Making Light Fortification accessible...

[aglondier]

We all know and love Light Fortification. For a +1 AC equivalent, you have a 25% chance to avoid sneak attacks and critical hits.

Unfortunately, the spells required for it are either Limited Wish or Miracle. Neither is really available to low level parties.

Are there any spells or class abilities that mimic the fortification effect that would be accessible to a lower level party?

Thanks...

[Biggus]

The spells Heart of Air and Heart of Water (both CM) will give you light fortification for hours per level if you have them both active together. Available to Wizard, Druids and Wu Jen at level 5 and Sorcerers at level 6.

[El Dorado]

If this is more about crafting light fortification armor, the DC only goes up by +5 if you don’t have the spell. Harder to do, but still doable.

[aglondier]

Thanks, much appreciated for both.

[Tohron]

An Artificer could craft that at level 11, although that still isn't quite what you'd call "low level" (and requires that the party have an Artificer). Another option is hiring an NPC to cast the spell for you when you're crafting the item - since Limited Wish is Universal, any 13th level wizard would do.

[vasilidor]

What about a spell that does the same thing as what Fortification does? In Pathfinder there is a spell called shield of Fortification that gives exactly what Light fortification does.

[MesiDoomstalker]

An Artificer could craft that at level 11, although that still isn't quite what you'd call "low level" (and requires that the party have an Artificer). Another option is hiring an NPC to cast the spell for you when you're crafting the item - since Limited Wish is Universal, any 13th level wizard would do.

So there's a stealth cost to this (and to various flavors of Fortification which isn't actually factored into the cost); Limited Wish costs 1,500 gp per casting (via material component). At best, that's 2 days of crafting (for a +1 to +1 Light Fortification [whatever]), for an additional 3,000 gp on top of the +2,000 gp. But to hire an NPC, that would 2 x (7 x 13 x 10)=1,820 gp.

Compared to the +1,000 gp (cost difference between a +1 and +2 equivalent armor, the cheapest you can do, halved), hiring an outside spellcaster to cast the spell nearly sextupled in price to +5,820 gp.

I do believe RAI is that (with the exception of items like Wands, Scrolls and Potions) you don't pay the material cost of the component spells normally, so I may be talking out my rear end here. Except the cost of NPC casting, which is still there and still relevant (if I'm totally wrong, it still nearly triples the price).

[Maat Mons]

The rules for crafting magic armor explicitly require the material components of prerequisite spells to be provided. This is in direct contrast with rods, magic weapons, and wondrous items, all of which explicitly don’t require the material components of prerequisite spells to be provided. Note, however, that you don’t actually cast the prerequisite spells when crafting the item. They are instead “triggered” and become “unavailable for casting” “as if they had been cast.” I believe this means that you only need to provide one copy of the material components when crafting armor, not one for each day.

[Kurald Galain]

Are there any spells or class abilities that mimic the fortification effect that would be accessible to a lower level party?

Sure. A number of classes and archetypes, such as the Armored Battlemage Magus and the Warpriest, can enchant their own armor at-need.

There's also the feat Fortified Armor Training, and the Buffering Cap item is not that expensive. HTH!