A pinned creature cannot move and is denied its Dexterity bonus. A pinned character also takes an additional –4 penalty to his Armor Class.
If a character is pinned, do they "lose any dex bonus to AC", or are they "treated as having a Dexterity of 0" (helpless).
Sounds like the former to me, but the GM screen groups pinned with helpless.
You just lose whatever dex bonus you would have had otherwise, just as if you were flat-footed.
The GM screen also claims pinned characters take no AC penalty for ranged attacks. Why is that?
Being pinned in and of itself does nothing against ranged attacks. The loss of dex however applies against all attacks.
Being pinned in and of itself does nothing against ranged attacks.
It does according to the Core Rulebook.
Core Rulebook: "A pinned character also takes an additional –4 penalty to his Armor Class."
But the GM screen says something very different.
GM screen: A defender that is pinned takes a -4 to penalty to his AC vs melee attacks and a +0 bonus to his AC vs ranged attacks.
Is this a mistake, or is the GM screen factoring something else in? (If so, what?)
The GM screen has a few errors. The book is correct.
PS:I said being pinned does nothing against ranged attacks which is correct. When something affects your AC it does not apply to melee or ranged attacked only it applies to both.
PS2:I realize I did not use the word specifically in my last post, but I thought you were asking about an extra penalty that would not apply to melee attacks.