3.5: High level play; Immunities and AC.

[FishAreWet]

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]

True Seeing.

[ZeroNumerous]

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]

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]

Getting 70 to 80 AC requires pretty specialized builds, doesn't it?

[FishAreWet]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

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

[FishAreWet]

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]

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


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]

Maybe he got debuffed or something

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

[faceroll]

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]

Nothing particularly interesting here. Move along.

Spoiler

Show

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]

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
I'm just frustrated at how I can figure this out. I'm not mad at you

[Adumbration]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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?

[Kelb_Panthera]

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]

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]

He's representing a Con score of 60. Possible via template stacking.

[Kelb_Panthera]

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]

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]

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.