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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3027431" data-attributes="member: 2011">DR vs. AC has a situation which the mathematical discussion tends to ignore.The mathematical discussion is concerned with average damage and over the long haul, is perfectly valid.However, it is a lot easier to get hit a lot of times in a single combat where an extra +1 AC never made a difference in the entire combat than it is when the extra +1 AC made a difference one or more times in the combat.So, let's take DR 1 versus +1 AC. Regardless of what the "to hits" are and the "AC" is (except the cases of 95% chance to hit or 5% chance to hit), say a given opponent hits you 6 times in 10 swings (or even 6 times in 50 swings).The DR saved you 6 hit points.73.5% of the time, +1 AC does nothing. 26.5% of the time, it prevents you from getting hit one or more times where you would have gotten hit without it.So although the PC takes less damage on average with the +1 AC, there are a majority of combats where the DR helps out and the AC does not.This also means that on a majority of rounds, the DR helps out and the AC does not.In other words, the Hare wins the race by a lot when he wins (i.e. +1 AC averages less damage over many combats), but it is the Tortoise that wins the race more often (i.e. the majority of combats, the PC with DR has more hit points left over at the end of combat). Depending on how many hit points a given PC has, the +1 DR does actually help out more most adventuring days (i.e. the PCs decide to stop adventuring for the day more often if the PC has DR, but this is typically a choice that does not matter in the long run). This is also why DR is better for high hit point PCs like Barbarians and would hardly help out a Wizard at all (unless the Wizard had an extremely high CON).As an example, say your opponent averages 17 points of damage if he hits and you have 50 hit points. If he hits you 3 times, you will still be conscious at 2 hit points if you have +1 DR (assuming average damage). You will be unconsicous if you have +1 AC (except for those uncommon cases where he hit you less than 3 times which is 14% of the time). So, it is better to be conscious and able to do something than unconscious and dying. Granted, it is better to have been hit 2 or fewer times than 3 times, but most of the time in this situation (86%), that is not the case.So, it is not quite as cut and dry as "average damage" leads one to believe.</blockquote>

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