How strong is strong? (3.5)

[bokodasu]

How do you tell if your character is "strong enough" at a given level? (i.e., can both survive and contribute to an average encounter at that level.)

I keep thinking, oh boy AC 22! Oops, all the monsters have a +35 to hit now. Or yay, I have +16 to hit! Now the monsters have AC of 50. I don't even have any clue about what my stat bonuses should be, and it seems like all monsters are able to laugh off any spell with a saving throw.

[AstralFire]

That depends entirely on your DM. And AC is worthless to stop non-iterative attacks unless you focus heavily on it. (Its main purpose is to make secondary attacks more chancy.)

[The Dark Fiddler]

In the end, really... you don't. Monsters vary so much, even within the same challenge rating, and DMs vary between each other and between different campaigns even, that it's night impossible. You could try and compare you save DCs, AC, attack bonus, etc. to the average of the monsters you plan to be fighting, but other than that, there's no real way.

That I've found.

[HunterOfJello]

In general, the scaling of attack vs AC is one of the innate problems of 3.5e.

Example: the Werewolf Lord (CR 12) has +25 attack when in wolf form, but a character taking on a CR 12 monster is highly unlikely to have 30 AC which would give the character a 25% chance of not taking damage.

Spell DCs vs saving throws is handled a bit better, but can still cause problems for characters who are MAD or don't focus on boosting their spell DCs as much as they could.

[Starbuck_II]

How do you tell if your character is "strong enough" at a given level? (i.e., can both survive and contribute to an average encounter at that level.)

I keep thinking, oh boy AC 22! Oops, all the monsters have a +35 to hit now. Or yay, I have +16 to hit! Now the monsters have AC of 50. I don't even have any clue about what my stat bonuses should be, and it seems like all monsters are able to laugh off any spell with a saving throw.

Try AC 15 +1.5 level. if you have that minimum you aren't awesome, but you shouldn't be hit often. Just occassionally. Semi-tank AC.
5 higher and you are closer to Tank AC.

[Noodles2375]

There are some AC benchmarks you can look at here for what it's worth:

http://aaronwiki.us/index.php?title=Armor_Class_Guide

[bloodtide]

The best way....maybe the only way...is to play the game.


Does your character die in round 1....too weak.
Does your character kill the monster(s) in round 1....too powerful.
Does your character and the monster both put up a good fight, where the character wins at the end, but just by a bit.

And you need to take a couple encounters, not just one. It is possible for like a kobold warlock to roll a 20 and get max damage and kill a high level character...it does happen, dice are random...but it should not be common.

[monkey3]

Your question reminds me of a the story of two campers who get attacked by a bear. One starts putting on sneakers. His friend asks him why he bothers since he can't outrun the bear. The guy starts running, and says "I only have to outrun you."

The same concept holds here. Your are comparing your stats with "the bear" instead of with the other people you are playing with. Any good DM adjusts the encounters based on the "Average" party ability. If the group starts to do better or worse, the creatures are adjusted accordingly.

You just have to make sure you are not too "good" or "bad" compared to other party members so that you do not overshadow them, and are not useless.

[Radar]

IMO it's best to compare to other PCs in the party, because the DM will (or at least should) adjust the encounters to the party - so for example if a glass cannon type of a character has lower damage output then the skillmonkey or buffer, then something went wrong. In general: know your role in the party and make sure, you're considerably better at performing that role then the other PCs.

[Safety Sword]

Your question reminds me of a the story of two campers who get attacked by a bear. One starts putting on sneakers. His friend asks him why he bothers since he can't outrun the bear. The guy starts running, and says "I only have to outrun you."

The same concept holds here. Your are comparing your stats with "the bear" instead of with the other people you are playing with. Any good DM adjusts the encounters based on the "Average" party ability. If the group starts to do better or worse, the creatures are adjusted accordingly.

You just have to make sure you are not too "good" or "bad" compared to other party members so that you do not overshadow them, and are not useless.

Well said. I usually have a very good idea of the AC and saves of PCs in my game. That way the encounters "feel dangerous".

Of course, dice being dice, it sometimes doesn't exactly go as planned

[Eldariel]

Any good DM adjusts the encounters based on the "Average" party ability. If the group starts to do better or worse, the creatures are adjusted accordingly.

Depends on the DM. Some prefer to run "unscaled" worlds where you encounter everything purely based on what you've done and where you are regardless of your level. I really enjoy the "you can't beat everything"-aspect of such games; indeed, it also makes level scaling much more rewarding since you become more and more able to hold your own instead of having to escape/talk/trade/sneak your way out of most hostile encounters.

[Safety Sword]

Depends on the DM. Some prefer to run "unscaled" worlds where you encounter everything purely based on what you've done and where you are regardless of your level. I really enjoy the "you can't beat everything"-aspect of such games; indeed, it also makes level scaling much more rewarding since you become more and more able to hold your own instead of having to escape/talk/trade/sneak your way out of most hostile encounters.

Sounds like running into random green dragons in the forest at level 2... not all that fun. Of course, if you knew there was a dragon in the forest and you still went, I'd eat you with said dragon.

[Zombieboots]

Back on the old Gleexmax boards or whatever they were called way way way back in the day. There was a thread on the optimization board that had nice organized graphs which showed you the average progression for To Hit, AC, saves, etc.
They were all very nicely layed out, and presented. I couldn't find that, or it's gone now.

I did find the slightly more accurry but math heavy version:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...By_The_Numbers

If you're up for some reading this should almost answer your question.

[Aotrs Commander]

When the 19th party fighter has an AC in the mid 40s and an attack bonus of +38 and dealing D8+3D6+29 per hit...and the best AC of the monster in your module is 47... And only two of them have ACs higher than 40.

(Stupid increasing loot spiral! Stupid low AC Pit Fiends!)

Or when the PCs sell the loot they gained from the last fight and it comes to 1.5 million GP.

*cries*

[Godskook]

Your question reminds me of a the story of two campers who get attacked by a bear. One starts putting on sneakers. His friend asks him why he bothers since he can't outrun the bear. The guy starts running, and says "I only have to outrun you."

The same concept holds here. Your are comparing your stats with "the bear" instead of with the other people you are playing with. Any good DM adjusts the encounters based on the "Average" party ability. If the group starts to do better or worse, the creatures are adjusted accordingly.

You just have to make sure you are not too "good" or "bad" compared to other party members so that you do not overshadow them, and are not useless.

Personally, while I expect the DM to adjust the size of the bear to fit the party, I also expect the DM to adjust the reaction of the park ranger to fit the bear.

In other words, if the party is handling CR+ encounters with regularity, I should expect the DM to roleplay them as "above-caliber" adventurers among anyone that's seen them in action, while a party who can't handle a simple housecat should probably be ridiculed(speaking of which, I should probably send one at my PCs this week, just to see how they handle it....).

@OP, personally, I use 6*ECL as a baseline for single-target average damage output on a primary DPS character. It means that against a single same-leveled NPC, you can straight-up kill the mages, endanger the rogues/clerics, and maybe scare the tanks(Who's d10/d12 HD and Con focus should allow them to survive two such strikes, unless you're lucky on the damage). Go higher than that at your own risk, especially early on, since a DM is likely to metagame away any extra advantage you can find, making the extra effort turn into a bane to the rest of the party, who isn't investing as much as you are.

[Eldariel]

Sounds like running into random green dragons in the forest at level 2... not all that fun. Of course, if you knew there was a dragon in the forest and you still went, I'd eat you with said dragon.

It's not like random Dragons just appear. Movers of that size tend to be very obvious and thus "accidentally" ending up in that forest in front of said dragon is nobody but yours fault. And even if you do, level 2 characters probably don't interest it as anything but snacks.

Chances of it randomly ending up at them instead of just eating something less likely to be bothersome (like an animal) seem even slimmer. So...yeah, I'm pretty damn sure that wouldn't happen with any but the absolute densest and unluckiest of players.

[Person_Man]

There are many different defense statistics in 3.5 D&D. In order of how commonly they are important (in my games, anyway), they are Hit Points, AC, Miss Chance, Reflex Save (+Evasion if possible), Will/Fort Save (+Mettle if possible), Touch AC, no Dex AC, Spell Resistance, and Energy Resistance. None of them really increase in a linear fashion, as magic items and buffs don't scale in any logical pattern. So it's basically impossible to answer your question directly without knowing a specific ECL, books allowed, campaign style, etc.

However, the most important defense is battlefield control. You generally want to be as far away from your enemies as possible while controlling their movement and actions in such a way that they don't or can't attack (and/or your party, depending on your role). Again, there is no clear scale of "how strong is strong," it's just a toy chest of different options, some of which are meh, and some of which are basically auto-win buttons.

[Psyren]

Your question reminds me of a the story of two campers who get attacked by a bear. One starts putting on sneakers. His friend asks him why he bothers since he can't outrun the bear. The guy starts running, and says "I only have to outrun you."

The same concept holds here. Your are comparing your stats with "the bear" instead of with the other people you are playing with. Any good DM adjusts the encounters based on the "Average" party ability. If the group starts to do better or worse, the creatures are adjusted accordingly.

You just have to make sure you are not too "good" or "bad" compared to other party members so that you do not overshadow them, and are not useless.

I was just about to make this exact point.
If your entire party is being smeared by the monsters, the DM will make the challenges easier. Whereas if you curbstomp everything he will scale up. So all you really have to do is measure your power relative to the others.

[Myth]

First and foremost as everyone has stated, it's entirely up to your DM. That being said, you must judge your character's aptitude by virtue of the most important things in the game and work your way down to the least important ones.

1. Do you posses full spellcasting, limited spellcasting or no spellcasting? This determines how versatile and powerful you are. Full spellcasting in DnD 3.5 lets you deal with almost any situation you could come across.

2. Do you possess good class features that in themselves are better than other whole classes or augment your spellcasting and survivability / versatility? For example, Wild Shape, Animal Companion, Abrupt Jaunt, Metamagic reducers or alternative ways to buy Metamagic, ways to gain more actions in a round, ways to protect yourself by gaining immunities etc.

3. Do you possess class features, enough skillpoints or other such things that would make you useful outside of combat?

-- now the things that are not as important but you might think they are --

1. Do you possess full BAB? Not that important. Easily offset by buff spells or Maneuvers, size increases and/or ability increases.

2. Do you possess 12 or 10 HD? Not that important. Here is some math: a level 20 Wizard with 22 Con: 200 hp. A level 20 Fighter with 22 Con: 280. A level 10 Barbarian / 5 Bear Warrior / 5 Warshaper with 22 Con, while Raging: 440 hp.

3. Do you possess fast healing, DR, Darkvision etc.? Not that important as most can be granted by numerous spells. Or Shapechange and the like.

4. Do you possess Heavy Armour Prof. and a means to get even more AC? Not that importatn. Heavy Armour is obtainable via dips it's not a class feature worth sticking to a class for. AC is a "max it or leave it" deal. And the "max it" part is done via magic.

WOTC vastly overrated BAB vs AC and gimped martial characters so much in core because of that. And they also made magic the swiss army knife that it is. Everything in 3.5 char op/balance/usefullness comes down to magic. Every thread you will ever see mentioning power levels or optimization will be about magic sooner rather than later. So there.