Whats a good AC for an Epic level character?

[Voidstar01]

Right so i'm playing an epic level game, and we're using the armor as DR rule (half the armor bonus rounded down is converted to stacking DR/-). I have an AC of 27, 8 of which comes from a shield (shield bonus isn't converted to DR) im noticing my attacks (full BaB) regularly hit above 30 (I have a total of +34 to hit) so i'm wondering if it's worth it to drop the shield (Mithral Heavy shield +5) to refund the wealth, and focus on wielding my sword two handed, thus refunding the two feats I was planning to invest in shielded combat since it doesn't seem like the AC I gain actually matters. Thoughts? do I just have a really high bonus to hit?

[StevenC21]

AC is crap and doesn't scale properly, especially if you're using that UA rule.

Definitely go 2-handed Power Attack route.

[noob]

9 because you are a sandwich?
or infinity because you got infinity to each stat.

[MisterKaws]

As a rule of thumb, any numeric average for Epic is twice whatever you think it is.

[RNightstalker]

Somewhere on the forum I've seen someone mention an "appropriate" AC of 13+ECL. I can't remember if that's for monsters/NPCs or PCs, but a lot of the prepared modules out there seem to unknowingly follow that code.

I'm honestly wondering how your AC is so low at epic levels. Even epic level grunts should be hitting that more often than not. Most epic level monsters would hit that on a natural one if they weren't automatic misses.

Is this a low magic or low money campaign? Something else besides your AC isn't adding up.

(Standard disclaimer: AC isn't as good as a miss chance, yada yada yada)

[Elkad]

In regular 3.5? 10+(level*3) is what it takes to even really bother. You want 10+(level*4) to actually be difficult to hit.

With Armor as DR, you give up a few points. Maybe 5. Those 5pts of AC give you DR5 instead, but the monster just power attacks for -5, and nets more damage than the DR saves you.

[Biggus]

No, +34 isn't an unusually high attack bonus for an epic character, and as Nightstalker says, 27 is a very low AC. What class and level are you?


In regular 3.5? 10+(level*3) is what it takes to even really bother. You want 10+(level*4) to actually be difficult to hit.


Huh? You're saying that at level 20 you need an AC of 70 to be worth bothering with, and an AC of 90 to be difficult to hit? Other than the Tarrasque, no CR20 creature in the SRD has an attack bonus higher than +42, and even the Tarrasque's is "only" +57.

[Voidstar01]

I'm honestly wondering how your AC is so low at epic levels. Even epic level grunts should be hitting that more often than not. Most epic level monsters would hit that on a natural one if they weren't automatic misses.



Half my AC has been converted directly to DR, so thats why, i'm mostly hoping Fast Healing 4 and Silithilar heart keep me alive, also DR 12\-

[RNightstalker]

Half my AC has been converted directly to DR, so thats why, i'm mostly hoping Fast Healing 4 and Silithilar heart keep me alive, also DR 12\-

That makes sense as to how the AC is so low, but how did you get DR that high? Did y'all houserule an improvement to the UA option?

[MisterKaws]

Half my AC has been converted directly to DR, so thats why, i'm mostly hoping Fast Healing 4 and Silithilar heart keep me alive, also DR 12\-

DR 12 matters a lot less when monsters are dealing 50 damage per hit.

[arkangel111]

honestly that UA variant should say gain half your AC as DR/- not convert. AC is already hard to push to relevant numbers without solely focusing on it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You should focus on finding ways to make yourself difficult to target, let alone hit.

Total concealment means that anything that can't see you can't target you, so AoEs are the only way to reliably hit you, and most AoEs don't deal that much damage compared to single-target effects (which won't hit you often, if at all, especially if, due to concealment, you can't be hit by anything with a "Target" line in its entry). And have improved evasion, and, if possible, mettle.

Get yourself access to invisibility and a tooth of Leraje (or other such tooth) with a permanencied Widen'd, Selective Spell'd, Invisible Spell'd solid fog cast on it. Just open your mouth when combat begins, and you'll be wrapped in a nice, invisible forcefield that blocks ranged attacks and a lot of melee options. You're invisible, giving anyone without true seeing or see invisibility fits, and anyone who does have it won't be able to see you either, since all they can see is a roiling mass of cloud. And it doesn't affect you at all, since it's Selective.

Of course, you also want to make damaging you difficult, even if you get hit.

Find ways to deflect rays to prevent lucky disintegrates, and find a way to get really high levels of hardness.

If you're a warforged, your armor is a part of your body, and enhancing armor increases the armor's (read: your body's) hit points and hardness. And if you're a monk, your body is a living weapon, which counts as both natural and manufactured, so it is susceptible to being enhanced that way, as well. Then you can have the matter manipulation power and the hardening spell cast on you for additional hardness. It's not hard difficult to get a hardness in the triple-digits rather easily this way.

And then there's immunity to lethal damage and immunity to death from damage, so you don't really have to be fashed about getting damaged, period.

Since you're epic, getting access to astral projection and a demiplane to hide your body in aren't out of the question, so get those, so even if you do "die," your body will still be just fine.

Immunities to status effects would help with other non-damaging problems, as well.

If you're ethereal or incorporeal, you can spend your time between turns inside solid objects. If you've got minions, you could be a ghost or a fiend of possession to hide in your minions.

Get yourself access to lots of temp hp, a willing ally (also with lots of temp hp) and the shield other spell, or something similar. A psicrystal + vigor + share pain is a good combo for this. The combo effectively doubles your temp hp rather nicely, which is further reduced by any hardness you have.

Lots of ways to get around the problem without playing the AC game.

[CharonsHelper]

DR 12 matters a lot less when monsters are dealing 50 damage per hit.

Indeed. DR 12 is pretty negligable at epic levels.

And AC 27 is terrible. I have a level 9 bard right now with an AC 5 points higher than that without even trying that hard.

And to the naysayers - while miss chance is great, at epic levels everybody and their kid brother has True Sight anyway, which negates most forms of miss chance that don't come with penalties, like blinking.

AC can be great, but with a 27 at epic levels you might as well go naked.

The general rule (before epic) is that you need a minimum of 15+level to have decent AC, and 20+level to have a good AC, though as you go up through the teens it really shifts up at least another 5 points past that

And that's before epic level craziness. You really need an AC at least in the 40s by epic level to be worth much of anything. At 20 it shouldn't be very difficult to get into the 50s whenever you can take your last iterative attack with a +5 defending armor spike.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

And to the naysayers - while miss chance is great, at epic levels everybody and their kid brother has True Sight anyway, which negates most forms of miss chance that don't come with penalties, like blinking.Which is why I suggested the Invisible solid fog, which actually makes true seeing et al an actual liability. The tooth is so you can have it on when you want it, but not when you don't. If talking is a non-action that can occur outside of your turn, just turn it on when your enemies are moving, but off when your friends are.

[pabelfly]

Question - how can the player make a really high AC while not having to worry about class dips or feats?

10 (base)
Dexterity
Armor (made of mithral material to increase maximum dexterity bonus in armor by 2)
+5 (enhancement) to armor
+5 (natural armor) Amulet of Natural Armor
+5 (deflection) Ring of Protection
+5 shield (Animated enchantment)

That comes to 30 AC + Dexterity + Armor bonus. What else can be added to that in terms of items to increase AC, especially at high-level?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Question - how can the player make a really high AC while not having to worry about class dips or feats?

10 (base)
Dexterity
Armor (made of mithral material to increase maximum dexterity bonus in armor by 2)
+5 (enhancement) to armor
+5 (natural armor) Amulet of Natural Armor
+5 (deflection) Ring of Protection
+5 shield (Animated enchantment)

That comes to 30 AC + Dexterity + Armor bonus. What else can be added to that in terms of items to increase AC, especially at high-level?Enhance 50 arrows as +1 defending/morphing/sizing weapons. Then have a greater magic weapon going. Then secrete them about your person (gauntlets, braid blades, boot blades, tail blades, sleeve blades, etc etc etc, each paired with a close combat blade). You can easily get a few dozen on your person, given how many potential weapons you can have on yourself at any given time. Now all of them are +5 defending weapons, and they all stack.

[Asmotherion]

For a rough estimation of an effective AC at each level you need to consider the following:

(BaB of a full BaB class at that level)+(Average Ability Mod of creatures you face at that level)+(Average Enhancment Bonus at that level)+19(maximum roll that's not an auto hit)=Target AC

What you really care about is what roll the opponent needs to succeed at to hit you. The need of a 16 is still good and if they can hit you with a 10-11 you're average. Anything bellow that is abysmal.

For level 21 i'd go

BaB 23 (assume you'll be facing stronger opponents)+20 (Not a lot of things have above 50 Str even at epic... That said the average may be different i just randomly put a relatively high number)+8(This may not only include enhancment bonus but also other abilities that enhance the roll)+19= Target AC 70.

70 would be a good AC at level 21 but Abismal at 40.

An other thing to consider is to have a reliable touch AC. if all an opponent needs to do to bypass your AC is target your touch AC you may as well not have it... Especially at epic levels were every seccond thing has a touch/ranged touch.

Finally i believe (not sure) that the highest to-hit bonus from an official monster (non Deity) belongs to the Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon for a Neat +101. This means a 120 AC would be good enough for roughly every non-unique creature in the game that doesn't have a template (How can a Great Wyrm Prismatic be non-unique is debatable though).


Indeed. DR 12 is pretty negligable at epic levels.

And AC 27 is terrible. I have a level 9 bard right now with an AC 5 points higher than that without even trying that hard.

And to the naysayers - while miss chance is great, at epic levels everybody and their kid brother has True Sight anyway, which negates most forms of miss chance that don't come with penalties, like blinking.

AC can be great, but with a 27 at epic levels you might as well go naked.

The general rule (before epic) is that you need a minimum of 15+level to have decent AC, and 20+level to have a good AC, though as you go up through the teens it really shifts up at least another 5 points past that

And that's before epic level craziness. You really need an AC at least in the 40s by epic level to be worth much of anything. At 20 it shouldn't be very difficult to get into the 50s whenever you can take your last iterative attack with a +5 defending armor spike.

AC 27 is great... for 5e that is :P

Seriously though a Lv 3 wizard can have around 30. 27 AC is nothing...

[Biggus]

Question - how can the player make a really high AC while not having to worry about class dips or feats?

10 (base)
Dexterity
Armor (made of mithral material to increase maximum dexterity bonus in armor by 2)
+5 (enhancement) to armor
+5 (natural armor) Amulet of Natural Armor
+5 (deflection) Ring of Protection
+5 shield (Animated enchantment)

That comes to 30 AC + Dexterity + Armor bonus. What else can be added to that in terms of items to increase AC, especially at high-level?

Without spells, an Ioun stone for +1 (insight). With spells, about a dozen different types of bonus.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

At level 20 and ML 26 (20 native + 1 orange ioun stone + 3 Overchannel + 2 psionic arcanist gloves), you can get:

+16 armor (inertial armor)
+10 shield (force screen)
+9 insight (defensive precognition)
+9 enhancement (thicken skin)
+1 luck (luckstone)
+250 miscellaneous (50 +5 defending arrows)

And all for the cost of an ioun stone, a few pairs of psionic arcanist gloves, a luckstone, and the cost of a +1 defending/morphing/sizing weapon (for 50 arrows).

You can get that a lot higher with a few more feats and a few magic items (such as a psionic metamagic rod bound to your hands chakra), but...

Also, a 50% miss chance is (at minimum) +10 equivalent, although that actually goes up as you level.

[Voidstar01]

you I run the problem of not knowing how to optimize, (also 1/2 my armor bonus and 1/5 my natural armor bonus get converted to near useless DR) I've got all kinds of effect immunities (constant mindblank, immunity to the negative energy trio, perpetual feather fall… etc.) but I still die to damage, likely because some of that stuff is super un-optimized (the feather fall is from the array of the manticore set bonus... gonna go refund those) bu,t I can make 5 attacks as part of a full attack 3/day, move before making a full attack the same amount of times, and have an effectively +9 weapon (item familiar ancestral relic +5 sentient good aligned transmuting eager platinum bastard sword of warning) so thats neat (I should trade the initiative bonuses for damage enhancements correct?) As im sure you can tell I've never built a character above level 3 berfore so i'm a little out of my depth (out of curiosity how many different sources of vampirism can I stack on my weapon?)

[Elkad]

Huh? You're saying that at level 20 you need an AC of 70 to be worth bothering with, and an AC of 90 to be difficult to hit? Other than the Tarrasque, no CR20 creature in the SRD has an attack bonus higher than +42, and even the Tarrasque's is "only" +57.

A CR24 Red Wyrm is a valid L20 encounter. +48 to start, and CL17 casting off the Wizard and Cleric lists. Which means he'll have buffs up. Prayer, Hero's Feast, Greater Magic Fang (offlist), Improved Invisibility, Haste, Bull's Strength, etc.

That gets him into the +60 range without optimizing particularly hard. With AC70 he'll hit 50% of the time. Conditional modifiers will push him even higher.

If it's a 6-man party (about average sized for my table), I can throw in a L20 caster as a cohort for him and still be PL:21.2 vs EL:25. More buffs, flanking buddy, etc.

Of course you can dispel his attack buffs, but he can dispel your AC buffs too.


+250 miscellaneous (50 +5 defending arrows)

Ignoring that rules cheese (or reducing it to a rational 5 points), the rest is valid. Plus Haste and other goodies.
Of course you are very vulnerable to dispel.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ignoring that rules cheese (or reducing it to a rational 5 points)Well, you're always free to houserule.


Plus Haste and other goodies.Yeah, I didn't include Dex (which isn't limited by your armor), natural armor, or most miscellaneous bonuses.


Of course you are very vulnerable to dispel.Less vulnerable than someone reliant on items, actually, since your ML is higher than the minimum for non-epic magic items.

[hamishspence]

Defending is melee weapons only - it's not on the Ranged Weapon table:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#defending

And bonuses of the same type do not stack. "Stacks with all other bonuses" should not apply to bonuses coming from multiple Defending weapons.

Just as a person cannot benefit from multiple castings of shield of faith - only the highest deflection bonus is counted - so a character should not be able to benefit from multiple Defending Weapons.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Defending is melee weapons only - it's not on the Ranged Weapon table:And arrows can be used as melee weapons, albeit with a -4 penalty.


And bonuses of the same type do not stack. "Stacks with all other bonuses" should not apply to bonuses coming from multiple Defending weapons.It does say all bonuses, with no qualifiers. Doesn't specific override general?

[hamishspence]

And arrows can be used as melee weapons, albeit with a -4 penalty.

Given that it is impossible to randomly generate Arrows of Defending - it makes sense to ban them from having that property.

If I was the DM and one of the players said "I wish to craft 50 Arrows of Defending" - I'd say flatly - "you can't."

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Given that it is impossible to randomly generate Arrows of Defending - it makes sense to ban them from having that property.

If I was the DM and one of the players said "I wish to craft 50 Arrows of Defending" - I'd say flatly - "you can't."Keep in mind that they're morphing weapons, so they're most definitely melee weapons if you want them to be. Turn one into a dagger, and there's nothing stopping you from defendingifying it.

[Elkad]

Well, you're always free to houserule.

Rules debate on "non stacking vs stacking" and calling ammunition a "weapon". I'm just going to avoid the whole discussion, because RAW or not, that level of cheese isn't going to fly at most tables.



Yeah, I didn't include Dex (which isn't limited by your armor), natural armor, or most miscellaneous bonuses.
Right. It's a good base to work off of, at +50 (with a single defending weapon). You'll have Deflection for sure, plus situational buffs, statmods, etc on top of that. Getting you past that AC70 I mentioned above.


Less vulnerable than someone reliant on items, actually, since your ML is higher than the minimum for non-epic magic items.

Items have the advantage of requiring a Chained Dispel targeted at all your item slots to knock out, and if you can retreat/stall for even a couple rounds, they come back online automatically. They'll definitely be online again for the next fight, but you might need to retreat completely and reset to get your full buffstack going again.

[hamishspence]

Keep in mind that they're morphing weapons, so they're most definitely melee weapons if you want them to be. Turn one into a dagger, and there's nothing stopping you from defendingifying it.

I'm pretty sure Morphing cannot be applied to ammunition - and a morphing weapon cannot transform into a piece of ammunition.


Rules debate on "non stacking vs stacking"

Untyped bonuses don't stack with one another - if they're from the same effect. I'd call the Defending property an effect.

[Biggus]

A CR24 Red Wyrm is a valid L20 encounter. +48 to start, and CL17 casting off the Wizard and Cleric lists. Which means he'll have buffs up. Prayer, Hero's Feast, Greater Magic Fang (offlist), Improved Invisibility, Haste, Bull's Strength, etc.

That gets him into the +60 range without optimizing particularly hard. With AC70 he'll hit 50% of the time. Conditional modifiers will push him even higher.

If it's a 6-man party (about average sized for my table), I can throw in a L20 caster as a cohort for him and still be PL:21.2 vs EL:25. More buffs, flanking buddy, etc.

Of course you can dispel his attack buffs, but he can dispel your AC buffs too.


A CR24 Red Wyrm is right at the top end of what's classed as a "very difficult" encounter for a level 20 party. Unless they have artifacts or other means of punching above their weight, that's the most difficult opponent they're supposed to be able to fight without a probable TPK. They're not supposed to fight opponents like that often, and it's meant to be a very hard fight when they do.

Also, most high-CR monsters other than dragons don't have spellcasting ability so won't be able to boost their attack bonus like that.

So you don't need an AC of 70 to be worth bothering with, as the great majority of opponents you'll be facing won't have an attack bonus of anywhere near +60.

Also, how is it getting access to GMF?

[Calthropstu]

I played an epic character with ac 7. No, not 70. 7.
Spellcaster though so... eh? He avoided melee like the plague.

For an epic martial, 50 should be decent. Like you noticed, your own character hits at +30. You can expect decent epics to hit similar numbers, with serious brutes hitting much higher. I guarantee you will come against creatures that will only need 2s to hit no matter what your ac gets to.

[Asmotherion]

And arrows can be used as melee weapons, albeit with a -4 penalty.

It does say all bonuses, with no qualifiers. Doesn't specific override general?

Why do you need them to be arrows though? Why not Fine sized daggers (decorating a pair of gloves for example)?

Also in all fairness it says all "other" bonuses... i can read this both ways...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Why do you need them to be arrows though? Why not Fine sized daggers (decorating a pair of gloves for example)?Because an arrow costs ~1/50 the price of a dagger, so you can get fifty for the price of one, and a single greater magic weapon will target all of them.


Also in all fairness it says all "other" bonuses... i can read this both ways...True enough. I guess it depends on whether "other" means "other than this weapon's bonus" or not.

[Remuko]

Finally i believe (not sure) that the highest to-hit bonus from an official monster (non Deity) belongs to the Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon for a Neat +101. This means a 120 AC would be good enough for roughly every non-unique creature in the game that doesn't have a template (How can a Great Wyrm Prismatic be non-unique is debatable though).

I think Dragon Magazine has Time Dragons which are even stronger than the Prismatic ones. Idk what their AB is though, but its almost certainly higher than the Prismatics.

[Biggus]

I think Dragon Magazine has Time Dragons which are even stronger than the Prismatic ones. Idk what their AB is though, but its almost certainly higher than the Prismatics.

+132 for a great wyrm, although since they're CR90 or 100 (there's a misprint on the table) it should be a piece of cake to get an AC of 150+ by that point with your 1.6 billion (or 4.1 billion) gold pieces worth of items...

[RNightstalker]

Question - how can the player make a really high AC while not having to worry about class dips or feats?

10 (base)
Dexterity
Armor (made of mithral material to increase maximum dexterity bonus in armor by 2)
+5 (enhancement) to armor
+5 (natural armor) Amulet of Natural Armor
+5 (deflection) Ring of Protection
+5 shield (Animated enchantment)

That comes to 30 AC + Dexterity + Armor bonus. What else can be added to that in terms of items to increase AC, especially at high-level?

Don't forget the shield bonus itself, and a lot of classes have defense bonuses as well. For high dexterity characters, Bracers of Armor +8 and Gnome Twist Cloth may be the best bet. And if you really want to look funny, put an +1 defending, eager spike of warning.


Enhance 50 arrows as +1 defending/morphing/sizing weapons. Then have a greater magic weapon going. Then secrete them about your person (gauntlets, braid blades, boot blades, tail blades, sleeve blades, etc etc etc, each paired with a close combat blade). You can easily get a few dozen on your person, given how many potential weapons you can have on yourself at any given time. Now all of them are +5 defending weapons, and they all stack.

While a defending weapon grants an unnamed bonus, it doesn't stack with itself unfortunately, as it says it stacks with all others...not the same. Two, or in your case 50, gives you plenty to choose from so you'll have a backup if needed...or 49.

[CharonsHelper]

Which is why I suggested the Invisible solid fog, which actually makes true seeing et al an actual liability. The tooth is so you can have it on when you want it, but not when you don't. If talking is a non-action that can occur outside of your turn, just turn it on when your enemies are moving, but off when your friends are.

That is crazy and there is no way that any GM with half a brain would let you turn it on and off depending whose turn it was.

Turns are not ACTUALLY what's going on in a fight, turns are just a way to let the mechanics work without a more complicated initiative system.

Besides which - where in the world did you ever read that your character can talk when it's not your turn? There is often OOC chatter between turns, but your character can only speak during your turn.


Enhance 50 arrows as +1 defending/morphing/sizing weapons. Then have a greater magic weapon going. Then secrete them about your person (gauntlets, braid blades, boot blades, tail blades, sleeve blades, etc etc etc, each paired with a close combat blade). You can easily get a few dozen on your person, given how many potential weapons you can have on yourself at any given time. Now all of them are +5 defending weapons, and they all stack.

1. As others have said, they don't stack. Defending is a single source, and bonuses from the same source NEVER stack.

2. You have to actually make an attack with a weapon to get Defending to turn on for the round. It's still worth having at high levels as you're never going to hit anything with your fourth iterative attack anyway, so you can burn it on a whiff with Defending armor spikes. But you need to actually attack with it that turn.

[Elkad]

A CR24 Red Wyrm is right at the top end of what's classed as a "very difficult" encounter for a level 20 party. Unless they have artifacts or other means of punching above their weight, that's the most difficult opponent they're supposed to be able to fight without a probable TPK. They're not supposed to fight opponents like that often, and it's meant to be a very hard fight when they do.

Also, most high-CR monsters other than dragons don't have spellcasting ability so won't be able to boost their attack bonus like that.

So you don't need an AC of 70 to be worth bothering with, as the great majority of opponents you'll be facing won't have an attack bonus of anywhere near +60.

Also, how is it getting access to GMF?

Optimized characters (basically anyone who posts here) generally handle CR+4 encounters just fine. Yeah, dragons are generally under-CRed a bit.

SRD CR20+ monsters is a lot of dragons, balor, pit fiend, titan, solar, and BigT. A lot of casters there.

Lets look at Epic monsters (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) instead. A few that are mostly beatsticks.

Stone Colossus. Straight beatstick. CR24, +70 to hit. It doesn't need the buffs.
Adamantine Golem - CR25, +58
Gloom, CR25 +58
Sirrush, CR24 +56 - Pounce and 4 attacks.
Tayella, CR24 +52 - Pounce and 6 attacks
Elder Titan, CR30 +87(and iteratives), and 29th level Wizard+Cleric casting - so all the buffs.
Elder Treant, CR25 +51
Living Vault. CR33, +99 to hit. A L30 character would have AC100 by my low end, 130 at the high

[CharonsHelper]

Optimized characters (basically anyone who posts here) generally handle CR+4 encounters just fine. Yeah, dragons are generally under-CRed a bit.


I do 100% agree for higher levels (such as 20). But just to be nitpicky, I don't think that I could punch +4 CR above for the first couple levels. :P

[Elkad]

2. You have to actually make an attack with a weapon to get Defending to turn on for the round. It's still worth having at high levels as you're never going to hit anything with your fourth iterative attack anyway, so you can burn it on a whiff with Defending armor spikes. But you need to actually attack with it that turn.

"before using the weapon". Eh, threatening someone might be enough. So I'd let you take the bonus while using Total Defense or something similar (holding your weapon while you cast spells with the other hand). But it does say "wielder", so you damn sure have to have it currently equipped/held, not stuffed in a quiver with 49 of it's friends.

[Calthropstu]

It depends on what you need the AC for. Naturally, an epic level martial adventurer is likely to spend lots of time on the road. Sleeping in caves, unfamiliar inns, dark dungeons... All these and more can be expected. I checked on Amazon and one of its top endorsements was the Whynter Elite ARC-122DS 12,000 BTU Dual Hose Portable Air Conditioner, Dehumidifier, Fan with Activated Carbon Filter plus Storage bag for Rooms up to 400 sq ft. As it says in the name, it serves multiple functions and will keep the cave, dungeon or inn cool and comfortable in most conditions. (I doubt it will be able to overpower an active volcano however.) There is the general problem of getting electricity though as it seems it is a wall plug dependent. However, at epic levels, getting a generator online should not be too difficult.

[CharonsHelper]

"before using the weapon". Eh, threatening someone might be enough. So I'd let you take the bonus while using Total Defense or something similar (holding your weapon while you cast spells with the other hand). But it does say "wielder", so you damn sure have to have it currently equipped/held, not stuffed in a quiver with 49 of it's friends.

I don't know if they ever specified in 3.5, but I'm pretty sure that in Pathfinder they specifically called out that it would need to take a swing that round.

[King of Nowhere]

Regarding the AC bonus you can get from spells, what are they? because I'm not much knowledgeable of spells besides core, and all core AC boosting spells don't stack with equipment. Shield of faith is redundant with ring of protection +5, barkskin is redundant with amulet of natural armor, and so on.
And I need to buff up some AC for my npcs, the party barbarian is so buffed up that often he can hit on a 2 on his second iterative attack while power attacking...


A CR24 Red Wyrm is right at the top end of what's classed as a "very difficult" encounter for a level 20 party. Unless they have artifacts or other means of punching above their weight, that's the most difficult opponent they're supposed to be able to fight without a probable TPK.

Nah, if you don't need to conserve spells, that dragon is laughable at level 20. whatever the dragon does, the cleric can heal the next round. While the party whittles at the dragon faster than it looks like thanks to action economy.

I faced that situation just two weeks ago with a greater wyrm gold dragon with elite stats and equipment, against a level 20 party (with many artifacts, so they are close to 25 for power... but still much short of what the CR of the dragon would be).
And it went like that: dragon breath for 26d10 damage, save DC 48. everyone takes 170 damage, the cleric cast mass heal.
dragon full attacks with +62 to hit, with some power attack and rend. deals 300 damage to single target, who is now near death. the cleric cast heal and quickened heal with the wand of quicken.
dragon flies out of range, intending to heal himself and kite with breath weapon. wizard cast teleport close to dragon, rest of the party full attacks.

Really, what was supposed to be the final boss of the campaign is turning out to be a mere nuisance they can keep at bay with little effort. they have a cleric that most fights does nothing but cast mass heal, and it's surprisingly effective

[Remuko]

Besides which - where in the world did you ever read that your character can talk when it's not your turn? There is often OOC chatter between turns, but your character can only speak during your turn.

Talking is a free action. free actions dont have to be on your turn last i knew.

[Calthropstu]

Regarding the AC bonus you can get from spells, what are they? because I'm not much knowledgeable of spells besides core, and all core AC boosting spells don't stack with equipment. Shield of faith is redundant with ring of protection +5, barkskin is redundant with amulet of natural armor, and so on.
And I need to buff up some AC for my npcs, the party barbarian is so buffed up that often he can hit on a 2 on his second iterative attack while power attacking...



Nah, if you don't need to conserve spells, that dragon is laughable at level 20. whatever the dragon does, the cleric can heal the next round. While the party whittles at the dragon faster than it looks like thanks to action economy.

I faced that situation just two weeks ago with a greater wyrm gold dragon with elite stats and equipment, against a level 20 party (with many artifacts, so they are close to 25 for power... but still much short of what the CR of the dragon would be).
And it went like that: dragon breath for 26d10 damage, save DC 48. everyone takes 170 damage, the cleric cast mass heal.
dragon full attacks with +62 to hit, with some power attack and rend. deals 300 damage to single target, who is now near death. the cleric cast heal and quickened heal with the wand of quicken.
dragon flies out of range, intending to heal himself and kite with breath weapon. wizard cast teleport close to dragon, rest of the party full attacks.

Really, what was supposed to be the final boss of the campaign is turning out to be a mere nuisance they can keep at bay with little effort. they have a cleric that most fights does nothing but cast mass heal, and it's surprisingly effective

Well derp. You are playing the dragon like an idiot. So here's how it should really play out:

This isn't the actual dragon in question. Astral projection, after all, is a thing. The treasure you see is all illusionary. While these guys are playing "kill the projection" the dragon is formulating a strategy. He is witnessing your party's tactics and will develop countermeasures.
Then, once his projection is gone, he casts another one and buffs like crazy.
He goes invisible, blasts the party with disjunction and slams the party cleric with maximized, empowered twin disintigrate.

Next he targets whatever magic casters remain. One of his buffs is, of course, spell turning. Concentration to cast defensively unleashing serious hurt on another party member, then quicken dimension door or teleport out. Summon minions to go in and harass then trigger a trap built into the room. Fly back in, casting another disjunction to be safe and now smash someone in melee. with cleric out, it's do or die for the party and they are still only fighting a projection.

[RNightstalker]

2. You have to actually make an attack with a weapon to get Defending to turn on for the round. It's still worth having at high levels as you're never going to hit anything with your fourth iterative attack anyway, so you can burn it on a whiff with Defending armor spikes. But you need to actually attack with it that turn.


"before using the weapon". Eh, threatening someone might be enough. So I'd let you take the bonus while using Total Defense or something similar (holding your weapon while you cast spells with the other hand). But it does say "wielder", so you damn sure have to have it currently equipped/held, not stuffed in a quiver with 49 of it's friends.


I don't know if they ever specified in 3.5, but I'm pretty sure that in Pathfinder they specifically called out that it would need to take a swing that round.

Neither 3.5 or Pathfinder require an attack or threatening an attack. It's a free action at the beginning of your turn to decide how much of the enhancement bonus stays on the weapon and how much goes to AC.


Regarding the AC bonus you can get from spells, what are they? because I'm not much knowledgeable of spells besides core, and all core AC boosting spells don't stack with equipment. Shield of faith is redundant with ring of protection +5, barkskin is redundant with amulet of natural armor, and so on.
And I need to buff up some AC for my npcs, the party barbarian is so buffed up that often he can hit on a 2 on his second iterative attack while power attacking...

Bite of the Werebear gives a nice bonus to natural armor, Holy Star gives an unnamed bonus, Visage of the Deity boosts a bunch of stats, some of which may increase AC.

Also check out protection devotion from complete champion. If you cheese it up with a neutral NPC and an evil NPC, you can get upwards of +14 AC by having a +7 sacred and +7 profane bonus.

[CharonsHelper]

Talking is a free action. free actions dont have to be on your turn last i knew.

Not per the rules.


Free Action
Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free.

The bolded means that it has to be during your turn, since you can only take other actions normally during your turn.

It's immediate actions can be performed when it's not your turn.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ahem. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#speak)


Speak
In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn’t your turn. Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.

Feel free to open and close your mouth at any time. As long as you're not dealing with an army on either side, it works just fine.

[CharonsHelper]

Ahem. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#speak)



Feel free to open and close your mouth at any time. As long as you're not dealing with an army on either side, it works just fine.

Fair enough; but it's still moot - because it shows "speak" as a seperate free action from concentrating on spells etc. Which is what matters to the rule above.

Besides which - as I said before - turns are merely an abstraction to make gameplay work. You can't say "for my 6 second turn it's on, but for your same 6 second turn it's off".

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Besides which - as I said before - turns are merely an abstraction to make gameplay work. You can't say "for my 6 second turn it's on, but for your same 6 second turn it's off"....and yet that's exactly how initiative works. Creature A casts a duration AoE spell, creatures B and C take damage as they move through it, creature D dispels it, creature E takes no damage from moving through the same area, creature F casts the same spell, and creatures G through Q take damage as they move.

[Biggus]

Optimized characters (basically anyone who posts here) generally handle CR+4 encounters just fine.

Oh, so what you meant was that you need AC 10+(level*3) to be worth bothering with if you're playing in games so highly optimized that you're regularly fighting opponents who are way above your party level. Well, yes, you're right about that.

I don't agree that basically anyone who posts here fits into that category though. A lot do, but quite a lot don't. Personally I've never met anyone who plays at that optimization level in actual games.


SRD CR20+ monsters is a lot of dragons, balor, pit fiend, titan, solar, and BigT. A lot of casters there.


Eh? Other than the dragons, only solars on that list have spells, the others only have SLAs, none of which provide any way of increasing their attack bonus other than the Titan's Invisibility.

[Calthropstu]

Ahem. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#speak)



Feel free to open and close your mouth at any time. As long as you're not dealing with an army on either side, it works just fine.

The key word is "free action." As such, it follows the rules for free actions which means on your turn.

That's how I rule it anyways. Trying to cheese this hard is usually instagibbed at my tables.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The key word is "free action." As such, it follows the rules for free actions which means on your turn.

That's how I rule it anyways. Trying to cheese this hard is usually instagibbed at my tables.You do realize that I just quoted RAW in the post you quoted, right? And you're arguing against RAW with a houserule?

[Calthropstu]

You do realize that I just quoted RAW in the post you quoted, right? And you're arguing against RAW with a houserule?

Yes.

No one would allow what you are proposing. Even the heaviest rules lawyer gm I know would shut this down. You will be shut down at every table in existence, and if you decide to run a game and explicitly allow it, your players would not use it.

[NNescio]

The key word is "free action." As such, it follows the rules for free actions which means on your turn.

That's how I rule it anyways. Trying to cheese this hard is usually instagibbed at my tables.

Specific overrules general, and the rules for speaking contain a specific exemption that allows speaking (of 'reasonable' length) to be conducted even when off-turn. It's the same RAW (technicality, depending on how you look at it) people use for free action out-of-turn Contingency triggers.

That aside, Solid Fog on tooth is still contentious, because the relevant line from Permanency:

Additionally, the following spells can be cast upon objects or areas only and rendered permanent.

...doesn't necessarily let a spell be cast upon objects if it normally isn't allowed to. Solid Fog normally targets a point (of intersection on a grid line), not an object (letting it target objects goes into undefined rules territory on how the spread is adjudicated when originating from an object). Restricting permanencied Solid Fog to target areas makes more sense and doesn't go against the Permanency rule (because it still "can be cast upon objects or areas only", by a strict logical interpretation of the word "or".)

Otherwise, well, you open the can of worms for Wall of Force, Wall of Fire, Gust of Wind, Mage’s Private Sanctum, Phase Door, Prismatic Sphere, Web et al. to be cast on a tooth (or any other object) too. (And maybe Invisibility and Animate Objects on 'areas' too). At which point we go into undefined rules territory with all the attendant headaches in trying to figure out what area the spells are supposed to cover.

--

Edit:

There is also another potential issue arising from line of effect:


An otherwise solid barrier with a hole of at least 1 square foot through it does not block a spell’s line of effect

If the creature's head is considered a "solid barrier" for the purposes of blocking line of effect, opening the mouth wouldn't normally allow the spell to spread out of it (most people don't have mouths bigger than 1 square foot). Note that spreads don't get to ignore LoE completely — they spread around barriers, not through them.

(This is similar to the technicality people use to shield carried objects from AMFs and Dispels. Like, say, a Shrunken spell book hidden in an alchemical tooth.)

(Yes, it's a bit of RAW silliness that magic fog can't pass through a [smaller than 1 square foot] hole in the wall, but we are relying on RAW technicalities, so...)

[King of Nowhere]

Well derp. You are playing the dragon like an idiot. So here's how it should really play out:


bwahahahaha!! thank you for assuming you know my campaign better than I do, and especially for assuming my players will play like they hadn't access to high level magic themselves.
really.


This isn't the actual dragon in question. Astral projection, after all, is a thingastral projection doesn't exist in my campaign, otherwise everyone would be using it. first and foremost the party, so there wouldn't be much point to anything. if the dragon was a projection, then the party would also be a projection. The treasure you see is all illusionaryeveryone in the party sees invisibility, many of them have permanent true sight. While these guys are playing "kill the projection" the dragon is formulating a strategy. He is witnessing your party's tactics and will develop countermeasures.
Then, once his projection is gone, he casts another one and buffs like crazy we already covered why the projection stuff doesn't work. anyway, the dragon knows the party (that's why he won't try any silly stuff), and he starts buffed for all its worth.
He goes invisible we already covered how that doesn't impress anyone; and the party is permanently covered by a fog, so they also cannot be seen from afar, blasts the party with disjunction which will be completely pointless as the party has 3 different contingenxies that teleport them outside of the AoE of disjunction. they'd have more, but I put a hard limit of 1 contingency per caster. In particular, the barbarian - which has access to contingency via daily limited wish that he aquired as a unique plot power - will be teleported just behind the guy who tried to disjoin him, in melee range, and unleash a full attack on its next round. Anticipate teleportation doesn't exist in my campaign. and slams the party cleric with maximized, empowered twin disintigrate can't do that because, as I said, the party is permanently shrouded in fog. But even if it could, saving throws against spells do not scale with hit dice, unlike its breath save DC. So saving against the dragon's disintegrate would be a DC 29, which the cleric can pass with a 2. Even if he failed a saving throw, he's got enough hit points and damage reductions that he'd survive. heck, he'd probably survive if he failed both saving throws. and the point is moot because the dragon doesn't have access to quickened spells, nor has he access to metamagic reducers. because the dragon is optimized for the level of my campaign, and with +62 to hit, +23 to STR, 58 AC, 1100 hp, SR 35, with high dex and combat reflexes and improved trip and large-and-in-charge, and it casts like a 21st level sorceror with a +13 to the relevant stat. on a successful attack it deals 10d8+20d6+153, plus power attack it's already powerful enough without casting and full attacking in the same round. twin spells doesnt exist in my campaign at all.

Next he targets whatever magic casters remain by then the dragon already took two rounds, where you apparently assume the party will sit down drooling and staring dumbly. and I explained in detail why the stuff that you had the dragon try to do had no effect whatsoever... One of his buffs is, of course, spell turning the first thing the party wizard did was casting disjunction at the dragon. if the dragon got protected by a contingency, the caster has quickened disjunction to cover for it. with the capacity to follow with two more disjunctions in the following round. So, no, the dragon has no active buffs whatsoever. on the plus side, with its high will save he gets to keep its magic items. Concentration to cast defensively unleashing serious hurt on another party member, then quicken dimension dooras i said, the dragon has no quickened spells. and if he tried teleport, he'd get counterspelled or teleport out. Summon minions to go in and harass then trigger a trap built into the room. Fly back in, casting another disjunction to be safe and now smash someone in melee. with cleric out, it's do or die for the party and they are still only fighting a projection. all this would be great, if there was a single thing in the first part of the plan that has actually worked.

Seriously, the first part of the fight the dragon did nothing but cast spells. are you trying to tell me that a single 21st level sorceror can outspell 1 wizard, 1 cleric and 1 druuid without requiring them to be acting completely dumb?

[Calthropstu]

bwahahahaha!! thank you for assuming you know my campaign better than I do, and especially for assuming my players will play like they hadn't access to high level magic themselves.
really.

Why would a 21st lvl sorcerer have no access to quicken? If projection is a no go, then a series of clones. Most of what you said is on you. Allowing permanencied true seeing is definitely not raw. But there are many many things wrong there. Why, if the pc's were lnowingly hostile, would this dragon let them within 90 feet in the first place? Disjunction is a close range spell.

Eh, whatever. It's your campaign. I had to plan about 30 hours for the final stage of the boss fight for my campaign. It just feels to me (and apparently to you) that you let yourself and possibly your players down.

[pabelfly]

Yes.

No one would allow what you are proposing. Even the heaviest rules lawyer gm I know would shut this down. You will be shut down at every table in existence, and if you decide to run a game and explicitly allow it, your players would not use it.

I allow my players to speak out-of-turn when I am GMing. It's a role-playing game, if they want to do some role-play I'd be more than happy to go with it.

[CharonsHelper]

I allow my players to speak out-of-turn when I am GMing. It's a role-playing game, if they want to do some role-play I'd be more than happy to go with it.

But not speak to activate/deactivate spells per whose turn it is I assume.

[King of Nowhere]

Why would a 21st lvl sorcerer have no access to quicken? If projection is a no go, then a series of clones. Most of what you said is on you. Allowing permanencied true seeing is definitely not raw. But there are many many things wrong there. Why, if the pc's were lnowingly hostile, would this dragon let them within 90 feet in the first place? Disjunction is a close range spell.

Eh, whatever. It's your campaign. I had to plan about 30 hours for the final stage of the boss fight for my campaign. It just feels to me (and apparently to you) that you let yourself and possibly your players down.

the party had a dragon cohort (not mechanically, but basically the concept). the dragon cohort betrayed the party in the most complete way imaginable, tipping the scales of a major war the party was at the forefront of. the dragon elders united to discuss how that affects the dragon people, and whether the dragons are at risk of war with the humans. they have this meeting, and they invite the party to attend, as they were directly affected by the betrayal of a dragon.
at the meeting the dragon villain (which the players believed to be their ally, or at least neutral) reveals that he believes human expansion has been threatening the dragon's place, and invites everyone to join him in a crusade against humanoids. he planted a few dragons on both sides of the humanoid conflict (including the party's "cohort") and had them engage in small sabotages against whatever side was winning, because he wanted the war to last and the humanoids to kill each other. it also allowed him to position himself to steal most of the high level supplies of one side (magic items, diamonds for resurrections, and other juicy stuff). he concludes the speech with "let's kill the humanoid champions, and nothing will stand in our way".
he was also in league with two more great wyrms, who also attacked the party.
So, basically he attacked the way he did half for opportunity, and half for dramatic effect.

as for not following raw, no, i do a lot of homebrew, and I don't use much material. the players were all new when i started the campaign two years ago from level 1, and I don't want to pull out new fancy stuff to surprise them at every turn, least they call sheanigans on me. The agreement goes along the lines of "if you try to get informations to pick some feat or spell or prestige class, then that stuff exists. otherwise, it's generally assumed it doesnt. major villains are allowed to break this rule in a couple things each, as they are expected to have some specific skill that makes them major villains".
i also try to stick with a certain power level, which means limiting a lot of things the casters could do by raw, and some things from the martials.

Anyway, the major flaw of your plan is that you're using the dragon as a sorceror 21. the party has a wizard, a cleric and a druid, so the party will always have more spells available, even if i allowed the dragon to have quicken spells.

my campaign is a horrible homebrew pastiche to the point that this forum's advice is mostly pointless for it. But this fact stands even when using raw. there is one dragon and several party casters which can do everything the dragon can, so the dragon cannot outpower a prepared party with spells. and in general, any single big monster is not as powerful as it seems, because of action economy.

as for the details of my campaign, please trust me that the dragons are using reasonable strategies within the limitations of the setting and their need to impress the others to get more traction for the dragon revolution.

now, if you want to scold me on strategy, you can do it for how I manage the humanoid major villains (the other faction in the humanoid war, basically worshippers of vecna). they are four level 20 casters, and half the time I forget they have some spell active or I have them cast a spell that I forget the part is immune to. and anything I prepare before the session gets thrown out of the window the moment the fight starts, because the party does something I forgot they could do that throws my plan in disarray. those guys, I'm using very poorly.

[Elkad]

Oh, so what you meant was that you need AC 10+(level*3) to be worth bothering with if you're playing in games so highly optimized that you're regularly fighting opponents who are way above your party level. Well, yes, you're right about that.

I don't agree that basically anyone who posts here fits into that category though. A lot do, but quite a lot don't. Personally I've never met anyone who plays at that optimization level in actual games.

15% of encounters should be party level +1 to +4. 6 L20s vs a CR24 is a +2.8 fight. Perfectly reasonable.

My players are low-medium op (they build solid characters in general, but they don't dip/PRC at all, and darn sure don't cheese it up (not that I'd let that fly)), and I throw +3 or +4 single mobs at them maybe 10% of the time. And then give the mob max hitpoints to give it a better chance of seeing the 3rd round if it's a straight beatstick, because 6v1 is a huge action economy advantage.

That 10% is generally either end bosses, or wandering monsters (when they are likely to only have one encounter for the day).

I also throw ridiculous stuff at them occasionally. Just to make sure they remember how to run for their lives (and in one memorable instance with a L5 party vs 3 Elder Earth Elementals, basically kneecapping the sorc and leaving him behind to buy the rest of them time)

[pabelfly]

But not speak to activate/deactivate spells per whose turn it is I assume.

No, I'd make you wait your turn to do spells, etc. I'd even be hesitant to let someone do bluff, intimidate or do diplomacy. Regular speaking though, sure.

[NNescio]

No, I'd make you wait your turn to do spells, etc. I'd even be hesitant to let someone do bluff, intimidate or do diplomacy. Regular speaking though, sure.

The issue is that out-of-turn speaking can be exploited to trigger precasted spells. (which is why CharonsHelper said "activate/deactivate" spells instead of "casting").

This is pretty much unambiguous (by RAW, RAI is... debatable) when combined with Contingency (or Craft Contingent Spell), set to trigger on a specific spoken word (which is, technically speaking, neither a command word nor a verbal component, but simple speech).

It runs into complications though when attempting to use this in combination with permanent duration spreads/emanations originating from an object hidden within a creature's mouth. But that's mostly because of targeting and LoE rules, not because of the act of speaking itself. (Unless a DM decides to be overly literal and insists that nothing in the rules technically says you open your mouth when "speaking". Which is admittedly ludicrous but we are kinda approaching drown-head-in-a-bucket-to-heal-negative HP* territory here, so...)

(*Itself counterable by insisting that "nothing technically says you stop drowning", if the DM decides to play the RAW game instead of simply applying DMG to face.)