For whatever reason, I have a pathological urge to boost my defensive stats in most RPGs. I gravitate toward tanks in World of Warcraft (my main being a Protection Paladin) and I tend to try to get the most heavily-armored build in games where such a thing is possible. My original D&D character, a Great Old One Warlock, took Moderately Armored as his variant human level 1 feat so that I could run around with an AC of 18, instead of the 13 or so I'd get if I were wearing leather armor.
My second D&D character, which I've actually been able to play for a few years now, is an Eldritch Knight Fighter, built - you guessed it - for tanking. I invested a little more heavily in Intelligence than I really needed to at character creation (14) which left my Constitution a little low - in fact, he's only got a Con of 14 at level 12, though by the last ASI at level 19 I should have it up to 18 (I took the Tough feat at level 12) which means that he should have (if my math is correct) 244 max HP if he hits level 20, which ain't too shabby (that's more than an adult blue dragon's average health, and he's a blue dragonborn.)
But he wasn't just built for HP (a Barbarian would have been the choice to focus on that). The main thing is I wanted to pump his armor class as high as it could go.
Early in our campaign, we found a +1 shield, which he took. He also has the Defensive fighting style, which grants a +1 to AC while he's wearing armor. And then, with a suit of adamantine plate, his AC is at 22.
(Setting aside the fact that the party lost all their equipment passing through a portal to the Nine Hells and so he's currently got just an extremely non-magical flail, shield, and set of chain mail.)
However, that's not the end of it: as an Eldritch Knight, the first spell he learned was Shield. If you don't know this one (it's pretty standard, but if you haven't played a Wizard or anything similar, you might not know it) it's a reaction spell with Verbal and Somatic components (so he has to drop his weapon when he uses it) that you can use when someone makes an attack roll against you (I've always played it that you can choose to cast it after the attack roll is made and announced) that raises your AC by 5 until the beginning of your next turn.
Thus, my Fighter has an effective AC of 27, as that's the main spell he saves his spell slots for.
The ultimate goal for this character would be to get the following magic items: a +3 shield, a set of +3 plate, and a headband of intellect (that one's less important for defense.) With those, he'd have a base AC of 27, and an effective AC of 32 - becoming very difficult to hit (and significantly reducing the damage he might take from very high CR monsters that have huge attack bonuses.) (Actually, with a ring and a cloak of protection, we could get that to 29 and an effective AC of 34).
But is the Eldritch Knight the best build for this kind of insane AC chasing?
I think it might be. But I thought there were a couple other subclasses to consider (and there could very well be more - I'm just looking at the ones that have occurred to me.)
The Armorer Artificer is another clear possibility.
Armorers get to use heavy armor, and also get to ignore the strength requirements. The only reason you might want a bunch of strength would be if your DM cares much about carry weight and encumbrance. Heavy armor is heavy, and you can be proficient with it, but that doesn't make it weigh any less. But otherwise, you can mostly set aside strength for other abilities.
Now, you want high AC as an armorer? The good news is that, because you're generally just infusing mundane equipment, as long as you can earn the gold to buy a set of plate armor (which you can generally afford by mid-tier-2) you'll be able to trick it out in just this way (whereas I'm skeptical I'll ever get that +3 plate and +3 shield.)
You'll want to pick up the following infusions, and place them on these items. Remember that as an Armorer, at level 9, you get to count a single set of armor as multiple items for infusions, and also increase the number of items you can infuse by two as long as those extra two are part of your armor. The armor can be separately infused as a helmet, chest piece, boots, and weapon (your Magic Armor will have either the Lightning Launcher or Thunder Gauntlets depending on your model).
Enhanced Defense you'll put on your chest piece. This will turn your plate armor into, basically, +1 plate, and then +2 when you level up again and hit 10 (giving you 20 AC).
Repulsion Shield (which requires level 6) you'll put on a shield. In addition to the knockback effect, this also causes the shield to give a +1 bonus to AC (giving you an additional 3 AC).
Cloak of Protection goes on a cloak (you'll need to be level 10 to get this infusion) and grants you a +1 to your AC as well as all saving throws.
Ring of Protection goes on... a ring (this one requires you to be level 14) and works exactly like the Cloak of Protection, giving you +1 to AC and saving throws.
Thus an Armorer can, by level 14, with just a normal set of plate armor and a shield, have an AC of 25.
Comparing this with the Eldritch Knight, here are what I think the trade-offs are:
Purely defensively, the EK is going to be able to push their AC a little higher with Shield, though the Armorer's AC is going to be consistently higher outside of a very lucky EK with +3 armor and shield (and, of course, if they find a cloak and a ring of protection.) What's really appealing to me about the Armorer is that they need not rely at all on a DM's generosity to find this stuff.
Of course, the Armorer has the benefits of an Artificer's somewhat more effective spellcasting, including some healing spells.
And EK is going to generally have more health than an Armorer, thanks to the d10 hit die over the Artificer's d8, though using the average roll, this amounts to a total difference of 21 hit points at level 20.
That being said, the Armorer, using Guardian Mode for its armor model, gets to grant itself temporary hit points equal to its artificer level a number of times per day equal to its proficiency bonus. Unless you're really relying on other characters giving you temporary hit points, this amounts to a pretty substantial effective health increase - by level 20, that's more or less 120 extra hit points, which... yeah, is a bit more than the EK's bonus. And those temp HP don't expire until you take a long rest, so you can have them up almost all the time.
Additionally, the Thunder Gauntlet's inherent feature is a great tanking tool - giving foes disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you if you hit them.
Basically, my conclusion is that the Armorer is actually a bit better designed for truly tanking. I think the EK might have a bit higher damage output, though an Armorer who makes use of cantrips like Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade will actually be in pretty good shape there too.
Now, I thought it worth considering the Battle Smith here as well. Battle Smiths do not get access to heavy armor, but a set of half plate with at least 14 Dexterity will give them 17 AC, and they can do all the same infusions as the Armorer (though they'll be using up a greater fraction of their infusions) to bump a shield and half plate (and cloak and ring) to 24 AC. Meanwhile, though, battle-smiths, unlike armorers, have Shield as one of their specialist spells, so if they use it as much as my EK does, they effectively get an AC of 29. And, of course, a Battle Smith is not as beholden to using their own infusions to power themselves up, so there's nothing against a Battle Smith finding a +3 shield and a set of +3 half plate to make that 27 (and 32 with shield).
Now, in terms of absorbing hate and making it easier on the party, the Battle Smith I think is somewhat less well-equipped. Your steel defender can impose disadvantage on a single attack against you per round.
But without the Guardian Armor's Defensive Field and the Thunder Gauntlet's... well, "threat generation," I don't think the Battle Smith is quite as well built to be the one absorbing foes' attacks. Really, I think the Battle Smith is built more for damage output (I have a Warforged one I played in a couple of one-shots that got a laser pistol, which he then infused with repeating shot, so can to some serious damage.)
Ultimately, I think the Armorer wins overall - yes, they can't push their AC quite as high, and they don't "scale" as well with magic armors that they find (though if a player of mine found some +3 armor I might bend the rules to allow them to simply count that enchantment as the "chest piece" and infuse the other parts) but Defensive Field is actually kind of insanely powerful, and with your other free infusions you can do things like give yourself winged boots. Or even help out the rest of your party!
But hey, the Artificer as a class didn't exist when I made my fighter. And there are some cool things that a Fighter can do that an Artificer can't (not the last of which is getting two more ASIs.)
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