Uni-the-Unicorn!
Hero
Your response does not explain how the fighter can take more hits if he/she is simply higher level.Am I? I guess it depends on how you define "meat" and "meaningful" in this context. Blunt trauma as a result of an impact against armor is certainly meatier and more meaningful than an arrow that doesn't make contact, due to luck or divine intervention. Endurance to withstand a hit certainly has more to do with the toughness of your meat than endurance to dodge does.
Most importantly, though, blunt trauma as a result of armor impact can result in eventual incapacitation as a result of cumulative wounds; and it can't reasonably be seen to vanish over the course of five minutes or an hour. In that way, every hit you take is very meaningful (even if it's not as meaningful as a hypothetical arrow through the torso would be).
to be clearer, let’s assume the fighters are wearing leather armor. how does fighter A take 20 hits before he goes down and fighter B only takes 2. We are also assuming that all arrows do 4 damage.
they are wearing the same armor (same AC even) and the attacks do the same damage (4). How does A survive 10x linger than B.