Armor Class is a Joke
Armor Class in the 5th edition is broken. I don't mean we need to fix your character's armor class, but the armor class of the poor creatures you slaughter. These unfortunate victims don't have a chance, making GMs everywhere sad you mercilessly kill them. Monsters should not be just meat sacks you can hit once or twice, take their loot, and move on to buying new magic items. Combat should last 4-5 rounds, but there's a problem. As we level our characters up and obtain fancy and powerful words and wands, combat can become a slaughterhouse for our opponents.
Game designers will argue that they have given the creatures more hit points instead of raising their armor class. It allows players to hit more often, making them feel like their characters are doing something. The problem is the number of hit points needed to correctly scale with your damage output is ridiculous. Instead, we should raise the armor class of creatures to help alleviate the problem.
Why is this in the Player's Perspective column? It's because combat can be much more fun. The argument I've heard is it takes away from the time to roleplay and have your characters converse with each other. I call this the Critical Role effect, although, to be fair, it existed before the show became immensely popular. There is nothing wrong with working through problems that have nothing to do with fighting some poor kobold. The issue is D&D has moved too far from its roots, which is slaying the bad guys and making it challenging to do so. It's evolved throughout time, and that's a good thing. However, in doing so, we've lost an essential part of the game. If this is different from the style of campaign you want to run, that's cool. Suppose you want to avoid being involved in combat; great. There are plenty of RPGs out there that don't require you to stab anything. But D&D needs combat to be, well, D&D.
Playing the Percentages
There are several calculators to determine to hit percentages on the internet. This is the best and simplest one I have found. You can read more in-depth about the formula here.
Chance to Hit = ( ( 21 – (Target's AC – Player Attack Modifiers) / 20 )) * 100
I like this one because he immediately considers that a 1 is an automatic miss and a 20 is an automatic hit. Not all of them do. It does not take into account advantage/disadvantage, but we'll leave that for some other time.
At 1st level, a character with a +2 attack ability modifier and a +2 proficiency bonus has a 75% chance of hitting an AC 10, a 50% chance of hitting an AC 15, and even a 25% chance of hitting an AC 20.
Let's look at a real-world (ok, fantasy world) example. Our 2nd level paladin is going toe to toe with an angry orc. Our paladin has a Strength of 16, a longsword, chainmail, and a shield. Our orc has an AC 13, a great axe, and 15 hit points. Based on the formula above, the paladin's chances of hitting are
((21-(13-5)/20) = 65% chance to hit.
That's a better-than-good chance to hit. Based on average damage, the paladin will do 7 points of damage, almost half the orc's total hit points. If the paladin took the dueling fighting style, that would be an extra 2 points of damage. If they used a smite - thunderous smite is powerful - that's an additional 2d6, so another 7 points of damage. Our orc friend is dead.
As our characters level up, the disparity grows. At the 15th level, a character with a +4 Strength modifier, a +5 proficiency bonus, and a +2 miscellaneous bonus (you'll hopefully have some magic items by now) has a 100% chance of hitting an AC 10, an 85% chance of hitting an AC 15, and a 60% chance of hitting an AC 20.
For this example, let's have a party of four 15th fighters who decide to fight a lich. This would be considered a deadly encounter. Each of our fighters has a +2 magical weapon and no other magical items since the GM is mean. A lich's natural armor class is 17, with 135 hit points.
((21-(17-11)/20) = 75% chance to hit.
At the 15th level, each fighter has three attacks per action. Play the percentages, and you're looking at 9 hits between the four fighters in a single round. The average damage per hit would be:
6.5 (+ 2 longsword) + 4 (Strength modifier) = 10 hp.
This doesn't even consider any bonuses for fighting style, magical damage buffs, or the fighters using Action Surge for an additional attack. It may not seem like much, but the lich will have taken 90 damage by the end of the round. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say our undead friend will last for two rounds, three if it's lucky. This was a deadly encounter…for the lich.
Why it Matters
None of these are perfect examples, but you get the point. You may argue that creatures have resistances making them harder to hit. Well, the lich's resistance to non-magical attacks isn't going to help. What about its legendary actions that can remove a fighter from the battle? Even if the lich took out two of the four warriors, the remaining fighters would do 40 additional points of damage based on the readjusted numbers, leaving him with 7 hit points. If our lich cast animate dead at the 7th level and raises seven zombies, the fighters automatically hit their AC 10. Of course, a fireball would solve the zombie problem if we added a wizard to the party.
Prolonged combat has so much to offer; the opportunity to roleplay your character is there if you want it. I think combat should bring a real threat of character death (from the monsters themselves, not the dumb decisions we, as players, make all the time). When there's no challenge, there is no need to talk through strategy. Not every encounter, but not just when you're fighting the big boss at the end of an adventure. If there's a chance your character could die, it requires you to work as a team, think through the situation at hand, and communicate strategy. It fosters teamwork and helps build trust amongst the character and, hopefully, you and your friends sitting around the table.
It's a different roleplaying style than discussing what to accomplish during your downtime days. The sequence of events needs to be determined, battlefield control needs to be addressed, the use of proper spells and/or magical items should be clarified, and the list goes on. That said, there is no need to talk through how you will defeat BBEG if you can walk up and kill it in two rounds. Raising your enemy's AC to make them harder to hit is a perfect place to start.
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