[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Agema

As per Amorphous' equation, getting over 30 protection is often difficult in practice. You generally need the spell invulnerability or some really massive armour (Aseftik's, Monolith). Most thug builds would probably top-out somewhere in the 20s.

I don't think Defence tops out either, but it stacks linearly.

Not including shield, starting at a maximum base skill of 15 (and not including shield): Quickness (+3), weapon bonus (up to +4), Chainmail of displacement (+3), gets you to 25. Experience can add up to +4, there are items that add to Defence presuming they stack (bracers +2, cat charm +4?) and heroic ability (+ whatever).

I would expect here again over 30 Def is vanishingly unlikely. That will partly be because there are much better ways to equip an SC rather than Def boosters: 30Def is made useless by all sorts of spells like earth meld, tangle vines, paralyze, and so on, and due to -2Def per attack, it quickly degrades if the SC is swarmed by many attackers.

Really heavy Armor is more degraded by the fatigue bypass of protection (imo) than the -2 def.