AC - how low can you get? *** possible spoilers reg. items ***

[Chade Fallstar]

I'm beginnig to start a new multiplayer game with 2 char's. The otherone being 'the cheese' and the other one being a guy with lowest possible AC I can get. This is what I was thinking.

Swashbuckler 11th => Cleric 20th?

Base AC -4 (Drow Fullplate +5)
Swashbuckler kit bonus +3 (AC -7)
Dex 18(AC -11)
2x Ring Of Gaxx (AC -15)
Helmet - I dunno what yet? (AC -16)
Cloak of sewers (AC -17)
Sentinel +4 (AC -22)
Defender of Easthaven (AC -23)

Would give me base AC of -23

I know I can get down to -30 something with spells but is there anyway I could lower the 'base AC' even more?

[Mr Sleep]

Helmet wuld probably be the Helm of Baldarun.

[Nighthawk]

Of course, anything beyond AC -10 isn't going to help you any since that's the lowest the game actually uses.

[Chris Boney]

And of course 'Blur' wizard spell level 2 is buggy. It's quit a bit accumulative after you reach AC-30 with countless repeated castings

------------------
Archimedes, the Greek, said 'All Grecians always lie'.
Later in the afternoon he corrected himself and corrected this:
'All Grecians always say the truth'

[Jurosementalistile]

Is that AC-10 thing true? I know thats the limit in real D&D, but I thought they just chose to ignore that. Pretty mean of them to show Armour classes below that if they're not recognised. Does that include Weapon type modifiers? I take it it doesn't include Blur and similar effects (Although powerful creatures seem to ignore those, anyway).

[Hannwaas]

I doubt it's possible to get under -20 AC. If you're under than no one can hit you(except for critical hits).

[Elenias Nal'nair]

I don't think 'cause even monsters (some) can have THAC0 better (lower) than 0.

[Yuusuke]

But if you consider that if a monster roll a 20 it's a crit hit, no matter what their thac0 is and no matter what your ac is.

[Jurosementalistile]

I think what Elenias meant was that there are baddies in the game who could hit you on a roll of less than 20 even if you had AC<-20. Again, by D&D rules the limit for THAC0 is -10. But you also have to remember that there are many things that BG2 implements as a change to THAC0 or AC that weren't meant to work like that in real D&D. Protection from evil, for example. This is supposed to be a modifier to the die roll, rather than the targets AC. As for THAC0, for PC's, the only thing that affects it is level and class. Nothing else is considered to change the actual THAC0, they're modifiers to the die roll. I guess they've just done it this way for the sake of simplicity and to allow you to see the effects of specialisation etc. more clearly. The only difference it makes is in regard to the maximums. I'd like to see someone get their THAC0 below -10 without strength, specialisation or magical bonuses
I suppose there aren't that many modifiers to AC that would come under this category, though. Using Chade Fallstar's example, the only thing which wouldn't count as an AC modifier is the swashbuckler bonus. The rest of it would be lost beyond -10, I suppose.
I'm not meaning to imply that anyone is cheating or abusing the rules, I'm just trying to give people an idea of where some of the rules have come from

[Nighthawk]

One thing that really bugs me about the AC -10 limit is that it futher encourages people to dual-wield rather than using single or single-shield styles. If I can hit the max (not hard) and still get an extra attack there is no reason to go for more protection.

[Chade Fallstar]

AC - 10 the lowest the game uses? that kind of puts the whole thing into a new perspective - dualwielding being the only real choice.

(though I think the bonuses from single weapon style are moderate when the bonuses from weapon & shield style - what bonuses?!? )