The Glade 4.0

High level wizards are cool, but I've never managed to play one to high levels. Part of this has to do that unless you start at high level you have two live too high level. I had a mid level wizard that was fireballed then ice stormed into fine powder in two turns. Because of this Most of the characters I've seriously leveled have been melees, the most notable being two rather different (thematically if not entirely statistically) Ranger/fighters. In these games I've never felt underpowered compaired to the casters. I think the DMs have everything to do with this.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

A warrior without gear is a very effective punching machine.

A wizard without gear can level cities and rip holes in planes.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Wizards have an inherent balance element that nobody pays attention to because they don't want to do that much planning and paperwork. It's also ignored because it's just no fun to be out of mana. The primary problem that fighters face is that armor does not offer enough protection against the power ramp of the Monster Manual.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That, and even if you do play at those levels (like.. in your game ) one is well advised to remember that unless the DM pretty much specifies that you're the only Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid/<insertspellcasterhere> in your world.. there's always one that's more powerful.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The armor chart is one of the worst aspects of 3.X. People wondered why I used a revised one in my game. This is one of the reasons, and I'm not sure I went far enough.

I think whoever wrote that chart smoked a joint for each weight class as he went, so with light he was mildly buzzed but still basically coherent, medium he was high and by the time he got to heavy he was having a hard time spelling "full plate" much less making the statistics make any sense.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

For what it's designed to do, the armor chart is rather reasonable. With a heavy shield, you're able to get up to an AC of 20 purely on your armor and shield. The problem with armor is that as your level goes up, it stops protecting you. This isn't because of the armor necessarily, but rather the increasing attack bonuses of your adversaries. Your revised armor chart didn't address that last I saw it. You just increased the armor bonus very slightly on the top end.

Fighter plans to use full plate. Takes 12 dexterity. We'll assume half his wealth is spent on armor, and the other half is spent on other stuff (most likely a weapon)

Level 1 - 200gp
Longsword
Chain Shirt + heavy shield = AC 18
Miscellaneous assorted gear.
Most likely a level 1 fighter actually buys Chain Mail, but we've decided his armor budget is half his gold.

Level 10 - 49,000gp
Longsword +3
Full Plate +3
Heavy Shield +3
Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Ring of Protection +1
total AC = 29

A level 1 character faces things like ghouls, skeletons, goblins, and orcs. Many of those are less than CR 1, so I'm going to pull out monsters on the CR 1 table.

Ghouls have a total attack bonus of +2, that hits our level 1 fighter on a 16
Octopi have a total attack bonus of +5, that hits on a 13
A wolf skeleton has a total attack bonus of +2
Troglodytes have a total attack bonus of +1, that hits on a 17
A troglodyte zombie has a total attack bonus of +3, that hits on a 15
Gnolls have a total attack bonus of +3

So far the scariest thing is that octopus, and what are the chances we fight one of those? Also, that +5 is for no damage and a grapple. You get a second chance to avoid damage through an opposed roll against a +2 grapple bonus. Generally speaking, we're expecting our opponents need to roll a 15 or 16 to hit our fighter.

Comparing level 10 characters to CR 10 monsters is a little trickier because they have iterative attacks. I'll look at their primary attack for comparison. We get the following:

Fire Giants have a total attack bonus of +20, that needs a 9 to hit
Bebeliths have a total attack bonus of +19, that needs a 10 to hit
Noble Salamanders have a total attack bonus of +23, that needs a 6 to hit
Rakshasa have a total attack bonus of +8, that needs a 21 to hit
11-headed Hydra have a total attack bonus of +16, that needs a 13 to hit
9-headed Cryo-Hydra have a total attack bonus of +13, that needs a 16 to hit
Clay Golems have a total attack bonus if +14, that needs a 15 to hit

With the exception of the Rakshasa, everything on that list has a better chance to hit than anything we fought at level 1. Bear in mind that these are the primary attacks. Everything has multiple attacks of some kind. Those hydra make one attack for each head as a standard action, and suffer no attack penalty for doing so. That golem can haste itself.

At higher levels, AC does not protect you the same way it does at lower levels. At the lower levels, it is a reliable form of people not hitting you. At mid levels, it is, at best, protection from power attack and/or iterative attacks. At the top range, being hit is almost a foregone conclusion, and at best AC is protecting you from someone whomping the **** out of you with a +10 power attack (turned into +20 if you're receiving an attack modeled by a two-handed weapon, like a dragon's bite).

One could argue that low levels need greater avoidance because it's conceivable that one hit kills you. That's a fair point. However, AC becomes demonstrably worse as your level increases. You still need it, because otherwise those things are guaranteed to hit you. Presumably it's your hit points that are actually serving as your ability to reduce damage, which is rather counter-intuitive seeing as how hit points are the very things the player expects "reduce damage" is going to protect. Getting your hit points chewed up just keeps you out of the action that much longer.

A fighter needs a way to either restore his own hit points, or to prevent their loss. The former is the purview of divine spellcasting, which leaves us with mitigating incoming damage. This is exactly what armor does in Iron Heroes, which was a great idea. Armor as damage avoidance isn't enough, because clearly it stops doing that.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Hit points have always been rather counterintuitivly a way to avoid damage; 8 HP of damage to a first level character represents anything from a serious injury to being run completely through. To a level 10 character it represents a minor wound at most, possibly just being shaken up for a high HP character unless it's his last 8 HP which is basically when his luck or skill runs out.. The part that makes it really counterintuitive is that you still have to "heal" that damage, especially with magical healing.

Everything you say above is basically true; the only thing I'd point out is that the reverse generally applies as well; monster AC generally doesn't protect as well either. Where you can mitigate this somewhat is if you can get yourself armor with damage reduction or a miss chance (or anything else that grants that as well). My armor chart was really not a very good addressing of the issue, but then that was a distant second in terms of intent; the other issue I was trying to address was that each amor should offer a different tradeoff of skill/dexterity/spell failure versus AC. I'm still not entirely satisfied with it, but the problem, especially with the heavy armors, arises from the fact that there's basically one armor that's best or tied for best in every respect

The problem with damage reduction is that it works best against multiple, lower-damage attacks. That, combined with the lessening effectiveness of armor at higher levels (to say nothing of the issues of touch attacks) is what contributes to the "every fighter uses a Greatsword" (or a greataxe or falchion) because you're better off doing more damage, especially on power attacks and killing your enemy faster than you are trying to "tank" it with a shield.. and you can get a dancing shield or whatever it's called anyhow. Your fighter above, if we take him to 12th level, can get adamantine armor, and a shield, and spend a feat on heavy armor specialization (or whatever it's called) and get himself a total of around DR 7 or 8/- on top of that AC (I don't have the books handy right now but it all does stack) which is probably doing him more good than his actual AC is.

There theoretically should be 4 fighting options: single-weapon, two-weapon, two-handed, weapon-and-shield. Single weapon is for a few esoteric classes and those classes that can't effectively use 2-handers or shields and/or don't want to spend feats on two weapons, and that isn't an issue. Similarly, 2-handed weapons effectively fill the slot of "most damaging option."

sword-and-board is the most defensive option, and 2-weapon fighting in between. The problem is that, as you pointed out, AC doesn't work all that well as you go up in level, and unless you're a Ranger two-weapon fighting is absurdly feat-intensive to get the defensive value out of it; 1 AC is just not worth spending a feat on. There's other 2 weapon feats that are a hell of a lot better than the TWD line, and even TWF itself really should not have such a high dexterity requirement, realistic or not. People want to fight with 2 weapons; let them. Game designers always seem to live in fear of the idea and penalize it unnecessarily.

There are alternate rules in Unearthed Arcana that change the way armor works as well, but I have not experimented to see how effective they are.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

An adamantine shield does not grant damage reduction.

As for stacking:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction

"If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation."

Now, you may have ruled differently in your game, or you may know someone who rules differently, but no two forms of damage reduction stack. Adamantine armor and the armor specialization feat are both separate sources of damage reduction. Neither the special material nor the feat have any wording to indicate that they are exceptions to the rule above. They state that they grant damage reduction.

This is something of a problem, as a damage reduction of 5/- is not unreasonable at level 12 when you consider the damage reduction of many of the creatures you encounter, combined with their ability to hit like mack trucks.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I think Pathfinder addresses this nicely for fighters at least.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

When I was playing in Coro's game, I think Blake had an AC of 25. But I built him pretty much knowing at that high of a level, I would be getting obliterated pretty much no matter what because I really don't know how to build for AC anyway and he wasn't exactly a front liner anyway. But still, I feel like once I joined, Coro had to pull back because I brought the party power level way down(not to mention my abysmal will save).

Even my lock picking and trap finding was below par because of all the stupid multiclassing I did that was likely unnecessary in the long run anyway because I'm not sure those class features helped me at all(the invisible blade levels were pretty much 100% worthless and should have been rogue levels. Would have helped a lot).

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I don't think the feat contains anything to the contrary because there is only one "source" - the armor, and therefore the prohibition on stacking from multiple sources doesn't apply. I can see how one could also rule to the contrary, after re-reading the feat and the DR description, it seems unclear at best. I'm certain I've read that's the proper application of the rules elsewhere, but then again I may have read that in someone's opinion or personal ruling. Regardless, it seems to be unclear, and a matter for individual DM ruling.

As for the shield, I stand corrected. They may have added that to adamantine shields in NWN2 or something and that's what I'm remembering but it seems you're correct in that regard.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It is possible, and I haven't checked this one way or the other, that there was errata regarding the stacking of armor specialization and adamantine armor. Now, it would use the same rules as the barbarian class feature, which I'm almost certain does not stack with either, and that's why the feat and the armor don't stack with each other - it would have fighters encroaching on the barbarian's turf, and give them superior damage reduction to boot. The barbarian is 19 before he gets DR 5/-

I don't disagree philosophically with the idea that they should stack. Front-line combatants with little to no spellcasting need something to reduce their incoming damage besides, "It's not as big a percentage of my overall hit points." The mechanical revisions necessary to add such a benefit to the fighter and similar classes does merit a new edition, because it involves a fundamental change to a significant portion of the rules. As such, it isn't something one "fixes" within 3E, but rather the evolution from 3E into a new edition. (On that note, one thing people need to get through their heads is that there is no 3.5, and there never was. It's errata applied to 3E.)

Getting back on topic, a new edition of the rules should be based on lessons learned over the current edition. This is why second edition and third edition, although met with much resistance, were good decisions overall, but fourth edition flopped. The 4E rules set was based on what was hot in online computer gaming in 2006-2008 while the rules were being worked out. Rather than being a focused attempt to tighten up flaws in the 3E rules, 4E set out to replicate the look and feel of World of Warcraft at your gaming table. It is, in all respects from the setting to the mechanics, a totally different game. It was not the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but rather the first edition of something completely different.

That Monte Cook is back on the design team for 5E might bode well for it in that it suggests the developers are interested in returning to the roots that made the game a success. Unfortunately, as I have become all too aware lately perusing various tabletop gaming boards, there are far too many people in the community who are not game designers by any stretch of the imagination, and need to be left out of the development process as much as possible. Their feedback is important, but games actively suffer when they're allowed to influence design decisions.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

There may indeed, be errata, but either way I don't see that it would use the barbarian rules; both the feat and the adamantine grant DR to the armor being worn making it IMO a single source. It does encroach a bit on the barbarian, but I don't see that as a problem since lots of classes encroach on each other in lots of ways. The plus side for the barbarian is that he does not have to pay for adamantine armor which is a significant price jump, nor does he need to spend a feat.



I certainly agree, and regardless of the official position that's how I'd rule. I think DR, like dual wielding, was heavily overrated in terms of power by the designers.



I fully agree with this, except that I do not recall significant resistance to 2E when it came out, but that may have been because at that time the internet did not make every swinging dick's opinion known. I was in 9th grade at that time and the only source of opinion I had was what TSR chose to publish in Dragon Magazine.



Are you referring to executives, or to the peanut gallery on the internet? I'm not entirely sure which is worse in that regard.

Your comment above about a 1E of something totally different is interesting because we got that also - Pathfinder. Essentially, each game is wearing the name of the other; PAthfinder is basically 4E D&D or 3.75 if you prefer, while 4E is a new game that could more easily have been called Pathfinder. If Paizo had published the 4E rules under the name Pathfinder, and WotC the Pathfinder rules under the name "D&D 4e" the only discussion that would have happened was "is Pathfinder a big enough change to qualify as 4E"?

That highlights the basic misunderstanding that surrounded the Edition Wars. We had a lot of people that wanted to play Tabletop WOW and have it be called D&D for some reason and they got it by being very very vocal. The problem is that a sizable portion of the community did not want that; if they were no longer going to have support for the D&D they were playing they at least wanted the new game to resemble the old int he same way earlier editions resembled their predecessors. It is not a matter of people thinking 4E is a bad game (doubtless some do, but I think most people would agree the rules are not inherenetly poorly designed or not fun to play if they fit your playstyle) but rather that it was an utterly new game being foisted upon the flagship roleplaying game of all and the old way of playing being abandoned, with only the good fortune of a 3rd party continuing to use the OGL to keep publishing essentially an upgraded 3.X under a new name.

Some people might say "well, if that's the case, why does the old game need to be called D&D?" Well, mainly because if you come up with a new product, you give it a new name if for no other reason so that people know what they're getting.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I remember when the more powerful spells took two or three rounds to cast. Or when they had to have items to cast those spells. Do you remember spell reagents?

_________________
Raell Kromwell

A lot of spells still require reagents. But yeah...casting used to be a lot more balanced when casting a spell wasn't a single round action.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

3.5 and below: Take away a wizard's reagent pouch and, more importantly, their spell book and they are pretty much neutered after 24 hours. A wizard cannot cast spells that they did not prepare from a spell book, save for "read magic." But a lot of players (and DMs) forget that wizards have a physical spell book.

_________________
Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

the list of cleric spells that can be cast without a holy symbol is fairly short too.

At level 20, sure, a wizard can technically "rip holes in planes" by casting gate and with gimmicks like the Locate City Nuke it's possible to level cities if the DM allows you to get away with that kind of rules-lawyering. Again, however, that is not the level of play that represents the majority. I don't recall the exact number but there is a poll out there indicating that something like 80% of all play is at level 10 or below.

The biggest problem spells are really those that allow the caster to break the action economy with impunity, such as nerveskitter, celerity, and time stop. Thankfully most of these are either very high level spells and are otherwise few and far between.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Nerveskitter doesn't break the action economy. It basically uses four spell slots a day to give a bonus slightly better than "improved initiative," (and the initiative count only really matters in the first round.) That's it. It doesn't even guarantee you initiative (the rogue who's stacking dexterity is still likely to have a better roll). It just helps out your roll with a +5 bonus.

Now, that's not to say it cannot be abused...since it can be cast when flatfooted by people who can cast Contingency or take "Craft Contingent Spell" feats, it does allow you to use it as a trigger to take other actions outside your turn, at will. This is more of an issue with Contingency than Nerveskitter, however.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Nerveskitter doesn't exactly "break" the action economy perhaps, but the fact that you can cast it in the same round as another spell does mean it.. bends it a little, at least.

Contingency I place in the "breaks the action economy" category. "Craft Contingent Spell" makes me wonder what number joint the designers were on when they wrote it.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I've not played with anyone that plays a caster in a while but I always made them keep a spell book, no pulling out **** they don't have or haven't learned yet.

_________________
Raell Kromwell

There's a hell of a lot of spells that do...even core has Featherfall and Quicken Spell [metamagic]. Most of them (Like Nerveskitter, Featherfall, and Ruin Delver's Fortune) are reactions to things, like TOB "counters". That's the only way they function, and even so, they have a cost, usually for only a minor benefit -- a spell slot used (often higher level), and an action used. Swift/Immediate actions are actions. You get one of them per round. If you save your skin with Ruin Delver's Fortune, you can't cast a quickened spell next turn, etc.



It is, however, expensive. It's meant to be used as an "Oh ****!" get out of trouble fast spell, to save you a death, using it beyond that wasn't really intended.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Go into a shop get a small bag and a candle. Destroy city. With one feat (eschew materials) skip the first step.

Level a city:
Summon Monster 7,8.9 - reagent needed for all levels (A tiny bag and a small (not necessarily lit) candle. )

Level 7:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Djinni (invisibility, air walk on the night hag and devils and telepathy for coordination of attacks)

Level 8
A few Greater:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Fire_Elemental

Level 9: Damage reduction, immunity to fire
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Night_Hag
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Barbed_Devil

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Just because the spells are written, doesn't mean you need to give your players access to them.

_________________
Raell Kromwell

Ok cut out the summoning line entirely and therefore the main application of an entire school and few prestige classes.

Destroy a city:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fireball
Material Component: A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur. < 1 GP

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Fly_%28Spell%29
Arcane Focus: A wing feather from any bird. <1 GP

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Greater_Invisibility
Arcane Material Component: An eyelash encased in a bit of gum arabic. <1 GP

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville