AC and description

[Jawar]

The correct narrative expectation to draw from "this guy is wearing ten tons of spiked armor" is "he gets the slow-motion zoom into focus", not "he's hard to hit".

You mean clichés, right?

It happens that, at least for me, clichés make me laugh.
And I'm not really sure if «the slow-motion zoom into focus» was meant to make the players laugh in the 1st place.

In order NOT to make people laugh, those spikes should do more than just cinematic drama - much, much more.

 

[hong]

You mean clichés, right?

You say this like it's a negative thing.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

wow, noone adresses my issue:

its not the fudge of getting higher AC which bothers me.

It is the LOWER AC of the Minions and the slinger.

17 DEX, lether armor and end up with 13 AC?

with a reflex score of 14?

AC = 10+½ level+3+class+feat+enhancement+misc=13

REF = 10+½ level+3+1+feat+enhancement+misc=14

But then again thats just a guess going off of the numbers provided.

 

[FireLance]

wow, noone adresses my issue:

its not the fudge of getting higher AC which bothers me.

It is the LOWER AC of the Minions and the slinger.

17 DEX, lether armor and end up with 13 AC?

with a reflex score of 14?

Though not a deal-breaker, I do agree that it is annoying. Have we encountered examples of bonuses (racial, class or otherwise) that add to Reflex Defence without adding to AC? If so, then the minions and slinger happen to suffer from an extreme case of that.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Though not a deal-breaker, I do agree that it is annoying. Have we encountered examples of bonuses (racial, class or otherwise) that add to Reflex Defence without adding to AC? If so, then the minions and slinger happen to suffer from an extreme case of that.

Yes, like pretty much every single class. Take the Paladin for example, it gets +1 to Fort, Ref, and Will, but not to AC. According to the PrRC the Rogue gets +2 to Ref and nothing to AC. Boosts to the non AC defenses are one of the defining features of the classes.

 

[Family]

Yes, like pretty much every single class. Take the Paladin for example, it gets +1 to Fort, Ref, and Will, but not to AC. According to the PrRC the Rogue gets +2 to Ref and nothing to AC. Boosts to the non AC defenses are one of the defining features of the classes.

Hey...at least it's not THAC0

 

[UngeheuerLich]

THAC0 was at least consistent...

 

[Ginnel]

I'm not sure what this consistency thing is when AC itself is an abstract concept like hit points.

AC is made up of:
skill
training
agility
experience
armor
shield
special training
tough hide
magic
and dumb luck

There is no reason an experienced nippy kobold with a buckler wouldn't be harder to hit than one in a suit of koboldic full plate

You can use visual queues to give characters a hint on their combatants but probably not until they've been fighting a while and this is where the PC's hitting or missing with different rolls comes into it its a way of expressing their character summing up the opponents combat effectiveness, its quite a neat way to use a game mechanic to express in character information

 

[UngeheuerLich]

ok... but then again, if you can´t judge AC by the appearance, ten something is just wrong... once again: i don´t mind someone in scale beeing hard to hit, but someone in leather being harder to touch than hurting with a knife... sorry, thats just wrong...

you can improve its armor by changing to a suit of scale mail and put on the lether armor he was wearing before...

its not the principle thats totally wrong...in fact it is quite nice... but this particular example... hmmhhmm

i have seen the same later on goblin artillary... but there it is not so obvious, and its acceptable there (maybe its a very crude leather armor with only AC +1) but lether with AC 0 ... just wrong... really...

 

[Jhaelen]

i have seen the same later on goblin artillary... but there it is not so obvious, and its acceptable there (maybe its a very crude leather armor with only AC +1) but lether with AC 0 ... just wrong... really...

Well, iirc, manufactured armor and natural armor no longer stack. You use the highest AC of both. Works well in other rpg systems, so it works for me.