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

[Horwath]

Because hitting 70% of the time for 15 damage is more fun than hitting 35% of the time for 30 damage.

That is why we have "power attack" feats and their -5/+10 mechanics. If you like the swing feeling of combat you'll use them all the time.


If your monsters feel weak add 10-20% to their HP.

 

[^Dagon^]

I agree with the OP that ACs in 5e are too low for the most part and as a DM I have been boosting AC in many cases to increase challenge. Boosting AC also gives more value to defensive builds that don't really make much sense in 5e vanilla. Having a more durable fighter because you know the fights are gonna last longer makes perfect sense.

HOWEVER, I would advise against a flat out increase across the board for flavor reasons. Do you feel galeb duhrs are too low on AC 17? I feel the same too - they are made of stone. But what about a slime? It is not supposed to be hard to hit because it is sluggish and soft. In the case of the slime you can make it immune to physical damage to increase difficulty instead (there are other ways too). I also lower hps in some cases, in fact for every 1 case of hp increase there are 5 for hp decrease in my campaigns.

So, check each case individually and see. Like many others said, it doesn't make sense to increase the goblin's AC from 15 to 17 just because. In this case it may be better to just throw in more goblins.

* Increasing monsters' attack bonus is not a good idea. There is really no stacking in 5e and doing so you just throw defensive characters out of the window. I am not talking about a few, individual cases, I am talking about it as a general idea.

 

[tetrasodium]

Because hitting 70% of the time for 15 damage is more fun than hitting 35% of the time for 30 damage.

That is why we have "power attack" feats and their -5/+10 mechanics. If you like the swing feeling of combat you'll use them all the time.


If your monsters feel weak add 10-20% to their HP.

Every time I see someone express this sentiment I feel the desire to comment about the fact that few tables are one gm one player and ask "fun for who?" That's a serious question that deserves an answer and not a rhetorical jab.


If I have a table with 4-5 players and three or more are making two or three attacks each round with the occasional four to six attack surge while excessively dragging out their turn trying to get a life check after each attack so they can even further drag it out dithering about where to move between attacks so they can possibly change weapons while attacking some other monster it leaves me the gm in an awful situation. It's awful because for each turn like that I have three to four players doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs the whole time those four to five multi attack/dual wielding PCs are taking their turn and one or two with a turn that's over so fast that you could blink and miss it because don't even have the option of dragging it out by any means other than not looking up a spell or something in the 10-20+ minutes of thumb twiddling since their last turn.

To answer the OP's question 5e poisoned the well by getting rid of the iterative attack penalty in what is still pretty much a d20 fork with extra reasons added to need it that vis still built for groups with multiple players... But you can fix it. That iterative attack penalty was important because the later attacks are over quickly with "yea that misses" and players are less concerned about trying to life check monsters or move around multiple times on their turn.

While the iterative attack penalty was baked into the BaB tables rather than an easily quotable rule, pf2 has it baked in with an easily quotable rule with the MAP penalty... Once again though 5e poisons the well with "simplicity and you need to shift it from a penalty for attacks beyond the first to an ac bonus or (ime) many players will "forget" or decide that they have some loophole ability that is exempt and it's almost impossible to monitor as a gm.

 

[Reynard]

Hitting is fun. I would be more inclined to increase HP than AC.

 

[Horwath]

Damn, almost 9 year necro

Every time I see someone express this sentiment I feel the desire to comment about the fact that few tables are one gm one player and ask "fun for who?" That's a serious question that deserves an answer and not a rhetorical jab.

I still feel the same, missing and doing absolutely nothing to progress the combat is very not fun, and I have seen this in many players.

high hit rate+lower damage is also more consistent than low hit rate+higher damage, less luck factor and you can count on your CRs to work(as much CRs can be counted on anyway)

If I have a table with 4-5 players and three or more are making two or three attacks each round with the occasional four to six attack surge while excessively dragging out their turn trying to get a life check after each attack so they can even further drag it out dithering about where to move between attacks so they can possibly change weapons while attacking some other monster it leaves me the gm in an awful situation. It's awful because for each turn like that I have three to four players doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs the whole time those four to five multi attack/dual wielding PCs are taking their turn and one or two with a turn that's over so fast that you could blink and miss it because don't even have the option of dragging it out by any means other than not looking up a spell or something in the 10-20+ minutes of thumb twiddling since their last turn.

To answer the OP's question 5e poisoned the well by getting rid of the iterative attack penalty in what is still pretty much a d20 fork with extra reasons added to need it that vis still built for groups with multiple players... But you can fix it. That iterative attack penalty was important because the later attacks are over quickly with "yea that misses" and players are less concerned about trying to life check monsters or move around multiple times on their turn.

While the iterative attack penalty was baked into the BaB tables rather than an easily quotable rule, pf2 has it baked in with an easily quotable rule with the MAP penalty... Once again though 5e poisons the well with "simplicity and you need to shift it from a penalty for attacks beyond the first to an ac bonus or (ime) many players will "forget" or decide that they have some loophole ability that is exempt and it's almost impossible to monitor as a gm.

this is a player problem, not a game problem or many attacks problem, and yes all of us are sometimes guilty of that.
As for players asking for a life check, make it easy on yourself and players.

100%-76% HP: fresh,
75%-51% HP: bruised
50%-26% HP: bloodied
25%-1% HP: near death.

that is it, only 4 words to remember when asked.

as for itterative attack penalty, I am glad it is gone.
I would rather have 2nd attack deal half damage than remembering penalties for all players around the table. and it is again more consistent and it gives more value to Heavy armor master feat.

so martials can have smoother damage progression.

or give everyone more attacks, IE, over 20 levels:
fighter: 7 attacks
barbarian/monk: 5 attacks
ranger/paladin: 4 attacks
rogue: 3 attacks
casters: 2 attack. but they get 7 levels of cantrips instead of 4.

 

[DragonLancer]

I also find that monster AC's are off too low but I try not to change that, Instead I fall back on what we have always done, which is max out monster hit points. Players still feel that they are hitting the opposition but the monsters survive slightly longer and are capable of dealing some damage back, both of which make for a more interesting encounter.

 

[Stalker0]

To answer the OP's question 5e poisoned the well by getting rid of the iterative attack penalty in what is still pretty much a d20 fork with extra reasons added to need it that vis still built for groups with multiple players... But you can fix it. That iterative attack penalty was important because the later attacks are over quickly with "yea that misses" and players are less concerned about trying to life check monsters or move around multiple times on their turn.

I highly highly HIGHLY disagree. This was one of the best changes in 5e.

3e iterative math is complex and slow. When a player is dealing with 6 attacks all with different bonuses, there is math (and who doesn't have that one player that as soon as a single math calculation is involved their turn time triples), and it forces you to check with the DM on every....single....attack to see if it hit. With 5e's system, I roll the attacks quickly all with the same math, and if the first one hits, than I can assume later attacks that are higher also hit, greatly speeding things up.

This had consequences to monster design its true, and I do think 5e needed to do more with its monster design to account for this, but for the PCs this was a very good change.

 

[billd91]

I highly highly HIGHLY disagree. This was one of the best changes in 5e.

3e iterative math is complex and slow. When a player is dealing with 6 attacks all with different bonuses, there is math (and who doesn't have that one player that as soon as a single math calculation is involved their turn time triples), and it forces you to check with the DM on every....single....attack to see if it hit. With 5e's system, I roll the attacks quickly all with the same math, and if the first one hits, than I can assume later attacks that are higher also hit, greatly speeding things up.

This had consequences to monster design its true, and I do think 5e needed to do more with its monster design to account for this, but for the PCs this was a very good change.

I agree that giving up 3e iterative math while retaining multiple attacks was a good move for 5e. I can recognize that the 3e iterative BAB bonus structure was intended to adapt the half-attack increases that AD&D gave fighter-type characters and, from the standpoint of the math, it did so very well. But I'm definitely glad 5e looked at the same concern when characters got a second attack and said "OK, so their expected damage per round doubles at that point. And that's fine." Much simpler from a player perspective.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You can do it on monsters below CR1. And in that way increase their CR to the next step.

Monsters with around 15 to 25 hp work well. Above that and they can get very hard to kill.

 

[tetrasodium]

I highly highly HIGHLY disagree. This was one of the best changes in 5e.

3e iterative math is complex and slow. When a player is dealing with 6 attacks all with different bonuses, there is math (and who doesn't have that one player that as soon as a single math calculation is involved their turn time triples), and it forces you to check with the DM on every....single....attack to see if it hit. With 5e's system, I roll the attacks quickly all with the same math, and if the first one hits, than I can assume later attacks that are higher also hit, greatly speeding things up.

This had consequences to monster design its true, and I do think 5e needed to do more with its monster design to account for this, but for the PCs this was a very good change.

Barbie might have said it, but it was never true & neither was any of this hand wringing used to justify approaching a multi player team game like a single player experience with your own supporting cast. You and @Horwath have justified ignoring the extreme timesink each player can force on everyone else at the table by approaching their multiattack turn as 5e's & 5.5's RAI☆ encourages using a couple key points.

Firstly is the idea that basic elementary school math is too much work now that we do all carry a calculator around with us at all times(android IOS) like many math teachers once asked about in the past, but inflating individual player turn lengths by minutes with ~70% hitrate across all attacks is not even effective at avoiding that. Players still need to roll a d20, & add prof+attrib+mods to the roll, the only change is that instead of adding the first second third or fourth BaN+attrib+mods number from the sheet beside the weapon it's the same numbers added to the d20 each time. If avoiding first grade math was truly the goal, 5e's not even the best example of that... We have an official 2e sheet to thank for demonstrating how far from that goal 5e fell

The math was already calculated for d20 rolls at level up or similar & players just needed to glance at the d20+sheet.

Secondly is the faulty combination of not making progress during a turn & the idea that without a 70% hitrate across all attacks in the chain it would cause combat to be a slog. This is faulty because 5e's hit point inflation is the (bad) bandaid fix used to plaster over sone of the problems caused by making all attacks in the chain have such a reliable hitrate making it strange to claim that without the problem created by the hitrate we would have combat be a slog because the bandaid created to hide that problem would be too noticeable, but that fails to admit that it was never how it worked in the past. Back when d&d had the iterative attack penalty (base/-5/-10/-15) it already avoided the endless combat problem because the first attack for a full BaB PC was almost certain to hit & gear+the buffs that come from cross player reciprocity would frequently push later attacks into being fairly reliable against monsters with HP pools tuned to not need too much more than the reliable attacks. I mentioned PC's who had full BaB progression but not partial BaB ones, those PCs tended to have other options like flanking bonuses their own buffs touch attacks & various spells to make up the difference or contribute in other ways. The high hitrate of 5e wasn't done to "speed up" combat with HP sink monsters, it was done to feed into 5e's step1:give the players what they want->step2:see step1 mindset where the very idea that other players exist at the table was a problem for the GM to solve

☆ It's obviously RAI to pump the GM for lifechecks move around & dither about dragging out the turn of multiattack players because 5.5 had the chance to do something about that & instead made it explicit that such behavior was allowed rather than simply being an undefined grey area the GM could say no to.