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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5876455" data-attributes="member: 3586">Historically, Armour Class is derived from naval games (Fletcher Pratt, Jane's Fighting Ships) which Dave Arneson incorporated into his own naval design, and then passed on to D&D.Original D&D Armour Class is not a feature of Gygax's and Perrin's Chainmail. Instead you have a table that cross-references the type of armour with the weapon used, the combinations are as follows:Armours: None, Leather/Padded, Shield, Leather + Shield, Chain/Banded/Studded/Splint, Chain+Shield, Plate, Plate + ShieldBy Original D&D, you get AC of 2-9 and the "to hit" tables give only those values. Of note, Dexterity gives *no* modifier to AC, a magic suit of armour subtracts its value from the "hit dice of the opponent", and magical shields have only a 33% chance of working (in which case they give their penalty to the attacker).Supplement I: Greyhawk has a much greater range of magical armours, and has one of the clumsiest explanations ever as to how they work, using this table:<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachments/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/51409d1334045164-historical-look-d-d-acs-part-1-ac.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />(It also has errata: Chainmail and +1 shield should be AC 3)It's in AD&D that we finally get the cleaned up tables, AC now goes from 10 to -10 (rather than 9 to 2), and it'd stay that way (mostly) for the next twenty years, or thereabouts.One of the interesting features of this is that every AC in original D&D (sans supplements) is in the range of 2-8. With the expanded AC ranges from Greyhawk, you get the Will-o'-the-Wisp, with an AC of -8, the highest on the supplement's table, but there aren't many other monsters with negative ACs (the Platinum Dragon, with -3, is the next best).Blackmoor is back in the 2-8 range, Eldritch Wizardry gives the first AC of actually 9 (the Succubus), and gives Demogorgon a fearsome -8 AC, with Orcus behind on -6. Finally, Gods, Demigods and Heroes incredibly goes back to the 2-9 range, with a few exceptions (and not gods - generally monsters), though some of the gods have magic armour that isn't factored into their AC - Odin has a helm +5 and mail +5!So, onto AD&D where Gygax is drawing on the various work he and others have done for D&D. There's no AC 10 in the Monster Manual (but, to be fair, there's no AC 9 in the monsters in core OD&D either!) The Will-o'-the-Wisp retains its AC of -8, likewise the Platinum retains -3. Demogorgon and Orcus keep their respective ACs.The tables in the DMG enshrined the -10 to 10 range of ACs, and a monster came out with a -10 AC not all that long after - Dave Sutherland's take on "Lolth" - from Q1. Also in 1980, RJK's and Jim Ward's revision of the deity supplement gave the gods ACs that weren't generally quite as impossible - Odin has AC -6 instead of his previous (effective) -8, although we get our first breaking of the -10 "cap" - Indra has an AC of -12!!Indra's AC is actually correctly calculated for his +4 plate, +4 shield and 25 Dex (-6 def bonus).However, it's debatable how many of these really low ACs belong to beings that will be fought...(more soon)</blockquote>

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