Fixing AC costs

[Basket Burner]

I've seen your numbers. They involved such things as claiming 6-8 to hit was typical at 6. When you were laughed at for this, you fixed the numbers somewhat but given you just said 13 at 10...

You should expect to hits of at least 24, therefore at least 40 AC is required to make AC worthwhile, otherwise just go for miss chances or ignore AC entirely. 35 only blocks at most half, which means you wasted a ton of money and should have just went for miss chances.

Which brings us back to my fix. It hardly does anything at low levels, when you aren't so far behind. At 10, you're at least 10 points behind and likely more, and that gets fixed nicely.

[Prime32]

I don't think Optimisation By The Numbers has been posted here yet. That could be useful.

[Basket Burner]

I don't think Optimisation By The Numbers has been posted here yet. That could be useful.

The problem with that thread is it suffers from misleading averages. Particularly in regards to attack bonuses. The enemies that will never use a physical attack and have lower bonuses on them make the averages for a given level seem misleadingly low. It also only lists BAB, and not attack bonus which is even more misleading. As an exercise, read a D&D forum and have a drink every time someone says a dragon's BAB + Str = their to hit with no other bonuses. You'll be in the ER inside of an hour.

[X-Codes]

You should expect to hits of at least 24, therefore at least 40 AC is required to make AC worthwhile, otherwise just go for miss chances or ignore AC entirely. 35 only blocks at most half, which means you wasted a ton of money and should have just went for miss chances.

Ok, this deserves pointing out...

Blocking half of incoming attacks is just as good as 50% miss chance, and chances are you can get to an AC of 35 more cost-effectively than picking up some method of always-on 50% miss chance.

[JaronK]

I've seen your numbers. They involved such things as claiming 6-8 to hit was typical at 6. When you were laughed at for this, you fixed the numbers somewhat but given you just said 13 at 10...

They weren't my numbers.  Someone else did all of them.  And yes, there's a CR 10 melee that has +13 to hit.  That's the low end.

You should expect to hits of at least 24, therefore at least 40 AC is required to make AC worthwhile, otherwise just go for miss chances or ignore AC entirely. 35 only blocks at most half, which means you wasted a ton of money and should have just went for miss chances.

Let me get this straight.  35 AC, which blocks only half (according to you), is a waste of money... so you should have spent it on miss chances that at best block half?  That makes no sense (unless you spent more than the 50% miss chance cost, which you didn't state).  It IS possible to get 35 AC without spending a huge amount, but it does take work, and perhaps cheese (okay, let's be honest, with cheese you could easily have an AC of 60+ for almost no cost, but most folks wouldn't allow that).

JaronK

[SneeR]

Well, you can stack miss chance together if you get different types, but I don't know how many types can get feasibly...

[X-Codes]

Well, you can stack miss chance together if you get different types, but I don't know how many types can get feasibly...

Attempting to do this via permanent items is prohibitively expensive.

[Basket Burner]

You should expect to hits of at least 24, therefore at least 40 AC is required to make AC worthwhile, otherwise just go for miss chances or ignore AC entirely. 35 only blocks at most half, which means you wasted a ton of money and should have just went for miss chances.

Let me get this straight.  35 AC, which blocks only half (according to you), is a waste of money... so you should have spent it on miss chances that at best block half?  That makes no sense (unless you spent more than the 50% miss chance cost, which you didn't state).  It IS possible to get 35 AC without spending a huge amount, but it does take work, and perhaps cheese (okay, let's be honest, with cheese you could easily have an AC of 60+ for almost no cost, but most folks wouldn't allow that).

JaronK

35 AC blocks at most half. Miss chances will likely do better, for a lower cost. They will also do so more consistently, such as still blocking the things with greater than 24 to hit. Which since 24 is the unbuffed numbers, means quite a few. This also assumes not optimizing the enemies. If you are, their to hits increase by at least 10.

By your own words you only manage 25-30 cheap and then it's 1k a point for a while then 4k a point for a while. Even taking that at face value, you're liable to run out of gold before hitting just that one benchmark.

Regardless, my point was that if you are hit on less than a 16, you should have spent that money on other physical defenses and if hit on much less you shouldn't have bothered at all.

[JaronK]

If you're hit on a 16, then only 25% of incoming attacks succeed.  That's like a 75% miss chance.  You can't get any permanent (read: works when you get surprised, which is the time you're most likely to need those defenses) miss chances that high without spending insane amounts.  So how the heck would getting hit on a 15 (equivalent of a 70% miss chance) be worse than the 50% miss chance you might be able to afford via items?

I mean, I personally said around level 8 you should be looking for defenses other than AC (due to the whole increasing AC costs issue), but I'm not seeing how your logic makes any kind of sense.

JaronK

[spacemonkey555]

35 AC blocks at most half. Miss chances will likely do better, for a lower cost.

Can you let us in on what miss chances you use, and how much they cost?

[Basket Burner]

Mirror Image works. Displacement can if Touch is considered fixed range.

If you get surprised, your AC is lower in most cases. Miss chances still work if up though.

And remember this is 75% vs the lowest numbers you can expect to face. Level 10 to hits range from about 24 to 30 or so if not optimized and up to 40 or so if optimized.

[X-Codes]

Mirror Image works. Displacement can if Touch is considered fixed range.

If you get surprised, your AC is lower in most cases. Miss chances still work if up though.

And remember this is 75% vs the lowest numbers you can expect to face. Level 10 to hits range from about 24 to 30 or so if not optimized and up to 40 or so if optimized.

Mirror Image does not work, it's ablative and extremely easy to counter (Rod-Quickened Manyjaws is easily the best counter, although there are others).  Greater Mirror Image is nice in that it can, potentially, negate an entire full attack, but then Manyjaws.  Displacement is just 50%, no higher, and anything that can get around concealment can get around Displacement.

Also note that 35 would just be a baseline AC.  That would increase while buffed as well.

[JaronK]

Mirror Image runs out of images fast even if you can keep it up, and by RAW Touch spells can't be persisted (without a lot of work of course).  Both as such cost actions after the point where you're aware of the fight (whether you've engaged or not).  In general, a fight where you know what's going to happen in advance and can prep for it knowing exactly when it's going to happen is an easy fight.

Do you know of any other cost efficient defenses that work when you DON'T know in advance what you're facing?  In other words, the traditional "you're in X situation, when suddenly Y creature/creatures attack"?  AC is one of those (yes, it's lower when surprised, though most high AC builds seem to rely on things like armor that do work in those situations).  The Minor Cloak of Displacement (20% miss chance, 24kgp) is another, but obviously nowhere near 70% effectiveness (I'm not going to use made up numbers here... obviously a DM could optimize the creatures as much as they like, but then we're just making up numbers).  The Major Cloak of Displacement gets you to 50%, but it's 50kgp (useful eventually, but I'm not sure it's something I'd want at level 10 unless taking hits was the main thing I did).

And yeah, as X-Codes says... you can buff AC.  Magic Vestment lasts a really long time without DMM Persist sorts of shenanigans (which are needed to make Mirror Image last a significant period of time. 

JaronK

[X-Codes]

Major cloak is also not permanent like the minor.

[snakeman830]

Major cloak is also not permanent like the minor.

Making the Minor the only one that works if you're surprised.  So, we're at 20% and no higher for miss chances.

The best I can see is using a Ring of Entropic Deflection (with a speed-boosting item) and Minor Cloak of Displacement/Gleaming armor ( same net effect), that nets you a 60% miss chance vs. ranged attacks only if you moved 10ft, which is still rather possible in an ambush.  Against melee or if you didn't move the 10ft, you're stuck with only 20% miss chance.

[zugschef]

miss chance works against touch though, which ac in most cases doesn't...

[X-Codes]

miss chance works against touch though, which ac in most cases doesn't...

If you're really trying to boost your AC, then you'll have a number of effects that boost your touch AC, too.  You're just not going to get there with only Full Plate + Shield + Nat Armor.

[zugschef]

miss chance works against touch though, which ac in most cases doesn't...

If you're really trying to boost your AC, then you'll have a number of effects that boost your touch AC, too.  You're just not going to get there with only Full Plate + Shield + Nat Armor.

ok. but that is a major investment. on top of that miss chance works against targeted spells. ac is worthless against spells which don't require attack rolls.

but what am i telling you? you guys know that... i honestly don't get this disussion. ac is worthless after a certain point.

[Jackinthegreen]

The discussion is about the needed AC to be effective at high levels, and how to fix the insane costs of getting it so high.  What's not to get?

For however high a monster's attack is, we need AC to be at least 11 more than that to become effective.  If we say the tarrasque is typical of a CR 20 encounter, then its +57 attack means a character would need in excess of 68 AC to be effective.

[veekie]

miss chance works against touch though, which ac in most cases doesn't...

If you're really trying to boost your AC, then you'll have a number of effects that boost your touch AC, too.  You're just not going to get there with only Full Plate + Shield + Nat Armor.

ok. but that is a major investment. on top of that miss chance works against targeted spells. ac is worthless against spells which don't require attack roles.

but what am i telling you? you guys know that... i honestly don't get this disussion. ac is worthless after a certain point.

The point is that AC is not completely worthless. AC is inefficient to increase after a certain point, which is rather different from worthless. Up until that point, it provides a cheap, large and more importantly passive miss chance for the single most common attack form in the game. 
If you have alternative defenses, the bulk of them take actions to raise and don't last long enough to use while traveling(for the rounds/level types, not even long enough for exploring), which is going to be trouble if you're surprised.

Remember as well, the cloak of displacement(as the 'standard' for permanent miss chances) is 20%=> 4/20. As long as your chance for enemies to hit with the majority of their attacks is less than 4/20, you have a probable case for considering it a gain in cost efficiency, while if you can afford it, stacking both defenses(say you're secondary melee and have a 20% effective AC) gives you an effectively 36% miss chance. If you bought it to the point where half the attacks miss, stacking minor displacement gives you 60% miss.

Obviously its limited, but physical attacks are still the single most common primary attack form for enemies, and the lower accuracy secondary attacks produce enough damage that you still want to stop them.