Can defense be too efficient?

[kulosle]

We are introducing a new player to our group and the hardest part is getting the new player caught up on all our homebrew's and houserules. Well we got into a discussion about how we, mostly me, favor defense "too much".

So I am of the opinion that it's really hard to give your players too good of defensive stuff. And it would seem like wizards agrees with me, as it's costs half as much to enchant armor. As someone who homebrew's often, I feel like characters only really become broken when they can clear a obstacle in one action. Could someone theoretically become unkillable with the defensive feats and class features i give them, probably. But it would involve them having next to no damage.

The best example of this is the Healer. In our group, we, again mostly me, came up with a "fix" for the healer. You know your entire spell list, can cast them spontaneous, can learn almost any divine spell that can be classified as "purely defensive" (varies by gm), can cast Sheild Other at will, and get's defensive bonuses based off of how much damage you've taken from Shield Other. Oh and the unicorn is an animal companion you get at level at level 10 and functions like an animal companion at your healer level -9

Is this too much? At which point does defenses become too efficient? Can defenses be broken?

[CRtwenty]

Most "Defensive Spells" in 3e aren't all that great. But being able to cast all of them spontaneously is a little much imo. You're basically giving the Healer an instant counter to most forms of attack in the game. Even a cheesed Wizard can't prepare a defensive spell for any situation like that (though a cheesed Wizard wouldn't be casting that many defensive spells in the first place).

And while any defense can be bypassed, ignored, or punched through it doesn't necessarily mean that an enemy is going to have the ability, or the knowledge of how to do it.

So to answer your question. Yes, I think your house rules are making defensive abilities a little too accessible to your players.

[sleepyphoenixx]

It's not too much imo but it doesn't "fix" the Healer either. There aren't so many "necessary" defensive spells that spontaneus casting gives you a substantial benefit over a cleric.
The thing that keeps the healer back was never a lack of defense but a lack of versatility.

A wizard with Uncanny Forethought can cast any spell he knows spontaneusly while not being limited to defense and healing.
What makes him Tier 1 is the access to tons of utility and control spells that cover every conceivable situation.

If you want to make the Healer more effective you should add to it's versatility, not strenghten the things he can already do.

[kulosle]

Well the discussion isn't about this healer "fix" particularly. It's about can how much favor defense should be able to get over offense. Cause even though we did that to the healer it's rarely played. Even though we made the dodge feat a flat +2 dodge to ac, it's still only taken for feat tax purposes. We made the two weapon defense feat give 2+total enhancement bonus on the weapons your wielding as a sheild bonus and it's barely ever picked. Getting defenses just doesn't ever feel as rewarding as getting offense or utility.

Is this just my group? Would someone else like to grab these feats?

[CRtwenty]

No, in 3e offense is stronger than defense. There's a reason why a lot of high level fights are won or lost based on initiative rolls.

[eggynack]

Well the discussion isn't about this healer "fix" particularly. It's about can how much favor defense should be able to get over offense. Cause even though we did that to the healer it's rarely played. Even though we made the dodge feat a flat +2 dodge to ac, it's still only taken for feat tax purposes. We made the two weapon defense feat give 2+total enhancement bonus on the weapons your wielding as a sheild bonus and it's barely ever picked. Getting defenses just doesn't ever feel as rewarding as getting offense or utility.

Is this just my group? Would someone else like to grab these feats?
Those things still don't incentivize defense over offense, so I'd say that you're in the clear. Most of the best caster options would just bypass everything you've just listed, because AC can only get you so far. When I think of defenses that are too efficient, I think of things that are nearly impossible to bypass, like an incantrix who has persisted greater magic image on, or an initiate of the sevenfold veil, and that's just the start. If your defenses don't include a way to get out of a freezing fog, or stop a metamagiced up orb of fire, it's almost like you don't have any defenses at all. Additionally, depending on how broadly you're defining "defensive" spell (a good offense is the best defense), I'd pretty much always rather just prepare off of the cleric list, rather than spontaneously cast off of your healer list.

It's a good thing that you're making these terrible choices remotely desirable, but I don't think that they're really remotely desirable, when compared to offensive melee options. I'd much rather take the shock trooper line, or a tripping build, or maybe even martial study, than take a +2 to AC, or a +whatever to AC, but only if I'm using two weapon fighting. I mean, if I'm putting together a nifty swordsage built around two weapon fighting, I'd toss it on the maybe pile, but it'd just be a filler feat in case I don't come up with anything else. So, defense might be capable of being too efficient, but it's really frigging hard to get to that point.

[drack]

*insert quick jab at fix, more because I'm not a fan of fixes then for any other reason*

Hmm, I don't think it's that bad. I used to play in plenty of epic games, and I'll say there's no such thing as "unkillable". Only way to get it is to get homebrew that says flat out "I don't die" :smalltongue:

That aside I think the fix is fine balance-wise depending on the power level. (Both homebrew allowed, and level of optimization used.)

The spontaneous is useful, but taking a full round action to cast anything with metamagic can be a drag. I've never really played a character devoted to healing, but I've been party healer a good few time, and it's always possible to do more. I wouldn't be too concerned by it unless you instantly (without there being a chance for them to hit again first) heal all damage dealt in combat. :smalltongue:

Then again I'm a rather defensive player myself, so I've ended up learning the potential of defensive measures pretty well over the years, so not sure if I have the perspective you're looking for. :smalltongue:

[awa]

It depends defense can be to efficient (efficient being defined as both protecting well AND requiring minimal expenditure on the defenders part) if the dm cant threaten the player it can make the game boring. The thing is in d&d unbeatable defense can often be very hard if not impossible to achieve becuase there are so many different ways to attack a player stopping them all can be nearly impossible.

Look at it this way if the most efficient way to accomplish a goal is for mr defense to solo most encounters that is just as obnoxious as the guy who one shots the encounter with his super offensive abilities.

[buttcyst]

doesn't seem too out of line, a monk with VoP can have AC up into the 30s by 10th level, found that out when I tried to hit him (does a 31 hit? NO??), and that is all by raw, homebrewing an extra +1 here and there is definitely not broken, more like a fix wizards should have done along the line. but for your offhand defense "fix", the best defense is a good offense, in the ultimate feats book (3rd party I think, definitely ogl d20) there is a combo, parry and riposte, does what the 2 weapon defense does but better, parry stops attack on an opposed roll and riposte means that an attack can be made immediately following a parry, stops the attack from coming in AND you can hit back, I usually send players that way instead of the TWD feat, something to think about.

[eggynack]

Just tossing this out there, but an AC in the mid 30's at level ten isn't that impressive. I usually use druids, cause I love druids. Start with a desmodu hunting bat, for all good things in life begin with a desmodu hunting bat. That gets you to an AC of 20. Next, toss on greater luminous armor, and you have an AC of 28, and an effective AC of 32 against melee attacks. After that, you're basically done. Just toss on your favorite minor AC boosters, and you're hitting the mid 30's easily. I mean, you have 49,000 GP, so it's a trivial thing if you actually care. You've also got crazy initiative, with a base of +7, an extra +5 from primal instinct, and let's just say another +2 from a belt of battle. He can also do, y'know, other stuff. None of these things are consuming any long term resources, so he's about as good in a fight as any druid.

[Alienist]

I've played 4th ed and 3rd ed. My general observation is that in 3rd ed combat is over way too quickly and in 4th ed it takes way too long.

3rd ed has so many nuking options that in one particularly memorable stretch out of 4 combats I got 3 actions.

If you have that kind of environment then defense is utterly pointless. E.g. As my action I raise shields (e.g. cast my first of N defensive spells) instead of firing quantum torpedoes, and then as my second action I ... wait ... we already won. Okay, I loot the corpses that everyone else killed.

Defense is an important role in 4th ed, but it doesn't work in 3rd. Imagine a 4th ed fighter being translated into a 3rd ed campaign. Okay, I run up, attack them and mark them, so they're not moving anywhere. Then the psion/shaper/beholder-mage kills them all in one shot and says "yeah, _now_ they're not moving."

[ericgrau]

Well the discussion isn't about this healer "fix" particularly. It's about can how much favor defense should be able to get over offense. Cause even though we did that to the healer it's rarely played. Even though we made the dodge feat a flat +2 dodge to ac, it's still only taken for feat tax purposes. We made the two weapon defense feat give 2+total enhancement bonus on the weapons your wielding as a sheild bonus and it's barely ever picked. Getting defenses just doesn't ever feel as rewarding as getting offense or utility.

Is this just my group? Would someone else like to grab these feats?
It's not just your group, but only because it's a common mentality. Those feats are strong, but people have more fun completing their build. Offense is always stronger than defense, nut just in 3.5e, but that's why defense is way cheaper in 3.5e. The real reason is people like to smash things.

If you want a general rule of thumb, I'd assume 75%/50%/25% odds: Those are roughly the chances of hitting, being hit, making a foe fail a save or saving depending on how well optimized it is and who the foe is. For example optimized PC against standard challenge: 75% success on his attacks / 25% on his opponent's against his strongest defense (without compromising his attacks). On a BBEG OTOH a PC has to optimize to just hit 50% / 50%, if that. Etc. What that means is that you're always at least +4 or -4 away from the limit. So as long as your players can't stack 3 feats to get a +6 it's fine. That's +6 beyond normal though. So the dodge feat applies towards the limit, but not TWD because it's a shield bonus which is attainable by other means.

So those two feats are fine. Strong but not broken. Even if you made them cause invulnerability to physical attacks with a little optimizing (even w/o compromise other abilities too much) they still probably wouldn't get chosen. And if they don't, oh well, let people have their fun.

Since the healer class is from D&D minis, I don't think it's even meant for PC play and the "healer fix" is the cleric. Really, I wouldn't bother. At best you create even more pressure from the other players for someone to take the hit and play the boring all powerful band-aid. Partial fix-it is fine, but no player should do only that. A trick to be always ready without knowing 100 spells is to carry a lot of scrolls. You usually only need to fix a particular problem once or twice anyway. Make them available for sale and throw a lot of fix-it scrolls in the treasure. More commonly used ones like lesser restoration should be more common, as should the cheaper level 1 ones. Otherwise 1 or 2 is plenty, as it will be several sessions before the player even uses 1.

For treasure IIRC roughly 1/3rd should be defensive for those who actually use it a lot. Since others in the party use less, I'd do something halfway in between 1/6th and 1/3rd, which is about 1/4th the treasure. No one should dump it entirely, because of the parabolic cost curve: at some point a small amount is super cheap and worth it for anyone.