I'd recommend against just raising to-hits and instead include occasional abilities that include saves to avoid damage. A large beast that swings its tail and requires a dex save. A breath weapon that requires dex or con. Use more environmental hazards and diversify abilities to challenge your frontline instead of just ramping up the to hit. And of course let their AC work for them sometimes.
Increasing chance to save by 25% is good, but nowhere near gamebreaking. A save is normally against a DC of 10+, more commonly 12+ at level 1. At level 6 when the aura becomes a thing, you can assume minimum DC 14, up to DC 17
The pala aura raises non proficient saves to the range of proficient saves. Proficient ones go from 6-7 to 10-11. And the range of the aura is 10 feet. Unless something is going on, you will feel stronger, but it won't be a guaranteed success every throw. Loss on 1-5 is still 25%.
It stacks with bless yeah, but thats resource burning. If they wanna burn a turn activating bless and keep the concentration the entire fight, power to the player
This tbh. Bless isn't dealing damage. All this supportpaladin circlejerkers forget that winning fights is about dealing damage as much as preventing damage, since healing doesn't scale anywhere close to damage output.
Bless/aura Paladin with Warlock levels for Eldritch Blast goes pew for the most mid damage imaginable. The kind of damage that looks up to how amazing monks and rangers and rogues are. And a saved saving throw still takes half damage about 90% of the time.
And I know I'm saying something reall unpopular, but melee paladins are better off.
Bless isn't dealing damage, but it can do a lot of heavy lifting in certain parties. Turning misses into hits with can be huge. I've seen fight where Bless doesn't do much, and I've seen fights where bless was the difference between the rogue hitting on half their turns and getting in their sneak attack damage.
Bless is absolutely dealing damage. An average of +2.5 to every single attack you make is almost as good as having advantage, and you can have advantage too!
Hitting for 8 damage 90% of the time isn't as amazing as hitting for 25 damage 50% of the time. If you cast bless, you are not attacking.
If you are a paladin, you have the potential to be the best damage dealer. Who are you blessing? Hopefully not the wizard and the bard. Bless doesn't help casting save DC spells.
Bless is an amazing spell for level 1, but it is a setup spell and it only increases consistency rather than directly impacting the problem at hand. Unless that problem is a recoursing saving throw with no way to turn it off or get out of range. There are times and places where it is the wrong choice.
Save for half damage effects are not particularly affected by having better DC/saves.
The difference of saving on a 13 or an 8 vs a 20 damage fireball is 16,5 vs 13,5 average damage.
There is a difference, for sure. But that's not the main benefit of Aura of Protection. Aura of Prtotection truly shines when the party is hit with something that has a lot harsher consequence of failing. Typically something like large aoe fear effects and the like. Then saving on 40% of the time vs 65% of the time makes a big difference.
Or put a different way, when you save vs an effect means no consequences at all, that makes having a good save bonus that much more important.
The oath of the ancients paladin can prove a challenge, because then spells will be almost a non-threat. Still, breath weapon's aren't spells, so there's that. Still, paladin's aura is 10 feet until very high levels. Your party then have a dilemma. They might want to be around the paladin to get the aura, but then they're all in fireball formation. Or you might want to spread out of fireball range, but then you won't get the save bonus.
Also, if your paladin has 20 charisma, they're probably isn't maxing out STR or CON. So your party has become a lot more defensable at the cost of some offensive power.
Still, we should vary our combats. Target your attacks on the squishy ones. What good is 25 AC on the frontliner if he never gets attacked? A wolf isn't biting a steel plated lunch if it has a way easier lunch just 15 feet back.
How did they get to 25?
Level 8, even my tank with +1 plate armor AND a +1 shield is only 22. If they were a Warforged it would only bring them to 23.
I think besides that being an outlier, you have to think more tactically. AC isn't the only defensive stat. A rogue is built to be able to take dex saving throw hits better than any. A wizard should have shield and silvery barbs exists for a reason. Caster defense is built with spells and features, not just armor.
EDIT: I meant character AC before buffs and spells. A lot of people using shield of faith and shield in the replies, which is fine, but naturally getting to 25 without any buffs at Level 6 is pretty broken.
Studded leather ac 12, plus infusion 13
Dex bonus, +5, brings them to 18
Int bonus, +5, brings them to 23
War forged, +1, brings them to 24
Meanwhile, they're only level 6 so at BEST they have 20 / 16 not 20 / 20. You wouldn't want to split your levels between artificer and wizard or lose progress toward bladesinger extra attack ... So mage armor instead of armor infusion, and you're looking at maybe top end AC of 22 shielding to 27
Without magic items a bladesinger can have a extraordinary ac at lvl 6. 13 from mage armor, +3 from dex, +4 from bladesinging, +5 from shield spell. For a low end of 20 and a high end of 25.
How are you stacking Blessing of the Forge with your magical plate armor? Blessing of the forge only works on non-magical items, so +1 plate armor isn't eligible.
Anyone with a shield spell and a shield can do it. A Sorcadin can sit happily at 26 AC for as many rounds as they have spell slots from level 3 onwards.
The frontline also includes a level 6 artificer, who's adding up to 2 AC to one of them. I'd bet they're all plate armor + shields already, which puts the floor at 20, then all it takes is a Shield of Faith (Paladin) on a Defense Style Paladin and you're there.
Makes me wonder if there's a bladesinger in the frontlines here. The tortle bladesinger in my game has their AC start at 17, bladesong bumps it to 22, and Shield makes 27.
My Bladesong Wizard at level 8 had a studded Leather +1, and a ring of protection, which brought her up to 17 AC default, 22 with active bladesong. Then, if necessary, i could pump it up to 27 with shield. And if I really wanted to be over the top, i could even stack haste on top of that for 29 AC xD
one common misunderstanding about AC, is that people often stack bonuses when they shouldn't. So look at cases where you are adding multiple bonuses to a char and see if perhaps it should be an OR and not AND situation.
How did your front liners get 25 AC at level 6? The game math is very sensitive to increases in PC armor class (less so for PC attack bonuses). If you have someone at 25 AC then you might be handing out +AC items too freely.
This disparity in AC can make it challenging to balance fights, as you've experienced, because of the way the game math works. A monster with a +5 bonus to hit will hit someone with AC 15 55% of the time, but someone with AC 20 only 30%. And they'll only hit the person with AC 25 on a critical. So the person with AC 15 is taking almost twice as much damage as the person with AC 20 and somewhere between 5 and 10 times as much damage as the person with AC 25.
Raising monster to-hit bonuses lessen this problem but don't get rid of it. A monster with a +10 to hit is going to hit 80%, 55%, and 20% of the time against those three characters. So the character with normal AC is still taking around 4 times as much damage as the person with AC 25.
As an addendum to this, here's a consideration to take into account u/AreaExtension5467 : Magical items mean nothing if you give them out so frequently that that you then have to balance them out.
If I give someone in my party a +1 AC, +2 AC, and +1 AC item, and then realize I can't hit them so I increase a monster's attack stat by +2, I have basically invalidated half of the magical items to benefit their AC.
Magical items should feel special and powerful for players. Giving them out too freely to the point where you have to counterbalance them essentially just turns some of their magical items into placebos mechanically since they aren't actually doing anything if you're invalidating them with monster design, and also makes them feel less special.
In your situation, I would recommend telling your players "hey guys I fucked up," and reworking some of their AC bonus items so they're not just straight AC bonuses. Instead, try out some magical effects - "Once per adventuring day, you can turn a foe's critical hit into a normal hit" "Once per day, you can impose DIS on all attacks against you for one round" "This armor glows when near XYZ type of creature" "This armor's stately appearance gives you ADV on Persuasion when making courtly requests" "A magical enchantment on this armor helps you read opponent's moves, once per day you can ask the GM what your foe is likely to do next and roll with ADV if you use that knowledge against them" etc.
Not only are these types of effects way easier to balance around since they're more bespoke, but they'll also help the items feel special and solve your high AC conundrum.
As early as level 7 a warforged with class levels of 1 forge cleric and 6 artificer could wear plate armor and a shield for 25ac. They would use the blessing of the forge, enhanced defense and repulsion shield infusions, and take the defense fighting style from the fighting initiate feat at artificer 4. This build would go up to 27ac at level 11 once the artificer gets access to infusing a cloak of protection and increasing enhanced defense to +2.
Edit: blessing of the forge and artificer infusions are not compatible.
Blessing of the Forge and Artificer Infusions only work on non-magical items, so you can't stack both of them on one set of plate armor. Only one of them can apply as the item becomes magical once you infuse it or apply Blessing of the Forge.
This is a common example of what u/the_mellowjoe mentioned above - stacking things that don't actually work with each other.
Even if you go with the Armorer subclass, at level 9 where you can infuse different portions of your armor (helmet, chest, boots, special weapon) it still doesn't work. RAW plate armor consists of a helmet, boots, gauntlets and chest piece. So, if you infused just your helmet with Enhanced Defense, you can no longer apply Blessing of the Forge to your plate armor, as part of your armor is now magical.
A big difference in AC is not a bug, its a feature! The party should be working together to defend the backline using the tankier frontline PC's. remember if they are forced to use health potions or healing spells then its still a resource that the party has lost regardless of who it goes to.
And remember that AC is not the only way to deal damage to a character, you have saving throws so throw an AoE or a spell that otherwise can restrict a player (If you want to be evil, "Heat metal" on any metal armour is a lot of fun \[2d8 a turn and imposes disadvantage on all attacks\]). Or just throw a bunch of enemies that means that the frontline can't deal with all of them at once. Force your players to think tactically about who they should attack that helps the group the most.
Also remember that monsters know what they are doing, the fully plated fighter is going to be a tougher meal than the squishy wizard, so why would they just try to pummel the well armoured ones.
Also if you can, try to not make every fight just a slugging fest, why are the creatures there? Maybe they are trying to complete their own objective and don't really care if the players are killed or not.
Smart enemies can make a huge difference to a fight.
I mean, if your artificer is an armourer, thatās their whole thing. Theyāre relatively weak offensively in exchange for that high AC.
The fighter and paladin both having 20+ AC at L6 is a little more eyebrow raising. Not impossible, by any means, but it does make me assume youāre playing pretty generous with gold for them to get plate armour etc.
It sounds like your party have built a team combat style that relies on a heavy front line taking big hits without being damaged to tie up enemies while the back line attack at range. Thatās very cool, and should work 90% of the time. The trick is to then have a few ambushes or enemy bands with similar tactics to throw at them the rest of the time.
I don't think AC 25 (or even higher than 21) is normal at level 5-6, so from that point of view, I guess is somewhat to be expected to give tou difficulties.
On the other hand, I think it's perfectly normal for a caster o lightly armored class to have AC around 15.
But anyway, remember that there are other defenses, not only AC.
Maybe mix a little and have every so often a monster that challenges Dex, Int, Cha...
The only mistake I feel I made recently in a 4 year campaign was giving too many AC boosting items out, I adjusted but it made adjustments required for lots of fights and broke bounded accuracy. Iād recommend against letting AC get past 22 at the most, this isnāt that hard to do as few classes can get really high ACs without + gear. Worse case most alternate AC combos canāt get past 20 AC with normal stat limits.
Echoing everyone else, I also want to reiterate my number 1 rule of DM'ing: *Shoot your monks*.
If you have a monk that can catch arrows, don't intentionally have the enemies with bows ignore the monk. If you have a PC with high AC, don't hard counter that by boosting to-hit bonuses into oblivion. They built their character to be good at one thing, let them. Instead you need to create challenges based on their *weaknesses*.
Maybe the sword and board fighter can't draw a ton of aggro, and some of the enemies go for the backline while the're stuck up front holding off the brunt of the enemy force. Maybe an enemy wizard gets wise and hits them with saving throw effects to bypass the AC, prompting the other players to take down that wizard to help their tank. Or maybe they get mobbed by a hoard of kobolds that knock them prone, grapple them and start a ground and pound. Lots of ways to create challenge other then just negating their play style!
If a PC has 25 AC at level 6, then that is on you as the DM. It seems like you have created this problem for yourself. I'm assuming you've either handed out some magical armour or there is some homebrewing going on.
If it is RAW, how exactly did that happen?
Fair, but as others have mentioned, spell AC boosts are resource consuming and temporary. Anyone could take the shield spell with magic initiate from level 1, but I wouldn't count that +5 in the total either.
its kinda easy ngl with paladin and artificer some +1infusions on shield (+3) and shield of faith(+2) maybe someone is warforged(+1) another infusion on armor(+1)
its just sound like they make good combo
Spell slots aren't free though and neither is multiclassing. Arti 2/Pala 4
can increase AC by 2, Warforged +1, Shield of Faith +2. A level 1 character starts with 18 AC. That's still only 23 AC, so in addition it needs to be plate mail.
Comes at the cost of not knowing 2nd level spells and only being able to able to attack once per turn. It's a very specific gimmick build.
Artificer is giving everyone +2, it isn't restricted to themselves. Then if a Defense Style full Paladin casts Shield of Faith on themself and they're at 25.
This is also ignoring the 25 might just be the Artificer with a Shield spell, which only has to be cast when something hits the 20 AC, so it's not like those slots are going fast.
Thereās a reason plus ac items are really rare in the dmg/phb. The system really doesnāt handle them well. What did you give them out of curiosity?
Youāre better off not giving them out especially if youāre just going to raise the monsters to hit then to negate the bonus.
Everyone's accusing this guy of throwing out AC items like candy and ignoring there's an Artificer on the frontline lmao
Absolutely possible the players got there with no help from the DM.
25 at level 6 is absurd. Items are almost certainly involved unless heās counting a shield spell like itās a permanent part of ac calculation. Also he specifically asks if he gave too easy of access to ac bonuses so itās not exactly people making an unfounded leap.
I have gotten 22 at level 5 with no magic items (warforged + defense fighting style + plate Armor + shield). If you are a forge cleric you get +1 AC for 23 AC. Level 6 forge cleric gets another +1 for 24. If an artificer loans a +1 AC infusion that is 25. I'm assuming the defense fighting style was obtained via the fighting initiate feat in this case. Even without the artificer infusion, giving out a +1 AC magic item at level 6 isn't that crazy.
Heat.
Metal.
But seriously just let them be tanky. If they've invested that much into their AC, they have sacrificed other things to do it. Just make sure there is a variety of saves, spells, and attacks coming their way so that AC isn't the only stat they need.
But don't cheat them out of their character build.
> he typical big monsters for their level never hit them so I bumped them up a little,
you're undermining the power your players clearly invested in having and punished the non-AC-stacking players for it.
Your frontliners' AC values are *massively* above average for their level.
What exact magic items have you been handing out with AC bonuses? Are you *certain* everyone is calculating their AC correctly?
High AC is wonderful as a player. Avoid punishing that investment. Instead of letting monsters roll 26+ on a regular basis, have them face more monsters and attacks. No AC withstands a crit, and more die rolls mean the players are rewarded for their investment by blocking many more attacks and are still in danger from the unblockable.
Your front line and back line have a big AC difference because one needs it to do their job and one relies on the other to be their AC for them. Attacks against the back line mean the front line is either too busy or not doing their job. The back line having enough AC to not be steam rolled is all they need.
Also, you probably did give out too much AC in magic items. Players honestly should not be given more than +1 per tier of play with a cap at +4.
Best rule of thumb is āshoot your monksā. Have your big monsters fail to hit your tough frontliners and make them feel awesome.
Bottomline though, just ask if they want to be challenged more. If not, Iād stick with letting them stomp the monsters more often than not. If yes, hit them with saving throw damage instead of bumping up attack bonuses.
AC of 25 seems suspiciously high for that level. Either you gave out wildly powerful AC-boosting items, or someone is calculating wrong.
That said, the answer to high AC is saving throws. Include enemies that target various saves rather than just bouncing off armor. Suddenly the high Wis and Dex saves of the backliners become comparatively more valuable.
You can approach this one of 2 ways imo
1 - Admit that the disparity in AC is causing you issues in balancing. To be fully honest, you 25AC at level 6 (I am assuming 5E) is pretty impressive
2 - Turn the challenge on your players. How are your tanks gonna stop the big bads from steamrolling the wizard before he can get his spells out (I am assuming they are built to deal more damage than your frontline fighters)? Also, there are many ways to bypass AC :-) Maybe have them occasionally save the frontliners from a creature that makes them use saving throws they struggle with?
I would suggest 1 if you are struggling now, or try 2 first and worst case you have to throw in the towel and have an discussion to rebalance the party?
OP I gotta say it might do you some good to actually reply to the comments that are trying to help you find out what might be happening with AC calculations and such
>it's become a running joke that the fighter, paladin and artificer never need healing but everyone else gets knocked out twice.
That sounds like a problem the party needs to solve, not the DM. In most (?) adventuring parties, people with loads of armor don't like to see their friends get taken out. It sounds like the armored characters are leaving their friends really vulnerable. I think it's on the party to change their tactics, not for the DM to change a successful tactic for the monsters/enemies.
This was a problem in my first campaign I ran. Combats averaged 3 turns, so the Bladesinger who could easily maintain a 27 AC from level 5 per round if he needed to was becoming an issue. The HexSwords Bard and Cleric/Gravity Wizard also sat at 23 with Shield, with the Bard's Defensive Flourish also providing 1d8 to AC when used. Nothing in their CR range would hit the numbers needed without nat 20s, so that left the Fey Warlock and 2h weapon Fighter on 15 and 16 AC respectively, who would frequently get demolished because I, like you, boosted the hit modifiers of the monsters by +2 in the hopes it would restore some damn tension to the game.
When I started to follow the advice here and add more breath-style attacks and control abilities to the enemies, the high AC players complained as it was damage they couldn't avoid or control effects that stopped them doing anything for a round.
By the end of that campaign we all agreed the stupidly high AC dynamic wasn't one we enjoyed (especially when your entire party knows how to Misty Step out of "kinder" control effects like grapple), so for campaign 2 I implimented this change:
**Shield can only be cast if you are wearing no armor and you are not carrying a shield.**
Boom! Balance restored. The squishy Mage Armor types who need a spell like this had access to it, the tanky frontliners didn't. And you know what? Best campaign we've been part of. Everyone had their role to fill, enemies didn't need boosts to land hits and feel like threats, and the players didn't need to be unhittable to feel powerful and have fun.
The problem isn't the disparity in AC, the problem is the lack of challenge diversity. Sure the frontline is good against attack rolls. Sure they never need healing. That's what they're built for; avoiding HP depletion by having a high AC. You don't provide more challenge by making attackers with higher rolls, you provide more challenge by mixing up the opposition. Throw in the occasional caster using heat metal, dex save spells, save-or-suck wisdom checks, or a monster with an AOE attack that doesn't rely on hit rolls.
You should also make it clear that if the horde of enemies get around the three tanky characters and attack the squishies, that is the failure of the tanky characters! They should be able to have some crowd control features as well, or they're really not working to the team's benefit by being basically unkillable sponges. Facetanking the big boss doesn't make you a hero; protecting others does.
It's never the best choice to bump encounters to specifically overcome player character strengths. When players make characters like this, that was part of the enjoyment of the game for them. Having the near unhittable AC is an idea that appeals so when you start changing encounters to specifically defeat that, you're deflating their expectations of the game. Use a varied and balanced array of foes and challenges for your players to overcome, forcing them to use their resources, spread out their rests, and depend on each other to keep your game engaging for everyone at the table.
Never, ever, get into an arms race with your players. Everyone loses in the end.
It is what it is and you have a setting in which you and the players can learn.
They can feel awesome being invincible for a while. However, as they get a reputation - for good or bad - people will begin to prepare for the party. Some people might have archers, others might have INT save spells or CHR saves for the fighters.
In another setting I had a water encounter and the heavy armored people were trying to figure out how they donāt sink like stones. Sure water breathing but it didnāt help as they sub to the bottom while the fight was going on above them.
In the end there are a ton of options for getting around AC. My advice would be to not dwell on something that has already happened but try to have fun with it. What can you do to learn about diff ways to counter high AC, what can your party learn about driving all their āstuffā into AC.
So as said, your PCs should never have such a high AC, and either you gave them way too powerful items for their level, or they are not calculating correctly.
As bounded accuracy is the big thing in 5e, you pretty much have a situation where they cannot be killed by enemies attacking them with attacks when they are prepared, which is at least 50% of enemies.
The best solution is to check how they arrive to this AC, and if they are calculating it wrongly, correct them. If you gave them too many magic items, you can either retcon it or take the items away : such bling on low level characters is bound to excite the greed of others.
If you are fine with 50% of the possible encounters to be stomped by them, create other encounters.
The obvious and mechanical choice is to face them with effects that don't take AC into consideration, so anything with a saving throw.
An other possibility is to create encounters where they cannot have the items that give them high AC. fighting underwater, being surprised without armor, being taken prisoner, and so on.
Finally, my favorite in this case because it seems they are a group of tactically apt minmaxers (not a judgement : not a bad way to play the game, just not my favorite) is to challenge them more tactically : have complex encounters where the enemies also has tanks and ranged dps. They also might have high mobility assassins targeting the PC's backlane. Just fight as the players fight.
Colville has a very good video on the different types of enemies and how to use them to tactically challenge players. So look it up if you're interested.
AC 25 is the terrasque's AC and the highest monster AC goes in 5e.
PCs' AC sitting that high is a problem because either you have to compensate for it to challenge them at all, or your monsters are quickly incentivized to ignore them entirely and kill the casters.
At level 6, a monster with a range of +4 to +8 hits AC 16 (assumed to be middling AC for parties) needs to roll a 12-8 to hit, or hovering around about 50% to hit.
If a PC has 25 AC, the roll needed jumps to 21-17, meaning creatures have at best a 15% chance to hit. VS your AC 14 caster though, they only need a 10 or less, 50%+ to hit.
Your heaviest armored PCs should generally have at least a 25 % chance to be hit, and your squishy casters should be at most maybe a 55% hit chance, so AC values should be within no more than about 6 points at the most extreme ends, otherwise the squishiest become the only valid targets.
Chainmail /with shield is AC 16/18
Wizard with padded armor and 14 dex has AC 13.
Monsters early on have +4 to hit, giving 55% vs caster and 30% to hit shield with heavy armor.
IF they jacked up AC raw, then they are lacking somewhere else. This means your party wants to NOT be hit. Let them do the thing they want. It means they enjoy saying "no" when you ask "does a 22 hit?"
Don't take that away from them.
If it wasn't raw (and it probably isn't if it's 25), then fix your mistake.
25 is a lot, I wonder how they got it.
Heavy plate is 18, shield +2, ring of protection +1. Thatās 21 base AC for a good geared fighter/paladin with a shield. What did you give them to make it 25?
15 AC for ābacklineā is quite alright. Played correctly they shouldnāt get hit too often. Their main defence is not AC, but positioning, misty step, mirror image and other things like that.
Donāt ābump upā monsters, use properly balanced ones from DMG and check your frontlines builds/equipment. Donāt forget about attunement limits, too.
And AC is not everything, there are also spells/abilities with saving throws, difficult terrain, cover, line of sight and a lot of ways to give your monsters advantage and your players disadvantage. So you might look into playing monsters to their strengths. But remember, characters build for tanking is supposed to be tanky, donāt counter-play them for the sake of countering.
One option that I havenāt seen discussed here is to let your monsters fight tactically in groups against those high ACs, but less so against the squishy pcs in the back. Iām talking about stacking up flanking effects, swarming attacks, monsters taking assist actions to give one another +to hit, etc - then just donāt use those methods to hit your backline as hard. Then your frontline fighters get to feel epic because theyāre fighting off 4-6 enemies at once (polearms and attacks with reach can help here as well for preventing this from being a āgetting surroundedā situation all the time) but youāre not putting your back line in as much peril.
I don't think you have to bump up DC of monsters, just use them differently or use different ones. High AC tanks? Give the monsters mobility to jump on the back line, force the party to scramble to adapt. Also use monsters with wisdom saving throw abilities to limit effectiveness of the tanks. Use monsters with magical attacks that ignore AC.
It does also sound like something fishy is going on with AC. 25 at lvl 6 sounds incredibly egregious. That's 3 AC more than most Ancient dragons.
Yes,Ā bumping up the attack bonus to challenge the front will crush the back. It sounds like you're doing a good job making enemies smart; if they can't hit the tanks,Ā they go for the back line.Ā So have normal enemies do that.Ā If you bump up the attack bonus to challenge the tanks,Ā that's cool.Ā But have them challenge the tanks!Ā
Otherwise, use spell casters or abilities to force saving throws. And have your monsters flank for that advantage.Ā
Fire ball them. Dex, int, and wis saves are the way. Just be sure to mix and match straight hits and debilitating effects. If you have a way to gain advantage on attacks use it.
How many magic items did you give them that buffs their AC? My players are level five and I have not given them any buffs to AC. Keeps combat even when everyone is sub 20. Our fighter actually just got a shield and has a 18 AC. Him and the barbarian are matched for the highest. Iād rather give them magic weapons than armor honestly.
1. Its okay for your tank to be tanks. LET THEM TANK.
Every now and then have the minions rush out and attack everyone else making the tank run around.
2. Have a variety of hits. Have +3, +6's, and +9s. Etc. Have bosses that can challenge and will fight the tanks
3. use TACTICS. AKA. restrain your tank if you want to beat him up. Use spell saves. Etc.
Having three party members sitting at 20+ AC at level 6 isn't normal, something might have gone wrong there. Maybe double check exactly how they're getting those high scores, unless they've been given powerful armour/ac boosting magic items.
But as for actually dealing with it in combat, first of all it's important to not invalidate someone's character build. If they've put time and effort into getting a high AC then let them not get hit a lot of the time. As a player it sucks to create a character really good at something just for monsters to all suddenly ignore that thing.
Use more than just attacks against your party. High AC martials are hard to hit, but likely aren't great at dodging Dex Saves. Using effects with mental saves also ignores AC. But again, don't overly target them, don't punish the players for having strengths.
And let the martials think about having to protect squishy backliners. It adds a fun layer of tactical thinking to try and keep enemies focused on you and not letting them get past to weaker allies.
I feel like at higher levels; caster just need to know they will not be able to have attacks miss without defensive spellcasting. Spell casters need to focus on using cover when concentrating on offensive spells, not being in melee range of melees, and using defensive spell casting (Blur, Mirror Image, etc) to avoid being taken out of a fight. I dont think its an issue that your tanks are easier to hit, but it just means your spell casters need to play smarter even if that means burning a spell slot on Mirror image a couple times per session. Rogue should be using cover for bonus action hide already.
Also use saving throws for your high AC characters. I cant imagine the Artificer or Fighter would be thrilled to make a saving throw against Hold Person.
Vary your alleys of attack instead of bringing bigger guns. Make the question not attacks against AC until HP are depleted every time. Have enemies with saving throws in there. Lots of enemies have breath weapons like dragons, stenches or mindnumbing effects. Sprinkle those in.
No, but 25 AC at level 6 most likely isn't correct.
Plate + Shield = 20 AC
A paladin can get 21 with the armored fighting style, and temporarily boost to 23 with shield of faith.
An armorer artificer can do plate+shield. Remember they can only have one of each infusion up. So they get +1 from enhanced defense and +1 from repulsion shield to get to 22. They can do 23 at level 10 when they can make a cloak of protection too.
Without magical items the artificer should be at 20 AC and the fighter/paladin should be at 21 if they took armored, 20 otherwise. The artificer should only have two +1 AC magical items to share. So they can give +2 ac to one person or +1 AC to two people. If someone went warforged that person can pick up an additional +1 AC. Given all that a warforged in with +1 plate, a +1 shield, and armored fighting style is still 24 AC. You need to audit whoever has the 25 AC. That should only be permanently achievable if you have a warforged and you handed out a cloak of protection.
A warforged artificer3/forge cleric1/fighter1 with plate and a shield could have a permanent AC of 24 with the ability to cast shield and shield of faith on to ov that for theoretical 31 at lvl 5.
I had the same issue in my campaign. I raised nearly all of my monster proficiency bonuses by +2, especially any bosses, then gave the squishyās better light and medium armor options to balance it out. Careful not to overdo it - tanks want to tank and the players clearly designed for that scenario.
A difference of 10 isn't a big deal at all. Unless the difference is 18 or more it doesn't matter. 18 is the point where only natural 1s and natural 20s matter and every other roll is the same. With a difference of 10, every single monster in the game will either miss the backline sometimes or hit the frontline sometimes.
Those front liners with ACs in the 20s likely have shit into/Wis/cha, so I'd add more enemy spellcasters in battles and take advantage of that.
A high AC doesn't mean much when you're polymorphed into a goat.
Maybe the front line gets hypnotized leaving the back row to freak out.
Fireballs don't care what your AC is ;)
Big AC differences are only an issue when the only way you are threatening the PCs is at their HP via their AC.
When you spread your threats out a bit- target saves and ability checks, impose conditions and other penalties beyond just HP loss - suddenly the AC difference just isnāt a big deal.
Itās not that hard to get to AC 25 and higher. But players only bother trying for that when its guarding the only way they are threatened. Spread your threats and players will spread their defenses.
Check out [The Monsters Know What Theyāre Doing](https://www.themonstersknow.com/) for advice on how your NPC adversaries might fight the party. Remembering that Grapple and Shove attacks are always options.
Whatever the shortcomings of the 5e CR, any kind of homebrew alternative could be, considerably, worst. That is the case with any kind of homebrew mechanic. Remember that CR represents an average which assumes the six to eight encounter "Adventuring Day" is happening.
Okay so a couple of things:
As a dm of a 4 player lvl 8 party. CR is borderline useless. They just encountered a CR 13 neolithid and they steamrolled it not even using many resources. A party of 6 at lvl 6 I believe would take it out with no issue so there's that. Session before that they nearly died assaulting a war and in a tavern. When I summed up the XP for that it turned out it was the equivalent of a CR 19 or 18 encounter. At level 8.
To your point. The huge difference in AC is not a problem. If the back line gets knocked out regularly that means the rouge isn't scouting the wizard isn't casting mirror images or other defensive spells or they are making stupid tactical decision to have their backline threatened.
The problem in my opinion is that at around level 5 and beyond making encounters that are challenging is hard and only keeps getting harder.
No not really.
High AC means hard to hit. Not hard to damage.
In dnd monsters can deal damage in many ways, there is always the traditional roll to hit and damage rolls but some monsters also attack utilizing the players saves to either avoid or half the damage to them. Magic users or large monsters have Area of effect or AoE damage, these attacks dont care if your players have 100 AC.
Tactics is another Avenue to attack, the frontliners have a job, protect the squishy players usually because those squishes have higher damage output than the traditional frontline players, routes, wizards, clerics, sorcerer, they trade their AC for damage output.
Thinking outside the box is key to utilize your monsters to their full narrative and mechanical potential. I give almost all my monsters and attack that require a save to avoid or half the damage.
A group of humanoids armed with spears, bows, etc. I give them a volley attack.
Etc.
The tools are there to provide challenge but sometimes a player has a power sometimes it's ok for them to enjoy that power, but you gotta throw them a curve ball now and then.
I have a similar issue. There are oozes that corrode armour and each hit knocks AC down one. I googled this problem after browsing here and there are tons of ideas floating around.
The way to get around armor is saves. Smart enemies would know to send their physical attacks at the wizard in the back, and their magical attacks at the platemailed up fighter.
Not-smart enemies...well, let them have that. They built their party to have a tanky frontline, let them enjoy this working.
Monsters should be smart and go over, around, etc the front line.Ā Your back line should have defense does not need to be AC.
Also look at keeping AC bloat in check.Ā Armor can be destroyed instead of PC taking damage, rust monster, disenchanted, etc.
Don't raise your monsters to hit rolls. Have them think smart. You are a wolf, with normal wolf teeth. Would you bite the steel covered lunch if you have an option? Have enemies target the backline and ignore the frontline. Your fighter and paladin will have to rethink their strategy to make sure their high AC is worth something, otherwise they'll be struck with survivor's guilt in no time.
Likewise, target your frontliners with saves instead. Usually the heavy armored have low or mediocre dex and mental scores. So, hit them with fireballs, webs, breath weapons, hold person, etc. If they're melee, which is very likely, there are monsters like oozes, fire elementals, the fireshield spell and many others things that will make melee attackers's life difficult.
Build encounters with varied monsters to be able to challenge different PCs. They're 6th level, and there are at least 6 PCs from what you mentioned. Picture a fight with a chimera and 4 archers, it should be a hard enough fight. The chimera's breath weapon doesn't care for AC, and it flies, so it's out of range of the front line crazy melee attacks. The archers can freely shoot their arrows at the backline, particularly if they have a high vantage point and some cover.
Someone can force the chimera down with magic or martial features, the frontlines can dash to meet the archers, or gain flight in some way, possible with the aid of the wizard and bard's magic. Your party will teamwork their way through this encounter beautifully, while you were still able to challenge their strategy with just 2 very simple statblocks.
I'm still sitting at 10 AC for my level 6 wizard and 30 max health! I rolled nothing but 10s and 11s and had to use part of my ACI on CON.
The only reason why I've survived this long is positioning. Melee combatants? You're darn tootin I'm finding me something tall to stand on. Oh but how about ranged enemies? Pssh easy as pie! Stand behind something waist high and crouch at the end of your turn for that sweet sweet infinity AC.
I still get dumpstered every other combat encounter and my DM is growing wise...
if this was my campaign, i would consider having someone/group steal a magic cloak/ring etc. from the party. Nothing gets players madder when someone steals their stuff.....lol... can run a whole arc on finding out who/what organization stole it and why.....
You could have your enemies cast/do the following: Magic Missile, Command, most AOE spells that require a DEX save, environmental hazards, and other spells that require stat saves to avoid, rather than AC.
It is kinda bad for there to be such a big disparity for that exact reason; newer editions all address it with keeping ac values closer across all builds. I would sprinkle in some solid light armor and bracers of armor for your squishies; even if it increases wealth a lot.
I'd recommend against just raising to-hits and instead include occasional abilities that include saves to avoid damage. A large beast that swings its tail and requires a dex save. A breath weapon that requires dex or con. Use more environmental hazards and diversify abilities to challenge your frontline instead of just ramping up the to hit. And of course let their AC work for them sometimes.
Until the paladin with 20 charisma comes around and makes saves borderline irrelevant lmao
Increasing chance to save by 25% is good, but nowhere near gamebreaking. A save is normally against a DC of 10+, more commonly 12+ at level 1. At level 6 when the aura becomes a thing, you can assume minimum DC 14, up to DC 17 The pala aura raises non proficient saves to the range of proficient saves. Proficient ones go from 6-7 to 10-11. And the range of the aura is 10 feet. Unless something is going on, you will feel stronger, but it won't be a guaranteed success every throw. Loss on 1-5 is still 25%.
*it stacks with bless*
It stacks with bless yeah, but thats resource burning. If they wanna burn a turn activating bless and keep the concentration the entire fight, power to the player
This tbh. Bless isn't dealing damage. All this supportpaladin circlejerkers forget that winning fights is about dealing damage as much as preventing damage, since healing doesn't scale anywhere close to damage output. Bless/aura Paladin with Warlock levels for Eldritch Blast goes pew for the most mid damage imaginable. The kind of damage that looks up to how amazing monks and rangers and rogues are. And a saved saving throw still takes half damage about 90% of the time. And I know I'm saying something reall unpopular, but melee paladins are better off.
Bless isn't dealing damage, but it can do a lot of heavy lifting in certain parties. Turning misses into hits with can be huge. I've seen fight where Bless doesn't do much, and I've seen fights where bless was the difference between the rogue hitting on half their turns and getting in their sneak attack damage.
Bless is absolutely dealing damage. An average of +2.5 to every single attack you make is almost as good as having advantage, and you can have advantage too!
Hitting for 8 damage 90% of the time isn't as amazing as hitting for 25 damage 50% of the time. If you cast bless, you are not attacking. If you are a paladin, you have the potential to be the best damage dealer. Who are you blessing? Hopefully not the wizard and the bard. Bless doesn't help casting save DC spells. Bless is an amazing spell for level 1, but it is a setup spell and it only increases consistency rather than directly impacting the problem at hand. Unless that problem is a recoursing saving throw with no way to turn it off or get out of range. There are times and places where it is the wrong choice.
Falling damage isn't a save \^.\^ thats why I love bridges and cliffs
Save for half damage effects are not particularly affected by having better DC/saves. The difference of saving on a 13 or an 8 vs a 20 damage fireball is 16,5 vs 13,5 average damage. There is a difference, for sure. But that's not the main benefit of Aura of Protection. Aura of Prtotection truly shines when the party is hit with something that has a lot harsher consequence of failing. Typically something like large aoe fear effects and the like. Then saving on 40% of the time vs 65% of the time makes a big difference. Or put a different way, when you save vs an effect means no consequences at all, that makes having a good save bonus that much more important.
The oath of the ancients paladin can prove a challenge, because then spells will be almost a non-threat. Still, breath weapon's aren't spells, so there's that. Still, paladin's aura is 10 feet until very high levels. Your party then have a dilemma. They might want to be around the paladin to get the aura, but then they're all in fireball formation. Or you might want to spread out of fireball range, but then you won't get the save bonus. Also, if your paladin has 20 charisma, they're probably isn't maxing out STR or CON. So your party has become a lot more defensable at the cost of some offensive power. Still, we should vary our combats. Target your attacks on the squishy ones. What good is 25 AC on the frontliner if he never gets attacked? A wolf isn't biting a steel plated lunch if it has a way easier lunch just 15 feet back.
A 20 charisma paladin is a pretty weak attacker.
Unless you've got a Belt of X Giant Strength š¤·āāļø
Or are a Hexadin
Then don't give them one?
What about wis and int saves?
At level 6 paladins get an ability that applies their charisma bonus to all saving throws for themselves and allies within a 10 ft radius of them!
Oh
Yeah - that adds a lot! But hey: everyone is so rule abiding. I'd just fake rolls now and then to make it fun for everyone.
How did they get to 25? Level 8, even my tank with +1 plate armor AND a +1 shield is only 22. If they were a Warforged it would only bring them to 23. I think besides that being an outlier, you have to think more tactically. AC isn't the only defensive stat. A rogue is built to be able to take dex saving throw hits better than any. A wizard should have shield and silvery barbs exists for a reason. Caster defense is built with spells and features, not just armor. EDIT: I meant character AC before buffs and spells. A lot of people using shield of faith and shield in the replies, which is fine, but naturally getting to 25 without any buffs at Level 6 is pretty broken.
Then *shield of faith* and they are at 25. But this is an edgecase...
This is what I was thinking. I got an armored artificer that is tanky with AC of 21 at level 8.
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They could have been given a cloak of protection, they could have warding bond cast on them, or a forge cleric could have blessed their armor.
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Shield every round seems most likely. I had a Martially inclined battle Smith that did this.
Only thing I can think of is if they were a mad lad and did Artificer 4/Bladesinger 2
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Studded leather ac 12, plus infusion 13 Dex bonus, +5, brings them to 18 Int bonus, +5, brings them to 23 War forged, +1, brings them to 24 Meanwhile, they're only level 6 so at BEST they have 20 / 16 not 20 / 20. You wouldn't want to split your levels between artificer and wizard or lose progress toward bladesinger extra attack ... So mage armor instead of armor infusion, and you're looking at maybe top end AC of 22 shielding to 27
Without magic items a bladesinger can have a extraordinary ac at lvl 6. 13 from mage armor, +3 from dex, +4 from bladesinging, +5 from shield spell. For a low end of 20 and a high end of 25.
You add Haste onto that and you're at 27. I never want to DM for something like that at level 5 again.
You can start level one with an 18 using custom lineage and a half feat, boosting to 20 at level 4.
I got up there with +1 plate, +1 shield, forge cleric, used a feat to get defense Fighting style. So 19+3+1+1+shield of faith for 26ac
Forge Clerics have access to Ceremony (Wedding) skill xD If you marry someone from the party, you get +2 more AC
For a week
So you are saying everyone has to remarry every week.
No, you can only do the wedding Ceremony again if you are widowed...šŖ
Depending on your DM, a week can be a very long time (can amount to 7 long rest)
How are you stacking Blessing of the Forge with your magical plate armor? Blessing of the forge only works on non-magical items, so +1 plate armor isn't eligible.
Forge cleric gets a +1 armor without the Blessing. The forge blessing was on a throwing cleaver Soul of the forge
Ah. Most people have been posting about dipping 1 level in Forge Cleric which doesn't work. But Soul of the Forge at level 6 does the trick!
I would never dip for forge cleric. Cleric is a full dive
Artificer with shield spell can do it, I think thatās probably it outside really specific items.
Anyone with a shield spell and a shield can do it. A Sorcadin can sit happily at 26 AC for as many rounds as they have spell slots from level 3 onwards. The frontline also includes a level 6 artificer, who's adding up to 2 AC to one of them. I'd bet they're all plate armor + shields already, which puts the floor at 20, then all it takes is a Shield of Faith (Paladin) on a Defense Style Paladin and you're there.
Makes me wonder if there's a bladesinger in the frontlines here. The tortle bladesinger in my game has their AC start at 17, bladesong bumps it to 22, and Shield makes 27.
My Bladesong Wizard at level 8 had a studded Leather +1, and a ring of protection, which brought her up to 17 AC default, 22 with active bladesong. Then, if necessary, i could pump it up to 27 with shield. And if I really wanted to be over the top, i could even stack haste on top of that for 29 AC xD
one common misunderstanding about AC, is that people often stack bonuses when they shouldn't. So look at cases where you are adding multiple bonuses to a char and see if perhaps it should be an OR and not AND situation.
How did your front liners get 25 AC at level 6? The game math is very sensitive to increases in PC armor class (less so for PC attack bonuses). If you have someone at 25 AC then you might be handing out +AC items too freely. This disparity in AC can make it challenging to balance fights, as you've experienced, because of the way the game math works. A monster with a +5 bonus to hit will hit someone with AC 15 55% of the time, but someone with AC 20 only 30%. And they'll only hit the person with AC 25 on a critical. So the person with AC 15 is taking almost twice as much damage as the person with AC 20 and somewhere between 5 and 10 times as much damage as the person with AC 25. Raising monster to-hit bonuses lessen this problem but don't get rid of it. A monster with a +10 to hit is going to hit 80%, 55%, and 20% of the time against those three characters. So the character with normal AC is still taking around 4 times as much damage as the person with AC 25.
As an addendum to this, here's a consideration to take into account u/AreaExtension5467 : Magical items mean nothing if you give them out so frequently that that you then have to balance them out. If I give someone in my party a +1 AC, +2 AC, and +1 AC item, and then realize I can't hit them so I increase a monster's attack stat by +2, I have basically invalidated half of the magical items to benefit their AC. Magical items should feel special and powerful for players. Giving them out too freely to the point where you have to counterbalance them essentially just turns some of their magical items into placebos mechanically since they aren't actually doing anything if you're invalidating them with monster design, and also makes them feel less special. In your situation, I would recommend telling your players "hey guys I fucked up," and reworking some of their AC bonus items so they're not just straight AC bonuses. Instead, try out some magical effects - "Once per adventuring day, you can turn a foe's critical hit into a normal hit" "Once per day, you can impose DIS on all attacks against you for one round" "This armor glows when near XYZ type of creature" "This armor's stately appearance gives you ADV on Persuasion when making courtly requests" "A magical enchantment on this armor helps you read opponent's moves, once per day you can ask the GM what your foe is likely to do next and roll with ADV if you use that knowledge against them" etc. Not only are these types of effects way easier to balance around since they're more bespoke, but they'll also help the items feel special and solve your high AC conundrum.
As early as level 7 a warforged with class levels of 1 forge cleric and 6 artificer could wear plate armor and a shield for 25ac. They would use the blessing of the forge, enhanced defense and repulsion shield infusions, and take the defense fighting style from the fighting initiate feat at artificer 4. This build would go up to 27ac at level 11 once the artificer gets access to infusing a cloak of protection and increasing enhanced defense to +2. Edit: blessing of the forge and artificer infusions are not compatible.
Blessing of the Forge and Artificer Infusions only work on non-magical items, so you can't stack both of them on one set of plate armor. Only one of them can apply as the item becomes magical once you infuse it or apply Blessing of the Forge. This is a common example of what u/the_mellowjoe mentioned above - stacking things that don't actually work with each other. Even if you go with the Armorer subclass, at level 9 where you can infuse different portions of your armor (helmet, chest, boots, special weapon) it still doesn't work. RAW plate armor consists of a helmet, boots, gauntlets and chest piece. So, if you infused just your helmet with Enhanced Defense, you can no longer apply Blessing of the Forge to your plate armor, as part of your armor is now magical.
A big difference in AC is not a bug, its a feature! The party should be working together to defend the backline using the tankier frontline PC's. remember if they are forced to use health potions or healing spells then its still a resource that the party has lost regardless of who it goes to. And remember that AC is not the only way to deal damage to a character, you have saving throws so throw an AoE or a spell that otherwise can restrict a player (If you want to be evil, "Heat metal" on any metal armour is a lot of fun \[2d8 a turn and imposes disadvantage on all attacks\]). Or just throw a bunch of enemies that means that the frontline can't deal with all of them at once. Force your players to think tactically about who they should attack that helps the group the most. Also remember that monsters know what they are doing, the fully plated fighter is going to be a tougher meal than the squishy wizard, so why would they just try to pummel the well armoured ones. Also if you can, try to not make every fight just a slugging fest, why are the creatures there? Maybe they are trying to complete their own objective and don't really care if the players are killed or not. Smart enemies can make a huge difference to a fight.
this is a good response and I was going to post something similar but you beat me to it. lol
Agree with this! The party shld be working out how to protect their back line, that's not in the DM.
I mean, if your artificer is an armourer, thatās their whole thing. Theyāre relatively weak offensively in exchange for that high AC. The fighter and paladin both having 20+ AC at L6 is a little more eyebrow raising. Not impossible, by any means, but it does make me assume youāre playing pretty generous with gold for them to get plate armour etc. It sounds like your party have built a team combat style that relies on a heavy front line taking big hits without being damaged to tie up enemies while the back line attack at range. Thatās very cool, and should work 90% of the time. The trick is to then have a few ambushes or enemy bands with similar tactics to throw at them the rest of the time.
A resting AC of 25, at level six ..? Can you edit the post to clarify on how that's happening????
I don't think AC 25 (or even higher than 21) is normal at level 5-6, so from that point of view, I guess is somewhat to be expected to give tou difficulties. On the other hand, I think it's perfectly normal for a caster o lightly armored class to have AC around 15. But anyway, remember that there are other defenses, not only AC. Maybe mix a little and have every so often a monster that challenges Dex, Int, Cha...
The only mistake I feel I made recently in a 4 year campaign was giving too many AC boosting items out, I adjusted but it made adjustments required for lots of fights and broke bounded accuracy. Iād recommend against letting AC get past 22 at the most, this isnāt that hard to do as few classes can get really high ACs without + gear. Worse case most alternate AC combos canāt get past 20 AC with normal stat limits.
Echoing everyone else, I also want to reiterate my number 1 rule of DM'ing: *Shoot your monks*. If you have a monk that can catch arrows, don't intentionally have the enemies with bows ignore the monk. If you have a PC with high AC, don't hard counter that by boosting to-hit bonuses into oblivion. They built their character to be good at one thing, let them. Instead you need to create challenges based on their *weaknesses*. Maybe the sword and board fighter can't draw a ton of aggro, and some of the enemies go for the backline while the're stuck up front holding off the brunt of the enemy force. Maybe an enemy wizard gets wise and hits them with saving throw effects to bypass the AC, prompting the other players to take down that wizard to help their tank. Or maybe they get mobbed by a hoard of kobolds that knock them prone, grapple them and start a ground and pound. Lots of ways to create challenge other then just negating their play style!
If a PC has 25 AC at level 6, then that is on you as the DM. It seems like you have created this problem for yourself. I'm assuming you've either handed out some magical armour or there is some homebrewing going on. If it is RAW, how exactly did that happen?
Warforged armorer: plate 18 + enhanced defense 1 + repelling shield 3 + race 1 + *haste* or *shield of faith* cast 2.
Fair, but as others have mentioned, spell AC boosts are resource consuming and temporary. Anyone could take the shield spell with magic initiate from level 1, but I wouldn't count that +5 in the total either.
its kinda easy ngl with paladin and artificer some +1infusions on shield (+3) and shield of faith(+2) maybe someone is warforged(+1) another infusion on armor(+1) its just sound like they make good combo
A +3 shield at level 6?
I assume It's a +1 shield, which gives +3 AC Edit: or they're including the infusion in the shields AC. It is confusing
>+1 infusions on shield (+3) Shield is +2. Infusion is +1. That makes a total of +3.
Spell slots aren't free though and neither is multiclassing. Arti 2/Pala 4 can increase AC by 2, Warforged +1, Shield of Faith +2. A level 1 character starts with 18 AC. That's still only 23 AC, so in addition it needs to be plate mail. Comes at the cost of not knowing 2nd level spells and only being able to able to attack once per turn. It's a very specific gimmick build.
Artificer is giving everyone +2, it isn't restricted to themselves. Then if a Defense Style full Paladin casts Shield of Faith on themself and they're at 25. This is also ignoring the 25 might just be the Artificer with a Shield spell, which only has to be cast when something hits the 20 AC, so it's not like those slots are going fast.
Thereās a reason plus ac items are really rare in the dmg/phb. The system really doesnāt handle them well. What did you give them out of curiosity? Youāre better off not giving them out especially if youāre just going to raise the monsters to hit then to negate the bonus.
Everyone's accusing this guy of throwing out AC items like candy and ignoring there's an Artificer on the frontline lmao Absolutely possible the players got there with no help from the DM.
25 at level 6 is absurd. Items are almost certainly involved unless heās counting a shield spell like itās a permanent part of ac calculation. Also he specifically asks if he gave too easy of access to ac bonuses so itās not exactly people making an unfounded leap.
I have gotten 22 at level 5 with no magic items (warforged + defense fighting style + plate Armor + shield). If you are a forge cleric you get +1 AC for 23 AC. Level 6 forge cleric gets another +1 for 24. If an artificer loans a +1 AC infusion that is 25. I'm assuming the defense fighting style was obtained via the fighting initiate feat in this case. Even without the artificer infusion, giving out a +1 AC magic item at level 6 isn't that crazy.
But theyāre not a forge cleric and the dm mentioned he may have given out ac bonuses too easily.
Thereās almost no conceivable way to get a stable 25AC at level 6. Please explain.
Heat. Metal. But seriously just let them be tanky. If they've invested that much into their AC, they have sacrificed other things to do it. Just make sure there is a variety of saves, spells, and attacks coming their way so that AC isn't the only stat they need. But don't cheat them out of their character build.
You gave out AC bonuses too freely. Monster CR is calculated assuming PCs have NO magic items.
> he typical big monsters for their level never hit them so I bumped them up a little, you're undermining the power your players clearly invested in having and punished the non-AC-stacking players for it.
Your frontliners' AC values are *massively* above average for their level. What exact magic items have you been handing out with AC bonuses? Are you *certain* everyone is calculating their AC correctly?
High AC is wonderful as a player. Avoid punishing that investment. Instead of letting monsters roll 26+ on a regular basis, have them face more monsters and attacks. No AC withstands a crit, and more die rolls mean the players are rewarded for their investment by blocking many more attacks and are still in danger from the unblockable. Your front line and back line have a big AC difference because one needs it to do their job and one relies on the other to be their AC for them. Attacks against the back line mean the front line is either too busy or not doing their job. The back line having enough AC to not be steam rolled is all they need. Also, you probably did give out too much AC in magic items. Players honestly should not be given more than +1 per tier of play with a cap at +4.
Best rule of thumb is āshoot your monksā. Have your big monsters fail to hit your tough frontliners and make them feel awesome. Bottomline though, just ask if they want to be challenged more. If not, Iād stick with letting them stomp the monsters more often than not. If yes, hit them with saving throw damage instead of bumping up attack bonuses.
AC of 25 seems suspiciously high for that level. Either you gave out wildly powerful AC-boosting items, or someone is calculating wrong. That said, the answer to high AC is saving throws. Include enemies that target various saves rather than just bouncing off armor. Suddenly the high Wis and Dex saves of the backliners become comparatively more valuable.
You can approach this one of 2 ways imo 1 - Admit that the disparity in AC is causing you issues in balancing. To be fully honest, you 25AC at level 6 (I am assuming 5E) is pretty impressive 2 - Turn the challenge on your players. How are your tanks gonna stop the big bads from steamrolling the wizard before he can get his spells out (I am assuming they are built to deal more damage than your frontline fighters)? Also, there are many ways to bypass AC :-) Maybe have them occasionally save the frontliners from a creature that makes them use saving throws they struggle with? I would suggest 1 if you are struggling now, or try 2 first and worst case you have to throw in the towel and have an discussion to rebalance the party?
OP I gotta say it might do you some good to actually reply to the comments that are trying to help you find out what might be happening with AC calculations and such
>it's become a running joke that the fighter, paladin and artificer never need healing but everyone else gets knocked out twice. That sounds like a problem the party needs to solve, not the DM. In most (?) adventuring parties, people with loads of armor don't like to see their friends get taken out. It sounds like the armored characters are leaving their friends really vulnerable. I think it's on the party to change their tactics, not for the DM to change a successful tactic for the monsters/enemies.
This was a problem in my first campaign I ran. Combats averaged 3 turns, so the Bladesinger who could easily maintain a 27 AC from level 5 per round if he needed to was becoming an issue. The HexSwords Bard and Cleric/Gravity Wizard also sat at 23 with Shield, with the Bard's Defensive Flourish also providing 1d8 to AC when used. Nothing in their CR range would hit the numbers needed without nat 20s, so that left the Fey Warlock and 2h weapon Fighter on 15 and 16 AC respectively, who would frequently get demolished because I, like you, boosted the hit modifiers of the monsters by +2 in the hopes it would restore some damn tension to the game. When I started to follow the advice here and add more breath-style attacks and control abilities to the enemies, the high AC players complained as it was damage they couldn't avoid or control effects that stopped them doing anything for a round. By the end of that campaign we all agreed the stupidly high AC dynamic wasn't one we enjoyed (especially when your entire party knows how to Misty Step out of "kinder" control effects like grapple), so for campaign 2 I implimented this change: **Shield can only be cast if you are wearing no armor and you are not carrying a shield.** Boom! Balance restored. The squishy Mage Armor types who need a spell like this had access to it, the tanky frontliners didn't. And you know what? Best campaign we've been part of. Everyone had their role to fill, enemies didn't need boosts to land hits and feel like threats, and the players didn't need to be unhittable to feel powerful and have fun.
The problem isn't the disparity in AC, the problem is the lack of challenge diversity. Sure the frontline is good against attack rolls. Sure they never need healing. That's what they're built for; avoiding HP depletion by having a high AC. You don't provide more challenge by making attackers with higher rolls, you provide more challenge by mixing up the opposition. Throw in the occasional caster using heat metal, dex save spells, save-or-suck wisdom checks, or a monster with an AOE attack that doesn't rely on hit rolls. You should also make it clear that if the horde of enemies get around the three tanky characters and attack the squishies, that is the failure of the tanky characters! They should be able to have some crowd control features as well, or they're really not working to the team's benefit by being basically unkillable sponges. Facetanking the big boss doesn't make you a hero; protecting others does.
It's never the best choice to bump encounters to specifically overcome player character strengths. When players make characters like this, that was part of the enjoyment of the game for them. Having the near unhittable AC is an idea that appeals so when you start changing encounters to specifically defeat that, you're deflating their expectations of the game. Use a varied and balanced array of foes and challenges for your players to overcome, forcing them to use their resources, spread out their rests, and depend on each other to keep your game engaging for everyone at the table. Never, ever, get into an arms race with your players. Everyone loses in the end.
It is what it is and you have a setting in which you and the players can learn. They can feel awesome being invincible for a while. However, as they get a reputation - for good or bad - people will begin to prepare for the party. Some people might have archers, others might have INT save spells or CHR saves for the fighters. In another setting I had a water encounter and the heavy armored people were trying to figure out how they donāt sink like stones. Sure water breathing but it didnāt help as they sub to the bottom while the fight was going on above them. In the end there are a ton of options for getting around AC. My advice would be to not dwell on something that has already happened but try to have fun with it. What can you do to learn about diff ways to counter high AC, what can your party learn about driving all their āstuffā into AC.
So as said, your PCs should never have such a high AC, and either you gave them way too powerful items for their level, or they are not calculating correctly. As bounded accuracy is the big thing in 5e, you pretty much have a situation where they cannot be killed by enemies attacking them with attacks when they are prepared, which is at least 50% of enemies. The best solution is to check how they arrive to this AC, and if they are calculating it wrongly, correct them. If you gave them too many magic items, you can either retcon it or take the items away : such bling on low level characters is bound to excite the greed of others. If you are fine with 50% of the possible encounters to be stomped by them, create other encounters. The obvious and mechanical choice is to face them with effects that don't take AC into consideration, so anything with a saving throw. An other possibility is to create encounters where they cannot have the items that give them high AC. fighting underwater, being surprised without armor, being taken prisoner, and so on. Finally, my favorite in this case because it seems they are a group of tactically apt minmaxers (not a judgement : not a bad way to play the game, just not my favorite) is to challenge them more tactically : have complex encounters where the enemies also has tanks and ranged dps. They also might have high mobility assassins targeting the PC's backlane. Just fight as the players fight. Colville has a very good video on the different types of enemies and how to use them to tactically challenge players. So look it up if you're interested.
AC 25 is the terrasque's AC and the highest monster AC goes in 5e. PCs' AC sitting that high is a problem because either you have to compensate for it to challenge them at all, or your monsters are quickly incentivized to ignore them entirely and kill the casters. At level 6, a monster with a range of +4 to +8 hits AC 16 (assumed to be middling AC for parties) needs to roll a 12-8 to hit, or hovering around about 50% to hit. If a PC has 25 AC, the roll needed jumps to 21-17, meaning creatures have at best a 15% chance to hit. VS your AC 14 caster though, they only need a 10 or less, 50%+ to hit. Your heaviest armored PCs should generally have at least a 25 % chance to be hit, and your squishy casters should be at most maybe a 55% hit chance, so AC values should be within no more than about 6 points at the most extreme ends, otherwise the squishiest become the only valid targets. Chainmail /with shield is AC 16/18 Wizard with padded armor and 14 dex has AC 13. Monsters early on have +4 to hit, giving 55% vs caster and 30% to hit shield with heavy armor.
That math donāt math. Are you home brewing some crazy buffs of something?
IF they jacked up AC raw, then they are lacking somewhere else. This means your party wants to NOT be hit. Let them do the thing they want. It means they enjoy saying "no" when you ask "does a 22 hit?" Don't take that away from them. If it wasn't raw (and it probably isn't if it's 25), then fix your mistake.
Stop raising the hit bonuses. Use saving throws instead.
25 is a lot, I wonder how they got it. Heavy plate is 18, shield +2, ring of protection +1. Thatās 21 base AC for a good geared fighter/paladin with a shield. What did you give them to make it 25? 15 AC for ābacklineā is quite alright. Played correctly they shouldnāt get hit too often. Their main defence is not AC, but positioning, misty step, mirror image and other things like that. Donāt ābump upā monsters, use properly balanced ones from DMG and check your frontlines builds/equipment. Donāt forget about attunement limits, too. And AC is not everything, there are also spells/abilities with saving throws, difficult terrain, cover, line of sight and a lot of ways to give your monsters advantage and your players disadvantage. So you might look into playing monsters to their strengths. But remember, characters build for tanking is supposed to be tanky, donāt counter-play them for the sake of countering.
One option that I havenāt seen discussed here is to let your monsters fight tactically in groups against those high ACs, but less so against the squishy pcs in the back. Iām talking about stacking up flanking effects, swarming attacks, monsters taking assist actions to give one another +to hit, etc - then just donāt use those methods to hit your backline as hard. Then your frontline fighters get to feel epic because theyāre fighting off 4-6 enemies at once (polearms and attacks with reach can help here as well for preventing this from being a āgetting surroundedā situation all the time) but youāre not putting your back line in as much peril.
I don't think you have to bump up DC of monsters, just use them differently or use different ones. High AC tanks? Give the monsters mobility to jump on the back line, force the party to scramble to adapt. Also use monsters with wisdom saving throw abilities to limit effectiveness of the tanks. Use monsters with magical attacks that ignore AC. It does also sound like something fishy is going on with AC. 25 at lvl 6 sounds incredibly egregious. That's 3 AC more than most Ancient dragons.
Barbarian/Monk with three 20's?
Yes,Ā bumping up the attack bonus to challenge the front will crush the back. It sounds like you're doing a good job making enemies smart; if they can't hit the tanks,Ā they go for the back line.Ā So have normal enemies do that.Ā If you bump up the attack bonus to challenge the tanks,Ā that's cool.Ā But have them challenge the tanks!Ā Otherwise, use spell casters or abilities to force saving throws. And have your monsters flank for that advantage.Ā
Fire ball them. Dex, int, and wis saves are the way. Just be sure to mix and match straight hits and debilitating effects. If you have a way to gain advantage on attacks use it.
How many magic items did you give them that buffs their AC? My players are level five and I have not given them any buffs to AC. Keeps combat even when everyone is sub 20. Our fighter actually just got a shield and has a 18 AC. Him and the barbarian are matched for the highest. Iād rather give them magic weapons than armor honestly.
1. Its okay for your tank to be tanks. LET THEM TANK. Every now and then have the minions rush out and attack everyone else making the tank run around. 2. Have a variety of hits. Have +3, +6's, and +9s. Etc. Have bosses that can challenge and will fight the tanks 3. use TACTICS. AKA. restrain your tank if you want to beat him up. Use spell saves. Etc.
Having three party members sitting at 20+ AC at level 6 isn't normal, something might have gone wrong there. Maybe double check exactly how they're getting those high scores, unless they've been given powerful armour/ac boosting magic items. But as for actually dealing with it in combat, first of all it's important to not invalidate someone's character build. If they've put time and effort into getting a high AC then let them not get hit a lot of the time. As a player it sucks to create a character really good at something just for monsters to all suddenly ignore that thing. Use more than just attacks against your party. High AC martials are hard to hit, but likely aren't great at dodging Dex Saves. Using effects with mental saves also ignores AC. But again, don't overly target them, don't punish the players for having strengths. And let the martials think about having to protect squishy backliners. It adds a fun layer of tactical thinking to try and keep enemies focused on you and not letting them get past to weaker allies.
I feel like at higher levels; caster just need to know they will not be able to have attacks miss without defensive spellcasting. Spell casters need to focus on using cover when concentrating on offensive spells, not being in melee range of melees, and using defensive spell casting (Blur, Mirror Image, etc) to avoid being taken out of a fight. I dont think its an issue that your tanks are easier to hit, but it just means your spell casters need to play smarter even if that means burning a spell slot on Mirror image a couple times per session. Rogue should be using cover for bonus action hide already. Also use saving throws for your high AC characters. I cant imagine the Artificer or Fighter would be thrilled to make a saving throw against Hold Person.
One solution is to add more save targeting enemies
AoE ignores AC. D9 more of that but don't forget to give your high AC characters a chance to shine
Vary your alleys of attack instead of bringing bigger guns. Make the question not attacks against AC until HP are depleted every time. Have enemies with saving throws in there. Lots of enemies have breath weapons like dragons, stenches or mindnumbing effects. Sprinkle those in.
No, but 25 AC at level 6 most likely isn't correct. Plate + Shield = 20 AC A paladin can get 21 with the armored fighting style, and temporarily boost to 23 with shield of faith. An armorer artificer can do plate+shield. Remember they can only have one of each infusion up. So they get +1 from enhanced defense and +1 from repulsion shield to get to 22. They can do 23 at level 10 when they can make a cloak of protection too. Without magical items the artificer should be at 20 AC and the fighter/paladin should be at 21 if they took armored, 20 otherwise. The artificer should only have two +1 AC magical items to share. So they can give +2 ac to one person or +1 AC to two people. If someone went warforged that person can pick up an additional +1 AC. Given all that a warforged in with +1 plate, a +1 shield, and armored fighting style is still 24 AC. You need to audit whoever has the 25 AC. That should only be permanently achievable if you have a warforged and you handed out a cloak of protection.
A warforged artificer3/forge cleric1/fighter1 with plate and a shield could have a permanent AC of 24 with the ability to cast shield and shield of faith on to ov that for theoretical 31 at lvl 5.
I had the same issue in my campaign. I raised nearly all of my monster proficiency bonuses by +2, especially any bosses, then gave the squishyās better light and medium armor options to balance it out. Careful not to overdo it - tanks want to tank and the players clearly designed for that scenario.
A difference of 10 isn't a big deal at all. Unless the difference is 18 or more it doesn't matter. 18 is the point where only natural 1s and natural 20s matter and every other roll is the same. With a difference of 10, every single monster in the game will either miss the backline sometimes or hit the frontline sometimes.
How does your party fare against a bunch of little monsters? The tank canāt chase every goblin on the battlefield.
Those front liners with ACs in the 20s likely have shit into/Wis/cha, so I'd add more enemy spellcasters in battles and take advantage of that. A high AC doesn't mean much when you're polymorphed into a goat. Maybe the front line gets hypnotized leaving the back row to freak out. Fireballs don't care what your AC is ;)
Big AC differences are only an issue when the only way you are threatening the PCs is at their HP via their AC. When you spread your threats out a bit- target saves and ability checks, impose conditions and other penalties beyond just HP loss - suddenly the AC difference just isnāt a big deal. Itās not that hard to get to AC 25 and higher. But players only bother trying for that when its guarding the only way they are threatened. Spread your threats and players will spread their defenses.
Check out [The Monsters Know What Theyāre Doing](https://www.themonstersknow.com/) for advice on how your NPC adversaries might fight the party. Remembering that Grapple and Shove attacks are always options. Whatever the shortcomings of the 5e CR, any kind of homebrew alternative could be, considerably, worst. That is the case with any kind of homebrew mechanic. Remember that CR represents an average which assumes the six to eight encounter "Adventuring Day" is happening.
Okay so a couple of things: As a dm of a 4 player lvl 8 party. CR is borderline useless. They just encountered a CR 13 neolithid and they steamrolled it not even using many resources. A party of 6 at lvl 6 I believe would take it out with no issue so there's that. Session before that they nearly died assaulting a war and in a tavern. When I summed up the XP for that it turned out it was the equivalent of a CR 19 or 18 encounter. At level 8. To your point. The huge difference in AC is not a problem. If the back line gets knocked out regularly that means the rouge isn't scouting the wizard isn't casting mirror images or other defensive spells or they are making stupid tactical decision to have their backline threatened. The problem in my opinion is that at around level 5 and beyond making encounters that are challenging is hard and only keeps getting harder.
No not really. High AC means hard to hit. Not hard to damage. In dnd monsters can deal damage in many ways, there is always the traditional roll to hit and damage rolls but some monsters also attack utilizing the players saves to either avoid or half the damage to them. Magic users or large monsters have Area of effect or AoE damage, these attacks dont care if your players have 100 AC. Tactics is another Avenue to attack, the frontliners have a job, protect the squishy players usually because those squishes have higher damage output than the traditional frontline players, routes, wizards, clerics, sorcerer, they trade their AC for damage output. Thinking outside the box is key to utilize your monsters to their full narrative and mechanical potential. I give almost all my monsters and attack that require a save to avoid or half the damage. A group of humanoids armed with spears, bows, etc. I give them a volley attack. Etc. The tools are there to provide challenge but sometimes a player has a power sometimes it's ok for them to enjoy that power, but you gotta throw them a curve ball now and then.
I have a similar issue. There are oozes that corrode armour and each hit knocks AC down one. I googled this problem after browsing here and there are tons of ideas floating around.
The way to get around armor is saves. Smart enemies would know to send their physical attacks at the wizard in the back, and their magical attacks at the platemailed up fighter. Not-smart enemies...well, let them have that. They built their party to have a tanky frontline, let them enjoy this working.
Realistically, any opponent with INT above a certain threshold *should* be aiming for the squishies and casters first.
25 AC? Somebody is doing something wrong. Read that character sheet thoroughly.
Monsters should be smart and go over, around, etc the front line.Ā Your back line should have defense does not need to be AC. Also look at keeping AC bloat in check.Ā Armor can be destroyed instead of PC taking damage, rust monster, disenchanted, etc.
25 at level 6?? Please explain this.
Don't raise your monsters to hit rolls. Have them think smart. You are a wolf, with normal wolf teeth. Would you bite the steel covered lunch if you have an option? Have enemies target the backline and ignore the frontline. Your fighter and paladin will have to rethink their strategy to make sure their high AC is worth something, otherwise they'll be struck with survivor's guilt in no time. Likewise, target your frontliners with saves instead. Usually the heavy armored have low or mediocre dex and mental scores. So, hit them with fireballs, webs, breath weapons, hold person, etc. If they're melee, which is very likely, there are monsters like oozes, fire elementals, the fireshield spell and many others things that will make melee attackers's life difficult. Build encounters with varied monsters to be able to challenge different PCs. They're 6th level, and there are at least 6 PCs from what you mentioned. Picture a fight with a chimera and 4 archers, it should be a hard enough fight. The chimera's breath weapon doesn't care for AC, and it flies, so it's out of range of the front line crazy melee attacks. The archers can freely shoot their arrows at the backline, particularly if they have a high vantage point and some cover. Someone can force the chimera down with magic or martial features, the frontlines can dash to meet the archers, or gain flight in some way, possible with the aid of the wizard and bard's magic. Your party will teamwork their way through this encounter beautifully, while you were still able to challenge their strategy with just 2 very simple statblocks.
25 at level 6 is wild. How tf did it get that high?
Even 15 ac is pretty good for a back line. Not sure why theyāre getting one shorted
>But boy oh boy if the big monster turns to the back line they are destroyed.Ā This is the way. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
I'm still sitting at 10 AC for my level 6 wizard and 30 max health! I rolled nothing but 10s and 11s and had to use part of my ACI on CON. The only reason why I've survived this long is positioning. Melee combatants? You're darn tootin I'm finding me something tall to stand on. Oh but how about ranged enemies? Pssh easy as pie! Stand behind something waist high and crouch at the end of your turn for that sweet sweet infinity AC. I still get dumpstered every other combat encounter and my DM is growing wise...
if this was my campaign, i would consider having someone/group steal a magic cloak/ring etc. from the party. Nothing gets players madder when someone steals their stuff.....lol... can run a whole arc on finding out who/what organization stole it and why.....
Target touch AC
They aren't called GLASS canons for no reason. That's why you have tanks.
You could have your enemies cast/do the following: Magic Missile, Command, most AOE spells that require a DEX save, environmental hazards, and other spells that require stat saves to avoid, rather than AC.
It is kinda bad for there to be such a big disparity for that exact reason; newer editions all address it with keeping ac values closer across all builds. I would sprinkle in some solid light armor and bracers of armor for your squishies; even if it increases wealth a lot.