Any way to make this work?
Or more specifically, what are the ways a high strength character can cover their AC issues without going into medium or heavy armor if they're only running a 12-14 in dex?
get AC boosts in class.
Swashbucker and brawler get a scaling AC bonus when they wear light armor, also both can fairly easily wear a shield and still do enough damage.
Mutation warrior fighter or Mutagenic mauler brawler, both get mutagens that for 10 minutes per level gives 2 natural armor.
Invulnerable barbarians rack up enough damage reduction that you could concievably run one in light armor and get by, especially if you also pick up the beast totem line for the extra natural AC when raging.
Iroran paladin.
I know, typically seen as the useless monkish archetype, but you don't HAVE to use unarmed strikes. You still have your weapons, so just grab something nice and big.
Anyway, the advantage here is that you add both your dex and cha to AC while in light or no armor (well, 1 cha mod per level, but who actually feels that limit past level 5?). So that means that just having 14/14 is basically the same as 18. You VERY easily bump up against the max dex of your armor. So just grab some nice light armor/medium mithral plate, and you can have great AC with minimal effort. And thus you can focus more on your STR. Overall, a nice alternative to full plate, and turns on a bit earlier
Other comments- switches out smite evil, but it gives an alignment agnostic replacement (more modest bonuses though) that still has ways to ignore DR, so it is fine. Maybe grab the oath against fiends so you have the option to use divine bond on your armor instead. You still have lay on hands, cha to saves, spells.... all the usual tank options (and again, your AC is about the same as the full plate version, so you are fine there)
Get mithral breastplate which counts as light for all class related abilities
Get mithral breastplate which counts as light for all class related abilities
And you don't even really need proper proficiency in medium armor.
Anyone can effectively grab one just by getting armor exprt trait. That reduces Armor check penalty by 1, and mithral reduces it by 3.
That makes 0 ACP for a breastplate. And the penalty for using armor you are not proficient in is that you apply ACP to attack rolls. But look! Your ACP is 0!
You can enchant clothing to give armor bonus, and you can UMD to cast (or have someone cast on you) mage armor and shield, barkskin, blur, mirror image, and other defensive spells. Most of these are also first level spells, so they're relatively cheap.
You can always fight defensively if you notice that you aren't having much trouble hitting, which isn't the most efficient but if you just need AC it can be a small boost. Same with the oft-reviled, oft-overlooked, and oft-totallycrappy Combat Expertise.
Best bet is probably spells, in general.
There's a third party product from dreamscarred press that grants strength to ac up to your armors max dex, but I can't recall which book its in. I think it may be in the first path of war. That's probably the easiest way.
Go Monk, if you have good Wisdom.
Come and Get Me invulnerable Rager barbarian...
CaGM kills your AC anyway.. and your DR makes up for yohr AC
All good tips so far.
Are there any good classless ways to represent this beyond mithral?
General context here is that the scantily clad muscleman is a pretty well traveled archetype and I'm looking to see how many ways I can express it in Pathfinder.
There are all sorts of things you can do to boost AC. Feats like Dodge or Crane Style. Items like Bracers of Armor, wand of mage armor, or Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier. Pick a race with a natural armor bonus, etc.
They all have a cost though. If you can handle a chain shirt, and want to let your muscles and fists do the talking, Brawler is solid. I think Monk is your only option to get decent naked AC without spending tons of money though.