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.