Scaling AC based on BAB

[SowZ]

It is strange to me that skill in hitting with a sword does nothing as far as skill in parrying one. It is also wierd that without feats that are almost never worth it, fighters never get better with shields. It is ALSO odd that while sword and board fighting is historically/LARPwise the most popular style of combat among those who could afford it but using a shield beyond the earliest levels is very rarely useful, (when historically it should be easier to make an effective shieldman.)

Another problem for game balance is the offense/defense scale. At low levels, high AC can be very useful. But as you get higher to a higher level, (when the stakes for getting hit are raised considerably, mind you,) AC becomes less important unless you can get it to an absurd range or you are fighting very large numbers of weaker foes. All classes get better at hitting with weapons as they level but they don't lower the odds of getting hit. And since weapon enhancements/damage bonuses usually raise faster than magical armor enhancements, outlasting enemies with anything but mystical effects becomes a nigh useless strategy and all that matters is finding good spell combos, using skill checks to avoid straight up combat, or killing the enemy before they can swing.

You end up with shield warriors being largely ineffective relative to their two handed weapon contemporaries, master swordsman who can pierce the hid of a dragon but are no better at blocking blows then when they first started their adventuring career, and battles where focus on defense goes by the wayside.

Whatever happened to the epic duel where two blademasters face off, feinting and striking and blocking and looking for an opening? I propose this-

A parry bonus cannot be used against sneak attacks or times when sneak attacks could be used. Parry cannot be used against ranged attacks except for thrown attacks where the defender gets a -5 to the parry attempt. Parry cannot be used against magical attacks. Parrying a special attack, (trip, disarm, etc.) is at -2. Parrying chained weapons gets -2. You cannot use your parry more times a round then your Dex bonus.

Characters may gain a bonus to their AC equal to 1/5 of their base attack bonus when using a buckler or a dagger sized weapon. They gain a 2/5 bonus when using a standard weapon. They gain a 3/5 bonus when using a shield other than a buckler. The character may gain a 4/5 bonus when using a tower shield but incurs a -3 penalty to all attack rolls the following round, (this does not count the usual .

If a character chooses to parry an attack and the attack fails, the attacker may choose to push their weight into the weapon/shield and make a single sunder attack at -2 to hit, (at whichever weapon or shield parried the attack,) but the attacker will have -2AC until their next round if they suceed or fail the sunder.

What does everyone think?



(This also allows the 'Armor as Damage Reduction' variant to be more playable AND gives martial classes a power boost. The gods know that they need it.)

[Domriso]

I like it. I was actually thinking of a similar mechanic for my games, and this is a fairly elegant way of putting it. One issue I see is in the case of shields and ranged attacks. Why can't a shield block an arrow? That was a common tactic in wars, to avoid being impaled.

[SowZ]

I like it. I was actually thinking of a similar mechanic for my games, and this is a fairly elegant way of putting it. One issue I see is in the case of shields and ranged attacks. Why can't a shield block an arrow? That was a common tactic in wars, to avoid being impaled.

Shields still give their normal AC bonus vs. arrows but because of how fast an arrow travels, predicting where it is going to hit you would be nearly impossible. The best you could do is put it up against your body to cover the most mass. And since anyone with sheild proficiency could do that, I don't think arrow deflection would scale with skill.

Glad you like it. (:

[Immonen]

The way you have this set up, shields are still useless at low levels. Even a fighter gets little benefit from a large shield at first level. I recommend that you change the AC bonus to the BAB plus or minus a certain amount depending on the shield.

[SowZ]

The way you have this set up, shields are still useless at low levels. Even a fighter gets little benefit from a large shield at first level. I recommend that you change the AC bonus to the BAB plus or minus a certain amount depending on the shield.

Well, even though the x/5 is rounded down, the BAB doesn't have to be divisible by five. Just convert it to 60% of your BAB for a shield. So at 2nd level a large shield is giving a +3 bonus instead of +2 and at 5th level it is giving +4. Still not massive, but at low levels the difference between 2 and three is noticable.

You're right, though. Even still it is usually better to go with a two hander. A quick fix that offsets it a little is make the buckler AC bonus +1, a light shield +2, a heavy shield +3, and a tower +5. That is a substantial difference at low levels and by the upper levels the AC from BAB bonus will make up for it.

[ericgrau]

Monster and PC attack bonus scales at up to 1.25 per level. AC scales at up to 1.25 per level. It's the same rate. The second comes more from items though than the first, and some people don't realize this or don't get them from their DM so these things start.

What might be simpler would be to scale AC by level but remove the AC items so people who don't understand how to select cheap AC items don't have to bother with it. For shields simply let them scale a little faster than no shields. Maybe 1 per level without shields and 1.25 with. Or maybe 0.75 and 1 if you continue to allow miscellaneous AC sources like mithril, haste AC, etc.

[sonofzeal]

For a shield, honestly a % miss chance might be a nice way to represent it. That makes it far more relevant at higher levels than any flat numerical bonus. Just remember to specify that touch attacks ignore than miss chance.

[Immonen]

For a shield, honestly a % miss chance might be a nice way to represent it. That makes it far more relevant at higher levels than any flat numerical bonus. Just remember to specify that touch attacks ignore than miss chance.

I've actually been pondering something like this. Say wearing a shield entitles you to a flat d20 roll when you're attacked. Buckler will block an attack on a 20, small shield on a 19-20, large shield on a 17-20, tower shield on a 10+. Then, bucklers can only be used on one attack/round, small shields on two, etc.

[sonofzeal]

I've actually been pondering something like this. Say wearing a shield entitles you to a flat d20 roll when you're attacked. Buckler will block an attack on a 20, small shield on a 19-20, large shield on a 17-20, tower shield on a 10+. Then, bucklers can only be used on one attack/round, small shields on two, etc.
That sounds good, although the limit on attacks per round seems a little arbitrary.

Also, how do you account for enhancement bonuses? Would each +1 add one to the range? Would a +5 Small Shield protect you on a 14-20, and a +5 Tower Shield on a 5-20?

[Absol197]

Have you considered adding a base defense bonus, like they have in d20 modern and Unearthed Arcana? I think that might fit what you need, without adding unecessary extra rolls. I'm always against extra dice-rolling in games, as it increases the amount of time everything takes dramatically. Remember, just because you're not rolling a die to parry doesn't mean your character isn't, it just means that that action is being represented by something else. A base Defense bonus, for example, could represent an ability to block with a shield, or parry a blow with a sword, or what not, depending on the character. It's all in how you describe the action.

However, you idea for shields is definitely interesting. I agree that they need to have some way to increase the bonuses they give, or else grant additional abilties, because shields should be used more often.

[SowZ]

Monster and PC attack bonus scales at up to 1.25 per level. AC scales at up to 1.25 per level. It's the same rate. The second comes more from items though than the first, and some people don't realize this or don't get them from their DM so these things start.

What might be simpler would be to scale AC by level but remove the AC items so people who don't understand how to select cheap AC items don't have to bother with it. For shields simply let them scale a little faster than no shields. Maybe 1 per level without shields and 1.25 with. Or maybe 0.75 and 1 if you continue to allow miscellaneous AC sources like mithril, haste AC, etc.

The 1.25 AC to attack often doesn't work that way. Let's take two fighters. Both are level ten and both are defense focused, (full plate and tower shield.) Two master swordsman with huge shields should have a difficult time hitting each other, right? Not so much.

Due to armor, each has an AC of 18. With the Dex mod, 19. The tower shield brings it up to 23. We won't give a magical enhancement bonus to armor since we will assume any bonus the armor had the enemy would have in their magical weapon. We will also not count trinkets like amulets or armor and such because we will assume things like belts of giant strength will counter those out. We will also not count feat based AC since we will assume offensive feats will counter those out.

Okay. On to hit. Let's say a level 10 fighter has 20 strength. That's plus 5 to hit there with a +10 BAB. Add on a masterwork weapon and you have a +16 to hit. Factor in -2 to hit because of tower shield. Fighting a master warrior in full plate with a tower shield, an equal fighter will hit half the time. This is not realistic. What happened to the epic duels between great warriors with blocks and parries?

It's even worse for people who use the armor as DR variant or run low magic campaigns.

Your alternate solutions could work, only giving the bonuses when weapons are in hand, (otherwise it is not a parry,) but I would still make a limit on how many times someone can use that AC bonus. I would still want it to be BAB based, though, not level based since the idea is it is how good you are with a sword. BAB better represents that. Thanks for your suggestions.

[Absol197]

Another thing you could do is give all weapons a shield bonus to AC, just like a shield, and then use the scaling shield bonus with level/BAB that was discussed earlier. Then, the bonus to your defense is coming directly from the weapon, and it gets bigger the higher your BAB goes.

[Yitzi]

It is strange to me that skill in hitting with a sword does nothing as far as skill in parrying one. It is also wierd that without feats that are almost never worth it, fighters never get better with shields.

Both are the metagame result of the fact that you can boost your AC quite easily through magic items.


but using a shield beyond the earliest levels is very rarely useful, (when historically it should be easier to make an effective shieldman.)

Actually, at the later levels it's too useful if anything (assuming a decent AC), due to animated shields. 49k for +7 AC, yes please.


Another problem for game balance is the offense/defense scale. At low levels, high AC can be very useful. But as you get higher to a higher level, (when the stakes for getting hit are raised considerably, mind you,) AC becomes less important unless you can get it to an absurd range or you are fighting very large numbers of weaker foes.

What do you consider an absurd range? The 40s should be quite achievable by level 20, and while classic bruiser mosters (including dragons) have high enough attacks to make that of minimal use, other monsters, such as some outsiders and undead, have low enough attack bonuses to make it meaningful, while still making enough use of physical attacks to make it important.
And of course it also helps against Power Attack and iterative attacks where applicable.


And since weapon enhancements/damage bonuses usually raise faster than magical armor enhancements

How do you get that? The cost of boosting your weapon attack by X (starting with no enchantments) is roughly (4/3)X^2*, while the cost of boosting your AC by X is roughly (1/2)X^2*, even assuming you've maxed out your DEX bonus and are not using a shield (with a shield, it goes down to (1/3)X^2.)

*To find the total cost per point, take, for each source, the reciprocal of the cost for a +1, add said reciprocals together, and take the reciprocal. Thus, for attack we get 2 for weapon enchantment and 4 for STR, for a total of 1/(1/2+1/4)=4/3. For AC we get 1 for armor, 2 for deflection, 2 for natural armor, and (if present) 1 for shield, for 1/(1+1/2+1/2)=1/2 or 1/(1+1+1/2+1/2)=1/3.

[SowZ]

Both are the metagame result of the fact that you can boost your AC quite easily through magic items.



Actually, at the later levels it's too useful if anything (assuming a decent AC), due to animated shields. 49k for +7 AC, yes please.



What do you consider an absurd range? The 40s should be quite achievable by level 20, and while classic bruiser mosters (including dragons) have high enough attacks to make that of minimal use, other monsters, such as some outsiders and undead, have low enough attack bonuses to make it meaningful, while still making enough use of physical attacks to make it important.
And of course it also helps against Power Attack and iterative attacks where applicable.



How do you get that? The cost of boosting your weapon attack by X (starting with no enchantments) is roughly (4/3)X^2*, while the cost of boosting your AC by X is roughly (1/2)X^2*, even assuming you've maxed out your DEX bonus and are not using a shield (with a shield, it goes down to (1/3)X^2.)

*To find the total cost per point, take, for each source, the reciprocal of the cost for a +1, add said reciprocals together, and take the reciprocal. Thus, for attack we get 2 for weapon enchantment and 4 for STR, for a total of 1/(1/2+1/4)=4/3. For AC we get 1 for armor, 2 for deflection, 2 for natural armor, and (if present) 1 for shield, for 1/(1+1/2+1/2)=1/2 or 1/(1+1+1/2+1/2)=1/3.

Sure. While things like belt of giant strength counteract some of those enhancements, they add up quick. And since strength modifiers don't stack... Just about all of my homebrews are for low-moderate magic settings, where any enhancements you get will be few and far between. They typically seem to work best with very low magic. I still like the system, though. So how would you fix the system for a high magic campaign, where you can assume your character will have a good portion of the magic items they want?

[Yitzi]

Sure. While things like belt of giant strength counteract some of those enhancements, they add up quick. And since strength modifiers don't stack... Just about all of my homebrews are for low-moderate magic settings, where any enhancements you get will be few and far between. They typically seem to work best with very low magic. I still like the system, though. So how would you fix the system for a high magic campaign, where you can assume your character will have a good portion of the magic items they want?

It is fixed for a high magic campaign, as you can get all those defensive items.

It's the low magic campaign (where magic items to boost AC are rare, but BAB still progresses) that needs the fix, and you probably should look for guidance to the ultimate low-magic setting, namely d20 modern (which I hear does have a way to boost AC with level because of this issue.)