D&D 5E Sage Advice August 17th

[Yaarel]

Back to banning full plate.

An other way to go about it is to say that limb armor counts as a shield bonus, thus doesnt stack with a shield.

Torso plate is 14, thus each limb plate would be a +1 shield bonus, adding up to the 18 of full plate.

(A person wearing limb plate on only one arm, would get a +1 shield bonus.)



Compare full chain. Torso chain (namely a chain tunic) is 13 armor base. Complete limb coverage (chain jacket and chain trousers) is only +3 shield bonus altogether. Thus full chain totals 16. Probably count each arm as +1, but both legs together as only +1. Thus only a large shield that granted +4 would be useful, increasing the total AC by +1.

 

[kerbarian]

At the moment the paladin can easily get his AC to 24. He's wearing +1 plate, a shield, defensive fighting style, and he casts shield of faith. If the paladin also cast shield that would raise it to 29. If he stacked haste, that would be 31. If at high level they eventually stack foresight on him, he would be nearly unhittable. I can't hand him anymore magic items without further exacerbating the problem with an overly high AC. If I build a creature to hit the paladin, he can straight tear the rest of the party apart. It's becoming an issue in encounter design.

If it's too hard to hit the paladin, have the monsters attack everyone else -- it's even logical behavior for the monsters. If the rest of the party goes down and the paladin is standing alone and unharmed, that's not a win for the paladin. Go ahead and provoke opportunity attacks from the paladin to get at the rest of the party, if necessary. A paladin with a shield won't do that much damage except for smites (which can run out quickly), so you can bypass his defense (by attacking other characters) and give him a bit more offense (opportunity attacks) as a side effect. Make him figure out how to defend the rest of the party -- maybe he'll start using Shield of Faith on other characters to even out the party's defenses.

 

[Celtavian]

If it's too hard to hit the paladin, have the monsters attack everyone else -- it's even logical behavior for the monsters. If the rest of the party goes down and the paladin is standing alone and unharmed, that's not a win for the paladin. Go ahead and provoke opportunity attacks from the paladin to get at the rest of the party, if necessary. A paladin with a shield won't do that much damage except for smites (which can run out quickly), so you can bypass his defense (by attacking other characters) and give him a bit more offense (opportunity attacks) as a side effect. Make him figure out how to defend the rest of the party -- maybe he'll start using Shield of Faith on other characters to even out the party's defenses.

That's the problem. If I have them attack everyone else, everyone else dies very easily because they get hit very easily. The problem becomes creating encounters to challenge the paladin that don't destroy the rest of the party quickly and easily. Paladin has better hit points and a better AC than the rest of the party. He has better saves with Protection Aura. He has self-healing.

Whereas the bard has a 15 or 16 AC. The cleric has a 19 AC. The rogue has a 16 AC. The ranger has a 17 AC. All have lower hit points and worse saves. If the creature attacks them, they get taken down quite quickly (except the cleric...clerics are pretty tough). I end up in this situation where the rest of the party feels a few CR less than the paladin or heavy armor user because Bounded Accuracy isn't working very well against the heavy armor using guy, it's working too well against the lesser armored guys with damage escalating and them getting hit easier. It's an odd situation I'm not accustomed to. I have to figure out how to handle it because at the moment only avoidance is effective.

 

[Yaarel]

Since heavy crossbows are armor-piercing, the simplest way to represent this is an advantage versus heavy armor.

 

[Celtavian]

Not every creature can use Crossbows or would. That would help with certain humanoids. Not much help with monsters.

 

[Yaarel]

Not every creature can use Crossbows or would. That would help with certain humanoids. Not much help with monsters.

True. But any place where full plate is normal, would have crossbows be normal as part of the arms race.

 

[Yaarel]

In any case, definitely involve the players in the solution. See how they feel about the problem of extreme AC.

One time I built a virtually unhittable character, including dodging, flying, and teleporting - plus defensive reactions if he ever did get hit. He was incredibly slippery, and eventually the DM gave up trying to hit him. The character was very flavorful for this reason, and alot of fun to play. But I did invest alot of resources to do it. So it wasnt to disruptive.

 

[Yaarel]

Wait. Why does padded armor (gambeson) cause a stealth disadvantage? And why would putting a chain shirt over padded armor stop this disadvantage?

The disadvantage seems like an editing error.

 

[Leatherhead]

At the moment the paladin can easily get his AC to 24. He's wearing +1 plate, a shield, defensive fighting style, and he casts shield of faith. If the paladin also cast shield that would raise it to 29. If he stacked haste, that would be 31. If at high level they eventually stack foresight on him, he would be nearly unhittable. I can't hand him anymore magic items without further exacerbating the problem with an overly high AC. If I build a creature to hit the paladin, he can straight tear the rest of the party apart. It's becoming an issue in encounter design.

Sounds like you need to have more combats out of melee range.

Additionally you could implement flanking rules, and target the paladin in the NADs (that is the best acronym from 4e) with some riders. Grappling, for instance, totally bypasses both armor and saving throws.

 

[Arial Black]

Plate armour making it hard for enemies to hurt you is not a bug; it's a feature.

Voluntarily lower his AC? If someone built a castle would you ask them to knock a couple of walls down to make them easier to hit?

The monsters' mistake is to keep attacking him rather than the squishies. Your mistake is trying to make monsters tougher to try to hurt the paladin, increasing chances of killing everyone else.

Keep the monsters the same, but change their behavior. Creatures change their behaviour in response to their environment. It's not like intelligent creatures don't associate plate armour with being harder to hurt.

Monsters will take the path of least resistance. Their purpose is not to kill the paladin specifically, nor to spread their attacks around the party in a 'fair' manner. They are not there to be 'fair'! They are there to...get a meal (so eat the ones that you don't need a tin-opener for), or prevent the party from invading, or reduce/eliminate the threat the party poses (kill the casters!) or..whatever.

They can simply choose not to waste attacks on the invulnerable guy. Will he feel that the fight was easy and no challenge if he survives but his mates all died?

You don't need to reduce his hit points in order to challenge him. His challenge is to do his part to help the party succeed, and if they all die then he has failed even if he is unhurt. He should be frantically trying to keep them alive. You don't need monsters tough enough to kill him, just monsters tough enough to challenge them!

As for his AC: that shield is easy enough to negate. Not by changing the rules or artificially making his choice to play a well-armoured PC meaningless, but by situations. You absolutely can say that heavy armour imposes disadvantage on swim checks! It's the DM's job to adjudicate these things in a fair way, and it's perfectly fair to say that wearing heavy armour makes swimming harder.

If he has to climb a ladder, impose penalties for using only one arm and make it almost impossible to climb a steep ladder with no hands. He then has to choose to put both sword and shield away, or choose only one of them to keep in hand. Weapons can be drawn as a free interaction, but donning/doffing a shield takes your action. Attack him as he climbs. If he only keeps his shield then he cannot attack back. If he only keeps his sword then he is -2 AC and needs an action to get it back. If he doesn't care about being attacked, wait till he gets near the top and have the baddies destroy or knock over the ladder. Armour doesn't help against falling damage and the ground isn't going to miss!

Don't arbitrarily change rules to make his choices meaningless. Instead, let him take the natural consequences of his choice to be well-armoured, both for good and for ill.