Mason Beck Fiction

It’s always bothered me a bit how Armor Class (AC) is handled in 5e. It does a lot of heavy lifting just to boil down to a simple yes or no: hit or miss, all or nothing.

By the rules as written, AC is a combination of your armor, your Dexterity modifier, and sometimes other bonuses from magic or features. It’s meant to represent a mix of physical protection, evasiveness, and strategic defense. But despite all that abstraction, the result is binary. Either you’re hit and take full damage, or you’re not hit at all. Armor doesn’t actually reduce damage in any direct or tangible way, which goes against what most people instinctively expect from wearing armor.

To help alleviate this disconnect, I introduced a homebrew rule in a past campaign that has since caught on with a few other DMs I’ve played with. It’s not revolutionary, and it doesn’t break the game, but it does create some satisfying moments.

The rule is simple: if an attack roll matches the target’s AC exactly, the attack hits for half damage. This applies to both players and enemies.

That’s it. One small tweak, but it adds a bit more nuance and makes AC feel like it almost protected you—whether through armor, reflexes, magical wards, or some clever trick. Those edge cases where a strike barely gets through become more cinematic. And from a gameplay standpoint, it smooths out the all-or-nothing curve just a touch.

Simple rule. Big impact.