Hi all,

I have a level 10 paladin who has an armour class of 19 or 20 (she has a cloak of protection but it's broken, so only does either the saving throws or armour class at dawn, not both) and currently 94 hit points.

However, attacks hit her 90-95% of the time. I've tried using Shield of Faith but she still gets hit, even with an AC of 21 or 22. In our last 11 games, she's been knocked unconscious 13 times.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I can do to protect her a bit? I totally get that she's a melee fighter and is in the thick of the action whenever a fight starts, but when an animated halberd (that's been missing everyone else with a roll of between 7 and 13) hits her with an attack of 22, I can't help but think something is wrong with how I've built her.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

StC

I suggest buying your DM a new set of dice. If you are being hit 90% of the time with 20AC, you are either going up against really strong enemies to whom AC will not be a deterrent, or else you have the worst luck in the world when it comes to die rolls.

"but when an animated halberd (that's been missing everyone else with a roll of between 7 and 13) hits her with an attack of 22"

And you think the problem is your character?

Have you, perchance, done something to anger your DM?

Or, have you angered the dice gods?  Pray to RNGesus.

Ha, not that I know of, he's a really nice bloke! Maybe she is just really unlucky...

I did think about taking Martial Adept as a feat, but we're playing Curse of Strahd so I don't think we'll get to level 12 (the next level I can take a feat at).

Sounds like bad luck.  19/20 AC with 94 HP is pretty darn Tanky.

Seems to me like you're doing your job, at least.  If nothing else it sounds like you're absorbing 90+ damage almost every session.

Maybe think about taking the Dodge action when you're surrounded and such.

That might be an idea, thanks Jaysburn!

The attacks on our characters are usually pretty fair and evenly-spread, so it's not like she's being attacked all the time while nobody else is. The trouble is just that the attacks hit her a lot more often than the other characters! Even our AC17 Barbarian manages to escape about half the hits! :D

Is it possible you are being hit by save effects instead of attacks?

No, she's not too bad at save effects. These are purely the ones that involve AC...

Honestly if I were in your position and had built a character with intentionally high AC like that and I was being hit far more often than chance should dictate - I would strongly suspect the DM of fudging the dice to hit me. Then again - I am fairly paranoid.

Try to find ways of making your enemies attack with disadvantage is probably going to be among the easiest options to avoid being hit.

That's a possibility - I'll have a think of ways to do that and troll through my spells to see if anything would help for that. Thanks, Emmber!

In Curse of Strahd I imagine that Protection from Evil and Good can go a long way.  Problem is when you do get hit you might lose concentration.  Hopefully you at least have proficiency in Con saves.  The Warcaster feat would be super helpful to prevent that but I doubt you have it.

Thanks Jaysburn! I've just asked the DM if he would mind me swapping out a feat for a new one but he says he doesn't like swapping things around mid-adventure without an in-character explanation, which is understandable. I could use Protection from Evil and Good though. It's kind of a shame because I did find a thing that would have given me that protection (trying not to be spoilery!) but the DM took that function off it as he felt it was overpowered. I do have +9 on CON saves though! :)

If you are being hit a higher percentage of the time than the other members of your party with a lower AC something is wrong

1. You could be just perceived, like football fans are always convinced that the referees decisions always go against their team. 

2. It could be small sample size, if an enemy has a 50% chance to hit there is a  3% chance they hit 5 times (in fact you could say 6% if you always start counting at the first hit) but a 0.001% chance to hit at least 40 times out of 50.

3. If neither of the above then it really does seem as if the DM is cheating, I would keep a record of the hit rates of the NPC against you and the rest of your party.  If after a decent number of battles you find conclusive evidence that enemies are consistently rolling better against you than everyone else I would have a quiet word with our GM and maybe ask if they could roll attacks openly

Being hit that often with your AC is a statistical abnormality bordering on absurdity. I would not automatically assume your DM is fudging rolls against you--though it is a strong possibility. Do they roll their dice in the open, or behind a screen? Do they roll the same dice regularly? Do they roll different sets of dice for different players, or for different types of rolls (attack rolls vs ability checks)? If they're using the same dice for everybody/everything then it's much more likely they are fudging things, but it could still just be spectacularly bad luck.

If there's some kind of variation to their rolling habits, it could simply be the dice they use for you are crap. The injection molding process that Chessex uses in their widely mass-produced dice has a nasty habit of leaving air bubbles & other imperfections in the core. This causes the die to--while not technically loaded--favor landing on certain sides. Depending on how bad it is, it could favor one particular side, or a small grouping of adjacent sides.

It's pretty easy to find out if it's the dice too. You can test for weight distribution by using buoyancy: mix a hot saltwater solution together (to the point that a die will float on the surface), drop your dice in, and see which side comes up to the surface. Dunk the die multiple times to determine if there's an imbalance; it'll surface on the same side/adjacent sides continually if there's a significant imbalance.

Thanks OboeCrazy! It's a little bit difficult as I don't have any ranged attacks as a Paladin (she's all strength-based because the divine smite focuses on the melee weapon attack), and we have a Cleric who does most of the healing. But that's definitely food for thought re being the second wave of attack and keeping her out of the way initially. She might be able to use the first couple of rounds to Bless the party instead, or buff them in other ways. Cheers for that! :)

Seriously, a huge thanks to everyone for all the advice you've given - there are some really useful tips and tricks here that I can definitely put to use. Thank you all so much for taking the time to share your wisdom!

:)

One concrete suggestion to increase AC: for a one-level dip into warlock (hexblade), you can learn shield. Should safely push you out of hittable  range on rounds you cast it, though it eats up smite resources.

That's an idea, Chicken_Champ, although I think Curse of Strahd is only a level 1 to 10 adventure, so I don't know if I can get any higher now!