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Jergmo
2009-09-02, 06:15 PM
Apart from a suit of armor, shield, magic, Dodge, Combat Expertise, Improved Combat Expertise and Defensive Fighting/Total Defense and tumble synergy, are there ways a regular human fighter could increase their armor class?

Assassin89
2009-09-02, 06:20 PM
I think you missed Dex bonus, but there are two feats that improve armor class for heavy armor in Races of Stone, Heavy Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization.

Jergmo
2009-09-02, 06:24 PM
And Dex, yes. What about for non-dwarves and such?

Curmudgeon
2009-09-02, 06:59 PM
Multiclass to pick up class abilities, such as the Monk's AC bonus (no armor) or Swordsage's AC bonus (light armor).

Use mithral or other special material. Mithral reduces the armor's weight category by one, and brings up your maximum DEX bonus by 2.

sofawall
2009-09-02, 07:31 PM
Con to AC is usually more optimal than dex, so Fist of the Forest or Stoneblessed/Deepwarden, maybe both.

Sharkman1231
2009-09-02, 07:34 PM
I'm just wondering, what does Improved Combat Expertise do?
Also, which book is it in?
Thanks!

Curmudgeon
2009-09-02, 07:38 PM
I'm just wondering, what does Improved Combat Expertise do?
Also, which book is it in?
Removes the +5 limit for Combat Expertise.
Complete Warrior.

Eldariel
2009-09-02, 07:51 PM
Basically, Core Fighter AC caps at:

3 Dex (get 16 through item or whatever)
13 Mithril Full-Plate +5
9 Mithril Tower Shield +5
5 Ring of Deflection +5
5 Amulet of Natural Armor +5
1 Dusty Rose Ioun Stone
1 Dodge
+3 Defensive Fighting + 5 Combat Expertise (if you're willing to suck and not hit anything)

This gets you an AC of 55, at the expense of -10 to your attacks and burning ~200k on defensive equipment along with 2 feats and a lot of ****. You can save about 50k by having your Cleric cast Magic Vestment on your armor and shield each day (and you can slightly negate the "I suck"-problem by getting an Animated Tower Shield and dual wielding something big instead).

The principal problem with this is that you're tanking your offense so hard that you won't be any kind of a threat to monsters you may face, so they can just ignore you and your AC doesn't give you a dime of benefit. Let alone the fact that caster-type opposition (a large number of monsters at this level) ignore your defenses entirely (you'll need another hundred thousand for the Competence Bonus Ioun Stone, +5 Cloak of Resistance, Luck Blade, Wis-booster), which leaves you with about 400000 for your offensive equipment and remaining stat boosters (you need at least Con, Str and Dex for another 100000, and you'll need Boots of Speed, an item that allows flight, something that allows teleporting [so you don't become useless when Forcecaged], preferably something that gives you a miss chance and yeah).


Out-of-core, you mostly get feats which are worth nothing, and some class features that can get something done (Deepwarden level 2, depending on whether you restrict it by Max Dex or not, can be really good) and a heapin' ****ton of extra offense.

Curmudgeon
2009-09-02, 08:14 PM
13 Mithril Full-Plate +5
9 Mithril Tower Shield +5
5 Ring of Deflection +5
5 Amulet of Natural Armor +5
1 Dusty Rose Ioun Stone
Guess you missed that whole Non-Magical thing, huh? :smallwink:

Thurbane
2009-09-02, 08:15 PM
There's situational modifiers like cover, and Aid Another checks...

Jergmo
2009-09-02, 08:25 PM
There's situational modifiers like cover, and Aid Another checks...

Oh, right, I forgot about cover. Gracias.

Eldariel
2009-09-02, 08:43 PM
Guess you missed that whole Non-Magical thing, huh? :smallwink:

Either that, or I thought it was sufficiently covered already. Reading is teach, I suppose :smallsigh:

Ranos
2009-09-02, 08:54 PM
This is kind of magical, but the protection devotion feat will give you and your allies a nice sacred bonus to AC for a minute.

Cieyrin
2009-09-02, 09:22 PM
Lots of Core Fighter AC stuff

You forgot a +5 defending weapon.

Also, tower shields are generally made of wood so as to not be disturbingly heavy, so more than likely the superior tower shield is made of darkwood. The steel tower shield was introduced in Races of Stone and weighs 100 lbs., as compared to the PHB wood one at 45 lbs. @_@ Crazy Dwarves insisting on a metal tower shield.

Eldariel
2009-09-02, 09:27 PM
You forgot a +5 defending weapon.

Also, tower shields are generally made of wood so as to not be disturbingly heavy, so more than likely the superior tower shield is made of darkwood. The steel tower shield was introduced in Races of Stone and weighs 100 lbs., as compared to the PHB wood one at 45 lbs. @_@ Crazy Dwarves insisting on a metal tower shield.

Meh, Mithril Tower Shield would still be just as light as a wooden one. The key is, Tower Shield has its own Dex-cap and unless you can abolish it, you cannot really benefit of using a Tower Shield over a Heavy Steel Shield. Indeed that seems to be the case, which makes Heavy Steel Shield only 1 point weaker than Tower Shield so I'd tend towards that.

And yeah, Defending Armor Spikes get you +5, but I hate Defending weapons due to them being so impractical if you have to actually deal with the penalty, and due to all means of negating the penalty being cheesy put mildly, so I intentionally ignore their existence :smalltongue:

Cieyrin
2009-09-02, 11:30 PM
Meh, Mithril Tower Shield would still be just as light as a wooden one. The key is, Tower Shield has its own Dex-cap and unless you can abolish it, you cannot really benefit of using a Tower Shield over a Heavy Steel Shield. Indeed that seems to be the case, which makes Heavy Steel Shield only 1 point weaker than Tower Shield so I'd tend towards that.

Well, 2 points weaker, Heavies have +2 shield and Tower +4. The Darkwood Tower only weighs 22.5 lbs, which seems almost managable. I suppose the advantage of making it Mithral is it will increase the Max Dex on the Tower to +4, though it still weighs 50 lbs, so there goes my suspension of disbelief on why the lighter darkwood version is harder to move around. ~_~