Ive played a bit of 5e at lower levels (all below lvl 6)but not any high level action. We are getting ready to start a high level campaign starting at 12 and trying to reach 20. As i think about character creation I know martial fighters have the benefit of early level power curve, but dont know how much that advantage dies off at higher levels as casters and such get rolling. Im considering a paladin and just dont know how much effort i should put into stacking AC high as possible, Or giving up a +1 or +2 here and there for other tactical options. I wanted to know if higher levels is more about saving throws and such that a 2-3 missing points of AC wont make or break me. Or should I push the advantage all I can and stack up high as i can.
As it looks like im going to be the parties main frontliner Maybe what is considered a decent AC that i dont need to worry about adding more AC
If you’ll be the primary front line fighter, you’ll want a high AC. Full plate mail with some ability to reduce the damage that you take when you’re hit would be the route that I’d go. You’ll still take a surprising amount of damage even with a high AC.
AC is always relevant however you do want to optimize your character for their DPR over having an additional 1 or 2 AC.
You could look at it this way, would you prefer to increase the chance for your opponent to miss by 5% or have the ability to make an additional attack or deal an additional 2d6ish damage + improved or other added abilities.
A great class you could build (going with fighter) would be making an optimized polearm master fighter.
You could look at it this way, would you prefer to increase the chance for your opponent to miss by 5% or have the ability to make an additional attack or deal an additional 2d6ish damage + improved or other added abilities.
Easier way to grasp the concept: would you rather turn a 6 round fight into a 5 round fight or get hit 1 less time out of 20? 1 out of 6 less turns for an enemy to attack you almost always beats 1 less hit out of 20.
Also, it doesn't matter how high your AC is if you pose no threat to the monster and it decides to kill the 16 AC wizard that's throwing around 8d6 damage spells.
See this is my thinking, (from an RP standpoint i took dragonborn pally) so feats come at cost of ASI. i think after a couple of different postings, Im going to go with polearm master and deal better damage as you suggest and defensive fighting style to compensate for lack of shield. just need to decide if I should give up another ASI for sentinel feat to stop people from running past me towards the squishys.
AC is always relevant however you do want to optimize your character for their DPR over having an additional 1 or 2 AC.
You could look at it this way, would you prefer to increase the chance for your opponent to miss by 5% or have the ability to make an additional attack or deal an additional 2d6ish damage + improved or other added abilities.
A great class you could build (going with fighter) would be making an optimized polearm master fighter.
An even better way to look at it would be "Would you rather make your enemy miss X% more of their AC-targeting attacks directed at me, or take Y less actions in total (due to being dead or otherwise disabled)?"
Don't forget to take things like Dragon Breath, Fireball, etc into your damage mitigation plan. AC is great, but there are other things that can ignore it and wipe out your huge pool of health in a hurry.
+1 to hit or +1 AC is not actually 5%. If your enemies are hitting you on say 11+, a +1 AC means they're hitting you on 12+, or 9/10 as much as before, a 10% improvement. If they were hitting you on 16+, +1 AC means it's now 17+ and it's a 20% improvement (4/5 as much as before).
Because of that, the higher something is, the more valuable an improvement to it becomes. +1 AC on a fighter wearing full plate with a shield with the "defense" fighting style is MUCH more valuable than +1 AC on a Wizard with 13 AC. So inherently there are advantages, if you're already stacked up, to "lean into it" and push it further.
That being said, you control what your character does, not what the enemies do. If no one ever actually attacks you, your AC is worthless. Vs saves, or environmental damage, or anything else, your AC is worthless. You have no way of inherently preventing or mitigating that either, which means any answer we gave about how valuable it is or is not is useless without the context of the campaign your DM is running, the method they design the encounters with, the way they run their enemies, how the environments are constructed, and so forth.
Conversely, any increase in the power of your offensive tools is largely (though not entirely) dependent on factors you DO control and have agency over. A ranger boosting his AC by one may or may not see return on that any given combat, but getting +1 or +2 to his attack rolls will likely come into play multiple times per round, every round.
Final note: No matter what your AC, you won't be invulnerable. With saving throw based effects, the monsters that are out there, and so forth, having even an obscenely high AC won't prevent you from ever taking damage, and the damage you do take is balanced such that you don't need to avoid 100% of it. Besides, you have hitpoints for a reason. Ultimately it would depend on what the "other tactical options" are, and whether they're worth it. For example, if you're asking whether it's better to go with a shield or with a second weapon, as a paladin, I'd say shield in a heartbeat. Ask if you should get a shield or use a great weapon / polearm, I'd say it depends on what kind of feats you're picking up, but potentially the two handed weapon is worth it. So more specificity is valuable to properly evaluate the better of two options vs just "is AC valuable" overall.
Right. The correct term for what Tyranossary was trying to say is percentage points.
Because of that, the higher something is, the more valuable an improvement to it becomes. +1 AC on a fighter wearing full plate with a shield with the "defense" fighting style is MUCH more valuable than +1 AC on a Wizard with 13 AC. So inherently there are advantages, if you're already stacked up, to "lean into it" and push it further.
It really depends on how you look at it.
Yes, if the fighter starts with 2/20 chance of being hit and the wizard starts with 10/20, the fighter's seeing a much bigger percentage reduction in damage taken. But in absolute values, the enemy's expected damage is going down by 0.05d (where d is the enemy's average damage roll) in both cases.
Fighter: 0.10d - 0.05d = (0.10 - 0.05)d = 0.05d
Wizard: 0.50d - 0.45d = (0.50 - 0.45)d = 0.05d
So that 1 AC is preventing the same amount of damage on a single attack no matter who gets it. It's most valuable on whomever gets attacked the most, which ideally is whomever has the best AC. It's also really hard to get your AC so high that you'd see extreme relative improvements.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular but note that the value of that +1 AC is directly proportional to the enemy's damage. The harder they hit, the more valuable 1 AC becomes. When your enemy's a heavy hitter, using a shield and AC-boosting spells can be preferable over two-handed weapons or damage-boosting spells.
I agree with the rest of what GiantOctopodes said.
One or two AC is probably not worth some sacrifices you might consider. However, some bonuses are much better. If you gain the ability to cast shield that increases your AC by 5 which can have a tremendous effect on your defenses.
What's more valuable than AC though, is Dis/Advantage. If something can only hit you 10% of the time and you can manage to force it to take disadvantage it now hits you 1% of the time.
Here's my limited experience at level 20. The Cleric imposed disadvantage on the enemy with Holy Aura, an 8th level spell. My Paladin (who had multi-classed) had a normal AC of 28, could defend with Shield for 33 AC. Fighting a CR 35 monster (from DM Guild) that relied on attack rolls, he was never damaged in the battle. Adding 1 to his AC with Defensive Fighting Style wouldn't be a worthwhile trade.
Notes: +3 Plate, +3 Shield, Staff of Power, coupled with Pole-arm master and Mounted Combatant. He rode a Druid of the Moon Mammoth into battle (Controlled by another player). The druid had Sentinel and struck with it each round, and was never damaged due to the mounted combatant feat.
When it comes to higher CR monsters, many of them do indeed have to hit bonuses that make AC largely irrelevant. That said, even if you ignore how much better it is for them to have a 20% chance of missing as opposed to 5%, you have to keep in mind something else: minions. Even at higher levels, you can still encounter large groups of weaker enemies. A high AC will be very useful against them.
Don't forget to take things like Dragon Breath, Fireball, etc into your damage mitigation plan. AC is great, but there are other things that can ignore it and wipe out your huge pool of health in a hurry.
Also, a chance to improve speed or dexterity(as an example) can give another dimension to your AC ; you can't damage something you can't hit, now can you?
Or if an increase in wisdom gives you the opportunity to sense danger, you don't need to use AC, when you've avoided the attack entirely.
As you increase in level, don't ignore the opportunity, as resources become available, to upgrade physical armor, and also to embrace magical enhancements to
armor. That +1 or +2 Mithral Mail or paying for a caster's enhancement may be outlandishly expensive, but worthwhile.
Ive played a bit of 5e at lower levels (all below lvl 6)but not any high level action. We are getting ready to start a high level campaign starting at 12 and trying to reach 20. As i think about character creation I know martial fighters have the benefit of early level power curve, but dont know how much that advantage dies off at higher levels as casters and such get rolling. Im considering a paladin and just dont know how much effort i should put into stacking AC high as possible, Or giving up a +1 or +2 here and there for other tactical options. I wanted to know if higher levels is more about saving throws and such that a 2-3 missing points of AC wont make or break me. Or should I push the advantage all I can and stack up high as i can.
As it looks like im going to be the parties main frontliner Maybe what is considered a decent AC that i dont need to worry about adding more AC
If you’ll be the primary front line fighter, you’ll want a high AC. Full plate mail with some ability to reduce the damage that you take when you’re hit would be the route that I’d go. You’ll still take a surprising amount of damage even with a high AC.
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AC is always relevant however you do want to optimize your character for their DPR over having an additional 1 or 2 AC.
You could look at it this way, would you prefer to increase the chance for your opponent to miss by 5% or have the ability to make an additional attack or deal an additional 2d6ish damage + improved or other added abilities.
A great class you could build (going with fighter) would be making an optimized polearm master fighter.
See this is my thinking, (from an RP standpoint i took dragonborn pally) so feats come at cost of ASI. i think after a couple of different postings, Im going to go with polearm master and deal better damage as you suggest and defensive fighting style to compensate for lack of shield. just need to decide if I should give up another ASI for sentinel feat to stop people from running past me towards the squishys.
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Don't forget to take things like Dragon Breath, Fireball, etc into your damage mitigation plan. AC is great, but there are other things that can ignore it and wipe out your huge pool of health in a hurry.
A few things to keep in mind:
+1 to hit or +1 AC is not actually 5%. If your enemies are hitting you on say 11+, a +1 AC means they're hitting you on 12+, or 9/10 as much as before, a 10% improvement. If they were hitting you on 16+, +1 AC means it's now 17+ and it's a 20% improvement (4/5 as much as before).
Because of that, the higher something is, the more valuable an improvement to it becomes. +1 AC on a fighter wearing full plate with a shield with the "defense" fighting style is MUCH more valuable than +1 AC on a Wizard with 13 AC. So inherently there are advantages, if you're already stacked up, to "lean into it" and push it further.
That being said, you control what your character does, not what the enemies do. If no one ever actually attacks you, your AC is worthless. Vs saves, or environmental damage, or anything else, your AC is worthless. You have no way of inherently preventing or mitigating that either, which means any answer we gave about how valuable it is or is not is useless without the context of the campaign your DM is running, the method they design the encounters with, the way they run their enemies, how the environments are constructed, and so forth.
Conversely, any increase in the power of your offensive tools is largely (though not entirely) dependent on factors you DO control and have agency over. A ranger boosting his AC by one may or may not see return on that any given combat, but getting +1 or +2 to his attack rolls will likely come into play multiple times per round, every round.
Final note: No matter what your AC, you won't be invulnerable. With saving throw based effects, the monsters that are out there, and so forth, having even an obscenely high AC won't prevent you from ever taking damage, and the damage you do take is balanced such that you don't need to avoid 100% of it. Besides, you have hitpoints for a reason. Ultimately it would depend on what the "other tactical options" are, and whether they're worth it. For example, if you're asking whether it's better to go with a shield or with a second weapon, as a paladin, I'd say shield in a heartbeat. Ask if you should get a shield or use a great weapon / polearm, I'd say it depends on what kind of feats you're picking up, but potentially the two handed weapon is worth it. So more specificity is valuable to properly evaluate the better of two options vs just "is AC valuable" overall.
Right. The correct term for what Tyranossary was trying to say is percentage points.
It really depends on how you look at it.
Yes, if the fighter starts with 2/20 chance of being hit and the wizard starts with 10/20, the fighter's seeing a much bigger percentage reduction in damage taken. But in absolute values, the enemy's expected damage is going down by 0.05d (where d is the enemy's average damage roll) in both cases.
So that 1 AC is preventing the same amount of damage on a single attack no matter who gets it. It's most valuable on whomever gets attacked the most, which ideally is whomever has the best AC. It's also really hard to get your AC so high that you'd see extreme relative improvements.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular but note that the value of that +1 AC is directly proportional to the enemy's damage. The harder they hit, the more valuable 1 AC becomes. When your enemy's a heavy hitter, using a shield and AC-boosting spells can be preferable over two-handed weapons or damage-boosting spells.
I agree with the rest of what GiantOctopodes said.
One or two AC is probably not worth some sacrifices you might consider. However, some bonuses are much better. If you gain the ability to cast shield that increases your AC by 5 which can have a tremendous effect on your defenses.
What's more valuable than AC though, is Dis/Advantage. If something can only hit you 10% of the time and you can manage to force it to take disadvantage it now hits you 1% of the time.
Here's my limited experience at level 20. The Cleric imposed disadvantage on the enemy with Holy Aura, an 8th level spell. My Paladin (who had multi-classed) had a normal AC of 28, could defend with Shield for 33 AC. Fighting a CR 35 monster (from DM Guild) that relied on attack rolls, he was never damaged in the battle. Adding 1 to his AC with Defensive Fighting Style wouldn't be a worthwhile trade.
Notes: +3 Plate, +3 Shield, Staff of Power, coupled with Pole-arm master and Mounted Combatant. He rode a Druid of the Moon Mammoth into battle (Controlled by another player). The druid had Sentinel and struck with it each round, and was never damaged due to the mounted combatant feat.
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When it comes to higher CR monsters, many of them do indeed have to hit bonuses that make AC largely irrelevant. That said, even if you ignore how much better it is for them to have a 20% chance of missing as opposed to 5%, you have to keep in mind something else: minions. Even at higher levels, you can still encounter large groups of weaker enemies. A high AC will be very useful against them.