So my party is a party of 5, level 9s. There is one rogue, AC 16, a bard, AC 16, a wizard, AC 17 (has an unarmored defense thing from hb race.) a fighter, AC 22 WITHOUT any magic items that increase AC, and finally a sorcerer, with a sad AC of 6. The main thing I want to know is how to slow down the fighters road to unhittable and make it so it is possible to miss the sorcerer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
How did the sorcerer manage to have AC 6? And what gives an AC of 22 without magic items, something like a warforged with defense fighting style, plate, and shield? Anyway, just use stuff with really high attack bonuses; sure, an attack bonus of +11 hits the sorcerer 95% of the time, but it also hits the fighter 50% so it's not that big a difference.
This is one of those areas where I'm afraid you've found a weakness of the game system's design. Way back when, the system was simpler. Fighters had few effective counters to magic using enemies. Magic users had few effective counters to martials. This allowed for a sort of balance and challenge system. Everyone had strengths, everyone had weaknesses. As the system developed through editions and players got given all the shiny new toys that they now have it's a lot more difficult to see that balance. But that's where the good news comes in! Most characters still have some form of weakness that others don't.
Basically, it'll come down to an understanding of the character. Somewhere within the fighter will be a low ability score. It's there that your monsters can be targeted. The traditional fighter archetype would be having a low wisdom score because it's kinda the dump stat. So, enemies that force wisdom saving throws become particularly effective. In fact given how Charisma heavy your party is, it's likely that all of them would struggle with a good WIS saving throw. So you could simply start throwing enemies with ranged spell and abilities which force saving throws.
Of course the details might be different. I once had a philosopher fighter character in a party for whom I was DMing. So their WIS was quite high - however, the principle holds true - find the saving throws that are the weakest.
As a different solution here - cover and range can also be incredibly effective. If you want to challenge your players, a canyon where they are forced into the valley and the enemies have the high ground, cover, and concealment - well that can be a real challenge. It is in fact one of the few environments where the 5e ranger can actually shine. They get a climb speed and as such the canyon's walls aren't the obstacle to them, that the are to others. The druid can shine here too with a wild shape capable of climbing. Meanwhile, the rest of the party are somewhat forced to go defensive and dodging in order to preserve themselves.
The point here is not 'stick the party in a canyon' though. The point is that environment can have a massive impact on the way in which combat plays out. Lost Mine of Phandelver has a wonderful feature - the ceilings of some of the tunnels in Wave Echo Cave are just six feet high. This means that the party have to navigate and pursue encounters differently. Tailoring an environment is a really key thing in making encounters feel epic and challenging. I've had forests where the undergrowth is so thick that it becomes difficult terrain - working in Druid and Ranger favour - trees that are so close together that slashing weapons are at disadvantage - working in the favour of magic, piercing, bludgeoning attacks.
Think carefully about the terrain and how you can use it to the advantage of both the enemies and the player characters. I try to design big encounter environments in such a way that at least one of the party's abilities can outshine everyone else. Over the course of a long adventure of course everyone will get multiple opportunities to shine.
Finally, and somewhat linked to the other two points - traps and wards. Having traps litter environments, having wards protecting areas often force saving throws. Traps are somewhat designed to sap away the resources of a martial character. Put simply combat shouldn't be the only time where HP can be drained. Traps and Wards allow the chance to wick away some HP from a tanky character without worrying about the AC.
So my party is a party of 5, level 9s. There is one rogue, AC 16, a bard, AC 16, a wizard, AC 17 (has an unarmored defense thing from hb race.) a fighter, AC 22 WITHOUT any magic items that increase AC, and finally a sorcerer, with a sad AC of 6. The main thing I want to know is how to slow down the fighters road to unhittable and make it so it is possible to miss the sorcerer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
No offense meant, but are you...sure the Sorcerer's AC is 6? That would require them to have a Dexterity score of 3 (for a modifier of -4) which is the lowest possible value for a PC ability score. The only way you can get that is by rolling your stats, and you'd have to get four 1s on a 4d6 roll (which is not impossible, but certainly highly unlikely, like 1/1296). And then for a Sorcerer to put that roll in Dexterity is wild.
So my party is a party of 5, level 9s. There is one rogue, AC 16, a bard, AC 16, a wizard, AC 17 (has an unarmored defense thing from hb race.) a fighter, AC 22 WITHOUT any magic items that increase AC, and finally a sorcerer, with a sad AC of 6. The main thing I want to know is how to slow down the fighters road to unhittable and make it so it is possible to miss the sorcerer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
1) I'm sorry... AC 6??? Is there some sort of curse involved there?
2) Target the party with saving throws, not attacks
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If the Sorcerer gets hit too bad. They chose the path to AC 6 so let them suffer for it. I'm not saying focus fire on the guy but if reasonable attacks are sent their way, they should expect to get hit all the time. They KNOW they have AC 6, it's not your job to avoid attacking them because of it.
For the Fighter, you can use regular attacks. They might miss but some will still hit. At their level monsters regularly have +9 to +11 to-hit bonuses. You can also use area effect spells. Even if they make their save, they still take damage.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
This is a feature, not a bug. Character choices have consequences. In this case, the fighter's choice to focus on AC means they get hit less often.
The sorcerer is a whole other thing because you need to houserule to get AC that low. Houserules can break parts of the game and a player AC below 10 breaks the main assumptions of the "flat AC" model. But the above remains true - presumably (hopefully) there was a choice to superdump AC, and getting hit by 95% of attacks is the consequence of that choice.
I would recommend playing monsters as written. Let the players experience the consequences of their choices.
And remember monsters can make choices too. If a monster is going to have a 10% hit rate on the fighter and it is smarter than a rock, it should probably look for another target after a test swing at the fighter. Traditionally, the way to deal with "tanks" that have gone full defense is to simply ignore them because they are relatively low-threat enemies. This is another consequence of the player's choice.
The fighter opted to focus on defence, and should therefore be good at defence. The enemies don't know to target him with AOE spells, until they start fighting. If they're smart enough, they will work it out. If not, they will not hit him much. That's not a problem.
The AC of 6 (somehow) has to be the Sorcerer's choice, or a curse to break. If they get attacked, they will probably get hit. At this level, an AC of 6 is ridiculously low, and should have the consequence of them being hit. If they put themselves in harms way, they can't expect the enemies to miss, or not attack them.
Your job as the DM is to place obstacles and story in their way. Their job is to work out how to solve them. Sometimes, the fighter won't get hit at all - and that's an awesome reflection of his abilities. Sometimes, he will get hit - and that's a reflection of his limits.
Never try to overcome your players - instead focus on the right story beats and the right challenges. There will be times where armour doesn't matter, and those times will be just as good as when the armour saves him.
True, I forgot to mention that. If the Fighter goes through a decent sized encounter and all of the attacks miss, the player is going to feel awesome and that their choice of having a high AC paid off. Let them enjoy the moment.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
This is a feature, not a bug. Character choices have consequences. In this case, the fighter's choice to focus on AC means they get hit less often.
The sorcerer is a whole other thing because you need to houserule to get AC that low. Houserules can break parts of the game and a player AC below 10 breaks the main assumptions of the "flat AC" model. But the above remains true - presumably (hopefully) there was a choice to superdump AC, and getting hit by 95% of attacks is the consequence of that choice.
I would recommend playing monsters as written. Let the players experience the consequences of their choices.
And remember monsters can make choices too. If a monster is going to have a 10% hit rate on the fighter and it is smarter than a rock, it should probably look for another target after a test swing at the fighter. Traditionally, the way to deal with "tanks" that have gone full defense is to simply ignore them because they are relatively low-threat enemies. This is another consequence of the player's choice.
It's mainly because how I did AC sans armor was 1 + dex + prof, but I also don't fully know how AC sans armor works so that was what I ended up coming up with from what I could find, might be wrong idk.
So my party is a party of 5, level 9s. There is one rogue, AC 16, a bard, AC 16, a wizard, AC 17 (has an unarmored defense thing from hb race.) a fighter, AC 22 WITHOUT any magic items that increase AC, and finally a sorcerer, with a sad AC of 6. The main thing I want to know is how to slow down the fighters road to unhittable and make it so it is possible to miss the sorcerer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
No offense meant, but are you...sure the Sorcerer's AC is 6? That would require them to have a Dexterity score of 3 (for a modifier of -4) which is the lowest possible value for a PC ability score. The only way you can get that is by rolling your stats, and you'd have to get four 1s on a 4d6 roll (which is not impossible, but certainly highly unlikely, like 1/1296). And then for a Sorcerer to put that roll in Dexterity is wild.
Yeah... From what I'm hearing is I made a few mistakes on unarmored AC...
This is one of those areas where I'm afraid you've found a weakness of the game system's design. Way back when, the system was simpler. Fighters had few effective counters to magic using enemies. Magic users had few effective counters to martials. This allowed for a sort of balance and challenge system. Everyone had strengths, everyone had weaknesses. As the system developed through editions and players got given all the shiny new toys that they now have it's a lot more difficult to see that balance. But that's where the good news comes in! Most characters still have some form of weakness that others don't.
Basically, it'll come down to an understanding of the character. Somewhere within the fighter will be a low ability score. It's there that your monsters can be targeted. The traditional fighter archetype would be having a low wisdom score because it's kinda the dump stat. So, enemies that force wisdom saving throws become particularly effective. In fact given how Charisma heavy your party is, it's likely that all of them would struggle with a good WIS saving throw. So you could simply start throwing enemies with ranged spell and abilities which force saving throws.
Of course the details might be different. I once had a philosopher fighter character in a party for whom I was DMing. So their WIS was quite high - however, the principle holds true - find the saving throws that are the weakest.
As a different solution here - cover and range can also be incredibly effective. If you want to challenge your players, a canyon where they are forced into the valley and the enemies have the high ground, cover, and concealment - well that can be a real challenge. It is in fact one of the few environments where the 5e ranger can actually shine. They get a climb speed and as such the canyon's walls aren't the obstacle to them, that the are to others. The druid can shine here too with a wild shape capable of climbing. Meanwhile, the rest of the party are somewhat forced to go defensive and dodging in order to preserve themselves.
The point here is not 'stick the party in a canyon' though. The point is that environment can have a massive impact on the way in which combat plays out. Lost Mine of Phandelver has a wonderful feature - the ceilings of some of the tunnels in Wave Echo Cave are just six feet high. This means that the party have to navigate and pursue encounters differently. Tailoring an environment is a really key thing in making encounters feel epic and challenging. I've had forests where the undergrowth is so thick that it becomes difficult terrain - working in Druid and Ranger favour - trees that are so close together that slashing weapons are at disadvantage - working in the favour of magic, piercing, bludgeoning attacks.
Think carefully about the terrain and how you can use it to the advantage of both the enemies and the player characters. I try to design big encounter environments in such a way that at least one of the party's abilities can outshine everyone else. Over the course of a long adventure of course everyone will get multiple opportunities to shine.
Finally, and somewhat linked to the other two points - traps and wards. Having traps litter environments, having wards protecting areas often force saving throws. Traps are somewhat designed to sap away the resources of a martial character. Put simply combat shouldn't be the only time where HP can be drained. Traps and Wards allow the chance to wick away some HP from a tanky character without worrying about the AC.
I'll look into this concept, so far I've kinda forgotten about spellcasters... Partially because one of the two reality's this is set in is lower magic... I'll try to send more against them, but the time I did it got killed before it's turn even came up, and it wasn't alone in the fight... (5e mage)
So he's using defensive duelist? Nothing else adds proficiency bonus to AC... and defensive duelist only applies to melee attacks.
*Facepalm* I always thought there was a thing written in the item description that says if proficient u can add your prof. Bonus to your ac, like weapons and to hit bonuses. Thanks for the information, I'll try to get that fixed.
Just to clarify for the record: if a character is not wearing armor, their AC is equal to 10 + their Dexterity modifier, unless they have some other feature that overrides that.
Just to further clarify IF your sorcerer is not using mage armor at all times - you as the dm should help him understand that its a core feature - that makes his ac 13+dex
His ac should be rolling around 16-17 give or take depending what he put in dex - most casters go Casting stat - dex - con in that order (last 3 are dump stats) also at this level bracers of unarmored defense or a +1 cloak or ring are not out of the norm so he could easily with 1 green item be at 18.
If you as the dm did not know this - I would suggest you brush up on the mechanics of all the classes your players are playing if they are new - part of being a dm is teaching new players the game and you cant teach what you don't know.
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So my party is a party of 5, level 9s. There is one rogue, AC 16, a bard, AC 16, a wizard, AC 17 (has an unarmored defense thing from hb race.) a fighter, AC 22 WITHOUT any magic items that increase AC, and finally a sorcerer, with a sad AC of 6. The main thing I want to know is how to slow down the fighters road to unhittable and make it so it is possible to miss the sorcerer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
How did the sorcerer manage to have AC 6? And what gives an AC of 22 without magic items, something like a warforged with defense fighting style, plate, and shield? Anyway, just use stuff with really high attack bonuses; sure, an attack bonus of +11 hits the sorcerer 95% of the time, but it also hits the fighter 50% so it's not that big a difference.
Target the fighter with attacks that call for saving throws is the usual tactic.
This is one of those areas where I'm afraid you've found a weakness of the game system's design. Way back when, the system was simpler. Fighters had few effective counters to magic using enemies. Magic users had few effective counters to martials. This allowed for a sort of balance and challenge system. Everyone had strengths, everyone had weaknesses. As the system developed through editions and players got given all the shiny new toys that they now have it's a lot more difficult to see that balance. But that's where the good news comes in! Most characters still have some form of weakness that others don't.
Basically, it'll come down to an understanding of the character. Somewhere within the fighter will be a low ability score. It's there that your monsters can be targeted. The traditional fighter archetype would be having a low wisdom score because it's kinda the dump stat. So, enemies that force wisdom saving throws become particularly effective. In fact given how Charisma heavy your party is, it's likely that all of them would struggle with a good WIS saving throw. So you could simply start throwing enemies with ranged spell and abilities which force saving throws.
Of course the details might be different. I once had a philosopher fighter character in a party for whom I was DMing. So their WIS was quite high - however, the principle holds true - find the saving throws that are the weakest.
As a different solution here - cover and range can also be incredibly effective. If you want to challenge your players, a canyon where they are forced into the valley and the enemies have the high ground, cover, and concealment - well that can be a real challenge. It is in fact one of the few environments where the 5e ranger can actually shine. They get a climb speed and as such the canyon's walls aren't the obstacle to them, that the are to others. The druid can shine here too with a wild shape capable of climbing. Meanwhile, the rest of the party are somewhat forced to go defensive and dodging in order to preserve themselves.
The point here is not 'stick the party in a canyon' though. The point is that environment can have a massive impact on the way in which combat plays out. Lost Mine of Phandelver has a wonderful feature - the ceilings of some of the tunnels in Wave Echo Cave are just six feet high. This means that the party have to navigate and pursue encounters differently. Tailoring an environment is a really key thing in making encounters feel epic and challenging. I've had forests where the undergrowth is so thick that it becomes difficult terrain - working in Druid and Ranger favour - trees that are so close together that slashing weapons are at disadvantage - working in the favour of magic, piercing, bludgeoning attacks.
Think carefully about the terrain and how you can use it to the advantage of both the enemies and the player characters. I try to design big encounter environments in such a way that at least one of the party's abilities can outshine everyone else. Over the course of a long adventure of course everyone will get multiple opportunities to shine.
Finally, and somewhat linked to the other two points - traps and wards. Having traps litter environments, having wards protecting areas often force saving throws. Traps are somewhat designed to sap away the resources of a martial character. Put simply combat shouldn't be the only time where HP can be drained. Traps and Wards allow the chance to wick away some HP from a tanky character without worrying about the AC.
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No offense meant, but are you...sure the Sorcerer's AC is 6? That would require them to have a Dexterity score of 3 (for a modifier of -4) which is the lowest possible value for a PC ability score. The only way you can get that is by rolling your stats, and you'd have to get four 1s on a 4d6 roll (which is not impossible, but certainly highly unlikely, like 1/1296). And then for a Sorcerer to put that roll in Dexterity is wild.
pronouns: he/she/they
1) I'm sorry... AC 6??? Is there some sort of curse involved there?
2) Target the party with saving throws, not attacks
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If the Sorcerer gets hit too bad. They chose the path to AC 6 so let them suffer for it. I'm not saying focus fire on the guy but if reasonable attacks are sent their way, they should expect to get hit all the time. They KNOW they have AC 6, it's not your job to avoid attacking them because of it.
For the Fighter, you can use regular attacks. They might miss but some will still hit. At their level monsters regularly have +9 to +11 to-hit bonuses. You can also use area effect spells. Even if they make their save, they still take damage.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
This is a feature, not a bug. Character choices have consequences. In this case, the fighter's choice to focus on AC means they get hit less often.
The sorcerer is a whole other thing because you need to houserule to get AC that low. Houserules can break parts of the game and a player AC below 10 breaks the main assumptions of the "flat AC" model. But the above remains true - presumably (hopefully) there was a choice to superdump AC, and getting hit by 95% of attacks is the consequence of that choice.
I would recommend playing monsters as written. Let the players experience the consequences of their choices.
And remember monsters can make choices too. If a monster is going to have a 10% hit rate on the fighter and it is smarter than a rock, it should probably look for another target after a test swing at the fighter. Traditionally, the way to deal with "tanks" that have gone full defense is to simply ignore them because they are relatively low-threat enemies. This is another consequence of the player's choice.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I mean theres plenty of monster abilities that surpass AC, even in the OG 5e Monster manual
What you do is let them do their thing.
The fighter opted to focus on defence, and should therefore be good at defence. The enemies don't know to target him with AOE spells, until they start fighting. If they're smart enough, they will work it out. If not, they will not hit him much. That's not a problem.
The AC of 6 (somehow) has to be the Sorcerer's choice, or a curse to break. If they get attacked, they will probably get hit. At this level, an AC of 6 is ridiculously low, and should have the consequence of them being hit. If they put themselves in harms way, they can't expect the enemies to miss, or not attack them.
Your job as the DM is to place obstacles and story in their way. Their job is to work out how to solve them. Sometimes, the fighter won't get hit at all - and that's an awesome reflection of his abilities. Sometimes, he will get hit - and that's a reflection of his limits.
Never try to overcome your players - instead focus on the right story beats and the right challenges. There will be times where armour doesn't matter, and those times will be just as good as when the armour saves him.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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True, I forgot to mention that. If the Fighter goes through a decent sized encounter and all of the attacks miss, the player is going to feel awesome and that their choice of having a high AC paid off. Let them enjoy the moment.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Leather, +5 dex, +4 prof bonus, shield. It's atrocious. Fighter AC math
So he's using defensive duelist? Nothing else adds proficiency bonus to AC... and defensive duelist only applies to melee attacks.
It's mainly because how I did AC sans armor was 1 + dex + prof, but I also don't fully know how AC sans armor works so that was what I ended up coming up with from what I could find, might be wrong idk.
Yeah... From what I'm hearing is I made a few mistakes on unarmored AC...
I'll look into this concept, so far I've kinda forgotten about spellcasters... Partially because one of the two reality's this is set in is lower magic... I'll try to send more against them, but the time I did it got killed before it's turn even came up, and it wasn't alone in the fight... (5e mage)
*Facepalm* I always thought there was a thing written in the item description that says if proficient u can add your prof. Bonus to your ac, like weapons and to hit bonuses. Thanks for the information, I'll try to get that fixed.
Just to clarify for the record: if a character is not wearing armor, their AC is equal to 10 + their Dexterity modifier, unless they have some other feature that overrides that.
pronouns: he/she/they
Thank you everyone, I think I've got it figured out now. Thanks for all the tips and information, I'll definitely get this fixed up here now.
Just to further clarify IF your sorcerer is not using mage armor at all times - you as the dm should help him understand that its a core feature - that makes his ac 13+dex
His ac should be rolling around 16-17 give or take depending what he put in dex - most casters go Casting stat - dex - con in that order (last 3 are dump stats) also at this level bracers of unarmored defense or a +1 cloak or ring are not out of the norm so he could easily with 1 green item be at 18.
If you as the dm did not know this - I would suggest you brush up on the mechanics of all the classes your players are playing if they are new - part of being a dm is teaching new players the game and you cant teach what you don't know.