Combat & PC armor class

[wvincenti]

Bill, in PnP tower shields are tower shields. They are huge hunks of metal PCs can totally hide behind (and not attack) if they want. They provide 3 AC, and you take a -2 penalty to all attacks while weilding them because they are so huge.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/arm ... hieldTower

In PnP, tumble does not provide an AC bonus.

Thanks for letting me be lazy and not plow through the books Ronan.


I didn't realize WoTC was describing something you'd normally only see in a siege situation. *chuckles* I always figured a Tower was more like a Norman kite shield. Big, but certainly easier to manage than the PnP Tower.

(I'd love to see shield bashing in the game engine, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Will DMs adhere to using these balanced mobs if they're created to handle the PCs having extra AC removed from them? I think the big issues are twofold getting DMs to use the mobs you're suggesting, and getting DMs to not hand out high powered items regularly. I'm easy as long as both sides are playing by the same rules.

I wouldn't go nuts making Amulets of Natural Armor that difficult to find. Keep the +2 & +3 (or stronger) versions hard to find. As is, I can't think of a place where a +1 Amulet of Natural Armor can be bought in game and I'm still the same habitual window shopper I've always been.

-Bill

[Burt]

If this is going to happen I'd sorely like to see healing potions fixed (to heal decent amounts), and their cost reduced significantly. As it is the potions we have are so incredibly shit that you have to max your AC out just to avoid taking damage.

[Stormseeker]

Ronan to get any magical equipment at all it takes a dm builder to put it in the mod or a dm to create it and give it to a player. Pc's cant hit that high 40ac without a dm.
If you change the player's ac and armor factor's then you must change every monster in the toolset to reflect that.


A pure fighter at first level(with out feats) can have a max ac of 22.
The same fighter if he took tumble would not get a + to his ac untill 7th lvl.
So without a dm to give him the magical equipment at 10thlvl his ac is 22.

[psycho_leo]

Bill, in PnP tower shields are tower shields. They are huge hunks of metal PCs can totally hide behind (and not attack) if they want. They provide 3 AC, and you take a -2 penalty to all attacks while weilding them because they are so huge.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/arm ... hieldTower

In PnP, tumble does not provide an AC bonus.

I don't see the tumble AC as much trouble as long as it is kept IC. I mean, it would be hard to believe a fighter clad in metal using that skill, but not hard at al to imagine a high dex rogue in leather making all sorts of acrobacies. I think that like it's been said before in this thread would be much better to link the skill and thus the AC bonus to light armor than removing it entirely. And yes.. I agree on the tower shield. Should be much larger than it is in NWN.

Will DMs adhere to using these balanced mobs if they're created to handle the PCs having extra AC removed from them? I think the big issues are twofold getting DMs to use the mobs you're suggesting, and getting DMs to not hand out high powered items regularly. I'm easy as long as both sides are playing by the same rules.

If players get AC taken from them and mobs remain as they are we are gonna have serious trouble keeping PCs alive in some servers. Meaning we would see much less rogues and rangers around.

I wouldn't go nuts making Amulets of Natural Armor that difficult to find. Keep the +2 & +3 (or stronger) versions hard to find. As is, I can't think of a place where a +1 Amulet of Natural Armor can be bought in game and I'm still the same habitual window shopper I've always been.

-Bill

I would say that any +2 version of anything (armor or weapons) shouldn't be readily available in shops. Those kind of items should be handed by DM only, either as loot or special comissioned items. But I wouldn't go as far as saying that no magical item should be sold in stores.

And for the Amulet of Natural Armor there's a jewel shop in Waterdeep that sells a +1 version.

[JspecWip]

I don't see your point here. Clerics and mages are supposed to buff up before fighting if they can. If they don't they are dumb. Thiefs and fighters don't have access to spells, but that doesn't stop them from having potions. I played a fighter before and I made sure he was properly equiped before going out to risk his life.

If you read the previous post I made you would understand the context of what I said. Because you should buff doesn't mean that you go next to the known spawn location buff up in plain view of mobs, but they somehow can't see you, then smash the spawn. Alot of buffs are short duration but can be abused mostly as Ronan said because of AI.

There's a big difference between playing a lot and farming.

I'm not talking about playing alot I'm talking about grinding/farming. Point me toward the server where you can participate in the amount of Dm run activities that you will gain 1k exp a week. The obscene speed in which some level in a "low" xp setting is only acheavable from PGing/farming/grinding.

If this is going to happen I'd sorely like to see healing potions fixed (to heal decent amounts), and their cost reduced significantly. As it is the potions we have are so incredibly sh*t that you have to max your AC out just to avoid taking damage.

I agree with this as well, but if we move to set Canon standards across all of Alfa2 then this would certainly be included.

I don't see why any of this is considered nerfing, its simply setting things to canon or as close to it as possible. This system of standards has been play tested, is easily reviewable, and will be known/should be known to perspective members thus cutting down any learning curve.

As far as making sure these monsters are used, this has been talked about already and is talked about further in base mod content. The only mobs availible in base mod should be canon standard. All others will have to be spawned as erfs by Dm's thus no random monster will be nerfed. Wonder what cr a goblin is go look in the Dmg or monster manual. Canon standards also handle leaders/boss monster, so the group of 50 gobo's have a more badass leader than the group of 10.

Wouldn't this make it easier on builders as well because they would just go right from what is in the source material?

WTF people....talk about all the crazy changes this would simplify things, and because mobs would have much lower CR's and AC's low levels would have a much easier time. The only differance would be in mid-high levels, their AC wouldn't be so uber, but even then monster would be easier, no one really gets the shaft here.

I'll use the Orc champions on SD as an example
CR? Hp 15-20 AC 14-17 Ab 7
Also these spawn per every 3 or so regular orcs

After the changes
CR1or2 HP 18 (max) AC 13-17 AB 3-4
spawn per 10 orcs in community/leader of smaller parties

I didn't go look in DMG or Monstermanual so feel free to post the actual cannon stats.

As you can see SD has fair spawns, but after the changes mobs will be weaker and per canon the badasses won't be mixed in as much.

[Brokenbone]

Heh, reading that d20 reference, if someone can add 25lbs to Towers, cool.

The -2 to AB sounds perfectly fair as well.

I guess one might have difficulty figuring out a way to implement the "choice" (unique power? which might provoke an AoO?) of foregoing all attacks and opting for "total cover", maybe with a crawling kind of move rate. I have no idea what kind of ramifications that'd have for AI though, one would figure that "turtling" and approaching a line of archers would cause any sane group of archers to start considering new tactics, pronto. Throw alchemist fire or caltrops, fan out and try to flank, scatter, who knows?

Anyhow, I would think the first two things could be done before figuring out the cover junk, and since cover means "not fighting back" anyhow, I'd imagine implementation speed would not be crucial.

Net, making towers heavy, and trading 2 points of AB for the one point of AC, sounds fine by me. So as to the post that kicked off this thread, I say, sure, go for it, now or NWN2, doesn't matter to me.

EDIT - if it turns out some scripting wizard or whatever can figure out a good way to do the "no attack / total cover" thing faster than I realized, bonus, do that too

[HEEGZ]

Instead of playing a constant balancing game, where the mobs gradually get overpowered over the months to compete with the PCs as they accumulate the items and levels over the months, we should just have a standard. I think the focus needs to be placed on keeping things as close to canon as possible, and the game engine as unmodified as is practical. Less is more.

Yes pc's in alfa fight more...but they level less than pnp. According to the dmg pc's should lvl up after every 14 encounters.

With a PW setting, I would say that 14 DM'd sessions/encounters could replace that statement. I would say static quests/mobs shouldn't apply to that 14 encounter recommendation. If a PC doesn't level shortly after 14 sessions with a DM something is wrong. I think I've seen 1 level per month thrown around and I don't see how anything is wrong with that. The focus should be on RPing the PC and the steady increase in levels keeps the players hooked and provides for PC advancement. (ie. higher level clerics should be able to raise, etc.). This IS a game for fun, right?

Leave the AC's alone. Dm's control every piece of magical equipment...so if pc's have to much logicaly we know whom to blame.

It's been mentioned before, if the DMs are the only source of magical gear, we can avoid alot of the problems that have been brought up. The system is not broken, it's the players, builders, and DMs that have established bad behaviors. Spawns are too tough for low levels, and are grindable. Players react to permadeath and difficult encounters, etc. by making their PCs as bulletproof as possible, to the detriment of RP. It's a little late to go back now after the fact with the nerf stick, so we have this huge opportunity with NWN2 to communally decide what we want.

Players CANT create items.
Players CANT give them selves xp.
Players CANT give them selves gold.
Players CANT set the buyback of merchants.
Players CANT set the a.i.
Players CANT set loot drops.
Players CANT validate themselves on level up.

Very well said, I really don't have anything to add because your points speak for themselves.

So if the player CANT do any of these things, then someone explain to this hillbilly how in the hell continueing to nerf the players is going to fix the problem?

Your post has really helped my consolidate my opinion of how I think things can be fixed. Here's my ideas, I'm certain they have all been brought up before, but for sake of discussion I'm going to post them all right here in a nice little list:

[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]

From where I stand the persistant world for ALFA should be built with a focus on providing a playground to RP in. With the upcoming interest in NWN2 and increased player density, there is no reason why there shouldn't be plenty of DM coverage. If the builders put in a little goblin village with 20 CR 0-1 gobs, it should be fine for that high-level ranger with racial hatred to mow through them. No xp for it though, unless a DM watches and awards it for RP for staying IC. If we keep it canon and keep magical gear under control of DMs, and HDMs control their DMs, everything really should balance out. I don't even have a problem with a high magic ALFA, that would be great. A level 15 Ftr should be a powerhouse and his challenges in combat should come via DM'd NPCs/quests, not some random static mob IMO. That reminds me, all area spawns should keep in mind lower level PCs. If it is canon for a dragon in that cave, fine. But CRs should increase only as you get far from starting areas. Anything really difficult should be DM run. I think we are heading this way already based on some of the proprosals I've read through, most recently the Cold Lands.

Having said all that, ALFA is great. The servers are beautiful and have lots of potential. I'm usually getting excellent interaction from the DMs and consistent IC RP from my fellow PCs. I've seen little to no PGing or meta gaming. It's there, but very subdued and controlled from my perspective. For every questionable behavior I see though, I've had at least 2-3 discussions via /tells about what is appropriate. Whether it is frequency of cross-server travel or a magic item, the players I have encountered really are concerned about not crossing the line. The main concern I constantly encounter is PC survivability. *looks at length, sighs* Anyways, if none of my ideas get implemented, I will keep playing ALFA, and still love it. If any of them do, I can only see things getting better from an RP standpoint. Thanks for reading, sorry for the length.

EDIT: Wow, 7-8 posts since I started typing this Only thing to add is why not have a variety of tower shields? +3 AC @ 30lbs. another with +6 AC @ 45lbs and -2 AB, etc. Not unlike the difference in weight from masterwork vs. normal shields.

[danielmn]

heh heh, I don't even worry about survivability anymore....*laughs* a fighter with a 14 wisdom that will never cross-class...not worried in the least.

*waves to HEEGZ*

[HEEGZ]

heh heh, I don't even worry about survivability anymore....*laughs*

I'm not worried about it as I have alot of PC concepts I still want to run, heh. I do see alot people post about it though and their PCs definitely RP as wanting to live LOL

a fighter with a 14 wisdom that will never cross-class...not worried in the least.

That whole thing is totally baffling, yet almost humorous...

*waves to HEEGZ*

*waves back*
Where the heck have you gone off to??
It's just not the same...

[psycho_leo]

I don't see your point here. Clerics and mages are supposed to buff up before fighting if they can. If they don't they are dumb. Thiefs and fighters don't have access to spells, but that doesn't stop them from having potions. I played a fighter before and I made sure he was properly equiped before going out to risk his life.

If you read the previous post I made you would understand the context of what I said. Because you should buff doesn't mean that you go next to the known spawn location buff up in plain view of mobs, but they somehow can't see you, then smash the spawn. Alot of buffs are short duration but can be abused mostly as Ronan said because of AI.

This is as you said yourself a problem with the AI not with players. This is not an abuse. Short duration buffs are supposed to be used right before a fight. I can see myself casting something like bulls strenght or barkskin (wich last for hours) right after leaving town. But I won't cast divine favor
unless I see an orc with an axe, because it lasts for rounds.

There's a big difference between playing a lot and farming.

I'm not talking about playing alot I'm talking about grinding/farming. Point me toward the server where you can participate in the amount of Dm run activities that you will gain 1k exp a week. The obscene speed in which some level in a "low" xp setting is only acheavable from PGing/farming/grinding.

I remember a DM event where I got 500 XP. Yes one event. But it lasted all night.. something like 6 or so hours. In that week I may have at least gotten close to that 1K limit you talk about. And I did it though RP only. In DF if I get lucky I can get DM attention 3/4 times a week sometimes. Of course.. there are weeks when I don't see a single DM on, or at least don't get attention because they are busy with other players. Tough luck.
DMs have logs and should use it. If a Dm notices a player is farming/griding/PGing, by all means talk to him and solve it.

[Fionn]

Last I checked BW was selling Natural Armor at bonus^2 * 1K. PnP lists at bonus^2 * 2K. I've seen a lot of the former in ALFA. Simply raising the price should do some, but we should also remove them from 'common' shoppes if they need a Druid/Rgr to craft.

Dodge is another feature I'd like to see seriously made rare. These uber combos make it seriously hard to live DM, and impossible to balance static/random mobs in the toolset. If I expect a normal PC3 group to be challenged, I have to know that thier tank has AC in the x-y range. If suddenly I find a PC3 with a y+6 AC, suddenly my mobs can only hit on a 20 and he wades through.

+10 stealth gear is another issue, especially while it stacks with +5 stealth gear ;) Hopefully all that is sorted out when we make the pallette for NWN2.

[Ronan]

Will DMs adhere to using these balanced mobs if they're created to handle the PCs having extra AC removed from them? I think the big issues are twofold getting DMs to use the mobs you're suggesting, and getting DMs to not hand out high powered items regularly. I'm easy as long as both sides are playing by the same rules.

The aim is to include a canon monster for every appearance type we get with NWN2. Beyond that, I'm not really sure what could realistically be done from the technical side of things. I'm sure much could be in terms of testing and player-feedback. Of course, it won't be as big of a problem when we can scale mobs and the big tought mofos actually look big and tough.

If this is going to happen I'd sorely like to see healing potions fixed (to heal decent amounts), and their cost reduced significantly. As it is the potions we have are so incredibly sh*t that you have to max your AC out just to avoid taking damage.

I sort of agree, I think it would be better to relook at the wealth gains and sinks of combat as whole, which would include potion costs. Frankly I've never liked D&D's ability to carry an indefinite amount of healing potions in combat, but I do think that post-combat healing should be much cheaper (even if its in the form of lots of CLWs).

Ronan to get any magical equipment at all it takes a dm builder to put it in the mod or a dm to create it and give it to a player. Pc's cant hit that high 40ac without a dm. If you change the player's ac and armor factor's then you must change every monster in the toolset to reflect that.

Exactly. Every monster will be changed anyways, and technical changes are infinitely easier than changing how a DM does things. Not that most DMs try to twink PCs at all. Its hard to know all the items PCs have access to in their pChests, and often a reward is given which doesn't fall into the hands of the PC the DM thought it would. I know my PC has given away probably 65% of the magical gear he has personally owned. In a nutshell, DMs can rarely if ever police the power-level of their players. And theny you've got to get all DMs on the same page, which raises the PITA-factor (causing burnouts, quitage). Its much simpler if things are fixed in code.

Though most NWN monsters are actually canon, they are just ment to be slaughtered in huge numbers in the OC, so the powerfull (and horridly twinked by our standards) PC can cut them down by the dozen.

I don't see the tumble AC as much trouble as long as it is kept IC. I mean, it would be hard to believe a fighter clad in metal using that skill, but not hard at al to imagine a high dex rogue in leather making all sorts of acrobacies. I think that like it's been said before in this thread would be much better to link the skill and thus the AC bonus to light armor than removing it entirely. And yes.. I agree on the tower shield. Should be much larger than it is in NWN.

Yeah, we'll have to see what technical options are available to us in NWN2. In any case, I believe the pure-combat fighter should always have access to the best AC, and I see tumble infringing on that to a small extent.

Honestly I think NWN2 will be a lot more organized, and tightening a fist around magic items will be less critical if wealth standards and things are there from the get-go. I don't really see the problem with selling minor (+1ish) magic in some stores where it is canon to do so. Yeah it could be PGed, but not to great effect at those levels.

[Stormseeker]

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".

[JspecWip]

Not a viable option in a PW. Ruins immersion....

This is guna go to lock WOOT.

[Misty]

There's a big difference between playing a lot and farming.

I'm not talking about playing alot I'm talking about grinding/farming. Point me toward the server where you can participate in the amount of Dm run activities that you will gain 1k exp a week. The obscene speed in which some level in a "low" xp setting is only acheavable from PGing/farming/grinding.

it happens. even DM-run only stuff that nets you 2k per week. Skullport in its height of popularity, as well as the Dragon Coast both managed this last year.

you can legitimately earn 1k a week with DM-only xp. few nights of 250-300xp rewards is all it takes.


but this has no bearing on removing dodge AC from boots.