POE1 has a serious lack of defense for finesse types

[DigitalCrack]

I have seen a few people mention that they don't think there is an advantage to little or no armor. Obviously defensively this is true but the attack speed malus has a huge impact on some of the most damaging builds. Under the effects of DAoM potion that 50% (~22%dps loss) malus becomes a 100% (~31%dps loss) malus, and gets worse as you stack more and more AS (until you max out). At max recovery that malus represents a ~41% dps loss. You can hit full recovery with 2 handers in plate but it is going to require a good bit of investment.

 

My point is that I wouldn't expect to have a no-shield light armor tank without a serious damage tradeoff.

Agreed and I dont think thats what people are hoping to be able to do. People are really looking more for like a light armor equivalent to deflection where when you do get hit you still take appropriate damage based off your low deflection making heavy armor in general better when your hit. light armor wpuld simply grant evasion, with an approriate talent. Like from the IE games you could have a swashbuckler that could at least last in a fight while wearing leather armor thanks to Dex adding to leather armor effectivness. Realize PoE has a different defense setup but would be nice to have an equivalent.

[Madscientist]

There is one big difference between DnD and PoE: In PoE armor reduces the damage taken when you get hit while the defenses (def, fort, rex, will) determine if you get hit or not.

In DnD armor does not reduce damage. Both dex and armor reduce the chance to get hit. There are some items or skills that reduce damage, but damage reduction is not part of any normal armor.

 

In DnD 2nd edition, armor and dex did always stack, so a char in a plate mail would always have a better armor class than a char with the same dex in a leather armor (assuming both armors have the same enchantment). The only exception was, that some class kits did improve their armor class when they level up. ( I think monks, Kensai and swashbucklers )

 

In DnD 3.5 (NWN2) armor has a max dex bonus. This means a char in full plate can only get up to +1AC from dex while a char in a light leather armor can have a dex bonus up to +8. ( The numbers are just an example. ) A char with very high dex who also uses other methods to raise AC ( hallo Kaze No Kama ) can have a much higher AC than a char in the best heavy armor. None of these things affect the damage you take when you get hit.

[DigitalCrack]

There is one big difference between DnD and PoE: In PoE armor reduces the damage taken when you get hit while the defenses (def, fort, rex, will) determine if you get hit or not.

In DnD armor does not reduce damage. Both dex and armor reduce the chance to get hit. There are some items or skills that reduce damage, but damage reduction is not part of any normal armor.

 

In DnD 2nd edition, armor and dex did always stack, so a char in a plate mail would always have a better armor class than a char with the same dex in a leather armor (assuming both armors have the same enchantment). The only exception was, that some class kits did improve their armor class when they level up. ( I think monks, Kensai and swashbucklers )

 

In DnD 3.5 (NWN2) armor has a max dex bonus. This means a char in full plate can only get up to +1AC from dex while a char in a light leather armor can have a dex bonus up to +8. ( The numbers are just an example. ) A char with very high dex who also uses other methods to raise AC ( hallo Kaze No Kama ) can have a much higher AC than a char in the best heavy armor. None of these things affect the damage you take when you get hit.

see it would be neat to add in the to hit defense with PoE's current setup. so light armor wearers could be a little more durable while still taking more per hit damage than a heavy armored character who may be hit more often but for much less.

[rjshae]

I'd like to see a way to implement use of a main gauche weapon with the 'one-handed weapon with no shield' style.

[George_Truman]

Obviously I am far from an expert on this kind of stuff, but it makes sense to me that armor doesn't effect your accuracy or deflection. I imagine deflection as an aggregate of one's ability to dodge, parry, and block incoming attacks. Obviously armor limits your mobility, but it also drastically reduces the surface area that it susceptible to damage. You can't move as quickly, but you also have less that you need to defend. The weakpoints of armor are still protected, so the DR benefit makes sense too.

 

Accuracy is similar IMO. Yeah you are less mobile but you can also expose much more of your body in the attack because it is protected. More options = more hits.

 

In terms of melee combat I would figure that there ought to be a pretty objective benefit to wearing armor. I think it would make sense for there to be other tradeoffs to incentivise light armor for melee - particularly move speed and ranged avoidance/reflex.

[Madscientist]

Obviously I am far from an expert on this kind of stuff, but it makes sense to me that armor doesn't effect your accuracy or deflection. I imagine deflection as an aggregate of one's ability to dodge, parry, and block incoming attacks. Obviously armor limits your mobility, but it also drastically reduces the surface area that it susceptible to damage. You can't move as quickly, but you also have less that you need to defend. The weakpoints of armor are still protected, so the DR benefit makes sense too.

 

Accuracy is similar IMO. Yeah you are less mobile but you can also expose much more of your body in the attack because it is protected. More options = more hits.

 

In terms of melee combat I would figure that there ought to be a pretty objective benefit to wearing armor. I think it would make sense for there to be other tradeoffs to incentivise light armor for melee - particularly move speed and ranged avoidance/reflex.

 

Drakensang had a very good system ( good as in realistic, if you like it or not is another question )

- every char had a hit, parry and dodge value. Parry is used when you are attacked by a melee attack when you are equipped with a melee weapon, dodge is used when you do not have a melee weapon equipped, when you are attacked by ranged attacks or when your dodge value is higher than your parry value.

- You can spend points to increase your hit and parry value, dodge is only influenced by your stats

- armor absorbs damage like in PoE, but without minimum damage getting through

- Each piece of armor had a hindrance value, which reduces your hit, parry and dodge value.

 

Chars with light armor would hit more often and can dodge more attacks, but when they get hit they take lots of damage.

Chars in heavy armor had more problems to hit things and got hit more often, but when they get hit they take little or no damage.

 

I chose to give all my chars the heaviest armor they could use. If you specialize in one weapon type (spend lots of hit and parry points there) you will still hit and parry a lot and when you are hit you take little damage. Enemies (especially very powerful ones) will hit even dodge chars quite often and then they will take tons of damage (which is really bad considering the wound mechanic, you get a wound when your damage taken is higher than your constitution and you fail a saving throw)

 

When writing this I realize that Age of Decadence had a similar system (dodge or heavy armor+block). I finished it twice as pacifist but for me combat is too hard in AoD.

[George_Truman]

Age of Decadence! My man u know whats up. Although the choice of combat was more like: what do I want to wear while I throw nets on people and whack them with my poisoned axe?

[Slapstick87]

I actually dislike it if dexterity/finesse becomes a defensive value that's competitive with armor. I find it utterly ridiculous actually. If you're a swordsman in the medieval times, and you know you're going to fight in a battle, and you have the option of using armor, you can be assured that anyone regardless of how lithe you are would want to put on that suit of plate. There's some very good reasons why armor was one of the most important technologies to develop and the best troops had the best armor.

 

Of course there's a fantasy stereotype to cater to, not all medieval armor sacrificed all mobility for sake of protection, and fast agile persons are actually harder to hit than a sack of potatoes. So it agree that finesse could give a defensive bonus for those with a very high dexterity, compared to a fat slob of a man that's been drinking and eating his days away in some pub. As long as it doesn't become comparable with or a possible substitute for properly equipped knights in armor.

[Doppelschwert]

I think the important distinction here is that this is a fantasy game, and not a medieval battle simulator. Sure, armor should be beneficial as the standard option, and you shouldn't come near to out-tank someone with armor without any investment. However, I think its ridiculous that this archetype is scoffed at due to realism on this forum, when there is so much unrealistic stuff in the game where no one bats an eye. Throwing a fireball or mindcontrol your enemies is totally fine, but someone having superhuman reflexes is not? Why? Spiritshift has also scaling DR, and thats being naked, too.
 
In most fantasy books I've read, the protagonists do not get hit most of the time, because with what they are facing, they often would be dead instantly. A character good at dodging is such an universal thing in the genre that its really mind-blowing that it's not properly supported. It should not come for free, but it should definitely be possible to invest into evasion to a point where its viable to use it on the front-line within a dedicated subclass. Of course, it should be mutually exclusive to wearing the heaviest armor as well - it should be an alternative, not strictly superior, and if you get hit, its fine to suffer a lot of damage.
 
In the end, for me its the question: If people can have their wizard and paladin nostalgia in the spiritual successor to these games, why can't I have a properly supported evasive monk?

 

EDIT:
I submitted a question for the Q&A stream today.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Doppelschwert

[draego]

I think the important distinction here is that this is a fantasy game, and not a medieval battle simulator. Sure, armor should be beneficial as the standard option, and you shouldn't come near to out-tank someone with armor without any investment. However, I think its ridiculous that this archetype is scoffed at due to realism on this forum, when there is so much unrealistic stuff in the game where no one bats an eye. Throwing a fireball or mindcontrol your enemies is totally fine, but someone having superhuman reflexes is not? Why? Spiritshift has also scaling DR, and thats being naked, too.

 

In most fantasy books I've read, the protagonists do not get hit most of the time, because with what they are facing, they often would be dead instantly. A character good at dodging is such an universal thing in the genre that its really mind-blowing that it's not properly supported. It should not come for free, but it should definitely be possible to invest into evasion to a point where its viable to use it on the front-line within a dedicated subclass. Of course, it should be mutually exclusive to wearing the heaviest armor as well - it should be an alternative, not strictly superior, and if you get hit, its fine to suffer a lot of damage.

 

In the end, for me its the question: If people can have their wizard and paladin nostalgia in the spiritual successor to these games, why can't I have a properly supported evasive monk?

 

EDIT:

I submitted a question for the Q&A stream today.

 

Well said although without the monk part. Boooooo monks. Ye it would be nice for some kind of evasion it would just need to be balanced so as not to be able to give anyway near 100% hit to miss

Edited March 9, 2017 by draego

[Duskshift]

I dont think it is useful to just give out "free" dodge defense via character attributes. An implementation i would much rather see is a further specialization per talent based on my characters attributes. E.g.: if i have Dex 17+ i can get a finesse / defense talent or sth.

 

Just handing out a powerful stat like dodge per attributes does feel like it could breed abuse.

[DigitalCrack]

I dont think it is useful to just give out "free" dodge defense via character attributes. An implementation i would much rather see is a further specialization per talent based on my characters attributes. E.g.: if i have Dex 17+ i can get a finesse / defense talent or sth.

 

Just handing out a powerful stat like dodge per attributes does feel like it could breed abuse.

Agreed would rather have it be a talent than given naturally. I would rather it be a general talent then class specific also. Edited March 9, 2017 by DigitalCrack

[FlintlockJazz]

Two random thoughts:

 

There already is defense for the light armour wearer: it's called Deflection.  Sure, it doesn't use Dexterity to increase it, but then not every game system needs to have the same roles accomplished the exact same way every time.  Can't we have one setting where it is the high-Resolve shield-bearers who are the lightly-armoured high defense characters for once instead of the obnoxious poncey ballerinas who deserve a slap in the face for being obnoxious poncey ballerinas?  Also, forgoing armour and still expecting high defense SHOULD cost something, since decent armour costs money and is naturally gear-dependent, whereas the finesse fighters people are asking for here are not gear-dependent, therefore they should lose out comparatively in other fields.

 

Defense for the Roguish fighter I think should work differently from how other systems do them with the high defense anyway, its pretty much boring just to slap on higher defense for being bouncy.  Rather than just increasing the difficulty to hit I think the Rogue should have abilities that take them out of the fight completely (smoke bomb, perhaps more often to be used, or the ability to get around the battlefield easier in some way, to fade in and out), or perhaps requires equipment like flasks of powder that they use up to blow people's faces, lowering their opponents' ability to strike rather than rising their own defenses. 

[George_Truman]

What do you guys think an appropriate tradeoff would be to gain increased durability from offensive stats and gear?

[Gromnir]

two quick points:

 

1) the developers Never made claim 'bout poe being the "spiritual successor" to the ie games.

 

game "journalists" and boardies invented spiritual successor.  the label don't actual mean anything anyways as everybody has a different notion as to which elements and features is essential for a legit spiritual successor, but even so, obsidian never made such claims.  closest language were "homage."  a movie or novel will get homage language if a single character or even a single scene is clear harkening back to an earlier work, so am not knowing how much o' a functional limit is homage.

 

2) armours is already balanced, so...

 

as already noted, speed is current linked to armour.  the advantage o' light armour is the corresponding benefit o' increased action speed, and it is a significant advantage indeed. the naked glass cannon is a frequent addition to poe parties precise 'cause there already is a major and obvious advantage to going naked or light(er).  'course such fans o' naked rogues and priests has curious been at forefront to complain when they get 2-shot by charmed/dominated party mates.  silly rabbits. point is if you are gonna increase benefits to light, you gotta apply a proportional burden. maintain balance.

 

*shrug*

 

solution: make desired dodging a modal whereby speed benefits is sacrificed.

 

reality need never be an obstacle for these kinda features, but if folks need an explanation, a combatant focused 'pon dodging and defensive movement should suffer diminished offensive efficacy. create a modal which mimics the reality o' combatant anticipating their next dodge? fine.  have the dodge modal reduce action speed... or create some other shortcoming to balance. point is if you are gonna add a benefit for those foregoing heavy armours, then to retain balance o' the armouring scheme, you must either add a benefit to heavy armoured combatants or invent a new burden for light armoured folks.  

 

reflection: our proposed modal is actual a weak burden and may be insufficient for retaining balance as we can imagine how such a modal might be abused. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[DigitalCrack]

two quick points:

 

1) the developers Never made claim 'bout poe being the "spiritual successor" to the ie games.

 

game "journalists" and boardies invented spiritual successor. the label don't actual mean anything anyways as everybody has a different notion as to which elements and features is essential for a legit spiritual successor, but even so, obsidian never made such claims. closest language were "homage." a movie or novel will get homage language if a single character or even a single scene is clear harkening back to an earlier work, so am not knowing how much o' a functional limit is homage.

 

2) armours is already balanced, so...

 

as already noted, speed is current linked to armour. the advantage o' light armour is the corresponding benefit o' increased action speed, and it is a significant advantage indeed. the naked glass cannon is a frequent addition to poe parties precise 'cause there already is a major and obvious advantage to going naked or light(er). 'course such fans o' naked rogues and priests has curious been at forefront to complain when they get 2-shot by charmed/dominated party mates. silly rabbits. point is if you are gonna increase benefits to light, you gotta apply a proportional burden. maintain balance.

 

*shrug*

 

solution: make desired dodging a modal whereby speed benefits is sacrificed.

 

reality need never be an obstacle for these kinda features, but if folks need an explanation, a combatant focused 'pon dodging and defensive movement should suffer diminished offensive efficacy. create a modal which mimics the reality o' combatant anticipating their next dodge? fine. have the dodge modal reduce action speed... or create some other shortcoming to balance. point is if you are gonna add a benefit for those foregoing heavy armours, then to retain balance o' the armouring scheme, you must either add a benefit to heavy armoured combatants or invent a new burden for light armoured folks.

 

reflection: our proposed modal is actual a weak burden and may be insufficient for retaining balance as we can imagine how such a modal might be abused.

 

HA! Good Fun!

I mostly agree despite wanting some changes. Its just that running heavy or no armor have clear trade offs that are felt and running light or medium armor just makes you feel underpowered... not sure if thats the best way to put it. like you die quicker than heavy armor and do less dps then no armor and thats it (which makes sense).. There is no clear benefit, you just know your not as good as either extreme. light and medium armor needs some benefit that is felt like high dps or high protection but not either of those things, if that makes sense.

[KDubya]

I thought PoE had it pretty good for armor and deflection.

 

You could make a great swashbuckler with light armor with high deflection, you just needed to use a buckler and the weapon and shield talent and invest in Resolve.

 

Heavy armor was clearly better in the early game as your defenses were low enough that you were going to be hit and better to use the DR to stop most of the incoming damage. As you gained levels and health you could take more hits so you'd start to use lighter armor to allow for faster attacks. Plus at the end having 32 DR with heavy of 24DR with light made little difference defensively when enemies were hitting you for 60+ damage. At that point the increased action speed of light was clearly better.

[1varangian]

It seems like the only balanced way to make the finesse types possible would be to have heavy armor cost you Deflection (instead of recovery speed which is too vague to comprehend anyway). Plate mail feels quite overpowered in PoE and I could see this change happening easily.

 

Ideally both finesse and tank options would be viable. With heavy armor being the "always reliable" choice and good for tanking mobs while Light armor would also be good as long as you don't let enemies flank you to counter your increased evasion.

[Guest Blutwurstritter]

Dodging is very hard to balance since its all or nothing. I think the current system has all the mechanics it needs and can be adjusted by finetuning. A talent that adds a deflection bonus while wielding a single weapon/wearing light armor that requires high dexterity, or a talent that turns grazes into misses would pretty much do what you ask for.    

The problem i see, is that such talents often lead to optimal builds where characters are leveled in a very specific way to obtain those talents even if they don't fit the original scheme. I didn't like the NWN2 talent madness where you had to plan your whole character beforehand for 20 lvls or something like that, with weird multi classing schemes to obtain all talents.  

[hilfazer]

- no talents where one defense replaces another (In tyranny everyone uses the talents where only one of dodge/parry is used for both

Not everyone. For example Colonel RPG didn't and he's not exactly new to RPGs. You can find his LP on Youtube.

He's the first person i checked so it's not like i did some extensive search just to prove you wrong.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I think it's fine if a tank character needs to wear heavy armour, but not every front-line character is a tank. And to me, at least, keeping melee fighters alive is an issue. A character who's not specced out for soaking up damage kind of melts on contact. My first character was a light-weight fighter with a greatsword, and it worked okay, but that may have been due to the innate fighter regeneration.

Edited April 9, 2017 by MortyTheGobbo

[Wormerine]

two quick points:

 

1) the developers Never made claim 'bout poe being the "spiritual successor" to the ie games.

 

game "journalists" and boardies invented spiritual successor.  the label don't actual mean anything anyways as everybody has a different notion as to which elements and features is essential for a legit spiritual successor, but even so, obsidian never made such claims.  closest language were "homage."  a movie or novel will get homage language if a single character or even a single scene is clear harkening back to an earlier work, so am not knowing how much o' a functional limit is homage.

Wait, what?

 

From kickstarter page:

 

"Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment"

 

This game was sold as a spiritual successor of IE games. It was made to look like them, play like them. UI looks like IE game. It is modern IE engine with Obsidian D&Dlike system. It is D&D game but without D&D ip.

 

there is homage, and there is "we are just like ... but new."

[Ninjamestari]

One way to balance between armor and deflection would be, as 1varangian pointed out, to introduce a deflection penalty to armor, but in addition rework how deflection as a defense works. Consider that you're being attacked, and need to dodge and parry blows that are made against you. The faster you get attacked, the more difficult it becomes to retain your balance and keep deflecting the blows. This could be simulated with a character getting a stacking deflection penalty every time he or she gets attacked, and have that penalty cleared if he or she gets sufficient breathing room to recover, ie isn't being targeted by attacks for X amount of time (this could be influenced by dexterity). With this sort of system, the heavy armor would be superior against weaker opponents with faster attacks, and multiple opponents obviously, but high deflection and mobility would be superior against single foes wielding a slow big-ass sword. You could then build your defense around being swift and agile or being heavily armored, allowing for both styles to shine while making them distinct enough for the choice to be meaningful.

 

EDIT: another thing this approach achieves would be that when making a character, you wouldn't have to focus on BOTH, which would give you a lot more room in designing your characters, and it would make it easier for every character to have some way of being able to stand their ground, freeing up a lot of room for different party compositions that don't necessarily have to include a highly specialized front-liner.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[1varangian]

One way to balance between armor and deflection would be, as 1varangian pointed out, to introduce a deflection penalty to armor, but in addition rework how deflection as a defense works. Consider that you're being attacked, and need to dodge and parry blows that are made against you. The faster you get attacked, the more difficult it becomes to retain your balance and keep deflecting the blows. This could be simulated with a character getting a stacking deflection penalty every time he or she gets attacked, and have that penalty cleared if he or she gets sufficient breathing room to recover, ie isn't being targeted by attacks for X amount of time (this could be influenced by dexterity). With this sort of system, the heavy armor would be superior against weaker opponents with faster attacks, and multiple opponents obviously, but high deflection and mobility would be superior against single foes wielding a slow big-ass sword. You could then build your defense around being swift and agile or being heavily armored, allowing for both styles to shine while making them distinct enough for the choice to be meaningful.

 

EDIT: another thing this approach achieves would be that when making a character, you wouldn't have to focus on BOTH, which would give you a lot more room in designing your characters, and it would make it easier for every character to have some way of being able to stand their ground, freeing up a lot of room for different party compositions that don't necessarily have to include a highly specialized front-liner.

An easy solution would be to impose a cumulative Deflection penalty for each opponent beyond the first who have engaged you in melee. In addition to flanking.

 

That would also make hordes of low level minions a relevant threat for high level characters. Especially those in light armor. Most RPGs face the problem of low level foes becoming completely irrelevant later in the game and high level PCs have to be challenged with lore-stretching amounts of powerful monsters where giants become as common as goblins. A system where low level monsters in large numbers can be threatening for high level PCs would be better.

[PizzaSHARK]

I think what QuiteGoneJin means is that there's nothing like "Dodging" where you don't use shield or weapon to parry, but using your speed, perception and agility to dodge and evade melee attacks instead. So, if you would want to carry the Tyranny stuff over to PoE2 you would have to invent a talent or ability that lets you use reflex instead of deflection against melee attacks. As QuiteGoneJin said, this would be a bit OP. Once you create such mechanics where you can dump one defense completely players will abuse this to create OP-builds - which is understandable.

 

I personally found the mechanic of tyranny quite interesting where you could either increase your defensive conversions (crit to hit, hit to graze, graze to miss) with certain talents and also with certain "light" items while heavy stuff gave you more damage reduction but no conversion and could be boosted with other talents (making you less slow like Armored Grace does).

 

I could also imagine a talent like "dodging" or "evasion" for nimble builds that'll give you an evasion bonus for all defenses, based on the type or armor. So basically wearing clothes would give you the full bonus while heavy armor would give you zero.

 

We have the rogue ability that raises the chance to avoid attacks which target reflex. But only AoE attacks target refles in PoE, so it's not too useful. Something like that but for deflection would be nice.

 

The simplest way to deal with this would be to implement a Pathfinder-like system of touch AC, and have certain spells and attacks target touch AC rather than total AC.  (Well, it'd be Deflection here, but you get the idea.)

 

This is a balancing factor for a lot of things, though it can be silly at times (a pistol resolves against a great wyrm dragon's godawful touch AC rather than its formidable total AC.)  Because touch AC is derived from, among other things, a character's Dexterity bonus to AC, this tends to mean that light and nimble characters have a relatively high touch AC while the Fighter stomping around in full plate probably has a rather low touch AC.

 

This just ties into Pillars being perhaps a little too simplified, though.  I'm not intimately familiar with 5E, but maybe they did something there as well.  I know 5E is said to be a lot more accessible than other editions.