Cheapest way for casters to improve their AC

[Olaf the Stout]

There is the Vow of Poverty feats from Book of Exhalted Deeds.

I don't own the Book of Exalted Deeds myself so I can't comment too much but I have not heard many positive comments about the Vow of Poverty. Most of them have been in regards to the Monk combined with the Vow of Poverty but it still doesn't exactly fill me with a great desire to bring this into my game.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Plot-Device]

I don't own the Book of Exalted Deeds myself so I can't comment too much but I have not heard many positive comments about the Vow of Poverty. Most of them have been in regards to the Monk combined with the Vow of Poverty but it still doesn't exactly fill me with a great desire to bring this into my game.

Olaf the Stout

Most of those are from people who panic. Don't sweat that. I had a Vow of Poverty Monk. It's not that great at high levels, unless you take Vow of Peace (which is the most roleplaying intesnive feat ever) or you manage to do something awesome like die and come back as a saint (also roleplaying intesnive.) Honestly.

Vow of Poverty on a caster provides some awesome roleplaying situations. A caster who's poor? Pshhawww. I hope they have Eschew. More interesting if they don't though. And caster who was dirty and relentlessly giving will do a lot to undo the fear of casters from the smallfolk.

P.S. Vow of Poverty is fun for no reason other than coming back with a good haul at high levels (30-50K worth of stuff) and sharing the wealth with the smallfolk.

 

[RigaMortus2]

You can always buy a Tower Shield and hide behind it for Total Cover...

Take the Cloak Dance (General) Feat in Expanded Psionics Handbook, and likewise gain Total Cover...

 

[glass]

Vow of Poverty on a caster provides some awesome roleplaying situations. A caster who's poor? Pshhawww. I hope they have Eschew. More interesting if they don't though. And caster who was dirty and relentlessly giving will do a lot to undo the fear of casters from the smallfolk.

Eschew doesn't help: It specifically doesn't affect material components with a gp value, which are the ones a VoP guy is not allowed to have! You need Ignore Spell Component, which is epic.


glass.

 

[Zimbel16]

You can always buy a Tower Shield and hide behind it for Total Cover...

Take the Cloak Dance (General) Feat in Expanded Psionics Handbook, and likewise gain Total Cover...

Except in 3.5 Cloak Dance (from the XPH) is no longer epic, and it grants concealment, not cover.

Cloak Dance [General]

You are skilled at using optical tricks to make yourself seem to be where you are not.
Prerequisites

Hide 10 ranks, Perform (dance) 2 ranks.
Benefit

You can take a move action to obscure your exact position. Until your next turn, you have concealment. Alternatively, you can take a full-round action to entirely obscure your exact position. Until your next action, you have total concealment.

 

[Plot-Device]

Eschew doesn't help: It specifically doesn't affect material components with a gp value, which are the ones a VoP guy is not allowed to have! You need Ignore Spell Component, which is epic.


glass.

Eschew lets you ignore up to 1 GP worth of spell components. So at least then you can crank out a few spells without having to go find a handful of crushed glass yourself. And it suggests in the BoED that you let casters snacrifice XP for GP components if you really need to crank out an identify.