Whats a reasonable AC at 10th level?

[Gerion of Mercadia]

The benchmark you want to shoot for is approximately 20 + character level;
For Epic campaigns, the target is 40 + Epic BAB of a character of your level;

Reason being:

A Fighter has A BAB of +1/level

Its a function of powergaming - at first level, an average fighter build has a +5. An Excellent build can get a +10. (Half orc barbarian, 20 str, +1 BAB, Weapon Focus, Rage, MW weapon) The last item may not very well show up until the second or third adventure, but +9 or +10 is just an example

With a couple of very low level buff spells and or circumstances (elevation and charging come to mind) you can "push the envelope" to as high as a +15, especially if the DM is allowing non-standard +0 Races.

Your AC improvements just have to "keep pace" with the Warrior element BAB.

 

[Wish]

AC 30 is pretty good, but not out of line for a 10th level character devoting significant resources to defense. Thinking about my stable of currently played characters, it's about in line.

 

[Hypersmurf]

As a very rough rule of thumb, a monster's attack bonus seems to be about CRx2.

Some are a couple of points lower or higher, and if a lot of their CR comes from weird magical effects (Gibbering Mouther is an example) it might be well off, but it's not a bad benchmark.

So as a general rule, if your AC is 10 plus twice your level, you can expect to get hit by about 50% of primary attacks, 25% of secondary attacks, from CR-appropriate monsters.

Very roughly.

-Hyp.

 

[Jhulae]

As a very rough rule of thumb, a monster's attack bonus seems to be about CRx2.

Some are a couple of points lower or higher, and if a lot of their CR comes from weird magical effects (Gibbering Mouther is an example) it might be well off, but it's not a bad benchmark.

So as a general rule, if your AC is 10 plus twice your level, you can expect to get hit by about 50% of primary attacks, 25% of secondary attacks, from CR-appropriate monsters.

Very roughly.

-Hyp.

Just in our game the other day, one of our 9th level party members with a 33 AC (on full defense) was getting mauled (and ended up dying) by the BBEG (an ogre mage with about 6 class levels, 4 of which were Warlock levels). And the BBEG power attacked at least once that I recall and still hit him (not on a natural 20)..

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

At 10th level we find that there is very little difference between having an AC of 10 and an AC of 26 (case in point last week - the fighter switched on full expertise and fighting defensively which raised his AC to 26 and the creature rolled a 2 and hit with its mighty +27 bonus.

Unless you fear power attack from a creature, in most cases in our adventures it seems that creatures of appropriate CR range can hit almost any AC equally easily. Some tanks started to forego their armour to get the extra bit of speed since they found their armour was making precious little difference!

My experience is slightly different. My 9th level Paladin (AC ~25) simply expects to be hit by the big guys, although once in a while I will get a lucky miss from a third iterative attack.

The mooks have trouble hitting me. As the DM for that PC prefers 1-2 big guys and a scattering of mooks, the AC does make a difference on how healthy I am when the big showdown starts.

I would guess that your DM prefers 1-2 creatures only. In that case, yeah, you will need something in the neighborhood of AC 30 to start seeing many misses.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Well, just from gear you've listed here, you're about 9,000 gp over the Gear By Level table in the DMG. (And I imagine you have more gear you haven't mentioned here.)

I consider an AC of 30 at 10th level to be on the high side, and if I were your DM I'd begin taking steps to cut back awarded treasure. (That's assuming your DM and other players don't want a higher-magic game, of course. But since you posted here, I'm assuming you wanted opinions based on "standard" games.)

For comparison, my 9th level dwarven cleric has an AC of 26, but he's also got Craft Magic Arms and Armor, making it fairly cheap for him to push it higher than the rest of the group.)

 

[Machiavelli]

I'm playing a ranger/barbarian archer with an AC of 17 at 6th level. He was just involved in an encounter against a CR 14 dragon (it was ridiculous luck... we weren't supposed to wake it up, or at least not survive it if we did), so should I just spend my share of the loot and my new level-up to boost my AC?

 

[Doug McCrae]

My PC had a normal AC of 30 at 10th level, 38 buffed.

Drider, dex 18, wis 18.

AC 10 -1 (large size) +5 (Monk's belt) +4 (dex) +6 (natural armor) +1 (ring of protection) +1 (amulet of natural armor) +4 (mage armor) = 30 normal.

Shield, haste and barkskin add another +8 for 38 buffed.

My AC was the second lowest in a party of four.

 

[Bagpuss]

He is a barbarian/fighter (so no heavy armour)

As I said before it's his own fault then. If you are a barbarian then you are dependent on your hit points and DR for protection, not AC.

and is in the midst of the worlds largest dungeon, so you don't have any ability to choose what magic items you can get, you're limited to what you find!

Well that's up to what the DM gives you really. But he's made it clear from his class section he isn't interested in a decent AC.

Furthermore, just Core rules + PHB in play so no fancy bonuses from other classes or prestige classes or feats. Shouldn't be a problem (in theory) because we're fighting MM1 monsters, after all.

You can get the same sort of AC with a core fighter (use a tower shield instead) you can certainly get much better than what he has without much effort. Besides the PHBII is hardly fancy.

 

[Bagpuss]

Just in our game the other day, one of our 9th level party members with a 33 AC (on full defense) was getting mauled (and ended up dying) by the BBEG (an ogre mage with about 6 class levels, 4 of which were Warlock levels). And the BBEG power attacked at least once that I recall and still hit him (not on a natural 20)..

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.