Armor Class is a Sucker's Game in Pathfinder (Here's A Way To Beat It)

Combat in RPGs, when boiled down to its bare essentials, comprises trying to hit the enemy as hard and as often as you can while attempting not to get hit yourself. While there are a lot of different mechanics for this throughout the gaming spectrum, Pathfinder opts for the passive defense mechanism of armor class. You take your Dexterity modifier, the value of your armor, the value of your shield (if you have one), unique feats and class features, magic items, protective spells, circumstance bonuses, and you add all of those up to determine how good an attack needs to be to actually hit you.

Pretty standard stuff, really.

Crap.

If you've played a long-running campaign, though, then you know armor class is a sucker's game the longer the story goes on. And as someone whose characters draw critical hits like a magnet draws iron, I'd like to share some of what I've learned on the subject of making sure you don't get smashed to a pulp whenever initiative is rolled.

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Diminishing Returns on Your AC

Let's lay some foundational points, here. I'm not saying that armor class is a bad mechanic. I'm not saying that it's broken, or that you shouldn't use it at your table. What I am saying, though, is that if you want your armor class to actually provide a lot of protection as you level up then it's basically the only thing you're going to be investing your resources in to allow you to keep pace with your enemies.

You spent HOW much on that?!

I'll give you a perfect example from my recent Rise of The Runelords playthrough. For that campaign I was running a paladin with a Dexterity focus. At lower levels all it took was decent armor and a shield to avoid getting hit a majority of the time. Sometimes the GM got in a lucky shot, but the character sometimes went through entire encounters with barely a scratch. By the time the party's level hit double digits, though, it didn't matter how high my armor class was. I had enchanted armor, a boosted Dexterity bonus, natural armor, a shield bonus, deflection modifiers, boost spells from the party enchanter, and the huge bonus from active smite on a target, and I was still practically guaranteed to tank at least 2 hits per big bad per round.

Why the change?

Well, part of it is that once you hit high single digits to double digits for character level, you start dealing with one big threat a lot more often than you do squads of smaller threats. While one big threat stands less of a chance of winning (because the party gets more actions, and is therefore more likely to cream that single enemy), these enemies tend to have huge attack bonuses that are practically guaranteed to hit at least once when they unload on a PC. And it's usually more, which can be a problem if those hits are all targeted at one PC instead of spread out among the party. Or, even worse, enemies tend to pack potent magic that targets your touch AC or your saving throws (thus ignoring a lot of buffs), or they opt to try to grapple characters, which targets your combat maneuver defense instead of your armor class.

So, to sum up, the higher your character level gets the less often enemies rely on purely physical attacks to harm you... and when they do rely on physical attacks, they tend to come from massive enemies with huge bonuses to hit so that even the tankiest of tanks is going to lose a hefty chunk of hit points by the time the GM is done rolling dice.

Thinking Beyond Armor Class

Now, for the record, I'm not saying you shouldn't invest in your armor class. Getting a good AC is going to save you from a lot of damage over the long-term, and you'll often be able to shrug off attacks from smaller minions, traps, and other sources of damage that can still pose a serious danger if you go running into battle with nothing but a bedsheet and a buckler.

All right, I'm ready. Let's do this!

There are three categories of defense that I find a lot of players don't invest in, but they can often provide you far more protection than spending all of your gold to get the best magical amulets, shields, cloaks, and armor you can find to boost your armor class. Those areas are:

- Attack Negation

- Miss Chance

- Damage Reduction

The first category is, admittedly, one of the rarest out there. Not only that, but it tends to be pretty narrow in its application. However, this covers class abilities like the swashbuckler or duelist parry, as well as feats like Deflect Arrows, Missile Shield, and Ray Shield. It also covers feats like Snake Style, Cut From The Air and Smash From The Air as well. The idea is that these abilities directly counter an attack that might otherwise hit you, allowing you to use your own prowess instead of relying on your armor class. These abilities tend to have a small pool of uses (they require you to spend attacks of opportunity, or they only function once per round), but they are ideal for characters with high attack bonuses (or just Improved Unarmed Strike) who want to use that offense as a defense.

These don't help much with magical attacks, of course. For that you need a counterspell, or for the caster to miss you entirely... which is where the second category comes in.

Miss chance is what happens when an attack should hit, but due to poor lighting, a magical effect, etc., there's a percentage chance that it doesn't land. You've got either a 20 percent miss chance for concealment, or a 50 percent miss chance for total concealment... and these are going to be far more effective than pumping all your money into your AC just to eke out another 1-4 points that won't stop you from getting your teeth knocked out.

This can be done at all levels, depending on the situation you're involved in. A first level tiefling when fighting humans can use their darkness spell-like ability to lower the lighting conditions in an area, granting themselves a 20 percent miss chance due to concealment. Orcs fighting in total darkness in a cavern can get a 50 percent miss chance if they snuff all the lights in an area. Tossing down a smoke stick creates a cloud of vapor that makes attacks pretty likely to miss you, and is a good strategy if you're all sitting ducks in a hallway with an archer or a blaster at the other end. An invisible character gets that 50 percent miss chance, while a blurred one gets the 20. Magic items like a cloak of displacement are going to be worth more than their cost in terms of blood and suffering when it comes to how much pain they save you. And what's even better is that a miss chance can often save you from precision damage like sneak attack, meaning that even if the rogue or assassin manages to strike a blow, that mountain of d6s isn't going to accompany it.

While some would argue that mirror image isn't technically a miss chance spell, I'll remind folks about it here, because it is a life saver.

What if they don't miss, and you can't block?

If that blow does land, and you're going to take damage, there's still one more trick you can keep up your sleeve... damage reduction.

Damage reduction is usually something monsters get, but players can get their hands on it as well. The most common examples are when it's a class feature, which you see with barbarians, bloodragers, and some fighter and monk archetypes (such as the one I used for my Luke Cage character conversion). Anyone who've ever played a high level barbarian can tell you that ticking off a dozen points of damage that you just don't have to take adds up over the course of a fight. Adamantine armor also grants damage reduction, and spells like defending bone (one of my personal favorites) will also take some of the hits for you. If you have a divine caster who really likes you then you might be able to get them to use shield other on you. Or if you get a familiar, then one with the Protector archetype can do much the same thing around level 5 as long as the two of you are touching.

Layered Defense Works Best

There is no way to completely avoid taking damage in Pathfinder. Sooner or later a lucky shot, an area of effect spell, a trap, or an invisible assassin is going to make you bleed. However, you're going to have far more flexibility (and get screwed far less often) if you can create a layered defense against the threats you're facing.

The first layer of that defense is your armor class, and while it will stop some attacks, there's no way it will stop all of them. An active defense might cut some arrows out of the air, or parry some strikes, but it won't stop every shot coming your way. A miss chance might mean that even a few of the ones that do get through fly harmlessly past. And, lastly, even if the blow manages to land, damage reduction can chop that number down so that it's barely a flesh wound.

This isn't perfect either. Area of effect spells that require Reflex saves are still going to be something you need to contend with, Will saves are going to be a serious threat, and while a miss chance might stop you from getting grappled or tripped, none of the others will affect those attacks. Choking gas clouds, fear effects, an inability to reach flying enemies, illusions... there are still dozens of different challenges and threats you'll need to be ready for.

So keep that in mind before you start feeling too invincible.

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That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

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5 Ways To Sidestep Hits in Pathfinder (Without Magic)

The main defensive mechanic players pay attention to in Pathfinder is their armor class. If that number is as high as they can get it, typically through armor, shields, spells, magic items, feats, and additional abilities, it will allow them to just tank attacks while avoiding damage.

What was your total? Heh, git gud, scrub.

As the game goes on, though, your armor class just isn't going to keep pace with the enemies you're fighting. Even the biggest tanks are going to run into issues when it comes to melee touch attacks, or trying to dodge arrow snipers who were specifically built to aim for their visor slits. So, with that said, this week I thought I'd lay out some handy tricks for making sure you've got at least one Get-Out-of-Pain-Free card on your person for when you need it most.

For example...

#1: Deflect Arrows

Catch these hands!

 Perhaps the oldest trick in the book, Deflect Arrows is one of the favorites from the Core Rulebook. In short, it allows you to just deflect any one missile attack that would normally hit you (provided it's appropriately sized, as cannonballs, boulders, etc., are all too large to be affected). All you need is to be aware of the attack, which makes it ideal for those who can't be caught flat-footed (looking at you barbarians and rogues).

The reason this feat doesn't wind up on nearly as many sheets as it should is because it has Improved Unarmed Strike as a pre-requisite. As such, most folks only give it to brawlers and monks. However, if you have a DM who actually uses archers, poisoned throwing stars, darts, firearms (as Ultimate Combat states that this feat works on the flintlocks and muskets we typically see) it is well worth the investment. It's ideal for warpriests (whose Sacred Weapon ability lets them bump up their unarmed strike damage, as well as apply blessings and bonus abilities to their strikes), but as a purely defensive measure it's also worth keeping in mind.

#2: Parry

What did you say? "Parry this"?

 Anyone who's shared a table with me knows that the swashbuckler was one of my favorite additions to the game in the Advanced Class Guide. Their parry ability allows them to try to make a counter attack using an attack of opportunity in melee, essentially deflecting an incoming attack. When combined with Combat Reflexes, the proper weapon buffs, and even traits like Fencer, that can add up to a big damn defensive ability. Even if you can only riposte once per round as an immediate action, it's possible for a swashbuckler to just guard themselves with a flurry of steel... even against melee touch attacks!

With that said, the duelist prestige class also offers a parry ability. The difference is that the swashbuckler's ability costs panache to use (based on your Charisma modifier), whereas the duelist's just allows you to use your normal attacks reserved from a full attack action. So which option works better for you depends on what your Charisma modifier is going to be (for the record, a paladin with a dip in swashbuckler, or simply taking the paladin archetype Virtuous Bravo which gives you swashbuckler abilities is one of the best combos for this ability). This is only going to work in melee, of course, but sometimes that's all you really need.

#3: Snake Style

Go on, punk... take your shot.

 One of the most popular fighting style feats found in Ultimate Combat, Snake Style takes a bit to set up. You need to take a swift action to get into the stance, and then once you're in it you can use your immediate action to roll a Sense Motive check against an incoming attack that you are aware of, and while you're not flat-footed. That requires you to first invest maximum ranks in a skill, and to probably have a pretty good Wisdom score. You then need to take the whole first round of combat setting up your stance. However, the thing that makes Snake Style really good is that it counts as your AC or your touch AC. So if you've got a ghost that's slapping you through your armor, or a necromancer who's shooting beams of acid green death, this ability is a great method for dodging out of the way.

The hard part, of course, is beefing up your Sense Motive to a high enough degree. Skill Focus will help a lot here (making it ideal for half-elves wondering what to use their free Skill Focus on), and any traits that give you a bonus, and which make Sense Motive a class skill will stand you in good stead. Again, this is commonly used by monks and warpriests, but it's great for any class that wants to be able to just cobra their way out of being hammered into the dirt.

#4: Cut (And Smash) From The Air

Better make it count.

 There are few things more frustrating than being a fighter, and constantly getting shot at from nine different directions. However, if you have a crap load of attacks of opportunity, then you might want to consider taking Cut From The Air and Smash From The Air, both feats out of the Weapon Master's Handbook. The first feat allows you to spend an attack of opportunity to try to cut a ranged attack out of the air, provided it's a normal-sized missile (boulders, ballista, etc. still not allowed). The second feat allows you to use Cut From The Air against all missiles that come your way, as well as targeted magic effects. A great way to save your fighter from taking a few rays of searing light in uncomfortable places.

I keep saying fighter, because like many other feats from this book, you need to have weapon training with a melee weapon in order to use these feats. While there are other classes and archetypes that gain this ability other than fighters (looking at you, swashbuckler), your options are pretty limited for which characters you can slap these feats onto.

#5: Missile Shield and Ray Shield

Don't miss.

 Missile Shield, out of the Advanced Player's Guide, is pretty common among sword-and-board fighter types. It has Shield Focus as a prerequisite, but basically lets you use Deflect Arrows as long as you have a shield to deflect them with (same rules and restrictions apply). This is particularly useful for two-weapon style fighters who are going sword and shield bash, who still want to slap away crossbow bolts while they ginsu the enemy forces. Combined with the above feats, it can get tough to even scratch these fighters.

Of course, just to add insult to injury you can also take Ray Shield out of the same book. It requires you to have the Spellbreaker feat, which itself requires you to have Disruptive, and to have 10 levels of fighter. However, it allows you to basically deflect ray spells and effects, taking the hit on your shield. Your shield still takes the effect of the spell, which can be a problem for things like disintegrate or spells that deal absurd amounts of energy damage, but if your shield is tough enough you can often negate enemy magic that could otherwise seriously impede you. Especially if the ray wouldn't have an effect on an object, so you can basically ignore it.

Also, for those who like the idea of getting to smack away rays with impunity, the Crystalline Body feature of the oread not only increases your AC against rays (making them more likely to miss in the first place) but gives you a once-per-day deflection due to your crystalline structure. Just something to think about!

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That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

How To Keep Up As A Gunslinger in Scion

White Wolf was best known for the World of Darkness, but one of the most popular titles outside that particular setting was Scion. The premise is that the titans have escaped from their prisons, and the Godwar has resumed. What's your part in this? Well, you are the children of the gods, and as they awaken the ichor in your veins, you need to step up to stop the titans from tearing the world down to its foundations, and burning away everything you've ever known in an apocalyptic inferno.

No pressure, though, no pressure. 

Scions are gifted with extraordinary powers, and they're capable of epic feats. They can lift loads of several tons, leap to the heavens, wrestle giants, and instantly heal from grievous wounds. These are the main tools in their fight against the titans and their spawn... but for players who like to mix the modern with the mythic, it can feel like there's a small hiccough when it comes to weapon choice.

The Scaling Problem of Guns in Scion

When you start off in Scion, guns are going to be your best friend. Pretty much every attack, except for grappling a foe, is your Dexterity plus your relevant skill (Brawl, Marksmanship, Thrown, or Melee). Then, if you successfully overcome the opponent's defense, you roll your damage. Your damage pool for a firearm is made up of the damage dealt by your weapon, and the number of threshold successes you achieved (one die for every success you beat the opponent's defense by), plus one. However, your damage with melee weapons, thrown weapons, or your fists is that, but you also add bonus damage dice to your pool equal to your Strength score (with additional successes from epic Strength factored in).

So, while it might take a little while to invest the necessary points to get both a high Dexterity to actually hit your target and a high Strength to deal a lot of damage, the guy throwing javelins, or the woman swinging the sword, is capable of doing a lot of harm once they hit their stride. Which leads some players who have invested in firearms wondering how they are going to keep up.

Don't panic... seriously, you've got this.

Piercing, Increased Damage, And Threshold Successes

The first thing to remember about guns is, well, they're guns. A firearm allows you to keep some healthy distance between you and an enemy, ensuring that unless they have eye lasers, or the ability to throw a semi-truck a few blocks (not uncommon in Scion), that you might be able to poke them in the eye without them poking back. This is particularly useful if you can turn yourself invisible, or if you want to shoot from behind cover while you and your fellow godlings are trying to take down a rampaging frost giant.

Tactical benefits aside, there are some good reasons to use guns. The first is that they all inherently have the piercing quality, which cuts the damage soak from armor in half unless it has the bulletproof quality. Guns all have a bonus to damage, ranging from +3 to +7 lethal, as well. This allows you to bypass all that bashing damage malarchy, and the traditionally higher damage soak that comes with bashing damage. To compare, no melee weapon offers a higher starting bonus than +5 lethal, even if the wielder could use their Strength to increase the damage.

And when we crunch the numbers...

Where you get money for value with firearms is in your threshold successes (the number that you beat your target's defense value on). Well, that, and because you can't parry bullets without some very specific abilities, which means the target has to use their dodge defensive value. So, in order to deal the biggest amount of damage with your gun, you need to make sure you hit your enemy's sweet spot every time.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have the highest Dexterity, epic Dexterity, and Marksmanship scores possible (easy enough to do). As a starting character, it's possible to have 10 dice (5 Dexterity and 5 Marksmanship), plus one automatic success to throw around in that setup. Then you add in your weapon's accuracy rating, which for a gun will typically give you another +1 to +3 (though not all guns give you more accuracy to your attack). So, you could potentially be rolling 13 dice, with 1 automatic success from epic Dexterity. If you take the Aim action, that adds between +1 and +3 bonus dice to your attack, or a +2 to a +6 if you have the Trick Shot knack.

So, if you need to make that big shot on the rampaging titan, you could have a dice pool of 19 plus one automatic success with the right skill, attribute, knack, and weapon. Not too shabby. Then, if you want to add on to your pool, a relic firearm can have increased accuracy, which allows you to get even more bonuses to your shots. You could also spend a Willpower to add a number of bonus dice equal to an applicable virtue, which can bulk up your dice pool substantially.

However, if you're an unlucky player, even an attack pool of 20 with a free automatic success might not net you more than 7 or 8 successes. Which is enough to hit an enemy, but not really enough to get you a lot of threshold successes (assuming you're fighting titanspawn who are slightly tougher than a beefy scion). That's why you need to take advantage of defensive value penalties on your target.

The More You Do, The Lower Your Defense

Your defensive values are your dodge, and your parry. However, those values will change depending on the circumstances you're fighting in.

As a good example, if your target is unaware that combat has been joined (or simply can't see you, in many cases), then they can't apply their defensive values against your attack. That means if you quick draw your widowmaker, or squeeze that trigger from 200 yards out, the target won't be able to apply their defensive values against that attack without some kind of power that lets them. In that case, you only need one success to hit them, which means those 7 or 8 successes now nets you 6 or 7 bonus damage dice on your shot.

However, even if your target is aware of you and on the defensive, you can still take advantage of timing and environment to hit them when they're vulnerable. If a target does pretty much anything (like attack, or cast a spell, etc.) that action will give them a defensive penalty. Not only that, but if the target is getting attacked, then they'll be subject to an onslaught penalty as well (receiving a number of attacks equal to Legend rating + 1 before their next action) which reduces their defense by -1. If the target is wearing bulky armor, that reduces their dodge and mobility. If there is poor footing, they're slogging through mud, or some other environmental negative, then their defense goes down even further. This is a great reason to take the Aim action, and wait for your friends to smack the bad guy around. After all, you can interrupt your Aim at any time to take your shot.

One And Done

Godlings are tough, and titans are tougher, but it's important to remember that if you can get past their defensive values, and punch through their soak, they don't have all that many health levels. A scion has 7 health levels, and if you fill all those levels up with bashing, their lights go out, and they're down for the count. You fill it up with lethal, and unless they get some medical attention in a big hurry, they're dead. While titans might have more health levels, or just be harder to hurt because of increased soak, doing even a few lethal damage is not nothing. You put two or three of those "small" holes into them, and they aren't long for this world.

That's all for this week's Crunch topic. Figured folks could use a break from Pathfinder, and for those who want to give Scion a try, it's time to lock and load. For more content from yours truly, check out my Vocal archive, and head over to the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio to take a listen to skits, world building, and advice videos that several talented gamers as well as myself make. If you want to stay on top of all my releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. To help support Improved Initiative so I can keep bringing content right to you, consider dropping some change over at The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. It really helps, and as little as $1 a month gets you some sweet gaming swag as a thank you.

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