Wis to AC

So I am making a 15th level Druid.

I hope to be able to go without armor.

Is there any way short of a dip to get Wis to AC?

How do most druids keep their ac up? extended barkskin only goes so far :)

One level of monk as long as you're unarmored.

However: best defense for a high level Druid:

1. Take Natural Spell
2. Wildshape into a hummingbird.

That's about it. Works pretty well.

One level of monk as long as you're unarmored.

However: best defense for a high level Druid:

1. Take Natural Spell
2. Wildshape into a hummingbird.

That's about it. Works pretty well.

Add Wild Speech* to that if you plan on talking to the party.

*Ultimate Magic

May I ask why you don't want to use armor?

May I ask why you don't want to use armor?

Mostly for flavor, the character is your typical old man with a staff druid type. and while yes armor would work peechey, it just doesnt fit the look or flavor i want.

Jiggy wrote:

May I ask why you don't want to use armor?

Mostly for flavor, the character is your typical old man with a staff druid type. and while yes armor would work peechey, it just doesnt fit the look or flavor i want.

Wear the armor beneath the long flowing robes. Noone will be the wiser.

A 1 level dip in to monk using the Monk of the Sacred Mountain Archetype. You get a Natural armor of 1 and toughness as feat. Wisdom adds to AC. So really you get your Wisdom +1 to AC because of the Natural Armor.

Jiggy wrote:

May I ask why you don't want to use armor?

Mostly for flavor, the character is your typical old man with a staff druid type. and while yes armor would work peechey, it just doesnt fit the look or flavor i want.

Ah, okay. Well... you could get some light, robe-like armor (such as the ceremonial silk armor in UC) and enchant it for a few points of AC. You could also take a dip in wizard or something and get a wand of shield or something.

Oh, you could also enchant your staff with the "defending" property.

I'm not going to look up WBL or anything, but at that high of a level, you could easily get a few points of AC off of enchanted silk armor and a defending weapon. And with a decent CON, favored class bonuses and maybe Toughness you'll be able to soak some hits as well.

Aside from that, well, stand in the back. ;)

A 1 level dip in to monk using the Monk of the Sacred Mountain Archetype. You get a Natural armor of 1 and toughness as feat. Wisdom adds to AC. So really you get your Wisdom +1 to AC because of the Natural Armor.

That archetype needs two levels of monk to get any benefit.

voska66 wrote:

A 1 level dip in to monk using the Monk of the Sacred Mountain Archetype. You get a Natural armor of 1 and toughness as feat. Wisdom adds to AC. So really you get your Wisdom +1 to AC because of the Natural Armor.

That archetype needs two levels of monk to get any benefit.

Good catch was looking at Weapon Master Adept as I was switching between tabs to the PRD and here.

Give your armour the "glamered" property?

This is actually my favorite Druid build. Dwarf with the alternate stonesinger racial ability, take earth (caves) domain as your nature's bond, 2 levels of sacred mountain monk. You're a nice battlefield controller with the pit spells, which get a boost from the dwarf's bonus, your wis and con get a bump, plus a further bump from toughness and +1 natural ac. It allows you to get the fairly inexpensive monk's robe as an ac bonus from a slot that doesn't usually give one, you can even flurry that staff you're carrying, or use unarmed attacks that do 1d8 damage. You've got movement speed 40, although at that level you'll be wildshaped most of the time. Take another level of monk and you get another +1 ac, 1d10 damage on natural attacks, and another attack on flurry. Plus the whole thing's flavorful as hell. Spend your time wildshaped into an earth elemental and see if your DM will let you flurry in that form with your 2d10 slam attacks with a 19-20 crit range.

Okay, I thought of one other option. It's wonky (and feat-intensive if you don't want to dip), but would be a really cool execution of this "old master" vibe you say you're going for.

Use either a trait or the Cosmopolitan feat to make Sense Motive a class skill.

Put max ranks in Sense Motive and at least 1 rank in Acrobatics.

Take Improved Unarmed Strike.

Take Skill Focus (Sense Motive). <--- This one's optional, but recommended.

Take Snake Style.

Now you can spend an immediate action to roll Sense Motive and treat the result as your AC against a specific attack.

Assuming you follow the above steps and have, say, a 20 WIS this will leave you with a Sense Motive bonus of +28. Thus, against one attack per round, you can have your AC be somewhere between 29 and 48.

To get the same effect with fewer feats, take a dip in Unarmed Fighter and (if allowed) use a trait to make Sense Motive a class skill and skip the Skill Focus. Do it that way, and you have +25 to Sense Motive (so an AC range of 26 to 45) without spending any "real" feats.

EDIT: And to be clear, you don't actually need Sense Motive to be a class skill; it's just nice to get a +3 when you're using it as your AC, you know?

Okay, I thought of one other option. It's wonky (and feat-intensive if you don't want to dip), but would be a really cool execution of this "old master" vibe you say you're going for.

Use either a trait or the Cosmopolitan feat to make Sense Motive a class skill.

Put max ranks in Sense Motive and at least 1 rank in Acrobatics.

Take Improved Unarmed Strike.

Take Skill Focus (Sense Motive). <--- This one's optional, but recommended.

Take Snake Style.

Now you can spend an immediate action to roll Sense Motive and treat the result as your AC against a specific attack.

Assuming you follow the above steps and have, say, a 20 WIS this will leave you with a Sense Motive bonus of +28. Thus, against one attack per round, you can have your AC be somewhere between 29 and 48.

To get the same effect with fewer feats, take a dip in Unarmed Fighter and (if allowed) use a trait to make Sense Motive a class skill and skip the Skill Focus. Do it that way, and you have +25 to Sense Motive (so an AC range of 26 to 45) without spending any "real" feats.

EDIT: And to be clear, you don't actually need Sense Motive to be a class skill; it's just nice to get a +3 when you're using it as your AC, you know?

Wow. ok thats a great idea.

I am toying with the idea (GM and I are talking it over) of giving up Wildshape to gain Monks AC bonus and Wis to AC as well as another Domain.

If that does not pan out then I will be going with Jiggy's snake style idea, as it fits really well.

If that does not pan out then I will be going with Jiggy's snake style idea, as it fits really well.

Heh, you know how I learned about Snake Style? I have a Bard in a PbP with Perform (Oratory) and Versatile Performance, letting me use Perform in place of Diplomacy and Sense Motive. So I took a level of Unarmed Fighter for Snake Style, allowing me to use an immediate action to roll Perform (Oratory) and use the result as my AC.

Interesting, no? ;)

If you multiclass with anyone to get access to a wand of Shield, I'd make it an Empyreal sorcerer so you can determine your spellcasting using your Wis modifier.