AC question for defense

[Gaunticles]

Does AC help you parry, dodge, cause misses, or block attacks?

Does AC do more than just reduce the damage you take?

[Trick]

I feel like these are questions I should know the answers to.. I still don't really know what thac0 is, but I like to pretend I understand the mechanics of the game I've played for 10 years.. Isn't make believe fun?

[Unknown Brother]

Ac just lowers the intake of damage, you won't parry or dodge any better

[Gaunticles]

That's what I thought, how do I improve my chances of parry, dodge, block?

 

[Trick]

Get items that increase parry, dodge, block? Also, I'm pretty sure -ac has a hand in if they just flat out miss as well. Hit vs -ac.

[Lloth]

9 minutes ago, Unknown Brother said:

Ac just lowers the intake of damage, you won't parry or dodge any better

True and false. While it does lower damage taken, and doesn't affect parry/dodge/etc it does affect whether or not (or more accurately, how often) they can even hit you. So it's not JUST damage reduction. Miss chance is calculated using AC.

[Lloth]

To break it down: 

 

Thac0 means "to hit armor class zero". That is to say, if player A has an ac of 0, what does player B have to roll on his attack in order to hit?

 

Attacks use a random chance, modified by hitroll and thac0, to determine hit or miss. After hit or miss is decided, chance to parry/dodge/block is rolled. Failing the success of a defense, damage is then calculated. 

 

Just like ac, the lower the thac0, the better, since it means you require less hitroll to overcome higher ac values.

[f0xx]

21 minutes ago, Unknown Brother said:

you won't parry or dodge any better

So in other words, that's plain false.

[Magick]

As Lloth just explained, that bit is true.  You won't parry or dodge any better from a high AC as they're each separate defenses.  To say otherwise would be like saying that shield block affects dodge.  It doesn't.  If you fail to dodge, you have a chance to parry.  If you fail to parry, you have a chance to be missed completely through high AC.  If you actually get hit, the AC then mitigates the damage.
Lloth exampled a different order and might be the right way, but honestly, it's largely irrelevant in battle.  A miss is a miss regardless of where/how you missed.

[Lloth]

The order is:

Roll for hit

Hit or miss

If hit...

   Hit or dodge/parry/block

      If hit....

          Roll damage and apply damage reductions from spells and armor. 

 

 

 

 

[Fool_Hardy]

I am not doubting those who see the code.

However.

Without stone skin phee, phigh, phough, and phum, will hit my main.

With stoneskin, I dodge and or parry ALL of their attacks.

So, I play under the assumption that AC does affect your chances of success. Straight experience and research, decide for yourself.

[Pali]

Straight experience is highly vulnerable to confirmation bias.  Go with what the coders tell you.

[f0xx]

6 hours ago, Pali said:

Straight experience is highly vulnerable to confirmation bias.  Go with what the others tell you.

That's the most dangerous advise one can give you.

Go with your straight experience. IN EVERYTHING, not just this game.

But always try to be as unbiased as possible and brutally honest to yourself. Otherwise it won't work.

[Pali]

...and part of being unbiased is recognizing that one's own experience is vulnerable to confirmation bias, so more objective sources (in this case, those who actually know the code) should be used to confirm or refute what your experience tells you.  We humans are far from being perfect truth-recognizing machines, and instead our minds and memory are prey to a host of weaknesses, vulnerabilities and blind spots when it comes to putting together our internal model of reality.  They're still pretty good at the job despite that, but objective confirmation should always be sought when available.

[Trick]

3 hours ago, f0xx said:

That's the most dangerous advise one can give you.

Advice.*

[English lad]

4 hours ago, f0xx said:

That's the most dangerous advise one can give you.

Go with your straight experience. IN EVERYTHING, not just this game.

But always try to be as unbiased as possible and brutally honest to yourself. Otherwise it won't work.

Frankly - this is just a bad idea - humans are highly fallible.  Go with facts over 'experience'.  Our brain has some pretty interesting ways of filtering real life, and memories - to prove us 'right'.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

I know so many people who refuse to accept simple facts - because they 'know' otherwise - and then refuse to take any responsibility for things going wrong for them in life.

Numbers don't lie.  Now if you can't see the numbers - then record your experience - accurate and honest - and go with what those numbers tell you - not what you 'think' is right.

[Pali]

1 hour ago, Fireman said:

Advice.*

Both spellings are appropriate.  American English tends to replace a lot of s's in British English with c's (defense and defence are another example), and I suspect our European players have a good chance of having learned English from the Brits.  

[Magick]

Not sure what was edited in Foxx's post, but the way it sits at the time of this posting...

4 hours ago, f0xx said:

10 hours ago, Pali said:

Straight experience is highly vulnerable to confirmation bias.  Go with what the others tell you.

That's the most dangerous advise one can give you.

Go with your straight experience. IN EVERYTHING, not just this game.

But always try to be as unbiased as possible and brutally honest to yourself. Otherwise it won't work.

In Foxx's defense, this isn't a bad advice.  Or at least, not entirely.  Just because someone says it's true, doesn't mean it's true.  As people point out, humans are fallible creatures for a myriad of reasons.  Getting a second opinion or testing for yourself isn't a bad course of action, especially when that information comes from an argument from authority.  If @mya, for example, says Storm Giants get a +10 to their skills on water or that goods get a bonus to sanctuary's duration, I'm going to read that as "might get" or "probably get" until I can confirm it.  She may know through her own experience that it's true (all her mastered [100%] skills are at 110% on water), but her experience may be limited in whatever fashion (she was just looking at mastered skills).  She may be repeating what CaptainCoder said once about sanctuary.  The source may be correct, but the vessel could be mistaken or not have all the information (as the source was talking about when cast, not quaffed).  So Foxx's advice is solid.  To a point.

However, what was actually said was:

10 hours ago, Pali said:

Straight experience is highly vulnerable to confirmation bias.  Go with what the coders tell you.

Pali's saying that people in the know, those that are experts in their field, should be assumed to be correct.  If @Fireman says "don't open that door or you'll go through that wall because of a backdraft," you best be damned I'm going to listen to him.  If @Erelei says Storm Giants get a +10% to their skills on water or that goods get a bonus to sanctuary's duration when cast, I'm going to assume that's true.

But that also doesn't mean that even the experts are infallible.  What it does mean is that I'm going to go into a situation with the understanding that what the expert said is correct until proven otherwise.  I'm also less likely to actively try to prove them wrong.

 

Sometimes the difficult part is telling which is which, though some are more obvious than others.

 

As an aside, numbers may not lie, but they can be manipulated to say what you want them too.  To confirm your own bias.

[Magick]

8 minutes ago, Pali said:

Both spellings are appropriate.  American English tends to replace a lot of s's in British English with c's (defense and defence are another example), and I suspect our European players have a good chance of having learned English from the Brits.  

Yes and no.  English an American spellings can and often differ in various words such as your example, though in this case, @Fireman is correct as advise is a verb while advice is a noun.

Now the plural of advice is tricky.  The plural of advice is advice as advices is only correct in business and legal use.

[Pali]

3 minutes ago, Magick said:

Not sure what was edited in Foxx's post, but the way it sits at the time of this posting...

It looks like he edited my quoted post.  I wrote "Go with what the coders tell you."  His quote of my post reads "Go with what the others tell you."  I can't say that I find that kind of quote editing to be in good taste, as changing even one word that way can drastically alter the intended meaning of the quoted statement - and does so in this case.  As @Magick points out, my comment was referencing going with what the most informed people on the topic tell you rather than simply your own experience.  Changing the word "coders" to "others" alters that meaning to going with general opinion, and I don't appreciate it.

 

1 minute ago, Magick said:

Yes and no.  English an American spellings can and often differ in various words such as your example, though in this case, @Fireman is correct as advise is a verb while advice is a noun.

Thanks for the correction - should've double-checked before posting.

[Magick]

2 minutes ago, Pali said:

It looks like he edited my quoted post.  I wrote "Go with what the coders tell you."  His quote of my post reads "Go with what the others tell you."

I saw that he edited your quoted post, which is why I posted his and yours for comparison.  What I meant by "I'm not sure what was edited in Foxx's post" is that his post shows it was edited after publication.   While he could have gone back in and changed "coders" to read "others" after the publication, he could just have easily corrected a typo or added another line in the main body of his work, too.

[Pali]

I meant that I think that is what he edited - if I remember his post correctly from when it first went up, the quote was accurate originally.  Then again, I was also fairly intoxicated at the time, and it's just about bedtime now, so... not exactly my most reliable moment for remembering things.  

[mya]

To @Magick: Question everything. Even the so called experts.
Always try to get a second opinion, without revealing the first, to avoid bias, then confront with first.

Trusting experts is an appeal to authority fallacy.

Back to the topic.
I can't say exactly what is now, only Morl can. But I have some understanding how it was 10 years ago.

AC protects you in two ways.

1) If your opponent may fail to pass an armor check and do "miss" zero damage.

2) Your armor reduced X% amount of meele damage based on your AC.

In the Old days, before the sea drank Atlantis, the fail check was an THAC0 roll based on his Hitroll, his Class (THAC0), if he was dual wielding and your AC value. Meele classes like warriors get better chance to not miss than mages like Clerics. Stacking high AC was quite effective to trigger this in the past, and still is at low levels vs mobs. This roll mechanics were very complex.

The armor reduction was a very simple thing like    damage reduction % =  AC / X , where X is a hard coded value. This is why AC gets better the higher you get, just like saves. Each point is worth more reduction. But good luck squeezing those extra points.

That was in the old days. Now Morl changed stuff. I suspect THAC check has been extremely overhauled, and so have the classes THAC0 values. I think he said that now 800 AC is equals to 600 AC , or something of the sort. Still 600 AC is still a pretty huge damage reduction, probably around 1/3 , from my practical testing less than 1 year ago.

The only thing that players need to take into account is that the higher the AC the better it is. And that if you are missing regularly, them your hitroll is crap.
Some might be interested in knowing the exact values for evaluating the best point in the AC vs HP relationship, but such is to complex and draining to take in account when choosing gear.

Also @Gaunticles, if the AC check comes before of after defenses is moth because the order has no impact. Just like defenses order.
But I think Lloth is right, it checks AC first, then defenses.

Another thing that is worth knowing regarding AC, is that only melee attacks and SOME skills check vs it. For example, throw doesn't appears to check AC for damage reduction.

[Magick]

21 minutes ago, mya said:

To @Magick: Question everything. Even the so called experts.
Always try to get a second opinion, without revealing the first, to avoid bias, then confront with first.

Trusting experts is an appeal to authority fallacy.

That is the exact opposite of the appeal to authority fallacy.

Quote

Appeal to Authority

(also known as: argument from authority, appeal to false authority, appeal to unqualified authority, argument from false authority, ipse dixit)

Description: Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument.  As the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made.

...

Exception: Appealing to authority is valid when the authority is actually a legitimate (debatable) authority on the facts of the argument.

 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/21/Appeal-to-Authority

 

[mya]

5 minutes ago, Magick said:

That is the exact opposite of the appeal to authority fallacy.

An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, popularized by John Locke as the argumentum ad verecundiam^{[note 1]}, is a form of argument in which expert opinion supports the argument's conclusion. It is well known as a fallacy, though it is most often used in a cogent form.^[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

Just because an expert says something about something in his field, it does not makes it true. It has an high probability of being true, but isn't prof.

I will give you an example:
"The church, an expert in the creation of the world, says that the earth is flat."
The only prof of the earth being flat is the word of the church.

"The flat earth society says that the earth is flat, because the size of the sun change in this photograph is incompatible with round earth theory." https://flatearthscienceandbible.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/introduction-to-the-flat-earth-how-it-works-and-why-we-believe-it/
They say something, but offer prof. You don't argue based on what they say but on the prof they presented.

"The earth is round because NASA an expert says so."

"The earth is round because NASA has taken photos of space and they show a round earth."

Notice the difference?