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Message: <blockquote data-quote="variant" data-source="post: 5877590" data-attributes="member: 41293">I have been thinking that a modern incarnation of AC should be damage  reduction obtainable from armor, magic, natural, etc instead of a defense type  roll. 'Defense' would take up the typical dice roll defense score that AC used to be. I look to the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana rules where it split AC of armor into DR and AC. It wasn't exactly balanced for 3.5 because the system wasn't really built for it, but I think the concept is sound.  The AC of the armor would represent the physical toughness of the armor while the Defense of the armor would represent the skill of the wearer in using that armor in an active defense (an example being using your armored arm to deflect an attack).I think this would also allow for a better balance between defensive and  offensive magical items. A +1 sword would give +1 attack and +1 damage  as usual, but +1 magical armor would give +1 Defense and +1 AC (DR). You could  also have the ability to divide each of these up in different kinds of  magical abilities.In my opinion, I think this would allow for AC to take a role in the game that it was originally meant to represent (pure physical toughness) while giving it a more modern mechanic.</blockquote>