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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IanB" data-source="post: 3479182" data-attributes="member: 1473">More touch AC wankeryI realize this thread is pretty much dead at this point but given that it was the thread that prompted me to do this little bit of "analysis" I thought I'd post it up.I'm still trying to decide whether or not to allow the orb spells as-is in my game. To that end I decided to take a look at touch ACs for high level opponents (CR 15 and up.) I changed the rules a bit from Nail's version though:- I'm excluding dragons, because we know they have crappy touch ACs anyway, but they're also spellcasters, and if I decide to allow orb spells, then it is easy enough to have the dragons take anti-orb spells into account in their spell selection.- I'm excluding good aligned monsters, because my parties simply don't fight them very often at all.- I'm including anti-orb abilities and SLAs that affect touch AC or add a miss chance into my review, as long as they're printed in the monster description.So far I've only done this for the monsters in the SRD, as that's what I have access to at work, and I have more important things to do when I'm at home. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />One thing I've learned from this is just how few high-CR monsters there are in the MM that aren't dragons!CR 15 Inevitable, Marut - base touch AC 10, no relevant SLAsMummy Lord - base touch AC 11, shield of faith takes it to 14CR 16Devil, Horned - base touch AC 16, dispel good/chaos puts it at 20 vs those alignmentsStone Golem, Greater - base touch AC 6, no relevant SLAsNightshade, Nightwalker - base touch AC 10, haste puts it at 11, deeper darkness adds 20% miss chanceCR 17Aboleth Mage - base touch AC 11, has multiple options for 20% or 50% miss chances due to spells (does it really need blur AND displacement AND greater invis?)Demon, Marilith - base touch AC 13, unholy aura puts it at 17Formian, Queen - base touch AC 9, shield of law puts it at 13Frost Giant Jarl - base touch AC 10, no modifiersCR 18Nightshade, Nightcrawler - base touch AC 6, haste puts it at 7 (awesome), deeper darkness gives 20% miss chanceCR 19No non-dragon monsters at CR 19 in the SRD (!).CR 20Demon, Balor - base touch AC 16, unholy aura puts it at 20Devil, Pit Fiend - base touch AC 17, unholy aura puts it at 21Tarrasque - base touch AC 5, but I would probably rule orbs are covered by the 'reflect' effectVia this half-assed analysis, I think I'm going to allow them, pending an examination of the touch ACs in the higher ends of the adventure paths. Barring dragons, there's a pretty good mix of creatures they'll be good and bad against, and I didn't take into account factors like energy resistance when I was going through here.</blockquote>

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