Adding Charisma twice to AC, does it work?

Effectively im asking do these 2 abilities work in tandem, one is from the Scaled Fist Monk archtype, the only difference between the following quote and the archtype is that the archtype says replace instances of Wizdom with Charisma.

Ac Bonus (EX)
When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds his Wisdom bonus (if any) to his AC and his CMD. In addition, a monk gains a +1 bonus to AC and CMD at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every four monk levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. He loses these bonuses when he is immobilized or helpless, when he wears any armor, when he carries a shield, or when he carries a medium or heavy load.

The here is the ability from the Enlightened Paladin

Confident Defense (EX)
At 1st level, when wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, an Enlightened paladin adds 1 point of his Charisma bonus (if any) per class level to his Dexterity bonus to his Armor Class. If he is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.

This ability replaces his proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, and shields.

Well, I'm sure I'm getting it wrong but doesn't the Core say that like bonuses don't stack unless otherwise noted? So this is a Cha bonus and another Cha bonus, so I don't think they stack. Like I said though, I'm usually wrong about these things. Can someone smarter than me chime in here?

Since they are untyped, they don't stack per this FAQ.

You can add things like Osyluth's Guile or Paladin's Smite though, since its a typed bonus (dodge and deflection respectively).

No, it doesn't work. Both abilities add the character charisma to AC, and that doesn't work, see the following FAQ:

Do ability modifiers from the same ability stack? For instance, can you add the same ability bonus on the same roll twice using two different effects that each add that same ability modifier?

No. An ability bonus, such as "Strength bonus", is considered to be the same source for the purpose of bonuses from the same source not stacking. However, you can still add, for instance “a deflection bonus equal to your Charisma modifier” and your Charisma modifier. For this purpose, however, the paladin's untyped "bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws" from divine grace is considered to be the same as "Charisma bonus (if any)", and the same would be true for any other untyped "bonus equal to her [ability score] bonus" constructions.

There are some combinations that do end up adding charisma to AC twice.

The Water Dancer monk, for example, replaces Wisdom with Charisma for class features and also adds its Charisma bonus (capped by level) to its AC as a dodge bonus. Add Osyluth's Guile and get it three times.

You can add a stat to something any number of times provided they are different types (and untyped is a type) and you can stack any number of dodge bonuses since those stack with each other by default (balanced by dodge bonuses being negatable.)

Confident Defense (EX)
At 1st level, when wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, an Enlightened paladin adds 1 point of his Charisma bonus (if any) per class level to his Dexterity bonus to his Armor Class. If he is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.

I think the others didn't read this ability properly: Confident Defense does not add your CHA bonus to AC. First, it adds one point of the CHA bonus per class level [i.e. not the CHA bonus itself], and second, it adds that bonus to the DEX bonus, not the AC bonus itself.

This means two things: First, the two different bonuses stack, however the Confident Defense bonus is limited to the maximum DEX bonus of the armor you are wearing: If your armor has a +4 max DEX, and you already have a DEX bonus of 4 (or higher), you gain no additional bonus from Confident Defense.

There's been various other discussions on similar lines.

Basically, they don't want you to be able to stack everything into one ability score and then double it.

Darc1396 wrote:

Confident Defense (EX)
At 1st level, when wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, an Enlightened paladin adds 1 point of his Charisma bonus (if any) per class level to his Dexterity bonus to his Armor Class. If he is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.

I think the others didn't read this ability properly: Confident Defense does not add your CHA bonus to AC. First, it adds one point of the CHA bonus per class level [i.e. not the CHA bonus itself], and second, it adds that bonus to the DEX bonus, not the AC bonus itself.

This means two things: First, the two different bonuses stack, however the Confident Defense bonus is limited to the maximum DEX bonus of the armor you are wearing: If your armor has a +4 max DEX, and you already have a DEX bonus of 4 (or higher), you gain no additional bonus from Confident Defense.

To address your points:

To address your points:
1) It adds the charisma bonus to the dexterity bonus to AC. That adds the charisma bonus to the AC, it doesn't convert it to a different type of bonus.

That's wrong, and the rules give a clear example:

Enhancement bonuses do not stack with each other, so a +3 enhancement bonus to armor bonus does not stack with a +2 enhancement bonus to armor bonus; only the highest bonus applies and it would result in an effective +3 to AC.

However, a +3 enhancement bonus to armor bonus does stack with a +2 enhancement bonus to natural armor bonus, resulting in an effective +5 to AC.

If that were not the case, then the Amulet of Natural Armor were not one of the big 6 items, since its enhancement bonus to natural armor wouldn't stack with the enhancement bonus of the armor you're wearing. Similarly, the enhancement bonus to the shield bonus stacks with the other enhancement bonuses to armor & natural armor bonus as well, allowing a final tally of 3 enhancement bonuses applies to AC.

And it is literally the same thing in this case: The Confident Defense ability adds single points from the CHA bonus to the DEX bonus, while the other adds the CHA (resp. WIS) to armor. It's not about the type of bonus in this case, but the fact that the CHA bonus is added to different things.

tl;dr
An Enhancement bonus to your natural armor would stack with an Enhancement bonus to your shield bonus, and it would also stack with an Enhancement bonus to your armor bonus. That is due to the bonus being added to different things. Now replace "Enhancement" with "Charisma" and you see why these Charisma bonuses indeed do stack.

If you just read the raw rules, Thealtetos, then what you say makes sense. However, in the faq that Firebug linked upthread, and the many discussions that occurred throughout the boards leading up to that faq, they made it clear that you are not supposed to be able to add the same stat to something twice.

You can add CHA to AC twice if they're different modifiers (eg. Scaled Fist Monk = Untyped-stat modifier and Smite Evil = Deflection modifier).

In this case you're adding your CHA to your DEX, so I think it still ends up as an Untyped-Stat modifier, so you can't use it.

It seems different but it's not. If it actually called itself a Dodge bonus it'd work, but it's adding to your DEX-mod directly.

It's close, but not quite (and it's definitely an edge case that's confusing even with the FAQ).

Its making the Dex modifier for AC bigger, not adding Cha directly to AC liked Scaled Fist or the Water Dancer Monk. It should stack.

Yeah I'm not 100% on this one, but I think it's still an untyped modifier equal to your CHA-mod, it's just worded in a weird way (and I guess with more restrictions like flat-footed etc).

I dunno, definitely an edge case, but I lean towards doesn't work.

Of course it depends how overpowered this actually becomes. If it isn't causing problems balancing the game then it doesn't really matter.

Honestly, I fear many are still too focused on the FAQ because of some Pavlovian training: hear stat bonus, think about that FAQ!
Take a step back, watch some funny anime, then return and look at it again:

Just because these abilities involve ability bonuses, does not automatically mean that this FAQ applies in any way. The prerequisites for the FAQ are "untyped ability bonus applied to the same thing". And this prerequisite is not fulfilled, because the stat bonus does not apply to the SAME thing, but to DIFFERENT things.
Nobody would deny that a CHA bonus to armor bonus has no effect whatsoever on a CHA bonus to saving throws because the CHA bonus is applied to different things.

And as I wrote earlier, the CHA bonus here applies to different things as well. This still holds true:

A bonus to your armor bonus stacks with that same bonus to your shield bonus and also stacks with that same bonus to your natural armor bonus, because that same bonus is applied to different things.

The rules clearly spell out that such a bonus increases the effective armor/shield/natural/whatever bonus, that it applies to, and at that point it stops being its own bonus:
A +2 enhancement bonus to a +3 natural armor bonus turns completely into a +5 natural armor bonus; it does not turn into a +3 natural +2 enhancement bonus of different types. This is why the entire +5 bonus is added to AC even when somebody already has a shield or armor with a +3 enhancement bonus.

A +2 insight bonus to the +3 DEX bonus turns completely into a +5 DEX bonus, not into a +3 DEX +2 insight bonus.

A +2 CHA bonus to the +3 DEX bonus turns completely into a +5 DEX bonus, not into a +3 DEX +2 CHA bonus.

That is why the second ability does not add any CHA bonus to AC, it only adds a DEX bonus to armor class; whether that DEX bonus has been increased by any other bonuses (untyped, enhancement, luck, ...) before that point does not matter at all. It is a DEX bonus and a DEX bonus to AC stacks with a CHA bonus to AC.

This increased DEX bonus is subject to all the rules of the DEX bonus, like not applying it to AC when you're flat-footed, limited by the maximum DEX bonus of your armor, and so forth.

Similarly, if you had a CHA bonus being applied by some ability to your shield bonus, then this increased shield bonus would stack upon the increased DEX bonus and the CHA bonus to AC.

This might be an oversight by the designers of this ability or not, but I am very confident that a strict reading of the rules necessitates this conclusion.

paizo has made it clear many times, you can't add the same stat to the same thing more than once.

adding char to dodge bonus and adding cha to armor bonus both add your charisma to AC, this is what they say no to over and over. if you think you found a cute way to get around it, you didn't and if you really did they will faq it away as they have done in the past.

Yeah, my stance isn't really about precise wording. By the wording a lot of the stacking of ability bonuses works. My stance is based on the fact that the developers made it plainly clear that their intent was to not allow adding the same ability modifier twice to one roll.

Paizo has also made it clear that the FAQs they put out only apply to what the FAQ is about. In this case that is untyped bonuses to the same thing. Theaitetos is correct in that the abilities are not applying untyped bonuses to the same thing.

paizo has made it clear many times, you can't add the same stat to the same thing more than once.

adding char to dodge bonus and adding cha to armor bonus both add your charisma to AC, this is what they say no to over and over. if you think you found a cute way to get around it, you didn't and if you really did they will faq it away as they have done in the past.

I think you've misread the FAQ.

FAQ wrote:

Do ability modifiers from the same ability stack? For instance, can you add the same ability bonus on the same roll twice using two different effects that each add that same ability modifier?

No. An ability bonus, such as "Strength bonus", is considered to be the same source for the purpose of bonuses from the same source not stacking. However, you CAN still add, for instance “a deflection bonus equal to your Charisma modifier” AND your Charisma modifier. For this purpose, however, the paladin's untyped "bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws" from divine grace is considered to be the same as "Charisma bonus (if any)", and the same would be true for any other untyped "bonus equal to her [ability score] bonus" constructions.

(Bold and CAPITALIZATION for emphasis.)

Where I disagree with Theaitetos is that I think they ARE applying to the same thing.

What type of bonus is the AC bonus that you get from your DEX normally considered to be?

As far as I know it's an untyped bonus, so adding to it would be adding to an untyped bonus. Since we're then stacking two forms of untyped bonus equal to CHA they don't stack.

I agree with MrCharisma here. One of the abilities must have a type for it to function. For example a deflection bonus equal to you charisma stacks with a untyped bonus to ac. This means that replacing your dex modifier with your charisma modifier and adding your charisma modifier (ie scaled fist monk + natures whispers oracle) also do not stack.

Now I was originally of the mind that they did stack, however it was made quite clear to me in the discussions leading up to that faq that the intent was these abilities do not. Even though one replaces your dex mod, that is still considered to be adding your charisma modifier. Since neither ability gives a "type" to it (dodge, deflection, insight, etc) then they don't stack.

In the end though, at this point in the life of pf1, we're all just playing our own home games. So feel free to run them however you please. If you want to let people do shenanigans like this that's totally up to you/your group. I think the reason not to let them stack is pretty clear, but if you run a high powered game then it's unlikely to break anything.

As I recall, this FAQ came from the charisma to everything builds that were floating around at the time. The paladin of Desna. (now some people might have a problem with a paladin of Desna, being that she is CG, however nothing in the paladin class actually mentions any requirements to deities. So it worked by raw, though like other aspects of the build is kind of iffy to many people).

Usually it went something like oracle 1/paladin4/umonk rest. Divine fighting (Desna's shooting star) feat. Sidestep secret lore oracle revelation. Weapon focus (starknife) and crusaders flurry. Irrepressible trait.

So you get flurry of blows with charisma to hit (doubled when smiting), charisma to damage, 2x charisma to AC (3x when smiting), charisma to all saves (2x charisma to reflex, & to will vs charm & compulsion). Evasion, and you're only 1 under full bab.

All you needed was max cha, and none of your other stats really matter so the rest went into con. This multiplying a single stat was considered totally unintended bs by the devs, and so the kibosh was put on it.

vhok wrote:

paizo has made it clear many times, you can't add the same stat to the same thing more than once.

adding char to dodge bonus and adding cha to armor bonus both add your charisma to AC, this is what they say no to over and over. if you think you found a cute way to get around it, you didn't and if you really did they will faq it away as they have done in the past.

I think you've misread the FAQ.

Diego Rossi wrote:

FAQ wrote:

Do ability modifiers from the same ability stack? For instance, can you add the same ability bonus on the same roll twice using two different effects that each add that same ability modifier?

No. An ability bonus, such as "Strength bonus", is considered to be the same source for the purpose of bonuses from the same source not stacking. However, you CAN still add, for instance “a deflection bonus equal to your Charisma modifier” AND your Charisma modifier. For this purpose, however, the paladin's untyped "bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws" from divine grace is considered to be the same as "Charisma bonus (if any)", and the same would be true for any other untyped "bonus equal to her [ability score] bonus" constructions.

(Bold and CAPITALIZATION for emphasis.)

Where I disagree with Theaitetos is that I think they ARE applying to the same thing.

What type of bonus is the AC bonus that you get from your DEX normally considered to be?

As far as I know it's an untyped bonus, so adding to it would be adding to an untyped bonus. Since we're then stacking two forms of untyped bonus equal to CHA they don't stack.

i'm not even talking about the faq, i've been on these forums for many many years and i've seen stuff like this before and seen offcial dev's reply on the forums saying it doesn't work. i don't bookmark these or i could link them, it is what it is but this stuff has never flown in the past and i doubt paizo will suddenly allow it to now. maybe they wont reply becuase they have moved on to pf2 but they have made their stance clear. no double dipping the same stat for the same thing, ac/atk roll/dmg etc etc.

Honestly, I fear many are still too focused on the FAQ because of some Pavlovian training: hear stat bonus, think about that FAQ!

Take a step back, watch some funny anime, then return and look at it again:

Just because these abilities involve ability bonuses, does not automatically mean that this FAQ applies in any way. The prerequisites for the FAQ are "untyped ability bonus applied to the same thing". And this prerequisite is not fulfilled, because the stat bonus does not apply to the SAME thing, but to DIFFERENT things.
Nobody would deny that a CHA bonus to armor bonus has no effect whatsoever on a CHA bonus to saving throws because the CHA bonus is applied to different things.

And as I wrote earlier, the CHA bonus here applies to different things as well. This still holds true:

A bonus to your armor bonus stacks with that same bonus to your shield bonus and also stacks with that same bonus to your natural armor bonus, because that same bonus is applied to different things.

The rules clearly spell out that such a bonus increases the effective armor/shield/natural/whatever bonus, that it applies to, and at that point it stops being its own bonus:
A +2 enhancement bonus to a +3 natural armor bonus turns completely into a +5 natural armor bonus; it does not turn into a +3 natural +2 enhancement bonus of different types. This is why the entire +5 bonus is added to AC even when somebody already has a shield or armor with a +3 enhancement bonus.

A +2 insight bonus to the +3 DEX bonus turns completely into a +5 DEX bonus, not into a +3 DEX +2 insight bonus.

A +2 CHA bonus to the +3 DEX bonus turns completely into a +5 DEX bonus, not into a +3 DEX +2 CHA bonus.

That is why the second ability does not add any CHA bonus to AC, it only adds a DEX bonus to armor class; whether that DEX bonus has been increased by any other bonuses (untyped, enhancement, luck, ...) before that point does not matter at all. It is a DEX bonus and a DEX bonus to AC stacks with a CHA bonus to AC.

This increased...

^---- this is the correct answer gents.

At level 20, if Dex is your primary ability score, you're going to have all kinds of bonuses to your Dex. You'll have a +6 enhancement bonus to Dex from belt, a +5 untyped increase to Dex from +1 at levels 4/8/12/16/20, a +5 inherent bonus to Dex from Wish, +2 size bonus to Dex if you have Reduce Person, Cha bonus to Dex, etc.

So to answer the OP's question: You will have a Cha bonus to Dex, from Paladin's Confident Defense. And you would also have a Cha bonus to AC, from Scaled Fist Monk. They would effectively stack because the Cha bonus is going to two different places.

^---- this is the correct answer gents.

At level 20, if Dex is your primary ability score, you're going to have all kinds of bonuses to your Dex. You'll have a +6 enhancement bonus to Dex from belt, a +5 untyped increase to Dex from +1 at levels 4/8/12/16/20, a +5 inherent bonus to Dex from Wish, +2 size bonus to Dex if you have Reduce Person, Cha bonus to Dex, etc.

So to answer the OP's question: You will have a Cha bonus to Dex, from Paladin's Confident Defense. And you would also have a Cha bonus to AC, from Scaled Fist Monk. They would effectively stack because the Cha bonus is going to two different places.

You read Confident Defense differently than I do. Effectively, it says you can add your Cha bonus to your Dex bonus to AC correct? Its not saying you 'increase' your Dex bonus by your Cha, just that you can also add it. Enhancement increases the effective score, and this isn't doing that. You could also read it as "you can add your Cha bonus to your AC in addition to your normal bonuses". I also add my Dodge bonus to my AC, but that doesn't mean my Cha is 'added to' my Dodge bonus like you are thinking. But the English phrasing is the same to describe the math. Added to.

Theaitetos seems to be saying one of the two bonuses(Monk AC) is an Armor bonus. This is not true on its face. If it was, Monks in generally lose at least 4 AC because they can no longer use Mage Armor or Bracers of Armor. Monk's AC Bonus class feature adds Wis(or Cha) modifier as an untyped bonus to AC and CMD. Though this might be a case of overloading the game terms with English meanings. I notice that Theaitetos is consistently using 'armor' when they may mean AC and 'natural' when they may mean 'without anything else added in'.

They also conflate a bonus to an ability score with a bonus to an ability modifier and equate that to an enhancement bonus. Very little actually increases/decreases ability modifier, most things work on the ability score. Enhancement bonuses do directly work on other bonuses, that's why they are enhancements. They are an exception to how bonuses normally work, not the rule. In their terms when you add enhancement and insight bonuses to an ability score it completely turns into the ability modifier, because there is another step in there.

But that's not what Confident Defense and Scaled Fist's AC bonus are doing. Neither are changing the ability score at all. They are plucking up an untyped modifier and dropping it in a different place. And we know from the FAQ that untyped ability score modifiers don't stack on the same thing. Now, if it said you can add your Cha modifier to your Dex Modifier as an enhancement bonus, then sure.

FWIW

Confident Defense doesn't apply when you're Flat-Footed or otherwise denied a dex bonus, because it's a Cha bonus to Dex, and Scaled Fist's AC bonus DOES apply when you're Flat-footed, because it's a Cha bonus to AC. These are very different effects in my mind.