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For some reason I thought that Mage Armor, since it's a force effect, granted the +4 armor bonus to your touch AC.
I realize now that's not true. It's still just an armor bonus that happens to work against incorporeal attacks and has no benefit to your touch AC. Am I correct here? (just looking for some validation).
If I'm wrong, and mage armor does help your touch AC, then the shield spell (another force effect) should also help your touch AC even though it's just a shield bonus.
Now after reading these spells again, they seem to offer no bonus to your touch AC.
Am I right or am I right?
I think you're right ;)
No bonus to touch AC...
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For some reason I thought that Mage Armor, since it's a force effect, granted the +4 armor bonus to your touch AC.I realize now that's not true. It's still just an armor bonus that happens to work against incorporeal attacks and has no benefit to your touch AC. Am I correct here? (just looking for some validation).
If I'm wrong, and mage armor does help your touch AC, then the shield spell (another force effect) should also help your touch AC even though it's just a shield bonus.
Now after reading these spells again, they seem to offer no bonus to your touch AC.
Am I right or am I right?
The touch AC is only against incorporeal creatures.
Mage Armor provides an armor bonus, so it will not stack with other spells or armor granting an armor bonus. For example, if you are wearing a +1 chain shirt (+5 armor bonus to AC) and cast Mage Armor on yourself, you will still only have the +5 armor bonus to AC from the +1 chain shirt.
Same with the shield spell, which grants a shield bonus to AC; it won't stack with a shield.
However, since both spells are force effects, they will provide protection against incorporeal touch attacks. For instance, wearing a +1 chain shirt offers no additional protection against incorporeal touch attacks because incorporeal touch attacks bypass non-force armor bonuses; however, if you also cast mage armor on yourself, you will receive a +4 armor bonus against incorporeal touch attacks from the spell.
For these reasons sometimes its good to have Mage Armor even if wearing regular armor.
Note though that Bracers of Armor (which operate much like Mage Armor) will NOT work when wearing armor granting a higher armor bonus (even though the Mage Armor spell will still work). It was common in 3.5 games for people to wear some bracers of armor even if wearing heavy armors just for the added protection against incorporeal touch attacks. But in PF the bracers cease functioning if an item granting a higher armor bonus is equipped. Thus, wearing +4 bracers of armor will have no effect if wearing a +1 chain shirt, even against incorporeal touch attacks, although the Mage Armor spell will still work. Go figure...
The reason that PF includes the non-stacking is the ability to enchant Bracers of Armor with other armor abilities. Without that rule, instead of having +5 reflecting full plate (100,000 gp), you'd buy +5 full plate and bracers of +1 reflecting armor (61,000 gp).
A second source of armor special qualities did a run around the exponential increase in magical armor pricing. Not allowing both at once fixes the loophole.