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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5460412" data-attributes="member: 4937">AC is probably the most important stat in the game because a good defense tends to trump offense in D&amp;D (unless you cheat on your initiative rolls) and AC is probably the most often challenged defense.Think of the outcome of each fight as being determined by how well you maximize the ratio of damage you inflict to damage you recieve.Increasing damage output is generally much harder for a player to control than decreasing damage input.&nbsp; It's hard to double or triple your expected generated damage, but its fairly easy to half or third your expected damage recieved.&nbsp; The way to look at this is consider the damage you recieve if most monsters need about a 17 to hit you.&nbsp; If you can raise your AC by 2 points at that point, so that they need a 19 to hit you, you've about halfed your expected damage recieved.&nbsp; If you can raise it by another 1 point (total 3 points), so that you are only hit on a 20, then you've halfed it again.&nbsp; Miss chance is to a certain extent equivalent to improving AC and may be superior in situations where the monster can work around AC, but upping AC is easier and probably the first thing you should target.I would go so far as to suggest that relative AC is the second biggest advantage players generally have on monsters, just after taking more actions in a round.A strategy that has usually worked for me as a player is to continually ask, &quot;In what way can the DM kill me, and then work to the best of my ability to plug that hole - whether the answer be 'falling from great height', 'drowning', 'failed fort save', 'critical hit'.&nbsp; If you remove the DM's ability to kill you, chances are you will overcome pretty much anything that is thrown at you.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5460412, member: 4937"] AC is probably the most important stat in the game because a good defense tends to trump offense in D&D (unless you cheat on your initiative rolls) and AC is probably the most often challenged defense. Think of the outcome of each fight as being determined by how well you maximize the ratio of damage you inflict to damage you recieve. Increasing damage output is generally much harder for a player to control than decreasing damage input. It's hard to double or triple your expected generated damage, but its fairly easy to half or third your expected damage recieved. The way to look at this is consider the damage you recieve if most monsters need about a 17 to hit you. If you can raise your AC by 2 points at that point, so that they need a 19 to hit you, you've about halfed your expected damage recieved. If you can raise it by another 1 point (total 3 points), so that you are only hit on a 20, then you've halfed it again. Miss chance is to a certain extent equivalent to improving AC and may be superior in situations where the monster can work around AC, but upping AC is easier and probably the first thing you should target. I would go so far as to suggest that relative AC is the second biggest advantage players generally have on monsters, just after taking more actions in a round. A strategy that has usually worked for me as a player is to continually ask, "In what way can the DM kill me, and then work to the best of my ability to plug that hole - whether the answer be 'falling from great height', 'drowning', 'failed fort save', 'critical hit'. If you remove the DM's ability to kill you, chances are you will overcome pretty much anything that is thrown at you. [/QUOTE]

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