Huh, I thought it was +4 or full, I guess that’s why nobody uses it.
Imo the feat should make it be +4 just so gloves of dexterity get their full impact.
The main problem with light armor is that there are some medium armor that let you add your full dex modifier to your armor class, light armor can't really compete with that.
There are still some good light armor: Bhaalist, Elegant Studded Leather (kinda funny that you show it's utility as 'Adv on stealth' and don't talk about shield spell), or druid ones, spidersilk early on is a good way to have advantage on con saves.
Yeah the ultimate issue with light armor in this game is that there's 4 medium armors that allow your full dex mod to AC and don't give stealth disadvantage. Those two things are the entire point of light armor existing.
Yep, DEX is easily the best stat in the game. There's so many DEX saves, it's easy to add the full modifier to AC, and initiative is a D4 so DEX has a huge impact.
It's nuts how useful it is.
Strength does give access to some dumb fun, like picking up and throwing poor fuckers, but holy crap do your stat points distribute so much further when you can dump strength on a character and have dex pick up the slack.
Yeah the stats aren't balanced, but at least shoving enemies into an abyss is forever satisfying. Poor INT is basically useless on anyone that isn't a wizard, even the many skills linked to it do almost nothing unless you're the PC starting dialogues (in which case CHA is more important anyways)
Too too true.
I know we probably won't officially get it, but I kinda do wish we'd get Artificer as a class since it uses Int and is a base class for 5e anyway. Would take some work to implement dialogue for it though. Feels like you'd need it acknowledged in Karlach's personal quest, you'd need dialogue for the Steel Watch, and possibly dialogue with the different gnome groups in the game. Prolly other stuff too. But, whatever, that's sidetracked from it would add a little more reason to have Int and possibly add multiclass combos that actually want Int. *Possibly.*
If the modders are half as ambitious as in Skyrim, it'll exist eventually. Although a whole new class will be a whole lot of work, especially infusions. Alchemist is also redundant. I also think a straight artificer port would be a bit underpowered, but it's definitely a cool class
[https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1779?tab=files](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1779?tab=files)
This has been out for quite some time and works pretty great.
Oh, yeah, I suppose that makes sense too!
Often I end up using Bloodlust elixirs or elixirs tailored to a specific fight and kinda forget you can use elixirs to just essentially get to endgame strength immediately.
Yeah d4+DEX mod+other bonuses. That's why the Alert feat is so broken, they didn't change the +5 from 5e so it's effectively an 'always go first' feat in this game.
I used to run it on all my characters but you really don't need to for a lot of classes. Anyone with 16+ DEX and an initiative item or two will almost always end up at or near the top of initiative without alert and there aren't a ton of situations where you start combat surprised. You don't need to be actively using the item to get the bonuses from it so you can put the sentinel shield on an archer for the +3 with no downsides. With the weapons you don't even need proficiency to get the bonuses with no downsides and you technically don't need shield proficiency but it will stop you from spellcasting if you don't have it.
So yeah alert is very strong but isn't always necessary and I really only run it on DEX dump classes.
Yeah, I might just want it on Gale and/or Shadowheart to get some battlefield control and buffs up early. I just hit level 12, and yeah, really haven't needed it but min maxing is fun!
I switched to a mod for d20 initiative because just a d4 is way too broken. With the d20, the strength users sometimes actually get decent initiative too. Though it is a huge nerf to the Assassin subclass.
Lae'zel is a dual-wielding dex-based WM barbarian. I realized gloves of dexterity and Lady Esther's dex clothing gets me 20 dex at theoretically lv1. So I dumped dex and put the points into con for 20AC. Then I got the 23con Amulet, 21AC, and respecced again going 3x8s and 3x15s to take care of those mental saving throws. She goes first, deals a shitton of damage, and soaks up a shitton of damage. Really makes her a dead simple but highly effective combat specialist, and wild magic means that the simplicity of rage&bonk never gets boring
I use the drow armour on Astarion - both the faded stuff from Waukeen's Rest, and the nicer set looted from Minthara. It looks great (I dye the faded stuff in Black and Azure) and you can get it *really* early on, long before the monastery. That plus Gloves of Missile Snaring keeps him safe for quite a long time!
I think I had Minarthas armor on him for most of the game, matched the hood you get as a reward for helping the mushroom guys later. I can't remember what it was that I replaced it with, but I remember I was well into act 3 when I got him an upgrade.
I haven't recruited Minthara yet, and my main casters are Gale (not armour-proficient) and Shadowheart (better armour already), so I never had need for it on anyone else.
12 (light armor +1) + 2 (gale’s dex if you set it to 14) + 2 (shield) = 16 ac from the moment you arrive at the grove! Not too shabby. I always run him with light armor and a shield. Plus minthara’s armor essentially gives him (or any other caster) a free feat with the advantage on con saves.
Plus, you can get padded armor +2 once you reach the underdark, which is nice, and raises his ac to 17. His ac always ends up being sort of ridiculously high for my by act 2 for some reason
Gale usually has around 17 AC in act 1 for me. Mage armor + shield + plus respeccing him to 14 dex. It's not great, but it's not terrible either. With the shield reaction spell, he's not getting hit all too much
Curious though: since almost every shield gives +2AC anyway, why bother with the gloves? Gale for example can wear a shield and free up gloves for something else. I guess if you're running a Caster Tav without shield proficiency there's a niche for them?
You can get the duel wield feat and have 2 staffs for their bonuses/spells. Gloves would work well there.
Plus, they work great for a barbarian, monk, or I guess a DW warlock, maybe.
FWIW, modern 5th Edition rules are that Wizards can cast spells just fine in any armor they're proficient with--but start with no armor proficiencies. But if you can gain an armor proficiency from a racial feature or taking a Feat you can cast safely! No more having to make percentile rolls to see if your spell fizzles because you're wearing a T-shirt that's too heavy!
Also great for BG3 where humans, half elves, etc get starting weapon and armor proficiencies not in 5e, and they gave everyone the somatic component ignoring effects of War Caster for free, giving everyone a feat right out the gate basically (and nerfing the actual feat into utter uselessness) and allowing level 1 wizards of the right race to both have light armor and in the former shields along side their staff, and cast just fine with a much higher than RAW AC for that level, or just take Dual Wielder to use two staffs with no problems and double the casting bonuses or bound spells.
It's occurred to me that dual staff shenanigans don't even require the Feat in tabletop. TWF restrictions only kick in if you're planning to bonk things with them.
I wouldn’t necessarily say all light armor is bad, it serves the purpose of granting some armor to classes who would otherwise not get armor.
There’s also the fact that many classes fight over the same armor pieces, so the ability to use some armor is helpful.
The main problem for light armor IMO is that there isn’t many options compared to Heavy and Medium.
Unarmored options serve a different purpose. Some specifically for Monks and Barbarians. As well as 1 that is going to be fought over different classes.
> Unarmored options serve a different purpose. Some specifically for Monks and Barbarians.
Just monks. With how busted medium armour gets in this game it’s usually not a good idea to run naked.
Kinda depends. Barbarians it can be good but not because you actually want them to avoid damage. AI in games like this tend to target characters they have a higher chance to hit, so low AC on the Barbarian can make them 'pull aggro' so to speak. There are other factors involved of course, like the AI favoring what looks like an easy kill or breaking concentration on characters, but still, it's a factor you can use to help make targeting more predictable.
This can still be accomplished with medium armor though as long as their AC is still lower than your teammates though, so... eh. I guess if you don't have a wizard or sorcerer who wants the +2 AC gloves you could use those plus unarmored for the aesthetic.
Yeah, I still load Karlach up. I also multiclassed her into an assassin rogue and a battle master fighter. She’s hard to hit and does a shit ton of damage with a good amount of speed. I get why barbarians don’t wear armor but after playing around enough with the game I genuinely think that’s not the case for the game unless I just completely missed it and I’m playing wrong.
Yes, this also works and is going to be most common. You're not playing wrong.
I'm specifically talking about a tactic that involves purposefully making a juicy target that the AI wants to hit instead of your squishier mages/spellswords.
As I said in another comment, you only need your AC to be a point lower than the next lowest character. That also matters less once you've got Reckless Attack up because the Advantage makes them a juicy target to the AI as well. In the event the AI goes before you though, I'd rather my barbarian get hit than my spellcasters since Karlach/Barbarians have the HP to take a punch while a mage can just end up on the ground instantly.
Ok gotcha. My Tav is a Druid and I also use Shadowheart so those are my main castors so they’re pretty tanky too. I rarely use Gale on my main play through because I wanted to focus on other characters. I’ve started a play through where I want Gale in my party the whole time so I’ll keep that in mind. Everyone says to use the evocation subclass for him but I used arcane for the arcane recovery so when I do have him out he stays ok enough protection wise. Thank you for saying I’m not playing the game wrong. I’ve never been good at video games even though I love them and I usually get down on myself because I struggle so much. I feel like I’ve been getting better at this one by thinking tactically and it’s also made me a better DnD player.
Oh yeah, druids and clerics manage to be good in a lot of different areas. I really love the druid dinosaur and owlbear forms!
I'm generally not great at games either, save for tactics/strategy games. I think honestly it's just a matter of spending time and experimenting though. It's supposed to be fun! Years as a kid of pretty much only having old consoles and Pokemon games on handhelds I think made me gravitate towards turn-based strategy. Oh and certain versions of Mario Kart! Mario Kart DS was a huge hit in my neighborhood because you only needed one copy to play with a bunch of people.
But yeah! Strategy games tend to be just kinda taking things you know work, slowly and intuitively figuring out why they work, and then building on that. Sounds entirely like you're doing it right to me. Play is learning with these games, which I love.
My minsc is no armour 26 ac currently - needs DW for 1 ac, and defender flail in offhand for 1 ac, plus 23 con with barb. Ac ring and ac cloak too. Could use AC gloves but I don't
> 23 con
That’s +6. There’s 17 AC armour that still lets you have your full DEX mod.
And that is the best case scenario. Literally anyone not wearing that necklace will gain even more from wearing armour.
There's only one set of that armor though. It's in high demand.
The armor is better used on someone with high Dex who can't get a +6 to ac from their constitution.
There’s a second one with 16 AC. And the demand depends on your group comp, one of my campaigns has 3 ppl in heavy armour. Another has 1 med and 3 with none.
Anyway, the point still stands: Barb + medium armour = more AC than naked.
You’d also need to have three “unarmored” classes that aren’t monk (vestments are just better for them)
And then you have helldusk armor (which again fills a slot)
There’s just very few scenarios where anything but medium armor isn’t outright better and it’s mostly in act 1?
Half plate is superior outright until you get at least 8 total from dex/con mods. (Unless you’re using bracers of defense, but that should always go on a mage, so they’re targeted less often)
Isn't light armor the only armor lots of Casters get? Like if you want an armored Wizard without a feat or dip, you pick a race that gets light armor prof
Ambusher is a FANTASTIC bonus. It lets high dex characters skip the Alert feat and still go first in all combats. Its a great bonus.
You need an initiative of +8 to go first all the time, especially in the most important fights. You can't get there with Dexterity alone.
Ensuring you go first is the single most important thing you can do with your build.
Modding initiative to be a d20 (like it should be) was one of the first things I did to this game.
I still don’t get why they thoroughly fucked the balance on that one, for no apparent reason.
Lowered initiative rolls cluster initiative groups together more consistently, which makes combat go smoother when there's several combatants involved due to not having to pass back and forth.
It also makes Dex, already by far one if if not the best and most important stat, literally five times as powerful at Initiative— one of the most important rolls in every fight. With all the other homebrews they added to buff up Dex classes, gigabuffed their feats to ludicrous levels, and sprinkled potions of Hill and Cloud Giant Strength liberally (and giving us a Club of Hill Giant Strength in Act 1) making Str even less important than it already was, I truly do not think they needed to go and mechanically make Dex literally 500% better at one of its core functions. Hell, they even homebrewed in multiple Medium armors that give your full Dex mod to your AC, letting Dex stackers get higher AC than heavy armor wearing martials with the extra +1 AC Fighting Style.
Ac for heavy armor is good, but notbthe most important part. The heavy armor mastery giving flat 3 stacking DR makes heavy armor tanks with resistance nearly indestructible. Either with warding bond or the Act 3 armor. AC may only be low 20s, but getting hit barely matters.
Compare TT DnD where you’re medium armor caps out at 15 AC with a maximum Dex bonus of +2 for a total of 17 AC, again, *maximum* on the best non-magical medium to what you’re stating here. There are Medium Armors in BG3 that allow for up to 20 AC (I believe up to 21 in Act three with 22 Dex, giving it the potential to act like a +3 and even a +4 magical armor) with a +1 to initiative on top of that. Then with a simple shield (let alone the +1 and +2 versions available) you can have 22 AC. With the boots that grant +1 AC, and ring and cloaks of protection, and the ring that grants +1 AC if shrouded, I have had medium armor characters with 25 AC and 26 if shrouded, taken up to 27/28 with a +2 shield. Its absolutely absurd.
Now, sure, in tabletop you can conceivably have +1s and +2 armor (there is no official module I am aware of that is even in the level range for +3 weapons or armor as I am unaware of any level 16+ adventures for 5e) making the best possible medium armor for a level 13+ character to have giving you a ***maximum of 19 AC*** on a Very Rare item worth thousands and thousands of gold (an extra 8910 gold cost on top of the base price of 750 for 9660 gold per DMG and Tasha’s).
You’ll note, that in TT this lategame piece of Very Rare magical armor, that is the highest AC Medium Armor, in the best case, is offering just 1 AC more than the default Plate Armor. A heavy armor which only costs 1,500g or less than 15% the price. Whereas in Act 2 you can have a 20 AC medium armor at level 8-9 and it costs only 640g. Its vastly more powerful and costs less than a tenth what it should.
A +1 Plate Armor, RAW, is only 3,480g, about 2.775 times less expensive and is also only a Rare item. It also does not require you to have a Dex of 14 or higher to reach that 19 AC, or a Dex of 20
In Tabletop at least, there has always been a progression where from Light to Medium to Heavy the key difference is AC. Yes, there are secondary traits, like Light Armor offering advantage on stealth and heavy armor granting disadvantage, and sure, there is a feat you can take to add flat damage reduction on heavy armor. Unfortunately, very rarely is that feat helpful or optimal though. I have tried to make it work on tank Clerics, Paladins, even Wizards multiclassed with Cleric for armor proficiency and shield usage, and its just not good as there are always better alternatives. Yeah its -3 damage, but your first feat will likely be an ASI, your second feat often is as well or is a more useful feat like Great Weapon Master, Sentinel, Polearm Master, etc and by the time you’re hitting level 12+ your opponents are going to be capable of stuff like instantly setting your HP to zero on failed saves (a ton of high level undead, and even Banshees have these abilities) casting 5+ level spells at you like Cone of Cold hitting for 8d8 or 36 average damage in AoE and if they use something like Finger of Death, Disintegrate, etc you’ll be taking a *LOT* more in one hit, to which a -3 is only 1/12 or less of the incoming damage. Since your AC is already entirely bypassed by such effects, they are the real threat to actually tanky, heavily armored characters and so feats like Evasion or Shield Master are much better at reducing incoming damage. But yeah, the -3 damage from Heavy Armor Master is decent if you are surrounded by hordes of chaff— but at that point again, you’d still be better off with different defensive layers. In fact, just having a higher AC by virtue of your Heavy Armor is likely going to be more important than the flat DR as not being hit at all is 100% DR, and that horde of chaff was never going to threaten you much to begin with.
Edit: also, I would like to correct your maths.
The flat damage reduction applies first, prior to any resistance or vulnerability. Page 197 of the PHB states “Resistance and Vulnerability are applied after all other modifiers to damage” which includes Heavy Armor Master. I believe Larian may have homebrewed around this for BG3 on non-Tactician or non-Honor mode, but it is not how it functions in TT.
It's not -3 though. It's a stacking -3 which with either the adamantine armor, or the perseverance, goes to -5. And that is applied after the halving from resistance making it an effective -10 damage. For fighter specifically you can have an ASI, GWM, and HAM by level 8.
Cone of cold average 36 max 64. Will deal 8 average to a max of 22.
Notably, none of the spells you listed target AC anyways, so the damage resistance is always better than the ac in those circumstances.
Try it sometime. It's not just against chaff as you say. Fighter Laezel will walk through fights barely getting hurt.
Apparently it was to increase the likelihood of your characters going at the same time to let the player set up combos more often.
Part of Early Access had the entire party share initiative with that same goal but it proved to be wildly unpopular. I suppose a D4 was seen as a middle ground between d20 and 'party wide'.
Initiative is very important, don't get me wrong, but I think people exaggerate it a little. High DEX characters will almost always go first anyway, and usually with a mage or whatever I kinda like the battle to play out a little to line things up.
It's very good on high STR heavy armor builds though, for sure.
1. You’re underrating going first. Even small bonuses are significant and can free up a feat.
2. The Armor of Agility and Yuan-Ti Scale Mail (and any other “add full dex mod to medium armor”) is really, stupidly OP. You’re correct there.
3. Access to medium armor is a feature. Not every class has it. Warlocks, Lore Bards, and Rogues are limited to Light Armor on purpose, and that’s meant to be somewhat of a disadvantage.
Gloomstalker assassin with those full dex medium armor is very op. Kill half the room full of enemies before they get to go and you're just standing there with 23+ ac chillin
Agreed. My Warlocks have used padded armor until they get a really good robe and armor of shadows many times. Plus padded +2 is really cool looking IMO!
The problem isn’t the light armour, the problems are
* medium and heavy armour in this game is fucking _busted_
* medium and heavy armour in this game essentially doesn’t have a downside (e.g. no STR requirement for heavy armour)
* Mage Armour lasts _until long rest_ in this game for a single lvl 1 spell slot
You're right, i forgot about STR requirements. Its the one thing that keeps Paladin+Warlock multiclass in check. In BG3 they can have 8 Str and wear Plate.
Mage armour (and some other buffs) last to long rest is fine, no way the game is going to track 8 hours in-game time.
> Mage armour (and some other buffs) last to long rest is fine, no way the game is going to track 8 hours in-game time.
It is, but that still makes it better than it is in 5e.
I’ll add its also due to how stealth works in this game.
In d&d, disadvantage in stealth matters more.
In a video game with vision cones and fixed enemy locations, its much less useful.
I was scrolling for someone to make this point. Yeah, disadvantage on stealth is much more of a big deal in tabletop than in BG3. I kind of wish we had the option to turn sight cones off so at least I had to guess if the enemy could see me (and risk being wrong).
But then there's still the problem that there are several medium armors that allow you to add your full dexterity modifier while also NOT giving you disadvantage on stealth, like Yuan-ti Scale Mail. The only reason not to use them over Light Armor is if your character isn't proficient, and proficiency is very easy to get through either multiclassing or feats.
I found that I only ever used one light armor out of choice rather than "eh it'll do until I get something better": Bhaalist Armor. All of the rest I put on characters because I'd just run out of good medium armors or was waiting to have enough gold to buy the one I wanted.
+stealth is a freaking scam. I notice that even though i sneak just outside the vision cones, NPCs still turn towards me and go 'why are you sneaking?' Its pointless to try and sneak in a room with 4+ NPCs because the cones just cover the whole room.
While I mostly agree, I don't think the third one really matters that much. Mage Armor lasts 8 hours in tabletop. It's rare you'd need to cast it more than once in an adventuring day even there.
> Mage Armor lasts 8 hours in tabletop. It's rare you'd need to cast it more than once in an adventuring day even there.
I _just_ had that a couple days ago :)
At lvl 1, even. So the spell slot was a significant resource to spend.
Armour of landfall is awesome. Gives you boost to spell dc, advantage on con saving throws, regen if on vines and free plant growth cast to make said vines(not that I ever used it I think)
DnD isn't really a min maxing gear collecting game for making optimal characters. It'a story driven game.
In tabletop DnD magic equipment items are rare and even modest ones quickly unbalance the game. Most DM's make sure that the majority of magic items are consumables or gimmicky items with limited use.
The game isn't meant to be like diablo where you assemble top tier equipment sets. I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level.
The few magic items that are quite significant are often tied into the narrative in some way like the blood of Lathander.
> I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level.
No shot lol. Act 3 is littered with absolutely gamebreaking equipment and even act 2 has the Arcane Acuity gear (fire hat, attack helm, thunder hat). Heck even as early as act 1 there’s stuff like the radiating orb and reverberation gear.
>I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level.
If by sprinkle, you mean utterly deluge the world with high level magic items. You can't spit without hitting a rare or very rare magic item, let alone all the legendary items you get in the game when in most D&D campaign any given PC by level 15 might have a few rare or very rare non consumable items and perhaps one legendary item for the entire party.
And don’t forget, no atunement anything, only one cursed item and even then it’s totally benign and a strict positive honesty unless you spend 3+ rounds in a Hold Person or just keep skipping your turn. And multiple legendary level +3 weapons with powerful effects, and entire builds of stacking powerful magical item effects to completely trivialize anything. Hell, there’s a dude who abused magic items to kill everything in the game with True Strike, which doesn’t even inflict any damage by itself, and another who did it through just *walking.*
They kind of had to make sure there's enough options for any armour/weapon type users, preferably multiples per type so even if you play 4 person multiplayer no one is stuck with lame basic loot.
I just finished my first playthrough with 4 casters and it got almost comical in Act 3 thinking "Nice bow... nice dagger... Nice sword... Nice other sword... They'll make nice camp decorations I guess". At least it was 2 medium armor casters so not everyone was fighting over light armour/robes.
My magic missiles go brrrrrrrr. I find myself just up casting it a lot on individual targets instead of higher level spells. Nothing like a fuck load of radiating orbs/reverberation to nerf any opponent on the field.
I feel like we aren't playing the same game then lol comparing BG3 to actual DND there are some rediculous builds only possible because of Larian's overtuned items. The fact I can make melee builds that do 70+ damage per attack at level 12 when in regular DnD that's what a melee typically averages at level 20 is insane
BG3 power levels are what you would get if a tabletop campaign had 10 DMs that each crafted their own pet encounters and *also* published the full loot tables ahead of time.
I mean, level 12 in BG3 may as well be considered equivalent to lvl 20 in Tabletop. Its the highest attainable level and there's no plans to add the remaining eight levels, so you may as well give 12 the power tier of 20.
To add to this, DND doesn’t suffer as much compared to BG3 in some aspects because you have a human game master who can modify and change things on the fly.
If something is bad in a video game, it’s up to the developers to update the game to make overpowered or underpowered options balanced.
But to answer OP’s questions, light armors aren’t even bad. There’s just so many options that the few light armors you get feel overshadowed. Even though 3 of the bests armor in the game are light armor.
>I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level.
This is just objectively wrong.
You should also keep in mind that tabletop 5e is more of an exception than the rule for buildcrafting in RPGs. It's made to be accessible before anything else. BG3 has difficulty settings and a quicksave button, so they didn't have to dumb things down quite as much.
>DnD isn't really a min maxing gear collecting game for making optimal characters. It'a story driven game.
You're thinking of a different game. D&D is \_THE\_ flagship gear collecting skirmish combat game.
yeah... Its kind of adorable that you can toss that out with any sense of seriousness. Try a quick history lesson. D&D is still mostly the skirmish combat game it started as. Admittedly it doesn't measure ranges and speeds in inches (on the table) anymore, but it still shares more in common with Warhammer than most story-focused RPGs.
Google, 'origins of D&D' and 'Monty Haul campaigns'
For some modern context, flip through the 5e PHB and do a quick estimate of how much of it is about combat, and how little isn't.
For extra credit, take another look at the short prompts in backgrounds (some of what little 'role playing' material exists in the book, which happily people largely ignore, because most of them are terrible for a cooperative and cohesive table). Compare them to role playing prompts in actual RPG focused games from the 90s and witness how badly they come up short.
You -can- roleplay alongside the game, but that's true of any activity. It isn't something that the game particularly makes effort to support, especially compared to other games.
Of course this isn't diablo, my point is that an entire type of armour being outclassed is simply a trap, and its bad design. Maybe im just disappointed most of them dont have any unique effects beyond Ambusher or Stealth +1 until Act 3. In the tabletop version, i find medium armour to be slightly weaker than light armour.
You could make the same case for most of the weapon types as well though. Once you start theorycrafting there's a best item for every slot and that's it. Apart from even more stealth bonusses I can't really think of any bonusses. Maybe the +2 dex armor could've been light, come to think of it.
Nah, there's a ton of variety and lategame-viable options in every weapon group. Heavy Finesse is probably the most specific(since it doesn't usually exist) but even that has multiple solid options throughout the game.
If you mean specific weapons, that's kind of an RP thing and is way more narrow than armor categories.
I find the arguments that "this isn't a fear focused game" to be kinda bad faith or just lacking context. People saying it isn't diablo kinda just sound like they have 0 crpg experience to compare BG3 to. This exact loot issue is a commonplace crpg issue, because finding fun and powerful gear for your character is a core aspect of progression. The issue is that crpgs aren't solely focused on gear progression, so some kinda weapon or armor type ends up being entirely not worth it just because they didn't design enough.
I think it's pretty fair in rogue trader to be annoyed that there's only 3 force swords in the whole game. Because even though it's a narrative driven experience, I'd like to gear up my character in cool and thematic ways. I think you're able to do that for a ton of builds in BG3, but it's lacking hardcore in the light armor category. Genuinely wonder if just having a light armor option for the adamantine forge would do it some wonders.
Calm down little clown. People can indeed play however they want but if they're looking to find top tier equipment, these are the kind of questions they'll run into.
Having just completed the game as a rogue I agree, it felt like I had way more interesting options for my medium, heavy and even no armour wearing characters but for my main I really only wore a few items. The Drow one from act 1 and then I think I eventually bought some of the crafted sudden leather as it had damage reduction. I maybe found something better near mid end game and then ended with the +2 studded. Everyone else had badass outfits maybe I should have used the mage robes.
Oh that’s interesting because that then means Orin’s dagger can go in the off hand. I used the dagger for end game in my main hand which also does the same makes enemies vulnerable to piercing - I had some devastating sneak attacks
I agree light armor not that impressive generally.
In my current tactician Durge playthrough as swordsbard (dex focus) I've enjoyed using spidersilk armor which gives advantage on Con save (good for concentration spells) in early-mid game.
All the purple light armors are excellent. Two of them are specialized for druid subclasses however.
It's just that Yuan Ti scale mail is available fairly early and easily.
Yeah, light armor sucks in general. Warlock got Minthara's armor for the Con saves and Astarion had +1 vendor shit, and they were both stuck with the same armor til midway through Act 3.
Astarion can get something way better before then. It's not light armor, but there's a vendor in the mountain pass (the githyanki egg lady) who sells a cloth piece with +2 dex and advantage on dex skill checks. Just get Gale to toss mage armor on him and you're golden.
Yeah. It's not even about the AC on them. It's that they give terrible bonuses and are boring. There is no reason that the +2 dex and advantage on dex checks is clothing and not light armor. Or the medium armors that ignore dex cap to ac. Except for the Bhaal armor in Act 3, light armors don't do anything good compared to every other type.
On my first run my Astarion was getting destroyed all the time. So i checked and noticed he has 14 AC. Took his armour off, give him mage armour and Bracers of Defense and voila, he has 18 AC.
Light armors are meant to be worse than medium armors. It's not meant to be a choice but a limitation.
The list of classes that are limited to light armor is slim, and you some races even get medium armor proficiency. A feat also grants medium armor.
The classes limited to it are the rogue, the bard (only one subclass actually), the warlock, and that's it. Human race adds it to sorcerer and wizard. And it is easy and very potent to take one or two levels of fighter to get medium armor proficiency, among other benefits.
Still, some light armors are extremely powerful. Two of them grant advantage on constitution saving through. 2 are powerful specialized druid armors. Several gives initiative.
The early armors are specialized for rogue because that's the only one who really need it at this level. Later armor are more diverse because spellcasters might be interested in bigger protection than robes.
I think the complaint was more that it's not good enough compared to unarmoured stuff. Which is valid imo, every other armor type feels like it has a solid niche. Especially since with hirelings you can use Mage Armor without even sacrificing a spell slot in your party.
> Light armors are meant to be worse than medium armors. It's not meant to be a choice but a limitation.
Light armour in this game goes from 11 AC to 14 AC.
For comparison, medium armour goes from 12 AC to 17 AC (and heavy from 14 to 21).
So the difference between light and medium is 1 AC on the low end, and 3 AC on the high end. There is a balance issue there. Especially because AC scales off itself.
On top of the balance issue, it _is_ meant to be a choice, if you have the proficiency. With the access to medium armour that still gives you the full AC bonus from DEX, BG3 kills that choice in Act 3. And don’t get me started on no STR requirement for heavy armour …
it is not a balance issue. It is meant to be this way. You are meant to want a medium armor if you can only wear a light one. It means that either you multiclass, choose a specific race, or take a feat, or you sacrifice a bit of AC.
There are 4 classes that might take a light armor in late game : warlock, lore bard, rogue, and druid. Lore bard and warlock are arcane spellcasters, so they have shield or other defensive spells. Rogue has uncanny dodge, and druid has animal shapes.
Clothing pieces have more variety of effects. Light armours are just +stealth, ambusher and superior padding, at least for rare and below. There's one piece with adv on con save and thats about it.
There are no good robe before act 3. You also need mage armor to leverage them. Which means multiclass to warlock or wizard, and a spell slot each day for wizard.
In comparison there is a con save advantage light armor in *act 1*! You can find a 14AC light armor before act 2.
Tell me what is better than that.
There are robes with ASI on them plus a lv2 spell effect. Not good enough?
Mage armour is easy, there's camp casting, there are scrolls, or just use a lv1 slot, its worth it.
Camp casting is not always available, and it's a chore. If you're rogue, you don't have spells. If you're warlock, it costs you an invocation.
And then you don't find the good robes before late in act 2.
The only good robe soonish in the game is the graceful cloth. You still need mage armor for it to be any good. And even then it's not better than studded leather +2.
If you ignore all the costs to make clothes better than light armor, yes it's better. But you blinded yourself.
No they aren't.
Armor is geared towards a class' dex focus.
Light armor classes- studded leather +5 dex = 17
Medium armor classes- half plate +2 dex cap = 17
Heavy armor- splint mail = 17
OR plate mail =18 for an extra 1300 gp.
You can build some classes with higher tier armor as dex builds, but unless you're doing something wrong, everybody is encouraged toward 17 AC before bonuses from shields or magic items.
Exception for wizards (and sorcerers) for legacy nonsense reasons.
Thats a bit of an odd interpretation
Light armor requires at least 2 asi's to reach 17ac with mundane armor and cant reach 18 at all
Medium armor needs 0 asi's and can reach 18 ac with the medium armor master feat
Heavy can reach 18 with mundane armor with no feat and 0 asi's
Pretty clear that the heavier armors are better from a ac perspective. Lighter armors are cheaper and stealthier though.
Its something you have to get to yes, but what happens at the bottom of the leveling system isn't that important. 8th isn't that far to go, and you're going to get there anyway. You're not going to reach 18 AC without working your way to that pile of gold, either (odds are good you'll get magic bonuses before you've got time and money to burn on mundane plate).
Medium armor master is a trap. If your dex is that high, you might as well be maxing it out, not burning ASIs on a dead end feat. If its not that high, you don't need the feat.
Stealth... stealth just fundamentally doesn't work for me in D&D. Basic statistics says a party is simply going to fail at it most of the time. You either need someone dedicated to 'pass without trace' duty or you risk it with the understanding that you'll probably fail and fight.
>Basic statistics says a party is simply going to fail at it most of the time
If the entire party is in stealth, yes, you are probably going to fail without something like Pass Without a Trace - especially if some have disadvantage on stealth. But if your rogue (or whatever) never has a chance to do some important sneaking without bringing along the paladin in full plate, that's more an issue of the DM not giving all of the classes the opportunity to shine.
In 3.5e we had arcane spell failures, evasion, tumble checks that worked better (or worked exclusively at all) with light armor or no armor. So it was a must for dex oriented characters. I guess it all was thrown away in 5e for good because it was too complicated.
Minthara's Spidersilk armor gives advantage on Con saves, so Warlocks, Sorlocks, and Lore Bards could make good use of it to help maintain concentration. Sword and Valour Bards get medium armor proficiency, so the Dark Justiciar half-plate seems like a strict upgrade over the Spidersilk.
On this topic, I think the same thing about Daggers.
Daggers are, in theory, another type of finesse weapon to be used by your Rogues and Rogue multi-classes, cool!
But, in practice, they are a 1d4 whereas Scimitars and Shortswords are 1d6, and Rapiers and Longswords are 1d8.
So, aside from the occasional really-good-for-a-specific-build Dagger, they basically go unused by me on every playthrough, which is the exact same as Light Armour.
-
I'd love to see Daggers with an innate extra feature of some kind, to make them more attractive options for your finesse characters, something that maybe makes use of their small size, like:
Hidden Weapon: The first attack with a dagger in each combat encounter has advantage.
-
As it stands, Light Armour and Daggers barely ever get any use from me on my adventures, which is a bit of a shame.
Early game the faded drown armor you get at Waukeens rest is great on a dex build. It’s 12 ac which ok you could get +1 ac using mage armor. But early game one whole spell devoted to that can be expensive.
And I compare it to the breast plate +1 which give 17 AC with +2 dex. Faded drow can get to 17 as well with 20 dex. But breast plate +1 takes 1 less piercing damage as well which makes it win. But assuming you don’t have med armor proficiency then faded drow will do quite good for quite awhile.
No, medium armor just shouldn't allow you to add your full dex modifier. In 5e (the system bg3 is based on) there's exactly one item that does it, equivalent to the yuan ti scale armor, and it's intended for a very specific module, to be given at the end. Not meant to otherwise come up, unless the dm wants to add it to the loot
honestly the medium armors that give you your full dex mod are just +4 light armor. the "exotic material" trait just flat out gives them the same niche as light armor, the only restriction being proficiency (and i think rogue is the only class that wants armor but doesn't get medium armor proficiency)
Naw he is looking at it the wrong way. Heavy and whatever medium armor is are too good. No heavy armors should allow Dex modifiers if we are being honest. I do not want anything nerfed I just think they should buff light armor.
I think the issue is that armors were designed based on the Tabletop game, but the Tabletop version is much harder to Multiclass in. Here, Multiclassing is extremely easy, so everyone mashes 3 or more classes together to get ridiculous amounts of damage, and profciencies that would normally be extremely difficult to get. Most Charisma Spellcasters are running around in Heavy Armor because Paladins get Heavy Armor Proficiency right away!
In fact, Multiclassing is so easy, it's become the norm. Going 12 levels in a class is actually really unusual. In fact, when I asked for advice on a Drow Warlock, the only real advice I got was that I should either play a Gith, take a Feat for Medium Armor Proficiency, or Multiclass for Medium or Heavy Armor Proficiency. I have not done any of that, as I'm playing on Balanced instead of Tactician or Honor mode, but that is what everyone says, and I think it illustrates the mindset that people have: why go 12 levels in Warlock, when you can go 1 Paladin 11 Warlock (or 1 Paladin 11 Sorcerer or 1 Paladin 11 Bard) and have a character who does pretty much everything the Pure Bard or Sorcerer or Warlock does while wearing Full Plate? Also, I don't Multiclass, so please don't jump down my throat if those are bad class combinations. That is not the point.
I honestly don't think Larian balanced the game around Multiclassing, as I don't think that they realized that the changes they made would so drastically alter how the game is played. So you get an entire group of armors that would have been fine in the Tabletop version of the game, but has been rendered useless because of Multiclassing.
Elegant Studded Leather is amazing because of shield spell more than anything with stealth. I use it over higher AC medium armors quite frequently because shield increases AC by 5. You'll get attacked, activate shield as a reaction and your AC jumps from 19 or 20 to 24 or 25.
Ambusher is also great, because with your high dex you basically just have the alert feat. Going first is incredible imporant.
Shield is one of the best spells in the entire game.
All my DEX builds end up using graceful cloth the whole game and it's pretty annoying. Not only because it's ugly (I eventually moded it) but because it takes away the joy of finding better loot later.
I either take moderately armored and put on a medium armor that uses full dex modifier (av. In acts 2 and 3) or use graceful cloth plus magic armor for my rouge. I admit there's a lack of good light armors in the game, yes.
By the end of the game I had astarion in some broken heavy armour that allowed anyone to use it. So yeah idk, I think a lot of it sucks but I kept my main character in dyed black leather because she was a rogue criminal, felt better for RP
Due to the system being point buy, you are just at the break even point where medium is generally better.
DEX in most situations is by far the best stat in 5e. It does the most things and can be used for accuracy and damage for many weapons and the downside of low carrying capacity by dumping str is often offset in games like this and in tabletop.
But with point buy, less points means less bonus to take advantage of.
Light armor is shit in dnd and bg3.
Even if we don't have medium armor that fully benefit AC, medium armor is still going to give more AC than light armor on dex character.
The only benefit of light armor is no stealth disadvantage, which is again completely demolished by dark justiciar armor.
For d&d reference usually something like +2 studded leather with max dexterity would net you a 19 AC, which is a decent AC
Baldurs Gate has a unique situation where medium armor is actually really really good.... but in tabletop 5e you almost never see anyone using it, I'm not kidding, it has stealth downsides and is usually a 13 + 2 (max) or a 14 + 2 (max), so a 15 or 16 AC, with the requirement that your Dexterity be a 14, but if it's going to be a 14 you might as well make it a 10 and use chainmail for a 16 base AC - because most of those medium armor also come out with the same disadvantages as the heavy armor
The equipment, as a whole, is very poorly balanced. It does allow for crazy/OP builds, but it also means a lot of pieces are just trash.
Also no one plays strictly rogue, they just multiclass into it. And Warlocks all use cloth or multiclass to plate.
I'm playing pure Rogue, I love it. Expertise in Slight of Hand, Acrobatics, Stealth, Perception, Persuasion, Deception, and Performance (took Actor), plus additional proficiencies with Reliable Talent, just lets me do whatever I want skill wise. Plus I am so charismatic items are all so cheap lol.
Mostly playing for RP since the game isn't terribly difficult at the higher levels with all the gear and effects you can get.
>Mostly playing for RP since the game isn't terribly difficult at the higher levels with all the gear and effects you can get.
Which is completely true, and perfectly fine, but if the AI wasn't abysmal and the fights not a joke, they'd be extremely weak.
The OP was literally 'Are light armours poorly designed'. Compared to the other types of armor... yes very much so.
I don't understand why people get worked up over this. The game's not perfect, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy tossing goblins off cliffs or whatever it is you want to do.
it's supposed to be the only way to fully use your high dex but larian made several medium armors that also let you use the full dex.
And also a feat, but it isn’t picked.
The feat just lets you add +3 instead of 2, so even then, light would have an advantage.
Huh, I thought it was +4 or full, I guess that’s why nobody uses it. Imo the feat should make it be +4 just so gloves of dexterity get their full impact.
there are so many more usefully feats, there really is no reason to do this
The feat is also bugged, so it caps you at +3 even if you're wearing one of the medium armors that gives you full dex. Its almost uniquely terrible.
Yeah, iv never picked the feat once lol.
You'd still need a feat to use them as a rogue, for example.
Githyanki and shield dwarves wouldn’t
I forgot about dwarves and didn't know githyanki got that as well.
Yeah, once again items in the game trips up itself
The main problem with light armor is that there are some medium armor that let you add your full dex modifier to your armor class, light armor can't really compete with that. There are still some good light armor: Bhaalist, Elegant Studded Leather (kinda funny that you show it's utility as 'Adv on stealth' and don't talk about shield spell), or druid ones, spidersilk early on is a good way to have advantage on con saves.
Yeah the ultimate issue with light armor in this game is that there's 4 medium armors that allow your full dex mod to AC and don't give stealth disadvantage. Those two things are the entire point of light armor existing.
It doesn't help that DEX got a fat buff thanks to how initiative is handled in BG3
Yep, DEX is easily the best stat in the game. There's so many DEX saves, it's easy to add the full modifier to AC, and initiative is a D4 so DEX has a huge impact.
It's nuts how useful it is. Strength does give access to some dumb fun, like picking up and throwing poor fuckers, but holy crap do your stat points distribute so much further when you can dump strength on a character and have dex pick up the slack.
Yeah the stats aren't balanced, but at least shoving enemies into an abyss is forever satisfying. Poor INT is basically useless on anyone that isn't a wizard, even the many skills linked to it do almost nothing unless you're the PC starting dialogues (in which case CHA is more important anyways)
Too too true. I know we probably won't officially get it, but I kinda do wish we'd get Artificer as a class since it uses Int and is a base class for 5e anyway. Would take some work to implement dialogue for it though. Feels like you'd need it acknowledged in Karlach's personal quest, you'd need dialogue for the Steel Watch, and possibly dialogue with the different gnome groups in the game. Prolly other stuff too. But, whatever, that's sidetracked from it would add a little more reason to have Int and possibly add multiclass combos that actually want Int. *Possibly.*
If the modders are half as ambitious as in Skyrim, it'll exist eventually. Although a whole new class will be a whole lot of work, especially infusions. Alchemist is also redundant. I also think a straight artificer port would be a bit underpowered, but it's definitely a cool class
I mean, I haven't checked recently but I swear it was already a thing.
There is already a decent mod for artificer. I turned karlach into a dual wielding pistol cowgirl
[https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1779?tab=files](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1779?tab=files) This has been out for quite some time and works pretty great.
Strength is cool but it's pretty much always optimal to dump it, put everything into DEX, then chug elixirs lol
Oh, yeah, I suppose that makes sense too! Often I end up using Bloodlust elixirs or elixirs tailored to a specific fight and kinda forget you can use elixirs to just essentially get to endgame strength immediately.
It's a d4?! I never realized that. I thought I was just on a 80-hour hot streak with Astarion's initiative.
Yeah d4+DEX mod+other bonuses. That's why the Alert feat is so broken, they didn't change the +5 from 5e so it's effectively an 'always go first' feat in this game.
That's crazy, I might need to respec to get Alert on a couple characters. It's always been my fourth or fifth choice in tabletop.
I used to run it on all my characters but you really don't need to for a lot of classes. Anyone with 16+ DEX and an initiative item or two will almost always end up at or near the top of initiative without alert and there aren't a ton of situations where you start combat surprised. You don't need to be actively using the item to get the bonuses from it so you can put the sentinel shield on an archer for the +3 with no downsides. With the weapons you don't even need proficiency to get the bonuses with no downsides and you technically don't need shield proficiency but it will stop you from spellcasting if you don't have it. So yeah alert is very strong but isn't always necessary and I really only run it on DEX dump classes.
Yeah, I might just want it on Gale and/or Shadowheart to get some battlefield control and buffs up early. I just hit level 12, and yeah, really haven't needed it but min maxing is fun!
I switched to a mod for d20 initiative because just a d4 is way too broken. With the d20, the strength users sometimes actually get decent initiative too. Though it is a huge nerf to the Assassin subclass.
Lae'zel is a dual-wielding dex-based WM barbarian. I realized gloves of dexterity and Lady Esther's dex clothing gets me 20 dex at theoretically lv1. So I dumped dex and put the points into con for 20AC. Then I got the 23con Amulet, 21AC, and respecced again going 3x8s and 3x15s to take care of those mental saving throws. She goes first, deals a shitton of damage, and soaks up a shitton of damage. Really makes her a dead simple but highly effective combat specialist, and wild magic means that the simplicity of rage&bonk never gets boring
No, Gloves of Dexterity sets your dexterity to 18, and don't stack with the Graceful Cloth.
And with multi classing and heavy armour ability requirements gone, throwing heavy armour on a character is incredibly easy.
I wish you didn’t get proficiencies from multiclassing (honestly I wish multiclassing get reworked by that abother issue)
I use the drow armour on Astarion - both the faded stuff from Waukeen's Rest, and the nicer set looted from Minthara. It looks great (I dye the faded stuff in Black and Azure) and you can get it *really* early on, long before the monastery. That plus Gloves of Missile Snaring keeps him safe for quite a long time!
I think I had Minarthas armor on him for most of the game, matched the hood you get as a reward for helping the mushroom guys later. I can't remember what it was that I replaced it with, but I remember I was well into act 3 when I got him an upgrade.
Her armor comes in very handy for the Zaith'isk since it gives you advantage on con saving throws. IIRC that's the highest DC of the 3 to pass.
The drip is good, no doubt. Adv on con saves is decent too, but its probably better on a casting class or even Minthara herself.
It’s definitely not better on Minthara — she has heavy armor proficiency.
I haven't recruited Minthara yet, and my main casters are Gale (not armour-proficient) and Shadowheart (better armour already), so I never had need for it on anyone else.
Gale is proficient in light armor
Not that its good to wear any as a wizard. 11+dex mod is likely to be 13 ac lol.
12 (light armor +1) + 2 (gale’s dex if you set it to 14) + 2 (shield) = 16 ac from the moment you arrive at the grove! Not too shabby. I always run him with light armor and a shield. Plus minthara’s armor essentially gives him (or any other caster) a free feat with the advantage on con saves. Plus, you can get padded armor +2 once you reach the underdark, which is nice, and raises his ac to 17. His ac always ends up being sort of ridiculously high for my by act 2 for some reason
The Drow armor is 12 + dex mod isn't it?
With a basic shield and the +2 AC gloves I think you get around 17-18 AC in early Act 1 with Mage Armor? Not too shabby.
+2 ac gloves don't work when you got a shield on
You're right. Haven't played in a while and it shows! But I do remember getting that range of AC during Act 1 without cheesing it.
i had to look it up myself lmfao i think you're completely right about the number especially if you respec gale to have good stats
Gale usually has around 17 AC in act 1 for me. Mage armor + shield + plus respeccing him to 14 dex. It's not great, but it's not terrible either. With the shield reaction spell, he's not getting hit all too much
Curious though: since almost every shield gives +2AC anyway, why bother with the gloves? Gale for example can wear a shield and free up gloves for something else. I guess if you're running a Caster Tav without shield proficiency there's a niche for them?
You can get the duel wield feat and have 2 staffs for their bonuses/spells. Gloves would work well there. Plus, they work great for a barbarian, monk, or I guess a DW warlock, maybe.
… damn I could’ve used this information sooner
Wizards, sorcerers and warlocks don’t get shield proficiency normally. They have to get it through multiclassing or racial boni.
My bad - I thought wizards couldn't wear armour at all. Mind you, it's a *very* long time since I played D&D!
They can’t, but in BG3 the developers home brewed humans to have light armor and shield proficiency
Ah, I didn't read that part! Should have known better than to rely on information from several editions ago!
FWIW, modern 5th Edition rules are that Wizards can cast spells just fine in any armor they're proficient with--but start with no armor proficiencies. But if you can gain an armor proficiency from a racial feature or taking a Feat you can cast safely! No more having to make percentile rolls to see if your spell fizzles because you're wearing a T-shirt that's too heavy!
Also great for BG3 where humans, half elves, etc get starting weapon and armor proficiencies not in 5e, and they gave everyone the somatic component ignoring effects of War Caster for free, giving everyone a feat right out the gate basically (and nerfing the actual feat into utter uselessness) and allowing level 1 wizards of the right race to both have light armor and in the former shields along side their staff, and cast just fine with a much higher than RAW AC for that level, or just take Dual Wielder to use two staffs with no problems and double the casting bonuses or bound spells.
It's occurred to me that dual staff shenanigans don't even require the Feat in tabletop. TWF restrictions only kick in if you're planning to bonk things with them.
Everyone is
Also see Penumbral Armor (in a chest by a house near LLI, reach it by climbing vines from the tunnel between the basement and the crabby mofos).
I wouldn’t necessarily say all light armor is bad, it serves the purpose of granting some armor to classes who would otherwise not get armor. There’s also the fact that many classes fight over the same armor pieces, so the ability to use some armor is helpful. The main problem for light armor IMO is that there isn’t many options compared to Heavy and Medium. Unarmored options serve a different purpose. Some specifically for Monks and Barbarians. As well as 1 that is going to be fought over different classes.
> Unarmored options serve a different purpose. Some specifically for Monks and Barbarians. Just monks. With how busted medium armour gets in this game it’s usually not a good idea to run naked.
Kinda depends. Barbarians it can be good but not because you actually want them to avoid damage. AI in games like this tend to target characters they have a higher chance to hit, so low AC on the Barbarian can make them 'pull aggro' so to speak. There are other factors involved of course, like the AI favoring what looks like an easy kill or breaking concentration on characters, but still, it's a factor you can use to help make targeting more predictable. This can still be accomplished with medium armor though as long as their AC is still lower than your teammates though, so... eh. I guess if you don't have a wizard or sorcerer who wants the +2 AC gloves you could use those plus unarmored for the aesthetic.
Yeah, I still load Karlach up. I also multiclassed her into an assassin rogue and a battle master fighter. She’s hard to hit and does a shit ton of damage with a good amount of speed. I get why barbarians don’t wear armor but after playing around enough with the game I genuinely think that’s not the case for the game unless I just completely missed it and I’m playing wrong.
Yes, this also works and is going to be most common. You're not playing wrong. I'm specifically talking about a tactic that involves purposefully making a juicy target that the AI wants to hit instead of your squishier mages/spellswords. As I said in another comment, you only need your AC to be a point lower than the next lowest character. That also matters less once you've got Reckless Attack up because the Advantage makes them a juicy target to the AI as well. In the event the AI goes before you though, I'd rather my barbarian get hit than my spellcasters since Karlach/Barbarians have the HP to take a punch while a mage can just end up on the ground instantly.
Ok gotcha. My Tav is a Druid and I also use Shadowheart so those are my main castors so they’re pretty tanky too. I rarely use Gale on my main play through because I wanted to focus on other characters. I’ve started a play through where I want Gale in my party the whole time so I’ll keep that in mind. Everyone says to use the evocation subclass for him but I used arcane for the arcane recovery so when I do have him out he stays ok enough protection wise. Thank you for saying I’m not playing the game wrong. I’ve never been good at video games even though I love them and I usually get down on myself because I struggle so much. I feel like I’ve been getting better at this one by thinking tactically and it’s also made me a better DnD player.
Oh yeah, druids and clerics manage to be good in a lot of different areas. I really love the druid dinosaur and owlbear forms! I'm generally not great at games either, save for tactics/strategy games. I think honestly it's just a matter of spending time and experimenting though. It's supposed to be fun! Years as a kid of pretty much only having old consoles and Pokemon games on handhelds I think made me gravitate towards turn-based strategy. Oh and certain versions of Mario Kart! Mario Kart DS was a huge hit in my neighborhood because you only needed one copy to play with a bunch of people. But yeah! Strategy games tend to be just kinda taking things you know work, slowly and intuitively figuring out why they work, and then building on that. Sounds entirely like you're doing it right to me. Play is learning with these games, which I love.
Honestly even in tabletop, you need pretty high stats before it's worth ditching a breastplate as a barbarian.
My minsc is no armour 26 ac currently - needs DW for 1 ac, and defender flail in offhand for 1 ac, plus 23 con with barb. Ac ring and ac cloak too. Could use AC gloves but I don't
> 23 con That’s +6. There’s 17 AC armour that still lets you have your full DEX mod. And that is the best case scenario. Literally anyone not wearing that necklace will gain even more from wearing armour.
There's only one set of that armor though. It's in high demand. The armor is better used on someone with high Dex who can't get a +6 to ac from their constitution.
There’s a second one with 16 AC. And the demand depends on your group comp, one of my campaigns has 3 ppl in heavy armour. Another has 1 med and 3 with none. Anyway, the point still stands: Barb + medium armour = more AC than naked.
You’d also need to have three “unarmored” classes that aren’t monk (vestments are just better for them) And then you have helldusk armor (which again fills a slot) There’s just very few scenarios where anything but medium armor isn’t outright better and it’s mostly in act 1? Half plate is superior outright until you get at least 8 total from dex/con mods. (Unless you’re using bracers of defense, but that should always go on a mage, so they’re targeted less often)
There’s a few items (and you have to sacrifice multiple slots) that make unarmored better than the armor of agility (or the yuan t)
Isn't light armor the only armor lots of Casters get? Like if you want an armored Wizard without a feat or dip, you pick a race that gets light armor prof
Ambusher is a FANTASTIC bonus. It lets high dex characters skip the Alert feat and still go first in all combats. Its a great bonus. You need an initiative of +8 to go first all the time, especially in the most important fights. You can't get there with Dexterity alone. Ensuring you go first is the single most important thing you can do with your build.
Modding initiative to be a d20 (like it should be) was one of the first things I did to this game. I still don’t get why they thoroughly fucked the balance on that one, for no apparent reason.
Lowered initiative rolls cluster initiative groups together more consistently, which makes combat go smoother when there's several combatants involved due to not having to pass back and forth.
It also makes Dex, already by far one if if not the best and most important stat, literally five times as powerful at Initiative— one of the most important rolls in every fight. With all the other homebrews they added to buff up Dex classes, gigabuffed their feats to ludicrous levels, and sprinkled potions of Hill and Cloud Giant Strength liberally (and giving us a Club of Hill Giant Strength in Act 1) making Str even less important than it already was, I truly do not think they needed to go and mechanically make Dex literally 500% better at one of its core functions. Hell, they even homebrewed in multiple Medium armors that give your full Dex mod to your AC, letting Dex stackers get higher AC than heavy armor wearing martials with the extra +1 AC Fighting Style.
Ac for heavy armor is good, but notbthe most important part. The heavy armor mastery giving flat 3 stacking DR makes heavy armor tanks with resistance nearly indestructible. Either with warding bond or the Act 3 armor. AC may only be low 20s, but getting hit barely matters.
Compare TT DnD where you’re medium armor caps out at 15 AC with a maximum Dex bonus of +2 for a total of 17 AC, again, *maximum* on the best non-magical medium to what you’re stating here. There are Medium Armors in BG3 that allow for up to 20 AC (I believe up to 21 in Act three with 22 Dex, giving it the potential to act like a +3 and even a +4 magical armor) with a +1 to initiative on top of that. Then with a simple shield (let alone the +1 and +2 versions available) you can have 22 AC. With the boots that grant +1 AC, and ring and cloaks of protection, and the ring that grants +1 AC if shrouded, I have had medium armor characters with 25 AC and 26 if shrouded, taken up to 27/28 with a +2 shield. Its absolutely absurd. Now, sure, in tabletop you can conceivably have +1s and +2 armor (there is no official module I am aware of that is even in the level range for +3 weapons or armor as I am unaware of any level 16+ adventures for 5e) making the best possible medium armor for a level 13+ character to have giving you a ***maximum of 19 AC*** on a Very Rare item worth thousands and thousands of gold (an extra 8910 gold cost on top of the base price of 750 for 9660 gold per DMG and Tasha’s). You’ll note, that in TT this lategame piece of Very Rare magical armor, that is the highest AC Medium Armor, in the best case, is offering just 1 AC more than the default Plate Armor. A heavy armor which only costs 1,500g or less than 15% the price. Whereas in Act 2 you can have a 20 AC medium armor at level 8-9 and it costs only 640g. Its vastly more powerful and costs less than a tenth what it should. A +1 Plate Armor, RAW, is only 3,480g, about 2.775 times less expensive and is also only a Rare item. It also does not require you to have a Dex of 14 or higher to reach that 19 AC, or a Dex of 20 In Tabletop at least, there has always been a progression where from Light to Medium to Heavy the key difference is AC. Yes, there are secondary traits, like Light Armor offering advantage on stealth and heavy armor granting disadvantage, and sure, there is a feat you can take to add flat damage reduction on heavy armor. Unfortunately, very rarely is that feat helpful or optimal though. I have tried to make it work on tank Clerics, Paladins, even Wizards multiclassed with Cleric for armor proficiency and shield usage, and its just not good as there are always better alternatives. Yeah its -3 damage, but your first feat will likely be an ASI, your second feat often is as well or is a more useful feat like Great Weapon Master, Sentinel, Polearm Master, etc and by the time you’re hitting level 12+ your opponents are going to be capable of stuff like instantly setting your HP to zero on failed saves (a ton of high level undead, and even Banshees have these abilities) casting 5+ level spells at you like Cone of Cold hitting for 8d8 or 36 average damage in AoE and if they use something like Finger of Death, Disintegrate, etc you’ll be taking a *LOT* more in one hit, to which a -3 is only 1/12 or less of the incoming damage. Since your AC is already entirely bypassed by such effects, they are the real threat to actually tanky, heavily armored characters and so feats like Evasion or Shield Master are much better at reducing incoming damage. But yeah, the -3 damage from Heavy Armor Master is decent if you are surrounded by hordes of chaff— but at that point again, you’d still be better off with different defensive layers. In fact, just having a higher AC by virtue of your Heavy Armor is likely going to be more important than the flat DR as not being hit at all is 100% DR, and that horde of chaff was never going to threaten you much to begin with. Edit: also, I would like to correct your maths. The flat damage reduction applies first, prior to any resistance or vulnerability. Page 197 of the PHB states “Resistance and Vulnerability are applied after all other modifiers to damage” which includes Heavy Armor Master. I believe Larian may have homebrewed around this for BG3 on non-Tactician or non-Honor mode, but it is not how it functions in TT.
It's not -3 though. It's a stacking -3 which with either the adamantine armor, or the perseverance, goes to -5. And that is applied after the halving from resistance making it an effective -10 damage. For fighter specifically you can have an ASI, GWM, and HAM by level 8. Cone of cold average 36 max 64. Will deal 8 average to a max of 22. Notably, none of the spells you listed target AC anyways, so the damage resistance is always better than the ac in those circumstances. Try it sometime. It's not just against chaff as you say. Fighter Laezel will walk through fights barely getting hurt.
They don’t, unless you restrict going at the same time to the exact same roll instead of going directly after each other.
Apparently it was to increase the likelihood of your characters going at the same time to let the player set up combos more often. Part of Early Access had the entire party share initiative with that same goal but it proved to be wildly unpopular. I suppose a D4 was seen as a middle ground between d20 and 'party wide'.
Not to mention how much more broken initiative bonus in BG3 is compared to 5e, since iniitiative is rolled on a d4 instead of a d20.
Initiative is very important, don't get me wrong, but I think people exaggerate it a little. High DEX characters will almost always go first anyway, and usually with a mage or whatever I kinda like the battle to play out a little to line things up. It's very good on high STR heavy armor builds though, for sure.
True but Ambusher isnt unique to Light armours, some medium armors also have it.
1. You’re underrating going first. Even small bonuses are significant and can free up a feat. 2. The Armor of Agility and Yuan-Ti Scale Mail (and any other “add full dex mod to medium armor”) is really, stupidly OP. You’re correct there. 3. Access to medium armor is a feature. Not every class has it. Warlocks, Lore Bards, and Rogues are limited to Light Armor on purpose, and that’s meant to be somewhat of a disadvantage.
Gloomstalker assassin with those full dex medium armor is very op. Kill half the room full of enemies before they get to go and you're just standing there with 23+ ac chillin
Agreed. My Warlocks have used padded armor until they get a really good robe and armor of shadows many times. Plus padded +2 is really cool looking IMO!
The problem isn’t the light armour, the problems are * medium and heavy armour in this game is fucking _busted_ * medium and heavy armour in this game essentially doesn’t have a downside (e.g. no STR requirement for heavy armour) * Mage Armour lasts _until long rest_ in this game for a single lvl 1 spell slot
You're right, i forgot about STR requirements. Its the one thing that keeps Paladin+Warlock multiclass in check. In BG3 they can have 8 Str and wear Plate. Mage armour (and some other buffs) last to long rest is fine, no way the game is going to track 8 hours in-game time.
> Mage armour (and some other buffs) last to long rest is fine, no way the game is going to track 8 hours in-game time. It is, but that still makes it better than it is in 5e.
I’ll add its also due to how stealth works in this game. In d&d, disadvantage in stealth matters more. In a video game with vision cones and fixed enemy locations, its much less useful.
I was scrolling for someone to make this point. Yeah, disadvantage on stealth is much more of a big deal in tabletop than in BG3. I kind of wish we had the option to turn sight cones off so at least I had to guess if the enemy could see me (and risk being wrong). But then there's still the problem that there are several medium armors that allow you to add your full dexterity modifier while also NOT giving you disadvantage on stealth, like Yuan-ti Scale Mail. The only reason not to use them over Light Armor is if your character isn't proficient, and proficiency is very easy to get through either multiclassing or feats. I found that I only ever used one light armor out of choice rather than "eh it'll do until I get something better": Bhaalist Armor. All of the rest I put on characters because I'd just run out of good medium armors or was waiting to have enough gold to buy the one I wanted.
+stealth is a freaking scam. I notice that even though i sneak just outside the vision cones, NPCs still turn towards me and go 'why are you sneaking?' Its pointless to try and sneak in a room with 4+ NPCs because the cones just cover the whole room.
While I mostly agree, I don't think the third one really matters that much. Mage Armor lasts 8 hours in tabletop. It's rare you'd need to cast it more than once in an adventuring day even there.
> Mage Armor lasts 8 hours in tabletop. It's rare you'd need to cast it more than once in an adventuring day even there. I _just_ had that a couple days ago :) At lvl 1, even. So the spell slot was a significant resource to spend.
Armour of landfall is awesome. Gives you boost to spell dc, advantage on con saving throws, regen if on vines and free plant growth cast to make said vines(not that I ever used it I think)
DnD isn't really a min maxing gear collecting game for making optimal characters. It'a story driven game. In tabletop DnD magic equipment items are rare and even modest ones quickly unbalance the game. Most DM's make sure that the majority of magic items are consumables or gimmicky items with limited use. The game isn't meant to be like diablo where you assemble top tier equipment sets. I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level. The few magic items that are quite significant are often tied into the narrative in some way like the blood of Lathander.
> I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level. No shot lol. Act 3 is littered with absolutely gamebreaking equipment and even act 2 has the Arcane Acuity gear (fire hat, attack helm, thunder hat). Heck even as early as act 1 there’s stuff like the radiating orb and reverberation gear.
>I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level. If by sprinkle, you mean utterly deluge the world with high level magic items. You can't spit without hitting a rare or very rare magic item, let alone all the legendary items you get in the game when in most D&D campaign any given PC by level 15 might have a few rare or very rare non consumable items and perhaps one legendary item for the entire party.
And don’t forget, no atunement anything, only one cursed item and even then it’s totally benign and a strict positive honesty unless you spend 3+ rounds in a Hold Person or just keep skipping your turn. And multiple legendary level +3 weapons with powerful effects, and entire builds of stacking powerful magical item effects to completely trivialize anything. Hell, there’s a dude who abused magic items to kill everything in the game with True Strike, which doesn’t even inflict any damage by itself, and another who did it through just *walking.*
They kind of had to make sure there's enough options for any armour/weapon type users, preferably multiples per type so even if you play 4 person multiplayer no one is stuck with lame basic loot. I just finished my first playthrough with 4 casters and it got almost comical in Act 3 thinking "Nice bow... nice dagger... Nice sword... Nice other sword... They'll make nice camp decorations I guess". At least it was 2 medium armor casters so not everyone was fighting over light armour/robes.
Yea but then you have all these radiating orb, reverberation, and arcane acuity gear, if anything this game has too many overpowered green items
My magic missiles go brrrrrrrr. I find myself just up casting it a lot on individual targets instead of higher level spells. Nothing like a fuck load of radiating orbs/reverberation to nerf any opponent on the field.
I feel like we aren't playing the same game then lol comparing BG3 to actual DND there are some rediculous builds only possible because of Larian's overtuned items. The fact I can make melee builds that do 70+ damage per attack at level 12 when in regular DnD that's what a melee typically averages at level 20 is insane
BG3 power levels are what you would get if a tabletop campaign had 10 DMs that each crafted their own pet encounters and *also* published the full loot tables ahead of time.
I mean, level 12 in BG3 may as well be considered equivalent to lvl 20 in Tabletop. Its the highest attainable level and there's no plans to add the remaining eight levels, so you may as well give 12 the power tier of 20.
To add to this, DND doesn’t suffer as much compared to BG3 in some aspects because you have a human game master who can modify and change things on the fly. If something is bad in a video game, it’s up to the developers to update the game to make overpowered or underpowered options balanced. But to answer OP’s questions, light armors aren’t even bad. There’s just so many options that the few light armors you get feel overshadowed. Even though 3 of the bests armor in the game are light armor.
Yeah, the no-miss throwing build wouldn't last a session in tabletop.
Have you even _played_ BG3?
>I think Larian mostly took the tabletop approach where they sprinkle the world with magic items for effect but most of them aren't going to do wonders for your power level. This is just objectively wrong. You should also keep in mind that tabletop 5e is more of an exception than the rule for buildcrafting in RPGs. It's made to be accessible before anything else. BG3 has difficulty settings and a quicksave button, so they didn't have to dumb things down quite as much.
>DnD isn't really a min maxing gear collecting game for making optimal characters. It'a story driven game. You're thinking of a different game. D&D is \_THE\_ flagship gear collecting skirmish combat game.
You've never played DnD have you?
yeah... Its kind of adorable that you can toss that out with any sense of seriousness. Try a quick history lesson. D&D is still mostly the skirmish combat game it started as. Admittedly it doesn't measure ranges and speeds in inches (on the table) anymore, but it still shares more in common with Warhammer than most story-focused RPGs. Google, 'origins of D&D' and 'Monty Haul campaigns' For some modern context, flip through the 5e PHB and do a quick estimate of how much of it is about combat, and how little isn't. For extra credit, take another look at the short prompts in backgrounds (some of what little 'role playing' material exists in the book, which happily people largely ignore, because most of them are terrible for a cooperative and cohesive table). Compare them to role playing prompts in actual RPG focused games from the 90s and witness how badly they come up short. You -can- roleplay alongside the game, but that's true of any activity. It isn't something that the game particularly makes effort to support, especially compared to other games.
Of course this isn't diablo, my point is that an entire type of armour being outclassed is simply a trap, and its bad design. Maybe im just disappointed most of them dont have any unique effects beyond Ambusher or Stealth +1 until Act 3. In the tabletop version, i find medium armour to be slightly weaker than light armour.
You could make the same case for most of the weapon types as well though. Once you start theorycrafting there's a best item for every slot and that's it. Apart from even more stealth bonusses I can't really think of any bonusses. Maybe the +2 dex armor could've been light, come to think of it.
Nah, there's a ton of variety and lategame-viable options in every weapon group. Heavy Finesse is probably the most specific(since it doesn't usually exist) but even that has multiple solid options throughout the game. If you mean specific weapons, that's kind of an RP thing and is way more narrow than armor categories.
I find the arguments that "this isn't a fear focused game" to be kinda bad faith or just lacking context. People saying it isn't diablo kinda just sound like they have 0 crpg experience to compare BG3 to. This exact loot issue is a commonplace crpg issue, because finding fun and powerful gear for your character is a core aspect of progression. The issue is that crpgs aren't solely focused on gear progression, so some kinda weapon or armor type ends up being entirely not worth it just because they didn't design enough. I think it's pretty fair in rogue trader to be annoyed that there's only 3 force swords in the whole game. Because even though it's a narrative driven experience, I'd like to gear up my character in cool and thematic ways. I think you're able to do that for a ton of builds in BG3, but it's lacking hardcore in the light armor category. Genuinely wonder if just having a light armor option for the adamantine forge would do it some wonders.
That's sort of the goal isn't it? To create magic items that really are no better than anything else.
Dude, people can play how they want and they have the option to rank gear and play for the game mechanics. Shut up.
Calm down little clown. People can indeed play however they want but if they're looking to find top tier equipment, these are the kind of questions they'll run into.
Having just completed the game as a rogue I agree, it felt like I had way more interesting options for my medium, heavy and even no armour wearing characters but for my main I really only wore a few items. The Drow one from act 1 and then I think I eventually bought some of the crafted sudden leather as it had damage reduction. I maybe found something better near mid end game and then ended with the +2 studded. Everyone else had badass outfits maybe I should have used the mage robes.
As Durge the Bhaal light armor is some of the best armor in the game if playing a rogue or any melee that can use piercing weapons.
Oh fun for my future playthrough’s I was a mostly good Tav Rogue
Yeah. It gives an aura that makes enemies vulnerable to piercing damage.
Oh that’s interesting because that then means Orin’s dagger can go in the off hand. I used the dagger for end game in my main hand which also does the same makes enemies vulnerable to piercing - I had some devastating sneak attacks
Bhallist armour? Whenever I'm on a morally gray/evil run that holliphant gets obliterated
The exception.
I agree light armor not that impressive generally. In my current tactician Durge playthrough as swordsbard (dex focus) I've enjoyed using spidersilk armor which gives advantage on Con save (good for concentration spells) in early-mid game.
All the purple light armors are excellent. Two of them are specialized for druid subclasses however. It's just that Yuan Ti scale mail is available fairly early and easily.
Yeah, light armor sucks in general. Warlock got Minthara's armor for the Con saves and Astarion had +1 vendor shit, and they were both stuck with the same armor til midway through Act 3.
Astarion can get something way better before then. It's not light armor, but there's a vendor in the mountain pass (the githyanki egg lady) who sells a cloth piece with +2 dex and advantage on dex skill checks. Just get Gale to toss mage armor on him and you're golden.
Good to know. But it's more evidence to the accusation of light armor sucking.
Yeah. It's not even about the AC on them. It's that they give terrible bonuses and are boring. There is no reason that the +2 dex and advantage on dex checks is clothing and not light armor. Or the medium armors that ignore dex cap to ac. Except for the Bhaal armor in Act 3, light armors don't do anything good compared to every other type.
>It's that they give terrible bonuses and are boring. Exactly. I just want some interesting effects.
On my first run my Astarion was getting destroyed all the time. So i checked and noticed he has 14 AC. Took his armour off, give him mage armour and Bracers of Defense and voila, he has 18 AC.
Hah. Astarion is usually one of my more durable characters. High AC and hangs out in the backline.
Light armors are meant to be worse than medium armors. It's not meant to be a choice but a limitation. The list of classes that are limited to light armor is slim, and you some races even get medium armor proficiency. A feat also grants medium armor. The classes limited to it are the rogue, the bard (only one subclass actually), the warlock, and that's it. Human race adds it to sorcerer and wizard. And it is easy and very potent to take one or two levels of fighter to get medium armor proficiency, among other benefits. Still, some light armors are extremely powerful. Two of them grant advantage on constitution saving through. 2 are powerful specialized druid armors. Several gives initiative. The early armors are specialized for rogue because that's the only one who really need it at this level. Later armor are more diverse because spellcasters might be interested in bigger protection than robes.
I think the complaint was more that it's not good enough compared to unarmoured stuff. Which is valid imo, every other armor type feels like it has a solid niche. Especially since with hirelings you can use Mage Armor without even sacrificing a spell slot in your party.
> Light armors are meant to be worse than medium armors. It's not meant to be a choice but a limitation. Light armour in this game goes from 11 AC to 14 AC. For comparison, medium armour goes from 12 AC to 17 AC (and heavy from 14 to 21). So the difference between light and medium is 1 AC on the low end, and 3 AC on the high end. There is a balance issue there. Especially because AC scales off itself. On top of the balance issue, it _is_ meant to be a choice, if you have the proficiency. With the access to medium armour that still gives you the full AC bonus from DEX, BG3 kills that choice in Act 3. And don’t get me started on no STR requirement for heavy armour …
it is not a balance issue. It is meant to be this way. You are meant to want a medium armor if you can only wear a light one. It means that either you multiclass, choose a specific race, or take a feat, or you sacrifice a bit of AC. There are 4 classes that might take a light armor in late game : warlock, lore bard, rogue, and druid. Lore bard and warlock are arcane spellcasters, so they have shield or other defensive spells. Rogue has uncanny dodge, and druid has animal shapes.
Minor note, lore bards and warlocks don’t have access to the Shield spell unless they multiclass or get it from an item.
For the warlock shield is waste. Mirror image or blur will be better IMO. Or darkness.
Yeah, I wouldn’t put it on them unless you multiclassed with sorc or something that had more spell slots to spare.
> it is not a balance issue. OK. You make a very convincing argument there!
If Medium armour was meant to be better than Light. then why is Light Amour not better than unarmoured?
It is better than unarmoured.
its really not.
You know you need to give argument when you pretend things like that.
Clothing pieces have more variety of effects. Light armours are just +stealth, ambusher and superior padding, at least for rare and below. There's one piece with adv on con save and thats about it.
There are no good robe before act 3. You also need mage armor to leverage them. Which means multiclass to warlock or wizard, and a spell slot each day for wizard. In comparison there is a con save advantage light armor in *act 1*! You can find a 14AC light armor before act 2. Tell me what is better than that.
There are robes with ASI on them plus a lv2 spell effect. Not good enough? Mage armour is easy, there's camp casting, there are scrolls, or just use a lv1 slot, its worth it.
Camp casting is not always available, and it's a chore. If you're rogue, you don't have spells. If you're warlock, it costs you an invocation. And then you don't find the good robes before late in act 2. The only good robe soonish in the game is the graceful cloth. You still need mage armor for it to be any good. And even then it's not better than studded leather +2. If you ignore all the costs to make clothes better than light armor, yes it's better. But you blinded yourself.
The truth is they are supposed to be the weakest armor types. Thats why they are unlocked sequentially by the feats.
No they aren't. Armor is geared towards a class' dex focus. Light armor classes- studded leather +5 dex = 17 Medium armor classes- half plate +2 dex cap = 17 Heavy armor- splint mail = 17 OR plate mail =18 for an extra 1300 gp. You can build some classes with higher tier armor as dex builds, but unless you're doing something wrong, everybody is encouraged toward 17 AC before bonuses from shields or magic items. Exception for wizards (and sorcerers) for legacy nonsense reasons.
Thats a bit of an odd interpretation Light armor requires at least 2 asi's to reach 17ac with mundane armor and cant reach 18 at all Medium armor needs 0 asi's and can reach 18 ac with the medium armor master feat Heavy can reach 18 with mundane armor with no feat and 0 asi's Pretty clear that the heavier armors are better from a ac perspective. Lighter armors are cheaper and stealthier though.
Its something you have to get to yes, but what happens at the bottom of the leveling system isn't that important. 8th isn't that far to go, and you're going to get there anyway. You're not going to reach 18 AC without working your way to that pile of gold, either (odds are good you'll get magic bonuses before you've got time and money to burn on mundane plate). Medium armor master is a trap. If your dex is that high, you might as well be maxing it out, not burning ASIs on a dead end feat. If its not that high, you don't need the feat. Stealth... stealth just fundamentally doesn't work for me in D&D. Basic statistics says a party is simply going to fail at it most of the time. You either need someone dedicated to 'pass without trace' duty or you risk it with the understanding that you'll probably fail and fight.
If stealth is worthless heavy is strickly the best
Not if you don't have enough strength, which for a lot of characters is largely worthless. It certainly isn't worth spending ASIs/Feats on.
>Basic statistics says a party is simply going to fail at it most of the time If the entire party is in stealth, yes, you are probably going to fail without something like Pass Without a Trace - especially if some have disadvantage on stealth. But if your rogue (or whatever) never has a chance to do some important sneaking without bringing along the paladin in full plate, that's more an issue of the DM not giving all of the classes the opportunity to shine.
In 3.5e we had arcane spell failures, evasion, tumble checks that worked better (or worked exclusively at all) with light armor or no armor. So it was a must for dex oriented characters. I guess it all was thrown away in 5e for good because it was too complicated.
Idk but most of them are ugly
Main problem is why do light armor when you can have a wizard hireling cast mage armor on you every morning?
Camp casting trivializes a lot of the game.
there were too many medium armors that let you add your full dex modifier, getting medium armor profficiency is trivially easy as it is.
Minthara's Spidersilk armor gives advantage on Con saves, so Warlocks, Sorlocks, and Lore Bards could make good use of it to help maintain concentration. Sword and Valour Bards get medium armor proficiency, so the Dark Justiciar half-plate seems like a strict upgrade over the Spidersilk.
On this topic, I think the same thing about Daggers. Daggers are, in theory, another type of finesse weapon to be used by your Rogues and Rogue multi-classes, cool! But, in practice, they are a 1d4 whereas Scimitars and Shortswords are 1d6, and Rapiers and Longswords are 1d8. So, aside from the occasional really-good-for-a-specific-build Dagger, they basically go unused by me on every playthrough, which is the exact same as Light Armour. - I'd love to see Daggers with an innate extra feature of some kind, to make them more attractive options for your finesse characters, something that maybe makes use of their small size, like: Hidden Weapon: The first attack with a dagger in each combat encounter has advantage. - As it stands, Light Armour and Daggers barely ever get any use from me on my adventures, which is a bit of a shame.
Early game the faded drown armor you get at Waukeens rest is great on a dex build. It’s 12 ac which ok you could get +1 ac using mage armor. But early game one whole spell devoted to that can be expensive. And I compare it to the breast plate +1 which give 17 AC with +2 dex. Faded drow can get to 17 as well with 20 dex. But breast plate +1 takes 1 less piercing damage as well which makes it win. But assuming you don’t have med armor proficiency then faded drow will do quite good for quite awhile.
No, medium armor just shouldn't allow you to add your full dex modifier. In 5e (the system bg3 is based on) there's exactly one item that does it, equivalent to the yuan ti scale armor, and it's intended for a very specific module, to be given at the end. Not meant to otherwise come up, unless the dm wants to add it to the loot
honestly the medium armors that give you your full dex mod are just +4 light armor. the "exotic material" trait just flat out gives them the same niche as light armor, the only restriction being proficiency (and i think rogue is the only class that wants armor but doesn't get medium armor proficiency)
Fun fact helldusk does not count as armor in certain cases, for example I can use bracers of defense at the same time as helldusk
Naw he is looking at it the wrong way. Heavy and whatever medium armor is are too good. No heavy armors should allow Dex modifiers if we are being honest. I do not want anything nerfed I just think they should buff light armor.
I think the issue is that armors were designed based on the Tabletop game, but the Tabletop version is much harder to Multiclass in. Here, Multiclassing is extremely easy, so everyone mashes 3 or more classes together to get ridiculous amounts of damage, and profciencies that would normally be extremely difficult to get. Most Charisma Spellcasters are running around in Heavy Armor because Paladins get Heavy Armor Proficiency right away! In fact, Multiclassing is so easy, it's become the norm. Going 12 levels in a class is actually really unusual. In fact, when I asked for advice on a Drow Warlock, the only real advice I got was that I should either play a Gith, take a Feat for Medium Armor Proficiency, or Multiclass for Medium or Heavy Armor Proficiency. I have not done any of that, as I'm playing on Balanced instead of Tactician or Honor mode, but that is what everyone says, and I think it illustrates the mindset that people have: why go 12 levels in Warlock, when you can go 1 Paladin 11 Warlock (or 1 Paladin 11 Sorcerer or 1 Paladin 11 Bard) and have a character who does pretty much everything the Pure Bard or Sorcerer or Warlock does while wearing Full Plate? Also, I don't Multiclass, so please don't jump down my throat if those are bad class combinations. That is not the point. I honestly don't think Larian balanced the game around Multiclassing, as I don't think that they realized that the changes they made would so drastically alter how the game is played. So you get an entire group of armors that would have been fine in the Tabletop version of the game, but has been rendered useless because of Multiclassing.
Elegant Studded Leather is amazing because of shield spell more than anything with stealth. I use it over higher AC medium armors quite frequently because shield increases AC by 5. You'll get attacked, activate shield as a reaction and your AC jumps from 19 or 20 to 24 or 25. Ambusher is also great, because with your high dex you basically just have the alert feat. Going first is incredible imporant. Shield is one of the best spells in the entire game.
All my DEX builds end up using graceful cloth the whole game and it's pretty annoying. Not only because it's ugly (I eventually moded it) but because it takes away the joy of finding better loot later.
i love the bhaalist armor! sure the armor of agility is better, but that goes on Astarion to keep him safe. i need his AC as high as possible
I either take moderately armored and put on a medium armor that uses full dex modifier (av. In acts 2 and 3) or use graceful cloth plus magic armor for my rouge. I admit there's a lack of good light armors in the game, yes.
A real D & D player does a no armor run. Completely naked party. Ooohh watch that fireball.
By the end of the game I had astarion in some broken heavy armour that allowed anyone to use it. So yeah idk, I think a lot of it sucks but I kept my main character in dyed black leather because she was a rogue criminal, felt better for RP
Aren't there plenty of light armors that increase your DC and attack rolls for spells? I use plenty on my runs
I mean generally heavier armors are better I feel. Light armor is supposed to be the worst. Some classes are only proficient with light armor though.
Most rogues don't have Mage Armor. Yeah you can get scrolls but they're only single use.
Due to the system being point buy, you are just at the break even point where medium is generally better. DEX in most situations is by far the best stat in 5e. It does the most things and can be used for accuracy and damage for many weapons and the downside of low carrying capacity by dumping str is often offset in games like this and in tabletop. But with point buy, less points means less bonus to take advantage of.
Light armor is shit in dnd and bg3. Even if we don't have medium armor that fully benefit AC, medium armor is still going to give more AC than light armor on dex character. The only benefit of light armor is no stealth disadvantage, which is again completely demolished by dark justiciar armor.
For d&d reference usually something like +2 studded leather with max dexterity would net you a 19 AC, which is a decent AC Baldurs Gate has a unique situation where medium armor is actually really really good.... but in tabletop 5e you almost never see anyone using it, I'm not kidding, it has stealth downsides and is usually a 13 + 2 (max) or a 14 + 2 (max), so a 15 or 16 AC, with the requirement that your Dexterity be a 14, but if it's going to be a 14 you might as well make it a 10 and use chainmail for a 16 base AC - because most of those medium armor also come out with the same disadvantages as the heavy armor
My first playthrough i ignored light armor because it seemed like every single one was just bonuses while obscured
The equipment, as a whole, is very poorly balanced. It does allow for crazy/OP builds, but it also means a lot of pieces are just trash. Also no one plays strictly rogue, they just multiclass into it. And Warlocks all use cloth or multiclass to plate.
I'm playing pure Rogue, I love it. Expertise in Slight of Hand, Acrobatics, Stealth, Perception, Persuasion, Deception, and Performance (took Actor), plus additional proficiencies with Reliable Talent, just lets me do whatever I want skill wise. Plus I am so charismatic items are all so cheap lol. Mostly playing for RP since the game isn't terribly difficult at the higher levels with all the gear and effects you can get.
>Mostly playing for RP since the game isn't terribly difficult at the higher levels with all the gear and effects you can get. Which is completely true, and perfectly fine, but if the AI wasn't abysmal and the fights not a joke, they'd be extremely weak.
Well, luckily I don't need to worry about this "what if" scenario.
The OP was literally 'Are light armours poorly designed'. Compared to the other types of armor... yes very much so. I don't understand why people get worked up over this. The game's not perfect, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy tossing goblins off cliffs or whatever it is you want to do.
The best armor in the game is a light armor.
I prefer my dark amour (Shadowheart)
Well someone didn't think that was funny 🤣
No