What is the AC of your 20th level character?

[Aust Diamondew]

No, no, no! Armor Class is your friend, always there for hanging out and having your back whenever needed. Miss Chance is the late night booty call, who isn't needed or available all the time, but great when she delivers.

Here endeth the lesson

Unfortuantely at high levels AC might only deliver 5% of the time against high hit dice/strength foes.

 

[Caliban]

Unfortuantely at high levels AC might only deliver 5% of the time against high hit dice/strength foes.

Don't be a one trick pony. An optimized AC is an effective defense against most melee foes, but not against heavy arcane, or against those really big meat machines.

A lot of hit points, DR, and a good offense give you other options. And hopefully you aren't facing it by yourself.

 

[shilsen]

Unfortuantely at high levels AC might only deliver 5% of the time against high hit dice/strength foes.

I've always figured that the role of AC at high levels is not to block the first attack of melee-oriented foes, but to block iterative attacks. For that role, AC works fine at high levels. The higher HP one has at high levels is meant to let you take some of those primary shots. At least that's the way I see it.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Generally 41 to 45.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

My Bladesinger had an AC around 46-50 at 20th level.

By 27th though, I could pull off AC 95, and I was still getting hit about half the time.
I had a bit of nonstandard equipment, mostly what I could make myself, plus pit fiend shapechanging, defending sword and comat expertise. My touch AC was so high that things stopped trying to shoot rays and orbs at me. Then there was my ring of spell turning...

Our gnome fighter/illusionist had around AC 75, doing the same tricks as me, but he was a damage dealer. I would put out about 300 hit points per round, and he was doing 450+ easy.

 

[Bill Muench]

Don't be a one trick pony. An optimized AC is an effective defense against most melee foes, but not against heavy arcane, or against those really big meat machines.

A lot of hit points, DR, and a good offense give you other options. And hopefully you aren't facing it by yourself.

Yep. A minor cloak of displacement is a very, very good investment also. Mine has paid off in spades. Still no DR for my thug other than stoneskin, and I don't see that changing. But I also don't seem to really need it, so I'm good with that.

Touching on Caliban's comment about not facing it by yourself, I can't agree more. While I'm all about being self-sufficient (for example, most of my AC bonuses are from items rather than spells, and when they are from spells I've bought Pearls of Power to cover the spell slots required), teamwork can make up for a lot or just make two characters more than the sum of their parts. I play a fair amount with a high level druid and we work together really, really well. He provides me with a few buffs and support in combat, and I make sure that the bad guys don't get close to him unless he wants them to.

Some fun tricks:

The Half-Orc Delivery System: Half-orc with big sword delays. Caster summons an air elemental. Air elemental whirlwinds and goes around picking up the bad guys and the half-orc, who voluntarily fails his save to get picked up. Takes a little damage, but he's a Man(tm), so he doesn't complain. Air elemental goes somewhere and drops them all. Half-orc ends delay and commences the slaughter, great cleaving into all the enemies who are now around him.

The Wall of Half-Orc Pain: Prior to combat, Druid casts freedom of movement on half-orc. During combat, druid drops a wall of thorns on bad guys. Half-orc spring attacks into the wall of thorns, hits bad guy, spring attacks out. Rinse and repeat.

The Exploding Half-Orc: Druid casts resist energy: fire on half-orc prior to combat. Druid casts fire seeds: holly berry bombs and gives them to half-orc. Half-orc gets into a fight and is busy hacking away when the druid, safe in the back of the action, says the command word and the holly berries explode, doing massive damage to anyone within 5 feet of the half-orc. The half-orc is fine thanks to the energy resistance.

Anyways, just some ramblings on this Christmas morning.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I've always figured that the role of AC at high levels is not to block the first attack of melee-oriented foes, but to block iterative attacks. For that role, AC works fine at high levels. The higher HP one has at high levels is meant to let you take some of those primary shots. At least that's the way I see it.

Very true. High AC also stops foes from power attacking like there's no tommorow.

 

[Wish]

Extrapolating a bit (currently 16th and 17th level characters), I expect the light fighter ranger/rogue type to be between 35 and 38 AC at 20th level. The wizard probably won't improve much more from where he is now, maybe getting to 24.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Hrm...it's been a while since I had a character hit 20th.

The last character who got close to 20th was Iskander, my anthropomorphic tiger kensai/blade dancer:

Armor 10 (+5 mithral celestial armor)
Natural Armor 1
Dexterity 10
Deflection 5

So, around 36. I don't remember it being that low, so I may be forgetting a few things. I do know that towards the end of the game, I was going to switch out the mithral celestial armor for a Periapt of Wisdom, a Monk's Belt, and a Bracers of Armor, and put his already-high Wis to use jacking up his AC (another 5 points or so, easily).

His speed was high enough that he could typically do a decently long Spring Attack; one session, he jumped off the roof of a building, bounced off the building across the street, and hacked a chunk out of the giant in the street on the return trip. Unfortunately, the rest of the party lacked his mobility.

Brad

 

[crystal]

I am 21 st level and my ac is 23......