Post/Author/DateTime	Post
dantebarathoen 10-25-07, 01:03 PM	I'm new to DMing but have played for a few years now, but I was DMing a short adventure and realized that one of the player's attack bonus was like 10 higher than an AC in the adventure. Also after I looked in the MM and found that he at level 15 could hit most of the things in the book by rolling a 2 and after looking at some other characters I had i realised that alot of them would be hitting on 3. So my question is are the ACs too low or are these PC just jacked and what would you do in this situation (that your PCs don't have to roll to hit the monsters).
Ultima0071 10-25-07, 01:13 PM	Judging by your current post, he could have any attack bonus. Please list his main weapon, strength score, feats (that affect attack bonus), and Base Attack Bonus.
mearrin69 10-25-07, 01:14 PM	Heya, Without knowing more about your PCs I can't say what the specific problem might be. Did you say level 15? As a new DM running adventures at that power level is pretty tough anyway - if it's possible you might want to pull back a bit and try some lower level adventures. Assuming there's not some technical problem with your PCs (miscalculations, too much magic for their level, etc.) and they're going to be hitting on 2s and 3s I'd say there are a couple of ways you can give them a challenge. One is to use monsters with DR. Even if they can hit them they won't do full damage unless they have the right weapons. The second I can think of is buffs. Mirror Image, Blink, Barkskin, etc. all make hitting more difficult. I think there are also some spells out there that 'reflect' damage (not sure they work for physical). Also, there are some creatures that cause damage to combatants that hurt them. Rust monsters, disarms, sunders, Disintegrates, MDJ, etc. may help remove those troublesome overpowered magical weapons from play. If you've Monty Haul'd them and given them weapons and other items that are too much for their power level then consider talking it over, admit your mistake, and fix it as a group though - I wouldn't just remove their stuff by DM fiat. Hope that helps! M
dantebarathoen 10-25-07, 01:35 PM	I think the bonus was 32. they had mostly fighter levels and 2 bow initeate levels. for feat i think there was weapon focus, ranged weapon mastery. they had a +9 dex with magic item and being a wood elf and a +5 bow. It was just a one night thing for a break from our other adenture that someone else is DMing
Tequila_Sunrise 10-25-07, 01:48 PM	That is a tad high for level 15, but the truth is that AB is supposed to go up faster than AC. Because of the way hit points inflate, the game is designed so that AB slowly but steadily outstrips AC so that high level combatants don't take hours to chip away at each other's hit points. As ABs outstrip ACs, all combat-oriented combatants should be using things like Power Attack and Multishot to take bigger chunks out of each other's hit points.
Boo 10-25-07, 01:54 PM	I think the bonus was 32. they had mostly fighter levels and 2 bow initeate levels. for feat i think there was weapon focus, ranged weapon mastery. they had a +9 dex with magic item and being a wood elf and a +5 bow. It was just a one night thing for a break from our other adenture that someone else is DMing Wood elves get what +2 Dex? So 20 dex + 3 for levels, still needs a +6 item to get up to +9 bonus. A +6 dex item and a +5 bow costs 86k (assuming no other special abilities on the bow. The wealth a PC at 15th should have is 200k. Doesn't look too out of whack to me (though that is a relatively large chunk of his wealth for 2 items, but he's a martial class and weapons are always important and expensive).
Drag0nUL 10-25-07, 02:05 PM	32 to hit is pretty good for level 15, although a really optimized character could go significantly higher. By that level AC is pretty much irrelevant anyway. Unless you optimize for AC (and manage to put it above 50 or so) you will get hit. A lot. The trick of surviving in melee at high level is to stack miss chances, DR and hitpoints. And monsters from the MM aren't the best benchmark for judging the power level of a character; with very few exceptions (like the dragons) they are pretty weak and unoptimized for a given CR.
dantebarathoen 10-25-07, 02:20 PM	Thank you for your replays and thanks for the advice. That does make sense that at the higher levels the PCs aren't expected to miss much, but that the creature needs to be able to take that hit and not worrier about it. The problem with the items is that it was a one night one shot kinda thing so I think they may have gone a bit over board with the items. Not really being concerned with the longevity of the characters.
Rood_Inverse 10-25-07, 04:29 PM	Thank you for your replays and thanks for the advice. That does make sense that at the higher levels the PCs aren't expected to miss much, but that the creature needs to be able to take that hit and not worrier about it. The problem with the items is that it was a one night one shot kinda thing so I think they may have gone a bit over board with the items. Not really being concerned with the longevity of the characters. One poster above said: HP and Dodge/DR goes up, too. Armor class only gets so good before other, better things kick in to replace it. Don't sweat the low AC. Most boddies have other, better ways of protecting themselves at that level. Tip from the DMG: Think they're overpowered for a one-shot? Try giving them one-use items, instead of full-on weapons and gear that has infinite uses. It'll have almost the same effect, money-wise as well as power-wise (since they don't ever have to worry about using those PCs again). Does anyone remember the page number on that? I'll have to go look it up and get back to you.
BW0222 10-25-07, 04:33 PM	dantebarathoen, I'm new to DMing but have played for a few years now, but I was DMing a short adventure and realized that one of the player's attack bonus was like 10 higher than an AC in the adventure. Also after I looked in the MM and found that he at level 15 could hit most of the things in the book by rolling a 2 and after looking at some other characters I had i realised that alot of them would be hitting on 3. So my question is are the ACs too low or are these PC just jacked and what would you do in this situation (that your PCs don't have to roll to hit the monsters). This is normal and predicted. The key is looking at how many rounds of combat it takes. AC vs. attack rolls is only a small part in it. You also need to factor in the increase in hit points of the creature vs. the number of attacks and damage per attack which foes have. Hit points for monsters goes up linearly or more. That means a 10hd creature has ten times the hit points of a 1hd creature (often more due to high Con scores, DR, abilities, etc. but say just ten times). However, your PCs attacks and damage dealt do not go up linearly. They don't do tens times the amount of damage per round -- either through multiple attacks or more damage per attack -- at 10-level as they had at first. For example: At 1st-level a fighter is +4 to attacks and does 1d8+3 damage per attack. Against an AC 15 opponent with 10hp -- he needs an average of three hits to drop the opponent. With a 50% chance per round of hitting, on average it takes him say five rounds to drop the creature. Now... at 10th-level, the fighter is +16/+11 to hit and does 1d8+8 per attack. Against an AC 18 opponent with 120hp -- he now needs an average of 10 hits to kill the opponent. Even with two attacks per round, it will take five rounds -- but only if almost every hit works. In other words, the fighter needs to hit more often to make of for the fact that neither his number of attacks and damage per attack is not multiplied by his level. If you wish to see the dramatic effect that missing often has on a fighter... give a hydra a potion of displacement.
Voran 10-26-07, 06:30 PM	In some ways though, the ability to HIT something as you go up in levels becomes less important than being able to DO something once you've hit something. yeah you hit my AC, but you didn't get past my DR/Fast Healing/whatever. that or: yeah you hit my AC, but lemme roll, aha I rolled my percentage (displacement, ghost-form, whatever) than means you miss anyway. Sorry.
Neutronium_Dragon 10-26-07, 07:24 PM	One other reason why attack bonuses outstrip AC is due to iterative attacks - at level 15 he has three attacks, but the second is at -5 and the third one is at -10. Even if he's all but guaranteed to hit with the first attack, he's got a pretty good chance to whiff that third one. If the attack bonus wasn't high enough to give an almost automatic hit with the first attack, the third one would probably never hit except on a natural 20, and only then because 20 is an auto-hit.
Nephlite 10-26-07, 10:48 PM	I think the bonus was 32. they had mostly fighter levels and 2 bow initeate levels. for feat i think there was weapon focus, ranged weapon mastery. they had a +9 dex with magic item and being a wood elf and a +5 bow. It was just a one night thing for a break from our other adenture that someone else is DMing +15 BAB +4 Weapon + 6 Str Item 18 Str +3 Level=27 Str (+8 hit) So at least +25 is minimum we assume Level 15 warrior type can hit. Than add in Rage spell, other buffs, etc We can improves this to +26 to +28 (bless). So he us well within range by take that race + weapon focus.
runestar 10-27-07, 12:18 AM	You are expected to use power attack to funnel away the excess bab to improve your damage, to improve your damage output. Though this is irrelevant for archers...:embarrass