Flat-footed, arrrrrghhhhh.

[Lord FlashHeart]

I dont think anything can be done about this but its something that people need to be aware of if concentrating on high AC for their chars. Flash is now level 40 so i decided to take him to the drow areas (despite Funkys advice to wait because they still too hard). Well I found that it was perfectly possible with an AC of 84 (in expertise) to just about survive, the problem was the amount of things that take you out of combat mode when surrounded by large amounts of enemies, such as potion taking, when your target moves out of range, casting bardsong and another of AI issues typical of when surrounded by hordes of nasties. Prob is when this happens you are no longer considered to be "fighting" hence everything else around you gets a multitude of attacks that negate your dodge AC (rogues top laughing, i cant get uncanny dodge )

And of course arrows! Now when someone fires an arrow at you - you are not actually fighting them yet hence considered to be "flat-footed" and thus dodge AC doesnt count (i checked the numbers and they were scoring hits despite rolling numbers much lower than my 84 AC) it wasnt until i closed down the distance and engaged them that they started missing. This causes major probs in lair of the guardians too, i'm not sure if anything can be done to fix this as it seems a difficulty with the way bioware have incorporated flat-footed into the program but as its written in the D&D rulebook, flat-footed should only count when PCs are caught by surprise, so the first round of combat is played out without dodge AC, but then the char is "in the game" so to speak and his dodge is restored thereafter. I dont now if anything can be done about this but i thought i'd bring it up as its something that AC based chars need to be aware of.

Has anyone else noticed probs with sudden "phantom" drops of AC where monsters suddenly are able to hit you where previoiusly they weren't? It is probably due to this reason.

[Higan]

uncanny dodge dosn't help too much anyways, from what i have seen, it just gives dex ac, not dodge

[FunkySwerve]

Archer ab's are getting a big bump downwards, to the tune of around 20 points or more, this should help you out some. As of now, all archers outside the drow have been nerfed, check it out and see what you think.

Funky

[MilesAtma]

i noticed my ac of 108 with uncanny dodge didnt stop the guardians in maze from hitting me with totals of 94 and the like. I found out from someone I was flanked and thus I lose dodge bonus. So beware uncanny dodgers, dd seems the way to go for that prob i guess.

[hiryuu]

As discussed in another item at more length, Uncanny Dodge protects your dex bonus while flat-footed, but not dodge and tumble bonuses, which can easily reach 20-30 AC. Flanking adds 2 to their AB (if you read the log, you will see two different AB progressions for the same unit), and DD prevents that.

[Lord FlashHeart]

We did this to death some time ago - still a source of much confusion..........

Flatfooted causes loss of dex modifier and dodge ac (20 dodge in most high level cases as the cap is easily reached).

Uncanny Dodge retains dex modifier but not dodge bonus.

Flanking causes causes +2 to hit but NO ac penalties.

highergroundpoa.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=BugReport&action=display&n=1&thread=361&page=1

[MilesAtma]

I can see why the confusion may exist. The last two posts don't agree with each other exactly. Flash, you don't mention anything about the tumble bonus, and I am inclined to go with the dm on this one

[FunkySwerve]

Actually I figured out what was going on about a month later, but it didn't seem worth posting, since it souldn't happen anymore, or would be extremely rare if it did. When the combat engine gets overwhelmed, some strange stuff starts to happen. This only occurs in heavy lag, and seems to be exacerbated by added attacks pushing a creature's (not a PCs) totals past 5 or 6 per round. Most scripted added attacks were removed in the mod, except those on dragons and the abyss, and I havent put any on creatures in the new areas for this reason (this is related to the phenomenal amounts of lag that dragon fights used to generate). In any case, this strangeness manifests itself in a number of ways. Monsters start getting most/all of their attacks at top ab, instead of just the top attack. That alone is enough to make an enormous difference to a level-appropriate character. But it also appeared to be exacerbated by the number of attacks landing on an objects, as well, meaning that a character being attacked by multiple foes was more likely to be hit with high abs. It was not exactly the same as the failure of the abs to drop, and appeeared to be caused by the flatfooted bonus of +2 stacking. A third and nasty side effect was flatfooting from activities that do not normally cause it, like taking attacks of opportunity, or extending flatfooting where it is supposed to be very shortlived, like pickpocketing. Combine these effects and a character being flanked is not a happy character. Under NORMAL conditions, those which now prevail on the server a vast majority of the time, ff is only a difference of 2, and Flash's post is dead on.
Funky

[MilesAtma]

Lord Flash, thanks for the link, didnt notice it at first against the background. and ill give the benefit of the doubt that you were including tumble in the dodge category...good stuff. Miles