How much AC does my Barbarian need?

[London Duke]

I am playing a barbarian (a 3rd party archetype without DR) and I am wondering how much AC I should shoot for at the mid-levels? ATM, my AC is 17, but when raging and using Reckless Assault it drops down to 13... and then to 11 after a charge...

I am thinking of trying to invest in AC boosting things to get it up to about the 22 range so I am only down to 16 when all my negatives kick in.

I rolled pretty outstanding and have a +4 to my Con which has me sitting happily at 78 hp.

[Magda Luckbender]

There are different school of thought on this:

* Some advocate ignoring AC and just trying to drop the foe quickly with massive damage. This works pretty well, except when it doesn't.

* Some advocate getting as much AC as possible. This sometimes helps.

* Many advocate getting as much DR as possible on your barbarian. This is difficult, but pays off.

[Mystic_Snowfang]

I'd say invest in a crapton of health and the like instead.

[deusvult]

AC is only marginally important as a defensive stat, at least beyond low levels. Even if you focus on high AC, monsters are still going to hit you most of the time on their primary attacks; all you're doing with high AC is making the iteratives miss.

In mid to high levels, Hit Points are basically king of the defensive stats.. and it sounds like you've got a good start on that. Figure out some concealment buffs (potion of blur and the like) rather than pushing your AC beyond the first or second plateaus.

[nicholas storm]

I think dumping AC without another method of damage mitigation (either lots of DR or miss chances) is a dangerous proposition. Hit points is not enough to keep you alive and your team isn't going to be happy having to heal you of all your HP after each encounter.

Take a fairly vanilla encounter of CR7 hill giants. They have power attack and 2 attacks at +12/7 doing 2-16+16 (average 25HP per attack). In your current situation at AC11, you are taking on average 47.5HP per round per hill giant. At AC16, you are taking on average 38.75 per round per hill giant. The hypothetical fighter at AC25 is taking 13.75HP per round per hill giant.

[Rodinia]

This probably doesn't help Duke, but I feel the need to point out an alternate fighting style as it relates to the above excellent Hill Giant example. Nicholas storm's demonstrative example, just above, assumes the PC will be taking a full attack each round. Smart tactics can often avoid the full attack, effectively halving incoming damage in this case.

For example, a tactically-oriented reach-style fighter like Rodinia (with at least 20' reach, not that hard to get) would engage that same hill giant in a way that reliably denies the hill giant it's full attack. Damage output remains roughly the same. Whatever is the average incoming damage per round, cut it roughly in half for this fighting style. This accomplishes the same thing as having much better AC and/or a lot more HP.

Next time you see a close-in fighter taking a beating from full attacks, consider that tactical means usually exist to avoid taking that abuse. This demonstrates the defensive nature and value of reach tactics, which are nowhere mentioned in any official Pathfinder book. I point this out because many players seem unaware of this option.

[Feral]

The answer to this question depends largely on the campaign you’re playing in and your DM’s tendencies. If you’re talking about PFS you’ll do fine with the ‘massive damage’ approach or the traditional metric of 15+character level. If this is for some kind of home game where the DM can or will create encounters that are massively outside what’s CR-appropriate, then you really need to start stacking up the AC.

[Argus The Slayer]

nicholas storm wrote:

Take a fairly vanilla encounter of CR7 hill giants. They have power attack and 2 attacks at +12/7 doing 2-16+16 (average 25HP per attack). In your current situation at AC11, you are taking on average 47.5HP per round per hill giant. At AC16, you are taking on average 38.75 per round per hill giant. The hypothetical fighter at AC25 is taking 13.75HP per round per hill giant.

I would look at these numbers from the perspective of being Joe Barbarian and acknowledge that 25AC just ain't gonna happen - ever. And the difference between 11 AC and 16 AC isn't worth the effort - especially if you can focus on offense and do more damage.

If you focus on offense instead of wasting gold and feats on defense, you can drop that Hill Giant after a charge and then a full round of attack, leaving you in a much better situation than sitting in front of that hill giant for three rounds.

A barbarian's job is to kill stuff fast...killing that BBEG before he gets a second attack is huge.

Having said all that, make sure that you keep your healer in a steady supply of healing wands: you have enough hitpoints that you won't be a burden to heal in most combats, but you don't want to be a resource drain for out of combat healing.