How much damage can you do an how?

im a firm believer of whats good for the goose is good for the well everyone else… why should the pcs be the only ones to be able to do some bad ass stuff. the bad guys are typically bad guys for a reason, and in my mind should do everything in their power to want to beat,destroy, embarrasses…etc the pcs. if not, then it just becomes a walk in the park with no challenge to the pcs. in the case of diminish sense, pcs were given fate points for a reason if they had no way to stop the diminish sense via spell or other means, then use the fate and kill the freaking casters. i recall players getting upset when there was more then on ranged npc in a mod at a con a yr or two ago and the judge had them target one pc with all the attacks…well if that would be the best tactic for the npcs to win the day then why would they not do just that thing, i know for a fact that in most circumstances the status quo for pcs is to dog pile the rabbit, in order to take out the biggest threat first.

i too though also believe that once a pc finds a way to really “break” something and word gets out you will start seeing more and more ppl doing it, cause 1) all heros are murdering hobos 2) murdering hobos alway want to have an edge on the bad guys

I’m not saying that only PCs should be able to do things (though I don’t see anything wrong with that as there is already plenty of other stuff that only NPCs can do). I’m more saying that whereas a group will very often only have 1 character capable of something, the NPCs will often have groups with multiples able to do that something or 1 NPC able to do it very well (eg adversary or even elite (still usually higher tier than the PCs)). Things that aren’t broken when 1 character (PC or NPC) can do, can easily be broken if there are multiples or someone able to do it very well.

And how does a Fate point stop Diminish Senses (unless the to-hit roll was very close to the defense)?

Ranged NPCs are fine. Lots of ranged NPCs are broken. The one broken ranged encounter I’ve seen was at Origins BI last year. There were (iirc) something like 30 minion crossbowmen with high to-hit and dealing 12 damage per hit. At the table I was at, every PC except one dropped at least once (most 2-3 times) during the scene.

So far, I haven’t seen any instances of any “broken” thing on the PC side leading to lots of new PCs built to do that thing (which is a big plus for Arcanis). That said, I’m relatively new to Arcanis (a little over 2 years) so it’s possible it did happen before I started playing.

I’ll chime in here (finally). My primary, Decios, is a Martial and melee is his combat thing (mostly).

I’ve played about everything that is/was possible to play in the campaign thus far, and just hit Tier 3.1 after the BI at Arcanicon this month. I play with Tony S. a lot, and had the pleasure of sitting with Hat at Arcanicon BI tables, too.

He is a val’Dellenov from Balantica, Former Soldier, and uses the lancea (light spear). I picked the weapon because it fit the setting and the val’Dellenov background of the character.

I think the Lancea is the best weapon in the rules for a couple reasons.
First, it can be thrown from a decent distance, and with Mighty Thrown for an additional +5 static damage. Add an Air rune and it comes back the next tick of the clock.
Second, it is a speed 5 weapon, speed 4 if Exceptional. An Ex version costs 5Gc (only because of the rules for buying Ex, it should be 1.5 Gc!) so is very affordable. If you have a friend with the Celerity spell (which most everyone in Tier 3 is going to get) you can get this down to Sp 3.

Decios can deal a pretty good amount of damage, but its variable as to when and why. IMO, as Hat inquired about previously in this thread, it IS very reliant on a PC to have a bit of a ‘set-up’ to be able to be more/most combat effective. One needs solid attack bonuses, good static bonuses, and die bonuses.

At the risk of giving away too much here are some key components to Decios’s build:

Pretty much max’d ranks of melee skill with the Lancea and having Weapon Mastery.
Static bonuses (or penalties) to attack come from Wolfpack Tactics, Forward Stance, Defensive Stance, Tactical Edge, Unbalancing Attack.
Static bonuses to damage come from Mighty Swing or Powerful Thrust, Benediction of the Gods (ally), a Fine (or better quality) weapon, Saluwe’ rune (magic), Wolfpack Tactics (talent), and a Fervidite or Serrated spear (untyped).
Die bonuses (penalties) are the most difficult to find – Forward Stance, Defensive Stance, Unbalancing Attack.
He has a Might rune for a die bump to damage.

His usual attack sequence was something like:
Attack bonus of +10 to 12 range (with Forward Stance factored in).
Static damage of +3 to +14 range (depending on maneuvers, ally spells, and combat conditions).
Damage dice of +d8 lancea +d12(Mi) +d6 Forward Stance.

Advanced or Basic weapon moves rarely increase the speed above +1 nor Recovery more than 4. So its pretty easy to do a Sp 4 attack at +12 with d8+d12+d6+11 for an average of about 26 points of damage, then follow up with a Sp 4 base attack (which includes an adjust [Quick!]) at +12 with d8+d12+d6+6 for an average damage of about 20 points, that also burns off the Recovery. Rinse and repeat. Roll well and its pretty regular to go over 30 on damage.

Do I think this is effective and powerful? I do. Do I think its ‘broken’ or ‘gray’ in any way” I do not.

I also caution people to not forget the power of exploding dice. I’ve seen many times where the baddies or PCs did north of 30 damage because one of their dice blew up 1-2 times. And at a d10 or d12 level it really skews things (not to mention the 2d6 bonus it seems every val’Tensen and val’Emman/Virdan runs around with).

I haven’t taken a lot of the same damage boosting talents as your build as:
1. Talent starved to acquire full-Psionic casting;
2. Stacking issues with some of the options;
3. I’m focusing on my defences (currently Av:24, AR5; should be Av:27, AR7 by T2.4).

Only two of us in the home group have any real armour (everyone else has maybe AR:2), so I’ve drifted into the ‘you shall not pass’ role.

I’m curious, how will you hit Av 27 and AR 7 by T2.4? I’m sure it’s possible but I’m looking at Av 24 AR 8 by around the same point (and I’m a Black Talon so AR isn’t hard to get to AR 7 but at the expense of Avoidance).

I’m curious, how will you hit Av 27 and AR 7 by T2.4? I’m sure it’s possible but I’m looking at Av 24 AR 8 by around the same point (and I’m a Black Talon so AR isn’t hard to get to AR 7 but at the expense of Avoidance).

AR 4 with a 0 Avoidance penalty is certainly possible with Advanced Armor Training and Exceptional heavy armor such as lorica segmentata. Add in Body of the Warrior and your AR goes to 5. Divine Caster with a Benediction of the Gods (Armor) of +2 would finish it to 7. Not doable alone, but if you travel with a caster, certainly within the realm of reason.

As for the Avoidance of 27, Prowess and Insight of 8 each means starting at 20, add 3 for a Tower Shield and +2 Defense T1 and T2 and you’re there. As a psionic caster with an autocast of 23, you can get the same +3 shield bonus with Inertial Shield. Throw in an advancement for a +1 to Defense and it could be 28 or drop one of the stats back to 5. By T2 you could have another point on top of that for a 29. That’s not even using martial maneuvers or weapon tricks.

Thanks. I always forget about Benediction boosting AR because (unless I’m wrong) Ss’ressen get screwed (being natural armor so Benediction would make the Ss’ressen Scale AR 3 which doesn’t help since only 1 worn AR stacks with natural). I’d love to be wrong and Benediction would add AR for a Ss’ressen…

I wasn’t really considering spells based on his wording for some reason. I do have Inertial Shield (and a tower shield) but will only have a 22 by 2.4 (23+ later in T2). There’s no reason Inertial Shield won’t stack with a shield (shield = equipment bonus, Inertial Shield = magic bonus).

We built my wife’s dark-kin character as an avoidance monkey and she’s at 26 at 1.5 (12 + 4 [8 Pr] + 3 [5 In] +1 [Masterful Defense] +1 Race +2 to all Defenses +3 tower shield). Her AR is only 2 for Natural Armor, but that doesn’t require any additional assistance.

That’s quite an impressive Avoidance without magic.

Having to work it out (I wasn’t even using Benediction):

Rune space (and Item quality) is going to be an issue on the upgrade path (or spending the extra 2GC to shift the old ones elsewhere). 30GC for an Exceptional Tower Shield is peculation of Senate funds!

Thanks for providing the numbers. I can get higher AR – I forgot about Scales of the Dragon (although Scales is limited to +2 AR (or 4 AR if you have no natural armor and no worn armor) while Benediction is limited to +3 AR which seems very odd given that Benediction has a host of other uses as well).

I hear you on prohibitive costs. I need exceptional Tralian Hammer (30Gc), exceptional Tower Shield (30Gc), and exceptional Ss’ressen Scale (37.5Gc) not to mention a handful of runes (I have only 1 rune currently).

I think that finding ways to reduce the actual amount of damage one takes is vitally important in this game system, especially with the Massive Damage rules in effect.

So a good AR is, imo, slightly more important than have a good Fortitude defense, both of which are more important than AV.

Having run the numbers, I’m not sure I agree. Which is surprising as my inclination was to lean towards AR as well.

Note: The numbers below do not take into account exploding dice, which leads to slightly higher average attack #s and slightly more damage.

Consider being attacked at 2d10+d8+5 (avg. 20.5) for d8(d10)+1 (11) damage. Your chance of getting hit at a 21 AV is 50/50. At a 23 AV it’s 34.25%. Let’s say its 6 AR vs. 4 AR (Benediction +2 Armor vs. AV)

Over 10 attacks the 21 AV/AR 6 averages (10*.5)*(11-6 = 25 points.
Over 10 attacks the 23 AV/AR 4 averages (10*.3425)*(11-4 = 23.975 points.

Roughly equivalent. Increase the AV by 1 and you get the following:

Over 10 attacks the 22 AV/6 AR averages (10*.42)*(11-6) = 21 damage, a decrease of 4.
Over 10 attacks the 24 AV/4 AR averages (10*.27)*(11-4) = 18.9 damage, a decrease of 5.

Going the other direction compared to the original (mid) numbers:
Over 10 attacks the 20 AV/AR 6 averages (10*.58)*(11-6) = 29 damage, an increase of 4 points.
Over 10 attacks the 22 AV/AR 4 averages (10*.42)*(11-4) = 29.4 damage, an increase of 5.5 points.

Changing the damage equation to d10(d12)+5 for 17 points on average nets the following in the same order:

20 AV/AR 6 averages (10*.58)*(17-6) = 63.8 damage
22 AV/AR 4 averages (10*.42)*(17-4) = 54.6 damage

21 AV/AR 6 averages (10*.5)*(17-6) = 55 damage
23 AV/AR 4 averages (10*.3425)*(17-4) = 44.525 damage

22 AV/6 AR averages (10*.42)*(11-6) = 46.2 damage
24 AV/4 AR averages (10*.27)*(11-4) = 35.1 damage

Looking over the Bestiary guidelines, Minion (d6 or d8), Common (d6 or d8) and Elite (d8 or d10) creatures get +3 skill/Tier so Tier 1.5 =+4/5, 2.0 = +6, 2.5 = +7/8 and 3.0 = +9
Add an extra 1 or 2 for talents (wolf pack/swarm tactics, weapon mastery, etc.) and you’re looking at
Minion (d8) T1.0 = 2d10+1d8+4 (18.5), T1.5 = 2d10+1d8+6 (20.5), T2.0 = 2d10+1d8+7 = 21.5, T2.5 = 2d10+1d8+9 = 23.5
Common (d8) [As Minion]
Elite (d10) [And assuming +2 to hit vs. +1] = 2d10+1d10+5 = 20.5, T1.5 = 2d10+1d10+7=22.5, T2.0 = 2d10+1d10+8=23.5, T2.5 = 2d10+1d10+10=25.5

Rough Estimate on Average Defenses (pre-magic / buff)
PC Tier 1.5 = 12 +3 or 4 (Pr) +3 (In) + 0 or 2 + 0/1 Racial = 18 to 22
Tier 1.10 = 12 + 3 or 4 (Pr) +3 (In) +2 Defenses + 0/1 Racial = 20 to 22

This doesn’t factor in shields, runes or encumbrance.

Between Defense bumps, stat increases, spells and magic, I think it’s possible to generally keep pace with the foes.

I ran the numbers at lunch, so I may be missing something more significant. It certainly looks like AV is better 1/1 than AR, but it depends on what your trade off is, and there’s certainly a point of diminishing returns.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Consider being attacked at 2d10+d8+5 (avg. 20.5) for d8(d10)+1 (11) damage. Your chance of getting hit at a 21 AV is 50/50. At a 23 AV it’s 34.25%. Let’s say its 6 AR vs. 4 AR (Benediction +2 Armor vs. AV)

So, the part of this (above) that is not my experience for many encounters, is the +5 attack bonus and the +1 damage bonus. Frequently, the bonuses seem higher than that, more in the +8 or more attack range. Which equals hitting my AV, which was in the 22-24 range for most of T2.

Agreed. That’s why I added the #s at the bottom as referenced from the Bestiary. Because of the bell curve for the attack rolls, the 20/21 AV represented the middle values of that curve. The frequency of being hit can be directly adjusted. So, if the standard is +8 which is roughly average for a Minion / Common Tier 2.5 suggested encounter , adjust the baseline AVs up by 3. The second set of numbers I threw in increased the damage #s looking at 17 vs. 11 which is closer to what you were referencing. Interestingly, the value of the AR goes down vs. AV as the average damage goes up as getting the bang out of the AR takes longer vs. avoiding a single hit.

I say that AV is not as important as most bad guys, especially the non-minions, don’t seem to break a sweat to go over my AV of 24.

Again, that’s been my opinion as well but the numbers suggest that IF the choice is equivalent between an AV and AR increase, you are better off taking the AV bonus. The site AnyDice (http://www.anydice.com) allows you to specify any combination of dice and static bonus and calculates the statistics for hitting at each number. Feel free to take specific encounters and do a comparison vs. Decius’ AV and AR. I may do the same for Vincens as I have taken AR over AV without fail and now I need to rethink it.

I think your numbers are accurate (from my initial scan) its just not my experience that most opponents have been struggling to surpass an AV of 22-24, so Ill work on solid tactics to diminish exposure to more attacks than necessary, and will work to get other defenses higher to mitigate the damage done. That’s just my philosophy *grin*

Agreed. Vincens is designed for combat, and I’m working on getting him to a better place defensively given he does two weapon fighting. While only getting hit 6 out of 10 times vs. 7 out of 10 times may not sound like much of a difference, especially as the damage goes up it is.

At a minimum it’s at least something interesting to play with.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul