Return RSD Focus Bonus to unmodified state.

[OneForAll]

Hello! I just wanted to put this out there and see what people thought about it, and my own reasoning behind the suggestion.

Interpretations of the perk and otherwise aside, the original focus gave +1 ab and +2 ac, in exchange for one of numerous other brews at other levels, such as immunity to fear or damage reduction or so forth. Now, it gives +1 ab and +1 ac.

Prior, the brew allowed RSD's to be on par with standard fighters who used a Barkskin potion or if of high enough level, slightly less than casted improved barkskin. Now, RSD's are 1-2 AC lower, not counting spells such as Shield out of the equation.

I'm curious as to why it might be judged too strong, or what other reasoning there might be for it to be lower, or if it is simply intended to make other brews considered more due to the "Nerfing" of Focus.

[Anonymous Lemur]

+1 ab and +2 ac in one tonic made it pretty much the default choice. It probably still will be. Previously you could get 26 ac (or 27 with the dodge feat) with an rsd and achieve between 17-19 ab depending on race choice by level 8. Many players were using improved expertise to bring their ac up to 36 so as to allow them to regenerate health through regeneration and healing kits while still having 7-9 ab.

The main issue with this is that while you can tangle a person out of this effect it can be toggled back on and in order to hit 36 ac at a rate of more than 5% per swing you must have at least 17 ab (or 18 if they have the dodge feat.) 17 AB isn't too difficult to get past as a full bab class such as barbarian, ranger or fighter. So long as they've maxed their strength. It's still going to take some doing and for multiclasses and 1/3rd ab classes you need max rolls on strength and GMW to pull this off.

Lets take a level 8 rogue for example: 6 bab + 6 from stats on a max roll + 2 from GMW +3 bless,aid, divine favor +1 weapon focus = 18. This is assuming 18 in str or dex and a +4 roll on bulls/cats. So essentially with the absolute maximum possible buffs a rogue is going to be able to hit 10% of the time (on a 19 or 20). Players without "optimal builds" will struggle even more to deal with the RSD no matter how well they prepare.

Lowering their ac by 1 allows for buffed players with sub-optimal builds to have a little bit better chance of taking an RSD down before it can regenerate comfortably back to safe HP. It may not seem like much, but it really does make a big difference as it's not uncommon for a person to lack some of the much needed AB boost potions or somebody to cast GMW on them in which case RSD will still be quite formidable.

[OneForAll]

True, but that assumes a player is using improved expertise, which  is suicide to my understanding and experience. 27 ac with dodge is still doable, especially for certain builds that i am aware of, it just is harder to achieve. Still, One thing  people may not realize about the regeneration from lizards tonic is how god damn long it actually takes to heal. For a 100 hp fighter at 10, it takes 50 rounds, or 300 seconds, or 5 minutes to heal. Outside of combat, this seems like nothing, right? But the vast majority of pvp is decided in under thirty seconds.   while its certainly strong, it's next to useless in most pvp, considering that at 8 it one of /six/ buffs you can choose, it simply takes too god damn long to heal.

There are other options to healing, but that aside, i believe there is another solution if the intent is to, for some reason, make it easier to hit an RSD who is dead in the water already. Simply make it more clear that there are other options to take down a rsd than attacking it where it is strongest.

I still feel it must be mentioned that building a decision around improved expertise is foolhardy, and let me tell you why.

First off, It screws over people who do -not- use improved expertise. A good example is any dm quest where the dm buffs mobs yo counter a guy with i.e., it dosin't work.

Secondly, 7-9 ab is too low for pvp. Ask any level five, they'll agree. high level and or high geared  fighters can easily get 24-25 ac, then chug -one- potion, barkskin, to get 27 ac. This isin't counting dodge, but if you're using i.e., that means you effectively -cannot hit them-.

third of all, It is -incredibly- easy to kill an RSD if you think. For example, let's take the  recent crop of Dwarven RSD's who use improved expertise, I not among them. By doing so, they have chosen 5/6 tonics already. Focus,Toughness, Ogre's Brawn, Lizards tonic, and if they have any brains, herbalist's touch. Add in foxes guile to help counter will save spells, and -one- additional brew at 8. That gives you the most popular build, because it's terrifying in the right hands, if you play by their game, giving high hp, reasonable ab, high ac, decent saves, and decent damage. But let's take a look at it from another perspective. Weaknesses. Unless they use their -one- usable tonic left on something such as mystra's shield, (and they won't unless fighting a mage) it is laughably easy to kill them. Why? because the /greatest weakness of the rsd class is it's inability to change, followed by their inability to burst heal more than once/. If they are a full plate dwarf stuck in one spot while his health picks winging around blindly as all i.e. users do, try using anything using a reflex save. Web, for example, can effectively reduce their ac by five for several rounds, and they -cannot- counter it. That 36-37 ac is now 31-32 ac, giving a 5% chance to even level six, non-optimal builds, and that's not even looking at the fact that you lose two ab from the dex loss, meaning that the I.E. tank is still swinging around like an idiot, and they are still getting hit. And they can't heal fast enough to counter the damage they are taking. Rogues, druids, wizards, bards, rangers, fighters, barbarians, monks.. EVERY class can do this, some easier than others.


That is just one example of how you can destroy a rsd, even a very high level rsd who has dedicated their build and preperations to fighting a certain way. Making them -weaker- then their counter parts who can as i said achieve the exact same stats with no loss, given their -considerable- weaknesses for doing so, strikes me as odd.
 

[OneForAll]

after a long conversation with a few guys who know more about the setting than i and can account for things i didn't know about, It basically amounts to: Because of the high capability of some builds to exploit the mechanics to reach broken hights, certain base bonuses need to be tweaked to account for them. Consider this closed.