Cyberzombie said:
I have never seen such a thing (or even close to it) and I have trouble believing that such a character would be good at anything else. I've yet to see any such one-trick pony that doesn't suck in all other aspects.
For someone not to be "good at anything else", you'd have to assume this actually cost something significant. You can hit those kinds of ACs just by carefully stacking items. It's actually easiest to see this in the NWN video games, although they don't really stick to the core rules.
Let's say we're a level 20 nonhuman fighter with a shield. Take whatever your DEX mod is. Pick the appropriate armor, such that the MaxDEX is the same number. You're probably looking at an AC of 17-19 at this point. Let's say 18 to keep things nice.
If it's made of mithral, we could add another 2, but let's not count that for now.
Add 2 for a heavy shield.
Add a +5 enhancement bonus to the armor.
Add a +5 enhancement bonus to the shield.
Add an Amulet of Natural Armor +5.
Add a ring that gives a +5 deflection bonus.
(+5 at the top levels, of course, but if you're talking about Greater Weapon Specialization and Greater Armor Specialization you're already level 12+.)
Now we're looking at an AC of 40 or so. You could stack on a few more AC sources (dodge bonuses,
haste, sacred bonuses, insight bonuses...), but let's stick with the 40 for now, since most of those bonuses have an offensive counterpart.
So far, I haven't included any Feats at all. The only thing I've "expended" is that I'm tying up a couple item slots with AC items, but then again, what ELSE would you put in those slots?
Now we face some opponents. A level 20 Rogue with 20 DEX and Weapon Finesse has a +20 to hit, plus +5 for his weapon. He hits on a 15, meaning only a 23% chance. Adding 2 to my AC would cut that to 20%; a couple of those and I'd be all but invulnerable to his attacks, especially if he was a dual-wielder.
Take the extreme case. Against a level 20 Fighter with a 26 STR, Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, and a +5 weapon (which costs as much as my armor and shield combined...), he'd have +35 to hit with his main attack. Okay, that one would probably hit (80% chance), but on a Full Attack, most of the later blows would whiff (55%, 30%, 5%). Adding 2 to my AC would drop him to 70/45/20/5.
So up to this point we've only discussed the effects of 2 points of AC. Now let's look at your Feats, where for the cost of 4 out of my 18 Feats, I could add 8 points of AC (assuming my DEX was high enough, although I'd just use Plate Armor in that case), bringing me to a 48.
The rogue could only ever hit me on a natural 20.
The fighter would have a 40% chance to hit on a single attack, and his iterative attacks would stink (15/5/5).
So, is it worth it to spend 22% of your Feats to reduce incoming weapon damage by much more than half? I'd say so.
And that's assuming I don't fight defensively, or take Combat Expertise, or anything like that.
You are forgetting your rules. These feats have no effect on touch attacks.
No, I was also commenting on the larger issue of AC's usefulness as a whole, since some of the comments seemed to revolve around "offense > defense". I was comparing 2 AC to 2 damage, without regard to source. I know that touch attacks bypass armor AC, and that therefore the Armor Specialization Feats wouldn't help against it. (The Armor Focus ones, on the other hand, WOULD, since they're increasing the amount of DEX AC you can use.)
But, this isn't an issue if we're directly comparing Armor Specialization to Weapon Specialization. We're comparing 2 Armor AC to 2 weapon damage, so the same relation still holds. 2 Armor AC counteracts a point or two of base weapon damage, or 2-4 Power Attack damage, or a metric buttload of Sneak Attack damage, or an indeterminate amount of critical hit damage.
If you're going to argue that Armor AC is more limited because of touch attacks, I'll point out that Weapon Specialization is more limited because of the presence of Damage Reduction (and by the fact that you have to land a non-touch attack to deal it). Both are more limited than the general case.
Maybe our gaming experiences are different, but I don't find that to be the case at all. If the dwarven warrior has specialization in greataxe, he is ALWAYS going to use his greataxe, unless for some reason he can't.
For quite a while I played a Half-Ogre (custom LA+0 version) Fighter who used a Greatsword. He took all of the Focus and Specialization Feats in it. At first, Life was Good.
But then there were times I needed a missile weapon, and where it was impossible to close the range. (Flying enemies, or a spellcaster standing up on a ledge or something...) Flying items eventually helped a bit there, but there were still quite a few times where I needed to use missile weapons. Then there were a few times where it was just smarter to use ranged attacks; against an enemy with an aura that crippled anyone entering melee range, for instance, it was better to chuck spears from range until the casters could dispel it or give me a protection spell.
Then there were the ubiquitous tavern brawls, where it's just bad form to pull out a weapon (even if you COULD use a six-foot-long sword within a crowded room). Or when we were forced to disarm ourselves before meeting a certain evil nobleman who we just KNEW was going to double-cross us... I had to go that whole fight without my personal weapon. Or when we faced kuo-toa at low level and I discovered the joy of those stupid sticky shields. Or when we faced enemies resistant/immune to slashing weapons. Sure, the majority of the time I got full use out of Weapon Specialization, but there were a good number of times where I couldn't.
In general, if you're good at melee weapons in 3e, you're not good at missile weapons, and vice versa.
Yes, but you don't always have a choice in the matter.
