The new Reeling property that triggers on hits or misses got me thinking about this again. Why does Heavy Armor make you better at dodging in BG3? It's probably a choice to make combat easier to understand where it counts. But with properties like Reeling, should it actually be a bit more complicated? And would combat just FEEL better if heavy armor made characters tanky instead of evasive?

Let's play with the idea of adding in a Deflection event into misses when the attack is actually deflected by Armor or Shield AC as follows.

Example 1.
* Defender has Half-Plate, Shield and 14 Dex. Half-Plate AC 15, +2 AC from Dex and +2 AC from a Shield. Essentially, the defender has a Dodge AC of 12 and an actual AC of 19. Any hit that lands between those numbers is deflected or absorbed.
* An attacker has an attack bonus of +6. The d20 roll would break down as follows:

1-5 Clean miss. Dodged. (25%)
6-12 Hit that is deflected by Armor or Shield. (35%) (currently represented in BG3 also as a clean miss)
13-20 Hit for damage. (40%)

Example 2.
* Same attacker attacks a knight in Full Plate with a Shield. AC 20.

1-3 Clean miss. Dodged. (15%)
4-13 Tanky Deflection by Full Plate or Shield. (50%)
14-20 Hit for damage. (35%)

Example 3.
* Same attacker attacks a Rogue with 20 Dex and Studded Leather Armor. AC 17.

1-8 Clean miss. Dodged. (40%)
9-10 Hit absorbed by Studded Leather (10%)
11-20 Hit for damage. (50%)


Let's quickly compare misses against the two extremes, Tanky Knight vs. Nimble Rogue.

Dodging: Knight 15% vs. Rogue 40%
Deflection: Knight 50% vs. Rogue 10%

----> I sense much better flavor and feel for combat.


Why else could a deflection event be good?

- "On hit" properties like Reeling could trigger logically without having to always do damage. (This would be too complicated for tabletop but not for a video game.)
- Combat animations where steel clashes on steel would make combat more exciting with proper impact. That's what's actually happening in combat according to the D&D system so the feedback would be more accurate.
- PC's wouldn't look incompetent doing clean misses all the time
- Tanks would be tanky (more deflections), lightly armored rogues would be evasive (more dodging)

Last edited by 1varangian; 29/10/21 10:50 AM.