Armour clarity

[TeshiAlair]

Two quick things I wanted to comment on, that I'm sure have been discussed to death, but are still fairly big issues in my opinion.

1. Mention GDR on armours. There is still no indication to a new player that a +1 Robe is worse than a +0 leather armour.
2. Indicate explicitly what strength is advised to wear the amour, by something like "you feel too weak to wear this armour effectively."

[nicolae]

Two quick things I wanted to comment on, that I'm sure have been discussed to death, but are still fairly big issues in my opinion.

If they've been discussed to death but have not yet been implemented, I don't think a six-sentence post is going to sway the opinion of anyone whose decision matters.

[sgrunt]

a +1 Robe is worse than a +0 leather armour

It is?

Indicate explicitly what strength is advised to wear the amour, by something like "you feel too weak to wear this armour effectively."

Armour is effective even at 0 STR, so printing this message isn't necessary.

[tedric]

Two quick things I wanted to comment on, that I'm sure have been discussed to death, but are still fairly big issues in my opinion.

1. Mention GDR on armours. There is still no indication to a new player that a +1 Robe is worse than a +0 leather armour.
2. Indicate explicitly what strength is advised to wear the amour, by something like "you feel too weak to wear this armour effectively."

I brought up GDR in an advice thread the other day and was quickly swatted down by veterans for a) getting the mechanic wrong (it only affects melee hits) and b) bringing it up at all. As I was reminded, GDR is a confusing and poorly named stat that is probably better off "out of sight, out of mind." Anyway it is not at all clear to me that +0 leather is better than +1 robe.

Your second point I thought was already a thing, or at least used to be -- maybe the warning was removed? I'm pretty sure it was something like "Your low strength makes using this armour difficult." But if "explicit" clarity is your goal, the the armour's description should list the exact number of Str points needed, a message that only says you need more is vague and mostly unhelpful -- it doesn't tell you whether you're short just 1 point or an unreasonably high number of points.

[some12fat2move]

1. Mention GDR on armours. There is still no indication to a new player that a +1 Robe is worse than a +0 leather armour.

First of all I think a +1 robe is usually better than a +0 leather armour...second of all as long as it states somewhere that base armour rating offers extra protection against melee attacks, that's probably clear enough.

2. Indicate explicitly what strength is advised to wear the amour, by something like "you feel too weak to wear this armour effectively."

As tedric mentioned, there used to be a message like that. But it wouldn't make any sense now because there is no specific strength anymore.

[Lasty]

As long as you don't think about GDR, GDR cannot hurt you.

[damiac]

If we're not to speak of GDR, or take GDR into consideration when choosing armors, why even have it in the game? If it has ~0 effect on the game, it's just an unnecessary complexity. If it actually has an effect, then we're all stupid for ignoring it.

I know some of the "GDR isn't to be considered" is just backlash from when it was considered to be very important.

On that note, is there a forum where discussing this sort of minutia is acceptable? Somewhere where we don't have to be worried we'll confuse newcomers with our power gamer talk?

[dpeg]

damiac: It has an effect on the game, but that effect is sufficiently covered by "heavier body armour works better against melee threats". I think of it as a bonus for heavy armours. It does exactly what you expect, and there's no reason to make fuzz about it. Bringing this up when discussion +0 Leather vs +1 Robe is definitely not a good idea -- we're talking about returns that've diminished long ago.

[Lasty]

Damiac: the issue with GDR is that the effect is has is a) widely misunderstood, and b) almost entirely linear with other armour quality. It is exceptionally rare that thinking about GDR would help you make a better decision in the game, but it has been seen that thinking about GDR has caused several people to make worse decisions. The mechanic is not a necessarily bad mechanic, but it's one that fits comfortably behind the scenes and needs next to no player intervention.

Here's another way to look at it: would a ring with +100% GDR be good? Answer: no, because you almost certainly don't have the AC to make it useful, and if you do, you almost certainly have enough GDR.

[damiac]

That ring would be awesome for draconians though, wouldn't it? Or do draconians have some special intrinsic GDR, since they don't get to wear armour? In fact anyone with a high AC score, but low base AC armor would benefit from that ring, although nobody as much as draconians.

Also, with just 30 AC and your magic ring, a character could just walk down to vault 5 and be 100% safe from the vault sentinals surrounding him on all sides.

But I see your point, with 50AC, even at 100% gdr, you can only reduce 25 damage. If you have 50 AC, you've most likely already got at least 39% gdr. So if I'm reading the damage on the wiki right (maybe I'm not though), a max damage stone giant hit does 45 damage. With your example ring, that's reduced to 22.5. With my 50AC plate armored warrior example, that's reduced to 27.45. (All this is just from GDR, so I assume the ac reduction happens after the GDR calculation, but again, I could be wrong)

A ring that reduces incoming melee damage by an average of 2.5 HP is quite a bit worse than a +6AC ring. And a +6AC ring isn't really that great.

I suppose the thing to take away here is that if you're wearing heavy armor, you can feel a little safer in melee with enemies, and you can more easily afford to let yourself be surrounded by weak popcorn monsters. Also, GDR is much more meaningful against lots of weak enemies, than it is against a few strong enemies.

[TeshiAlair]

I do think there is value in pushing towards more clarity in the game. GDR is "mostly" irrelevant, but it is important enough that optimal strategy for casters is to wear the heaviest armor they can (AFAIK), which is a side effect of the AC bump also being more valuable overall than the EV decrease.

I think this falls into a similar category of +dam working differently than base dam: You can learn easily that "pick the best base dam you can" but it is still an unintuitive mechanic. Perhaps this is a result of me trying to evangelize on crawl's behalf constantly to friends, and repeatedly try to explain "no, that long sword is better than the falchion, trust me."

[crate]

GDR is "mostly" irrelevant, but it is important enough that optimal strategy for casters is to wear the heaviest armor they can (AFAIK)

what

[dck]

Right, it doesn't take a lot of enchantment for a falchion to beat a long sword by a fair amount early on so you may be evangelizing wrong.

[and into]

The point to GDR is that without it melee in armor would be more annoying. I think it is more about streamlining game play than power, per se, because with good tactics you need not, and ideally should not, allow even weak stuff to surround you. However the fact that heavy armor is more reliable in melee combat basically means that you do a *lot* less 5ing and it does emphasize the different "feel" in melee combat that a heavy armor AC-based guy has compared to a more EV-centric character. So in that sense it is good design IMO, but this is one of those things that is good design but which people misunderstand and mis-evaluate when it comes to giving advice.

[damiac]

Put lasty's ring in the game please. Gives 100% GDR, and nothing else. I bet it'd turn out a lot more useful than you think, looking at the GDR formulas. Of course, what it would do best is give you a feeling of invincibility right until you get splatted by a non-melee enemy.

[dck]

Gonna have to look at those formulae a bit harder.

[Sar]

a +6AC ring isn't really that great

what

[XuaXua]

I used to confuse ring/chain/scale mail and still do.

[damiac]

a +6AC ring isn't really that great

what

In the context of a character with 50AC, a 6AC ring isn't that great of a ring. For most characters, +6AC is a good ring.

I looked pretty hard at the GDR formula, it doesn't even seem complicated. If you had a ring with 100% GDR, as in Lasty's example, that means every single melee attack would be reduced by 50% of your AC. That's pretty significant.

GDR reduces incoming melee damage by a certain %, but only up to 50% of your AC score. Heavier armors tend to have higher GDR, with plate having 39%, and CPA having 52% or so.

I suppose the point people are making is that you don't have to think about it, because you're already going to naturally be wearing the heavier armor anyway. And if there's some reason you're not wearing the heavier armor, GDR isn't significant enough to override that reason.

It's hard for me to accept the idea that there's a mechanic like this, which is pretty significant in game, but so well blended into existing armor mechanics that there's no reason to ever consider it, because it's trumped by more important considerations. But perhaps that's just because few games are as well designed as crawl.

[and into]

That's not actually how GDR works, though. See the problem!

The % in the GDR % is applied to *max* possible damage from the incoming melee attack.

Melee only: Attack is incoming. GDR takes % *max* possible damage of that attack, then compares that number to your current AC/2. Whichever is lower is your "guaranteed damage reduction" for that attack; let's call that X. That is not separate from your AC but guarantees that up to X of your AC will be "used up" to protect you from X damage. The damage is now actually rolled, and X is subtracted from it. X is also subtracted from your AC and your remaining AC is rolled for whatever protection it may provide.

Enemies who get multiple attacks and whatnot have this fire multiple times, basically every time your armor is checked (I think). No clue how the handful of attacks that check half AC work with GDR and I'm okay not knowing that. (I spare myself some things.)

So here's a good way to think of it. I believe this is equivalent probabilistically and might help visualize it:

Imagine every point of AC you have is a two-position switch.

Your armor is checked by something when GDR is not in play: Each point has an independent 50% chance of flipping. However many switches flipped is deducted from the total incoming damage.

Your armor is checked by a non-phantasmal warrior* melee attack: Your GDR% is multiplied by the max dam of incoming attack. That number is compared to your current AC/2. Whichever is lower becomes your guaranteed reduction; let's again call it X. The damage is rolled. X of your AC "switches" are guaranteed (100%) to flip, and protect you from that much of the incoming damage. The remaining switches (your total AC minus X) all have a 50% chance to flip as usual. X + however many "flipped" at 50-50 chance, taken together, are your total AC roll. Actual incoming damage is reduced by that number.

So—again, for melee attacks only—basically GDR makes up to half of your AC doubly reliable, assuming the incoming melee hit has sufficiently high max dam, and your GDR % is sufficiently high. Your *incoming* damage is never multiplied by GDR %, only the max damage. GDR does not add AC, nor is its effect (which varies a great deal based on situation, as hopefully you can tell) easily related by saying "with this GDR, your current AC is actually comparable to Y."

*Again, no clue how GDR interacts with the "ignore 1/2 armor" characteristic of these guys' melee attack.

NOTE: Might be wrong about 50% odds above. I'm done with math today; Sandman's probably right but if duvessa, Siegurt, or some other reliable source-diver confirms his suspicions I'll delete most of this post. Yeah some things are better left undisturbed.

[Sandman25]

The remaining switches (your total AC minus X) all have a 50% chance to flip as usual.

I am not sure about 50%.

  Code:

    saved = max(saved, min(gdr * max_damage / 100, ac / 2));


[and into]

The remaining switches (your total AC minus X) all have a 50% chance to flip as usual.

I am not sure about 50%.

  Code:

    saved = max(saved, min(gdr * max_damage / 100, ac / 2));


LOL okay I thought I was clever with switch analogy, maybe not. I thought they reduced to same thing even if the procedure of the math was different but w/e.

Do you see what trying to understand GDR can do to a man, damiac? There is no simple way to express what GDR does in a manner that is useful to someone. Even if I was wrong above hopefully I've made that much clear, if only ironically.

GDR is a bead-counting mechanism in the code of the game to make your AC somewhat more reliable against melee damage based on heaviness of your armor. Other factors (casting penalty, total AC given, or total AC+EV, etc.) are going to completely outweigh GDR in every realistic scenario.

[Sandman25]

That's ok, my initial understanding of GDR was wrong too (I got corrected by forum members).

I have one death which was indirectly caused by GDR - my HO of Beogh was low on HP and decided to kill a Boulder beetle to save an ally. According to my calculations I was completely safe because of GDR. Unfortunately I forgot about rolling attack of Boulder beetle which ignores GDR. Without GDR knowledge I would survive.

[and into]

That's ok, my initial understanding of GDR was wrong too (I got corrected by forum members).

I have one death which was indirectly caused by GDR - my HO of Beough was low on HP and decided to kill a Boulder beetle to save an ally. According to my calculations I was completely safe because of GDR. Unfortunately I forgot about rolling attack of Boulder beetle which ignores GDR. Without GDR knowledge I would survive.

This is the important takeaway—sorry if I muddied waters by being wrong in my math somewhere. But yeah the important point is that knowing about GDR has probably mislead *unto death* (or into really strange, bad decisions) more players than it has helped. And this is people who meticulously looked at explanations that were a lot more detailed than anything that could be put into descriptive text in Crawl.

[damiac]

I assumed that GDR was instead of AC, not in addition to. So GDR means you automatically win some AC rolls, then the rest happen as usual. I had figured it just used the GDR reduction if your AC rolls didn't reduce enough damage, so it's a little more powerful than I thought.

So since it looks at max incoming damage, then reduces THAT by gdr, unless ac/2 is lower, then it's reduced by that instead. So with 100% gdr, from the non-existent ring, and 30 AC, any and all incoming melee attacks would be reduced by at least 15 damage, but could be reduced by up to 30 damage. Non melee attacks will be reduced by 0 to 30 damage.

Of course, there's no such thing as 100% gdr.

But yeah, I guess what I'm seeing here is that GDR probably matters most when you find a plate armor on D1, or something like that. At that point, enemies aren't hitting hard enough for your lowish AC to matter (Lets say a D1 plate armor brings you to 10AC, that's up to 5 damage off each hit from GDR). On top of that, most threats are melee at that point of the game. Having almost all incoming damage reduced by over 1/3 is pretty huge, especially at the beginning of the game.

Later on, you've got bigger issues to deal with when it comes to armor choices than reducing a little melee damage. So I'd say GDR actually is an important consideration, but only when finding the heavy armors very early in the game. It makes the reduced accuracy and EV worthwhile, more so than just the AC boost would suggest.

However, I will say this. Misinformation and ignorance flourish in environments with less information, not more. So maybe a little stickied article in the advice section, titled "GDR: What it is, and what it isn't", or even "Why you shouldn't worry about GDR"

Otherwise, as you see in this thread, people will just come up with their own ideas and assumptions.

[Sandman25]

GDR is not that good with Plate Armour on D1. You have AC 10 so melee attacks are reduced by 1-10. If early monster has max damage 6, it means you are unlikely to receive any damage even without GDR. 30% GDR guarantees that you cannot get more than 4 damage but that would be very unlikely anyway (monster needs to roll 5 or 6 out of 6 and you need to roll 0 or 1 out of 10). Also it guarantees you will always decrease damage by at least 2 (vs monster with max damage 6).

[and into]

It is most noticeable on extremely hard hitting attacks when you have big AC, as it cuts down on the variation; it mitigates the possibility that you'll just roll a 1 and the ettin will roll 60 or something. So it helps make AC more like AC and not like EV, which is good, but the difference is generally not noticeable amongst mostly similar pieces of heavy armor; other, more major factors tend to outweigh it. Because max_dam factors in and your total AC/2 caps it, GDR would perhaps be noticeable early on if you have good overall AC (from like early well enchanted plate, plus ring(s) of protection) and then you fall down a shaft and run into Hill Giant. Or some such scenario. But it isn't like your GDR would protect you enough even there that you'd suddenly want to take on the Hill Giant at a low level, it just might help you survive that initial hit.

[Sar]

Well D:1 plate would still be good for characters willing to wear plate if GDR did not exist.

[damiac]

A hydra would be a good opponent for this. At 18 max damage per hit, my plate armor's GDR is going to take 7 damage off each hit, guaranteed. Of course, I have to have 14 AC to do that, but with 10 just from the plate that's not terribly unlikely. That takes the hydra's damage from 1-18 to 0-11, per head. And that second one is very weighted toward the low end, because there's 7 possible 0s to roll. All this is assuming bad AC rolls, if I get good AC rolls that 0-11 shrinks even further.

Admittedly, that's stretching the definition of early game, and I cherry picked what seems like the best opponent for the comparison. But GDR is best against lots of little hits, due to the limitation of 50% of AC. This helps explain why it seems that my heavier armored characters fared better against hydras than my ice elementalists, even though the IE's actually had better AC scores, due to Ozo's. GDR is basically armor insurance.

That gives me an idea for a new god... Pravis, the God of Managed Risk. Pay 3 hps a turn to guarantee you can't take more than 25 damage in one shot.

It's really an ingenious little mechanic. The more I look at it, the more impressed I am that anyone thought to have such a thing in the game, and that it's so well balanced.

[TehDruid]

I often wonder about Crystal Plate too. What minerals is it made of? Oh wait...

[dck]

Literally the last thing the tavern needs is a sticky that has GDR on its title or deals with GDR at all. Much less in the advice subforum.

[duvessa]

I had figured it just used the GDR reduction if your AC rolls didn't reduce enough damage

this is exactly what it does

[crate]

let me put it this way: if we exclude nagas and draconians for a second, then your GDR amount is very strongly correlated with your total AC (and vice-versa). So 40 AC behaves a certain way on a human (or nearly every other race), and this is the way you expect 40 AC to behave based on in-game experiences.

However to actually get 40 AC on a human, you almost certainly are wearing plate armour or heavier. So your understanding (based on in-game experience) of how 40 AC behaves already includes GDR. The difference between plate armour GDR at 40 AC and scale mail armour GDR at 40 AC (let's say you got some rings of protection on the latter character) is small, and you are extremely unlikely to notice this, ever.

The only time I have ever noticed GDR is when I am comparing draconian or naga defenses to other characters. Since they get so much scales AC naturally, their AC actually behaves a bit differently from what you expect. It's usually still not noticeable unless you are actually specifically looking for the effect, especially if your naga is wearing leather or something heavier.

(This is not a thing for Gr, since Gr's built-in GDR actually makes a 40 AC Gr act nearly identical to a 40 AC human in general.)

[banei]

We could show a full grid of major threats per level and how much AC+GDR affects received damage on max hits. And also include a chart with everything that ignores GDR
or...
just pretend it doesn't exist and tell everyone to get good AC+EV and, more importantly, always play carefully. Except for Draconians because their AC doesn't give the same results. And do be careful with Nagas while wearing light armour. And Gargoyles in robes have good defenses. And Boulder Beetles do more damage than expected. And... etc.

GDR is a game mechanic that cannot just be swept under the rug.

[Viashino_wizard]

The only time I have ever noticed GDR is when I am comparing draconian or naga defenses to other characters. Since they get so much scales AC naturally, their AC actually behaves a bit differently from what you expect. It's usually still not noticeable unless you are actually specifically looking for the effect, especially if your naga is wearing leather or something heavier.

Don't nagas get full GDR from their armor? I thought Deformed Body just gives you an AC penalty, rather than actually reducing the base AC of the armor itself.

Possibly Draconians should get some natural GDR to go with their scales, though. It seems odd that after a certain point in the game melee combat becomes less safe for a draconian than for a different race with the same AC.

[crate]

Don't nagas get full GDR from their armor? I thought Deformed Body just gives you an AC penalty, rather than actually reducing the base AC of the armor itself.

yes but you don't get 30 AC in a robe with other races

[sanka]

I do not understand why this thread is in the advice forum in the first place. The OP did not ask for any advice.

Maybe if we want to reduce the GDR talk it would be sensible to really tie it to total AC instead of being a hidden property for body armour and gargolyes. It is mostly works this way anyway, but than we could argue that total AC (which is displayed) gives all information that you need (which is true now I think, but if it is true effectievly, we could make it really true, to simplify things). Yeah, it could be a (minor) buff to draconians and nagas, but I do not think it's important. Maybe reduce their final AC by 1 or something if it really annoys someone.

[Lasty]

just pretend it doesn't exist and tell everyone to get good AC+EV and, more importantly, always play carefully. Except for Draconians because their AC doesn't give the same results. And do be careful with Nagas while wearing light armour. And Gargoyles in robes have good defenses. And Boulder Beetles do more damage than expected. And... etc.

GDR is a game mechanic that cannot just be swept under the rug.

I think you missed several of the other posters' points. For nagas wearing robes and draconians, the lack of GDR is somewhat noticeable in some circumstances. The boulder beetle case was an example of someone dying because they were thinking about GDR, where they would have lived if they had not thought about GDR. You make it sound like there's a parade of exceptions, but there's really only one exception: If you somehow have huge AC without any GDR, you might notice that AC is protecting you a bit less effectively.

Here's a heuristic that will fully cover this exception: Don't think about GDR. If you somehow have huge AC without wearing armour, keep in mind that your AC is slightly less good against melee attacks than you might otherwise think.

[tedric]

Here's a heuristic that will fully cover this exception: Don't think about GDR. If you somehow have huge AC without wearing armour, keep in mind that your AC is slightly less good against melee attacks than you might otherwise think.

To me this still sounds like: "Don't think about GDR, except when you need to think about GDR."

I mean, why have that exception at all? It is supremely unintuitive that having high AC from source X would protect you any better or worse than having the same AC from source Y, especially when the difference is special-cased to only apply to one kind of damage.

If the difference between high-AC/normal-GDR and high-AC/low-GDR is big enough to be worth thinking about, even if it only affects a handful of characters, then it should be more clear. If it's not big enough to be worth thinking about, even for those characters it affects, then that should be made clear -- or it should be removed -- or we should all just pretend it has been. Either way your heuristic should end at "Don't think about GDR."

[Lasty]

I'm fine with having GDR be based on AC score rather than armour, but I don't really care.

The heuristic I personally use for GDR is "never ever consider GDR when making a choice", and that's never created an issue for me. I only offered the slightly-more-complicated heuristic for banei, who was trying to make things sound more complicated than they are.

[damiac]

My takeaway here is this:
Normal humanoids who are not relying on Ozo's armor probably don't need to worry about GDR at all, just assume more AC means less incoming damage.
If you are relying on Ozo's, you are significantly more vulnerable in melee than a character with the same AC score from actual armor.
If you are a naga, you're probably a little more vulnerable in melee than a humanoid with similar AC, but then, not by much.
Draconians are very significantly more vulnerable in melee than characters who can wear armor, given similar AC values.

So GDR's still not a good reason to use a different suit of armor. But it's something to think about if you're one of the special cases I mentioned, before you go wading into melee. Still, GDR or no GDR, use good tactics, try to maximize AC + EV, etc.

[Lasty]

"Significantly", while technically accurate, is probably overstating the case, at least as most people interpret the word. Replace it with "somewhat", and you're probably giving an impression closer to the truth.

The only time I have ever noticed GDR is when I am comparing draconian or naga defenses to other characters. Since they get so much scales AC naturally, their AC actually behaves a bit differently from what you expect. It's usually still not noticeable unless you are actually specifically looking for the effect, especially if your naga is wearing leather or something heavier.

As crate is saying here, he notices the effect only in these extreme cases, but even then to a degree such that it's only noticeable if you're specifically looking for it. The fact that careful observation under extreme cases is necessary to notice the effect should indicate that it tops out at a fairly small effect.

[damiac]

Nagas still wear body armor, so yes, the difference for them would be slight.
For draconians, the difference between reducing damage from big hitters by half your ac, guaranteed, vs potentially taking full damage from those hits is significant.


What I'm saying is a draconian or light armored caster with high AC from ozo is going to feel a bit squishier in melee than a character with the same AC from body armor.
With scale mail or better, and at least 26 AC, every hit from a stone giant will be reduced by at least 13 damage. On a draconian with 26ac, those hits will not be guaranteed to be reduced by 13 damage. That seems significant to me.

[Sar]

Well you bump into a couple of hard hitters, you sort of notice you feel squishier, you adjust. Unless you are doing hardcore sandmanesque metagaming, it won't kill you. Characters with different AC and EV feel differently too.

[Lasty]

Nagas still wear body armor, so yes, the difference for them would be slight.
For draconians, the difference between reducing damage from big hitters by half your ac, guaranteed, vs potentially taking full damage from those hits is significant.

Read crate's quote again. He's saying it's hard to tell unless you're looking for both nagas and draconians, and that if the naga is even wearing leather armour it gets harder still.

What I'm saying is a draconian or light armored caster with high AC from ozo is going to feel a bit squishier in melee than a character with the same AC from body armor.
With scale mail or better, and at least 26 AC, every hit from a stone giant will be reduced by at least 13 damage. On a draconian with 26ac, those hits will not be guaranteed to be reduced by 13 damage. That seems significant to me.

No one is disputing that the draconian or robe-wearing naga or robe-wearing Ozo's character's defense will feel a bit different than another character with the same AC/EV but wearing armour that gives heavy GDR.

In your example, the stone giant probably has a giant club, making his max damage 65, and GDR will give you at least 18 damage off if you have at least 36 AC, so let's assume 36 AC. Let's ignore EV, even though the character w/ no GDR will have more EV. In this case, the average damage you receive with 36 AC and 28% GDR is 9.4 and the average damage you receive without is 14. The range of damage you receive with is 0-47 clustered around 9.4, and without is 0-65, clustered around 14.

In this extreme example which also ignores the effects of EV, note that the difference in average damage done is quite small. The biggest impact is in limiting extremely outlying heavy damage. If we add the EV factor back in, the difference in average damage likely evaporates.

[tasonir]

The range of damage you receive with is 0-47 clustered around 9.4, and without is 0-65, clustered around 14.

Great post, the above part is the only thing that has caused me in-game problems. I played a lot of heavy armor characters, internalized that heavy hitting monsters like the giant could get at worst around 40ish damage, and then when I played an EV character who happened to take a hit, I unexpectedly had instead taken 60 and died. AC, because of GDR, can outright remove the worst case scenario. AC, without GDR, can still roll the max damage (or is it max damage - 1? either way, it's basically max damage). But with GDR, you can ALWAYS take off ac/2, which is quite significant for heavy armor characters in the mid game. GDR is what makes AC better than EV, when you consider them without the larger context (EV is better than AC because you can cast spells is the larger context).

I love GDR because I have a strong personal bias for loving small variance ranges. I love a game based off 10d3 (range: 10-30) rather than 1d39 (range: 1-39), even though they both average 20. Admittedly it isn't that huge of a factor in game decisions, but it can come up if you're really familiar with plate characters and suddenly try out a robe character.

[Sandman25]

Well you bump into a couple of hard hitters, you sort of notice you feel squishier, you adjust. Unless you are doing hardcore sandmanesque metagaming, it won't kill you. Characters with different AC and EV feel differently too.

sandmanesque metagaming??? There are many things that can kill player in one or two hits during those experiments (I died at least twice this way). I provided an example from mantis where a draconian with 120+ HP was one-shot by skeletal warrior (almost max damage roll + almost min AC roll + almost max brand roll). That's why wizard mode rules.

[damiac]

I'd love to see an FSIM of this example, A draconian with 36ac vs a stone giant, compared to an identically skilled human with scale, with 36AC.

Just for the sake of keeping this to GDR, their EV should be the same, even though in practice, the drac is going to have better EV.

Is FSIM any good for this sort of comparison? Or are we just going to see average damage?

Also, did you take into account in your figures that with 0 gdr, the giant hits for 0-65, but with the GDR, he hits for -18-47. I know he's not going to heal you if he hits for negative damage, but there's a lot of 0s to take into account for the average damage with GDR.

[Sar]

Was it dragon slaying? Because dragon slaying is pretty funny like that. I remember a reaper scoring, what was that, 126 damage on a player.

[Lasty]

Also, did you take into account

Yes, I did.