Scaled Monk + Archmage armor

[Mathalis]

So apparently the best armor in the game by far is not wearing any armor and stacking the Scaled monk + mythic archmage feat and not wearing armor? I mean how terrible is that. There's no way in game to boost my AC and still keep my immersion of wearing big plate armor? It's just kind of boring imo.

[Bishi]

Well you can go any monk or the instinctual barbarian, but yes in this game at least if you want to maximize your AC, unarmored with cranestyle is the best. Even in Kingmaker without Mythic Paths you could argue it was better there too. Go TSS, mounted class, or pet class if you want to tank other ways. Those are probably the only things that can even come close to competing.

[GunofBrixton]

There are a lot of classes/archetypes that add an additional stat to AC. However, you can't wear armor or a shield. 14 AC from mage armor +10 mythic is okay, but +5 Full plate is also 14 ac, and can have additional modifiers. A +5 heavy shield is 7 AC plus additional effects.

TDLR; Armor is also viable

[Soft Lockpick]

Couldn't you, with all the alignment changing, go stacking instinctual warrior and monk to make it sillier?

Anyway, if it bugs you and you feel there's a difference at the top end why not just cheat in some natural armor that wouldn't otherwise be there and keep playing. It's not a multiplayer game, nobody is hurt if you feel like you should have an option you don't have and you make it happen.

[StarGazer]

In essence, any tank that isnt a spellcaster is ♥♥♥♥. Why would you want a tank that cant deal damage :P. no but yea in a pure meta sense, its hard to compete with spells in general because alot of them stack and flat out give immunity to damage aswell as incredible AC rating. Mirror image and blur already take care of melee enemy's. And then you get to choose full immunity to a dmg type of your choice.
A pure AC armour tank can never deal with certain situations because its often only good against melee attacks.

[StarGazer]

8 mirrors and a 50% miss chance means melee attacks are basicly nothing even if you somehow would have low AC.
By nature these spells are op because of the actions per round system.
So Archmage armour is actually pretty trash.
Infact most armour melee characters are trash.
It would take atleast 6 attacks to even have a chance to deal damage against a meta sorceror lich build for example.
And the only builds that come close are throwing axes or full mythic gold dragon.
But even those have to deal with rng miss chance.
If you want the best tank in the game, go wizard or sorc lich.
You can beat the game without a party.

[Princess Pilfer]

Armor is generally bad in PF1, yes, so by extention it's bad here. Archmage armor widened the gap though, yes.
As best I can tell Archmage Armor and wisdom/charisma ac stacking gives you a 10-15 point AC advantage over heavy armor, typically, but (more importantly) being properly good in armor eats a bunch of your feats and/or requires you stick with specific (usually melee) classes for a long time, both of which are really unfortunate. Also your touch AC tends to be bad.

Like, even without archmage armor, why would you want 80 AC that ate 2/3rds of your feats and required 10 levels of fighter (or a similarly underwhelming class) to get
when you could have gotten 80 AC for 2-3 one level dips (some combination of monk/enlightened philosopher/instinctual warrior/alchemist) and 2-4 feats, while having *significantly* better touch AC and far superior damage/CC because you could put the remaining 18 levels into classes that are good and far superior saves on top?
The answer, if you're minmaxing, is that you wouldn't

Edit: This is not a PF1 problem btw. DnD 3/3.5 and everything based on that system have exactly this same problem, and it's a large part of why I think Pillars of Eternity 1/2 are the best games in the genre bar none in terms of their combat. Also why I wish
Owlcat would switch to using PF2s systems.

[BCGaius]

Pathfinder 1st Edition got silly and bloated a long time ago, which is why there's now a Pathfinder 2nd Edition. For whatever reason, Owlcat decided to stick with 1e, so we're stuck with its 15-year history of bloat and power creep, which in turn is grossly exacerbated by Owlcat's deranged ideas about item / encounter / difficulty balance.

In other words, if you want stuff to actually make sense and not be a byzantine tesseract of inane, sweaty minmaxing combos, you gotta go out and play 2nd Edition with some friends.

[StarGazer]

Originally posted by Princess Pilfer:

Armor is generally bad in PF1, yes, so by extention it's bad here. Archmage armor widened the gap though, yes.
As best I can tell Archmage Armor and wisdom/charisma ac stacking gives you a 10-15 point AC advantage over heavy armor, typically, but (more importantly) being properly good in armor eats a bunch of your feats and/or requires you stick with specific (usually melee) classes for a long time, both of which are really unfortunate. Also your touch AC tends to be bad.

Like, even without archmage armor, why would you want 80 AC that ate 2/3rds of your feats and required 10 levels of fighter (or a similarly underwhelming class) to get
when you could have gotten 80 AC for 2-3 one level dips (some combination of monk/enlightened philosopher/instinctual warrior/alchemist) and 2-4 feats, while having *significantly* better touch AC and far superior damage/CC because you could put the remaining 18 levels into classes that are good and far superior saves on top?
The answer, if you're minmaxing, is that you wouldn't

Exactly, its never good to focus too much on one aspect.
Especially since AC is just one situation of many.
Like he says touch ac or sneak attacks would be a problem.
Some stat ability's are just better than others and offer more than another.
Inherently some give more functions.
I think most games work with armour in a broad sense of reducing damage on a flat scale of evrything.
So maybe you need to change your mentality.

Ofcourse the roleplay of having a big guy in armour plate seems cool.
But in reality its not as effective.
And think of it like this.
Most games or fantasy settings have some wizard kicking ass right?
You think Aragorn could split gandalf in half?
Mate, Gandalf pre casted 100 buff spells that melt aragorn's sword before he even touches him :P.
And sauron just casted a nice armour set anyway.

No but on a serious note, The inherent system of Pathfinder is not friendly to melee.
Never has been, never will be.
Any paper pen rpg is unfriendly towards melee.
Thats the nature of the beast.
And armour class is one of the more weaker aspects.
Actions per round etc, they never favour a melee character.
I would suggest you play a wizard or a sorc, its much more fun and i personally enjoy beating the game solo anyway.
Never liked companions, but thats just my personal taste.
So that way you have to learn more and adapt to not having one character tank.
But instead think and learn how to adapt these multiple aspects to make you deal with them.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by BCGaius:

a byzantine tesseract of inane, sweaty minmaxing combos

You, sir/madam/other, have a real gift for words.

[Akogooth]

Originally posted by BCGaius:

Pathfinder 1st Edition got silly and bloated a long time ago, which is why there's now a Pathfinder 2nd Edition. For whatever reason, Owlcat decided to stick with 1e, so we're stuck with its 15-year history of bloat and power creep, which in turn is grossly exacerbated by Owlcat's deranged ideas about item / encounter / difficulty balance.

In other words, if you want stuff to actually make sense and not be a byzantine tesseract of inane, sweaty minmaxing combos, you gotta go out and play 2nd Edition with some friends.

still would prefere the original d&d 3.5 rule set.

[B Unit]

It's unfortunante because in TT, there are mythic feats already created (belonging to the 'Guardian' archetype) that helps close the gap.

Armor Master (Ex)
You don’t take an armor check penalty or incur an arcane spell failure chance when wearing light armor or using a shield (including a tower shield). In addition, the maximum Dexterity bonus of light armor doesn’t apply to you. You can select this ability up to three times. The second time, it also applies to medium armor. The third time, it also applies to heavy armor.

Armored Might (Ex)
You treat the armor bonus from your armor as 50% higher than normal, to maximum increase of half your tier (minimum 1). For example, if you are 4th tier and wearing +2 breastplate, you treat the armor’s +6 armor bonus as +8 (50% of +6 is +3, limited to +2 by half your tier).


Why they were omitted here is beyond me, assuming Owlcat plays their own game.

[Princess Pilfer]

Pathfinder 1 is very melee friendly...
magical melee friendly. A scimitar weilding magus-monk has enough self buffs to solo basically anything.
A druid that's turned into a triceratops that relies on viscious self-buffed melee attacks.
ect.

Mythic armor boosting stuff woulnd't actually fix it, tbh. That's just *yet more* feats you have to sink into armor (that could have gone into damage) to try to bring it on par with *just* the AC side of light armor/no armor tanking, and does nothing to address the absolute dependance that almost everyone has on buffs of various kinds that heavy armor characters tend not to be able to give themselves, or that heavy armor characters saves tend to suck.

[BCGaius]

Originally posted by Akogooth:

still would prefere the original d&d 3.5 rule set.

Well, 3.5 was far from perfect and Pathfinder addressed some issues with it, but generally, yes, I agree. Not necessarily mechanically, but 3.5 was a lot more down to earth and kept the lid on the worst of the homebrew-flavored gimmickry that later infected Pathfinder.

Some of the stuff Pathfinder added is really cool, like Magus (fixes the awkward Eldritch Knight concept) and a lot of the archetypes, but if I had my way (oh hey, I'm the Dungeon Master, so I do! Isn't that nice) then the One-Trick Dog-and-Pony Show Parade that is the PF1e class list would get guillotined down to the original 3rd Edition classes with maybe a couple of choice picks that serve a useful function (Cavalier, Magus, maybe Oracle).

[Lawlman Griff]

Seriously. If mage armor gets a mythic ability that gives it +10 AC, why not have a mythic ability that doubles your base AC from armor? Or gives DR equal to armor AC or something. It'd arguably be more balanced.

Monk AC bonus not being capped by level like canny defense, and canny defense stacking with itself, are two of the really degenerate things that lead to these super high AC robe builds. Crane style is pretty ridiculous too but at least that requires a free hand and isn't tons better than a good magic shield.

Anyway this is why armor as damage reduction is generally better IMO, dodging and armor tanking become orthagonal strategies with different strengths instead of being in this weird competition with each other.

[Princess Pilfer]

Mythic abilities that boosted heavy armors AC woulnd't like, actually address the issue, tbh. That's just *yet more* feats you have to sink into armor to get your AC to be competitive, while failing to address *any* of the other advantages light/no armor tanking has. (no arcane spell failure, better saves, lower feat investment, encumberance being able to put more of your levels into better, mostly magical, classes so as to get a ton of self buffs to even further amplify your offense and defense, ect.)