Maximum Allowed Defenses?

[SixWingedAsura]

Hey all, Fledgling DM (and D&D player I suppose). I'm making a summon based artificer using the offline Wizard's Character Builder and I seemed to have run into a bit of a snag.

See, I'm putting a lot into my defenses so I can summon neigh-indestructable constructs and so at level 16 I happened to have 27 Will. I decided to take an 11th level feat that would add +2 to that.

But for some odd reason, it only added 1 onto it instead. This occured with Reflex as well.

So I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there a maximum allowed defense that certain classes, races, whatever are allowed to have?

 

[Aulirophile]

Bonuses of the same type don't stack. Odds are you have a "+1 Feat Bonus to F/R/W" and you took a feat that is "+2 Feat Bonus to Will". Since they don't stack, your Will went up by 1.

Carefully read your +defense things and see what kind of bonus they apply. Some bonuses don't specify, those are untyped and will stack with anything, unless it is from the same named game element (so a feat you were allowed to take twice that gave +2 to F/R/W would only give that once. No such feat exists, but as an example).

 

[Colmarr]

Check the sources of your bonuses. If two of them have the same type (eg "item bonus" or "feat bonus") they won't stack and you will only get the higher of the two.

Given that it's a feat that lost a point of bonus, you probably have two feats that both provide feat bonuses.

 

[SixWingedAsura]

So would it be better to take all of them separately, or should I simply go for the +1 to all and go with other feats?

 

[Colmarr]

So would it be better to take all of them separately, or should I simply go for the +1 to all and go with other feats?

It depends on your design goals for the character.

If defences are that important to you, you might be willing to spend 3 feats on each of +2 Fort, +2 Ref and +2 will.

If it's only really one or two defences that you want to boost, you might take one or two of the +2 feats.

Alternatively, you might take the +1 F/R/W feat and use your other feats for something else.

Like most of the decisions you will make when designing your character, it's all about opportunity costs: Is taking A, B and C worth not being able to take X, Y and Z.