D&D 5E Quick Question on AC and Proficiency bonus

[Starfox]

I'm trying out 5E, and it feels that for reasons of symetry, proficiency bonus should be added to Armor Class. I can't find a mention of this in the rules. How is it?

 

[jasper]

Your proficiency bonus DOES NOT add to AC. IT adds to swings with weapons you know. Skills you know. And attack spells.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

Proficiency bonus is not added to AC. It is a bonus primarily to d20 rolls (attacks, skills and saving throws).

 

[Starfox]

This seems odd, you will hit and be hit more and more as you advance.

Also seems odd that the goblins we first encountered had a higher AC than most of us adventurers (15).

 

[jasper]

Quick and dirty summary. 5E has bounded accuracy so max AC is 30. But as you go up in levels you gain various defenses depending on class which basically allow you to half damage. Generally in low level monsters high ac means low hit points.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Both armor class and hit bonuses are restricted in 5e, to avoid the issues in earlier editions where armor was either useless or invulnerable.

Your hit bonuses get better as you progress, but only a little. Higher level monster tend to have higher armour classes than low level, but only a little.

As for AC 15 goblins, it's not unusual for first level characters to have better ACs than that. Are you sure you remembered to add dex and shield bonuses?

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

This seems odd, you will hit and be hit more and more as you advance.

Also seems odd that the goblins we first encountered had a higher AC than most of us adventurers (15).

Yes, in general you will get hit more by monsters as you level up because the more difficult monster's to hit bonus will out scale your AC. There are typically ways to increase your AC a couple of times throughout a campaign such as by buying more expensive armour or by having a feature that adds a variable to your AC, but these are slower than the scaling of to hit bonuses.

As you level up you get HP every level. Mid to high level characters will have enough hp to withstand more attacks and thus be able to last much longer in combat than they were at lower levels.

 

[Charlaquin]

This seems odd, you will hit and be hit more and more as you advance.

To an extent, but your AC should also increase as you advance as long as you continue increasing your Dexterity and/or upgrading your armor. The idea is for AC to advance with loot rather than EXP. But yes, the general trend is that you hit and get hit slightly more often as you gain levels. You will also deal and receive more damage, and have more HP. This is the intended progression.

Also seems odd that the goblins we first encountered had a higher AC than most of us adventurers (15).

Hmm... At 1st level, lightly armored characters should have about AC 14 (11 from leather armor, +3 from Dex), medium armored characters should have AC 15, or 16 and Stealth disadvantage (13 or 14 from scale or chain shirt, +2 from Dex) and 17 or 18 with a shield. Heavily armored characters should have AC 16 with stealth disadvantage (from chainmail) or 18 with a shield. And goblins should have 15 when using their scimitars and shields, or 13 when using their shortbows. So, generally you should have higher AC than goblins, apart from your casters.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm trying out 5E, and it feels that for reasons of symetry, proficiency bonus should be added to Armor Class. I can't find a mention of this in the rules. How is it?

This is basically a matter of sacred cows which have yet to be slaughtered.

Logically, proficiency bonus added to AC would make absolutely huge sense, given what it both the proficiency bonus and AC represent. Mechanically, it would work very well and make DEX less of a god stat (assuming DEX no longer added to AC), as well as cleaning up the AC calculations for a number of classes (presumably one would remove DEX or similar from their AC calculations too - perhaps some could have "expertise" in the proficiency for non-armoured classes).

But DEX adding to AC has been something that's been used for a very long time, and proficiency is a new thing. I'd be unsurprised to see something like this in 6E.

 

[ad_hoc]

5e was designed to avoid the 'treadmill effect'.

That is, if all the numbers raise at the same rate, they're not really raising.

It also means that even at higher levels weaker creatures still remain a threat. So you can have a combat with a couple tough monsters as well as many weaker ones and the weaker ones will make it much more difficult.