AC confusion

[Sailor Saturn]

Koroshi, my pc, is wearing the Dead Man's Face helm. Because she's a Fighter/Mage/Thief, I can only have one weapon equipped at a time, so I have to switch between her sword and her bow. The bow is a Long Bow +1: Protector, which provides an AC bonus of 1, the same as teh bonus provided by Dead Man's Face. When she's carrying her sword, her AC is -3. When I switch it to her Long Bow, her AC remains -3. When I switch it back to the sword, her AC changes to -2, unless I unequip then re-equip the Dead Man's Face at which point it goes back to AC -3. My question is, why is it doing this and why doesn't her AC go to -4 when she is equipped with the Long Bow +1: Protector?

[Craig]

Are you sure its not the sword that is the AC bounus one?

[Sailor Saturn]

Yes, I'm sure. The sword was the Flaming Long Sword +2 and is now the Two-Handed Sword +2: Hammering. The bow is, as I said, Long Bow +1: Protector. It gives +1(missile) damage, +2 THAC0, and an AC bonus of 1.

The AC's I mentioned previously were with Armor cast, but it has this problem without Armor cast as well. With no weapon nor Dead Man's Face equipped, Koroshi's AC is 2. When I equip Dead Man's Face, her AC changes to 1. When I equip the Long Bow +1: Protector, it should change the AC to 0, but it remains at 1. If I remove the Dead Man's Face or the Long Bow +1: Protector, I must then unequip and re-equip whichever one I left equpped in order for the AC to stay and 1 and not revert to 2.

I'm not too worried about it now, though, since I'm probably going to replace the Long Bow +1: Protector with Messenger of Sseth; though, if I can find a way to get the two AC bonuses of Dead Man's Face and Long Bow +1: Protector to be cumulative like they should be, I may stick with Long Bow +1: Protector.

[Gruntboy]

This happened to me occassionaly without HoW installed (installing HoW clears this bug up).

AC and other bonuses sometimes fail to register if cumulative - forcing you to re-euip everyime you save/load.

Sometimes it helps if you unpause after loading but I don't recall - its a while since I patched.

[Sailor Saturn]

Thanks for the info, Gruntboy. Now, if I can just find HoW. *sigh*