Do the contents of your backpack add to your AC? This is not necessarily a rules question, but maybe speaks to how you and your DM play with this issue.
I ask this because we almost never drop our backpacks when we enter combat. And yet if you look in our backpacks, some of us carry cast iron pans, additional weapons, gold, bedrolls, food, and a sewing kit. The enemy, especially a flanking enemy, still has to get through all that before they even get to your armor.
For the record, I don't count any of that. But it's an interesting thought.
Bonus thoughts: What about breakables? If you're flanked and you have glass vials of some type of precious liquid, are they damaged during the attack?
No and no.
Backpacks do not affect AC
Attended items are not damage unless specifically called out, and typically receive a saving throw even than. Sunder can destroy attended items.
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Rules as Written: No.
Using flavor and narrative to supplement the rules: No. A flanking enemy wouldn't mindlessly batter away at your backpack. Your head, legs, arms, and ribs are going to be much more obvious choices. Even a mindless creature is instinctively going to go for parts of your body that are exposed. A light shield is an instrument of defense with the SOLE PURPOSE of being used to block attacks, and actively using it offers a +1 Shield bonus to AC. A backpack filled with whatever you wish isn't going to match the level of defense of pointedly blocking with a shield, so even a +1 to AC is unrealistic.
Ignoring Pathfinder rules altogether and using wacky, Jackie-Chan-movie rules: I guess.
Let me ask you a counter-question to your first question. What direction are you facing? Are you facing the first enemy (and therefore the second enemy is attacking your back), or are you facing the other way? Which enemy is hampered by your shield and which enemy is hampered by your backpack?
To take it a step further, which way are you looking? Do you get a bonus to perception checks to look forward and a penalty to whatever is behind you?
In a nutshell you are talking about increasing the "realism" of the rules by adding in extra complexity about what equipment you have on (beyond armor and magic items).
However in most of these cases, the game deals with this in a more "abstract" fashion, any benefit you might have gained is just assumed to be a part of your base AC and technicalities such as facing are simply assumed to be the most advantageous.
It speeds the game along :P
As for your Bonus Thoughts, I present to you!::: A set of never-used rules :)
Attended (Held/Wielded etc.) Items: Unless the descriptive text for a spell (or attack) specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks to determine order in which items are affected. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt. If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.
1st: Shield
2nd: Armor
3rd: Magic helmet, hat, or headband
4th: Item in hand (including weapon, wand, or the like)
5th: Magic cloak
6th: Stowed or sheathed weapon
7th: Magic bracers
8th: Magic clothing
9th: Magic jewelry (including rings)
10th: Anything else
This sort of houserule would both complicate the game and punish players by breaking their stuff. I'm not terribly interested.
I consider any AC bonuses from clothing or incidental items like backpacks to be covered in the 10 base AC that keeps every goblin with a knife from having a sure hit against even the most defenseless caster.
If you are a lore oracle with sidestep secret, then putting a rod of splendor in your backpack may very well increase your AC ;)
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"The blow glances off of your impervious mithril waffle iron, and the orc looks shaken" is the sort of thing you can do for flavor when an attack doesn't hit, because "the orc misses" gets old.
But there's no mechanics for this, nor should there be probably.
JTDIV, does your group also pay strict attention to carrying capacity and encumbrance? I find that that is a huge incentive to drop my pack in combat.
One of the biggest things this game has to do is balance realism with convenience. This kind of detail makes things more realistic, but it's too much book-keeping.
I played a game once with a GM who made us track the trajectory of every bullet. When I used an assault-rifle it took too long and we actually never finished the encounter (It wasn't over when we ended for the day, and we decided not to come back to it).
If you can find a way of implementing this kind of rule without slowing the game down or bogging everyone down in paperwork then great. If not it's probably never going to catch on.
(Just my 2 cents)
Oh as I said, I've never done it in game for most of the same reasons you've all provided. Mostly it just complicates the game.
It only came up as a discussion point so I brought it here. But the funniest part of all of this is PK The Dragon's response about our 10 base AC. Now why that never occurred to me is beyond me, but it's the Occam's Razor of this whole thread.
Having said that, I do like the table you provided Gobo Horde. That's something to think about.
And PossibleCabbage's mithril waffle iron. I'll have to consider that too!
Thank you, friends.
If someone wanted to intentionally turn their back to someone, while wearing a shield on their back, I'd probably let them. Like say the fighter is flanked and decides to only face one opponent.
Of course that means they are now flatfooted against the person they cannot see, but at least they have their shield bonus!
*PS: If as a player you think this is too good of a deal, you have never seen what I can do with the Rogue template.
Since a back pack does not have an armor check penalty or a maximum Dexter limit other than the weight of the back pack it should not give an AC bonus. If you are going to use realism as a justification it should cut both ways. If the backpack is giving you AC because it is getting hit it should also take the damage. Armor and shields are designed to be hit and survive, but a back pack was not. This will generally mean after the first hit the backpack is destroyed and everything in it falls to the ground. At this point the items in the backpack would not be attended items and be subject to breakage because of the falling. You iron skillet is probably going to be ok but most of your potion and other fragile items will probably not survive. You had better have a couple of spare backpacks at this point.
This is an incredibly bad idea.
If you want to be realistic, a huge backpack would reduce your ability to defend yourself.
You mean they gave you infused extracts to drink, right? Alchies dojn't cast spells in the proper sense to start with, and barring infusion they can't use extracts on anybody but themselves... that's still 2 rds where your char ought to have been restricted to drinking the extract and moving.
Do the contents of your backpack add to your AC? This is not necessarily a rules question, but maybe speaks to how you and your DM play with this issue.
I ask this because we almost never drop our backpacks when we enter combat. And yet if you look in our backpacks, some of us carry cast iron pans, additional weapons, gold, bedrolls, food, and a sewing kit. The enemy, especially a flanking enemy, still has to get through all that before they even get to your armor.
For the record, I don't count any of that. But it's an interesting thought.
Bonus thoughts: What about breakables? If you're flanked and you have glass vials of some type of precious liquid, are they damaged during the attack?
With that mindset, wouldn't the backpack's weight give dex penalties and maybe arcane spell failure due to the bulky nature?