Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General game mechanic ...

i dont get armor class mechanic, why more ac give more dodge ?

how characters with 8 dex and heavy armor can dodge so much ?

heavy armors should reduce damage not give more dodges, heavy armor mastery feat give less damage from psysicals attacks not more dodge

robes and dex should give more dodges while heavy and con or str or both damage redution

robes also less magic damage vs user and stats like int more magic defs etc and magic more vs plate users like plate

med armor hybrid of them

heavy plate and shield that give more dodges is complitly nonsense you dont dodge with shield, you block with shield

You might as well question the realism of the rules of chess.

The rules of a game dont have to make sense and dont have to be realistic.

They only have to work as a game.

D&D5 is optimized to be easy to handle with nothing but pieces of paper, a pen, and a couple dices.

Thus things are kept simple. Not realistic.

So the premise is not so much the attack misses as it fails to penetrate and do any harm. Instead of having two full mechanics for dodge and protect DnD chose a simpler solution of combining them to a single mechanic.

You are correct for a more "realistic" solution there should be a chance to hit, that would be modified by DEX and a skill with weapon or shield to parry. Then once a hit is made armor would negate some level of certain damage types based on the armor. Heavier armor would negate the dodge ability making it easier to hit but less likely to do damage.

However as noted, this system was developed to table top, pen and paper with dice game play. The current system is an evolution from the old system, THANK GOD because THAC0 sucked.

AC still give chance to dodge if you have more AC when you get hit you get 100% damage from hit that make complitly nonsense if you get hit for 20 damage you get for 20 dmg

its should be something like you have big change to hit cause dodge is plate armor is basicly inpossible like 90% chance to hit and when you get hit damage should be reduced by armor class

if I see miss that means some1 dodged this attack, not reflected it, parried or block etc

show me how you dodge sword in plate armor :F or hit from crossbow xD

The weight of plate armor is distributed across the body in such a way that it does not significantly hamper mobility, so in real life you would dodge a sword while wearing plate armor pretty much exactly as you would without it.

But that’s besides the point, as the post you are responding to pointed out already.

This isn’t going to change. Your objections are irrelevant here.

still this game don't have armor cause only armor that works and reduce damage are forge armor rest is robe/light robe/medium robe and heavy robe cause armor give only dodges here and not protect like they should, armor not give any protection cause you always get 100% damage expect forge armor reduce dmg by 2 and heavy armor mastery by 3

This isn’t going to change.

As others have mentioned, it's Larian's design choice to make everything *look* like dodges, and it's silly.

But you asked about the AC mechanic... The AC *mechanic* is that AC represents the total accumulation of you ability to avoid being hurt, whatever that means. If an attack roll does not meet your AC, that means that, whatever else happened, it failed to cause you harm, or you managed to avoid being hurt. It does not inherently mean you dodged; the mechanic doesn't specify how harm was avoided, just that it was, and the how of it is between you and your DM. The character wearing +3 plate armour with a +3 shields and the Dexterity of a head of cabbage, still has 26 AC because they're a nigh impenetrable fortress of metal. When hits fail to damage them, it's generally going to be because the armour stopped it - though it may also be because the attacker just plain missed, too, or any other outlier reason. Armour does protect you - that's what AC is.

Larian made everything look like dodges all the time, and that's pretty dumb; blame their visual design choices for that.

AC represent how difficult your enemy is to damage. That protection can come from protective spell, from characters agility, from shield he is carrying and/or armor he is wearing. As such, heavily plated character and dexterious rogue have same ACs, representing different ways in which those characters protects themselves from damage.

It might a bit of missed potential to lend our character builds more variety in gameplay. In Pathfinder, for example some spells are applied by touch, and therefore armor bonus doesn't apply. I also quite like what PoEs did - armors providing damage reduction which slowing character's movement and attack speed.

5e keeps very basic approach to AC - and like a lot of it it is straightforward but it works alright, if lacking in nuance. Still an improvement over D:OS2 armor system.

Why my char miss attacking a character that stand in front of him?? exdee kekw

but sometimes armor stop like 50% of impact force so weapon pointed at you slow down in armor and hurt you much less by physical rulez and game show only 0 1 code

1 - hit 100% damage
0 - miss 0 damage

never something between like geting hit for 20 dmg and absorbed 10

sometimes armor stop weapon just by half or like 80% impact before hits you that why you have only dodge mechanics here are armors are not armirs just robes with dodge chance

its still dodge mechanic, its have nothing to do with armor that stop damage or shield block damage, you get hit you get 100% damage if not 0%, this is standard dodge mechanics by 0 1 type

Literally just stand still and watch both bounce off harmlessly.

In reality.

Neither swords nor crossbow bolts do much to plate armor. Thats exactly what plate armor is best to defend against.

To penetrate plate armor with medieval technology, you need topheavy melee weapons.

In reality, anyway.

Not entirely. With a sword against full armour, you'd probably do no damage unless you managed to enter the blade in a joint or through a slit, and then it could be deadly.
So for a realistic damage, you would have tp differentiate between weapons vs armour also. A sword blade against a full helmet would do way less damage than a warhammer.
Which is why ancient texts on duelling often show a duellist grabbing a sword by the blade and hitting an armored oppenent with the pommel or crossguard.

still armor stop full impact going vs you
other example bullet-proof vest stop bullet by gun like 99% of impact, you will be still downed and get some little damage but its not 100% that would be deadly but only 1% of gun damage that let you live but you lost some "hp" any way

if you get hitted by gun into bullet-proof vest that mean gunner miss if you take no damage or just little of it ?

idk how other way i can tell you that ac in bg3 is nonsense and work only as dodge mechanics

This image does NOT show half swording, but the murder grip.

And this definitely aint no duel because in a duel both opponents would wear the same amount of armor.

Also the socalled murder grip cant be done on a sharp sword with bare hands. You would literally cut your hands into pieces on the impact, as multiple HEMA tests have shown (for example by Skallagrim on Youtube). This sword is either adapted (blunt in places), unsharpened in general (not unrealistic against plate armor) or the image is inaccurate.

The swords used here are interesting though, because they are clearly adapted for the murder grip. Both the crossguard and the pommel have spikes.

The most common technique with swords against plate armor is half swording. Most plate armor has gaps in which you can try to attack by holding the sword with one hand by the grip and with the other hand near the point. Basically you turn your sword into a dagger, with much more precision where it hits, but also with much more impact power behind it.


All in all swords havent been the best option against opponents in plate armor. Thats why topheavy weapons have been popular at the time. Even simple clubs, but also maces, warhammers, and of course the poleaxe.

So, what you're saying is that you didn't, in fact, come here to ask about a mechanic that you weren't sure about, as you first suggested - you came to voice an opinion about something that you don't like and think should be otherwise, and you're not interested in hearing any explanations or other thoughts from other people.

That's fine, consider your opinion heard and noted.

That's not how it works in D&D, and it's not how it works in BG3 either. Their system for attacking and damage works on a different principle to the one you want, and that is not going to change.

Sounds like this thread is done now.

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Edit: No, I'm being unfair, Dynia has asked for an explanation of how the system makes any kind of sense, so, sure, I'll give it a full go, to cover the details:

In the game of Dungeons and Dragons (which BG3 is loosely based on), you have Hit Points - this represents several things at once; it's both your physical health, but can also represent your stamina, your morale and willingness to fight, and several other things. Most commonly, however, it represents you Capability to fight, however that is envisioned by you and your DM.

When hostile creatures attack you, they are generally attempting to do you harm and reduce you capability of fighting or resisting; often they are outright trying to kill you.

When a creature attacks you, be it with a melee weapon, magical spell, ranged weapon or some other means, they are usually called to make an Attack Roll - this roll represents, in the abstract, their attempt to strike you and cause you harm; it represents both the the creature's ability to counter your defences, and also their own accuracy and capability to land the blow at all.

You defend against this attack with you Armour Class, which represents both your ability to avoid the attack, to whatever degree you can, and also to block, deflect or divert it, if possible, as well as any other way that you might avoid harm - such as having cover from a wall.

This is a binary check, yes! If the creature's attack roll with all modifiers meets or exceeds your AC with all modifiers, then the creature has succeeded in causing you Some degree of harm, in Some way. If they don't then it means that, for whatever reason, they have failed to cause you sufficient harm enough to count as even a single point of damage.

Okay... so now we know whether they've managed to hurt you at all; perhaps they rolled a 2, and perhaps their failure is quite literally that they misfired their bow and the arrow never even reached you. Perhaps they rolled well, but your AC was still higher, and their arrow ricocheted off your raised shield. What matters is that in a failure situation, they were unable to strike you sufficiently well to cause even a single point of damage. Doesn't mean they didn't hit you, necessarily - just that they didn't do it well enough to cause any harm.

Suppose they rolled well enough to hit you - this doesn't mean they necessarily scored an incredible blow that you mitigated none of the damage of whatsoever; it just means that they succeeded in hitting you well enough to cause Some degree of harm. How well did they hit you? How much damage did your armour protect you from, and how much energy of the strike did you divert or deflect, or did you partially managed to pull yourself out of the way of, or make less severe? Well, we work that out in the Damage step.

In the damage step, the attacker rolls to see how much damage they dealt. If they roll high, that usually means they scored a solid telling blow, and your defences, whether avoidant or blocking, weren't able to protect you very well in this instance - perhaps they found a gap in your plate, or perhaps the blow simply had enough impact, and landed cleanly enough to wind and harm you severely through it. Perhaps they rolled a 1 on their damage die... in this case, while the enemy did manage to hit you well enough to do harm, your armour absorbed most of it, or you moved enough with the attack and your armour deflected most of the rest; you still got hurt, a little, but in reality, you only suffered a graze, because your defences - whether armour or otherwise, helped protect you from the majority of the harm.

That's how it's rationalised in THIS system - that's how amrour is conceptualised as reducing damage and protecting you in THIS system. It makes sense within this system; no it's not 100% realistic - it's deliberately abstract to allow for a lot of flexibility and interpretation between players and DMs.

Judging from other thread where he commented, he seems to not wanting to discuss about the game mechanics, merely affirming what he already believe.

No game ever has really simulated armor well. Not only its too complicated, its also too binary for gameplay purposes.
D&D and D&D based game are just extra bad in that regard as they tend to overvalue dodge and Dex in general (which got worse in newer edition with the introduction of Dex only weapons) while only giving penalties to heavy armor but no advantage.