Heavy Magic Item Campaign Rules to Preserve Bounded Accuracy

[dmhelp]

What are other people's experiences with high magic 5e? I was going to incorporate some rules to keep mainly the ACs from going thru the stratosphere by stacking multiple +5s (similar to 3e AC types). I also want to be able to give out more stat tomes without jacking everyone into the mid 20s.


Magical AC bonuses - only one bonus at a time (not counting effects that change the AC calculation, e.g. mage armor, or effects classified as tactical, e.g. shield spell): armor magical bonus, shield magical bonus, bracers of defense, cloak/ring of protection, ioun stone, staff of power, haste, shield of faith, warding bond, wild surge spectral shield, etc.
Magical Saving Throw bonuses - only one static bonus (e.g. cloak of protection, luck blade, ring of protection, stone of good luck, warding bond, etc.), plus one Aura of Protection, and one variable effect (e.g. bless or resistance)
Stat Tomes - most will not increase a stat beyond 20
Tactics AC bonuses - only one at a time: Battle Master Evasive Footwork (while moving), cover, Combat Inspiration (on reaction), defender sword (after reduced attack until next turn), Defensive Duelist (on reaction), Multiattack Defense (after hit by creature until end of that turn), shield spell (reaction until next turn)


Has anyone else modified the Barbarian capstone since Belts of Giant Strength step all over it?

So as an example, a Sorc 14/Pal 6 with a 20 dex and 20 cha wearing a robe of the archmage with a +5 ring of protection and a shield would have AC 27 and +10 to base saves. AC would go to 32 with the shield spell (pretty much top of the line).

[Dork_Forge]

Personally I think you should control this through the items you give out rather than with homebrew rules imposed on items. If you think AC boosting will get out of hand (bear in mind you can just target saves and 20s always hit, getting reliable crazy high AC in 5e usually isn't an issue) then just don't give out that many boosting items. Attunement is already in place to limit the potential magic item abuse (this gets looser on an Artificer but it's literally their schtick).

The only time this really becomes a problem is if you run a magic mart where you essentially tell the players that they can get anything non artifact from the DMG as long as they can afford it, that isn't the assumed standard and by letting go of controlling loot (even just within CR/level appropriate tables) you're inviting things you don't want to happen, like a player buying a Deck of Many things or anything else that gives access to Wish.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I recommend using official magic items and the 3 attunement limit as in the game rules.

I am running a heavy magic item campaign with a magic market (the party even became friends with the owner). There is no problem as long as you stick to the game rules.

I myself did add some homebrew items but I made them to not break bounded accuracy.

Just pay attention that a PC with magic items usually need higher CR enemies for the same effect as a PC with no magic item with lower CR enemies.

[Porcupinata]

I always run high magic games, and with multiple campaigns running from level 1 to level 20 I've never had a problem in 5e. The whole "don't need magical plusses to be competitive" works both ways in that it doesn't break the game if you don't give out magic items but the numbers involved are also low enough it also doesn't break the game if you do (don't forget that magic weapons and armour almost always only go to +3, not +5, and things like Rings of Protection only exist at the +1 level; so the "+5 armour, +5 shield, +5 ring" stack doesn't exist). Sure, the party will punch a little above their weight, but that's fine. With the lower size of available bonuses and the limit on attunement slots the class/level abilities of characters always far outweigh the magic items they have.

Having said that, the bigger thing you do need to be aware of - it's not a bad thing, but it's a change that you need to be prepared for - is that in 5e the various items for transport are ridiculously low level and cheap compared to other items. If you let the players buy whatever magic items they want, it's likely that by second or third level the whole party will have Brooms of Flying, meaning that overland travel becomes much easier; and by around sixth to seventh level they'll likely have a Helm of Teleportation making a lot of overland travel disappear completely. As I say, this isn't a bad thing (especially if you and your players find overland travel and rolling for wandering monsters tedious so you're glad to be rid of it as the part level up) but you do need to bear it in mind when designing scenarios so you don't get taken by surprise when the plot-critical encounter never happens or the time limit on something is trivialised because the party teleported to the city instead of spending three weeks walking there.

[KorvinStarmast]

Personally I think you should control this through the items you give out rather than with homebrew rules imposed on items.
{snip}
Attunement is already in place to limit the potential magic item abuse (this gets looser on an Artificer but it's literally their schtick). This. Works.

The only time this really becomes a problem is if you run a magic mart where you essentially tell the players that they can get anything non artifact from the DMG as long as they can afford it, My suggestion: avoid Magic Item WalMart. If someone has a magic item they'd like to trade for something else, make that an adventure in itself. Or, that something else doesn't exist (Yet).


I recommend using official magic items and the 3 attunement limit as in the game rules. Just pay attention that a PC with magic items usually need higher CR enemies for the same effect as a PC with no magic item with lower CR enemies. This also. My brother and I are building an artifact together for his world, and it's a bit tricksy to get it right. We have decided on a scaling mechanism in that certain levels of certain class sub class combinations unlock one more aspect of the artifact. It starts out as an amulet with a modest capability when attuned: advantage on death saving throws and speak with dead once per long rest. Unless one is a death domain or grave domain cleric, or a wizard of the necromancy school, one cannot access the higher level aspects. We are still puzzling over the Undying Warlock and Long Death Monk as possible other unlockers, but as none of the party are of those class/sub lcass, it might be moot.

And, the kicker is, there's a cult looking for it (It was theirs a few centuries ago) who will now and again get wind of the party and send their bravos and assassins to hunt them down and try to take it from them.

[LudicSavant]

This. Works.

The trouble is that things like +6 to AC and +3 to attack and damage don't take attunement at all. And then you can grab 3 attunement items with further boosts on top of that.

The attunement system could have been used to allow DMs to toss piles of magic rewards at players while keeping things in hand, but wasn't.

IMHO, a missed opportunity in 5e's design.

[KorvinStarmast]

The trouble is that things like +6 to AC and +3 to attack and damage don't take attunement at all. And then you can grab 3 attunement items with further boosts on top of that. When you are high enough level to have +3 armor and +3 shield (and finding those is not guaranteed) the monsters often have +7 and +6 to hit: +13 to hit (due to amazing strength and proficiency bonus) or they have magic that renders AC irrelevant.

Heck, I was lucky to have a +1 shield and +1 half plate (I had med armor master) and Fire giants made my AC look trivial. What I wanted to find was a cloak of displacement for my third attunement slot (I had a +1 RoP and a cursed sword of vengeance in the other two slots, level 14; (yeah, nobody in the party ever figured o ut that my sword was cursed) but we never found one.

[LudicSavant]

When you are high enough level to have +3 armor and +3 shield (and finding those is not guaranteed) the monsters often have +7 and +6 to hit: +13 to hit (due to amazing strength and proficiency bonus)

+13 to hit is pathetic when you're running around with over 30 AC and Disadvantage to be hit.

The point is that if attunement is supposed to be reigning things in for Bounded Accuracy and other such concepts, its absence from such items is conspicuous.

[stoutstien]

+13 to hit is pathetic when you're running around with over 30 AC and Disadvantage to be hit.

The point is that if attunement is supposed to be reigning things in for Bounded Accuracy and other such concepts, its absence from such items is conspicuous.
Aye. As a DM I shy away from using static +X armor and weapons unless they are coming directly from my class feature.

I think magical items should add options not cement static strategies even more.

[Deathtongue]

What are other people's experiences with high magic 5e?That breaking bounded accuracy isn't really a problem until tier 3. I played Adventurer's League in Seasons 6-8, seasons notorious for their magical item generosity; in one of them you could buy Staff of the Magi and Cloak of Invisibility by level 11. I also played a Sorceradin, a notoriously tanky build. Even with +2 plate and a a +2 shield sitting in my backpack (I was a THF sorceradin) I never felt completely invincible and safe, especially since even with Aura of Protection, Shield, and Protection from Evil and Good/Blur on speed dial I had a lot of holes in my defenses.

More problematic items in my opinion are magic items that take pressure off of spell slots. My Evoker (same season) had a Wand of Fireballs by level 6. They had a Staff of the Magi at level 12. Even without Simulacrum cheese, I was regularly clean-sweeping encounters with minimal resource expenditure. Not much can stand up to two rounds of Contingency MMM's + Level 7 Fireball spam.

[Dork_Forge]

+13 to hit is pathetic when you're running around with over 30 AC and Disadvantage to be hit.

The point is that if attunement is supposed to be reigning things in for Bounded Accuracy and other such concepts, its absence from such items is conspicuous.

But running around with 30+ AC isn't easy even with magic marts, assuming a Fighter/Paladin you'd want Defense, +3 armor/Shield and that only takes you to 27 after having burned cash on 2 very rare items, you can push that higher with attunement items, but those are typically +1 leaving you around the 30 mark, leaving about a 20% (?) chance of still being hit despite dedicating all your attunement slots and a not so small fortune to racheting up your AC (assuming you're a capable of heavy armor/shield/defense to begin with). If a player wants to invest so heavily then great, they won't ever be unhittable and they're playing in a tier where save based damage and effects are pretty common, nevermind the opportunity cost of not spending their gold on better weapons, other attunements etc.

Ultimately the best solution is to just curate what's available to stop things going bananas, the DMG shouldn't be a players shopping catalog, but if that is the case tehn AC is probably the least of your worries.

[J-H]

As others have said, control what you give out.
My players just hit level 11. They have a couple of +2 weapons, but they are just that... +2. Anything with a +d6 damage is a +1. There's 1 set of +1 full plate, and 1 +1 shield...plus a couple of magical/useful shields that are not +1. No +2 armor items anywhere, with the exception of an Elven Chain +1 and a Bracers of Armor.

[LudicSavant]

But running around with 30+ AC isn't easy even with magic marts Yes it is. I was being conservative! If I was optimizing I could be pushing over 40.

[DevilMcam]

i'm afb right now but I am pretty sure that AC is part of the "bounded" stats of 5e that can never go above 30.

So even if you could reach that consistentlt the big badies would still hit you quite hard with their +17 to hit, and you can not get any benefit from covers and the like.
also even with 30 AC your saving throws are still going to be in the 10s wich mean the dragon get to torch you anyway.

[Dork_Forge]

Yes it is. I was being conservative! If I was optimizing I could be pushing over 40.

Okay, then please show your work on this.

[stoutstien]

i'm afb right now but I am pretty sure that AC is part of the "bounded" stats of 5e that can never go above 30.

So even if you could reach that consistentlt the big badies would still hit you quite hard with their +17 to hit, and you can not get any benefit from covers and the like.
also even with 30 AC your saving throws are still going to be in the 10s wich mean the dragon get to torch you anyway.

Even without magic Mart there are a few classes that can stack up AC and saves to a point they can comfortably solo higher CR dragons let alone worry about a breath attack.

[LudicSavant]

Okay, then please show your work on this.

Sure. Here's Gato, the Warforged Swords Bardadin who was allowed to visit magic mart with a modest portion of his share of the party loot from what the DMG loot tables calls a "typical" amount of treasure. He has silver joints.

He is also basically just the usual way I build Swords Bardadins, just with magic gear stapled on; he'll look familiar to those who follow my build posts (if I really wanted to go for theoretical max AC I could get more. But I wanted to limit myself to a character build I had actually played).

+1 AC (race)
+1 AC (has Defense and Dueling styles)
+11 AC (+3 plate)
+5 AC (+3 shield)
+1 AC (cloak of protection)
+1 AC (ring of protection)
+2 AC (staff of power)
= 32 AC completely passively, but he also has abundant resources such that he can keep the following going for every hit of every encounter of the day:

+1-12 AC (Flourish, average 6.5)
+5 AC (Shield spell)
+2 AC (Shield of Faith)
+Disadvantage to be hit (all day Foresight)
= 40-51 AC + Disadvantage

He could also get more by, say, drinking potions. But the 40-51 is the amount that he's likely to be able to have up for every encounter and simply never run out of. Or at the very least the d6 version of flourish (from Swords Bard 14) for 40-45.

[KorvinStarmast]

+13 to hit is pathetic when you're running around with over 30 AC and Disadvantage to be hit. Not sure where you get 30 AC. I worked hard to get to 25, to include defensive fighting style. Champion Fighter. Where I feel that you are making a poor assumption is that the magic item being in the DMG means that the players have access to them.
This isn't a video game.
That access is not assured.

[LudicSavant]

Not sure where you get 30 AC. I worked hard to get to 25, to include defensive fighting style. Champion Fighter.

I do not find it difficult to exceed the AC of a Champion Fighter.


Where I feel that you are making a poor assumption is that the magic item being in the DMG means that the players have access to them. The irony is that you just assumed that I assumed that. Quite wrongly, I might add.

The entire point was to demonstrate that the attunement system does not keep things in check, and thus why a DM should be curating magic item access.


This isn't a video game.
That access is not assured.

My position is that attunement does not keep things in check, a DM curating availability and such does.

You're preaching to the choir, but don't seem to realize it.

[Grey Watcher]

I think a simpler way to go would be to just eliminate +X bonuses on all items. So the Vorpal Sword no longer gives a bonus to attack and damage generally, it just does the decapitation shtick on a natural 20. And basic +2 swords and shields and stuff don't exist, period. That way you can throw all the magic doodads you want at the party without having to keep track of which bonuses do or don't stack.

[LudicSavant]

I think a simpler way to go would be to just eliminate +X bonuses on all items. So the Vorpal Sword no longer gives a bonus to attack and damage generally, it just does the decapitation shtick on a natural 20. And basic +2 swords and shields and stuff don't exist, period. That way you can throw all the magic doodads you want at the party without having to keep track of which bonuses do or don't stack.

My opinion is largely similar; in my campaigns I largely make my magic items about horizontal scaling (e.g. providing interesting new options) with little vertical scaling (e.g. just making you flat out better at stuff you already do).

[KorvinStarmast]

You're preaching to the choir, but don't seem to realize it. Is this one of those deals where we agree and it doesn't seem that we do? :smallconfused:

[LudicSavant]

Is this one of those deals where we agree and it doesn't seem that we do? :smallconfused:

Why does your post say that you're quoting Deathtongue when you're quoting me? :smallconfused:

[KorvinStarmast]

Why does your post say that you're quoting Deathtongue when you're quoting me? :smallconfused: I suspect that there's a hanging multi quote in there somewhere, I'll go and clean that up.

[Skylivedk]

Magic items and how they're treated is pretty high on my list of things, I'd change in 5e. It goes hand in hand with encounter design, experience gain, published adventures, and inter class balance.

1.
Apparently the game is designed to be balanced around no magic items. An idea I find both odd, legacy breaking, and yawn worthy. Broadly speaking, players like loot, so why the Abyss would you design the game around not giving loot? It would make much more sense with a baseline expectancy of basic items and then having more/less as part of the difficulty slider.

2.
It doesn't hit equally across the classes. The most obvious example being that a fighter will miss having items (esp weapons) more than a moon druid and looking at the later tiers, even more than most of the other martial classes due to + damage scaling with number of attacks.

3.
Experience gain is not impacted by magic items despite magic items obviously making encounters easier. Not a huge issue on its own, but it would have been super neat with some rules of thumb for DMs on either how to make encounters harder (ie. if players in average have an uncommon item each, scale encounter budget up with a level) or scale experience down (I don't like this solution).

4.
Recommended encounters are IMX way way way too easy already. Recent anecdotal example: our DM noticed that we were steamrolling our way through Rise of Tiamat (same group of players that went through Tomb of Annihilation). He decided to up the ante (hence this will not be spoiling anything). Our first encounter at level 16 was with an ancient blue dragon and her brood: 6 young adults. Not a single PC dropped and all dragons are now hanging on our trophy wall in our flying castle (which faces outwards most of the time). It took a couple of forcecages and some manoeuvring, but essentially the fight was over in less than 5 rounds IIRC (with a couple of dragons left to die from sickening radiance). That was half of our xp budget, not for the day, but to level to 17. Ilmater! I've not even picked my ASI yet.

Magic items played a significant role, especially potions of resistance (and the blue dragon helmet).

5.
Published adventures had provided us said items. That kind of irks me. Just like I dislike how little the expected adventuring day is actually used in WotC-materials. Please stop claiming one adventure design philosophy that you don't use yourself. If a DM is unsure of how to run a campaign (which I take to be one of two major reasons for using published adventures, the other being time saving) then how can they learn the ropes from those examples?

TLDR:
5e is already easy going by standard encounter design rules. Adding magic items will naturally exacerbate the issue.

I suggest still adding magic items, make encounters harder, change to milestone experience, and probably add a lot of magic items since a lot of the DMG ones are extremely bland.

[Dork_Forge]

Sure. Here's Gato, the Warforged Swords Bardadin who was allowed to visit magic mart with a modest portion of his share of the party loot from what the DMG loot tables calls a "typical" amount of treasure. He has silver joints.

He is also basically just the usual way I build Swords Bardadins, just with magic gear stapled on; he'll look familiar to those who follow my build posts (if I really wanted to go for theoretical max AC I could get more. But I wanted to limit myself to a character build I had actually played).

+1 AC (race)
+1 AC (has Defense and Dueling styles)
+11 AC (+3 plate)
+5 AC (+3 shield)
+1 AC (cloak of protection)
+1 AC (ring of protection)
+2 AC (staff of power)
= 32 AC completely passively, but he also has abundant resources such that he can keep the following going for every hit of every encounter of the day:

+1-12 AC (Flourish, average 6.5)
+5 AC (Shield spell)
+2 AC (Shield of Faith)
+Disadvantage to be hit (all day Foresight)
= 40-51 AC + Disadvantage

He could also get more by, say, drinking potions. But the 40-51 is the amount that he's likely to be able to have up for every encounter and simply never run out of. Or at the very least the d6 version of flourish (from Swords Bard 14) for 40-45.

We weren't talking about encounter AC, we were talking about running around AC so the second portion is not only moot but not exactly what I'd call easy to achieve either...

How is a Bard/Paladin multiclass attuning to a Staff of Power?

On the encounter bonuses though:

Your encounter based version indicates that it's no more than a 3 level dip in Paladin, so 9th level spells is basically the build capstone and is being used for covering half a days encounters. Potent, but since you're not getting it until level 19/20 it should be, it's also not particularly relevant since it's only available at those levels.

Is Shield being taken as a Magical Secret here or is there a dip here somewhere? Either way it takes slots and a reaction, this build doesn't appear to have any form of slot regen so not exactly something you can rely on evrey encounter all day.

Shield of Faith, nice spell providing you maintain concentration and end up going before the bad guys (I'm going to assume this is a Str build, so unlikely).

Jacking AC up is certainly possible, but it's a heavy investment in terms of build (MCing), gold and attunement (in a magic mart game), resources and action economy. Even then it's only really online in your example given at tier 3/4, I wouldn't call that easy.

[Skylivedk]

What are other people's experiences with high magic 5e? I was going to incorporate some rules to keep mainly the ACs from going thru the stratosphere by stacking multiple +5s (similar to 3e AC types). I also want to be able to give out more stat tomes without jacking everyone into the mid 20s.


Magical AC bonuses - only one bonus at a time (not counting effects that change the AC calculation, e.g. mage armor, or effects classified as tactical, e.g. shield spell): armor magical bonus, shield magical bonus, bracers of defense, cloak/ring of protection, ioun stone, staff of power, haste, shield of faith, warding bond, wild surge spectral shield, etc.
Magical Saving Throw bonuses - only one static bonus (e.g. cloak of protection, luck blade, ring of protection, stone of good luck, warding bond, etc.), plus one Aura of Protection, and one variable effect (e.g. bless or resistance)
Stat Tomes - most will not increase a stat beyond 20
Tactics AC bonuses - only one at a time: Battle Master Evasive Footwork (while moving), cover, Combat Inspiration (on reaction), defender sword (after reduced attack until next turn), Defensive Duelist (on reaction), Multiattack Defense (after hit by creature until end of that turn), shield spell (reaction until next turn)


Has anyone else modified the Barbarian capstone since Belts of Giant Strength step all over it?

So as an example, a Sorc 14/Pal 6 with a 20 dex and 20 cha wearing a robe of the archmage with a +5 ring of protection and a shield would have AC 27 and +10 to base saves. AC would go to 32 with the shield spell (pretty much top of the line).


We weren't talking about encounter AC, we were talking about running around AC so the second portion is not only moot but not exactly what I'd call easy to achieve either...

How is a Bard/Paladin multiclass attuning to a Staff of Power?

On the encounter bonuses though:

Your encounter based version indicates that it's no more than a 3 level dip in Paladin, so 9th level spells is basically the build capstone and is being used for covering half a days encounters. Potent, but since you're not getting it until level 19/20 it should be, it's also not particularly relevant since it's only available at those levels.

Is Shield being taken as a Magical Secret here or is there a dip here somewhere? Either way it takes slots and a reaction, this build doesn't appear to have any form of slot regen so not exactly something you can rely on evrey encounter all day.

Shield of Faith, nice spell providing you maintain concentration and end up going before the bad guys (I'm going to assume this is a Str build, so unlikely).

Jacking AC up is certainly possible, but it's a heavy investment in terms of build (MCing), gold and attunement (in a magic mart game), resources and action economy. Even then it's only really online in your example given at tier 3/4, I wouldn't call that easy.

{Scrubbed}
1 Sorc
17 Bard
2 Pala -> problem solved, Staff of Power and Shield, go (and a bunch of other things).

Or drop the Staff of Power and the 30 AC is still cleared, kudos.

And yeah... it isn't exactly hard to spam Shield at later levels. You won't need it all the time anyways and with a likely concentration save of +8 (if warcaster) or +14 with Res:Con (before items, which would add another +2) you'd be fine most of the time. Most monsters scale with many attacks, not big ones.


@OP: I really, really recommend that you don't gimp class abilities to allow flat item bonuses. That seems to be all kinds of wrong prioritisation of agency. IMX, it's a ton more fun to get crazy bonuses through using a bunch of abilities in conjunction than from an item.

[Dork_Forge]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

1 Sorc
17 Bard
2 Pala -> problem solved, Staff of Power and Shield, go (and a bunch of other things).

Or drop the Staff of Power and the 30 AC is still cleared, kudos.

And yeah... it isn't exactly hard to spam Shield at later levels. You won't need it all the time anyways and with a likely concentration save of +8 (if warcaster) or +14 with Res:Con (before items, which would add another +2) you'd be fine most of the time. Most monsters scale with many attacks, not big ones.


@OP: I really, really recommend that you don't gimp class abilities to allow flat item bonuses. That seems to be all kinds of wrong prioritisation of agency. IMX, it's a ton more fun to get crazy bonuses through using a bunch of abilities in conjunction than from an item.

Sorry how am I moving the goal posts here? If you just assume level 20 then tbh it's pretty useless and arguing that goal posts were moved on that basis is white room silliness. Ludic used the term "running around with" which implies an ongoing AC and then said not only was passing 30 easy if optimised it would go 40-50. When I asked how it turns out the 40-50 range was encounter based using resources, action economy and limited time effects. No goal posts were moved and seeing as it's a level 20 view it's hardly a point at which you'd be thinking about magic item restrictions (regarding the thread as a whole). Whilst fun to think about and play around with, talking about level 20 in regards to these kinds of things is hardly actually useful at any point and seeing as it was specifically AC in question, not even a particular achievement when saving throws are more likely to be the real issue.

I don't beleive at any point I said achieving x AC wasn't possible at all either, no goalposts were moved and the context of the conversation should really carry into examples like this.


I guess no one plays the game this way. I'm not talking about magic item shops. Just a higher level of treasure drops in adventures with the traditional pluses going up to +5 (1e, basic, 2e, 3e). It doesn't really seem like D&D if I don't let the players have any plus items.

Back in the AD&D days a ring of protection didn't stack with magic armor bonus (you could call it deflection in 3e). It was hard to get to -10 AC (the equivalent of 30 AC) without a magical shield.

If the party has cloaks of protection +1, +2, +3, and rings of protection +2, and +4 it is impossible to stop someone from potentially having a +9 AC from 3 items in addition to their armor and shield.

The nice thing about limiting stacking is you can easily know how much magical AC the party can have. It doesn't depend on how many of the items they stack on one person.

So with a standing AC of 27 burstable to 32 it is much easier to design your encounter balance around.
With the maximum character melee attack bonus being 6 prof + 5 weapon + 9 belt = 20.
Missile 6 prof + 5 weapon + 5 dex + 2 archery = 18
Spell 6 prof + 5 wand + 5 stat = 16

This isn't how 5e works though it sounds mostly like you're bringing past edition bias into it, armor bonuses don't go past +3 and ring/cloack of protection don't come in different bonuses, just +1s. You can also only benefit from one of any given item so you couldn't just wear multiple rings of protection anyway.

If this is about dropping loot then just don't drop a lot of flat bonus items, completely remove +3 gear from consideration. You're in control, item stacking doesn't require homebrew rules confusing the base ruleset, just be mindful of what you give your players if you're worried about it.

[LudicSavant]

We weren't talking about encounter AC, we were talking about running around AC so the second portion is not only moot but not exactly what I'd call easy to achieve either...

That is effectively the running AC; that will not run out over 6+ encounters a day. It will likely barely even get dented.

{Scrubbed} I said 30 was easy, and that I would be pushing 40 if I was optimizing.


How is a Bard/Paladin multiclass attuning to a Staff of Power?

1-level Hexblade dip like bloody everything has when optimizing these days. So it would end up with Hex 1 / Pal 2 / Bard 17.


Either way it takes slots and a reaction, this build doesn't appear to have any form of slot regen so not exactly something you can rely on evrey encounter all day.

Actually, it is something I can rely on in every encounter a day. The build uses up Shield slots at an extremely slow rate because it only needs them when it would otherwise get hit, which was a rare occurrence even when I was throwing it against ancient dragons (or similar) several times a day without a silly chunk of magic gear.

[Grey Watcher]

Yeah, I know how 5e works. I loved 1e, but 5e won me over.

I'm probably going to have weapons go up to +5, but armor and shields only go up to +1. That fixes the stacking issues.

I'm kind of confused as to why, if you're concerned about magic items breaking bounded accuracy, you're homebrewing items that give a BIGGER bonus than anything RAW? Even artifacts like the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords cap out at +3, with the rest of their Phenomenal Cosmic Power coming from other effects. I don't have a problem with +5 weapons per se, but it seems very much at odds with the goals you outlined in the original post. :smallconfused:

[LudicSavant]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}Sorry how am I moving the goal posts here?

{Scrubbed}

[Dork_Forge]

That is effectively the running AC; that will not run out over 6+ encounters a day. It will likely barely even get dented.



I'm sorry but I don't consider those the same thing, running around AC is what your AC is walking down a forest path with zero prep and that is what I thought we were talking about. Encounter AC is a different beast if you devote your resources and economy to it.



Also, please don't shift goalposts. I said 30 was easy, and that I would be pushing 40 if I was optimizing.

Again, we were clearly talking about different things, 30 isn't conservative when talking about actual running around AC, it's at the high end and requires a steep amount of investment from the player. Then again I didn't think we were talking about this at level 20 since, besides being rarely played outside of one shots, it's not a useful benchmark for considering how to handle loot.



1-level Hexblade dip like bloody everything has when optimizing these days. So it would end up with Hex 1 / Pal 2 / Bard 17.

There was no mention of this in your post, you just referred to it as a Swords Bardadin, if you don't explicitly say it, there's zero reason why anyone should assume it. Including Hexblade improves some things (like burning through low level slots) but would make leveling up a royal pain, though I guess this isn't a build conversation and things like that aren't often considered in this kind of thing *shrug*



Actually, it is something I can rely on in every encounter a day. The build uses up Shield slots at an extremely slow rate because it only needs them when it would otherwise get hit, which was a rare occurrence even when I was throwing it against ancient dragons (or similar) several times a day without a silly chunk of magic gear.

What? An ancient dragon has a to hit of +17, so if you didn't have this kind of high end AC boosting gear, how on Earth was being hit a rarity? You never got attacked before you had buffs up?

How are you relying on flourish every turn of every combat when defaulting to a d6 is a 14th level ability single classed?

Please correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds like level 20 play, if that's the case then I can't see particularly the relevance out of white room scenarios. If out of context I had said "you can't reach AC x" then okay white room away to prove me wrong, but I didn't... I said running around with AC30+ isn't easy, because it isn't, but when you compare things to level 20 then statements become either hyperbolic or meaningless for the other 19 levels of play.

Edit: I've just seen your new post. Okay then, lets break this down.


Original goalpost:
- No level requirement
- 30 easy, push 40 when optimizing

You're entirely correct there was no level requirement... this wasn't some kind of build challenge we are talking in the context of the thread. Assuming level 20 is nothing but fulfilling your own point without being actually useful.


Your new goalpost:
- 40-50 when optimized
- 40-50 easy

Your builds encounter as optimised AC has 40 as the floor, maybe don't be so literal in your reading and see where that reasonably came from.


- unknown level cap

Use common sense, I never said something was impossible, I said it wouldn't be easy. If a level 20 build with 3 classes to achieve something is easy to you, then we clearly have different definitions.


- must be all 100% truly passive AC, not just effective sustainable, practical AC as it matters outside a white room

I very clearly said running around AC, you took this a different way then I meant it and I don't see that ^ as a real interpretation of it either. If you're ambushed, it isn't your AC. If you don't go before the enemy, it isn't your AC. Assuming you're always prepared for an encounter or even get your defenses up first is more of a white room approach.

You don't run around with Shield of Faith up, casting Shield and hitting party members or random animals so you can flourish.


- simply having enough resources to be that hard to hit for 6+ encounters a day doesn't count, even though that's all you'll ever need outside a white room

I fail to see how you've proven that you would have enough resources for all of those encounters since you've done nothing to prove it. At level 20 sure you can rely on a Flourish every turn, assuming that you hit every turn, but you didn't account for it reducing your average AC bump from 6.5 to 3.5 either. You're getting 1 slot back a rest Warlock, which you will definitely be burning on Shield of Faith apparently. I don't think it's actually far fetched to think you'd run out of first level slots, hell maybe even 2nd level slots.

You won't just be burning those slots on Shield I assume, you would want Absorb Elements for other sources of damage right? What about when you want to Counter Spell a caster? Or if you happen to take an AoO when during the round where you're hit?


- no using cheap reactions
I'm guessing this stems from the whole running around thing, but please show me where I actually said that. You do assume you'll just have your reaction available though.


- no using cheap bonus action buffs

Again I didn't say that, I assume it's the running around thing.


I have thoroughly exceeded the original goalpost, and I wasn't even particularly trying, I was just pulling out a character sheet I already had and stapling on some of the first magic gear that came to mind.

A character which, I might add, has been tried and true in all tiers, and has been shown to be able to keep that sort of thing or better going for 6+ encounters a day (except without the magic items stapled on).

I don't know you, your characters or the games you play in. If you don't say something how is anyone supposed to know? You didn't even mention Warlock the first time you spoke about this build, but it seems pretty intrinsic to it's function. You presumably went from 1 to 20 using this, but not only did you not mention that, you exclusively talked about the final level 20 product.

You and Skylivedk are talking about moving goal posts, you're the ones that assumed what they were and where they are. You talk like I gave a bullet-pointed list of requirements and then after the fact added onto them. It is not an accusation I am fond of, I also saw your post before you edited it, judging by the change I'm guessing that you got some degree of angry or something else regarding this and then reconsidered, thank you.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The magic items in the DMG or any 5e book are absolutely not a catalog for players to peruse. Absolutely no given item is guaranteed to exist in a given game, and magic items in their entirety are a 100% optional rule.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything has actual rules on buying (p126) and creating (p128) magic items.

To buy any magic items, you need to hire a broker to find a seller, which takes at least 100 gp and one week of waiting. Even then, you get a random list of a few items that are available for purchase, there's no guarantee that a specific item is available unless you get a very high check (which often requires a much higher expense and/or waiting period for the broker).

On top of that, there's no in-character knowledge of specific items to even ask for, without further expense and time in researching what specific items are known to exist in the game world. Anything else is metagame knowledge, and no DM should allow PCs to buy items using metagame knowledge.

Finally, there's also a chance that the item you went to all that trouble to obtain is a phony, or gets hijacked in transit, or it's cursed, or you bought stolen goods that the legitimate owner is expecting returned, or it's going to cost your character their soul to obtain it instead of gold, or any number of other complications.

Crafting your own items is just as difficult and unreliable, if not more so. Maybe a basic Cloak of Protection can only be made from a cloak woven by a virgin at midnight, then worn by her father when he's turned to stone by a basilisk and then restored back to flesh. The required processes for creating magic items are back to the 2e AD&D days, when you actually gained experience for creating magic items because it was such a difficult process.

Gone are the days of the Christmas-Tree-Character of 3.x, and even in a high-magic setting you don't necessarily need to house rule how their effects are applied, unless you're trying to fix what you broke by house ruling what items are available.

[LudicSavant]

What? An ancient dragon has a to hit of +17, so if you didn't have this kind of high end AC boosting gear, how on Earth was being hit a rarity? You never got attacked before you had buffs up?

An enemy with a +17 to hit has a 9% chance to hit an AC 32 with Disadvantage (and it's not uncommon for them to be walking around with more). This chance will drop well below 1% as soon as they get their first action (even if you just use Master's Flourish, not an actual Inspiration die, which you'll have 15 of over the course of an adventuring day and can start spending if something actually has a chance to hit you somehow). Shield only needs to get used when they get hit.

This build uses up Shields very slowly in practice, and has an awful lot of spell slots.


Shield of Faith, nice spell providing you maintain concentration and end up going before the bad guys (I'm going to assume this is a Str build, so unlikely).

You are assuming that it has a bad Init just because it's a Str build, rather than assuming that it would have a good init because it's an optimized high level Bard with Jack of all Trades, Advantage to Dex checks, ASI space for the likes of Alert or Lucky, Expertise in stealth, and abundant tools for helping themselves and allies get Surprise.

That said, even if they do not win initiative, their chance to be hit on round 1 isn't exactly high.


There was no mention of this in your post, you just referred to it as a Swords Bardadin, if you don't explicitly say it, there's zero reason why anyone should assume it.

You're right, I forgot to mention it. My bad. You can check that this is in fact the Swords (Hex)Bardadin I've recommended to people in past posts though.

Which, incidentally, was already going well beyond the goalpost (I didn't need to use an existing, organically leveled character, but did anyways.


Including Hexblade improves some things (like burning through low level slots) but would make leveling up a royal pain No, it made leveling up smoother because it allowed me to go full Cha-SAD. It seems like you're reaching to try and apply the "white room" label to a tried and tested, organically leveled character (that just happens to have had magic items stapled on).


Edit Responding to your edit.

Use common sense, I never said something was impossible, I said it wouldn't be easy. If a level 20 build with 3 classes to achieve something is easy to you, then we clearly have different definitions.

The goalpost was that 30 AC was easy, pushing 40 AC was optimizing.

You could delevel it and take many of its tools away and still hit >30 AC. The goalpost has been thoroughly exceeded.

[Nifft]

I think a simpler way to go would be to just eliminate +X bonuses on all items. So the Vorpal Sword no longer gives a bonus to attack and damage generally, it just does the decapitation shtick on a natural 20. And basic +2 swords and shields and stuff don't exist, period. That way you can throw all the magic doodads you want at the party without having to keep track of which bonuses do or don't stack.

I did this, and it worked great.

Weapons were magical because they did extra damage or combat effects, or they had wand-like spell charges for spell-ish effects, or they were just oddly magical (floated in water, glowed under certain conditions, never got dirty) -- and all of these would penetrate mundane weapon resistance, of course.

One major addition was to introduce some 4e mechanics, like a magma sword which could (at the player's option) inflict fire damage instead of slashing. It was neat for the martial characters to be able to target vulnerabilities like a wizard -- but bounded accuracy wasn't broken, and I stuck to the more-resisted damage types (fire & cold) so it didn't become a problem.

[Skylivedk]

@Dork_Forge

1) The run-around AC of 30 was achieved. Also without warlock. You gave absolutely no credit (not to your credit) despite that build immediately being higher AC than what you said would be hard to achieve.

2) the 32 AC do not require lvl 20

3) 40+ was also met with only easily replenishable or cheap resources / long buffs

4) the prior example that set this off was an Ancient Dragon. One of the highest CRs in the game. It strikes me as being fairly natural to have a high-level build when you talk Ancient Dragons as the baseline monster

5) You don't need lvl 20 for the 40-51 to hit either. At level 17 you have the infinite flourish (if you hit...). Even without flourish you are at 39 AC with Ludic's build. This also without Haste and a bunch of other spells.

Level requirement is now down to 4 I think, good enough?

If we go up to mighty level 8, we're at flourish for 4,5 avg ac, coming back on short rests (so probably 4 times). Obviously, a level 8 character hitting +40 AC is not Ludic easily reaching 40 AC :confused:

- oh yeah, Greater Invisibility can provide the advantage/disadvantage pretty effectively at level 8.

I find it odd (and borderline rude) that you don't just say "Cool, thank you for providing the build, I hadn't thought of that. I guess attunement slots aren't the Guardians of the Bounded Accuracy Galaxy" - or whatever you say when people provide you something you request, thought not to be easy and do it free of charge

6) What kind of evidence would you need to change your mind?

[Dork_Forge]

Good lord, I'm going to bang my head against this wall one last time because clearly you're not getting it.


@Dork_Forge

1) The run-around AC of 30 was achieved. Also without warlock. You gave absolutely no credit (not to your credit) despite that build immediately being higher AC than what you said would be hard to achieve.


You seem to be under the assumption any credit is due. Ludic made claims, the fact that he subsequently provided something to support them should be expected if his claims are to have any value, not celebrated. I didn't go out of my way to make this happen and by his own admission he didn't make something up for this he just used an existing character.


2) the 32 AC do not require lvl 20

No, it required a racial choice, a class feature and FIVE magic items (3 of them very rare to boot). You seem to be mixing up possible and easy. What about achieving this seems easy to you outside of just writing the features and items down in an internet forum?


3) 40+ was also met with only easily replenishable or cheap resources / long buffs

I explicitly said run around AC, he replied saying he could achieve 40 with Optimising. He clearly meant encounter AC and however much you argue that you can do it every encounter or the length of buffs, they are not the same thing.


4) the prior example that set this off was an Ancient Dragon. One of the highest CRs in the game. It strikes me as being fairly natural to have a high-level build when you talk Ancient Dragons as the baseline monster

No, this is just wrong. Go to the first page and Ctrl + F the word dragon. It has no relation to the conversation between me and Ludic until after his build where he says he fought multiple ancients a day. He actually made the 'optimising 40' claim in the post immediately before the first instance of the word dragon.


5) You don't need lvl 20 for the 40-51 to hit either. At level 17 you have the infinite flourish (if you hit...). Even without flourish you are at 39 AC with Ludic's build. This also without Haste and a bunch of other spells.

Really? Then show how please because the first part of his build (the actual run around number) is 32AC, everything beyond that is spells and flourishes



Level requirement is now down to 4 I think, good enough?

What are you even talking about here? Besides the previous 39 being wrong, you're nothing but magic items. Strip that away and you're barely better than anyone else going sword and board in plate.


If we go up to mighty level 8, we're at flourish for 4,5 avg ac, coming back on short rests (so probably 4 times). Obviously, a level 8 character hitting +40 AC is not Ludic easily reaching 40 AC :confused:

Flourishes, okay, so an ability that is a limited resource that you need to actually hit with to put into action. Let's say you do hit and manage to flourish, that's great! So what about when you hit the next encounter before your short rest? Ludic referred to this in the frame of 6+ encounters per day, I assume two per short rest. So you have 4 maybe 5 Flourishes to get you through two combats assuming you didn't inspire anyone inbetween. That's not even accounting for the unreliability of it being a die based AC bump.


- oh yeah, Greater Invisibility can provide the advantage/disadvantage pretty effectively at level 8.

For a straight Bard sure, please show me how you're getting Greater Invis at level 8 when your split is Hex 1/Paladin 2/Bard 5? At this point you don't even have Extra Attack to attempt to get your flourishes off every turn and you got your first ASI at level 7.

You're just not even talking about that build anymore and making it seem like I'm being unreasonable at the same time.


6) What kind of evidence would you need to change your mind?
Show me the EASY part. Tell me how achieving those items at the levels you're now claiming it's possible is EASY even in a magic mart game where you can just choose to buy them.

I've pointed out the misunderstandings that have lead down this rabbit hole more than once now. You both ignored the 'easy' and seemed to have taken it instead as 'possible' and keep defending the 40 number despite it mistakenly being given as 'optimising to achieve a 40AC running around.' These misunderstandings are the issue.


I find it odd (and borderline rude) that you don't just say "Cool, thank you for providing the build, I hadn't thought of that. I guess attunement slots aren't the Guardians of the Bounded Accuracy Galaxy" - or whatever you say when people provide you something you request, thought not to be easy and do it free of charge

I didn't walk up to him and ask him to provide me with a build satisfying a list of requirements, he made claims without any hint of support in a public forum. I asked him to provide support for them. You seem to think he did me a service by actually backing up what he said instead of just posting meaningless words on the internet for people to assume and guess how he achieved it. If he didn't want to do this with his free time, he wouldn't. If he didn't want to back up what he said (and frankly should have been included when he made the claims), he didn't have to. To suggest that I need to thank him for anything involved here is odd to me because I'm not seeing it outside of backing up a claim he chose to make without any evidence to begin with. The free of charge aspect is also rather ludicrous, we're on a public internet forum, the default and expectation is the contribution of the users free of charge because they are doing something that interests them and that they presumably enjoy.

You on the other hand have been rather hostile yourself in pursuing this, depsite that fact that it didn't actually involve you and to be honest a lot of what you just typed was either incorrect or something else entirely. I won't be replying to you again in this thread if your overall tone remains this hostile towards me, this is not a threat, I just don't find being spoken to like this an enjoyable pastime.




An enemy with a +17 to hit has a 9% chance to hit an AC 32 with Disadvantage (and it's not uncommon for them to be walking around with more). This chance will drop well below 1% as soon as they get their first action (even if you just use Master's Flourish, not an actual Inspiration die, which you'll have 15 of over the course of an adventuring day and can start spending if something actually has a chance to hit you somehow). Shield only needs to get used when they get hit.

Foresight lasts half the adventuring day and only needs a single source of advantage on the side of the (in this instance) dragon to negate it. I'm not sure you should be relying on something that works half the time at best for to hit chances overall (nevermind the risks of Antimagic Fields and simple Dispel Magic at the level it's actually available to you as an option).


This build uses up Shields very slowly in practice, and has an awful lot of spell slots.

Is this with the assumption of disadvantage to be hit? You should also consider that Shield runs on spell slots, which there can be competition for. You're fighting multiple dragons in a single day? That's a lot of reactions and slots burned on Absorb Elements...


You are assuming that it has a bad Init just because it's a Str build, rather than assuming that it would have a good init because it's an optimized high level Bard with Jack of all Trades, Advantage to Dex checks, ASI space for the likes of Alert or Lucky, Expertise in stealth, and abundant tools for helping themselves and allies get Surprise.

I did assume it was Strength based, because you didn't originally include the Hexblade part. I'm not disputing the initiative now that I know it's mostly SAD and only a little MAD.


That said, even if they do not win initiative, their chance to be hit on round 1 isn't exactly high.

I'm not sure if that was said under the assumption of Foresight, so I won't comment on it.


You're right, I forgot to mention it. My bad. You can check that this is in fact the Swords (Hex)Bardadin I've recommended to people in past posts though.
I have no reason to doubt you about this, I tried to find it out of curiosity though and didn't see it on the first page of your builds thread.


No, it made leveling up smoother because it allowed me to go full Cha-SAD. It seems like you're reaching to try and apply the "white room" label to a tried and tested, organically leveled character (that just happens to have had magic items stapled on).

I assure you that I'm not reaching to apply anything:

But it seems that we have differing opinions on what "smoother" means because the build pushes Extra Attack back to 9th level, the first ASI to 7th level and significantly hampers Bard spell progression. That doesn't seem like a smooth tier 1 and 2, it looks like being behind single classes and dip builds in every way by a non trivial margin. SAD is great and all, but you're still locked into a 13 Str you're not using and unless you rolled really well you're dealing with point buy stats at best with a race that doesn't even give you a +2 to your primary stat.

If you played this 1-20 and that awkward tier 1/2 phase went smoothly for you then I'm glad, but I'm not really seeing how, based on the above. Your AC will be nice sure, but it'd be the exact same if you went straight Paladin and the boosts you get (Shield and Flourishes) either aren't available immediately or aren't available in significant quantities until tier 2 (assuming that you only use those resources for those defenses). Then there's the awkward level 1 (and I assume probably 2) of playing a normal weapon user on a stat chasis built for Cha...


The goalpost was that 30 AC was easy, pushing 40 AC was optimizing.

And you clearly misunderstood what you were offering, the 40 isn't runaround AC, which is what you (clearly accidently) said you'd achieve with optimising.


You could delevel it and take many of its tools away and still hit >30 AC. The goalpost has been thoroughly exceeded

Okay, now please tell me the easy part about achieving that >30AC running around because I didn't, at any point, say that it wasn't possible. I said it wasn't easy. You've certainly shown me that it's possible, something I already knew and could do a few ways (none of which I'd consider easily achievable). The crux of the AC above the norm is the magic items, take a look at the level of items you used and their associated cost brackets in the DMG (since we're talking about magic mart style gameplay) and please tell me what is easy about that. Even when you achieve it you have essentially built yourself around AC, investing class features, dedicated resources that have other uses and spent a non trivial fortune. Nothing about that seems easy to me. Maybe you misunderstood and instead thought I meant it woudn't be easy to think of how to achieve it, if that is the case I hope I have clarified that is not what I meant.

There is clearly multiple misunderstandings that have gotten us to this point.

[Skylivedk]

TLDR: a lot of lacking definitions and implicit assumptions have led to a lot misunderstandings and not-nice exchanges. I hope this clears it up. For most practical purposes, I think LudicSavant has thoroughly showed that Bounded Accuracy is NOT protected by attunment slots and that you can shatter Bounded Accuracy AC without making huge/any significant sacrifices. That also shows that if you add more bonuses, you need to redesign monsters, if you want them to hit more than once in a blue moon.

Since there seems to be a string of assumptions run that has muddied the waters to a degree where the intended message is quite far from what is received by the other party, I'll try to make my assumptions and the perceived assumptions from Dark_Forge explicit.

As part of that, I'm apologising for letting my built-up annoyances (from other posts) and tiredness (from work and it being past my screen time) affect the tone of my side of my conversation. Perceived injustice definitely coloured both language and judgement. I'm paying penance by trying again, this time thoroughly.


Good lord, I'm going to bang my head against this wall one last time because clearly you're not getting it.
I assume you also felt frustrated writing this. I certainly felt frustrated reading the thread before writing, and doubly so because my impression was that my favourite poster on gitp.com was again facing a stream of, IMO, demands that were doled out using metrics that only applied to Ludic and no one else (including the person making the demands).

Again refers to this having been done in other threads (not necessarily by you, Dork_Forge).



You seem to be under the assumption any credit is due. Ludic made claims, the fact that he subsequently provided something to support them should be expected if his claims are to have any value, not celebrated. I didn't go out of my way to make this happen and by his own admission he didn't make something up for this he just used an existing character.


No, it required a racial choice, a class feature and FIVE magic items (3 of them very rare to boot). You seem to be mixing up possible and easy. What about achieving this seems easy to you outside of just writing the features and items down in an internet forum?

Assumption 1: easy was out-of-game in the character process; in the context of using magic items with attunement the mechanic to save bonded accuracy
Perceived assumption 1: easy in game in terms of how to get the resources necessary items.

I think the crucial difference in the understanding of the word easy is a huge part of the derailing of the thread and the miscommunication which grows steadily more vicious

Assumption 2: you, Dork_Forge, didn't find making a +30 AC character easy. It is based on this part "But running around with 30+ AC isn't easy even with magic marts"

Assumption 3: when you ask for something and you get it, you give thanks. I do it even with my full-time employees, also for the stuff they are bound to give me by law (ie. tax information, criminal record). Across the 6 countries and close to 50 countries, I've visited, that's the norm. You might be from a different culture of course or put a different weight on giving credit/thanks. This lack of gratitude was what I perceived to be rude (and in general, as a sidebar -
there's substantial benefits to being grateful! (https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier)).



I explicitly said run around AC, he replied saying he could achieve 40 with Optimising. He clearly meant encounter AC and however much you argue that you can do it every encounter or the length of buffs, they are not the same thing.
Assumption 4: running around with AC means the AC you'll have when you need it without it being a cost of notice.
Assumption 4: running around AC means passive AC; no actions taken
You address this yourself, so I think we are fully on the same page here, now



No, this is just wrong. Go to the first page and Ctrl + F the word dragon. It has no relation to the conversation between me and Ludic until after his build where he says he fought multiple ancients a day. He actually made the 'optimising 40' claim in the post immediately before the first instance of the word dragon.
Thanks, you are right. I remembered it starting with Korvin's +13 to hit. I was wrong. Also ancient dragons start at +14, so I was taking two sneak peeks at my life in senility rather than one. I am not sure of the CR range of +13 to hit (can't sort by to hit in the 4 sources I checked), so maybe that brings the CR way down below 17 (Balor is 19, Purple Worm is 15). I wouldn't expect it though.



Really? Then show how please because the first part of his build (the actual run around number) is 32AC, everything beyond that is spells and flourishes
I am a bit puzzled why you stick to the term run around AC. You conclude yourself later in the post that it is part of the misunderstanding. Explicitly using an undefined term doesn't translate to sent message = received message (as is fairly obvious in this thread).

AFAIK, there's no official term for it. I personally prefer passive AC (or the even more explicit passive and unbuffed AC), since it is fairly clearly passive means no actions taken. When I read run-around, I don't read passive. I read what you'd normally run-around with in combat/encounters. Ie. describing my Hexblade at tier 2, I'd say he'd run around with advantage on his attacks and disadvantage on opponent's attack barring special senses (normally, I'd exclude the later part since I'd assume that people would be aware of Darkness and Devil's Sight / Shadows of Moil).

It is worth noting that Ludic pretty clearly seems to have been of the same understanding as me. I don't understand why flourishes and low-level spells/standard spell load-out would be excluded in an example of how the attunement mechanic is not enough to save bounded accuracy.



What are you even talking about here? Besides the previous 39 being wrong, you're nothing but magic items. Strip that away and you're barely better than anyone else going sword and board in plate.

I am not sure what you refer to as being wrong. You mean it is wrong that 39 AC has been met, that the character doesn't reach 39 AC? Or you mean it is wrong that the character doesn't have 39 AC when doing nothing? I am honestly confused.

With the thread being about magic items and bounded accuracy, having most of the bounded accuracy breaking components be magic items strike me as a feature not a bug. Showing how you can combine that with cheap/almost always on resources to further break the Bounded Accuracy framework also strikes me as a feature, not a bug. YMMV



Flourishes, okay, so an ability that is a limited resource that you need to actually hit with to put into action. Let's say you do hit and manage to flourish, that's great! So what about when you hit the next encounter before your short rest? Ludic referred to this in the frame of 6+ encounters per day, I assume two per short rest. So you have 4 maybe 5 Flourishes to get you through two combats assuming you didn't inspire anyone inbetween. That's not even accounting for the unreliability of it being a die based AC bump.
I couldn't quickly find a resource that allows me to list monsters by their to hit, but a glance I didn't find anything requiring you to actually roll more than 0, which is a fairly manageable feat.

Tiamat and Tarrasque have a +19 to hit, meaning crit only range (so please DMs don't give this build a +3 adamantine full plate). Without using Shield and Flourish, but with Shield of Faith, the character is running around with 34 AC. Good enough to be in the crit-only range of the weakest Ancient Dragons (which start at +14, not 13 ;) ). Gold Dragons are +17, so a slightly below average roll on your free flourish also keeps you in crit-only range.




For a straight Bard sure, please show me how you're getting Greater Invis at level 8 when your split is Hex 1/Paladin 2/Bard 5? At this point you don't even have Extra Attack to attempt to get your flourishes off every turn and you got your first ASI at level 7.
At level 8, I would get it from my teammate. With 30+ AC and a build that can crit fish (due to Hexblade's curse, and I would assume Elven Accuracy EDIT: not while we strive for AC... Warforged) that seems like a fairly good use of the spell. I can't see nor recall me saying that Greater Invisibility was provided by the Bardadin itself.



You're just not even talking about that build anymore and making it seem like I'm being unreasonable at the same time.

I am and I was - just in a played/leveled context where I assumed team-play. You obviously cannot run Shield of Faith and Greater Invisibility at the same time using only the concentration slots of a level 8 character. I assumed that was obvious (and a less tired me would probably have seen the yellow lamp blinking at this assumption).



Show me the EASY part. Tell me how achieving those items at the levels you're now claiming it's possible is EASY even in a magic mart game where you can just choose to buy them.
I have alluded to EASY being one of the operative words where we've run afoul of each other.

As mentioned, I thought the exercise was to show how magic items broke Bounded Accuracy.

From request posted to answer given, we're talking less than an hour. Besides the items, the character isn't running anything controversial nor does it require a tactical mastermind to achieve the bounded accuracy breaking AC nor is the build weak/unplayable in return for AC. That's the easy part.



I've pointed out the misunderstandings that have lead down this rabbit hole more than once now. You both ignored the 'easy' and seemed to have taken it instead as 'possible' and keep defending the 40 number despite it mistakenly being given as 'optimising to achieve a 40AC running around.' These misunderstandings are the issue.
To be fair, if you take the time to consider our/my point of view, you were the one who seemed stuck in a rabbit hole dug with terms (running around AC and easy) that had a different connotation in my world than yours. I fully respect your right to your understanding of your terms. You didn't define neither term at first, hence the accusations of moving the goal posts.



I didn't walk up to him and ask him to provide me with a build satisfying a list of requirements, he made claims without any hint of support in a public forum. I asked him to provide support for them.
A list of requirements defining your terms would probably have been better. From my point of view, until this longer answer, Ludic seemed to put more effort into providing what you requested than you did in requesting.



You seem to think he did me a service by actually backing up what he said instead of just posting meaningless words on the internet for people to assume and guess how he achieved it. If he didn't want to do this with his free time, he wouldn't. If he didn't want to back up what he said (and frankly should have been included when he made the claims), he didn't have to. To suggest that I need to thank him for anything involved here is odd to me because I'm not seeing it outside of backing up a claim he chose to make without any evidence to begin with.
Well, I do believe Ludic did do you, OP and everybody else a favour by posting an easy to understand baseline for how to break Bounded Accuracy for AC with a lvl 1-20 playable and tested build. I do feel you are being overly harsh by calling the words meaningless. After sleeping, I can understand that harshness; a long discussion where both parties are using a lot of the same words with different meanings is frustrating. If you have, understandably, felt ganged up on, a lot more so. If it is any comfort, I would step up for you as well if I felt you were being treated unjustly (tbh probably less promptly and viciously due to me having enjoyed Ludic's posts a lot).

On Ludic's part, I can also understand why a baseline of optimization and system mastery was presumed when we talk breaking Bounded Accuracy, and based on this quote, I think it is fair to assume that is what was Ludic's exercise:


+13 to hit is pathetic when you're running around with over 30 AC and Disadvantage to be hit.

The point is that if attunement is supposed to be reigning things in for Bounded Accuracy and other such concepts, its absence from such items is conspicuous.

Of the passive AC, race and Staff of Power are the only two "finds", and I'm barely sure either counts (Staff of Power a bit more than warforged probably). Staff of Power can be replaced by Shield of Faith though (in my "run around AC"-understanding) leaving us with an AC 31 that pretty much anyone should be able to come up with if they wanted to spend a few moments to break Bounded Accuracy using magic items and standard rules.



The free of charge aspect is also rather ludicrous, we're on a public internet forum, the default and expectation is the contribution of the users [I]free of charge because they are doing something that interests them and that they presumably enjoy.
You are right on the the free of charge-comment. It was petty.

I was annoyed and felt you were being unjust by using double standards in regards to what others had to provide when posting compared to yourself. I still find it odd that you think it natural for the build to be posted, "run around AC" to be understood while not giving sharper parameters (leading to the feeling of moving goal posts). Also, I do a lot of consultancy work. Outside of this forum, I am used to running around (:smallwink:) getting paid to write reasons, strings of arguments and provide proofs.

That said, we are miles apart in the context of the thanks. As you can see above, I have a very different expectations of when to give thanks than you do apparently. Given the evidence of the benefits of gratefulness, I'm not prone to change that.



You on the other hand have been rather hostile yourself in pursuing this, depsite that fact that it didn't actually involve you and to be honest a lot of what you just typed was either incorrect or something else entirely. I won't be replying to you again in this thread if your overall tone remains this hostile towards me, this is not a threat, I just don't find being spoken to like this an enjoyable pastime.
You are of course free to not answer and I can very much appreciate you pulling out of a toxic spiral. That said: Was the tone in this post more to your liking? I on purpose didn't answer yesterday, because I finally realised that my tiredness was affecting my thinking. I made an effort to understand and present the different sides in the discussion.

also:
Besides the mess-up with dragons, I'm not sure what you refer to as being incorrect or something else entirely. I've tried addressing both where I could.



Foresight lasts half the adventuring day and only needs a single source of advantage on the side of the (in this instance) dragon to negate it. I'm not sure you should be relying on something that works half the time at best for to hit chances overall (nevermind the risks of Antimagic Fields and simple Dispel Magic at the level it's actually available to you as an option).
Unless I'm missing something, you don't need Foresight or advantage to break Bonded Accuracy. That single source of advantage is not free for the dragon. Easiest way to get it as far as I see is burning 2 legendary on Wing Attack and that is not guaranteed to work either.




Is this with the assumption of disadvantage to be hit? You should also consider that Shield runs on spell slots, which there can be competition for. You're fighting multiple dragons in a single day? That's a lot of reactions and slots burned on Absorb Elements...
Since you will most often have your flourish prior to your enemies' turn, you can pretty early on see if your AC is 34 (inc, Shield of Faith) due to the lack of a flourish, somewhere in the 35-40 range (with the free Flourish) and afterwards decide. Ancient Dragons range from +15-+17 as far as I can see, with literally a god and the traditional city- and country-destroying super brute at +19.

I don't think you'll burn that many spell slots, and if necessary both level 1 and 2 spells are pretty much there to be sacked (plus you have SR-slots from every optimiser's dream and every class balance lover's hate dip).



I'm not sure if that was said under the assumption of Foresight, so I won't comment on it.
Going by my enquiry and presuming the gargantuan beast didn't sneak up on you (which I have tried with one particular DM surprisingly often), we can reasonably expect 34 AC (Shield of Faith is 10 minutes) and the enemy hence to only hit on 15+ (T&T), 17+ (Ancient Red and Gold) and +19 (Ancient nub Dragons). Seems fair to me to say odds to be hit aren't high.



I assure you that I'm not reaching to apply anything:

But it seems that we have differing opinions on what "smoother" means because the build pushes Extra Attack back to 9th level, the first ASI to 7th level and significantly hampers Bard spell progression. That doesn't seem like a smooth tier 1 and 2, it looks like being behind single classes and dip builds in every way by a non trivial margin. SAD is great and all, but you're still locked into a 13 Str you're not using and unless you rolled really well you're dealing with point buy stats at best with a race that doesn't even give you a +2 to your primary stat.

If you played this 1-20 and that awkward tier 1/2 phase went smoothly for you then I'm glad, but I'm not really seeing how, based on the above.
Let me give it a crack. I think Ludic will do better, but I think the proof is stronger from someone with less optimisation credentials to their name:

Level 1: Paladin Half-elf (which variant doesn't matter much) [EDIT: FORGOT IT HAD TO BE A WARFORGED.]
15, 13, 14, 9, 8, 17

For a warforged, we have to go
15, 13, 14, 8, 8, 16

Clearly not optimal at level 1, lacking +1/+1. Not terrible though and you are not staying here long.

Level 5:
Pala 1
Bard 3
Hexblade 1

Hexblade is arguably a bigger boost to you once cantrips scale. If you picked a cantrip as your half-elf variant (which I probably wouldn't) and that was a SCAG-trip, then wait with the Hexblade, so you can have your Elven Accuracy first. [EDIT: Elven Accuracy is then replaced with +2 CHA]

Level 6-11:
Based on your experience, choose if you want short rest BI and level 3 spells (Bard 5) or +2/+2 from SAD + Shield + cantrips + Hexblade's curse. I'd say it depends on how caster/martial heavy your party is. You can fill in the gap, and just from your utility and ability to take hits to the face, you are not a waste of space.

By level 9 you have it all, so it is mostly a question of which snack you want first. I don't see you being terribly behind in most instances. I'd probably wait with Paladin 2 until 8, since I think the spells are worth more early on than the smites and you have some fairly OK damage from Hexblade.

From 8, I'd spent most of my slots on upcasting AoA.



Your AC will be nice sure, but it'd be the exact same if you went straight Paladin and the boosts you get (Shield and Flourishes) either aren't available immediately or aren't available in significant quantities until tier 2 (assuming that you only use those resources for those defenses). Then there's the awkward level 1 (and I assume probably 2) of playing a normal weapon user on a stat chasis built for Cha...
Granted level 1 is a bit awkward. I rarely play it (once since the release at 5e have I started at 1 rather than 2).

In the beginning you don't need to use resources on AC all that often either, because creeps hit neither well nor hard. Your role changes a lot from level to level in the beginning so it is a lot about picking to suit your party.

I honestly do not find this build so awkward: bog standard even for a multiclass aimed at higher levels. Due to the great design of the Hexblade, you are on-par/above most martials when you need to introduce



And you clearly misunderstood what you were offering, the 40 isn't runaround AC, which is what you (clearly accidently) said you'd achieve with optimising.
My clear recommendation is that you define your terms better. Of course a low n, but it was clearly not a term understood intuitively. You can insist on it being an intuitive term, but you have evidence to the contrary.



Okay, now please tell me the easy part about achieving that >30AC running around because I didn't, at any point, say that it wasn't possible. I said it wasn't easy. You've certainly shown me that it's possible, something I already knew and could do a few ways (none of which I'd consider easily achievable). The crux of the AC above the norm is the magic items, take a look at the level of items you used and their associated cost brackets in the DMG (since we're talking about magic mart style gameplay) and please tell me what is easy about that. Even when you achieve it you have essentially built yourself around AC, investing class features, dedicated resources that have other uses and spent a non trivial fortune. Nothing about that seems easy to me. Maybe you misunderstood and instead thought I meant it woudn't be easy to think of how to achieve it, if that is the case I hope I have clarified that is not what I meant.

There is clearly multiple misunderstandings that have gotten us to this point.
A budget wasn't mentioned either, hence an easily achievable fortune is not defined. My understanding was that the entire point of the exercise was to eschew normal budget restrictions and go hiiiiigh powered magic items. OP was mentioning +5 items in a lot of slots.

I honestly think the rest of the build is pretty easy and not overly-AC committed. The fighting style is normal on non-fighting builds, cha gishes love Hexblade and you still have level 9 spells. Missing Magical Secrets for level 9 spells hurt, granted, but for a gish, you can survive easily without.

I have built similar and that was with the AC being an afterthought: I just liked the utility combined with the DPR and spells known as well as spell slots.

I made some edits to fit in Warforged. I'd probably pick half-elf myself instead, but that is because I'm a professional crit-pleasure bringer (translate with synonyms for meaning).

[Deathtongue]

I'll reiterate: in practical terms, you're going to have to worry more about items that take the pressure off of spell slots than static defense boosters. Validity of the AC 40+ build aside, it's very high level due to the rarity of the items and requires a very specific build you can see coming months in advance. But wands can show up as early as T2 and they completely change how spellcasters interact with encounter assumptions.

[LudicSavant]

But wands can show up as early as T2 and they completely change how spellcasters interact with encounter assumptions.

Oh yeah. Wands can get pretty nutty.

Even just Magic Missile Wands let you toss out 6th or 7th level Magic Missiles and they're dirt cheap and don't take attunement.

[Skylivedk]

I'll reiterate: in practical terms, you're going to have to worry more about items that take the pressure off of spell slots than static defense boosters. Validity of the AC 40+ build aside, it's very high level due to the rarity of the items and requires a very specific build you can see coming months in advance. But wands can show up as early as T2 and they completely change how spellcasters interact with encounter assumptions.

Agreed... I've standard nerfed the recharge ability to be a fraction (if any) of the original wands.

[stoutstien]

Aye. The only time I've regretted giving a player a magic item was a staff of the woodlands. Getting a free awaken once a day completely changed the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

But wands can show up as early as T2 and they completely change how spellcasters interact with encounter assumptions. Wands are nice, yes.
Wand of Web is an uncommon magic item. Handy bit of battlefield control, that, but it doesn't last that long and has some limitations.
My warlock really likes hers, so does the Fighter and the Barbarian who get an attack or two with advantage on whomever is in the web. But who really likes it is our rogue. If I web someone the rogue's next bow shot is with advantage which means both a better chance to hit and Sneak Attack triggers.

And if I catch a nice pile of critters, the Wizard's fire ball (OK, overkill) not only has the foes saving with disadvantage (Dex) but he also gets 2d4 extra damage per 5 ft square on whomever is in it.
But then the web is dead. (We did a number on a crowd of beserkers that way ...)

Wand of fireballs: hehe or wand of lightning bolts, that recharges a few charges each day.
Very handy.

[Vogie]

One way I've gotten around it was by implementing a gem-setting system into my games, a kind of hybrid of 3.P and Path of Exile, using Ruby of the War Mage as a reference. All of the +1 items have a single gem socket, +2 items have 2 sockets (and so on).

As a part of adventuring, the PCs will come across magic gemstones that can be set into (or removed from) items by NPC Jewelers. The gems then override the +1 bonus for the bonus of the gem. For example, a Flametongue Shortsword is actually a +1 Shortsword set with a Flametongue gem. The Hammer of Moradin from the infamous Delian Tomb is just a +1 Warhammer set with a Goblinbane gem, making it a Magical d8 weapon that does an additional d6 of damage to goblinoids.

This acts as a combination gold sink, reason for the PCs to return to town(s) and adjust their abilities (even as they reach a self-sustaining level), and helps spread the loot across the party... and keeps the magic item +X bonuses in check.

A recent example is in my Friday Night Game, our -1 Int Barbarian wouldn't usually want an Amulet with +1 Investigation, but when they find a Lesser Moonstone (You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity) that they want, they're excited - they can keep the +1 on their Halberd, AND the party gets the benefit of a barbarian that doesn't sleep.

I also enjoy adding dynamic AC changes in fights - having monsters pick up shields, take cover, cast abjuration spells or giving a Multi-attack defense ability.

[BigRedJedi]

I guess no one plays the game this way. I'm not talking about magic item shops. Just a higher level of treasure drops in adventures with the traditional pluses going up to +5 (1e, basic, 2e, 3e). It doesn't really seem like D&D if I don't let the players have any plus items.

Back in the AD&D days a ring of protection didn't stack with magic armor bonus (you could call it deflection in 3e). It was hard to get to -10 AC (the equivalent of 30 AC) without a magical shield.

If the party has cloaks of protection +1, +2, +3, and rings of protection +2, and +4 it is impossible to stop someone from potentially having a +9 AC from 3 items in addition to their armor and shield.

The nice thing about limiting stacking is you can easily know how much magical AC the party can have. It doesn't depend on how many of the items they stack on one person.

So with a standing AC of 27 burstable to 32 it is much easier to design your encounter balance around.
With the maximum character melee attack bonus being 6 prof + 5 weapon + 9 belt = 20.
Missile 6 prof + 5 weapon + 5 dex + 2 archery = 18
Spell 6 prof + 5 wand + 5 stat = 16

Ioun Stone of Mastery (no one seems to remember this one) gives +1 Proficiency, just stating for completeness.

On topic, as a player, I would much rather have something like a Flametongue than a boring +2 sword. YMMV, but, for me, interesting trumps slightly more effective in all cases.

[iTreeby]

I think you can do two or three easy fixes that don't involve lots of math.

1) Target saves, they are harder to defend against.

2) don't let them rest, magic and hit points will run low eventually, sometimes a literal army, endless waves of demons, inevitables, astral projecting red wizards(with the dream spell), litches, and irritable gods can become antagonists to the party, and there may not be a simple and immediate solution to the problems they can cause. Exhausting the party can eventually mitigate most magical advantages.

3) antimagic fields

4) make good use of the social and explanation tiers, the effects of magic items are less pronounced here and are still fun when beneficial

[BloodSnake'sCha]

You can tell by my proposed rules I was mostly worried about AC stacking with +5 armor, +5 shield, and a +5 ring. If a player has a +20 to hit (or +21 with ioun stone of mastery, good catch BigRedJedi!) with a belt of storm giant strength and a +5 sword they still can get hurt. Having a standing AC of 35 is harder to balance encounters around (the enemy humanoid with the +5 halberd and belt of storm giant strength needs to roll a 15 before the shield spell and basically can't use power attack....).

Since:
1. Rings of protection, cloaks of protection, and other magic items are going to be common.
2. Players want everything to stack.
3. Limiting the pluses on magic items makes sense if they are common (to prevent easy stacking for untouchable AC).
4. +1 armor, +1 shield, +1 ring, +1 cloak, +1 ioun stone ~ non stacking +5 ring of protection

I can throw in my +5 flame tongue longswords for nostalgia.
Instead of following the recommended don't give any pluses on magic items (which is a great idea for limiting things), I'll just keep everything defensive at +1.

So a typical optimized standing AC would be:
1. 18 full plate + 1 + 3 shield + 3 three attuned items = 25 (+ 1 defense = 26)
2. 22 barbarian (@ level 20) + 3 shield + 3 three attuned items = 28
3. 20 robe of archmagi + 3 shield + 4 three attuned items (wtih staff of power) = 27
4. 20 monk + 4 three attuned items = 24

You know that in 5e the maximum bonus is +3 and the ring/cloak/ionstone have a max of +1. Right?
Because thats fix a lot of the problems.

You can also just limit the availability of different items.