D&D 5E Best Way to Challenge this Sorcadin, without high level spells

[FrogReaver]

A dragon with a fear effect and aoe breath attack that sometimes swoops in to grapple and fly up with one Paladin probably works really well.

Throw in same mage skirmishes, if they shield the magic missiles they cannot absorb elements the dragon fear/breath or vice versa.

 

[Clint_L]

This is a problem with limiting the game to low level spells - some of them inflate in ways that become very powerful as the character levels up. So as a DM, you've basically created the perfect environment for a sorcadin, who are already borderline broken. I suspect this is also why you have a plethora of paladins, since they are barely impacted by having their spell levels limited, and players are smart.

That said, if you want to stick to the low level spell thing, I think you've gotta use the environment to really challenge the party. For example, you can't use wall of force, but there's nothing stopping you from designing traps that have a similar effect. Heat metal is only level 2, and your party seems to be full of plate wearers....there are options.

Plus, are you good with mobs using abilities that are like high level spells, but technically aren't? Beholders, for example?

 

[DavyGreenwind]

Genuine curiosity: how'd they get a 27 AC? Magic items?

 

[mellored]

A good way to challenge any party is to mirror the party.

Make your own dark sorcadin.

 

[TwoSix]

Genuine curiosity: how'd they get a 27 AC? Magic items?

Shield spell, primarily. Plate mail + carried shield + defense fighting style (all pretty much standard for a tanking paladin) gives 21 AC, shield spell bumps that to 26. 27 is probably an armor or shield +1.

Honestly, the opportunity cost to get the shield spell is so low for a paladin (1 level in sorcerer) that not taking it just feels wrong.

 

[Quickleaf]

Genuine curiosity: how'd they get a 27 AC? Magic items?

Shield spell, primarily. Plate mail + carried shield + defense fighting style (all pretty much standard for a tanking paladin) gives 21 AC, shield spell bumps that to 26. 27 is probably an armor or shield +1.

Honestly, the opportunity cost to get the shield spell is so low for a paladin (1 level in sorcerer) that not taking it just feels wrong.

Yeah, I was going to say 27 AC is reaallly good, but it's not the outer reaches of power gaming. It's just a player looking at the rules and saying "gee, AC is important" and then "gee, shield is awesome, better take that", it doesn't take much.

Throw in Glory Paladin, warforged integrated protection, shield of faith, or other stuff and you could kick that up to 30 for sure.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, I was going to say 27 AC is reaallly good, but it's not the outer reaches of power gaming. It's just a player looking at the rules and saying "gee, AC is important" and then "gee, shield is awesome, better take that", it doesn't take much.

Throw in Glory Paladin, warforged integrated protection, shield of faith, or other stuff and you could kick that up to 30 for sure.

The relative ease of having a 25+ AC in 5e is why I have no problems using monsters with attack bonuses in the teens and/or very high attack damage.

 

[billd91]

So I have a character with a 27 AC with shield, +3 add to all saving throws (but often its a +5 to saves to due to 2 other paladins in the party, which also includes resistance to spells). They also have a really high grapple check so they use that to throw down on a lot of the monsters. And throw in some silvery barbs and absorb elements for even more resistance and chaos bringing.

I'm not sure what kind of campaign you're running, but this character has a lot of options with his reaction. If you want to get to him, you'll want to bleed those off. If he casts shield, hit him with an area spell like burning hands or flaming sphere - something that doesn't target AC. If casts absorb elements, he's not casting shield - attack him with AC-targeting options. That does, however, tend to push encounter design to include multiple ways of affecting just him - which sucks. But if he's really this tough to tag, he's GOING to develop a reputation for it and that means antagonists can plan for it.

One additional idea, scale down some higher level spells to be equivalent to 1st/2nd level spells - it will give you more options.

 

[Quickleaf]

The relative ease of having a 25+ AC in 5e is why I have no problems using monsters with attack bonuses in the teens and/or very high attack damage.

Yeah, I recall looking at the monster maths tables – specifically from Forge of Foes, but those are very similar to the 2014 5e DMG. Not accounting for %chance to hit*, monster damage per "point" of CR drops off steadily as CR increases. There's this brief spike of lethality at 1st and maybe 2nd level, and then a slow drop off of the damage coming at the PCs from any given monster.

When you have PCs with variable defenses – some are good at AC, some are good at X save or Y save, others maybe have resistances – but everyone has some weaknesses, that is easy enough to deal with. It's when there is one "ultra-defense" PC that the GM has to make extra effort to include things that can be threatening to that PC.

* % chance to hit is an important factor, I just didn't get too far into those weeds because then there's tons of assumptions about PC Armor Class that need to be made.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]