Do the hold spells affect armor class?

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

Eraslin

Feb 01, 2015 20:23:00

For the first time in 5e, the game that I'm involved in has involved one of the "Hold" spells actually working; an enemy failed the save against "Hold Person"

 

Per the rules, the spells bestows the "Paralyzed" status -- which also bestows the "Incapacited" condition. Which means, that the target is affected by:

 

 * Can't take actions or reactions
 * Can't move or speak
 * Automatically fails str & dex saves
 * Attack rolls against have advantage
 * Any attack that hits from within 5' is automatically a crit.

 

Easy enough to follow. The thing that struck us as odd is that the paralyzed condition does not modify armor class. Specifically, the portions of the AC calculation that are attributable to movement are not negated. For example, we'd kind of expect a leather armor wearing 16 dex AC when paralyzed to be 11 - 5 = 6 rather than 11+3=14 due to an effective dex of 1. Or a monk's AC to become 10-5=5 due to the effective dex of 1, and the inability of them to deflect blows (which would negate the "Unarmored Defense" class AC).

 

It would make some sense, from a simplicity standpoint, for the game designers to have decided to use the advantage option in place of the "your dex is 1" option just to avoid bogging down the game with some math.

 

Have we missed this rule? Does anyone know of a place in the ruleset where it talks about dex being reduced to 1 when paralyzed? It would be easy enough for us to house rule, but it'd be nice to be sure that we haven't missed something before doing that. Anyone have any experience homeruling this one?

#2

lawrencehoy

Feb 01, 2015 22:29:55

Eraslin wrote:
#3

AaronOfBarbaria

Feb 01, 2015 22:36:35

People having advantage on attacks against you is very similiar statistically to "you take a -5 penalty to AC."

#4

EzechielDantan

Feb 01, 2015 22:41:07

No, its how the rules work. Your AC stays generally the same, you can apply some houserules if you want the extra complications, but it will make some magic stronger, and dexterity weaker.