About enemy THAC0 and AC

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Just curious, is it ever possible to reach a low enough AC that even TOB enemies have a hard time hitting you?

Reason I'm asking, is that I'm thinking of creating a low maintanence tank for my new SCSII game. The most obvious answer of course would be a berserker with full plate armor, shield, and stacking magical rings and amulets etc etc.

From previous experience, this would work out quite well in SOA, with most enemies requiring a high roll to hit you. But what about TOB?

Alternatives would be a swashbuckler, but he would require UAI to be able to wear plate, so his AC would be lacking for quite awhile. No shields for him as well, since he will have to dual wield to have a respectable damage output

Finally, for a thieving tank, should I go swashbuckler10>fighter or berserker9>thief? I know multi-classes are better with 2 pools of HLA, but I like true grandmastery too much

 

So.. are you going a going to be using a pure swashie AND a Swash10/Fighter X?

There's no need to have both, but I'm sure a pure swashbuckler with UAI would be a pretty effective decoy, even in the later stages of ToB. Probably minus the major bosses though..

 

nope, I'm taking one or the other, pending replies on which would be a better low maintanence tank

 

Well, you can still get true grandmaster if you use the Tweakpack. I suppose it is bending the rules a bit, but I quite enjoy it. Also, unless you use said tweak pack, you wont be able to stack the effects of multiple protection items - ie rings and armor.

I think a fairly low maintenance tank might be Keldorn actually. Give him the gauntlets of Dexterity to improve his Dex score, and good full plate armor, and he has pretty good AC. I think he also has immunities to annoying things like Hold Person, and need I even mention True Sight and insta-dispel.

Anyway... I'd probably go Berserker->thief. Wizard Slayer or even Kensai->thief are also options, bear in mind that by using UAI with those classes.... well its close to cheating. I do it, but I understand some people think its unethical. Your wizard slayer magic resistance wont be anything to write home about if you dual, but importantly he can easily disrupt enemy spells. Kensais.... well become devastating although a more offensive role than a tank. Being able to wear plate armor with UAI will help the tank role quite a bit, but as I said its kinda cheating. Up to you. Berserk ability is useful I guess, I never use it because it requires too much micromanagement for a fighter, thats why I prefer passive abilities like that of the wizard slayer or kensai.

The reason I prefer to dual from fighter to thief and not the other way around is that it lets you eventually get good scores in all necessary thieving abilities, so you wont need to use potions or other, better thiefs. The reason I avoid Swashbuckler is because they arent as good as Fighter/Thief multiclasses anyway in terms of THAC0, damage or weapon proficiencies and cant backstab. Useless kit IMHO.

I think you should be alright with such a tank, as far as I know TOB isnt too melee oriented most of the time. I cant remember many fights where your fighters would get cut down in seconds, other than perhaps the ravager.

 

I'm intalling the component that allows magical items stacking, but not the one that allows GM for multiclasses. I used to think that there was no reason why a multi class couldnt get GM, since to me each * sorts of represents like a year in training, and a fighter can choose to train in only one weapon. But, thinking about it, its easy to learn something, but mastering it is different. Since then, only duals or pure classes get GM in my games.

I considered the swashie10>fighter because

1. 3 ac bonus
2. 2 thaco and damage bonus
3. You get enough points to bring lock picking and detect traps above 100, which is all I need considering I dont use backstabs

It would be great if someone knew what are the thaco for some of the stronger creatures, that way I could just SK in all the protective items and see if I can reach low enough AC to avoid being hit, otherwise I might just go for the classic F/M. But liek I said, the point is low maintanence, kinda like the deep gnome monk in IWD2

 

There are some rule adjustment that make it difficult. Vanilla game system has a minimum THAC0 of -1 at 20th level for warriors. Add to that bonuses for strength, weapon specialization, and weapons and you have a THAC0 of ~-13. To be only hit 50% of the time you need an AC of -23 -- which may be difficult to attain:

Best Armor gives -2
Best shield +5
Montollo's cloak +1
Helmet or Ioun Stone +1
Defender (scimitar) +2
Swashbuckler +1, +1 every 5 levels
Dexterity of 18, -4
Spell: Prot from Evil, -2 to evil enemy THAC0

For a 20th level swashbuckler this comes to an AC of -23.

Once you add some cheats (such as stacking magic bonuses to AC) it would become easy. If you have a mod where the THAC0 continues to advance beyond 20th level you may run into problems as well.

 

IIRC the lowest possible AC in the game is -35 and is done by a swashie

don't know about the enemy thac0 though, but i guess that -35 would help out a bit

 

40th level, max dex and invisible would take my numbers to nearly -35.

 

I haven't played ToB yet, but several walkthroughs list some of the toughest bosses such as Ravager at -12 THAC0 or so, and an everyday mercenary should be somewhere around 20th level to pose any resemblance to a threat to the party, so logically they should weigh in somewhere around -5 THAC0 or better.

Therefore, somewhere between -25 to -32 AC should be "enough". Considering you really need to start stacking items and/or buffs to get below -10 AC, this would also explain the common (mis-)conception that AC doesn't matter in ToB.

Kinda like the HOF mode in Icewind Dale 2 - the monsters get huge bonus to hit but they're still tankable.. if you get AC 72 or better, equivalent to -52 AC in the 2ed rules.

 

Otherwise known as "I just fired a .50 cal at your heart from a distance of 3', sitting rock still with a firing platform, laser sight, and you were held in place by a full body cast.... and the bullet bounced off of you and rolled away, so I have run off to get a small thermonuclear device, and hope that you somehow roll a natural 1 on your saving throw..."

I don't know if it is really fun to be completely invincible. Where's the fun in that

 

Well, it does make facing a group of 3-4 kobolds a lot less intimidating...

 

I copied and pasted davidw's reply from g3 forum

(1) Tahazzar, the Baalor in the WK maze, has THAC0 4 and STR 21, giving him an effective THAC0 of zero. If we define "have a hard time hitting you" as "hit you 25% of the time or less", you'd need AC -15.

(2) Xei Win Toh, one of the guardians of the Final Seal, has THAC0 1, STR 21, and is double-specialised with her sword +4. So she has (I think) an effective THAC0 of -9, and you'd need AC -25.

(3) Elite fire giants have THAC0 2, STR 23, are double-specialised with their battleaxes +3, and are likely to go berserk, gaining an additional +2 to hit. So their effective THAC0 is -10, and you'd need AC -26.

(4) The lizard men warriors from Abazigal's Lair have THAC0 1, STR 18/70, and are quadruple-specialised with their halberds +2. So their effective thaco is -5, and you'd need AC -21.

(5) Brimstone, the SCSII-added red dragon (who's basically a clone of Firkraag) has THACO -5 and STR 25, for an effective THAC0 of -12. You'd need AC -28 to avoid being hit by him 75% of the time.

(6) Anadramatis, the yellow dragon in Abazigal's Lair has THAC0 -8 and STR 25. His effective THAC0 is -15, so you'd need a challenging AC -31 to avoid his attacks 75% of the time.

(7) The drow Kensai flunkies who work for Sendai (in the final battle with her) are triple-speicalised with their katanas +3, have STR 16, THAC0 9, and an unexplained +4 to hit (blame the vanilla game). Their effective THAC0 is -1; AC -17 keeps you ahead of them.

(8) Abazigal (Ascension version) has THAC0 -8, an unexplained +6 to hit, STR 25, and is quadruple-specialised with his +5 sword. That adds up to an effective THAC0 of -28, so you'll need AC -44 to avoid three quarters of his hits. That's in human form, of course. In transformed form, he's actually a lot easier to stay ahead of: THAC0 -6 and STR 25, for an effective THAC0 of -13

I did some further testing myself, and it seems AC is capped. On the character screen, my AC was -24. Stacked on more items to give -29, which does not show. However, elite fire giants were still hitting on rolls of 25. So it seems XP is capped at -24

 

AC is capped indeed at 24, but I'd go for AC modifiers after AC is capped. Unfortunately there are extremely few good items which grant specific AC modifiers, and even with their help, it's still not sufficient.

My most successful application of AC modifiers was when battling Improved Anvil multiple golems, who almost cannot score a hit versus a character who is with AC -24 and additional AC modifier vs Crushing weapons -20 (granted by stacking 2 Absorbtion potions). However, even in this case a Critical hit (20) scores.

Spells like Doom and Improved Invisibility (and Mass invisibility) actually substract from enemy 'to-hit' rolls, thus they provide additional protection at even capped AC of -24. However, I doubt that these spells can even be discussed when battling bosses. Protection from Evil's bonus is also applied separately from AC, so they work in conjuction.

Since most dangerous bosses use Slashing attacks, then maybe, just maybe, it's possible to tank them with a Swashbuckler or another thief with very low AC (-24) in full plate (for additional -4 slashing modifier), golden girdle, Valygar's katana and Malakar dual-wield, and using Cloak of the Shield, this will provide your thief with -12 slashing AC modifier, thus bringing your AC to -36, with ProEvil -38 (you may use the Sensate amulet for perma ProEvil in case it's dispelled). I guess that with such low AC you'll be able to tank most things even in ToB.

Last advice: If you play ToB on higher than core difficulty, go with the regular type of tanks with high physical damage resistance - a Barbarian or F/T with Jansen's adventurewear. Add Defender of Easthaven of course.

Edit: Forgot to mention Roranarch's horn for ToB - it's an excellent helm for your Barbarian or F/T. I'd also reccomend the revised hell trials from the Oversight mod, since one of them grants 30% slashing damage resistance.

 

In other words, unless you can reach an AC way, way into the negatives (-10 or better) you might as well not bother in ToB. Similarly, two tanks at -12 might actually be worse off than just one guy at -15 for the purposes of tanking a group of enemies.

Go go maximized offense!