Characters have huge ACs and low attack bonuses

[Gort]

I'm currently running a campaign that's reached 17th level in a homebrew setting resembling medieval Europe. However, I'm beginning to start having problems running fighter-type NPCs against the party, namely that both the party and the NPCs have huge ACs and pretty poor attack bonuses.

The party are a level 17 warmage, a level 17 druid, a level 7/10 rogue/slayer of domiel (good assassin) and a level 17 paladin.

Thanks to the combination of rings of protection, magical shields and armour, and the barkskin spell cast by the druid, ACs are between 40 and 43. However, the paladin has the best attack bonus and only has a +26 with his holy avenger. The rogue is pretty much laughable, needing a natural 20 to hit her own AC.

This isn't usually too much of a problem, because monsters tend to have huge attack bonuses but low ACs, but when I'm running humanoid NPCs, I can't hit the party without going wildly over-CR. I can think of methods to allow a single, special baddie to hit the party easily (brilliant energy weapon, for example) but I can't seem to get generic fighter types to a point where they can hit 50% of the time without putting strength-enhancing templates on them and suchlike.

Has anyone else had this problem, and how did you deal with it?

 

[Rystil Arden]

+26 is mediocre for a full BAB level 17 character. He has 17 from base alone, 5 from the Holy Avenger, so that means he has 18 Strength, 16 Strength and Weapon Focus, or something similar--if he can afford a Holy Avenger, he should have more Strength by now. At least his smites should have a good bonus, since he wasn't pumping Strength, so I guess he pumped Charisma. The group might want to look into something that can give morale bonuses to hit (Bard, Marshal, etc) as a cohort.

On the flip side, 43 AC is rather high--that's the AC of a sword-and-boarder with just about the maximum possible array of equipment (+5 Mithral Fullplate, +5 Heavy Shield, +5 Ammy of Natural Armour, +5 Ring of Protection) and 16+ Dex.

The warmage probably is having a field day, though, with his touch attack spells.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Has anyone else had this problem, and how did you deal with it?

I've not had this specific problem, but ways of dealing with it:

1) At this level, foes with disjunction become a possibility
2) Less extreme, but much more common, would be antimagic areas or antimagic fields
3) Creatures with touch attacks
4) Creatures with attacks that cause saves (rather than need to roll to hit - advanced destrachan, that sort of thing)

Cheers

 

[Gort]

On the flip side, 43 AC is rather high--that's the AC of a sword-and-boarder with just about the maximum possible array of equipment (+5 Mithral Fullplate, +5 Heavy Shield, +5 Ammy of Natural Armour, +5 Ring of Protection) and 16+ Dex.

Well, the amulet of natural armour isn't needed, the druid barkskins the party before combat in 90% of cases. At this level it lasts 3 hours, after all.

 

[notjer]

Hmm I've got some few ideas.

1)Use team benefit from players handbook II:

Circle of blade
Crowded charge
Cunning ambush+improved cunning ambush
Foe hunter
Massed charge (this one should really help in your chase for the first attack)
Team melee tactical

Use a lot of NPC with team benefit, it should could do it for one session at least.

2) split them up in a short periode (in the forest, gladiator/arena fight-style, arcane order jail them etc.), now they can't count on each other.

3) NPC with shapeshift xP

4) Create NPC which has the same style as they do. If you problems to hit each other then you could use a style of trap and poison(inhale) use with the NPC's and give them some weakness that you're players may figure out.

 

[satori01]

Dispel Magic & Greater Dispel Magic will help with the Barkskin.
Groups of Humanoids using Flanking, Higher Elevation, and/or Aid Another can really add to hitting power of their comrades.

Aid, Divine Power, Bardic Music etc can all boost the effectiveness of a group of NPC combatants.

The Legion Devil from the recently released Tyrants of Hell could be a useful monster. The Devils pool their hit points, so the group acts in some ways as a single monster, and each adjacent devil adds a +4 to his fellows to hit modifier. Even better is other Legion Devils can teleport directly to the squares around one of their fellows. Each Devil is a CR 3 monster so a unit of 10 is around a EL 11-13 encounter.

Lure out a PC, send one Devil, and have the rest teleport to surround. Very fun.

 

[szilard]

Some options:

Sundering or Disarming - NPCs can conceivably remove items that provide an AC bonus. These special attacks don't require you to actually beat the AC of your opponent.

Trip attacks and Grapple attacks require touch attacks.

Catch them flat-footed. Use feints.

Flanking. There are feats that boost the bonuses you get from flanking.

Dispel Magic (or bigger guns like Antimagic or Disjunction).



-Stuart

 

[Artoomis]

All this does is make combats last longer -giving time for more fun options to be used - disarm, tripping, spells of various sorts, etc.

And mentioned abpve, sundering becomes MUCH mroe dangerous when combats last longer and the damage to weapons can get a chance to add up.

Allow the fighter-types to slug it out for round after round while the others get a good chance to do other things.

What good does a high AC do against a Will save spell? Have fun with it!

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Let them play their style of play -- defensive orientation, drawn-out battles, hopefully tactical like Artoomis noted. If the PCs have chosen abilities and gear to have high AC, they should get some benefit for it.

Don't think "What can I do to hit them." Use the foes the story calls for, and have them think "What can I do to hit them." If the story calls for a barbarian warlord, he isn't suddenly going to decide "Hey, I should have a level of sorc to get True Strike," but he might realize "The warrior is fighting defensively, trying to parry every blow -- fine, I'll pummel that sword from his grip."

 

[mvincent]

when I'm running humanoid NPCs, I can't hit the party without going wildly over-CR.

Use grappling (or better; trip, then grapple). Anyone can do it (especially if the provoked AoO is unlikely to hit), and it makes combat less-lethal, which has more cinematic results while still being scary to your players.