Warheck, I don't like the idea of the skill having flat effects on damage reduction. I was thinking something more along the lines of, for each level of armor skill, the minimum damage reduced was raised by a small percent - perhaps 3-4%? A more detailed example of what I'm thinking:
if (attackHits && armorBlocksSomeDamage)
then {
float armorEffect = rand ((50 + armorSkill*3), 100) / 100 //The code currently works similarly, but without the armorSkill bonus.
int damageBlocked = bodyPartAC * armorEffect
int damageTaken = incomingDamage - damageBlocked
}
Also worth remembering here is that certain armor pieces overlap - namely, cloaks overlap all body parts, and torso armor overlaps arms and legs. I think these overlaps only apply half the normal AC however. That last needs verifying.
Does this make sense?
I do however like the idea of reducing the power (or frequency?) of incoming critical strikes. I'm not sure exactly how crits work as they stand however; that would be important information before we start theorizing about how we can monkey with their mechanics.