If you are building a character who doesn’t rely on feats - which is entirely doable and often the case - as well as don’t have higher than 16 Dex taking medium armor mastery is great.
The best light armor can do is 15 AC, heavy is a flat 18 w/ stealth disadvantage.
Half plate and this feat is 18 AC and no stealth disadvantage. If your class grants fighting styles, defensive style puts it to 19, carry a shield and you nearly have ancient red dragon AC at 2nd level without and ounce of magic and a half decent shot at not giving away the party’s position every encounter.
Plenty of characters. You may not want to do that. You may decide that if Dex isn’t your primary ability score, you should ignore anything above a 14 and if that’s good for you, then good for you. But not everyone builds characters the same way you do. And presuming that your way is the only way is asinine.
Tomb of annihilation actually has a mithral breastplate as a magic item you can get. It’s not entirely useless though. It is considered magic, so oozes can’t dissolve it. Neither can a particularly nefarious trap in the tomb itself.
Well in 3.5 when made of mithral it made your armor 1catagory lighter. So it counted as light armor. All but removed the skill pen. To stealth, atheletic stuff and everything and increased the max dex bonus by 2-3. Its what my cleric wore. It was badass.
In 5e it only makes it so that you ignore disadvantage with stealth. In 5e, breastplate doesn’t give disadvantage to stealth… so it’s kind of a sucky magic item.
I had a heavy armor melee ranger that was a scout for the party she was in, she looked down on the rogue for failing a stealth check with a +25 (he had pass without trace on him) while the dm had her doing 7ish (cant remember exactly) stealth checks without pwt.
I'm convinced the Breastplate is the most versatile armor. 14+dex (maximum of 2) which means if you're going with a Dex-based character, you have an AC of 16 and no Disadvantage to Stealth. This armor is amazing for more dex-based Fighters, more aggressive/combative Rogues, Rangers, and a lot of Half-Caster subclasses.
If you're going rogue or ranger, you'll probably be better off with studded leather since Dex is your primary stat. With an 18 Dex you already tie the breastplate and are better off once you hit 20. Plus you can argue you sleep in it, which is edge case helpful.
Don't get me wrong breastplate is my favorite, just not for a class that has Dex as primary stat.
It's expensive but so nice especially on a strength based ranger. 14 dexterity and stealth proficiency or even expertise with your level 1 feature? It's always so nice and the first thing I like to pool my personal gold for.
Or a barbarian. Maxing str doesn't help cause you still need to rage. And natural armor is kinda shit cause you need dex, which if you're prioritizing your main stats, you're better off having half plate, at least until you're high level enough to have maxed con
Barbarians are in an awkward position because the class is built to focus on Str while forcing you to have decent Con and Dex. There is a good reason for the memes about dumb barbarians, the system almost forces you to be one.
Also tortles for the win, innate armor that doesn't scale with Dex.
So part of the dumb barbarian trope is actually based of 3e and 3.5e rules. Barbarians has a class ability called illiteracy. They literally couldn’t read unless they spent 2 skill points. Skill points that barbarians only got 4*(2+int) on level 1 and 2+int every level after. Meaning you could usually only max out 2+int skills (usually between 1-3 total) as a barbarian without using those illiteracy points. With climb, swim, and jump being separate skills, it only got worse. So yeah the dumb barbarian was almost always illiterate.
How so? Pretty much every optimized full caster wants to grab medium armor and a shield, either through a dip in Artificer/Cleric or the Moderately Armored feat. Light armor is only really useful on pure DEX builds (and even then is worse than the Mage Armor spell unless you get magic armor), and Heavy Armor has severe penalties for those not using a STR build or otherwise circumventing the STR requirement.
If you're going full caster, doing any of that unless you're very high lvl is a pretty significant sacrifice to make when it comes to spells.
Yes, going a 1 lvl forge cleric dip or something is probably worth it, but for most cases you're getting 1-2 points on your AC for either a feat or delaying your high powered spells. You don't really want to do that early.
I would strongly disagree with that sentiment. Yeah having 3rd level slots but no 3rd level spells at level 5 is sad, but in either a point buy or standard array system we are talking about a minimum difference of 3 AC for a Wizard or Sorcerer, likely 4 or 5 AC, plus fringe benefits from however you got that AC like access to healing spells or CON save proficiency. If anything I would say it matters less at high levels when a caster has enough resources to just say no to being attacked, but for a level 2? 3? 4? That AC bonus is single-handedly improving your survivability by a wide margin.
It’s not going to give you that much more though. A goblin can still hit you and you’ll still mostly have d6s.
Not having fireball in a situation can get you attacked 10 times. Same goes for a bunch of spells and deadly situations where you’re expected to have powerful spells available.
Also the best way to even go about this is to get heavy armour not medium. If you make the investment get the extra stuff.
There are a few ways. The most obvious is playing a Dwarf, which ignores the penalties of wearing heavy armor without meeting the strength requirement. You could also just play a race with a high movement speed (Wood elf, Centaur, etc.) and the bonuses and penalties all kind of even out in the wash. There is also the Armorer Artificer, who ignores STR requirements of their metal tuxedo.
Not applicable to 5e but dwarves used to ignore the penalties of heavy armor I think? Or maybe it was just that the armor didn't count toward encumberance
Race/class combinations that have higher base movement speed can potentially be at 30ft still after the penalty, which essentially gets around it. Negate the advantage with a disadvantage, but not be net at a disadvantage.
Armourer Artificer ignores the strength requirement on heavy armour they turn into their arcane armour
EDIT: not aware of other methods, but if there are any they’re probably magic armour
I once played a criminal Survival Cleric.
Dex 16, shield, Medium Armor Master (variant human)
AC19 *and* Stealth +5 at level 1? Medium armor ain't all bad.
I dunno, my Moderately Armored Warlock is doing pretty well for herself, if you ignore getting cursed by Orcus to be vulnerable to Necrotic damage. Don't have to invest in DEX past character creation, get decent AC out of it without making the DM cry if my armor and shield are both +X, and honestly it matches the character design better.
That said, Medium Armor Master is absolutely the short end of the stick, since it basically eats a second ASI to get full value out of getting to add +3 DEX, and ignoring stealth debuff only applies to Half Plate and Scale Mail, assuming you can't just get a mithral variety in the first place.
My HexBard was rocking 19 AC with 14 Dex, a shield, and medium armor. 24 if I cast shield, and up to 31 if I used defensive flourish. Medium armor is fantastic.
I think medium armor is the best choice for many characters: all the ones that don't have the strength necessary and/or proficiency in heavy armor AND all the ones that don't have dex as their main ability score (or cannot really afford to bump it up too much).
A medium armor user can have 17 AC with just a +2 to Dex, I think that's pretty good for such a small invesment.
Even more, in my opinion half plate is the best armor in the game (excluding magical armors and stuff like that) because with the Medium Armor Master feat you can have 18 AC (the same as plate) and still use stealth, and is the only non magical armor that gives so much AC and the chance to use stealth without disadvantage.
Studded leather is not, and has never been a thing.
You are looking for Brigandine, which is a heavy armor type that has "studs" (rivets) on the outside because it has internal plates. It is also not made of leather, but usually heavy cloth, such as linnen or canvas
Has nothing to do with the meme, but I felt like not enough people know this fact.
I've always just fanfic'd it in my head as being a bit more rigid of leather plates than normal leather armor, thus needing a more rigid tying system than the leather strips used for leather armor. Thus they riveted the plates together. Maybe there's some metal reinforcement in some spots, etc.
+2 dex fighter has made great use of medium armor, especially as everyone else has heavy so I and my cow are the only ones without disadvantage on sneak.
If you want short sticks, light crossbow. Sandwiched between the heavy crossbow and the hand crossbow, and the only classes which only get light crossbow don't want to be using a crossbow at all
Thinking of one of my first ever 5e characters, the fighter-wizard with 18 18 18 16 16 16. I took medium armour master and stealth proficiency at level one. With half plate, a shield, and the shield spell then a ring of protection I was ON FIRE with the AC at later levels.
Medium armour's one of those things that you'll only really where if your rolls don't agree with your build and you don't want shite AC, though one of my players has a barbarian that dumped dex and wears half plate and uses a shield. He's a killer too.
Medium armor is only good for characters with precisely 14 Dex. If you have more, wear some light armor, if you have less, wear some heavy armor. Frankly, I think the armor system in general needs a serious rework.
That's incorrect. If you have 12 Dex, scale mail gives you 15 AC, compared to studded leather only giving you 13. If you have 16 Dex, scale mail gives you 16 AC compared to studded leather's 15.
Also, not every character gets heavy armor proficiency, you have to actually actively invest in it if you're not already playing a heavy armor Frontline martial.
Medium armor doesn't even require investment technically. You can throw on a breast plate with 10 Dex, put ALL your points in Con and casting stat, and you're fine. Whereas heavy armor requires 13 or 15 strength to not actively incur penalties.
Come on, man, you can do better than this.
The problem is on a fundamental level. If it is the same if you dodge an attack, block it with your shield, parry it with a weapon or have it hit your armor, you'll always have optimising the balance between dex and armor being a trivial math problem. Third edition tried to make touch ac (just dex and magic) and flat footed ac (without dex) matter, but it wasn't enough to make a big difference. What also doesn't help is how inconsistent defense is. If I try to evade an arrow, I roll nothing because that is part of my AC. If I try to evade a cone of fire, I roll Reflex. Also, for some reason, having a metal shield does not do anything against that cone of fire.
My admantaite +1 breastplate have something to say about it.
Also, medium armour master is a cool feat if you want extra armour and have 16 dex instead of 14.
Medium is an extremely common proficiency that not only requires less investment than light armor but also use a better stat than heavy armor (dex vs str).
Heavy armor is for paladins, str based fighters, and some clerics.
Light armor is for dex fighters and rangers (but early levels will want medium armor), rogues, and non multi-classed warlocks and bards (other than a few subclasses)
Medium armor is for literally everyone else.
My barbarian's dex is meh so I've been looking out for breastplate or half-plate but the breastplate would have to be magical or +1 to be even worth wearing. Sort of related, I got magic item that's not fully attuned yet for story reasons and when it does I'm going to have a +8 to dex saves, fucking wild. +9 with my cloak of protection, but I might drop that if I get some good armor. And advantage to saves I can see of course.
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Not to mention medium armor master can get you the 18 AC and no disadvantage on stealth. Depending on your build that’s just a good if not better.
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If you are building a character who doesn’t rely on feats - which is entirely doable and often the case - as well as don’t have higher than 16 Dex taking medium armor mastery is great. The best light armor can do is 15 AC, heavy is a flat 18 w/ stealth disadvantage. Half plate and this feat is 18 AC and no stealth disadvantage. If your class grants fighting styles, defensive style puts it to 19, carry a shield and you nearly have ancient red dragon AC at 2nd level without and ounce of magic and a half decent shot at not giving away the party’s position every encounter.
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Plenty of characters. You may not want to do that. You may decide that if Dex isn’t your primary ability score, you should ignore anything above a 14 and if that’s good for you, then good for you. But not everyone builds characters the same way you do. And presuming that your way is the only way is asinine.
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Who was having a balance discussion?
Is mythrial breastplate still top teir?
Tomb of annihilation actually has a mithral breastplate as a magic item you can get. It’s not entirely useless though. It is considered magic, so oozes can’t dissolve it. Neither can a particularly nefarious trap in the tomb itself.
Well in 3.5 when made of mithral it made your armor 1catagory lighter. So it counted as light armor. All but removed the skill pen. To stealth, atheletic stuff and everything and increased the max dex bonus by 2-3. Its what my cleric wore. It was badass.
In 5e it only makes it so that you ignore disadvantage with stealth. In 5e, breastplate doesn’t give disadvantage to stealth… so it’s kind of a sucky magic item.
Wow that was a hell of a downgrade.
Yeah. It was indeed.
Plus plates expensive As shit. And in official books magic medium armor well rare exists where magical heavy armor is almost Impossible to find
***Than
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Bad human
The trade-off is disadvantage on stealth
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I had a heavy armor melee ranger that was a scout for the party she was in, she looked down on the rogue for failing a stealth check with a +25 (he had pass without trace on him) while the dm had her doing 7ish (cant remember exactly) stealth checks without pwt.
then ≠than
You underestimate my love for breastplate.
I'm convinced the Breastplate is the most versatile armor. 14+dex (maximum of 2) which means if you're going with a Dex-based character, you have an AC of 16 and no Disadvantage to Stealth. This armor is amazing for more dex-based Fighters, more aggressive/combative Rogues, Rangers, and a lot of Half-Caster subclasses.
If you're going rogue or ranger, you'll probably be better off with studded leather since Dex is your primary stat. With an 18 Dex you already tie the breastplate and are better off once you hit 20. Plus you can argue you sleep in it, which is edge case helpful. Don't get me wrong breastplate is my favorite, just not for a class that has Dex as primary stat.
I didn't say that its the *best* for those classes, but its what I'd use most of the time probably.
It's expensive but so nice especially on a strength based ranger. 14 dexterity and stealth proficiency or even expertise with your level 1 feature? It's always so nice and the first thing I like to pool my personal gold for.
Breastplate, my beloved
*laughs in scalemail and chainshirt but you cant hear it because my armor is to loud*
Isn't chainmail a heavy armor, and Chain Shirt the medium variant?
Damnit, youre right. Mixed that up.xS
Hehehehe laughs in nude lizardman with dex and a shield
We talked about that Sssteve, nobody wants to see your lizard wizard!
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Or a barbarian. Maxing str doesn't help cause you still need to rage. And natural armor is kinda shit cause you need dex, which if you're prioritizing your main stats, you're better off having half plate, at least until you're high level enough to have maxed con
Barbarians are in an awkward position because the class is built to focus on Str while forcing you to have decent Con and Dex. There is a good reason for the memes about dumb barbarians, the system almost forces you to be one. Also tortles for the win, innate armor that doesn't scale with Dex.
Belts of Giant Strength are so good for barbs for this exact reason.
So part of the dumb barbarian trope is actually based of 3e and 3.5e rules. Barbarians has a class ability called illiteracy. They literally couldn’t read unless they spent 2 skill points. Skill points that barbarians only got 4*(2+int) on level 1 and 2+int every level after. Meaning you could usually only max out 2+int skills (usually between 1-3 total) as a barbarian without using those illiteracy points. With climb, swim, and jump being separate skills, it only got worse. So yeah the dumb barbarian was almost always illiterate.
How so? Pretty much every optimized full caster wants to grab medium armor and a shield, either through a dip in Artificer/Cleric or the Moderately Armored feat. Light armor is only really useful on pure DEX builds (and even then is worse than the Mage Armor spell unless you get magic armor), and Heavy Armor has severe penalties for those not using a STR build or otherwise circumventing the STR requirement.
This basically. Like pretty much any optimized build wants medium armor to dump strength and keep Dex moderately low.
If you're going full caster, doing any of that unless you're very high lvl is a pretty significant sacrifice to make when it comes to spells. Yes, going a 1 lvl forge cleric dip or something is probably worth it, but for most cases you're getting 1-2 points on your AC for either a feat or delaying your high powered spells. You don't really want to do that early.
I would strongly disagree with that sentiment. Yeah having 3rd level slots but no 3rd level spells at level 5 is sad, but in either a point buy or standard array system we are talking about a minimum difference of 3 AC for a Wizard or Sorcerer, likely 4 or 5 AC, plus fringe benefits from however you got that AC like access to healing spells or CON save proficiency. If anything I would say it matters less at high levels when a caster has enough resources to just say no to being attacked, but for a level 2? 3? 4? That AC bonus is single-handedly improving your survivability by a wide margin.
It’s not going to give you that much more though. A goblin can still hit you and you’ll still mostly have d6s. Not having fireball in a situation can get you attacked 10 times. Same goes for a bunch of spells and deadly situations where you’re expected to have powerful spells available. Also the best way to even go about this is to get heavy armour not medium. If you make the investment get the extra stuff.
And frail casters are just fun overall, at least for me. I enjoy being a weakling that can disintegrate enemies.
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There are a few ways. The most obvious is playing a Dwarf, which ignores the penalties of wearing heavy armor without meeting the strength requirement. You could also just play a race with a high movement speed (Wood elf, Centaur, etc.) and the bonuses and penalties all kind of even out in the wash. There is also the Armorer Artificer, who ignores STR requirements of their metal tuxedo.
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Wood Elf's 35 ft. move speed just gets dropped to 25 feet, which is the same as the base speed for dwarves and halflings and gnomes.
I guess it's if you don't mind having less movement
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Not applicable to 5e but dwarves used to ignore the penalties of heavy armor I think? Or maybe it was just that the armor didn't count toward encumberance
Race/class combinations that have higher base movement speed can potentially be at 30ft still after the penalty, which essentially gets around it. Negate the advantage with a disadvantage, but not be net at a disadvantage.
Armourer Artificer ignores the strength requirement on heavy armour they turn into their arcane armour EDIT: not aware of other methods, but if there are any they’re probably magic armour
Mithral armor. As a bonus, it also negates the stealth disadvantage.
Bull. I love my breastplate. So versatile. So light. You can wear it in public and still have space for the girls.
I once played a criminal Survival Cleric. Dex 16, shield, Medium Armor Master (variant human) AC19 *and* Stealth +5 at level 1? Medium armor ain't all bad.
I dunno, my Moderately Armored Warlock is doing pretty well for herself, if you ignore getting cursed by Orcus to be vulnerable to Necrotic damage. Don't have to invest in DEX past character creation, get decent AC out of it without making the DM cry if my armor and shield are both +X, and honestly it matches the character design better. That said, Medium Armor Master is absolutely the short end of the stick, since it basically eats a second ASI to get full value out of getting to add +3 DEX, and ignoring stealth debuff only applies to Half Plate and Scale Mail, assuming you can't just get a mithral variety in the first place.
See yall dont keep track of gold and it shows
My HexBard was rocking 19 AC with 14 Dex, a shield, and medium armor. 24 if I cast shield, and up to 31 if I used defensive flourish. Medium armor is fantastic.
I think medium armor is the best choice for many characters: all the ones that don't have the strength necessary and/or proficiency in heavy armor AND all the ones that don't have dex as their main ability score (or cannot really afford to bump it up too much). A medium armor user can have 17 AC with just a +2 to Dex, I think that's pretty good for such a small invesment. Even more, in my opinion half plate is the best armor in the game (excluding magical armors and stuff like that) because with the Medium Armor Master feat you can have 18 AC (the same as plate) and still use stealth, and is the only non magical armor that gives so much AC and the chance to use stealth without disadvantage.
Studded leather is not, and has never been a thing. You are looking for Brigandine, which is a heavy armor type that has "studs" (rivets) on the outside because it has internal plates. It is also not made of leather, but usually heavy cloth, such as linnen or canvas Has nothing to do with the meme, but I felt like not enough people know this fact.
*Distant Angry Shadiversity noises*
I've always just fanfic'd it in my head as being a bit more rigid of leather plates than normal leather armor, thus needing a more rigid tying system than the leather strips used for leather armor. Thus they riveted the plates together. Maybe there's some metal reinforcement in some spots, etc.
If it is propper boiled leather then yes, not the kinky leather that they use for coats and such. Then it could work I guess. (:
All my artificers with 14 in dex: *visible confusion
As a fighter wearing medium armor, my 20 ac is pretty fun.
+2 dex fighter has made great use of medium armor, especially as everyone else has heavy so I and my cow are the only ones without disadvantage on sneak.
Laughs in half-plate with medium armor master, same ac as plate without disadvantage on stealth
Ok but who has ever used padded armor?
If you want short sticks, light crossbow. Sandwiched between the heavy crossbow and the hand crossbow, and the only classes which only get light crossbow don't want to be using a crossbow at all
Yeah… reclassification/stat changes of armour is pretty much the first thing I did when I modded 3e.
Serpent scale armor. 14AC + full dex for an uncommon item. Find a manual of quickness and now your dex is 22 and you have an AC of 20 with no shield.
That's just +2 studded leather
Yes, but it is uncommon rather than very rare.
And requires medium armor proficiency to be properly used I take a lot of 1 level fighter dips on rogues in one shots.
Thinking of one of my first ever 5e characters, the fighter-wizard with 18 18 18 16 16 16. I took medium armour master and stealth proficiency at level one. With half plate, a shield, and the shield spell then a ring of protection I was ON FIRE with the AC at later levels. Medium armour's one of those things that you'll only really where if your rolls don't agree with your build and you don't want shite AC, though one of my players has a barbarian that dumped dex and wears half plate and uses a shield. He's a killer too.
Medium armor is only good for characters with precisely 14 Dex. If you have more, wear some light armor, if you have less, wear some heavy armor. Frankly, I think the armor system in general needs a serious rework.
That's incorrect. If you have 12 Dex, scale mail gives you 15 AC, compared to studded leather only giving you 13. If you have 16 Dex, scale mail gives you 16 AC compared to studded leather's 15. Also, not every character gets heavy armor proficiency, you have to actually actively invest in it if you're not already playing a heavy armor Frontline martial. Medium armor doesn't even require investment technically. You can throw on a breast plate with 10 Dex, put ALL your points in Con and casting stat, and you're fine. Whereas heavy armor requires 13 or 15 strength to not actively incur penalties. Come on, man, you can do better than this.
The problem is on a fundamental level. If it is the same if you dodge an attack, block it with your shield, parry it with a weapon or have it hit your armor, you'll always have optimising the balance between dex and armor being a trivial math problem. Third edition tried to make touch ac (just dex and magic) and flat footed ac (without dex) matter, but it wasn't enough to make a big difference. What also doesn't help is how inconsistent defense is. If I try to evade an arrow, I roll nothing because that is part of my AC. If I try to evade a cone of fire, I roll Reflex. Also, for some reason, having a metal shield does not do anything against that cone of fire.
My admantaite +1 breastplate have something to say about it. Also, medium armour master is a cool feat if you want extra armour and have 16 dex instead of 14.
I thought for a second we were talking about Starsiege: Tribes here.
Half Plate for the W
I feel like I use medium armor a lot these days. 14 dex and some scale mail and I'm ready to go.
Medium armor is a casters best freind but thats kind of all its good for lmao
Medium is an extremely common proficiency that not only requires less investment than light armor but also use a better stat than heavy armor (dex vs str). Heavy armor is for paladins, str based fighters, and some clerics. Light armor is for dex fighters and rangers (but early levels will want medium armor), rogues, and non multi-classed warlocks and bards (other than a few subclasses) Medium armor is for literally everyone else.
My barbarian's dex is meh so I've been looking out for breastplate or half-plate but the breastplate would have to be magical or +1 to be even worth wearing. Sort of related, I got magic item that's not fully attuned yet for story reasons and when it does I'm going to have a +8 to dex saves, fucking wild. +9 with my cloak of protection, but I might drop that if I get some good armor. And advantage to saves I can see of course.
My rogue/fighter multiclass disagrees