Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

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Daucuscarota
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Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

Post by Daucuscarota »

I seem to remember a blog entry here, or an article somewhere else, where Chris Gonnerman (if I remember correctly) about the meaning of Armor Class.

It was part of a discussion about different takes on Armor, and Chris said AC as a fixed value (say, a difficulty level to roll against) was a better system and made more sense than Armor giving a bonus or absorbing damage. I don't remember well, but perhaps someone here can help.

Thnaks!
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Re: Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

Post by Dimirag »

Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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Re: Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

Post by cheimison »

Daucuscarota wrote:I seem to remember a blog entry here, or an article somewhere else, where Chris Gonnerman (if I remember correctly) about the meaning of Armor Class.

It was part of a discussion about different takes on Armor, and Chris said AC as a fixed value (say, a difficulty level to roll against) was a better system and made more sense than Armor giving a bonus or absorbing damage. I don't remember well, but perhaps someone here can help.

Thnaks!
I though the meaning of AC was that the super-abstract combat mechanics of a multi-man miniature game's war units were inexplicably applied to one-on-one duels, lol.

Not a whole lot of D&D's combat makes a lot of sense if you try to pin it down, it's very abstract. This is why I don't like adding critical hits, I feel that's called 'rolling a 6 on 1d6', there's just zero detail in what is even going on in most OSR combats. From what I have gleaned 'AC' can be beaten and 'hit points' of damage can be dealt to a creature without one ever having physically touched the other but simply 'worn down his luck'.

All of these statistics made a lot more sense when you were dealing with figure stands and infantry blocks, when applied to individual people you really can't make sense of it (even though many have tried!).

I say if it bothers you, just play RuneQuest, where armor behaves like armor and isn't simply a check on casualties affected by an Armor v. Weapon table in Chainmail.
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Daucuscarota
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Re: Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

Post by Daucuscarota »

Dimirag wrote:The closest I could find: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1665&p=47528&hilit=damage+reduction#p47528
That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you.
cheimison wrote:I though the meaning of AC was that the super-abstract combat mechanics of a multi-man miniature game's war units were inexplicably applied to one-on-one duels, lol.

Not a whole lot of D&D's combat makes a lot of sense if you try to pin it down, it's very abstract. This is why I don't like adding critical hits, I feel that's called 'rolling a 6 on 1d6', there's just zero detail in what is even going on in most OSR combats. From what I have gleaned 'AC' can be beaten and 'hit points' of damage can be dealt to a creature without one ever having physically touched the other but simply 'worn down his luck'.

All of these statistics made a lot more sense when you were dealing with figure stands and infantry blocks, when applied to individual people you really can't make sense of it (even though many have tried!).

I say if it bothers you, just play RuneQuest, where armor behaves like armor and isn't simply a check on casualties affected by an Armor v. Weapon table in Chainmail.
I play OSR games and RuneQuest/Stormbringer/Call of Cthulhu (without combat, this one) games.

Each game has its combat system based on what the developers think makes sense for what the game is trying to achieve, both equally abstract and non-realistic yet functional the way chess is not realistic but it's functional as a game. Mounted knights don't move like an "L" in real life, it's an abstraction, is all.

In real life, you don't know what your probability to hit a foe is, really. To do that, you should measure everything, and I mean everything: weather conditions, the physical conditions of both combatants, et cetera, but also you should know exactly what direction will the weapon take, but this not even the attacker knows because coordination is not perfect and half a milimeter can change the result. But rolling against AC or rolling opposed percentile skills are equally realistic (or not) and functional for the game each comes from.
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Re: Chris Gonnerman wrote about the meaning of AC, I guess?

Post by orobouros »

Every modeling effort requires a degree of abstraction. Advanced Squad Leader has some pretty crazy levels of detail and each dice roll has potentially different results for any of the 11 outcomes (it's all 2d6). I like the d20 plus weapon roll setup because it has a lot of variation but can be pretty streamlined. It also allows a degree of flexibility; you can use the same basic mechanics but (if you're so inclined for a big boss fight) apply them to arms, legs, tentacles, etc, all on the same monster. The AC setup is a big step down in complexity from its origins. Sure, it doesn't make all that much sense only as written, but a good RPG group will probably be able to fill it with words what the mechanics fail to provide.
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