Shield of Faith vs Protection from Evil and Good

[Anthiondel]

Hey, there. Quick one here.
I'm rolling a Paladin in Curse of Strahd, with AC18. When fighting swarms of undead, what would ve a better idea: SoF to imprpve the AC to 20 or PfE/G for imposing them dissadvantage + extras?

[darknite]

Hey, there. Quick one here.
I'm rolling a Paladin in Curse of Strahd, with AC18. When fighting swarms of undead, what would ve a better idea: SoF to imprpve the AC to 20 or PfE/G for imposing them dissadvantage + extras?

I was a big fan of PfE while touring Barovia. Imposing disadvantage on attacks and removing the ability to be dominated by vampires & other undead were both very useful.

[Sigreid]

Protection from evil, definitely.

[RSP]

The game grants +5/-5 for Advantage/Disadvantage on Passive rolls. I’m not a statistician, but if that’s about accurate, imposing a -5 on an enemies’ Attack roll (thru Disadvantage from PfE) would be much better than adding +2 to your AC (from SoF).

[Sparky McDibben]

Disadvantage also makes it damn near impossible to crit. Only difficulty is concentration, but you have that with a lot of defensive spells.

[Sigreid]

Disadvantage also makes it damn near impossible to crit. Only difficulty is concentration, but you have that with a lot of defensive spells.

It's a lot of fun when your opponent with disadvantages rolls a 20 and a 1, so instead of taking a crit that would put you down they miss completely. That happened to me recently.

[Sparky McDibben]

It's a lot of fun when your opponent with disadvantages rolls a 20 and a 1, so instead of taking a crit that would put you down they miss completely. That happened to me recently.

It's the best feeling. :)

[CheddarChampion]

The game grants +5/-5 for Advantage/Disadvantage on Passive rolls. I’m not a statistician, but if that’s about accurate, imposing a -5 on an enemies’ Attack roll (thru Disadvantage from PfE) would be much better than adding +2 to your AC (from SoF).

There's two ways of looking at it: average rolls vs chance to succeed.

1
Average advantage roll: 13.825
Average normal roll: 10.5
Average disadvantage roll: 7.175
On average advantage adds 3.325 and disadvantage reduces by 3.325
But the effects in gameplay vary wildly.

2
If the chance to succeed is X then advantage is 2X-(X^2)
If the chance to fail is Y then disadvantage is 2Y-(Y^2)
Through math we can find that the biggest changes to the formula are when X and Y are roughly equal - meaning (dis)advantage matters more the closer to 50% you get.
(At 50% the odds change by 25% which is equivalent to +5/-5, I think they based the passive roll gains on this.)

For the OP - Disadvantage is better than +2 AC the closer to 50% chance a zombie/ghoul/whatever has to hit you. Doing the math, if the enemy has at 15% to 85% chance to hit you, disadvantage is better. Otherwise shield of faith beats it by a small margin at 10% or 90% and a larger margin at 5% or 95%. With your 18 AC if an enemy has anything from +2 to +15 to hit, disadvantage is better than +2 AC.

[LibraryOgre]

Also: Always giving them Disadvantage means they will never have Advantage, since even 1 Disadvantage cancels out infinite Advantage.

[CheddarChampion]

I forgot to mention: SoF is only a bonus action to cast but PfEaG is an action (and consumes a material component).
There's some logistics to consider there.

[follacchioso]

I forgot to mention: SoF is only a bonus action to cast but PfEaG is an action (and consumes a material component).
There's some logistics to consider there.
True, although the 10 minutes duration mitigates that a bit.

You may also want to prepare divine favour, as radiant damage may be strategically important against certain undead.

Personally, I would prepare divine favour (for short fights, or when radiant damage is needed) and protection evil (for longer fights, or when you have time to prepare for a fight)

[Sigreid]

True, although the 10 minutes duration mitigates that a bit.

You may also want to prepare divine favour, as radiant damage may be strategically important against certain undead.

Personally, I would prepare divine favour (for short fights, or when radiant damage is needed) and protection evil (for longer fights, or when you have time to prepare for a fight)

I was just about to make this divine favor recomendation.