Great Wyrm Cloud Dragon AC

[Screeb]

A relatively new DM I know sent me a message tonight asking me about a stat block she was looking at. Having never seen this particular phenomenon, it seems time to reach out to the grand old internet to see what on earth means

So, Bestiary 2 introduced the Primal dragons. The Great Wyrm Cloud Dragon has a -1 touch AC (5 dex ability score for -3, -8 for size)..

What... does this mean? Is it impossible to miss this creature? How are we supposed to parse this in gameplay terms?

[Pizza Lord]

You can miss on a Natural 1. Even if it had a Touch AC of 15, you still would probably only miss it on a natural 1 at the level you would encounter it.

The cloud dragon should/will make use of its fog cloud and persistent cloud breath abilities to give itself concealment and total concealment giving it a 20% to 50% miss chance. Its mist vision will let it see unhindered.

[Screeb]

Hypothetically, I assume it would still be possible to miss if you had a ridiculous penalty to hit for whatever reason? Say, -10 to hit and you roll a 5 on the d20?

Seems an obvious question, but this seems to be a very out there example of AC mechanics.

[Firebug]

I mean, if you were wearing Full Plate (without proficiency) and wearing a tower shield (also without proficiency) you would have a -18 to your attack roll...

[Pizza Lord]

Dragons have always had notoriously low Touch AC. This is a rather extreme example, but it wouldn't make a huge difference if was 10 to 15 points higher though.

[Kayerloth]

It is a very extreme example but it does mean:

An actual To Hit or Attack roll is still necessary. It doesn't become "automatic". Other things may be triggered by the actual roll so you can't just say don't bother rolling the dice. A critical can still be threatened and/or confirmed, for example. Sometimes those criticals can in turn trigger other things vorpal attacks as an example.

Also basically it's going to take more buffs for the Dragon to get out of the only a natural 1 misses issue (or more debuffs applied to the foes or a combo of the two)

[Matthew Downie]

Screeb wrote:

I assume it would still be possible to miss if you had a ridiculous penalty to hit for whatever reason? Say, -10 to hit and you roll a 5 on the d20?

A -10 penalty isn't particularly ridiculous. It's what you get for using a ranged weapon at maximum range, for example an Alchemist's Bomb at 100 feet.

Though if you're fighting a CR 21 enemy, you probably have enough attack bonuses to compensate for that...