# +1 AC or +20 HP--which is better for a nimble, frontline character?

I've planned a 1 Monk, 19 Draconic Sorcerer, and I have the option of setting Con to 14 and Wis to 12 (providing +1 HP at each level up), or Wis to 14 (+1 AC, given Monk Unarmored Defense) and Con to 12 (dipping in Barbarian instead of Monk is not an option).

Which would provide more survivability in the frontlines, going from 17 AC to 18 AC (14 Wis), or +20 HP (14 Con)?

I am not yet really familiar with the fifth edition, but as far as I know, it seems important to me to also consider that +2 WIS is also a boost to your save and some skills which can drastically affect your survavibility.

Instead of giving you my very own answer which may not be your depending your style of play, I will give you list of pros for each option.

Pros to +2 Wis

• +1 to perception checks means that you will less likely be surprised by a sneaky character, which makes quite a difference for a squishy character.
• +1 to save is always good to take even more at low levels... Yet it is a weak save for you, so at lvl 20 I doubt it will make a huge difference.
• +1 AC is pretty good, it ends up as a 5% miss chance which, on the long run, is better. Well, before lvl 20, enemies tend to hit significantly harder than 20 pesky damages. It won't do much better than "buffering", at best, a single attack.

Pro to +2 Con

• It gives you +20 HP so about 21 % more HP. It is a good bonus to your survivability yet it won't save you from a bruiser's beating.

CON 12: 8 (monk) + 3.5 * 19 (average sorcerer HP roll) +20 (Con) = 94

CON 14: 8 (monk) + 3.5 * 19 (average sorcerer HP roll) +40 (Con) = 114

• +1 to one of your strong saves, which is good and probably better on the long run, as the system seems to encourage you to be good in your area of expertise and count on friends to compensate your weaknesses.

Bonus:
As told previously, +1 CON won't net you the best result in term of sheer HP bonus, if you are really looking for a boost, for your HP, the feat 'Tough' is a better alternative.

Unarmored Defenses and Draconic Resilience are both AC calculations and thus do not stack. Only one of the two will apply, unless there was something else you wanted a dip into monk for that is suboptimal.

You might also consider the tough feat if your table is allowing feat use as it provides +2 hp per level of survivability over +1 to hp or AC from a stat boost.

The plus 1 AC gives more survivability. At level 20 where you would actually gain 20 hp, monsters are doing so much damage that 20 hp is not worth the extra 5% of missed hits.

Extra AC is always better due to flat bonuses on attacks and bounded accuracy, while damage is a scaling increase based on CR. Saves are based on abilities now so increasing Wis is always bettter than extra HP.

This is assuming that you use Array and put your highest att on Dex > Cha > Wis due to Sorc Multiclassing.