offense to the max, and so the 'max two atts' meme caught hold.  Now, the result of that is you have one NAD that will always be a complete achilles heel.  The cost of pure offense is a weakness.  

But the thing is, you can remove that achilles heel without sacrificing your ability to hit.  The only thing you sacrifice is your secondary effects.  For a sorcerer, for example, do you -really- lose out by not going so heavily into only one of Strength or Dexterity?  It's at most 2 points of damage at levels where your at-wills deal a _minimum_ of 31 damage.  A wizard's saves for one monster/encounter are at -9 rather than -11.  An avenger deals 10 damage rather than 12 from his Censure.  

It -truly- is NOT a huge difference, but the return is being able to bring up defense against -every- monster you fight until you get to that final battle against the really big bad who is five levels higher than you and will own you -anyways.-

You -can- balance your NADs out, and with negligible loss to your utility.  In fact, your utility might increase because the -options- you gain for powers increase.


----------



## KarinsDad (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> .
> _editted, damn I made a math error_
> 
> Note.  Balanced NADs.  And they are balanced at the level of the highest NAD.
> ...




Yes, you balanced your NADs. 


And with racial ability scores adds, that could be +9/+8/+7 at level 28 and +9/+8/+9 with class bonuses.

So now, the weak NAD can get hit ~75% to ~85% of the time and the other two NADs can get hit ~70% to ~80% of the time after using two feats by same level foes at levels 29 and 30 and more often by higher level foes and/or foes that add conditions to the PCs.


One very specific build in order to get the weak NAD close to the stronger NADs and all three are now getting smacked the vast majority of the time instead of just one.


----------



## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Yes, you balanced your NADs.
> 
> 
> And with racial ability scores adds, that could be +9/+8/+7 at level 28 and +9/+8/+9 with class bonuses.




Or +10/whatever/whatever. 



> So now, the weak NAD can get hit ~75% to ~85% of the time and the other two NADs can get hit ~70% to ~80% of the time after using two feats by same level foes at levels 29 and 30 and more often by higher level foes and/or foes that add conditions to the PCs.




Again, FAL.  NAD-targetting at-wills don't exist for these level 30 monsters.  If my guy gets auto-hit by a 1/encounter power, he can afford his auto-avoid for that same power.



> One very specific build in order to get the weak NAD close to the stronger NADs and all three are now getting smacked the vast majority of the time instead of just one.




The irony of this statement is that the primary stat is an 18 after racials.  Short of putting a pre-racial 18 in that stat, you *cannot get a higher contribution from your ability scores.*  Which means you're not gimping it... you're doing what you're expected to do.  So, your primary is -exactly where it should be.-  And your secondaries are -where your primary is.-  

Compare the alternative:  16/16/12 which ends up with 24/24/14, or +7/+7/+2.

You've been complaining the problem is that the game requires you to take that +2.  I've given you a solution that changes that +2 to a +6, without sacrificing either of the +7's.  It's -really that simple.-

+7/+7/+6 vs +7/+7/+2.

So, what has been sacrificed, -exactly-?


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## KarinsDad (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Solos are not Normal monsters. They are solos. Who's making numbers here? And those are with encounter powers.




This is a total copout on your part.

Solos have to face 5 PCs at once. They are a perfectly viable creature that gets faced and they have no extra bonus to hit vs. NADs.

They aren't somehow special.



DracoSuave said:


> Well, show me the ability of those solos to hit your NADS every round at will.  You can't.  Because they don't have at-wills like that.
> 
> But that's okay.  We can -pretend- their non-at-will powers are launched every round at will if it makes you happy.




You're not serious, are you?

About half of the solos in the MM have some form of At Will vs. NAD attack.

Beholders, Berbalang, Blue Dragons, Green Dragons, Gibbering Orb, Primordial Naga, Umber Hulks.

And there are other solos that have At Wills versus NADs under common circumstances like a foe is bloodied or a foe is attacking in melee.

And some of these At Will vs. NAD attacks are minor actions.

You really should do your homework before posting.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

There are two monsters at level 30.  Red Dragon.  Terrasque.  I counted.  Twice.

None of them have at-wills vs. Nads.  I counted.  Twice.

Half the Solos in the game aren't level 30.  The other half are also not level 30.

In fact, there's a general trail off of monsters at higher levels, you'll notice.

But you haven't answered the main question.

*What have you sacrificed in your defenses to get +7/+7/+6?*  Two feat slots.  That's it.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Again, FAL.  NAD-targetting at-wills don't exist for these level 30 monsters.  If my guy gets auto-hit by a 1/encounter power, he can afford his auto-avoid for that same power.




No?

Level 31 Nefermandias
Level 26 Rotvine Defiler
Level 27 Cindergrove Spirit
Level 26 Acerak has multiple
Level 31 Kyuss
Level 29 Osterneth has multiple
Level 35 Vecna
Level 25 Aspect of Vecna
Level 28 Dispater
Level 27 Ancient Green Dragon
Level 28 Ancient Blue Dragon
Level 28 Ancient Purple Dragon
Level 28 Soulgrinder
Level 29 Runescribed Dracolich (a ranged and melee at will interrupt when attacked)




DracoSuave said:


> The irony of this statement is that the primary stat is an 18 after racials.  Short of putting a pre-racial 18 in that stat, you *cannot get a higher contribution from your ability scores.*  Which means you're not gimping it... you're doing what you're expected to do.  So, your primary is -exactly where it should be.-  And your secondaries are -where your primary is.-
> 
> Compare the alternative:  16/16/12 which ends up with 24/24/14, or +7/+7/+2.
> 
> ...




You used two feats. Putting one of those in the best two NADs for 16/16/12 makes it:

+7/+7/+6 vs +9/+9/+2.

In order to gain in the weak NAD, at least one of the stronger NADs has to drop.

Math 101.

Something has to give in order to get balanced defenses.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

True, to be fair, all three would give +9/+7/+6 vs +9/+9/+4.

But, it avoids the point.  Getting auto-hit is a product of character design, feat/power choice, and holding to certain sacred cows of char-op (secondary must be as high as possible).  Balanced NADs is -possible-, and -plausible-, and the cost is not as high as you make it out to be.

Of course, now I have to go fetch Open Grave and compare attack bonuses to defenses.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> True, to be fair, all three would give +9/+7/+6 vs +9/+9/+4.
> 
> But, it avoids the point.  Getting auto-hit is a product of character design, feat/power choice, and holding to certain sacred cows of char-op (secondary must be as high as possible).  Balanced NADs is -possible-, and -plausible-, and the cost is not as high as you make it out to be.




+9/+7/+6 is fine, but the two lower ones are going to get hit a LOT. Even with 3 feats thrown in.

Especially with 3 feats thrown in.

3 FREAKING feats and still 80+% or more with higher level creatures hit.

That, quite frankly, is an insanely high percentage of the time considering that 3 feats were thrown at the problem.


Although the Ancient Red Dragon does not hit NADs every single round, he would hit (on average) the +11, +9, +6 (once class mod and racial ability scores are added) on a 7, a 5, and a 2. Balancing that last NAD did nothing. Adding a feat to the last NAD did nothing. Same level creature.

And this creature can do this more than 2 rounds out of every 3 on average (because his first two are recharged, then one recharges 2 out of 3 rounds, one has a secondary NAD hit, and there is also a once per encounter NAD attack). He can attack NADs >75% of rounds in encounters (and one of his attacks is against multiple foes). For example, in a 16 round fight, he would be able to attack NADs 13 times on average (2 immediately, 1 bloodied, 10 recharges in 15 rounds). Flying around and doing this is a lot better tactic than staying in melee range for any significant amount of time (he actually should do both and mix it up, but decreasing the number of counterattacks by staying away from the melee opponents and concentrating fire on the ranged opponents is a decent tactic).


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## KarinsDad (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Of course, now I have to go fetch Open Grave and compare attack bonuses to defenses.




Yes, Vecna hits the +11, +9, +6 PC on a 3, 2, and 2. Course, he should hit a lot, but a group of 5 PCs especially designed to take him on would still lose big time. I suspect a group of 8 or even 10 PCs might still lose to him. Being able to banish PCs every other round, and they return partial enemies to their former allies, and hitting on a 2 while at it. His aura alone can crush a PC in a matter of rounds.

The PCs would need some major mojo to even compete.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

Fighting Vecna is an n+5 level encounter for five party level 30 members, and it's generally the sort of encounter that doesn't take you by surprise.  Fighting a God isn't exactly Random Encounter country.  n+5 encounters are one level higher than what the DMG describes as the upper limit of hard.

You go on prepared, either with equipment designed for this encounter, or funeral arangements planned out.



> The PCs would need some major mojo to even compete.




Yes.  And as such, they should.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 19, 2009)

Can't believe you're still bickering about this.

To me it is completely obvious the game wasn't designed to have fights where (N)PCs routinely can't miss (miss only on a one).

That monster's attack bonuses equal the poor (or even good) defenses of a player is to me a clear indicator something is wrong, and the presence of those PHB2 feats just seals the deal.

Can we move over to discussing something more worth-while instead, _like actually figuring out a better way of fixing the math_ than these feats? 

For instance, as we all know, it's much better to specialize than to be general. So, wouldn't it be better to restrict these feats to your two worse defenses only (and not your best save)? And if so, how do we phrase such a restriction?

Thank you.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 19, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Can't believe you're still bickering about this.
> 
> To me it is completely obvious the game wasn't designed to have fights where (N)PCs routinely can't miss (miss only on a one).




It wasn't.  But continuing on:



> That monster's attack bonuses equal the poor (or even good) defenses of a player is to me a clear indicator something is wrong, and the presence of those PHB2 feats just seals the deal.




They don't, but thanks for this statement.  Even the red dragon hits the good on a 7, and only with powers it doesn't spam or bring out all the time.  Plus, it's a soldier and therefore accurate.  The average for that level would be a 9 before applying situational bonuses that a level 30 party can bring to muster.  



> Can we move over to discussing something more worth-while instead, _like actually figuring out a better way of fixing the math_ than these feats?




Again, -prove- the math is broken.  The most anyone's done is do comparisons with Red Dragon and Vecna, hardly a fair comparison given one is a soldier, and the other is level 35.



> For instance, as we all know, it's much better to specialize than to be general.




Not necessarily.  For example, if specialization turns you into paper and makes it so that you can do nothing, then it's a liability.  If generalization can be done without cost to your offense, then it's often better than specializing to little gain.



> So, wouldn't it be better to restrict these feats to your two worse defenses only (and not your best save)? And if so, how do we phrase such a restriction?




Again, prove that the system is broken at high levels.  Run some combats.  Do some tests.  Take all factors into account.  Look at what powers are available, and run a combat with them.  



> Thank you.


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## Bayuer (Apr 19, 2009)

DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Note. Balanced NADs. And they are balanced at the level of the highest NAD.
> 
> Argue that if you like, the proof is above.
> 
> ...



Ok you balanced them. But that just give us a strong example that when you try it, all your nads are being to hit on 3 on die, not one on 6 end other at lower. Do you realy can't see this? This makes things even worst for your character...



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Level 11 19/16/16 One booster feat = +4/+5/+3
> Level 14 20/17/16 Two booster feat = +5/+5/+5
> Level 18 21/17/17 Two booster = +5/+5/+5
> 
> ...



You used feats... LOL! That means you will be hitted on 3 on 30 lvl instead of 2. All your NADs will be. Man. This is worst proof ever made. Don't you see that we are talking here about that this feats fix math. Add 3 epic feats to this and you will be hitted on 7. Now this is better but no good anyway. But you must spend 4(!) feats to maintain this... 3 +2 paragon feats earlier. Don't forget Expertise and probably armor/shield feats! Yeah man... They shouldn't gave us 18 feat if almost half of them must be spend to take must-have feats.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Prove you need a 16 in your secondary at level 1 before racial adjustments. You can't. Because the effect is -secondary.- Abandon this dogma that your secondary must be tricked to the max. That is the -real- math problem here. You are pimping your offense at the expense of your defense.



I wasn't talking about secondary stats. I was talking about other stats. As an exampled Wizard. And when I was talking high I was talking about 12 in that stats. When you start with 16/16/13/11/10/8 (with is nice array enyway) you will have only 3 high stats and other are not important. There are some build than need 4 stats (or even 5). Not at 16 of course but for an example if you are playing Avenger (censure of retribution) and have high WIS and INT you probably will need DEX and CON to to have it at 12 at least. If you must use only 3 high stats (maybe that sounds fair) you lost customization of characters. If you make customization your NADs will suffer. That's not balance.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Again, pay attention. +7/+7/+6 before racials and class.
> 
> And AC isn't hit on 9 if you're taking armor feats.
> 
> And comparing average hits of monsters' encounter powers is Fear and Loathing. They CANNOT HIT YOU EVERY ROUND WITH ENCOUNTER POWERS.



 Man. If you are using feats in you build, and that char is hitted on 5 with them...  That's just speak for itself. Oh, if you take amor feat! Wow. I forget that tax feat is another rule about 4E. You don't take feats you want. You take feats that make math workable...

Let's se. Red Dragon have 4 powers that hit the NADs. 3 of them are blasts. 2 of them are recharge 5 (one blast)... Yeah, that's looking like no options for dragon to use. But if you want more monsters hitting NADs look at Dracolich. He have immdiate interupt power that stunns characters when he use melee attacks.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Well, find some level 30 non-solo monsters in the MM. Do it. YOU CANNOT.



I don't have to! Are you blind? 3 persons already told you that solos or elites don't have better attacks!



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Good point. I should use the normal soldiers at level 30. How many are there? Zero? Good point indeed



Well there is a solo soldier at 30 lvl. Wow. He just pope up and showed at my MM. Miracle.
Now we have a nice tool called Compendium, and we know that MM2 will be printed this month. Compendium shows 6 monsters that are 30 level. 4 more for you to look at them. And why you are still talking about normal monsters. Look at lower level monsters and they have sometimes more broken NADs attacks than this solos.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> Well, show me the ability of those solos to hit your NADS every round at will. You can't. Because they don't have at-wills like that.
> 
> But that's okay. We can -pretend- their non-at-will powers are launched every round at will if it makes you happy.
> 
> I won't.



Well look at Dracolich. Isn't enough? I understand. You need a monster at every level of epic tier that have at-will stunn attacks or saying about that isn't true. Well, use you MM. Lich 24lvl (recharg 5 stunn); Gibbering Orb (free action - dazes; I know it's not a stunn effects but it just look so nice). Aboleth Overseer (first daze, then dominate). I don't have time to convert MM now. This are just smaple monsters I faced.



			
				DracoSuave said:
			
		

> You -can- balance your NADs out, and with negligible loss to your utility. In fact, your utility might increase because the -options- you gain for powers increase.



You balanced your NADs and the same lvl monster hit all you NADs on 5! Amazing. And I have another argument agains 'monster at higher levels sholud be more threatening'. They are. As you can see there are no normal monsters at higher levels. There are only elites and solos. That's it! Here is you proof that mosters power growes.

And to be honest. If now add racial modifiers thats stats will go up to +8/+8/+7. Now you class can grant +2 to one your NADs. +10/+8/+7. Looks good isn't? Well of course it is. You just spend feat to boost your all NADs by 2! But here's the catch. This is 30 lvl build. You sit and make all numbers work. What is the situation on 20 lvl. Not so good. You'r weakes NAD is far far behind. But let's look at the chance of being hit by the Red Dragon... From hitted on 3 we now have hitted on 6, on 4 and on 3! WOW!  It's amaizing what you can do with a +2 feats this days. Let's add epic feats here. Hitted on 10, 8 and 7 now this is math I can say it is good! But I have spend 4 feats to boost NADs only. Balance is tricky thing


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## Jhaelen (Apr 20, 2009)

keterys said:


> On a totally different tact... is there anyone who thinks it likely that by 30th, a character who has access to the PH2 feats will *not* have spent 4 of his 16 feats to secure +6 to all 3 of his defenses?



Yep, me. Have you noticed how Bayuver suddenly claims that being hit on a 8 is STILL a problem that needs to be fixed?
So obviously everyone thinking like him won't do it 


Bayuer said:


> Well maybe you answered them, but in this huge post fights people can just lose what everybody was trying to say. If you be so kind, please respond to all of my points and we can already end this thread.



You're right. Initially, I though of forking from this thread because of that. Probably would have been better if I had done so.

Anyway, I'm getting mightily bored by this discussion, normally I know better than to engage in such a hotly debated issue, because I simply don't have the time to give it my full attention.
Reiterating the same points over and over doesn't get anyone anywhere. I just don't agree with you guys and that's that.

Consider yourself winning the debate if it makes you happy


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## KarinsDad (Apr 20, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Again, prove that the system is broken at high levels.  Run some combats.  Do some tests.  Take all factors into account.  Look at what powers are available, and run a combat with them.




I did just that.

I ran a 21 level N+3 encounter. After 20 rounds, the BBEG was still not dead. The PCs were hardly ever hitting (16 or 17 typically being needed) and the BBEG was hitting them at will (4 or 5 typically being needed).

I proved it to myself.

The point is, that people such as yourself are making these grandiose claims that do not match the pre-release sweet spot statements of WotC nor do they match the math and are not setting up this type of test yourself.

You tell our POV to prove it when you are unwilling to do so yourself. Pretty weak.


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## Bayuer (Apr 20, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Yep, me. Have you noticed how Bayuver suddenly claims that being hit on a 8 is STILL a problem that needs to be fixed?
> So obviously everyone thinking like him won't do it



You are just my guru now


			
				Bayuer said:
			
		

> Hitted on 10, 8 and 7 now this is math I can say it is good! But I have spend 4 feats to boost NADs only. Balance is tricky thing



So from the feats aren't math fix issue we came to I will prove this by not taking this feats, becouse they aren't needed aka. I'm like John Rambo and can take this all on me chest and kill you all! (Wrrghhh! I'm a monster theme in background)


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## keterys (Apr 20, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Yep, me. Have you noticed how Bayuver suddenly claims that being hit on a 8 is STILL a problem that needs to be fixed?




I must have missed that - I'll admit I'm just skimming it, but I didn't see that on a quick check back either?



> So obviously everyone thinking like him won't do it




Given he's complaining it's too easy to hit people, I'd imagine he's the kind of player that would spend them (all the while disagreeing at the need to do so)... I do assume that for many people they wouldn't pick up the feats until late epic, but they're mathematically _very_ strong and especially when you're fighting things like dracoliches and phanes I could see players going 'Screw that, I'm getting the +4 Will feat, I'm tired of this'.



> Reiterating the same points over and over doesn't get anyone anywhere. I just don't agree with you guys and that's that.




Amusingly I mostly checked on the thread to see if anything interesting had been said and suggest that people give up and go their separate ways if not


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## Regicide (Apr 20, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The PCs would need some major mojo to even compete.




  I think a wizard/planeshifter/arch lich in a party would pretty much cripple him.


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## James McMurray (Apr 20, 2009)

keterys said:


> On a totally different tact... is there anyone who thinks it likely that by 30th, a character who has access to the PH2 feats will *not* have spent 4 of his 16 feats to secure +6 to all 3 of his defenses?




Assuming I ever get to play at that level instead of GM, I won't have. almost certainly the +2 to all 3 feat, and one iteration of the +4 to bump my weakest defense. But I prefer feats that are fun (i.e. let me do stuff) rather than feats that sit there doing nothing.


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## Regicide (Apr 20, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> Assuming I ever get to play at that level instead of GM, I won't have. almost certainly the +2 to all 3 feat, and one iteration of the +4 to bump my weakest defense. But I prefer feats that are fun (i.e. let me do stuff) rather than feats that sit there doing nothing.




  The majority of characters won't even be getting attack rolls against them all that often.  Having every character spend 4 feats on that is pretty unlikely.  Front liners may spend 4 on it if their schtick is to not be hit, and it will be a great investment, but most other characters will probably spend at most 2 feats on them because it just doesn't matter what those defenses are since they're almost never attacked.


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## keterys (Apr 20, 2009)

Yeah, it seems pretty hard to say no to the +2 to all... then which get picked I wonder. It'd help to have some folks who are actually playing at the 24th-29th level range to get an actual feel for it.

Spose I could also do a quick glance at CharOp to see how common they are there. Though I imagine that certain classes just have a serious dearth of options at the moment...


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## jasin (Apr 20, 2009)

Regicide said:


> The majority of characters won't even be getting attack rolls against them all that often.



I think this is a very unusual statement, and would like further explanation.


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## James McMurray (Apr 20, 2009)

jasin said:


> I think this is a very unusual statement, and would like further explanation.




NADs are attacked less than AC by quite a bit. Defenders are attacked less than other PCs fairly frequently. If you're not a defender, you're not getting attacked as often. when you are attacked, the odds are decent it's against AC.

I might be tempted to take the +4 to Will for many characters. It would depend on the campaign, but Will seems to have the nastiest side effects (stun, daze, and dominated) attached to it pretty frequently at epic levels.


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## keterys (Apr 20, 2009)

That's not very accurate for an epic campaign - the statistics on which attacks go against what defenses include basic attacks (which everything has, even if they never use them) and ranged and area attacks (those most likely to hit those hanging in back) have a much higher percentage of being against NAD than AC.

Even many of the AC attacks include secondaries against a NAD.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 20, 2009)

James McMurray said:


> NADs are attacked less than AC by quite a bit. Defenders are attacked less than other PCs fairly frequently. If you're not a defender, you're not getting attacked as often. when you are attacked, the odds are decent it's against AC.




Not in the 4E monster manual I own.

There, NAD attacks are 44% of the number of attacks. A given weak NAD might be as low as 11% (I do not have the exact numbers at work, they might be 11%, 15%, and 18%). And, these numbers are skewed by low level foes which tend to often only have attacks against AC. The NAD issue is not a heroic tier issue. Once one gets to late Heroic levels and above, NAD attacks come close to 50/50 and IIRC, they actually become a higher percentage than AC attacks. As an example, Elites are 1 foe in 12 at Heroic tier and 1 foe in 3 at Epic tier. Solos are 1 foe in 33 at Heroic tier and 1 foe in 5 at Epic tier.


And at least in our games, the Defender in a 5 person team might soak up 1 attack in 4 because he cannot be everywhere. He takes a slightly higher percentage of attacks, but it's nowhere near to even 1 in 3. It's easy to walk around a Defender or attack with an area attack. So, a given well protected PC might get hit by 1 attack in 10 instead of 1 in 5, but he still gets attacked. Every PC in our games get hits, gets damaged, and uses up healing surges. Some more than others, but not to the point that a given player would say 'Nah, I don't need good NADs, I hardly ever get hit".


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## Jhaelen (Apr 20, 2009)

keterys said:


> I must have missed that - I'll admit I'm just skimming it, but I didn't see that on a quick check back either?



Well, I was referring to this:


Bayuer said:


> But you forget about something. Even your best NAD will be hitted on 8 at late epic. It is you best NAD that at least should be hitted on 10!





			
				KarinsDad said:
			
		

> I ran a 21 level N+3 encounter. After 20 rounds, the BBEG was still not dead. The PCs were hardly ever hitting (16 or 17 typically being needed) and the BBEG was hitting them at will (4 or 5 typically being needed).
> 
> I proved it to myself.



It's not the test I would have run but it certainly beats not testing it at all. This is an encounter you might actually run into if the DMG advice is followed, so I admit it's a valid example to test your theory.

Maybe that's sufficient to consider the theory proved.


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## James McMurray (Apr 20, 2009)

For the numbers, I was only quoting what's been said in this thread before.

For defenders not taking more attacks, I guess I'm just spoiled (or actually vexed, since I'm GM) by the defender in our group. He does his job very well. He's by no means the only person who gets attacked, and artillery / controllers give him trouble. But melee attackers are very consistently stuck to him.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 20, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> It's not the test I would have run but it certainly beats not testing it at all. This is an encounter you might actually run into if the DMG advice is followed, so I admit it's a valid example to test your theory.
> 
> Maybe that's sufficient to consider the theory proved.




Actually, it was a group of foes (and the PCs were level 22, not 21). 3 lower level, 1 higher level, and the BBEG. The other foes died in rounds 6 through 11. Then, it was just a long grind on the Ghoul King.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/252458-forked-thread-so-about-expertise.html


Btw, I never got to run the Kruthik encounter that I mentioned in that thread.



> I will run an encounter with the Kruthik Hive Lord plus 1 Kruthik Adult and 1 Kruthik Young and 2 Kruthik Hatchling Minions (total XP 862 or about 3 levels higher as per the DMG guidelines, just like the other encounter although slightly weaker XP-wise) against these same PCs at first level. This encounter at first level seems more like a TPK than the one at level 22.




However, I did run the following just on Saturday against 6 2nd level PCs (and note, I do have some house rules that give PCs a few go to the well abilities, so our PCs are fractionally more versatile than normal ones):

The Kruthik Hive Lord plus 3 Kruthik Adults and 5 Kruthik Hatchling Minions (I used my tough minion rules where minions roll damage and last an average of 1.75 hits instead of 1, i.e. they have a 50% chance of dying on hit one, a 25% chance of dying on hit two, and a 25% chance of dying on hit three). 9 monsters vs. the 6 PCs. The XP was 1335 (since my tough minions last longer and average more damage, I double their XP), but even without doubling it, it was still an n+4 encounter. So, not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

It was a tough fight and the Rogue fell multiple times and I think the players thought it was going to be a TPK at times, but it turned out ok. It was a lot more serious of a challenge and scary to the players than the 22nd level fight (which was just grindy because the PCs have so many options at that level to handle bad situations), but the level 22 fight was only n+3+ (course, the player playing them was not familiar with them and the sample PCs were not optimized either, so it was probably tougher than it could have been).


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## Bayuer (Apr 20, 2009)

@Jhaelen
You take it out of context. I was reffering to other NADs. If your best NAD is hitted on 8, other NADs are hitted on 2-5 with is bad.

@James McMurray
He's the only person who is attacked? One defender can controll all the battlefield? Sound little unrealistic to me. You make him a great favor to center all attacks just on him.


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## keterys (Apr 20, 2009)

Defenders covering melee well is pretty much my angle, yeah - so if you look at ranged/area and large close attacks that might hit PCs not in melee, it's very much not AC-based.

Like, taking a quick glance at higher level monsters with notable attacks that might catch folks other than just the defender
Aboleth Slime Mage: Reflex and Will
Aboleth Overseer: Will
Astral Stalker: AC
Atropal: Reflex
Blood Fiend: Will 
Phane: Reflex and Fortitude
Tarrasque: AC, Fortitude, Reflex
Angel of Vengeance: AC 
Fire Archon Ash Disciple: Reflex and Fortitude
Ice Archon Frostshaper: AC
Earthrage Battlebriar: Reflex
Beholder Eye Tyrant: Fort, Ref, Will
Dire Bulette: AC, Fort
Cambion Hellfire Magus: Reflex
Enormous Carrion Crawler: Fortitude
Chuul Juggernaut: Will
Godforged Collosus: Reflex, Will

Etc.


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