I had a fighter who relied on a wand of Mirror Image to compensate for low AC. He died when he got grappled and engulfed during an ambush by a blindsighted blob.
In Jade Regent, high AC seemed far too powerful. Characters with AC 40 were going into battle with enemies with +18 to hit. It was pretty effective in Carrion Crown too.
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How about this?
Level 10 Ankylosaurus Animal Companion:
10 base
+2 Dex 15 (Starting 14 -2 from size increase at 7th +3 Dex from levels)
+6 Natural armor from levels
+11 Natural armor (+9 base +2 after size increase at 7th)
+10 armor (+1 mithril full plate barding, 16K gp - not unreasonable for average wealth for a character of this level)
+4 Barkskin (cast by his druid)Thats 43. This would be considered good for that level. Right? I mean you could easily bump that up by a few more points. Most casters of this level would likely have a strand of prayer beads to cast their daily buffs with so that would rase the Barkskin to it's full +5. This also isn't counting any deflection or insite bonus to AC which are fairly easy to obtain cheaply. No shield bonus which could be gained via a potion if need be. I could see easily getting that to 50 at level 10 for a minor investment.
43 AC is good...you spent 3/5 feats for heavy armor Profiencies and spent 16k gold on Mithral Full plate still has a ACP of -3. you have 9d8 health..
+3 mithral chain barding =10,100 and a Belt of +2 dex is 4k total price 14,100gp that is +7 armor, 3 dex AC
Put with the same stats you offered
I am 2 AC lower then you are and still have 1,900gp to spend and 3 free feats to spend on other things like damage feats. I can put that 1,900gp to buy wand of Mirror image(enter mitigation spell) and feed it well.
If you compare the 2 against the same CR monster at 10 my Animal companion will be hit less then yours and will have more feats for damage. So I will be safer and hit harder then you will.
Nice AC tho. About 2 more levels and we hit fighting dragons and Giants who can hit high 40 ACs regularly
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Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:
Resurrections are not cheap and some of his deaths could have easily been prevented with a potion of Mirror image.
Note: These are not a thing. It's a Personal spell and you can't make Potions of those. Just for the record.
Wand? Share spell? you can get Mirror image on your Animal companion one way or another. Potions of Blur, shield, displacement, shield of faith, protection from x, resist energy.
Those can be potions what can't be potions can be wands...you have share spell so all personal spells can be places on a Animal companion.
After the campaign in question our Paladin player now almost always takes the trait to UMD to get a 2nd layer defense. Even on fighters.
Crusader Clerics do not have Heavy Armor Prof or Tower Shield Prof, although they can take them as bonus feats. They also have reduced spellcasting and reduced domains, and are generally a terrible archetype unless you are dipping....A poster in another thread stated the following:
Armor Class is useless to players and animal companions. Armor class is the worst Mitigation in game.He apparently believes that AC is useless. While it is entirely within the realm of possibility that I am woefully misinformed I don't believe that is true. However, as I try to stay open minded to other ideas I would prefer to allow myself to be convinced.
So what of it? Do you believe that AC is as useless as this person thought? If so why? If not, why not?
Let's look at CR 10 encounter for fun shall we?
Most creature that relies on attack have in between + 18 to + 15 to hit anyone. so the question becomes how to get 39 AC and more a that level to optimize our chances of never getting hit.Let's play with our cleric hes a crusader and thus gain a few combat feats to better his defense.
He should spend about 1/3 of his budget on defensive items so about 20667 GP of defensive gear:
10 base AC
11 from +2 full plate (5650 GP)...
I took these 2 feats at level 1, heavy armor training and tower shield prof, also your statement that such a character would do almost no damage is misguided. I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn, also if I really want to cook people into negative energy cookies I simply use 3 channel charges to deal 14d6 damage in a 20 foot radius of me (while healing myself from the same amount!) I spend most of my feats on things to raise my AC and you are right it's a massive investment and I do get one less spell per level and yes I only get one domain. But that domain is the domain of death. No need for multi-class or dipping only a phylactery of negative energy channeling is required for me!
You see my character is entirely focused on being this mobile indestructible fortress. I charge through the front line and purposefully allow me to be surrounded, then I just open the negative energy plane little by little on my opponents. I am in other words the obligatory focus of attention, I deal to much damage to be ignored and that is plenty enough for my role in the party. I can stand in front of a dragon and force him to take flight!
Fun thing is that almost nobody can even crit me, since the roll to confirm is usually too high! All that AC is making me an essential tool in my group! I have yet to figure out how I will be able to maintain this around level 15, but with more funds, more powerful magics and better cooperation I think I will be able to reach around 45-49 AC by then.
Is Armor Class useless?
It is against this guy!
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Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:
Resurrections are not cheap and some of his deaths could have easily been prevented with a potion of Mirror image.
Note: These are not a thing. It's a Personal spell and you can't make Potions of those. Just for the record.Wand? Share spell? you can get Mirror image on your Animal companion one way or another. Potions of Blur, shield, displacement, shield of faith, protection from x, resist energy.
Those can be potions what can't be potions can be wands...you have share spell so all personal spells can be places on a Animal companion.
After the campaign in question our Paladin player now almost always takes the trait to UMD to get a 2nd layer defense. Even on fighters.
And I'm not disagreeing, just noting that you can't have potions of personal spells. Not knowing that Personal spells can't be potions is a pretty common misapprehension, so I try and correct it when I see it.
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I took these 2 feats at level 1, heavy armor training and tower shield prof, also your statement that such a character would do almost no damage is misguided. I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn, also if I really want to cook people into negative energy cookies I simply use 3 channel charges to deal 14d6 damage in a 20 foot radius of me (while healing myself from the same amount!) I spend most of my feats on things to raise my AC and you are right it's a massive investment and I do get one less spell per level and yes...
Channel Energy is a limited resource, and you will suffer when fighting undead. I'm not saying that very high AC isn't effective. But you are spending all of your resources on AC to get there, and there are easy ways to bybass AC and you have sacrificed melee damage to do it.
I find that AC is pretty much an 'all in' sort of thing. Either you focus your build around it, or it is only of fairly meh utility.
I have a 15th level fighter with a 43 AC (can be pumped with expertise if needed). That is plenty high enough that most everything has a pathetic chance to hit me (15% at most or so).
Now of course the problem is things like spells, touch attacks, and such. Being a fighter I'm in the land of suck saves, and there's really not a hell of a lot I can do about it. However when it comes to things that straight up AC matters against, it works quite well.
If I had an AC of what someone mentioned above as being useful (20+level), it wouldn't be terribly useful. Our barbarian gave up on AC and uses a blink ring instead. Since it also helps against AOE spells, I suspect it might be the better course.
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Channel Energy is a limited resource, and you will suffer when fighting undead. I'm not saying that very high AC isn't effective. But you are spending all of your resources on AC to get there, and there are easy ways to bybass AC and you have sacrificed melee damage to do it.
It sounds like he gets mooks thrown at him all day. Hell lets just throw the Black monk from rise of the runelords at him and let him be tripped all over the place by an undead too strong to command/control and immune to his negative energy. Let him trip him and once his ac drops for being prone then flurry of blows to the face.
I, of course, agree that multiple layers of defense are better than just one defense. ANd of course you also want a solid saves and CMD etc, but that do not reduce the value of AC and You can have a solid AC without devoting most of your resources to it.
Just getting hit 5% of the times is great, but a 30% is still really good.
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I will say one thing of the forums, is that there is a generally overly high discounting of defense vs. offense around here.
Yes, I understand the rocket tag thing, but there is no guarantee you win initiative, and if your defenses are too weak, you could well not get to shoot back. A good AC at least gives you a chance of making it through the first volley if you go second. Again, this isn't against everything, but truthfully there are still plenty of fights at high level which are mostly AC oriented.
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Is Armor Class useless?
No.
(I love it when a question is easy.)
You will feel like it's useless the first time you get one-shot by a bad guy with a greataxe and a pair of natural 20s, but it isn't useless.
Channel Energy is a limited resource, and you will suffer when fighting undead. I'm not saying that very high AC isn't effective. But you are spending all of your resources on AC to get there, and there are easy ways to bybass AC and you have sacrificed melee damage to do it.
I took these 2 feats at level 1, heavy armor training and tower shield prof, also your statement that such a character would do almost no damage is misguided. I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn, also if I really want to cook people into negative energy cookies I simply use 3 channel charges to deal 14d6 damage in a 20 foot radius of me (while healing myself from the same amount!) I spend most of my feats on things to raise my AC and you are right it's a massive investment and I do get one less spell per level and yes...
I focused on a channel build so I have plenty of channeling from my high charisma, I took the extra Channel feat, you will laugh at me but my weapon is not even +1. I barely ever use standards actions to perform melee damage, it's not my job in the group.
yes you are right my channels are limited, but they are effective and basically require 0 rolls on my end and are guaranteed minimum damage, the expert long range ranger, the wizard and the ridiculous scout/urban barbarian with furious finish are taking care of the damage in the group.
If by undead you mean my next slaves due to my command undead feat!
And yes my AC can by totally bypassed by a myriad of monster abilities! But tactically I want that to happen! I want to be the target of these insane gaze attacks, breath weapons and spells. Because I can heal/protect myself from these effect and I make my opponent waste their turns by trying to bypass my AC.
AC is an effective GM pressure tool, it has it's tactical advantages and overall is never something you never want any off! High AC with the proper protection spells make my a character into something that must be challenged and challenges burn resources to be overcame. Thus in the end better me taking that spell than my wizard or ranged damage dealer.
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AC is not useless, but it is perhaps the weakest defense in the game. Generally because with a few exceptions it only mitigates damage. Most of the debilitating stat debuffs will either target saves or touch AC, which is often far lower than regular AC.
This is true...but in terms of Saves, a Cloak of Resistance and maybe a few Feats are all you can put into them generally speaking. It's trivially easy to afford both that and good AC, just because the Cloak is so cheap.
If you simply need to do damage, there are many spells that will target touch AC or saves, as well as a few abilities that will ignore a good chunk of a persons AC (looking at you magus). Because AC really only blocks one thing 90%+ of the time, it is the most easily counterable defense because there are so many ways around it to grant the same effect.
And here we run into a disconnect: Yes, this is possible, yes PCs will do this kind of thing, but most monsters don't. Some certainly do, but the vast majority of enemies published target AC at least some of the time...which makes it significantly more useful than it would be if you were just playing arena games with the other PCs.
Channel Energy is a limited resource, and you will suffer when fighting undead. I'm not saying that very high AC isn't effective. But you are spending all of your resources on AC to get there, and there are easy ways to bybass AC and you have sacrificed melee damage to do it.It sounds like he gets mooks thrown at him all day. Hell lets just throw the Black monk from rise of the runelords at him and let him be tripped all over the place by an undead too strong to command/control and immune to his negative energy. Let him trip him and once his ac drops for being prone then flurry of blows to the face.
Sure I get tripped, very often!
I get targeted by all sorts of abilities all the time, tons of save or suck spells aimed at my crappy reflex saves!Burn a whole encounter to take me down, that is what I want you do!
Burn your rounds after rounds to try to crush me, while you do so I have 3 friends ready to explode your face!
You fell into the trap, your GM ego was like: I must take him down! When the optimal choice was to run around and try to go reach the rest of my team! But if you do that I am free to cast spells on you or to buff my friends, summon monsters as cannon folder, cast death ward ect...
It's not the perfect character but I do my job well I think!
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I will say one thing of the forums, is that there is a generally overly high discounting of defense vs. offense around here.
Yes, I understand the rocket tag thing, but there is no guarantee you win initiative, and if your defenses are too weak, you could well not get to shoot back. A good AC at least gives you a chance of making it through the first volley if you go second. Again, this isn't against everything, but truthfully there are still plenty of fights at high level which are mostly AC oriented.
And they will argue for eternity over numbers and percents on what is the best way to go... even though it never works out the same once it comes off of paper :P
Side Note: Judging by all of the various inputs from people on this thread, it seems their experiences all differ rather greatly... one campaign alone just cannot account for them all.
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Side Note: Judging by all of the various inputs from people on this thread, it seems their experiences all differ rather greatly... one campaign alone just cannot account for them all.
This. And that it really doesn't matter if you pick rock, paper, or scissors, sooner or later something is going beat you.
High AC is negated by touch attacks, Spells targeting saves, Manuevers, or high CR foes.
Miss Chance for Mirror Image/Concealment are countered by blindsense or true sight.
DR is countered by high damage attacks eating through it.
The best option is to layer defenses, try to be out of melee when possible, and put out enough offense to drop them before they drop you.
Note: These are not a thing. It's a Personal spell and you can't make Potions of those. Just for the record.Wand? Share spell? you can get Mirror image on your Animal companion one way or another. Potions of Blur, shield, displacement, shield of faith, protection from x, resist energy.
Those can be potions what can't be potions can be wands...you have share spell so all personal spells can be places on a Animal companion.
FYI - shield is also a personal spell. Also, you can't use Share Spells on wands, since you are not casting the spell (you're using a spell-trigger item). Using a scroll (spell-completion) is generally considered to work though, but is harder to pull off.
Also...
I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn...
This is not possible that I know of. When you channel you either channel to heal or channel to harm - you never do both. You can include or exclude yourself, and you may be or be treated as a type that heals from negative energy, but you don't heal from energy that is channeled to harm.
Note: These are not a thing. It's a Personal spell and you can't make Potions of those. Just for the record.Wand? Share spell? you can get Mirror image on your Animal companion one way or another. Potions of Blur, shield, displacement, shield of faith, protection from x, resist energy.
Those can be potions what can't be potions can be wands...you have share spell so all personal spells can be places on a Animal companion.
FYI - shield is also a personal spell. Also, you can't use Share Spells on wands, since you are not casting the spell (you're using a spell-trigger item). Using a scroll (spell-completion) is generally considered to work though, but is harder to pull off.
Also...
I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn...This is not possible that I know of. When you channel you either channel to heal or channel to harm - you never do both. You can include or exclude yourself, and you may be or be treated as a type that heals from negative energy, but you don't heal from energy that is channeled to harm.
Death domain level 8 granted power:
Death's Embrace (Ex): At 8th level, you heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energy. If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area.So you channel energy to make damage, include yourself as a target to take damage, death's embrace activate because " you heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energy " also the final line of the channel energy cleric ability states "A cleric can choose whether or not to include herself in this effect."
Thus it's perfectly possible to heal yourself with negative energy targeted at living creature do do harm. Or also heal yourself with negative energy targeted at undead in the goal of healing them.
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Also...
I currently deal 7d6 point of negative damage at everything around me and heal myself for the same amount each turn..."This is not possible that I know of. When you channel you either channel to heal or channel to harm - you never do both. You can include or exclude yourself, and you may be or be treated as a type that heals from negative energy, but you don't heal from energy that is channeled to harm."
I don't know. If you're something like a Dhampir or a lich that would be healed by negative energy, you could possibly use to heal yourself and attack foes. It depends really on what happens if an evil cleric were to channel negative at a Lich, Dhampir, etc. with the intent to harm them. If it just does nothing like a Spear of Purity cast at an angel, then you couldn't use that combo. If the channeling cast with the intent to harm were to heal them, then they should be able to use that combo technically. Really there should be an errata about this because I don't think that is RAI.
Actually this raises a whole bunch of questions I never thought about. What if a good cleric wanted to heal a person who was secretly a vampire? Assuming he beat the channel resistance, would it hurt the vampire? Would that drop the disguise? You could do the same in reverse with a Dhampir. He's ashamed of his heritage so he poses as a human until an encounter with an evil priest. The priest channels negative energy which hurts the rest of the party but leaves Jimbob the dhampir not only unhurt but feeling better than he did before. That would be a cool way to reveal IC that Jimbob was a vampire-spawn all along...
Two of my PFS characters are at the extreme ends in regards to AC.
The first character I took to level 12 was my Monk. I made him a defense focused melee dude. At level 14 his AC is nearing 60 and throughout his Pathfinder career completed more than a few scenarios without taking a point of damage. He DPR was abysmal but I really enjoyed playing him, he could dart around the battlefield with some impunity offering flanking, picking up fallen comrades and giving mobility support.
In contrast I have my level 12 Barbarian. I gave up on the ‘AC game’ at about level 3 when I sold off his mundane armour. His AC has since gone into the negatives on more than one occasion. At this point he routinely does battle with an AC of ZERO. Great AC in 2nd Edition D&D, not so much in Pathfinder. But he makes up for it with a gross sloppy pile of HP and considerable DR.
AC is a useful defense. But unless I focus on making it very high I like to have other defenses available.
I, of course, agree that multiple layers of defense are better than just one defense. ANd of course you also want a solid saves and CMD etc, but that do not reduce the value of AC and You can have a solid AC without devoting most of your resources to it.
Just getting hit 5% of the times is great, but a 30% is still really good.
THIS
AC is only all or nothing if you choose to see it as such. I see a lot of posters touting miss chance from things such as displacement, but they seem to be forgetting that that's a 20-50% chance of negation. Whereas it's easy to invest into AC smartly to keep it a similar 50% or better against even cr+1 foes and therefor have even better against lower enemies. You don't need to invest nearly all your wbl to do so.
No, AC is not useless. In a campaign I am running right now, the group is level 7, and the fighter has an AC of about 29, 33+ when he uses his feats. Basically every enemy they fight, save for a few, need a 19 or 20 to hit him. Its worked out pretty well for him.
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No, AC is not useless. In a campaign I am running right now, the group is level 7, and the fighter has an AC of about 29, 33+ when he uses his feats. Basically every enemy they fight, save for a few, need a 19 or 20 to hit him. Its worked out pretty well for him.
Let us know how it works out at 15. AC works best at low level, but it doesn't scale well to high level.
Fruian Thistlefoot:
Independant of what the topic was that was being discussed you still chose to use a very generalized blanket statement. If you do not stand behind that statement you are welcome to retract it. It seems like you have done that to some extent already as you are now saying that a multi-layered defense is best which I would have agreed with if this was said originally. Either way, I do not need to defend my position as I believe it was done fairly well by the rest of the board goers. If you would like to argue your point then I would like to direct you to them.
I would, however, like to make some clarifications.
1. Making the Full Plate Barding out of Mithril adds 9K gold and doesn't add anything to AC. For the sake of just an AC based build you could safely remove that. ACP isn't going to be much of a negative to an Ankylosaurus anyway. Heck, you could make it out of adamantine if you'd prefer and the cost is only 6K more. That would give you 3/- DR for the whole layered defense approach. Or just have it made of steel and save the 9K to apply elsewhere.
2. I never made any claim that miss chance wasn't good. It is. This does not invalidate AC being good as well.
3. Getting mirror image on your Animal Companion seems to be more difficult than you think. If you are a druid it isn't on your spell list. As was pointed out potions of it do not exist. Wands exist but you need UMD for it as it can't be cast via share spells by anyone but the druid. If this is something that you are doing frequently then it is still an investment. It is an investment in something that isn't perminant, requires skill points to perform and likely has to be reapplied several times per day. In fact, due to the short duration of the spell you are likely using a combat round doing this when you could be doing something more effective. Personally, all things considered, I prefer a defense that is always on or at least has a long duration.
This is all fairly tertiary to the main issue that I had here. Its something that happens too often on these boards. I believe I gave good advice in that one good method of improving animal companions was to take armor proficiency feats to up their AC. I said this because AC is not a useless stat. Now, anyone can feel free to disagree, thats fine. Thats what message boards are for: sharing opinions.
But that isn't how it happened. My opinion was attacked calling it out as "a trap", a "double trap" and a "triple trap". Worse still to emphasize the point a blanket statement was made saying that AC itself is useless. Honestly, I don't think that was meant. I think it was simply something that was said out of frustration to drive a point home. But it was said. I think it also had to do with the thought that one person's opinion was more valid than another's probably based on the assumption that I was a neophyte and new to the system or the boards for making such a suggestion. I can assure you that neither are true. You could easily check up on this if you'd like but I don't feel like flashing my creds to validate my opinions as I don't feel that it is relavent to a constructive discussion.
By posting the question here I didn't take the statement out of context as the context was included in the statement itself. It was stated that AC is useless for PCs and animal companions. It appears that the popular opinion is that this is not true, that AC is a important part of the multi-layered defense particularly for a front-liner. I feel sufficiently validated.
Let us know how it works out at 15. AC works best at low level, but it doesn't scale well to high level.
I don't doubt it, but "useless?"
What do you do when you play a character focused on AC, and the DM ramps up the game by throwing monsters that hit you 50%+ of the time? (95% of the time on other party members)
My group just discussed this last session. As the GM, I specifically do not do this. As a player, I often favor defense over offense, as I'd prefer to not be hit rather than be the character that's a glass cannon.
Therefore, I never enhance the enemy's + to hit just to deal with one PC. As part of a regular adventure though, there will be other types of attacks the PC has to worry about (saves, touch attacks, etc.) The character I mentioned in my previous post was devastated by a gunslinger crit, and almost killed by a pair of wood golem's Reflex-based area attack.
How to deal with a GM that's decided the PC with the best AC must be able to be hit at least 50% of the time? As with all of these types of issues, I suggest calmly explaining that it is a bad idea to index the monsters stats against the PCs.
This is similar to the traps issue. If the party does not have a rogue (or someone else that deals with traps), and therefore the GM removes all traps from the adventures, then rogues are far less valuable.
I think a lot of these issues come from GMs with less experience behind the screen.
I had a fighter who relied on a wand of Mirror Image to compensate for low AC. He died when he got grappled and engulfed during an ambush by a blindsighted blob.
In Jade Regent, high AC seemed far too powerful. Characters with AC 40 were going into battle with enemies with +18 to hit. It was pretty effective in Carrion Crown too.
Same experience with the leveled humanoids in the latter half of Serpent Skull. I think it's an artifact of published adventures; most of the guys who write for Paizo are crap at making effective characters.
What do you do when you play a character focused on AC, and the DM ramps up the game by throwing monsters that hit you 50%+ of the time? (95% of the time on other party members)
Ironically enough, our Wizard can have as much AC as our tank if he really wants to, and our Witch can use Evil Eye hexes to debilitate their ability to take and/or absorb attack rolls or saving throws. Tack on Misfortune and it will be an easy fight. The problem just boils down to their Saving Throws being crappy.
All I can say is if you're messing with enemies who have great to-hit and a tank whose AC is only half-effective against it, you gotta play both sides of the fence. Debuffs, debuffs, debuffs. Dispel Magic is great for removing any of their buffs, and is available to all spellcasters. Throw in some Curses, an Ill Omen or two, and the creature's to-hit is going to skyrocket back down to normal (tank barely gets hit, squishies only get hit regularly).
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I'll point out that using AC as a stand-alone offense isn't really effective in the later levels. You have to have synergy with your defense as well as your offense; Fighting Defensively and Combat Expertise may lower your to-hit, but it's great when you're fighting super-strong guys who normally have a 50% to hit you. Displacement or Blur would help negate a few of those "would-be" hits into nothing, and unless they have True Sight or some other ability to negate miss chances, you're scot-free. DR is great for reducing the effectiveness of any hits you take, and Fast Healing helps you sustain in fights and negate some nasty bleed effects you might incur. Mirror Images helps by tossing decoys in way of the attacks, though if a creature mostly is barely missing you, it won't help as much.
The problem people have with building Defensive is that you have to take all these separate factors and try to combine them, which is almost impossible to do since you have to combine subjects from high Intelligence, Acrobatics investments, Feat Investments, Spellcasting, DR Class Features, and Fast Healing abilities. That is all very hard to put together; and even if you invest in all of this, what else do you do? Pick your nose is probably the best action you can take, and the only thing you contribute to is "Yup, I can't die. Call me Mr. Immortality."
As a solo adventurer, this may not be a bad thing to do, but winning encounters requires more than the ability to sustain the fight, it requires defeating the foe in combat, whether through strategy, or more commonly, killing it. It's also so much simpler to build offensive because you only have to worry about 3 things: Movement (to get in line to Full Attack), Attack Bonuses (to secure hits and deal more damage), and Damage Bonuses (each hit becomes that much more devastating). There are also unique effects that help this subject matter also, but all of that subject matter is much more commonplace and easier to acquire in comparison *Cough*Boots of Speed 12,000 Gold V.S. Ring of Regeneration 90,000 Gold*Cough*.
My RotRL Cleric/Holy Vindicator is going to go the route of high AC, so we'll see how that goes. At level 12 she'll have an AC of 38 - 44 until something hits her. Most CR 12 monsters have a +19-21 attack bonus with their best attack, so even buffed they're going to require a 20 to hit her the first time. After that they'll still need a 17-19. In addition to her high AC, she'll have good saves (dwarf), lots of hit points, and 20% concealment (cloak of displacement). The only thing she'll really be lacking is DR and a high reflex save. At level 16 her AC will go up to 46 (54 until hit), so that still requires the ancient black dragon roll a 20 to hit me the first time, and then a 14+ after that. Seems decent enough to me.
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No, AC is not useless. In a campaign I am running right now, the group is level 7, and the fighter has an AC of about 29, 33+ when he uses his feats. Basically every enemy they fight, save for a few, need a 19 or 20 to hit him. Its worked out pretty well for him.Let us know how it works out at 15. AC works best at low level, but it doesn't scale well to high level.
By level 15, an AC focused fighter can sustain level +30, or better, while keeping enough damage and +to hit to be dangerous.
Classes using multiple stats for defense can do even better.
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The 'useless' bit about armor class is that it generally goes up as you level and BaB also goes up as you level. It seems like a zero-sum game sometimes.
You struggle to get your AC to stratospheric heights, only to face monsters who have a +25 attack bonus that will hit you most of the time anyway.
My players were saying this at the end of our Rise of the Runelords campaign recently, as they got kicked around by rune giants.
I think the problem is people focus on the bad guys' first attack which is almost certain to hit, and decide from that that AC is pointless.
What we have to remember is that there can be two or three other attacks after that one. Pushing your armor doesn't mean you get hit zero times; it means you take 1-2 hits instead of 3-4.
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Those who say AC-increasing items are too expensive to be worthwhile are DOING IT WRONG.
You get as many low AC-increasing items as your defense budget allows. That way you can stack all the different bonuses and save money. Spending less means you can get more items with different bonuses means higher overall AC.
Let's look at the general order in which you would obtain/upgrade your defensive gear in order to get the highest AC for lowest cost:
+1 armor
+1 shield
+1 ring of protection
+1 amulet of natural armor
+1 belt of incredible dexterity +2
+2 armor
+2 shield
+1 jingasa of the fortunate soldier
+1 dusty rose prism ioun stone
+2 ring of protection
+2 amulet of natural armor
+3 armor
+2 shield
+2 belt of incredible dexterity +4
+4 armor
+4 shield
+3 ring of protection
+3 amulet of natural armor
+5 armor
+5 shield
+4 ring of protection
+4 amulet of natural armor
+3 belt of incredible dexterity +6
+5 ring of protection
+5 amulet of natural armor
That's potentially 46 AC from items alone (assuming full plate and heavy shield). Stack on things like having a good base Dexterity score, small size, armor training, mithral armor, and some feats and you should be laughing off most attacks at all levels.
Getting 60+ AC by level 20 (which means nearly all published creatures need a natural 20 to hit you) or being an effective tank at all levels IS TRIVIAL.
What do you do when you play a character focused on AC, and the DM ramps up the game by throwing monsters that hit you 50% of the time? (95% of the time other party members)
You get hitted 45% less times than the rest of the party.
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What do you do when you play a character focused on AC, and the DM ramps up the game by throwing monsters that hit you 50% of the time? (95% of the time other party members)You get hitted 45% less times than the rest of the party.
There is no winning a war of escalation with a DM.
I once had a DM rule all opponents were 95% magic resistant after my wizard took out his pet BBEG.
Getting 60+ AC by level 20 (which means nearly all published creatures need a natural 20 to hit you) or being an effective tank at all levels IS TRIVIAL.60+ at level 20 is really pushing it except for certain specialised caster, fighter or monk builds. It is even more difficult if you are melee and want to keep your damage relevant as you need to be using a two handed weapon. Your average level 20 Paladin is probably looking at:
10base +14mithril full plate +5defelction +5natural +1insight +1luck +3dex for 39. If they use a shield you are looking at 46, still far and away from 60.
Your average 20 wizard might be using +8 bracers instead of full plate but gets to add a +5 mithril buckler and maybe 6 from Dex for 44.
Certainly there are ways to increase these but 60+AC is definitely unusual. I can certainly do it with, say, a Lore Oracle, but I wouldn't expect most characters to be regularly running with 60+.
Cavaliers can add champion for an extra +2, paladins get that too.
Not to mention Paladins get to dwarf that Deflection score with their Charisma bonus.Let's also not forget that Celestial Plate armor is a thing, losing +2 enhancement but gaining +3 DEX for a net of +1.
Also mithral celestial plate shenanigans.
One other thing that deserves to be said about AC is how it relates to natural weapons vs iteratives. It tends to stay more relevant when fighting other PC-type opponents. Sure, they might have a 85% chance of hitting with their first attack, but that means the next one is only 60%, 35%, maybe a 10% at the end. Against this, AC has a good chance of mitigating a hit or two. Which, given how much damage grows relative to hitpoints, can determine the winner of this round of rocket tag.
Against "monsters," on the other hand, it can be much closer to "useless." If their first weapon has an 85% of hitting so does their second, third, and so on. If you are lucky some are secondary, but in that case Multiattack is almost assumed and they are only at -10%. Plus, "brute" monsters tend to combine massive strength with piles of HD (and thus BaB), which can mean even a moderately pushed AC is only contributing a few percent to the miss chance (if that).
So basically, it is "useless" in the same way that Combat Maneuvers are "useless." Against other player-type characters things actually scale fairly reasonably. However, when you crack open the bestiary, things can change dramatically.
Indeed. Beyond level 5 or so, I focus more on "not getting full attacked" than on AC.