AmerginLiath
Adventurer
Being armed already contributes to defenses: it makes you less likely to be targeted (especially for melee attacks) compared to those without armed capabilities. That’s why the original Armor Class system in the naval war games* that Gygax and others played didn’t include weaponry in that calculation, a ship’s weapons would be a deterrence for attack rather than adding to a calculation of whether a given attack hit and did damage.
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*The briefest of history lessons for those who don’t know: we have Armor Class, and originally AC that ascended, in D&D, because it was taken from literal classifications of naval armor in war games — Gygax and Arneson worked on “Don’t Give Up the Ship!” before “Dungeons and Dragons” — noting a ship with first-class armor, second-class armor, etc. Dexterity bonuses come into play as a modification of the ship-speed rules (which could lead to glancing blows), but the basic armor rules right down to name always acted as if the character was a ship or fort at humanoid-scale, rolling to see if the latest volley did underlaying structural damage. As a guy who’s worked on historic ships before and examined armored gun decks, this has always amused me.
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*The briefest of history lessons for those who don’t know: we have Armor Class, and originally AC that ascended, in D&D, because it was taken from literal classifications of naval armor in war games — Gygax and Arneson worked on “Don’t Give Up the Ship!” before “Dungeons and Dragons” — noting a ship with first-class armor, second-class armor, etc. Dexterity bonuses come into play as a modification of the ship-speed rules (which could lead to glancing blows), but the basic armor rules right down to name always acted as if the character was a ship or fort at humanoid-scale, rolling to see if the latest volley did underlaying structural damage. As a guy who’s worked on historic ships before and examined armored gun decks, this has always amused me.