AC question

[DragonLancer]

A question has come up at tonights game. A character has a dex of 9 and thus a -1 modifier. His normal AC without armour is thus 9. His touch is also 9 bit how does this ability affect his flat footed AC? Is the penalty ignored thus making his FF higher than his normal AC? This seems odd and we can't find an reference in the PF rules.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Crothian]

The key is in the wording. Under Flat Footed it says

"A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC and Combat Maneuver Defense (CMD) "

Notice it says Dex bonus. So we need to then find out what a Dex bonus means. Under attributes we find

"A positive modifier is called a bonus, and a negative modifier is called a penalty."

So, therefore a flat footed character loses a positive modifier (the bonus) and not a negative one which would be referred to as a penalty. I hope that helps.

 

[DragonLancer]

Yes, we did read that. The issue we were discussing comes from that, because it means that his FF AC is higher than his normal non-FF AC and that seemed wrong.

 

[Crothian]

He doesn't have a bonus though, with a 9 Dex he has a penalty. Flat footed only has characters lose the bonus, not the penalty. So flat footed or not his AC will be the same.

 

[DragonLancer]

He doesn't have a bonus though, with a 9 Dex he has a penalty. Flat footed only has characters lose the bonus, not the penalty. So flat footed or not his AC will be the same.

It is late here and I admit I am a little tired but I'm missing something.

Fighting in no armour his AC will be 9 because the penalty is applied there.
Flat footed at the start of the combat his AC would be 10 as he doesn't take the penalty.

Going by the rulebook pages 178 and 179, flatfooted you don't get your Dex bonus so the penalty isn't applied. However for AC it says 10+ armour bonus + shield bonus + dexterity modifier + other mods.

Do you see where I am getting confused?

 

[Vegepygmy]

Going by the rulebook pages 178 and 179, flatfooted you don't get your Dex bonus so the penalty isn't applied. However for AC it says 10+ armour bonus + shield bonus + dexterity modifier + other mods.

Do you see where I am getting confused?

Yes, you're failing to distinguish between a Dexterity bonus to AC and a Dexterity penalty to AC. (I've boldfaced the terms in your own words to try and highlight this for you.)

When flat-footed, you lose any Dexterity bonus to AC; you do not lose any Dexterity penalty to AC. Thus, the character's flat-footed AC without armor is still 9, because the penalty still applies.

 

[DragonLancer]

Thank you. I'm guessing we were just tired at the end of the evening and being dull with a situation that we haven't encountered before.

At least we got that resolved. Thanks for your help.