Fionn wrote:While I'd like to see it harder to get the "+5 kit", I'd urge we figure out how to make mobs smarter. Ranged touch, AoE, traps, mind spells, etc don't care about that Full Plate. Try watching the party hiding behind a "one-man army" under the influence of Confusion
As a basic rule of thumb for balance reasons, if you balance to the inane, you force the inane.
That's why you have zones and servers with "inflation" effects, because one needs ridiculous gear to handle what's thrown at them. Realistically though, what Fionn's actually talking about are "lotto" mobs. Which are mobs which if they pull off their uber combo or ability are almost unstoppable, but if they don't are daisies. Statistically, throw enough at a only partly-prepared PC and they're toast. This includes mobs with particular effects such as fear, confusion, death attacks, hold attacks, jacked sneak attacks, jacked poisons, x3 or x4 crit weapons or other such things. Personally I've not been a fan on those for static spawners, at least not a notable percentage of them.
In NWN2, presumably there's going to be "out of the gate" balances on the players. All of the things that Ronan mentioned are ones that we'll be talking about in Standards. Dodge AC on boots doesn't exist. Tower shields can be made to have a base weight of 40 - 45 lbs even if we can't manage the cover v attack penalty distinction. Don't know how it'd work to cover Tumble and Spellcraft bonuses. Don't know if we'll be able to correct Expertise and Improved Expertise to top out at BAB.
But bear in mind that all these things are artifacts of a single-player focused campaign. Where the individual and his henchman were expected to do it all. It's all about the AC > AB + 22 (flanking) distinction. Something I wrote in some reference materials but didn't publish...
<after talking about all the AC-inflationary effects, including no-penalty heavy armor and weak encumberance rules>
This of course is all done in the name of fun, as these rules significantly limit a lot of the grunt work and micromanagement out of the engine. The consequences for the game balance though can become significant. The rate of damage a character will sustain is a function of two variables – the damage rate (how much damage the monster does) and the hit rate. While doing more damage to the monster lessen’s one’s exposure to attacks (dead mobs swing no swords), the only control the PC has over the opponent’s damage rate is adamantine, powerful magic, orwhether or not they choose to fight. So obviously the focus is on increasing armor class. The “holy grail” for AC is to reach an AC that’s twenty points higher than your opponents’ attack bonus – then the hit rate has been minimized to hit-on-20-only, or 5%.
But even more subtle than that is how AC tends to be most valuable “at the top.” For example, say a +10 attack bonus monster attacks a 16 AC character. The monster hits 75% of the time (6 or better). If the character improves her AC by 5 points to 21 AC, the monster now hits 50% of the time, reducing the hit rate by 33%. But if the same monster attacks a 26 AC character, hitting 25% of the time, and that same character goes to 31 AC, the hit rate has been reduced by 80%! Same 5 points of AC, with drastically different results. This chart shows how just small improvements in AC make a difference as you near that difference of 20. Now, excluding flanking below, the following table shows how even the small improvements are huge when you're "at the top."
.....................................Mob Hit Rate decrease if AC improves by...
AC > AB by...
......1
..............2
..............3
..............4
..............5
..............6
........5
..............6.3%
......12.5%
......18.8%
......25.0%
......31.3%
......37.5%
........6
..............6.7%
......13.3%
......20.0%
......26.7%
......33.3%
......40.0%
........7
..............7.1%
......14.3%
......21.4%
......28.6%
......35.7%
......42.9%
........8
..............7.7%
......15.4%
......23.1%
......30.8%
......38.5%
......46.2%
........9
..............8.3%
......16.7%
......25.0%
......33.3%
......41.7%
......50.0%
........10
............9.1%
......18.2%
......27.3%
......36.4%
......45.5%
......54.5%
........11
............10.0%
....20.0%
......30.0%
......40.0%
......50.0%
......60.0%
........12
............11.1%
....22.2%
......33.3%
......44.4%
......55.6%
......66.7%
........13
............12.5%
....25.0%
......37.5%
......50.0%
......62.5%
......75.0%
........14
............14.3%
....28.6%
......42.9%
......57.1%
......71.4%
......85.7%
........15
............16.7%
....33.3%
......50.0%
......66.7%
......83.3%......83.3%
........16
............20.0%
....40.0%
......60.0%
......80.0%......80.0%
......80.0%
........17
............25.0%
....50.0%
......75.0%......75.0%
......75.0%
......75.0%
........18
............33.3%
....66.7%......66.7%
......66.7%
......66.7%
......66.7%
........19
............50.0%....50.0%
......50.0%
......50.0%
......50.0%
......50.0%
What that means in practice is that a 33.3% decrease in hit rate means the character’s now being hit two times for every three they would normally be hit. That means they can survive 50% longer than before. A character that has a 85.7% decrease in hit rate will survive 600% longer than before. Since many monsters attack in the +5 to + 14 range, this means that AC that hits the high-20s and even low-30s can be exceedingly valuable.
Most importantly, every point of AC in that range makes a serious difference in how long a character can keep going, on top of making characters virtually immune to monsters with low attack bonuses.
By way of comparison to the DMG, the following are some unbuffed AC values for NPCs of a given class according to Chapter 4.
Class
.....................Lvl5
.........Lvl10
.........Lvl15
.........Lvl20
Barbarian
...............18
.............20
.............24
.............29
Bard
.......................15
............15
.............19
.............23
Cleric
......................19
............22
.............24
............26
Druid
......................17
............21
.............23
.............28
Fighter
...................21
.............24
.............28
.............34
Monk
......................16
............20
.............25
.............34
Paladin
...................19
............22
.............26
.............30
Ranger
...................17
............18
.............23
.............25
Rogue
....................17
............19
.............22
.............26
Sorcerer
.................13
............15
.............19
.............22
Wizard
...................13
............15
.............20
.............23
Now these are values for NPCs, and not PCs, but even generously (given the wealth standards), at best a PC should be comparable to an NPC about 3-4 levels higher. It is pretty well confirmed by the ACs of major NPCs out of the FRCS. That of course does make some comment as to how encounter levels are balanced in our format – a 15th level barbarian is supposed to be an EL 15 encounter. Essentially by definition you know we have it wrong because a book EL 15 isn't challenging to an ALFA PC many levels lower, excepting maybe spellcasters whose danger is more from magic than gear (but who themselves are compromised by low visual ranges and unrealistic spell loadouts).
