flatfooted rogues

[fusa]

Should a character with 13 levels of rogue get flatfooted?

[Ralkain]

fusa said:

Should a character with 13 levels of rogue get flatfooted?

Flat-footed has several consequences associated with it, but when folks just use the term alone, they are usually talking about loosing your dex (and presumably dodge) bonuses to AC. If that's what you mean then the answer is you shouldn't, but seem to.

Officially any character with Uncanny Dodge (Rogue, Barb, Ass, etc of the appropriate level) retain their dex AC even when flat-footed. And since you only need to be Rogue 3, Rogue 13 qualifies.

However, it doesn't appear to work this way, I've had plenty of chars with UD that seem to get wailed upon when flat footed. Any ideas Funky?

Dave.

[hiryuu]

You keep your dex bonus. You still lose your dodge bonus (including Haste) which, in this AC-crazy mod, is usually enough for a good beating.

[Ralkain]

hiryuu said:

You keep your dex bonus. You still lose your dodge bonus (including Haste) which, in this AC-crazy mod, is usually enough for a good beating.

Losing up to 32 AC in any mod is enough for a good beating (20 from Dodge, 4 Haste, 8 Tumble).

Always thought UD never seemed to work, now I know why. IMO its silly to keep your dex, but not your dodge, makes it worthless.

Of course the handbook says nothing about loosing your Dodge AC when flat-footed (only your dex), but we know its frequently wrong. Seems the intent was to have UD remove the FF AC disad, but it failed either to a logic flaw of programming bug.

Dave.

[FunkySwerve]

I suspect the real reason your getting pummeled is not flat-footing but flanking. Only a lvl 6 DD is unflankable. To test, try fighting just enemy at a time. Then, take on two of those enemies. The one you are not facing will smack you around but good. Conclusion: dexers are not tanks, no matter how much you want them to be, unless they are Dwarven Defenders. Which is one reason I disagreed with you about Dexterity being out of control in NWN as compared to Strength, back when in the subraces thread. Also, the most you would lose from losing dodge bonuses is 20.

Funky

[Lord FlashHeart]

funkyswerve said:

Also, the most you would lose from losing dodge bonuses is 20.

Yep, the 4 from haste is counted as dodge which is why with +15 boots you can only raise your dodge by 1 more to hit the cap. Tumble doesnt seem to count in the calculation for some reason so it wouldnt be unreasonable to assume that flat footed costs you 20 dodge. Dexers can reach dex modifiers of 22, so a dexer with this modifier and Unacnny Dodge will retain 22 ac with this feat when flat footed.

Hardly a useless feat IMO

[hfb]

Greetings,

From my understanding of pnp D&D for 3.0+, flanking does not affect ones dex or dodge bonuses to armor class. It does give the attackers a +2 to hit bonus. This alone would not seem likely to result in the pummellings of non-DD-dexers, imho. Is the physics of nwn, or HG nwn, such that it differes from (my understanding of) those of the pnp realm?

I feel like I should be posting in the "Enlightenment" thread.

Good journey,

The Dancer

[Ralkain]

funkyswerve said:

I suspect the real reason your getting pummeled is not flat-footing but flanking. Only a lvl 6 DD is unflankable.

Flanking is no big deal, unless you know some nwn bug/change that somehow improves it. FF is a big deal and what we're talking about. Additionally enemies only get a +2 bonus to hit you while flanking and become sneak elegible, if you're sneakable.

Which is one reason I disagreed with you about Dexterity being out of control in NWN as compared to Strength, back when in the subraces thread.

I never said dex or str was out of control. We both agreed that the base rules gave half orcs a hit because of their str bonus and feared str to be the primo mod. I merely disagreed with this, dex seems to be as good if not better, but I don't think either have turned out to be out of control. My only point being that they didn't need to put the hit on the HO.

Also, the most you would lose from losing dodge bonuses is 20.

That's a ton and its what causes the FF beatdown.

Dave.

[Ralkain]

flashheart2 said:

Dexers can reach dex modifiers of 22, so a dexer with this modifier and Unacnny Dodge will retain 22 ac with this feat when flat footed.

Hardly a useless feat IMO

Very useless. In this case, Its not what you retain that matters, its what you loose. Loosing 20 AC (most dexers can get close to this in dodge) is a huge deal.

In a D20 game, your opponent gets 1d20 added to his roll to hit you, if your AC drops by 20, that's only 1 point shy of improving his 1d20 to 3d20.

That gives him almost a 3 fold increase and on a balanced server, that turns the balance all his way. Saying, yes, but it could have been a 5 fold increase doesn't help at all, he beats you down either way. Here's a more specific example of this general point.

If your opponent gets 4 attacks/round and needs 19's to hit you and now they only need -1 (or 2 since 1 always misses) to hit you, they go from hitting you with only 1 attack every 4 rounds (on average) to hitting you 2.75 times per round (on average).

That a factor 11 times increase (over an order of magnitude increase) and you will be getting beat down.

Now if you also lost another 20 ac from no dex bonus too, that factor would rise to 15, but there's no practical difference between hitting you 11 times as much or 15 times as much, both are in the realm of horrible and in the same order of magnitude.

In short, there's no reason to include it in the class the way it works now. I think its clear it doesn't work the way the designers wanted, Flat Footed says nothing about loosing Dodge AC only dex, the class says you retain Dex AC. Its clear the designers wanted this to be a good class feature that mitigates one of the negatives of FF.

However, due to a bug or change, the class feature does effectively nothing because FF causes you to loose your Dodge ac too.

HG is a balanced server, and I guess on another balanced server with no dodge bonus items it might be a nice class feature, but I've yet to see a server with no dodge bonus items.

Moral, never make UD a deciding factor on a class choice, if you get it great, but don't include it in the analysis process, choose the class for other reasons. Unless of course a future update causes it to protect dodge ac too .

Dave.

[hiryuu]

Your analysis assumes all attacks are at the same AB, but AB sinks as much as 20 points as the round goes on. You also assume the attacker's AB is on par with you, which isn't always the case.

For instance, pick-pocketing is a FF action, costing haste, tumble, and other dodge AC. When my rogue made his first trips in Mana with ~90 AC, pick-pocketing was a very dangerous activity, since it dropped my AC to 68. Now with 102 AC, it drops to 80, and I can pretty safely PP them unless it's a large melee pile.

[doomsdaybringer]

does castering spell cause FF?

[FunkySwerve]

Well, this has turned into one of those threads that makes me want to go bash my head against a wall. Where to start?
Thankfully hiryuu already pointed out one major flaw in ralkains '20 dex doesn't matter in the big picture' analysis. Though I do need to clarify one thing. Hiryuu said:

hiryuu said:

Your analysis assumes all attacks are at the same AB, but AB sinks as much as 20 points as the round goes on.

It would be more accurate to say that ab typically sinks by AT LEAST 15 for each creature during the combat round. Thats because most creatures on HG have 4 attacks per round, with an extra for haste. The first is at full ab, and typically the hasted attack is as well. The other three are at -5, -10, and -15. HOWEVER, MANY creatures, like those in thew abyss, and dragons, get 5 MORE attacks for a total of ten. If the engine is lagging severely, as it used to, those are all at the top ab. Recently, however, they have started to continue scaling down, to -20, -25, -30, -35, and -40. Conclusion? Pays to watch the combat log. Another conclusion? Our mod is no longer stress-testing the limits of an engine that was not designed for the massive multiplayer use it has seen, at least not as severely as it was.

Next up. HFB said:

hfb said:

Greetings,

From my understanding of pnp D&D for 3.0+, flanking does not affect ones dex or dodge bonuses to armor class. It does give the attackers a +2 to hit bonus. This alone would not seem likely to result in the pummellings of non-DD-dexers, imho. Is the physics of nwn, or HG nwn, such that it differes from (my understanding of) those of the pnp realm?

The NWN engine does NOT use 3.0 rules. It uses NWN rules, which are a reasonable approximation thereof. The assumption that any given rule will be carried over as is into NWN is questionable at best. PnP converted directly to computer would be rediculously unbalanced, for one, and nearly impossible to code, since PnP relies heavily on the DM to arbitrate the rules. NWN was in a sense the most massive playtest the DnD rules have ever seen. Some of the spells are far more useful in PnP (like damage spells), others much less so. Skills were modded/invented, abilities changed, added, and removed, and a host of other changes made. You don't, for instance, move at half speed while tumbling, though I haven't heard anyone complaining about that. Rather than assuming that 'its like it is in PnP', test it out, as I suggested to ralkain in my last response. It isn't.

Next up, ralkain said:

ralkain said:

funkyswerve said:

I suspect the real reason your getting pummeled is not flat-footing but flanking. Only a lvl 6 DD is unflankable.

Flanking is no big deal, unless you know some nwn bug/change that somehow improves it.

Are you asking or telling? LMAO

FF is a big deal and what we're talking about.

Dammit. Here I though we were discussing the airspeed of a fully laden African swallow.

Additionally enemies only get a +2 bonus to hit you while flanking and become sneak elegible, if you're sneakable.

See my remarks on NWN vs PnP rules.

I never said dex or str was out of control.

Nor did I say you did. How I characterized what you said:

Which is one reason I disagreed with you about Dexterity being out of control in NWN as compared to Strength, back when in the subraces thread.

Note the 'as compared to'. Believe it or not, that was part of what I meant, that's why it was in the same sentence.

What you DID say:

ralkain said:

I hope, now in hindsight, you agree that Str didn't turn out to be the uber stat they feared Dex seems to have turned out much better in the long run.

My characterization of what you said was hardly misleading. I was merely attempting to point out that you might want to reconsider your relative valuation of STR vs DEX now that you've experimented some more. They both have strengths and weaknesses, highlighted or deemphasized by how a builder sets up a mod.

That's a ton and its what causes the FF beatdown.

Ah so you were telling not asking. You're wrong. It contributes, but getting flanked is the killer. I wish I could lay out an exact ruleset for you, but I never took the time to calculate it precisely. Nor are the Bioware forums of any assistance, as they are in total disagreement from post to post, with some posters blithely insisting that it follows 3.0 rules, without actually testing for themselves, and others asserting that flanking causes loss of dodge and dex, many of them apparently mistaking it for flatfootedness. The most credible post I have seen also verified what I have experienced during gameplay. In short, flanking seems to cause flatfootedness. It is a distinct phenomenon, and has other attributes, like allowing sneaks, but the engine apparently also treats the target as flatfooted. You do not want to be flanked, if you're a dexer - knowing that is key to playing one effectively. I've had enough experience playing dexers to know that flanking is not just a nuisance, it is a serious threat. Most recently I experienced this playing with archmage, using two similar builds. He did rogue/ranger/HS, and I did DD/ranger/HS. I could tank large groups in the ssithraks, he couldn't. On the flip side, he could withstand a few ssithrak-produced meteor swarms, I could not. So, while I have not verified this by means of the combat log or other tests, I'm relatively certain that the 'loses dodge and dex' take on flanking is MUCH closer to the mark than the 'enemy gets a +2 to hit and can sneak' take.
Also, UD doesn't protect against this at all, or at least to a lesser extent than DD level 6. So, while its reasonable to conclude from this that UD is not what you thought it was, it would be silly to assert that its useless, for the reason that hiryuu illustrated. In the future, I'd recommemd testing before you assume that something follows 3.0 rules. I'd especially recommemd it if I've ALREADY recommended it, AND told you what the result would be.

Funky

[hiryuu]

I'll have to analyze the combat logs with a few Guardians. I do seem to take damage faster with several of them on me, but it's not even CLOSE to my punishment if I'm not attacking any of them.

[Ralkain]

hiryuu said:

Your analysis assumes all attacks are at the same AB, but AB sinks as much as 20 points as the round goes on.

This is incorrect, the analysis included a 5 AB lost for attacks 2, 3, and 4.

Dave.

[Ralkain]

funkyswerve said:

Thankfully hiryuu already pointed out one major flaw in ralkains '20 dex doesn't matter in the big picture' analysis.

Though if he'd have done the analysis himself, he would have seen that he was wrong, the -5/attack was included.

It would be more accurate to say that ab typically sinks by AT LEAST 15 for each creature during the combat round.

Which it did in the analysis posted.

Conclusion? Pays to watch the combat log.

Conclusion? Pays not to make false accusations?.

The NWN engine does NOT use 3.0 rules.

Agreed, which is why I asked if you knew something aboug flanking we didn't, because being flanked is no big deal while playing, but being flat-footed is. In short, while playing, flanking seems to match the +2 bonus and sneakability of the PnP game, FF doesn't. I wanted to know if you knew of something behind the scenes we didnt.

Note the 'as compared to'. Believe it or not, that was part of what I meant, that's why it was in the same sentence.

But had totally nothing to do with what I said in that thread and even less to do with this thread.

My characterization of what you said was hardly misleading. I was merely attempting to point out that you might want to reconsider your relative valuation of STR vs DEX now that you've experimented some more.

It was very misleading and this comment above and this sub-thread have nothing to do with what I actually say/mean. You seem to consistently try to create strawmen and make my position something other than what it is.

Ah so you were telling not asking. You're wrong.

How conviently, 1 sentence til your next attempt at giving me a position I don't hold.

It contributes, but getting flanked is the killer.

From gameplay we know you're wrong here Funky. There's no way getting Flanked is a bigger deal then being Flat-Footed in NWN. I never care about being flanked, I care about how many foes I'm facing at times, but that's a different issue. When I have a lot of dodge AC I always care about being FF, even when facing 1 opponent (of course these last comments only apply in areas where you can be legitimately hurt).

In short, flanking seems to cause flatfootedness.

There's no way this is true.

You do not want to be flanked, if you're a dexer - knowing that is key to playing one effectively.

I play dexers and str based all the time, I never care if I'm flanked with either. I don't want to be FF with either though because both Str/Dex builds can have a lot of Dodge AC in EPoA.

He did rogue/ranger/HS, and I did DD/ranger/HS. I could tank large groups in the ssithraks, he couldn't.

And you attribute this to the DD's no flanking and not to a combination of the DD's DR and all the +2's versus the rogue?

Trust me if you both had been flat footed, you both would have gone down fast...

Also, UD doesn't protect against this at all, or at least to a lesser extent than DD level 6. So, while its reasonable to conclude from this that UD is not what you thought it was,

No FF is not what we thought it was, but seems to be exactly what the other poster said (you loose Dodge ac too). Flanking isn't what you think it is.

it would be silly to assert that its useless, for the reason that hiryuu illustrated.

Its useless on any mode with lots of dodge bonus, which most mods have.

In the future, I'd recommemd testing before you assume that something follows 3.0 rules. I'd especially recommemd it if I've ALREADY recommended it, AND told you what the result would be.

In the future I'd recomend refraining from assuming someone holds a position they don't and then chastising them for it. Its very bad form.

I quoted the PnP rules, gameplay seems to bear it out, and since you have mentioned this silly flanking idea more than once now (which doesn't seem to be born out by play), I asked if you knew of something behind the scenes we don't.

That's hardly saying the PnP rules hold sway, I never assume PnP rules, whenever something seems strange I always assume NWN has changed something. Flanking doesn't seem strange FF does.

Well, this has turned into one of those threads that makes me want to go bash my head against a wall. Where to start?

Its only become that because you thought the analysis was flawed (it wasn't), you think flanking is worse than FF (it isn't), you thought I thought PnP rules hold sway in NWN (I don't), etc. I suggest you start by not doing those things and you won't want to bang you head against a wall.

Even though this is a valid point, see how condescending it sounds? That's how you sound in posts like your last one in this thread.

Dave.