AC 56 at level 6! You too can do it!

[Vuron]

And I scoff at any build that depends on polymorph into a creature with +20 natural armor by 6th level...... obviously broken and obviously not "easy". Typically, standard creatures with that sort of natural armor are in the CR12+ bracket, and certainly have a large number of hit die. So anything introduced in a supplement that moves substantially away from that benchmark is pretty clearly a bit of joke.

Heh it's worse than that, the spell being used is the 2nd level alter self

I guess it merely add ammo for those people that want the polymorph subschool severely modified.

 

[Bad Paper]

The only reasons players don't do it are because either they don't realize they can do it, or they are too lazy to do it. I posted up here to address that first issue. You can address the latter issue yourself.

Clearly, moritheil is a better player than I.

 

[SlagMortar]

I will point out that the existence of one build that is particularly powerful in this regard does not to me seem to refute the original argument, which seems to me to be more about general behavior of the ruleset.

I'd like to expand on this point a bit. The original assertion that attack bonuses outstrip AC was meant for character that you would find in a game. The OP said that he would not play a character optimized for AC like this in a game because it can't do anything else. Since even in the most optimized/powergamer style games this character would not be found, the existance of this build does nothing to disprove the original assertion. The way to examine the original assertion would be to make some optimized builds that would actually see time in a real game and comparing their attack bonus versus AC in order to examine the original assertion.

Showing what can happen on the extreme ends of the scale does nothing to prove the characteristics of attack bonus versus AC in an actual game.

 

[Nail]

Showing what can happen on the extreme ends of the scale does nothing to prove the characteristics of attack bonus versus AC in an actual game.

Yup.

Clearly, moritheil is a better player than I.

Sorry, Bad Paper, but before I'll agree with that assertion, I'll have to see your build.

 

[kerbarian]

Goodness gracious, I'm not gonna even try to double check your numbers, but I'll just point out that this 'build' (and Heironeous know how much I personally hate builds) is far from easy.

One thing to note is that you can still use most of that build in something that I'd consider easy. Take a halfling monk 1 / wizard 5, no items or feats needed, and the rest is just spell selection.

You'd lose 12 AC by going with a troglodyte instead of a dwarf ancestor, 1 for the lower caster level on dragonskin, and 1 for no ioun stone. The ring of shrinking can be replaced by reduce person. You'd get a couple points back for the smaller size (tiny instead of medium), for a total of AC 51.

 

[Obrysii]

Moritheil, I suggest that in the future, when you are riding on your overinflated ego, that you back up your own claims.

From the tone of your posts, it seems to be filled with elitism and a "holy than thou" attitude. You really should not be so disrespectful, and inconsiderate, to others on the forum.

While I am new here, I am not new to DnD forums, and at least in the others (namely the CharOpt board on WoTC), making such a claim with such an attitude would only gain distain from the contributors to those forums.

Without proof, your claim is of absolutely no value to anyone.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Take a halfling monk 1 / wizard 5...

Do you know anyone who would even remotely entertain the idea of playing a halfling monk / wizard beyond monk 1 / wizard 2?

Wait a minute, there must be some feat to negate that XP penalty . . .

Nope, not easy. I'm just surprised no one's using gestalt yet. Surely, a monk / wizard gestalt would be better than just monk 1 / wizard 5? How about a halfling monk / wizard gestalt? Please don't rebut with something like "Gestalt would be cheating" because I'll just come back with "And PgtF and SS aren't?!"

 

[kerbarian]

Do you know anyone who would even remotely entertain the idea of playing a halfling monk / wizard beyond monk 1 / wizard 2?

Wait a minute, there must be some feat to negate that XP penalty . . .

Heh, true. I always forget about the multiclassing penalties when playing with hypothetical builds. Elf is almost as good, though (1 less AC), and has no issues with the multiclassing.

Or you can go straight wizard and just buy a monk's belt a little later on.

 

[Sejs]

Please don't rebut with something like "Gestalt would be cheating" because I'll just come back with "And PgtF and SS aren't?!"

Heh, the sticking point for me lies more in the using of a regional feat speciffic to one setting, combined with a class speciffic to another. I'm just waiting for warforged characters with Initiate of Mystra, now.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I am going to stick with Carl Sagan's assertion on this one - he tidily summarized the central challenge scientists face when they try to formulate grand new theories with “Remarkable claims require remarkable proof.”

Here is a remarkable claim, but no sign of said remarkable proof. I call shenanigans.

The Auld Grump