Chapter 449 - Far Future Ch. 159 – More AC for Everyone! (1/2)

The snipers got to find out about the odiousness of the Deflect Arrows Feat-line.

This was one of the basic ki-based missile-dodging abilities. Yes, you could use the ability without ki, and it worked against pretty much anything from the speed of an arrow or slower.

But, with ki, you could dodge literally anything... as long as you weren't flat-footed and didn't know it was coming.

Welcome to Scouts, preternatural awareness, and Uncanny Dodge, so you aren't flat-footed to anything without at least four more Ranks in Stealth than you have, and the ability to Sneak Attack. Oh, and Way of Shadow raises this number offensively and defensively by +1 each time you take it.

So, trying to snipe us meant you had to have 17 Ranks in Stealth for the girls, and 20 for me.

From that point, you get into the combinations of Arrow Shield, Return Missile, and Ray Shield, as well as Gems of Missile Warding.

The last brought everything together, because it also gave you the ability to dodge ranged attacks 1/round, with no differentiation between rocks, arrows, or bullets. Arrow Shield let you auto-deflect a ranged attack with your shield, instead of using your hand, synergizing further as a Profound Weapon. Ray Shield meant ranged touch attacks couldn't bypass your shield, and so could be deflected.

Return Missile sent them all back at the shooters.

Four master snipers a thousand yards away in multiple locations shot within a millisecond of one another, each targeting one of us with matter-implosion rounds that would reduce us to just spurts of bloodspray rather violently.

The Gems bent the flight paths of the incoming missiles down to our Shields, which weren't obvious, but were humming with a load of psi, ki, Soul, and magical power.

Super-lethal ammunition pinged off our Bucklers and went right back in the direction they came from.

In four different locations, spurts of blood jetted high into the air as incompressible water was released from super-compacted matter, and the master snipers and their toys became crimson spatters in three windowed rooms and a rooftop.

We all smiled in unison, and didn't even break stride.

This trick only worked once every six seconds, but it was the perfect tool for dealing with one-shot-kill snipers...

We normally didn't actively wield our Shields in melee combat, because their effect was just too steep and noticeable.

We all had Greater Shield Focus, for +2 to the base +1 of a Shield. +3 AC.

All our Shields were Psychic, the girls rated to +3, mine to +4. +6/7 AC.

They were all Greater Soulbound, 4 Essence for +4 to AC. +10/11 AC.

They were all Defiant to a specific type of foe, currently Elvar, +2 AC, +2 DR/- and Saves. +12/+13 AC.

And naturally, all our Shields were Heavy Profound Weapons. Layered with Ki and charged with soulclaw power, they were 4-24 damage weapons when bashing, such damage capable of manifesting as blunt, slashing, or piercing, as per Versatile UA with a Profound Weapon.

Bashing made them a size Larger, so 6-36 damage... the kind of impact that would slaughter a cow with one hit, before any other modifiers.

But, oh, they had the Psychic modifier for Weapons, too, to +3/4. And Bane to Elvar, +2, and Enmity/Evil, +2, and Greater Soulbound Weapons, another 4 Essence for +4, totaling +11/+12 to hit and damage.

And Defender, allowing us to convert all that bonus to hit and damage to +AC... which we constantly did for ranged attacks, since we weren't fighting in melee with them.

The Gem of Missile Warding gave us another +5 against ranged attacks, and hooked into the Defender power synergistically.

So, the girls were +28 against all ranged attacks directed at us, and I was +30, with an auto-deflect and return to sender once every six seconds.

This was tacked onto our Dex bonus to AC of at least +15, a Wisdom bonus to AC of the same level, and Nymph's Grace giving us Charisma to AC Deflection bonus based on level, so +5 for them, +6 for me, so long as we weren't wearing armor or restrictive clothing, i.e. looking good. Oh, and the +7 Dodge bonus for Armor Mastery and Elusive Soul pumped up.

They were trying to hit an AC of 52 in a universe where hitting stuff in the 20-30 range was considered pretty exceptional. Tacking on our Shields put us in the range of 80, effectively rendering us unhittable without some absolutely monstrous assistance on the side of our foes.

Then they still had to get past DR 33/-, 43/Holy Silver, because the Force Armor from our Bracers stacked with a whole lot of Natural Armor for additional DR on top of our Crystal Shield Technique, and that lovely Lilithi DR stacked on top of that. Nog flowmetal skin for fun and crackers!

The weapons of the future were murderously powerful, enabling low-Level folks to fight monstrously powerful opponents, glass cannons in the truest sense... but they still weren't equipped to deal with high-Level Ranthas and the stacking defenses we were employing.