golden plate mail

[Halbarad1891]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: The Helm of Defense does not grant a -1 AC bonus; you may be thinking of the Helm of Glory, which does. The lowest possible legal AC in straight BG1 is -12: You need the items you listed, Halbarad, plus one more item available near Beregost. And no matter how many people still describe the Defender as being +5, it's still "only" +3. If you happen to have ToSC installed, the best possible AC drops to -13, with the arrival of a very nice Shield.

Yeah that's the helm I was talking about, my mistake.
No matter what the stats for Defender are it's title says it's a +5. But either way it still grants the AC bonus.
But the item "near Beregost" is cursed. So technically you can get that high, but who'd want to?

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Halbarad1891: ....But the item "near Beregost" is cursed. So technically you can get that high, but who'd want to?

Someone who felt that the loss of up to 18 hitpoints and a weakened Save vs. Death was worth the extra -1 to AC and better Saves against everything else. A good example would be a Cleric or Druid with 18 CON (possibly Dualed from a Fighter): Priests already have excellent Saves vs. Death, and the CON penalty would be meaningless to them, so the item would be almost completely without drawbacks for them.

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: ~~snip~~ Priests already have excellent Saves vs. Death, and the CON penalty would be meaningless to them, so the item would be almost completely without drawbacks for them.

ah but wouldn't a druid be the only one able to wear the sword, and unless it was a druid/fighter the armor would be unusable... so a druid fighter would get the greatest benefit from the AC lowering items (in which case the con penalty would be once again important, spoiling the whole thing)