What is your AC?

[shadowfeld]

Has any other DM had a problem with armor class in the middle of a game? I recently looked over all of my PC's character sheets, and updated them perfectly to 3.5. However, when I got to their AC it was absolutely insane. I had to end up giving each of them 4-8 different armor classes each, because it was becomming too much trouble to add the bonuses during play. Such as:
Normal -
Touch -
Incorporeal touch -
Flat footed -
Held -
Touch/ff -
Touch/held -
Incorporeal/ff -
Incorporeal/held -

In breaking down the bonuses, most of them were pretty self explanitory. Now I am trying to find something, somewhere that might actually list when different bonuses actually apply. I'm sure it must be somewhere....I just really suck at surfing the freakin web! So if anyone happens to know where I can find a good explanation on AC & the placement of different bonuses.....PLEASE tell me.
Thank You,
Shadowfeld
~*~DM buried under numbers~*~

 

[Thanee]

I actually find that rather easy.

Anything armor (including shield and natural armor) isn't applied to touch attacks (tho, force armor and incorporeal touch attacks are an exception), and if you are flat-footed or otherwise unable to move, you don't count your dodge bonuses (Dex usually).

Bye
Thanee

 

[dcollins]

Stop.

You need to make the game sane for yourself (and fun), and if this is getting egregious for you, you should avoid this whole project of listing a zillion different contingency AC's. Most DM's don't do this. Most character sheets don't bother to provide space for this (maybe just a flat-footed option), and the MM doesn't break all these down for monsters either.

Let your players help you out. When an unusual attack form pops up, tell them what they have to take out of their AC before reporting it to you. If this slows down the game, well, there's points lost to how D&D is currently set up, but fighting against the current is even more un-fun.

I've got a player who sometimes gets tangled up in combat modifiers (what his raging Strength adds to, how to handle secondary natural attacks, how to roll grapple checks, etc.) I say so what, maybe he's a point or two off. I roll the dice and only do the full accounting if it's in the border area -- chances are the roll is way high or low so a few points don't matter anyway.

When the occasion comes up, just throw the general principles at the players to deal with:
Touch -- no armor, natural armor, or shield bonuses.
Incorporeal Touch -- same. (Except affected by force-magic or ghost touch.)

Everything else you mention is on the key PHB Table: Attack Roll Modifiers (from the combat chapter). You should have some kind of DM's screen with at least this key table on it (print one yourself from the SRD if need be). Jot down by hand the "touch attack" rule on the same screen if you need it recurrently.

 

[Pax]

In the Exodus, theonly two AC's I ever bothr to record onmy own character sheets (or really ask for from my players, in fact), are standard and touch.

The rest can be worked out "on the fly". Even in my live campaign, I don't ask for precalculated AC's for every eventuality - despite having 4 (of 5 players) 3.5E newbies. Heck, third-edition-at-ALL newbies.

 

[Tatsukun]

Well, here you go. I made a little box that might help you.
Good luck!

http://www.tatsusargent.com/other_stuff/ac_modifiers.htm

-Tatsu

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well, here you go. I made a little box that might help you.

You lose dodge bonuses to AC whenever you lose Dex bonuses to AC, so any row that has an X in the Dex column should also have one in the Dodge column.

Also, a minor and friendly nitpick (I understand that English is probably not your native language judging by your location): it's "incorporeal", not "incoporial".

 

[Tatsukun]

Fixed, and it should be noted that I am from the states, and an English teacher. I am not, however, a spelling teacher!

DOH !

-Tatsu

 

[dcollins]

Well, on that point you've got "Atack" in there which should be "Attack".

 

[Tatsukun]

Oh well, I give up. I've trashed it.
Too much hassle for so little gain

-T

 

[Majere]

You can get bye well enough with normal/touch/ff and list the ac as such:
eg,
Ac 42/(9/42)

FFt is worked out simply from noting that the difference from fft and touch is the same as that between fft and normal.
So the above also tells me that the fft ac is 42

There is no such thing as incorporial touch as far as I know, incorporeal attacks use your normal touch ac.
You held ac is the same as your ff ac, minus any ac for the shield. It comes up very rarely unless your pcs use grapple alot.
Being held is the same as being FF except you cant use your shield. Thus your touch while held is the same as your normal touch unless the character has a ring of force shield. Therefore you dont need to write this down except in exceptional circumstances.
As incoporeal attacks use touch ac, the same applies to these attack- no change unless the creature has a ring of force shield, in which case the force shield ac is lost.

Majere