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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7738408" data-attributes="member: 6775031">If you're asking why someone with high Dexterity has a bonus to AC, it's because an agile fighter is harder to land a telling blow against. They might dodge, or parry. AC is a combination of a lot of factors, of which the hardness of their armor is only one component.If you're asking why Strength is the only factor in the attack roll, when the argument for Strength relies on the opponent being armored, it's because an armored opponent is a reasonable assumption and a nimble opponent is not. Of the monsters you might be fighting, the vast majority of them have armor-like hide which needs to be overcome. Of the humanoids you might be fighting, the vast majority of them are going to be wearing actual armor, and the ones who don't wear armor are magic. To contrast, the number of nimble monsters with flesh-like hide is rather negligible. And even if you were going against an unarmored peasant, for whatever reason, you are still more likely to cause significant injury to them if you are strong. Strength is always a factor in your chance to deal a telling blow, where your agility only occasionally matters.Pathfinder doesn't use Dexterity to damage, outside of a few corner cases with obscure class abilities or feats. And the difference between swinging a sword and firing a bow, is that the ability to actually impact your arrow against a target is a larger factor than how hard it impacts if it does hit, in determining whether or not you cause meaningful injury.Think about it. Swinging a sword in an arc at a distance of two feet, actually touching the enemy is trivial and the hard part is hitting them hard enough to hurt. Firing a bow from a distance of 30 feet, actually touching the enemy is non-trivial and firing harder isn't going to help much.People say this often. Or rather, they say that combat is an abstraction and that you shouldn't look at anything too closely. While that's definitely true, the rhetoric can get out of hand sometimes, to the point where they forget that there is an underlying logic which is grounded in reality at the base. The rules are abstract, but they aren't nearly as abstract as some would have you believe.</blockquote>

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