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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9355168" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, I stopped recording monsters by AC alone.&nbsp; My monster entries looked much more like 3e monster entries with explicit Dexterity recorded.&nbsp; And, instead of recording one number for AC I always recorded AC(AB) where AC referred to the effective AC of the monster as would be used by the weapons versus AC table and AB (&quot;armor bonus&quot;) referred to the adjustment to the AC.&nbsp;&nbsp; So a monster had something like an AC of 3 (equivalent to plate armor) and an AB of 3 - recorded usually as 3(+3).&nbsp;&nbsp; This would be equivalent to AC 0 sans any weapon versus AC adjustment.&nbsp; When applying the PC vs armor table, they would need say a 10 to hit AC 3 and thus a 13 to hit 3(+3).&nbsp; That we would get a hint like &quot;tough hide that is considered plate for purposes of to hit&quot; would make it easy to determine the AB.&nbsp; If the monster had AC 5 but its hide was considered plate, then that's AC of 3(-2) whereas if its AC was recorded in the MM as a 1 that's AC of 3(+2).&nbsp; So an AC of 10(+10) is a very different AC of 0(+0) even though in the MM they would have both been recorded in 1e as AC 0.&nbsp;&nbsp; Likewise AC 8(+3), AC 5(+0) and AC 1(-4) are all functionally different even though they could lazily all be recorded as &quot;AC 5&quot;.&nbsp; Absent hints I made judgment calls as to what sort of hide the monster effectively had and that became definitive.&nbsp; That was also used to derive a DEX for the monster.&nbsp; Conversely, if the monster hand 16 DEX in its entry we could infer the AC from the implied armor bonus.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9355168, member: 4937"] Well, I stopped recording monsters by AC alone. My monster entries looked much more like 3e monster entries with explicit Dexterity recorded. And, instead of recording one number for AC I always recorded AC(AB) where AC referred to the effective AC of the monster as would be used by the weapons versus AC table and AB ("armor bonus") referred to the adjustment to the AC. So a monster had something like an AC of 3 (equivalent to plate armor) and an AB of 3 - recorded usually as 3(+3). This would be equivalent to AC 0 sans any weapon versus AC adjustment. When applying the PC vs armor table, they would need say a 10 to hit AC 3 and thus a 13 to hit 3(+3). That we would get a hint like "tough hide that is considered plate for purposes of to hit" would make it easy to determine the AB. If the monster had AC 5 but its hide was considered plate, then that's AC of 3(-2) whereas if its AC was recorded in the MM as a 1 that's AC of 3(+2). So an AC of 10(+10) is a very different AC of 0(+0) even though in the MM they would have both been recorded in 1e as AC 0. Likewise AC 8(+3), AC 5(+0) and AC 1(-4) are all functionally different even though they could lazily all be recorded as "AC 5". Absent hints I made judgment calls as to what sort of hide the monster effectively had and that became definitive. That was also used to derive a DEX for the monster. Conversely, if the monster hand 16 DEX in its entry we could infer the AC from the implied armor bonus. [/QUOTE]

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