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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goumindong" data-source="post: 4771894" data-attributes="member: 70874">This is not true. E.G. Lets take a level 12 Human Pit fighter, 18+3 str, 15+3 wis, 14+1 con. plate, plate spec, armor spec.He will have, at level 12 assuming a +3(Githzeri) Plate an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+8[plate]+2[gith]+3[enh]+1[spec]+1[pit fighter]+2[shield]= 33 AC.Now lets take a level 12 Wizard, 20+3 int, wand. He has an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+6[int]+3[enh]+1[special cloth]= 26That is a pretty big differentiation[no leather armor, no staff mastery etc etc] for a total difference of 7.Anyway, the fighter lays his mark down[without the -3 mark feat and without distracting shield AND without shield push] and that makes the difference now 5 points of AC. Assuming that the monster hits for an average of 20 damage[so, 1d10+15 damage], this will mean that he will gain 5/20 x 20 = 5 damage per round if he attacks the wizard as opposed to the fighter.Anyway, the fighter does, at level 12 with a longsword, 1d8+8 damage on a hit and hits on average 60% of the time.[longsword bonus proficiency, one handed weapon mastery] Lets still assume for the sake of ridiculousness that he doesn't have any feats that increase his DPR with a heavy blade.Anyway, he does an average of 12.5 damage on a hit[26.5 on a crit] and an average of and hits a normal hit about 55% of the time. So his average damage per swing is going to be about 8.2.So if an enemy decides to attack the wizard as opposed to the fighter, he will take in an average of 8.2 damage each time he does so and his DPR increases by 5 damage per round.For the most part, its still a raw deal to attack the wizard, on an individual level per attack. And we are looking at the extreme case here. In reality, a fighter is going to also have effects that further decrease the difference in AC[-3 mark, distracting shield], give him the ability to negate attacks entirely[shield push], and increase his average damage[weapon focus, weapon expertise, superior weapon proficiency, vicious weapons, etc], the person being defended is likely to have a higher AC and we're looking at pretty much the top end of AC for the fighter. Now, this examination isn't perfect, and I am assuming that the enemy is not a perfectly tactical genius that knows everything that is going on. I am assuming that the enemy is playing for "this fight and this fight only" rather than "this fight and the next fight". Since knocking out a hero's healing surges is the smart way to go if you're being tactical in the long run [I.E. gang up on the guy with the amount of total health and don't stop until he is down, move on to next guy with lowest amount of total health and don't stop until he is down...] that would skew your results, and frankly most DM's don't play that way and should not play that way[it doesn't make sense in the context of how your NPC's are likely to think and act]In short, no, you're not likely to ever have a situation where the fighter has an AC so high that he is going to make it better for someone to ignore him. The only time he will be ignored is if he is unable to hit the target of his mark for some reason. The issue of AC efficiency is almost always an issue of "how many healing surges do i have left at the end of the day, how many should i have left at the end of the day?"</blockquote>

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