Help with cleric AC

[Mitx]

Ive got a lvl 31 melee cleric now, but his ac is only 54 fully buffed, wich is not enough to survive most any melee PvP and and most planar battles, especially at dwarf plane, I am usually the first to die.

Im looking for any suggestions on how to make cleric with ac high enough to be able to survive in the planes.

My cleric wears full plate mail with a +5 bonus, ice ammy, gold mith boots, Dwarf fire proof shield,and Crown of Alzaara.

I also have maxed tumble(thx to bard lvls) and armor skin.

Any suggestions on improving my cleric or on making another cleric build with higher ac are appreciated.


Mike Mitx{FoN}

[Mr. O'Dearly]

I assume you're making your cleric in NC.

If so, i can think of a couple options
1. cheese it up with monk lvls and go unarmored. Youd probably end up doing less damage, depending on how your cleric is set up now, but your ac will be higher from dex and wis bonuses.

2. if you want to keep the heavy armor and stay strength based, id say the best option is to use a subrace. You have to have more patience to deal with the ecl but you get used to it. Earth genasi will give you a little boost to natural ac and some nice dr.

also if you go with the monk cheese, githzerai is a good choice. note that the ac bonus on githerzerai was changed to dodge so it will stack with everthing.

you may also want to consider taking trickery domain for the improved invisiblity. 50% miss chance is always nice. remember that ac isnt everything. my shifter can get into the high 70's maybe 80's, depending on buffs, and still gets hit.

other than that, i dont think there are many options...

... unless someone else has any other ideas

oh, and one more thing, you can completely sacrifice your ab and take improved expertise for +10ac -10ab.

[Mitx]

Thanks for the reply

Was thinking about maybe rebuilding him, with a different subrace like you said. And also maybe using monk instead of bard, but i would not be able to use taunt then with out cross classing, wich always seemed like a waste of skill points to me.

His current subrace is aaismar, but earth gensai sounds good, with all the damage reduction they end up getting in additon to a ac bonus. Since I am aaismar, im already used to the ecl.

For domains i took travel and knowledge.
The reason for knowledge was knock and legend lore, but i wish i had taken trickery instead.

Oh yea, my cleric is Part of NC, and at this point i cant multiclass monk cuz i already got 3 classes (Cleric/ranger/bard)

When i originally designed this build, i mainly focused on ab, not realizing i would be comming up short in ac.

Thanks again for the reply.

[kgb]

My cleric does ok on some of the planes and so far can solo ok. Only has AC 49. Improved invis is very useful without it i notice it doesnt matter what my AC is i get hit regardless of whether my ac drops to 44 as to when it is higher with shield. it buys me time lol.

Of course your pet helps if it can tank Haven't been to dwarves. What's your CON like?

Get yourself a Imbued Mithril Helm with Legend Lore and you're set. I have no problem in ID most items including planar stuff and i have hardly dumped any points into lore.

You definitely need a couple of resist types on planes so going monk is gonna hurt without some help through good damage to shorten fights, using impr knockdown etc.

Evasion is also a key to reducing the amount of elemental damage you take which cannot be stopped by dmg resist. So take monk over bards.

[Binkyuk]

If you don't have trickery domain you can get a similar effect (better in some ways) with a lot more effort by casting UV (on everyone...) and Extended Darkness.
Some enemies will cast UV themselves though, so it may not work brilliantly everywhere.

[P. Fricebottle]

Holy crap you scared the crap out of me with that pic. I thought "did someone log onto my account, or did I do something last night I can't remember?" I really should look at the names .

I have a level 30 cleric who only has an AC of 44, but thanks to Duergar Invisibility he only died once in the Dwarf Plane last night. My friends all died at least twice.

[Amoenotep]

can't clerics get divine might/shield? if you buff your cha up these will help your ac/damage output

[Kirg]

Yes, and usually melee or battle clerics use that. Their wisdom isnt as high as usual, instead they have decent charisma bonus.
Adding some paladin or bard into that build, wouldn't hurt either. Never tried it with Sorcerer, although it would be interesting: a new form of bladesinger.

[Mitx]

Thanks for the suggestions

Sounds like I really should have taken trickery domain, because it seems like improved invis is the key to surviving in the planes, if u dont got high enough ac.

Kirg wrote:

Their wisdom isnt as high as usual, instead they have decent charisma bonus.

Not true for my cleric even with aaismar boost to charisma my base charisma is only 10, As soon as I reached 19 wisdom i started dumping the rest into stregnth. Sounds like I should have put more points in charisma to take advantage of divine might/shield.

Binkyuk Wrote:

If you don't have trickery domain you can get a similar effect (better in some ways) with a lot more effort by casting UV (on everyone...) and Extended Darkness.
Some enemies will cast UV themselves though, so it may not work brilliantly everywhere.

This would work for me except for I chose aaismar as a subrace (darkness always blinds me, even if i got UV)

kgb wrote:

Of course your pet helps if it can tank Haven't been to dwarves. What's your CON like?

Get yourself a Imbued Mithril Helm with Legend Lore and you're set. I have no problem in ID most items including planar stuff and i have hardly dumped any points into lore.

My solar is not much of a tank when its put up against dwarves in the planes. Its got 44 ac and about 550 hp. And in some battles in the dwarf plane their are swarms of like 10 or more dwarves trying to attack you (Carousing halls). Sure i blind them with WoF but they are still able to hit me easily and I was in a party with two Druid/shifters with dragonshape.
I died twice in that battle where they were not even dropped to half hp.

My base con is 14, but i cast empowered edurance, gets it up to about 24 on average(including items).

Yea as soon as i had found one of those legend lore helms, and as soon as I did I wished I had taken a different domain.


Well it seems like I'll have to rebuild him if I want to make him more survivable in the planes.....

[Mr. O'Dearly]

Yea as soon as i had found one of those legend lore helms, and as soon as I did I wished I had taken a different domain.

wait till ya find out you can even buy them in the planar shop.
Oh wait, you just did!!!