Abjurant Champion AC Buffs

[The Insaniac]

As previously posted, I'm building a wizard for a mid-op game. I've decided to go Abjurant Champion and I'm looking for good spells for AC. So far I have:

Shield, an evil version of the Luminous Armor spells, Spiderskin, Crown of Protection, Glimpse of the Prophecy, Magic Circle Against X, Protection from X, Scintillating Scales, Sonic Shield and the Mage Armor line.

Are there any that I've missed?

Also, I'm trying to decide on a domain. The ones that I'm looking at and the spells that I like in each are:

Abjuration Domain
1st—shield; 3rd—dispel magic; 6th—greater dispel magic; 7th—banishment; 8th—mind blank; 9th—prismatic sphere.

Antimagic Domain
1st—protection from chaos/evil/good/law; 3rd—dispel magic; 4th—minor globe of invulnerability; 8th—protection from spells; 9th—Mordenkainen's disjunction.

Conjuration Domain
1st—mage armor; 2nd—web; 3rd—stinking cloud; 5th—wall of stone; 6th—acid fog; 8th—maze; 9th—gate.

Enchantment Domain
2nd—Tasha's hideous laughter; 3rd—suggestion; 4th—confusion; 5th—hold monster; 7th—insanity; 9th—dominate monster.

Illusion Domain
1st—disguise self; 2nd—invisibility; 3rd—major image; 6th—mislead; 7th—mass invisibility;

Necromancy Domain
1st—ray of enfeeblement; 2nd—false life; 4th—fear; 5th—waves of fatigue; 7th—control undead; 8th—horrid wilting.

Storm Domain
1st—obscuring mist (as 1st-level cleric spell); 2nd—gust of wind; 5th—control winds (as 5th-level druid spell); 6th—chain lightning; 7th—control weather; 8th—whirlwind (as 8th-level druid spell); 9th—storm of vengeance (as 9th-level cleric spell) (yes, it's crap, I just like the spell).

Transmutation Domain
2nd—levitate; 4th—polymorph; 5th—baleful polymorph; 6th—disintegrate; 9th—shapechange.

[Khedrac]

As previously posted, I'm building a wizard for a mid-op game. I've decided to go Abjurant Champion and I'm looking for good spells for AC. So far I have:

Shield, an evil version of the Luminous Armor spells, Spiderskin, Crown of Protection, Glimpse of the Prophecy, Magic Circle Against X, Protection from X, Scintillating Scales, Sonic Shield and the Mage Armor line.

First thing to remember with this list is that the Abjurant Champion AC bonus feature will not work with most of them - it only works with abjuration spells that provide Shield or Armor bonuses.

I think the entire list is:
Shield
Deflect*
Luminous Armor (and variants thereof).

*This is either Deflect or Lesser Deflect - it only works with one of the spells and I cannot remember which.

Yes the other spells you list do provide AC bonuses, but also not all of them will stack (e.g. Magic Circle against X and Protection from X as they both provide deflection bonuses).

If you really want to pump AC then the various options for Force Specialization will work with more spells (e.g. Greater Mage Armor) than Abj Champ.

Abjurant Champion is still a great class, but don't take it for the AC boost as it doesn't deliver.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Abjurant Armor (Su): Any time you cast an abjuration
spell that grants you an armor bonus or shield bonus to AC,
you can increase the value of the bonus by your abjurant
champion class level. Abjurant champions rely on mage armor,
shield, and similar spells instead of actual armor.

Only spells from the Abjuration school.
Only spells that grant yourself a bonus, not bonuses granted to other creatures by your spells.
Only an armor bonus or a shield bonus to AC, no other bonus types.
Note that this does not actually include Mage Armor, since it's a Conjuration and not an Abjuration.


Lesser Deflect in PH2 provides a deflection bonus to AC, but Deflect also in PH2 says it applies a shield bonus, and this was not addressed in the errata.
Shield grants you a shield bonus and it's an Abjuration.
Dragonmark Shield from the Eberron book Dragonmarked provides you a shield bonus to AC, and it's an abjuration.
Luminous Armor and Greater Luminous Armor grant an armor bonus and are Abjurations, but only benefit from that when cast on yourself.
Ectoplasmic Armor in SC grants an armor bonus which only applies against incorporeal touch attacks, it's an Abjuration but it only benefits from that when cast on yourself.

That's the entire list, barring house rules or 3rd party material.

Note that multiple armor or shield bonuses don't stack with each other, a given character can only benefit from one armor bonus and one shield bonus, so you can only add your Abjurant Champion level to your AC twice.

Also note that the Mind Over Matter class feature of Paragnostic Apostle in CC increases the armor bonus of any spell you cast by +2, which affects spells of any school that grant an armor bonus even when they're cast on another creature. If you're expecting to use (Greater) Mage/Luminous Armor on your other party members, then this is highly recommended.

[KillianHawkeye]

There are some higher level versions of the Shield spell which also qualify. Check Complete Mage or PH2, I forget. I know one of them is called Repelling Shield; it works like Shield but also pushes attackers away. I think there might be another one, but I'm not sure.

[herrhauptmann]

Lost empires of faerun has some shield variants, but they're strictly worse than regular shield.

I suggest researching/houseruke a dual svhool mage armor and greater. Conj/abj.

[The Insaniac]

Bah, I misread Abjurant Armor's effects. Thanks for pointing that out. That being the case, should I bother with a 1 level dip for extended abjuration or should I go for a different PrC entirely?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I dunno. What's the rest of your build look like? What are you trying to do with it?

[The Insaniac]

I'm going with a god wizard, so lots of debuffs and crowd control with a couple of SoDs and blasts. Right now I've got Tiefling wizard 5 (spontaneous divination)/Fiend-Blooded 10 (my DM is allowing this for a Tiefling). The character is an "embrace your demonic heritage" idea, aiming for archfiend status. My spare feats are getting eaten with abyssal heritor feats.

Which reminds me. What are people's opinions on how Fiendish Sorcery will affect my wizard casting?

At 2nd level, and again at 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th level, add one additional spell to your spells known list. Each new spell must be of a level that you can cast but can be any spell having the fire descriptor or any spell from the schools of enchantment, illusion, or necromancy.

[Chronos]

"Spells known" for a wizard just means spells you have in your book which you can cast, so a class feature that gives you extra spells known basically just saves you the cost and effort of finding a scroll or spellbook and copying it-- Not a big deal. On the other hand, depending on your interpretation of that ability, it sounds like it might be able to get you spells from other class lists, which could be handy. Ask your DM.

[Ellowryn]

You do know that the first rule of God Wizard is Thou Shale Not Lose ANY Caster Level, unless the benefits far outweigh the loss. And Fiend-blooded, which is really a sorcerer PrC, doesnt really give you anything worth losing the 1 CL (and possible a second CL loss assuming you are not using LA buyoff). If this character is already built then there is not much you can do, otherwise i would advise against it.

Item #2, yes you can use fiendish sorcery to pull from ANY spell list, as it gives an explicit example in the description of the ability, and they will get added to your spellbook without any cost to you.

[The Insaniac]

the first rule of God Wizard is Thou Shale Not Lose ANY Caster Level, unless the benefits far outweigh the loss.

Yeah, I know. But like I said, this is not for a high-op campaign, Fiend-Blooded is perfect for flavor and I'm not taking the last level until level 18 (monstrous thrall :smallbiggrin:).

Edit: I am using LA buyoff. I wouldn't be a Tiefling otherwise.

[Chronos]

That's the first rule of wizard optimization. But the first rule of wizard playing is that you're powerful enough anyway that you don't need to be optimized.