Although AC is a measure of how well protected a creature is, I find some problems when dealing with AC and large creatures. For instance, the Immense Tortoise (Bestiary 4) has AC 25 (+25 natural) Do the shell has AC 25 or just the whole body (which would be illogical). Furthermore, if a Medium size humanoid attacks the tortoise, does he hit the legs (due to his size) or the shell (again illogical)? The legs would have 0 AC...
Any advice to cope with it?
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Thick scaly skin would still provide some natural armor, T-Rex has 14 nat armor for example, and the tortoise is larger so thus would have even thicker skin.
I would imagine that in combat an immense tortoise would do whatever it could to block blows with the shell, pads of its feet, claws, etc., even if it was just dipping down so that the weapon would glance across the rim.
A length of 64+ feet for the tortoise would put it in that category, but as they walk the bottom of their shell is actually quite close to the ground, it wouldn't necessarily be hovering 25 feet above the players heads.
How this equates to other very large creatures I can't explain away however.
You could always consider an attack against the leg a called shot and lower the AC as you see fit, down to 21 or something (average ac for a CR 8 monster) without increasing the difficulty to hit due to the size of the leg. Honestly though, at CR8 melees aren't needing to roll 20's to hit an ac 25 so it is probably ok as is, especially if they are flanking. If it was in the 30's that would be a whole other conversation. Level 7 iconic Valeros flanking is hitting 50% of the time for example on his primary attack.
Check out Abadar's table for reference here.
Ok, NOG, thanks! We suppose that AC, in the case of creatures with skins of different thickness, stands for the best protection for their bodies (Immense tortoise AC +25 for the shell, maybe AC +10 for legs and head). So, each square should have its own AC...
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I think that is fair, but I would not go as low as AC10. Look to other reptiles in similar size categories to estimate skin toughness. T-Rex as referenced above has a nat armor of 14, and it doesn't have shells, and it is smaller than an Im. Tortoise. If you want to make it non-trivial to hit called, I wouldn't go below about 18, assuming APL=CR+/- 1. AC10 means a fighter would auto-hit at level 7ish with anything but a 1. Diplodocus is collosal, has no shell, and has a "skin" nat armor of 21.
The answer by the rules is that the AC is the AC regardless of where you hit unless you are using called shot rules.
The normal rules do not say it has a AC of 24 on the shell and 0 on the legs. Rather, the creature has a flat AC of 24. You must hit that or deal no damage.
If you need to justify why the whole body uses the same AC just think of it as representing the sensitive bits of the creature, and while you can easily stab a gigantic creatures legs, they are the size of tree trunks so your little cut or stab doesn't mean much to it. The AC represents scoring a hit in the right place to inflict meaningful damage.
Otherwise, consider that the AC of player characters that wearing less than full plate would essentially be negated everywhere except the torso. So your arms, legs, groin, etc are all exposed and gain no benefit of armor. If you run the game this way what is the point of having any armor mechanically anyways?
Just run it as is. The game is balanced around things working this way.
Well, but what about the relative size of the combatants? If you (Medium) can only reach the Tortoise's (dinosaur, Tarrasque...) legs, it is mandatory to call for a Called Shot (at -2 penalty). So, it's easier to defeat this kind of monsters being Medium-sized than Collossal-sized.
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I still don't know that an ac 25 is off for the exposed bits. The actual shell if that is where one was hitting would be much higher, and likely have ridiculous hardness that you would have to overcome. AC 25 seems right even accounting for hitting legs to me, especially if as posted upthread part of that ac figures on sometimes hitting the shell its self
Otherwise, consider that the AC of player characters that wearing less than full plate would essentially be negated everywhere except the torso. So your arms, legs, groin, etc are all exposed and gain no benefit of armor. If you run the game this way what is the point of having any armor mechanically anyways?
Just run it as is. The game is balanced around things working this way.
This is a delicate matter regarding Called shots rules. Eg/ A chain shirt is AC +4. Legs and arms are unprotected. When making a Called shot (-2), would you attack against AC 14 or an (unprotected) AC 10?
Rules as written are sometimes clumsy.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Though options for called shot systems exist (I think in Ultimate Combat?), the game does not assume you're using called shots. It's not the default assumption.
So even if the only thing you could hit are the legs, the game doesn't treat you as targeting the legs--you're just targeting the creature, and the entire creature has one AC score (er, well, three, but you get my drift)
Combat is meant to be abstract, to a degree. If it helps, think about the lack of armor on the tortoise's legs being balanced by the lack of vital organs in the tortoises legs. It's easier to hit, but harder to hit for effect. Rather than try to model this, the game simplifies the matter and just calls it hard to hit the creature.
Of course, you're welcome to homebrew a system for separate AC scores for extremities by square, but you should be careful not to weaken creatures by giving them too many weak spots. Big creatures are supposed to be tough fights!
Well, but what about the relative size of the combatants? If you (Medium) can only reach the Tortoise's (dinosaur, Tarrasque...) legs, it is mandatory to call for a Called Shot (at -2 penalty). So, it's easier to defeat this kind of monsters being Medium-sized than Collossal-sized.
False. The relative size of the combatants does not figure in, except in how their AC is adjusted. Please remember that every size category increase imposes a penalty to AC on it's own already to account for what you are suggesting. See here.
Otherwise, consider that the AC of player characters that wearing less than full plate would essentially be negated everywhere except the torso. So your arms, legs, groin, etc are all exposed and gain no benefit of armor. If you run the game this way what is the point of having any armor mechanically anyways?
Just run it as is. The game is balanced around things working this way.
This is a delicate matter regarding Called shots rules. Eg/ A chain shirt is AC +4. Legs and arms are unprotected. When making a Called shot (-2), would you attack against AC 14 or an (unprotected) AC 10?
Rules as written are sometimes clumsy.
Also, you're misunderstanding how the Optional Called shot rules work. The -2 penalty you see is the penalty to your attack roll, not a penalty to their AC. It gets harder when you make a called shot, not easier. And even then, it does allow you to ignore parts of their armor you just gain the specific benefits listed for attacking that part of the body. Such as:
Chest
Called shots to the chest are aimed at the well-protected center of mass of a creature. Called shots to the chest are easy (–2 penalty).
Called Shot: A called shot to the chest deals no additional damage, but any skill checks caused by the hit (such as an Acrobatics check while balancing or a Climb check while climbing) take a –2 penalty.
Critical Called Shot: A critical hit to the chest deals 1d4 points of Constitution damage and fatigues the target. A successful Fortitude saving throw (made after the Constitution damage is applied) negates the fatigue. The creature also suffers the effects of a called shot to the chest.
Debilitating Blow: A debilitating blow to the chest deals 2d4 points of Constitution damage and exhausts the target. A successful Fortitude saving throw (made after the Constitution damage is applied) reduces the exhaustion to fatigue. If the saving throw fails by 5 or more, the creature’s internal injuries deal 1 point of Constitution damage in any round the creature takes a standard action. The internal injuries can be healed by either a DC 25 Heal check or by healing as many hit points as the debilitating blow dealt, whether by magical or natural means. The creature also suffers the effects of a called shot to the chest.
So using your example making a called shot on the chest against a creature with AC 14 normally, would be a 16 instead.
Claxon, I pefectly understand Called Shots rules. You did not understand my text. Nevermind :)
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The giant tortoise are not justanding there for you to whack it. No you are probably having to move around left and right to keep from being stepped on. Like postings above on the subject, the combat system is abstract. The moment one tries to apply real world physics to a pen and paper combat scenario, the math becomes outrageous and it stops being fun. Just got go with it as is.
Claxon, I pefectly understand Called Shots rules. You did not understand my text. Nevermind :)
My bad, I did misunderstand your post.
The answer is that the creature has only one AC (ignoring touch and flat-foot, which are just special conditions of your normal AC). Nowhere it the rules does it say that targetting unarmored portions of the body changes the creatures AC, so it doesn't. You make called shots at normal AC + penalty. So, as I said ealier 16 AC. Of course if you were making a touch attack or targetting flat-footed AC you would use that value instead of normal AC and then add the penalty.
*Technially the penalty is to your attack roll, but effectively you can just add the absolute value of the penalty to the creature's AC for that attack.
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PF combat is a not terribly precise approximation. It is in no way a realistic simulation of combat.
There have been and probably still are more exact simulation systems out there. The problem is they all bog down horribly. You end up spending several minutes or more trying to figure out every single action and its results.
PF system is used, not because of its realism, but because it is 'good enough' while still being usable in a timely fashion.
What you are talking about is just basically ignored by the system. The skull of a bear, moose, or rhino is much harder to pierce than its belly. Doesn't matter. The creature has X armor class.
Same with the tortoise. It has AC 25 period. Doesn't matter where you are standing, how tall you are, or where you are shooting your arrow when you try to hit one.
It's not realistic, it is just a playable approximation.
If player really pushes, I'd say "The legs are the AC 25 and the shell is AC 60. The game just assumed you weren't stupid enough to try and carve through the shell."
I've had GM's try to make house rules for called shots to different parts. It would work fairly well for a few obvious monsters. Then it always ended up devolving into arguments about whether you could reach/target X portion of the body from Y position with Z weapon or spell. Then it would start into well this type of weapon should do more damage to the knees because ...
Rarely ends well. We always ended up going back to the basic standard rule set for simplicity.
The game also assumes a opponents will use their armor to defend. The shell would be a source of their natural armor and they would be working to keep that shell between itself and you blows.
If the tortise is helpless you auto hit with a critical doing a coup de gras. This would be attacking it's squishy parts which normally it would try to defend.
Speaking of the immense tortoise. Immense tortoise + half-dragon template = immense dragon tortoise. Makes for a cool early boss fight.
The answer is that the creature has only one AC (ignoring touch and flat-foot, which are just special conditions of your normal AC). Nowhere it the rules does it say that targetting unarmored portions of the body changes the creatures AC, so it doesn't. You make called shots at normal AC + penalty. So, as I said ealier 16 AC. Of course if you were making a touch attack or targetting flat-footed AC you would use that value instead of normal AC and then add the penalty.
*Technially the penalty is to your attack roll, but effectively you can just add the absolute value of the penalty to the creature's AC for that attack.
Well, I can hardly imagine a situation like this: a combatant wearing only a helm (say, AC 10 + helm 2 = 12). He is AC 12. But someone wants to hit his leg (using the Called Shot Rules, at -2). Does the helm protect his leg? Of course, it is very abstract.
Well, I can hardly imagine a situation like this: a combatant wearing only a helm (say, AC 10 + helm 2 = 12). He is AC 12. But someone wants to hit his leg (using the Called Shot Rules, at -2). Does the helm protect his leg? Of course, it is very abstract.The answer is that the creature has only one AC (ignoring touch and flat-foot, which are just special conditions of your normal AC). Nowhere it the rules does it say that targetting unarmored portions of the body changes the creatures AC, so it doesn't. You make called shots at normal AC + penalty. So, as I said ealier 16 AC. Of course if you were making a touch attack or targetting flat-footed AC you would use that value instead of normal AC and then add the penalty.
*Technially the penalty is to your attack roll, but effectively you can just add the absolute value of the penalty to the creature's AC for that attack.
Fortunately, to my knowledge there is no piece of armor called "helm" that adds to your AC. You have a Dwarg feat called Dented Helm that adds to AC against confirmation rolls and some other abilities. There is also the Dwarven Boulder Helmet which again adds AC against confirmation rolls. To my knowledge no helm adds to your normal AC. Not that it's relevant, because as you say, Pathfinder doesn't work that way and the AC is the AC of the whole creature, regardless of where you want to hit.
Having called shots ignore armor is silly in an abstract system. Your character is always going for the vulnerable parts. ...
This is probably a good way to think about it.
If a guy is wearing a breastplate. I am extremely unlikely to try and punch a hole through that to hurt him. The AC is +6 because I now have substantially fewer target areas to strike. I need to strike for the joints, openings, back, or any exposed extremities. Actually slicing open the breastplate is probably much more difficult than a +6 would represent.
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There's a ton of abstraction in combat. Begin to de-abstractize it at your peril... it opens far too many cans of worms to be worthwhile.
If you need ideas on why you can hit Godzilla anywhere besides his toenail, just imagine that he leans down to snap at people regularly, giving opportunities to in turn be hit in places besides his toenail.
Fortunately, to my knowledge there is no piece of armor called "helm" that adds to your AC. You have a Dwarg feat called Dented Helm that adds to AC against confirmation rolls and some other abilities. There is also the Dwarven Boulder Helmet which again adds AC against confirmation rolls. To my knowledge no helm adds to your normal AC. Not that it's relevant, because as you say, Pathfinder doesn't work that way and the AC is the AC of the whole creature, regardless of where you want to hit.
You can find Armor components in a PF supplement, including an array of helms, caps, etc, each giving a plus to AC. Hence my doubt related to Called shots. But this is a dead end, and I will follow the rules as given.
There's a ton of abstraction in combat. Begin to de-abstractize it at your peril... it opens far too many cans of worms to be worthwhile.
If you need ideas on why you can hit Godzilla anywhere besides his toenail, just imagine that he leans down to snap at people regularly, giving opportunities to in turn be hit in places besides his toenail.
Houserule: if Godzilla attacks you with his bite, you can attack it back to its head in the same round. And it would be a Called Shot.
You can find Armor components in a PF supplement, including an array of helms, caps, etc, each giving a plus to AC. Hence my doubt related to Called shots. But this is a dead end, and I will follow the rules as given.
Fortunately, to my knowledge there is no piece of armor called "helm" that adds to your AC. You have a Dwarg feat called Dented Helm that adds to AC against confirmation rolls and some other abilities. There is also the Dwarven Boulder Helmet which again adds AC against confirmation rolls. To my knowledge no helm adds to your normal AC. Not that it's relevant, because as you say, Pathfinder doesn't work that way and the AC is the AC of the whole creature, regardless of where you want to hit.
If you're referring to the Piecemeal armor system then it doesn't actually include rules specifically for helmet. They do torso, arms, and legs, but not head. If there is some other supplement then I am not aware of it. But if you changed the item you were referring to to arm you could then ask what is the AC for that piece of the body?
Well, I guess you could just use the value listed in the tables for the correct type of armor. But honestly, down that way lies madness. And it would make things more difficult like decide what areas your natural armor does and doesn't protect, does your defection bonus equally cover your whole body, etc? It's just easier to make the AC the whole of it and run it that way because that is what the game is designed around. And that is even what the piecemeal system does, because you add up the bonuses from each armor section, different parts of the body don't get different ACs. You just have the 1 total.
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The point is the system already assumes "called shots" as you understand them, applied at all times with every attack.
As has been stated by others, it's assumed that "tough spots" are always avoided, meaning AC is an average. Dealing meaningful damage through the shell is AC 40. If it didn't have a shell it'd be AC 15. But because you're avoiding the shell, it's harder to hit those areas without it, so it's AC is higher than the "base" 15, but not as high as the AC 40 for the shell. Thus an average AC of 25 to deal meaningful damage, taking into account avoiding the shell and needing to hit hard enough to cut through the tough skin.
EDIT: This is why piecemeal rules give a +1 total AC bonus when the suit is complete. You no longer have obvious weak points to be exploited, netting an average +1 AC over what the individual pieces give.
EDIT 2: Also, in your size issue where the shell doesn't factor due to it being out of reach, there are size adjustments to AC to compensate for that.
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Consider this:
Hit points are -- by definition -- partly abstract.
They don't represent how badly hurt something is, but rather how close they are to losing the fight.
So it doesn't matter in the fiction if you describe the damage as stabbing through a weak point in the armor, or even just knocking the enemy off-balance.
Lots of people play the game with the literal interpretation that losing hit points equals being physically injured. But whenever people run into cognitive dissonance with huge amounts of damage, or what AC represents, it is worth going back to the book definition of hit points.
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Consider this:
Hit points are -- by definition -- partly abstract.
They don't represent how badly hurt something is, but rather how close they are to losing the fight.
So it doesn't matter in the fiction if you describe the damage as stabbing through a weak point in the armor, or even just knocking the enemy off-balance.
Lots of people play the game with the literal interpretation that losing hit points equals being physically injured. But whenever people run into cognitive dissonance with huge amounts of damage, or what AC represents, it is worth going back to the book definition of hit points.
This.
In addition to Hit Points, attacks are also highly abstracted. No, you don't "attack" once per combat round.. that's six seconds. In six seconds, you parry and probe numerous times, and even manage to have a few intentional strikes meant to kill in there as well. That's all abstracted into one "attack" per 5 points of BAB you have.
When remembering these (and other) abstractions, it's very problematic to begin to address questions like "where was the monster struck?"
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In addition to Hit Points, attacks are also highly abstracted. No, you don't "attack" once per combat round.. that's six seconds. In six seconds, you parry and probe numerous times, and even manage to have a few intentional strikes meant to kill in there as well. That's all abstracted into one "attack" per 5 points of BAB you have.
It used to be that way in previous editions, but I haven't seen that be the case in d20.
This is a delicate matter regarding Called shots rules. Eg/ A chain shirt is AC +4. Legs and arms are unprotected. When making a Called shot (-2), would you attack against AC 14 or an (unprotected) AC 10?
Rules as written are sometimes clumsy.
The rules aren't clumsy, they're abstract. Rather than worry about different places being protected in different ways, the whole body is given an abstracted defensive value that determines whether or not some place important was hit (rather than inconsequential - a "miss").
As others have pointed out, combatants are always looking to land a blow in a telling or vulnerable area. A target's Armor Class gives us a relative rating of how well-protected the target is from blows directed at it in general - many of which will be naturally off target for the really vulnerable areas the armor doesn't protect.
Called shot rules and hit locations have never really worked well in D&D combat. The combat system, with to hit rolls, AC, and hit points, doesn't really work with them because it doesn't want to get bogged down in too precise a simulation. Frankly, this is one of the reasons D&D has worked so well as a fantasy adventure game.
If you're referring to the Piecemeal armor system then it doesn't actually include rules specifically for helmet. They do torso, arms, and legs, but not head. If there is some other supplement then I am not aware of it. But if you changed the item you were referring to to arm you could then ask what is the AC for that piece of the body?
As I had said, you can find an array of head protection in a 3rd party supplement. In Ultimate Combat there is no such list of armor. In Piecemeal system, head is included in the torso (again abstraction).
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As I had said, you can find an array of head protection in a 3rd party supplement. In Ultimate Combat there is no such list of armor. In Piecemeal system, head is included in the torso (again abstraction).
If you're referring to the Piecemeal armor system then it doesn't actually include rules specifically for helmet. They do torso, arms, and legs, but not head. If there is some other supplement then I am not aware of it. But if you changed the item you were referring to to arm you could then ask what is the AC for that piece of the body?
3rd party publishers aren't really a good basis. Most of them produce excellent material, but some produce strange material, and still some others produce mediocre material. Head protection is assumed in base pathfinder. It is either included in your armor (and thus part of your AC), or neglected to no detriment under Rule of Cool. If you want to strike specific areas that are differently armored, there are systems that do that, but D20 is based on abstract combat in rounds/HP/AC etc.
EDIT: If you want to explore changing the system to simulate body area targets, we can have it in the Homebrew forum to develop those rules. In the advice forum, I'm not comfortable giving you anything more than advice on how to imagine the system as it is. It works remarkably well if you're willing to imagine more abstractly.
If you want to change something on monsters and how well they can be hit I suggest u use a minor (or major) form of damage resistance to represent the thick skin or shel of a monster.
I'd say a tortoise would have a Damage Reduction against physical damage of 5 to represent the fact that the skin of such a large monster is thicker than that of a medium creture on average.
And maybe rule that small weapons or smaller cannot hurt it as the size of those weapons are unable to penetrate it's thick skin.