Arcane Spell Failure
 

While this thread (http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=57207) is a great assist for calling and computing spell failure, is the failure rate of spells from armor ever actually displayed anywhere, either in Hero Lab or in an output?

From what I'm seeing, armor displays its base chance without any variances from class abilities, it isn't an element displayed in any spells or location near them, as derived from what armor happens to be worn ...

Am I missing something?

On my HL, under the Armor section (which on a PDF or Print of the character sheet) is on the first page...

It shows Armor type, AC bonus, Max Dex, Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Failure Chance.

It displays that on the Armor Tab for the Hero Lab Classic client.

Yrs, but as far as I can tell, the Arcane Failure Chance (AFC) display does not change even if the character has an ability that reduces or eliminates it.

Do this: make a 1st level fighter character. Put leather armor (light, 10% AFC) on the character; note the display of the AFC. Change the class to bard or magus, both of which can use light armor without chance of arcane spell failure. Check the armor again; what AFC does it display?

It's on the class tab for that class. The reason it's not listed on the armor tab is that multiclass characters will have different ASF chance for the different classes (a multiclass Wizard/Bard, for example, would have 10% ASF with leather armor on Wizard spells and 0% on Bard spells). It's not the armor's ASF rating that changes, it's the class' ability to manage it.

Ahhhh!! Something I had never noticed before. Okay, excellent. That means I need to add a class selector to the prestige class, so it can apply things to that class. Thanks!!

The game has basic assumptions on how everything works.

Then there are abilities such as feats or class features that give exceptions to the basic rules, or change how something works.

In the case of Hero Lab, if you have something that applies one way all the time, but a different way under specific circumstances, it is going to display the "all the time" value and let you apply the specific condition yourself.

If you have AC 20, but your AC counts as 24 while moving because you have the Mobility feat, it won't display as 24 AC because the 20 will be correct most of the time.

Some abilities will have a check box you can activate manually; not everything is scripted, but a lot of options are.

Yes, all that I got, often in hover text and the like; I had simply never noticed the ASF percentage chance on the class tab. (Although now these class abilities are failing to show up in the Specials List or tab ...)