AC Build (3.5)

[Sharkman1231]

Okay, I've tried to start this tread about 15 times and have never been able to for a variety of reasons.

Here is my idea for an AC build.
Core + Complete classes
12th lvl
60k gold
28 pt buy

Frank (The Tank)
Lvl 12 TN Halfling Cleric of Obad-Hai
Domains: (plant & don't care)
14 (12)(-2 racial)
12 (16)(+2 racial,+2 item)
14
10 (13)(+1lvl,+2 item)
16 (22)(+2lvl,+4 item)
8

Items:
Mithral full plate
Mithral large shield
+2 gloves of dex
+2 headband of int
+4 periapt of wis
+2 cloak of resist

Feats:
Combat Expertise
Dodge

Important Spells:
Magic Vestment*2 (For armor and shield)(+3 each)
Barkskin (Plant domain) (+5)
Shield of Faith (+4)

This would give Frank an AC of 40 after casting all four of his important spells (and using Dodge).
If he used Combat Expertise in that round his AC would be a nice 45.
AC: 10+8+3+2+3+3+1+1+4+5
All other money and spells would be spent on combat effectiveness. (Weapons, Summons, etc.)

So, what do you guys think?

EDIT: His touch AC would be iffy, but whatever.

[Milskidasith]

Defending Shield Spikes with Greater Magic Weapon cast on them. Deflection bonuses. Etc. You've missed a good deal of things, though I'm not sure how well you can fit them with the monetary costs.

[Glimbur]

Any particular reason you're building at level 12?

[Sharkman1231]

Any particular reason you're building at level 12?

That's the current level the characters are, in the campain I'm in. All my builds would be able to go into the campain at equal level and stuff.

EDIT: And gold and point buy

[sonofzeal]

.....that's not that high. Or, well, it's high enough that most enemies can't hit you, but not as high as someone really dedicated could make it.

Are Core + Completes the only books allowed, or the only books allowed for classes?

[Sharkman1231]

Everything from core is allowed and only the classes from the completes are allowed as of yet.

[sonofzeal]

Then I second defending Armor Spikes and Defending Shield Spikes, with GMW cast on them. They're 8,000 each, but after GMW get you +3/+4 to AC depending on how you count. I can never remember how GMW actually calculates the bonus. Text seems to imply 1 + floor(CL/4) though.

Tower Shield gets you a +2, but may not be worth it. Pack it anyway though, because Total Cover is amaaaaazing.



Also note that there's a lot of situational stuff you can exploit too. Against ranged attacks, dropping prone behind cover with a Total Defensive Action gives you a +12 to AC, for absolutely zero investment.

[Gorilla2038]

If your willing to use a feat, pick up Exotic Armor Prof.(Battle Plate) out of races of stone. +9 armor bonus, rather than plate's +8. Heavy Armor Op. and GHAO, plus shield specialization.(Each gives you +1 ac to armor or shield)

Make the armor mithral and boost your dexterity. That'll add 6 AC as is. (If you can that is, its a major money dip.)

Improved Combat expertise can be pretty nice, but it gets to be to much at high level IMO.

Shield ward is a really wonderful feat, it'll add whatever your shield bonus is to your touch.

If you pick up wild talent or such, and remain psionicaly focused, theres a feat that allows you to add your Armor to your touch as well. I forget what its called.

I think all of this might be out of Races of Stone(Except Improved combat ex, thats warrior). Hopefully you can get it approved, if not, sorry i couldnt help.

[Person_Man]

Have you considered Psychic Warrior? Inertial Armor + Force Screen (or just buy a shield) + Monk's Belt gives you an AC of 10 + 4 + [(manifester level-1)/2] + 4 + Wis bonus + Dex bonus. At level 12 with Dex 22, Wis 22, and Overchannel, that's AC 34. It'd be easy to get it into the 40+ range with a few other items and psychic powers. Also, your Touch AC would also be 34+ and you can get a miss chance with Greater Concealing Amorphia. IMO, Touch AC and Miss Chance are far more important at that level.

[Draz74]

Kobold instead of Halfling.

[Milskidasith]

You know, at 14th level I can beat this just with a few magic items and a Druid wildshaping into a Dire Tortoise. Yay for massive natural armor bonuses! Add in a few items of +2 armor and a wilding clasped breastplate, and I'm over 40 AC, and a full caster, and I can have another dire tortoise with the same items as a class feature, and I can outdamage you in melee with just one of the tortoises.

Basically, dire tortoises are pretty awesome. Dire tortoises with a Psychic Warrior//Druid Gestalt (irrelevant to this thread, but cool) means that you have a colossal Dire Tortoise companion. It's basically this:

Spoiler

Show

[Kantolin]

Consider shield specialization and shield ward. This will help your touch AC considerably (and the specialization also grants the same +1 to your AC as dodge, but to everyone, giving you a good reason to drop dodge). Those two feats are in the PHB2.

Alternately, heavy armour optimization (Full plate) increases your AC by 1 to everyone instead of one person (replacing dodge), while also lowering your armour check penalty (which is admittedly less likely to mean something to you). From races of stone. There is then a greater version which adds an additional 1 (and I believe lets you do cartwheels in your 0ACP full plate, which is kinda cool).

Both of those are just to potentially replace dodge as a standalone option. If you opt against combat expertise, that means you don't need the headband of intellect anymore, which frees up 4000gp (Perhaps a 5000gp ioun stone to fill that?)

Beyond that, the only problem you might run into is duration bonii. Magic vestment lasts for hours, so you're fine there.

Barkskin is 10 min/level. That might be enough time (2 hours is awhile), but it also is likely to need repeating if you're out adventuring for your awake time.

Shield of faith, then, is 1 minute/level. This gives the drawback of, essentially, you have to spend a turn each fight activating it, which could get problematic.

I wouldn't really count on at least shield of faith. Still, that's a healthy AC.

[sonofzeal]

Everything from core is allowed and only the classes from the completes are allowed as of yet.

I think a whoooooole lot of people are forgetting this.

[Aldizog]

In an actual game, I wouldn't suggest using defending armor spikes and defending shield spikes. That tactic appears to me to be exploiting an unintended loophole in the rules. Depends on your campaign's cheese tolerance, I guess.