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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5879280" data-attributes="member: 70707">A nasty concussion?  Sure.  Head crushed just as badly as if there were no helmet at all?  Gonna have to to call [citation needed] on that one.  The physics of it just doesn't make sense.  Crushed head implies a crushed helmet, and crushed helmet implies a less crushed head than if the helmet wasn't there, since a substantial amount of energy went into deforming the helmet.I would say that that "gray area" applies to all hits.  Making contact, without actually doing serious damage, is really hard to do, no matter what.But the problem with this is "serious injury" in DnD only happens on the killing (or possibly knockout) blow. The effects of HP loss prior to that cannot be reasonably considered a "serious injury" by any realistic standards.  So saying that a warhammer to a helmeted head is just as "serious" as a warhammer to a non-helmeted head doesn't make much sense, because most hits aren't actually serious in the first place.  You're driving a false equivalence of "serious = serious", and therefore, all hits should do the same damage, regardless of armor.Whereas, if armor takes any of the force of the hit, in place of the body, I say it should translate to less damage.  If a blow to an armored head results in 10% of the energy going into the helmet, and 90% into the head, (as opposed to 100% into the head for the unarmored head) that ought to be 10% fewer HP lost.  Most serious hits would still be serious, but there logically has to be a border case where a "serious" hit, with 10% energy removed, becomes a non-serious hit.Again, physics just don't work that way.  If you're puncturing armor, then some of the effectiveness of the blow must be lost.Now, I'm not saying AC-as-DR is more realistic in all cases.  AC-as-miss-chance makes a lot of sense for daggers vs. plate.  On the other hand, AC-as-DR for daggers vs. leather makes a lot of sense.Rather, I don't think either is more realistic, in general, than the other.  Using either universally, for all attacks, is equally gamist.  Therefore, the argument should be which produces a better game.  I think a reasonable argument can be made in both directions on that topic.  But I don't think one can legitimately be labeled "gamist", and the other "realistic".</blockquote>

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