Passive Defense and 4e

[shkspr1048]

Just looking for a bit of info: Was the Passive Defense mechanic not carried over from third edition to fourth?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

Just looking for a bit of info: Was the Passive Defense mechanic not carried over from third edition to fourth?

That's right.

[PK]

The only place where something "PD-like" was retained was for shields. Shields now give a Defense Bonus (DB) that adds to all of your active defenses. However, unlike the old PD, it never gives you a "passive defense roll" if you aren't making an active defense.

[Gollum]

The passive defense system was interesting but brought up a problem: someone with a heavy armor had more chance to dodge blows than someone without encumbrance.

• Average character, move 5, dodge 5.
• Average character in heavy plate armor, move 5 - 3 (heavy encumbrance) = 2, dodge 2 + 4 (Passive Defense) = 6.

Of course, the right interpretation was "because the armor turned blows". But, during game, since it was not always easy to calculate the difference between a true dodge and a dodge due to the armor, it made things funny...

- And the heavy armored knight dodges again.
- Damned! He jumps like a rabbit!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by PK

The only place where something "PD-like" was retained was for shields.

And:

• Shield spell
• Deflect spell
• "Gothic" fluting from Fantasy Tech 1

[BaHalus]

And the +3 defense aura that everybody has.

[cybermancer2k1]

Just curious: how would you go about recreating PD in 4e without spells or other superhuman means?

[BaHalus]

Just cut out the general +3 and bring PD back. I think it won't be incompatible with anything. I would keep the shields with DB instead of PD though, I think it makes more sense for shields.

You could try intermediate solutions too. Like the higher of +3 or PD.

Enhanced defenses would partially simulate this, but is an advantage, not equipment and still need active use. Maybe some modifier could allow passive use. In this case maybe you could use the orientation in PU4 to apply the passive element to existing defenses

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by cybermancer2k1

Just curious: how would you go about recreating PD in 4e without spells or other superhuman means?

If you want to "recreate" all of it, add it back in is your only choice. I'm much less sure that it won't break anything though, even if you drop the +3, GURPS has lots of detailed combat rules that have been retuned without it.

If you just want to improve your active defenses, that's not likely to be a very serious problem, but you can buy them all up in 4e anyway. It's the "Passive" part I worry about more. Though the "cheap" increase to Dodge may have undesirable effects on the relative (in)effectiveness of character concepts that are built around being lightly armored - remember 4e also lacks some of the stuff 3e provided to boost Fencing.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by BaHalus

And the +3 defense aura that everybody has.

That's again, not "passive". It only protects you when actively defending.