High AC and encounters

[Warpiglet]

Gang,

Actually DMing one campaign with good long time players. One has a forge cleric, heavy armor master feat with high AC at level 2 after taking splint off an enemy and using dodge and spells to drop AC damn low!

I want him to enjoy it. I also want to present some real challenges. Thus far, he has tried to draw fire and it worked. He got ringed by 6 goblins who gave three advantage. I rolled very well and hit some.

Just interested in ideas in keeping it fun for all. Going after and making encounters just to screw the high AC guy seems like the wrong way to go.

Occasionally spells and some advantage seeking seems appropriate. Any other thoughts?

 

[iserith]

Three of five of the regulars in my campaign have heavy armor and two others are barbarians.

So I just beat up the wizard as much as possible.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I got two words for that PC: Heat Metal.

 

[Oofta]

Off the top of my head some options: grapple, restrain, knock prone, spells, traps, push over cliff, bless (your monsters), blind, poison, swarm, frighten, rust monsters, ignore.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just interested in ideas in keeping it fun for all. Going after and making encounters just to screw the high AC guy seems like the wrong way to go.
Occasionally spells and some advantage seeking seems appropriate. Any other thoughts?

You shouldn't need to go out of your way. Enemies who only attack AC can avoid him and attack his softer-target allies, while enemies who can force saves (especially DEX saves, obviously, since heavy armor trivially implies low DEX) target him.

I just beat up the wizard as much as possible.

Never a bad call.

 

[ccs]

Roll higher.

 

[Satyrn]

Push him into a lake.

 

[nswanson27]

AC doesn't do squat against saving throws and contests. Send an intellect devourer their way.

 

[jgsugden]

Or, alternatively, don't do a dang thing out of the ordinary to challenge his high AC.

He invested resources in being unhittable. If he is dodging, he is using actions to make himself even more unhittable. That is his thing - so let him have it. And celebrate it. When the orcs can't connect with this nigh invincible PCs, describe it in a way that makes it sound like an awesome feat.

That is what he wanted to do, and focusing on defense has a price in terms of offense.

There are some monsters out there with higher attack bonuses relative to the CR/EL peers. There are some with saving throw attacks. There are dangers in being highly armored (maybe slower, heat metal, sinking, etc...) There will be challenges for the PC ... but as AC attacks make up a lot of combat, he'll feel pretty comfortable in a lot of situations. Let him.

This is his heroic shtick. Embrace it.

 

[iserith]

Or, alternatively, don't do a dang thing out of the ordinary to challenge his high AC.

He invested resources in being unhittable. If he is dodging, he is using actions to make himself even more unhittable. That is his thing - so let him have it. And celebrate it. When the orcs can't connect with this nigh invincible PCs, describe it in a way that makes it sound like an awesome feat.

That is what he wanted to do, and focusing on defense has a price in terms of offense.

There are some monsters out there with higher attack bonuses relative to the CR/EL peers. There are some with saving throw attacks. There are dangers in being highly armored (maybe slower, heat metal, sinking, etc...) There will be challenges for the PC ... but as AC attacks make up a lot of combat, he'll feel pretty comfortable in a lot of situations. Let him.

This is his heroic shtick. Embrace it.

Out of curiosity, if the DM had the monsters give up on attacking him and switch to beating up the less-armored wizard or rogue, would that qualify as "embracing it" to you?