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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnLynch" data-source="post: 6721080" data-attributes="member: 6749563">Number of monsters (action economy) and HP matter. If your monsters can surround a single PC and each of them get 2 attacks, they can drop a PC (not kill, but get below 0 HP) without too much trouble. That PC can then get up again, but they can also be dropped again (each time they get back up the party has lost a combat resource and also some of the action economy). That said, once the party knows what they're facing, drops a couple of enemies, uses terrain and a cork (high AC that can be boosted by expending more party resources) the fight quickly becomes a forgone conclusion and nothig meaningful will occur unless the monsters get a few lucky crits in (which do matter).This is the most important dynamic of the AC discussion. Having seen what high AC produces I would be very wary of handing out AC boosting items. A table that operates cooperatively and wants to produce the most efficient results will naturally ensure that a single player gets loaded up with as many stacking AC boosters as they can get. Then terrain becomes an important issue. I'd be happy to hand out Ring Mail +3, Chain Mail +1 or any medium armor with numeric boosters. Shields with numeric boosters or plate armor with numeric boosters not so much. Plain old vanilla Cloaks of Protection or Rings of Protection might get handed out at very high level (where enemies are able to reliably hitan AC in the low 20s),but otherwise unless I've already handed out a bucketload of attunement items these are ones I would not give to players.That said, absent these magic items AC 21 is about the highest you can get unless you start introducing spells (at which point the party is depleting party resources to boost your AC. Depending on the enemies and terrain this could be worthwhile. Or it might not be. IMO that's working as intended). AC 21 isn't too problematic CR 1 enemies will have +4 which means they're hitting 20% of the time. One of the lowest CRs against the best non magical AC is pretty good and a good recommendation for bounded accuracy. Give those CR 1 enemies 2 attacks and use them in enough numbers and they'll be downing your AC 21 tank without too much difficulty. If that tank can bottleneck them so their superior numbers are no longer a factor and gets a 1st level spell boost to his AC then he's virtually indestructible. But again I'd say that's working as intended. If the high AC player is dominating the battlefield (at the expense of the enjoyment of others) look at the terrain and change it.Thanks for the feedback from actual play.</blockquote>

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