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View Full Version : 3.5: High level play; Immunities and AC.



FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 12:06 AM
I'm sure this is a problem you've all ran into before, by the time you get to high levels it just gets to hard to hit people.

By the time the caster is level 17, it's probably immune to:

-Ability Damage
-Ability Drain (maybe)
-Death Effects
-Negative energy
-Nonmagical weapons
-Poison
-Critical Hits/Precision
-Mind-Affecting
-Grapples
-Illusions
-Most Elements (Especially Fire and Cold)

The point is, once you're high levels, the game becomes Rock, Paper, Scissors against who remembered which immunity to persist. How do you think a system would work if, as a general statement, nothing granted immunity, only a +20 to resist? Maybe +30? At low levels it would amount to effective immunity. At high levels however, you won't be able to ignore all of the effects being thrown around, just, well, most of them. Does anyone see any big problems here?

And AC? Well, the problem isn't just AC, it's also Displacement/Mirror Image and such, but I'll group them all together. It is much easier to optimize AC then Attack. This, I've found, is prevalent for both casters and martial types. I played in a Martial-Only 15 gestalt area game over on GitP, and guess what? Multiple games ended in a match because we couldn't hit each other(yes, 20s hit, but everyone has Fast Healing ). Especially when you start stacking ability scores to AC(FotF + Deepwarden on a template stacked barbarian gets silly), it's easy to get ACs in the 80s and touch ACs in the 70s. You may have Wraithstrike, but it doesn't matter!

Getting a +60 to attack is hard. And that only lets you hit on a 50% chance. Before the 1/16th chance that you hit the wrong image or that enemy is displaced. This one? I don't know how to fix this one. Any ideas?

EDIT: These assumptions are made for optimized character builds that take full advantage of there sources. This is not a thread about Core builds. My goal is to alter the system as little as possible in order to allow for high level play. The current system falls apart at level 15 or so. Current high level play is Rocket Tag, and everyone is immune to explosions.

Pharaoh's Fist
2010-01-24, 12:10 AM
True Seeing.

ZeroNumerous
2010-01-24, 12:13 AM
Getting a +60 to attack is hard. And that only lets you hit on a 50% chance. Before the 1/16th chance that you hit the wrong image or that enemy is displaced. This one? I don't know how to fix this one. Any ideas?

Firbolg's have 32 to strength, right? That's +11 to hit. +6 item, +5 inherent gives you 43 for +16. +5 sword gives +21. BAB gives +41. True Strike gives +61. Only used three items and two spells...

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 12:16 AM
Firbolg's have 32 to strength, right? That's +11 to hit. +6 item, +5 inherent gives you 43 for +16. +5 sword gives +21. BAB gives +41. True Strike gives +61. Only used three items and two spells...

Try doing it consistently.

And yes, True Seeing does help against hitting high level opponents, but that doesn't cover the AC problem..

faceroll
2010-01-24, 12:21 AM
Getting 70 to 80 AC requires pretty specialized builds, doesn't it?

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 12:24 AM
Getting 70 to 80 AC requires pretty specialized builds, doesn't it?

Not at high levels. Any caster can stack spells, any martial character will stack the same abilities score on it 3 times. If you allow LA buyback it'll get even higher.

I should have specified, and I will edit accordingly, my effort is to allow for optimized high level play. The current rules of the game simply don't work with 18th level optimized builds.

Temotei
2010-01-24, 12:25 AM
Try doing it consistently.

And yes, True Seeing does help against hitting high level opponents, but that doesn't cover the AC problem..

+5 brilliant energy weapon can help, although not too much. Too bad it doesn't cut through natural armor. That would be way too good though.

Barbarian: Agh! Attack fail!
Fighter with brilliant energy weapon: Hey dragon! Look here! *slice* Wow. That was surprisingly easy.
Barbarian: Rawr. I kill you for good sword now.
Fighter: Actually, it's a greatsword.
Wizard: Yeah...didn't even have to waste any spells on a mere dragon.

faceroll
2010-01-24, 12:41 AM
Not at high levels. Any caster can stack spells, any martial character will stack the same abilities score on it 3 times. If you allow LA buyback it'll get even higher.

I should have specified, and I will edit accordingly, my effort is to allow for optimized high level play. The current rules of the game simply don't work with 18th level optimized builds.

Huh, I was going to say a similarly optimized to hit build could get just as much, but I stall out around +50 to hit. I guess making those wraithstrikes, he's got a 50% chance of hitting.

Temotei
2010-01-24, 12:43 AM
Huh, I was going to say a similarly optimized to hit build could get just as much, but I stall out around +50 to hit. I guess making those wraithstrikes, he's got a 50% chance of hitting.

Natural 1's and 20's skew it a little.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 12:45 AM
Huh, I was going to say a similarly optimized to hit build could get just as much, but I stall out around +50 to hit. I guess making those wraithstrikes, he's got a 50% chance of hitting.

You're right, there is a soft wall for Attack. Once you get around +50 it's just damn hard to get much higher! I've found that exact same problem.

(+50 is 20 below the theoretical 70 touch, resulting in 5% chance.)


Natural 20s only make things worse. Eventually, you give up on Attack and just accept the fact that you're going to miss. Therefore, you don't just ignore your attack, you full Power Attack at all times because it doesn't change your chances.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 01:27 AM
I think 80 sounds a little high. Could you put forward a build that actually hits ac 80, preferably one that can do something other than turtle?

faceroll
2010-01-24, 01:31 AM
(+50 is 20 below the theoretical 70 touch, resulting in 5% chance.)

You hit AC 60 50% of the time with 1d20+50.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 01:39 AM
I think 80 sounds a little high. Could you put forward a build that actually hits ac 80, preferably one that can do something other than turtle?

Half Minotaur Lolth Touched Barbarian Deepwarden Fist of the Forest w/ Monk's Belt + Amulet of Natural Armor + Bracers of Armor

10 + 25(con) + 25(con) + 6(wis) +6(natural) +6(armor) = 78 without any of your nice caster friends.

That took ~100.000g, 3 levels and a couple feats. You now have a 1d8 unarmed strike and 2 natural attacks. Now go crazy and take some Crusader or Warblade levels. Or Frenzied Bezerker or anything else you want.


But that's so specific!
That's true. You're right. But note the underlined section. Maybe you have a Silvermoon War Weaver in your group(like any optimized group will), boom!, you just got another +14 from one spell. I don't even feel like going over all the ways that this gives you INSANE ACs.


@you're right, but my hypothetical AC was a 70.

faceroll
2010-01-24, 01:44 AM
You can get astronomical saves and ac with gloura, too, but unless there's buy off, you won't have enough levels to get more than 6th or 7th level sublime chord casting.


@you're right, but my hypothetical AC was a 70.

Maybe he got debuffed or something :smallwink:


As for getting more to hit, what about arcane strike? What's the type on that? I've only been looking at divine casters.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 01:46 AM
Maybe he got debuffed or something :smallwink:

Awkwardly, Dispell is possible to become near immune to at high levels.

faceroll
2010-01-24, 01:50 AM
Awkwardly, Dispell is possible to become near immune to at high levels.

If he's medium size, there's that third level spell that auto-entangles its target.

Adumbration
2010-01-24, 01:55 AM
Nothing particularly interesting here. Move along.

Let's see now. You want to be able to hit AC of 70-80?

I can do that.


Feats:
1st: Power attack
Flaw: Improved Bullrush
Flaw: Combat expertise
3rd: Weapon focus
6th: Song of the White raven
9th: Shock trooper
12th: Extra music
(originally this was level 13 build, can't be bothered to outline further feats.)



Spirit lion Barbarian 1/Bard 1/Warblade 3/War chanter 10/Bear warrior 5.

BAB 19.

Raptoran. Flight speed 40 ft, average. Pounce.

Base Stats: Str 16, Dex 8, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 8.

Total attack bonus: 19 (BaB) + 19 (morale from inspire recklessness) + 19 (shock trooper) + 12 (strength, after boosting with items and bear rage)
+ 2 (charge) + 1 (Weapon focus) = +72

You also get a nice boost to damage, but I can't be bothered to calculate it here.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 01:55 AM
I have Freedom of Movement active, I ignore the entangle.

THIS IS DUMB AND THIS IS MY POINT
We are playing Rock Paper Scissors with immunities and effects.

EDIT: ahah, sorry if that came out wrong :smallbiggrin:
I'm just frustrated at how I can figure this out. I'm not mad at you :smallcool:

Adumbration
2010-01-24, 01:58 AM
THIS IS DUMB AND THIS IS MY POINT
We are playing Rock Paper Scissors with immunities and effects.

Okay. *backs slowly out of the thread*

Zaydos
2010-01-24, 01:58 AM
Let's see now. You want to be able to hit AC of 70-80?

I can do that.


Feats:
1st: Power attack
Flaw: Improved Bullrush
Flaw: Combat expertise
3rd: Weapon focus
6th: Song of the White raven
9th: Shock trooper
12th: Extra music
(originally this was level 13 build, can't be bothered to outline further feats.)



Spirit lion Barbarian 1/Bard 1/Warblade 3/War chanter 10/Bear warrior 5.

BAB 19.

Raptoran. Flight speed 40 ft, average. Pounce.

Base Stats: Str 16, Dex 8, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 8.

Total attack bonus: 19 (BaB) + 19 (morale from inspire recklessness) + 19 (shock trooper) + 12 (strength, after boosting with items and bear rage)
+ 2 (charge) + 1 (Weapon focus) = +72

You also get a nice boost to damage, but I can't be bothered to calculate it here.

How does Shock Trooper grant +19 to attack? I thought it allowed you to fuel PA with AC instead of Atk.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 01:58 AM
Let's see now. You want to be able to hit AC of 70-80?


Shock Trooper doesn't add to attack. It simply removes the penalty you didn't account for.

Irrelevent though. You're correct that you can optimize to hit it. I, however, contest that it is more costly to improve your offense then it is defense. And that just doesn't work! You have unhittable characters.

jiriku
2010-01-24, 01:59 AM
Honestly, I don't see it. I mean, in 1v1 sure, you'll flail around like a (ahem) fish out of water.

But D&D is not Tekken.

As the DM, I can simply ask to see your character sheets, review and understand your character's strengths and weaknesses, and then build monsters that challenge you. It doesn't matter how high or low your stats are - I can create a monster that does whatever I want. It's usually not even that hard; 90% of the time I can just advance something out of a monster manual to get what I need. The only real problem is when characters have widely varying stats. In your example, if two PCs are AC 75, three more are AC 45, and one is AC 25, I have a problem. Everybody needs to stay in the same ballpark.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 02:02 AM
Honestly, I don't see it. I mean, in 1v1 sure, you'll flail around like a (ahem) fish out of water.

But D&D is not Tekken.

As the DM, I can simply ask to see your character sheets, review and understand your character's strengths and weaknesses, and then build monsters that challenge you. It doesn't matter how high or low your stats are - I can create a monster that does whatever I want. It's usually not even that hard; 90% of the time I can just advance something out of a monster manual to get what I need. The only real problem is when characters have widely varying stats. In your example, if two PCs are AC 75, three more are AC 45, and one is AC 25, I have a problem. Everybody needs to stay in the same ballpark.

How do you get creative? Honest question. I'm not implying you can't, I'm really wondering.

Short of just 'Claw 1 hits for 70 damage' coming from an extremely advanced Dragon with Attack optimization, what do you do?

What do you do if you want the BBEG to not be a monster? I understand that many monsters have insane Attack stats because the have so many HD. What do you do when the bad guy is a Mind Flayer?

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 02:09 AM
What do you do if you want the BBEG to not be a monster? I understand that many monsters have insane Attack stats because the have so many HD. What do you do when the bad guy is a Mind Flayer?

Ignore your ac altogether by using psionic powers? :smallconfused:

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 02:11 AM
Half Minotaur Lolth Touched Barbarian Deepwarden Fist of the Forest w/ Monk's Belt + Amulet of Natural Armor + Bracers of Armor

10 + 25(con) + 25(con) + 6(wis) +6(natural) +6(armor) = 78 without any of your nice caster friends.

That took ~100.000g, 3 levels and a couple feats. You now have a 1d8 unarmed strike and 2 natural attacks. Now go crazy and take some Crusader or Warblade levels. Or Frenzied Bezerker or anything else you want.




How did you get a +25 from con?

Zaydos
2010-01-24, 02:17 AM
Actually the above half minotaur AC example seems odd. How do you get 60 Con (for +25 Con bonus)? I can get 18 + 12 from templates + 5 from level + 5 from tome + 6 from item... Is 46 which is still 14 too low. Assuming Dragonborn Mongrelman for +6 more you're still 8 too low and that's a lot more than a few class levels. So can I have it explained how the Con got so high?

Edit: Ninja'd.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-24, 02:17 AM
He's representing a Con score of 60. Possible via template stacking.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 02:25 AM
He's representing a Con score of 60. Possible via template stacking.

yeah, but not through just the templates he listed. Besides too many more templates and he's looking at a significant loss to BAB.

@zaydos, I didn't think you could have a lolth-touched dragon-born? or does is the dragonborn's non-evil requirement a fluff thing rather than a mechanical one?

Zaydos
2010-01-24, 02:32 AM
Like I said with the templates listed I can get 46 Con, 52 with the addition of dragonborn mongrelman as the base race. With LA buyoff he'd have 1 more LA to play with without level loss. Also he had the Natural Armor and Armor too low for the high end of those items (a half minotaur begins with +4 nat armor, so it should be +9 with max amulet of health and natural armor, and +8 from bracers).

This would give: 73 AC, and represent the majority of your wealth. Give the attack build above Mineral Warrior and Half-Minotaur (+7 to hit) and it's hitting on a 13 when charging.

@Kelb Panthera: It's a fluff thing, but I really don't think you could get away with it in a real game since the best I've seen is the suggestion of a dragonborn of tiamat which still wouldn't be able to be lolth-touched. At this point I'm just wondering how you get 60 Con in the first place.

olentu
2010-01-24, 02:34 AM
yeah, but not through just the templates he listed. Besides too many more templates and he's looking at a significant loss to BAB.

@zaydos, I didn't think you could have a lolth-touched dragon-born? or does is the dragonborn's non-evil requirement a fluff thing rather than a mechanical one?

I believe there is a side bar where in if a dragonborn repeatedly commits forbidden acts or converts to a evil philosophy bahamut becomes angry with them. As I recall if the dragonborn will not atone then they take some damage and are returned to their original race.

Zaydos
2010-01-24, 02:37 AM
Oh, I guess I never saw the sidebar. Well that leaves you with 71 AC, you get a ring of deflection +5 and a ring of force shielding and you have 78 for an 18 to hit. By this point you've spent most of your WBL and your very character on AC and it only really means you'll get messed up by spells.

Honestly while I won't say buffing AC is useless (and love Greater Luminous Armor) I have to say ridiculous amounts of effort aren't worth it. I still want to see how 60 Con was gained in the first place.

faceroll
2010-01-24, 02:38 AM
I believe there is a side bar where in if a dragonborn repeatedly commits forbidden acts or converts to a evil philosophy bahamut becomes angry with them. As I recall if the dragonborn will not atone then they take some damage and are returned to their original race.

Yup. It's on page 165.

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 02:40 AM
Like I said with the templates listed I can get 46 Con, 52 with the addition of dragonborn mongrelman as the base race. With LA buyoff he'd have 1 more LA to play with without level loss. Also he had the Natural Armor and Armor too low for the high end of those items (a half minotaur begins with +4 nat armor, so it should be +9 with max amulet of health and natural armor, and +8 from bracers).

This would give: 73 AC, and represent the majority of your wealth. Give the attack build above Mineral Warrior and Half-Minotaur (+7 to hit) and it's hitting on a 13 when charging.


The build was from the hip. I'm sorry for inconsistencies and mistakes in my math. And don't forget that he has a Silvermoon War Weaver on his team. He has as many spells persisted on him as you can imagine.

There are simply more stackable spells which buff AC then Attack. But we're digressing. How do you think this can be solved? Just fake monster's Attack modifier?

EDIT: For those wondering where I got the 60 con, it's from an old character concept I fooled around with. Half Minotaur Lolth Touched Azerblood with Thrall of Kostchiech and Stoneblessedlevels.
2(race)+
6(template)+
6(template)+
6(item)+
5(tome)+
5(levels)+
6(rage)+
4(thrall)+
2(stoneblessed)
18(base)
=60

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 02:52 AM
Even with the buffs from other characters to his AC he really doesn't have much else going for him. One good SoS and he's toast. Everybody knows that in optimized play, that if you're not a caster you're a one-trick pony. Just go around his one trick, which is AC in this particular case. Immunities are a bigger issue, since many of the more esoteric choices for a character come with lots of immunity blankets. Necropolitan, for instance, comes with the whole host of undead immunites at the cost of his con becoming a non-ability. AFAIK there is no easy way to avoid the "rock-paper-scissors" issue you're looking at. But with so many rocks, papers, scissors, machetes, shot-guns, bricks, sheets-of-kevlar, etc.. that are available; is it really that big an issue?

faceroll
2010-01-24, 02:54 AM
Even with the buffs from other characters to his AC he really doesn't have much else going for him. One good SoS and he's toast. Everybody knows that in optimized play, that if you're not a caster you're a one-trick pony. Just go around his one trick, which is AC in this particular case. Immunities are a bigger issue, since many of the more esoteric choices for a character come with lots of immunity blankets. Necropolitan, for instance, comes with the whole host of undead immunites at the cost of his con becoming a non-ability. AFAIK there is no easy way to avoid the "rock-paper-scissors" issue you're looking at. But with so many rocks, papers, scissors, machetes, shot-guns, bricks, sheets-of-kevlar, etc.. that are available; is it really that big an issue?

With 60 con and steadfast determination, he's practically immune to anything that forces a will or fort save. Unless taint rules are in effect, someone's using a non-finite loop, or there's a killer gnome.

[edit]
Forgot to mention the mass of immunities he'll have, thanks to the spellweave.

jiriku
2010-01-24, 03:14 AM
How do you get creative? Honest question. I'm not implying you can't, I'm really wondering.

Short of just 'Claw 1 hits for 70 damage' coming from an extremely advanced Dragon with Attack optimization, what do you do?

What do you do if you want the BBEG to not be a monster? I understand that many monsters have insane Attack stats because the have so many HD. What do you do when the bad guy is a Mind Flayer?

OK, good challenge. I have a couple of options. If you are unimpressed by my examples, please bear in mind that I'm pulling them out of my butt with no knowledge of your party and not taking time to check my sources or math very closely, rather than carefully tailoring them the players I DM for every week and checking for errors:

Option 1: Rude Abuse of Non-Associated Class Levels and Gratuitous Bonus-Stacking.
A mindflayer sorcerer 8/cleric 8 is CR 16 and has 24 HD. With divine power and the elite array, it has Str 27 and base attack +24. Knowlege Devotion and a jillion ranks in Knowlege (local) gets me another +5 to hit, as does Law Devotion. An enslaved bard thrall can easily give me +5 to hit with his bardic music. With a few Practiced Spellcaster feats, I can get +5 off of greater magic weapon, and Persistent Spell + Divine Metamagic will get me wraithstrike or ice axe to make melee touch attacks. Don't forget divine favor for an additional +5/+5, a luckstone and one of those +1 to hit ioun stones or somesuch, and we're at +59 to hit already. I am hitting your 70 touch AC 50% of the time, and honestly, mindflayers are a terrible platform from which to build a melee bruiser.

Option 2: Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies.
Let's try a classic monster - githyanki! A githyanki sorcerer 6/incantatrix 10 is CR 17. Build a Cindy (http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profiler/view_char.php?cid=5890)-themed metamagic abuser: my take would be Twin Spell, Empower Spell, Easy Metamagic (Twin Spell), Practical Metamagic (Twin Spell), Sculpt Spell, Fell Drain, Easy Metamagic (Fell Drain), Arcane Thesis (Greater Arcane Fusion), Arcane Thesis (Arcane Fusion), and Arcane Thesis (hail of stone) (SC). Gear up with a belt of battle. For your spells, select greater arcane fusion, arcane fusion, planar bubble, hail of stone, and a bunch of other stuff. Your alpha strike is a twinned greater arcane fusion, which contains four twinned arcane fusions, which contain sixteen sculpted twinned empowered fell drain hail of stone spells. Then, with planar bubble, quicken another one and do it again. Then activate your belt of battle and do it again. You deal (480d4*1.5) untyped magic damage plus 96 negative levels to everything within your sculpted area (that's about 1,680 damage). With no save. And no spell resistance. And no attack roll. Of course, at level 15+, this attack might not be lethal. I can think of half a dozen ways offhand to survive it or even to escape with no harm. But it certainly defeats your 80 AC, and many other common defenses.

Option 3: Look at the size of that thing!
You asked about humanoid monsters, but I can't resist throwing in a nasty beast. A devourer (MM1) advanced to 36 HD is CR 18 and has 44 Str and +24 base attack. This a base of +39 to hit, after size penalties. Add in Knowledge Devotion, desecration near an evil alter, the corpsecrafter feat on the part of its creating cleric, and we're at +52. Now stick it next to an Unholy Font of Plot Complication which grants it a +10 inherent bonus to all attributes, and +20 untyped to hit, AC, and saves, and provide the players with a Font-Destroying Gizmo of Plot Resolution, and I have a monster that is a credible threat until the players use their gizmo to destroy the font. You see, the DM can make stuff up if it serves the greater good.

tl;dr As the DM, the game gives you the tools to challenge players. You can build something that will hit from time to time. Even if you don't, you can build spellcasters who really don't need to roll to hit. Even if you don't, the game empowers you to make stuff up if that's what's needed to keep things fun and interesting.

Edit: Also, the game empowers you to control play by deciding which options are allowed and which are not. For instance, if you attempted to bring a Half-minotaur Lolth-touched dragonborn mineral warrior mongrelman to my table, I would laugh until my sides hurt, and then say no and tell you to play a human instead.

Eldariel
2010-01-24, 04:48 AM
Yeah, the idea of changing all immunities into +20 bonuses, at least to a degree (there are some things that can only be defeated via. immunities like Irresistible Dance), is really one tossed around and not horrible.

Elite Optimization Challenge (http://web.archive.org/web/20080221060603/http://forums.gleemax.com/archive/index.php/t-441877.html) may interest those interested in numbers; it's basically a challenge of reaching 100 in 10 numbers (saves, attack, AC, damage and some skills) in the same character by level 20. It's also historically significant since I recall it's the first appearance of Pun-Pun.


EDIT: Backtracked the correct link. Unfortunately I could only find it from archives of Archives so the readability suffers a bit, but meh...

Jack_Simth
2010-01-24, 10:27 AM
The point is, once you're high levels, the game becomes Rock, Paper, Scissors against who remembered which immunity to persist. How do you think a system would work if, as a general statement, nothing granted immunity, only a +20 to resist? Maybe +30? At low levels it would amount to effective immunity. At high levels however, you won't be able to ignore all of the effects being thrown around, just, well, most of them. Does anyone see any big problems here?

One of the big problems is the spells that do those status effects in the first place. People want Death Ward... because Enervation is a 4th level no-save spell, negative levels are very painful, and lots of undead have the ability to spam them.

There's no inherent problem with switching all the "immunity to Y" spells to "+X to resist Y", but you do have the issues with the "no save" spells in the first place. So when you remove the immunity-granting spells, you need to make sure that everything has a save, first (or make it special-case SR that can't be bypassed by a pesky little SR: No line, nor such things as Assay Spell Resistance, rather than making it a bonus vs. the type of effect).


And AC? Well, the problem isn't just AC, it's also Displacement/Mirror Image and such, but I'll group them all together. It is much easier to optimize AC then Attack. This, I've found, is prevalent for both casters and martial types. I played in a Martial-Only 15 gestalt area game over on GitP, and guess what? Multiple games ended in a match because we couldn't hit each other(yes, 20s hit, but everyone has Fast Healing ). Especially when you start stacking ability scores to AC(FotF + Deepwarden on a template stacked barbarian gets silly), it's easy to get ACs in the 80s and touch ACs in the 70s. You may have Wraithstrike, but it doesn't matter!

If you're DMing a campaign, it's not a problem provided all the players are roughly equally optimized - you just boost the monsters, and you don't have to worry about that pesky step of finding templates, PrC's, and such to do it. You just increase attack/AC/saves/Save DC appropriately (if the players are not roughly equally optimized, then you've got a problem, but that's the character power disparity, not the optimization of characters itself)

If you're talking about an arena, then yes, this is a problem. Here's one simple fix:
Anything that lets you stack ability scores to something (such as the Paladin's Divine Grace adding Charisma to saves, the Paladin's Smite adding Charisma to attack, or the Monk's AC bonus adding Wisdom to AC), the benefit of that benefit of that bonus is limited to your class levels in the thing that grants the bonus, with items that grant such have an assumed class level of 5. So if you're a Paladin-2 with a Monk's Belt, with Wisdom and Charisma scores of 30, you only get +2 to saves (Paladin-2, Divine Grace, 2 is less than 10) +2 to attack on a Smite (Paladin-2, Smite Evil; 2 is less than 10), and +5 to AC (effective Monk-5 from belt, 5 is less than 10).

Tell me: What does that do to the AC 78 build you listed earlier?



Getting a +60 to attack is hard. And that only lets you hit on a 50% chance. Before the 1/16th chance that you hit the wrong image or that enemy is displaced. This one? I don't know how to fix this one. Any ideas?

EDIT: These assumptions are made for optimized character builds that take full advantage of there sources. This is not a thread about Core builds. My goal is to alter the system as little as possible in order to allow for high level play. The current system falls apart at level 15 or so. Current high level play is Rocket Tag, and everyone is immune to explosions.

Eldariel
2010-01-24, 10:47 AM
Simple fix IMHO is to limit ability scores to stuff once per score, with exceptions of things that replace stuff like Deepwarden and sorta Ghost. That and limiting characters to one auxillary stat to AC (so no Wis AND Con AND Cha AND Int from various sources).

Btw, quick calculation shows quite doable +50 To Hit in Core without Polymorph:
Orc Barb 20

20 BAB
Str 18+4 race+6 item+5 levels+5 inherent+8 rage(+2 enlarge) = 46 (48); +18 (or +19 - 1 Size)
+5 Weapon (Greater Magic Weapon)
+1 Competence (Ioun Stone)
+1 Speed (Haste, Boots of Speed)
+2 Morale (Heroism, lasts 10 min/level, 3 slots = Extend, get 3 Pearl of Power IVs for the lass providing you with this)
+2 Luck (Intelligent weapon ability)

20+18+5+1+1+2+2 = +49, with various situational bonuses giving you more; stuff like Higher Ground, Flanking, Charging, Tripping, etc. adds up to another couple of bonuses. Then Weapon Focus adds up to +50, Blinking (Ring of Blink) lets you strike as Invisible vs. many opponents for +2 and -Dex, etc. If you used Barbarian 14/Sorcerer 2/Dragon Disciple 4, you could also cast True Strike, at the cost of +1 composite To Hit while raging, for +20 more netting you +69 on a single strike (which while not all that impressive, should still be able to deal ~100 damage without Power Attack on a Mounted Charge, and probably at +72 from Higher Ground and Charging).

Soranar
2010-01-24, 10:55 AM
or

cast grease to give you time to deal with him (non casters can alway wand it)

deny is Con bonus to AC (which is +25 how as even if you somehow stack bahamut race you lose the bonuses it gives every time)

AC drops a mere 50 where nearly anything can hit him ...

FishAreWet
2010-01-24, 03:12 PM
One of the big problems is the spells that do those status effects in the first place. People want Death Ward... because Enervation is a 4th level no-save spell, negative levels are very painful, and lots of undead have the ability to spam them.

There's no inherent problem with switching all the "immunity to Y" spells to "+X to resist Y", but you do have the issues with the "no save" spells in the first place. So when you remove the immunity-granting spells, you need to make sure that everything has a save, first (or make it special-case SR that can't be bypassed by a pesky little SR: No line, nor such things as Assay Spell Resistance, rather than making it a bonus vs. the type of effect).

If you're DMing a campaign, it's not a problem provided all the players are roughly equally optimized - you just boost the monsters, and you don't have to worry about that pesky step of finding templates, PrC's, and such to do it. You just increase attack/AC/saves/Save DC appropriately (if the players are not roughly equally optimized, then you've got a problem, but that's the character power disparity, not the optimization of characters itself)

If you're talking about an arena, then yes, this is a problem. Here's one simple fix:
Anything that lets you stack ability scores to something (such as the Paladin's Divine Grace adding Charisma to saves, the Paladin's Smite adding Charisma to attack, or the Monk's AC bonus adding Wisdom to AC), the benefit of that benefit of that bonus is limited to your class levels in the thing that grants the bonus, with items that grant such have an assumed class level of 5. So if you're a Paladin-2 with a Monk's Belt, with Wisdom and Charisma scores of 30, you only get +2 to saves (Paladin-2, Divine Grace, 2 is less than 10) +2 to attack on a Smite (Paladin-2, Smite Evil; 2 is less than 10), and +5 to AC (effective Monk-5 from belt, 5 is less than 10).

Tell me: What does that do to the AC 78 build you listed earlier?

No save spells I guess would be forced to allow a save. And/or a Mettle/Evasion effect against spells of that nature. But that does get really complex and unclear. Hmm...

And yeah, I've seen that rule about stacking stats before. That would cut down the build I listed AC by about 40. :smallcool: I guess I just don't like that fix. It seems the only thing left to do is just scale up monsters a lot.

@Soranar, he's got uncanny.