Looking for some AC help

[orion90000]

Another solution is to have the party wizard cast "reduce person" on you. You become small: gain +1 AC +1 to Hit and still threaten the same area.

Combat Expertise: at your level you can easily gain +5 AC and the penalty is much better than fighting defensively.

Want more... Improved Invisibility. Even more... Heightened Glitterdust/Blindness/etc. Blind creatures die easily and have a hard time hitting you.

Ray of Enfeeblement, Enervation, etc impacts your enemies ability to hit you

Sleep and Hold Monster spells paralyzes enemies altogether.

Just remember, by lowering your enemies ability to hit you, you effectively increase your AC too.

 

[rivers77]

Do you have any bonuses on your armor? Make sure you don't forget to enhance it. Splitting the money across multiple items gives you more bang for your buck.

That +5 buckler you mentioned would cost about 25k. For the same money you can get +4 armor (16k) and a +3 buckler (9k), which is two extra points of bonus. Counting the buckler's own nommagical bonus that would get you to a total AC of 33.

I'm obviously terrible about leaving stuff out. The chain mail is a +2 enchantment and also gives a +2 resistance as well.

I think you're right about getting the most bang for the buck. I could jump from a +2 armor to a +4 and maybe do the +4 shield. That would give me a +7 to AC, which would put me at 32/33. That's not bad at all. I think that works out well.

 

[rivers77]

A +5 Buckler (+6 AC), as noted, is 25k. A +1 Animated heavy shield (+3 AC) is 9k. A +3 animated heavy shield comes out the same, 25k, for +5 AC. One less point, but no feat expenditure. Why don't you think you can get the buckler, but not the animated shield?

I agree with aura, though, you should start enhancing your armor a few points (+2, I'd say). Then get a Dusty Rose Iuon Stone for a +1 Insight bonus to AC. It costs 5000 gp, cheaper than upgrading deflection or natural armor to +2 (2000-->8000, upgrade cost of 6000). Upgrading armor from +2 to +3 is also 5000, but insight applies to touch AC and armor doesn't, so give it priority.

@Valhalla: Fighting Defensively is a minus FOUR to attack, and with tumble ranks is +3 AC. Might be worth it, but most times he probably can't afford the attack penalty.

Very true on the fighting defensive gig. I can't really take a -4 to attack unless my back is against the wall. Right now creatures are hitting me easily, so fighting defensive would only help once I get my AC up more.

Insight bonus? I'll take a look at that one. What other things give you insight bonus?

I also know that the staff of power gives a +2 luck bonus to AC. My character would never use that staff, but obviously there is a luck bonus to AC. Are there any other items out there that give this bonus?

An animated shield starts at a +2 in terms of cost. It wouldn't be bad to have one, because then I wouldn't have to sink a feat in to it and I don't have to take a -1 to my attack roll with my off hand. I don't know. What is the Arcane failure and skill penalty for a medium shield?

 

[rivers77]

Another solution is to have the party wizard cast "reduce person" on you. You become small: gain +1 AC +1 to Hit and still threaten the same area.

Combat Expertise: at your level you can easily gain +5 AC and the penalty is much better than fighting defensively.

Want more... Improved Invisibility. Even more... Heightened Glitterdust/Blindness/etc. Blind creatures die easily and have a hard time hitting you.

Ray of Enfeeblement, Enervation, etc impacts your enemies ability to hit you

Sleep and Hold Monster spells paralyzes enemies altogether.

Just remember, by lowering your enemies ability to hit you, you effectively increase your AC too.

Wow. So many great responses. I'd love to have a ring of improved invisibility. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get my hands on one of them yet.

Because of the story, teleporting is very dangerous in this campaign. There is roughly a 3% per level of the spell (Dimension door, translocation) that you'll miss where your going and if your roll is bad enough, half your body will end up in one location and the other half in another. The percentage is doubled for actual teleport spells (plane shift, teleport, blink).

My use magic device is maxed out, so I love using wands. I happen to have a wand of enervation with an empowered rod. It's saved me one time already.

 

[rivers77]

I'd still recommend getting a good combination of miss chance items instead of +AC items. I'll explain my reasoning:

Let's say you're facing a Young Adult Green Dragon (CR 11), which is a level-appropriate encounter for you. The Dragon has an attack bonus of +22, thus hits you on a roll of 4, meaning it has an 85% chance of hitting you. This obviously sucks.

Now say you have a little more cash those 25,000 gp that were mentioned, say 30,000. You could get your AC up to 34 (+3 armor enchantment: 9,000; +1 insight from ioun stone: 5,000; +3 from +1 animated heavy shield: ~9,000; +1 from increasing NA amulet to +2: 6,000; and 1,000 cash to spare).

The dragon now hits you on a roll of 12. Wow, that's 8 better! The dragon only has a 45% chance to hit you now! Well, we can do better than that.

If you buy a Ring of Blinking instead, which costs 27,000 gp, you'll have a flat 50% miss chance. The dragon in question still has to hit your AC and does so easily (on a 4), but now every hit can still be a miss. In fact, the dragon will have only a 42.5% to hit you! That's right, .85 times .50.

Note that the miss chance granted by Blink applies to touch attacks. It applies to area effects (like said dragon's breath weapon, or a Black Tentacles spell). It applies to targeted spells. It's, generally speaking, very very good.

Also, blinking lets you strike as an invisible creature, meaning auto-sneak attack. You can also walk through walls, or fall through the floor if you need to. And you can effectively engage ethereal opponents if you have to. You also save a little cash. The only drawback is that your attacks will miss 20% as well, but I think that drawback is easily mitigated by the advantages.



Note that miss chances cannot be stacked, but they do apply separately. For example, if you throw in a potion of Blur to the above, the whole gets multiplied by .80 again (dragon now has only 34% to hit you).

This is a really great suggestion on this. I think I'm gonna have to get the insight bonus to AC. I think if I can manage it around 30k I might be okay. I love the ring of blinking. It was the number one item I wanted when I started playing this character, but with teleporting being unreliable in this game world, I end up dead rather quickly. Unfortunate, because my natural personality is to do things myself and I hate relying on a flank. I've been successful at finding other ways to produce the sneak attack, but the ring of blinking would be awesome. I think the ring of greater invisibility will do the trick though, but I can't see that happening any time soon.

I think my safest bet then is to get a blur item or greater displacement. I bet I can make the item permanent rather than just a few times a day. Thanks for the advice on this one.

 

[Empirate]

Blink is not a teleportation spell. In fact, it's not even a Conjuration spell (it's Transmutation), and teleportation is a subschool of Conjuration!

Blink only makes you go ethereal part of the time, and since the Ethereal Plane is coterminous with the Prime Material, you don't really go anywhere. You just go "out of phase" with normal matter and "in phase" with ethereal matter, then back, very quickly. It's much more about changing your 'aggregate state' than about going anywhere.

Run that idea past your DM and think about the Ring of Blinking again.

 

[lordxaviar]

Hey everyone,
Human Rogue 4 Swashbuckler 3 Fighter 2 Assassin 2 (I'd like to finish out levels in assassin based on the style of the character, but I'm willing to bend if there is a brilliant idea out there)

Stats:
Str 18 (w/ +4 belt)
Dex 19 (w/ +2 gloves)
Con 14
Int 20 (w/ +4 Ioun Stone)
Wis 12
Cha 16

AC items:
+1 Natural armor amulet
+3 Deflection cloak
+2 Mithiril Chain Mail that acts as light armor and adds up to +6 dex
+1 Dodge bonus from Swashbuckler (against 1 foe)

Sorry to point out the obvious but Rings? Ring of protection +5 and Force shield will give a +2 there is 7 more...
couple more ioun stones (query the +4 stone did you mean 2 +2 stones?)
if not then get a +4 dex stone too and a +4 ac stone.
If however that is a +4 stone, which means your outside the confines of the DMG... I can think of more.. an anklet of protection, boots of protection, Helm or circlet of protection, earring of protection.
Have the chain remade and increase the protection. I mean its only money!

 

[Empirate]

<snip> I mean its only money!

No PC that's in a campaign right now will have infinity money lying around. "Only money" is one of two primary resources PCs go adventuring for (the other being XP). You seem to forget the pragmatic value of money, as well as its relative scarcity in most real game situation.

Also, if the OP's PC had enough money to afford a +5 Ring of Protection and a Ring of Force Shield, he'd have plenty options to get better bang for his buck, anyway.

 

[rivers77]

Sorry to point out the obvious but Rings? Ring of protection +5 and Force shield will give a +2 there is 7 more...
couple more ioun stones (query the +4 stone did you mean 2 +2 stones?)
if not then get a +4 dex stone too and a +4 ac stone.
If however that is a +4 stone, which means your outside the confines of the DMG... I can think of more.. an anklet of protection, boots of protection, Helm or circlet of protection, earring of protection.
Have the chain remade and increase the protection. I mean its only money!

Right now I have a +3 cloak of protection. Getting my hands on a +5 ring of protection does me little good. I could upgrade what I have, but the deflection to AC stuff gets REAL expensive.

I currently have gloves of 2 dex. They don't stack, so I'd have to get a higher dex item, but those get pricey as well. The important thing is to make sure the bonuses stack.

I'll definitely look in to the force shield thing. I didn't know about that one.

 

[rivers77]

Blink is not a teleportation spell. In fact, it's not even a Conjuration spell (it's Transmutation), and teleportation is a subschool of Conjuration!

Blink only makes you go ethereal part of the time, and since the Ethereal Plane is coterminous with the Prime Material, you don't really go anywhere. You just go "out of phase" with normal matter and "in phase" with ethereal matter, then back, very quickly. It's much more about changing your 'aggregate state' than about going anywhere.

Run that idea past your DM and think about the Ring of Blinking again.

If that works I am all over that one. That would rock! I'll run that by him and see what he says. The explanation sounds good and I just did a little research and it seems true what you're saying.

The shadow plane would fall in to the same category then, right?