Question about Monk AC

bludfystislandman

I have been playing a monk and I am currently lvl 7, but my AC is not what I would expect it to be right now. I am not sure if that is because something is messed up, or because I just don't understand something about how it works.

I would expect my base AC to be 6, but it is still 7. The base AC is supposed to change every couple levels right? It had changed the other times I would expect it to change, but this last time that it was supposed to change, at lvl 6, it didn't.

I have no mods installed, and all the levels gained were natural levels, i.e. I didn't use the console to grant a bunch of XP and skip some levels. I don't have any items on that would set my AC at 7, or cause an increase in base AC.

ThacoBell

The class description should tell you at what levels monks AC improves. But you will be pretty squishy all throughout BG1 and possibly SoD. They aren't armor tanks by any stretch of the imagination. Gear will help a lot though.

bludfystislandman

The class description in game doesn't seem to mention anything about AC, but looking at the wiki page the full overview shows an AC decrease of 1 every 2 levels starting from lvl 2, with a starting base AC of 9. It is possible that the wiki info is wrong of course, and perhaps they actually start at 10 base, which would mean that my base AC would be 7 now, but I am pretty sure it changed to 7 at level 4 and still stayed that at level 6 when it should have changed.

Grond0

The base AC should be 6. It's possible there was some sort of glitch in applying the reduction at level 6. What happens when you level up to level 8 - does base AC correct itself and go down to 5 (which would be the correct value)?

You can see the base AC, as well as adjustments being applied to that, in the combat information tab of the character record.

bludfystislandman

I was a good bit of XP away from level 8, so I used the console to grant the XP needed for level 8, and the AC still stayed the same.

Grond0

Sounds like something went wrong with this particular save. The monk AC reduction is done by adding general effects at level up - so if you look at the save in EEKeeper, you'll see strings titled:
Stat: AC vs. Damage Type Modifier
I think you should have 3 of those at levels 6 and 7, but it sounds like you only have 2. You could try opening the save in EEKeeper - if there are only 2 you could copy one of those to add a 3rd.

The fact that AC started going down at earlier levels suggests it's a problem with this particular save rather than with the game, but you could test that by starting a new game and using the console to level a monk up.

sarevok57

what is your monk's dexterity? are you somehow using any items that give you an AC penalty?

if not, it could be that your .2da monk class ability file might be messed up as well, because that determines at which level you get which ability

bludfystislandman

Thanks for the ideas so far. I will have to check it out in EEKeeper, and also check out that .2da file.

sarevok57 wrote: »

what is your monk's dexterity? are you somehow using any items that give you an AC penalty?

I have looked at all my items thoroughly, and even taken them off with no change. There are also no negatives listed on my AC modifiers. I have a dex of 18, so that shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't think.

bludfystislandman

I am not sure where the 2da file you mentioned is located, but I did look at the char again in EEKeeper and the funny thing is it has mybase AC as 10 and my effective AC as 6. There were a total of 3 "Stat: AC vs. Damage Type Modifier" lines, but the last one had a parameter of 7, so perhaps there should be one more of those with a parameter of 6. My char did have a ring of protection +1 on, so that could be why is shows my effective AC as 6 instead of 7 in the Abilities section of EEKeeper.

Also to be noted, I tried taking off all equipment again and still saw no change.

sarevok57

can you give us a copy of your save game? then we can dissect and see what is happening

bludfystislandman

So I think I have it sorted out now. Still not quite sure what happened, but it seems like it was more of a display issue. I edited my char file so that it included the extra "Stat: AC vs. Damage Type Modifier" line with AC 6, but my "Effective AC" didn't change. I thought that was odd, but when I went into the game I noticed that my total AC hadn't changed. I realized that my brain had been dumb and I didn't ever calculate that up before.

With the base AC still 7, I had a total AC of 1, but I only had a -5 from dex and the ring of protection. That obviously should have been an AC of 2. Now with the base AC of 6 the total is still 1, but that is what it should be. This leads me to believe that somewhere in the background the game knew my base should be 6, but it was still displaying 7 for some reason.

Once I level up to 8 I will be able to see if the AC progression is actually working properly now, so we will see.