I'm relatively new to DnD and working on a few different character builds. I like to plan things out, so am also looking at what Feats/ASIs I would take as these characters level up.
Does anyone have any advice (or even stats) on whether it's better to bump up your AC (eg. Defensive Duelist, Medium Armor Master), or reduce damage (eg. Heavy Armor Master, Shield Master).
I understand a lot of Feats are based on individual character builds, but just wondering if people had preferences based on their experience.
The reason why the defense fighting style is so popular is because bonuses to ACs are rare and powerful. Shield Master is good for “Sword and Board” builds, but I wouldn’t take Heavy Armor Master in most cases. Anything that increases your AC however is typically worth the investment. But damage reductions are typically mediocre in my opinion unless the reduction is by at least half.
Let me put it this way: If it’s a choice between a damage resistance/immunity and a +1 to AC, choose the resistance. But if it’s a choice between a +1 AC and a small damage boost/reduction, choose the AC.
I'm relatively new to DnD and working on a few different character builds. I like to plan things out, so am also looking at what Feats/ASIs I would take as these characters level up.
Does anyone have any advice (or even stats) on whether it's better to bump up your AC (eg. Defensive Duelist, Medium Armor Master), or reduce damage (eg. Heavy Armor Master, Shield Master).
I understand a lot of Feats are based on individual character builds, but just wondering if people had preferences based on their experience.
Thanks!
AC has increasing returns - going from 18 to 19 has less of an impact than going from 19 to 20 on your durability - and scales with the damage of the incoming hit, since the entire hit is ignored on a miss. Damage reduction doesn't scale with the incoming hit, so the bigger the hit, the less it matters that you can reduce the damage. As a result, increasing your AC is generally a better bet than getting your hands on damage reduction. Damage resistance scales, by definition, so that's a completely different conversation and it's very easy for damage resistance to be much better than +1 AC.
One thing to consider is your character role. For a striker/DPR character, high AC is great. For a tank that’s trying to draw enemy attacks, you might discourage attackers if you are too hard to hit. Unless you are imposing disadvantage on attacking others (like an Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian), it might be hard to be a tank if you are really hard to hit. You’ll just get ignored in favor of your easier to hit allies.
For tank builds, damage resistance is superior to high AC for that reason.
One thing to consider is your character role. For a striker/DPR character, high AC is great. For a tank that’s trying to draw enemy attacks, you might discourage attackers if you are too hard to hit. Unless you are imposing disadvantage on attacking others (like an Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian), it might be hard to be a tank if you are really hard to hit. You’ll just get ignored in favor of your easier to hit allies.
For tank builds, damage resistance is superior to high AC for that reason.
That depends on the DM, if their attacks hit but seem to have little effect that could discourage attackers too.
Back to the original question, at low levels
At low levels reducing damage is usually better. When fighting a goblin, HAM will on average reduce damage by more than half while increasing AC from 16 to 17 reduces it by about 11%. HAM does nothing for things like firebolt so the comparison is not that extreme but at low levels most of the damage you tack from attack rolls will be reduced by HAM.
As others have said HAM does not scale so when those hits are doing 20+ damage often with added elemental damage HAM is a lot less useful.
If you are looking for a feat at level 1 for a campaign that doesn't go far (say LMOP) HAM is overpowered, at higher levels you want the extra A.C. instead.
In general it's better to not be hit than it is to reduce damage once hit. However, you also need to be aware that if your AC is super high then you'll only ever get hit by crits which for certain classes that require taking damage to use their abilities is not great.
If you want to build a tank then the fighter's protection fighting style is good for imposing disadvantage on enemies attacking your allies. The feat sentinel is also really good for stopping enemies running past your front line and can help you get in extra attacks.
One thing to consider is your character role. For a striker/DPR character, high AC is great. For a tank that’s trying to draw enemy attacks, you might discourage attackers if you are too hard to hit. Unless you are imposing disadvantage on attacking others (like an Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian), it might be hard to be a tank if you are really hard to hit. You’ll just get ignored in favor of your easier to hit allies.
For tank builds, damage resistance is superior to high AC for that reason.
That depends on the DM, if their attacks hit but seem to have little effect that could discourage attackers too.
Back to the original question, at low levels
At low levels reducing damage is usually better. When fighting a goblin, HAM will on average reduce damage by more than half while increasing AC from 16 to 17 reduces it by about 11%. HAM does nothing for things like firebolt so the comparison is not that extreme but at low levels most of the damage you tack from attack rolls will be reduced by HAM.
As others have said HAM does not scale so when those hits are doing 20+ damage often with added elemental damage HAM is a lot less useful.
If you are looking for a feat at level 1 for a campaign that doesn't go far (say LMOP) HAM is overpowered, at higher levels you want the extra A.C. instead.
As an addendum to this, resistances at low levels are usually not that great unless they are bludgeoning/piercing/slashing just because of the scarcity of the other damage types. As a barbarian who was raging, having those B/P/S resistances were awesome. Through level 5, I think I encountered poison damage in two fights and fire damage in another and that was it. As you get into higher levels, the variety of resistances that are thrown at you will be increased and resistances will be a bigger deal, especially as half damage on a save abilities and spells become more prevalent.
Thus, damage reduction in the vein of HAM are better at lower levels, or if you are trying to take hits but reduce damage (especially in conjunction with a resistance), though they may apply to fewer attacks later in the game as damage types become more varied.
Resistances are excellent, but are often less useful at low levels because of a lack of opportunity to apply them. Saves are also in this vein.
AC and HP are defensive stats that are generally more useful throughout a campaign.
Ideally, you would have access to a variety of these things from your build and from allies.
For defense: the orc attacks (+5 to hit) you have AC 18 (chain mail & shield) you also have defensive duelist. The orc attacks, and you add 2 to your AC. The orc has a 25% percent damage of hitting, so 25% of the orcs damage 9 is 2.25
For damage reduction: you have 18 AC but HAM instead of defensive duelist. The orc has a 35% chance of hitting so 35% of 9 is about 3. Then reduce it by 3, you get 0
Damage reduction is superior at early levels but let's see high levels
Your AC: 20(plate n shield) your going one to one with a pit fiend (a jolly bad idea) you have the feats described previously but you have parry (damage reduction) or evasive movement (defense)
Defense: the pit fiend attacks with his mace (+14 to hit) and you have a grand total of 32 AC (20+6(defensive duelist)+6(average d12 roll for evasive movement) he has a slim 10% chance of hitting so 10% of the pit fiends average damage of 36 is 3.6. Let's see if HAM+parry can beat that
Damage reduction: your AC 20, so the pit fiend has a 70% chance of hitting. The average damage so far is 25. Now the average reduction parry gives is 9 (average d12+ assuming you have 16 dexterity) plus HAM is 12. That leaves us with 5
So at higher levels, good defence is narrowly superior, taking 1.4 average less damage than damage reduction.
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When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
For defense: the orc attacks (+5 to hit) you have AC 18 (chain mail & shield) you also have defensive duelist. The orc attacks, and you add 2 to your AC. The orc has a 25% percent damage of hitting, so 25% of the orcs damage 9 is 2.25
For damage reduction: you have 18 AC but HAM instead of defensive duelist. The orc has a 35% chance of hitting so 35% of 9 is about 3. Then reduce it by 3, you get 0
Damage reduction is superior at early levels but let's see high levels
Your AC: 20(plate n shield) your going one to one with a pit fiend (a jolly bad idea) you have the feats described previously but you have parry (damage reduction) or evasive movement (defense)
Defense: the pit fiend attacks with his mace (+14 to hit) and you have a grand total of 32 AC (20+6(defensive duelist)+6(average d12 roll for evasive movement) he has a slim 10% chance of hitting so 10% of the pit fiends average damage of 36 is 3.6. Let's see if HAM+parry can beat that
Damage reduction: your AC 20, so the pit fiend has a 70% chance of hitting. The average damage so far is 25. Now the average reduction parry gives is 9 (average d12+ assuming you have 16 dexterity) plus HAM is 12. That leaves us with 5
So at higher levels, good defence is narrowly superior, taking 1.4 average less damage than damage reduction.
You subtracted the heavy armor master damage reduction from the average damage after an attack. the reduction should be applied directly to the damage it does on a hit, then multiply that by chance to hit.
low level heavy armor reduction: .35(9-3)= 2.1 DPR compared to the 2.25 of the defensive duelist.
One thing to point out about heavy armor master is that though the reduction stays at -3 damage, creatures you fight against have a decent likelihood of making use of multiattack. Each individual hit from a multiattack would have its damage reduced. An interesting example would be the Girallon. This creature attacks 5 times with its multi attack. The 35 potential damage it could do over 5 attacks is reduced to 20 damage over 5 attacks.
heavy armor master is a half feat that possibly evens out an odd strength statistic.
it works passively requiring no further resource investment, and leaves your reaction available for other features.
there’s also the fact that a feature stating “attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistances and immunity to nonmagical attacks.” Doesn’t bypass heavy armor masters damage reduction. The damage reduction is not actually resistance or immunity, so in this case it continues to work.
I'm relatively new to DnD and working on a few different character builds. I like to plan things out, so am also looking at what Feats/ASIs I would take as these characters level up.
Does anyone have any advice (or even stats) on whether it's better to bump up your AC (eg. Defensive Duelist, Medium Armor Master), or reduce damage (eg. Heavy Armor Master, Shield Master).
I understand a lot of Feats are based on individual character builds, but just wondering if people had preferences based on their experience.
Thanks!
The reason why the defense fighting style is so popular is because bonuses to ACs are rare and powerful. Shield Master is good for “Sword and Board” builds, but I wouldn’t take Heavy Armor Master in most cases. Anything that increases your AC however is typically worth the investment. But damage reductions are typically mediocre in my opinion unless the reduction is by at least half.
Let me put it this way: If it’s a choice between a damage resistance/immunity and a +1 to AC, choose the resistance. But if it’s a choice between a +1 AC and a small damage boost/reduction, choose the AC.
AC has increasing returns - going from 18 to 19 has less of an impact than going from 19 to 20 on your durability - and scales with the damage of the incoming hit, since the entire hit is ignored on a miss. Damage reduction doesn't scale with the incoming hit, so the bigger the hit, the less it matters that you can reduce the damage. As a result, increasing your AC is generally a better bet than getting your hands on damage reduction. Damage resistance scales, by definition, so that's a completely different conversation and it's very easy for damage resistance to be much better than +1 AC.
One thing to consider is your character role. For a striker/DPR character, high AC is great. For a tank that’s trying to draw enemy attacks, you might discourage attackers if you are too hard to hit. Unless you are imposing disadvantage on attacking others (like an Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian), it might be hard to be a tank if you are really hard to hit. You’ll just get ignored in favor of your easier to hit allies.
For tank builds, damage resistance is superior to high AC for that reason.
That depends on the DM, if their attacks hit but seem to have little effect that could discourage attackers too.
Back to the original question, at low levels
At low levels reducing damage is usually better. When fighting a goblin, HAM will on average reduce damage by more than half while increasing AC from 16 to 17 reduces it by about 11%. HAM does nothing for things like firebolt so the comparison is not that extreme but at low levels most of the damage you tack from attack rolls will be reduced by HAM.
As others have said HAM does not scale so when those hits are doing 20+ damage often with added elemental damage HAM is a lot less useful.
If you are looking for a feat at level 1 for a campaign that doesn't go far (say LMOP) HAM is overpowered, at higher levels you want the extra A.C. instead.
In general it's better to not be hit than it is to reduce damage once hit. However, you also need to be aware that if your AC is super high then you'll only ever get hit by crits which for certain classes that require taking damage to use their abilities is not great.
If you want to build a tank then the fighter's protection fighting style is good for imposing disadvantage on enemies attacking your allies. The feat sentinel is also really good for stopping enemies running past your front line and can help you get in extra attacks.
As an addendum to this, resistances at low levels are usually not that great unless they are bludgeoning/piercing/slashing just because of the scarcity of the other damage types. As a barbarian who was raging, having those B/P/S resistances were awesome. Through level 5, I think I encountered poison damage in two fights and fire damage in another and that was it. As you get into higher levels, the variety of resistances that are thrown at you will be increased and resistances will be a bigger deal, especially as half damage on a save abilities and spells become more prevalent.
Thus, damage reduction in the vein of HAM are better at lower levels, or if you are trying to take hits but reduce damage (especially in conjunction with a resistance), though they may apply to fewer attacks later in the game as damage types become more varied.
Resistances are excellent, but are often less useful at low levels because of a lack of opportunity to apply them. Saves are also in this vein.
AC and HP are defensive stats that are generally more useful throughout a campaign.
Ideally, you would have access to a variety of these things from your build and from allies.
For defense: the orc attacks (+5 to hit) you have AC 18 (chain mail & shield) you also have defensive duelist. The orc attacks, and you add 2 to your AC. The orc has a 25% percent damage of hitting, so 25% of the orcs damage 9 is 2.25
For damage reduction: you have 18 AC but HAM instead of defensive duelist. The orc has a 35% chance of hitting so 35% of 9 is about 3. Then reduce it by 3, you get 0
Damage reduction is superior at early levels but let's see high levels
Your AC: 20(plate n shield) your going one to one with a pit fiend (a jolly bad idea) you have the feats described previously but you have parry (damage reduction) or evasive movement (defense)
Defense: the pit fiend attacks with his mace (+14 to hit) and you have a grand total of 32 AC (20+6(defensive duelist)+6(average d12 roll for evasive movement) he has a slim 10% chance of hitting so 10% of the pit fiends average damage of 36 is 3.6. Let's see if HAM+parry can beat that
Damage reduction: your AC 20, so the pit fiend has a 70% chance of hitting. The average damage so far is 25. Now the average reduction parry gives is 9 (average d12+ assuming you have 16 dexterity) plus HAM is 12. That leaves us with 5
So at higher levels, good defence is narrowly superior, taking 1.4 average less damage than damage reduction.
When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
You subtracted the heavy armor master damage reduction from the average damage after an attack. the reduction should be applied directly to the damage it does on a hit, then multiply that by chance to hit.
low level heavy armor reduction: .35(9-3)= 2.1 DPR compared to the 2.25 of the defensive duelist.
One thing to point out about heavy armor master is that though the reduction stays at -3 damage, creatures you fight against have a decent likelihood of making use of multiattack. Each individual hit from a multiattack would have its damage reduced. An interesting example would be the Girallon. This creature attacks 5 times with its multi attack. The 35 potential damage it could do over 5 attacks is reduced to 20 damage over 5 attacks.
heavy armor master is a half feat that possibly evens out an odd strength statistic.
it works passively requiring no further resource investment, and leaves your reaction available for other features.
there’s also the fact that a feature stating “attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistances and immunity to nonmagical attacks.” Doesn’t bypass heavy armor masters damage reduction. The damage reduction is not actually resistance or immunity, so in this case it continues to work.
Heavy Armor Master states that the reduction doesn't work on magical weapons.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/heavy-armor-master
So if something counts as magical then it should not be reduced.
Bobby is correct. Something nonmagical that counts as magical for resistance or immunity won't count as magical for reduction.
It depends on the wording. Consider:
Ki-Empowered Strikes
Starting at 6th level, your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
You're unarmed strikes aren't magical, but they count as such for overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage.
HAM doesn't provide resistance or immunity, it just reduces damage by 3 points. Therefore, HAM trigger Ki-Empowered Strikes.