it ' s that way since feudal times when landlords farm their peasants to death . <| sep |> Combat is an attacker ' s sport , not defender ' s , honestly . It ' s just hard to beat monsters ' attack bonuses . Miss chance mirror image , displacement , etc . is more helpful , though it ' s also harder to get on combat characters . There ' s always the barbarian approach Stop caring about AC and just get more hit points and some DR . My namesake is level 13 , usually sits at AC 4 , and has around 200 hit points with DR to help . He also has a 312217 to hit before buffs , so he doesn ' t see much point in armor . If you do want to play the AC game , you ' re going to be paying lots of gold . Armor enhancements , shield enhancements , ring of protection , amulet of natural armor , dusty rose ioun stone . It ' s all very expensive after a while . You can take Combat Expertise to get a handy dodge bonus that scales with BAB , otherwise you ' re mostly stuck with 1 bonuses from feats . Paladins can get great deflection bonus from Smite , but that ' s limited uses and relies on alignment . Monks can abuse two ability scores for AC and has class abilities to help ki dodge , qinggong barkskin , AC bonus feature , but it needs either mage armor or expensive bracers for armor . Fighters get tower shields for an extra 2 over heavy shields , and they can use their dexterity modifiers more than other armored classes . They also can afford taking feats like shield focus , armor focus , and dodge since they have so many bonus feats .