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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 7:08AM
#61
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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Personally, I disagree with the bolded statement. Let me clarify that, though. D&D is based on heroic fantasy, which is replete with heroes avoiding damage in battle by dint of superior reflexes & swordsmanship instead of armor and/or crap-tons of magic.
Saga's armor system reflects that brilliantly. I think that D&D would do well to get back to its roots in that respect, as opposed to simply resembling earlier versions of itself.
I agree with you on that the system should go that way, I just don't think it will. While I would love for D&D to go the way of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - a pair that wore no armor, though Fafhrd would definitely qualify for fighter/barbarian - I really don't see them moving away from the more medieval and towards the more Leiber-esque, pulpy Sword & Sorcery genre. Perhaps some of the settings (such as Eberron) can push this as a setting rule, but I doubt the default will go this way.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 8:02AM
#62
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Date Joined:
Jan 17, 2007
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I think the real problem with the swse is the defenses. Adding the full character level to defenses make very high. See darth vader... he has less than 50% chance to hit himself. Its sux. Makes the high level combat very slow. Even if you are a jedi you have a low chance to hit a noble.
And imagine a jeensarai soldier with Improved Armored Defense, Attune Armor, Armor Mastery and Dex 16 using a heavy battle armor. Reflex Defense 40. if you have a level in bounty hunter or gunslinger it goes to 43!! You become the Unstrikeable!!
In low leves is easy use force powers in others, but in high levels, even if you have skill focus, you need an 12 or 13 in the d20 to use it.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 8:21AM
#63
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- Veers has got nothing on me
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I think the real problem with the swse is the defenses. Adding the full character level to defenses make very high. See darth vader... he has less than 50% chance to hit himself. Its sux. Makes the high level combat very slow. Even if you are a jedi you have a low chance to hit a noble.
And imagine a jeensarai soldier with Improved Armored Defense, Attune Armor, Armor Mastery and Dex 16 using a heavy battle armor. Reflex Defense 40. if you have a level in bounty hunter or gunslinger it goes to 43!! You become the Unstrikeable!!
And you sacrificed a lot of offensive potential to get there. When the offensive master does hit you, its going to hurt, and hurt a lot. So you're probably still taking the same amount of average damage (which is the only majorly significant factor when considering long run character health).
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 10:34AM
#64
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Date Joined:
Jan 17, 2007
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And you sacrificed a lot of offensive potential to get there. When the offensive master does hit you, its going to hurt, and hurt a lot. So you're probably still taking the same amount of average damage (which is the only majorly significant factor when considering long run character health).
I just used 4 talents. I have all my feats (except for the armor proficiency (heavy)) and 6 talents to choose. I don`t think i`ve wasted too much offensive pontential. I still have lots of choices.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 07, 2007 - 9:58PM
#65
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Date Joined:
Jul 28, 2001
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I think the real problem with the swse is the defenses. Adding the full character level to defenses make very high. See darth vader... he has less than 50% chance to hit himself. Its sux. Makes the high level combat very slow. Even if you are a jedi you have a low chance to hit a noble.
And imagine a jeensarai soldier with Improved Armored Defense, Attune Armor, Armor Mastery and Dex 16 using a heavy battle armor. Reflex Defense 40. if you have a level in bounty hunter or gunslinger it goes to 43!! You become the Unstrikeable!!
In low leves is easy use force powers in others, but in high levels, even if you have skill focus, you need an 12 or 13 in the d20 to use it.
I don't really want to nitpick because I agree about the Attune Armor part. It is too good.
Nevertheless, if you compare this defensive suite to another soldier, your armor bonus etc. is better than the attack by only a small margin. The defense bonus is canceled by the attack bonus and let's just assume the DEX or STR of the attacker balances out the DEX bonus to AC. What's left? +4 Armor bonus from the armor and +1 more from the attune armor.
Now compare that to a 6th level 3e fighter in full plate. +8, but only a +1 DEX bonus, for a net of +6. That is higher than your example.
In any case, your calculation is incorrect. At 20th level, you have a 30 Reflex defense before adding the feat/talent bonuses, and when you add them you have a 35 Reflex defense. I think your error is because you added the full armor bonus (10), when you should only have added half (5). It does make a bit of difference.
An attacking soldier gets a +20 BAB and will have around +2 attack minimum. That hits on a 13 against an almost maximally armored opponent.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 07, 2007 - 11:45PM
#66
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Date Joined:
Apr 20, 2006
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Defenses are high in Saga to replicate the long, drawn-out battles as seen in the movies. Yoda vs. Palpatine and Anakin vs. Obi-Wan most certainly did not end in less than 10 rounds...
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6 years ago ::
Sep 08, 2007 - 8:04AM
#67
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Date Joined:
Jul 28, 2001
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Defenses are high in Saga to replicate the long, drawn-out battles as seen in the movies. Yoda vs. Palpatine and Anakin vs. Obi-Wan most certainly did not end in less than 10 rounds...
I'm not so sure about that as a motivation. I think the real issue is that in 3e, BAB increases with level, but defenses do not. Of course, you can increase AC with magic, but you can increase attack in the same way. By the time you reach 20th level, you don't have to do anything special to have a good attack, but you have to jump through an awful lot of hoops to get a good AC relative to the offensive capabilities of the level.
In SWSE, both attack and defense scale with level. At low levels, you can get a big armor bonus, and as you progress your armor bonus is reduced in importance (or eliminated entirely if you do not spend the requisite talents), but your AC can be increased with feats/talents just as attack can. So, the attack and defense bonuses never really get to the point where two combatants of the same level can't hit one another.
As I said in another post above, however, Scoundrels, Nobles, and Scouts do not have BAB that keeps up with defense. By 20th level, they are at -5 relative to Soldiers and Jedi. So, over time, they fall further and further behind. -5 is not a game breaker, though I think if the penalty was more obviously in your face (e.g., everybody gets +1 BAB/level, but Scoundrels, Scouts, and Nobles have a -5 penalty to attack) more players would notice and not like it. Since AC and attack approximately scale with level, so that at any given level the disparity between attack and defense is hopefully not too much, fights between Scoundrels, Scouts, and Nobles will be drawn out more as levels increase. And you should note that if you advance past 20th level, a flat -5 penalty is actually better than a +0.75 BAB/level.
So, I think SWSE actually overcompensated for the fact that defenses do not improve as fast as attacks in 3e, but only for non-Jedi/Soldier characters. Hopefully in 4e, we will see this last ripple addressed. I think the easy fix is giving good BAB to everyone (at least when they attack in accordance with their schtick). Offhand, I'd say it should be something like this:
Fighter: good BAB (all)
Paladin: good BAB (melee)
Ranger: good BAB (ranged)
Rogue: good BAB (sneak attack positioning)
Warlord: good BAB (melee)
Cleric: good BAB (melee)
Wizard: good BAB (spells)
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6 years ago ::
Sep 08, 2007 - 8:47AM
#68
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I've found anything other than Soldier and Jedi to be a substandard choice. Sure, there are reasons to advance as a Noble, Scoundrel, or Scout, but if you are going to multiclass, you generally want to start as a Soldier, then multiclass into whatever you want.
Why? Soldiers get more feats and their trained skills (3) are high enough. I can see why Jedi is a desirable choice, too, since you get two good feats (lightsaber and force sensitive) at 1st level.
Around 12th level, it becomes painfully obvious that every noble will be multiclassed. They have the worst BAB and hit points, and do not have a redeeming per-level advantage. Their talents are fine (certainly not overpowering) and they have a few decent bonus feats, but nothing is really better than any other class.
Same problem with the Scoundrel. Worst BAB and hit points, and no redeeming per-level advantage. They have a few fairly cool talents, but by 12th level you will have all you want, and pretty good bonus feats, but by 12th level you will have all you want. So, single-class Scoundrels are suboptimal.
Same problem with the Scout, to a lesser extent. Worst BAB, decent (but not best) hit points, and no redeeming per-level advantage. They have some nice talents, but by 12th level you will probably have all you want, and pretty good bonus feats, but by 12th level you will have all you want. You might think some of the talents are neat, like Expert Tracker, but you are wasting a talent to negate a -5 penalty to track at normal speed when you could instead burn a less valuable feat for Skill Focus (Survival). And Keen Shot seems pretty cool until you notice that a soldier hits better than you against concealed targets, even though he does not have Keen Shot, because he has a better BAB.
Roleplayers will likely find value in Scoundrel, Noble, and Scout, but roleplayers can find value in any class. The only optimal single class classes are Jedi and Soldier, though. Of course, I think it would be tempting to dip into some levels of the suboptimal classes to have access to a few of the talents.
I think this could have easily been fixed by giving Scoundrels best BAB as long as they use ranged or finesse attacks, and Scouts best BAB as long as they use ranged attacks. A soldier still gets better hit points at each level, and is still better with any weapon he picks up, but a low hp Scoundrel can at least compete with specific weapons and a medium hp Scout with a slightly lower number of weapons.
Noble is a bit trickier to fix, but you could do the same with the Noble as with the Scoundrel, or perhaps give Wealth as a free Talent at 1st level (since it improves at each level).
I think the weak per-level benefits of the non-defender classes should be addressed in 4e. Controllers and Leaders will presumably have enough umph without improved BAB and hp, but Strikers better have good per-level benefits to make up for their weaker BAB and hp compared to fighters, or (hopefully) good BAB under certain circumstances (e.g., Rogues get good BAB when sneak attacking, even against creatures that do not suffer sneak attack damage).
Great post and backed up with hard facts.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 08, 2007 - 11:42AM
#69
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If a Noble, Scout, or Scoundrel wants to be better at combat, I suggest multiclassing and taking levels in Soldier, Officer, and/or Elite Trooper (although this would require a level of Soldier or Officer). Or any other class with a better BAB progression.
In fact, from a historical stand point, many nobles started military training at a young age (like 10-12) compared to surfs who were barely taught which end of the spear to hold.
Many Prestige Classes give full BAB. Like the Gunslinger is aimed at Scoundrels, although any character can easily qualify for it. It is a Full BAB Prestige Class.
Look at the Era NPCs in the back, how many of them are single classed? Padme (Noble 10) and Lando (Scoundrel 8). The other dozen or so NPCs are multiclassed. In the Allies and Enemies section, only beasts and low level NPCs are not multiclassed. There is the Assassin (Scoundrel 5), Dark Side Marauder (Soldier 4)... All the rest are Nonheroic 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 or multiclassed.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 08, 2007 - 5:39PM
#70
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2003
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I like the Defense vs. Skill check/attack conceptually, but I think it's going to have to be different for D&D in order for them to scale right. A level requirement for skill focus early on, and maybe additional skill focus feats to increase the bonus. Either that, or decrease the scaling of Defense values and let equipment (especially armor) stack.
Another thing that may need to be adjusted is multiple attacks in a round. I'm okay with making it uncommon, requiring dual wielding and/or multiple feats with a sizable penalty. I think that if you're going to make it that hard, though, and you're taking away five-foot steps, you ought to make multiple attacks a standard action, rather than a full action, which doesn't allow even a swift action. Otherwise, with the Running Attack feat is so easy to attain, there's not much opportunity to make use of a melee full attack.
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