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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AmerginLiath" data-source="post: 7387229" data-attributes="member: 777">I agree with the logic here. There’s also the simple consistency. AC is simply a difficulty class to hit (or to represent a hit that does damage); the d20 DC system indeed is built out of the AC system (once it was flipped from the original naval war game descending-AC track to the modern ascending-AC track). Introducing an entirely new system of tracking and qualifying hit difficulty after forty years just introduces a new unnecessary level of granularity (including a repair issue in a game that’s slowly done away with provision-tracking; a reason I dislike PF2’s new shield system).One also needs to keep in mind that 5e has rebalanced HP and AC as part of its Bounded Accuracy. AC is already far lower and HP decently higher (especially over time) than in previous editions so that characters and monsters can hit each other over a wider range of levels but higher-level creatures will survive better vs. lower-level threats. Reducing out part of current AC and instead increasing HP with that number would result in even swingier battles, as even more hits are recorded across a greater gulf of proficiency variance but it would take even longer to take down either a character or monster (exacerbating one of the issues noted by many as a problematic side effect of Bounded Accuracy instead of solving anything).If someone wanted to represent an ablative effect of armor, my suggestion instead would be change how magic armor works. Instead of adding further to AC, consider the pluses as DR (but keep the base armor as it’s current AC) and see how that plays out.  But the white room debates over Armor as DR or Armor as HP (debates that have raged for decades; consider e.g. that armor providing SDC or MDC to add to HP in Palladium RPGs derives from how Palladium Fantasy in the early 1980s was Kevin Simbieda’s AD&D houserules adapted into his own game system) appear less operative in 5e than even in previous systems.</blockquote>

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