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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9344866" data-attributes="member: 6877472">See the thing with AC though, is by tier 3, unless magic armor and other defensive items are in play, AC doesn't scale, so you get hit a lot more often.  The Fire Giant is my poster child for how absurd this starts to get.  At CR 9 and +11 to hit (and multiattack), even the heaviest armor users are going to get hit fairly reliably, and if you're in the AC 17 range or less, yikes!So I think damage reduction effects could be fine, unless WotC wants to come out and say "uh yeah, by level X you should have AC y", which they won't, because the claim was made that accuracy vs. AC isn't a factor in CR calculations, it's just damage in/damage out (though given that AC and to hit effects damage, I'm not sure how that even works- surely they know that miss chance affects DPR?).I saw this play out when I played Storm King's Thunder in Adventure League.  Our front-liner was a Champion Fighter who dual-wielded and had an AC of 19 with Plate and his Fighting Style.  He charged up to a pair of Fire Giants.  Four attacks, hitting on 8's (65% to hit) meant he was looking at (on average) 72 damage.  The DM was rolling damage, so I watched a Fighter 10 go from 94 to 0 in very short order.Given at the time I had regular old Studded and Dex 20 on my character, I realized right then and there that going anywhere near melee range with those guys was bad news.Now there are ways to handle that situation if your group is working towards it.  You could cast Shield of Faith or Haste on the Fighter if you have those spells available and you don't have a better use for your concentration.  You could go Eldritch Knight and be able to cast defensive spells like Shield or Blur.  And you could be more cautious, something that comes with experience.But if he'd taken Heavy Armor Master, he could have saved himself up to 12 damage which would have at least left him alive, if badly hurt.</blockquote>

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