Considering to remove CoT class - need opinions

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Let's say I made a change as follows:

 

Fighters get +1 AB/damage at level 20, a further +1 AB/damage at level 30, and a final +2 AB/damage at level 40.

How many words would you consider that to be?

 

 

That's 22 words, or already close to 1% there while barely scratching the surface. As you highlighted, Monk also appears to need a buff and there's many more glaring issues than Fighter AB.

 

I've often seen a figure indicating that a high BAB class should hit 75% of the time for standard mobs on its highest attack (with bosses having higher AC).  Let's assume full +12 stats on gear and +6 weapons (obviously doesn't matter much since it generally affects everyone equally).

 

Pure fighter would be 30 BAB + 12 base STR + 6 bonus STR + 4 feats + 6 weapon = 58 AB.  Therefore we'd expect to see 64 AC on mobs (which is 2.3 hits per round).

 

Pure monk would be 25 BAB + 10 base STR/DEX + 6 bonus STR/DEX + 4 feats + 6 weapon = 51 AB.

 

Fighter/AA would have 28 BAB + 12 base DEX + 6 bonus DEX + 4 feats + 10 AA + 2 War Cry + 6 weapon = 68 AB.

Which is enough to make the damage be better in most cases.  But there are some caveats:

 

1, you'll note I didn't count the Bard Song/Curse Song -- because if the world is tuned for expecting party buffs like that then the AC of mobs will be higher to compensate (also Bless/Aid/Prayer/flanking to factor in).

 

2, this is assuming we're tuning around a pure fighter, when something like a STR/DEX cleric, WM, or AA will have much higher AB at a minimum.  If the world is intended for powerbuilders then the AC may very well be higher.

 

P.S. another moral of the story is that Monk damage is completely awful by default.  Bad damage per hit and terrible AB.

 

Frankly I've never seen that 75% rule before so I'll need a reference showing that it does, indeed come up often, or at least a supporting argument before I believe that claim is valid. Also, if the world was designed for powerbuilders, wouldn't the objective be to build mobs that would hard counter dominant builds rather than make things easy for them by designing mobs inaccessible to other builds?

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

That's 22 words, or already close to 1% there while barely scratching the surface. As you highlighted, Monk also appears to need a buff and there's many more glaring issues than Fighter AB.

 

Well, I was expecting you'd say that would be more than 22 words since you were talking about flavor text -- which meant I thought you'd expect the TLK to be changed to include that or something.

 

Frankly I've never seen that 75% rule before so I'll need a reference showing that it does, indeed come up often, or at least a supporting argument before I believe that claim is valid. Also, if the world was designed for powerbuilders, wouldn't the objective be to build mobs that would hard counter dominant builds rather than make things easy for them by designing mobs inaccessible to other builds?

 

It was mentioned a lot a few years ago in discussions with Kail Pendragon, Webshaman, and several other of the more active forumgoers.  The basic idea is that full BAB classes hit most of the time, 3/4 BAB classes hit like 50% of the time, and lower AB builds can still hit like 25% of the time on the highest attack.  I generally balance my module AC assuming that rule for a recommend button fighter (which gets 4 less AB than an optimized fighter).

 

If the world was designed for powerbuilders, then you expect every physical attacker to be something like a buffed up strength cleric, AA, or WM and thus they have extremely high AC.  The monk would exist only to tank.