Dealing with a sorceror with insane AC (3.0e)

[Mortanis]

So, the sorceror in the party spent a while digging through his spells, and landed on mage armor and shield as his two new favorites. I don't see any reason they wouldn't stack, as the Shield spell creates a wall of force, but with the 4 from mage armor and 7 from shield, his effective AC is usually 30. It makes it nearly impossible to hit him without drastically upping the creatures that are fighting the party, and seriously messing them over as well. The sorceror in question is level 4 (he may have levelled to 5 last night, i don't quite recall)

Obviously i'll have to work some other options in - touch attacks, grapple, etc, but normal melee and missile attacks are going to be rather impervious (even if a creature rolled a 19, it'd need a +11 to hit him)

Ideas?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Two words:

Dispel Magic

 

[DanMcS]

His armor class is 19 /before/ the spells? At 4th level? Impressive. How?

3.0 shield is directional. If two people flank him, his armor class is good versus one, and much lower versus the other. A couple of low-level rogues will ruin his day. As will a strong guy who grabs ahold of him and breaks him, or someone who trips him and kicks sand in his face, or a guy with a net, or any area effect spell, whatever.

 

[Hardhead]

In 3.0, I had a sorceror that did this:

14 DEX + Empowered Cat's Grace (cast until you roll a 3, make your DEX 20 or 21).

Empower Eagle's Splendor (18 CHA +2 from levels +6 enhancement = 26). Couple that with Ghostform from Tome & Blood (which gave you a 50% miss chance and a deflection bonus equal to your CHA mod).

Dragonskin, (not WotC, admitedly, but from Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might, which gave a +4 Natural Armor bonus, and lasted for 10 mins/level).

Mage Amor.

Shield.

Small size.

AC = 39.

Add in an animated shield, and it goes up to 42. If you want to just use WotC sources, and not use Dragonskin, it drops back down to 39, but still withing the "insanely high for a mid-level character" category.

 

[jgsugden]

Remember that mage armor and real armor don't stack, regardless of edition.

I suggest switching to 3.5 versions of the shield spell. It is a better balanced spell.

19 AC before shield/mage armor at 4th level? Maybe a halfling wizard ....

+7 from dexterity (20 dexterity + cat's grace)
+1 from size
+1 deflection or natural armor (ring)

If the character has focused on defense that much, there is nothing wrong with him being virtually unhittable. It is what he is focused on doing ....

 

[Mortanis]

I'm going to double check his numbers in tonights gaming session. He's a competent gamer, so i didn't think to question him, and isn't the type prone to lying.

However, I cannot find anything in the Mage Armor description that says it doesn't stack with real armor. The description says it's just a force around the body. It doesn't explicitly state it can't be used over exisiting armor. What am i missing here?

 

[Gizzard]

However, I cannot find anything in the Mage Armor description that says it doesn't stack with real armor.

They both provide bonuses of type "Armor". And bonuses of the same type don't stack. There's a cool thing on the wizards boards about this; I think its called "Rules of the Game: Stacking"; check it out for more detail than you ever wanted.

Also, even under 3.0E I believe the Shield spell was errata'ed because it was so nuts at +7. There should be a D&D Errata for the 3E PHB on the wizards site as well.

 

[Mortanis]

That might explain it. I didn't realize that "armor" could be considered a "type" in the case of stacking. Deflection, yes, but armor itself, no.

Gonna go hit that up then. Thanks.

 

[beaver1024]

Why don't you try touch attack type spells and effects? ie grapple, inflict wounds, harm, ghoul touch etc etc.

 

[Mortanis]

there it is. Yeah.. "armor bonus". I should have keyed on that one. Thanks for the heads up.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040127a for the link in question.

You can only grapple and touch attack so many times before things get a tad overdone. With this, things are different. Thanks all.