Armor Class vs. Damage Reduction - Your preference

[Meatboy]

I like armor as AC, at least right now . At least as far as dnd is concerned there will always be a to hit roll if you only modify AC that really keeps things simple as you only need to track one number. DR is another system added on top of this its not too bad at the start but start adding enchantments on, plus you need to edit any spell that modifies AC or grants something like DR things start to get grindingly slow. I feel this is a bad thing because the later editions of DnD can get quite bogged down during combat already.

 

[Zhaleskra]

For me, it depends both how it's implemented and how abstract damage and defense are. Part of "not hitting" is the armor itself making the blade, ball, whatever end up going somewhere it wasn't intended to. Generally, I like armor as DR if all damage is "real" and defense is abstract, like agility+dodge+armor+roll. As you can see in that equation, armor is also part of defense. That said, I guess I like armor as armor class when there isn't a defense roll.