Have lots of small monsters roll lots of dice at them. Enough attacks, and you're almost bound to roll a 20. The occasional swarm, which completely ignores armor class, might be fun along those lines. (There are some boss monsters in RotR that are quite smart enough to come up with ambushes of this sort after the first time they hear about the PCs being invulnerable to normal weapons.)
Grapple them. Their CMDs are probably not as good as their armor class.
Attck the other PC(s) and see what the players do.
Give them obstacles to get through where they need Acrobatics or something instead of armor class.
Have someone sunder the paladin's equipment. (Harder to do with the monk.) Rust monsters, for instance.
Throw a charm spell on them and let their fellow PCs worry about how to breach the armor class.
(NB: edited to fix %#%@#% iPad autocorrect problems)
Oh, and if they're very focused on defense, how good are they at dealing out damage and getting through obstacles. What do they do if a bunch of mooks get behind a wall with arrowslits and shoot at them? Can they break down doors or get iron bars out of the frame?
If they only ever fight melee creatures, of course they'll optimize to fight them. Do some other stuff.
When characters have high AC, they generally lack offensive punch, especially Monks.
Option 1: Ignore them. Kill the rest of the party first while the high AC characters flounder trying to deal enough damage to stay relevant and threatening.
Option 2: Most spells do not care about AC, and can be far more threatening than physical attacks are.
If they fight defensively and build for defense they will make for longer combats, I would not change anything really. After a miss or two, creatures might try a combat maneuver instead, eventually they will run into situations their build doesn't work that well or just get unlucky.
Players that do not get hit will stop focusing on AC by themselves, it only matters really if the players get bored, otherwise just have fun with playing out the story, things will get harder on them. It also discourages them from taking a 15 minute adventure day, don't try to make every battle hard.
EDIT : Only exception might be boss battles, I would alter them a little to be slightly more of a threat, a potion of mage armor, cat's grace or bull's strength usually does the trick by giving them more bonus to hit or increase their AC such that defensive fighting seems less of an option for the players.
Foes with stupid/non-existant tactics will be a cakewalk for them. Let them have their easy win.
Foes with intelligent tactics will learn within a round or two not to go after those guys. Target the others instead, and kite the high AC fellows around. Make them run.
Also, don't underestimate the Aid Another action. Goblins working together to help each other can rack up a pretty big bonus to give to the one throwing the net, or the Tanglefoot Bag, or the Sunder. There should be no AC high enough that a big enough mob working together can't manage to hit a few times a round.
put them up against an enemy with just as much AC as they do and see how they like it lol
The more the party optimizes, the more the GM has to optimize.
Nets, flasks, traps are good for high AC targets.
Skill checks work great against parties totally geared towards combat. Make the realize there is more to a character than AC.
Swim checks are fun for heavy armor characters. So are climb checks.
creatures that hit vs. Touch AC (incorporeal undead come to mind) help.
So that is how to hit them.
My personal take is to have the smart creatures flee. They warn the tribes/clans/whatever.
PCs next encounter, the smart creatures ignore the high AC people entirely.
If the party still slaughters en masse, the survivors again flee.
The next time the smarter enemies use Sunder.
Just keep ratcheting it up until you have the challenge back.
Disease, contact poison, firearms, partially charged wands of touch spells, ray spells, curses, inhaled poisons, the "create pit" series of spells.
Or simply have the enemies eat the attacks of opportunity and move past the AC tanks to torture to death the other party members while the monk and paladin watch (somewhat helplessly I would imagine as they are invested in defense at the expense of offense.)
As long as the paladin and monk don't do that much damage, their being AC tanks isn't of much concern.
If it is of concern, glue them to the floor with tanglefoot bags and throw flasks of acid at their touch AC. Set them on fire with torches and oil.
Grapple them and tear at them with daggers or sickles using the "Damage with light weapon or unarmed strike option. Take the attacks of opportunity where necessary, but make them hurt. They'll fail on attack rolls more often than you would think.
Treat them as though they can't fight back, because essentially they can't.
Don't forget that the players are investing in a good defense if you actively try to have them burn as much resources as they usually would have in every encounter you are invalidating their choices, resist the temptation to do this to any major extent, if you do that make sure you only do it in major battles not to wear them down on their way to that battle.
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These touch tactics and CMD attacks that people are mentioning are fine for the Paladin, but the monk will still have a damn high touch AC and cmd with fighting defensive/combat expertise.
But really, if they are so defensive (as others have said) their hit rate is going to be much lower.
Let it alone. As they get higher in level and those boss AC's go higher and higher, they will stop the defensive fighting just to hit.
Sunder on the Paly should be a nice way to bring some pain and anguish to the PC. Nothing worse than having to change out to a chain shirt because his platemail+1 is cracked and has the broken condition.
And dont crack under the pressure of players complaining about broken armor or shields or swords. I look at it like this:
If a pc is going to play defensive, lets give the player something to be defensive about. Let him have to protect his weapons and armor just as much as his life's blood. It is part of the game, and just having sunder happen once or twice to a PC is usually enough to give them pause.
I am playing a crusader in the CC AP right now, and I know my shield is pretty safe as it is +3 heavy steel. Now my +1 chainmail is another story. We are level 8 so most baddies wont have a +3 weapon to sunder my shield. But I do have a backup piece of +2 studded leather armor that, although not as high an AC bonus as the chain, it will be less likely to be sundered by anything short of a boss type enemy.
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If they decided to go in naked and not defend themselves would you then equip your monsters with pillows for weapons?
They made a choice to have high armour because they like feeling unhittable. If you change the monsters to counter the players choices there is no point making choices, picking feats or getting equipment.
This is a true statement. Have enemies try to sunder, but dont give them the improved sunder feat (at least not at lvl 5) so the pc's can have an attack of opportunity that will probably miss if they fight defensive. If you have a smart baddie, dont keep it banging futilly on the paly's armor.
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Ur playing an AP then stick as closely to the AP as possible. If the AP gives u certain tactics then play to those tactics. Dont DM meta game were the monsters u have no every thing about the heroes that those monsters have never met. I will add though if an intelligent enemy does escape from the heroes then it is in ur right to have ur monsters, as long as those monsters would hold good standing with the enemy in question, be more knowledgeable about the heroes to a extent. As a DM it is not ur job to win. Ur job is to tell a story and act pretty much as a ref.
Let them be good at what they're good at. Definitely don't increase the to-hit of their opponents. Instead, if you want to pose some risk for them, target their saves or touch AC. Or their buddies. Nobody excels at everything.
And if they do excel at everything through smart play and teamwork, then they deserve to win.
If after that it looks like it might get boring, discuss with them if you should increase the difficulty somewhat. You could offer alternative choices in the adventure that offer extra risk for extra reward.
But whatever you do: have their choices matter. Don't compensate for their choices by making their choices effectively irrelevant. That really sucks.
The best thing to do when someone has built a "tank" is to have them not attack the high AC enemies. At worst, they may take one round to attack the Paladin and Monk. When the intelligent enemy (Int >3) notices how tough they are to hit, they will rush and try to kill everyone else in the party. Don't play NPCs like they're dumb. Utilize the same kind of tactics the party would use. Force them use proper positiong and combat maneuvers to keep enemies focused on them or in place. If the Paladin and Monk wont use maneuvers its unlikely they do much in the way of damage being so focused on defense. Ignore them and kill anything squishery behind them. Just because they made walking meat shields doesn't mean your NPC have to be dumb enough to take down the invincible guy.
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Kick them out of my group for playing something I don't agree with.
...what? It's what a few people I know on these boards would do in this situation.
Kick them out of my group for playing something I don't agree with.
...what? It's what a few people I know on these boards would do in this situation.
Taking things a bit seriously, are we?
Oh, my apologies. I should have put a smiley there to show I was joking :3
But yeah, seems that others have summed up methods with which to get around high AC characters.
I had a similar problem in RotRL, but it was actually the other way around. The group's paladin used a greatsword two-handed and dealt A LOT of damage, enough to single-hit kill most things. But since he's the frontline tank and was getting knocked down a lot, he decided to go on a defensive line, using sword and board.
Even though his AC is kind of unbeatable (the group pooled a little gold to make both his shield and full plate +1), combats are a little more interesting and challenging.
tl;dr: Defense isn't that bad. A too strong offense kills more games than defense.
Against heavy armor, use mobility and touch attacks.
Against high dex, get them flat-footed or use area effect.
In both cases, don't just stand toe-to-toe with them while they kill you.
Let Them stroll... Most of the time...
They build their chars for it, so let them be good at what they want to be good at. Once in a while hit them with area spells, touch attacks and incorporal creatures... Shadows are a hard cr 2 monster...
I second this. Try a few spells, non-reflex saving throws have nothing to do with AC so send a for save or will save their way. Yes the paladin is going to be very good as saves too though. So touch attacks as suggested his way. But don't over-do it; let them be good at what they built their character to do, they did pay for it after all.
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For most of the encounters, don't do anything. Let the PC's enjoy being unhittable for a while. You're playing RotRL - evenutally the party will be facing giants with very high strength scores who can still probably hit them and wizards with lots spells where AC isn't a factor.
For boss encounters, feel free to use some of the tactics noted in other posts above. Most of the boss encounters in this AP are very intelligent and, barring an extremely paranoid and secretive group of PCs, will have a good grasp of the party's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Meaning they can adjust their tactics to suit the party. But keep in mind you just want to challenge them, not kill them.
the paladin is easy to deal with. touch attacks, manuvers, aoe spells.
Monks are a whole othe matter, monks are hard to deal with, their CMD tends to be very high, as is thier touch AC, there saves are excllent and they have evasion.
there isnt really any way to effectively deal with them, save for ignorining them and killing everyone else.
ultimately the way to deal with monks, is put pressure on them to do damage, for a monk the fear is not of dying, it's that he/she is alive and his/her comrades are dead. as long as the monk has that fear, i think you've done your job.
When I have a problem like this where I can't figure out how to counter something, I've found that the best way to handle it is to let the players find a way to do it for me.
Copy the build/tactic onto an NPC and put that NPC up against the party, and see what they do to beat it. In character, you just say that the party is becoming well known, and other people are starting to see how effective their tactics are and trying it out for themselves. When the PCs win, you simply have to say that the word on how to bypass their tactic has gotten out, and people are more prepared from there on.
On a related note, this is also how I test out rules changes that groups want to try. Once had a group that insisted they wanted to use the rules that called shots to the head should be instant-kills. I agreed, and the next fight was against a dozen kobold sorcerers with crossbows hiding behind cover firing off True Strike called shots to the heads of the party. For some odd reason, they all decided that instant-death mechanics were a bad idea.
The overall lesson here? Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. Anything the PCs can do, the NPCs can do as well.
Don’t worry about it; let them shine while they can.
Give it a few more levels and the AP catches up; High AC does not count for much other than stopping the 3rd or 4th attack.
They will find the high saves much more useful later.
Right. Things have a way of evening out. There are saves, touch spells, traps, etc. Do not take away their moments of glory, as soon they will be out-shone by the full spellcasters.
if you build a paladin correctly they become quite broken indeed. A group of friends and i are leveling up characters to 12 for Eyes of the Ten, and we just hit level 10. I am playing a ranged inquisitor, and right now i'm having one hell of a good time. once Inquisitors hit level 8, with the proper itemization, they can deal out TWELFTH LEVEL damage 12 to 14 times per day on an ID'd monster, and my inquisitor has something to the tune of +16 to ID a monster.
While this seems off subject i have a point so bear with me. My Inquisitor deals damage, when baneing, as though he were level 12. my friends paladin has 2 smites per day... maybe 3 now at level 10... and can channel Smiting through his bonded +2 Holy Longsword. against an evil creature, of which upper level scenarios are jam-packed, that he has smited. he deals 8d6+1d8 + 30 some static damage, where my inquisitor doing 12'th level damage deals 6d6+1d8 + 10 static damage against an evil enemy, when baning with Judgement active. his static damage, and d6 damage, will continue to go up as we level, MY damage, will never ever go up again unless i multiclass or prestige class well.
now, when we did the maths i thought it was pretty good that he could deal that much damage, after all its nice to not be the only one that the BBG focuses on. then he told me his AC. with 1 (or maybe a few more) level(s) of Holy Vindicator he gains Vindicator sheild, and when in melee combat with all of his Armor, hid shield, his Vindicator Shield, and Smite, he has a net AC of around 36. WHAT? yeah. thats what we said.
so, as awesome and generous as our GM is, he has to do something to combat this Paladin who has more damage than a straight damage output build Inquisitor and more AC than a straight tank build fighter. this generally means at least 1, often more, strong BS monsters who do that overpowered grapple, constrict, drop, second arm, drop, third arm, drop, fourth arm, bite, drop combo that just wrecks you. normally i would be fine with this, but our other party members suffer as well. the paladin has enough health that he can generally survive these kind of encounters for several rounds, and I have enough damage to generally save his fat ass, but our cleric spends most of his rounds channeling, or otherwise casting healing spells doing the best he can to keep him alive, instead of one of his super fun damage abilities, like Flamestrike, Spiritual Ally, etc. and our poor rogue... poor poor rogue... when he can flank, which he does as much as possible, his damage output is INSANE he's very well itemized for damage... however as a result he has only 64 hp at level 10 and only 21 or 22 AC... which everything hits.
so our basic combat generally consists of "Tank go there, rogue acro there Inquisitor blow up 1 enemy, cleric heal tank/rogue, depending on who did more damage tank or rogue BBG grapples/eats/constricts/other save or die ability/kills the rogue (has paid for revival and restoration 4 times) then flails uselessly against the paladin for as many turns as it takes for us to kill it while the rogue sits there bored doodling what he feels pharasma (ironically his diety) would turn him into while he served her in the void.
TOO LONG? DIDNT READ?
basically high AC high output classes are very very strong, and very difficult to deal with without completely destroying the rest of the party with a combat they have no hopes of completing without the tank taking the hits. its just that way. now i personally dont think the game is fun without the fear of death, and even playing as well as i can and staying in good position during all of the fights (my inquisitor's teamwork feats are built around combat mobility, and he forgoes BoS for BoE) i am still commonly dropped to 5 or lower hp in just about every scenario. my advice would be mostly to let the tanky characters, the monk and the paladin, do their job and tank, however make sure that they face higher intelligence creatures, and maybe think about not having everything they face be inherently Evil, sometimes you cant get around it, and that is good, every paladin wants to smite shit and watch it die in no time at all, thats why they're paladins. but if you let them do it in every combat the rest of the party will get tired of their characters. so mix things up, keep the players guessing about whats coming next not just the same thing over and over agian.
@Soul
The answer to your paladin is to have multiple opponents. A paladin can only smite one target. Your inquisitor gets his bane + judgment against everyone. Instead of fighting one necromancer, your DM should use a slightly lower-level necromancer and his vampire minion.
This way, its less lethal for the party, the pally gets to shine, and it eats his resources faster.
@Soul
The answer to your paladin is to have multiple opponents. A paladin can only smite one target. Your inquisitor gets his bane + judgment against everyone. Instead of fighting one necromancer, your DM should use a slightly lower-level necromancer and his vampire minion.
This way, its less lethal for the party, the pally gets to shine, and it eats his resources faster.
not to hi-jack the thread, that still doesn't help the rogue, hes often in situations where dealing anything more than a 1d6+5 would cause him to be horridly out of position in the middle of such groups/bosses... but we're thinking about giving him some kind of homebrew bonus to avoid death for having been killed so much... frequent dier miles or some such.
edit: also i was speaking more towards the kind of scenarios weve been playing, its PFS campaign, and our scenarios have been things like Thornkeep, King of the Storval Stairs, To scale the Dragon, and Before the Dawn, scenarios where the fights are Set and generally include a single, often evil, boss. its just the way its worked out so far, and im not complaining.
Ah to help the rogue you use my patented rogue fix ™. The rogue has a number of rather cool & unique talents, such as Resiliency, Defensive Roll , etc. Unfortunately these are under the RAW useable but once a day. I’d simply change this to be like a Wizard’s (etc) ability, which is 3 times a day plus a Dex or Int modifier.
@Soul
not to hi-jack the thread, that still doesn't help the rogue, hes often in situations where dealing
It's hard to help the rogue they are a bit helpless. Poot rogues.
Try AOE spell, or target their worst saves with spells, touch attacks and the like. Creative traps, hold person blindness, daze, etc :)
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It's hard to help the rogue they are a bit helpless. Poot rogues.@Soul
not to hi-jack the thread, that still doesn't help the rogue, hes often in situations where dealing
Solution 1: Cloak of Displacement + Ring of Blinking. 75% miss chance on anything that would have otherwise hit him + the ability to stealth at will.
Solution 2: ask the wizard for Mind Blank + Greater Invisibility. (or UMD scrolls)
Solution 3: Gang Up + reach weapon.
Solution 4: employ creative thinking.
Jess Door's character Sheraviel was nigh-unhittable; I took to the NPCs calling her "Sheraviel of the Impenetrable Guard," and they were all trying to get her to teach them the secret. Sadly, an ogre chieftain in RotRL, with a high-crit weapon and Critical Focus, rolled a lucky 20 on a Power Attack. Sheraviel -- I don't think she'd even been injured in the last 3-4 adventures -- went from full hp to -20 instantaneously.
I felt kind of bad, because Jess wasn't even playing Sheraviel during that session -- but she still has the character sheet, and hopefully has "ported" the character into a different campaign, since that one is no more.
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I am not the player in question but I play a monk who creates this very problem (but worse) for our GM's every week at PFS tables. So here is my experience and thoughts.
I play a (now level 3) monk who uses archon style, archon diversion and bodyguard. My current AC is 19, and when fighting defensively it becomes 22. Those were the level 2 stats (as I just turned 3rd level and haven't played at level 3 yet). The next highest AC I've seen with anyone I've adventured with is an 18 ac Dwarven cleric. Gm's have tried changing tactics to hurt me because all the redirecting (once a round) and adding +2 to allies (against a single foe) is probably getting annoying. The answer was touch attacks- and that didn't work since my touch ac is 18 (21 defensive).
The main weaknesses for me were being hit with enough skill checks and saving throws, that I eventually fail. To date, I've found myself sick in almost every AP due to an eventual failed fort save. -2 for half a session, or a couple of encounters hurts- especially when you're taking a penalty from fighting defensively already (although mine is only -2 instead of -4). Also, things affecting the party- particularly magic, hurts. The penultimate session I played in had the enemies casting aoe fear effects. Naturally, I made my saves but there were those who didn't. I'm geared for defense not offense. 13 str and a -2 or -4 to hit doesn't allow me to kill anything.
Separation. Being split from the group in some fashion and left to tank more than one enemy means I am subjected to more attacks and therefor a greater probability of being hit.
Flanking. Flank us! If you can do it, that +2 makes SUCH a big difference. You have no idea how many enemies roll a 17-19 (I am assuming that is their roll) and just barely hit ac 22....which is mine.
If I were flanked, they could hit much more reliably.
High ground. The bonus is small but when dealing with tough nuts to crack, you need every advantage you can get when you can get it. High ground against me while I am protecting an ally is effectively the same as me being flanked.
Aid another. I use it to give allies +4 ac in response to them being attacked. That makes allies AC's nearly as good as mine, three times per round. Aid Another when applied by the occasional band of weaker things or even intelligent enemies would be a challenge.
Terrain: problematic terrain slows the group down. If you're using ranged attacks and a good amount of open space along the way, perfect. Enemies can throw or shoot as the players deal with the terrain.
Traps: Same as with terrain except you are probably more likely to injure or inconvenience the players with a trap than with terrain.
Magic: We can't make all of our saves. If I fail a save and run away in fear- the enemies are much more likely to do what they are trying to do to the rest of my party- especially if it involves hitting someone. My obnoxious little behind won't be there to bodyguard or redirect or archon style it all away.
The paladin is both easier and harder to handle. He has a far lower touch ac so he can be hit much more often but the paladin actually has better hp and can heal. He's not as good at dealing with obstacles as the monk so you can use that to your advantage, but again- he can heal when he fails an important check or is hit with a spell and somehow fails the save. Neither character is really going to die if they play smart and enemies don't get lucky shots on them. But, I'll be honest, my monk has been taken to negative hit points quite a few times and finished several sessions with just a handful of hp remaining. He does get hit- just not as often as the GMs would like.