[3.X] AC Optimization?

[Yael]

Using a wide array of books, from 1st party Core all the way to the most obscure 3rd party books (I'm looking at you, AEG's Book of Feats and its line of assassination feats), what's the best level 20 Armor class build? Be it from spells, equipment, or anything pre-epic it's fine. Exploits is fine, but if done so no AC will be high enough to evade books thrown at my face~

Edit: Ah, by the way, this is a Pathfinder-free zone. It may be a better 3.5, but it's not the area I'm looking for.

[Efrate]

I think it's duelist in core, I remember seeing duelist in core get 60ish ac before. Otherwise check the x stat to y bonus thread and check ac in the second post.

I had a dwarven defender in the 60s before iirc but problem is devoting to ac doesn't work because 3.5 has no way to hold aggro since taunt does not exist. And a simple.tower shield gives you total cover which more or less makes you immune to a lot of things.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus

That combined with shapechange I imagine for an absurd na bonus.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Just looking at core for a minute, off the top of my head: Monk 10/Duelist 10 who UMDed a scroll of Shapechange to turn into a Pit Fiend, taking the total defense action, and with at least 5 ranks in tumble would have an AC of 58 + INT (max. 10) + WIS, when naked. If you start with an 16 in INT and 18 WIS, buy +5 books and +6 stat enhancers, and wait 'til your Venerable, then after ability boosts from levels you end up capping out at AC 81, but you can throw on Bracers of Armor +8, Amulet of Natural Armor +5, Ring of Deflection +5, Monk's Belt, Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone, and Gloves of Dexterity +6 (all gear crafted for your Pit Fiend form) to up that to AC 104. Oh, and then if you can find cover, that'll boost you to AC 108. I suggest a bunch of Hill Giants that have been Dominated by a friendly Wizard to provide you with continuous soft cover. I'm sure if you go non-core, you can get even crazier.

[Seerow]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?178445-A-short-guide-to-defensive-fighting has a lot of neat stuff that should help you out here.

[AnimeTheCat]

The most common AC bonus types are: Armor, Shield, Dexterity, Deflection, Natural Armor, and Size (I think those are all of the most common). All of those can be handled easily with +5 Armor, +5 Shield, Highest Possible Dexterity for your Armor (Mithral Full Plate has +3, and I don't know of any armor that offers better combined AC bonus off the top of my head), +5 Ring of Protection, +5 Amulet of Natural Armor, and a small character with a permanent reduce person (or a tiny character with a permanent reduce person) can get you, before any other bonuses and before calculating specifically what kind of armor you're using, a 32 AC or a 34 AC depending on whether you're tiny (reduced halfling) or diminutive (Reduced tiny race). Add in the actual armor bonuses (+9 for full plate, +4 for tower shield) and you're at 45 or 47 AC.

That's before any Morale, Sacred, Profane, Luck, Dodge, other other bonuses, or before feats like shield specialization (which you can't get for a Tower Shield) or class abilities (like the Knight's Shield Block). This is also assuming that you're not a spellcaster and you're not polymorphing or wildshaping into something with an insane AC score already AND THEN putting on all of the above gear. The best AC is probably something With a really high AC before gear. For example, and this isn't the optimum just the first high-ish AC creature I turned to, A Solar has a 35 AC (-1 for size, +5 for Dex, +21 Natural Armor). If you put that creature in a +5 Mithral Full Plate with a +5 Tower Shield, +5 Ring of Protection, and +5 Amulet of Natural Armor, then reduce from large to medium, you'll end up with a 57 AC. 56 if you stay large. Again, before profane, sacred, luck, dodge, etc.

[Telonius]

3.5 has no way to hold aggro since taunt does not exist.

Aggro mechanics are very rare but they do exist. Knight's Challenge (PHB2), the Goad feat (Miniatures Handbook), Divine Prankster's "Enrage Enemies" ability (Races of Stone), Iron Guard Glare (Tome of Battle), and the Mindless Rage spell (Spell Compendium) all either literally force enemies to attack you, or give them penalties if they don't. Unfortunately Knight is terrible. Divine Prankster (while awesome) isn't really what you're going for, and requires both Gnome and divine casting. Mindless Rage is a spell, so if you're not a caster you'll need to UMD it. And almost all of them require a pretty high Charisma (often a dump stat for heavy-armor types) to really work.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Be a race with slam attacks, claw attacks, bite attacks, gore attacks, tail slap attacks, more than one head and tail, and lots of arms, and/or buy lots of warforged mighty arm grafts and graft them to you. Wield as many +1 defending weapons as you can, including crescent blades (each edge of which is enhanced as a +1 defending weapon) in each +1 defending gauntleted hand, +1 defending elbow blades, +1 defending knee blades, +1 defending boot blades, +1 defending sleeve blades, +1 defending tail scythe, a +1 defending necklace of natural attacks keyed towards all of your natural weapons (including your Improved Unarmed Strike), +1 defending mouthpick weapons, +1 defending braid blades, and have all of your weapons contain +1 defending combat blades (which adds an additional weapon to each weapon you wield).

Now cast Chained greater magic weapon a few times to boost all of those to +5.

And they all stack.

[Maat Mons]

One armor option is Thaalud Stone Armor (Anauroch: The Empire of Shade, p108). It gives +12 AC, and +0 max Dex bonus. It might not be possible to make it out of special materials though. So it might not be bossible to do better than making it +5, for a total of +17 AC, and still +0 max Dex bonus.

Another option is Inertial Armor. If you Wild Surge and Overchannel while manifesting, you get a +18 AC bonus. And you could probably push it higher with items that improve manifester level. No max Dex bonus on that, either.

You could maybe try for a light-armor build, using those few ability-score-to-AC abilities that work in light armor, but I'm not optimistic about beating the figure for Inertial Armor, above.

If I recall, Polymorph Any Object can set your Intelligence score to some pretty high values. So it might be worth using one of the feats that converts a Monk's AC bonus to work off of Int. Unless, of course there's a good, uncapped Int-to-AC ability that can stack with the Monk ability.

[Snowbluff]

Something to chew on: Be a druid. Cast Luminous Armor, Greater for +8 (and -4 to being hit), get a monk belt, put on monk belt, max wis, maybe add +6 wisdom item, get 1/2 CL Wis from Owl's Insight.

Well... if you do an infinite CL loop you also have infinity AC, but otherwise buffing your CL will also buff you AC. Druids can also wildshape or even Shapechange for some hefty natural armor values. It might not be the best, but if you ask me druids have the easiest time optimizing AC (as in, the cost to performance ration is very good).

[rrwoods]

Oh good this is still up:

http://www.wdtaylor.net/calculator.html

A pretty good resource for optimizing gold-purchasable AC. Fits almost all practical scenarios almost flawlessly.

[SangoProduction]

Edit: Ah, by the way, this is a Pathfinder-free zone. It may be a better 3.5, but it's not the area I'm looking for.

Damn. And here I was thinking I could share the maximum AC build I have in my signature.

[The Viscount]

Not trying to one-up the cool people here, just posting for completeness. Cancer Mage from BoVDis immune to drawbacks of disease. Vile Rigidity, found in BoVD as well, grants a stacking +1 to natural armor every day, and because the Dex penalty is ignored, this can increase to an arbitrarily high number. If you have access to 2nd level sor/wiz spells, scintillating scales from Spell Compendium will turn it to deflection for a minute per level.

Sorry if this spoiled the vibe of sane, practical optimization that takes real effort.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Be a race with slam attacks, claw attacks, bite attacks, gore attacks, tail slap attacks, more than one head and tail, and lots of arms, and/or buy lots of warforged mighty arm grafts and graft them to you. Wield as many +1 defending weapons as you can, including crescent blades (each edge of which is enhanced as a +1 defending weapon) in each +1 defending gauntleted hand, +1 defending elbow blades, +1 defending knee blades, +1 defending boot blades, +1 defending sleeve blades, +1 defending tail scythe, a +1 defending necklace of natural attacks keyed towards all of your natural weapons (including your Improved Unarmed Strike), +1 defending mouthpick weapons, +1 defending braid blades, and have all of your weapons contain +1 defending combat blades (which adds an additional weapon to each weapon you wield).

Now cast Chained greater magic weapon a few times to boost all of those to +5.

And they all stack.Note that a set of 50 +1 defending/morphing arrows would be significantly cheaper than buying/crafting that many weapons normally...


Sorry if this spoiled the vibe of sane, practical optimization that takes real effort.Wait, what forums did you think you were posting on, exactly?

[gorfnab]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?178445-A-short-guide-to-defensive-fighting has a lot of neat stuff that should help you out here.
I came up with this build some time ago that's based on many of the tactics and resources in that thread. It uses a lot of stuff mentioned in that handbook to get a high AC and then abuses Attacks of Opportunity.

Human or Strongheart Halfling
1. Swashbuckler - Deadly Defense (CS), Combat Expertise, B: Weapon Finesse
2. Cobra Strike (UA) Decisive Strike (PHBII) Monk - B: Dodge
3. Cobra Strike (UA) Monk - Carmendine Monk (CoV), B: Mobility
4. Swashbuckler
5. Swashbuckler
6. Thief Acrobat - Combat Reflexes
7. Thief Acrobat
8. Thief Acrobat
9. Thief Acrobat - Einhander (PHBII)
10. Thief Acrobat or Warblade
11. Warblade or Duelist
12. Warblade or Duelist - Ironheart Aura (ToB)
13. Duelist
14. Duelist
15. Duelist - Robilar's Gambit (PHBII)
16. Duelist
17. Duelist
18. Duelist - Stormgaurd Warrior (ToB)
19. Duelist
20. Duelist

This build uses a number of the options mentioned in this handbook: A short guide to defensive fighting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?178445-A-short-guide-to-defensive-fighting)

Levels 10 through 12 can be rearranged depending on your needs. The current setup gives you Improved Evasion and Uncanny Dodge at these levels. However if you don't need Improved Evasion take one less level of Thief Acrobat and move the first level of Warblade to level 10. If you don't need Uncanny Dodge don't take the 2nd level of Warblade and instead go into Duelist a level early. If you don't need either abilities take Warblade at level 10 and enter Duelist at level 11.

If flaws are available, choose two and then grab the feats EWP: Broadblade Shortsword (CAdv, pre-errata version if possible) and Versatile Unarmed Strike (PHBII). If traits are available pick up Cautious (UA).

Items:
Vest of Defense (MIC)
Bracers of Blocking (Dragon 322)
Broadblade Shortsword (CAdv) (pre-errata version if possible) or Rapier with the Defensive Surge (MIC) enhancement.

[darkdragoon]

Psionic:
Invest Armor

Focused Shield

Heavy Armor Optimization ->Deflective Armor (to shore up your Touch AC), Greater Heavy Armor Optimization

ToB:
Stormguard Warrior- Fight the Horde- Combat Expertise or fight defensively
Perfect Clarity of Mind and Body-Coiled Spring (total defense)
Reaping Talons- Focused Assault, Talon Shield -combat expertise, fight defensive, total defense
White Raven Defense
Devoted Bulwark

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Worth noting that Vow of Poverty gives some pretty decent bonuses to AC. Probably not better than what you could get with gear, though.

[Elkad]

Abjurant Champion with Greater Luminous Armor and Shield can match that +5 Plate and +5 Tower Shield. Leaves you with your dex bonus uncapped, and no armor check penalties.

Yes, there is a minor str penalty. (avoidable in some cheesy ways, or easily fixed with a lesser restoration). Or just ignore it. Either because as a caster you don't care, or as a finesse melee type. (rogue or duskblade probably)

All the other bonuses still apply.


And don't forget the Hedgehog/Turtle familiar for another point of natural armor.

[Biggus]

Fun fact: a 20th-level Cleric of Mystra with unremarkable stats can get their AC up to 104 for short periods with no magic items, in fact with only 3 items worth 1 silver piece total.


Items required: Peasant's outfit (1SP), Club (no cost), Lock of Nixie's Hair, freely given to you by a Nixie (no cost)

Ability scores required at 1st level: Int 13 Wis 14 Cha 12

Feats required: Eschew Materials, Spell Focus (Transmutation), Initiate of Mystra, Ability Enhancer, Combat Expertise, Divine Shield

Cleric spells required: Greater Luminous Armor, Magic Vestment, Recitation, Divine Protection, Shield of Faith, Holy Star, Exalted Raiment, Anyspell, Greater Anyspell (x3), Miracle (x3), Greater Visage of the Deity, Elation, Divine Agility, Grace


Spell simulated with Anyspell: Shield

Spells simulated with Greater Anyspell: Haste, Draconic Polymorph (into War Troll), Bigby's Interposing Hand

Spells simulated with Miracle: Barkskin, Nixie's Grace, Snowsong


Modifiers: +8 Armor, +5 Armor Enhancement, +3 Luck, +1 Morale, +5 Deflection, +6 Circumstance, +4 Sacred, +4 Shield, +6 Dodge, +15 Natural, +5 Natural Enhancement, +4 Cover, -1 Size, +14 Dex, +11 Cha, +4 Insight = +94, with base AC 10 = 104


How you get a Dex bonus of +14: Draconic Polymorph into War Troll, base Dex 16. Spells (including Ability Enhancer): Greater Visage of the Deity +4 (Untyped), Divine Agility +12 (Enhancement), Grace +4 (Sacred), Elation +2 (Morale)

How you get a Cha bonus of +11: Base Cha 12. Spells (including Ability Enhancer): Greater Visage of the Deity +6 (Untyped), Nixie's Grace +10 (Enhancement), Snowsong +4 (Morale)

How you get a +6 Dodge bonus: +1 Haste, +5 Combat Expertise

How you get a +15 Natural Armor bonus: +1 Greater Visage of the Deity, +14 Draconic Polymorph into War Troll


This is without taking a Vow of Poverty, so if they had expensive equipment they could boost it further still (Monk's Belt, Tome of Understanding +5, Tome of Leadership and Influence +4, Manual of Quickness of Action +4, UMD'd scrolls of Inner Beauty, Aura of Vitality and Owl's Insight). And I'm sure someone will tell me I've still missed something...

[SirNibbles]

Be a race with slam attacks, claw attacks, bite attacks, gore attacks, tail slap attacks, more than one head and tail, and lots of arms, and/or buy lots of warforged mighty arm grafts and graft them to you. Wield as many +1 defending weapons as you can, including crescent blades (each edge of which is enhanced as a +1 defending weapon) in each +1 defending gauntleted hand, +1 defending elbow blades, +1 defending knee blades, +1 defending boot blades, +1 defending sleeve blades, +1 defending tail scythe, a +1 defending necklace of natural attacks keyed towards all of your natural weapons (including your Improved Unarmed Strike), +1 defending mouthpick weapons, +1 defending braid blades, and have all of your weapons contain +1 defending combat blades (which adds an additional weapon to each weapon you wield).

Now cast Chained greater magic weapon a few times to boost all of those to +5.

And they all stack.

My Centipede Monk build should come in handy with that strategy.


TN Anthropomorphic Bat Pugilist Fighter 1/Fangshields Druid 5

Str 5
Dex 15
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 23 (+1 at 4th level to 24)
Cha 6

1- Druid 1 - Child of Winter
2- Druid 2
3- Druid 3 - Weapon Finesse
4- Pugilist Fighter 1 - Granted Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike; Endurance | Fighter Bonus Feat: Two-Weapon Fighting
5- Druid 4
6- Fangshields Druid 5 - Vermin Shape

The Fangshields Druid 5th level substitution grants the user the Wild Shape Hands (Su) ability:

"Wild Shape Hands (Su): At 5th level, a Fangshields druid can use her wild shape ability to create simple dexterous hands if she doesn’t have them already. For example, a giant eagle, lammasu, or unicorn could use wild shape to change her feet, paws, or hooves into hands that work as well as human hands. These hands lose any natural attacks they previously possessed, but otherwise still function like their original shape (a unicorn could walk or run at normal speed on her hoof-hands, for example). She can make this change whenever she uses her wild shape, even when she assumes another form. For example, a unicorn druid could take the form of a wolf with functional paw-hands. This benefit is in addition to the standard druid’s wild shape ability." - Champions of Valor, page 41

Thus, when wild shaping, the Druid can choose to replace the legs of a centipede with human hands which "work as well as human hands."

How many legs does a Monstrous Centipede actually have? The rules do not tell us. A centipede, according to Wikipedia, has between 30 and 354 legs. It always has an odd number of pairs of legs, and so it will never have exactly 100 legs (50 pairs). The average of 30 and 354 gives us 192 legs, but let's just call it 100. So, once per day, you can use Wild Shape Hands to turn into a Monstrous Centipede with 100 hands.


The best part is, even if you're not in Centipede form, you're a 5th level Druid with 24 Wis and a fly speed. You can do other stuff to optimise this with items and buffs from your allies. Dragonfire Inspiration is especially strong, thanks to the number of attacks you have.


Also, since Magic Weapon (Greater) affects 50 projectiles, you can enchant 50 shuriken with a single casting.

Get a CL 20 Wand of Greater Magic Weapon for 45,000 gp and you're set. Even with just 50 shuriken, you're looking at +250 AC.

Alternatively, you could get into the argument of one unarmed strike vs multiple unarmed strikes for the purpose of a Defending Necklace of Natural Attacks and Greater Magic Weapon.

Either way, this would make a DM throw something at you.

[Snowbluff]

Not trying to one-up the cool people here, just posting for completeness. Cancer Mage from BoVDis immune to drawbacks of disease. Vile Rigidity, found in BoVD as well, grants a stacking +1 to natural armor every day, and because the Dex penalty is ignored, this can increase to an arbitrarily high number. If you have access to 2nd level sor/wiz spells, scintillating scales from Spell Compendium will turn it to deflection for a minute per level.

Sorry if this spoiled the vibe of sane, practical optimization that takes real effort.

TBF, I gave a practical option, then realized it could go infinite, so you neither one upped me nor ruined the thread before I did. :smalltongue:


Abjurant Champion with Greater Luminous Armor and Shield can match that +5 Plate and +5 Tower Shield. Leaves you with your dex bonus uncapped, and no armor check penalties.

Yes, there is a minor str penalty. (avoidable in some cheesy ways, or easily fixed with a lesser restoration). Or just ignore it. Either because as a caster you don't care, or as a finesse melee type. (rogue or duskblade probably)

All the other bonuses still apply.


And don't forget the Hedgehog/Turtle familiar for another point of natural armor.
I mentioned luminous armor above, and for everyone's edification, the Str damage applies after the spell ends (page 83, BoED), and if you're a cleric, healer, druid, paladin, etc, you can heal the str damage.

[NNescio]

Using a wide array of books, from 1st party Core all the way to the most obscure 3rd party books (I'm looking at you, AEG's Book of Feats and its line of assassination feats), what's the best level 20 Armor class build? Be it from spells, equipment, or anything pre-epic it's fine. Exploits is fine, but if done so no AC will be high enough to evade books thrown at my face~

Edit: Ah, by the way, this is a Pathfinder-free zone. It may be a better 3.5, but it's not the area I'm looking for.


Not trying to one-up the cool people here, just posting for completeness. Cancer Mage from BoVDis immune to drawbacks of disease. Vile Rigidity, found in BoVD as well, grants a stacking +1 to natural armor every day, and because the Dex penalty is ignored, this can increase to an arbitrarily high number. If you have access to 2nd level sor/wiz spells, scintillating scales from Spell Compendium will turn it to deflection for a minute per level.

Sorry if this spoiled the vibe of sane, practical optimization that takes real effort.

Well, if Theoretical Op. is on the table...

Get the Sarrukh's Manipulate Form ability using one of the many Pun-Pun ascension tricks (Summon Pazuzu-Candle-Gate in Sarrukh or Wildshape shenanigans).

Grant yourself Bellflower Tattoo (from the Tattooed Monk variant, Complete Warrior) and Void Release (Void Disciple, Complete Divine).

Grant yourself Ice Assassin as an SLA, again using Manipulate Form. Make an Ice Assassin of a god. Order it to make you its proxy, gaining Divine Rank 1. Grab the Alter Reality salient divine ability. No need for squirrels.

Use the Omniscificer damage loop combined with Pain Mastery (the Savage Species feat) for actual infinite (aleph-null, not NI AKA "arbitrarily high") STR. Use Bellflower Tattoo in conjunction with Void Release to add your aleph-null STR modifier as an enhancement bonus to DEX. Make this bonus permanent with Alter Reality.

Enjoy your truly infinite (aleph-null) AC. And DEX. And other attributes if you feel so inclined.

TL;DR: Be Pun-Pun, steal from the Omniscificer's playbook, get infinite DEX and AC.

Edit: Wait a minute, one can chuck Arcane Fusion binary trees into the damage loop for aleph-one STR... I think (less sure about this part, being uncountable make things more muddled, and I haven't reviewed my set theory in a while). Then proceed to get aleph-one AC. This is bigger than aleph-null. (Yes, there is an hierachy of infinities — some are 'bigger' than others.)

[Uncle Pine]

devoting to ac doesn't work because 3.5 has no way to hold aggro since taunt does not exist
Secrets of Xen'Drik has you covered. It contains a table with a bunch of alternate curses, one of which is particularly key to this matter:

The character is surrounded by an unnerving aura of menace. Lower the starting attitude of NPCs and animals towards this PC by one step. If a creature is already hostile, it attacks this character in preference to any others.
Which makes so you always "hold aggro", all the time, with no actions or build investment required.

[Thurbane]

On a less serious note, there's also the Delicious flaw (Dragon 330). Requires 1 level of commoner, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

On a less serious note, there's also the Delicious flaw (Dragon 330). Requires 1 level of commoner, though.Commoner 1/psywar 1 or druid 5 can be surprisingly lethal with that flaw. Encourage everything with swallow whole to eat you, then explode them from the inside via expansion or wild shape. (Wizard or sorcerer for enlarge person is not recommended, due to having teeny tiny HD.)

It's kind of surprising how useful some of those "joke" flaws can be, if some thought is put into using them.

Infested With Chickens, anyone?

[Vizzerdrix]

Commoner 1/psywar 1 or druid 5 can be surprisingly lethal with that flaw. Encourage everything with swallow whole to eat you, then explode them from the inside via expansion or wild shape. (Wizard or sorcerer for enlarge person is not recommended, due to having teeny tiny HD.)

It's kind of surprising how useful some of those "joke" flaws can be, if some thought is put into using them.

Infested With Chickens, anyone?

I prefer weresheep with spike armor. Put that lycanthrope wis bonus to work and use shapesand armor after you have been swallowed.

[The Viscount]

If you really want to maximize that flaw, also take the Venemous Blood ACF for Warlock to deal Strength damage, and then splash in Binder to bind Eurynome to deal more damage with her poison blood. Pros: hilarious. Cons: requires 19 of your 20 levels, assuming you take improved binding.

[PraxisVetli]

If you were to take a bunch of 1 level dips in various Psionic classes, namely Psithief and Ardent (with Magic Mantle), then take Supernatural Transformation: Psionics and Master Psithief, you could dump power points into Inertial Armour for a pretty ludicrous amount of AC.
If you could somehow get 20 different dips, it'd top out at +75, so you know.
That's a thing.
Pretty cheesy though.