Quote:
Originally posted by Magness:
3. "The ranger's armor penalty is negated because of rogue's higher penalty and you can freely use dual weapons." I don't see there really being any such thing as an "armor penlty". (I'm assuming that you're talking about the fact that ranger's only start with 2 armor feat points and rogues only start with 1 armor feat point.) Rogues are really meant to be high DEX characters and high DEX characters are meant to wear light armor.
The best heavy armor, IIRC, has a +10 AC bonus and +1 or +2 Max DEX bonus for a total of +11 or +12. The very best light armor has a +6 AC bonus and a +6 max DEX bonus for a total of +12. That means that they are EQUAL in terms of protection. Furthermore, if you took the armor feats and put that +10/+2 heavy armor on your rogue, you'd lose all of his additional DEX bonus and you'd take a heavy armor check penalty. Not worth it. AND heavy armor is just that ... heavy. Many high DEX rogues (or ranger-rogues or fighter-rogues) do not have high STR's to match. Wearing heavy armor would strain their limited carrying capacity.
|
Rogues in heavy armors are about as usefull as mages in full plate. And the DEX AC calculation is plain wrong. In ac, a 10 AC armor with max Dex of +2 will have 11 protection, not 12. A 6 AC armor with 6 max Dex will have ) protection.(dex bonus halves to calculate AC bonus). A very proficient rogue with all his skills at 80 or more is useless if he's wearing full plate mail. If you have 12 dex and lockpick skill of 60 and encounter a door with lockpick difficulty of 40, you can't pick it. Ranger's penalty on armors is that he gains free ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting feats if wearing light or no armor. Anything heavier than the second leather armor will negate this bonus.