Combat & PC armor class

[Veilan]

I have to say I consider the point somewhat moot - we should use what the game engine hands us and not bend over backwards unless there is no other way to fix it. The AC from dodge and tumble doesn't have nearly the powerful effect Ronan claims, as you are almost always flat footed in NWN (it even makes you move around in combat against several mobs without you being able to do anything about it, drawing a shitload of AoOs against flat-footed AC), and due to the 5%-rule armies of mobs are not much less of a threat, they do hurt. And let's face it - in an PW, there is a lot more fighting than in PnP, again meaning the fighter gets hurt more often (with no ability to regenerate it fast in any way, like clerics and wizards or even monks can). I got 20 damage from a couple of xvarts (CR 1) the other day, no casters, just because they were 8 guys and well, 8 rolls per round have a good chance of producing hits, you know. One man armies don't work due to the law of averages. Especially since armor offers nothing at all in the means of damage reduction, I don't see any AC problem at all - if you fight against higher mobs, no matter you somehow manage to outdo their AB (barely see it), you will get hurt, one hit usually meaning a tenth of your HPs. I regularly get my butt handed to me by +19 AB vampire warriors (+21 with flanking... and giving you minus rather a lot of AC in flat-footedness when you walk around sillily in NWN due to the combat engine...) who seem to be a favorite DM pet in some areas. And as Ronan duly noted, AB rises with level, as well as damage usually, but AC doesn't - only through magical items (unless you're a monk), and damage reduction basically doesn't exist (oh, unless you're a wizard, or maybe a barb on super level).

The argument seems especially counterproductive as due to the relative inavailability of magical gear (I got my first +1 AC item on level 9), gear-reliant-classes are already at a great disadvantage compared to wizards in ALFA (despite all the whining how wizards can't obliterate everything flying and untouchable), who can easily have an AC of around 30 on level 3 for several in-game hours. And AC isn't usually what a wizard is built for.

So, well, I don't see a problem at all - I'm not going to play a real fighter class in NWN 2, but to have at least some staying power I think is the only thing they currently get in ALFA, and even that worse than clerics. Let them have at least one niche - the problem is not what properties we allow on items, the problem is if some people have gear too good for their level.

[Ronan]

I have to say I consider the point somewhat moot - we should use what the game engine hands us and not bend over backwards unless there is no other way to fix it.

Oh, the fix is easy technically.

The AC from dodge and tumble doesn't have nearly the powerful effect Ronan claims...

Well, I'm sorry but it does. Its simple math. Hitting on a 19-20 is twice as likely as a 20, and the only difference between those two is one point of AC. Most often you've got a +2 from what passes as flanking in NWN, and thats it.

While your examples may have merit, remember you play on BG. BG has horribly ubered-up mobs compared to canon. If only I bothered to catalog all the changes/fixes I've made... Last night I removed +5 creature weapons from some troll models To your perspective, the mobs should become less powerfull along with your AC. Regularly fighting vampires with +19 AB is exactly one of the things we are trying to prevent.

The argument seems especially counterproductive as due to the relative inavailability of magical gear (I got my first +1 AC item on level 9),

Well, we are shooting for more consistancy everywhere in ALFA2. Hopefully the poorer servers will be closer to the richer ones in the next go-round. The problems caused by this sort of inconsistancy are not relative to global PC uberness across ALFA.

gear-reliant-classes are already at a great disadvantage compared to wizards in ALFA (despite all the whining how wizards can't obliterate everything flying and untouchable), who can easily have an AC of around 30 on level 3 for several in-game hours. And AC isn't usually what a wizard is built for.

Wizards are at a disadvantage when they don't have spells, or when they aren't buffed (which can be quite often, depending). They aren't ment to be balanced in a stand-up one-off fight against other classes. Anyone who thinks wizards are so powerfull should look at the number of high-level active wizard PCs we have who aren't feeding worms compared to the survivors from other classes.

As for a wizard PC with an AC of 30, I could beat that with a cleric or fighter of that level, without buffs. So what? The mage or cleric can't cast spells and stay in expertise, and the warrior can't hope to hit anything. The flag to prevent expertise from working when casting was introduced with HotU, I think.

So, well, I don't see a problem at all - I'm not going to play a real fighter class in NWN 2, but to have at least some staying power I think is the only thing they currently get in ALFA, and even that worse than clerics. Let them have at least one niche - the problem is not what properties we allow on items, the problem is if some people have gear too good for their level.

Well, one of the goals of this is to set the fighter more firmly on top of the "King of AC" podium. If you want to lug around a tower shield and plate mail, congratulations, you are the toughest mofo on the block. I don't think ranger/rogues should approach it as closely as they do with 1 to 2 extra points of tumble AC.

I think you've got to build, DM and play to see the whole picture here. If you don't think builders jack up mobs to challenge PCs, your dead wrong. I often do it because I need ways to challenge PCs without dropping magical loot (and I don't toolset anything that doesn't drop what it carries). I try to PG their stats and skills in a somewhat-realistic manner, but I don't do anything which wouldn't be allowed if that mob was a PC, and I rarely add levels. Even still, PCs from some of the harder servers could breeze through my "PGed" monsters due to their high AC. Hell, I've seen players like that breeze through BG's horribly jacked-up mobs.

[AlmightyTDawg]

I have to say I consider the point somewhat moot - we should use what the game engine hands us and not bend over backwards unless there is no other way to fix it.

Basically, everything in here is fallacious logic, and let's set about handling it.

The AC from dodge and tumble doesn't have nearly the powerful effect Ronan claims, as you are almost always flat footed in NWN (it even makes you move around in combat against several mobs without you being able to do anything about it, drawing a shitload of AoOs against flat-footed AC),

As a character relying on Dex, if I were "almost always" flat footed, my toon would have died at least a dozen times by now. If you are worried about the adjust-step of NWN, which is admittedly a problem, there are techniques where you control the movement rather than letting the engine to it to most effectively combat it. Which, in the case of being surrounded, is very important. That's correctable by experience with the engine.

and due to the 5%-rule armies of mobs are not much less of a threat, they do hurt. And let's face it - in an PW, there is a lot more fighting than in PnP, again meaning the fighter gets hurt more often (with no ability to regenerate it fast in any way, like clerics and wizards or even monks can). I got 20 damage from a couple of xvarts (CR 1) the other day, no casters, just because they were 8 guys and well, 8 rolls per round have a good chance of producing hits, you know. One man armies don't work due to the law of averages.

I don't know your toon's AC, but I suspect it's in the mid-to-high 30s. Basically, if she had lost 8 - 12 AC, and could better control movement (which is more a player skill), she'd have taken the exact same damage. All the AC above that point is a waste. What it does mean, though, is you could fight the exact same number of CR5s or CR7s and still get hit at about the same rate. The decrease in damage for increasing AC is up there on page 2. My contention is the average inflation (between misrepresented abilities, high magic, etc) is about 5 - 8 points of AC off of normal, where for just a higher-combat environment, 2 - 4 points of AC is more appropriate. We have that pretty well represented in our wealth standards, right now... all of the extra stuff just inflates that further. But arguing that because one uber toon fights a bunch of CR1s and gets hit that our AC isn't a problem is... well... I think meaningless.

Especially since armor offers nothing at all in the means of damage reduction, I don't see any AC problem at all - if you fight against higher mobs, no matter you somehow manage to outdo their AB (barely see it), you will get hurt, one hit usually meaning a tenth of your HPs. I regularly get my butt handed to me by +19 AB vampire warriors (+21 with flanking... and giving you minus rather a lot of AC in flat-footedness when you walk around sillily in NWN due to the combat engine...) who seem to be a favorite DM pet in some areas.

Okay, +19 AB vampire warriors are what... a CR 13 - 16 spawn? And it's problematic that solo, they do damage? If you're talking about a favorite DM pet, that's like saying "well, DMs like using balors, so we need all the AC we can get." I think more appropriate is the reasoning that DMs have such absurd "favorite pets" because AC is at inane levels. There are also options that exist, particularly for a toon at the level to be fighting +19 AB creatures, to get damage reduction or protective magics. Pretty legitimately too by the wealth standards. I find the argument over your individual condition in extreme circumstances to be uncompelling.

And as Ronan duly noted, AB rises with level, as well as damage usually, but AC doesn't - only through magical items (unless you're a monk), and damage reduction basically doesn't exist (oh, unless you're a wizard, or maybe a barb on super level).

Again, check the table on page 2. It is pretty obvious that expectations through the engine are that AC rises with level. Now, it doesn't rise at the same rate as AB in all cases, but it certainly rises and the opportunity is there. Magical items are, fundamentally an expectation of the advancement system. It's why creature capabilities are not linear (just AB increases) with increasing CR.

The argument seems especially counterproductive as due to the relative inavailability of magical gear (I got my first +1 AC item on level 9), gear-reliant-classes are already at a great disadvantage compared to wizards in ALFA (despite all the whining how wizards can't obliterate everything flying and untouchable), who can easily have an AC of around 30 on level 3 for several in-game hours. And AC isn't usually what a wizard is built for.

You're arguing inavailability of magic gear, then talk about how the problem is some people having too good of gear for their level. I think you're missing the point of the argument. Tower shield is a 1 point hit (or encumberance, for the massive STR builds). Tumble is by and large a 1 point hit till the high levels. Dodge is about a 1 point difference, 2 in some cases, but as you pointed out above it's menaingless cause of flat-footed. Expertise is targeted at the lowbie end anyway (no +5 at 1st level). So really, these aren't the major overhauls except in breaking people out of the 20-to-hit mold. The argument isn't counterproductive, it's focused on an observed problem, the deviance that causes the observed problem, and the minor corrections. The only people who would be notably effected are those taking advantage of /every/ one of the tweaks, which is why there is the common expectation that a high 20s to low 30s AC is expected.

If your argument is that such things wouldn't last in ALFA as it stands currently, no contest. I believe that inanity of static content or DM spawns has come from the problem exacerbating into magic gear on top of those technical matters. So if people adjusted up and you back down, of course there's going to be growing pains. But that entire argument only sets up a system by which things can go up, never back down, which is kind of ridiculous.

[Fionn]

A easy solution for you fion would be "checking" the items at the door.
Just like in pnp when there is a new guy who brings his character from another dm into your world. You look over his items and take away what you dont want used in your campaign. The player can then use the items when he leaves your "table".

That's a perfect solution for NWNConnections, or any other loose association of servers. It does not work for a PW to have your gear legal on one 'table' and illegal on the next. We are supposed to be a community of conjoined servers (IMO), not individual projects sharing some resources.

I also can't script to strip items upon entry and grant them upon exit from my server (let alone strip +'s). I've had Ftr8 PWNd by mobs that were no challenge to another Ftr5 - this forces me to comb through *every* inventory taking time I could be DMing.

We need *all* mobs and PCs balanced to the same paradigm, or we will gross imbalances between the haves and the have-nots. Roleplayers will simply deal with it and play. PG'rs will figure out where to get the best gear and the easiest mobs. TPI currently has some attrocious mobs (working on it) due to balancing for several of these uber-tanks we had on a year ago. We don't sell magic gear like that, though some of our DMs have handed it out to deal with the new uber mobs.... it is a spiral I'd like to see stopped in NWN2.

[Stormseeker]

I agree with you. As it is now alfa is more like a group of differnt servers held together than they are a pw. Hopefully we can get on the same page in nwn2.

[Dorn]

Well, one of the goals of this is to set the fighter more firmly on top of the "King of AC" podium. If you want to lug around a tower shield and plate mail, congratulations, you are the toughest mofo on the block. I don't think ranger/rogues should approach it as closely as they do with 1 to 2 extra points of tumble AC.

Good, as it should be. People can argue toill the cows come home that rogues are very zippy and should be as able to dodge blows. And maybe at extremely high levels they should. But at low-mid levels fighter type classes should be the hardest to hurt if they wear armour. Rogues at that level are using their dextrous ability for things like sneaking and hiding...if they spent all their time practicing fighting ant thats it then i might acccept it...but i think you'll find the vast majority have very high skills in stealth and spott and trapwork and pickpoketting...so their ability to dodge blades is not their No1 Concern. Fighters DO spend all their time concentrating on blades and avoiding them so it seems strange that part time fighters rogues have multiple tumble bonus to AC wheras ftrs full time fighters dont have anything similar.

As it is now alfa is more like a group of differnt servers held together than they are a pw. Hopefully we can get on the same page in nwn2.

Hell yea. Hence my original poiints about Dming and item rewards and whats in shops being cropped to low levels. And the disparity between 'high risk high reward' and 'low risk low reward' servers is removed outside of what canon says.

It should all be high risk low reward! Thats why PCs are all heroes (or antiheroes)

[Mulu]

One of the SP mods I played recently gave all tower shields a penalty of -2 to Dex, presumably as a means of balancing them. I thought it was rather elegant.

[HEEGZ]

I wouldn't mind seeing some truly massive tower shields. With added weight, movement penalties, Dex, whatever.

Massive Tower Shield
AC +5 (non-magical)
+2 vs. missile
-2 DEX
1/2 movement rate when equipped
weight: 45lbs.
-15 penalty to rolls

...or something similar. Would probably only see use by dwarven defenders or some other specific build.

[Mayhem]

One of the SP mods I played recently gave all tower shields a penalty of -2 to Dex, presumably as a means of balancing them. I thought it was rather elegant.

Thats not elegant, its a complete rendering of the towershield as utterly, utterly useless.

With a -2 to dex, you now have the same AC as from a large shield, but with added cost, weight, ranged attack and skill penalties.

Why would you choose it over a large shield in that instance?

[ecclessia]

[OPINION ALERT]
--Magic gear only from DMs via quest reward or possessed NPC merchant.
--Mobs kept with their canon counterparts, no uber rats, etc.
--Token xp/loot from non-DM'd mobs; ie. 1xp per, or none at all
(visit OAS to see this in action, "it's the RP stupid")
--The various tweaks to armor, feats, skills above, if approved.
--DMs, builders, & PCs will need to change their approach to implement this stuff!
[/OPINION ALERT]

I agree totally. To this day, the OAS is one of my favorite NWN servers I've ever played/DM'd on. If it was more active and consistent, I'd play there over anywhere else

[NickD]

One of the SP mods I played recently gave all tower shields a penalty of -2 to Dex, presumably as a means of balancing them. I thought it was rather elegant.

Thats not elegant, its a complete rendering of the towershield as utterly, utterly useless.

With a -2 to dex, you now have the same AC as from a large shield, but with added cost, weight, ranged attack and skill penalties.

Why would you choose it over a large shield in that instance?

If you were wearing heavy armour and had 14+ dex it wouldn't have much effect. I guess it'd force all minmax heavy armour fighters to max their dex at 14 instead of 12...

[HEEGZ]

[OPINION ALERT]
--Magic gear only from DMs via quest reward or possessed NPC merchant.
--Mobs kept with their canon counterparts, no uber rats, etc.
--Token xp/loot from non-DM'd mobs; ie. 1xp per, or none at all
(visit OAS to see this in action, "it's the RP stupid")
--The various tweaks to armor, feats, skills above, if approved.
--DMs, builders, & PCs will need to change their approach to implement this stuff!
[/OPINION ALERT]

I agree totally. To this day, the OAS is one of my favorite NWN servers I've ever played/DM'd on. If it was more active and consistent, I'd play there over anywhere else

The key to this is having enough DMs consistently logged on. IMO this is a best case scenario for me. No XP except from DMs, and I'm okay with getting random RP XP if DMs don't have time to run everyone.

[Mulu]

If you were wearing heavy armour and had 14+ dex it wouldn't have much effect. I guess it'd force all minmax heavy armour fighters to max their dex at 14 instead of 12...

Heh

[MShady]

Changing the ground rules on penalties for armor, redefining shields or whateveror removing dodge, at this point with NWN1 is changing an awful lot. At this point, I would suggest leaving it.

The reason dodge has consistently been left alone, and should remain so, is that there are alot of other bonuses that are not part of NWN, like sacred, divine, luck, etc. Those can also provide AC bonuses. We add one thing, and don't have several others. That's not such a bad deal.

If NWN2 is dealing with tower shields properly, ie requiring a feat and handle them properly, that pretty much takes care of itself. From a balance perspective, I think BW did the right thing with Tower Shields, basically doubling the weight for an extra point of AC and hideous skill penalties. They apparently could not add the 50% miss chance and other things, so created something different. That's not such a bad compromise. It is certainly not the main source of inflated ACs. Honestly, neither are the few folks who have dodge ACs. Combined, that is maybe an extra +2 AC for most folks? That's not a big deal.

The cause of alot of it is simply the fact we are not playing PnP. We're playing a video game at the end of the day. While a fight with a few hobgoblins might be a good night of gaming and take awhile to get through, things just move alot faster. DMs spawn an awful lot more here then I would see in a PnP game, just because of the rapidity of combat. You just end up fighting more often for a plethora of reasons. The reality is that loot expectations need to change for this medium, same thing with AC, power, etc. It does not create a 1 man army effect either with a good DM. There are alot of ways to get around simply a high AC. Those who rely on it period are especially more vulnerable at higher levels just because you cannot find alot of other folks in your range, so you don't have party support you'd expect in most PnP situations. That's another way the format changes things. It's an apples-and-oranges situation.

Mike

[Dorn]

Changing the ground rules on penalties for armor, redefining shields or whateveror removing dodge, at this point with NWN1 is changing an awful lot. At this point, I would suggest leaving it.

+1

this conversation should only be in the context of nwn2 imo