Tanking and AC

[Yemin]

I think i was half writing about here half about pf tabletop by accident. Let me redo on that.

I have seen a fighter that can take unreasonable amounts of damage and come off fine. Though its only been the once and high AC fighters are more populous. hp isn't completely random on FK though. I've never seen a wizard with more hp than a fighter and I've been around for a year and a bit actively.

[Ungtar]

Also, watch those battle clerics in a fight. It's no damage, no damage, no damage, bam, they're down to 62% and trying to get their stoneskin and heal back up.

A tanky warrior goes down in hp very slowly.

I augmented my warrior since this thread began and made some other changes, and, well, I love being tanky. I love going with groups of other people and being THE ONE that the mobs are going to try and beat on.

But yeah, without the magic tower shield and the potion of dragonskin then I start feeling a little inferior again.

[Maetha]

I'll do some more research on it later- I admit I need to have a lot more experience with the various classes here before I can start making full blown comparisons. Will return with data at some point- hopefully.

[Hrosskell]

Fighters get: -1 AC, +20% or more base HP than a no-domain cleric.
Clerics get: +1 AC, the ability to lose rounds to healing/refreshing stone skin.

This math is done with feats and apprentice level spells; the gap widens by 2-3 when GM spells are considered. The argument (erroneous, in my opinion) that quicker kills = better tank still favors the fighter because his healing is cooked in instead of costing rounds.

The only thing that blows this apart is OHKO spells and debuffs. You're better off, however, letting a fighter tank so that your cleric CAN debuff/buff and cast those big spells. lol Make friends people, the numbers don't lie!

[Ungtar]

Make friends people, the numbers don't lie!

Absolutely. Fighters come into their own when paired with just 1 other person, and best that a cleric.

The problem I run into most of the time though is that, of the standard list of people playing, the majority of them are either just socializing somewhere, theologically incompatible, or pregnant.

[Yemin]

Simple if difficult to resolve solution. Kidnap monkeys and teach them to play FK... or you know... people.

Its said that 100 monkeys in a room if put together could compute up the perfect fighter build. Only if it wasn't for all that poop flinging. Gets right in the wires.

[Ungtar]

Problem with monkeys is that they all want to play gnomes.

[Beskytter]

I know it's been a while since there was any one talking about this but since my main is a tank style fighter who RPs himself as a shield fighter I think it's something to really discuss more.

The code likely does favor AC to DPR but after a certain point DPR makes more sense for a fighter when he has to battle the penalty of the shield. I honestly think it's the penalty that messes with a fighter's toHit, without that penalty a decently built fighter should do incredibly well. Even on tabletop this is true.

In FK I don't think there's a simple 'fix' (for lack of a better term) unless we discuss how the game calculates damage and death. I've seen people walk away from a fight with a mangled stomach that's supposedly half gone based on the code but they're also code-wise able to move about. Perhaps tanking should mean more than just AC vs. DPR and focus on mitigating the affect damage has on the character.

Example:
Armor doesn't just increase AC but fighters with Armor Optimization feat(s) also don't feel the effects of damage as much as non-fighters. So a cleric would take the full 10 pts damage to their arm and have it become red while a tank style fighter with heavy armor optim. would take the full 10 and only feel it as a light tickle to his elbow. Basically, the damage dealt is the same but the damage felt is different.

If this is already the case, then we might just need something special for fighters to help them be a little close to on par with clerics without the magic.

[Yemin]

After a few months down the road of my experiment I've done a somewhat turn around.

At the moment my shield fighter could beat the crap out of my two hander. My shield fighter is soloing areas that my two hander can't even dream of going alone even with taking a few ranks in the toughness feats and having more Con. The barbarian strategy seems to be failing in the latter stages

Of course this is with him using a tower shield and taking feats to bump his AC as high as it will go without being some sucky gnome... Thats right I said it, gnomes... talk to the hand.

Again though, I have seen two handers beat shield fighters and the reverse be true but I think that comes down to who has the greater deflection and nat armor amulets. And who's found their greater weap specialisation feats because these do make a big difference. My shield fighter with his one hander is pumping out nearly as much damage as the two hander and genuinely will only be doing -2 less damage per hit if he were using a weapon with an elemental damage ability.

I want to caution though for people reading this thread I very recently fell into the trap of focusing too much on the mechanic. This always eventually leads to fustration when you realise despite all your number crunching your far from the best at what you want to do. So everything with a pinch of salt and all that.

The game has grown remarkably in the last 6 months and honestly, i feel the new areas and additions lately have opened up alot more options and areas to very different types of characters and different builds within the same class so I'm appreciative of those.

As for hit ratio. I've not noticed a significant difference between my two types. My shield and my two hander both get 3-4 hits against most things per round with the very rare 5th hit.

[Ungtar]

The new areas have done a lot. Definitely. They plugged (what I felt) were some serious holes in leveling. And just the other day I was spamming through the open world in a way I'd always done and I inadvertently ran into a smallish side zone that I never knew was there (didn't have a ? on the big map). Epic to still be finding stuff after what I felt was a very thorough exploration!

Anyway, back to the fighter discussion.

I was doing some testing on my warrior versus my cleric versus my druid. The warrior can handle things that the other characters can't, most of the time. If they are mundane things which don't use magic. The warrior also doesn't have as much of a safety net if something else walks into the room and he's already fighting at his top threshold.

I died yesterday with the warrior to something I'd killed a hundred times before no sweat. It happened because the creature got a hold spell off on me that it had never succeeded at before. Then for about 30 more rounds of combat it slowly beat me to death, spamming holds every 2 rounds (which appeared to have an increased chance of success against an already held person). Either of the other two magic using characters would have negated that beforehand with resistance spells the warrior does not have.

So to sum up, I think the warrior is very good at fighting and killing mundane things that just slug back at you, but for magic dealers you want to bring a magic dealing companion of your own. It's sort of a paper-scissors-hammer thing.

[Yemin]

Just to play devils advocate here

I do feel that thats the standard way of fighting. Fight magic with magic. But then there are those creatures out there... Some of the Magic dependant NPCs like ******* who attempt to cast every couple of rounds and then just get hit with an AOO that nearly takes off their limbs.

In short, i find that even my one hander fighter is able to stop most spellcasting in its tracks.

[Orban]

Problem with monkeys is that they all want to play gnomes.

Of course this is with him using a tower shield and taking feats to bump his AC as high as it will go without being some sucky gnome... Thats right I said it, gnomes... talk to the hand.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

I am actually curious about this subject playing a gnome though, given the need to wield 'small' weapons, whether I'd be better of 1H and shield or 2H.

I haven't had any problems so far with a mace/tower shield combo, but due to dithering around with a couple of other characters before I settled on Orban I'm aware that I'm killing things noticeably slower than I would be with a medium weapon, on the flip side, 'cure light' has been enough to carry me nearly to 20 without getting into any serious trouble, even against small groups.

[Yemin]

If you have the patience for it, I'd say that considering you can heal, you'd be better off sticking with your shield. The small size +1 AC is extra insentive to train up feats for the shield if you want. Depending on your abilities as a cleric, even if you don't get dragonskin / barkskin / other AC boosting prayers, reducing the number of hits on you and therefore the number of spells expended to keep you up and going will see you through places that you'd run out of patience or spells for. I.e. not needing to meditate really does make a difference in the experience for me anyway.

If you pick up power attack, Eventually you'll get spells to boost your damage output per hit and that should make up the difference. Even as a fighter, my two hander does only 1D6+2 more damage than my one hander at the moment and eventually that will probably end up reducing to just +2 when or if I should find an energy weapon

[Ungtar]

It's noticeable now because of your reduced damage, but it won't be so noticeable later on when you stack up all your other abilities. You're not going to be a one-hit killing machine but that's probably not why you picked gnome anyway.

Embrace your uniqueness. Not getting a few plus points in one part of the score sheet is more than made up for by the other things you will get.

[Yemin]

Well there goes the gnome jokes... what shall we pick on next? Halflings?

[Ungtar]

Well there goes the gnome jokes... what shall we pick on next? Halflings?

Aasimar.

[Yemin]

I've actually been thinking about Aasimar fighters. I can see why so many go paladin but I've been intreeged by the possibility of a straight Aasimar fighter who has the resouces not to just dump cha for rp purposes.

[Terageld]

I've actually been thinking about Aasimar fighters. I can see why so many go paladin but I've been intreeged by the possibility of a straight Aasimar fighter who has the resouces not to just dump cha for rp purposes.

Ya know what I want to see one day? An ugly aasimar. Every one I've met so far is magnificent.

[Yemin]

Well, technically, descs are suppposed to be done in such a way that you can make up your own mind whether something is beautiful or not. But since its not currently possible to reduce scores in creation without ratial penalties you'll never get a PC aasimar
thats not better looking or more charismatic than the average joe.

[Yemin]

Just a little something to add / ask. Over the last year I have occasionally heard the oddity of having 40 AC. However, with all the math I can muster I do not see how this is even remotely possible.

With heavy armor optimization, full plate fighters tend to get the most AC in the game and simply put;

9 magical full plate + 1 max dex + 1 heavy armor optimisation = 21
21 armor +5 magical tower shield + 1 shield specialisation = 27
27 shield and armor + 2 natural + 2 deflection = 31
31 magic, shield, armor + 1 small sized + 3 expertise feat = 35

Even with magical aid, dragonskin's net +3 and shield of faith's net +1 you still get 39 AC maximum.

Unless the reference is to the rare +2 magical full plate in certain locations, 40 should not be possible.

Am I missing anything?