Dr. Strangeplate, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Armor Class

For a really long time I hated AC. Why does wearing more armor make you harder to hit. Does a man dodge better clad in plate? It seemed ridiculous.

You think his nickname is twinkle-toes?

There wasn't a good alternative either. Say you have DR 2 armor. One ruling means people just take two less damage from everything; because armor becomes so important, it feels like everyone is fighting with nerf swords. If that armor blocks 2 or 1 HP blows but you still take all 4 damage from a 4 HP blow, everything becomes swingy and my players bitch. Armor as immunities to damage types never worked because history can't get it's act together. Could leather armor block arrows? Could mail? Every reenactor seemed to have a different answer. It just became a huge headache for me.

Have a surprisingly serene video of archers shooting boiled leather.

Back in college I used to play Belegarth. You run around and hit each other with nerf swords. You get whacked in the arm, you put it behind your back because it got cut off. You get hit again, you bleed out and die. Wearing armor gives you one free hit wherever you're wearing it. And I remembered that when I circled people, trying to find a way to hit them with my great honking two-hander, I would try to avoid hitting them in the armor. Time was short, death was quick, and I wanted my blows to count.

Google's best guess for this image is plant.

So this is how AC works. The more armor you wear, the less places an attacker has to aim. The harder it becomes to decide how to strike. Just as much as armor protects you, in the skirmish environment that D&D usually defaults to, it also debilitates your opponent. There are more ways to miss, more ways to hit and accomplish nothing.

So now I'm okay with AC. I'm even okay with armor a-la-carte, where each piece gives you +1 AC, because really, each one is just another minor headache for your foes. Maybe four metal knicks-knacks ARE as effective as chain. Maybe.

None of this properly represents the importance of shields, but fuck it, that can wait for another day. Sometimes simplicity of rules trumps historical accuracy.