[3.5] Help me spend my gold and up my AC!

[Rhiannon87]

So, after an extended break from one of my group's games, we'll be resuming play this weekend. Everyone had a fair amount of cash when we started out break, and now we're all scrambling to figure out how to spend it.

My goal is to increase my character's AC. She's a 12th-level rogue-fighter-type character wielding a two-handed weapon with an AC of 24. I get hit. A lot. And I don't quite have the hit points to stand up to repeated punishment. I have a couple tricks that will allow me to increase my AC up to 26 (boots of speed & defensive precognition), but I'd like to have a higher regular AC.

I've currently got +2 mithril breastplate with light fortification enchantment and a ring of protection +4 as my protective items. My open slots are face, arms, and waist; the neck slot currently holds an amulet of health +2,and I would prefer to not trade that out if at all possible.

And finally, I have about 20,000 gp to spend. Any books except the Tomes are fine. This is PURELY on items. No feats, no class levels, no stances or something ridiculous like that. Just items.

Thanks!

[Edwin]

I'm way to lazy to look it up at this point, but I think there's a Ioun stone that gives +1 AC.

Or more, I can't remember.

[Douglas]

+1 Animated Heavy Shield: 9170 gp for +3 shield AC
Add +2 natural armor to your amulet, no markup as per Magic Item Compendium: 4000 gp for +2 natural AC
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone: 5000 gp for +1 insight AC

If you're willing to take the penalty on attack rolls, you could make it an animated tower shield instead for an extra +2 AC for negligible extra cost.

[Telonius]

Wondrous item of 3/day Mirror Image, cast at CL6. Market Price of 12,960gp.
Gives you d4+2 images. Miss chance is often better than AC.

[Keshay]

If you have any additional monies saved, I'd suggest a Minor Cloak of Displacement. 1 in 5 attacks miss. You'll need 24kgp though.

[Myrmex]

At 12th level, there are a lot more ways for dangerous monsters to ignore miss chances. Most outsiders will have True Sight, as will most enemy casters. If you don't fight a lot of those, miss chances are good.

[Person_Man]

Retributive Amulet: Probably one of the most powerful defensive items out there. Every time you take melee damage, that damage is split between you and the attacker. Book of Exalted Deeds pg 116.

Shadowy Diadem: Concealment and immunity to energy drain limited times per day. Cheap. Dragon Magic pg 103.

Shadow Veil: Deflection bonus to AC and limited concealment. Libris Mortis pg 76.

[Iku Rex]

If you have the ranks in UMD an eternal wand (MIC) could be nice. Mirror image or blink are good candidates.

Other than that douglas has the right idea, except he's got the wrong price for natural armor (it's 8000 for +2). Make it +1 and add a crystal of arrow deflection (MIC, 2500) to your shield instead.

You could also save the money until you can afford the 27 000 gp ring of blinking.

[Douglas]

Retributive Amulet: Probably one of the most powerful defensive items out there. Every time you take melee damage, that damage is split between you and the attacker. Book of Exalted Deeds pg 116.

Powerful to the point of absurd brokenness, and also updated with an extreme nerf in the Magic Item Compendium.

Also, out of her price range.

Oops, forgot that natural armor cost is x2000, not x1000. Thanks, Iku Rex.

[JasonP]

Bracers of Armor

[Rhiannon87]

Bracers of Armor

Already wearing armor. Doesn't stack.

The animated shield idea is a good one, I'll look into that. I may also just cough up the 7,000 to add another +1 bonus to my armor.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You mean the 9,000 for a Pearl of Power, right? Because that's a much better investment in the long term.

[Douglas]

You mean the 9,000 for a Pearl of Power, right? Because that's a much better investment in the long term.

Assuming there's a cleric in the party willing to cast Magic Vestment for you.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Assuming there's a cleric in the party willing to cast Magic Vestment for you.

Or a Wizard. Most groups have one of the 2, and CL scales fairly quickly compared to the actual bonuses.

[lsfreak]

Yea, give a pearl of power to your friendly cleric. That'll only be an extra +1, since you spent the money to get a +2 breastplate, but oh well. Still cheaper in the long run.

I second cloak of displacement though. It's just as effective against touch attacks and regular attacks, negates natural 20's, and does way more than the equivalent amount of AC could do. Biggest problem being that you need to hold out another 4000gp.

You could get an item with +2 dex. Using MIC rules, just stick it on your boots of speed.

[Douglas]

Or a Wizard. Most groups have one of the 2, and CL scales fairly quickly compared to the actual bonuses.

Magic Vestment is a Cleric only spell. Wizards don't get it.

[Rhiannon87]

Yea, give a pearl of power to your friendly cleric. That'll only be an extra +1, since you spent the money to get a +2 breastplate, but oh well. Still cheaper in the long run.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry. Friendly cleric in this party is just... yeah. Our cleric is, tragically, played by the guy who shows up to game once every three months or so. And our wizard is better spent doing other things than buffing the not-so-great rogue/fighter... like buffing the optimized tanks or summoning monsters into flanking position for the rogues. Or turning CR 15 enemies into glass statues.

Also, the breastplate was loot. I spent no money on it. :D

You could get an item with +2 dex. Using MIC rules, just stick it on your boots of speed.

Already got one on my hands. That's why I was asking here-- I felt like I'd exhausted nearly every available avenue to increase my AC. DEX, armor bonus, ring of protection... natural armor was out due to the whole neck-slot-filled thing, and I figured I couldn't use a shield due to having a two-handed weapon.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go with the animated shield idea. Ups my AC to 27 before I do any of my personal buffs. And I still have a lot of cash left over to buy other goodies.

[lsfreak]

And our wizard is better spent doing other things than buffing the not-so-great rogue/fighter... like buffing the optimized tanks or summoning monsters into flanking position for the rogues. Or turning CR 15 enemies into glass statues.

Well, Magic Vestment (and GMW) are hours/level duration, so they should only need to cast it on you at the beginning of the day. The lack of a cleric would be problematic. A possibility would be an item of CL20Magic Vestments 1/day (+5 enchancement bonus to armor for 20 hours), but that's approaching the realm of "rather cheesy" (and still costs 22000gp).

I would seriously consider saving up for a cloak of displacement though. It's 20% miss chance no matter how high your enemy's attack bonus is.

Also, you can get natural armor. Again, thanks to MIC's stat-stacking rules, see page 234.

[ghashxx]

Adding another +1 to your armor is more expensive than grabbing a different item. And besides, that makes it just that much more expensive to add special effects to the armor later. Using the bracers of retribution from the BoED sounds like a solid bet if you're allowed to use that version. You'll get hit, but for less damage and they get hit too.

For concealment giving miss chance, making a custom item (shudder in fear) using Blacklight (Spell Compendium pg 30) would be nice. It's a 3rd level arcane spell that makes a 20' radius area of pure blackness that can't be seen through...except for the caster so long as you're inside the area. So long as this sucker is turned on you've got 50% miss chance against you, and since in melee they're inside the radius and can't see that means they don't get dex bonus to AC...FLATFOOTED OPPONENTS!!!
Maybe try and get this thing to only be a 5' or 10' radius to limit how much your allies get hit with it.

[Vizzerdrix]

Adding another +1 to your armor is more expensive than grabbing a different item. And besides, that makes it just that much more expensive to add special effects to the armor later.

Yeah but other than fortification, is their anything even worth putting on armor?

(Honesty! I have no clue what you should do with armor and enchanting )

[Dimers]

Shield and insight seem to be the two areas you don't have covered already.

For an insight bonus to AC: make your weapon "parrying" (XPH p. 166, costs 8000 gp rather than +X enhancement) for +1 AC and +1 all saves.

For shield bonus, Animated Shield looks good (though I don't know where to see the details -- probably MIC, which I don't own). Using UMD on a wand or eternal wand of shield would give a +4 bonus, last a shorter time (I assume), and not require you to lug around a shield. It'd also work against incorporeal touch attacks and kill magic missiles. Make it a wand of extended shield, and it'd last a minimum of 6 rounds: CL3 * 2.

Another untyped bonus you could use is the defending weapon enhancement, but that forces you to choose between attack and defense.

[Lycanthromancer]

Meh. AC is useless at higher levels. I wouldn't worry much about it as more than a token defense, really.

Adding another +1 to your armor is more expensive than grabbing a different item. And besides, that makes it just that much more expensive to add special effects to the armor later. Using the bracers of retribution from the BoED sounds like a solid bet if you're allowed to use that version. You'll get hit, but for less damage and they get hit too.

For concealment giving miss chance, making a custom item (shudder in fear) using Blacklight (Spell Compendium pg 30) would be nice. It's a 3rd level arcane spell that makes a 20' radius area of pure blackness that can't be seen through...except for the caster so long as you're inside the area. So long as this sucker is turned on you've got 50% miss chance against you, and since in melee they're inside the radius and can't see that means they don't get dex bonus to AC...FLATFOOTED OPPONENTS!!!
Maybe try and get this thing to only be a 5' or 10' radius to limit how much your allies get hit with it.

Get a couple of (relatively cheap) wands of Extended blacklight, and a 2000 gp Ring of the Darkhidden (from the MIC). You're permanently invisible to darkvision, and barring true seeing, that's the only way to see in a blacklight. That's 50% miss chance and inability to be targeted right there.

Getting a wand of mirror image and the blur enhancement on your armor (see MIC again) will give you stackable miss chances, as well; while blur won't stack with the blacklight/ring combo, mirror image does...kind of. The blacklight will affect all of your images, which don't all have to be in your space, meaning that they'll confuse the issue as to which space you're in. And if the cantrip is dispelled or negated, you still have a lot of images to use as decoys.

There's also blink and greater blink. They certainly don't stack, but that doesn't mean you can't use them both at different times. They do, however, stack with all of the other miss chances mentioned, and true seeing won't do much of anything without access to a ghost touch weapon.

There's also silent image and similar spells; create an illusion of a solid wall, and you can jump in and out of it to grant yourself concealment. Also helps when trying to Hide and effectively become invisible. Great for utility, too.

Also, there's Leomund's tiny hut; so long as you're willing to do some sniping, it should help considerably for keeping you out of sight (but not out of mind).

Obscuring mist, smokesticks and such are good ones as well, so long as you've got a way to pierce the concealment. I suggest some way to get touchsight.

You can always use a bullseye lantern and a pyrotechnics spell to blind enemies (and the lantern means there's no chance of blinding your party). Darkstalker is a great feat to add, as well.

The Cloak Dance feat (XPH) will let you (essentially) get a version of Hide in Plain Sight, if you have a decent Hide score. All you need is a cloak and the prereqs for the feat.

Speaking of the XPH, check out the concealing amorpha and greater concealing amorpha powers. They aren't pierced by true seeing, though I'm not sure about how it interacts with touchsight.

...

As far as ACTUAL AC bonuses go, stock up on small AC bonuses. Six +1s will be considerably cheaper than one +6. Armor, shield, natural armor, deflection, dodge, insight, morale, exalted, vile, and as many untyped bonuses as you can get. Psionics is good for several of them, and take a few levels in factotum and a few instances of Font of Inspiration if you've got a good Int score (as it's a cheap and easy way to get rather sizable bonuses to your saves, AC, and attack and damage rolls). You also get bumps to your skill monkey pursuits. Best of all, it costs no money and gives you more than just AC bonuses. Does cost some levels and feats, however.

[ghashxx]

Yeah but other than fortification, is their anything even worth putting on armor?

(Honesty! I have no clue what you should do with armor and enchanting )

While expensive, the +2 Energy Immunity is really nice to have. There's a spell that can make you an ice, or fire, based creature. Add onto that the energy immunity to fire or ice (respectively) and presto, immunity to two types of magic and one of them heals you. Past that it's pretty much nill.

Get a couple of (relatively cheap) wands of Extended blacklight, and a 2000 gp Ring of the Darkhidden (from the MIC). You're permanently invisible to darkvision, and barring true seeing, that's the only way to see in a blacklight. That's 50% miss chance and inability to be targeted right there.

I really like all of the suggestions Lycanthromancer made, but a quick addendum is that the blacklight spell doesn't let darkvision work, so the ring of darkhidden isn't necessary which= more money!

[good_lookin_gus]

Could the Defending property be placed on armor/shield spikes? It probably wouldn't be useful for the OP, but so many parties have casters chaining GMW that this could actually be a worthwhile investment at later levels.

[Iku Rex]

AC is useless at higher levels.

Not true.
filler

[Lycanthromancer]

Not true.
filler

Considering that A.) you have to sink a huge amount into pumping your AC to work against the big bruisers to get it to be worthwhile against them, and B.) many opponents can completely bypass AC and still screw up your day no matter how much money you put into it, I'd say it really is. Getting it up to the point of usefulness drains too many resources that can be used to become nearly immune to AC-targeting attacks.

You're better off paying token attention to AC and going for miss-chances and immunities, instead.

[Pyro_Azer]

Not to mention most high level monsters can cast spells and it is in their best interest to stay out of your reach, so attacking falls by the wayside.

[ghashxx]

Could the Defending property be placed on armor/shield spikes? It probably wouldn't be useful for the OP, but so many parties have casters chaining GMW that this could actually be a worthwhile investment at later levels.

Yep, they count as martial weapons. But since they count as a normal weapon, a +6 enhancement bonus to weapons is wicked costly.

[good_lookin_gus]

Yep, they count as martial weapons. But since they count as a normal weapon, a +6 enhancement bonus to weapons is wicked costly.

+6?

A Defending weapon can cost as little as +2. The rest of the enhancement can be increased with Greater Magic Weapon.

[Lycanthromancer]

+6?

A Defending weapon can cost as little as +2. The rest of the enhancement can be increased with Greater Magic Weapon.

Yup. A +1 defending weapon.

Tossed on shield spikes, two spells (greater magic weapon and magic vestment) can up your AC by upwards of 8 points.

You might consider getting access to alter self. You could pull up around +7 natural armor, just with that.