Fixing AC costs

[lans]

A complaint that has been bantered about is that AC doesn't scale fast enough.

Would halving the over all costs of the basic AC set be enough?

I mean halving all armor and shieldss so mithral full plate costs ~3.5k and a bit over 1 if you make it yourself.
Halving the enhancements to them.
Making Natural Armor cost the same(500gp*X^2) +5 for 12.5 instead of 50 it has the same value as armor/shield boni so it should cost the same
Halving Deflection bonus.
While were at it cloaks will be halved also.

While were at it we can halve the cost of cloaks of resistance

Thoughts?

[SageBahamut]

This is an interesting idea. I would certainly like to see something to make armor class relevant at high levels, but... it really seems like it just plain doesn't. And either shouldn't, or ... I'm getting ahead of myself.

On the one hand, yes, AC becomes completely irrelevant at higher levels once AC either caps out (i.e. you can't get bigger bonuses) or becomes so offensively expensive that you just plain can't be arsed, and either way Displacement is just better. There are two causes of this: AC being both limited (bonuses don't get any bigger) and hampered (bigger bonuses get expensive fast), and the fact that BAB (for you, but more importantly for the bad guys) scaled with HD while AC doesn't and certain truly nasty bad guys rely on having piles of HD to be substantial threats (Famine Spirit, anyone?).
What this means is that above certain levels, the simple fact that attack bonuses scale with level while AC doesn't makes AC irrelevant above a certain point. (I don't honestly know what that point IS - in my experience it hovers somewhere between level 12 and level 16, but is almost certainly true by level 20 and truer the more epic you go.)

The problem I encounter every time I sit down to try to fix it is... what happens if I succeed? That is, what does it do to the game if you actually balance this? The simple fix, after all, is to give everyone an AC bonus that scales with level, perhaps equal to their BAB. ... But wait, wouldn't the end result of THAT be that the bad guys more or less have to roll a 10 to hit you, no matter what your level is?

While it might not be THAT strict a thing, or that watery a thing, I think that does become a real problem when trying to correct this. You go from AC itself as a concept being irrelevant at high levels (because they're going to hit you; you're just better off not being there when they do), to AC as a concept being relevant but the actual numbers thereof mattering more or less not at all (because they're going to hit you on a ten or better, unless you're doing it wrong, in which case, see above).

Doesn't that sort of steal the thunder out of having a jacked-up AC at all? Knowing that in a couple of levels you're to have to keep reinvesting it in in order to stay on par, while the guy who bought a cloak of displacement (or just casts a persistent displacement every day) will have the same 20% or 50% miss chance from now until forever, and the things that can challenge him (anything with true seeing) will wallop you (because they're probably casters)?

[veekie]

The problem there is the way AC scales
Earliest levels: Extremely fast
Full Plate is affordable soon enough, and gets you a whole +9. You could go from +5 to +9 in 3 levels.
Adding a shield on top is trivial cost(unless you need your off hand).
Early-mid levels: Moderate
You run into the cheap bonuses per slot(deflection/nat) and still have plenty of slots for them.
Mid level: Slow/moderate
You add misc AC sources depending on what you can find, but start to run low on slots
High level: slow
Gains are far outpaced.

So if you're fixing this, you need to target the misc AC bonuses. My personal favorite is to just junk the whole lot of AC bonus types and grant a class AC bonus from BAB.

[Basket Burner]

No. Even if you half costs you'll still hit the cap early.

You'd have to half costs, raise the caps by 50%, raise WBL by 50%, and make the maximum iterative penalty -5 in order to make AC useful. Even then, it might not work.

No need to mess with saves, special defense is fine.

[SageBahamut]

BB just hit on the other problem with AC - the fact that someone with iterative attacks has a fifteen point difference between his first and last swings of the round. "Fixing" AC would theoretically make at least that last swing very difficult if not impossible to land, and the second-last one marginally less so.

The problem I see with BB's solution, however, is that raising WBL would give people more money to spend on things other than AC.

I think I would begin by halving the costs of AC boosts and playing a full campaign that way, to see if it fixed things, especially in that mid-to-late-level area where the grind really becomes overwhelming.

[veekie]

Really, just skip the whole '6 different bonuses to the same thing' business and just hand the AC they need out of their BAB. Your ability to hit goes up with level, why shouldn't your ability to dodge?

[Mooncrow]

There are a few different ways you could do it, but the most important is going to be to get rid of the scaling costs, followed by making more of the different types able to be purchased. 

[Basket Burner]

BB just hit on the other problem with AC - the fact that someone with iterative attacks has a fifteen point difference between his first and last swings of the round. "Fixing" AC would theoretically make at least that last swing very difficult if not impossible to land, and the second-last one marginally less so.

Exactly. The reason for the max -5 is so that the range of numbers can be balanced better and so that BAB means more.

The problem I see with BB's solution, however, is that raising WBL would give people more money to spend on things other than AC.

Completely intentional, as non casters don't have enough wealth to cover their bases and casters already get extra by abusing craft discounts.

I think I would begin by halving the costs of AC boosts and playing a full campaign that way, to see if it fixed things, especially in that mid-to-late-level area where the grind really becomes overwhelming.

You'd be wasting your time, because the cap is still too low and there is still too wide a range.

Really, just skip the whole '6 different bonuses to the same thing' business and just hand the AC they need out of their BAB. Your ability to hit goes up with level, why shouldn't your ability to dodge?

Every enemy becomes completely unhittable.

[Sjappo]

Make a special property named Scaling cost +1. Counts a +1 for all intents and purposes (i.e. as base for further enhancement with special properties). It scales with level. +1 at lvl 1, +2 at 4th, +3 at 8th, +4 at 12th and +5 at 16th. Exact progression negotiable.

Scaling can be cast on everything that gives any kind of AC, to hit, damage or save bonus.

Done.

[veekie]

Every enemy becomes completely unhittable.

Wasn't it that melee autohits anyway?

[Basket Burner]

Make a special property named Scaling cost +1. Counts a +1 for all intents and purposes (i.e. as base for further enhancement with special properties). It scales with level. +1 at lvl 1, +2 at 4th, +3 at 8th, +4 at 12th and +5 at 16th. Exact progression negotiable.

Scaling can be cast on everything that gives any kind of AC, to hit, damage or save bonus.

Done.

Then you save money, but still get auto hit, and just messed with things that don't need to be messed with.

Every enemy becomes completely unhittable.

Wasn't it that melee autohits anyway?

Which is the exact opposite.

What would you rather fight, the AC 52 Balor you auto hit, or the AC 72 Balor you auto miss?

And that's a caster enemy, so it's one of the few enemies that does not have a BAB well in excess of its CR.

[veekie]

Apply that only to BAB from PC class sources then, because monstrous creatures come with nat AC anyway.

[Basket Burner]

Apply that only to BAB from PC class sources then, because monstrous creatures come with nat AC anyway.

Because PC only rules are the solution in a system in which both sides mostly use the same rules?

[veekie]

No, because it takes less time than having to rewrite the ACs of every single monster out there, AND it addresses gear dependent PCs(and monsters are gear-independent). Read it as a class defense bonus derived from your BAB for all classes if that helps.

[Basket Burner]

What it does is create a whole different set of problems.

[veekie]

Which problems? Might as well haul them out and solve them.
Because you're junking the multiple different stacking AC types from items, they won't be as big a role(freeing melee to spend more of their cash on stuff they want rather than stuff they need), NPC opponents won't need so much of their wealth either to be relevant since they got their basic metrics higher, and your base armor and/or shield counts for a bit more. Heck if its a dodge bonus you'd be raising the critically endangered touch AC too.

I can see one possible problem with long duration buff spells(probably Persisted, since the others take time to raise and don't last much longer than 1-2 encounters at a go) from the bonus types that don't appear on items anymore.

[RedWarlock]

What it does is create a whole different set of problems.

Okay, I'm getting sick of your ultra-pessimistic attitude. NO fix would be a simple 1-step change with no repercussions, or it would have been made standard by now.

I'm not saying don't look at changes critically, but EVERY thread I see you comment in, you make negative comments about suggested changes with no suggestions on how to make said idea work better. HOW does it not work, WHY, and what else could be tweaked to make the overall concept a better alternative than what we have now?

Just dumping on a thread with a (very whiny) 'no that wouldn't work' is not contributing to the conversation.

[Basket Burner]

Which problems? Might as well haul them out and solve them.

I figured it was so obvious that it needed no explanation, but I was wrong again. You have an RNG that is 18 values wide. You shift upwards by 20. What happens? Well, a lot of those auto hits go to auto misses. Now you might be tempted to call that a good thing, but then you actually look at the enemies in question. In most cases, the real threat from them does not involve physical attacks. If they are physically attacking, it's either because they are using Wraithstrike, or being run by a DM that doesn't know better. By making the physical attacks worthless, you just funnel all enemies into their best options, effectively making them more dangerous. And there is no solution to that, other than not implementing poorly thought out changes that do not take into account the rippling effect upon the meta.

Because you're junking the multiple different stacking AC types from items, they won't be as big a role(freeing melee to spend more of their cash on stuff they want rather than stuff they need), NPC opponents won't need so much of their wealth either to be relevant since they got their basic metrics higher, and your base armor and/or shield counts for a bit more. Heck if its a dodge bonus you'd be raising the critically endangered touch AC too.

Oh wait, that's what you're doing? Everyone still gets auto hit then, you've done nothing but make a bunch of useless changes. Forget what I said before.

I can see one possible problem with long duration buff spells(probably Persisted, since the others take time to raise and don't last much longer than 1-2 encounters at a go) from the bonus types that don't appear on items anymore.

And on top of that you amplify spell based overcentralization. To put it bluntly, that is a terrible idea and there is no part of it that is not terrible.

[Sinfire Titan]

Okay, I'm getting sick of your ultra-pessimistic attitude

Oi, BB raises a good point: Altering stats on a blanket-scale causes twofold imbalances in the CR system (the player's RNG gets affected, and the encounters get modified). Wide-scale alterations to AC based on a stat everyone has means enemies benefit from it more than the players do, and this causes problems for the Noncasters (who typically target AC exclusively).

Completely intentional, as non casters don't have enough wealth to cover their bases and casters already get extra by abusing craft discounts.

This point and the last one in that post I agree with.

Stat boosters are overpriced for MAD characters, punishing MAD even further and barely affecting SAD classes. Enemies in this game tend to have high HD to CR ratios unless they are class-based enemies, which means the BAB of a number of enemies will be significantly higher than that of the party's, thus inflating the AC of that enemy.

[veekie]

That would be why I specified class derived BAB at a later point.