I am a veteran of the old 1st Edition Rules for D&D, have never played 2E, and only have had the chance to play 3.5 for the first time over the Christmas holidays for a few sittings. Otherwise, I am totally unfamiliar with how a Rogue is affected by armor, what weapons they can and cannot use, etc., in the world of 3.5 D&D. Right now I am in Chapter 2 of SoU and my henchman is Dorna. I have put some armor on her for AC protection, but notice she cannot utilize the Tumble Feat when attacking, nor does this surprise me. My question is, what kind of armor can she utilize for protection without necessarily harming her chances of survival? And what is best for making sure she can use all her feats and skills? Nor am I sure just what kind of bows a Rogue can use. I am not looking for an encyclopedia's worth of info., just the basics so that I can at least equip her correctly and get the most out of her abilities. Oh, yeah, spoiler question...
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I am a cleric, and Dorna is a Cleric/Rogue. She is now 4th in Cleric and 5th in Rogue. I was thinking of having her just place her experience in Rogue. What do you think?

Tumble isn't a feat, it's a skill that allows you to avoid attacks of opportunity while moving around. ;)

I don't know the ins and outs of the Rogue class, but I think the she should be able to wear any armor you want her to but it will affect her Rogue abilities. In the description of the armor there should be something called 'Armor Check Penalty' which will tell you your penalty to some skills if you wear it. I don't know exactly which are affected, but I'm betting that stealth skills are among them.

As for the bows, she should be able to use the shortbow as well as the light and heavy crossbow.

I would go for more Rogue levels for Dorna. You already have one Cleric, you, and a more rougish Dorna will do more damage with sneak attacks. Just make sure the enemies attack you, and let Dorna flank them.

Tumble would be available when wearing all armours. After all who's going to stop you from tumbling around in your full plate if you like.

You don't have to select it cause it's an automatic skill, once you get an attack of opportunity the game automatically checks if your tumble orll is high enough to evade the attack.

philip, I for one cannot imagine being able to tumble in full plate - you might well roll to the floor easily enough albeit with a bit of a clatter, but wouldn't it be something of a struggle to get back to your feet? :D
It wouldn't make sense if heavy armour didn't penalise your acrobatic type thieving skills. That's why heavy armour has a high dexterity penalty, try picking up a real chain mail shirt sometime and see how agile you reckon you'd be wearing it ;)

So no you can't tumble in heavy armour. Stick Dorna in some nice leather or studded leather armour and she'll be just fine, unless you've told her to gain levels in cleric instead of rogue.

Tumble doesn't work while wearing heavy armor? I didn't know.

But you could try it :D I did a lot of stuff I knew would only go right when I rolled a 20 in p&p. I have never tried a class with a full plate but I could imagaine there are at least some situations you want to try.

edit: Getting to your feet is only a move equivalent action IIRC so you could do it in a round and still have one attack.

[ 02-13-2004, 02:52 AM: Message edited by: philip ]

Okay, this is what I paid particular notice to as I played the game extensively last night. When I put Dorna in heavey armor her ability to tumble failed every time - every time. There were no exceptions. So I had found some really great Light armor, put it on her and - Presto! - she is able to tumble quite effectively again.

So it does work but has a huge penalty. As it should be [img]smile.gif[/img]

You only have to have your character sheet open on the skills page and have your inventory open at the same time. Switch armours or whatever and you will see the immediate effect on the skills page.

IE....Naked hide skill = 30
...Armoured hide skill = 20

You can physically see the immediate affect of any change on any skill.

The tumble feat is dex-based. Stick to armor that weighs at most 1.0 and you'll be fine. Every five points in Tumble increase your AC by 1 (this is not hidden and can be seen in the stats) and wearing heavy armor will nullify this effect. Keep an eye on this whilst equipping armor.

Except SpiritWarrior for one thing TUMBLE is not a feat it is a SKILL that can be improved over time by adding points to it everytime that you level up. [img]graemlins/choc.gif[/img]
[img]graemlins/mage1.gif[/img]

Well if you read further you'd see it was a typo since I talked about amassing points in it ("every five points....").

[img]graemlins/choc.gif[/img]

Yes, tumble is a skill. And the skill points counts from Dexterity bonuses.

Heavy Armors, such as Full Plate, have a Dexterity Max bonus. And most of them said : "Max Dexterity Bonus : 1". This means whatever Dexterity bonus point u have (+10 or even +20), it will be count as 1 if u use that heavy armor. And that means "any" skill based on Dexterity bonus points will be affected accordingly.

Some medium and Light armors also have maximum dexterity bonuses. So make sure check the armor characteristics first.

My Char is Sorcerer 14/ Red Dragon Des 10 is using robes instead of light, medium or heavy. Cause most of robes will allow u to used your entire dexterity bonuses.

Ans, by the way welcome to IW!, using only robes, do you find yourself close to death's door more than you would like? In other words, what is the best AC you have gotten so far and made it doable for living? Playing a wizard has never interested me, but I do like to hear other people's gaming/roleplaying experiences.

Hi Albromor.. thanks mate [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well I am actually still building this character through the game. And at the moment I got AC 37 with Isaac Sequencer Robe. Correct me if I am wrong, that robes give my char +7 AC modifier and no dextirity bonus limitation. She was using Amulet of Protection +7 (I am not sure if it was +7) and ring of protection (not remember the bonus). My dexterity is 18 and with Belt of Agility +10, my dex bonus is arised enough to increase my AC accordingly.

While she was adventuring, most of the time I casted Shield (+1 AC), Elemental Shield (Elemental protection) and Death Armor. In total of buffed up spells gives her AC total about 40.

Dies?? hmm quiet often at start specially on ELF graveyard (SOU 1). When I finished SOU My level about 16 in total (Sor 10/RDD 6).

Wow! AC 37 for a Wizard. My Cleric that I have taken through SoU and just completed The Nether Scrolls 10 minutes ago, had an AC lower than that for most of the game play. Eventually it will be off to HotU.

Epic levels give you much more bonuses or so it seems and it's a lot easier to get a high AC if you want.

Any non strength-reliant character including rogues, wizards, bards and dex-fighters benefit from wearing light armor, that is armor that weighs a max of 1.0. Robes are irrelevant since they are simply a skin on an existing armor (heavy full plate can be a robe).

you have to keep in mind that heavy armor has a very low maximum dexterity bonus, which means a dex based char looses all of its adcantages wearing full plate