Defense and Armor reduction?

[Curator]

I am about to start my first Pathfinder game. Used to play/contribute to the World of Warcraft RPG and Exalted.

I have seen the numerous gripes about casters being OP.

My simple question is does the Defense rating and armor reduction system combined with the vigor and hit points system make close combat classes feel a little more equal?

I will also use the Crit variant where the defender roles to cancel a crit rather than the attacker rolling to confirm.

Please don't let this turn into a closed thread. I just mainly want feedback on the Armor reduction system. Obviously, "To hit" is now a lower number, but armor reduces the damage so less health is lost. Any other input is most welcomed.

[gkathellar]

It won't do anything to equalize them at all, because it doesn't do anything to affect the reasons why casters are overpowered.

[Greenish]

Are you talking about 3.5's UA's alternative rules?

What does it matter who rolls the crit confirmation?


Anyway, the whole thing has little to no effect on casters.

[Curator]

So what makes casters so OP in DnD?

In Exalted everything was OP. In the WoW RPG the spells weren't the same as DnD. They also used Monte Cook's magical slot system (like sorcerers) for all casters divine and arcane.

As for the rules, I am talking about the variant/optional rules included in Ultimate Combat.

Defense and Armor Reduction rules

Defense = 10 + shield bonus + Dexterity modifier + other
modifiers (including armor’s enhancement bonus, but not
armor bonus or natural armor bonus)

Armor in this system keeps all of its normal statistics and
qualities, but its armor bonus (including any enhancement
bonus added to armor bonus and natural armor bonus) is
converted to DR/armor. The DR an armor provides is equal
to its total armor bonus with a +1 bonus at 5th level or at 5
Hit Dice, with an increase to that bonus of +1 for every five
levels above 5th level, or every 5 Hit Dice over 5 Hit Dice (to
a maximum of +4 to DR at 20th level or at 20 or more Hit
Dice), provided that the creature wearing the armor is also
proficient with the armor.

Crit Variant

Critical defense check bonus = creature’s DR + Dexterity
modifier + shield bonus to Defense + def lection bonus

Critical defense DC = critical hit roll + 1/2 attacker’s base
attack bonus + 1 for each critical feat + 1 for each size
category larger attacker is than target

Vigor and Wounds

Wound Points
Typically a creature has a number of wound points equal to
twice its Constitution score. It also has a wound threshold
equal to its Constitution score.
Wound points represent the amount of physical
punishment a creature can take before it dies. When
a creature’s wound points drop to or below its wound
threshold, that creature becomes wounded. When a
creature is wounded, it gains the staggered condition until
it is no longer wounded. Furthermore, when a creature
is wounded, if that creature takes any standard or move
action on its turn, its remaining wound points are reduced
by 1 and it must make a DC 10 Constitution check. If the
creature fails that check, it falls unconscious.
When a creature reaches 0 or fewer wound points, it
is dead.

Vigor represents a creature’s ability to avoid the majority of
actual physical damage it might take from an attack. When
a creature takes damage, the damage typically reduces its
vigor points first. Some special attacks either deal wound
point damage directly or deal both vigor and wound point
damage (see Critical Hits).
Creatures with one or more full Hit Dice or levels gain vigor
points. With each level gained or each Hit Die a creature has,
it gains a number of vigor points based on its Hit Die type.
When a creature no longer has any vigor points, any
additional damage it takes reduces its wound point total.

To sum it up Defense is the new number needed to hit a target. Its AC minus armor. Armor reduction takes the armors bonus to AC and converts it into a damage reduction.

Crits now place the ability to cancel a crit to the opponent.

Finally Vigor is just a pool of HP that usually needs to be fully removed before damage is dealt to the actual health.

Thoughts?

[gkathellar]

Short answer? By mid-levels, or even early levels according to some, full spellcasters can do everything better than everyone.

[Greenish]

Without armour bonus to AC, people will be easier to hit, and monster damage fast outpaces the DR from armour. People most inconvenienced by the DR will be TWFers who are already weaker.

Vigor and Wounds gives you some more hp, nice at lower levels.


[Edit]: Wait, you don't add your Con to your Vigor. That means that your hp will start higher but scale slower.

[Larpus]

Using the DR variant will make you considerably more sturdy at lower levels, but if I'm not mistaken there is something about it being penetrated by magic and whatnot, which becomes common ground past a certain level (especially if you face humanoids).

Even without that condition, shrugging off 12 or so damage from that 70 minimum attack by the big scary thing looking at you doesn't mean that much and doesn't even demote it from "massive" which can screw you very good quickly.

But durability does not make a Wizard OP, after all, they're paper thin! Spellcasters are OP due to their options.

For example, you are a fine Fighter or something, completely capable of melee fighting and dishing out a lot of pain in melee.

Can a Wizard do it? At lower levels, not by himself, but he can Summon a Monster that can, maybe he's not as strong as you are, but the mere fact that he can contribute in your specialty while you can't contribute in his is already an imbalance.

Moving along, oh no! You were locked in a cell and has to make an escapade, you're all by yourself but luckly find all your gear in the next room, however, now you've found a locked door, what can you do? You can force the lock or burst the door open, in both cases if it's trapped then boom you go, trap in the face.

What can the Wizard do? Grab his Wand of Knock and open the door from a safe distance or Summon again some small meaningless thing and make it mess with the door.

The list goes on and at higher levels it only gets crazier, as while you still have to run up to the baddie to whack him good, the Wizard teleports in, Arcane Marks him in the back with a "kick me" and teleports out.

And then comes the Wizard problem: can he be prepared for everything? Well, there are ways, but let's not powergame, so no, he can't. But, with the correct spell selection he can have a way around everything!

There are many spells that are versatile enough that with some creativity/logic you can quickly turn the situation around, even if it's just an Invisibility -> get out of there -> Disguise Self to not be found, while at the same time the Fighter is suffering with his 20ft speed and is so loud and obvious due to his full plate that he'd give the chasers a harder time if he would just surrender.

[Gnaeus]

Thoughts?

Without seeing it in play, this is what I think will happen.

At low levels, where a 4 person party might be fighting enemies like 8 mooks, armor makes you invulnerable. A creature doing d6+2, fighting someone with DR 8, needs to crit, then roll decent damage on the crit to hurt the enemy at all.

At mid-high levels, where you are fighting big thuddy things, you are worse off. Enemies can usually power attack for full, which by itself is probably more than enough to overcome the DR. They are very likely to hit with all iterative or secondary attacks, unless they roll ones.

Example: Current system. Greatclub wielding Stone Giant (CR 8) vs knight with 27 AC including Plate Mail +1 (maybe he has a shield +2, +1 dex, ring of protection, whatever). +16/+11 means 50% hit with 1st attack, 25% with 2nd. Average damage per hit 21 (he can't really afford to power attack). Average about 15.75 per round.

New System: Same giant. Knight now has 18 AC, DR 10 (8 for platemail, 1 enhancement bonus, 1 for knight's level). Giant power attacks for +9 with greatclub, so +18 damage per hit. Exact same numbers to hit (50%, 25%), but giant does +8 damage per hit after DR, so about 6 more damage for the giant per round.

Same giant, not power attacking. Chance of hitting 95%/70%. Average damage per hit after DR is 11. Average damage about 18.15 per round.

So, IMO, low level= good for melee, high level = bad for melee.

Alas, the Swordsages.

[Curator]

Interesting. Thanks for the feed back. And yeah this is the chart.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4141/chartkz.jpg

So I guess my final questions are:

Does 4th edition resolve the casters being OP? The one thing that draws me to Pathfinder is how only 7 core books have been made since it released, 9 if you count the Inner Sea. DnD 4th on the other hand has over 30 core books or iterations of core books.

Exalted has many books too but each is modular and none never feel like "must haves". For example I don't need the Lunars, Wyld, Fairfolk, or Threshold books. I only "need" The books pertaining to the regions I play in.

Unfortunately the list of DnD 4th books are like 3 player guides, 3 books with treasure, 2 dragon books, multiple books on each power type etc. None feel like "books I don't need".

This leads me to the final question I have.

If the system is so broken with casters, why has it still sold and been as big as it is?

[gkathellar]

4E fixes casters in a way a lot of people have significant problems with. I don't, but I still prefer 3.5/PF's enormous body of extensively analyzed data, so I won't go into that here.

People mostly continue playing 3.5/PF either because they a) like metagame analysis like I do, b) are comfortable with 3.5/PF and don't want to learn a new system, c) think its imbalances are features, not bugs, d) find 4E's system too constrained and focused on combat, or e) buy into largely false rhetoric about how 4E is just like an MMORPG. Mostly (b) and (c).

[Larpus]

My personal problem with 4e is that it looked a bit too homogenized, I might be wrong since I only looked at the core book couple years ago, but since neither my DM nor the rest of the group has shown any interest in it, there's little to no reason to revisit the system.

As for magic vs. mundane, yes it lacks balance, to a dangerous level, but honestly? I think it should be imbalanced, the only gripe I have is that mundane could have more ground to shine. Also, I never understood why polymorph is self-only, had it not been and using the PF version (+X to stats as opposed to replacing them), it would be the perfect melee-guy buff, which in turn makes him more useful and desired overall.

Anyway, most people will agree that casters in general only become a true problem if they try to become a problem, as in, if they fail to follow the simple code: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"; yes, there are more extreme cases like the Druid who is easy to overshadow everyone else without trying too hard, mainly due to Animal Companion, which is about as strong as a Fighter, while the Druid himself in a full caster, so the mere concept is already OP.

But Clerics and Wizards, who are the other big offenders? They're easy to control, since they need the correct spell selection and actions to break the game (something not so easy to do without trying to), Wizards also have the trap of going blasty and dealing less damage than the mundane crowd.

So just because the caster can throw a save-or-die at the big bad at the first round, that's just boring and jerkass behavior, if instead he buffed/debuffed and threw some control spells, everyone would've contributed to the fight and everyone would be happy.

Mundane, especially melee, combatants are always necessary, as much as the casters can deal with nearly everything, they can't do so all the time and, even if they do, eventually they run out of steam, so if I'm a Wizard, it's much better to have a Fighter around to protect me and a Rogue to pick locks than waste spells/wand charges left and right (besides, if I happen to be caught off-guard, I'm as good as dead if I can't call my Summons before it's too late).

Now, sadly there is a second big offender in the issue that is completely independent of player actions: the bestiary. There are many creatures that, despite listed as a "fair" or just "challenging" CR for you/your party, usually have enough to-hit to render AC useless and cause enough damage to make even the hulking 20 Con DR 5/- Barbarian die in couple hits, even if they have no magical abilities. But on this one the DM should use his better judgement, since it's one thing to lose a fight/character out of stupidity, another is to lose to an unavoidable no-win situation.

As for why people still play the systems? They're still fun, despite needing some tweaking so things run smoothly and as for fixing the issues, they are actually a bit too big, to the point that it's hard to even start, but if you feel so inclined, start to make a set of houserules to better balance mundane vs. magic, who knows? You might end up creating the new big hit fantasy RPG system.