Author Topic: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?  (Read 110061 times)

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Littha

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #160 on: January 15, 2011, 12:05:01 PM »
Quote
BAB means the Fighters hit better than the Wizards, period.

I am thinking of a spell....
It begins with W and ends with raithstrike.

weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #161 on: January 15, 2011, 12:15:31 PM »
How is wraithstrike impressive at all in the ideal fantasy world where nobody bothers with AC because it's useless, and instead concentrates on miss chance and the like?
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Littha

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #162 on: January 15, 2011, 12:28:11 PM »
How is wraithstrike impressive at all in the ideal fantasy world where nobody bothers with AC because it's useless, and instead concentrates on miss chance and the like?

It would be one of the reasons that miss chance is useless.

Also, True Seeing.

weenog

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #163 on: January 15, 2011, 12:43:10 PM »
Maybe the old memory's failing from 3 days of no sleep, and I'm AFB.

Remind me, isn't Wraithstrike the one where you attack as if you were making incorporeal touch attacks for 1 round?
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Littha

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #164 on: January 15, 2011, 12:52:35 PM »
Maybe the old memory's failing from 3 days of no sleep, and I'm AFB.

Remind me, isn't Wraithstrike the one where you attack as if you were making incorporeal touch attacks for 1 round?

yes, swift action casting time.

note that it is a second level spell... so it can actually be persisted legally.

snakeman830

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #165 on: January 15, 2011, 01:28:45 PM »
Maybe the old memory's failing from 3 days of no sleep, and I'm AFB.

Remind me, isn't Wraithstrike the one where you attack as if you were making incorporeal touch attacks for 1 round?
Fixed for you.

It doesn't help against miss chances, but since most AC comes from things that touch attacks ignore...
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awaken DM golem

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #166 on: January 15, 2011, 04:23:29 PM »
(late to the table)


I though Medium Armor
was to convince Wizards that 8th level spells suck,
and to keep Druids from taking Natural Spell feat.

I though Heavy Armor
was to convince Wizards that 9th level spells suck,
and to make Monks useless.
Oh wait ...  :rollseyes

X-Codes

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #167 on: January 15, 2011, 05:54:46 PM »
Quote
BAB means the Fighters hit better than the Wizards, period.

I am thinking of a spell....
It begins with W and ends with raithstrike.
If AC is useless then Wraithstrike is useless.  In fact, every spell giving a bonus to attack rolls is useless unless it boosts BAB as well, because BAB = Power Attack = Damage.  Wizards only get one of those, and it takes away their Spellcasting.  Therefore, if AC is useless then BAB means the Fighters hit better than the Wizards, period.

Also, anything True Seeing can do, Mindsight can do better.  Mindsight is easily attainable through any one of a battery of dips/grafts/spells + 1 feat, and completely negates invisibility, displacement, mirror image, and arguably half of blink.

ninjarabbit

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #168 on: January 15, 2011, 06:00:16 PM »
Wraithstrike is nice because lots of monsters have natural armor.

Of course if you can cast wraithstrike you can likely cast dispel magic (or any variant of it) so you can strip away many magical defenses that create a miss chance.

Long story short magic wins DnD.

X-Codes

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #169 on: January 15, 2011, 06:12:57 PM »
Long story short magic wins DnD.
Not arguing that, just sick of Sunic shooting down my arguments for a particular reason, and then making his own arguments that can be shot down for the exact same reason.

Sunic_Flames

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #170 on: January 15, 2011, 06:38:05 PM »
Hi Welcome

X-Codes is still wrong.

And to the clown that thinks Fighters are better melees than Wizards, 55 Str War Troll says Hi Welcome as well.
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JaronK

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #171 on: January 15, 2011, 06:44:58 PM »
And to the clown that thinks Fighters are better melees than Wizards, 55 Str War Troll says Hi Welcome as well.

He's saying that, given the same buffs, fighters (small f, he's using Barbarians too) are better melees than Wizards due to better BAB (and higher stats, though that only applies when not using polymorph).  I'd say the feats ought to help too... and he's right.  A Lion Totem Barbarian/Fighter with Shock Trooper and Leap Attack is going to be much better in melee with the same buffs than a Wizard... and if made well, he should be much better than anything the Wizard can summon too due to the terrible feats most summoned stuff has.  While certain self only buffs (and with certain builds sharing spells with your familiar) mess with this equation, in the general case he's correct.

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ninjarabbit

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #172 on: January 15, 2011, 07:07:47 PM »
But then again wizards have better things to do than to go into melee. Self-buffing to make yourself a combat monster generally isn't the best use of resources, I'll agree that it's generally better to buff the BSFs instead and focus on other areas like battlefield control to maximize the wizard's and overall party's effectiveness.

Barbarossa

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #173 on: January 15, 2011, 07:37:30 PM »
It's shorter than that. The problem is the time between fights. Which there are ways around, but not if everyone is too busy propping up the gimp to be useful themselves.

...

And the alternatives would earn their keep.
I think you would be a terrible person to try and play a game with. "You can't play because you don't agree with me!" will not help you make friends with your group.

As far as wizards always becoming a better melee fighter than the melee fighters, I'm working on a build right now to challenge that notion. In the meantime, gaze upon the Hulking Hurler and despair.

Lycanthromancer

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #174 on: January 15, 2011, 07:44:57 PM »
In the meantime, gaze upon the Hulking Hurler and despair.
We already do, friend. We already do.
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Maat_Mons

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #175 on: January 15, 2011, 07:52:13 PM »
Also, anything True Seeing can do, Mindsight can do better.  Mindsight is easily attainable through any one of a battery of dips/grafts/spells + 1 feat, and completely negates invisibility, displacement, mirror image, and arguably half of blink.

Mindsight tells you what square a creature is in, but doesn't let you see it.  The feat specifically says invisible creatures still have total concealment.  I don't see how it helps against displacement or mirror image at all. 

Lycanthromancer

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #176 on: January 15, 2011, 07:58:15 PM »
Also, anything True Seeing can do, Mindsight can do better.  Mindsight is easily attainable through any one of a battery of dips/grafts/spells + 1 feat, and completely negates invisibility, displacement, mirror image, and arguably half of blink.

Mindsight tells you what square a creature is in, but doesn't let you see it.  The feat specifically says invisible creatures still have total concealment.  I don't see how it helps against displacement or mirror image at all. 
It can help against mirror image because your images can be in adjacent spaces (both to themselves and to you). If they're all in the same space, though, not so much.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #177 on: January 15, 2011, 08:34:04 PM »
Mirror image fails when they pull out a 1 sp pint of oil and deal some nonmagical area fire damage.
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lans

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #178 on: January 16, 2011, 01:18:28 AM »
Wait, what level were we talking about again? Like 5? 7?

And because as we all know, 50-70 minutes = the whole day.

And if there's a DRUID in the party, melee is well taken care of.
A battle tends to last half a minute minute, tops.  Therefore Barkskin can, in theory, last 100-140 battles.  How many encounters is a group supposed to have on a given day, again?  I remember you bitching excessively about that on another thread.

It's shorter than that. The problem is the time between fights. Which there are ways around, but not if everyone is too busy propping up the gimp to be useful themselves.

Quote
It's gear and XP you would never get in the first place, because there'd still be a player at the table playing something.

And the alternatives would earn their keep.
Counterpoint: You get to keep there stuff when they die?

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Sunic_Flames

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Re: What is the point of medium and heavy armor?
« Reply #179 on: January 16, 2011, 09:21:01 AM »
And to the clown that thinks Fighters are better melees than Wizards, 55 Str War Troll says Hi Welcome as well.

He's saying that, given the same buffs, fighters (small f, he's using Barbarians too) are better melees than Wizards due to better BAB (and higher stats, though that only applies when not using polymorph).  I'd say the feats ought to help too... and he's right.  A Lion Totem Barbarian/Fighter with Shock Trooper and Leap Attack is going to be much better in melee with the same buffs than a Wizard... and if made well, he should be much better than anything the Wizard can summon too due to the terrible feats most summoned stuff has.  While certain self only buffs (and with certain builds sharing spells with your familiar) mess with this equation, in the general case he's correct.

JaronK

Well first of all, you don't get the same buffs because the best buffs are self only. Second, BAB is quite a meaningless stat. Third, the beatstick has to take Shock Trooper and Leap Attack, just to do what the caster can do casually. After all, that 55 Str War Troll has Wraithstrike. He doesn't miss on a 2 or better. He also might actually have a relevant AC, for what that's worth.

Oh and Hi Welcome Barbarosa.

Wait, what level were we talking about again? Like 5? 7?

And because as we all know, 50-70 minutes = the whole day.

And if there's a DRUID in the party, melee is well taken care of.
A battle tends to last half a minute minute, tops.  Therefore Barkskin can, in theory, last 100-140 battles.  How many encounters is a group supposed to have on a given day, again?  I remember you bitching excessively about that on another thread.

It's shorter than that. The problem is the time between fights. Which there are ways around, but not if everyone is too busy propping up the gimp to be useful themselves.

Quote
It's gear and XP you would never get in the first place, because there'd still be a player at the table playing something.

And the alternatives would earn their keep.
Counterpoint: You get to keep there stuff when they die?



Probably not, actually.
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If you hear this music, run.

And don't forget:


There is no greater contribution than Hi Welcome.

Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.

IP proofing and avoiding being CAPed OR - how to make characters relevant in the long term.

Friends don't let friends be Short Bus Hobos.

[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]