Am I also allowed to dictate to you what contention you are supporting, or is this strawmannery strictly one-way?
I am genuinely surprised and disappointed you would resort to calling 'strawman' on a reasoned argument opposed to your own position.
I don't believe there is anything remotely misleading about my position, or my summary of the other side of the debate. If you cannot, or will not seek to understand a plainly stated counter-position, I really don't think you are in a valid position to label it.
For the sake of argument, I will assume miscomprehension on your part and attempt to further clarify.
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Some people are arguing that some heavy armours (heavy plate) could stop early bullets, and this was more widespread than my take on it.
No-one is currently arguing that anything but the minority of armours (the heaviest) could prevent the penetration of a musket style bullet.
The argument contrary to mine is that because a
minority of armours could stop a bullet, that
all armours should provide as effective a defence (in the form of AC) against firearms as they do against daggers, arrows and spears.
My argument is that because the
majority of armours (and I argue a high proportion of these) couldn't stop bullets, the AC of armour should not count against firearms.
Proportionality is therefore on the side of my position.
If primitive crafted materials could stop bullets reliably, the widespread use of 'pavise musketeers' would have been noted by history - a shield can be thicker and more resistant than any armour...
... and yet this never happened in the real world.
In game terms, to allow for the minority discrepancy in my overall position, I would use the following house rule for firearms;
- Firearm user makes an attack roll (as per the standard rules)
- Defender makes a Dex save (as per the standard rules), and if wearing heavy armour does so with the bonus for light cover (to take account of the chance of deflection or bullet-stopping under ideal conditions)
History is clear - avoidance of bullets has nearly always been the best option (until the invention of Kevlar), and usually achieved either by cover (already workable with the standard rules), or by being unpredictable and swift in movement (as most readily simulated by a Dex save against the attack roll).
I hope you can agree at least in principle that heavy armour giving a light cover bonus to the Dex save takes the limited stopping power of armour against firearms it's due consideration.
It is, I hope you would agree, a much better solution that the one used by Paizo with Pathfinder...