Armor Class – How Hard is it to Hit and Damage Something?

[mmadsen]

They [hit points, vitality points, or combat points] stop you from getting hit effectively (dealing real hp damage). The number of combat points is representative of the skill, luck, divine favor you have and is a limited resource during an encounter.

Does it take more skill, luck, and divine favor to avoid getting hit by a 12-gauge slug from a shotgun or a .22 from a competitive target rifle?

By D&D logic, "dodging" a devastating weapon uses up more "hit points" because it does more "damage" than a smaller weapon. Peculiar, isn't it?

Well in terms of saving throws, they do too, if the thing you're saving against is going to do combat point damage (rather than hit point damage if you're character's spent).

Why are skill, luck, and divine favor so closely tied to getting hit with big weapons?

 

[Plane Sailing]

This is the reason you shouldn't have DR with armor.

Dnd tries to model a variety of weapon styles and allow playability, from the dagger wielding guy to the guy wielding the huge plank of metal.

DR hurts the dagger guy more then the plank guy, always has. Armor as AC hinders them both equally.

The game encourages more fantasy archetypes that way, so I'm never too keen on DR ideas for armor in dnd.

I disagree - RuneQuest always had armour as DR and it did a very nice job of handling every archetype we ever threw at it. (their impale/critical rules really helped there).

Although to tell the truth, as a simulationist I don't want a dagger to be a particularly good choice for attacking a plate armoured knight. There's a reason why knights walloped each other with big bits of steel rather than tried to fight with daggers, after all.

Cheers