is a PC who is hard to target BAD for the party?

[da newt]

So I've always approached PC creation and play from a what would I do if I was really a PC and therefor tend to emphasize survivability and making my PCs tough to hit (mobility, stealth, distance, AC, saves etc) at least as much as offensive capabilities, and tend to play my PC as if their first goal is to survive combat so I use mobility, cover, etc extensively.

I've noticed that many other players approach things differently and put much less emphasis on defense which often means a few party members tend to get targeted MUCH more often than others simply because they make it easy to be attacked.

From a team perspective, is it detrimental for me and other individuals to make our PC's difficult to attack because this effectively focuses the enemy fire on the PC's who are easy to target? If my guy tend to go through combat and only get attacked 25% of the time, but other PCs are getting targeted much more frequently (because team bad guy is gonna attack someone), am I actually doing more harm than good?

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?

[Lunali]

It can be bad depending on the DM and the party's tactics. A better solution than reducing your defense is finding a way to punish people for not attacking you.

[JonBeowulf]

I like this post. I like it a lot.

Generally, I'd say it's not bad for the party. The other characters are being targeted more frequently, but that's actually due to the players' choices (and I won't give my sermon on how I feel about player choices). Perhaps eventually they'll figure out why it's happening and start being more intelligent about it. It might be nice if every once in a while you make yourself a valid target to draw some of the fire, but I wouldn't change your overall style.

Surviving should be the #1 thing on the PCs list. Okay, it can be #2 when the story mandates (they are heroes). Sometimes surviving is best accomplished by the tactics you described and sometimes it's best accomplished by rushing in and applying the 'dead' condition on the enemies.

[loki_ragnarock]

Are you having fun with your defensive style?

Look here, feller. You aren't responsible for bearing the brunt of other people's high risk playstyles. If they want to run into a blender and you're having fun not being blended, it ain't your problem. You aren't responsible for absorbing the hits they take; if they want to be hit less, they need to start doing the things required to get hit less.

So long as you aren't actively tripping a party member to ensure that you get away while the monsters have advantage to hit them, you're golden.

EDIT:
If you *really* feel bad about it, carry potions or learn healing word.

[Catullus64]

The guiding principle on this question should be whether not getting attacked allows you to provide meaningful value to the group.

I once played in a group where the Wizard played things extremely conservative. He would hide way in the back and behind cover, which by itself wouldn't be a problem, except he was also very conservative with his spell slots, and wouldn't cast a leveled spell unless things were really going bad. So he was avoiding his share of the danger, but the only contribution he was making most of the time was... cantrip damage. That was annoying.

By contrast, there was another group where a Bard did the same thing, but only when he was maintaining a high-value concentration spell, or when people were low on HP and we knew we'd likely need an emergency Healing Word. So by avoiding being the target of enemy attacks, he was generally providing a benefit that outweighed the extra damage we were all taking.

This is the sort of balancing consideration I have to make a lot of the time with my Bard/Rogue, who is the squishiest character in the party by a decent margin, but also the most maneuverable and with the most tricks for escape. In a given fight, if I stand the line rather than disengaging/hiding, I could potentially save my allies a few attacks. But by prioritizing staying alive and out of harm's way, I can be on emergency Healing Word duty, re-shape the fight with a cunning illusion, or make a sudden maneuver to attack a vulnerable target in the enemy backline. Those latter services are generally of more value than absorbing damage equal to my scrawny HP pool.

[GeoffWatson]

Yeah, it can be bad.
I've seen parties (in previous editions) where some characters would often be invisible for most combats.
Which meant that the non-invisible character got attacked a lot more.

Sure survivability is good, but if you survive by running away and not contributing much then the other players may be displeased.

[Unoriginal]

So I've always approached PC creation and play from a what would I do if I was really a PC and therefor tend to emphasize survivability and making my PCs tough to hit (mobility, stealth, distance, AC, saves etc) at least as much as offensive capabilities, and tend to play my PC as if their first goal is to survive combat so I use mobility, cover, etc extensively.

I've noticed that many other players approach things differently and put much less emphasis on defense which often means a few party members tend to get targeted MUCH more often than others simply because they make it easy to be attacked.

From a team perspective, is it detrimental for me and other individuals to make our PC's difficult to attack because this effectively focuses the enemy fire on the PC's who are easy to target? If my guy tend to go through combat and only get attacked 25% of the time, but other PCs are getting targeted much more frequently (because team bad guy is gonna attack someone), am I actually doing more harm than good?

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?

Two things to take into account:

1) NPCs do not know your charsheet. They may have an idea of how hard it is to hurt you, but they won't know for sure unless they've witnessed it or were given info by people who witnessed it.

2) It is *not* because you're hard to hit that enemies will stop trying to hit you, so long as you are a danger to them.

Do PCs go "the Demon Prince that's attacking us has AC 22, therefore we shouldn't attack them even though they're trying to eat us alive"?

By the same token, if you're fighting a Sorcerer who only use fire damage spells as attacks, and an NPC that is immune to fire proposes to help, are you going to go "nah, we need someome who can be harmed by our enemy"?

A PC being difficult to harm is a great things for the whole team, so long as you're able to help in the fight still.

[OldTrees1]

Becoming harder to hit decreases the opportunity cost the enemy suffers when they attack your allies. Therefore becoming harder to hit will cause your allies to be attacked more often.

After a certain point, your allies were already their preferred target, and any further increases in your survivability only matter during a TPK.

Common reactions to this effect are to reallocate some of the excess resources you spend on survivability into something more beneficial. You could increase your threat, increase your allies' survivability, or something else.

[Wraith]

It depends a lot on your DM, and whether they are willing to suspend their meta-game knowledge at appropriate times.

I've played in games where one character is significantly harder to hit than the others - AC22 when the next closest is around 17 - and without careful handling by the DM it leads to one of two things.

1) The DM stats encounters that challenge the majority of the party, leaving the AC22 player to feel invulnerable and unchallenged. Sometimes they enjoy this and they get to indulge in a power fantasy' sometimes they get bored or even offended because theres nothing to do more than inconvenience them and are being passively-aggressively pressured to change their character or othewise continue to be bored.

2) The DM stats encounters to challenge the AC22 player, which turns into a meat-grinder for everyone else. They may or may not enjoy this also, depending on the group, but typically in my experience it causes a sour tone when one player is having fun and everyone else is spending most of their time unconscious or having their spells and attacks bounce off.
Even worse is if the DM stats an encounter for the low-AC players and throws in one challenging opponent for the high-AC character, who then doesn't turn up that week, or the party completely misread the situation and end up fighting the 'wrong' enemies.

So long as everyone at the table is aware that this is what is happening and is prepared to lean into it a little, it usually works out - the survivalist character gets their moment to shine, and then everyone else gets their own equivalent moments in the spotlight for other reasons, because everyone understands that "not dying" is that character's Thing and thats what they want to do for fun.

The problem starts when the DM either tries to get the other players to 'catch up' to the tough player by throwing consistently dangerous encounters at them, or tries to 'soften' the high-AC character by giving them weak opponents. When that happens, someone is always having an unpleasant experience and such a situation is something that could have been avoided by a Session 0 to make sure that everyone has the same expectations on the game, and a chance to iscuss their characters so that niches can be recognised and built upon rather than endured.

[OldTrees1]

It depends a lot on your DM, and whether they are willing to suspend their meta-game knowledge at appropriate times.

I've played in games where one character is significantly harder to hit than the others - AC22 when the next closest is around 17 - and without careful handling by the DM it leads to one of two things.

Appending a DM tip note to your post.

DM tip (part of careful handling) when dealing with a fencepost defense* is to have groups of enemies with a variety of types of attacks (some vs AC some vs Saves). Vary the frequency too. Sometimes only 1 enemy will be able to target saves (goblin shaman surrounded by goblin warriors). The PC gets the advantage of the high AC while the enemy is still learning about the PCs' defenses. After the enemy learns, they can prioritize the save based attacks against the high AC. Since you remembered to vary the frequency this means sometimes the high AC low saves PC is only threatened by 1 enemy (rewarding their investment while still engaging them).

*A single high defense instead of generally high defenses is like a 10ft tall fencepost and expecting the enemy to climb over it instead of walking around.

Summary, you can challenge a fencepost defense by targeting the weakpoints, but this is a way to have it happen naturally and still reward the PC for their investment.

If the PC has a variety of defenses (see OP) and defense in depth (see OP), then careful handling is harder.

[Gryndle]

Yeah, it can be bad.
I've seen parties (in previous editions) where some characters would often be invisible for most combats.
Which meant that the non-invisible character got attacked a lot more.

Sure survivability is good, but if you survive by running away and not contributing much then the other players may be displeased.

WHAT HE SAID!

It really comes down to what you contribute. If all your resources and efforts are devoted to your own safety, then what do you have left for the party? It is a group game after all.

I have seen characters that do nothing other than protect themselves and contribute nothing to the group dynamic. To the point I have asked them why they bother playing a group game.

On the other hand, I have seen involved, active players who's characters are in the thick of things just like everyone else, but invest more in defense (AC, saves, mobility, etc) than raw damage output. And I have zero problem with that.

[Unoriginal]

Appending a DM tip note to your post.

DM tip (part of careful handling) when dealing with a fencepost defense* is to have groups of enemies with a variety of types of attacks (some vs AC some vs Saves). Vary the frequency too. Sometimes only 1 enemy will be able to target saves (goblin shaman surrounded by goblin warriors). The PC gets the advantage of the high AC while the enemy is still learning about the PCs' defenses. After the enemy learns, they can prioritize the save based attacks against the high AC. Since you remembered to vary the frequency this means sometimes the high AC low saves PC is only threatened by 1 enemy (rewarding their investment while still engaging them).

*A single high defense instead of generally high defenses is like a 10ft tall fencepost and expecting the enemy to climb over it instead of walking around.

Summary, you can challenge a fencepost defense by targeting the weakpoints, but this is a way to have it happen naturally and still reward the PC for their investment.

If the PC has a variety of defenses (see OP) and defense in depth (see OP), then careful handling is harder.

Another DM tip: most creatures are capable of the Shove, Grapple and Help actions. A group of mooks has a good chance of knocking an high-AC opponent, keeping them to the ground, then attacking them with advantage (or negating any disadvantage to attack).

[Tzun]

Part of the discussion has to include what kind of role you're playing in your group during combat if you have one. Are you the tank? Then obviously this is not a good situation. But if you're the squishy backliner who is contributing major damage, or the one concentrating on a game changing spell, or contributing in some other meaningful way then I don't see any problem with. But that means you are contributing in some other way and not just trying to not get targeted.

[Unoriginal]

Part of the discussion has to include what kind of role you're playing in your group during combat if you have one. Are you the tank? Then obviously this is not a good situation. But if you're the squishy backliner who is contributing major damage, or the one concentrating on a game changing spell, or contributing in some other meaningful way then I don't see any problem with. But that means you are contributing in some other way and not just trying to not get targeted.

A tank being hard to hit is good when they have a way to make themselves priority targets.

The Cavalier and the Ancestral Guardian have that as a subclass feature, for example. But they're far from the only ways to do it.

[JellyPooga]

I once made a Savage Worlds (cyberpunk) character that was nigh impossible to kill. Between the ability to soak hits, resist damage and so forth from innate toughness and augmentations (armoured skin, etc.), nothing short of direct gunfire even had a chance and he could even shrug off most small arms fire. A fellow player, upon witnessing him survive a direct burst from an SMG, declared that by playing that character, I'd effectively killed the party, because the only weapons/enemies that could damage me would absolutely wreck any other PC.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Yes, the GM started including heavier arms, better enemies and such, but I was the wall behind which everyone else could hide. I was reckless, I took on the biggest and the baddest while everyone else engaged the other threats and/or<i> got the actual job done</i>.

It all depends on your role in the party. Of you're the Tank, it's your job to draw fire and be survivable. If you're the Glass Cannon, no-one should expect you to engage the foe at close quarters. If you're the dude holding the macguffin that has to get to the idol and stop the ritual...then you need to be fast and evasive to do that and damn anyone complaining that you "didn't take your fair share of hits".

Can it be detrimental? Yes, of course. Any build can be detrimental to the party of played selfishly or in contradiction to how the others operate. Does that mean it's always bad? No.

[Frogreaver]

There's so much baggage that needs unpacked

Game Mechanic Awareness

A lot hinges on whether you view mechanics as fully perceptible in the world or whether you view the mechanics as necessary constraints that make a game playable that the Characters in the fiction are generally unaware of.

Dexterity vs Armor (AC)

It's actually not easy to tell who has the highest AC since since both armored and unarmored can produce high AC characters.

What is a hit?

Without opening up this thread to the great 'what is hp debates', To some degree HP is not meat. So while, mechanically a hit is when you beat the targets AC, what a Character would call a hit in the fiction is most often not just what beats AC, but what beats AC and gets through HP enough to do meaningful and perceptible physical damage to a character.

Combat is Fast

If telling who is hard to hit wasn't already difficult enough due to not being able to easily determine the above, we also need to recognize that combat is fast. It's typically over in about 30 secs give or take a bit. IMO, it doesn't seem reasonable that Characters in world can readily determine who is easiest to hit in that short amount of time. (Players can sometimes determine AC at the metagame level by taking notes on what attack rolls + bonuses caused hp loss, but as discussed above, a player knowing if hp loss occurred isn't the same as a character knowing another character was hit in the fiction).

It's not the sword it's the swordsman

A more skilled swordsman is harder to hit. He's also better at hitting. HP is generally related to the defensive measure of skill. Proficiency bonus and extra attacks are generally the offensive measures of skill. Any threat analysis that doesn't determine skill (PC Level) of different swordsmen is going to fail to produce results that are meaningful enough to act on. What I see most often in these discussions is the assumption that 1) All Characters the NPC's face are the same skill level - even though NPC's face other NPC's offscreen as well as PC's and 2) That NPC's are concerned only about being able to overcome an opponents AC, when they really should be worried about getting meaningful hits in on the foe.

*Note if you want to play D&D like a tactical wargame then I'm not criticizing that playstyle as bad. I'm just trying to explain how there is a viable alternative that leads to vastly different NPC decisions.

Conclusion

To answer the thread question: "Is a PC who is hard to target BAD for the party?" It depends. If the PC that's hard to target doesn't have much AC or HP relative to the other PC's then it's great. If he has the most AC and HP relative to the other PC's then him being hard to target is bad - even if he has about the same hp and AC. Generally speaking incoming damage is best if it's spread around on different PCs instead of concentrated on 1 even though that 1 may be more efficient at taking damage.

[Tzun]

A tank being hard to hit is good when they have a way to make themselves priority targets.

The Cavalier and the Ancestral Guardian have that as a subclass feature, for example. But they're far from the only ways to do it.
As you said hard to hit is different from hard to target. The OP said hard to target which is not a good feature for a true tank. Being hard to hit is a feature good for everyone not just a tank.

[Frogreaver]

As you said hard to hit is different from hard to target. The OP said hard to target which is not a good feature for a true tank. Being hard to hit is a feature good for everyone not just a tank.

IMO, hard to target is fine on a tank if used sparingly. It can be great for when the tank gets too injured to continue tanking.

[da newt]

For clarity - I really meant hard to attack, not just hard to hit - in other words hidden, behind full cover, invisible, too far away, etc ... not just really good AC. I'm the opposite of a tank, I avoid being targeted whenever I can.

If my PC is actively avoiding presenting a target at all, that is effectively making the other PCs more targeted, and is that bad for the team overall?

My PC's are always contributing average or above DPR and/or heals, buffs etc - they contribute on that front, but if they aren't also contributing equally to the number of attacks they draw, is this helping or harming overall?

If you assume team Monster has X attacks per round, and I avoid being attacked as often as possible this means other PCs are taking more than their fair share of attacks (right?) - so is that bad team tactics by me / selfish?

[Lunali]

For clarity - I really meant hard to attack, not just hard to hit - in other words hidden, behind full cover, invisible, too far away, etc ... not just really good AC. I'm the opposite of a tank, I avoid being targeted whenever I can.

If my PC is actively avoiding presenting a target at all, that is effectively making the other PCs more targeted, and is that bad for the team overall?

My PC's are always contributing average or above DPR and/or heals, buffs etc - they contribute on that front, but if they aren't also contributing equally to the number of attacks they draw, is this helping or harming overall?

If you assume team Monster has X attacks per round, and I avoid being attacked as often as possible this means other PCs are taking more than their fair share of attacks (right?) - so is that bad team tactics by me / selfish?

It depends on how well equipped you are to take attacks versus how well the rest of the group is equipped. If you have a worse AC or smaller hit die than the rest of the party, it's usually better to let them take most of the hits. If you are sturdier than the rest of the party, it's probably better for you to take more hits.

That said, I'm of the opinion that role play trumps tactics. If your character is somewhat cowardly, it makes sense to let the rest of the party get hit instead.

[da newt]

"If your character is somewhat cowardly, it makes sense to let the rest of the party get hit instead."

- I was going more for clever enough to know choosing to be targeted when you could avoid being targeted is stupid, but ...

[Pex]

I want the warrior with the high AC in the face of the enemy so that the enemy cannot reach the rest of us.

If we're in a choke point it is sound strategy for the highest AC person to stand in the way and all he does is Dodge. The enemy cannot move past him and can barely hit him if at all. He is our literal meat shield and contributing tremendously to the fight.

When the spellcaster is Concentrating on a spell we absolutely need to keep going getting out of the fight and Dodging is perfectly acceptable. If he can be active even if only a Cantrip that's great, but his Concentration spell being crucial means he's equally contributing to the battle.

The low AC character who gets out of the way of the combat to not get hit but otherwise provides buff support, debuffs, alter terrain in our favor, or makes direct range attacks is fully contributing to the fight. Those with high AC and hit points are supposed to be the ones to be attacked.

The PC who gets out of the way of combat because he dares not lose a hit point and contributes little to nothing to the fight and smirks when another player's PC gets into trouble, they always smirk, I do not want at the table. Leave.

[Lunali]

"If your character is somewhat cowardly, it makes sense to let the rest of the party get hit instead."

- I was going more for clever enough to know choosing to be targeted when you could avoid being targeted is stupid, but ...

If you know someone's getting targetted and you're deciding to sacrifice your friends instead, that comes off as cowardly rather than clever. Now if having your friends be targetted instead provided a tactical advantage to the group, that could be clever, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

[Tzun]

For clarity - I really meant hard to attack, not just hard to hit - in other words hidden, behind full cover, invisible, too far away, etc ... not just really good AC. I'm the opposite of a tank, I avoid being targeted whenever I can.

If my PC is actively avoiding presenting a target at all, that is effectively making the other PCs more targeted, and is that bad for the team overall?

My PC's are always contributing average or above DPR and/or heals, buffs etc - they contribute on that front, but if they aren't also contributing equally to the number of attacks they draw, is this helping or harming overall?

If you assume team Monster has X attacks per round, and I avoid being attacked as often as possible this means other PCs are taking more than their fair share of attacks (right?) - so is that bad team tactics by me / selfish?

Sounds like you're pulling your fair share so I wouldn't sweat it. You're not being selfish. Everyone has a sense of self preservation. It just means those other guys aren't as good at not being targeted as you are ;). Ideally you've got one or two tanks that should be soaking up all the attacks while the rest of the party gets out of harms way as much as possible and still carry out their function in the party

[Unoriginal]

For clarity - I really meant hard to attack, not just hard to hit - in other words hidden, behind full cover, invisible, too far away, etc ... not just really good AC. I'm the opposite of a tank, I avoid being targeted whenever I can.

I get being hidden, full cover, or too far away, but I feel it's important to note being invisible doesn't make you harder to target by most attacks. It can save you from being targeted by some powerful effects, though, so I admit it's a nitpick.



If you assume team Monster has X attacks per round, and I avoid being attacked as often as possible this means other PCs are taking more than their fair share of attacks (right?) - so is that bad team tactics by me / selfish?

Is it bad if the Wizard stays out of melee so that they can cast their spells without being hurt?

Is it bad if the dedicated archer kites the enemies so that they always stay out of reach?

So long as you're contributing to the fight, there is no reason to stay where you can be hurt.

Now if your character is going to let someone die rather than take any risk to their health, it's a different question.

[Frogreaver]

For clarity - I really meant hard to attack, not just hard to hit - in other words hidden, behind full cover, invisible, too far away, etc ... not just really good AC. I'm the opposite of a tank, I avoid being targeted whenever I can.

If my PC is actively avoiding presenting a target at all, that is effectively making the other PCs more targeted, and is that bad for the team overall?

My PC's are always contributing average or above DPR and/or heals, buffs etc - they contribute on that front, but if they aren't also contributing equally to the number of attacks they draw, is this helping or harming overall?

If you assume team Monster has X attacks per round, and I avoid being attacked as often as possible this means other PCs are taking more than their fair share of attacks (right?) - so is that bad team tactics by me / selfish?

If you are doing this to such a degree that you are almost never targeted then I'd lean toward that being detrimental in general. There are some specific circumstances where it makes sense to do what you describe though. Let's say you are concentrating on a spell that has a good number of enemies disabled. If your AC+Concentration makes losing that spell a significant risk if your attacked then not being targeted there, or even taking other defensive actions like dodge then this is great and your not being a detriment to your team in that instance.

But if it's just basic damage we are talking about then tactically your team is probably better off putting yourself in a position so that you will be targeted some. That said, you don't have to act perfectly tactical as long as you aren't causing other PC's greatly increased risks.

I think a good litmus test is how often are other allys being downed/running out of healing resources or hit dice/needing to long rest due to low hp. If that's not happening then there's no issue. However, if your perfectly healthy at the end of the day and the party rests because pthers got low on hp or are being downed alot then there's probably an issue.

[LordCdrMilitant]

So I've always approached PC creation and play from a what would I do if I was really a PC and therefor tend to emphasize survivability and making my PCs tough to hit (mobility, stealth, distance, AC, saves etc) at least as much as offensive capabilities, and tend to play my PC as if their first goal is to survive combat so I use mobility, cover, etc extensively.

I've noticed that many other players approach things differently and put much less emphasis on defense which often means a few party members tend to get targeted MUCH more often than others simply because they make it easy to be attacked.

From a team perspective, is it detrimental for me and other individuals to make our PC's difficult to attack because this effectively focuses the enemy fire on the PC's who are easy to target? If my guy tend to go through combat and only get attacked 25% of the time, but other PCs are getting targeted much more frequently (because team bad guy is gonna attack someone), am I actually doing more harm than good?

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?

It depends on your tactics. Being survivable isn't really a useful tactical contribution in itself, unless you have a way of forcing people to engage with you. This is a general truth-ish thing: if a strongpoint isn't doing something or positioned somewhere that means it has to be reduced, it's usually more efficient to bypass it.

So, in addition to being resilient, you need a way to leverage that resilience into a tactical advantage. A relatively straightforward way of doing this [though there are definitely others] is to be immediately threatening: engage the enemy directly so they have to engage with you, or interpose yourself between the enemies and the more fragile members of your group.



I typically don't prioritize passive defenses when building a character. Besides being generally a kind of feelsbad feature to get [they're completely passive, you rarely feel their impact since you don't interact with them, and often times, like resistances and HP, they only take effect when you're already being hurt to mitigate how bad you're hurt], they're also typically easier to circumvent or trivialize and less impactful on a small scale than offensive options like maneuver and firepower or active defenses like reactions and stealth.

As a side note, because D&D is the way it is with HP attrition races, the balance of HP pools and damage pools and sudden existence failure, offensive power is in generally a better defense than being meaty. You will have more overall HP remaining if your party if you all focus enemies down and yoyo heal your people if you need to than if you try to have a long-term game of taking less damage than they do.

[Bobthewizard]

So I've always approached PC creation and play from a what would I do if I was really a PC and therefor tend to emphasize survivability and making my PCs tough to hit (mobility, stealth, distance, AC, saves etc) at least as much as offensive capabilities, and tend to play my PC as if their first goal is to survive combat so I use mobility, cover, etc extensively.

I've noticed that many other players approach things differently and put much less emphasis on defense which often means a few party members tend to get targeted MUCH more often than others simply because they make it easy to be attacked.

From a team perspective, is it detrimental for me and other individuals to make our PC's difficult to attack because this effectively focuses the enemy fire on the PC's who are easy to target? If my guy tend to go through combat and only get attacked 25% of the time, but other PCs are getting targeted much more frequently (because team bad guy is gonna attack someone), am I actually doing more harm than good?

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?

The party should try to direct attacks where they want. If you are playing a barbarian in a party of wizards, don't hide. You need to take hits, not avoid them.

If you are playing a wizard in a party of martials, though, then you need to hide. However, even if you are that wizard, be prepared to jump to the front if need be. I've pushed to the front lines as a wizard. Mage armor, 16 dex, a few first level slots for shield or absorb elements, and more remaining hit points than the paladin when they are getting punished, then I'll try to direct some hits to me to take some of the pressure off of them.

So this shouldn't be an "I'm hiding and you are on your own." You should work together to try to direct enemy attacks where you want them to go.

[Wraith]

Appending a DM tip note to your post.

DM tip (part of careful handling) when dealing with a fencepost defense* is to have groups of enemies with a variety of types of attacks (some vs AC some vs Saves). Vary the frequency too. Sometimes only 1 enemy will be able to target saves (goblin shaman surrounded by goblin warriors). The PC gets the advantage of the high AC while the enemy is still learning about the PCs' defenses. After the enemy learns, they can prioritize the save based attacks against the high AC. Since you remembered to vary the frequency this means sometimes the high AC low saves PC is only threatened by 1 enemy (rewarding their investment while still engaging them).

*A single high defense instead of generally high defenses is like a 10ft tall fencepost and expecting the enemy to climb over it instead of walking around.

Summary, you can challenge a fencepost defense by targeting the weakpoints, but this is a way to have it happen naturally and still reward the PC for their investment.

If the PC has a variety of defenses (see OP) and defense in depth (see OP), then careful handling is harder.

Absolutely agree that this is a sensible way to approach the 'problem' of a character who is optimised in AC and defence.

Still bring it up in Session 0, otherwise the DM could face accusations of 'victimising' the tough character.

Player: "I have decided to play a survivalist, they're tough, durable, wear heavy armour and have really good saves against most things that they're likely to encounter."
DM: "Okay. Make an obscure save against a spell I dug out of a 3rd Party splatbook that I know is the only thing you can't deal with."

A GOOD party and DM would see this as a one-off way to challenge an otimised character in a way that matters without necessarily over-statting the encounter to maim the other characters. A BAD - or let's be fair, just a misguided or miscommunicated - DM will spam it over and over and watch the survivalist crumble without living up to the name, while the survivalist player gets increasingly frustrated and depressed that they're the only one having to make Opposed-INT rolls for the first time in their playing career.

[da newt]

It seems so counter-intuitive, but I can follow the logic. Because I play w/ a party who don't try to make themselves hard to target (at all), and I play a PC with above average defenses I should try to increase the number of times I'm attacked and start face tanking (like an IRL idiot).

[stoutstien]

So I've always approached PC creation and play from a what would I do if I was really a PC and therefor tend to emphasize survivability and making my PCs tough to hit (mobility, stealth, distance, AC, saves etc) at least as much as offensive capabilities, and tend to play my PC as if their first goal is to survive combat so I use mobility, cover, etc extensively.

I've noticed that many other players approach things differently and put much less emphasis on defense which often means a few party members tend to get targeted MUCH more often than others simply because they make it easy to be attacked.

From a team perspective, is it detrimental for me and other individuals to make our PC's difficult to attack because this effectively focuses the enemy fire on the PC's who are easy to target? If my guy tend to go through combat and only get attacked 25% of the time, but other PCs are getting targeted much more frequently (because team bad guy is gonna attack someone), am I actually doing more harm than good?

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?

Best bet is to have some form of mitigation that can be distributed where its needed. Doubly so if you play with people who don't tend to focus on their own personal survivability.
Realistically every should have a solid baseline of mitigation so having a few ways to spike it when and where it's needed is the best policy.

[Unoriginal]

It seems so counter-intuitive, but I can follow the logic. Because I play w/ a party who don't try to make themselves hard to target (at all), and I play a PC with above average defenses I should try to increase the number of times I'm attacked and start face tanking (like an IRL idiot).

No, you absolutely should not. Nothing good can come from 'I'll act like an idiot, I guess, because otherwise the otzers will be upset'.

You COULD make a PC that makes other PCs harder to hit/target, if them being too easily hit is a concern.

[KorvinStarmast]

You aren't responsible for bearing the brunt of other people's high risk playstyles.
{snip}
If you *really* feel bad about it, carry potions or learn healing word.
This. Find ways to make them harder to hit if you like, or find ways to make the enemy pay for not noticing you. Hurt them, and they'll take notice.

My bard concentrates a lot: she also will, on some rounds, dodge to make her chance of losing a conc spell go down.

[strangebloke]

Not at all.

Tanking doesn't really exist in this game, so everyone has to develop their defenses individually. At one of my current tables this means that the Cleric is usually the most vulnerable PC, because she has to get close to do her thing while the monk is flying out of range and the barbarian/moon druid and EK are effectively immortal. This means that even with 19 AC foes will often prioritize her (especially if they're smart enough to realize the importance of killing the caster)

The Cleric is no pushover, she's got 16 CON and 19 AC. But she still ends up being the first one down in most combats, and honestly? That's fine. The other players exploit and penalize the enemy for going after her, and their defenses still matter because they keep her alive for those critical 2-3 turns at the start of combat.

[Ogre Mage]

I usually play casters. As a wizard I am trying hard to NOT be targeted. An easily targeted wizard is a liability.

As a cleric it is a little different. I tend to have enough armor to hang near the front lines, though perhaps not directly on it. There are usually squishier characters in the party. That said, if I go down the party has a serious problem. So I make a point to have a solid AC and constitution but I am less obsessive with defensive buffs.

[Xetheral]

Now if your character is going to let someone die rather than take any risk to their health, it's a different question.

I think this is the key point. If you're unwilling to spend your HP when the other PCs' welfare depends on spending your HP, that's when being particularly elusive starts to become a problem. How often that line is reached will depend heavily on the campaign style, and how often the PCs run low on HP in combat.

[LordCdrMilitant]

It seems so counter-intuitive, but I can follow the logic. Because I play w/ a party who don't try to make themselves hard to target (at all), and I play a PC with above average defenses I should try to increase the number of times I'm attacked and start face tanking (like an IRL idiot).

It's not really counterintuitive. Being tough is worthless if nobody is trying to kill you, or you're otherwise neutralized and bypassed. These are fairly basic tactical precepts.

[Lunali]

It seems so counter-intuitive, but I can follow the logic. Because I play w/ a party who don't try to make themselves hard to target (at all), and I play a PC with above average defenses I should try to increase the number of times I'm attacked and start face tanking (like an IRL idiot).

It doesn't matter if your party makes themselves hard to target or not. If the entire party was doing it, the result would typically be even worse as it would be far more likely for one person to get caught in melee and then the rest of the enemies joining in on that, resulting in someone going down.

Reducing the damage you take when you get targeted is an entirely different matter. If you can take more attacks and cause them to be less effective than if they were aimed at others, that's a win for the party.

[Ertwin]

Back when I was playing Mechwarrior online, there was the idea of "share your armour" Which in D&D would be HP. The idea meaning the Assault mechs couldn't tank hits forever, and that people in lighter mechs had to take some hits to save the assaults.

In d&d terms, if you as a backliner have more health than your front liners, it might be a good idea to move up and take a few hits in order to save them (barring healers of course).

If you can survive an attack that your party member can't, you should probably do what you can to take that hit. Much like the enemies you are facing, your party members do 100% of their damage whether they are at full health or 1 health, so it's better for you and your fellow party members to all be at low health, than have a few down and a few at full health.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Depends on the party and situation. We had a Moon Druid otherwise know as a 'Giant Sack of HP' who built around mobility and kept running away. Needless to say he wasn't popular. Look at your group and pick your spots.

[Hairfish]

Every time I see this thread title, it takes a second for me to realize BAD isn't referring to some new acronym along the lines of SAD and MAD.

[Reynaert]

From a pure mathematics standpoint (and probably mirroring what has already been said):

Yes, being hard to target, when taken in isolation and purely numerically, is bad for the party.
Hp is a resource that can be used to soak up hits. If one player is not being targeted, that means his HP are not being used as resource.

So from this standpoint, what you have to do is make sure that the benefit of not being targeted outweighs this inefficient use of resources.
Now, there are plenty of potential benefits. Even "I don't need to play my character as an idiot" could be considered a benefit in and of itself.

More practcal benefits have already been mentioned in this thread.

[MoiMagnus]

Against perfect enemies:

No being hard to hit is good. It might not be worth what you paid for (because of diminishing returns), it can be overly egoist and suboptimal for the team as a whole, but it cannot be counterproductive by itself.

Proof: If being hard to hit was actively counterproductive, then intelligent enemies would avoid targetting you even if hitting you was easy. If you're not a threat, it doesn't matter if you're easy or hard to hit, intelligent enemies will ignore you and focus on your more dangerous friends.

Against imperfect enemies:

It depends on the GM. You want the enemies to waste as many attacks as possible against you, so the question is how much and how are your defences affecting the enemy's "AI". If enemies are easily tempted by a low-defence enemy, then you might indeed want to lower your defences to avoid them focussing fire on a single PC.

A lot of GMs are part of the school "optimal play would be for every monster to focus a single PC, but that's no fun so I need my monster to suboptimally spread their hits without breaking immersion", and with them, yes, you can have "too much defences" and break the plausible deniability of "it looked like a good idea for the enemy to attack you".

[strangebloke]

From a pure mathematics standpoint (and probably mirroring what has already been said):

Yes, being hard to target, when taken in isolation and purely numerically, is bad for the party.
Hp is a resource that can be used to soak up hits. If one player is not being targeted, that means his HP are not being used as resource.

So from this standpoint, what you have to do is make sure that the benefit of not being targeted outweighs this inefficient use of resources.
Now, there are plenty of potential benefits. Even "I don't need to play my character as an idiot" could be considered a benefit in and of itself.

More practcal benefits have already been mentioned in this thread.

To make a practical example. Lets say you have two fifth level PCs, a monk (16 AC and 35 hp) and a fighter (21 AC and 45 HP) and they're fighting a couple of melee bruisers, ogres, we'll say.

In one scenario, the monk hits, uses SOTW to disengage, and runs far away. In this scenario the monk has made himself "hard to target." both ogres hit the fighter for [(2d8+4)*.3+(2d8)*.05]*2 = 8.7 damage. Ouch! But the fighter is fine. He can sustain four more rounds of this if need be and he's got second wind for 1d10+5. He's okay. If he goes down, it will almost certainly be long after one of the ogres is dead.

In the second scenario, the monk hits and uses flurry instead to increase his damage output. In this scenario, the fighter is the one that's "hard to target." Both ogres realize that the monk is more vulnernable (ogres are stupid, but clubbing is their area of expertise and focus fire is a basic principle of clubbing theory) and they both hit him for [(2d8+4)*.55+(2d8)*.05]*2 = 15 damage. OUCH! The monk can't self-heal and also just has ten fewer hp. He'll go down in two rounds with this strat! Are those few extra hits really worth it?

Now you might say that the real answer is that the first strategy works better for the first couple rounds, and then the monk should switch to the other strategy later on (particularly after its just one ogre), but that isn't a given. It depends on what resources you have available, whether this is the last fight of the day, whether a short rest might be coming up, etc. It's also worth pointing out that the if the ogre has been hitting the fighter, they might continue to do so after the monk comes into melee. After all, masters of clubbing theory know that you want to knock out the first guy before you start clubbing the second guy.

Basically the ability to become 'hard to target' is very useful, but there are some occasions where you might not want to use it.


Against perfect enemies:

No being hard to hit is good. It might not be worth what you paid for (because of diminishing returns), it can be overly egoist and suboptimal for the team as a whole, but it cannot be counterproductive by itself.

Proof: If being hard to hit was actively counterproductive, then intelligent enemies would avoid targetting you even if hitting you was easy. If you're not a threat, it doesn't matter if you're easy or hard to hit, intelligent enemies will ignore you and focus on your more dangerous friends.

Against imperfect enemies:

It depends on the GM. You want the enemies to waste as many attacks as possible against you, so the question is how much and how are your defences affecting the enemy's "AI". If enemies are easily tempted by a low-defence enemy, then you might indeed want to lower your defences to avoid them focussing fire on a single PC.

A lot of GMs are part of the school "optimal play would be for every monster to focus a single PC, but that's no fun so I need my monster to suboptimally spread their hits without breaking immersion", and with them, yes, you can have "too much defences" and break the plausible deniability of "it looked like a good idea for the enemy to attack you".

EDIT: My monsters try to focus fire as much as possible. It's a very reasonable thing to try to do, and even wolves IRL know to do this. The only creatures that wouldn't are mindless aberrations like oozes. BUT their targeting priority varies a lot. Smart humanoids might focus a caster because they know who's concentrating on spirit guardians. Dumber creatures like ogres might see a 22 AC Eldritch Knight with Mage Armor and see an easy target when compared to the 17 AC War Cleric in plate. Hyper aggressive species might be willing to take OAs, more cautious creatures might not.

[Reynaert]

To make a practical example. Lets say you have two fifth level PCs, a monk (16 AC and 35 hp) and a fighter (21 AC and 45 HP) and they're fighting a couple of melee bruisers, ogres, we'll say.

...

Good point! So being too easy to target is also bad for the party (in isolation), because it still means the resource of 'HP' will not be evenly depleted.
So what you want is to be able to tune how hard it is to target you, and having the ability to become hard to target is undeniably useful.

[OldTrees1]

Every time I see this thread title, it takes a second for me to realize BAD isn't referring to some new acronym along the lines of SAD and MAD.

Both Ability Dependency: Needing both of normally antisynergistic mutually exclusive stats.
Imagine a warrior that needs both Strength and Dexterity!
Imagine a spellcaster that needs both Intelligence and Wisdom!

IRL suffers from BAD

[DwarfFighter]

It's not really counterintuitive. Being tough is worthless if nobody is trying to kill you, or you're otherwise neutralized and bypassed. These are fairly basic tactical precepts.

Agreed.

As OP says, being hard to hit and staying out of danger are both ways of staying durable, but they have different effects on the combat dynamic.

Being hard to hit or simply resilient allows your character to stay in the middle of things and use his actions to defeat the enemy. I would say this is good as long as he can entice enemies to waste their actions on attacking him instead of making more effectful attacks against his sales. Achieving that tells on RP to override what makes sense mathematically, it being really in control tactically.

Starting out of danger is probably going to cost you something in offense, ie. spending actions or bonus actions to move to safety can cause you to lose offensive opportunities.

Is for the good of the party if the enemies waste actions making futile efforts to fight you, but it hurts the party of they can ignore you at less to no cost.

[Contrast]

So the first ever D&D character I played was a melee rogue. I was loving it - using mobility to avoid getting targetted, dodging away from people. I felt like I was doing great.

I got to level 5 or 6 and I'd literally barely ever taken any damage. And then one time when we were short resting and I was patting myself on the back because I didn't even really need to spend any hit die meanwhile our fighter was running out again...I realised I wasn't doing well at all. Whenever I made myself a hard target what I was really doing was making someone else in the party a better target.

The ideal situation for the party is that everyone proportionately shares the damage according to their ability to heal. Its much more preferable for everyone to finish the day having expended 50% of their hit die than it is to have 2 party members on 75% and 2 on 25%.

Unless the entire party can make themselves hard to target (which is a very rare circumstance in my experience), removing yourself as a target doesn't reduce the incoming attacks from the enemy, it just focus fires them on less people. Its always good to have the option of being able to do but its important to remember that just because you can doesn't mean you always should.


The above is more about making yourself a target in terms of mobility. With regard to AC and saves - AC is a mixed bag. Its often visually obvious and people will get the hint quickly - I don't that I'd intentionally tank it but you need to give them a reason to carry on attacking you. I have a gnome warrior with AC22 and a Cloak of Displacement and as much as I love the Cloak and its theoretically very powerful on someone with a high AC, he really would be better off with an item that did more damage as people simply stop attacking him.

Saves I think you always just want as high as you can get - they generally don't come up often enough for an enemy to make many informed judgements, particularly where its not a visual obvious thing when looking at you.

[Amdy_vill]

A fair share of attacks doesn't mean they need to hit. sends attacks his way but you don't need to hit him.

[Frogreaver]

Against perfect enemies:

No being hard to hit is good. It might not be worth what you paid for (because of diminishing returns), it can be overly egoist and suboptimal for the team as a whole, but it cannot be counterproductive by itself.

Proof: If being hard to hit was actively counterproductive, then intelligent enemies would avoid targetting you even if hitting you was easy. If you're not a threat, it doesn't matter if you're easy or hard to hit, intelligent enemies will ignore you and focus on your more dangerous friends.

Against imperfect enemies:

It depends on the GM. You want the enemies to waste as many attacks as possible against you, so the question is how much and how are your defences affecting the enemy's "AI". If enemies are easily tempted by a low-defence enemy, then you might indeed want to lower your defences to avoid them focussing fire on a single PC.

A lot of GMs are part of the school "optimal play would be for every monster to focus a single PC, but that's no fun so I need my monster to suboptimally spread their hits without breaking immersion", and with them, yes, you can have "too much defences" and break the plausible deniability of "it looked like a good idea for the enemy to attack you".

I think a good thought experiment is if your character and only your character could have 100 AC but every enemy would know he is nearly impossible to hit, would you take that? I wouldn't. I would expect the enemies to avoid me with attacks which would guarantee my allies take more damage. Since they are taking more damage they are more likely to be downed or die. When they are downed and die that is a loss of team Actions which makes the next ally more likely to be downed or die, etc. Until it's just me left standing. Now I probably live, but the party was destroyed. To me that actually makes having 100 AC detrimental to the team even against perfect enemies. At least if I had a lower AC I may could have taken some heat off my allies and maybe avoided that situation.

[jas61292]

This thread intrigued me because it had the optimization tag. In a purely abstract sense, it seems silly. How can being better at something as important as survivability be a bad thing. But the fact is that, yes, it absolutely can.

In the most generic sense, an optimized character, or I guess it would be better to say an optimized party, would want each and every character taking a proportion of damage equal to that character's proportion of the party's total HP.

For example, in the two man party of a 55 HP barbarian and a 27 HP sorcerer, you don't want the barbarian taking 100% of the damage; you want them taking 67% of the actual damage. If they take any more than that, then they will end up dropping faster and the party will lose actions more often. Same thing with if they take any less than that, except this time it would be the sorcerer dropping faster. That is simple math. But what is not so simple is figuring out how to get as close to that point as possible. Obviously in this case, when the barbarian is raging, they take half damage from a lot of stuff, so you would want them taking an even higher percentage of physical attacks. But how do you get them to take as many of those as you can without having them also draw in an overly high percentage of other attacks?

Strategy and tactics play a lot into it. Where a character is positioned, who can see them, how much of a threat they are, and how easy they are to hit are all things that determine who gets attacked and thus who takes the damage. In actual play, it is exceedingly hard to optimize things such that each player takes the ideal amount of damage.

That being said, there are definitely things to avoid. Being overly tanky, for example, is definitely possible. If a character focuses on Con, has massive HP and AC, and is generally decent at saves, but is no more threatening than anyone else in the group, their tankiness is going to go to waste. Even if their threat level is high enough for them to be attacked as often as anyone else, they will take far less than their ideal share of the party's damage. On the other hand, being overly dangerous, but not particularly hard to hit, will easily lead to you taking more than your fair share of damage.

All of this is really just to say that if you want to maximize your party's survivability, you need to either balance your defense with your offense, or practice sound strategy to make sure that no one is taking more hits than they can handle. This kinda thing can get really ultra specific to the group and the battle, so its hard to give specific advice. Its just something you have to get a feel for.

[stoutstien]

I think a good thought experiment is if your character and only your character could have 100 AC but every enemy would know he is nearly impossible to hit, would you take that? I wouldn't. I would expect the enemies to avoid me with attacks which would guarantee my allies take more damage. Since they are taking more damage they are more likely to be downed or die. When they are downed and die that is a loss of team Actions which makes the next ally more likely to be downed or die, etc. Until it's just me left standing. Now I probably live, but the party was destroyed. To me that actually makes having 100 AC detrimental to the team even against perfect enemies. At least if I had a lower AC I may could have taken some heat off my allies and maybe avoided that situation.

Depends on the PC. high defensive factors on a class that is concentrating on that *insert repeating damage/ control effect* that is chewing through everyone's HP is a lot different that high defensive factors on someone dealing damage one target at a time or not at all.

[Man_Over_Game]

Should I ensure that my guy receives his fair share of attacks?


Yep.

A character that's not dying is 100% effective and contributing towards success, while dying members cost time and resources during the times you can least afford it (which is how death spirals happen).

So the way you optimize in combat is figuring out how to make all of your teammates run out of HP at the same time, and focus each enemy so they don't to the same. It's also optimal for sharing Hit Dice recovery, so everyone gets most of their HDs back.

The only folks who should never get attacked are Wizards and Sorcerers. They don't have the AC, are probably Concentrating on something, and don't have the HP needed to take a decent hit. Put simply, they are liabilities.

Everything else is a tank, the question is how much of the pie each tank is responsible for. That might only be 15% of the incoming damage, but that's still something in a big fight.


Put another way, if someone ended a fight with less than 50% HP, and you had all of your health, you probably could've done more.

[Vhaidara]

Coming in from the perspective of someone who dominantly plays other editions (mostly 4e) to echo what a lot of people have said: it depends on the party comp, but generally it can become a problem quite quickly.

It's a bit more obvious in 4e because there are explicit Defender classes that often run into the problem of becoming, as a friend of mine described a character of his at one point, "a piece of terrain that pokes you", ie something that the enemies will ignore until everyone else is down. I've also seen defenders jump in and mark everything without a plan for how they're going to actually live through it. It's a balance.

What I've also seen, however, is people standing 200ft away with a greatbow plinking away at the monsters while the monsters tear the melee characters to shreds, and end the day with all of their surges (rough equivalent to 5e hit dice) without having taken a hit. I've seen rogues who stay hidden for entire fights and never even get targeted. I saw one guy who basically built his entire character around removing himself from play when it wasn't his turn as much as possible, literally making himself impossible to attack for most of the combat. They ended the same way: everyone else took significantly more of a beating.

And the results of that depended on how well they absorbed that damage. For the living terrain types, who were nigh indestructible, they could handle it. But in groups without any particularly defensively minded characters? it wasn't uncommon for people to get the stuffing beat out of them and struggle to recover for the next encounter

[Frogreaver]

Depends on the PC. high defensive factors on a class that is concentrating on that *insert repeating damage/ control effect* that is chewing through everyone's HP is a lot different that high defensive factors on someone dealing damage one target at a time or not at all.

IMO. No matter how big the threat is, if I know it's basically impervious to attacks then I'm not attacking it.

[MoiMagnus]

I think a good thought experiment is if your character and only your character could have 100 AC but every enemy would know he is nearly impossible to hit, would you take that? I wouldn't.
...
To me that actually makes having 100 AC detrimental to the team even against perfect enemies. At least if I had a lower AC I may could have taken some heat off my allies and maybe avoided that situation.


What make you think that the enemies would have attacked you if you had low AC? If it is optimal to ignore you, the GM could simply take as a tactic "this character will never be attacked by my monsters, even if he is vulnerable and surrounded by enemies, the monster will focus on his allies and behave as if he was unkillable, except once all his teammate are dead".

Having low AC does not mean you will take some heat. It only means you will take some heat if the enemies determine it is optimal for you to take some heat, otherwise they can just ignore you anyway.

It follows that if you want to take some heat, a perfect enemy will ignore you systematically up until all your teammate are dead and then finish you after that (unless you have 100 AC in which case they will run away instead of finishing you).

EDIT: Said otherwise, the enemies can effectively "give you 100 AC" at any moment if they want to by simply ignoring you. So any moment where having 100 AC would be a downside, perfect (omniscient) enemies will make sure to behave as if you had 100 AC.

[stoutstien]

IMO. No matter how big the threat is, if I know it's basically impervious to attacks then I'm not attacking it.

Then you are already halfway to the point of having the nearly unobtainable perfect scenario of going through an encounter with minimal resources spent at no risk.
Personally if I make it through a day when the only healing I need is from HD and I can still do what I wanted/needed too I would chalk that up as a win.

[Amnestic]

I saw one guy who basically built his entire character around removing himself from play when it wasn't his turn as much as possible, literally making himself impossible to attack for most of the combat. They ended the same way: everyone else took significantly more of a beating.


This is one of the reasons I like the addition Steady Aim for rogues in Tasha's. They still can hide/disengage to keep themselves safe, but if they want/need to spread damage around and be a target for a turn, they can still Steady Aim to get their sneak attacks off.

[Frogreaver]

What make you think that the enemies would have attacked you if you had low AC? If it is optimal to ignore you, the GM could simply take as a tactic "this character will never be attacked by my monsters, even if he is vulnerable and surrounded by enemies, the monster will focus on his allies and behave as if he was unkillable, except once all his teammate are dead".

There's never any guarantee I can get anything to attack me. What I can say is that between positioning relative to my allies and the enemies, being only a bit more defensive than my allies, and presenting a threat that I am much more likely to be able to draw some attacks my way than if I'm nearly impervious to attacks.


Having low AC does not mean you will take some heat. It only means you will take some heat if the enemies determine it is optimal for you to take some heat, otherwise they can just ignore you anyway.

Thus the added 2nd caveat that if i took the 100 AC enemies would know how hard to hit I was.


It follows that if you want to take some heat, a perfect enemy will ignore you systematically up until all your teammate are dead and then finish you after that (unless you have 100 AC in which case they will run away instead of finishing you).

Positioning - you may be the only thing close enough for an enemy to reach this turn. Is it worth giving up that turn moving toward your allies?
OA's - Is it worth taking your OA to get to your allies (maybe, maybe not - there's no guarantee's this deters but this at least makes it a decision point)
Defensive Shifts - Your ally that was starting to be focused took the dodge action (or other defensive or positioning action that will lessen attacks on himself) - (does it still make sense to still try and focus fire him - maybe, maybe not - another no guarantee decision point)

So IMO, what you are saying above isn't generally true of good tactical enemy behavior, because on any given turn it may be more efficient to attack you as long as the attack is going to be somewhat effective. Essentially you and your allies can work together to make the 'good tactical move' be to attack you instead of them. That doesn't mean the enemy has to do that, but it's likely at least some will.

[MoiMagnus]

Essentially you and your allies can work together to make the 'good tactical move' be to attack you instead of them. That doesn't mean the enemy has to do that, but it's likely at least some will.

For me, you're already assuming that the enemy is imperfect here, in which case we both agree.
[This whole debate is kind of pointless as it focuses of my dubious hypothesis of having a perfect enemy]

Low AC only has interests if you can use it to manipulate the enemy's AI. You're planning on outsmarting the enemies and tempting in with something that look like a good tactical move (attacking you instead of focusing fire on someone else) but truly isn't (if attacking you was a good tactical move, you would gladly take 100 AC to prevent that from happening).

Reversing the situation, do you think that a divine intervention at the beginning of the fight giving +100 AC to an enemy can actually make the fight easier for your team than if this intervention didn't happen?
I mean, if you were not already focusing fire, this even can help you find the better strategy of focusing fire, but this strategy was already better in the first place.

[Frogreaver]

For me, you're already assuming that the enemy is imperfect here, in which case we both agree.
[This whole debate is kind of pointless as it focuses of my dubious hypothesis of having a perfect enemy]

Low AC only has interests if you can use it to manipulate the enemy's AI. You're planning on outsmarting the enemies and tempting in with something that look like a good tactical move (attacking you instead of focusing fire on someone else) but truly isn't (if attacking you was a good tactical move, you would gladly take 100 AC to prevent that from happening).

I disagree with most of this - but I don't think it's the crux of your argument, I think the last paragraph is - so I'll spend me time there.


Reversing the situation, do you think that a divine intervention at the beginning of the fight giving +100 AC to an enemy can actually make the fight easier for your team than if this intervention didn't happen?
I mean, if you were not already focusing fire, this even can help you find the better strategy of focusing fire, but this strategy was already better in the first place.

Nope. Those situations aren't symmetrical and so that doesn't really tell us anything about a PC getting +100 AC. The most fundamental asymmetry is

1. Differing victory conditions - team PC wants all members to survive and win the battle but team NPC is only there to defeat the PCs.

[Unoriginal]

1. Differing victory conditions - team PC wants all members to survive and win the battle but team NPC is only there to defeat the PCs.

I 100% disagree with this statement.

NPCs have their own agendas, which changes what their victory conditions are. Most individual NPCs want to survive, and a majority of them do not want the other NPCs who work with them to die either (even just for pragmatic reasons, losing allies makes one weaker, so you don't want them to die unless them doing so gives you an advantage worth the loss).

NPCs shouldn't be played like free-will-lacking, PC-killing-obsessed automatons, unless that's what they are. Fanatical, mind-controlled or too-affected-by-the-circumstances-to-think-rationally NPCs could be in "is only there to defeat the PCs" mode, but IMO it'd be pretty odd to only encounter those.

Even in a meta-sense, I don't consider it good DMing to have NPCs whose only role/goal is "fight the PCs when they trigger the aggro". That makes for boring fights and for boring settings. As far as I'm concerned, the NPCs' victory conditions, which they will try to seek through the fight, should be more than just "defeat the PCs at all costs".

[da newt]

"NPCs shouldn't be played like free-will-lacking, PC-killing-obsessed automatons, unless that's what they are."

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, but far too often "shouldn't be" does not equal "aren't". A good DM will try to inhabit their NPCs and monsters so that they have a goal / objective / survival instinct, but many do not.

[Frogreaver]

"NPCs shouldn't be played like free-will-lacking, PC-killing-obsessed automatons, unless that's what they are."

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, but far too often "shouldn't be" does not equal "aren't". A good DM will try to inhabit their NPCs and monsters so that they have a goal / objective / survival instinct, but many do not.

Yep. And keep in mind that reply of mine was made inside a discussion that’s assuming the NPCs were being played as tactically as possible.

In the real world, I fully agree that NPCs will not necessarily be played as tactical killing machines. In the real world the PCs won’t really be either though. And those variables make a discussion about tactical play nearly meaningless unless.

[strangebloke]

I think a good thought experiment is if your character and only your character could have 100 AC but every enemy would know he is nearly impossible to hit, would you take that? I wouldn't. I would expect the enemies to avoid me with attacks which would guarantee my allies take more damage. Since they are taking more damage they are more likely to be downed or die. When they are downed and die that is a loss of team Actions which makes the next ally more likely to be downed or die, etc. Until it's just me left standing. Now I probably live, but the party was destroyed. To me that actually makes having 100 AC detrimental to the team even against perfect enemies. At least if I had a lower AC I may could have taken some heat off my allies and maybe avoided that situation.

What??? No?

If I'm invincible, first thing I do is run into the middle of combat and grapple two dudes. Or run into the middle of combat and cast spirit guardians. Or just... stand in a chokepoint and let the (almost always melee-focused) monsters get shot and die like a fish in a barrel. Or cast a giant, 6th level concentration spell with no fear of it getting interrupted. Or I run right next to the wizard and wait to cast counterspell. Or I cast silence and grapple the lich. If a party member goes down, I'm uniquely positioned to bring them back up, and the party will always be able to count on me for that.

The problem of "the rest of the party takes proportionally 20% more attacks" is massively outweighed by all the other benefits, even if you assume that all your enemies avoid attacking you, which. I wouldn't. Intelligent creatures, no, but lots of creatures aren't intelligent.