The problem with armor class is that it sort of blends in two concepts of completely missing an attack, and the attack simply not doing any damage.
Generally I've had DM's that understand your characters AC: if you have high AC because you're quick and nimble, it would be some sort of dodge, but if you have high AC because you're huge and wear plate armor, the attack "miss" is treated as if an arrow simply bounced off your armor.
But yeah, the system is generally broken. That's sort of why the devs of Baldurs Gate 3 had to homebrew a lot of fixes, and in general just gave up on a lot of mechanics and can't really implement anything past level 12.
Generally I've had DM's that understand your characters AC: if you have high AC because you're quick and nimble, it would be some sort of dodge, but if you have high AC because you're huge and wear plate armor, the attack "miss" is treated as if an arrow simply bounced off your armor.
But yeah, the system is generally broken. That's sort of why the devs of Baldurs Gate 3 had to homebrew a lot of fixes, and in general just gave up on a lot of mechanics and can't really implement anything past level 12.