AC vs miss chance

[kemmotar]

From what I've heard miss chance is much better than AC though i doubt that. In most cases though true seeing spell will suffice and having a constant etherealness spell would certainly cost. On the other hand a really high AC can be so much more helpful, especially a high wisdom monk/swordsage with some natural armor (feral template) works quite well.

Also are there any good ways to skyrocket your AC? Preferably without armor though

Ofc as there are ways to get past both high ACs and miss chance( for example true strike is a really easy way to skyrocket your AR)..So which is the best way to get some serious defence if you had to choose one of the two?

Miss chance looks very appealing since you can also avoid crits but it only works

[Starbuck_II]

From what I've heard miss chance is much better than AC though i doubt that. In most cases though true seeing spell will suffice and having a constant etherealness spell would certainly cost. On the other hand a really high AC can be so much more helpful, especially a high wisdom monk/swordsage with some natural armor (feral template) works quite well.

Well, Miss chances mean a Nat 20 is not a nat 20.
You can get a Nat 20 and miss due to concealment.
Miss chances are more like hp boost than AC boost.
50% miss chance effectively double hp (1/2 time they hit that empty space)
20% is similar to 1.2 health (almost 20% more, but that is not much though).

High AC can be great except fot Nat 20's.

Having both is best.


Dust of Disappearance is a way to get Greater invisibility that cannot be counted by trueseeing or see invisibility.

Also are there any good ways to skyrocket your AC? Preferably without armor though

Of as there are ways to get past both high ACs and miss chance( for example true strike is a really easy way to skyrocket your AR)..So which is the best way to get some serious defence if you had to choose one of the two?

Miss chance looks very appealing since you can also avoid crits but it only works

True Strike can only get past concealment (20%), but not total concealment (50%): Read spell discription.

[TheOOB]

Generally speaking, miss chance is better then AC. It's fairly easy to pump your attack bonus and/or reduce your opponents AC, but it's more difficult to bypass miss chance.

Really you want both though.

[Yakk]

Metagame reasons:

If you buff your AC to the stratosphere, the DM will respond with creatures with a higher attack bonus, or who ignore AC, so the creatures can touch you more than 5% of the time. Because being hit 5% of the time breaks D&D.

If you have a miss chance of 50%, the DM can accept that. Being hit 50% of the time does not break D&D.