Does Frightened reduce your AC?

[Arachnofiend]

Clumsy states that you "take a status penalty equal to the condition value to Dexterity-based checks and DCs, including AC".

Frightened states that you "take a status penalty equal to this value to all your checks and DCs".

Clumsy seems to define armor class as a DC, which would logically mean that Frightened also reduces your AC. This seems a little nuts though, and is more than the Shaken condition did in PF1 (where it penalized most everything except AC).

[shroudb]

yes.

AC is nothing more than a Dex based DC modified by item bonuses like armor and etc.

Sickened and Frightened both reduce it.

[Arachnofiend]

Damn, Demoralize just keeps getting better the more I think about it. This also means that Dread Striker Rogues inflict -3 AC on enemies with a single action, -4 if you crit the roll. That's nuts.

[shroudb]

yup

that's why fear immunities/reducers are some of the best feats around

[Xenocrat]

It's also why Dirge of Doom is a good area debuff for Bards, and Aura of Dread for enchanter wizards. A Bard can build for Dirge of Doom and Harmonize to both +1 his party's attacks and -1 the enemies' everything in the same round, although it eats all of his actions.