D&D 5E Drawbacks to Increasing Monster AC Across the Board?

[Nine Hands]

I'd just increase ACs and Saves by 1 across the board and see how it goes. If that does not give you the effect you want, then go up by 2. I think any changes to AC should also include a change to saves to keep it balanced between all the classes.

I think you have a good understanding of what your group wants and in the end, so it comes down to tweaking and testing. I suggest starting small and adjusting as needed to get the feel you want.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's only a slog if you're winning. When you're getting the stuffing pasted out of you and the monsters aren't dropping quickly, you have what's called a 'challenge'. You need to change your tactics, fall back, use powerful magic, whatever, to survive.

Yeah.

If 4E was consistently "a slog", your DM was giving you too-low challenges (which it sounds like shida's DM was given the "automatic" hitting). 4E can definitely be deadly dull if that's the case. Better to push the upper bound of challenge in 4E I find.

Back on 5E, +2 AC alone is a pretty huge nerf to PCs who attack AC and will slow the game quite a bit. +2 AC and -XX% HP is workable but also biases things towards non-AC-based damage (arguably more so). I'd still go with the second if doing it.

 

[Miladoon]

For my encounters, I am having a lot of success lowering damage and AC, and raising HP and to hit bonus. I use text monsters for warm ups.

But then again, I roll stats and hit points for most of my monsters.

As DM, you are doing exactly what you are supposed to do. You see an area that needs some attention and you apply your logic.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Everything has lower ACs, but more hit points.

It's more fun for players to hit something and do some damage, than to whiff over and over again. 20-30% more fun.

I agree with the fun factor. And that's one of the reasons that I'm hesitant to change anything.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

During the playtest, I had to adjust numbers like this..giving all monsters +2 to attack and then boosting AC a bit.

Adding to AC will just make creatures more durable so the feel of the encounter will change. Some people may enjoy that. For DMs, the one thing to realize is if each foe has a few more AC points, combats might last a little longer in groups that are melee heavy. So far, I've found that not much will break BA, but higher AC opponents can be much more dangerous for lower/mid level parties that rely on melee more to overcome their foes.

Personally, I don't like using billions of monsters often. I like small, skirmish type battles that have fewer foes. For me, adding to both monster attack and AC works when I want to use less monsters yet still challenge the party. But...I also don't really even use the CR values and XP values to make encounters. I'm much more concerned with what "feels" right for the encounter rather than what is balanced.

Interesting ideas, but I'll probably not increase monster attack bonuses.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I have not done so, though there have been boss monsters that I've given better armor. Based on the results, I would do an overall AC bump. Making things harder now and then is fine, and it can be good to shake things up, say, with a goblin that is a real challenge, but unrelenting difficulty becomes a drag (unless you're playing the Dark Souls series...).

Yeah... I have no problem beefing up a boss monster. Started doing that, regularly, in 3X/PF. Especially, if the boss is going to be a solo monster.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Just give monsters higher-than-average HP.

I would do that and have tried that, but it doesn't give the same effect as increasing AC.

We had a white dragon in part of our adventure. The group knew about it going in but even with giving it double hit points, the dragon was running for its life. It was a relatively low level group (Elven Sorcerer 5 w/o offensive spells (plays more like a low level fighter shooting a bow without armor); Human Rogue 5; Human Barbarian 3 (+2 sword); Half-Orc Paladin 3; Human Cleric 4) with normal equipment other than the barbarian's sword. Standard point buy. But, the PC's planned for the encounter and that helped them.

I don't think a hit point increase is enough. It'd make the fights last longer, though.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

PCs are balanced with low hp and high AC; monsters are the other way around. Glancing at the CR calculator, you may be able to boost AC by 2, but then I'd suggest taking away some HP (15? 30? Hard to say).

If I were to boost AC, I think I'd definitely drop hit points, some. Not sure how much.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

This is what 4E did. And you know what people called 4e combat? A slog. And it was, I love the edition but holy heck everything is just a bucket of hit points!

While it may be more fun to hit something and deal damage, on the same note, there's no challenge in dealing damage, it's automatic. Hitting something poses a challenge, using positioning, spells, class features, etc... to boost your attack to be able to hit. But then again, this also depends on the group.

If your group is a bunch of old-school min-maxers like mine who always have at least a +4 to hit on their best ability score, then don't be afraid to up the ante. They've raised the bar, so it's only fair.

Personally, given my group I raise AC by about 2 points across the board and I lower HP by about 25% across the board. It evens out, I think but is more enjoyable to my group because they see the foes as a greater challenge.

I never played 4E, but I think I understand your point about the slog of too many hit points. I mentioned giving the white dragon (mentioned earlier in the thread) more hit points. It was just a slog. The outcome was obvious. The white dragon's only chance would have been to flee during its first action.

Upping AC by 2 and decreasing hit points by 25% across the board seems like it'd be worth trying.

 

[Sunseeker]

I never played 4E, but I think I understand your point about the slog of too many hit points. I mentioned giving the white dragon (mentioned earlier in the thread) more hit points. It was just a slog. The outcome was obvious. The white dragon's only chance would have been to flee during its first action.

Upping AC by 2 and decreasing hit points by 25% across the board seems like it'd be worth trying.

That's one of the things I don't like about lower AC with more HP. The enemy, just as much as the player, knows the outcome. If they're played smartly, after the first or second attack, you'll know if you're going to win or lose, so will then and they should act accordingly. They'll run off, get better gear, get more allies, etc... but doing this for every two-bit NPC is counterproductive. So with higher ac and lower health, the outcome is more in doubt, as a single good hit could be their downfall, but them being egotistical jerks, they're counting on that string of failed hits against them to lead them to victory.

To be fair, I'll note that I also homebrew most of my monsters. My level 3 party is still fighting Thugs, but thugs that look something like:
AC 16, HP: 30, +5 str, +3 dex; +1 attack bonus ('cause they're not really a class, they're sorta half-trained), and shortswords/shortbows. You hit less often, they hit more often, deal more damage, but when the party can do 10-15 points per attack, that's only two-3 hits needed to kill them. I think both my fighters have a +7 to hit and my Monk has a +6. So they already have a 50-55% chance to hit. The standard Thug AC is 11, 11! Even if I included ~6 of them to make it an appropriate challenge, my players would have an 80% chance to hit! The worst among them would still have a 75% chance! To me, that's insane. Statistically, it's not even a fight, it's a slaughter.