The obvious answer would of course be, "Because you've got points in Dodge, imbecile." But this time I haven't. I've got a human gunslinger, 18 dexterity, level 30-ish, NO dodge skill at all. It all started when I went to kill Maug. I was a bit tired, but I swore I dodged during the fight. No, that's silly, I thought, it must have been one of my followers standing nearby. Then it happened again in the sewers. Perhaps my vision's blurred, couldn't be me, I thought. THEN on the way to Ashbury we were accosted by orc bandits. Violence quickly ensued, and I was completely surrounded by orcs with my followers some distance away. No doubt this time, I dodged. What the hell? Does a character naturally gain some kind of passive dodge ability if the dexterity is high enough? And if so, why didn't I notice this before? And while I'm publically displaying my ignorance, why did Virgil turn transparent when he used an Agility of Fire scroll???
You've got this thing called Armour Class. It's essentially your ability to dodge blows. If that fails then your dodge skills come in and they're what counts for the blows that should have hit but didn't. After that, the blows that get through are absorbed by armour. There are two things that add to armour class. One is the armour and the other is your dexterity. You've got very high DEX so that's going to help enormously and if you're wearing armour that adds to AC then you're bound to dodge some attacks. It's normal.
You're right, armour does encumber you, but it also deflects blows better. The Armour Class statistic is the ability for a successful blow to be deflected and thus do no damage. I guess it's just easier to say 'dodge' rather than 'deflection'. Plus I guess it translates better. Dodge Skill = Ability to avoid being hit. Dependent on DEX but not affected by DEX. Armour Class = Ability to deflect successful blows. Directly affected by armour and DEX. If the blow beats that then it's a hit.
Huh. For some reason I never noticed my non-dodge characters dodging before. I don't think my total armor class could be more than 20 either, just some shoes and rustic finery and whatever benefit comes with 18 dexterity. Ah well. At least it's normal. Thanks Ferret! :bunny:
i thought you always had a chance to dodge, but putting points in just increases that chance, i didn't realise that AC had any effect on dodge while on the lines of dodge ive bin thinking about a background for a character where you get a higher than normal ac because of very thick skin, but not being able to wear any body armour at all. (yes i did get the idea from gar) does anyone know how i could do this, for example using the insrictions set for gar.
Gar can wear Dread and Barbarian armor, the ones that make a normal person look like an exotic dancer. I believe his armor restrictions come from him using the orc animation and not from anything in his background that you could copy, but as usual I could be mistaken.
