Defense Fighting Style in DnD 5e: Rules and Our Take

Last Updated on October 23, 2023

From The Rules:

The Defense Fighting Style grants +1 AC while you are wearing armor. 

Our Take on the Defense Fighting Style

It’s a straightforward fighting style, providing a small, passive benefit to your armor class, making it harder for enemies to target you with weapon attacks and some spells.

While +1 might not feel like a lot, I cannot understate how impactful this fighting style can be. 

If your character is taking on the unofficial role of the party tank—a frontline fighter who puts their body between ravening monsters and their party’s delicious 11 AC wizard, for example, creating the necessary space for their less survivable allies to use their abilities unmolested—then the Defense Fighting Style is a must-have. 

Raising your AC by 1 means your enemies hit you 5% less. (Okay, I know the actual math fluctuates a bit depending on how high your AC is because of bounded accuracy, but my love of statistics extends as far as the nice click-clacking sounds the colorful math rocks make when I jiggle them around in my hand, so 5% it is.)

If you end up taking the majority of hits for your party, even in a relatively short combat (the average 5e combat encounter lasts just 4 rounds), you could easily be targeted by over 20 attacks. The difference between 16 and 17 AC, for example, really pays for itself quite quickly. 

You can combine this fighting style with heavy armor and a shield (all accessible to fighters and paladins) from 1st level using the starting gear selections to get an AC of 19 at first level.   

In short, if survivability is your goal, this really is a necessary link in the chain(mail hauberk).

What Characters Should Take the Defense Fighting Style?

Only the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger naturally have access to fighting styles, and all three can make use of the Defense Fighting Style for their own reasons. 

Rangers, who are lightly armored than other martial classes—lacking heavy armor proficiency as they are—also often forgo shields in favor of being able to use ranged weapons or practice two weapon fighting.

This class can make up for its chronically low armor with the defense fighting style. As someone who has run a campaign for a three-person party, the only survivable martial character in which was a Gloomstalker Ranger, it would have been a much shorter campaign without the Defense Fighting Style. 

Paladins are traditionally heavily armored, melee-focused combatants whose abilities already give them lots of ways to dish out tons of damage. Therefore, as this class often ends up protecting weaker party members in battle, all the extra survivability it can get is welcome.

The same goes for fighters, even if you decide to make a more dexterity-focused build in lighter armor—more Oberyn Martell than the Mountain, although we all know how that worked out. 

In fact, any build that chooses to skimp on armor in favor of better stealth and maneuverability could stand to pick up the Defense fighting style, as it takes medium armor from being quite bad to only being… sort of quite bad.

It’s also a great sort-of replacement for a shield if your character decides not to carry one, or you choose a two-handed weapon, or go for a two-weapon fighting build. 

This is also where we hit the biggest problem with the Defense Fighting Style: there is always a more specialized offensive option you’re sacrificing. If you’re playing a platemail-clad tank with a halberd, why not grab Great Weapon Fighting?

Or even Dueling if you still want to take the traditional sword and board route? Your enemies can’t get past your armor if you stabbed them all to death with a +9 to hit. The same goes for the light armor compensation argument. If you’re a ranger (or a fighter) with medium armor and longbow, you should just pick Archery to hit more.

If your AC is low because you’re dual wielding, then you’re going to need to grab two-weapon fighting to make that build work as well as it can. 

It’s an unfortunate dilemma, and a real shame you can’t ever take more than one fighting style unless you’re playing a Champion fighter (objectively the most boring subclass in the game—yeah I said it, fight me)… Or can you? 

The Fighting Initiate Feat and the Defense Fighting Style

The fighting initiate feat is available to all characters who already have proficiency with at least one martial weapon, and allows you to take a fighting style even if you aren’t playing a fighter, paladin, or ranger.

It also allows martial classes to take more than one fighting style, although you cannot take the same fighting style twice to stack the bonus it provides.

If you are playing a martial class that desperately needs more AC, but also would benefit hugely from a fighting style like Archery or Two-Weapon Fighting, then grabbing this feat at 4th level can really help to round out your character. 

Also, for classes that don’t usually have access to a fighting style but still wear light armor, like the Rogue, being able to add to their chronically low AC can be a huge boost to their survivability.