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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 5335504" data-attributes="member: 65726">The DM will. Without armor, you could be looking at a party with AC 10 Fighter, AC 10 Cleric, AC 12 Warlock, and AC 10 Invoker. Or also without armor, you might be looking at AC 17 Swordmage, AC 19 avenger, AC 14 Shaman, and AC 18 Wizard. Or some combination of these. Your defenders are still likely to have more hit points and surges than anyone else, so they will still be decent up front, but if the AC 14 Shaman is the highest AC you've got, him and his spirit companion might be taking point for an encounter. And the AC 10 fighter may just not mark for an encounter.It really doesn't matter. DM can lower attack bonus of creatures vs AC, or design the encounter so most things attack non-AC defenses, or a combination of things. Maybe use low damage creatures with no or few status effects. It's just going to be a few such encounters, it's not like we're running a campaign in this fashion.Life of an adventurer is not meant to be easy and straight forward, everything working within the mechanical boundaries of a game system. Sometimes they'll be underequipped, sometimes they have to worry about innocent people getting in the way, or joining the wrong side with good but misguided intentions. Sometimes they will be overwhelmed, and fail, be forced to retreat or surrender. Without failure, success means very little. Getting out of a sticky situation is half the fun.If a story element tosses the group in an area where arcane spells can go awry, the arcane casters in the group aren't going to just up and quit. They'll deal with it. If an ongoing enemy ritual is suppressing or diminishing healing powers in an area, the PC's will just have to tough it out until they can disrupt the ritual. If some transformation causes PC's to lose access to their daily powers and racial powers for an encounter, again, they just deal with it.The rules are not meant to be a straight jacket for the DM. The rules are simply a method of conflict resolution. Sometimes we get so engrossed on system and balance, and encounter levels, and combat rules, and skill challenges, we forget the big picture. We are playing characters in an adventure.</blockquote>

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