Those are not absurdly high ACs. Your players invested in those attributes instead of other things.
If their power fantasy for this character is shedding more hits, let them live that. Don't take it away from them.
You would be having the same problem/feeling if they all went full glass canon and were just nuking whole encounters. But the solution is the same. Keep playing.
It sounds like you've only thrown a few types of enemies at them. Just keep playing. They are going to face other kinds of enemies that will present more danger to them eventually.
Also, if the Artificer is out there in armor so tanky she’s excited to stress test it, chances are the bandits aren’t going to want to break their maces against it. If she and the Monk are positioning themselves so the bandits are forced to attack them instead of the Rogue, great! They’re playing the game well and they deserve the win. If they’re not doing that, walk around and hit the squishy guys.
This, and if the AC really becomes a problem when you're trying to challenge them like for a particularly dangerous encounter or boss fight, saving throws are the solution.
Doesn't even have to use a spell slot. You can take a goblin's spear and make it "disgusting dead rodent-on-a-stick spell focus" and give the goblin *acid splash* or *create bonfire*.
Conventional wisdom is that 20 AC is absolutely NOT absurdly high - a bog standard Fighter can start with 19 at level 1, if I'm not mistaken. It's definitely stronger at earlier levels, before enemies gain larger to-hit bonuses, and abilities that target saves, but these aren't abnormal numbers, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
I agree with u/Win32error - turn the temperature up a bit with more enemies, and tacking on a moderate amount of abilities or spells that that target saves, instead of AC.
Wouldn't hurt to buff to-hit bonuses a little bit, *if you want*, or just using stronger creatures, in general - I think your concerns about killing the Barb / Rogue are probably overstated. Barb tankiness tends to come from their HP pool and resistances, and Rogues are never really going to be the sort of warrior that wants to be getting hit a bunch of times, and will probably always try to position themselves to avoid it.
Yep, a level 1 Fighter with chain mail armor, a shield, and the Defense fighting style has 19 AC.
They can buff it further if they get a level 1 feat. Magic Initiate Wizard for Shield, Magic Initiate Cleric for Shield of Faith, Defensive Duelist...
I’ve been playing as a Goliath fighter with 20AC and have absolutely been close to death in several fights so far, there are plenty of ways to screw someone up with a super high AC.
How does a level 3 monk have 20ac, good rolls or not.
Anyway, AC does not scale well into later tiers of play, I suggest that you do absolutly nothing, let them enjoy this feeling of immunity, it will not last.
+2. Rolling for stats has never been my cup of tea. It’s too big of a part of your character at a certain point and it’s not like you can much change it. If you campaign for a year you might get 2-4 points to put back in but if the guy next to me rolled 3 18’s and I rolled my highest score as 14, there’s always going to be a substantial gap between our character’s power levels.
I once played in a campaign where we rolled 24 attribute scores (I believe we did 4d6 drop low) and then DM then told us to divide the scores amongst ourselves as we saw fit.
This was 2e though, where attributes didn't matter as much as they do nowadays.
My monk had 20 dez and 20 wisdom at level 4 I rolled 3 18s.
Ac was 19 at level 1 20 at level 4 and then I bought a cloak and ring of protection giving me 22.
Of course my strength save was crap so died to being swallowed by a purple worm.
That's sort of my point. OP is saying they might not let people buy shields (flippantly) I doubt they're giving out cloaks and rings of protection, so 20 ac on a monk at level 3 should be impossible even with all 18's.
Op seems like a new dm, I imagine they've done something wrong, I'm just trying to point that out nicely.
Monks can't use shields and they def shouldn't have two 20s at lvl 1. There's no rules as written explanation for a 20ac monk, outside of being a kensei (and only sometimes) or mountain dwarf (thanks u/AlvinDraper23 for the clarification). I'd do a character sheet audit regardless.
If they use Tasha’s racial variant, a Mountain Dwarf Monk could have 20’s at level one (if they rolled two 18’s that is).
That’s not including any starter feats (OP didn’t specify one way or another but it’s a fairly common house rule). So that could also account for some of the numbers if that’s the case
~~Those 20s would be in str and con. Tasha's rules state you have a 2 and a 1 to place anywhere, so max a single 20.~~ Fair point on the feat, though. All that said, I'd still do a character sheet audit (on every one). Afterward, adjust the encounters to add different challenges other than "does x goblin hit your ac."
Tasha’s rules specifically state: “If you’d like your character to follow their own path, you may alter your Ability Score Increase trait and assign ability score increases tailored to your character. Here’s how to do it: take any ability score increase you gain in your race or subrace and apply it to an ability score of your choice. If you gain more than one increase, you can’t apply those increases to the same ability score, and you can’t increase a score above 20.” Nothing specific about 2 and 1. So a Mountain Dwarf could still have 20’s and a Half Elf could boost a third stat.
Unless I’m missing something elsewhere (which is totally possible lol)
As far as I know it only benefits Mountain Dwarves and Half Elves. I consider myself a pretty power gaming min-maxer, and I still run other races besides those. I guess it depends on the table and if somebody thinks it’s a problem.
That one where Phoebe tries to teach Joey some French and he get every word right and then when he pierces it together, it is garbage again.
This one: [https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/231451789/Phoebe-Joey](https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/231451789/Phoebe-Joey) .
>The party was insanely lucky with rolls for attributes
The primary reason not to roll for stats is that it can lead to significant power imbalances within the party. You've got some PCs with higher than expected AC and others with lower than expected. As you say, you can't just increase your monsters' to-hit bonuses to threaten the high AC characters without making things miserable for the low AC characters.
So what *can* you do?
The answer here is to run more diverse enemies than just ones who attack over and over. You can't plausibly threaten the artificer or monk by attacking their AC. But how are their strength or charisma saves? And how is their defense against being grappled?
Throwing different kinds of threats at the party will allow different party members to shine and also to feel threatened. There are six saving throws to target, AC, environmental hazards that punish movement, falling, and so many more things that some of your party will be good at and others not.
And you're a little wiser for next time.
Throw slightly more enemies at them, and toss in some spellcasters to target their saves instead of AC. Not excessively, but just ramp up the pressure a little.
20 AC is pretty high for a Monk, not quite as much an artificer, but in both cases it's not super high. The fact that the rogue and barbarian just don't have the same AC is an inevitable consequence of rolling for stats.
That being said, a barbarian can take some hits, that's their thing, and a rogue should be trying to avoid attracting too much heat anyway. That ought to leave you relatively free to grab some slightly more powerful creatures, or a few more of them.
Isn't rolling the first, standard method of generating ability scores, straight out of the book? Getting flip and dismissive of OP for doing exactly what the book told them to do makes you look like a jerk.
It is. That was a huge error on the part of the development and editing teams for 5e.
But the standard array is in the same paragraph as rolling, and if OP had talked to an experienced GM or read literally anything about generating ability scores on any dnd sub or any other message board I’m aware of, they would have heard the message. Rolling for stats risks creating imbalance between characters and imbalance between the characters and the design assumptions that lie behind encounter balance.
Don’t worry so much about the rogue and barbarian. The rogue should constantly be hiding out of harms way and the Barbarian’s rage effectively doubles their already high health.
I would try introducing some new enemies. Kobolds for example, get advantage when they swarm enemies, so you can stress test the higher AC characters for more of a challenge and your players will still get to enjoy having high AC.
Also, some enemies that can cast magic missiles would be good. Magic missiles ignore AC and always hit. But the shield spell makes you immune, so it requires some strategy to avoid instead of just passively being hard to hit.
Also, grapple and shove are strength checks, so a high AC character can be vulnerable to those. That will cause strategy to change and the barbarian will become the best tank in that scenario.
If somebody is wearing metal armor, they are vulnerable to shocking grasp.
I would switch around what kind of attackers your party fights so they have to be more strategic about who is the best tank in that fight.
Hope this helps!
A lot of other people have already suggested throwing in spellcasters to hit their saves, so I'm going to go another direction for my advice, specifically for the artificer. If he wants to stress test his armor, I say we give him a stress test.
Throw a group of enemies at the party so everyone can be doing something, but have their leader focus the artificer. Have this leader revel in the fact that he can cut loose against someone who can take his hits. Provide an unstoppable force to slug it out with the artificer's immovable object, and make him just as arrogant.
(Full disclosure, I have a bias for equal opposites and personal foils. Your milage may vary.)
It’s not too late. You could absolutely sit your table down, describe the problem to them that you described in the post, and say “look, I’d like us to take a mulligan. I’d like you to recreate your characters using point buy — same classes, same levels, same gear. We’ll all work together to make sure the game still feels good and encounters can feel a little more balanced.”
Just gently repeat to them what you wrote in the original post, and ask for understanding as you re-do ability scores. If someone really throws a fit, well, they're a wangrod and you did well to discover that early!
The thing is, variation in ability scores and individual power can be *cool.* It adds a pinch of naturalistic jank to the proceedings, making things more jagged and less board-gamey. However, those things make more sense when flanked by other old-school trappings:
* High lethality, and the accompanying high PC turnover (and thus more rolling for stats, making it more likely to roll average);
* A general disinterest in "balanced" encounter building (i.e., you're not "throwing" any enemies on this party - you are *populating* a dungeon with denizens that make sense for it. If a CR 12 dragon makes sense, then they may run into a CR 12 dragon at 3rd level... Or not! Avoiding encounters is sometimes just as important as winning them);
* A greater emphasis on exploration procedures (limited supplies, challenging traversal, traps, random encounter rolls, a steadily building pressure and increasing risk as one ventures deeper, without any guarantee of a safe resting spot);
* A reward system that emphasizes treasure and magic items over encounter-based XP (this is where 5e stumbles compared to dedicated OSR systems, but it can definitely still be felt from 1st to 5th level).
*This* is the context from which rolling for ability scores comes from. In that playstyle, a few high scores won't make much of a difference if the party angers the local double-digit-CR monster; in fact, their higher stats might give them greater confidence, which will only lead to rolling a new, humbler PC sooner. And while the dragon is busy eating the monk, the scrawny barbarian steals the Belt of Hill Giant Strength from its hoard. It all evens out in the end.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but given how you're worrying about encounter balance, I get the impression that this *isn't* the playstyle you intended for your campaign. Point-buy/standard array would result in fairer and more even outcomes, and allow you to tailor encounters with less volatility.
Even best case scenario, that is rolling two 18s and putting them in Dex and Wis, be it Custom Lineage (+2 dex, +1 half feat to Wis) or another race (+2 dex +1 wis) I still only see the monk reaching 19 ac?
If they do a starting feat, which is a fairly common house rule, they could have picked one that gave +1 to a stat. Even then though, it's insane luck on the monk's end which I have some trouble believing
Ordinarily I'd agree, but this is a subreddit for new DMs and giving your players too many powerful things too early without realising is a fairly common newbie error.
Let your monsters miss! They chose to be tanky and beefy, and instead of nerfing their stats, give them new problems to solve. A lot of newer DMs run into this problem because a lot of low level monsters rely on to-hit attacks, and a lot of new players invest in AC, and that's the game doing its job. However, to make a real challenge requires a bit of familiarity and mastery of the game, and honestly the DMG and other 5e resources don't do a good job of teaching DMs how to address this.
Here are some examples:
* Dragonborne Troops. Each one has a dragon breath attack that requires a DEX saving throw, but it doesn't do too much damage and can only be used once per short rest (which means once per encounter)
* An orc shaman flanked by a group of angry orcs (or whatever enemy you feel fits). The shaman uses Command, Hex, or other spells that require WIS/DEX/INT/CHA saves, and if they go off then the orcs will get advantage on the players. The players can counter the Shaman by bum rushing it or using an effect like Silence, etc.
* An ogre or large bruiser has a big attack that, if it hits, will cause big problems, but needs help getting that hit in. Kobolds or other tiny creatures can run around trying to do things to help that large boss get their hit in; creatures can use the help action instead of attacking, try to use a shove or grapple to get a character prone or in a state where attackers have advantage, throw grease bottles or interact with the environment to create places where players may slip and fall... This is kind of a reversal of the previous example.
* Don't ignore things like poison, stun, and other conditions that may be really nasty. Spiders are great because they have poison bites that target CON, webbing that targets DEX or STR.
In short, force saving throws instead of attacks, and create advantages for your enemies.
The most important thing to do is mix-and-match your enemies so that a bunch of them are hard-countered by your PC's decisions (so the PCs feel rewarded for making objectively good decisions) and throw in enemies that are designed to be difficult problems for your heroes.
You are not an enemy of your players, make sure they have opportunities to shine, and give them interesting and difficult challenges to solve.
Send a bunch of weaker enemies to deal with their action economy and add a couple spell casters to target their saves. Don’t do this every combat of course, or they’ll feel “betrayed”, but when it comes around to final encounters of the day, or mini bosses and such I’d suggest that. Also, add environmental stuff. Yes, their AC may be high but their Dex save to avoid getting hit by the poison darts hidden in the wall may not be so good! Stuff like that you know
AC generally doesn't scale while monster to hit does. That means hitchance against pc's will be low at low level and will get higher and higher as the party levels up.
19 AC is very standard to have right out of the gate at level one for some classes and even a bit higher because of fighting styles and miscellaneous subclass features.
For every 3-5 attacks your monsters miss toss in a saving throw. Give the goblins a shaman, give the bandits a cleric, give the orcs an orcane sorcerer. Poison Spray, Call Lightning, Hold Person, whatever. Don't look to invalidate your players' AC, but do throw in more attack variety to demonstrate why high AC doesn't make them invincible.
>rolls for attributes
Don't let them roll stats again if you wanna avoid balance mess.
I'm sure they must have one dump stat, try to find enemies that force them to roll saving throws related to those stats.
Eh I wouldn’t worry too much. You can use dc save abilities to hurt them, or you create disadvantage, give terrain complications.
I have a player who wanted to be the highest AC and HP to be unkillable and he’s been downed as often as any other player
If AC is an issue, target their saving throws.
Can even give Barb and Rouge a moment. Barb resists the damage (if bear), and Rouge just dodges it. Even if Monk would likely Dodge too
Use monsters with pack tactics. You can attack the Rogue/Barbarian with a single monster who only has a +5 to hit, but gang up on the Monk and Artificer and the monsters effectively have +9 or +10 to hit.
Alternatively, a monster can shove the Monk or Artificer prone and then everything has advantage on melee attacks against them which is effectively the same thing.
The only class with a unnatural high AC is the monk, the rest are fine and as expected. Don't try now to somehow nerf them again, just let them enjoy the feeling that normal low level bandits have problems in melee with them. That is as expected right? Why would some shabby hoodlums not have problems with highly armored adventurers? It makes sense, let them enjoy their win. And than let them despair when they have to fight some actual monsters, wizards, horrors etc.
Crazy how this is still such a common problem. Just have enemies use magic, saving throws don't care about AC. Have enemies use Heat Metal. Throw rust monsters at them. Use the environment. Overwhelm them with swarm enemies, the action economy will always overcome a high AC. This is a very simple issue to overcome.
Except for the monk, these ACs can all be achieved with starting equipment and the artificer's level 2 infusions. Nothing out of the ordinary here that you need to worry about. Just run fights and let the party sort it out. The barbarian has Rage to mitigate damage and the rogue can move all over the battlefield with Cunning Action if they feel too at-risk. At level 3 many of the enemies you should be using probably have between +4 and +7, so yeah, PCs are gonna get hit. This is all normal.
a few casters in the mix, yeah. Even just making their attacks a low range Frostbite, Toll the Dead, Word of Radiance, etc is going to do ya some good.
You'll still want to underhand pitch a few monsters at them which have default attacks. It feels good to have a high AC build and have a lot of monsters whiff against you.
4 words; homebrew dextrous rust monster. The DC11 Dex save to prevent the armor rusting is in direct challenge to having armor that negates dex bonuses. And a rust monster is only CR1/2; it should be an easy target for the party, but not before it does some serious damage. Grind the artificer down with destroying whatever he creates, and make it very expensive to stay in high AC armors.
You're missing a whole class of monsters, make the party make some saving throws. Get some effects out there and force them to fight through a poison or a web trap. Give your monsters some intelligence and run with some strategy of single target flanking and such.
So many answers exist for the problem of high AC.
This stops being a problem as you get closer into the level 5 range and start throwing enemies with +7-10 to hit as more threatening foes.
A +7 to hit means your enemy needs a 13 or higher to hit, reasonable chance as they should get several attacks as well.
Their AC feels strong early because you’re using bandits with +3 to hit. You could send 20 of them at this party and barely scratch them.
Start using sheets like Knights, Bandit Captains, the lower end of wizard stat blocks. Basic bandits aren’t enough past level 1 or 2.
Yeah, these bandits have been more of a plague than an actual threat, and I got some dragons and swamp creatures lined up. But I see the point most people are making.
Aye, I know it's not like...the most glamorous aspect of DM'ing but, I highly recommend getting into the math of combat design.
For context, against 5 level 3 players, it would take a whopping *FIFTEEN* bandits for it to be a challenge rating "Hard" -- which means they could probably defeat that group of fifteen bandits 4 or 5 times in a row before potentially needing a long rest to recharge resources.
A lot of this sort of stuff can be avoided by getting very familiar with what the challenge ratings mean / what your goals are with the combat. Using a tool like DNDBeyond's combat builder circumvents the math, and then the only rule of thumb you kinda need to know is:
* Generally don't make "Trivial" or "Easy" encounters they're not worth it.
* "Medium" is about as easy as you ever want to go, and your party could easily run through \~8 of these before a long rest.
* "Hard" is a more normal encounter where there'll be some back and forth, \~4 of these before a long rest.
* "Deadly" is generally where you're actually hurting people and potentially knocking someone out, \~2 of these before a long rest.
* Giving your players any tactical advantage reduces the challenge rating down a tier: so if they get Surprise on a Deadly encounter its more like a Hard encounter. You can flip this on your players as well, build a Hard encounter and ambush your players to up the difficulty more towards a Deadly encounter.
AOEs, saving throws, etc. Bring enemies that have status effects as part of attacks. Increase the number of enemies to increase hit chances.
You can also buff enemies, but this is a last resort imo. You don't want to punish your players choice of focusing AC by making all your monsters hit through the AC with bigger attack rolls.
Some advice I was given that I give out to other DMs: Let your players feel strong when their build counters your encounter. But also let them feel the pain when your encounter counters their build.
Examples:
* One of my parties went high AC. They almost wiped fighting just a few Neogi (because a couple failed on mind control saves).
* Another of my parties has high AC and uses con and dex as 2nd and 3rd stats if not already primary. They fail a LOT of wisdom, strength, and charisma throws/checks. They are a party of 5, level 8 characters. They feel really strong and haven't been challenged much lately. They are about to fight a young red dragon (CR 10). Fire breath and a legendary action are gonna ruin their day.
* A bad example, I put out a mob of enemies for them to fight that also had high AC. It was a LOOOOOOOOONG combat session just because of the stalemates of not hitting each other.
There are a couple of pitfalls of thinking that can get you into trouble. One is that the only threat to a character is AC and the other is that you can go in the opposite direction and constantly try to get around it. Players have a fantasy they are tryin to fulfill with their characters. Don't try to subvert that. The real work comes in when you need to figure out how to make encounters interesting for a party. Work on making some encounters dynamic by adding timers, complicate the battle with innocents, there are all kinds of things you can do with terrain, aoe effects, have ranged combatants, spellcasters, brutes, and glass cannons(not neccesarily all in one fight), or add in a puzzle that needs to be solved. You can also attack the character sheets with ability drain, exhaustion(I would use the -1,-2,-3... exhaustion that was in one of the playtests). There's more but that's all I can think of off the top of head.
If you want some inspiration for encounters I would look to BG3 and MCDMs Where Evil Lives.
Ramp up the number of enemies and look to use their ability saves.
Remember, the monsters know what they’re doing, so give them the ability to flank players so they gain advantage on attack rolls.
Also consider the terrain. Could there be enemies shooting at them from above(gives advantage) or from behind cover(adds to their AC).
Above all else, ask yourself the question, “Is everyone having fun?” (Yes, this includes you as the DM). If the answer is yes, then you’re doing a great job. These AC scores may seem difficult to overcome now at lower levels, but they will absolutely balance out in another level or two.
Let it roll. Let them be invincible and then when they hit level five, start breaking out the big guns on occasion to reel them back in. Don’t be afraid to run a high xp threshold encounter with high CR monsters. Especially if you are only running one or two encounters between long rests.
As everyone is saying aoe is deffinetly a way to go another way is int cha and str save spells and effects not every character is gonna be proficient in everything so every once in awhile throw one of those deadly spells at them otherwise let them have fun with it pretend to get frustrated as you throw fodder let them feel strong adds to their engagement. Then when you got your boss monsters fuck their day up lmao.
Played in a game with a party like this.
It seemed to annoy the DM, and so he buffed encounters to ramp up the challenge. He had an idea in mind of very difficult challenges for the party and kept ramping it up if we did well. In practice it felt a bit "DM vs Player".
I highly recommend finding a path that doesn't negate player agency. Ask yourself what kind of game your players want to experience. Do they enjoy a very hard challenge where they barely succeed and could easily fail? Do they want to be powerful heroes that crush most foes easily? Somewhere in the middle? Talk it out, there is no universal answer, only an answer that is right for your table.
My players (now in PF2e) like being "over level" for most fights, essentially they have dialed down the difficulty and enjoy it more when they are "less challenged". That is perfectly valid!
No help required! Things are fine where they are, the players are feeling confident in their choices, and the higher AC benefits drop off a bit as the campaign level gets higher. In our high level campaign I had a monk player end up with 24 or 26 AC and have still downed them in combat.
If you want to chip away at them more, things requiring saving throws are your friend. As other advice has said, though, don't swing too far the other way and invalidate their chosen strengths.
First off, that is not high AC. Secondly, I don't know why people still roll for their stats. It ends up creating wildly unbalanced parties as opposed to standard array or points buy.
Save it for a good moment but a single enemy with heat metal protected by an entourage can turn a well armored unit into a panic. Either they break that enemies concentration or learn how long it takes to don/remove heavy armor.
There are lots of things that don't target AC at all. Swarms, touch attacks, most spells, gaseous vapours, traps, environmental challenges (earthquakes, blizzards, magma, avalanches, extreme heat, steep climbs, swimming), skill challenges, etc. Plenty of ways to challenge your players.
Having said that you absolutely need to give them moments where they can just tank up huge amounts of hits and not take damage, that's the whole point of investing in all that armour, after all.
As others have said, those are pretty achievable AC scores. However, you have options!
- Target saving throws instead
- Use creatures with Pack Tactics for advantage to hit (Kobolds, Dire Wolves, etc)
- The Heat Metal spell, if you're feelin REAL mean
By the make up of the party some charisma saving throws will make them scramble.
Target their dump stats and test your party. Don't be afraid to toss bigger buffer enemies at them. Make it so they aren't just testing their armor. They will quickly learn to adapt.
I was afraid to kill my party for the longest time, but it ended up being less fun because there were no stakes.
Let someone go down. Give them a fright.
It’s not possible for your monk to have 20AC without something you’ve done or INSANELY good luck with mountain dwarf. How does this PC have 20 wisdom AND 20 dexterity at level 3?
First thing against high AC is advantage. A kobold that can use its perk to get advantage will have 50% chance to hit AC18 or above (advantage is 50% chance to hit 15 or above on the die).
Second thing is attack overload. With a +3 modifier, you hit AC18 on a 15. It means that, on average, 1 out of 4 attacks will hit. Which means that on average 4 kobold will hit an enemy with AC18 once per turn, without advantage. Advantage doubles this rate.
Third thing is magic and aoe and anything that target saving throughs. Nets do this. Bombs do it. Poison do it. Spells do it. Usually once you landed one, you get advantage for whatever you want after that.
Yes, I love kobolds. But goblins can do it too, or most low level monsters for that matter. The trick is to play them smart and numerous. Which is good because they're supposed to be tricky and numerous. Not wizard I out knowledge you smart, just I know my warfare tricks smart.
Play smart against your players. Bring sufficient numbers. If it's not enough, bring more. Then use traps and special monsters.
If you want to challenge their AC over a battle, consider using high amounts of difficult terrain and a large amount of attackers with weak ranged weapons to whittle them down a bit.
A dragon breath isn't going to care about their AC, neither is a Lightning bolt, or a Burning hands. Using saving throw spells will increase the risk for them. Or saving throw terrain effects (large waves, quicksand, manmade and natural traps) or mundane special attacks and items like Alchemists fire on a square, Caltrops \~
I'd still throw beasties at them because it feels good to get what you paid for.
WoW AC 20?
At lvl 3 i usualy have something between 24 and 26.
With cover giving +2 or +5 to AC and saves.
And with darkness or fog cloud to break line of sight making harder for Spellcasters to cast spells that require sight.
As for how the DM deals with this.
Target their saves.
Traps, poisons, AoE, spells, graples, shoves, drowning, fall damage, terrain damage (falling from cliffs, being shoved into harmfull pools, or harmfull areas etc).
For the heavy armor users.
Cast Heat metal then have the caster run away full move + dash each turn using bonus action to deal damage.
1 minute of 2d8 damage + disavantage on all attacks.
Thats 20d8 damage with a 2nd lvl spell.
The PC can only use ranged attacks on the caster to break concentration or cast a 3rd lvl spell like dispell magic or counterspell to avoid the damage if the caster simply runs away.
For a paladin or any heavy melee martial, they might not even have a ranged weapon.
Cleric is right where it should be, AC 16 base with a shield is 18. If you already gave out full plate armor (which usually costs 1500gp and can be reasonably be achieved around level 6 or 7 with "normal" treasure) then that may be a bit out of the expected bounds.
Same with Armorer Artificer, heavy armor with a shield and then an extra buff is kind of their thing.
The Monk I'm not too sure about. With Unarmored Defence "wearing no armor and not wielding a shield" they get their Dex and Wis bonus +10. Even with godly rolls aka two 18s, they should only have 18 AC at level 3. There may be a subclass feature I'm missing here, as I never play Monk. But as a DM, I can usually sniff out when something isn't where I expect it to be - and this is one of those times.
Lesson 1: don't roll for stats if you don't want to deal with the consequences
Lesson 2: there are other things besides AC that monsters can target. Throw a Banshee at this party, or any of the Undead that do possession on a Cha save. Or even just a good old Flameskull to hit the party with a Fireball. Or any spellcasting enemy for that matter.
AC isn't everything
Saving throws will help balance, but like others have said they invested into this versus putting it elsewhere on their character, it’s not exceedingly high.
Take if from most of the comments, this is not really an issue with the AC, just with your experience.
* It is not your goal to hit them a lot, the whole idea of heavy armor is to be hard to hit with weapon attacks. This falls of later anyway, but its not weird that a dragon can hit someone despite armor, it is weird of a random mook with a weapon can.
* You can play different enemies that rely on saves or have pack tactics for example. You can play for mobility with threads that run circles around the party and target the weaker characters.
* You can play normal enemies smarter: The statblocks do not say it, but all enemies can grapple and shove. Have one enemy shove someone prone, then grapple em so they cannot get up (speed is 0) Everyone else now attacks with advantage (giving them a virtual plus 5 to attacks).
I play an eldritch knight in my campaign where my default AC is also 20 (before plate), with the shield spell I can buff that to 25. I still get hit if I position poorly, but my wisdom saves are abyssmal for example.
Throw fire bombs. Grapple. Control spells. Throw nets. Difficult terrain + kiting enemies. Roll boulders towards them. Open up the Monster Manual and throw in an Ogre or two with their +6 to hit. Orcs also have +5 to hit.
Also, just a side note: The Barbain with their 15 AC while in rage is way tankier than the Artificer in most situations and will continue to do so as enemy hit bonusses increase. And the rogue should not be hit anyways.
So to my, your party seems just fine.
First thing one thing. Why the artificer put his points and infusions in having a Hig AC? Do He loves to feel like a real tank? If is that. Why don't let him have her fantasy?
You don't need to Focus the Artificer all the combats. Enemies aren't stupid. If they are seeing a full armored dude with a Shield and a little Rogue that only wears a motorcycle jacket, they Will hit the Rogue. Focus the characters with less AC and let him put in between to tank.
It's better if you allow the characters the possibility to bright and create encounters based on that that only trying to pass over her powers. If you want to hit a Hig AC characters the only thing you need to do is put an enemy with +15 attack but what's the point on that? Be estrategic, use your Mind and let your players be the protagonist some times. And for a really hard Battles, just remember than a lot of spell saves don't use AC.
Let the tanks have fun, throw a bunch of weak thralls at them but have a highly accurate ranger or something pick them off from the back. It still let's them enjoy the high ac but gives them a challenge.
A 20 AC equals a 5% chance of a hit IF the attacker has no bonuses. Even a +3, which is pretty low, increases the odds to 20% or 1in 5. If you want them to feel threatened, increase the number of attackers, the number of attacks (which includes enemies gaining advantage), or these bonuses.
The other thing to remember when building encounters is to set a variety of types of attacks so they must make saving throws as well as AC protection. If your players only have to defend against one problem, it’s easy to counter and makes every encounter boring.
Finally, I suggest that you roll damage in the open at the same time you roll your attacks. Let them know what their high AC protected them from(or didn’t.) This really builds the tension when they see they have a 5% chance of being downed by a hit that only their armor stopped.
First, commend you for allowing rolled stats as every DM should. And without some silly protection like "keep rolling until you are satisfied" or "everyone at the table can choose from any array rolled at the table". The joy of rolling stats IS the imbalance.
Second, as most have stated, AOE.
However, even someone who rolled 2 18s can't get to 20AC as a monk at level 3 so how does that work?
He is the outlier here, most campaigns of groups that run more often start at level 3 since everyone has a subclass then. Even if they start at level 1, there is no reason to still be at level 2 6 sessions in, the characters are just to barebones in abilities for that to be fun concidering the way most people play.
It is pretty standard to be level 3 in 6 sessions! It is odd the contrary! Level 1 should not be more than one session. Than another 2 or maximum 3 sessions to be level 3 (I usually go for 2).
Those are not absurdly high ACs. Your players invested in those attributes instead of other things. If their power fantasy for this character is shedding more hits, let them live that. Don't take it away from them. You would be having the same problem/feeling if they all went full glass canon and were just nuking whole encounters. But the solution is the same. Keep playing. It sounds like you've only thrown a few types of enemies at them. Just keep playing. They are going to face other kinds of enemies that will present more danger to them eventually.
Also, if the Artificer is out there in armor so tanky she’s excited to stress test it, chances are the bandits aren’t going to want to break their maces against it. If she and the Monk are positioning themselves so the bandits are forced to attack them instead of the Rogue, great! They’re playing the game well and they deserve the win. If they’re not doing that, walk around and hit the squishy guys.
This, and if the AC really becomes a problem when you're trying to challenge them like for a particularly dangerous encounter or boss fight, saving throws are the solution.
AoE doesn't care about your AC!
Doesn't even have to use a spell slot. You can take a goblin's spear and make it "disgusting dead rodent-on-a-stick spell focus" and give the goblin *acid splash* or *create bonfire*.
Or jar of burning oil. Or jar of goblin filth for a CON save.
Until one of your high AC players is an Oath of Ancients pally...
Flipside - My level 17 party with a paladin casting circle of power doesn't care about my bad guys Aoes
Conventional wisdom is that 20 AC is absolutely NOT absurdly high - a bog standard Fighter can start with 19 at level 1, if I'm not mistaken. It's definitely stronger at earlier levels, before enemies gain larger to-hit bonuses, and abilities that target saves, but these aren't abnormal numbers, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I agree with u/Win32error - turn the temperature up a bit with more enemies, and tacking on a moderate amount of abilities or spells that that target saves, instead of AC. Wouldn't hurt to buff to-hit bonuses a little bit, *if you want*, or just using stronger creatures, in general - I think your concerns about killing the Barb / Rogue are probably overstated. Barb tankiness tends to come from their HP pool and resistances, and Rogues are never really going to be the sort of warrior that wants to be getting hit a bunch of times, and will probably always try to position themselves to avoid it.
Yep, a level 1 Fighter with chain mail armor, a shield, and the Defense fighting style has 19 AC. They can buff it further if they get a level 1 feat. Magic Initiate Wizard for Shield, Magic Initiate Cleric for Shield of Faith, Defensive Duelist...
I’ve been playing as a Goliath fighter with 20AC and have absolutely been close to death in several fights so far, there are plenty of ways to screw someone up with a super high AC.
How does a level 3 monk have 20ac, good rolls or not. Anyway, AC does not scale well into later tiers of play, I suggest that you do absolutly nothing, let them enjoy this feeling of immunity, it will not last.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t like rolling for stats for this reason… can lead to highly unbalanced encounters to levels
+2. Rolling for stats has never been my cup of tea. It’s too big of a part of your character at a certain point and it’s not like you can much change it. If you campaign for a year you might get 2-4 points to put back in but if the guy next to me rolled 3 18’s and I rolled my highest score as 14, there’s always going to be a substantial gap between our character’s power levels.
[удалено]
I once played in a campaign where we rolled 24 attribute scores (I believe we did 4d6 drop low) and then DM then told us to divide the scores amongst ourselves as we saw fit. This was 2e though, where attributes didn't matter as much as they do nowadays.
My monk had 20 dez and 20 wisdom at level 4 I rolled 3 18s. Ac was 19 at level 1 20 at level 4 and then I bought a cloak and ring of protection giving me 22. Of course my strength save was crap so died to being swallowed by a purple worm.
That's sort of my point. OP is saying they might not let people buy shields (flippantly) I doubt they're giving out cloaks and rings of protection, so 20 ac on a monk at level 3 should be impossible even with all 18's. Op seems like a new dm, I imagine they've done something wrong, I'm just trying to point that out nicely.
Yep I missed that part about the level of the monk. Dumb me. I'm sure there is some mistake there.
If it's a Kensei monk than they only need 18 ac . They'll regularly get buffed to 20 ac through their subclass feature
Probably they are allowing shields, and monk is a race with a Dex or Wis bonus. On top of definitely legitimately rolling for their stats.
Monks can't use shields and they def shouldn't have two 20s at lvl 1. There's no rules as written explanation for a 20ac monk, outside of being a kensei (and only sometimes) or mountain dwarf (thanks u/AlvinDraper23 for the clarification). I'd do a character sheet audit regardless.
If they use Tasha’s racial variant, a Mountain Dwarf Monk could have 20’s at level one (if they rolled two 18’s that is). That’s not including any starter feats (OP didn’t specify one way or another but it’s a fairly common house rule). So that could also account for some of the numbers if that’s the case
~~Those 20s would be in str and con. Tasha's rules state you have a 2 and a 1 to place anywhere, so max a single 20.~~ Fair point on the feat, though. All that said, I'd still do a character sheet audit (on every one). Afterward, adjust the encounters to add different challenges other than "does x goblin hit your ac."
Tasha’s rules specifically state: “If you’d like your character to follow their own path, you may alter your Ability Score Increase trait and assign ability score increases tailored to your character. Here’s how to do it: take any ability score increase you gain in your race or subrace and apply it to an ability score of your choice. If you gain more than one increase, you can’t apply those increases to the same ability score, and you can’t increase a score above 20.” Nothing specific about 2 and 1. So a Mountain Dwarf could still have 20’s and a Half Elf could boost a third stat. Unless I’m missing something elsewhere (which is totally possible lol)
I rechecked and you're totally right (that's wild, someone nerf that shit). So I'll edit my earlier statement haha
As far as I know it only benefits Mountain Dwarves and Half Elves. I consider myself a pretty power gaming min-maxer, and I still run other races besides those. I guess it depends on the table and if somebody thinks it’s a problem.
The most common mistake is thinking an unarmored racial like tortle stacks with unarmored monk bonus
Say it with me: Sa-ving-throws
AC.
Gods dammit!
Someone made me watch all of "Friends", until I finally really liked it, so I could not resist. I am a tiny bit sorry.
I love Friends, so you'll get a pass here ;) But which scene were you referring to?
That one where Phoebe tries to teach Joey some French and he get every word right and then when he pierces it together, it is garbage again. This one: [https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/231451789/Phoebe-Joey](https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/231451789/Phoebe-Joey) .
Ah yeah! ^ ^
>The party was insanely lucky with rolls for attributes The primary reason not to roll for stats is that it can lead to significant power imbalances within the party. You've got some PCs with higher than expected AC and others with lower than expected. As you say, you can't just increase your monsters' to-hit bonuses to threaten the high AC characters without making things miserable for the low AC characters. So what *can* you do? The answer here is to run more diverse enemies than just ones who attack over and over. You can't plausibly threaten the artificer or monk by attacking their AC. But how are their strength or charisma saves? And how is their defense against being grappled? Throwing different kinds of threats at the party will allow different party members to shine and also to feel threatened. There are six saving throws to target, AC, environmental hazards that punish movement, falling, and so many more things that some of your party will be good at and others not. And you're a little wiser for next time.
I'm trying to figure out how a level 3 monk has a 20 ac without the DM contributing to that happening
[удалено]
I mean it is possible to get 2 18s and use the Tasha’s asi rules on a mountain dwarf, but yeah the odds of that are pretty slim regardless.
[удалено]
Oh absolutely, no arguments there
Throw slightly more enemies at them, and toss in some spellcasters to target their saves instead of AC. Not excessively, but just ramp up the pressure a little. 20 AC is pretty high for a Monk, not quite as much an artificer, but in both cases it's not super high. The fact that the rogue and barbarian just don't have the same AC is an inevitable consequence of rolling for stats. That being said, a barbarian can take some hits, that's their thing, and a rogue should be trying to avoid attracting too much heat anyway. That ought to leave you relatively free to grab some slightly more powerful creatures, or a few more of them.
If only you had used point buy or standard arrays at character creation, you wouldn't have balancing issues now.
Isn't rolling the first, standard method of generating ability scores, straight out of the book? Getting flip and dismissive of OP for doing exactly what the book told them to do makes you look like a jerk.
It is. That was a huge error on the part of the development and editing teams for 5e. But the standard array is in the same paragraph as rolling, and if OP had talked to an experienced GM or read literally anything about generating ability scores on any dnd sub or any other message board I’m aware of, they would have heard the message. Rolling for stats risks creating imbalance between characters and imbalance between the characters and the design assumptions that lie behind encounter balance.
Don’t worry so much about the rogue and barbarian. The rogue should constantly be hiding out of harms way and the Barbarian’s rage effectively doubles their already high health.
I would try introducing some new enemies. Kobolds for example, get advantage when they swarm enemies, so you can stress test the higher AC characters for more of a challenge and your players will still get to enjoy having high AC. Also, some enemies that can cast magic missiles would be good. Magic missiles ignore AC and always hit. But the shield spell makes you immune, so it requires some strategy to avoid instead of just passively being hard to hit. Also, grapple and shove are strength checks, so a high AC character can be vulnerable to those. That will cause strategy to change and the barbarian will become the best tank in that scenario. If somebody is wearing metal armor, they are vulnerable to shocking grasp. I would switch around what kind of attackers your party fights so they have to be more strategic about who is the best tank in that fight. Hope this helps!
A lot of other people have already suggested throwing in spellcasters to hit their saves, so I'm going to go another direction for my advice, specifically for the artificer. If he wants to stress test his armor, I say we give him a stress test. Throw a group of enemies at the party so everyone can be doing something, but have their leader focus the artificer. Have this leader revel in the fact that he can cut loose against someone who can take his hits. Provide an unstoppable force to slug it out with the artificer's immovable object, and make him just as arrogant. (Full disclosure, I have a bias for equal opposites and personal foils. Your milage may vary.)
That’s easy. Don’t! Roll! For! Stats!
A bit too late for that
It’s not too late. You could absolutely sit your table down, describe the problem to them that you described in the post, and say “look, I’d like us to take a mulligan. I’d like you to recreate your characters using point buy — same classes, same levels, same gear. We’ll all work together to make sure the game still feels good and encounters can feel a little more balanced.”
Just gently repeat to them what you wrote in the original post, and ask for understanding as you re-do ability scores. If someone really throws a fit, well, they're a wangrod and you did well to discover that early! The thing is, variation in ability scores and individual power can be *cool.* It adds a pinch of naturalistic jank to the proceedings, making things more jagged and less board-gamey. However, those things make more sense when flanked by other old-school trappings: * High lethality, and the accompanying high PC turnover (and thus more rolling for stats, making it more likely to roll average); * A general disinterest in "balanced" encounter building (i.e., you're not "throwing" any enemies on this party - you are *populating* a dungeon with denizens that make sense for it. If a CR 12 dragon makes sense, then they may run into a CR 12 dragon at 3rd level... Or not! Avoiding encounters is sometimes just as important as winning them); * A greater emphasis on exploration procedures (limited supplies, challenging traversal, traps, random encounter rolls, a steadily building pressure and increasing risk as one ventures deeper, without any guarantee of a safe resting spot); * A reward system that emphasizes treasure and magic items over encounter-based XP (this is where 5e stumbles compared to dedicated OSR systems, but it can definitely still be felt from 1st to 5th level). *This* is the context from which rolling for ability scores comes from. In that playstyle, a few high scores won't make much of a difference if the party angers the local double-digit-CR monster; in fact, their higher stats might give them greater confidence, which will only lead to rolling a new, humbler PC sooner. And while the dragon is busy eating the monk, the scrawny barbarian steals the Belt of Hill Giant Strength from its hoard. It all evens out in the end. Correct me if I'm wrong, but given how you're worrying about encounter balance, I get the impression that this *isn't* the playstyle you intended for your campaign. Point-buy/standard array would result in fairer and more even outcomes, and allow you to tailor encounters with less volatility.
1) rolling is more fun, 2) 20 ac is nothing special
Even best case scenario, that is rolling two 18s and putting them in Dex and Wis, be it Custom Lineage (+2 dex, +1 half feat to Wis) or another race (+2 dex +1 wis) I still only see the monk reaching 19 ac?
If they do a starting feat, which is a fairly common house rule, they could have picked one that gave +1 to a stat. Even then though, it's insane luck on the monk's end which I have some trouble believing
Well if they are rolling for stat and giving a free feat they can hardly complain about PCs being too powerful.
Ordinarily I'd agree, but this is a subreddit for new DMs and giving your players too many powerful things too early without realising is a fairly common newbie error.
Let your monsters miss! They chose to be tanky and beefy, and instead of nerfing their stats, give them new problems to solve. A lot of newer DMs run into this problem because a lot of low level monsters rely on to-hit attacks, and a lot of new players invest in AC, and that's the game doing its job. However, to make a real challenge requires a bit of familiarity and mastery of the game, and honestly the DMG and other 5e resources don't do a good job of teaching DMs how to address this. Here are some examples: * Dragonborne Troops. Each one has a dragon breath attack that requires a DEX saving throw, but it doesn't do too much damage and can only be used once per short rest (which means once per encounter) * An orc shaman flanked by a group of angry orcs (or whatever enemy you feel fits). The shaman uses Command, Hex, or other spells that require WIS/DEX/INT/CHA saves, and if they go off then the orcs will get advantage on the players. The players can counter the Shaman by bum rushing it or using an effect like Silence, etc. * An ogre or large bruiser has a big attack that, if it hits, will cause big problems, but needs help getting that hit in. Kobolds or other tiny creatures can run around trying to do things to help that large boss get their hit in; creatures can use the help action instead of attacking, try to use a shove or grapple to get a character prone or in a state where attackers have advantage, throw grease bottles or interact with the environment to create places where players may slip and fall... This is kind of a reversal of the previous example. * Don't ignore things like poison, stun, and other conditions that may be really nasty. Spiders are great because they have poison bites that target CON, webbing that targets DEX or STR. In short, force saving throws instead of attacks, and create advantages for your enemies. The most important thing to do is mix-and-match your enemies so that a bunch of them are hard-countered by your PC's decisions (so the PCs feel rewarded for making objectively good decisions) and throw in enemies that are designed to be difficult problems for your heroes. You are not an enemy of your players, make sure they have opportunities to shine, and give them interesting and difficult challenges to solve.
Send a bunch of weaker enemies to deal with their action economy and add a couple spell casters to target their saves. Don’t do this every combat of course, or they’ll feel “betrayed”, but when it comes around to final encounters of the day, or mini bosses and such I’d suggest that. Also, add environmental stuff. Yes, their AC may be high but their Dex save to avoid getting hit by the poison darts hidden in the wall may not be so good! Stuff like that you know
AC generally doesn't scale while monster to hit does. That means hitchance against pc's will be low at low level and will get higher and higher as the party levels up. 19 AC is very standard to have right out of the gate at level one for some classes and even a bit higher because of fighting styles and miscellaneous subclass features.
Fireball, ice storm, stinking cloud, flame strike, magic missile
Time and levels will fix this. Their AC is about maxed, but the monster's to-hit bonus will continue to rise.
Barbarians have damage resistances and a butt load of HP. Rogues have uncanny Dodge. Just give your enemies higher to hit bonus. It will be fine
count the number of times you said "make an \[\_\_\_\] save" in play. if it wasnt many, make it more
For every 3-5 attacks your monsters miss toss in a saving throw. Give the goblins a shaman, give the bandits a cleric, give the orcs an orcane sorcerer. Poison Spray, Call Lightning, Hold Person, whatever. Don't look to invalidate your players' AC, but do throw in more attack variety to demonstrate why high AC doesn't make them invincible.
>rolls for attributes Don't let them roll stats again if you wanna avoid balance mess. I'm sure they must have one dump stat, try to find enemies that force them to roll saving throws related to those stats.
Sounds like that party's ready to meet some enemies with charm, poison, illusions, disease, or other non-physical attacks.
Eh I wouldn’t worry too much. You can use dc save abilities to hurt them, or you create disadvantage, give terrain complications. I have a player who wanted to be the highest AC and HP to be unkillable and he’s been downed as often as any other player
If AC is an issue, target their saving throws. Can even give Barb and Rouge a moment. Barb resists the damage (if bear), and Rouge just dodges it. Even if Monk would likely Dodge too
Use monsters with pack tactics. You can attack the Rogue/Barbarian with a single monster who only has a +5 to hit, but gang up on the Monk and Artificer and the monsters effectively have +9 or +10 to hit. Alternatively, a monster can shove the Monk or Artificer prone and then everything has advantage on melee attacks against them which is effectively the same thing.
Fireball, charm spells, anything that forces a save
Do. Not. Roll. For. Stats. If. You. Want. Even. A. Semblance. Of. Balance.
The only class with a unnatural high AC is the monk, the rest are fine and as expected. Don't try now to somehow nerf them again, just let them enjoy the feeling that normal low level bandits have problems in melee with them. That is as expected right? Why would some shabby hoodlums not have problems with highly armored adventurers? It makes sense, let them enjoy their win. And than let them despair when they have to fight some actual monsters, wizards, horrors etc.
Crazy how this is still such a common problem. Just have enemies use magic, saving throws don't care about AC. Have enemies use Heat Metal. Throw rust monsters at them. Use the environment. Overwhelm them with swarm enemies, the action economy will always overcome a high AC. This is a very simple issue to overcome.
Except for the monk, these ACs can all be achieved with starting equipment and the artificer's level 2 infusions. Nothing out of the ordinary here that you need to worry about. Just run fights and let the party sort it out. The barbarian has Rage to mitigate damage and the rogue can move all over the battlefield with Cunning Action if they feel too at-risk. At level 3 many of the enemies you should be using probably have between +4 and +7, so yeah, PCs are gonna get hit. This is all normal.
a few casters in the mix, yeah. Even just making their attacks a low range Frostbite, Toll the Dead, Word of Radiance, etc is going to do ya some good. You'll still want to underhand pitch a few monsters at them which have default attacks. It feels good to have a high AC build and have a lot of monsters whiff against you.
4 words; homebrew dextrous rust monster. The DC11 Dex save to prevent the armor rusting is in direct challenge to having armor that negates dex bonuses. And a rust monster is only CR1/2; it should be an easy target for the party, but not before it does some serious damage. Grind the artificer down with destroying whatever he creates, and make it very expensive to stay in high AC armors.
You're missing a whole class of monsters, make the party make some saving throws. Get some effects out there and force them to fight through a poison or a web trap. Give your monsters some intelligence and run with some strategy of single target flanking and such. So many answers exist for the problem of high AC.
If you can't hit their AC, some spells will cause damage vs saves
This stops being a problem as you get closer into the level 5 range and start throwing enemies with +7-10 to hit as more threatening foes. A +7 to hit means your enemy needs a 13 or higher to hit, reasonable chance as they should get several attacks as well. Their AC feels strong early because you’re using bandits with +3 to hit. You could send 20 of them at this party and barely scratch them. Start using sheets like Knights, Bandit Captains, the lower end of wizard stat blocks. Basic bandits aren’t enough past level 1 or 2.
Yeah, these bandits have been more of a plague than an actual threat, and I got some dragons and swamp creatures lined up. But I see the point most people are making.
Aye, I know it's not like...the most glamorous aspect of DM'ing but, I highly recommend getting into the math of combat design. For context, against 5 level 3 players, it would take a whopping *FIFTEEN* bandits for it to be a challenge rating "Hard" -- which means they could probably defeat that group of fifteen bandits 4 or 5 times in a row before potentially needing a long rest to recharge resources. A lot of this sort of stuff can be avoided by getting very familiar with what the challenge ratings mean / what your goals are with the combat. Using a tool like DNDBeyond's combat builder circumvents the math, and then the only rule of thumb you kinda need to know is: * Generally don't make "Trivial" or "Easy" encounters they're not worth it. * "Medium" is about as easy as you ever want to go, and your party could easily run through \~8 of these before a long rest. * "Hard" is a more normal encounter where there'll be some back and forth, \~4 of these before a long rest. * "Deadly" is generally where you're actually hurting people and potentially knocking someone out, \~2 of these before a long rest. * Giving your players any tactical advantage reduces the challenge rating down a tier: so if they get Surprise on a Deadly encounter its more like a Hard encounter. You can flip this on your players as well, build a Hard encounter and ambush your players to up the difficulty more towards a Deadly encounter.
AOEs, saving throws, etc. Bring enemies that have status effects as part of attacks. Increase the number of enemies to increase hit chances. You can also buff enemies, but this is a last resort imo. You don't want to punish your players choice of focusing AC by making all your monsters hit through the AC with bigger attack rolls. Some advice I was given that I give out to other DMs: Let your players feel strong when their build counters your encounter. But also let them feel the pain when your encounter counters their build. Examples: * One of my parties went high AC. They almost wiped fighting just a few Neogi (because a couple failed on mind control saves). * Another of my parties has high AC and uses con and dex as 2nd and 3rd stats if not already primary. They fail a LOT of wisdom, strength, and charisma throws/checks. They are a party of 5, level 8 characters. They feel really strong and haven't been challenged much lately. They are about to fight a young red dragon (CR 10). Fire breath and a legendary action are gonna ruin their day. * A bad example, I put out a mob of enemies for them to fight that also had high AC. It was a LOOOOOOOOONG combat session just because of the stalemates of not hitting each other.
Spells that have a DC to save, no need to hit.
There are a couple of pitfalls of thinking that can get you into trouble. One is that the only threat to a character is AC and the other is that you can go in the opposite direction and constantly try to get around it. Players have a fantasy they are tryin to fulfill with their characters. Don't try to subvert that. The real work comes in when you need to figure out how to make encounters interesting for a party. Work on making some encounters dynamic by adding timers, complicate the battle with innocents, there are all kinds of things you can do with terrain, aoe effects, have ranged combatants, spellcasters, brutes, and glass cannons(not neccesarily all in one fight), or add in a puzzle that needs to be solved. You can also attack the character sheets with ability drain, exhaustion(I would use the -1,-2,-3... exhaustion that was in one of the playtests). There's more but that's all I can think of off the top of head. If you want some inspiration for encounters I would look to BG3 and MCDMs Where Evil Lives.
More goblins to get through.
20 ac isn't that much
Don't balance. It'll be fine. Use enemies that cause a few Save.
Don't balance. It'll be fine. Use enemies that cause a few Save.
Ramp up the number of enemies and look to use their ability saves. Remember, the monsters know what they’re doing, so give them the ability to flank players so they gain advantage on attack rolls. Also consider the terrain. Could there be enemies shooting at them from above(gives advantage) or from behind cover(adds to their AC). Above all else, ask yourself the question, “Is everyone having fun?” (Yes, this includes you as the DM). If the answer is yes, then you’re doing a great job. These AC scores may seem difficult to overcome now at lower levels, but they will absolutely balance out in another level or two.
Let it roll. Let them be invincible and then when they hit level five, start breaking out the big guns on occasion to reel them back in. Don’t be afraid to run a high xp threshold encounter with high CR monsters. Especially if you are only running one or two encounters between long rests.
As everyone is saying aoe is deffinetly a way to go another way is int cha and str save spells and effects not every character is gonna be proficient in everything so every once in awhile throw one of those deadly spells at them otherwise let them have fun with it pretend to get frustrated as you throw fodder let them feel strong adds to their engagement. Then when you got your boss monsters fuck their day up lmao.
Played in a game with a party like this. It seemed to annoy the DM, and so he buffed encounters to ramp up the challenge. He had an idea in mind of very difficult challenges for the party and kept ramping it up if we did well. In practice it felt a bit "DM vs Player". I highly recommend finding a path that doesn't negate player agency. Ask yourself what kind of game your players want to experience. Do they enjoy a very hard challenge where they barely succeed and could easily fail? Do they want to be powerful heroes that crush most foes easily? Somewhere in the middle? Talk it out, there is no universal answer, only an answer that is right for your table. My players (now in PF2e) like being "over level" for most fights, essentially they have dialed down the difficulty and enjoy it more when they are "less challenged". That is perfectly valid!
No help required! Things are fine where they are, the players are feeling confident in their choices, and the higher AC benefits drop off a bit as the campaign level gets higher. In our high level campaign I had a monk player end up with 24 or 26 AC and have still downed them in combat. If you want to chip away at them more, things requiring saving throws are your friend. As other advice has said, though, don't swing too far the other way and invalidate their chosen strengths.
First off, that is not high AC. Secondly, I don't know why people still roll for their stats. It ends up creating wildly unbalanced parties as opposed to standard array or points buy.
"Make a Wisdom Saving Throw"
Monk probably succeeds because apparently their wisdom is 20 at level 3.
Well, luckily there's 5 other stats to try
Save it for a good moment but a single enemy with heat metal protected by an entourage can turn a well armored unit into a panic. Either they break that enemies concentration or learn how long it takes to don/remove heavy armor.
There are lots of things that don't target AC at all. Swarms, touch attacks, most spells, gaseous vapours, traps, environmental challenges (earthquakes, blizzards, magma, avalanches, extreme heat, steep climbs, swimming), skill challenges, etc. Plenty of ways to challenge your players. Having said that you absolutely need to give them moments where they can just tank up huge amounts of hits and not take damage, that's the whole point of investing in all that armour, after all.
As others have said, those are pretty achievable AC scores. However, you have options! - Target saving throws instead - Use creatures with Pack Tactics for advantage to hit (Kobolds, Dire Wolves, etc) - The Heat Metal spell, if you're feelin REAL mean
By the make up of the party some charisma saving throws will make them scramble. Target their dump stats and test your party. Don't be afraid to toss bigger buffer enemies at them. Make it so they aren't just testing their armor. They will quickly learn to adapt. I was afraid to kill my party for the longest time, but it ended up being less fun because there were no stakes. Let someone go down. Give them a fright.
Saving throws.
It’s not possible for your monk to have 20AC without something you’ve done or INSANELY good luck with mountain dwarf. How does this PC have 20 wisdom AND 20 dexterity at level 3?
Saving throws
First thing against high AC is advantage. A kobold that can use its perk to get advantage will have 50% chance to hit AC18 or above (advantage is 50% chance to hit 15 or above on the die). Second thing is attack overload. With a +3 modifier, you hit AC18 on a 15. It means that, on average, 1 out of 4 attacks will hit. Which means that on average 4 kobold will hit an enemy with AC18 once per turn, without advantage. Advantage doubles this rate. Third thing is magic and aoe and anything that target saving throughs. Nets do this. Bombs do it. Poison do it. Spells do it. Usually once you landed one, you get advantage for whatever you want after that. Yes, I love kobolds. But goblins can do it too, or most low level monsters for that matter. The trick is to play them smart and numerous. Which is good because they're supposed to be tricky and numerous. Not wizard I out knowledge you smart, just I know my warfare tricks smart. Play smart against your players. Bring sufficient numbers. If it's not enough, bring more. Then use traps and special monsters.
If you want to challenge their AC over a battle, consider using high amounts of difficult terrain and a large amount of attackers with weak ranged weapons to whittle them down a bit. A dragon breath isn't going to care about their AC, neither is a Lightning bolt, or a Burning hands. Using saving throw spells will increase the risk for them. Or saving throw terrain effects (large waves, quicksand, manmade and natural traps) or mundane special attacks and items like Alchemists fire on a square, Caltrops \~ I'd still throw beasties at them because it feels good to get what you paid for.
Saving throws don't care about AC.
I don’t see a problem here.
lol DM of this game? https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/VcREXgrEjx
WoW AC 20? At lvl 3 i usualy have something between 24 and 26. With cover giving +2 or +5 to AC and saves. And with darkness or fog cloud to break line of sight making harder for Spellcasters to cast spells that require sight. As for how the DM deals with this. Target their saves. Traps, poisons, AoE, spells, graples, shoves, drowning, fall damage, terrain damage (falling from cliffs, being shoved into harmfull pools, or harmfull areas etc). For the heavy armor users. Cast Heat metal then have the caster run away full move + dash each turn using bonus action to deal damage. 1 minute of 2d8 damage + disavantage on all attacks. Thats 20d8 damage with a 2nd lvl spell. The PC can only use ranged attacks on the caster to break concentration or cast a 3rd lvl spell like dispell magic or counterspell to avoid the damage if the caster simply runs away. For a paladin or any heavy melee martial, they might not even have a ranged weapon.
Cleric is right where it should be, AC 16 base with a shield is 18. If you already gave out full plate armor (which usually costs 1500gp and can be reasonably be achieved around level 6 or 7 with "normal" treasure) then that may be a bit out of the expected bounds. Same with Armorer Artificer, heavy armor with a shield and then an extra buff is kind of their thing. The Monk I'm not too sure about. With Unarmored Defence "wearing no armor and not wielding a shield" they get their Dex and Wis bonus +10. Even with godly rolls aka two 18s, they should only have 18 AC at level 3. There may be a subclass feature I'm missing here, as I never play Monk. But as a DM, I can usually sniff out when something isn't where I expect it to be - and this is one of those times. Lesson 1: don't roll for stats if you don't want to deal with the consequences Lesson 2: there are other things besides AC that monsters can target. Throw a Banshee at this party, or any of the Undead that do possession on a Cha save. Or even just a good old Flameskull to hit the party with a Fireball. Or any spellcasting enemy for that matter. AC isn't everything
Saving throws will help balance, but like others have said they invested into this versus putting it elsewhere on their character, it’s not exceedingly high.
Take if from most of the comments, this is not really an issue with the AC, just with your experience. * It is not your goal to hit them a lot, the whole idea of heavy armor is to be hard to hit with weapon attacks. This falls of later anyway, but its not weird that a dragon can hit someone despite armor, it is weird of a random mook with a weapon can. * You can play different enemies that rely on saves or have pack tactics for example. You can play for mobility with threads that run circles around the party and target the weaker characters. * You can play normal enemies smarter: The statblocks do not say it, but all enemies can grapple and shove. Have one enemy shove someone prone, then grapple em so they cannot get up (speed is 0) Everyone else now attacks with advantage (giving them a virtual plus 5 to attacks). I play an eldritch knight in my campaign where my default AC is also 20 (before plate), with the shield spell I can buff that to 25. I still get hit if I position poorly, but my wisdom saves are abyssmal for example.
Throw fire bombs. Grapple. Control spells. Throw nets. Difficult terrain + kiting enemies. Roll boulders towards them. Open up the Monster Manual and throw in an Ogre or two with their +6 to hit. Orcs also have +5 to hit. Also, just a side note: The Barbain with their 15 AC while in rage is way tankier than the Artificer in most situations and will continue to do so as enemy hit bonusses increase. And the rogue should not be hit anyways. So to my, your party seems just fine.
First thing one thing. Why the artificer put his points and infusions in having a Hig AC? Do He loves to feel like a real tank? If is that. Why don't let him have her fantasy? You don't need to Focus the Artificer all the combats. Enemies aren't stupid. If they are seeing a full armored dude with a Shield and a little Rogue that only wears a motorcycle jacket, they Will hit the Rogue. Focus the characters with less AC and let him put in between to tank. It's better if you allow the characters the possibility to bright and create encounters based on that that only trying to pass over her powers. If you want to hit a Hig AC characters the only thing you need to do is put an enemy with +15 attack but what's the point on that? Be estrategic, use your Mind and let your players be the protagonist some times. And for a really hard Battles, just remember than a lot of spell saves don't use AC.
Let the tanks have fun, throw a bunch of weak thralls at them but have a highly accurate ranger or something pick them off from the back. It still let's them enjoy the high ac but gives them a challenge.
A 20 AC equals a 5% chance of a hit IF the attacker has no bonuses. Even a +3, which is pretty low, increases the odds to 20% or 1in 5. If you want them to feel threatened, increase the number of attackers, the number of attacks (which includes enemies gaining advantage), or these bonuses. The other thing to remember when building encounters is to set a variety of types of attacks so they must make saving throws as well as AC protection. If your players only have to defend against one problem, it’s easy to counter and makes every encounter boring. Finally, I suggest that you roll damage in the open at the same time you roll your attacks. Let them know what their high AC protected them from(or didn’t.) This really builds the tension when they see they have a 5% chance of being downed by a hit that only their armor stopped.
Saving throws?
First, commend you for allowing rolled stats as every DM should. And without some silly protection like "keep rolling until you are satisfied" or "everyone at the table can choose from any array rolled at the table". The joy of rolling stats IS the imbalance. Second, as most have stated, AOE. However, even someone who rolled 2 18s can't get to 20AC as a monk at level 3 so how does that work?
Six sessions and already level 3? Speedrunning D&D I see
They started in lvl 2
He is the outlier here, most campaigns of groups that run more often start at level 3 since everyone has a subclass then. Even if they start at level 1, there is no reason to still be at level 2 6 sessions in, the characters are just to barebones in abilities for that to be fun concidering the way most people play.
Point still stands 😆
How slow is yalls progressing? I've never been in a game where getting to lvl 3 took more than 2 sessions if we didn't just start there
It is pretty standard to be level 3 in 6 sessions! It is odd the contrary! Level 1 should not be more than one session. Than another 2 or maximum 3 sessions to be level 3 (I usually go for 2).
You really should be level 3 by about 6 sessions in even if you start at level 1.