In terms of game balance, Touch AC is kind of a joke. Sometimes you’ll encounter a creature who has decent touch AC, but it is somewhat rare.
Now, this is understandable: Touch AC is a great mechanic for casters when they use touch spells, since their BAB is typically sub-par.
However, the introduction of guns makes this a bit of a problem. Especially if you want to run a campaign with advanced, modern and/or futuristic weapons and technology.
Builds that have high touch AC and high DEX have a huge advantage in such a setting. Not to mention that if you want guns to actually be widely usable in the setting, (which only makes sense), you also have to give DEX-to-damage with guns to the ¾ and full BAB classes. This only makes heavy armor and STR more and more useless, even for melee builds, which would still be quite viable.
The Technological Armor stuff we got from the Technology Guide tries to fix this, but ultimately fails. The mechanics of Fortress Plate armor is slightly helpful, but still doesn’t quite cut it.
However, I believe I have a solution.
Namely, a specific rule for armor:
Power Armor Settings:
When a creature dons armor, that creature must decide whether to activate the power armor setting or not. Futuristic armors have internal computers, connected to tiny motors and alchemical devices. When sensors detect an imminent attack, the armor makes micro-adjustments to brace for the impact, enhancing the wearer’s defense against firearms. This allows armor bonuses to AC to be added to touch AC against firearm attacks. However, this comes at a cost to the wearer’s fine motor skills, as the armor constantly causes small involuntary movements. As a result, creatures who wear armor that is activated in this way cannot add any ability modifier to damage when attacking at range with firearms and suffers a -1 penalty to firearm attack rolls. The “Deadly Aim” feat also provides no benefit to firearm attacks for such an armored creature. If a creature decides not to activate the armor, they take none of these penalties. To change the setting of worn armor, a creature must don the armor once more, spending the needed amount of time and taking the required actions. This unique donning action can be undertaken even if the creature is already wearing the armor in question.
Creatures with natural armor bonuses must make the same choice with regard to their own bodies, but whether a given creature is capable of forcing its body to react unconsciously in this way is left to the discretion of the GM. For the purposes of changing the activation setting of a natural armor bonus, a creature can spend a move action to change the setting.
Manufactured armors are considered deactivated if their wearer is surprised or flat-footed.
I would like some opinions/criticism, particularly as it relates to preserving game balance.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with your premise that something needs fixing. Medieval armour is all but useless against modern guns, let alone futuristic weaponry. Modern personal armour is only effective against small arms fire and decent armour levels require vehicles to carry the weight and even that is limited. Where modern weapons and armour have ended up is where armour is effective for a smaller class of gun than can be carried. Eg (and simplified), kevlar against small arms but not medium calibre weapons. Armoured vehicles against all but the heaviest calibre rifles, which are often mounted on vehicles, tank armour is effective against most things smaller than a shell and ship armour is effective against all but the largest shells.
The upshot is that touch ac is highly relevant and in many cases one shot is lethal. A trained soldier(fighter) is more dangerous than a gangster (rogue), who is more dangerous than an academic (wizard).
Unfortunately, that doesn't sit well with the Pathfinder gameplay model. Perhaps, a look at Twilight 2000 or similar's mechanics might help.
Isn't the easiest thing to do just say that firearms do not target touch AC?Agreed.
Easiest =/= best.
Just taking away touch AC with no other benefit is too much of a nerf.
I'm not sure what the best way to balance firearms is, as I've run an AP with a musketmaster who just shredded every encounter with ease.
If we were just dealing with mundane armor and shields, I'd be fine with just using touch AC.
But a dragon has natural armor comparable to a tank. Why can you cut through them like tissue paper? Actually, animated tanks rely on natural armor too.
You can argue DR, but bullets tend to bounce off tanks.
Hence the dilemma.
Hence the dilemma.Use an Armor Penetration value instead of flat-out ignoring all armor completely.
You could also remove "targets touch AC" AND "misfire chance", as some people have reported.
Or you could make stats for guns based on bows and crossbows.
I've very much considered the first option.
The second two are essentially the same solution. Doable but kind of removes what makes guns interesting.
Though up be fair, modern weapons (if maintained properly) don't misfire 5% of the time.
I think the conversation about converting the existing types of ranged weapons into firearms is interesting. However, I'd like to keep current weaponry still an option, so someone can decide to use a bow for some crazy build.
Even if we removed the touch AC part of guns, they would still be by far the best option because they are SAD for attack and damage. We could make them MAD by having STR necessary to deal with recoil, but I think that's not helpful. Maybe some really powerful weapons could be made that rely on STR in order to fire properly. Another way to give guns a touch of MAD would be for "misfire chance" to be determined by strength bonus, or your ability to counteract recoil and keep the massive energies of the weapon under control.
I was looking at some of the weapons from Starfinder. I think it might be possible to port some of them over, or at least take inspiration. However, I'm not familiar with that system: I'm guessing that generally Starfinder does not have lots of modifiers on damage rolls? The damage dice of these weapons seem excessive...
That said, I like the idea of different elemental firearms being strategically unique. The rules contained here for laser weapons are a good example for clever mechanics. I didn't find other elemental firearm ideas that I found to be as compelling, but I'm still looking.
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Just taking away touch AC with no other benefit is too much of a nerf.
What was it SKR said, about some weapons not being very good in the game because they're not very good in real life?
It's kinda like that, except actually realistic.
So basically the armor is vibrating. That's very power intensive. You could limit it by having an on-off button and have only one hour of total use before it needs recharging.
Quicklings would become fatigued after using this in combat.
Fooling with the dex modifier seems pointless as armor removes most of that.