Pathfinder: dex or armor for ac?

[Dren Nas]

If i remember correctly in 3.5, dex tanks had the highest ac due to there being a hard cap on armor armor bonus. Is that true with pathfinder also?

What's some of the highest ac you people have seen playing pathfinder?

[Mehangel]

If i remember correctly in 3.5, dex tanks had the highest ac due to there being a hard cap on armor armor bonus. Is that true with pathfinder also?

Yes, I believe the same is true in Pathfinder. But having the highest AC does take effort. Of course AC is only one aspect of defense. You also need Hit Points, DR, Miss Chance, Saves, etc.


What's some of the highest ac you people have seen playing pathfinder?

I played a Level 15 Soulknife who I am pretty sure had AC in the Mid 60's AC (Mid 50's Touch AC) depending if he was buffed or not. He also had the ability to dimension door 3/day as an immediate action to being attacked. Had the ability to negate critical hits and precision damage, and had constant 20% miss chance. Had both uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge (making him immune to sneak attack and flanking). It was by far the most defensible character I ever played.

[CharonsHelper]

A Pathfinder DEX monk can potentially get into the 60's unbuffed. (besides the Barkskin they put on themselves)

Note: In Pathfinder core monk is better than 3.5, but still pretty bad. But if you play Unchained Monk or combo some archetypes it's a very solid class.

[Geddy2112]

Yes, I believe the same is true in Pathfinder. But having the highest AC does take effort. Of course AC is only one aspect of defense. You also need Hit Points, DR, Miss Chance, Saves, etc.
Even with an AC outside of the enemy's hit range, you still have a 5% chance of being hit.

I played a Level 15 Soulknife who I am pretty sure had AC in the Mid 60's AC (Mid 50's Touch AC) depending if he was buffed or not.


A Pathfinder DEX monk can potentially get into the 60's unbuffed.

In theorycrafting, with all the buffs bells and whistles I have been able to get a halfling monk at level 20 to over 100 AC, mostly touch. That said, a Tarrasque with true strike is only getting a +60, and even a good optimized martial is way out of anything but fishing for a 20 at that point.

[Zanos]

A large dex modifier is better at very high levels than wearing armor. It takes quite a lot of investment for dex to actually give you more RAW ac, though. A 12 dex character can get +9 AC from fullplate and +1 from dex. You would need a haramaki(+1 armor, no dex cap) and a dex score of 30(18 points higher) to beat that. There are many benefits to having a high dex other than ac, though.

Mithral armor tweaks the math a bit. A mithral chain shirt is cheaper than full plate and is 4/7, for a total of 11 to AC, which is slightly better than fullplate. Still, investing in dex to the degree that it is strictly better for AC than wearing heavy armor is prohibitive unless you're a dedicated dex build or are throwing around potent transmutations.