The Gaming Den

Okay, so theres a lot of talk on these forums about level-appropriate abilities, enemies, items, effects and pretty much anything else relating to D&D. However, for a DM fairly new to 3.5 is there any kind of reference showing what is considered level appropriate at the various levels?

Say, at levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what is an appropriate attack bonus or Armor Class? What effects would be considered fair, and at what DC to save? When is flight overpowered, appropriate, and too weak?

Is there anywhere this has been laid out, or do you just have to get a feel for it by reading the powers given to the various CR'd monsters and spell effects?

Red_Rob wrote:you just have to get a feel for it by reading the powers given to the various CR'd monsters and spell effects?

I believe that this is really the best way to determine what is considered "level-appropriate."

It is easily possible to exceed level-appropriate parameters through various cheese, but that's not really the point. The idea is to pick some goal level and stick to it. So if your goal is that a primary weapon-user (good BAB) should hit a level-appropriate target 80% of the time, then when you compare a bunch of level X fighters against CR Y threats the average hit rate ought to hover around there.

Obviously that's just an example. You could pick some other metric (damage-per-round, average attacks-to-KO, whatever), you just need to be consistent and have a way to compare characters and threats across a spectrum.

Red_Rob wrote:Okay, so theres a lot of talk on these forums about level-appropriate abilities, enemies, items, effects and pretty much anything else relating to D&D. However, for a DM fairly new to 3.5 is there any kind of reference showing what is considered level appropriate at the various levels?

Say, at levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what is an appropriate attack bonus or Armor Class? What effects would be considered fair, and at what DC to save? When is flight overpowered, appropriate, and too weak?

Is there anywhere this has been laid out, or do you just have to get a feel for it by reading the powers given to the various CR'd monsters and spell effects?

In general, spells make a good guideline. As much as people bitch about overpowered casters, spells do scale in a level appropriate manner. Flight for example is level 3 (short term, with wings), 5 (short term, no wings), or 9 (long term, no wings).

This is also useful for special effects, short term AoE blind = 3 for example.

It is not so useful for damage, as 70 is not level appropriate at 20, or even 10. Yet that's the average result of 20d6, and that requires the enemy to fail the save and not have any resistances. For damage you have to look at the enemies of that level and determine how much is required to one round an enemy of the same level... because they can probably do the same to you, and will eventually if given a turn. Two rounds might be acceptable but is very risky, you will probably die in any and every actually difficult fight if you can't DPS an enemy of your level down in one round.

You can also forget about level appropriate ACs, as level appropriate attack bonuses will hit that on a 2, often with bonuses to burn on Power Attack after the first few levels of the game.

Roy wrote:In general, spells make a good guideline. As much as people bitch about overpowered casters, spells do scale in a level appropriate manner. Flight for example is level 3 (short term, with wings), 5 (short term, no wings), or 9 (long term, no wings).

Note, however, that the reason (somebody correct me here if I'm not understanding this correctly) that "you can fly, with these parameters" is considered "level appropriate" because if you dig out the Monster Manual there are CR 3, 5, or 9 monsters that you might need flight to battle on even footing.

"Fly for about the length of one combat encounter" would not be level-appropriate if there were no CR 3 threats that could counter such a tactic. As it turns out, there are encounters that will stomp you if you can't fly at these levels (or if you don't have some other way to deal with flying enemies). To look at things from the other direction, the tarrasque is not actually a level-appropriate challenge for its CR because if you can hover outside its reach (trivial at that level) the only thing that stops you from killing it is time.

Again, you pick some arbitrary benchmark and derive everything from there. An obvious choice is the CR system, but the CR system is pretty bad, so Roy's suggestion of looking at the spell list and balancing everything around that is solid. All that matters is consistency within your frame of reference.

A better baseline for what damage should be is comparison to level appriopriate Save or Dies: It starts out ridicilously strong with sleep, and color spray at level 1, but the name of the game should have been "Rocket Tag" for how swingy combat can get before level 4. Level 5 and up, deep slumber means you can basically kill 2 equavelantly leveled dudes with a single round of offensive action. Level 7 brings charm monster, which not only ends a dude but acts as a net action advantage for your team. 9th level comes up, and than means a Cleric of any faith can planeshift a dude straight to hell, or the negative/positve energy plane or whatever, and the wizard can knock out as many level equavent enemies that can fit with a 60' sphere with symbol of sleep, and a properly prepared telekinesis acid flask barrage can kill anything in the game. Level 11 makes armies of anything kill itself with symbol of persuasion, and that is the limit of potential damage (a standard action has the same weight of an army of level equavalent enemies) untill mass charm monster becomes the pinacle of the power you can wield with a single standard action.

Some conclusions: The game should be renamed "Rockets and Launchers". At all levels of play, you are expected to take out at least two level equavalent foes, making Your Character a Mook in comparison to itself.

Unless, of course, all of your adversaries are sandbagging somehow. Which seems to be an implied assumption at times, even cutting out the fact that the DM is theoretically all-powerful.

Archmage wrote:Again, you pick some arbitrary benchmark and derive everything from there. An obvious choice is the CR system, but the CR system is pretty bad, so Roy's suggestion of looking at the spell list and balancing everything around that is solid. All that matters is consistency within your frame of reference.

All the existing classes and powers are already balanced around some kind of benchmark, so couldn't picking an arbitrary one leave most of the existing stuff underpowered?

Hicks wrote:Level 5 and up, deep slumber means you can basically kill 2 equavelantly leveled dudes with a single round of offensive action.

I assume the fact doing this uses up one of the wizards very limited highest level slots means that an equivalent level fighter/barbarian shouldn't be able to one-shot two same-CR monsters in an attack, though, or else they effectively have unlimited spell slots? Or does the fact most parties will rest once the mages are out of spells mean this isn't a major concern? For example, the average HP of the CR 5 monsters in the monster Manual are:

Achaierai: 39
Animated Object, Huge: 84
Arrowhawk: 38
Barghest, Greater: 67
Basilisk: 45
Bearded Devil: 45
Cloaker: 45
Dire Lion: 60
Djinni: 45
Elemental, Large: 60
Gibbering Mouther: 42
Green Hag: 49
Heiracosphinx: 67
Hydra, 6 Heads: 66
Manticore: 57
Monstrous Spider: 52
Mummy: 55
Nightmare: 45
Ochre Jelly: 69
Orca: 88
Phase Spider: 42
Rast: 25
Ravid: 16
Shadow Mastiff: 30
Ettin Skeleton: 65
Giant Constrictor Snake: 63
Spider Eater: 42
Tojanida: 45
Troll: 63
Werebear: 62
WereTiger: 50
Winter Wolf: 51
Wraith: 32
Yuan ti Halfblood: 38
Umber Hulk Zombie: 107

Therefore the average HP for a CR 5 creature is about 53. So, should a lvl 5 melee character have 2 attacks each able to do about 55 average damage? Thats a lot more than the monsters get at the same CR. It also means the warriors can mow down 2 enemies a round, forever, whilst the mage can do so once or twice a day. Whilst i like the idea that a Mage is more versatile but has to use spell slots to be the equal of the warriors in combat, it sounds like it could be pretty unbalanced.

Roy wrote:For damage you have to look at the enemies of that level and determine how much is required to one round an enemy of the same level... because they can probably do the same to you, and will eventually if given a turn. Two rounds might be acceptable but is very risky, you will probably die in any and every actually difficult fight if you can't DPS an enemy of your level down in one round.

Hicks wrote:Some conclusions: The game should be renamed "Rockets and Launchers". At all levels of play, you are expected to take out at least two level equavalent foes, making Your Character a Mook in comparison to itself.

Someone else pointed out that this makes enemies built using the character generation rules vastly more dangerous than those taken from the MM. 2 CR 5 monsters will be easy compared to 2 CR 5 humans given 5 levels of Mage or Barbarian.

I guess I'm looking to create a kind of guideline "At this level, these effects are appropriate" table. It'd be nice if it in some way meshed with the existing published stuff.

Red_Rob wrote:I guess I'm looking to create a kind of guideline "At this level, these effects are appropriate" table. It'd be nice if it in some way meshed with the existing published stuff.

This would be amazing, and I'm after the same sort of thing for use with the Generic Classes, because I think that using them could end up with coolness if you have the right list of things people can use.

As far as DPs goes, Rogues are about right. Attack + (Level/2)d6 a number of times per round equal to cleric attack rate, possibly +1 if you've got TWF. However, the damage is "resistible" or otherwise needs to be setup in some way (flanking or whatever). Using the CR 5 list, (1d6+3d6)*2 (TWF) is 28 damage when you hit twice, which means that you can kill an average CR 5 in something like 4 standard actions with no daily/cash limited resources being expended. That seems about right.

Red_Rob wrote:It also means the warriors can mow down 2 enemies a round, forever, whilst the mage can do so once or twice a day. Whilst i like the idea that a Mage is more versatile but has to use spell slots to be the equal of the warriors in combat, it sounds like it could be pretty unbalanced.

This isn't really the case. Yes, you can swing your sword all day, but the idea that a fighter actually has infinite combat resources as a result is incorrect. Non-casters are still going to run out of hit points, and if monsters do anywhere near as much damage as you do, that means your average fighter can only spend a few rounds in melee before they're a dead fighter.

So the idea that non-casters have unlimited, cost-free ways of dispatching enemies is untrue unless they also have some way to guarantee that they never take any sort of damage that requires resource expenditure to undo.

Archmage wrote:

Red_Rob wrote:It also means the warriors can mow down 2 enemies a round, forever, whilst the mage can do so once or twice a day. Whilst i like the idea that a Mage is more versatile but has to use spell slots to be the equal of the warriors in combat, it sounds like it could be pretty unbalanced.

This isn't really the case. Yes, you can swing your sword all day, but the idea that a fighter actually has infinite combat resources as a result is incorrect. Non-casters are still going to run out of hit points, and if monsters do anywhere near as much damage as you do, that means your average fighter can only spend a few rounds in melee before they're a dead fighter.

So the idea that non-casters have unlimited, cost-free ways of dispatching enemies is untrue unless they also have some way to guarantee that they never take any sort of damage that requires resource expenditure to undo.

Thanks for getting that fallacy for me. Reality is non casters run out of resources (HP) after about 2 rounds, at which point they die. Even a level 1 wizard can manage 3 color spray spells.

Red_Rob wrote:I guess I'm looking to create a kind of guideline "At this level, these effects are appropriate" table. It'd be nice if it in some way meshed with the existing published stuff.

Going by spell level dictating level appropriate actions, your character's round of actions can...

• 1:... knock out 4 dudes, at range.
  
  3... immobilize everybody in a 20' radius.
  
  5... take away everybody's actions in a 20' radius. You can make a single dude do any 1 thing.
  
  7... take away everybody's actions in a 20' radius, affected dudes cannot leave the effect in combat time; make a single dude do anything you want for 1 week.
  
  9... knock out an army; take your entire party anywhere in the multiverse.
  
  11... make an army do any 1 thing.
  
  13... imprison a dude forever, with no hope of escape.
  
  15... make an army do anything you want for 2 weeks.
  
  17... flat out kill an army.

Now, of course, these are the most powerful spell effects in Core allowed at the indicated level, and represent a power ceiling that should not be exceeded if balanced to this rubric. Generally speaking, most are availible to a specialist Enchanter. FYI: Tome was balanced off a specialist Transmuter, and Tome and Transmuter are generally under this power maximum at all levels.

EDIT: switched planeshift/teleport combo to 9th level.

Roy wrote:For damage you have to look at the enemies of that level and determine how much is required to one round an enemy of the same level... because they can probably do the same to you, and will eventually if given a turn. Two rounds might be acceptable but is very risky, you will probably die in any and every actually difficult fight if you can't DPS an enemy of your level down in one round.

You can also forget about level appropriate ACs, as level appropriate attack bonuses will hit that on a 2, often with bonuses to burn on Power Attack after the first few levels of the game.

Archmage wrote:Yes, you can swing your sword all day, but the idea that a fighter actually has infinite combat resources as a result is incorrect. Non-casters are still going to run out of hit points, and if monsters do anywhere near as much damage as you do, that means your average fighter can only spend a few rounds in melee before they're a dead fighter.

Roy wrote:Reality is non casters run out of resources (HP) after about 2 rounds, at which point they die.

There seems to be a general consensus that 2 rounds of attack by an appropriate CR monster will kill a character, however the damage values I see in the MM seem a bit small for this. Is there something I'm missing?

Also, is AC really so worthless? I know PC's will minmax their abilities to run off the RNG at the earliest opportunity, but monster to-hit bonuses seem to scale fairly evenly with level. It doesn't seem like they would auto-hit most players before lvl 14-15. At what level does AC become moot? If these issues are as prevalent as you state, how do melee classes contribute currently at the lower levels where people state they are useable?

Regarding saves, the DC to save vs spells is 10 + ½CL + Stat. So, assuming a stat of +3 or +4, base DC for save negates effects should start around 14-15 at level 1 and scale at +1 per two levels?

Hicks wrote:Going by spell level dictating level appropriate actions, your character's round of actions can...

Thanks Hicks, that gives a nice idea of the kind of effects to be thinking about. However, it does bear to remember that a 1/day restriction is more meaningful out of combat than in.

Red_Rob wrote:

Roy wrote:For damage you have to look at the enemies of that level and determine how much is required to one round an enemy of the same level... because they can probably do the same to you, and will eventually if given a turn. Two rounds might be acceptable but is very risky, you will probably die in any and every actually difficult fight if you can't DPS an enemy of your level down in one round.

You can also forget about level appropriate ACs, as level appropriate attack bonuses will hit that on a 2, often with bonuses to burn on Power Attack after the first few levels of the game.

Archmage wrote:Yes, you can swing your sword all day, but the idea that a fighter actually has infinite combat resources as a result is incorrect. Non-casters are still going to run out of hit points, and if monsters do anywhere near as much damage as you do, that means your average fighter can only spend a few rounds in melee before they're a dead fighter.

Roy wrote:Reality is non casters run out of resources (HP) after about 2 rounds, at which point they die.

There seems to be a general consensus that 2 rounds of attack by an appropriate CR monster will kill a character, however the damage values I see in the MM seem a bit small for this. Is there something I'm missing?

Depends on what monster you're looking at. If you're looking at a Balor (caster) and expecting its melee damage to do this you'd be wrong. But that'd be like expecting a wizard to two round people with a quarterstaff. Um, no, it's called spells. And the Balor has several that will take you out instantly and likely only need 1-2 iterations for one to stick.

There's also Power Attack to consider, once enemies are in auto hit territory that's an extra 50 damage or more right there depending on number of natural attacks and exact amount attack bonus exceeds AC.

Also, is AC really so worthless? I know PC's will minmax their abilities to run off the RNG at the earliest opportunity, but monster to-hit bonuses seem to scale fairly evenly with level. It doesn't seem like they would auto-hit most players before lvl 14-15. At what level does AC become moot? If these issues are as prevalent as you state, how do melee classes contribute currently at the lower levels where people state they are useable?

Enemy to hit bonuses scale at the rate of approximately 3 per level. Which means they start out kinda low (allowing AC to work) but quickly go and exceed it as AC slams hard into the diminishing returns wall but attack bonus continues to increase at the same rate.

At the low levels, melee stays relevant because the enemies are also two rounded. Your greatsword does 2d6+9 to the ogre, and the ogre does 2d8+7 to you. Yes, you still die fast, but you're playing the same game as the caster with color spray and glitterdust - Rocket Tag.

Then you get to level 15 and enemies easily push triple digit damage per round allowing for easy 1-2 round kills. You have to be built in a rather specific way to do the same which opens up many windows for the DM to tell you you cannot have nice things. This is without any optimization at all. With optimization your AC improves, perhaps by a lot, and enemy to hit improves and their damage greatly improves.

Regarding saves, the DC to save vs spells is 10 + ½CL + Stat. So, assuming a stat of +3 or +4, base DC for save negates effects should start around 14-15 at level 1 and scale at +1 per two levels?

Lol no. Stats improve as well. That logic would get you trying to build for DC 24-25 at level 20... but who is that gimped? 30 is about standard. Obviously you can do much better with optimization, but if you have +28 saves you'll be fine until the save debuffs start flying. Or you roll a 1.

To reiterate, what a Balor actually does in a life-or-death battle is use its action to call in another demon who uses its action (and every action thereafter) to spam blasphemy - a multitarget nosave stunlock. Then the Balor takes his copious free time to spam implosions - a save-or-die that affects pretty much everyone and everything. It's pretty brutal and requires specific counters to avoid getting auto-slain.

For Save DCs, remember that Stats also scale and that people use Spell Focus and Rods of Heighten and shit to bring their save DCs up. By 16th level your character will have picked up +2 Save DC from simple stat raises, +2 (or 3) more for Inherent Bonuses, +3 for a really snazzy headband, and +7 for simply casting higher level spells. Without even trying your 16 Int Wizard who started at 1st level Casting DC 14 color spray is walking in the door at 16th level casting DC 28 mass charm. And that's without spending a single feat, class feature, or gold piece on anything except keeping your primary attribute from falling behind the curve. In the likely event that you're squeezing a single point of DC out of something (be it spell focus, spell power, heightening, or non-standard stat bonuses), the character's save DC would have gone from 14 at level 1 to 29 at level 16. Which is, yes, exactly +1/level.

And that's really baseline. If people are getting more than +1 DC/level, they are min/maxing. f they are getting less than +1 DC/level, they are falling behind. Unfortunately, the DMG guides on power growth are frankly terrible, and generally what actually happens is that players will end up picking up lust +2 Save DCs in 4 levels somewhere and then shoot past expectations as they upgrade their Headband, grab their Wish allotment, take a Spell Focus feat, and get a DC increasing (or enemy save penalizing) class feature all in the same level.

Getting those save DC enhancements spaced out even vaguely evenly is really hard. Especially because characters can pretty much afford the +6 Headband of Intellect at about the same level that they can afford the +4 model. 4k is chump change early on, and 16k is a big ticket item for quite a while, but 36k becomes affordable almost right on schedule with 16k being reasonable. That's not even a joke:

• Level 7: 19k
• Level 8: 27k
• Level 9: 36k
• Level 10: 49k

Going by wealth by level guidelines, you could theoretically afford a +4 Headband at level 7, but it would be crippling so you generally do not do that - you get a +2 Cloak of Resistance and some utility items instead. You can afford it at level 8 and you probably do, but at level 10 you swap it out entirely for the +6. And that's supposedly your Save DC increases at levels 8 (new headband), 9 (new spell level), and 10 (new headband) taken care of. Except that you also gain your second Int enhancement at level 8, you get a feat at level 9, all levels 8-10 are normally taken in prestige classes (as the only reason not to is to sit around for the Save DC increase at level 10 from the Wizard planar substitution level), and if you really want, you can pull in Wish enhancements starting at level 9 or 10 with your Wizarding. So what usually actually happens is that Wizards only pick up the save DC enhancements from new spell levels at levels 5 and 7, and then things immediately start spiraling out of control as the Wizard picks up a heap of powerful class features and new spells.

And then by the time you get to level 11, people have had enough face raping from the Wizard and it's time to start a new campaign.

-Username17

Ok. But he said 1 per two levels, not one per level.

Roy wrote:Ok. But he said 1 per two levels, not one per level.

Right. I was agreeing with you.

-Username17

Red Rob,

Re: AC worthless, Hicks' table, etc:

There is a sizable contingent on this forum who reliably restate accurate observations of the way D&D breaks down at higher-level play but exaggerated and invoked at levels before it really applies.

"Brute" monsters -- thigns bigger than medium with high strength-- will at most levels have +to hit bigger than most PCs can reasonably hope to get enough AC to avoid. At high levels, those brutes are the only creatures that should attack you in melee AT ALL. But it's absolutely possible to get enough AC to seriously blunt the attacks of the goblins and spiders you fight at level 1, or the gangs of ogres you fight at level 5.

Hicks' example of Deep Slumber is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: optimal conditions assumed for the control casters and all the difficulties handwaved.

Deep Slumber is a full round spell, meaning it's disruptable and it lets the targets get off another round of attacks before taking effect. It only effects 10 HD: most CR 5 monsters have more than 5 Hit Dice, so for PCs Deep Slumber will NOT effect two equal-level enemies. Being an mind-affecting enchantment sleep effects it won't affect undead, constructs, vermin, or elven NPCs, and many celestials will have a save bonus against it. Furthermore, it's not a death effect, it's basically an improved stun: waking up a slept guy is seriously a standard action, and while they *may* also have to get up from prone, most monsters won't have to draw weapons or anything.

It can combo with a sneak attacking rogue or power attacking barbarian to do a lot of damage in a 1-2 punch, but Deep Slumber is NOT a mass save or die by any means, it's a reasonably good juggling move. Using Deep Slumber to justify fighter DPS calculations is madness.

The hyperbole continues. There's no reason to believe Charm Monster will get an enemy on your side during a combat. First they get a +5 to save, then their attitude gets bumped to "friendly." But they're still friendly to your enemies too. Getting them to fight for you would require either fast-diplomacy-ing them to helpful or using the opposed charisma mechanic in the spell.

Looking at his other list, I notice he also uses the word "army " in a... unique way, that assumes that your "army" fits inside a 60-foot radius.

Conclusion: I would use extreme caution before taking Hicks' word as to balance expectations.

Frank, across 20 levels, your DCs increase by about 20 slightly more if you really really min max it.

But saves on the other hand increase by +6-10 from level, 5 resist, at least 2 stats, and have tons more bullshit bonuses to go around from moral/class features/ect. And that's not counting monsters who increase stats faster and HD faster.

Do you ever have problems with high level characters basically not being able to force decent DCs?

Hicks table automatically assumes that all saves are always failed, but in my experience monster saves scale much faster, and high level Wizards just have to accept the fact that they get no save spells because no one will ever fail a save on them.

Do you have that sort of problem? Do you have it and not think of it as a problem?

Orion wrote:Red Rob,

Re: AC worthless, Hicks' table, etc:

There is a sizable contingent on this forum who reliably restate accurate observations of the way D&D breaks down at higher-level play but exaggerated and invoked at levels before it really applies.

"Brute" monsters -- thigns bigger than medium with high strength-- will at most levels have +to hit bigger than most PCs can reasonably hope to get enough AC to avoid. At high levels, those brutes are the only creatures that should attack you in melee AT ALL. But it's absolutely possible to get enough AC to seriously blunt the attacks of the goblins and spiders you fight at level 1, or the gangs of ogres you fight at level 5.

No shit sherlock. I did specify beyond the first few levels right? Well guess what? You fight things bigger than medium with high strength at level 3, and starting around oh... 6... that's about the only melee enemies you do fight.

Even at low levels where AC does work you go down in 1-2 hits (not rounds, hits) so in effect you can consider each and every attack a save or lose (which is also why melee is relevant at this level, again they are playing the same game).

It's not even that hard to see why it works that way. As long as you're in mundane gear territory your AC improved at about the same rate as attack bonuses. At level one you have medium armor and maybe a shield, and at level 3 you have full plate and maybe a shield. And then what? Every point of AC after that costs at least 1,000 gold (armor bonus +1, shield bonus +1) if not higher (2,000 for first natural armor bonus, 2,000 for first deflection bonus, 3,000 for second armor or shield bonus, higher for later bonuses and bullshit bonuses...)

So you hit level 5 and your AC is maybe 2 better than it was at 3, but enemy attack bonuses are around 6 better. Now what? It only gets worse from here, and this is without considering 'Turtle Fail' which means if you aren't keeping your offense in the 1-2 round range the enemies can safely ignore you, meaning even if your AC is relevant (it probably won't be, even then) they aren't attacking you so you're really just an XP and gold sink for the party and you better hope you aren't playing with anyone serious as you're likely to be forgotten at a tavern or worse.

Kaelik wrote:Frank, across 20 levels, your DCs increase by about 20 slightly more if you really really min max it.

But saves on the other hand increase by +6-10 from level, 5 resist, at least 2 stats, and have tons more bullshit bonuses to go around from moral/class features/ect. And that's not counting monsters who increase stats faster and HD faster.

Do you ever have problems with high level characters basically not being able to force decent DCs?

Hicks table automatically assumes that all saves are always failed, but in my experience monster saves scale much faster, and high level Wizards just have to accept the fact that they get no save spells because no one will ever fail a save on them.

Do you have that sort of problem? Do you have it and not think of it as a problem?

I honestly don't care what happens at level 20. I ran a campaign that high once, busting out the ELH and it was totally batshit insane. To challenge the party there were rooms with literally forty giants in them, and most of them were Cloud Giants on up. This was an actual quote:

PC Interchange wrote:Player1: We want you to stop wishing.
Player2: Would you say that you wish I would stop wishing?
Player1: No.

Players were dropping Black Slaads on problems and people had to be True Resurrected in the middle of combat. If the designers ever played the game at 20+ level even for a moment they must have played it with no imagination at all. Twentieth Level Wizard? Twentieth Level Horrid Wilting! Sigh.

Anyhow, what I'm actually concerned about is tenth level. And here's how that works: First, you're a 10th level Wizard, so you have a Save DC somewhere between 21 and 27. That's a huge fucking variance, and that is one of the reasons that the game is losing its structural stability as a playing surface at this point. But let's crack open the MM3 and list off the CR 10 Save Bonuses:

Monster	Fort	Ref	Will
Mountain Troll:	19	6	7
Nycoloth:	16	11	11
Ssvalkor:	16	10	8
Shrieking Terror:	9	11	12
Greater Seryrulin:	13	10	14
Plague Spewer:	5	4	11
Quaraphon Bully:	15	5	8
Knell Beetle:	14	6	4
Sand Giant:	14	12	10
Greater Storm Elemental:	13	14	7

So let's say you aren't even a Wizard. You're a Cleric, but you're still a primary caster, more or less. Maybe you're even a Cleric Archer, but you still have 5th level spells. You have a starting Wisdom of 16 or 17. You have invested in a +4 Wisdom Periapt. You put both of your stat raises into Wisdom. And... that's it. You could have Spell Focus: Conjuration and it's kind of mysterious why you don't. You could have wrangled spell power out of any of a number of Cleric caster PRCs. You could have done the aligned spell focus cheese, or the madness prestige domain, or even just given yourself an aura of despair. Heck, you could be a Cleric from one of the [awesome] gods that would allow you to ramp up into the wish economy 3 levels ago. All of these things could have happened, but let's say you didn't do any of that shit. You're just walking in with the absolute bear minimum save DCs for a PC of your level. And you cast wall of stone.

And while 3.5 added some incredibly complicated bullshit to that spell about how you had to put walls between squares and not "in" squares, they left the wording about freezing people in blocks of stone right there at the end. Reflex save or you're fucked, DC 21. The worst shot this has is a 30% chance of ending the Storm Elemental. But considering that he's made of storm, it's pretty surprising that he isn't full stop immune. The best shot it has is an 80% chance of ending the fight with the Plague Spewer. And the average of all of those together is a 55.5% chance of donkey punching the enemy with a standard action out to medium range.

And that can get a lot better. You could have been a Lesser Aasimar who lives in a Point Buy system where he can start with a frickin 20 in Wisdom. You could be a Cloistered Cleric variant who went into full casting mode and has a +6 Periapt already. You could have Greater Spell Focus in Conjuration. You could have prayer or recitation going. Or both, especially if you live in a world that allows DMM. In short, you could have the Save DC on that bad boy be effectively 7 or more points higher than it is - and 30% of the opposition would have to get into an argument about whether natural 20s on Saves automatically passed or not.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that enemies always fail their saves, because they don't. But especially because primary spellcasters can usually selectively target the weak saves of enemies - I don't think it's unfair to assume that enemies fail saves more often than they pass them. At all levels.

-Username17

Um, how does Prayer and Recitation help any?

But yeah, pretty much. Though really even if you actually do have a low chance of success, succeeding once means the enemy is fucked, you probably have no save alternatives, and you can totally just have multiple casters go after it, the first ones either assisting with stuff like Enervation or getting their own separate low chance of doing that.

I have watched enemies that would have needed to roll around a negative five to fail vs any of the caster's save allowed spells be annihilated in 1-2 rounds just like anyone else because of this.

And that's why when I see people going on about long D&D combats I launch into Smite Imbecile mode almost automatically because it invariably means one of three things:

1: They are calling 4.Fail D&D, which means they deserve the contempt of every gamer on the planet automatically.

2: They have absolutely no idea what they are doing (you'd have to be trying very hard specifically to make a combat long to make it long, and you'd have to not realize you're doing that). Which means they are unaware of what is going on around them but are speaking as if they have working eyes. Smite.

3: They are lying and thus deserve your derision and scorn.

Roy, you're just wrong, full stop wrong, on when monster attacks bonuses get out of control.

Let's say you're *literally* just a 12 Dex Fighter wearing +1 Full Plate. That's investment minimal enough at level 5 that I doubt you'd call it "turtling." This gives you an AC of 20.

A CR 5 Brute like an Earth Elemental is +12; it hits you on 8. A CR 3 brute monster like an Ogre is +7; it hits you on 13.

Throwing a +1 large shield on there shifts things by 3 AC, meaning elementals hit you on 11 and ogres hit you on 16. The defense vs. elementals you get isn't *powerful* and isn't worth the hit to your offense by any means, but it's not invisible or irrelevant. Against Ogres, you've nearly halved your incoming damage, and if you can eke out even one more bonus from like friendly Shield of Faith, you push ogre attacks into irrelevance.

Building for AC gets rightly criticized because
--it's no use against "boss monsters," who either use spells or hit you all the time because they're higher level than you (a CR 7 Hill Giant has +16, meaning you're not getting enough AC to safely ignore him)
--it's less effective than miss chance based defenses in many situations
--it's a defense power and suffers the attendant limitations: even if YOU get enough AC to ignore ogres, they can still murder your friends, whereas a control power neutralizes them for everyone.

However, while the above are reasons why "turtle" fighter builds are bad, the following claim
--Your AC score is irrelevant because the monsters will always hit you

Is not just an exaggeration, it's a misleading one.

Learn to fucking read, you fucking fucker.

Here it is for you, nice and slow.

When someone illustrates that AC stops working after level 5, the following are valid responses.

Yes it does, even at level 6 you notice a significant drop off.

No it does not, here is how you can maintain the same success rate at level 6 and beyond without engaging in turtle fail.

The following response is automatically invalid:

No, AC doesn't quickly drop off past level 5, because here's how it works at level 5.

When you try to attack me, and agree with me you automatically forfeit the argument. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, do suck your own cock, because you just put it in your mouth.

What's more, not only did you eradicate your own argument for me, you did so in a way that exactly demonstrates the problem.

'Level 5 melee brute hits you on an 8'. That's 65%.

You go up two levels, enemy attack improves by about 6, your AC improves by about 2. Enemy hits you on a 4.

Go up two more levels, same thing happens. Enemy now hits you on a 2, and PAs for 2 as well. You're only level 9 and you're already in auto hit and power attack bait if not using a shield (which you can't do because you've long since passed the point where holding one is Turtle Fail, and probably don't have the spare cash for an Animated shield).

And it only gets worse from there. By 20 the unoptimized melee brutes PA for 15-20 and still auto hit. 15-20 extra damage added to multiple attacks = you mulched in one round. Good game, no re.

Roy wrote:Um, how does Prayer and Recitation help any?

Prayer wrote:You and your allies gain a +1 luck bonus to attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saves, and skill checks, while each of your foes takes a -1 penalty on such rolls.

When your enemies have -1 to their Save roll, this is basically indistinguishable from +1 to the Save DC. Indeed, I usually just have the player add it as a bonus to their Save DC because that puts the onus of remember their accounting spells on the player rather than the DM.

-Username17

Ok, that explains Prayer. But Recitation? Isn't that allies only?

(not to mention the action cost to use in combat).