Touch AC and Why it's Irrelevant

When 3rd edition of D&D came out they introduced a new concept to AC, the Touch Armor Class (as well as the Flat-Footed Armor Class). The idea was that it should be simpler to strike someone if you do not care about getting through full plate or chain mail and just want to connect with that individual bodily. This is all perfectly fair and logical. It just has one problem. It is completely unnecessary. Why? Well there is already a perfectly good mechanic in the game for one's ability to get out of the way of something dangerous. It's called the Reflex save, and if you were to evaluate all the characters you have ever played, I think you would find that if you added 10 to the value of your Reflex save, it would fairly closely match your character's touch AC. So let's get rid of that entry on the Character Sheet for Touch AC and save a little space. (We can get rid of Flat-Footed AC too, which I'll discuss below.)

Now we have to deal with the situations in 3.5 in which Touch AC is required and convert them to Reflex saves. This is actually fairly simple. The situations in which Touch AC are required are very few: 1) initiating a grapple, 2) making a trip attack, 3) touch spells. If I've missed anything, forgive me, but I think it is sufficient to say that if there are any other examples left they are marginal. Grapple and trip attacks are both easy to handle. The attacking character makes an attack roll opposed by the opponent's Reflex save; high roll wins (in case of ties, highest bonus wins the tie, as is the case for all opposed checks in 3.5). With touch spells, this is even easier. The target of the spell makes a Reflex save against the spell with a DC appropriate for the spell level in question. Viola! We've just eliminated an unnecessary part of the character sheet.

I mentioned Flat-Footed AC too. This really isn't necessary either. 4th edition acknowledged (rightly I think) that you don't need to have several values for Armor Class on your character sheet to cover every situation you could possibly think of. Realism is nice for those who like it. But I want a simpler game with a simpler character sheet. So in 4e they introduced the idea of Advantage. Whenever your character has Advantage, you gain a +2 on your roll. I like that idea. It's simple and easy to remember. So whenever your character is Flat-Footed, an attacker gets a +2 to hit you.

So now we only need one entry for Armor Class on our character sheet and don't need to worry about whether or not bonuses from one source or another apply to Touch AC or Flat-Footed AC (something that can be confusing to a new player or an old player). I have other ideas to cut down the size of the character sheet as well. Stay tuned.