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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6795302" data-attributes="member: 6778044">OK, the AC is definitely a thing. I get that in bounded accuracy part of the idea is that even 1st level characters have an opportunity (not matter how small) against just about any creature.Part of the justification I've seen for this is the situation where the town guard can't defend the town against higher level creatures. But this is a case where I think that should be true - that a town guard can't defend it single-handedly. Take a hill giant, for example. That should be, in my mind, a challenge for your typical town guard to handle. 3rd to 5th level adventurers? Maybe not. How does it pan out?Well, with an AC of 13 and 105 hit points, it will take a bit of time to take down, but with everybody having at least a +2 proficiency bonus, everybody has a 45% chance minimum of hitting for damage. It does a lot of damage, pretty much killing a guard with every hit.In 3e, it's got nearly the same hit points (102) but causes less damage. It's a lot tougher, though, with a whopping 20 AC. That's a huge difference, and makes that giant rampaging through the village much more along the lines of what I'd expect. How does it compare historically? Actually they were much weaker in 1e/2e with a 4 AC (roughly equivalent to an AC 16), doing less damage (2d8), and way, way weaker with only an average of about 38 hp. So I'd say it's stronger than 1e/2e, but weaker than 3e. Again, bumping up the AC would greatly change the stakes against lower level characters, and a much more viable solo monster. A group of angry hill giants with a 16+ AC? Ouch.I started comparing AC for 3e/5e for monsters labeled with natural armor. It's most of them, though, so I'm not doing the whole thing. But of the ones I've looked at, only the Aboleth is higher (17 instead of 16).Mid-range AC suffers the least, like a basilisk at 15 instead of 16. Start going up, though, and it's as if they penalized the AC more if they started with a higher AC. An ankheg went from 18 to 14. Behir from 20 to 17 (not bad). Anything that previously had an AC over 20? Ridiculous.Deva dropped from 29 to 17Planetar from 32 to 19Solar from 35 to 21This would still support the idea that solo monsters are easier, particularly at higher levels. It makes sense that the higher ACs need to come down more. But I'm not sure I would have touched anything that had less than a 17 AC already.Then in groups: 18-19 -1; 20-21 -2, 22-23 -3, etc. Using those numbers would end up with:Deva 29 to 23Planetar 32 to 24Solar 35 to 26Hill Giant and Behir would both be 18, the basilisk would be untouched at 16 and the ankheg would be reduced form 18 to 17.It's not difficult to do, and I may very well have a bunch of new ACs marked in my MM very soon...Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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