How to pull an MC Hammer

[el minster]

How does one get a high AC to scale with levels? Also is there a way to apply AC to other things; saves, attack, damage, etc?

Edit: What about miss chances?

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Its the general consensus around here that in high optimization games at high levels, AC doesn't matter, theres too many ways to get around it anyway.

That being said, check out X-stat-to-Y-bonus (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) for ways to add Con, Wis and I believe Cha to AC. Wand of Magic Vestment, or a Pearl of Power for a party member who can cast it is cheaper than enchanting +5 armor. Start with armor with the highest AC possible (I know, simple answer) Mechanus Gear (Planar Handbook) for heavy, Psychoactive Skin of Crystaline armor (MIC) for light, I dont know medium (probably Mithril Mechanus Gear).

Or find one of the Homebrew variants people have done where armor is used more as damage reduction.

[tyckspoon]

Getting an additional stat or stats to add to your AC bonus is probably the most straightforward way; that allows you to relatively cheaply stack more bonuses, because increasing two different things by +1 is generally easier and cheaper to do than increasing one thing by +2. Other than that it's mostly finding bonus types you don't have yet and trying to get them - do you have an Armor bonus to your AC? If not, buy some armor or get a magic item that provides it. Natural Armor? Go find a template or magical effect that provides some. Eventually this gets.. kind of esoteric - Armor/Shield/Natural Armor/Deflection are covered by standard items, and it's not hideously hard to find Dodge bonuses, but you have to start going diving for stuff like Competence, Sacred, Luck, etc to AC.

[el minster]

What about combat expertise?

[Gruftzwerg]

How does one get a high AC to scale with levels? Also is there a way to apply AC to other things; saves, attack, damage, etc?

First we should resolve the question about what a high AC score is:
It needs to be high enough to keep up with the attack roll of an encounter you might face at your level.

"Level x 3/4 (bab of monsters) + Str/Dex mod + 1d20" is the formula you have to work with. Expect a Str/Dex modifier of +4 to +10 (depending of lvl). For the 1d20 take at least 15 (75%) to have a somewhat solid AC.


The problem with AC is, you have to invest constantly as your level (and the enemies level) increase. Other options like (stacking) misschances are cheaper and always remain as useful as at the point of acquisition. Wile having a high AC is nice, the price might be to high or better invested into other things/defenses.

I like to play high AC builds sometimes, they are not always my defensive option. It's just a nice to have in addition to stacking misschances. AC should't be your main concept.

If you like high AC builds I can recommend some of my builds as example/info source. My Glaivelock and Papa Smurf builds both have high AC and while being optimized mainly for damage. Especially the Glaivelock is really hard to hit due to several layers of misschances added.

[Rebel7284]

Going to work out the details later, but:

Ex Monk 1/Divine Bard 1/Battledancer 1/Paladin of Freedom 2/Wizard 1/Ruathar 2/Mystic Wonderer 1/Ruathar +1/Sublime Chord 2/Sacred Exorcist 1/Abjurant Champion 5/X 2

Chaotic Good Human
Going to need to work in:
- Ascetic Mage
- Alternate Spell
- Extend Spell
- Persistent Spell
- Divine Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
- Assume Supernatural Ability[Unearthly Beauty]
- Iron Will(Magical Location)
- Sirene's Grace
- Ruin Delver's Fortune
- Greater Luminous Armor
- Nixies Grace
Hopefully there is no overlapping bonus types.

[el minster]

Hopefully there is no overlapping bonus types.

good luck with that

[T.G. Oskar]

I'm sure there's a build on the Optimization Showcase that goes for this. There's the Flash Step (https://www.enworld.org/threads/weekly-optimization-showcase-flash-step-tempest_stormwind.471367/) "kernel" build that relies on Combat Reflexes and Evasive Reflexes to avoid melee attacks, but that's straight negation and not AC-based.

Ideally, there's two components that work nicely to create the two aspects of MC Hammer. The first is enough AC and miss chances to actively avoid everything thrown at you, and the other one is Time Stop.

AC is not the most effective, but if you get miss chances as well, you can stack those up - you don't want to get hit, after all. High Dex, probably one or two sources of stat-to-AC, spells and Combat Expertise should do nicely. Ideally, you'll probably want some sort of Wizard to get max Int, and a class or feature that grants Int to AC. Alternatively, Monk/Sorcerer with Ascetic Mage allows you to apply Charisma to AC, but you'll still need Int of 13 to get Combat Expertise, and as high a BAB as possible - also, Improved Combat Expertise to apply all your BAB to your AC. Couple that with Blink, Mirror Image, Blur and Displacement, and you should be completely untouchable. (Barring Astral Projection, of course.)

The other would be Time Stop, but if you want high AC, you'll need to sacrifice some spell slots. Fortunately, there's something for that, and it's Swiftblade. This class was definitely designed with M.C. Hammer in mind. Haste, Blurred Alacrity and Evasive Celerity are definitely hallmarks of "Can't Touch This", and the capstone is designed with "Stop! Hammer Time" in mind. And all you need is a source of Haste, which means you could complete it with 5 levels of Trapsmith, meaning you could get a handful of levels in Rogue (for Evasion), then spend the last level of Trapsmith preparing and casting Haste as a 3rd level spell to qualify.

[Maat Mons]

Psions can get pretty decent AC if they want it. Inertial Armor has okay scaling based on number of power points invested. And it lasts for hours.

At 20th level, an Overchanneled manifestation of Inertial Armor can give you a +15 armor bonus to AC for 23 hours. That's as big an AC bonus as +5 mechanus gear. But you have no cap on Dex to AC, and you can wear a Monk's Belt too, if you have a decent Wis.

[TheStranger]

I'm sure there's a build on the Optimization Showcase that goes for this. There's the Flash Step (https://www.enworld.org/threads/weekly-optimization-showcase-flash-step-tempest_stormwind.471367/) "kernel" build that relies on Combat Reflexes and Evasive Reflexes to avoid melee attacks, but that's straight negation and not AC-based.

Ideally, there's two components that work nicely to create the two aspects of MC Hammer. The first is enough AC and miss chances to actively avoid everything thrown at you, and the other one is Time Stop.

AC is not the most effective, but if you get miss chances as well, you can stack those up - you don't want to get hit, after all. High Dex, probably one or two sources of stat-to-AC, spells and Combat Expertise should do nicely. Ideally, you'll probably want some sort of Wizard to get max Int, and a class or feature that grants Int to AC. Alternatively, Monk/Sorcerer with Ascetic Mage allows you to apply Charisma to AC, but you'll still need Int of 13 to get Combat Expertise, and as high a BAB as possible - also, Improved Combat Expertise to apply all your BAB to your AC. Couple that with Blink, Mirror Image, Blur and Displacement, and you should be completely untouchable. (Barring Astral Projection, of course.)

The other would be Time Stop, but if you want high AC, you'll need to sacrifice some spell slots. Fortunately, there's something for that, and it's Swiftblade. This class was definitely designed with M.C. Hammer in mind. Haste, Blurred Alacrity and Evasive Celerity are definitely hallmarks of "Can't Touch This", and the capstone is designed with "Stop! Hammer Time" in mind. And all you need is a source of Haste, which means you could complete it with 5 levels of Trapsmith, meaning you could get a handful of levels in Rogue (for Evasion), then spend the last level of Trapsmith preparing and casting Haste as a 3rd level spell to qualify.

Agreed. Though in this case I'd suggest a Bard entry to Swiftblade, for obvious reasons.

[Rebel7284]

Psions can get pretty decent AC if they want it. Inertial Armor has okay scaling based on number of power points invested. And it lasts for hours.

At 20th level, an Overchanneled manifestation of Inertial Armor can give you a +15 armor bonus to AC for 23 hours. That's as big an AC bonus as +5 mechanus gear. But you have no cap on Dex to AC, and you can wear a Monk's Belt too, if you have a decent Wis.

If you go this route, use Power Link Shards. 3x a day, you can spend an extra 2 points to augment a power and multiple power link shards stack. You can have up to your HD in shards embedded. So at level 20, you can spend 60 power points on Inertial Armor, more with overchannel and other such things. That's at least +33AC, but likely more and lasts for 20 hours.

[Heavenblade]

Well, the dancing with shadow kalashtar feat could work nicely here, probably with a warblade. Take Improved combat expertise, start using it in the beginning of the battle. For your first round striketake the diamond mind ones that let you use a concentration skill check instead of an attack roll.


Now, after 1 round of combat experties at your BaB, you get a bonus equal to the dodge bonus you just got to 1 attack/round - exactly the amount of attacks a diamond mind warblade will probably make anyway.


After two rounds you can do whatevee you want, since dancing with shadows will let you get your BaB as a bonus to your AC. Take allied defense to share your bonuses with friends. I also vaugely recall a couple of feats/class features which let you increase combat expertise bonus - Don't remember the name, though, and I might be thinking about pathfinder

[Gruftzwerg]

How does one get a high AC to scale with levels? Also is there a way to apply AC to other things; saves, attack, damage, etc?

On second thought, are you sure that this (maxing AC) would fit the title question?

I mean, imho MC Hammer would be something like Bard X / Sublime Chord 3 to get "Irresistible Dance" as early as possible. Max the DC (heighten spell & other DC increasing boosts) and have fun.

If you really want to go MAD^^, try something silly like a Bard 7 / Apostle of Peace 2 / Mystic Theurge 1 / Sublime Chord 1 / Mystic Theurge 9

or go for Reach Spell + Chain Spell with some metamagic reduction to affect as many as possible.

Imho this is the real MC Hammer. Force everybody to dance with you while you (try to) sing "Can't touch this!" :smallbiggrin:

[SangoProduction]

I do believe I have a build in my signature that's pure AC.

Yup, the Armoured God of Ineffable Dodge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?554271-When-is-AC-too-much). Level 10 spheres of power. 87 AC.

[el minster]

No said anything about applying AC to other things.

[Heavenblade]

What do you mean by "other things" AC in general is a passive stat you HAVE, its not really a bonus you add to other things.


I guess there might be a way to use AC for saving throws? Not sure though...

If you go pathfinder, shielded gauntelt style let you use as a capstone feat, your AC enchantment bonus to attack