Highest AC for PCs?

[sengmeng]

What cheap tricks/templates/feats/items/builds have you used to pump your AC to stupid heights, and how high did you get it?

[Doc Roc]

I've seen 200+, but that's on some specialist builds.

[subject42]

Easy methods that I've seen used in actual games:

Full Plate + Defending +1 weapon + Defending +1 Armor spikes + defending +1 shield spikes + 2xMagic vestment + 3xMagic Weapon

This is expensive and resource intensive, but you end up with a cleric that has stupidly high AC.

Druid Wild Shape

Just wild shape into something that has a hilariously high natural armor bonus.

Greater Mage Armor (SpC) + Dragon Skin (SpC) + Shield + I forget
This gave you a good mix of touch AC, natural armor, and normal AC.

[gorfnab]

I posted this one over on BG


Human or Strongheart Halfling Monk 2/ Swashbuckler 3/ Thief Acrobat 5/ Duelist 10 (BAB 17 at 20th level)
Feats:
1. Carmendine Monk, Combat Expertise, Dodge (Cobra Strike Monk)
2. Mobility (Cobra Strike Monk)
3. EWP Broadblade Shortword (pre-errata version), Weapon Finesse (Swashbuckler)
6. Deadly Defense
9. Einhander
12. Combat Reflexes
15. Robilars Gambit
18. Karmic Strike (or maybe Spring Attack)
19. Deflect Arrows (Duelist)
Trait: Cautious

At 20

Assume Int 30 and Dex 30 (easy enough with decent starting scores of 16 in one stat and 18 in the other stat, tomes, leveling, and magic items)

Fighting Defensive Total = +2 (Broadblade Shortsword pre-errata version :smallwink:) + 4 (15 ranks in Tumble see Oriental Adventures and other sources) + 1 (Cautious Trait) + 2 (Einhander) + 3 (Thief Acrobat) +10 (Duelist) = 22

Total AC when Fighting Defensively without any other bonuses to armor from magic
10 Base + 10 Int (Carmendine) + 10 Dex + 10 Int (Duelist) + 22 (see above) = 66

Total AC when Fighting Defensively with other magic items
10 Base + 10 Int (Carmendine) + 10 Dex + 10 Int (Duelist) + 22 (see above) + 5 (Bracers of AC) + 5 (Ring of Protection) + 5
(Amulet of Natural Armor) + 5 (Defending Weapon Enhancement) + 2 (Vest of Defense) + 1 (Ioun Stone) + 5 (Combat Expertise) = AC 90, Touch AC of 80?

A wizard with 5 levels of Abjurant Champion can also get a fairly nice AC. The spell Shield would give you +9 and the spell Greater Luminous Armor would give you +13. Polymorph or whatnot into a form with a high Natural Armor and you're pretty much set.

[Firechanter]

I think the RAI limit is roughly 43:

10 base + 8 Armour + 3 Dex + 5 Enhancement + 2+5 Animated Shield + 5 natural + 5 deflection
(Mithral Full Plate and all the standard gear)

Also feats like Combat Expertise (up to +5).
Plus certain minor bonuses, often short-term buffs, giving Insight or Luck bonuses.

Of course there are other routes, for example there are several classes that give AC bonuses, usually while wearing light or no armour. I don't know all of these too well, as they require rather specialized builds.

The abuse starts when you start putting spikes on everything and enchanting them all with the Defending property. According to RAW, this gives an untyped bonus that "stacks with everything", and it doesn't say anywhere you have to _use_ the respective "weapon".
You could have a Spiked Shield, Armour Spikes and a Spiked Gauntlet, each +1 Defending and pimped to +5 by a Chained GMW. --> +15 AC, without any hit to your actual offensive capabilities and for a modicum of expense.

I said "the abuse starts" in the previous paragraph. It doesn't end there. There are lots of ways to pimp your AC into the triple-digit range. For example, do a forum search for Team Solars and silently weep.

[Metahuman1]

I posted this one over on BG


A wizard with 5 levels of Abjurant Champion can also get a fairly nice AC. The spell Shield would give you +9 and the spell Greater Luminous Armor would give you +13. Polymorph or whatnot into a form with a high Natural Armor and you're pretty much set.

2 lvl's of Argant Savat gives you an extra +2 from Shield and +2 form Greater Luminous Armor.

[GoatBoy]

Improved Combat Expertise (CWar) pushes the limit to your BAB, so that adds a fair chunk.

[true_shinken]

I think the world record is 362 by Otto the Bugbear.

[Doc Roc]

I think the world record is 362 by Otto the Bugbear.

Think there was a later Otto build that pushed it higher, but was of questionable legality. This is, of course, not counting arbitrarily high ACs via arbitrary Dex scores.

[ericgrau]

Easy methods that I've seen used in actual games:

Full Plate + Defending +1 weapon + Defending +1 Armor spikes + defending +1 shield spikes + 2xMagic vestment + 3xMagic Weapon

This is expensive and resource intensive, but you end up with a cleric that has stupidly high AC.
You found a DM that allows multi-defending stacking, on someone who isn't even attacking? Odd. Totally fine for theoretical though, so I'm not complaining, I just didn't think people actually used it.

[The Boz]

Isn't it simpler to just be immune to physical damage? Even with a godlike AC, you're still hit on a natural 20. Stacking phased out mirror images on an invisible character is just three spells, and achieves the same thing.

[subject42]

You found a DM that allows multi-defending stacking, on someone who isn't even attacking? Odd. Totally fine for theoretical though, so I'm not complaining, I just didn't think people actually used it.

I was actually the DM in that game.

The player in question was otherwise focused almost entirely on in-combat healing and combat buffing. The rest of the party consisted of an absurdly optimized binder, a reasonably optimized wizard, a very smartly played psywar, and a nicely built warlock that made good use of invisibility and flight.

In a party like that I wasn't going to deny the healbot his schtick, especially when it's within the rules and he was only boosting up one defense.

[ericgrau]

Ah IC. If he tried that plus dealing damage then there would be problems. But healing from safety isn't a big deal. There are ranged versions, sanctuary, etc. too. That was more of a using a bazooka to take out an ant isn't OP type situation.

IMO it breaks the spirit of the rule (arguably the letter, but that's debatable) in that you're supposed to be taking some kind of penalty to hit when you do that. It's a magical form of combat expertise. Since the letter of the rule is debatable (if not leaving a loophole wide open), it doesn't bother me for theoretical optimization.

[Eldariel]

I think practically any tier 1 who bothers to put a whole whoppin' bunch of spells up can get over 100 by level 20 without using any loops; may also need few magic items (maybe ~30000gold worth or so) but nothing major. Saves too, most likely (though they scale a bit worse); never actually checked the caps so I'm not sure there.

But yeah, basically magic = AC in this game; non-casters do what they can with magic items and casters have spells to do the heavy lifting. Highest no LA no magic level 20 AC that doesn't take combat actions (Combat Expertise, Defense/Defensive, etc.) I've seen hovers around 45, involving a Con-stack with Fist of the Forests/Deepwarden and classes that improve Con or Natural Armor. Think you could get 50 if you really put your mind to it but much higher than that, well, 20 points from Improved Combat Expertise and 8 from Total Defense, I guess. And then some trash feats for mayhap a point or two more.