Basically what it says on the tin. I've been noticing this bug for a while, and it's really annoying. The gist is that enemies with armor absorption will reduce melee damage once per physical (crushing, slashing, or blasting) damage type you deal. So if you normally deal 7 slashing and 5 crushing, and attack a foe with AA 3, you'll deal 4 slashing and 2 crushing to that foe for a total reduction of 3. And this wouldn't be so annoying except that the melee damage stat is evenly distributed among your damage types. So if you're using a slashing weapon, Smithing's +1 crushing damage can actually reduce your total damage by having your +melee split up between both damage types and then reduced twice by AA. I mean, maybe this is a feature and not a bug? But it feels irritating more than anything, and at any rate I'm pretty sure I was told it wasn't supposed to work this way.
