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<blockquote data-quote="Falling Icicle" data-source="post: 5877648" data-attributes="member: 17077">Yes, having Defense and Armor as DR would be good things, IMO. Not only is it more realistic (armor does not make one harder to hit, its entire purpose is to absorb damage) it's also much better from a game design standpoint. Why? Because AC, at least prior to 4e, was almost entirely gear dependent and defending oneself had nothing to do with skill (with the exception of the inclusion of dexterity and some niche cases like the monk class). This created a ton of scaling problems. Characters got better and better at hitting, but the only way to improve their defense was through the purchase of magic items, and this was the primary cause of the &quot;christmas tree&quot; problem. 4e addressed this by having AC scale at the same rate as attack bonus, but it still had to deal with the oddities of including armor for some characters and not others. Fighters could get double-digit bonuses from their armor, while wizard didn't wear any. So to solve that they made it so heavy armor doesn't stack with one's Dex/Int bonus to AC, but that just encouraged fighters to dump those stats.Having &quot;Defense&quot; instead of AC and having armor provide DR eliminates all of these problems and is more realistic to boot. Sadly, AC is such a sacred old cow that I doubt they will ever adopt this approach, no matter how obviously better it is from a game design standpoint or how much common sense supports it. Tradition is a stubborn thing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Falling Icicle, post: 5877648, member: 17077"] Yes, having Defense and Armor as DR would be good things, IMO. Not only is it more realistic (armor does not make one harder to hit, its entire purpose is to absorb damage) it's also much better from a game design standpoint. Why? Because AC, at least prior to 4e, was almost entirely gear dependent and defending oneself had nothing to do with skill (with the exception of the inclusion of dexterity and some niche cases like the monk class). This created a ton of scaling problems. Characters got better and better at hitting, but the only way to improve their defense was through the purchase of magic items, and this was the primary cause of the "christmas tree" problem. 4e addressed this by having AC scale at the same rate as attack bonus, but it still had to deal with the oddities of including armor for some characters and not others. Fighters could get double-digit bonuses from their armor, while wizard didn't wear any. So to solve that they made it so heavy armor doesn't stack with one's Dex/Int bonus to AC, but that just encouraged fighters to dump those stats. Having "Defense" instead of AC and having armor provide DR eliminates all of these problems and is more realistic to boot. Sadly, AC is such a sacred old cow that I doubt they will ever adopt this approach, no matter how obviously better it is from a game design standpoint or how much common sense supports it. Tradition is a stubborn thing. [/QUOTE]

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