Whats a reasonable AC at 10th level?

[Rystil Arden]

In my experience even with an AC of character level + 20 you'll get hit pretty regularly. It is somewhat dependent on the enemies you encounter, e.g. it gets worse if you often encounter giants or advance creatures. The latter are especially bad - the CR increase doesn't accurately reflect the increased combat capability, imho.

Without good buffs and/or natural armor there's simply no way to get an armor class that will really make you 'hard to hit'. BUT: It does help to reduce taking insane amounts of damage from power-attacking 2h weapon wielders.

I dunno--26 does pretty well for me in Shackled City at level 5. The only things that can reliably hit are the big bosses--the mooks often can only hit on a 20.

 

[shilsen]

I dunno--26 does pretty well for me in Shackled City at level 5. The only things that can reliably hit are the big bosses--the mooks often can only hit on a 20.

That's close to what Jhaelen said - that it is somewhat dependent on the creatures you encounter.

Also, one presumes DMs will adapt somewhat to the PCs. A 5th lvl PC with 26 AC is pretty well-optimized for AC, I'd say, so having optimized mooks (no, that's not an oxymoron) would make sense. A CR2 orc barbarian made with just the core rules, for example, could be attacking at something like a +11 unbuffed. Throw in flanking and a Bull's Strength potion and he's hitting a 26 AC half of the time.

 

[lottrbacchus]

My AC consists of 10 +5 armour (+1 mithril shirt) +3 shield (+1 darkwood heavy shield) +1 natural (amulet of natural armour) +3 deflection (ring of protection +3) +2 insight (binder class feature) +6 Dex (starting Dex 14 [32 point buy], +2 racial, +2 enhancement [gloves of Dex], +4 unnamed bonus from vestige [Paimon]) = 30

originally misread the post, so started to reply so might as well reply!

looks good from here. none of the magic items are too powerful, 22 dex is reasonable, and class features are class features.

 

[Rystil Arden]

That's close to what Jhaelen said - that it is somewhat dependent on the creatures you encounter.

Also, one presumes DMs will adapt somewhat to the PCs. A 5th lvl PC with 26 AC is pretty well-optimized for AC, I'd say, so having optimized mooks (no, that's not an oxymoron) would make sense. A CR2 orc barbarian made with just the core rules, for example, could be attacking at something like a +11 unbuffed. Throw in flanking and a Bull's Strength potion and he's hitting a 26 AC half of the time.

26 wasn't really quite optimised--if I had wanted to optimise her more, I'd probably have rearranged a few things and wound up with 10 + 8 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 28 (unbuffed) for about the same price and still without investing anything more than a bit of cash on AC.

The key was that she was a halfling and thus got a size bonus, and she had Craft Wondrous so she was making Amulets of Natural Armour for half (and other things).

Anyway, it wasn't worth the GM's while to hit Alcyone--she was never doing anything too dangerous. Her main goal of an encounter was to trick the enemy into attacking her. For instance, when we fought a gnoll heucuva, her most important trick was insulting Erythnul and then taking credit for the invisible gnome who was out of spells and thus snuck past and smashed up / defecated on the heucuva's evil shrine. That made him so mad that he kept trying to hit her, both himself and his minions.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

My rule of thumb is level +15 till 5th level, Levle plus 20 till 10th level and then level +25 thereafter.

And yes, it is really hard to get there, but that AC will actually cause enemies to occasionally miss with the first attack amd miss a lot with secondary attacks.

 

[Cheiromancer]

These numbers all seem terribly high. I can see level + 20 for tanks - heavily armored clerics and fighters, say. But what about the rogues and swashbucklers and such? (Or daring outlaw rogue/swashbucklers!) Do they have to spend all their wealth on AC buffs just to be considered "fair"?

Take the following build- is it sub-par because of its mediocre AC?

Human skill monkey/TWF flanker
Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 10 (32 points, level ups to Dex)

1. Rogue 1 - TWF, Combat Reflexes
2. Swashbuckler 1 - Finesse (bonus)
3. Rogue 2 - Vexing Flanker (PHBII: +4 when flanking)
4. Swashbuckler 2
5. Rogue 3
6. Swashbuckler 3 - Daring Outlaw (Complete Scoundrel)

With Daring Outlaw the character gets a +1 Dodge Bonus and another 1d6 Sneak Attack damage. The concept is that the character will be the usual skill monkey - search, open locks, and so on. But not be completely useless in combat; TWF and full sneak attack with a +4 flanking bonus.

Equipment: 13,000 gp.
Base AC is 10 + 3 (Dex) = 13.
A +1 mithral shirt costs 2,100 for a +5 AC. Gloves of dexterity would cost 4000 for a +1 to AC, an amulet of natural armor would be 2000 for another +1. A ring of protection +1 for another +1 AC (and another 2000 gp). So that's AC 21 for a total cost of 10,100 gp. Over 75% of his wealth and he doesn't even have a magic weapon. Let alone any of those cool items in the MIC. Even if you only count half the gloves, it is still 62% of his equipment spent just on boosting AC.

Now I look at the list of recommended ACs and it looks like he's mediocre at best. 3 or 4 points below what the median AC should be, at least according to the posters. And I'm thinking that maybe I should retire the TWF/vexing flanker concept- this is more than I want to spend on AC boosters anyway!

Or are these criteria (15 + level x 1.5, etc.) just rules of thumb for tanks?

 

[Dragon Snack]

Odd as at best the Ogre Mage has +12 Attack.

+7 normal Ogre Mage, +3 BAB from Warlock 4 levels, +2 from fighter (I guess) = +12

So unless he's got some True Strike or funky magic weapons, a heap of extra class levels the DM didn't mention, or DM fudge he should only be hitting AC 33 on natural 20.

Of course Touch Attack his AC will be much worse so if he died from lots of Eldrich Blasts, fair enough.

OK, since 2 people have replied and since I was the one on the other side of the screen...

Spoilers (you may face him again, Jhulae)...

Half Dragon Ogre (Blue Dragon, never used his Breath Weapon, so Jhulae thinking he was an Ogre Mage is reasonable) Warlock 4

+17 to hit...

+12 Strength bonus: 14 Strength +8 Ogre +10 Half Dragon +1 4 Giant HD +1 4 Warlock HD= 34 Strength

+6 BAB: +3 Giant, +3 Warlock

-1 size

Additionally, Jhulae is giving the best case scenario for the Rogues AC. When he was struck down by the HDOW, he was not taking a full defense and didn't have 2 weapons out (Two Weapon Defense), so he was around a 25 (I seem to remember he was actually around a 22 for some reason, but I can't recall why it was so 'low' since this encounter was over a month ago).

Jhulae is also confusing who the HDOW power attacked. He Power Attacked the Cleric, whose AC was not as high and who was prone at the time. His normal attack was bad enough for the Rogue, who had HP "issues" (the players words, not mine).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled AC discussion...

30 is pretty good, but not that insane. I don't have a hard time hitting my group and they like to pump up the AC (and since that's the way I play also, they tend to find AC boosting stuff on the bad guys) and I haven't gone out of my way to find stuff that can still hit them (the HDOW was actually meant to be a damage dealer to go toe to toe with the party's 150 HP Barbarian, who ended up being too far away to matter).

 

[Rystil Arden]

These numbers all seem terribly high. I can see level + 20 for tanks - heavily armored clerics and fighters, say. But what about the rogues and swashbucklers and such? (Or daring outlaw rogue/swashbucklers!) Do they have to spend all their wealth on AC buffs just to be considered "fair"?

Take the following build- is it sub-par because of its mediocre AC?

Human skill monkey/TWF flanker
Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 10 (32 points, level ups to Dex)

1. Rogue 1 - TWF, Combat Reflexes
2. Swashbuckler 1 - Finesse (bonus)
3. Rogue 2 - Vexing Flanker (PHBII: +4 when flanking)
4. Swashbuckler 2
5. Rogue 3
6. Swashbuckler 3 - Daring Outlaw (Complete Scoundrel)

With Daring Outlaw the character gets a +1 Dodge Bonus and another 1d6 Sneak Attack damage. The concept is that the character will be the usual skill monkey - search, open locks, and so on. But not be completely useless in combat; TWF and full sneak attack with a +4 flanking bonus.

Equipment: 13,000 gp.
Base AC is 10 + 3 (Dex) = 13.
A +1 mithral shirt costs 2,100 for a +5 AC. Gloves of dexterity would cost 4000 for a +1 to AC, an amulet of natural armor would be 2000 for another +1. A ring of protection +1 for another +1 AC (and another 2000 gp). So that's AC 21 for a total cost of 10,100 gp. Over 75% of his wealth and he doesn't even have a magic weapon. Let alone any of those cool items in the MIC. Even if you only count half the gloves, it is still 62% of his equipment spent just on boosting AC.

Now I look at the list of recommended ACs and it looks like he's mediocre at best. 3 or 4 points below what the median AC should be, at least according to the posters. And I'm thinking that maybe I should retire the TWF/vexing flanker concept- this is more than I want to spend on AC boosters anyway!

Or are these criteria (15 + level x 1.5, etc.) just rules of thumb for tanks?

~20-21 is what most of the rest of my party has at level 6. It's about median and okay for a skirmisher, but it won't do for a tank (or at least our Ranger 'tank' hurts for his AC, exactly 21 like your guy)

 

[notjer]

I feel like my level 9 ranger drow with 23 ac is pretty much an underdog against all the ac boosted characters here?

I looked into my Dungeon Master Guide and found examples of NPC characters from level 1-20. (DMG page 113-126).

Level 10 NPC characters ac:
Barbarian: 20
Bard: 15
Cleric: 22
Druid: 21
Fighter: 24
Monk: 20
Paladin: 22
Ranger: 18
Rogue: 19
Sorcere: 15
Wizard: 15

They have the CR 10 each of them. Yes, the casters problably got some more in battles, but it takes a round or two to get buffed.

I would say that my drow ranger with a mithral +1, mithral bucklers, +1 amulet, and +5 dex have a very high ac. But the vast majority got characters with ac which can be compared with level 20 NPC.

I would say same AC as the npc's or a point higher is a reasonable.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I feel like my level 9 ranger drow with 23 ac is pretty much an underdog against all the ac boosted characters here?

I looked into my Dungeon Master Guide and found examples of NPC characters from level 1-20. (DMG page 113-126).

Level 10 NPC characters ac:
Barbarian: 20
Bard: 15
Cleric: 22
Druid: 21
Fighter: 24
Monk: 20
Paladin: 22
Ranger: 18
Rogue: 19
Sorcere: 15
Wizard: 15

They have the CR 10 each of them. Yes, the casters problably got some more in battles, but it takes a round or two to get buffed.

I would say that my drow ranger with a mithral +1, mithral bucklers, +1 amulet, and +5 dex have a very high ac. But the vast majority got characters with ac which can be compared with level 20 NPC.

I would say same AC as the npc's or a point higher is a reasonable.

The NPCs are supposed to suck, remember? They have much lower equipment than a normal PC. A "9 Ranger Drow" is ECL 11. 23 is not high for that level--in fact, 23 is reasonably attainable by level 2 or 3 with Full Plate and a Shield.