Flat-footed CMD - how is it calculated?


Rules Questions


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

How is CMD calculated for a flat-footed character?

Core Rulebook (p. 199) wrote:

Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its CMD. A flat-footed creature does not add its Dexterity bonus to its CMD.

Core Rulebook (p. 179) also (when referring to AC) wrote:

Any situation that denies you your Dexterity bonus also denies you dodge bonuses.

When I pointed this out in a bug report to Hero Lab, they asked if I had a second source that verifies that the flat-footed state also modifies CMD. They prefer an answer from an official PF game designer, or a FAQ answer. Any idea for how to go about getting that, aside from clicking the FAQ button in a post? :)


Flat footed CMD should be normal CMD less Dex, Dodge, and any other modifiers that specifically aren't active while flat footed.

It doesn't seem like anything more than those two rules from the CRB should be needed.


I don't see what more source than the Core Rulebook is needed.

Having said that, I use Hero Labs and it is correctly calculating flat-footed CMD for my characters by removing any DEX bonuses and dodge bonuses.


Maybe I was over-hasty in calling it a bug, but instead should call it a QoL (quality of life) improvement for the first page of the character sheet. After all, AC gets the regular AC box, the touch AC box, and the flat-footed AC box. So why not a flat-footed CMD box?

(We don't use Hero Lab for in-game adjustments, only for character sheets and spell lists.)


Space allocation. There is only so much that can go on the character sheet without creating too many pages. Flat-footed CMD ranks low on the priority list.

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