What about Warforged and if you can get Dex20, Int20, Wis 20; Monk-1 Bladesinger-5 Bloodhunter Path of the Mutant-14, Base AC=10+1+5(Dex)+5(Int bladesing)+5 (Wis unarmored defense)=26. The the extra stuff, Formula that adds +4 Dex for +2 AC, formula that adds +4 Int for +2 AC, +5 (Shield Spell), AC=26+9=35 or you can add another +5 for the cover mod above and +2 for haste for a total of 42.
That is if my math is right.
Dex 20 Int 20 Wis 20 violates the constraints of no magic items - max possible is 20/20/18 base, using point buy. I suspect it is also sus using Bloodhunter, as you can reach AC infinity with homebrew, which is what Bloodhunter is.
26 is still the standard baseline (e.g. from Warforged Artificer with +2 Plate, +1 Shield, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection) you're looking to beat before you add on a Concentration spell and a non-Concentration spell.
27, actually, is the baseline with no magic items aside from infusions.
ASIs at Artificer 4, 8, & 12 and Cleric 4 to get in some order Intelligence +2 twice, Strength +1, Wisdom +1, Fighting Initiate Feat: Defense Fighting Style.
Plate 18
Shield +2
Defense Fighting Style +1 if wearing armor
Warforged +1
Blessing of the Forge +1 to nonmagical suit of armor
Soul of the Forge +1 while wearing heavy armor
24 AC total
Infusions:
#1 Enhanced Defense on Shield +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#3 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
28 AC Total with one infusion to spare and 3 attunement slots to spare.
Assuming that the DM would allow for a magic item to meet the strength requirement, you could change the Strength to 8, Charisma to 10, and dex to 14 to start. There would be no need to do Strength +1, Wisdom +1 as one of your ASIs and could instead use a half feat to bump wisdom and get something fun on the side. At tenth level, you would use Gauntlets of Giant Strength to get the strength to 19 and could start wearing heavy armor at that point. At 14th level, you could upgrade to the Belt of Hill Giant Strength for 21 strength. This would duplicate the Battle Ready allowing you to use your intelligence modifier for your melee attacks, meaning that you could take a different artificer subclass or you could leave intelligence at 18 and boost wisdom or constitution instead.
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, that one extra attunement can be used to provide the magical weapon needed for Battle Ready, to provide any number of other items (perhaps Mind Sharpener for those constitution checks), or to throw a party member a bone.
ASIs at Artificer 4, 8, & 12 and Cleric 4 to get in some order Intelligence +2 twice, Strength +1, Wisdom +1, Fighting Initiate Feat: Defense Fighting Style.
Plate 18
Shield +2
Defense Fighting Style +1 if wearing armor
Warforged +1
Blessing of the Forge +1 to nonmagical suit of armor
Soul of the Forge +1 while wearing heavy armor
24 AC total
Infusions:
#1 Enhanced Defense on Shield +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#3 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
28 AC Total with one infusion to spare and 3 attunement slots to spare.
Assuming that the DM would allow for a magic item to meet the strength requirement, you could change the Strength to 8, Charisma to 10, and dex to 14 to start. There would be no need to do Strength +1, Wisdom +1 as one of your ASIs and could instead use a half feat to bump wisdom and get something fun on the side. At tenth level, you would use Gauntlets of Giant Strength to get the strength to 19 and could start wearing heavy armor at that point. At 14th level, you could upgrade to the Belt of Hill Giant Strength for 21 strength. This would duplicate the Battle Ready allowing you to use your intelligence modifier for your melee attacks, meaning that you could take a different artificer subclass or you could leave intelligence at 18 and boost wisdom or constitution instead.
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, that one extra attunement can be used to provide the magical weapon needed for Battle Ready, to provide any number of other items (perhaps Mind Sharpener for those constitution checks), or to throw a party member a bone.
If you went Armorer instead of Battle Smith, you could actually dump STR as well as Arcane Armor removes any STR requirements. You also get 2 Freebie Infusions for your armor at lvl 9 meaning you could instead shift your Blessing of the Forge to your shield and have Enhanced Defence on the chest slot of the armor for free. If you want to be super frugal with your stats you could also dump CON but you will have a extremely difficult time until you hit 14 Artificer for a Amulet of Health lol.
ASIs at Artificer 4, 8, & 12 and Cleric 4 to get in some order Intelligence +2 twice, Strength +1, Wisdom +1, Fighting Initiate Feat: Defense Fighting Style.
Plate 18
Shield +2
Defense Fighting Style +1 if wearing armor
Warforged +1
Blessing of the Forge +1 to nonmagical suit of armor
Soul of the Forge +1 while wearing heavy armor
24 AC total
Infusions:
#1 Enhanced Defense on Shield +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#3 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
28 AC Total with one infusion to spare and 3 attunement slots to spare.
Assuming that the DM would allow for a magic item to meet the strength requirement, you could change the Strength to 8, Charisma to 10, and dex to 14 to start. There would be no need to do Strength +1, Wisdom +1 as one of your ASIs and could instead use a half feat to bump wisdom and get something fun on the side. At tenth level, you would use Gauntlets of Giant Strength to get the strength to 19 and could start wearing heavy armor at that point. At 14th level, you could upgrade to the Belt of Hill Giant Strength for 21 strength. This would duplicate the Battle Ready allowing you to use your intelligence modifier for your melee attacks, meaning that you could take a different artificer subclass or you could leave intelligence at 18 and boost wisdom or constitution instead.
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, that one extra attunement can be used to provide the magical weapon needed for Battle Ready, to provide any number of other items (perhaps Mind Sharpener for those constitution checks), or to throw a party member a bone.
If you went Armorer instead of Battle Smith, you could actually dump STR as well as Arcane Armor removes any STR requirements. You also get 2 Freebie Infusions for your armor at lvl 9 meaning you could instead shift your Blessing of the Forge to your shield and have Enhanced Defence on the chest slot of the armor for free. If you want to be super frugal with your stats you could also dump CON but you will have a extremely difficult time until you hit 14 Artificer for a Amulet of Health lol.
Blessing of the forge uses "suit of armor" for the +1 AC identifier. Still, it would be a net zero adjustment since I had the enhanced defense on the shield and Blessing of the forge requires non magical items for the bonus application. Still, you could leave the "chest piece" as the blessing of the forge, move enhanced defense to either the boots or the helmet and use the repulser shield to get 29 with the armorer.
I also like the idea of Armorer instead of Battlesmith bypassing even the possibility of a DM not allowing the magic item to meet the strength requirement for full speed.
At level 2, tortle bladesinger that rolled high gets 22 ac, 26 by retreating into its shell, 27 with shield. One higher at 28is possible with mage armor if 2 20s. Nothing compared to these insane multiclasses, but level 2!
tortles are fire-and-forget high ac for non-heavy-armor classes
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
One problem: bladesong and plate cannot be combined. 20 dex and studded leather leaves 1 less than that. So 33 without external magic items for your build
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Yeah, at that point bladesong barely helps, look for something else like a cleric level for shield of faith or a two levels of war wizard for 2 ac against 1 attack at the cost of being forced to use only cantrips and normal attacks for a turn.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
#1 Enhanced Defense on Armour +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Repulsion Shield on Shield +1
#3 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#4 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
Additional Abilities:
#1 Experimental Elixir of Resilience +1
#2 Make an unarmed attack with the Simic Hybrid's level 5 Grappling Appendage to trigger the Kensei Monk's Agile Parry for +2
Total: 29
This leaves access to 2 levels of Bladesinger for the obligatory +5AC at 20 int.
If you have access to the Thri-keen you could take the Dual Wielder Feat and have a pair of light weapons in the secondary arms to get an extra +1.
This build would be very MAD. Int, dex, and wis would have to be 13 just to multiclass and everyone wants con. Not having a 15 strength would lower your speed by 10 and alchemists don't get heavy armor proficiency which would negate the ability to cast spells. Agile parry doesn't specifically call out needing to qualify for martial arts to be used, but it's interesting to dip 3 levels just for the ability to make an unarmed strike for 6 damage at most to gain +2 AC. The presence of the fighting style implies a feat used, meaning ASIs would be at art 4, 8, and 12 and only two to devote to ability increases. It can get there, but what would it do?
One problem: bladesong and plate cannot be combined. 20 dex and studded leather leaves 1 less than that. So 33 without external magic items for your build
You cannot Bladesong while donning a shield either. So that is another -3 AC.
Yeah, but with a perfect 20 int and dex you would be boosting your ac by 1 but also could do the dual wielder thing as you no longer carry a shield. AC of 31.
There is also the idea of unarmed strikes not requiring a free hand to trigger the Kensei Agile Parry which would leave the Simic Hybrid able to take Natural Carapace instead. DM Debatable.
As jhaffan states the stats and ASI's are probably not even possible but it is an interesting thought experiment.
Yeah, at that point bladesong barely helps, look for something else like a cleric level for shield of faith or a two levels of war wizard for 2 ac against 1 attack at the cost of being forced to use only cantrips and normal attacks for a turn.
It only uses 19 levels and has the wisdom to mc a level of cleric.
An interesting side effect is using your spell storing item to have your homunculus servant cast one concentration spell, a glyph of warding to cast a second and a third in a regular concentration slot. Using Warding Bond, Shield of Faith and Haste, reaction casting Shield and having 3/4 cover would put you at....47 AC?
@Fiest I did some number crunching and this is the best I can come up with using your template that is still possible without having to roll god stats:
Simic Hybrid STR 9 DEX 16 (15+1) CON 16 (14+2) INT 13 WIS 13 CHA 8
Warding Bond is available from one of the esoteric backgrounds.
If you can't get that 20 Int then it really isn't worth the Bladesong. You are probably better off taking level 1 Fighter to get a fighting style, freeing an ASI, or getting an ASI from level 4 Monk.
Defensive Duelist is a possible conflict for the Shield reaction spell. Giving +6 AC for one attack instead of +5 for the turn.
An interesting side effect is using your spell storing item to have your homunculus servant cast one concentration spell, a glyph of warding to cast a second and a third in a regular concentration slot. Using Warding Bond, Shield of Faith and Haste, reaction casting Shield and having 3/4 cover would put you at....46 AC?
That's an interesting thought combo. At minimum, you'd be using a 1st, a 2nd, and 2 3rd level slots. Glyph of Warding takes an hour to cast and 200 gp worth of materials. Haste lasts a minute; Shield of Faith lasts 10 minutes and requires a Cleric or Paladin dip; and Warding Bond lasts 1 hour, requires battle smith, cleric 3, or oath of the crown 5 and a second caster. The homunculus would have to cast Warding Bond and would take half the damage taken by the character. With 1+your intelligence modifier+your Artificer level for HP, that's a max of 20 with a 14th level.
The homunculus would have to stay with 60 ft to keep the spell active, giving it a decent cushion from splash damage. 20 HP isn't a bunch of cushion and it could be susceptible to dying from a crit against you in addition to saves you have to make (including those to take half damage). Still, the nature of the resources required to make it all happen probably means a fight at a known location (since Glyph can't be moved very far), this is likely to be used at a time where a long rest will follow the encounter. Additional resources could be allocated to helping the homunculus stay alive since it would be providing +1 AC and resistance to all damage (by passing it on to the caster).
Infusions: Belt of Hill Giant Strength, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, Enhanced Defense
ASIs: Use 2 to max INT, Gift of the Metallic Dragon feat and 1 spare feat to play around with
AC breakdown:
Plate (18), Blessing of the Forge (19), Shield (21), Enhanced Defense (23), Ring and Cloak of Protection, (25), Agile Parry (27), Defense Fighting Style (28), Resilience Elixir (29), Warforged (30), Shield of Faith (32), Glyph of Warding Haste (34), Warding Bond (35), Gift of the Metallic Dragon (41), 3/4 cover (46)
This build can actually fight ok as well. With the spare feat we can grab Warcaster and infuse Enhanced Weapon on the Kensai weapon. In battle we can use our Action to cast Booming/Green Flame Blade and use the Hasted Action to make a unarmed strike (a kick) to keep Agile Parry up.
I know I'm super late to this but while different AC calculations don't stuck, there are plenty of ways to get AC bonuses. The highest permanant AC with no magic items I've managed to get is 24.
Start as Warforged Fighter with Defence fighting style and take 6 levels in Forge Cleric for +2 AC from Blessing of the Forge and Soul of the Forge. Wear plate armor for base 18 AC and a shield for +2, and you got 24 AC. Also, this is out of the scope of the question but it's worth pointing out that you would also get access to Shield of Faith from the cleric levels, which can get you another +2 AC for 10 minutes.
I know I'm super late to this but while different AC calculations don't stuck, there are plenty of ways to get AC bonuses. The highest permanant AC with no magic items I've managed to get is 24.
Start as Warforged Fighter with Defence fighting style and take 6 levels in Forge Cleric for +2 AC from Blessing of the Forge and Soul of the Forge. Wear plate armor for base 18 AC and a shield for +2, and you got 24 AC. Also, this is out of the scope of the question but it's worth pointing out that you would also get access to Shield of Faith from the cleric levels, which can get you another +2 AC for 10 minutes.
A level 20 barbarian with 20 dex, 24 con, and a shield also has 24 ac
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
I know I'm super late to this but while different AC calculations don't stuck, there are plenty of ways to get AC bonuses. The highest permanant AC with no magic items I've managed to get is 24.
Start as Warforged Fighter with Defence fighting style and take 6 levels in Forge Cleric for +2 AC from Blessing of the Forge and Soul of the Forge. Wear plate armor for base 18 AC and a shield for +2, and you got 24 AC. Also, this is out of the scope of the question but it's worth pointing out that you would also get access to Shield of Faith from the cleric levels, which can get you another +2 AC for 10 minutes.
If Forge Cleric is allowed (meaning you're using magic items you made yourself but presumably you can't borrow them from part members) then so is Artificer, giving us a baseline of plate+shield+(+2 infusion)+(+1 infusion)+(+1 ring)+(+1 cloak) = 25 before warforged or defense fighting style, which would get us to 27; this can be done by Artificer 14/Fighter 1, 4 levels faster than doing the same trick with Wizard 18 (replacing the infusions with casting Shield every round). 24 is chump change.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
27, actually, is the baseline with no magic items aside from infusions.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/tips-tactics/51895-how-to-get-permanent-27-ac-by-level-15-no-magic
Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
Battlesmith Artificer 14, Forge cleric 6
starting stats Strength 14, Dex 10, Con 12+2, Intelligence 15+1, Wisdom 13, Charisma 8
ASIs at Artificer 4, 8, & 12 and Cleric 4 to get in some order Intelligence +2 twice, Strength +1, Wisdom +1, Fighting Initiate Feat: Defense Fighting Style.
Plate 18
Shield +2
Defense Fighting Style +1 if wearing armor
Warforged +1
Blessing of the Forge +1 to nonmagical suit of armor
Soul of the Forge +1 while wearing heavy armor
24 AC total
Infusions:
#1 Enhanced Defense on Shield +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#3 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
28 AC Total with one infusion to spare and 3 attunement slots to spare.
Assuming that the DM would allow for a magic item to meet the strength requirement, you could change the Strength to 8, Charisma to 10, and dex to 14 to start. There would be no need to do Strength +1, Wisdom +1 as one of your ASIs and could instead use a half feat to bump wisdom and get something fun on the side. At tenth level, you would use Gauntlets of Giant Strength to get the strength to 19 and could start wearing heavy armor at that point. At 14th level, you could upgrade to the Belt of Hill Giant Strength for 21 strength. This would duplicate the Battle Ready allowing you to use your intelligence modifier for your melee attacks, meaning that you could take a different artificer subclass or you could leave intelligence at 18 and boost wisdom or constitution instead.
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, that one extra attunement can be used to provide the magical weapon needed for Battle Ready, to provide any number of other items (perhaps Mind Sharpener for those constitution checks), or to throw a party member a bone.
If you went Armorer instead of Battle Smith, you could actually dump STR as well as Arcane Armor removes any STR requirements. You also get 2 Freebie Infusions for your armor at lvl 9 meaning you could instead shift your Blessing of the Forge to your shield and have Enhanced Defence on the chest slot of the armor for free. If you want to be super frugal with your stats you could also dump CON but you will have a extremely difficult time until you hit 14 Artificer for a Amulet of Health lol.
Blessing of the forge uses "suit of armor" for the +1 AC identifier. Still, it would be a net zero adjustment since I had the enhanced defense on the shield and Blessing of the forge requires non magical items for the bonus application. Still, you could leave the "chest piece" as the blessing of the forge, move enhanced defense to either the boots or the helmet and use the repulser shield to get 29 with the armorer.
I also like the idea of Armorer instead of Battlesmith bypassing even the possibility of a DM not allowing the magic item to meet the strength requirement for full speed.
At level 2, tortle bladesinger that rolled high gets 22 ac, 26 by retreating into its shell, 27 with shield. One higher at 28is possible with mage armor if 2 20s. Nothing compared to these insane multiclasses, but level 2!
tortles are fire-and-forget high ac for non-heavy-armor classes
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
Simic Hybrid, Artificer Alchemist (14), Monk Kensei (3)
Plate 18
Shield +2
Fighting Style: Defense +1 if wearing armor
Infusions:
#1 Enhanced Defense on Armour +2 after Artificer 10
#2 Repulsion Shield on Shield +1
#3 Cloak of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 10)
#4 Ring of Protection +1 (requires Artificer 14)
Additional Abilities:
#1 Experimental Elixir of Resilience +1
#2 Make an unarmed attack with the Simic Hybrid's level 5 Grappling Appendage to trigger the Kensei Monk's Agile Parry for +2
Total: 29
This leaves access to 2 levels of Bladesinger for the obligatory +5AC at 20 int.
If you have access to the Thri-keen you could take the Dual Wielder Feat and have a pair of light weapons in the secondary arms to get an extra +1.
One problem: bladesong and plate cannot be combined. 20 dex and studded leather leaves 1 less than that. So 33 without external magic items for your build
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
You cannot Bladesong while donning a shield either. So that is another -3 AC.
Yeah, at that point bladesong barely helps, look for something else like a cleric level for shield of faith or a two levels of war wizard for 2 ac against 1 attack at the cost of being forced to use only cantrips and normal attacks for a turn.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
This build would be very MAD. Int, dex, and wis would have to be 13 just to multiclass and everyone wants con. Not having a 15 strength would lower your speed by 10 and alchemists don't get heavy armor proficiency which would negate the ability to cast spells. Agile parry doesn't specifically call out needing to qualify for martial arts to be used, but it's interesting to dip 3 levels just for the ability to make an unarmed strike for 6 damage at most to gain +2 AC. The presence of the fighting style implies a feat used, meaning ASIs would be at art 4, 8, and 12 and only two to devote to ability increases. It can get there, but what would it do?
Yeah, but with a perfect 20 int and dex you would be boosting your ac by 1 but also could do the dual wielder thing as you no longer carry a shield. AC of 31.
There is also the idea of unarmed strikes not requiring a free hand to trigger the Kensei Agile Parry which would leave the Simic Hybrid able to take Natural Carapace instead. DM Debatable.
As jhaffan states the stats and ASI's are probably not even possible but it is an interesting thought experiment.
It only uses 19 levels and has the wisdom to mc a level of cleric.
An interesting side effect is using your spell storing item to have your homunculus servant cast one concentration spell, a glyph of warding to cast a second and a third in a regular concentration slot. Using Warding Bond, Shield of Faith and Haste, reaction casting Shield and having 3/4 cover would put you at....47 AC?
@Fiest I did some number crunching and this is the best I can come up with using your template that is still possible without having to roll god stats:
Simic Hybrid STR 9 DEX 16 (15+1) CON 16 (14+2) INT 13 WIS 13 CHA 8
We take the Carapace option at level 5
14 Artificer (Alchemist), 3 Monk (Kensai) 2 Wizard (Bladesinging) 1 Cleric
Infusions: Headband of Intellect, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, Enhanced Defense
ASIs: Use 2 to max DEX and grab Fighting Initiate for the Defense Fighting Style
AC breakdown:
Studded Leather (12), DEX Modifier (17), Bladesong (21), Enhanced Defense (23), Ring and Cloak of Protection, (25), Agile Parry (27), Defense Fighting Style (28), Resilience Elixir (29), Simic Carapace (30), Shield of Faith (32), Glyph of Warding Haste (34), Shield spell (39), 3/4 cover (44)
Some of your ideas I had to discard because they just don't work.
Discarded ideas: Dual Wielder (not enough ASIs), Warding Bond (you do not have enough Cleric lvls to access this).
Final note you can replace Simic Hybrid with Warforged and get the same results.
Warding Bond is available from one of the esoteric backgrounds.
If you can't get that 20 Int then it really isn't worth the Bladesong. You are probably better off taking level 1 Fighter to get a fighting style, freeing an ASI, or getting an ASI from level 4 Monk.
Defensive Duelist is a possible conflict for the Shield reaction spell. Giving +6 AC for one attack instead of +5 for the turn.
But moooooom!
Without the Bladesinger, you become more in line with the traditional Artificer builds.
That's an interesting thought combo. At minimum, you'd be using a 1st, a 2nd, and 2 3rd level slots. Glyph of Warding takes an hour to cast and 200 gp worth of materials. Haste lasts a minute; Shield of Faith lasts 10 minutes and requires a Cleric or Paladin dip; and Warding Bond lasts 1 hour, requires battle smith, cleric 3, or oath of the crown 5 and a second caster. The homunculus would have to cast Warding Bond and would take half the damage taken by the character. With 1+your intelligence modifier+your Artificer level for HP, that's a max of 20 with a 14th level.
The homunculus would have to stay with 60 ft to keep the spell active, giving it a decent cushion from splash damage. 20 HP isn't a bunch of cushion and it could be susceptible to dying from a crit against you in addition to saves you have to make (including those to take half damage). Still, the nature of the resources required to make it all happen probably means a fight at a known location (since Glyph can't be moved very far), this is likely to be used at a time where a long rest will follow the encounter. Additional resources could be allocated to helping the homunculus stay alive since it would be providing +1 AC and resistance to all damage (by passing it on to the caster).
Hmm interesting by dropping Wizard from the build we end up with something like this:
Warforged with Selesnya Initiate background for Warding Bond
STR 9 DEX 13 CON 16 (14+2) INT 16 (15+1) WIS 13 CHA 8
14 Artificer (Alchemist), 4 Monk (Kensai) 1 Fighter 1 Cleric (Forge)
Infusions: Belt of Hill Giant Strength, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, Enhanced Defense
ASIs: Use 2 to max INT, Gift of the Metallic Dragon feat and 1 spare feat to play around with
AC breakdown:
Plate (18), Blessing of the Forge (19), Shield (21), Enhanced Defense (23), Ring and Cloak of Protection, (25), Agile Parry (27), Defense Fighting Style (28), Resilience Elixir (29), Warforged (30), Shield of Faith (32), Glyph of Warding Haste (34), Warding Bond (35), Gift of the Metallic Dragon (41), 3/4 cover (46)
This build can actually fight ok as well. With the spare feat we can grab Warcaster and infuse Enhanced Weapon on the Kensai weapon. In battle we can use our Action to cast Booming/Green Flame Blade and use the Hasted Action to make a unarmed strike (a kick) to keep Agile Parry up.
I know I'm super late to this but while different AC calculations don't stuck, there are plenty of ways to get AC bonuses. The highest permanant AC with no magic items I've managed to get is 24.
Start as Warforged Fighter with Defence fighting style and take 6 levels in Forge Cleric for +2 AC from Blessing of the Forge and Soul of the Forge. Wear plate armor for base 18 AC and a shield for +2, and you got 24 AC. Also, this is out of the scope of the question but it's worth pointing out that you would also get access to Shield of Faith from the cleric levels, which can get you another +2 AC for 10 minutes.
A level 20 barbarian with 20 dex, 24 con, and a shield also has 24 ac
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
If Forge Cleric is allowed (meaning you're using magic items you made yourself but presumably you can't borrow them from part members) then so is Artificer, giving us a baseline of plate+shield+(+2 infusion)+(+1 infusion)+(+1 ring)+(+1 cloak) = 25 before warforged or defense fighting style, which would get us to 27; this can be done by Artificer 14/Fighter 1, 4 levels faster than doing the same trick with Wizard 18 (replacing the infusions with casting Shield every round). 24 is chump change.