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| #1shintashiJun 04, 2015 13:41:10 | I've been playing this game for a while now, and our characters are quickly getting to monsters with consistent 25+ attack totals. It's actually not that hard in high level games to have monsters hit those scores. With a +9-16 to hit, multiple attacks, multiple monsters, and die rolls from 10-18, you can actually clear 27-30+ quite frequently as a DM.
Player characters on the other hand, have like, no sanctuary from these assaults. The vast majority of all characters bottle neck around AC 18. In previous editions, Armor Class meant something. In this game, it's more of an irritant for low level monsters like cultists and cannon fodder. A character designed with emphasis on defense should be able to expect a reasonable chance of deflecting a blow, at least half the time, but 5th edition is failing to deliver that.
It looks instead like you need some really bizarre class-equipment-spell combination to get anywhere close to 23+, when what you actually need is probably closer to 25+. "Hard to hit" would demand better than a 50% evasion, more like a 65%+ evasion. 50% evasion is actually just "so-so". The older editions of D&D were set up so an untrained person THAC0 20 had a 50% chance of hitting a peasant with a 10 dexterity wearing a sack. Think about that for a minute. That's not GOOD defense. When an average bum can hit you 50% of the time, your defense might as well not exist.
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| #2melloredJun 04, 2015 13:46:41 | PC's health scales faster then monster damage. So you get hit more, but each hit matters less.
Overall it's the same number of attacks. |
| #3arnwolf666Jun 04, 2015 15:12:56 | It seems like Bounded Accuracy does not like the high AC characters. I been trying to think of a solution to this also. |
| #4KruskJun 04, 2015 15:39:13 | That was a specific design goal for 5e.
If you want to make it not happen, give level based bonuses to AC, or drop lots of magic items that boost AC. |
| #5FactOfFictionJun 04, 2015 15:51:47 | A solar is a CR21 monster and has +15 to hit. The Balor and Pit fiend are at +14. If you are serious about AC at lvl 20, at the minimum you should be mustering 22 AC. Fulplate and shield being baseline with either shield, shield of faith, defensive duelist or bardic inspiration on top of that. Having 30% to evade the attack from a monster that is supposed to challenge the whole party is good in my book. AC high enough to make the physical attacks from such enemy pointless indeed does not happen, but that is the point of the system.
A character with emphasis on defense is supposed to expect at least 50% chance of deflecting a blow from a monster that is a suitable threat to him and him only, not the whole party.
For a single 20th lvl character - a suitable threat is CR 10 monster (for example a Deva). Said monster has about +8 to hit. Against an AC of 18 that is exactly 50% chance to hit, and a character with 18 AC at lvl 20 isn't even trying.
For a solo monster fighting against the party - missing a single hit equals a tremendous tempo loss in the action economy game - if a character focused on defense manages to achieve even one such miss - his focus on defense has already paid up.
And for the characters who don't focus on defense - it surely is not the same as their defense not existing. Getting missed by 50% ot the enemy cannon fodder is vastly different than getting hit by 100% of the enemy cannon fodder. |
| #6Jared711Jun 04, 2015 16:11:52 | At level 9 we fought a CR 13 ice dragon with a +15 to hit.
You could lower base AC from 10 to 8 and add proficiency bonus to AC.
Base AC would be 10 at level 1. (proficiency bonus +2) Base AC would be 14 at level 20 (proficiency bonus +6)
Probably not worth the trouble as others have noted you have a lot more HP to suck up the damage. You can get really high AC if your dedicated. I push a AC 24 at level 9.
Full plate 18 +1 ring of protection +5 shield spell. = AC 24
Going all out, something like this: Full plate 18 + 2 shield +1 Fighting style +2 haste/armor of faith +5 shield spell = AC 28 without magic items.
The funny thing is a paladin 2/Sorc 1 could get this high if he could afford the platemail. A level 3 character.
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| #7IllithidbixJun 04, 2015 17:08:57 | I believe the idea at higher levels is the party is imposing Disadvantage on monster attacks when they can. Disadvantages squares the chance of hitting. ( See: http://onlinedungeonmaster.com/2012/05/24/advantage-and-disadvantage-in-dd-next-the-math/ if you want a table)
But yes, I believe both players and monsters are meant to hit more as the PCs level up. |
| #8FallingIcicleJun 04, 2015 21:14:34 | When miss chances get above 50%, combats start to feel like whiffle bat fights. Since high level PCs have so many hit points, monsters need to have a reasonable chance to hit the players in order to pose any threat at all. |
| (Reply to #4)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #10ImaculataJun 05, 2015 2:41:14 | I haven't really read up on the 5th edition rules much to be honest, but maybe you can clarify something for me Aaron, because I'm trying to understand what you are saying. So in 3.5 (which I play), the players are able to stack AC like crazy. There are dozens of feats, magical items, spells, prestige classes and what not, to boost your AC well beyond 30. Monsters do the same. At level 10, you can expect to be facing monsters with an average AC of 20.
But it sounds like in 5th edition the AC doesn't increase all that much (for players and monsters alike), while the monster's chance to hit does increase, as does that of the players. But hitpoints I assume also increase for both based on level. So, is this better or worse than the 3.5 combat in that respect? Because it sounds like the system is less focused on defense, and more focused on chopping hitpoints away. Or am I misunderstanding you? |
| (Reply to #10)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #12QwertyAzertyJun 05, 2015 5:48:09 |
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| #13FrogReaverJun 05, 2015 7:48:51 |
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| #14Patron1972Jun 05, 2015 8:13:41 |
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| #15intentlyJun 05, 2015 10:19:15 | Previously: AC and HP increased rapidly with monster CR
Now: AC is relatively flat, and HP still increases rapidly with monster CR
The net results:
This was a brilliant advance in RPG technique. Every detail of the implementation may not be perfect, but the underlying idea is excellent. |
| #16Xeviat-DMJun 05, 2015 14:04:29 | I have a huge issue with player AC. Monster AC scales exactly with player attack if players dtart at 16 attack stat and boost it at 4 and 8. Monster to hit scales faster, and keeps scaling into the +20 CRs. Magic weapons allow for PCs to beat monster AC growth, but they are needed for player AC to keep up.
Also, player HP doesn't grow faster than monster damage. Monsters get +6 damage per CR. Thats a d6 with 14 con, d8 with 12 con, and d10; doable, but not always. But thats from one hit. The game seems to be balanced around 3 rounds of hits. Monsters gain 15 hp per level.
I know the monster math is primarily there for party of 4 vs one monster of equal level; 4 v 4 requires much lower level monsters. But it does mean that solitary monsters hit hard and often, and players have to heavily optimize to avoid that.
Look at the way the Monk's AC scales. Lets imagine they start with Dex 16 and Wis 14; very easy to do with point buy. Their AC starts at 15, which is the same as a rogue. At 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19, they boost their dex or wis, gaining +5 to AC for AC 20. Rogues with a 16 starting dex only get to boost their dex twice and end with a 17 AC. Standard magic armor caps at +3. There are bracers of armor for possible monk ac gain, but those use slots that could be used for offense too so that's more of a trade off.
To make it worse, since you don't gain proficiency to AC, monster attack still outstrips player AC. |
| (Reply to #16)randl |
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| (Reply to #6)Macv12 |
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| #19Jared711Jun 05, 2015 17:12:27 |
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| (Reply to #19)Macv12 |
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| #21SpedGuyJun 05, 2015 19:36:08 | My sister's work on another forum:
Lets start with Armor Class: Barbarian with 30 Dex and 30 Con: AC = 30 |
| #22shintashiJun 06, 2015 6:19:19 | I think the obscene post at the end displays the parity nicely. 71 AC, vs. +119 to hit. As to someone who questions why I stated 10-18, our DMs (we have 3) roll really well, but seldom crit. I'm not sure how many thousands of d20s that accounts for, but that's the soft average. I went to get a softdrink in one session and came back to learn I had been hit, and that was counting a cloak of displacement and 18 AC against what I think were +5ish to hit monsters. By the time the battle was done, my partner (in adamantium armor) had been brought back from 0, and I was sitting at 1 hit point.
In rules heavy sanctioned games, gold, stat enhancers, and all sorts of other limitations are in place making it very difficult to tweak out a character like the above examples. Our stats are bounded by the point-buy methods, and our equipment is extremely limited, like about 0-1 magic item per 4 levels. Gold flow is also very low. "Feats" are largely spent on stat boosts just to get nearer to 18-20 in primary stats.
Also noted you guys are focusing on a Tank theory of Armor Class. D&D predates tank theory. Let me explain it to you using another popular expression I hear nowadays. "Glass Cannon". "Wizards are squishy but do lots of damage". It used to be possible to generate a "___ are squishy but have good AC" character. Tank theory relies on buffs from other people, who are forfieting other concentration actions to sustain that character's bonus. That requires a special social contract and very specific classes and spells available.
In previous editions, a character could use a high dex, light or no armor with enchanted bracers, a magical cloak, rings, and perhaps a permanency spell or class feature to get armor classes that might not make any sense to many of you. Producing an Armor Class of -6 or better on a Wizard, or an Armor Class of -10 or better on a Warrior was relatively simple by level 10-20. Monsters however, used to be largely bounded in THAC0 to figures closer to 5 or 7. Translating these values into 5th edition: Monsters had +13-15 to hit, and Armor Class specialists had Armor Classes between 26 and 30+.
You guys are clearly demonstrating the bonuses exist, but they are as tweaky and weird as I expected, but also emphasize heavily extreme leniancy on the part of the DM and crippling levels of team work. Having 2-3 people buff yet another character to get some incremental bonus would never work in our stories. The monsters would just kill the buffing casters while another monster used spells on the "tank". (Our last battle basically went something like this: we were attacked physically about 6 attacks per two players, and each round we were hit by a cone of cold, a fireball, or both). |
| #23YunruJun 06, 2015 6:55:15 | Dex-Based Barbarians start with 18AC, get +1 AC every 4 levels for the first 16 levels, and end at 24AC at level 20, without feats, magic items or racial traits. I don't see how 23AC is hard to get for a character that wants high AC and chooses a class that allows it.
Hell a single level dip into Barbarian gets the same results, sans ending AC: Show Barbarian 1/Fighter 12: Uses a Shield. Starts with 16 Dex and Con: AC 18 Ups Dex by +2 at level 5: AC 19 Ups Dex by +2 at level 7: AC 20 Ups Con by +2 at level 9: AC 21 Ups Con by +2 at level 13: AC 22 |
| #24ImaculataJun 06, 2015 11:58:16 |
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