Druid AC caps and shields

[Jimjam]

Isn’t orb of the infinite void a shield? I assumed it was. Maybe I’m wrong.

Kurrat’s All in One Magician Guide on wiki has a couple of short parses tanking a couple of mastadons looking at about 630 vs 1330 AC and the low ac build takes about 50% more damage. Now, there may be a point of diminished returns where worn AC is basically squelching mob attk (and adding ac beyond that won’t really do much) but I suppose the question remains: when is that point reached? Is a shield helpful to reach it?

You’ll have to run your own experiments to know for sure.

[Vexenu]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Isn’t orb of the infinite void a shield? I assumed it was. Maybe I’m wrong.

I was under the impression that there was a special category for "shields" (pretty much limited to items that actually look like shields and have the word shield in their name) and that this special "shield" designation allowed for all the AC on the item to apply above the normal AC cap (similar to Iksar AC bonus). The practical result being be that a good shield would, by itself, make the user noticeably more tanky (much more so than wearing the equivalent amount of AC in other items).

Is this mistaken? Maybe I read this about TAKP at some point (i.e. it was a post-Velious change) and erroneously applied it to P1999?