by KoE » Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:13 pm
Yes, leather armor will help. Basically, the 'ac' of the armor, expressed as x/y, will completely negate x amount of damage and absorb y amount of damage to its own HP instead of yours. You add up all of your equipped armor to determine your total AC. Damage over your total AC is dealt to you, and the y portion of the damage is divided evenly between all pieces of equipment, though I don't think a single piece of gear can take more than its y value from a single hit. (I'm not sure on that).
And yes, multiple hunters can attack an animal at a single time, the only limit being collision issues.