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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 6632923" data-attributes="member: 2629">Monsters follow roughly the same AC progression that PCs do.  Something man sized that has no armor and is not particularly dexterous will have a 10 or 11 AC.  If they have light armor or are dexterous, 12 or 13.  If both lightly armored and dexterous, or in medium armor: 14 or 15.  If in heavy armor or built of durable materials: 16 to 22.  Deific ACs arise above 22.  A -5 penalty to hit turns 1 out of 4 rolls from a hit to a miss, or a smaller percentage if there is advantage.  However, even with advantage, it is a big change.  DPR is one way to measure the impact, but DPR is a simplistic tool that does not take into account concepts like overkill (wasted damage beyond what it needed to meet a goal (such as taking the monster down)) or deviations in damage per strike.  Simply put, those that focus on DPR have taken a step on efficiency analysis, but there is still a long journey ahead of them before they can truly evaluate the true efficiency of an option.As for deadly threats being the majority of combats: That violates the recommended guidelines and it alters many assumptions in the game.  Amongst the impacts are a likely change in the rate of encounters per short rest and encounters per long rest.  We all know that an easy battle seems pointless at times because it is soooooo easy... but that is only if there is a single goal (killing). A single zombie can be an interesting challenge for a high level party if the goal is not just to kill the zombie, but to kill it in a certain way or before it can do a certain thing.  Also, monsters do not need to be the main threat in a combat - they can be a hazard that the PCs must navigate.  For example, let's say that the 8th level party comes across a barn full of kobolds at the edge of the village.  As soon as they do, the monsters try to fight their way past the PCs to get away.  If they get away, they'll kill villagers and livestock.  If all the kobolds turned on the PCs, the PCs would likely yawn their way through the slaughter.  If they have to figure out how to stop the kobolds from getting away (requiring them to be selective in how they attack), it becomes a different challenge.In other words, you don't have to go deadly all the time to create challenges if death is not the only challenge you go to...If you follow the math of the edition and do not min/max like crazy, 5E is a lot of fun.  If you push for the cracks and try to optimize every little detail, you're going to push the game outside the target goals where the game works best.  Your choice.</blockquote>

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