"appropriate" Armor Class

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

I've got a question for you.

to give it some slight context, yesterday I had the opportunity to play a level 7 one shot game.

My base AC hovered around the 27 to 30 range... but I was capable of boosting it all the way to 36.

my party members had an AC of 18 and (pure conjecture) 22 in comparison.


soooo my question is..... "did I overdo it?"

and "what's an 'appropriate AC' for level 7?"

[Ranting Fool]

Not really sure, but as a guide have a look at the NPC list in DMG1

Barbarian at level 7 = AC 17
Bard = AC 15
Cleric = AC 20
Druid = AC 18
Fighter = AC 22
Wizard = AC 14

Though these are NPC's and they have worse stats and less gold and gear.
That said AC is very much role dependent... If you're trying to be the meat shield and stand in the way of the Monsters and the more squishy members of your group then there Is no such thing as too much armour /DR:smallbiggrin:

[ericgrau]

23: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8888663&postcount=15

Assuming core. Outside of core there are ways to get more so it would depend on the group's optimization level, which apparently is below optimized core. Though without a shield 20 is reasonable. Generally a +4 is enough to get a major advantage, so ya, you're a bit high. Unless your offense is total garbage, I'd tone back the base to match your group's optimization level. Getting an extra 5 on top of that from combat expertise or whatever is fine though since it dumps offense and is only sometimes a good idea.

NPCs have less treasure to work with so their AC is likely to be lower.

EDIT @ V: A point of AC is certainly worth less than a point of enemy attack bonus. Even though it effectively gives foes a -1 to their attack bonus to hit you they might have different attack types or they might try (with drawbacks) to get past you. However, AC is also much, much cheaper to boost than attack bonus so it's worth a certain amount of investment because he WILL still get attacked at some point. At his particular level he can get 3 AC for the cost of 1 attack bonus, so it's easily worth it. It's a bit of a logical flaw to think of the problem as all offense or all defense and then you say "Duh, I pick offense" when in reality it's best to balance the two. Even in the case of a tripper enemies will hit you because trips fail; again it's never all or nothing. And dead PCs can't attack. Or PCs that need healing to avoid resurrection waste turns on the inefficient combat option called healing and keep the cleric from attacking.

So it's not as bad as having an extra +4 to hit above his allies, but he still needs to tone it down. In random one shot groups you might try for 1 or 2 points above what's normally possible to be safe.

[Frog Dragon]

Never mistake sample characters in the books for sensible characters of any kind. Those are autohit material for any even quasi-decent melee-er. +7 BAB, +4 Str, +1 magic weapon = +12 to hit.

As a sidenote, AC often isn't that important to a good tank (they still like to have it, but it's not that crucial), since viable tanking is done via reach-trippers, who keep the foe lying on their face, on the ground, too far away from anyone to be able to attack.

[fryplink]

Yes, thats really good. at level 7, your opponents can be expected to have from 6-9 BAB (if melee) and 16-20 strength. So, your oppenenets have +9 and +5 to hit, (a +14 added to the average roll of "10" and you get 28). An AC of 30 at level 7 is about as effective as an AC of 12 at level 1, and an AC of 36 is as effective as an 18 at level 1.

while I'm sure you've heard this before, and someone will ninja me, there will be a point around level 10 (you might even be feeling a little of this now) were AC stops being worth pumping when compared to other defenses. Most notably miss chance and DR/Resistances are going to be more useful. This is because +5 items are considered "Top Teir" at the same time BAB is around +15 and STR and other 'To Hit' bonuses keep crawling out of the woodwork.