Magic Armor is too strong in Dnd 5e! Here's why.

Thank you One More Multiverse for sponsoring this video!
Link to One More Multiverse: multiverse.com/bladestactics
Link to the Tabletop Builds article about The “Squishy Caster” Fallacy: tabletopbuilds.com/the-squish...
Link to patreon, merch shop, discord and twitter:
www.patreon.com/Packtactics?f...
/ discord
/ pack_tacticss
my-store-c2baed.creator-sprin...
Gator art by Drakeven: / drakeven1
Kobold reading a scroll art by Novatonix:
kzbin.info/door/mJF...

[@PackTactics]

Thank you One More Multiverse for sponsoring this video! Link to One More Multiverse: multiverse.com/bladestactics

[@LucanVaris]

But Kobold, by saying that +X armor is broken, you're saying that Artificers are broken, since they can give themselves a +2 Shield and +2 Half Plate! On top of that, Battle Smiths automatically gain the Shield spell, as one of their subclass spells, making Biker Kobolds invincible! D:

[@PackTactics]

@@LucanVaris I didn't say it was broken. I said it was strong.

[@LucanVaris]

@@PackTactics BIKER KOBOLDS ARE IMMORTAL!!! YEEEEEEEE!!! *_drives off a cliff._* ...So, about my _next_ character concept...

[@LucanVaris]

@@nyanbrox5418 Eh, +2 from Enhanced Defense and +1 from Repulsion shield is still a lot better than a +0 to each. Plus, I was mostly joking. XD

[@LucanVaris]

@@nyanbrox5418 To be fair, I wasn't really attempting to optimize either. I was just trying to make a weird joke. XD Also, _real_ gamers go Battle Smith, so they can ride around the battlefield on a motorbike. >:D

[@deanofett]

Handing out +2 hide armor is just funny tho.

[@UncleBBQ]

tbf, your Druid will love you

[@asdfniofanuiafabuiohui3977]

+2 Padded

[@andrewpeli9019]

That's still stictly better than a mundane breastplate as magic armor can't be diminished by effects such as a rust monster. +2 hide is a legit piece of treasure.

[@Pitrah]

@@UncleBBQ The druid will still hate the DM for not giving them a decent alternative to medium armor that they can actually use for their basic class function.

[@Guille2033]

@@andrewpeli9019 +2 hide armour gives disadvantage on Stealth checks tho

[@fero_zetta]

Curiously enough, the only person who doesn't want Magical Armor is the Armorer Artificer, because Magical Armor doesn't allow the subclass to infuse the armor, wasting opportunities at higher levels...

[@DatsVatSheSaid]

Actually, the opposite is true. An artificer can only put Enhanced defense in one item. If I were to get +2 or +3 armor or a shield, it'd be better by far. The only magic armor/shield artificers don't want is +1's.

[@fero_zetta]

@@DatsVatSheSaid But Armorers can put two extra Infusions in their armor at level 9. A magical armor would prevent the Infusion of the armor, robbing you of classics like the winged boots.

[@gaminreasons8941]

To be fair their armor is going to be better than most armors you'll actually give out most of the time. A +2 armor along with all the other shit they put on it.

[@Spoopball]

Armorer, seems to be the only way to get x8 attunement without epic boons

[@fero_zetta]

@@Spoopball Yup, and having 8 infusions means 8 times you can rise from 0HP without healing... You're basically a cat with 9 lives at LV20

[@AvangionQ]

When I DM, I give out magical armor because I want my monsters to miss more often than they hit. A player who has invested in defensive features should be rewarded with more attacks missing them. This is especially true of any frontline class who takes the attacks so his backline allies don't have to. Any player who acts as the party's defender should be attacked repeatedly and rewarded appropriately. When I play the defender, having all those attacks miss, the feeling of invincibility, is what I play for.

[@jfast8256]

I get where you're going, but enemies should be smart. In addition to high ac, those tanks should also know how to maneuver tactical gameplay to make enemies regret not focusing on them. This could be done through either massive damage hits or controlling the battlefield, but if enemies can attack the squishier who massively dangerous, they should.

[@AvangionQ]

@@jfast8256 Smart enemies should be smart. If the enemy has an intelligent commander, they'd put one or two soldiers to flank the party's defender, while sending the rest of their troops around towards the back line with commands to focus fire. That said, most enemies I throw at the party are assuredly NOT smart and will primarily act upon instinct, whether that be to attack whoever draws their aggression, whether by taunt or class feature, or to attack whoever damaged them, or to attack whoever is bloodied, or to attack whoever is closest to them. I usually give my players knowledge checks to let them know what kind of opposition they're up against, so they can plan strategies around that information. I want them to feel like their skills matter, their tactics matter and their decisions matter, as good play can turn the battlefield to their advantage.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

@@AvangionQ I have bad news for you, even an animal can realize when it isn't hurting its target. It will either flee or target the less armored looking thing. In fact a major part of natural growth would be animals target mages over tanks... because those who do are more likely to survive. Also you're doing the opposite of what you claim... when you give the Defensive Person magical armor to raise their defense you're telling them their defense isn't enough. If they have specialized to be defensive they are already rewarded. A better reward is a utility tool letting them do something they normally couldn't... otherwise they are doing the same thing endlessly with little variety.

[@AvangionQ]

@@Buglin_Burger7878 Natural animals value their lives and will flee if bloodied. The kind of monsters I usually throw at the party are low-INT abominations and undead. An interesting thought that the Paladin in Full Plate +1 and Shield +1 and Cloak of Protection +1 isn't happy about their high AC, so they rarely get hit from many attacks. Ah, my campaigns, I usually give out a dozen +1 items to each character at the end of game zero; mostly all about offering additional capabilities to each character. Each of the items has a +1 enhancement, an always-on property and an activatable power; but I tell the players the enhancements and properties usually don't stack. Armor, shield and deflection bonuses are all separate, so they do stack, but that's about as high as the character can get their AC without feats or hard to get +2 items.

[@mr.dantastic5073]

At that point there is no reason to play a front liner, immediately an enemy sees the high armor enemy they target the squishy mage in the back.

[@timbergoat2568]

I just want to say I agree at levels below 11 but once you hit that 11th level unless you're AC is in the high 20s everything hits.

[@vaderswingman4005]

Kinda what I was thinking. Monsters get a pretty high chance to hit not even late game. Like Air and Earth elementals are sitting with a +8 to hit at cr 5. If you have anything less then 18 AC You will be getting hit over half the time. idk when you normally fight a cr 5 monster but If I had to guess prob like 5 not min maxed level 3s could do it without too much trouble, and by level 3 you generally don't have full plate to my experience so your frontline will probably have like 20 AC tops while using spells like shield of faith. Monsters attack enough times and have high enough attack bonuses that unless you min max AC you will probably get hit at least once in the turn.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

We fought a tarrasque in a dream sequence once and I about crapped myself seeing a +19 to hit.

[@darkpaw1522]

Even in early Tier 2 enemy hit is very common. At CR 5 most enemies have a +8. It’s why I never understand why DMs are scared about magic items, especially by that point. Not saying the players can’t get crazy, but rather DMs tend to forget they have a lot at their disposal. This is saying nothing of spells, effects, and the most underutilized, environment. A Dragon flying around attacking 3 times with +11 to hit and a DC 15 fire breath is something you’re going to need 20+ AC for minimum. God help you if you’re a caster.

[@naturalkind5591]

Note: this is basically only if you only fight 1 enemy, the average will still be about +6-+8

[@captianbacon]

@Vaderswingman when you ur monk rolls really good stats and starts with a ac of 19/20 and proceeds to become a unkillable tornado of fist and hammers

[@CivilWarMan]

Magic armor giving a greater benefit to characters that already have a high AC seems more like a feature than a bug, honestly. High base AC typically implies heavier armor and shields, which is going to be most common with pure martials and half-casters. The game seems to be designed around the assumption that, on average, those characters are going to have higher passive AC, since the AC-boosting abilities heavy armor classes get tend to be more modest than the emergency AC buttons granted to classes that tend to wear lighter armor. Compare the +2 longer-duration Shield of Faith given to Clerics and Paladins versus the +5 panic button of Shield for Wizards and Sorcerers. Biasing magical armor rewards towards characters with lower base AC seems like it would be kind of a stealth nerf to martials on average by decreasing the passive armor disparity that usually develops between front line martials and casters. My view: bias the magical armor rewards towards whatever types of armor the non-caster or half-caster players are wearing.

[@naturalkind5591]

The problem is, it's so easy for casters to get armour proficiency, and they can also use shields ontop of that.

[@CivilWarMan]

@@naturalkind5591 Of the pure casters, Clerics and Druids are the only ones that get shield and medium or heavy armor proficiency as a core part of their class. Bards (and Warlocks, though they aren't pure casters) can get medium armor and shields depending on subclass choice. All others require feats or multiclassing, which is pretty easy since most DMs allow it, but those routes do delay spell progression as a cost for those improved defenses, so non-gish builds are usually better served by looking more at race, spell, or subclass choices that gives improved defenses while unarmored. Also, the fact that casters can get those proficiencies is why I included the bit at the end that the DM should specifically bias magical armor in favor of whatever the martial PCs wear, as opposed to the advice in this video which is almost guaranteed to bias magical armor in favor of spellcasters to the detriment of martial PCs.

[@technicolormischief-maker5683]

@@CivilWarMan The thing is, in an optimized setting, the non-casters *will* be the characters with the lowest AC. A martial with a shield is doing so much less damage than is possible for them that optimized martials kind of *have* to forego wearing shields to function effectively. Casters can wear shields by using a staff as a spellcasting focus. An optimized caster can get medium armor proficiency with a single level of Hexblade, leaving them generally at around 1 AC lower than martials- and with some additional 1st-level spell slots to play with, not to mention the possibility of magical shields in the future. Then consider Shield. Consider that martials don’t even have the option to spend a resource on it, and that those Hexblade spell slots can be used on it as well. A caster also only ever has to use Shield when they actually get hit- if an attack never beats their resting AC, that’s a spell slot unspent, and it’s established above that they can get their AC pretty darn high. And of course, a full round of roughly 24 AC *at level 2* is incredibly powerful for the reasons listed in the video. The disparity only gets worse as spellcasting progression continues, as spending 1st and even 2nd-level slots on Shield eventually borders on triviality. Combined with martials having worse saving throws and casters having a built-in capacity for kiting enemies at range, thus avoiding risking hits outright, and it’s no argument that magic armor should go to the martials. Martials are, after all, the squishiest classes in the game by far.

[@pencilbender]

Playing path of exile for an exorbitant amount of time has taught me that the difference between 80% and 81% elemental resistance is _massive_ That 20% of hits that blow past your defenses is 100% of the damage you take. So the 1% of resistance is worth 5% of all elemental damage you take. It only becomes more valuable the closer you get to 100% resistance. From 98 to 99 resist would mean a 50% damage reduction. Because the 2% damage that gets through is 100% of the damage you take. Always imagined armor in dnd to work the same way, only with a base soft cap of 5% (crit chance on a d20) because all the damage rolls that get past your AC is 100% of the damage you take.

[@orionar2461]

Except enemies scale their chance to hit as you level up.

[@pencilbender]

@@orionar2461 but you also raise your armor class with gear/ abilities/ positioning/ spells. Just gotta get ahead of the curve. If i find the curve ill update this comment

[@shadedergu9921]

@@pencilbender the only real things that raise your AC as you level up is magical armor Cause Dex will Cap and some armor does not scale with dex

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

For a standard table, it's probably fine to hand out magic armour. It will most likely go to a melee frontliner and let them feel cool by shrugging off all sorts of attacks. The exponential increase in survivability is true, but only insofar as the only attacks are vs. AC. As long as there are other ways to threaten the party, you're fine. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if one person shrugs off hits all day, if they can't protect their party the survivability is meaningless, so they're still under threat even if you can't hurt them. 5e also creeps into auto-hit territory with some high-level monsters (bounded accuracy massively favours the attacker) which can leave a sour taste in people's mouths if they wanted to be an armour tank. Magic armour can help ensure armour tank builds don't completely fall apart at high levels when it's too late to rework a build. Better than telling someone "tough luck buddy, should've gone Resistance/HP/Spell-tank instead, this is on you for not reading the monster manual, better luck next time eh?". In high-optimisation games where everyone's using the full defensive onion, yeah, probably best to avoid magic armour.

[@doctordonutdude]

I agree. It's not flashy, but as a melee martial, it feels lame being everybody's target, but not being able to hit much.

[@ItsSamToYou]

I played a paladin that got their ac up to 26 or something and it was incredibly fun for me my party and my dm, my dm would do things like a horde of barbarians because they all have reckless attack or things with pack tactics, and the joy of standing in the middle of that while the rest of the party is trying to save me because 16 attacks all at advantage we're killing me fast, we had a blast, and things like rising water drowning or saving throws remained quite effective

[@doctordonutdude]

@@ItsSamToYou Exactly! I think balance is overrated more times than not. Not that balance is a bad thing- but too much focus on it can really take away from player experience, I think.

[@MrJerks93]

@@doctordonutdude Balance is vastly overrated. It's a cooperative game so the success of people at the table leads to your success. What people want isn't balance but a way to feel they can contribute and maybe have a unique niche within the party. I've played games where I was fairly inept in combat, but I was the mechanic/bush pilot. It was extremely fun because of the unique role and it made combat intense for me whenever enemies got through the front ranks to pop off a few shots at me.

[@ItsSamToYou]

@@MrJerks93 yeah, the only thing I think that needs to be balanced is power level between your players, not even combad power level, but if one of your players excels at combat, it's ok for someone else to be bad at it as long as they have their own thing, be that stealth or fast talking, as long as the dm has those interactions happen, you only need everyone to be balanced in combat of the campaign is only combat

[@VestigialLung]

I remember seeing a build back on the 3.5 character optimization boards that built around as low an AC as possible. The reasoning was that below a certain threshold, an extra point of AC doesn’t mean much (the difference between AC 10 and 11 when enemies all have +12 to hit for example), so if you’re below that threshold, you might as well sacrifice what AC you have for something actually beneficial. I doubt I’d ever play such a build, but it was an interesting idea keying off of the same concept. I recently had a divine soul sorcerer whose main survival tactic was the sanctuary spell for that reason. I wasn’t going to be able to get his AC up to a reasonable level, and I wanted to focus on support and healing anyway, and if I want to deal damage, I usually resort to polymorph, maybe after a quickened fireball to soften the enemy up.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

with 5e that rarely happens, unless you’re into the silly levels. i don’t think there are any gains to not wearing the best armor available to you, especially because having a good dexterity gets you most of the benefits you want.

[@larkohiya]

@@Hazel-xl8in said a different way... 3.5 didn't having bounded accuracy so you could have crazy high +tohit on enemies AND getting decent AC cost a lot more to achieve in 3.5 In 5E it's piss easy to get decent to average AC and have that mitigate more damage then other equivalent power sinks elsewhere. Often you just get AC for free in some way without trying so there no benefit from trying to get it as low as possible.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

@@larkohiya i felt all that was implied by me saying “with 5e” but okay

[@Quintinium]

The thing I have found the most frustrating, is when one party member has an AC of 13 or 14, while another member has an AC of 21+shield spell. As a DM it makes balancing slightly more difficult than it feels like it needs to be.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Wait until lv10+... You'll need over 20 AC to survive most enemy encounters at that CR level with about +10 on their Hit Dice.

[@jfast8256]

That's on your players. One of my players learned the hard way that a low AC sucks. He came VERY close to rolling a new character. Party spent two weeks, 1/2 of their total treasure, and his ASI to get him mithral armour. It increased his ac by 3, but he still has the lowest AC of the party for now.

[@Quintinium]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 I have a level 15 character with 16 AC, and doing fine, thanks to some great teamwork.

[@Quintinium]

@@jfast8256 Both yes and no, as a DM I feel responsible for not teaching my players that increasing / having a decent AC is important, the low AC PCs were new. I hope sincerly that you managed to make increasing his AC interesting for the players, otherwise I would feel real bad about it. My point really was that if everyone has similar AC, I can simply reduce the monsters to hit bonus, if encounters turn out to be difficult, or increase it if it's to easy. Funnily enough I managed to kill the one with the highest AC by using the Banshee's Wail, unfortunately it was unintentional.

[@joelyfish4216]

While it is more work for setting up the encounters, don't forget about simply playing to party member's individual strengths. That character with low AC likely has a saving throw the fighter is terrible at. Give them an encounter that hinges on somebody overcoming that challenge to make their skillset seem more valuable to the other players. Mess with some internal logic of a monster's temperament so that the tankier players WANT to either defend them, or lure things away from them or something. Giving fewer, more unique battles will make each player's build feel more legitimate than a series of 5 fights against a small group of melee attackers for example.

[@shadedergu9921]

This may sound broken But it doesn't matter as much once you hit CR 11 and enemies start having +10 or higher chances to hit regularly, at that point it reaches the scale where magic armor starts to be needed *just* to make it so multiattacks don't risk dropping you every round in one creature's action. It only gets more rugged as CR increases further, so yes at low levels magic armor is a lot, but from level 10 onward it becomes pretty needed (especially if you are one of those poor martials)

[@vaderswingman4005]

Yeah AC is only really strong when you min max it and stack your AC to high 20s or 30 something. But generally, you don't even need +X armor to do that, just a few strong spells.

[@naturalkind5591]

Even so, having a 25% chance to hit you is crazy

[@shadedergu9921]

@@naturalkind5591 If an opponent attacks 4 times for 5d8+ Damage, it ain't actually that bad But by that point creatures have +12s to hit or higher, meaning that without several pieces of High Rarity Magic Armor, they will actually have 80% chances to hit or higher with those multiattacks. A lot of characters struggle to walk off 20d8 Damage in one round

[@darkpaw1522]

Exactly. By Tier 2 enemies have a +8 to +11 to hit, that’s not joke. If you don’t have magic armor by then you’re going to have a bad time. By time you hit tier 3 that’s a +13 on average.

[@sethb3090]

Yeah, we're at level 15 and my artificer's 24 AC feels like a waste of time when the DM is frequently asking if 27s and 31s hit

[@chris-the-human]

the only reason I ever wanted magic armor was after encountering Gray Oozes when we were far away from civilization the Fighter had -2 chainmail for like 10 sessions after that

[@ZyroShadowPony]

I just wanted magical armor because imas the ranger i was somehow squishy. The wizard had more hp than me

[@chris-the-human]

@@ZyroShadowPony why I get nervous rolling hp, I can control everything at a level up but that die

[@ZarHakkar]

@@chris-the-human take the average time baby

[@d.e.dentertainment8246]

@@chris-the-human This is kinda why I homerule that no-one can roll a 1 for hp, you can get a 2 but all 1s are rerolled because there is little worse than only gaining a singular hitpoint other than con mod

[@chris-the-human]

@@d.e.dentertainment8246 every game I play in does this Doesn't stop the monk rolling several 3s and 2s at level up so she's comically squishy at level 7

[@VeteranVandal]

Yep. Stacking AC is the only superpower available to martials, really. If your AC is upward from 22, your DM will hate you. Of course he can just use more casters in encounters...

[@jwarner1469]

Cries in running for a old-Yian-Ti (ie., has magic resistance) Hexblade with 22 AC and the Shield Spell.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Warforged Eldritch Knight with 7x Feats or 14 ASI, and 22+ AC at lv20: "You can't stop me, DM! I'll come back from death each time!"

[@vaderswingman4005]

So many monsters have high enough attacks per round and attack bonuses that they will probably still hit you. Less often than they would hit someone with low AC, but especially at high levels things are rocking massive bonuses to hit. Iron Golem will still hit that 22 AC over 50% of the time.

[@VeteranVandal]

@@vaderswingman4005 that's why people mention the shield spell here. In fact if you have shield and cloak of displacement - or can do a similar effect with other spells - you can rack effective AC to the wazoo. Cloak of Displacement is superbusted tho, so you'll likely come across inferior solutions most of the time. Silvery Barbs can be used to get rid of most crits as well if you are really commited to D#, but I'd say you are better off having a more well rounded character instead at some point.

[@justbee8329]

And hilariously enough, it's not even that much of a superpower for martials given that casters can do it too. Even with just a one-level dip a caster can get similar passive AC, and then casters can get access to things like the shield spell, and since a lot of spells have strong ongoing effects the caster can Dodge to increase survivability even more, whereas the martials needs to attack every turn to continue contributing.

[@SentientBeefStew]

That joke at the start about seeing an enemy wielding a magic item and know immediately how to get it had me laughing so hard

[@logandouglas7342]

I'm sorry, the arms race is real even in fiction. But seriously if you translate it to real life, magic armor would be more common and valuable than a magic sword.

[@Magus_Union]

Until the DM Homebrews anti-magic ballistic rounds (arrows/bullets that gain plus 2*[target armor AC bonus] to hit)

[@thecookiemeister5374]

Not exactly. It’s probably pretty easy to make a mundane magical sword, because it’s only a sword. +1 full plate, however, is a full suit of armor that would require each piece to be enchanted individually.

[@logandouglas7342]

@@thecookiemeister5374 who would give full plate to basic infantry, I'm talking about cheep stuff even +1 padded armor for basic infantry, or +1 chain for guards would change social dynamics and warfare dramatically, and do even get me started in shields a +1 wooden shield strapped to you back 😅

[@logandouglas7342]

And the reason why it would be armor over weapons is because the people commissioning the making of them would consider that the enemy could loot the magic sword in combat from a fallen foe but something attached or worn would take to long to do in battle therefore you can count on having the superior edge in battle.

[@zimzimph]

I doubt that. It's always been easier to destroy than to protect. Look at how much material armor is vs a weapon. How many stones you need to protect citizens from trebuchets or cannonballs. We have no idea how to negate a nuke whatsoever besides destroying it with another weapon before it hits a target.

[@SpeedyJuggalo]

**laughs in Artificer, handing out infusions**

[@matiastorres7165]

Gigachad supporter of martials

[@AtaeruCDX]

No. When my players are getting into the later levels of the game where the to hit is equal to the players or supersedes them, everyone needs +x armor, no joke. Minmaxing squishy mages aside. When your player's frontline tanks can't tank. you have a problem.

[@naturalkind5591]

Even if bosses have +11 to hit, most encounters (i.e look at modules) have a bunch of enemies, and so the average +hit is actually pretty much the same.

[@knate44]

If you have someone who uses heavy or medium armor, I recommend springing for specific effects rather than ac bonus, like resistance to damage types, adamantine, or Mithral. It still lets the armor user feel powerful and tanky without ruining bounded accuracy system.

[@neirenoir]

"Bounded accuracy" my arse. At high levels, monsters have such a high to-hit bonus that it is rare for them to roll below 20. Anyway, when playing 5e, forget about statistics. Statistics matter when you actually have a big pool to sample from. Your players will never be in a position where it actually matters whether they have a 25% or 30% chance to hit, because they will probably end up having a completely different percentage in practice.

[@dumbwaki5877]

@@neirenoir no.....statistical analysis obviously still holds up in normal play because you're rolling dice. This is a math game, the whole thing is a statistics exercise. If you don't believe me, feel free to record every single roll you make and put it on a spreadsheet, or just follow basic logic in that the difference between successes 25% and 30% of the time will add up over numerous rolls over and over again.

[@neirenoir]

@@dumbwaki5877 that's exactly the issue: you are gonna roll, what, maybe 20 times in a session tops? Then you wait a week for another session, and another, and another... and how does it actually _feel_? Are you feeling that exact 5% difference yet? No, it only makes sense in retrospective if you account for all every single roll done during a campaign, and even then, the sample size may still be pretty small. So, while the maths do check out in a macro sense, you, as a well adjusted player that does not record every single roll in an Excel spreadsheet, will never notice that the 10000d20 average is indeed 10.5.

[@dumbwaki5877]

@@neirenoir 20 rolls a session? Are you playing games with one encounter a day and no checks ever? If you're a fighter with two attacks and you never get advantage of disadvantage ever, that's already 10 rolls in an encounter lasting 5 rounds. The DMG says 6-8 encounters, but even if you're playing 3 encounter games it's 30 rolls, not counting literally any checks, other attacks, or saving throws you put out. And wdym how does it "feel"? Dice training jokes are funny but you know they're just jokes, right? Actually, even if you did roll a d20 twenty times, you would probably still get around a 10.5 average, with maybe a deviation of 1-2ish.

[@neirenoir]

@@dumbwaki5877 the DMG says 6-8 encounters in an adventuring DAY, not in a session. I would go insane if I had to play 6-8 encounters every single session. The idea about how it feels is basically this: after one year of campaigning, you will have rolled hundreds of rolls. In retrospective, unless your dice are faulty, you will get an average of something like 10.5 for your d20, but this is only in retrospective. I have run several 20d20 simulations right now, and there are a few which have deviated quite a bit from the average (one even goes as far as having a 8.25 average). Even in some average roll sets there are several

[@eugenides04]

I think it's a very interesting topic you bring up here and I never really thought about how the seemingly-linear increase in AC *actually* ends up being an exponential increase in survivability. That said, I don't think I see this as a bad thing. I think it's okay for the characters who invest in being hard to hit to become increasingly harder to hit as they progress in their adventure than the characters that are less focused on it. I think it also gives great opportunities for these differences in character builds/concepts to be reflected in combat, with the heavily-magically-augmented-plate-armor-wielding-wall-of-rage/righteousness being *far* more capable of taking hits from exceedingly dangerous foes without feeling them than the squishy people who typically are trying not to get attacked in the first place.

[@BramLastname]

Party balance is what should be taken into account, Sure a frontliner who is 20% more difficult to hit than ranged attacker is pretty normal, But in reverse the game just becomes unfair, And that's where magic armour becomes problematic. It's better to give martials defensive options casters don't need like a ring of shielding or a heavy frostbrand.

[@bosh6604]

The unkillable Thri-Kreen is inevitable

[@Hazel-xl8in]

a thri-kreen with magical armor and 3 magical shields (due to the holding rule) means you have a minimum AC of 24, more if you find higher rarity items

[@ADarkassassin]

@@Hazel-xl8in unfortunately rules state you can only benefit from holding one shield at a time.

[@bosh6604]

@@ADarkassassin Id assume that that doesnt hold true for the passive bonuses it gives. I think you would get the same bonus as someone dual wielding shields

[@ADarkassassin]

@@bosh6604 the standard 2ac a shield provides only gets applied once, this has been confirmed numerous times, however if it's a magic shield you can just have in your bag for it's magic effect that's fair game.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

@@ADarkassassin that’s why i said *magical* shield, because i was assuming +1 plate and shield for 22, then two more +1 shields that are just there for the magic bonuses for 24. if they were all +3 shields and plate, you would end up with a 32 AC with one hand left for either another magic shield (unlikely) or the ability to cast the shield spell.

[@TheRobversion1]

I've never had issues providing the party magical armor to pump their AC that's because by the time that it would trivialize challenges, I'm not targeting AC anymore. Continuously targeting AC as a DM tactic is not only boring but repetitive. I target saves instead or use abilities/spells with no saves. this makes other defenses such as saves or high hp/resistances valuable. it makes the party think of other forms of defenses such as obscurement, conditions, blink/mirror images, cover, illusions, etc. or they might change tactics to the best defense is a superior offense (control, killing the enemy via alpha striker). There's no jealousy either as i give set clear expectations of what magic items they can expect to get, who's supposed to get it (via wishlisting) and we have a homebrew rule that limits the amount of magic items a character can have (both consumable and non-consumable). So everyone's on an even playing field and it's a matter of player choice with the same amount of resources as the other person.

[@BramLastname]

As someone who had a party nearly TPK thanks to a single Sleep spell, I can confirm that AC isn't everything, But it'd sure be nice if I could hit them with those legendary action firebolts.

[@TheRobversion1]

@@BramLastname well you got to give ac some value otherwise it's just going to feel inevitable for your pcs that they will die.

[@BramLastname]

@@TheRobversion1 I know, most creatures use AC for their standard attacks, But if that's your default throughout the entire game, You're underestimating your players.

[@TheRobversion1]

@@BramLastname i didn't get that. my default as stated in my original comment, once more monster have them, is targeting saves or using no-save spells/abilities. i only target ac in tier 1 due to lack of options. at higher tiers, i only target ac if there's no other options available.

[@MultiCommissar]

Or maybe not every single fight has to be won by the skin of the players' teeth. Maybe it's fine that they grow in power, and the attacks of weaker enemies bounce off of their magical drip.

[@BramLastname]

The main issue is that this mostly applies to casters. Martials cannot use both heavy armour and shields if they want to properly fulfill their role as DPS or Harasser. While most casters aren't limited to such restraints as they usually only need 1 free hand.

[@giraffedragon6110]

Something we did in our campaign is that we got to commission armor for everyone in the group. It didn’t bump up the AC that type of amor already gave, but instead a resistance of choice when we selected it. It also gave our martials a small buff that after taking the elemental damage we were resistant to, it would give us a d6 of that element on our next melee weapon attack. The casters got jewelry like a necklace or armband that gave this same effect without the AC buff. Our options were Thunderboar - lightning Fireboar- Fire Hydra- acid Cryovain (dragon)- ice

[@bikzimusmaximus5250]

Another way to look at it is to try and look at what it does to how many faces on the dice are a succesful hit. An extreme case being if you need an 17 or above to hit a character, and that character increase their AC by 1, instead of 4 faces of the dice being a hit, only 3 faces of dice, which means a full quarter (25%) less hits for you. While if you only need a 2 or more to hit, and the target increase their AC by 1, you go from 19 possible hits to 18. Which is almost 95% of what it already was.

[@Vonadu]

I think I disagree with this, but in a focused manner. Let the martials get their +1 armor, to keep them in line with the quadratic casters. If your worried about the caster min maxer, let the armour and shields be fitted awards fir quests.

[@maxim1482]

This works in many games, but in some games it's more powerful on the casters than on the martials, so if the party finds magic armor it may well go to the casters.

[@janus2773]

what is a quadratic caster?

[@smob0]

A simple way to think about it is to imagine you needed to roll a 19 or 20 to hit a player. Give them +1 armor and now only a 20 hits them. That means they only get hit half as often.

[@smob0]

@@derekstein6193 If you get attacked 20 times, and a 19 or 20 hits you, you'll probably get hit twice. If only a 20 hits you, you'll probably only get hit once. Even though there is only a 5% extra miss chance, because it halves your total chance of getting hit its basically doubling your effective health in this situation. (if you ignore crits, the concept will still hold true with them just more complicated to calculate, and its not quite double)

[@Fugicara]

This is not a good way to think about it. You could think about it instead as average damage per attack. Say an enemy needs to roll an 11 to hit you normally, they attack 20 times, and their average damage on a hit is 20. So if they hit every attack, they'll do 400 damage total, or 20 average damage per attack. But since they need an 11, they only hit 10 of their attacks, for 20 damage each. This makes their average damage per attack 10. If you increase your AC by 1, they now need to roll a 12. Now they only hit 9 of their 20 attacks, bringing their average damage per attack down to 9. Now say we're doing this with them needing a 19 vs needing a 20. If they need to roll a 19, that's a 10% chance to hit, so they hit 2 of their 20 attacks. That's an average damage per attack of 2. You increase what they need to roll to a 20, which lowers the average damage per attack to 1. The change in average damage per attack is exactly the same no matter what your AC is, unless your AC is so low that they cannot miss except for rolling a 1, or it's so high they cannot hit except for rolling a 20; in which case the change in AC is completely useless.

[@tommytigert5993]

What's good Kobold! Keep up the Great Work!

[@PackTactics]

Thank you! Have a nice weekend!

[@admcleo]

There's an interesting problem with the idea that AC increases mean more for high AC characters, and it's the existence of a to-hit floor. Even if I manage to get a 32 AC on a character that ogre with +9 to hit will still have a 5% chance to roll a 20 and automatically hit even though the 'math' says that it should need an impossible 23 out of a possible 20. Meaning that characters that reach the 'only a crit will hit' threshold gain 0 from increasingly expensive and rare increases to their AC while a lower AC character will gain more survivability from vastly cheaper and more readily available sources.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

Yeah, its like a plateau type graph (can't remember the name). It gets rapidly increasing effectiveness when you start low, and go high, but eventually you hit a point of redundancy. I was thinking of to hit and AC because I'm working on a ttrpg myself, and for both cases, there eventually runs into redundancy. As you said with AC, eventually it leads to "a crit to hit" at that point there is no difference between a 32 and a 35. The only sorta exception is the enemies with like a +20 to hit, which in those cases there is a difference between a 32 (needing to roll a 12 or higher) and a 35 (needing to roll a 15 or higher). But even then, that requires epic level enemies compared to the common bandit. And yeah, this is similar with bonus to hit, eventually when reach a certain threshold, you kinda get to the point where you only fail on a fumble, unless you go up against enemies with ridiculous levels of AC. The art more in lies, finding the point of redundancy.

[@janus2773]

yeah but realistically ac is difficult enough to increase to 32 in most games that you won't only be fighting ogres when/if you get 29+ so this doesn't really matter.

[@yourface2464]

My personal fix to this is to change the +X bonuses from AC to damage reduction instead, against nonmagical bsp. I know 5e is allergic to using numbers in such an unholy way, but it goes a long way in helping your tanky players feel more tanky, so to speak.

[@eugenides04]

I find this interesting because I would expect it to have the opposite effect. By the time you're getting to having +2 armor I would think almost all damage would be magical anyway and by the time you're getting +3 armor it would almost certainly all be magical. Meaning the most power you'd feel from your magic armor would typically be when you get to remove one (1) point from each attack around level 5. Edit: It also would feel really bad getting +3 armor when compared to Armor of Invulnerability, which is the same rarity and *halves* all non-magical BSP damage.

[@yourface2464]

@@eugenides04 I very rarely insert magical damage into my combat scenarios, save for boss type enemies or certain magical adds that get focused down quickly. Then again, I also use a good chunk of homebrewed enemies. It hasn't been an issue so far, as all of the swords, bows, and fangs tend to add up over time for me. But in a scenario where magic damage is common, changing it to flat damage resistance would probably work better. Tailor it to the campaign and all that.

[@paracosmicSTL]

A really interesting way my DM accidentally stopped my battlesmith from getting insane AC was by giving him non +X magical armour. Magical armour can't be infused which means I ended up taking something other than enhanced defence.

[@ashleyjordan610]

Bad take. By level 5 AC is completely obsolete just because of the absurd to hit bonuses monsters have. Even an AC of 24 or 25 isn't enough to consistently stop attack rolls from getting through, and that's not even counting save-for-half or auto-hit effects

[@texteel]

You never hand out +x armor? Okay, you must not use ANY monster that has more than +12 to hit.

[@vaderswingman4005]

Based

[@texteel]

@@vaderswingman4005 there is a billion lategame monsters with +19 to hit. Kobold must never use any of them. This isnt "based", this is "fair"

[@naturalkind5591]

And you only have really easy fights with 1 monster?

[@texteel]

@@naturalkind5591 I will asume you are mocking me. No, I never said that. If the +x armors are never handed out to keep the enemies' hitchance at reasonable levels, the enemies + to hit must also be capped to stay at a reasonable level.

[@naturalkind5591]

@@texteel enemies +hit never gets to ridiculous levels unless you only have 1 enemy tho

[@ICountFrom0]

When you note that even a +3 shield is a LEGENDARY ITEM, the sort of thing that you might find one or two of in a 15 level campaign, that tells you that +5 is ARTIFACT territory. 5th edition is not there to give you massively high powered armor. Most valuable item my bard6/warlock4 had was a +1 shield. In 10 levels, that's the highest. He also had +0 half plate with 5% lightning resist. Magical yes, but only very slightly better then regular half plate.

[@jfast8256]

+3 shield is only very rare. +3 armour is legendary

[@BramLastname]

+3 shields are "very rare" which so dumb, Obviously +3 on an item you can toss to an ally if things get hairy is much more valuable than a +3 on that armour that takes 10 rounds to put on.

[@jfast8256]

@@BramLastname not all builds use shields. I would rather use a 2 handed greataxe or glaive in most melee builds I make. This means the armour is better than the shield because I don't even use the shield in many cases.

[@BramLastname]

@@jfast8256 that's like saying a greataxe is bad for monks, Of course not everyone uses shields, But that doesn't mean they're worse than armour. The strongest items are often incompatible.

[@jfast8256]

@@BramLastname Perhaps I used wrong language. Armor is more desirable more of the time. Objectively, armor will be more useful more often than a shield will be. This is just fact. Objectively, armor also tends to give a bigger AC bonus too. Magical Armor will almost always be useful bar a few select cases. Shields will be useful in even less situations.

[@Psychoveliatonet]

Absolutely love this video! Thanks for going through the math. Keep it up, king kobold

[@jacksonletts3724]

Thanks for pointing out this common misconception! I see it all the time. Something else interesting to note is that + to hit modifiers have diminishing returns as the modifier increases.

[@hoodieninja01]

"Gator don't open that!" Goes into an unskippable ad, not the sponser, immediately. Tha was comedy gold.

[@Zulk_RS]

I kinda disagree with this. If a player feels powerful because of having high AC and being neigh-indestructible, let them. They min-maxed to play the heavily protected mage or the heavily armored tank. Let them play it. Who cares if some encounters are trivialized because the monsters are missing like 80% of the hits? Make them feel powerful this time and then the next encounter, hit them with Save-or-Suck effects. I feel like unkillable/Overpowered PCs are only a problem if the internal power balance between PCs are wack. If one guy can do it all, that's a problem but if you have the unkillables in the front and the devastating squishy casters in the back and the "Succeed at Everything" Skill monkies shining in skill checks and everyone is doing their niche very well, then I don't see a problem here. There is almost always a way to challenge one min-maxed build. Just spring it on them from time to time.

[@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar]

Monsters eventually get in the to hit bonuses where +11 is considered quite low and as complexity increases so too does the likelihood of advantage. In my level 15 game it's not uncommon to see +15s to +17s with frequent advantage, where the bonus to hit is larger than some of our ACs and a player investing primarily into AC is still looking at 90% chances to get hit. Having ACs of 17 or 18 use to be very tanky, but they actually translate into 80% hit chances or higher. Trying to tank at these higher levels often requires investing into defensive options that aren't AC, either damage resistance or temp HP which can suck when you're 10 levels in trying to have as high an AC as possible with shields shield spells and defensive fighting style but the investments you made along the way don't matter anymore +1 armor is *rare* rarity, as opposed to the +1 weapons uncommon, because it helps bandaid a problem you don't see until higher levels

[@bigbrainenergyguy]

A much simpler example of the problem with stacking armour is +0 to hit vs 19 AC. You need a 19 or 20 to hit, so a 10% hit rate. If you get 1 more AC, now that +0 attack only hits on a 20, which is a 5% hit rate. Just 1 more AC cut the number of hits in half, but if you gave that +1 to a player with 10 AC it would have a much smaller effect. Each point of AC gets stronger the more AC you already have.

[@greevar]

The problem isn't magic armor. It's the entire AC system. Dexterity should be your ability to AVOID being hit and armor should be used to REDUCE damage when you do get hit. A high Dex character would have a good chance to avoid damage (because they're agile). A character wearing armor would have all damage taken reduced when the hit lands. So, +X would simply be an extra reduction of the damage you take. All characters would have a base "AC" (a.k.a. avoidance class) of 10. Their Dex mod would increase it, but not reduce it. A light armor would allow the player to use the full value of their Dex mod. Medium armor would divide the Dex modifier by half, rounded down (i.e. their AC would max out at 12 or 13, if you take medium armor master, rounding up the mod). Heavy armor would negate the Dex modifier (because they're slowed by heavy armor, duh!). The armor would reduce the damage taken by the listed AC minus 10. Leather would reduce damage by 1. Plate armor would reduce damage by 8. A +X would increase the reduction. A leather armor of +3 would reduce all damage taken by 4. A +3 Plate armor would reduce all damage taken by 11. Heavy armor master would negate another 3 bludgeon, piercing, and slashing damage, so it would be reduced by 14, which makes HAM actually useful. This would open a space for a "Light armor master" feat where light armor can provide a +1 or +2 bonus to avoid being hit.

[@BeaDSM]

A lot of LARPers will tell you that so-called heavy armour doesn't actually make you significantly less manoeuvrable in fights.

[@TheeChaste]

@@BeaDSM it's not even larpers but a well made set of heavy armor is designed to no impedied your movement at all

[@nevisysbryd7450]

@@TheeChaste Armor does impede your movement. What it does not _generally_ do is decrease your range of motion by much. It does slow everything down (increased drag and inertia), albeit by less than people often imagine.

[@greevar]

@@BeaDSM yes, but it will fatigue you faster.

[@TheeChaste]

in that same though process you shouldn't get your dex bonus to AC if you can't move

[@JazzJackrabbit]

GM: "Ok, you can start with one common item." PC: "I get a set of Cast-Off Plate Armor!" GM: "... Oh dear."

[@yaboi5932]

Him: *Rambling about Magic armor* My Crusader (War Cleric Fighter): *Wheezing in 25 AC*

[@jlaw131985]

I always found that doing an expected value calculation was the best way of explaining this principle to people. Ignoring crits for a moment +1 AC when they enemy has a 20% chance to hit is basically a 25% reduction in expected damage received, where a +1 AC when they have a 50% chance to hit is only a 10% reduction in expected damage received.

[@SvarrChanston]

Gator Runescape PK'D Kobold at the end! Oh no! Are you okay, Kobold?

[@frostnight2680]

MY issue with this claim is first off, the folks that will have high AC will typically be the frontliners, who most of the time will be able to use heavy armor. So that puts their initial target on getting full plate asap, in my experience. but once you get full plate and a shield, the only way for them to still feel relevant in taking the hits for the party and "holding the bad guys back" is if you have a way to scale their AC with the enemy's hit bonus. I've got a cleric in my Tyranny of Dragons game that took the armor from the ch 3 boss (iirc it's splint? the one just under full plate) and uses a shield, and then casts shield of faith. so he's got a 21 AC. But he's also usually in the front, so while it may typically take more attacks to actually damage him (though my dice luck says otherwise lol) he's also attracting more attacks, so I think in that situation they -need- that survivability or else they just floor tank every serious combat.

[@partydean17]

Thanks for the DM content dude

[@Nutellla]

I had this feelin But i didn't know the matg behind it. Thank you.

[@segevstormlord3713]

I like this metric a lot. Despite being harder to calculate on the fly, it provides a much better way to envision the effectiveness of not only AC and to-hit bonuses, but also Extra Attack and even the bonus action dual wielding attack, because you can now use "number of attacks per hit" to measure once per round damage sources like sneak attack a bit more easily.

[@foolwise4703]

I just think of it like this: The difference between being hit on a roll of 19 or on a roll of 20 is between 90% missing or 95% missing, but that means the chance of being hit doubles from 5% to 10%, meaning the +1 AC *halfs* the average damage taken.

[@emilygordbort7300]

Me, the artificer, using this as a reference for giving the Cleric a +1 shield:

[@Fugicara]

This "attacks per hit" metric smells very strongly of the gambler's fallacy. The concept that if you have a 50% chance to hit, your "attacks per hit" is 2 is just not true. There's no inherent value in saying "here's the number of times I need to add these percentages together to get 100%"; each roll needs to be treated as a separate instance like the 50% it is.

[@brandonm9378]

Sure, but it is correct on average.

[@shepinel]

I know this from experience. My armorer artificer hand a clean 28 AC. (I took some fun dips and got it boosted by stupid means) but it basically forced my dm to always have enemies with save attacks in every encounter

[@pogosoloHD]

Great video. Saludos desde Colombia.

[@DraconSteel]

My dm gave me a shield with a conditional ac buff that worked only vs ranged attacks. So it was not a always buff but if arrows are comming was nice

[@thyetyeyryeretyery]

This was very useful for me as one of my players are a Warforged Forge Cleric that’s addicted to AC 😂

[@matiastorres7165]

Based warforged

[@patrickhannon2694]

Since this Video is about Armor and AC, The highest permanent AC you can have at Level 1 with only starting equipment is 21, achievable by a Lizardfolk Fighter or Forge Cleric Lizardfolk’s Scaly skin gives an AC of 13 + Dex, and has the unique trait that it can be used to determine AC even if you’re wearing armor. With this, get lucky on stat rolls to have an 18 in one stat, give your racial/background +2 to Dex, wield a shield, and apply either defensive fighting style or Blessing of the forge The weird thing is, both of these abilities specify that you must be wearing armor to gain the benefit, but neither say you must be using the Armor’s AC calculation, so this technically works Of Course, if your DM lets you buy Starting equipment, you could get an AC of 22 by playing a mountain dwarf Barbarian with a +5 in Dex and Con and wielding a shield, but then the character is more of an expiriment than an actual character

[@Journey-of-1000-Miles]

Absolutely incorrect. “You have tough, scaly skin. When you aren’t wearing armor, your base AC is 13 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.”

[@acetraker1988]

High AC in my view is an early game tactic and only works until the DM starts to add custom monsters with saving throw attacks. I don't see much of an issue with high AC because of this. Barb w/ 20 DEX, 20 CON = 20 Base +3 Very Rare Shield = 25. +0 Clock of Displacement = Dis Adv on Attacks. +1 Rare Ring = 26. +2 Shield Of Faith (Ally) = 28. +2 Haste (Ally/Scroll), Potion of Haste (Self) = 30. Paladin Build +3 Legendary Plate Armour = 21 Base. +1 Fighting Style Defence = 22 Base. +3 Very Rare Shield = 25. +0 Clock of Displacement = Dis Adv on Attacks. +1 Rare Ring = 26. +2 Shield Of Faith (Self) = 28. +2 Haste (Ally/Scroll), Potion of Haste (Self) = 30. However Adamantine Plate Armour can be better due to critical prevention. If you have Very Rare (+2 AC) and Legendary (+3 AC) Rings, in your campaign use them. Cloak of Displacement is mandatory for these types of builds. As it drastically improves high AC builds.

[@patrickhannon2694]

@@Journey-of-1000-Miles the second part specifies that the first part works regardless of whether or not you’re wearing armor, what’s your point?

[@Journey-of-1000-Miles]

Lizardfolk Traits Natural Armor You have tough, scaly skin. When you aren’t wearing armor, your base AC is 13 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor. From D&D Beyond

[@Darkserpent-nb2bt]

@@Journey-of-1000-Miles it works, so long as the armor is padded (lower ac then natural therefore you go with natural armor calc) , as the magic armor gives +1 whilst being worn, not just when being used in the calculation (same applies for the defense fighting style) you now get: 13 base + 5 from dex + 1 from armor/style + 2 from a shield for 21 ac

[@devangoad]

Nice sponsorship!

[@j.troydoe1278]

My sorcerer got robes of the archmagi. An amazing item!

[@TheRaineyMan]

Thank you for this Kobold! My new DM gave our paladin +2 magical PLATE armor in our first session and didn’t understand why that was weird. It’s already too late since the paladin has the armor already and he’s already started scaling monsters to it and I’m mad

[@fly1ing891]

Have you considered looking into ways to be dependent on fewer ability scores? I'll see myself out

[@jfast8256]

+2 full plate in first session. Abby, must have started at level 16. What a nice high level campaign :) Don't worry, I get it. You all are probably under level 4 and at that level, a +1 shield is typically the best defensive item you should find.

[@kingmasterlord]

rip my eardrums God damn

[@marcelcoetzee7152]

There is a second reason why it can be very bad: attunement. The basic +x items don't required attunement but ac isn't typed in 5th so they all stack i.e. ring of protection+1, cloak of protection +1 , full plate +1 and shield +1. This could get really bad if the ac gets really high as it gets significantly harder to hit as ac goes above 20. Another way to explain the high AC problem is to say that a 10% chance to hit is double a 5% but in game terms that is rolling a 19/20 to hit and rolling a 20 to hit respectively.

[@StarforceOnAir]

Give all the Magic Armor to the team's tank, got it.

[@xdan-]

Okay, but does that actually translate into lower enemy DPR? Do you get different DPR values if you use hit chance vs if you use attacks to hit? If so, which is the correct one, and why?

[@Spiceodog]

But kobold, at higher levels ac is almost obsolete without magic armor

[@PackTactics]

At higher levels AC is absolutely obsolete because you already won the game by nuking everything and putting creatures in magical cages.

[@neirenoir]

@@PackTactics so the solution all along was to never ever pick a martial character, right?

[@alexanderhenry9831]

@@PackTactics What if you DON'T want to play an all-caster party?

[@Spiceodog]

@@neirenoir if your planning to play a significant amount of time in high levels, yes , yes it is

[@neirenoir]

@@Spiceodog 't was a rhetorical question. I just feel sad that people prefer to embrace Ivory Tower game design over making it more fun to play for everyone.

[@squaldon3585]

Whoohoo DM content!!

[@sethkunert6234]

So, if coral is made of bone, then when it dies can one use the "control skeleton" spell and to what effect?

[@tacoman10]

In my current campaign we just got a bunch of new magic items and had to play the attunement shuffle game, during which I suddenly realized that the best class to use an animated shield is a monk. It lets them get a shield bonus without losing unarmored defense.

[@Treblaine]

This reminds be of a study of bomber missions in WW2, how a 95% survival rate meant after 13 missions there was a 50% chance you'd survive but only a 5% lower survival rate of 90% meant after the same number of missions (13) your survival rate had plummeted in half from 50% to 25%. This was taught to officers how even tiny increases in survival rate at the top end paid off massively in the long run. So many you should allow higher AC but increase the costs of failure, this makes combat extremely swingy but that's okay, going to 0HP is not the end of the world as healing from 0HP is so powerful.

[@Findme1reason]

Makes me feel real good about my sorcerer's dip into fighter lol

[@ancientdarkmagic1409]

Gator cam you include the formulas that was presented in Table top article. Because it's kinda hard to follow up. Which kinda makes me feel like you would be perfect to just make a Math base KZbin channel were you teach us about all the math equation to explain certain probabilities in DND. Which would be cool.

[@Sawtooth44]

im curious on what you think about Alternative Armour rules such as the ones done by Mr Rexx and The Dungeon Coach such as the advantages and disadvantages when comapred to vanilla and how magic items and magic would effect it

[@PackTactics]

Never heard of it.

[@alexdavidson9215]

@@PackTactics Mr Rexx recently put out a video on a system he has been putting together for armor, using a damage reduction feature and lowering AC overall in the game. I would also love to hear what you think of it

[@cirodafia406]

The armor redesign suggested by Mr rhex is a good homebrew to make magic armor more interesting! I think you would like to check it out kobold!

[@gabef9538]

Booming Armour sounds like an interesting curse. Even less stealth.

[@nuclearbirds]

My wizard player put a 10 in their Dex. By the 3rd session one of the rewards a merchant gave them for a side quest was a robe that gives +3 AC while you aren’t wearing armor (The other PC’s, a cleric and ranger, both wear armor, so obviously the wizard is who it went to.)

[@pranakhan]

My Armorer Artificer, in the cockpit of a Demon Grinder, got up to 35AC between bonuses

[@ztk211]

1:14 i think i'm misreading this, but doesnt this allow another infinite AC bug? because of how lax carry capacity rules are (if GMs use them at all)?

[@DDCRExposed]

I certainly agree with the sentiment here. Buffing AC, and AB or DC for that matter, will give a massive boost to a player's survival and attack powers. My recommendation is to buff HP and Dmg first. Your player wants better armor, give them some that gives +10 HP. While it may seem like a lot to them, they still have the same AC, which is either easy or not to hit. Player want's a +X weapon, give them a weapon that tacks on +1d4/6 damage instead. They may hit a bit harder but won't change how often they hit. Of course, these types of buffs should be alternated, in my opinion, as the players level and adventure.

[@curiouswind9196]

Can you hurt a werewolf by using a gnome that is wearing magic armor as an improvisd weapon and also would the bonus of the armor increase my attack and damage by the same amount or do I need tavern brawler for it?

[@futureseniorcitizen646]

Pact Tactics gives me a reason to listen in my math classes so I understand what he is talking about

[@Glandulf19]

Really cool video ! But I'm mostly commenting about the sponsorship : first it's one of the first sponsorships on any channel I usually watch that really got me interested, and second, Blades in the Dark is a banger of a game, I hope you'll find it to your liking, it's really far from what D&D has to offer, and the optimization part is kinda lame but it's a wonderfully design masterpiece system wise as well as thematically !

[@juliengosselin4277]

You can explain why the AC boost is more valuable on high AC characters more easily: take 3 characters with 5, 10 and 15 AC against a monster with +0 to hit, and give them each +5 AC: the 5 saw his chances to get hit reduced by a third, the 10's chances are halved, and the 15 is now untouchable.

[@RedrumZombies]

0:51 I like the "rarities" for Shield more.

[@gambitsheild9814]

Not to mention a curtain artificer class can just give themselves a flat 30 ac with access to the shield spell, and if you run it a curtain way magic armor/shields of +3 can enhance it further (without making an armor of +1 bucklers that you just wear). Oh, artificers also craft magic items VERY easily... Oh, AND... that specific subclass can be a good blaster class semi comparable to eldritch blast spam warlocks.

[@connordarvall8482]

Weird idea, what if there was a form of magic armour/shield that instead increases the effectiveness of the DEX bonus (e.g. a 1.5 DEX mod leather armour would turn a character with leather armour and 18 DEX from 15 to a 18.) or an armour/shield enchantment that adds STR to AC? That way, more physically-oriented characters could make up for their squishiness by gaining more from their dominant ability scores than spellcasters. This won't do much in the AC/to hit arms race, but it at least will act as a speed bump for spellcasters as they have CON and their spellcasting ability score to worry about.

[@panpiper]

My level 19 dwarf fighter 'only' has a +2 set of plate and a +1 shield. But the plate is adamantine and has a permanent Death Ward on it. The shield is sentient and can of it's own volition cast forcecage. In addition it confers both bless and protection against good and evil to it's wearer. I wear both a ring and cloak of protection. Last game, my character found the Axe of Dwarvish Lords. We are going epic.

[@estevanphillips6889]

Hang on a minute… is benefiting from a shield always supposed to take an action to don in combat? I’ve always played that the +2 AC is always applicable. I guess it depends on whether you’re surprised or prepared going into combat.

[@nathanbrehm1085]

Cleric dip allows for shield of faith too...

[@mattdespard6576]

Yeah, don't give the fighter a set of magical armor, he'll be too strong compared to the wizard who can end entire encounters with a single spell o.0

[@naturalkind5591]

I think kobold's worried about the wizard getting it.

[@FuelDropforthewin]

i like items like Adamantium and Mithril armour, or Armour that otherwise grants special effects rather than just +x armour.

[@kilo3989]

Gator, looking at the Stone Giant about to crush him: 😢 Me: 🥺😭

[@tntcerveris]

Oh boy, the AC can get ridiculous. I had a paladin, that was the only frontliner and had to order adamantine plate because the only scary thing was crits, and while having sentinel feat made him a wall of flesh I sure got critted a lot

[@christopherhanley3917]

I find it's fun to give magical armor just make sure the negatives that we normally ignore are a step worse watching the party argue over who has to get up with the paladin to help them redon the armor becomes absolutely hilarious

[@joshmargolis1424]

Which is why the Shield of the Hidden Lord is my favorite magic item as a DM for trapping and corrupting the party powergamer

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

When Gator went Wizard, I was almost betting he was gunna be a bladesinger when I was the 19... but alas, he just went multiclass.

[@christianacquasanta1472]

My simple solution is just to do away with +X Shields, which also adjusts the little damage penalty for sword and broad vs 2hand No such thing, you might get a Shield of cold resistance, but no +1 I also offer Tower Shields, which are 3AC bonus rather than 2 but also are Str15+, make you lose 10ft movement and are decently heavy (tower shields are basically the Roman square shields with legion symbols)

[@gammalolman580]

4:58 i assume that the values you put there are 15 and 16 respectively, as it does not make sense otherwise Neat video tho

[@PackTactics]

Yeah, that was my bad.

[@nielsvandersteen4619]

How do you look at the + hit scaling? 20 ac for plate is amazing at lvl 5 but does not scale beyond that without magic. To me it seems like AC is the only place where bounded accuracy falls apart. Most campaigns dont go late, but for those that do you need alot of plus items to keep hit chances the same as they were at level 5

[@nessesaryschoolthing]

That's the thing: hit chances should not be the same as they were at level 5. Your players have more options as they level up that allow them to avoid damage in other ways besides simple AC. If everything stays proportionally the same, then leveling up doesn't really mean anything. What keeps the game engaging at higher levels is that the nature of the challenge changes and players have to adapt with the new tools they have at their disposal.

[@tom_curtis]

@@nessesaryschoolthing, it does not scale with level. Going from lvl 1 to 20, a martial (Fighter or Paladin) will go from Chain Mail to Plate giving a +2 non-magical boost to armour class. Barbarians might get +3 to +5 from stat increases. In the meantime, scaling from CR 1 to CR 20, attack bonuses go from a typical +3 to a typical +10. That is a +7 increase, or a straight +2 increase against a martial going from mundane chain to +3 plate. That is, at CR 20 the monsters will be hitting more often than they did at CR1 even with magical armour thrown in. At the same time, the characters non-proficient saving throws will not have scaled at all, while their proficient saving throws will have scaled by about +6 (including stat increases), while save DC will have scaled by a typical 13 to 19 (or +6). If you think of AC as equivalent to a save, not including magical armour is equivalent to saying that characters who primarily rely on armour to avoid damage should fall behind characters who primarily depend on damage avoidance (by dodging, or being in the backline). In other words, it is a way of nerfing melee martials vs casters as they level. That is not what D&D needs.

[@nessesaryschoolthing]

@@tom_curtis This doesn't seem relevant to what I wrote. Did you mean to reply to someone else?

[@tom_curtis]

@@nessesaryschoolthing, you wrote as a criticism of Neels van der Steen's defence of magical armour, "If everything stays proportionally the same, then leveling up doesn't really mean anything." However, as I demonstrated, everything does not remain proportionally the same as you level, even with magical armour. Ergo the desire to not have everything proportionally the same is no reason to exclude magical armour. However not having magical armour means melee martials become relatively weaker than spell casters - something that is already a problem with D&D and would only be exacerbated by excluding magical armour.

[@nielsvandersteen4619]

@@nessesaryschoolthing while this might be true for some classes, for plate wearing classes it is mostly not the case. Since monsters scale in both to hit and number of attacks, there comes a point were, if you are not getting magical armor, you are better of downscaling to something that does not give disadvantage on stealth, as 20 AC will be matched by the enemy most of the time anyway.

[@mke3053]

Thats why Defense style (+1 ac) is soooo good

[@wrongeden3420]

Just yesterday I got dragon scale mail nabing it off a goblin on our first encounter 😅

[@smugaladdin8372]

How would you fix martials?