D&D Equipment [Rebalancing 3.5]

[RobbyPants]

The S&B builds you posted were rather... extreme.  I'm not saying they're bad builds, but I don't think you should have to work that hard to be a good S&B character.

I do agree with the party-helping abilities.  I'd like to boost S&B in other ways (feats, class abilities, and what not).

[veekie]

3.5 doesn't handle facing, so I wasn't going to get that specific with the Animated Shield.  Also, it only applied the bonus to you.

So it's the automatically moves to provide cover and gets out of your way version, ok. Animated Tower Shield? Seems handy to have a portable wall floating where you command.

[RobbyPants]

If you mean a +4 bonus instead of a +2, just increase the price (32,000 gp).  The point of what I posted is it's not a shield mechanically.  You don't enchant it like a shield.  It's just a floating defense (mechanically) that looks like a shield (themeatically).  I'm afraid if I don't make this distinction, the S&B guy will fall behind.

[JaronK]

Well, so I'm saying that Sword and Board still needs help (because yes, I optimized the heck out of them to make them work) but at the same time I'm saying they're doable, and thus if we go to far in making them better then you'll allow something overpowered.

I really think Animate Shields can be left alone as long as the best shield feats/enchantments only work when you're holding the shield.

JaronK

[veekie]

Best to have Animate shields as a seperate enchantment I think, one of the +32,000gp(e.g) ones that can go on a shield, but while animated, it only serves as cover, possibly adding it's enhancement bonus to it, but not providing anything else unless specifically exempted.

[JaronK]

Yeah, or perhaps it only provides the AC bonus (enhanced by magic), nothing else.  That makes sense.

JaronK

[McPoyo]

I think status effects and the like would be the way to go with shield feats for S&B. Things kind of like the series started in the PHB2, but adding in things like stun and such perhaps? Isn't there already a feat tree out there somewhere for that? I'm afb.

[RobbyPants]

I'm still toying with the best way to handle mithril and adamantine with the armor I have in this post here.

Currently, I have it set to use mithil per the DMG, and adamantine granting an AC bonus and a hefty DR to help compensate for the increased mobility of mithril.  That seems to be the problem though.  It's so hard to come up with something that make it worth losing the mobility without going completely overboard.

I'm thinking about getting rid of the part of mithril that drops it one category, but leaving in the rest (+2 max Dex, -3 ACF, -10% ASF).  I have no problem with armor droping a category, but I'd rather leave that as a class feature and/or feat.  This keeps mithril from being that much better than adamantine.  Also, this keeps each type (light, medium, and heavy) at pretty much the same strength, so the cost can be a flat +1,000 gp, rather than changing per armor type.

If I do this, I can scale adamantine back to keep it affordable.  Now, if mithril adds +2 max dex, then it has the potential to have an AC two higher than mithril.  We don't want to make mithril more tanky than adamantine.  I think I can add a +2 AC bonus to adamantine armors.  I'm also thinking that this AC boost is lost against adamantine weapons (or weapons treated as adamantine for purposes of DR).  This keeps the ACs comperable; just one material favors high-dex wearers, and the other favors low-dex wearers.  Also, I'm thinking about adding a flat DR 5/adamantine to all categories of armor.

So, how much should those two abilities (AC boost and DR) increase the cost of armor?  +5,000?  +10,000?  I've never been good at pricing things like this.  I'm leaning more toward 10,000.  What are your thoughts?

[RobbyPants]

I'm thinking while we're at it, turning the miss chances from cover and concealment into a bonus on AC/penalty on attack roll should be best, the flat miss chance does interesting things to the odds, maybe too interesting.

Of course, I'm playing a conjurer in a game right now that utilizes spells like Blur and Mirror Image to drastically decrease the odds of getting hit.  I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it is a powerful mechanic.

Perhaps converting miss percentages into dodge (or concealment) bonuses to AC would be better.  I suppose if we were to create a concealment bonus, it wouldn't stack with other concealment bonuses.

What should be the going rate of conversion?  20% = +2 bonus and 50% = +4 bonus?  That seems like the easiest way to do it.

____________

Now, lets say we go this route, how would we handle Mirror Image?  Having each image be randomly targeted makes enough sense, but mechanically speaking, it's a huge bonus.  Could it simply be another way to grant concealment?  Perhaps the number of images changes to a lower amount, and you get a concealment bonus to AC equal to the number of images.  As for the images disapearing, perhaps you lose an image each time you are missed by a margin less than or equal to your concealment bonus (although I don't find the math too hard, perhaps other players wouldn't like a mechanic like this).

For example, if you had 3 images, you'd get a +3 concealment bonus to your AC.  Lets say your AC was 15, and is now 18.  If an opponent misses by rolling a 15-17, it would seem reasonable that he missed because he hit one of your images.  It would be at this time when you lose an image and your AC bonus drops to +2.

[Kuroimaken]

I'm thinking while we're at it, turning the miss chances from cover and concealment into a bonus on AC/penalty on attack roll should be best, the flat miss chance does interesting things to the odds, maybe too interesting.

Of course, I'm playing a conjurer in a game right now that utilizes spells like Blur and Mirror Image to drastically decrease the odds of getting hit.  I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it is a powerful mechanic.

Perhaps converting miss percentages into dodge (or concealment) bonuses to AC would be better.  I suppose if we were to create a concealment bonus, it wouldn't stack with other concealment bonuses.

What should be the going rate of conversion?  20% = +2 bonus and 50% = +4 bonus?  That seems like the easiest way to do it.

____________

Now, lets say we go this route, how would we handle Mirror Image?  Having each image be randomly targeted makes enough sense, but mechanically speaking, it's a huge bonus.  Could it simply be another way to grant concealment?  Perhaps the number of images changes to a lower amount, and you get a concealment bonus to AC equal to the number of images.  As for the images disapearing, perhaps you lose an image each time you are missed by a margin less than or equal to your concealment bonus (although I don't find the math too hard, perhaps other players wouldn't like a mechanic like this).

For example, if you had 3 images, you'd get a +3 concealment bonus to your AC.  Lets say your AC was 15, and is now 18.  If an opponent misses by rolling a 15-17, it would seem reasonable that he missed because he hit one of your images.  It would be at this time when you lose an image and your AC bonus drops to +2.

Just as a reference, how broken do you consider Mirror Image to be? I really don't find much of a need to change it, but that might be my ignorance speaking.

[RobbyPants]

Well, I don't consider it to be broken in the least.  Overpowered might even be a strong word.

It's just that percentage-based miss chances do really odd things to your chances of being it as opposed to working off a strictly linear scale of bonuses and penalties.  These chances get even more noticable when allowed to stack.  Techincally, Mirror Image isn't a percentage-based mechanic in that it doesn't state a miss percentage in the spell description, but the end result is a miss percentage equal to (100 * (n / n+1)), where n is the number of images.  So, four images equates to an 80% miss chance.

The reason I brought up that spell is, I figure if we're considering nixing percentage based miss chances in favor of an AC bonus, then that spell should be mentioned too.  Of course, that suggestion I came up with for Mirror Image is just the first thing that came to mind.  Perhaps I could apply the basic priniciple without reducing the number of images.  When cast by a 3rd level wizard, he'd get 1d4+1 images (average of 3 or 4), for a net bonus of +3 or 4 AC, that would potentially get lower with each attack.  I guess that's not a problem.  Even the limitations of the spell would cap this at +8.  Of course, as a concealment bonus, it would stack with other AC bonuses, but I don't consider that boost to be too substantial for a 2nd level spell.

[veekie]

Mirror image as a concealment(blink and incorporeal as Cover? technically works the same way, it's just a dimensional interface acting as cover) bonus to AC works pretty well just give it a higher than usual initial AC and knock off bonuses for attempted attacks. +8(10 maybe?) max sounds good, dropping a +2 off after every attempted attack. At higher levels, demolishing that is a good deal easier than battling through a forest of AC enhancers only to remove one miss chance of many.

[RobbyPants]

I'm a bit confused.  Are you suggesting a +2 bonus per image, with a different cap?

[veekie]

Pretty much, no real reason for 10, other than it being a nice round number.

[RobbyPants]

Now, is the 10 cap on just the AC, or are you intending on capping the spell at 5 images to achieve this result?

I suppose if you were capped at 8 images, +2 AC each, but the AC were capped at +10, then at high levels, you could lose three images without having your AC affected.  Once you lost your fifth image, your AC would start dropping.

Hmmm...

[veekie]

Just the AC, I think, after +10, thats just ridiculous(pre epic, during epic, it's still ridiculous, only in a different way). The extra images start losing effect once you have 5 or less remaining.

[RobbyPants]

Of course, my only exception with +2 per image, is that the 3rd level caster goes from getting an average of +3 to +4 AC to +6 or +8 with this spell.

Although, even though it seems big (well, I guess it is), the larger the bonus, the larger the margin is for someone to miss but sill kill an image.  I guess the caster could expect to lose about two images if he took three attacks.  Mabye it's not that bad...

[veekie]

It's basically a high AC boost in exchange for being degradable, unlike other AC increasers, this one dissolves just slightly slower than a one round discharge.

[RobbyPants]

Actually, it varies highly on how often you're attacked.

Of course, a good wizard would be far from melee anyway, but maybe he's got a batalion of archers shooting at him.

[veekie]

High level AC hitters tend to grind out multiple attacks anyway. Only question is, any miss, or any miss within the margin?