How cheap / high would AC have to be to remain relevant?

[Firechanter]

As it says on the tin. We all know that the AC progression doesn't work well in 3.X. Of course there are ways to optimize your build to ridiculous heights, but that's simply not an option for many character /build concepts. As long as your AC is based purely (or mostly) on items, pretty much every like-CRed monster is going to hit you at least on its primary attack(s), and your AC _may_ give you a chance against secondary/iteratives.

So basically, item-based AC has two problems: 1. the upgrades get too expensive very quickly, and 2. they cap out too low.

For reference, I'd like to point to the spreadsheet Bench-Pressing Pathfinder (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CCxnAb8apicr3fOrSCEFNRwHlzRieMrXm6ld9-uLAFc/edit#gid=0), whose creator has calculated the relevant average monster stats per CR, then calculated the relevant PC stats required to do well against these average encounters. "Blue" is optimal, "Green" is decent, "Yellow" is mediocre. Typically, blue values mean a guaranteed success barring a Nat20/Nat1. EXCEPT for the AC metric, where a blue rating means that the enemy can only hit you with a Nat20 on its LOW attack.

Anyway, so as you can see, for instance at level 12 a Blue AC would be 35. Just with items, this is probably unreachable with anything below 50% WBL investment, which in turn is way too much anyway. And even if you do, you're still gonna get hit by about 25% of primary attacks. Which however may be in the player's own interest for psychological reasons (b/c if the DM feels his monsters never hit, he'll just pull out other nastinesses that make your AC irrelevant.)
And that's just level 12 spotlight. For level 7 your AC already would have to be _30_, and by a quick calculation this would require basically _all_ your WBL even for a defensive build.

Long story short, I'm thinking about drastically reducing (some) AC prices, and maybe introduce a new scalable item type to raise the cap. Like, boots giving a Dodge bonus as in NWN/2, if you remember that one. Like for starters, maybe reduce Natural and Deflection bonuses to x^2 * 1000GP and offering those boots for the same price.
Also, maybe the base armour and shield values could be increased by a couple of points.

So for instance, if Full Plate had a base value of 10+Dex, then by level 12 a Two-Handed Heavy could have an AC of 31 for 27,500GP investment. That would make you "Green" for about 30% of your WBL (3.5). (Keep in mind that these are always-on values, not counting short-term buffs.)

What do you think? Still too expensive?

[Jack_Simth]

Note that, at least in 3.5, AC that doesn't negate attacks still provides Power Attack resistance.

[Kurald Galain]

So why exactly are you putting the benchmark for "remaining relevant" at a 95% success rate?

[Firechanter]

Who is?

*looks around*

So far there's only me and Jack Simth, and neither of us said anything of the sort.

[Kurald Galain]

You're aiming for blue in that bench press document, which is completely not realistic (and the author of that document knows it). You should be aiming for green instead.

[ericgrau]

As-is. It's really cheap. A well rounded build with both offense and defense items keeps up 1 for 1 with attack bonus. Not to mention being further ahead against secondary attacks and so on. I did some core optimization via computer program trying different combinations and that's what came out.

But then there's power creep in magic items, AC dumping abilities like shocktrooper, various other attacks and so forth muck it all up. So depending on your optimization you may need to adjust it, and any solution won't work the same for everyone. But then you also need to adjust all core items and abilities just as much. I think it's easier to take the top 5% powerful abilities, items and so forth you see in threads and ban/nerf them. People hate to do this because they see it as taking away toys, but see it more as making the other middle 90% viable and giving many more toys. And if you try to nerf or provide alternatives, not ban, as much as possible, you can mostly keep the top 5% too.

This is generally true of most untested wide reaching system changes based on what "we all know". Without thorough testing and/or math, you're only going to muck it up a lot worse. Despite the many, many flaws gamers have found in decades of play, the original system was surprisingly well put together. Then 54,213 new options plus combos with existing options made preventing all issues impossible. And the biggest mistake was perhaps never explaining anything. Intentionally. Like which basic items to get to keep up with the actually very well planned, mathed and tested out AC curve. Instead, here <plop> 8,000 items, somewhere in there are the 5 you're looking for. Go find them.

If you do want to encourage something that is being under-used, you can however use the DM +2/-2 circumstance fudge factor. On things besides circumstances. That's about all you have to safely work with before it gets messy and complicated. And +2/-2 does make a pretty significant difference, even if the reason isn't immediately obvious... but actually I'll spell it out. +4 AC is where monsters need to start reconsidering ever using physical attacks at all against any well armored PC. That's hitting 3 out 20 times instead of 7 out of 20. That's like saying "I know I'm glitterdusted, but I felt an attack from that square and I'm feeling good about my 50% odds." Except every monster there ever will be is glitterdusted before the fight even begins. So either the DM says "Oh, ogres, ok the party kills them all, no need to roll, moving on" or he sends foes with other kinds of attacks. And then at that point why even use AC at all? Just say monsters don't even try to attack well armored mundanes with regular weapons.

I bring this up for all numbers tweaking in general, because poor PCs actually have to put up with DMs handing out what totals to +8 in bonuses to some classes that "need" it in an over-extensive set of house rules. For all stats tweaking, for the love of Boccob, stop at a +2 modifier then try something besides pumping that number.

[MisterKaws]

In 3.5, at least, sorcerer/druid/Wizard gishes can get that much armor easily by buff stacking, especially a sorcerer with Arcane Fusion to do multiple buffs in a round.

[Velaryon]

Note that, at least in 3.5, AC that doesn't negate attacks still provides Power Attack resistance.

Or at least it did, until Shock Trooper became a common way around this obstacle.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

The trouble with lower AC costs is that it has to be unavailable for Gishes (because they can already get massive AC) while being available to melee classes like Fighters or even Monks.

[Jack_Simth]

Or at least it did, until Shock Trooper became a common way around this obstacle.

Note that most monsters don't come with Shock Trooper. That will be found on specifically built opponents, it's not part of the general case. So a troll won't have it unless your DM is specifically upgrading your enemies for the purpose, in which case the specific AC isn't really relevant.

[hethoran]

I actually have felt the same source of frustration. The *fantasy* of d&d combat kind of starts falling apart at higher levels for average players. There's no real feeling of expert combatants trade blocks and parries until a lucky strike gets through the whirlwind of steel. It's more like everyone just standing still and wacking each other till they fall over, cause why not? It's not like anyone can reliably expect the monsters to miss.


I'm actually testing my own solution to this problem right now in the form of BaB as AC. Basically, as long as your are considered armed and aware, you can add 1/2 your BaB to your AC. This represents fighty characters being good at defending themselves and gives more fighty types like rangers and fighters a bigger boost while keeping the casters lower. I've only gone through a couple sessions so far, but it seems to scale well so far. The monster hit bonuses still get higher faster than the AC increases, but the curve is less severe and feels more natural.

[Firechanter]

The trouble with lower AC costs is that it has to be unavailable for Gishes (because they can already get massive AC) while being available to melee classes like Fighters or even Monks.

That's a good point, but all the more difficult to achieve. If it was just about Fighters you could tie AC advantage to Heavy Armour (since Gishes usually wear Light or none, at least the ones I know), but that would leave Monks and all those skirmishers etc behind.
Tying it to BAB doesn't help a lot either, since a proper Gish has at least 16 BAB as well.

[Crake]

Honestly, people quite frequently underestimate the weight of any given AC value. Sometimes I'll look at the NPCs i've built, and think to myself "Ah, 40AC, that should be a good stopping point, I could easily push it higher, but 40 should be fine" only to look at my player's attack values, and see they have +17 or so on their best attacks, and I realise I was about too throw an AC value at them that would have resulted in them crit fishing, which is never fun.

AC is just SUUUPER easy to optimize, and without huge investment either. I have a level 10 spellslinger in my pathfinder game who rocks an AC of 28 unbuffed, and my part members are walking around with 34+ AC buffed, so it's really not that much of an issue.

[Firechanter]

To clarify my reasoning on the Bench-Press numbers a bit: as the metric is relative to the monsters' _Low_ attack, this effectively means that against a Green AC, they have about 50% Hit chance with their High attack. And that is IMO not a good enough return for investing 40-50% WBL. Aside the point that I don't _want_ to spend all this gold on something as boring as a purely passive stat. I want to buy toys that let me do cool stuff!

Personally, I'm all in favour of an automatic level- and class-based AC progression. At least for a baseline value; then individual players may choose to invest some extra resources to pump their Defense higher than that. A class-based progression also would solve the Gish>>Mundane problem.
On the other hand, you'd have to be careful not to be too restrictive. As seen with PF2, at least as far as I followed the playtest -- basically it says "You're level X = you have AC Y" with very little wiggle room, and as it does the same with _all other_ stats, it just feels too restrictive and therefore, to me, uninviting.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'd keep deflection bonus a bit more expensive than NA, because it does apply to touch AC, which helps defend against some spells and special abilities, as well as regular attacks. If NA is priced at 1000*[bonus squared], you might price deflection at 1500*[bonus squared].

Given your observation that spending money on static AC is unglamorous (or just boring), you could make AC more interesting. You could say that you add your base attack bonus to AC for the first attack that targets you in a given round, your base attack - 5 to the second attack (if you have at least +6 base attack), and so on; that would mirror attack rolls (hopefully, that means it's easier to remember) and give high-base attack classes a distinct advantage in defence. It opens up the possibility to create defensive equivalents of Flurry of Blows, haste, two-weapon fighting (which would be sword-and-board, of course), and so on. A lot more complex than static AC, but it might be worth it.

[magic9mushroom]

Honestly, people quite frequently underestimate the weight of any given AC value. Sometimes I'll look at the NPCs i've built, and think to myself "Ah, 40AC, that should be a good stopping point, I could easily push it higher, but 40 should be fine" only to look at my player's attack values, and see they have +17 or so on their best attacks, and I realise I was about too throw an AC value at them that would have resulted in them crit fishing, which is never fun.

AC is just SUUUPER easy to optimize, and without huge investment either. I have a level 10 spellslinger in my pathfinder game who rocks an AC of 28 unbuffed, and my part members are walking around with 34+ AC buffed, so it's really not that much of an issue.

They're talking about monsters' attack bonuses, which can often substantially exceed those of PCs (or NPCs) due to HD inflation. I mean, an ancient white dragon (alleged CR 18, let's say CR 20 for the sake of argument) has +39 to hit; AC 42 is achievable by L20, but rather involved and expensive (you need a shield, a +Natural Armour item and likely a +Dex item) and it's difficult to go much higher. As such, AC amounts to - as Jack Simth said - a reduced cushion for Power Attack and little else.

[Crake]

They're talking about monsters' attack bonuses, which can often substantially exceed those of PCs (or NPCs) due to HD inflation. I mean, an ancient white dragon (alleged CR 18, let's say CR 20 for the sake of argument) has +39 to hit; AC 42 is achievable by L20, but rather involved and expensive (you need a shield, a +Natural Armour item and likely a +Dex item) and it's difficult to go much higher. As such, AC amounts to - as Jack Simth said - a reduced cushion for Power Attack and little else.

Uhh, the ancient white dragon i'm looking at is only +30?

Edit: It just occured to me that 39 might have been a typo? 42 AC vs +39 doesn't seem like an appropriate target

As an aside, 13AC from some mithril, nimble sectioned plate is something practically everyone can afford at high levels, giving you a max dex of +4, which most people should be able to achieve with a +4 item of dex, but for the sake of argument, lets say you're a 12 dex fighter, so +3 dex with a +4 item, a +5 buckler is likewise something everyone should be able to easily afford that will barely interfere with your combat style unless you're explicitly using a two hander, in which case improved buckler defense, or a dancing shield aren't horrible investments, a greater hat of disguise combined with a regular hat of disguise can let you walk around with base +6 natural armor in troglodyte (and then disguised to look like yourself for no RP implications), reduce person can slap on another 2 AC if you're dex based (alongside a +2 bonus to hit, generally a good tradeoff for the slightly reduced weapon damage dice), to a level 20 character, all of that combined is chump change, and still nets you about 38AC (without the reduce person buff). Slap on a ring of prot/amulet of natural armor +3-4 each and you're looking at AC46-48 without even really trying. Even dropping the dex item, you're looking at 44-46 AC, for about the cost of 38k for the armor, 25k for the buckler, 12k for the greater hat of disguise, 1800 for the regular one, 18k for the natural armor and prot each, that comes out to 112.8k, about 1/7th of your level 20 WBL. Really not too involved, and hardly expensive, and literally anyone can do that, even a caster can use that armor and buckler with a couple extra addons (twilight, githcraft, feycraft thistledown padding, and just mithril on the buckler)

[ThatMoonGuy]

As I see it the issue isn't the values of AC but the.cery concept of it as a binary stopwall against attacks. For any specific attack, either your AC matters completely and you take no damage or it does not matter and you take full damage. Sure, it does help against full attacks but full attacks are a problem on their own and many creatures don't even have that much of a penalty on multiple attacks.

A more logical solution would be to have AC work as a partial value and not just a binary. Maybe apply threshold of hits (full damage, half damage, quarter damage and so on) or just limit damage by how much they passed AC. The specifics would have to be ironed out but by doing so, even a little bit of AC could help you get longer and the randomness of the dice would lose a bit more of power .

[Biggus]

It always bothers me how AC automatically becomes lower than attack bonus at high levels unless you make a lot of effort to optimise it.

I might make Deflection AC items 1500GP x bonus2, since as it adds on to touch AC it's more valuable than Natural. Natural at 1000GP x bonus2 doesn't seem unreasonable though, as it works just like an Armour bonus.

Another option is to make other AC item types (Luck, Insight, Sacred, Profane) more widely available. Perhaps also drop their price to 2000GP x bonus2, or maybe even 1500GP.

Increasing the Monk AC bonus would certainly not break the game. Maybe +1 per 3 levels instead of 5?

[Eldariel]

AC is completely stupid. It's completely item dependent for basic classes beyond the basic armor and shield (that doesn't meaningfully improve after level 2-3 even for heavy armor types aside from Mithril coming as the single boost for particularly high Dex heavy armor melee types around 10-12), and there's a ridiculous number of sources that boost it. This leads to it being supereasy to optimise with items and class features (it's pretty trivial for a level 12 Cleric to get 35 AC for hours each day spending just enough money to buy basic non-magical armor and either a buckler or an animated shield if feeling spendy) but if you do it with raw items, you're shelling in stupid amounts of cash.

And shelling stupid amounts of cash (to the tune of over 50% of your WBL) on a non-caster means you aren't flying, hitting incorporeal enemies, penetrating DR, teleporting, preventing enemy teleportations, escaping forcecages, becoming immune to basic things, etc. since you're reliant on the same WBL to do all of those things.


Like, take Cleric 12 who has 88k in wealth. He'll want Beads of Karma anyways for his all-day buffs and to make them hard to dispel and so on. Then he gets a Fullplate and perhaps some stat boosters, metamagic rods, scrolls and such. +1 Animated Heavy Shield is affordable. This is the single significant investment for the AC clocking in at 9000gp out of the 88000. Of course, he could halve the cost if he had the crafting feats. Then he casts his Magic Vestment on two of those giving his armor +4 enhancement totaling at +12 AC and his shield totaling at +6 AC. Then he can have like 12 Dex for 29 AC and then all it takes is casting Shield of Faith (which lasts for 12+ minutes already and comes out of a 1st level slot so is a minor investment) to get 33 AC. Then you could buy natural armor (or cast it - Barkskin is in the Plant-domain, which actually has really good spells on low levels and reasonable ones up to ECL 15ish - even Shambler isn't entirely worthless with the Con growth and the fact that it has a duration of weeks or months), Ioun Stone, change shape, cast Mirror Image off Spell-domain or use a spell completion item off Magic domain or do whatever the hell you want. For as long as you have those 12 min 1st level spells running you'll have 35 AC pretty effortlessly.

Now, try doing that as a Fighter. Your armor will start off with +4 less bonus, shield with +3. You don't have an easy access to deflection bonus, nor do your class features give you anything. You're probably gonna have to fight defensively and Combat Expertise or blow like 70% of your WBL or something like that to hit the same target. You've of course got more WBL to play with in this regard since you can't buff your casting as you have none, but overall I'd wager it comes out at a net negative.

[rferries]

Given your observation that spending money on static AC is unglamorous (or just boring), you could make AC more interesting. You could say that you add your base attack bonus to AC for the first attack that targets you in a given round, your base attack - 5 to the second attack (if you have at least +6 base attack), and so on; that would mirror attack rolls (hopefully, that means it's easier to remember) and give high-base attack classes a distinct advantage in defence. It opens up the possibility to create defensive equivalents of Flurry of Blows, haste, two-weapon fighting (which would be sword-and-board, of course), and so on. A lot more complex than static AC, but it might be worth it.

I suspect this would be too complex in actual play - which is a pity, because I love the idea!

How about: for every iterative attack a character can make, they get a stacking +3 (+/-) dodge bonus to AC?

[tiercel]

1) Enemies who have a jillion HD, enough that their attack bonus makes my AC “irrelevant,” and who don’t use iterative attacks, probably have Power Attack so they aren’t “wasting” their +62 to hit or whatever. If I’m not completely sure I can prevent them from ever full-attacking me, I’d prefer my last words not be “but, but AC is worthless!” as I get one-rounded.

2) Enemies with a ridiculous attack bonus who DO use iterative attacks, well, I’d like to defend against some significant fraction of their attacks, so that what *should* be mostly a “flurry of misses” doesn’t wind up Cuisinarting me.

3) The majority of encounters I’m likely to face are EL ~ my level, and because of the way action economy works, they will usually involve multiple foes rather than One Big Bad looking at my party’s ~four actions to his every one. Upshot: a great many of my foes are not going to be packing +Yes to hit, and cheaply mitigating minion damage is better than suffering Death of a Thousand Cuts from expendable extras.

Thus, in my experience, having at least some AC is almost always actually helpful.

Personally, I don’t have experience with either character levels or optimization levels where “immune to physical” is possible or even allowed at the table, so I always invest something in AC — attacks vs AC are a very common enemy tactic and hp damage a common cause of death. YMMV, obviously.

[Maat Mons]

As I see it the issue isn't the values of AC but the.cery concept of it as a binary stopwall against attacks. For any specific attack, either your AC matters completely and you take no damage or it does not matter and you take full damage. Sure, it does help against full attacks but full attacks are a problem on their own and many creatures don't even have that much of a penalty on multiple attacks.

A more logical solution would be to have AC work as a partial value and not just a binary. Maybe apply threshold of hits (full damage, half damage, quarter damage and so on) or just limit damage by how much they passed AC. The specifics would have to be ironed out but by doing so, even a little bit of AC could help you get longer and the randomness of the dice would lose a bit more of power .

You could take this a step further. Completely eliminate attack rolls. The attacker skips straight to rolling damage, but the defender gets to roll some dice and subtract them from the damage he takes.

[King of Nowhere]

that table used as an example is completely unrealistic for the blue levels. it's an ideal high, not "the minimum to stay relevant".
So, for example, at the same level 12 where you are "supposed" to have 35 AC, you also have a blue listed value of +19 for saving throws.
I can get AC 35 by level 12 without too many troubles if I spend enough, but I can't get +19 to all saving throws unless I take all the monk prestige classes for that +2 at first level.


As I see it the issue isn't the values of AC but the.cery concept of it as a binary stopwall against attacks.

A more logical solution would be to have AC work as a partial value and not just a binary. Maybe apply threshold of hits (full damage, half damage, quarter damage and so on) or just limit damage by how much they passed AC.



Given your observation that spending money on static AC is unglamorous (or just boring), you could make AC more interesting. You could say that you add your base attack bonus to AC for the first attack that targets you in a given round, your base attack - 5 to the second attack (if you have at least +6 base attack), and so on;
Both those are nice ideas, but unfortunately they would require plenty of calculations. some systems designed for use by pc do something similar.


AC is completely stupid. It's completely item dependent for basic classes beyond the basic armor and shield
yes, that's a problem. somebody more experienced should be more difficult to hit, and yet a 20th level figther does not dodge any better than he did at level 1, he only has more protective items.

While I would like a system where high level fighter would trade parries and dodges and would only hit rarely, with the hp inflation it would mean that combat would take very long. And casters still kill fast. So doing such a system would require a complete rework.

Personally, I tend to fluff it as high level characters being actually capable of having those kind of duels, but forgoing them to go all-offence because it's the only way to stay relevant in a battlefield that's increasingly dominated by magic.

[magic9mushroom]

Uhh, the ancient white dragon i'm looking at is only +30?

Edit: It just occured to me that 39 might have been a typo? 42 AC vs +39 doesn't seem like an appropriate target

Checked. It's +39. +30 BAB, +11 Str, -2 size.

I did not mistype. 42 AC is the lowest meaningful AC vs. +39 attack bonus, as it makes a rolled 2 miss. Up till that point you're only reducing the cushion for Power Attack.

As an aside, 13AC from some mithril, nimble sectioned plate is something practically everyone can afford at high levels, giving you a max dex of +4, which most people should be able to achieve with a +4 item of dex, but for the sake of argument, lets say you're a 12 dex fighter, so +3 dex with a +4 item, a +5 buckler is likewise something everyone should be able to easily afford that will barely interfere with your combat style unless you're explicitly using a two hander, in which case improved buckler defense, or a dancing shield aren't horrible investments, a greater hat of disguise combined with a regular hat of disguise can let you walk around with base +6 natural armor in troglodyte (and then disguised to look like yourself for no RP implications), reduce person can slap on another 2 AC if you're dex based (alongside a +2 bonus to hit, generally a good tradeoff for the slightly reduced weapon damage dice), to a level 20 character, all of that combined is chump change, and still nets you about 38AC (without the reduce person buff). Slap on a ring of prot/amulet of natural armor +3-4 each and you're looking at AC46-48 without even really trying. Even dropping the dex item, you're looking at 44-46 AC, for about the cost of 38k for the armor, 25k for the buckler, 12k for the greater hat of disguise, 1800 for the regular one, 18k for the natural armor and prot each, that comes out to 112.8k, about 1/7th of your level 20 WBL. Really not too involved, and hardly expensive, and literally anyone can do that, even a caster can use that armor and buckler with a couple extra addons (twilight, githcraft, feycraft thistledown padding, and just mithril on the buckler)

Buckler doesn't grant the bonus to AC while you're wielding a weapon in the off-hand (either a second weapon or wielding something two-handed) unless you get Improved Buckler Defence, which is a rather large investment (a feat). Greater Hat of Disguise doesn't exist in 3.5, which is basically the difference between our calcs.

[Crake]

Checked. It's +39. +30 BAB, +11 Str, -2 size.

I did not mistype. 42 AC is the lowest meaningful AC vs. +39 attack bonus, as it makes a rolled 2 miss. Up till that point you're only reducing the cushion for Power Attack.

Ah, I was looking at it's bab, not it's attack bonus, my bad. It is worth noting that that's quite an outlier though, and dragons are notoriously under CRed, a CR17 marilith has +25 to hit, a CR18 nightcrawler has +29 to hit and a CR20 balor has +33 to hit.


Buckler doesn't grant the bonus to AC while you're wielding a weapon in the off-hand (either a second weapon or wielding something two-handed) unless you get Improved Buckler Defence, which is a rather large investment (a feat). Greater Hat of Disguise doesn't exist in 3.5, which is basically the difference between our calcs.

I did mention needing improved buckler defense if you're using the offhand for a weapon (note specifically a weapon, anything else is fine, so wands or rods), or you can just get an animated shield for a little bit more money, at which point you may as well make it a heavy shield for the extra AC bonus. If you drop the enhancement bonus by 1 (since you're already getting the extra +1 AC from it being a heavy shield) that only ups the price by 11k but allows you to use whatever you want in both your hands.

As for the alter self item, worst case you can just use an eternal wand of a 2nd level spell for a 30 minute buff if you can't convince your DM to allow you to get one, which happens to cut about 10k out of the cost, bringing the price back down to roughly what I quoted.

[Eldariel]

that table used as an example is completely unrealistic for the blue levels. it's an ideal high, not "the minimum to stay relevant".
So, for example, at the same level 12 where you are "supposed" to have 35 AC, you also have a blue listed value of +19 for saving throws.
I can get AC 35 by level 12 without too many troubles if I spend enough, but I can't get +19 to all saving throws unless I take all the monk prestige classes for that +2 at first level.



Both those are nice ideas, but unfortunately they would require plenty of calculations. some systems designed for use by pc do something similar.


yes, that's a problem. somebody more experienced should be more difficult to hit, and yet a 20th level figther does not dodge any better than he did at level 1, he only has more protective items.

While I would like a system where high level fighter would trade parries and dodges and would only hit rarely, with the hp inflation it would mean that combat would take very long. And casters still kill fast. So doing such a system would require a complete rework.

Personally, I tend to fluff it as high level characters being actually capable of having those kind of duels, but forgoing them to go all-offence because it's the only way to stay relevant in a battlefield that's increasingly dominated by magic.

You can just cut away bonuses from other sources (say, natural armor and some reduction to armor bonuses) and provide a BAB-based (or perhaps even class-based) AC scaling instead. Slower than attack growth is reasonable since things like Combat Expertise exist to tip the scales, but something to the tune of +10 by level 20 for full bonus classes seems reasonable. It also seems important that it's faster for warrior types and slower the further away from there you go so that warriors have some numbers on gishes and caster types (who otherwise have them eclipsed number-wise).

[ericgrau]

yes, that's a problem. somebody more experienced should be more difficult to hit, and yet a 20th level figther does not dodge any better than he did at level 1, he only has more protective items.

That's the real problem. As many have pointed out getting plenty of AC while still having plenty of resources left over for offense is already more than feasible. The fact that you need items and not be a total rookie to know which items to get, unlike BAB, is a bit silly.

A simple way I've been thinking about is to get passive items like AC and ability scores as points at level up instead of gold in a treasure pile. Along with that you can include for rookies a suggested AC progressions of roughly level x 1.25 for all armor, then less for the less armored/unarmored and back liners. You reduce monster treasure by a little less than this. Not the full amount, in order to make up for the disadvantage of not being able to trade between gold and points. And done. No need to worry about altering the system too drastically since the points match gold in value.


You can just cut away bonuses from other sources (say, natural armor and some reduction to armor bonuses) and provide a BAB-based (or perhaps even class-based) AC scaling instead. Slower than attack growth is reasonable since things like Combat Expertise exist to tip the scales, but something to the tune of +10 by level 20 for full bonus classes seems reasonable. It also seems important that it's faster for warrior types and slower the further away from there you go so that warriors have some numbers on gishes and caster types (who otherwise have them eclipsed number-wise).
This can be done too, but it needs some tweaking. You need to account for those that can't have all the armor pieces. With all of them including shield the easy-to-get progression (a reasonable amount, not focusing defense) is actually faster than BAB. About level x 1.25. And then there's cost. Perhaps it could be free as a gift to those with BAB. Or you need to reduce party WBL a little bit considering that some are getting less benefit from AC than others. So probably not by the full cost of the AC items. Then with medium BAB classes like rogue they're getting hit pretty hard. They're already behind because of light armor, and they're supposed to progress just as fast as a fighter. Double gimping their AC makes the already fragile rogue in an even bigger world of hurt. Yeah making it class based instead of BAB based is likely the way to go.

Perhaps this:
Full: barbarian, cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue
3/4: bard, druid, monk
Half: sorcerer, wizard

That's to more or less leave things alone as they would be with items. You can move categories as a buff/nerf if you want. Archers will have more AC than they need, but oh well as long as you don't make them pay full price for it. On top of the above add 1/4 progression for anyone with a shield. Even a buckler mage/rogue. That gets you up to the 1.25 that's normally possible without going overboard. Again remember those above not in full plate will still have lower AC as before. This is on top of that.

You also need to take away enhancement bonuses, deflection bonuses, etc. But not armor bonuses from a spell. Only spell enhancement bonuses to armor. If someone unarmored like a monk or wizard gets mage armor, they should still benefit because that was taken out when considering their progression. Plus it's still way less than full plate plus a high progression. Then there's touch AC. Probably just say 1/4 of your level to touch for every class and call it a day (total AC unchanged).

[rferries]

How about: class levels grant a scaling dodge bonus to AC as adventurers become increasingly skilled in combat (rather than monsters that rely primarily on static instincts and natural armour).

A creature gains a dodge bonus to its AC equal to 1/2th it's BAB as derived from class levels (i.e. ignore any BAB from racial Hit Dice).

As it's a dodge bonus this also applies against touch attacks, thereby also buffing martials against casters.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I've never understood this "AC is useless" stuff. Is it less cost-effective than miss chance, like cloak of minor displacement? Yes. But still very useful and both work in tandem.

And I don't even mean AC is useful for protection vs. power attack and iterative attacks. I mean...it's really stupidly easy to raise your AC in 3E if you're not a monk (poor monks...) and can actually use armor and shields (that includes all arcanists...twilight is a +1 market cost and mithral is cheap).
+5 mithral armor of your choice
+5 animated shield of your choice
+5 deflection AC (ring of protection, or various robes like ghost shroud)
+5 natural armor (amulet or bracers, maybe other options)
+6 enhancement to Dex = +3 AC
+1 inherent (dusty rose iuon stone)
+1 luck (luck stone, or other sources)

And more I'm probably forgetting (not to mention spell buffs). The best part? So many types of bonuses means you can increase each of them periodically, to offset the exponential growth of costs for higher bonuses, and have high AC at nearly all levels beyond the first couple.

As a DM, I was struggling to give my NPCs with class levels and a fair number of monsters to legitimately get their attack bonuses high enough that they could hit a PC almost half of the time with their best attack w/o any deductions like power attack. Eventually I just started giving out some made up attack bonuses because I didn't have the time to optimize every freaking enemy to the gills, plus said optimizing often buffed other things I didn't want to as a side effect (like damage per hit and grapple/maneuver bonuses, if i buffed the Str score, for example).

In almost two decades of playing, I've never seen AC be useless. If anything, I've seen myself and other DMs struggle w/ AC scores being too high to be a threat. (Which...I don't even mind that much if it's a fighter or rogue or monk type who's supposed to be a nigh-unhittable fragile speedster; I was getting annoyed that the spell casters could use all the same tricks and more, and be utter tanks as well).

[JNAProductions]

Mithral Chain Shirt-1,100 GP
+5-25,000 GP
Heavy Shield-20 GP
+5 and Animated-49,000 GP
+5 Deflection-50,000 GP
+5 Natural Armor-50,000 GP
+6 Dex-36,000 GP
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone-5,000 GP (Also, that's Insight, not Inherent)
Luckstone-20,000 GP
Total: 236,120 GP

So, it's affordable by level 16.
But, even at level 20, it represents nearly a third of your entire WBL, just going to normal AC.

While it does total at +31 to AC, that's a LOT of investment.

[emeraldstreak]

I've never understood this "AC is useless" stuff.

There's no such thing. The Playground has well-known blind spots when it comes to optimizing AC and Monks.

[Anthrowhale]

I think people complaining about AC are going for the rugged-individualist characters rather than party play. If you do party play, it seems AC is not hard.

For simplicity consider a canonical core party with Half-Orc Fighter/Halfling Rogue/Human Cleric/Elf Wizard at level 12.

Every party member has 88K gp and buys a Pearl of Power L1,L2,L2,L3 for 18Kgp. The cleric and the fighter have Full plate (1.5K). The rogue has a Mithril chain shirt (1K). The wizard has a mithril light shield(1K). The party splurges on minor ring of spell storing (4.5K gp each) and a prayer bead of karma (5K gp each). The cost is about 29K gp. Equipped ACs are 19 (Fighter), 19(Cleric), 21(Rogue), 14(wizard).

The Fighter takes Combat Expertise. The cleric takes the plant domain and memorizes Shield of Faith, Barkskin, and Magic Vestment. The wizard memorizes Alter Self. Before a big fight (which they know about through divination/scouting), they buff. The wizard uses the ring to transfer Alter Self so each person can cast Alter Self[Troglodye] for Natural Armor+6. Each person uses a pearl of power to recover the spell so the wizard still has it memorized. The Cleric actives the pearl of power and casts Barkskin on everyone for natural armor enhance+5 again using a pearl of power to recover. The cleric then casts Shield of Faith on everyone for Deflect+4 again using pearls of power to recover. This is also done with Magic Vestment to provide Armor Enhance+4 all around. The buffed ACs are now Fighter 38(fighter)/43(w combat expertise), 38(cleric), 39(rogue), 33(wizard).

A boss fight against a mature adult white dragon (CR 12), attack bonus of +27, AC 28 vs. the fighter with attack bonus+24?/AC 38, Rogue +21?/AC 39 is not a likely win for the dragon unless it is clever.

This strategy of sharing buffs continues to scale. With another level, animated shields come into play. With another level, Mithril full plate and using a pearl of power for Cat's grace. With another level, defending weapons, and pearls of power L3 for greater magic weapon to up AC even further. With another level, Polymorph all-around becomes reasonable.

Altogether, I don't see an obstacle to a cooperating party achieving adequate AC with shared buffs. And if you move beyond core this becomes even easier.

[Kurald Galain]

The Cleric actives the pearl of power and casts Barkskin on everyone for natural armor enhance+5 again using a pearl of power to recover. The cleric then casts Shield of Faith on everyone for Deflect+4 again using pearls of power to recover. This is also done with Magic Vestment to provide Armor Enhance+4 all around.

This is key. For reasons I don't understand, some players entirely discount the concept of buffing other people. Even though party buffer is a common playstyle.

[Eldariel]

This is key. For reasons I don't understand, some players entirely discount the concept of buffing other people. Even though party buffer is a common playstyle.

It's mostly because it's not reliable (in the sense that not every party has a buffer or someone willing to buff) and requires some cooperation (the other party members should buy the buffer the Pearls for the buffs they want lest they want for their buffer to be penniless). But yeah, of course the party is numerically a lot stronger when buffs are shared and the top tier buffers (generally 9s casters) are present.

[emeraldstreak]

It's mostly because it's not reliable (in the sense that not every party has a buffer or someone willing to buff) and requires some cooperation (the other party members should buy the buffer the Pearls for the buffs they want lest they want for their buffer to be penniless). But yeah, of course the party is numerically a lot stronger when buffs are shared and the top tier buffers (generally 9s casters) are present.

I'd say that non-casters who bring their own pearls, wands, etc are certain to be buffed in all but the most abnormal parties.

[Eldariel]

I'd say that non-casters who bring their own pearls, wands, etc are certain to be buffed in all but the most abnormal parties.

I'd say if the party is evil, that's far from given. Doubly so if there is in fact nobody capable of casting any given buff in the party; no amount of Pearls is going to do 4 Fighters any good. Wands might if somebody wants to spec for it but if that isn't in the concept for anyone, well, they'll have to try and hire an NPC to do that for them and hope he doesn't **** 'em over or bite it. Otherwise, yeah, I agree.

[Anthrowhale]

I'd say if the party is evil, that's far from given. Doubly so if there is in fact nobody capable of casting any given buff in the party; no amount of Pearls is going to do 4 Fighters any good. Wands might if somebody wants to spec for it but if that isn't in the concept for anyone, well, they'll have to try and hire an NPC to do that for them and hope he doesn't **** 'em over or bite it. Otherwise, yeah, I agree.

Yeah, the game seems to be built around cooperative group play, so it's unsurprising if a breakdown in cooperation results in things being extra challenging. Related, characters who can satisfy the buffer role seem to be less challenged by the cooperative breakdown.

I don't want to be in the business of telling people how to have their fun, but the makers of 3.5 clearly were and they pretty clearly made a design decision here. We can debate the value of that decision, but it's not clearly wrong from the viewpoint of someone designing a game.

You could instead make a dnd-like game where every character is an individualist with cooperation far less required. Would it be as attractive? Plausibly not since existing players don't have nearly as much incentive to seek out new players to fill a missing role and because games themselves have a greater tendency to devolve into individual play.

[Awakeninfinity]

This is key. For reasons I don't understand, some players entirely discount the concept of buffing other people. Even though party buffer is a common playstyle.

I completely agree with you on that; however some of.the best buffs are personal; and I've noticed that (in my experience) players won't spring money for things that aren't immeadiately useful to them; like Rings of spell storing...

But I am getting off topic; I think the issue might actually be the cost of weapons; rather than armor...

[Eldariel]

Yeah, the game seems to be built around cooperative group play, so it's unsurprising if a breakdown in cooperation results in things being extra challenging. Related, characters who can satisfy the buffer role seem to be less challenged by the cooperative breakdown.

I don't want to be in the business of telling people how to have their fun, but the makers of 3.5 clearly were and they pretty clearly made a design decision here. We can debate the value of that decision, but it's not clearly wrong from the viewpoint of someone designing a game.

You could instead make a dnd-like game where every character is an individualist with cooperation far less required. Would it be as attractive? Plausibly not since existing players don't have nearly as much incentive to seek out new players to fill a missing role and because games themselves have a greater tendency to devolve into individual play.

Well, you have a set of classes that are self-sufficient; any Tier 1 caster can more or less provide all of their own buffs. In that sense, lower tier classes were designed to depend on others while the higher tier classes were designed to be those depended upon. But yeah, I'm not sure I agree with your assessment: cooperative play actually results in number bloat as shown by your example, where appropriate CR monsters are beyond trivial adversaries as they can't meaningfully threaten a fully buffed team. Team Solars (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)) are an example of this taken a step further. At that point, any appropriately CRd creatures just fail to have the numeric impact to matter unless they come equipped with some way to remove tons upon tons of buffs with a standard action (so Disjunction or similar), or do something numbers don't care about.

[CharonsHelper]

A simple way I've been thinking about is to get passive items like AC and ability scores as points at level up instead of gold in a treasure pile. ).

Pathfinder Unchained had that as an optional rule.


I've never understood this "AC is useless" stuff. Is it less cost-effective than miss chance, like cloak of minor displacement? Yes. But still very useful and both work in tandem.

And I don't even mean AC is useful for protection vs. power attack and iterative attacks. I mean...it's really stupidly easy to raise your AC in 3E if you're not a monk (poor monks...) and can actually use armor and shields (that includes all arcanists...twilight is a +1 market cost and mithral is cheap).

Actually - in 3.5, I'll agree that monks are bad (Pathfinder finally did them right - either Unchained or with archetype combos) but defenses are one thing that they actually do well.

+11 from DEX
+9 from WIS
+4 because Monk
+4 from Shield spell (not hard with a Ring of Spell Storing or a wand & UMD etc.)
+1 Insight (dusty rose)
+5 Deflection
+5 Natural Armor
+8 Bracers of Armor

That's an AC of 57 at high levels without breaking a sweat - which ignores buffs you'll have consistently like Haste.

Even at low levels they should be higher than most builds so long as they have a buddy willing to cast Mage Armor on them. (A 20 AC at level 1 should be a cakewalk.) I know that in organized play I always bought a Wand of Mage Armor for a buddy to use on me. It was Pathfinder - but my Drunk Monk was a TANK. (Sensei Drunk Monks in Pathfinder are a lot of fun - as they can spread their buffs such as Barkskin indefinitely so long as they have booze.)

[ericgrau]

Mithral Chain Shirt-1,100 GP
+5-25,000 GP
Heavy Shield-20 GP
+5 and Animated-49,000 GP
+5 Deflection-50,000 GP
+5 Natural Armor-50,000 GP
+6 Dex-36,000 GP
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone-5,000 GP (Also, that's Insight, not Inherent)
Luckstone-20,000 GP
Total: 236,120 GP

So, it's affordable by level 16.
But, even at level 20, it represents nearly a third of your entire WBL, just going to normal AC.

While it does total at +31 to AC, that's a LOT of investment.

You missed celestial armor and crafting upgrade rules to get it to +5. 38,400 gp instead of 25k but it comes with fly 1/day. And boots of speed for +1 dodge AC, because when should you not haste? That's 48 AC in core, no splats, no buffs, no special tricks. A balor has a +31/+26/+21/+16 to hit. Only 1 attack has a small chance of hitting. That's more like really hard to hit with physical attacks rather than "normal". Actually if it was a core only game I'd take dragon disciple for the stats and get another 3 AC. And then the balor should give up trying to attack me at all. Or other tricks like a staff with moment of prescience is nice for a variety of dangers, and dragon disciples can use that too. Heck at level 20 with core only feats to pick from I may actually take dodge (and if I had splats I could do better). Or buffs from allies, etc, etc. But let's continue with reasonable AC for vanilla situations, understanding that you can take it farther with a few tricks.

Let's give the balor a 75% chance to hit on his first attack, and 50% on his 2nd attack, 25% 3rd, etc. 37 AC. Not as good against single attacks but single attacks are easier to survive. And let's try to do it by level 18 which is more practical when looking at core. Because already at level 20 you might be fighting foes over CR 20 and then we'd have to look at the limited choices in epic. So stopping half of a nasty full attack from the big baddy, and much more from other more common foes. Ok:

Base: 10
full plate +5 35,800 gp: 8+2+5=+15 AC including dex. It would be 8+3+5=+16 AC but we're cutting costs in dex. 12+2=14 dex is more realistic without high stats.
+3 animated heavy shield 25,320 gp: +5 AC.
+3 Deflection 9k gp: +3 AC
+2 Natural 4k gp: +2 AC
+2 Dex 4kgp: AC already included
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone 5k gp: +1 AC
+1 boots of speed 12k gp: +1 AC and the extra attack


91,120 gp. But actually 79,120 gp if we take out the haste which you should have anyway.
Total: Only 18% WBL for a "normal AC" to keep up. That's core vanilla tactics that you can apply to any build, with plenty of easy ways to do even better.

If you spend 1/3rd WBL and/or pull a few simple tricks you can be nearly impossible to hit with physical attacks. But those tricks don't fit into every build so that's part of why I left them out. Also at core high level you aren't getting much of a damage difference between SAB and THF due to your fancy magic weapon and 10 other bonuses. And no, 99% of the time core power attack makes high level damage go down not up because you need to hit much more than you need a few points of damage. I will simply ignore corner cases that don't provide an argument on how to pull off the tactic a good majority of the time, because I'm tired of the nonsense. So support your counterpoint as always, but especially here. So without animated that's +2 AC more which you can use to cut costs or to become really hard to hit with physical attacks. Outside of core shocktrooper does muck up AC in general though, making it nearly dumpable.

Likewise due to the quadratic costs of AC, even the back liner mage should still put a little WBL into AC to protect against secondary attacks and what not. I'm guessing around 5-10% WBL. Besides having mage armor up 24 hours a day, or better buffs from splatbooks. A +X mithral buckler is nice besides the standard items. Sometimes he should invest a little more, depending on how common physical attacks are and how often the back line gets ambushed. At low level maybe 15-20% WBL to AC.

An interesting note is that I tried to add a cloak of minor displacement to cut costs and get the same 75%/50%/25% chance to hit but it didn't work. Other options eat a round and aren't worth it either. If you pump defense more then it might be barely worth it. At level 18. At any lower level no. So in core miss chance via items is almost never a good idea. In splatbooks there are lots of good cheap miss chance items though, just like there are better options for AC and everything else. What's best depends on what's allowed, optimization level, etc. Again, depending on what's allowed all figures could change. It's easier to optimize AC, but also easier to optimize everything else.



Actually - in 3.5, I'll agree that monks are bad (Pathfinder finally did them right - either Unchained or with archetype combos) but defenses are one thing that they actually do well.

+11 from DEX
+9 from WIS
+4 because Monk
+4 from Shield spell (not hard with a Ring of Spell Storing or a wand & UMD etc.)
+1 Insight (dusty rose)
+5 Deflection
+5 Natural Armor
+8 Bracers of Armor

That's an AC of 57 at high levels without breaking a sweat - which ignores buffs you'll have consistently like Haste.

Even at low levels they should be higher than most builds so long as they have a buddy willing to cast Mage Armor on them. (A 20 AC at level 1 should be a cakewalk.) I know that in organized play I always bought a Wand of Mage Armor for a buddy to use on me. It was Pathfinder - but my Drunk Monk was a TANK. (Sensei Drunk Monks in Pathfinder are a lot of fun - as they can spread their buffs such as Barkskin indefinitely so long as they have booze.)
Yes and no. Pathfinder did help them a little. Even in 3.5 they do great in theoretical AC contests. But for a practical cost they fall a little behind. For one your example has a 32 dex and 28 wis, and then you need a good str and con. Also you usually don't want to waste a round casting shield. Even if you do get a buff round there are other good options for the cost of those items. Quickened shield at really high level via items maybe. But for a practical cost you can still do alright with mage armor and so on. Just not as good as the guy in full plate.

[Anthrowhale]

Well, you have a set of classes that are self-sufficient; any Tier 1 caster can more or less provide all of their own buffs.

It seems like a matter of degree here. All classes benefit from cooperation, some much more so than others, and some to a lesser degree which can be forsaken survivably.


But yeah, I'm not sure I agree with your assessment: cooperative play actually results in number bloat as shown by your example, where appropriate CR monsters are beyond trivial adversaries as they can't meaningfully threaten a fully buffed team.

Numbers bloat can certainly happen, particularly when you work with all sources, when you have a single encounter/day, and when you have a party that works together particularly well. I don't think it's that severe in this particular case if the DM is more clever around multiple encounters/day and sometimes surprise encounters.

But "cooperative play is too good" means you agree the incentive structure rewards cooperative play. I really don't think this structure exists by accident.

[Eldariel]

But "cooperative play is too good" means you agree the incentive structure rewards cooperative play. I really don't think this structure exists by accident.

I agree the incentive structure certainly exists but I think stats for enemies do not account for Magic Vestment, GMW, Barkskin and other 10 min/level or hour/level buffs being active all the time. You either optimise the enemy to a similar point (having affiliated class-leveled NPCs fill in the role of spreading out some buffs) or just pull enemies from ridiculously high up for the party to feel seriously threatened. I don't think the thought was that "everyone has these buffs active at all times" rather than just "okay, these classes should get some ways to help their allies and these make for a good baseline". Of course, this is nothing compared to 3.0 where a non-descript NPC Warrior can be made into a combat beast permanently with Polymorph Other (permanent), Animal's X (hour/level) and the listed buffs; at least 3.5 forces some use of items for buffing purposes.

Frankly, that just makes me all the more perplexed for what the playtesters were doing WRT CR and similar considerations though. Did they honestly just never test a party with a Wizard, a Cleric and a Druid all casting their long-lasting buffs and going at it walking through encounter days? That seems like the most obvious thing to go for in the first place; it's just raw numbers, no strategy, no cleverness.

[ericgrau]

I agree the incentive structure certainly exists but I think stats for enemies do not account for Magic Vestment, GMW, Barkskin and other 10 min/level or hour/level buffs being active all the time. You either optimise the enemy to a similar point (having affiliated class-leveled NPCs fill in the role of spreading out some buffs) or just pull enemies from ridiculously high up for the party to feel seriously threatened. I don't think the thought was that "everyone has these buffs active at all times" rather than just "okay, these classes should get some ways to help their allies and these make for a good baseline". Of course, this is nothing compared to 3.0 where a non-descript NPC Warrior can be made into a combat beast permanently with Polymorph Other (permanent), Animal's X (hour/level) and the listed buffs; at least 3.5 forces some use of items for buffing purposes.

Frankly, that just makes me all the more perplexed for what the playtesters were doing WRT CR and similar considerations though. Did they honestly just never test a party with a Wizard, a Cleric and a Druid all casting their long-lasting buffs and going at it walking through encounter days? That seems like the most obvious thing to go for in the first place; it's just raw numbers, no strategy, no cleverness.

At least there are both offensive and defensive buffs so that if the party is very talented you can simply up the CR.

Hour/levels you can get up 24 hours without too much trouble. 10 min/level less often. Some wait until higher level, and it takes a little system knowledge to even know about them all. That's easy if you discuss D&D all the time online, but less easy for casual players who know only a little bit about this game they play now and then. Permanent PAO usually comes from a questionable interpretation of casting the spell twice. Casting the spell once you can get any mammal for a week pretty easily though, among a smaller number of other options. So that partly limits it. The polymorph line in general was banned from Living Greyhawk not for being broken (though that's certainly a topic), but for being way too complicated and slow in real life. That puts it outside the grasp of most casual gamers. And unlike buffs, items at least you can get a pretty good distribution from the random magic item tables. You sell and buy some too, but it exposes you to multiple small items which is good for getting a variety of good ideas without any player knowledge or effort. Problems there tend to come from DMs who don't use the table and say "Here, you find this one cool item." They may even think they're being generous and going over WBL when their 2x treasure is weaker than a dozen items that add up to half as much.

So it's possible the designers expected a handful of buffs, which is realistic in casual play. Or if the party is really good a few more and then you up the CR a little. Carefully pulling out every single option with forum help not so much. And with 35 splatbooks all hope is gone. Plus it's hard to say how knowledgeable a party will be. Ignoring that and hoping the party figures it out yet doesn't figure out too much is part of 3.5's biggest flaw I think. In that it intentionally has no guide at all. Only "Here are the rules, you figure out what to do with them." IIRC that's per Monte Cook, and IIRC he also said he regretted it. Kind of like MtG they wanted players to figure out what's good on their own. So many system basics are often missed. Yet if you master the system super well or use a thorough online guide you'll be way better than par. I think it would have been good to at least explain basic optimization and then if you want to hunt down more core tricks and splatbook tricks or ban them all (the best splatbook tricks not the entire splatbooks) or anything in between that's up to you. AC is one of the biggest victims here. It's pretty basic to keep up with a little knowledge of core, but not everyone has even that. And those that do might know even better tricks.

So I kinda agree and disagree.

[Remuko]

A boss fight against a mature adult white dragon (CR 12), attack bonus of +27, AC 28 vs. the fighter with attack bonus+24?/AC 38, Rogue +21?/AC 39 is not a likely win for the dragon unless it is clever.

This was a ECL 12 party. If theyre having a boss fight against a dragon it should be like CR 15 not CR12.

[Awakeninfinity]

This was a ECL 12 party. If theyre having a boss fight against a dragon it should be like CR 15 not CR12.

And it's not a good boss fight without minions (some competent; some not)

[Eldariel]

This was a ECL 12 party. If theyre having a boss fight against a dragon it should be like CR 15 not CR12.

And it can of course buff itself. Bare essential is Mage Armor for flat +4 AC and then it goes from there; Protection from Good is another +2 potentially and Shield +4 more. That said, the Dragon still isn't doing that much to the party. And Dispel Magic would remove all its buffs pretty effortlessly. Well, its proper strategy should be to try and snag someone (but Freedom of Movement exists so that's hard) and burrow/fly the hell outta there. But of course, it's hard to get a Dragon that could keep its buffs up in the face of Dispel Magic on this level (without going out of Core) and without buffs the Dragon stats aren't all that. Indeed, maybe a CR 16 Dragon would be the proper 50/50 fight though on this level, casters have enough options that it's hard for Dragons without similar levels of casting to compete. Of course, Dragons are still the gods of hit'n'run with their speed though.

[Awakeninfinity]

Frankly, that just makes me all the more perplexed for what the playtesters were doing WRT CR and similar considerations though. Did they honestly just never test a party with a Wizard, a Cleric and a Druid all casting their long-lasting buffs and going at it walking through encounter days? That seems like the most obvious thing to go for in the first place; it's just raw numbers, no strategy, no cleverness.

I'll admit that you have sparked my curiosity regarding those play tests (if viewing them were even possible); ... I feel they would provide valuable insight.

[ericgrau]

And it can of course buff itself. Bare essential is Mage Armor for flat +4 AC and then it goes from there; Protection from Good is another +2 potentially and Shield +4 more. That said, the Dragon still isn't doing that much to the party. And Dispel Magic would remove all its buffs pretty effortlessly. Well, its proper strategy should be to try and snag someone (but Freedom of Movement exists so that's hard) and burrow/fly the hell outta there. But of course, it's hard to get a Dragon that could keep its buffs up in the face of Dispel Magic on this level (without going out of Core) and without buffs the Dragon stats aren't all that. Indeed, maybe a CR 16 Dragon would be the proper 50/50 fight though on this level, casters have enough options that it's hard for Dragons without similar levels of casting to compete. Of course, Dragons are still the gods of hit'n'run with their speed though.
Dispel magic is a good point to bring up. It is something that prevents excessive buffing on both sides. Sure caster level plays a part, but so does the number of buffs. Dispelling 1 to 3 buffs is a waste of time when you only have a chance to get each one, but dispelling 15 is a great value even if you only get part of them. Not every foe will dispel PCs, heck most won't. But some will, and if the PCs are going too buff crazy they'll soon learn to tone it back a bit and spend some of those spell slots elsewhere. Because PC lost resources can be much greater than the enemy round(s) spent, and that will make that fight hurt. They will/should still use many buffs, but it is a limited number.

The dragon in this discussion should also use a smaller number of buffs even with less caster level. At least 2-3, because that's the point where you say if they don't cast dispel magic then I'm good, and if they do cast dispel magic I'm also good because at least I made them waste a turn. And even if the PCs do get most of the buffs they probably won't remove them all. Since dragons don't have much else to do with their spells they might cast more than 2-3, depending on how many spells they have and what little else they might do with them. So smart PCs might not dispel dragons at all, especially at lower level when they figure there aren't enough buffs to be worth the turn.

[Eldariel]

Dispel magic is a good point to bring up. It is something that prevents excessive buffing on both sides. Sure caster level plays a part, but so does the number of buffs. Dispelling 1 to 3 buffs is a waste of time when you only have a chance to get each one, but dispelling 15 is a great value even if you only get part of them. Not every foe will dispel PCs, heck most won't. But some will, and if the PCs are going too buff crazy they'll soon learn to tone it back a bit and spend some of those spell slots elsewhere. Because PC lost resources can be much greater than the enemy round(s) spent, and that will make that fight hurt. They will/should still use many buffs, but it is a limited number.

The dragon in this discussion should also use a smaller number of buffs even with less caster level. At least 2-3, because that's the point where you say if they don't cast dispel magic then I'm good, and if they do cast dispel magic I'm also good because at least I made them waste a turn. And even if the PCs do get most of the buffs they probably won't remove them all. Since dragons don't have much else to do with their spells they might cast more than 2-3, depending on how many spells they have and what little else they might do with them. So smart PCs might not dispel dragons at all, especially at lower level when they figure there aren't enough buffs to be worth the turn.

Dispelling depends on the caster level a ton too. It's one thing to try and dispel some CL-stacked buffs from someone with Beads of Karma, Death Knell and what-not (so needing a roll of 16 on higher on an equal caster level basis) vs. dispelling "naked" buffs (just the class level and perhaps orange prism ioun stone) and then dispelling a CL3 Dragon's buffs as a level 12 character (where even a normal Dispel Magic succeeds on a 4 or higher). But yeah, dispelling is a big part of the higher levels and of course, if you can outsource it (e.g. summon something that Dispels), you can have Dispel-bots whose chances aren't amazing but who get "free" tries at it and can shut down magic items (whose caster levels don't scale and many are abysmally low; of course you optimally need a "fire coordinator" with Arcane Sight or similar figuring out which items are worth targeting).

[Kurald Galain]

I'd say that non-casters who bring their own pearls, wands, etc are certain to be buffed in all but the most abnormal parties.

Yes. The existence of a party buffer strikes me as far more common than the usual charop assumptions that all splatbook material is allowed, or that the game will play around level 20.

[Anthrowhale]

This was a ECL 12 party. If theyre having a boss fight against a dragon it should be like CR 15 not CR12.

Sorry, 'boss fight' was a distraction. I picked a white dragon because I know it's one of the tougher CR 12 encounters and I tend to associate dragons with boss fights (...because dungeons and dragons). The important thing is balancing around encounter level 12 which is supposed to be typical. Maybe 3 Vrocks? +15 to hit/AC 22. 5 Hill giants? +16/AC 20. 2 Clay Golems? +14/AC 22. The Mature Adult White Dragon at +27/AC 28 is pretty tough, but you could also have 4 young adult white dragons +18/AC 23 for the same encounter level. AC tends to work better when an encounter level is created from multiple monsters.

[Selion]

The way in which AC and BAB are balanced in pathfinder/D&D is disfunctional. Things are kinda balanced, but in a weird way: BAB increases at the rate of 1/2 to 1 per level, while AC doesn't increase at all with XP. It sounds strange, because with experience you learn to attack properly, but you cannot learn anything in defending and dodging (without investing in feats).
If you take in account wealth per level, by the way, things are set in place, because you can only give your weapon attack a +5 enhancement attack bonus, while you can give your armor an enhancement bonus of a total of +20 (+5 armor, +5 shield, +5 natural armor, +5 deflection).
Tip for DMs: d&d/pathfinder without magic items are utterly broken systems, if you plan to begin a low-magic campaign take this in account and home rule consequently, or use some automatic bonus progression chart.

[noob]

Making attack rolls stop being a concern is doable without AC.
If you invalidate entirely the option to attack you then you need way less to have armor class and more to have stuff like protection against mordenkainen disjunction (which is a weakness for a huge portion of the ac using builds too)
Also there is char op with party buffing such as team solar or the highest non infinite damage build(that uses ice assasins and shared buff stacking for super fast damage growth in function of the number of ice assasins and of buffs resulting in numbers too big for being written conveniently in a stack of exponantials if all the buff stacking is done properly) it is just that at too much high op each person is its own party and then the parties combine in meta parties and the universe explodes violently and attacks the parties with its dc 400 epic spells as free actions.
while at too low optimization combining the forces of the individuals is intentionally avoided(for avoiding a too powerful party)

[StreamOfTheSky]

Actually - in 3.5, I'll agree that monks are bad (Pathfinder finally did them right - either Unchained or with archetype combos) but defenses are one thing that they actually do well.

+11 from DEX
+9 from WIS
+4 because Monk
+4 from Shield spell (not hard with a Ring of Spell Storing or a wand & UMD etc.)
+1 Insight (dusty rose)
+5 Deflection
+5 Natural Armor
+8 Bracers of Armor

That's an AC of 57 at high levels without breaking a sweat - which ignores buffs you'll have consistently like Haste.

Even at low levels they should be higher than most builds so long as they have a buddy willing to cast Mage Armor on them. (A 20 AC at level 1 should be a cakewalk.) I know that in organized play I always bought a Wand of Mage Armor for a buddy to use on me. It was Pathfinder - but my Drunk Monk was a TANK. (Sensei Drunk Monks in Pathfinder are a lot of fun - as they can spread their buffs such as Barkskin indefinitely so long as they have booze.)

I disagree. First off, most of those are bonuses pretty much anybody can have:
+11 from DEX (if you want to pump it that high)
+1 Insight (dusty rose)
+5 Deflection
+5 Natural Armor

For the rest....first off, your monk has Dex 32 and Wis 28, but still needs Str and Con to fight with. In short, your monk spent a ton on boosting his stats to get there, and probably is relying on very high point buy or lucky rolls to even be plausible.
Bracers of Armor: This is a horrible benefit for the cost. Any other character, even a wizard, can have +5 enhanced armor for at least a +6 total AC. Can get much higher if you don't need such a high max dex, like with Celestial Armor (caps at +10 AC and +8 max dex; so +18 total AC from armor and dex vs. your monk's 19, at a much lower cost). Plus then you can add special properties w/o losing potential AC bonus.
Shield spell: it lasts min/level, so it might be tough to keep it on for all your fights. In any case, anybody else can get +7 from a +5 animated heavy shield vs. the monk's +4.

The monk does get a stat to AC (wis) which helps. But...it's pretty easy for other classes to get that with a dip, and in many cases still be able to wear light armor and/or use shields. It's just...not much to show for 20 levels of monk where "better AC" is frequently your class feature....

Now, I totally disagree w/ you saying PF fixed monk. Monk was far worse in PF than he was in 3E, at least until Unchained. Can't weigh in on that too much, I had quit PF by then.
But I did play a one shot using Unchained rules, at level 5. There was a pre-gen monk (supposedly buffed) and pre-gen Summoner (supposedly nerfed). The monk and eidolon were nearly identical in stats and offense, but the eidolon came w/ a pet full caster, so...

[noob]

I disagree. First off, most of those are bonuses pretty much anybody can have:
+11 from DEX (if you want to pump it that high)
+1 Insight (dusty rose)
+5 Deflection
+5 Natural Armor

For the rest....first off, your monk has Dex 32 and Wis 28, but still needs Str and Con to fight with. In short, your monk spent a ton on boosting his stats to get there, and probably is relying on very high point buy or lucky rolls to even be plausible.
Bracers of Armor: This is a horrible benefit for the cost. Any other character, even a wizard, can have +5 enhanced armor for at least a +6 total AC. Can get much higher if you don't need such a high max dex, like with Celestial Armor (caps at +10 AC and +8 max dex; so +18 total AC from armor and dex vs. your monk's 19, at a much lower cost). Plus then you can add special properties w/o losing potential AC bonus.
Shield spell: it lasts min/level, so it might be tough to keep it on for all your fights. In any case, anybody else can get +7 from a +5 animated heavy shield vs. the monk's +4.

The monk does get a stat to AC (wis) which helps. But...it's pretty easy for other classes to get that with a dip, and in many cases still be able to wear light armor and/or use shields. It's just...not much to show for 20 levels of monk where "better AC" is frequently your class feature....

Now, I totally disagree w/ you saying PF fixed monk. Monk was far worse in PF than he was in 3E, at least until Unchained. Can't weigh in on that too much, I had quit PF by then.
But I did play a one shot using Unchained rules, at level 5. There was a pre-gen monk (supposedly buffed) and pre-gen Summoner (supposedly nerfed). The monk and eidolon were nearly identical in stats and offense, but the eidolon came w/ a pet full caster, so...

Well unchained summoner is not much nerfed except when compared to master summoner (the one that trades its eidolon for more summons and "zerg swarm everything to death")
What makes people think it is better balanced is that it removed the synchronised one which is among the worst summoner options but which was easier to compare to a regular fighter because it combined with its eidolon and so people did understand it was op easier.(because the strength is no longer in the pet but in the character. overall it brings way less power because instead of having a caster and a super pet at each round you only have the super pet or the caster but not both for each round)

[CharonsHelper]

Yes and no. Pathfinder did help them a little. Even in 3.5 they do great in theoretical AC contests. But for a practical cost they fall a little behind. For one your example has a 32 dex and 28 wis, and then you need a good str and con. Also you usually don't want to waste a round casting shield. Even if you do get a buff round there are other good options for the cost of those items. Quickened shield at really high level via items maybe. But for a practical cost you can still do alright with mage armor and so on. Just not as good as the guy in full plate.

As I said - even in 3.5 monks have great defenses. Pathfinder just made their offense better & defense cheaper (hello Barkskin via ki).

You really don't need a good STR as a monk - I always use it and CHA as dump stats. Just get the Agile enhancement on your Amulet of Mighty Fists ASAP and it's all DEX baby. And I think that 3.5 had a WIS equivalent - so you could switch WIS & DEX if you wanted. (They dropped the WIS version in Pathfinder.) And sure - you need a decent CON, but get a 12-14 at level 1 and you should be find with just item enhancement and wish boosting.

By level 16-20 it shouldn't be hard to keep Shield up all the time. I figure that you buddy can throw a few castings into your Ring of Spell Storing, or you just get a mid level wand of Shield, and suddenly it lasts 10-20 minutes a pop. Not hard to keep it up the vast majority of the time by level 16+. And that's if you don't figure out a way to cast it as a Persistent spell.



Now, I totally disagree w/ you saying PF fixed monk. Monk was far worse in PF than he was in 3E, at least until Unchained. Can't weigh in on that too much, I had quit PF by then.

A vanilla PF monk sans archetypes wasn't much better than 3.5's - but the archetypes fixed it. Everyone took the qigong archetype (trade out crappy abilities for spell-like abilities using your ki - like Barkskin & Scorching Ray), and most took 1-2 other archetypes on top of it. I personally enjoyed the Drunken Master a lot (infinite ki by drinking booze - there was a feat to drink booze as a swift action if you had a CON of 18 - hence my dwarven drunk monk).

[emeraldstreak]

monk has Dex 32 and Wis 28, but still needs Str and Con to fight with. In short, your monk spent a ton on boosting his stats to get there, and probably is relying on very high point buy or lucky rolls to even be plausible.

Falling for MAD is a newbie trap.

Correctly optimized monks focus on either Strength, Dexterity, or Wisdom; all optimize for damage dice size.

Of these Wisdom ones have the highest AC. The key enablers are the feat Intuitive Attack (Wisdom becomes attack stat) and the Saint template (add Wisdom again to AC).

Here's a glimpse of building such a character (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1135804)

[CactusAir]

It's not that you can't get AC high enough. You totally can. It's not even all that hard. It's just that the opportunity cost is too high.

Having high enough AC to negate about 75% of attacks against you, while costing no more than two feats or class features and at most 15% of your WBL is probably fine.

That may be doable, but it won't be something casual. It'll be a niche, specific build plan.

[StreamOfTheSky]

A vanilla PF monk sans archetypes wasn't much better than 3.5's - but the archetypes fixed it. Everyone took the qigong archetype (trade out crappy abilities for spell-like abilities using your ki - like Barkskin & Scorching Ray), and most took 1-2 other archetypes on top of it. I personally enjoyed the Drunken Master a lot (infinite ki by drinking booze - there was a feat to drink booze as a swift action if you had a CON of 18 - hence my dwarven drunk monk).
Yeah...I know about qinggong monk.... I think I was one of the first to do a guide/review on it (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?308138-Guide-to-the-Qinggong-Monk-(Ultimate-Magic))...
Obviously having more options for nothing is a buff, but the stuff you get isn't that amazing, and/or costs way too much ki. There's a few pretty good options, nearly all of them defensive or situational utility, true strike probably being the only exception. Maybe also Battlemind Link if you're getting away w/ the infinite ki leeching stuff by then.


Falling for MAD is a newbie trap.

Correctly optimized monks focus on either Strength, Dexterity, or Wisdom; all optimize for damage dice size.

Of these Wisdom ones have the highest AC. The key enablers are the feat Intuitive Attack (Wisdom becomes attack stat) and the Saint template (add Wisdom again to AC).

Here's a glimpse of building such a character (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1135804)
I know MAD is a mistake. But a monk is MAD, that's just how it is. truly replacing strength...which is the only one of the four stats you can replace (though dumping wisdom, wearing armor and an animated shield, and just ignoring the stuff that doesn't function due to that is one of the more "viable" monk builds) is difficult and very costly in feats, which a monk doesn't have many of to burn.
The example monk w/ Dex 32 and Wis 28 w/ AC 57 isn't a realistic build. Spent way too much money on the AC and probably can't fight very well, even by monk standards.

Damage dice optimization isn't necessarily the best route and even if it is, a Greater Mighty Wallop buff is going to be doing more of the work than anything in your build.

Intuitive Attack locks you into LG and being exalted, which is not for everyone... (and likely leads most players into the trap of vow of poverty) And Saint isn't just an ordinary simple to apply template...

[ericgrau]

Dispelling depends on the caster level a ton too. It's one thing to try and dispel some CL-stacked buffs from someone with Beads of Karma, Death Knell and what-not (so needing a roll of 16 on higher on an equal caster level basis) vs. dispelling "naked" buffs (just the class level and perhaps orange prism ioun stone) and then dispelling a CL3 Dragon's buffs as a level 12 character (where even a normal Dispel Magic succeeds on a 4 or higher). But yeah, dispelling is a big part of the higher levels and of course, if you can outsource it (e.g. summon something that Dispels), you can have Dispel-bots whose chances aren't amazing but who get "free" tries at it and can shut down magic items (whose caster levels don't scale and many are abysmally low; of course you optimally need a "fire coordinator" with Arcane Sight or similar figuring out which items are worth targeting).
Caster level is very important, but if the dragon only has 1 or 2 buffs it's usually not worth the dispel time even if you remove them all. And there's a small chance of rolling low on 1 buff. Or even if it was a great buff(s) and it/they get removed at least the dragon ate a PC action.

[Eldariel]

Caster level is very important, but if the dragon only has 1 or 2 buffs it's usually not worth the dispel time even if you remove them all. And there's a small chance of rolling low on 1 buff. Or even if it was a great buff(s) and it/they get removed at least the dragon ate a PC action.

Well, in the case of Dragon, the usual low level buffs are very high AC buffs so if your gameplan involves dealing physical damage to it (say, the party has 2-3 physical damage dealers), you probably should cast Dispel Magic (Mage Armor and Shield is 8 points of AC; one action granting all allies +8 to hit with like 80%ish probability is already pretty damn good). Hell, it's not even outside the realm of possibility to Quicken a 3rd level spell at this point. Of course, if you intend to rely on touch attacks or save-or-Xs or similar, said buffs don't really matter (unless we're talking about Incorporeal Touch Attacks, in which case Force Effects again matter).

[ericgrau]

Well, in the case of Dragon, the usual low level buffs are very high AC buffs so if your gameplan involves dealing physical damage to it (say, the party has 2-3 physical damage dealers), you probably should cast Dispel Magic (Mage Armor and Shield is 8 points of AC; one action granting all allies +8 to hit with like 80%ish probability is already pretty damn good). Hell, it's not even outside the realm of possibility to Quicken a 3rd level spell at this point. Of course, if you intend to rely on touch attacks or save-or-Xs or similar, said buffs don't really matter (unless we're talking about Incorporeal Touch Attacks, in which case Force Effects again matter).
Or resist energy for fire and cold dragons. Or scintillating scales. If the dragon expected save-or-X and physical attacks maybe he used protection from good. Or many other nice buffs. Etc., etc. A shield spell is invisible too, though you might argue about detecting it after a few sword swipes. The dragon needs to get the drop on PCs or waste a round on it though. Which is a good idea if most foes use physical attacks, but not great otherwise.

Dragon AC is really good so buffing it to be unhittable or debuffing it to have a chance of hitting are great ideas though. The thing is dragon base AC is so high that it also might be good for the melee to play interference and make minor attacks while others send touch spells. And then you say oh well of course every dragon casts scintillating scales. Well only if his CR is around 14 or so, which is creeping on moderately high level play. And if he does then that leaves less time for resist energy or shield or many other buffs. And even if he does get the drop on the PCs, stacking too many buffs makes him a better target for dispel. And he can't switch his spells known so it's better to have a couple reserved for combat spells in case of dispel. Or simply because they're also great spells. What about nerveskitter and swift expeditious retreat if spell compendium is allowed? He doesn't always get a buff round either, or if he does he doesn't always get more than 1 or 2. So he shouldn't know too many short duration spells. Etc., etc. So it's not so cut and dry that he'll have any particular buff. He is likely to have 1-5ish out of several great buffs and other great spells, and less at lower level.

So you CAN say that shield is a great choice for a dragon and many can, should and will take it. You CAN'T say that most will have it including the dragon you are fighting when you cast dispel. You also CAN'T say that the dragon's defenses will be a good match to the party's attack styles. On top of those risks is a small chance of a failed dispel. While small by itself, it all adds up.

So really the answer is your dispel will probably get some partial benefit. It's probably not worth it until high level or maybe medium-high level. You have to look at the average case not the ideal case for dispel. Ditto look at the average not the ideal case for buff stacking.

That's how many strats in general can be a good idea and yet countering them is much less good. Because the counter often doesn't match what you want and so you only get a small portion of the ideal value on average. Just like in MtG everyone is annoyed at people saying "Dies to removal" or etc. because these are pointless statements that don't mean at all that the counter-able card is bad. And most good players only put a small amount of response spells in their deck. Small not none though. Once a strat gets excessive then countering it gets better, and that's when you finally use the response you've been saving. Not against every threat. So back to the point extreme buffing has limits. It is good to use several buffs, but only up to a point. More for some creatures and less for others, but there's always a cutoff point.

[emeraldstreak]

Greater Mighty Wallop buff is going to be doing more of the work than anything in your build.


Sustaining Greater Mighty Wallop that early is expensive. Here's a Dex-based Unarmed Swordsage (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1138036) who can do it, but notice how much of WBL goes into that.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sustaining Greater Mighty Wallop that early is expensive. Here's a Dex-based Unarmed Swordsage (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1138036) who can do it, but notice how much of WBL goes into that.

Sustain it? You have a caster in the party buff you with it. At worst, you pay for a pearl of power or two for him.

If you can't get an ally to provide the spell, I wouldn't even bother w/ a build optimizing unarmed base damage for that game.

[Mordante]

I've never understood this "AC is useless" stuff. Is it less cost-effective than miss chance, like cloak of minor displacement? Yes. But still very useful and both work in tandem.

And I don't even mean AC is useful for protection vs. power attack and iterative attacks. I mean...it's really stupidly easy to raise your AC in 3E if you're not a monk (poor monks...) and can actually use armor and shields (that includes all arcanists...twilight is a +1 market cost and mithral is cheap).
+5 mithral armor of your choice
+5 animated shield of your choice
+5 deflection AC (ring of protection, or various robes like ghost shroud)
+5 natural armor (amulet or bracers, maybe other options)
+6 enhancement to Dex = +3 AC
+1 inherent (dusty rose iuon stone)
+1 luck (luck stone, or other sources)

And more I'm probably forgetting (not to mention spell buffs). The best part? So many types of bonuses means you can increase each of them periodically, to offset the exponential growth of costs for higher bonuses, and have high AC at nearly all levels beyond the first couple.

As a DM, I was struggling to give my NPCs with class levels and a fair number of monsters to legitimately get their attack bonuses high enough that they could hit a PC almost half of the time with their best attack w/o any deductions like power attack. Eventually I just started giving out some made up attack bonuses because I didn't have the time to optimize every freaking enemy to the gills, plus said optimizing often buffed other things I didn't want to as a side effect (like damage per hit and grapple/maneuver bonuses, if i buffed the Str score, for example).

In almost two decades of playing, I've never seen AC be useless. If anything, I've seen myself and other DMs struggle w/ AC scores being too high to be a threat. (Which...I don't even mind that much if it's a fighter or rogue or monk type who's supposed to be a nigh-unhittable fragile speedster; I was getting annoyed that the spell casters could use all the same tricks and more, and be utter tanks as well).

But do characters actually get that gear you just described? I highly doubt it.

Should I be worried? My current level 15 fighter has an AC of 28.

[Eldariel]

But do characters actually get that gear you just described? I highly doubt it.

My current level 15 fighter has an AC of 28.

It's mostly a matter of WBL and item accessibility. High CL items are pretty hard to access by standard demographics and item availability, but many DMs further constrain that. And by standard WBL, you can't afford that kinda stuff until level 20 without dropping stupid amounts of your WBL into it (leaving you without basic immunities and options like flight and freedom of movement) unless you're a caster (when you don't care about item accessibility either since you can just craft it. A fighter wanting a +5 Mithril Fullplate, a +5 Animated Heavy Shield, +5 RoP, +5 Amulet of Natural Armor, +6 enhancement to Dex, and +1 Dusty Rose Ioun Stone is shelling out:

10500 gp for Mithral Fullplate
25000 gp for +5 enhancement
50070 gp for +5 Animated Heavy Steel Shield
50000 gp for +5 Amulet of Natural Armor
50000 gp for +5 Ring of Protection
32000 gp for +6 Gloves of Dexterity
5500 gp for +1 Ioun Stone

For a total of 223070gp. That's right about 50% of level 18 WBL. On level 20 it's finally somewhat affordable at about 30% of the whole WBL. Of course, a level 20 caster can rather effortlessly have all of those bonuses aside from the +1 Insight from the Dusty Rose for free for most of the day (without persisting, the Deflection is the hardest part to keep up and there are options that last for many hours for even that). And that's before delving into the additional all-day AC a caster can access, such as massive natural armor from Polymorph Any Object/Shapechange.

Beg//cry for Barkskin from the Druid, Magic Vestment from the Cleric and perhaps Ring of Spell-storinged Alter Self from the Wizard as suggested before.

[StreamOfTheSky]

But do characters actually get that gear you just described? I highly doubt it.

Should I be worried? My current level 15 fighter has an AC of 28.

Eventually, if following WBL. AC enhancements are still overall much cheaper than weapon enhancing, especially since you can "divest" your money into all those pools and ratchet up the AC piece by piece.

That was part of the point of my listing all those sources of AC bonus. Not just the end result w/ all of them maxed. But the journey there, you don't have to go straight from +1 armor to +5. Getting ring of protect +1 is cheaper than increasing your armor to +2. Getting the iuon stone is cheaper than raising the ring of protect from +1 to +2. And so on. You can keep your AC up with gradual investment, fairly affordably.

EDIT: But if you can get buff spells, definitely do that and save some money. Especially Barkskin...it climbs pretty fast and caps at only CL 12, plus is only a 2nd level slot. Compare to magic vestment, a level 3 spell that doesn't cap until CL 20 and is generally a few points of AC behind Barkskin at a given CL.

[Firechanter]

10500 gp for Mithral Fullplate
25000 gp for +5 enhancement
50070 gp for +5 Animated Heavy Steel Shield
50000 gp for +5 Amulet of Natural Armor
50000 gp for +5 Ring of Protection
32000 gp for +6 Gloves of Dexterity
5500 gp for +1 Ioun Stone

For a total of 223070gp. That's right about 50% of level 18 WBL.

Right, and that gives you a total of AC 44. A typical CR18 opponent will have about +33 Attack. Okay, so that's a 50% hit chance -- but that's exactly the point that made me create this thread; I feel that 50% WBL is way too expensive to _still_ get hit by every other attack. Half your WBL is gone and you haven't done anything for your offense, saves, mobility or immunities yet. For that kind of investment, I'd expect something like 75-90% protection - so more like AC 50-ish; or conversely, I think to still get hit 50% of the time, maybe 25% WBL sounds fair.

Note that Pathfinder shafts mundanes even worse, since it repealed / didn't carry over the MIC rule for Big Six item properties, and on the contrary binds _all_ physical stats to the Belt slot so you WILL pay a 50% surcharge on basically every single item tied to your AC, which more than eats up the nominal WBL increase you get. And they even have a guideline against benefiting from Crafting feats. Oh, and Animated Shields are rubbish in PF, too, because Play A wiZard Olready. :smallmad:

--


Should I be worried? My current level 15 fighter has an AC of 28.

Indeed I find that dangerously low.
FWIW, my PF Paladin still had an unbuffed AC of a mere 23 at level 10 (but that was in part because we didn't have the chance to shop/upgrade since late level 8). Still, I managed to buff myself up to AC 31-ish. Now we're level 11 and I can finally upgrade; will prolly get me to AC 25-27 unbuffed. My main line of defense of course is actually my Lay On Hands, which however requires that I don't get one-rounded.

[Selion]

Note that Pathfinder shafts mundanes even worse, since it repealed / didn't carry over the MIC rule for Big Six item properties, and on the contrary binds _all_ physical stats to the Belt slot so you WILL pay a 50% surcharge on basically every single item tied to your AC, which more than eats up the nominal WBL increase you get. And they even have a guideline against benefiting from Crafting feats. Oh, and Animated Shields are rubbish in PF, too, because Play A wiZard Olready. :smallmad:


True, but monsters in pathfinder have a lower attack bonus in respect to 3.5 D&D, in fact at CR 18 they have an average attack bonus on first attack of +27, with a median of +31, and 40 AC is totally affordable to a character focused in defense.

[CharonsHelper]

Right, and that gives you a total of AC 44. A typical CR18 opponent will have about +33 Attack. Okay, so that's a 50% hit chance -- but that's exactly the point that made me create this thread; I feel that 50% WBL is way too expensive to _still_ get hit by every other attack.

That's assuming that you have ZERO buffs. There are several buffs which boost AC which should be up 95% of the time by level 18. (Haste etc.)

[Jack_Simth]

Right, and that gives you a total of AC 44. A typical CR18 opponent will have about +33 Attack. Okay, so that's a 50% hit chance -- but that's exactly the point that made me create this thread; I feel that 50% WBL is way too expensive to _still_ get hit by every other attack. Half your WBL is gone and you haven't done anything for your offense, saves, mobility or immunities yet. For that kind of investment, I'd expect something like 75-90% protection - so more like AC 50-ish; or conversely, I think to still get hit 50% of the time, maybe 25% WBL sounds fair.

On their primary attack. Iterative or secondary attacks will be lower. And, of course, you've got HP to soak up much of the difference. On the SRD, we've got... six dragons at CR 18 (which aren't fully statted out, and Dragons are known for being listed at a lower CR than they probably should have for parties that aren't specifically prepared for dragons), and a Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler has a +29 primary, +24 secondary. That AC 44 means the Nightcrawler needs a 15 on the primary, and a 20 on the secondary to hit. It also means it can't make effective use of Power Attack.

But as StreamOfTheSky noted: You don't necessarily need the full kit. Try the cost again, but this time reduce all those +5's to +4's. AC goes down to just 40, but it also shaves 9k off the full plate, 13k off the shield, 18k off the Amulet of Natural Armor, and 18k off the Ring of Protection. That 223,070 gp is now 165,070 gp. More like a third of WBL for 18th. The Nightcrawler now needs an 11 on the primary, 16 on the secondary, and still needs to avoid Power Attacking.

What do you consider affordable for the effect?

[emeraldstreak]

Right, and that gives you a total of AC 44. A typical CR18 opponent will have about +33 Attack. Okay, so that's a 50% hit chance -- but that's exactly the point that made me create this thread; I feel that 50% WBL is way too expensive to _still_ get hit by every other attack. Half your WBL is gone and you haven't done anything for your offense, saves, mobility or immunities yet. For that kind of investment, I'd expect something like 75-90% protection - so more like AC 50-ish; or conversely, I think to still get hit 50% of the time, maybe 25% WBL sounds fair.

Note that Pathfinder shafts mundanes even worse, since it repealed / didn't carry over the MIC rule for Big Six item properties, and on the contrary binds _all_ physical stats to the Belt slot so you WILL pay a 50% surcharge on basically every single item tied to your AC, which more than eats up the nominal WBL increase you get. And they even have a guideline against benefiting from Crafting feats. Oh, and Animated Shields are rubbish in PF, too, because Play A wiZard Olready. :smallmad:


That's true. It's interesting though that PF had a rather faithful conversion to a video game (PF:Kingmaker) where AC tanking was king.

[emeraldstreak]

If you can't get an ally to provide the spell, I wouldn't even bother w/ a build optimizing unarmed base damage for that game.

Which of course will make your Monk terrible.

[Mordante]

Right, and that gives you a total of AC 44. A typical CR18 opponent will have about +33 Attack. Okay, so that's a 50% hit chance -- but that's exactly the point that made me create this thread; I feel that 50% WBL is way too expensive to _still_ get hit by every other attack. Half your WBL is gone and you haven't done anything for your offense, saves, mobility or immunities yet. For that kind of investment, I'd expect something like 75-90% protection - so more like AC 50-ish; or conversely, I think to still get hit 50% of the time, maybe 25% WBL sounds fair.

Note that Pathfinder shafts mundanes even worse, since it repealed / didn't carry over the MIC rule for Big Six item properties, and on the contrary binds _all_ physical stats to the Belt slot so you WILL pay a 50% surcharge on basically every single item tied to your AC, which more than eats up the nominal WBL increase you get. And they even have a guideline against benefiting from Crafting feats. Oh, and Animated Shields are rubbish in PF, too, because Play A wiZard Olready. :smallmad:

--



Indeed I find that dangerously low.
FWIW, my PF Paladin still had an unbuffed AC of a mere 23 at level 10 (but that was in part because we didn't have the chance to shop/upgrade since late level 8). Still, I managed to buff myself up to AC 31-ish. Now we're level 11 and I can finally upgrade; will prolly get me to AC 25-27 unbuffed. My main line of defense of course is actually my Lay On Hands, which however requires that I don't get one-rounded.

Remeber I have no shield. I use a two handed weapon. A Falchion to be exact.

If I remember correctly I have a +4 mind armor full plate, a +3 parrying Falchion, belt of gaint strength +4. Those are my usefull magic items. Now I my character is a bit homebrew so I get full dex AC bonus regardless of armour and I get a +3 AC from the homebrew class.

Armor Born (Ex): The archblade expands their sense of self not only to their weapons but also to the armour and shields they wear, to the point where it no longer hampers them at all. Be it leather or full plate, an archblade no longer has a maximum dex bonus to their armour or shield and no armour check penalty. They also are not hampered in speed by heavy armour and are considered wearing light armour regardless of what type of armour they wear. They also gain +3 to their armour bonus.

[ayvango]

Dispel magic is a good point to bring up. It is something that prevents excessive buffing on both sides.
That is why buff-oriented build values rings of spellbattle and counter-spell. Also you could use immediate actions, triggers and tinfoil-like tricks to defend from dispell magic.

[Firechanter]

That's assuming that you have ZERO buffs. There are several buffs which boost AC which should be up 95% of the time by level 18. (Haste etc.)

At that point, you have to look hard to get buffs that don't overlap with what you're already wearing. I'm sure there are some, but the standard spells won't do.
Reminds me of a PVP arena where my opponent had turned into a Shadow Dragon, had full concealment and buffed AC with Scintillating Scales and whatnot. Well, my toon had Pierce Magical Concealment/Protection. :smallbiggrin:



But as StreamOfTheSky noted: You don't necessarily need the full kit. Try the cost again, but this time reduce all those +5's to +4's. AC goes down to just 40, but it also shaves 9k off the full plate, 13k off the shield, 18k off the Amulet of Natural Armor, and 18k off the Ring of Protection. That 223,070 gp is now 165,070 gp. More like a third of WBL for 18th. The Nightcrawler now needs an 11 on the primary, 16 on the secondary, and still needs to avoid Power Attacking.

What do you consider affordable for the effect?

That's the question. ^^ Hm, to have 50% Primary protection, not counting dragons, I'd say maybe 20-25% WBL. So maybe 110k or so.


That's true. It's interesting though that PF had a rather faithful conversion to a video game (PF:Kingmaker) where AC tanking was king.

So far I've only played the first act, then it bugged out, will retry when I'm in the mood. What I noticed from the first few levels was that all kinds of creatures _except_ the PCs get "imaginary" bonuses that have no foundation in the rules, so the solution was to use Pets and Summons to benefit from these cheat bonuses. On the other hand, the AI seems to be rather dumb and predictable so it's relatively easy to focus your AC buffing on one character that will draw all the heat.


Remeber I have no shield. I use a two handed weapon. A Falchion to be exact. *snip*

Oh well, then you have plenty of ways to cheaply upgrade; you don't have Nat or Def bonuses yet so you will get full benefit from Barkskin / Shield of Faith without any overlap. Maybe you can get an animated shield; at least another +3 for 9000GP.
With my Pala, my mid-term plan is to get UMD high enough to reliably use wands, then use a Wand of Shield. But some other upgrades will come first.


That is why buff-oriented build values rings of spellbattle and counter-spell. Also you could use immediate actions, triggers and tinfoil-like tricks to defend from dispell magic.

Tinfoil trick? Are you referring to the one where you build a metal dome, then reduce it with Shrink Item and wear it as a hat? The idea is hilarious, but do people actually do that? ^^

[Anthrowhale]

At level 18, the budget AC approach is:

1) Pay a spellcaster (possibly the party wizard) to Polymorph Any Object[War Troll (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=6)]. You get Natural Armor+14, Str 31, Dex 16(AC+3), Con 29, Int 8, Size large (AC-1) as well as Dazing Blow on offense. Unequipped AC=26, cost ~= 2K.
2) Buy Mithrill full plate, a heavy animated shield+1, and two defending weapons+1, Equipped AC=37 or 39 (defending), cost ~= 34K.
3) Buy a pearl of power 6xL1, L2,L3x2 (28K), a share of 2 karma beads (10K), and 3 metamagic rods of extend spell (9K), using them to buff from party spellcasters for Extended Shield of Faith (recast up to 6 times), Extended Barkskin, Extend Magic Vestment x2, Extended Greater Magic Weaponx2. Adventuring day buffed AC=57 or 67 with defending x2, cost ~= 47K

Total cost = 83K = 19% of wealth. The AC is adequate to quench all normal incoming attacks.

[Eldariel]

At level 18, the budget AC approach is:

1) Pay a spellcaster (possibly the party wizard) to Polymorph Any Object[War Troll (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=6)]. You get Natural Armor+14, Str 31, Dex 16(AC+3), Con 29, Int 8, Size large (AC-1) as well as Dazing Blow on offense. Unequipped AC=26, cost ~= 2K.
2) Buy Mithrill full plate, a heavy animated shield+1, and two defending weapons+1, Equipped AC=37 or 39 (defending), cost ~= 34K.
3) Buy a pearl of power 6xL1, L2,L3x2 (28K), a share of 2 karma beads (10K), and 3 metamagic rods of extend spell (9K), using them to buff from party spellcasters for Extended Shield of Faith (recast up to 6 times), Extended Barkskin, Extend Magic Vestment x2, Extended Greater Magic Weaponx2. Adventuring day buffed AC=57 or 67 with defending x2, cost ~= 47K

Total cost = 83K = 19% of wealth. The AC is adequate to quench all normal incoming attacks.

Again, when you're paying for buffs it's no problem (way too easy actually), let alone just casting them yourself, but try doing it with just items. That's the issue: buffs mean your AC supercedes needs by a lot and no buffs means you're playing catch-up all day. Thus, either you've got buff access and break the numeric expectations or you don't and you fail to meet them effectively.

Well, that's not strictly true, Skin of Proteus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#skinofProteus) of course offers an item option for winning at D&D forever (if you've got Metamorphic Transfer or Assume Supernatural Ability, it's surprisingly close to allday Shapechange at will for a pittance - only up to 7 HD forms of course, but it's still pretty ridiculous when you go dumpster diving particularly since Metamorphosis explicitly has no size limit since it isn't based on Alter Self so you don't have to have bothersome arguments with DM). Perhaps the more important preface is "without shifting forms" since shifting forms gives you more AC than you can shake a stick at.

[RedMage125]

AC can get a little wonky in 3.5e. When I was on watch a few years ago, I once built a level 20 build for AC just for funsies, trying to max out AC. Got it up to the 70s. Goes up an additional +8 when provoking an AoO (which I THINK was 81 against Dodge target, IIRC).

The build, ironically, requires no armor to be worn. And all magic items came from the DMG only, but feats came from other sources.

Grey Elf Swashbuckler 6/Rogue 4/Duelist 10.

Relevant stats are that he has a DEX and INT of 30 (with items), and he had a decent WIS bonus as well.

Fighting defensively (so, all the time), he gets his Duelist level added to AC (and does an extra +1d6 damage from a feat). That's on top of the fact that his DEX and INT both get added to AC, and he wore a Monk's belt giving him his WIS mod and an additional +1 misc bonus to his AC. Bracers of Armor +8, obviously, and a Ring of Protection +5. Off-hand Weapon (which he only needs to not FIGHT with to retain Duelist benefits, he can still hold it) is a +5 Defending Dagger, with all +5 to AC.

I'm forgetting a few details here, but it was a semi-decent build for a martial character. If fighting defensively, his base weapon damage with a rapier is 4d6 plus mods. Then he has 5d6 Sneak Attack, has Uncanny Dodge, so he always retains his DEX/INT/etc mods to his AC, even when flat-footed. His touch AC was also very high. Only way to reduce his AC would be to actually immobilize him, and he has a Ring of Freedom of Movement.

Lots of ways to harm or hurt that character, sure (especially with magic, Will save is not great). But it was built as a fun little exercise in AC stacking. I guess my main point to the OP is that non-armor AC bonuses can sometimes be even more effective than wearing heavy armor, which I think is an important point when trying to evaluate Cost vs AC ratios and how they can be improved.

[Anthrowhale]

Again, when you're paying for buffs it's no problem (way too easy actually), let alone just casting them yourself, but try doing it with just items. That's the issue: buffs mean your AC supercedes needs by a lot and no buffs means you're playing catch-up all day. Thus, either you've got buff access and break the numeric expectations or you don't and you fail to meet them effectively.

Yeah, I believe this. The budget armor calculator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?490116-The-Efficient-Armor-Reference) provides a reasonably solid reference here maxing out in the low 50s with somewhat less than half WBL. Using two defending weapons, you could perhaps reach the mid-50s, but I don't see other easy item approaches and defending does cut into your offense.

[ayvango]

Lots of ways to harm or hurt that character, sure (especially with magic, Will save is not great).
Woodland archer tactical feat while dual-wielding splitting arrow bows allows to beat about 100 AC.

[Doug Lampert]

Oh well, then you have plenty of ways to cheaply upgrade; you don't have Nat or Def bonuses yet so you will get full benefit from Barkskin / Shield of Faith without any overlap. Maybe you can get an animated shield; at least another +3 for 9000GP.

This is the key element to buffing AC in 3.x. 7 items were listed, the cost of each is roughly quadratic with the increase to AC. A single big item is more expensive than 5 weak items, and typically it's also less useful than the 5 weak items.

Most of the items can be replaced with buff spells, but that's situational.


If I remember correctly I have a +4 mind armor full plate, a +3 parrying Falchion, belt of gaint strength +4. Those are my usefull magic items.

+4 Mind Armor is worth 40,000 GP (plus the 1,650 GP of the masterwork armor). Suppose the armor were +1 mind armor. That would cut 15,000 GP from the cost.

+1 Animated Heavy Steel Shield (9,170 GP).
+1 Ring of Protection (2,000 GP)
+1 Amulet of Natural Armor (2,000 GP)

Less cost, 2 more AC. For a bit more, the gloves adds another +1 in addition to buffing reflex and initiative.