Ability Score Scaling, Dex vs. Armor, and Other Late Game Stuff.

[CafeWoof]

Hey guys, so this is a lot of questions in one, and I'm not exactly the most organized writer, but I'll try to type this out as coherently as possible.

So y'know how there are those charts for getting bonus spells/power points based on your key ability score (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ability_Scores)? And they get up into the 40's? Is that really what your scores are expected to get up to in the late game? I know there are magical items and tomes and whatnot that can permanently increase the scores, but what exactly is the standard scaling supposed to be like?

And if scores really do get pretty high, to the point where the modifiers can be anywhere from 12-20, would that not mean that wearing no armor would actually grant more defense than wearing any type of armor for basically any character in the late game? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the scaling really does get up to the point where you're in the 30's and 40's, every character would eventually have a high enough Dex to the point where it'd be more beneficial to their defense if they didn't wear any armor.

Also, Idk if PvP is actually big in the D&D community or not (or if it's even relevant or considered fair or whatever), but wouldn't late game AC basically always get trumped by late game BAB no matter what? I'm really not sure, but to me it seems that, so what, you have Full-Plate Armor. Provides +8 Armor to AC and +1 Dex. I'm a Warrior with a +20 BAB, so I'm most likely always going to hit.

I apologize if these are stupid questions. I'm fairly new, been playing, reading up on rules, training to be a DM, etc for a couple of months now. And I don't quite understand the late game scaling. Are people just meant to always hit late game? Because I feel like that is the case, although I don't really know what end game stats are really supposed to look like when it comes to AC, attack and damage, and, most importantly, any of the ability scores.

Anyways, I know that's a lot to ask and talk about. I tried looking some of the stuff up, but it's pretty specific. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. If not, I might end up just granting additional base stats to the weapons and armor, the actual loot, as well as magic items such as ability tomes and try to balance it all as I go.

[Renen]

Actually you are on the right track. Late game scaling is silly. Game becomes rocket tag. Shooting first is important because your defenses DO get outscaled HARD. And while having ability scores into 40s (mostly mental ones) is rare-ish, it is possible. But moatly youd be having mental stats in high 20s and low 30s range. Physical stats are easier to break though.

[eggynack]

So y'know how there are those charts for getting bonus spells/power points based on your key ability score (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ability_Scores)? And they get up into the 40's? Is that really what your scores are expected to get up to in the late game? I know there are magical items and tomes and whatnot that can permanently increase the scores, but what exactly is the standard scaling supposed to be like?
With a basic high level setup, things look something like 18 +2 (race) +5 (level) +6 (enhancement bonus item) +5 (tome) for a total of 36. You can go past that though, especially in certain stats. For example, strength can be boosted about as high as you want, both through high strength races/templates, and through festering anger cheese, and wisdom can go higher than intelligence without LA due to the existence of +6 wisdom races. 40's aren't necessarily supposed to happen all the time though. It's a bit of a high end, even if optimization can potentially get you higher.


And if scores really do get pretty high, to the point where the modifiers can be anywhere from 12-20, would that not mean that wearing no armor would actually grant more defense than wearing any type of armor for basically any character in the late game? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the scaling really does get up to the point where you're in the 30's and 40's, every character would eventually have a high enough Dex to the point where it'd be more beneficial to their defense if they didn't wear any armor.
Some characters would boost dexterity that high, though it's not a primary stat for all that many builds. On the many characters for whom dexterity is not a primary stat, it's unlikely that numbers that high would be particularly worth the cost.


Also, Idk if PvP is actually big in the D&D community or not (or if it's even relevant or considered fair or whatever), but wouldn't late game AC basically always get trumped by late game BAB no matter what? I'm really not sure, but to me it seems that, so what, you have Full-Plate Armor. Provides +8 Armor to AC and +1 Dex. I'm a Warrior with a +20 BAB, so I'm most likely always going to hit.
I guess, yeah. AC tends to be a bit of an all or nothing proposition, even if having a moderate amount can protect against normal power attack. You can get it higher through the use of items, traditionally a wide array of cheap items that each add small bonuses. AC is considered pretty suboptimal at high levels in general though, because it doesn't protect you from anything but normal attacks, and that's the weakest way to hit someone, especially if everyone's trying to optimize. It can be reasonable if you can boost it easily through magic though.


I apologize if these are stupid questions. I'm fairly new, been playing, reading up on rules, training to be a DM, etc for a couple of months now. And I don't quite understand the late game scaling. Are people just meant to always hit late game? Because I feel like that is the case, although I don't really know what end game stats are really supposed to look like when it comes to AC, attack and damage, and, most importantly, any of the ability scores.

The game is somewhat slanted towards offense over defense, especially at high levels where combat can end so quickly. You're generally going to be better off putting together someone who can charge foes to death than someone who can be charged and not die. Anyway, specific numbers depend a lot on class and build. Some characters will be able to boost AC quite high without it taking much, while others will be hard pressed to put in the necessary investment. If you're interested in this quantitative stuff though, you might want to look at optimization by the numbers (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1118841). Has some information on this sort of thing.

[WeaselGuy]

So, 2 of the most often worn pieces are armor are the Mithral Breastplate and the Mithral Fullplate.

Breastplate: +5 AC, +5 Max Dex
Fullplate: +8 AC, +3 Max Dex

So, just with straight up masterwork mithral armor and at least a 20 Dex, you'd want the fullplate, for 11 AC. Now, if you enchant both with +5, you're looking at max AC of 15 for the breastplate and 16 for the fullplate, so, still, if you have up to 20 dex, keep the fullplate, if you can wear medium armor with no penalty.
If you end up with higher than 20 dex, up to 24 I believe, the breastplate sneaks ahead due to the Greater Nimbleness enchantment, increasing the Max Dex on a piece of armor by 2, so with the 24 dex and +5 Greater Nimbleness Mithral Breastplate, you'd be sitting on 17 AC.
If you manage to sneak ahead of even that, with say a max dex build, anything with 26 dex or higher (+8 bonus or more), you would want to just wear Bracers of Armor +9, since they have no Max Dex, thereby granting you in excess of 17 AC.

That's the math breakdown. But, as you pointed out, even if I'm wearing +5 Mithral Breastplate of Greater Nimbleness, with 24 Dexterity, a Ring of Protection +5 and an Amulet of Natural Armor +5, and, shoot, lets say I'm a Halfling or a Gnome, for small size, I'm still only sitting on 38 AC.
Any fighter with 20 BAB and that same +7 Strength Modifier that I have for Dex, they can hit me with a +5 Weapon on a roll of 7 or higher. Plus, if they are a Fighter 20 (don't know why...) they would at least have Greater Weapon Focus, giving them a +2 to hit, meaning all they have to roll is a 5 or higher. That's a 75% hit chance, without even trying.

TL;DR = Invest in miss chance, not AC.

[Crake]

So, 2 of the most often worn pieces are armor are the Mithral Breastplate and the Mithral Fullplate.

Breastplate: +5 AC, +5 Max Dex
Fullplate: +8 AC, +3 Max Dex

So, just with straight up masterwork mithral armor and at least a 20 Dex, you'd want the fullplate, for 11 AC. Now, if you enchant both with +5, you're looking at max AC of 15 for the breastplate and 16 for the fullplate, so, still, if you have up to 20 dex, keep the fullplate, if you can wear medium armor with no penalty.
If you end up with higher than 20 dex, up to 24 I believe, the breastplate sneaks ahead due to the Greater Nimbleness enchantment, increasing the Max Dex on a piece of armor by 2, so with the 24 dex and +5 Greater Nimbleness Mithral Breastplate, you'd be sitting on 17 AC.
If you manage to sneak ahead of even that, with say a max dex build, anything with 26 dex or higher (+8 bonus or more), you would want to just wear Bracers of Armor +9, since they have no Max Dex, thereby granting you in excess of 17 AC.

That's the math breakdown. But, as you pointed out, even if I'm wearing +5 Mithral Breastplate of Greater Nimbleness, with 24 Dexterity, a Ring of Protection +5 and an Amulet of Natural Armor +5, and, shoot, lets say I'm a Halfling or a Gnome, for small size, I'm still only sitting on 38 AC.
Any fighter with 20 BAB and that same +7 Strength Modifier that I have for Dex, they can hit me with a +5 Weapon on a roll of 7 or higher. Plus, if they are a Fighter 20 (don't know why...) they would at least have Greater Weapon Focus, giving them a +2 to hit, meaning all they have to roll is a 5 or higher. That's a 75% hit chance, without even trying.

TL;DR = Invest in miss chance, not AC.

Bracers of armor cap at +8 non-epic. And why not just put greater nimbleness onto the mithril fullplate? That'd get you 18 AC on it's own with 20 dex then.

Also don't forget about iterative attacks, sure they have a 80%** (5 or higher is 16 numbers on the dice that will hit, which is an 80% chance, not 75%) chance to hit on their FIRST attack, but each successive attack drops by 25%, until their last attack is sitting on a 5% chance to hit

That said, you forgot to take into account a +5 dancing shield, which is another 7 AC, (or if you're an abjurant champion, swift action +9 shield spell), plus alter self into a troglodyte for +6 base natural armor (which stacks with the amulet of natural armor, because that's an enhancement bonus to your NA), suddenly you're instead sitting at 50 AC (losing the +1 small bonus) and suddenly their +34 to hit is only netting them a hit on a 16+ (25% chance)

Really you should be using +1 armor/shield with other enchantments on them as well, and having the cleric cast a chained greater magic vestment to increase it to +5, gets you better results.

[WeaselGuy]

Bracers of armor cap at +8 non-epic. And why not just put greater nimbleness onto the mithril fullplate? That'd get you 18 AC on it's own with 20 dex then.

Also don't forget about iterative attacks, sure they have a 80%** (5 or higher is 16 numbers on the dice that will hit, which is an 80% chance, not 75%) chance to hit on their FIRST attack, but each successive attack drops by 25%, until their last attack is sitting on a 5% chance to hit

That said, you forgot to take into account a +5 dancing shield, which is another 7 AC, (or if you're an abjurant champion, swift action +9 shield spell), plus alter self into a troglodyte for +6 base natural armor (which stacks with the amulet of natural armor, because that's an enhancement bonus to your NA), suddenly you're instead sitting at 50 AC (losing the +1 small bonus) and suddenly their +34 to hit is only netting them a hit on a 16+ (25% chance)

Really you should be using +1 armor/shield with other enchantments on them as well, and having the cleric cast a chained greater magic vestment to increase it to +5, gets you better results.

Regardless of my rushed math and less than stellar optimization, the fact remains that one should strive for miss chance in lieu of high AC.

[Crake]

Regardless of my rushed math and less than stellar optimization, the fact remains that one should strive for miss chance in lieu of high AC.

that was hardly an optimised AC, i've seen ones waaay higher. Standard gear vs standard attack, unless your DM is optimising your enemies, their attack likely wont be so high that AC itself becomes useless. Miss chance is nice and all, but there are enough enemies out there that can ignore it either via true seeing or abilities like tremorsense and blindsight. My opinion would be get both or get neither. Either be a glass cannon and focus all your resources into offense, or become untouchable, no use half assing it.

[eggynack]

that was hardly an optimised AC, i've seen ones waaay higher. Standard gear vs standard attack, unless your DM is optimising your enemies, their attack likely wont be so high that AC itself becomes useless. Miss chance is nice and all, but there are enough enemies out there that can ignore it either via true seeing or abilities like tremorsense and blindsight. My opinion would be get both or get neither. Either be a glass cannon and focus all your resources into offense, or become untouchable, no use half assing it.
I disagree. Miss chance tends to run reasonably well independent of other defenses, as it doesn't rely on their existence to any extent. You just pick some up, and then there's a chance that stuff won't hit you. You don't need to scale the ability up like you do with AC, so any given amount will remain worthwhile as you level. Point is, there's very much a point in half assing things when it comes to miss chance.

[Crake]

I disagree. Miss chance tends to run reasonably well independent of other defenses, as it doesn't rely on their existence to any extent. You just pick some up, and then there's a chance that stuff won't hit you. You don't need to scale the ability up like you do with AC, so any given amount will remain worthwhile as you level. Point is, there's very much a point in half assing things when it comes to miss chance.

Except there's enough things out there that can completely ignore your miss chance, making it completely worthless. Don't get me wrong, miss chance is nice, but if you aren't focusing resources on defence, you're better off making sure people aren't attacking you in the first place, because when it doesn't work, you're gonna feel it.

[eggynack]

Except there's enough things out there that can completely ignore your miss chance, making it completely worthless. Don't get me wrong, miss chance is nice, but if you aren't focusing resources on defence, you're better off making sure people aren't attacking you in the first place, because when it doesn't work, you're gonna feel it.
Some things can ignore it, certainly, but miss chance clearly isn't for them. It's just a reasonable defense that applies at a certain level of power to anyone not immune. It helps that keeping up the ability to bypass miss chance tends to be pretty expensive/difficult.

[sideswipe]

miss chance is great. but it can be avoided,
AC is pretty good, but can be avoided.
having both means you are pretty damn good.

have both, anything not optimised to hit will probably get a good hit off on you each turn with a high-ish AC, maybe 2. then the miss chance will make that average one or less.

anything optimised to hit is usually not optimised for damage, so don't really worry.

[eggynack]

anything optimised to hit is usually not optimised for damage, so don't really worry.
Not really sure how you figure that one. A high strength applies to both attack and damage, and shock trooper means that boosting the one tends not to mean a sacrifice to the other. I'm pretty sure that high attack and high damage have a strong direct correlation as a result.

[sideswipe]

Not really sure how you figure that one. A high strength applies to both attack and damage, and shock trooper means that boosting the one tends not to mean a sacrifice to the other. I'm pretty sure that high attack and high damage have a strong direct correlation as a result.

very true that it is EASY to optimise for both attack and damage, having a high strength on a monster doesn't always mean high damage. not in comparison to what a player can dish out.

plus we all know how notorious 75% of monsters are of being entirely un-optimised. you look at a few entries at about cr 8 with +20 odd to hit doing an average of 20 damage. and you think.... why don't you have power attack....
things like that.

though if your DM is the type that changes monsters a lot and builds Optimised humanoid evil guys, then completely ignore that section of my last post.

[CafeWoof]

I appreciate all of the quick feedback.

I'm bending a lot of the rules as it is, as I'm making a science-fantasy universe and I have a not-so-rudimentary material and equipment system (so that loot actually feels valuable), so what I might end up doing is giving each piece of armor it's own extra individual bonus to Armor or something. I feel it's important that the late game does not become a game of sweeps, as that kind of combat sounds super stale to me.

[Judge_Worm]

Dex>armor
If I play a fighter I usually dump str (minimum of 10) and max dex. Pick up weapon finesse. Dex bonus adds to initiative, reflex saves and ac. Hit first and if you don't kill it, it won't hit you back.