Armor Class Cap

[watchwood]

I can see limiting the maximum tumble of heavy armours, but I guess you've never heard of magical robes. If a set of armour can be enchanted to provide better protection, then why not a robe? It's the exact same bloody spell.

[Squikker2001]

Just my 2 bits, but about a cheesy tumble monk, tumbling is a major source of AC for monks, as they cannot use armor (except for robes) or shields. Wearing armor or shields negates the monk wis AC bonus, which, except maybe in a few cases, is a bad thing. Besides, tumble ranks only give +1 AC every 5 ranks, for a base max of 8 (43 / 5 = 8 remainder 3). Now, is +8 AC really that much at level 40?

Although I do agree about limiting the effectiveness of tumble in heavy armors. I havent tried it, but i dont think rolling around in a 50 pound suit of armor would be very effective. Maybe it could cast Deafening Clang on a natural 20 .

A suggestion for the armor tumbling though, would be capping the AC bonus for tumbling at the max dex bonus for the armor, i.e. you could get +1 AC with full plate or +2 with a breastplate.

[CrazyJ]

Thus putting characters who wield two-handed weapons at an even greater disadvantage than having +8 AC tower shields (that also give just as much resistance to damage as a suit of plate armor!) on the server does.

[DeathJester]

Well, then how about considering an option I've seen in another server. I thought it was a very interesting application of a custom rule.

"Custom Parry System.

Characters that use 2-handed Weapons or opt to fight without a shield but use our custom Main Gauche (Parrying Dagger) will get a bonus to their Armour Class if they spend points in Parrying. The maximum bonus you can ever get from this is +8 to your AC but that will require 40 in Parrying. You will not be able to just pile in points as this particular feature only counts the Levels in Martial Classes - ie Fighter, Barbarian, Rangers, Blackguards, Paladins, Weapon Master & Dwarven Defender. In this regard it works similarly to the UMD skill. If you were level 5 Barbarian and 3 Rogue but have 11 points in Parry ( not counting bonuses) - only 8 of those points will count towards this custom parrying system. ( Penalties from Armour are removed for calculating how many parry points go towards this system) - You do not need to be in Parry Mode to Use this."

Like I said, this was an interesting rule, and I found that it gave a little help to pure tanks, so that tumblers didn't rule the server. I know it would require some modification to work here, but that's what discussion is for right? Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out there and see what people thought.

DeathJester

[MLoki]

Perhaps allowing the modified tumble count towards the modified AC bonus. This will actually give a penalty to characters that use Platemail and Tower Shields and reduce the AC they get from tumble accordingly. Even pure Dex builds would only get another 2-3 AC more from a modified tumble skill.

MLoki

[kgb]

This discussion's final intention is to penalise those who wear plate/shield and take tumble. Regardless of your position - most would agree that variety is what is needed on the server.

Why must a rogue be running around in a robe or leathers. If a Blackguard can get sneak and is essentially a fighter then I see no problem with a rogue or assassin doing so.

Both my Bard and Assassin wear full plate and towershield and yes I get tumble - why? Because I don't desire to go down the epic dodge/wpn finesse path and want to make a strength based build to help my ab and damage output.

Also the advantage of two different damage resistance types is too good to forego on a low magic server such as NS.

My monk does not get this luxury wearing only a robe. Most mobs have smartly been composed of a combination of damage types. Take the Ice giants or Giant Mountain mobs as examples. You have warriors with Scythes, Sentinels with Clubs and forget the others with Axes. Same deal on Giant Mtn with Skull Eaters, Hunters, Smashers.

There has been some effort in providing resistances for carrying dual wpns but nothing for those who dual-wield single wpns.

Perhaps there is a need for some specific armor for those rogues, fighters, rangers, wpn masters who want to go down that path to get dual resistances so rather than a Slash Resist 10 get a 5 and 5. I know Alliance Plate has this option which is very nice might I add

I'd like to get away from Plate/Shield but for strength builds going low dex allows you to put points into Str and Con and Int for skill points. After all you end up with a relatively poor reflex save as a result. So putting points into tumble to help you in melee are a decent trade off for taking more damage from spells/breath wpns etc.

[Throst54]

but melee toons can't hit the pm/druid/monk/sd 70+ ac with their ab, so it's un balanced. if something ig done to bring everyone else up, ns4 is going to be nothing but pm/shifter cookie cutter toons.

it doesnt have to be balanced... its D&D, not... balaning act...

mwuahahaha metaph0rWND


think of it like rock paper scissors!

you have mages, high ab/ac, and 'classic' tanks-- IE nothing particularly extreme, just all around primed for fighting d00ds

mages smash high ab/ac and they smash the reg pplz, and the reg toons well, they have a better chance of killing the mages than the extremefocused toons do.

maybe this would make more sense if explained like how pokemon works than rock paper scissors....

but you get the idea, hopefully, all servers have metagames! you have to figure out what is most played and then either play it, play something that beats the snot outta it, or not care and justplay whatever you feel like.

The latter is best... when it coincides with one of the other two.

people will get bored quick of having two ac 1k people fighting each other, and have to adapt... dont worry, everything will work out.

for now, go make your druid monk and then once you get pwnt by something then you know what to make to kill all the other druidmonks/pms... unless your druid monk guy just blew... in which case you might waste a lot of time making a harper scout... so watch out for mis evaluating the metagame...


dont mind me... im just talking out of my [censored]

[Mythri Wolfwood]

I've done some checking with the Wiki and I think it's possible to hit 100 ac (not 100% sure it's all correct):

Race: Drow
Build: Bard 25/Cleric 5/Pale Master 10

AC Breakdown:

10 AC (base)
+5 from Dex (Dex of 20 @ character creation)
+2 from Dex (+4 Dex book)
+5 from Dex (put all level up ablility points into Dex)
+2 from Dex (take 4 Great Dexterity feats)
+3 from Dex (Maximized Cat's Grace &
LA Messenger job Mastery Dex bonus)
+3 from Dex (Boots of Escape)
+4 Natural Armor AC (Amulet of Ice)
+4 Dodge AC (Boots of Escape)
+4 Dodge AC (Haste)
+3 Dodge AC (Bard Song)
+9 Dodge AC (Divine Shield, +20 Dodge bonus cap applied):
*Charisma of 14 @ character creation
(Drow Charisma bonus applied)
*+6 Charisma (Royal Shadow Cloak)
*+6 Charisma (Maximized Eagle's Splendor &
LA Messenger job mastery Charisma bonus)
*+4 Charisma (+4 Charisma book)
+1 AC (Dodge feat)
+8 AC (maxxed tumble)
+6 Armor AC (Mistress' Robes)
+3 AC (Imbued Adamantine Shield, base AC)
+6 Shield AC (Imbued Adamantine Shield, AC bonus)
+2 AC (Armor Skin)
+4 Deflection AC (Royal Shadow Cloak)
+6 AC (Bone Skin)
+10 AC (Improved Expertise)

With a high level cleric and druid, you can get an additional +1 Deflection AC (Shield of Faith) and +1 Natural Armor AC (Barkskin). With 25 levels of bard, I don't think the spells are dispellable. The 45 SR from Drow provides some protection against spells. As far as saves go, there's plenty of Protection From Spells potions and Resistance items. If all else fails, there's always healing potions.

[Celorn]

ahh.. woot! numeric point form again;

1. you can't be a PM and have the LA bonuses...

2. 5 levels of cleric isn't gonna give you very much turn undead power, and even still, the divine shield doesn't last very long.

3. if you want more AC that lasts, go with more PM levels so you can gank Epic Mage Armor, at the loss of some bard levels

4. you have no uncanny dodge in that build, so most of that uber-AC is lost very easily.

5. the more focused in AC you are, the less AB you'll have, better hope you can dish lots of 20's and crits...

[-BannyD-]

4. you have no uncanny dodge in that build, so most of that uber-AC is lost very easily.

not that it works anyway its very buggy

[havelot]

When considering such things, one must take into account:

- unbuffed and buffed AB or AC
- dispellable and non-dispellable buffs
- free and costly buffs.

AC or AB that is easily dispelled or comes at a price (such as Improved Expertise) is not very valuable. Other things, like Epic Dodge and Uncanny Dodge, should be considered as well. I personally think it's foolhardy to build a dexer toon without the latter. Get caught napping (in other words, flat-footed) and you can be killed before you realize it. Epic Dodge allows you to avoid the first successful attack in a round. So, in a one-on-one contest, it's easily as good as 3 - 5 more AC. Against a group, it's much less effective. Forms of concealment, from feats or spells, should also not be overlooked.

I believe you can get a raw (unbuffed) AC in the high 60s from a 26C,D,R/9M/5SD build with Uncanny and Epic Dodge that can be enhanced further with buffs. One-on-one, with ED, HiPS, perhaps II and who knows what else, such a build would be, IMHO (w/o having built one), quite viable on NS4.

[Mythri Wolfwood]

Ah, I knew there was something wrong with my AC breakdown. However, if I'm not mistaken, the number of divine shield uses is 3x per day plus the charisma modifier. So, with a charisma of 24, you have 7 uses per day. With buffs, you can get 9 rounds per use. That's not too bad. And, if you want more uses per day, I believe Extra Turning gives you 6 more uses per day. The only thing I can say about the loss of AC is to try not to get flat-footed (I know, easier said than done). Improved Invisibility can help as well.

As for why the build has mostly bard levels, well, I figured it could be used for some bard song support in groups. Since the damage potential is almost nonexistant, I figured a decent bard song would make the build at least somewhat useful. With high tumble and some points in healing, the build could make for decent support. But, well, mostly I was just curious as to what the maximum AC attainable was.

[Gildren]

Ok, looks like this thread has turned into a "nerf heavy armor users thread" which is really kinda funny, being that they have the lower armor class than the folks who wear robes in epic levels lol.

I have a couple level 30 pally types, one that hasn't dual classed to increase his tumble skill, and one that has. The former character (aka low tumble) is pretty much a liability on the planes. The missing places of armor class make him a s**t magnet, and he pretty much just dies from not being able to drink healing potions fast enough.
The second toon has a maxed tumble for his character level, and is more more survival-able (certainly not uber lol). The second toon is still only AC50's at best.

Arcane casters are able to stack multiple forms of AC that conflict with physical armor (that such heavy armor folks can't cast anyway). Perhaps these bonus shouldn't stack quite as high as they do.. or..

Perhaps it is worth considering making is possible for heavy armor tanks capable of getting armor classes at least within 5 or so places of these ac70 robe wearers. Or, though I know I'm being shot down here, Cap their AC to that of what a Heavy Armor toon can get for their particular level.

Yes, robe wearers don't have the same BAB as a fighter type, but they do tend to have un-resistible direct damage spells to make up for it.

[Binkyuk]

I'm not fussed either way, but my 2 pence for those that don't seem to understand AC vs AB properly (particularly whoever said that +8 AC at level 40 wasn't a lot):

You have to understand that the important thing isn't the relative increase in AC, it's the absolute difference between AB and AC.
+8 AC may only add 10% to your absolute AC at level 40, but that's not the point, it means your opponent has to roll 8 more on his d20, which is a 40% increase (and that assumes he hits on a 1, if he hits on a 10 (more likely) that makes a whopping 80% increase).

[watchwood]

Unless you forgot about dex monks and the like. who have the AC and AB, but don't do much damage? Most heavy builds can do a lot more melee damage then a dex build, so I think everything is just fine.