Hi! Thanks for taking the time. I will now proceed to gut your arguments.
The Dodge feat has a requirement of 13 dexterity which makes it less attractive than you make it out to be....
and it is not equivalent to +1 AC unless you are fighting against a single opponent....
As for the Luck of Heroes feat, it is only available at level one and once for every character...
I avoided these nitpicks in the favor of someone with a counter-argument. In truth, it only serves to show that Dodge may, in fact, be worth less than 1 CP. Embracing the points you mention necessitates our acceptance that the other options are even more economically superior.
Also, spellcraft and tumble are not class skills for every class but parry is.
My takeaway here is that you feel that Parry should be a class skill for only some classes. Like Fighters. If that wasn't your intention, perhaps it's still a reasonable place to start fixing this problem?
You need to have 15-20 points in parry to get the equivalent of a crafted large shield which means at least 3 cp following your reasoning.
When considered against the perpetual need for rogues to invest in Open Lock, Disable Trap, Search, Tumble, and others to remain relevant as they increase, I fail to see your point. The AC bonuses they'd acquired up to their present level don't go away- they just allow for continual reinforcement. Just as with any developing character's skills and abilities. My main character has something like ten ranks in Open Lock. By PnP standards I could get a job as a King's vault-smith. But a common bandit's chest in Barovia may still cause me problems. That's just the nature of the beast. I still receive the benefit of my investments-- but more are required if I want them to remain relevant.
And even then, spell failure doesn't have the same value for everyone, and neither does ACP skills.
The largest benefactors of this balancing issue aren't those who might otherwise have used a shield. It's those who wouldn't have. A wizard and a rogue should not have Shield ACs that are equivalent to a Fighters. Or, if you contend that they should, then we should not have fighters. This feels akin to saying that Wizards should be allowed to have heavy armor because not all characters are concerned about spell failure chances.
Furthermore, ACP applies to the parry skill so unless you are using light armor, which requires you to have high dex to be effective, you need feats to counteract the ACP penalty from your armor, usually two of them, which amounts to at least 4 cp difference.
I do not agree that these feats are necessary. A wizard, rogue or monk wouldn't have need of them. But if you're specifically talking about a heavy armor wielding Fighter, than this strikes me as a good thing. Further, "4" is an invented number. A feat is worth 1 CP. Two feats are therefore worth 2.
Added: But, if you're including the cost of the Parry skill itself, recall that we've already established its value against the cost of the shield's benefit. This argument would then hazard double jeopardy on the CP costs, if you follow me.
If we also consider that most classes that would use a shield get the shield feat for free,
It isn't free- it costs a class. This is something like saying that most people who fight unarmed get the unarmed combat feat for free.
As for the comparison, you need to have 15-20 points in parry to get the equivalent of a crafted large shield which means at least 3 cp following your reasoning.
This is a false equivalency that fails to account for the burgeoning list of advantages that Parry offers detailed above.
And again, this cp system in this example is not even taking tower shields,
To your advantage. A -10 ACP and 50lbs are even harder problems to overcome.
varnishes, spells and enchanting
To your advantage. These require other forms of investment, whether through money, class levels or XP, still cost weight, still don't allow for increased offense and... still violate all of my opening premises.
nor the fact that you need levels to get the AC from parry into account,
The same can be said for the aforementioned varnishes, spells, enchanting and indeed the quality level of shields themselves. AC tends to increase as you gain levels. There's nothing unusual about that.
Alright...:
"When considered against the perpetual need for rogues to invest in Open Lock, Disable Trap, Search, Tumble, and others to remain relevant as they increase, I fail to see your point. The AC bonuses they'd acquired up to their present level don't go away- they just allow for continual reinforcement. Just as with any developing character's skills and abilities. My main character has something like ten ranks in Open Lock. By PnP standards I could get a job as a King's vault-smith. But a common bandit's chest in Barovia may still cause me problems. That's just the nature of the beast. I still receive the benefit of my investments-- but more are required if I want them to remain relevant."
I don't see what the argument made here is. My argument in the quote above this one is that a steel reinforced thick chitin shield has +3 shield AC, +4 shield AC against slashing and bludgeoning. Which means you need 15 points in parry to break even against just bludgeoning AC, and that is 15 points you are not investing in something else.
"I avoided these nitpicks in the favor of someone with a counter-argument. In truth, it only serves to show that Dodge may, in fact, be worth less than 1 CP. Embracing the points you mention necessitates our acceptance that the other options are even more economically superior."
It means that you are basing the value on your cp on wrong or missing values, which undermines the entire argument regardless of what direction it does it in. You don't get to set a "currency" and then have it be based on multiple nonequivalent things.
"My takeaway here is that you feel that Parry should be a class skill for only some classes. Like Fighters. If that wasn't your intention, perhaps it's still a reasonable place to start fixing this problem?"
That was not my point at all. My point was that you don't get to set a currency and then have it be based on multiple different, nonequivalent things.
"The largest benefactors of this balancing issue aren't those who might otherwise have used a shield. It's those who wouldn't have. A wizard and a rogue should not have Shield ACs that are equivalent to a Fighters. Or, if you contend that they should, then we should not have fighters."
I fail to see your point unless you are arguing that parry changes make these classes overly strong. These classes already suffer from different problems regarding their performance in melee combat and the shield AC from parry helps them keep relevant in the increased difficulty of the server more so than pushing them over the edge. Also, shield AC is not the only thing that makes fighters, you are disregarding full BAB progression, 1d10 hit die and number of attacks per round. I think those are much more important defining qualities between rogues, wizards and fighters than their shield AC.
"I do not agree that these feats are necessary. A wizard, rogue or monk wouldn't have need of them. But if you're specifically talking about a heavy armor wielding Fighter, than this strikes me as a good thing. Further, "4" is an invented number. A feat is worth 1 CP. Two feats are therefore worth 2."
What you are disregarding is that those classes then need to invest in a higher dexterity stat, or they will have less AC no matter their equivalent shield AC. If you are not assuming that they all have the same dex score, then you need to include the difference in their dexterity scores and what they lose to have that higher dexterity in your calculation. As for the "cp"s, if you read the entire paragraph, it goes like this: 15 parry= 3 cp, 2 feats for parry feats= 2 cp, 1 feat for taking shield proficiency= 1 cp. Furthermore, 3+2-1=4, hence 4 cp. I fail to see how it is invented.
Further expanding on this, if we assume a dexterity of 12, then you are suffering a penalty of 6 AC if you wear leather armor instead of a full plate. And even then, you wouldn't be reaching 25 parry without either a cat's grace spell, a feat or gloves of swordplay. Assuming you have 25 parry, you are still 1 AC down from just straight full plate without a shield. You of course need a higher dexterity stat to be able to effectively use lighter armor, and that means you have to sacrifice strength, constitution or intelligence, which you have to include when evaluating the parry skill and the shield AC you get from it.
"It isn't free- it costs a class. This is something like saying that most people who fight unarmed get the unarmed combat feat for free."
People who fight unarmed do get unarmed combat feat for free, because all classes have proficiency to fight unarmed. Even then I am assuming you are talking about Improved Unarmed Fighting feat, which monks do get for free, and even then that feat is only necessary if you are fighting without wearing any gloves at all, and even then rangers and druids get it for free via Ram's Might spell. Furthermore, all classes get proficiency with some weapons. And all classes that are intended to be tanking in the frontline do get the shield feat for free, I can think of no situation you would take a class purely because of the shield proficiency, and multiclassing always has penalties of its own as well.
"This is a false equivalency that fails to account for the burgeoning list of advantages that Parry offers detailed above."
How is this a false equivalency? A steel reinforced thick chitin shield, which tends to cost 500 gp at most, has +3 Shield AC, +4 Shield AC against slashing and bludgeoning. That is at least 15 parry to break even, and 20 parry to break even against ~80% of the damage present in the game at the least.
"To your advantage. A -10 ACP and 50lbs are even harder problems to overcome."
And a tower shield gets an extra point of AC, which can potentially amount up to overall 50% physical damage reduction, not to mention ASP and ACP are pretty much meaningless to a fair number of people that care about their shield AC.
"The same can be said for the aforementioned varnishes, spells, enchanting and indeed the quality level of shields themselves. AC tends to increase as you gain levels. There's nothing unusual about that."
Varnishes you can acquire as early as level 2 in great numbers, an hour spent picking herbs in spring can easily get you dozens, and spells and enchanting lets you have a higher shield AC than parry alone can provide, and usually quicker than parry provides normal values if no feats are involved, hence why the distinction matters.