How to account for Armor Max Dex Bonus and Armor Check Penalty?

[callahan09]

I apologize if this is a silly question, or if it's been asked & answered before. I tried the search feature and didn't immediately find what looked to be an answer.

In Pathfinder ruleset, say I have a +6 Dex modifier, and I want to equip Studded Leather armor, which has a max dex bonus of +5 and an armor check penalty of -1 for strength & dex checks.

I'm not really sure how to go about accounting for this on my character sheet? The only ways I've thought of so far both seem very inelegant, but I wasn't sure if there was a better way. For the max dex, I just manually keep track of the difference between my Dex modifier and the max dex, so in this case it's -1, so I make sure to add -1 to my MISC AC. I don't particularly care for this method and was hoping I was missing a better way to do it.

I haven't come up with a method even as elegant as thta for the armor check penalty. It's confusing to me because the skills tab has the armor check penalty symbol next to the skills that are affected by it, so you'd think that the ruleset would have a place to enter your penalty that then gets applied to those specific skills. If there is one, I'm just blind I guess because I can't find it haha. Instead I've had to put my -1 in the MISC field of every single skill that has the armor check penalty symbol next to it. That seems really poor, but I can't think of a better way?

EDIT: Aah! I think I found it, didn't expect to see it there... It's the "Armor" section about 2/3 of the way down the Inventory tab.

[callahan09]

A follow-up then, is there a way to track proficiency in the numbers? In other words, if I use the Studded Leather armor with a -1 check penalty, and I'm *NOT* proficient in it, then the -1 penalty also should apply to my attack roll. But it doesn't apply to attack rolls by default, so is there a way to do that? Or am I just supposed to open up every attack action and add a -1 to the bonus field?

[Trenloe]

There's very little automatic automation around the character sheet within the Pathfinder ruleset - this was the general design methodology with FG rulesets for quite a while, until Smiteworks got the D&D 5e license and then they did a lot of automatic character sheet automation specifically for that. As a result, some other rulesets look a little light on the character sheet side by comparison.

Basically, the 3.5E/PF character sheet is where you get to setup your PC the way you want it, not the way the system dictates. You can manually setup a lot of automation via effects, but most of what you see on your character sheet is not calculated for you by FG - you need to make sure everything is setup correctly for your PC, based off their race and class abilities, feats, traits, current equipment, etc.. For example, FG has no idea whether you're proficient in the armour you're wearing; in fact, it doesn't even know what type of armour you're wearing.

[callahan09]

There's very little automatic automation around the character sheet within the Pathfinder ruleset - this was the general design methodology with FG rulesets for quite a while, until Smiteworks got the D&D 5e license and then they did a lot of automatic character sheet automation specifically for that. As a result, some other rulesets look a little light on the character sheet side by comparison.

Basically, the 3.5E/PF character sheet is where you get to setup your PC the way you want it, not the way the system dictates. You can manually setup a lot of automation via effects, but most of what you see on your character sheet is not calculated for you by FG - you need to make sure everything is setup correctly for your PC, based off their race and class abilities, feats, traits, current equipment, etc.. For example, FG has no idea whether you're proficient in the armour you're wearing; in fact, it doesn't even know what type of armour you're wearing.

Thank you for your response. So, just in general, I'm looking for opinions then, I guess. How would you personally apply the -1 penalty to your attack rolls from wearing armor you're not proficient with?

[Trenloe]

If it's going to be a pretty permanent change then apply it as a "Misc" modifier in the Attacks section of the combat tab. If it's only going to be for a while then add an effect ATK:-1 to the character.

[callahan09]

If it's going to be a pretty permanent change then apply it as a "Misc" modifier in the Attacks section of the combat tab. If it's only going to be for a while then add an effect ATK:-1 to the character.

Thank you, those are two excellent suggestions, I appreciate it :)