Armor Class

[Dingo333]

Back story: I am in a group with a magus, a monk, a bard, a rouge a (now dead) witch and an inquisitor(me)

as you can see, we have lots of combat support, secondary fighters and such but no true tank.

you can also see, we have lost 1 member already. We are 5th level

the encounter that prompted this was, a surprise attack by a dire tiger, everyone dropped to 0 or lower and the witch died.

which got me wondering, we all have ac of 20 or less, we need a tank. Thus, I need to find as much AC as possible and have turned here for help.

how high can you get an AC. problem: no magic items, spells are fine, but wands, potions, enhancement to armor and weapons, those are hard to swing. basicaly, if you want it, take the feat for it and maybe you can have the item. Also, rare materials are a no (mithral is right out, adamantime is around x3 the listed cost). I rolled stats and have 18, 18, 18, 17, 14, 14 before racial

any thoughts on this? thank you

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

My Magus is routinely rocking 20+ ACs at level 1 (16 Dex, Chain Shirt, Shield spell).

With his "Spend a point to rememorize a spell," he should be able to cast Shield in every major combat.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

"any thoughts on this?"

I think with no magic items, playing a non-caster is masochistic.

 

[EUBanana]

I played a tanky paladin that seemed pretty successful?

Full plate armour, light shield, dex 13, dodge feat, shield focus feat, combat expertise, Threatening Defender trait so you use expertise all the time, AC 24 (25 when you reach level 4 and expertise gets better) as soon as you have the cash for full plate, and you can heal yourself and have good saves as well.

The first level paladin spell, Veil of Positive Energy, gives another +2 AC versus undead (pretty common foe) and lasts a couple of fights, so you might have AC 27 pretty regularly versus undead around level 4, with entirely nonmagical gear. Barkskin is another good defensive spell with a decent duration, you can get it in potion form cheap enough too so you might rock up to near 30 with that.

And then there's smite evil versus any BBEGs, if you got charisma 18 thats another +4 AC when fighting something really nasty.

Combat expertise also lets you get into those twinky disarm/trip feats, so it is a feat to build upon, not a wasted specialist feat at all.

 

[Jadeite]

Having a high AC does not make you a tank. If anything, it makes you a less interesting target than the rest of the party.
You need to either bind the enemies or be a sufficient threat, otherwise they just ignore you and keep killing your party members.
The Advanced Player's Guide has a few tanking options and apparently Ultimate Combat has more.

 

[EUBanana]

Having a high AC does not make you a tank. If anything, it makes you a less interesting target than the rest of the party.
You need to either bind the enemies or be a sufficient threat, otherwise they just ignore you and keep killing your party members.
The Advanced Player's Guide has a few tanking options and apparently Ultimate Combat has more.

There were front line fighters protecting squishies long before a reliance on WoW-esque "tactics" like Taunt. In fact the turn to that sort of thing is precisely why I didn't like 4E at all and went for Pathfinder instead. You protect the others by appropriate positioning. If there's a corridor or a doorway, and there usually is, you are in it and everybody else is behind you lobbing arrows/spells/whatever. Use of choke points and the like is what tactics is all about.

In our group we got two high AC characters and between the two of them they stop anybody else being attacked almost all the time without any reliance on abilities to force people to attack you.

If you absolutely must have crutches like that, there's always the Antagonise feat in UM which is pretty broken IMHO, and paladins would be alright at it too as its charisma modified.

 

[Jadeite]

There were front line fighters protecting squishies long before a reliance on WoW-esque "tactics" like Taunt. In fact the turn to that sort of thing is precisely why I didn't like 4E at all and went for Pathfinder instead. You protect the others by appropriate positioning. If there's a corridor or a doorway, and there usually is, you are in it and everybody else is behind you lobbing arrows/spells/whatever. Use of choke points and the like is what tactics is all about.

In our group we got two high AC characters and between the two of them they stop anybody else being attacked almost all the time without any reliance on abilities to force people to attack you.

If you absolutely must have crutches like that, there's always the Antagonise feat in UM which is pretty broken IMHO, and paladins would be alright at it too as its charisma modified.

Yes. That works. If there are choke points and everyone else is a ranged combatant.
And the defender classes in 4E work nothing like WoW tanks.

 

[EUBanana]

Yes. That works. If there are choke points and everyone else is a ranged combatant.

Well, yeah. Too bad? Thats teamwork, and a well balanced party in action. I think the OP is pretty much talking about that in fact, he doesn't have a balanced party it seems.

There's two high ac melee types in our merry little band, one of them has Lunge just in case he has to swordwave over the other ones head. Everybody else has at least some ranged attacks. In short, it's not a problem, the party acts as a team, and teamwork is what its all about.

And the defender classes in 4E work nothing like WoW tanks.

Doesn't really matter, I dislike the entire concept. You shouldn't have to rely on things like forcing other people to attack you, you should simply be in the way. RPGs have over time moved from having things like positioning matter, like in a wargame, to having things like build matter instead, and thats not a good change IMO. For me, tank mechanics are pretty much the ultimate expression of this.

In any case if you /really/ want powers like that there's stuff like Antagonise.

 

[Jadeite]

RPGs have gotten worse because they became less 'wargamey'? Marvelous.

 

[EUBanana]

RPGs have gotten worse because they became less 'wargamey'? Marvelous.

They got worse because now the NPCs have no brain, all they do is process game mechanics, like "must hit fighter because he just taunted me, must ignore rogue who did 60 damage that round and hit the guy with shiny armour, because bbzzt bzzt robot brain says so".

I kinda assume if you want a complex fighting system then it should have tactics in it. Taking cover, blocking opponents, covering your friends - thats surely what fighting scenes are all about. It's not about it being wargamey, its' about it not being massively contrived, like the Antagonise feat is. You use it on a mage and he then has to run up to you and melee you? Please.