Uncapped AC Medium Armor is a little nutty

[Raw Master]

You could be a level 6 fighter walking into act 2, and just pick up uncapped dex armor from a shop, and your 20 dex (fighter gets a bonus perk at 6), would give you armor that is 2 AC higher than the special heavy armor you can get from the act 1 story. Eventually this would turn into 3 ac when you hit 22 dex from gear.

If you combine this with ranger knight in the late game, you can also end up with 2 extra resistances to elements and become a gigatank.

For those who don't know, apparently normally the most bonus from medium armor you can get in DND is +3 if you choose a special feat, in this game it is very easy to get +5, and even +6 if you have dex gear.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

One thing that is somewhat counterlogical is that boots, gauntlets and helmets do not add to AC by default. But I guess this is according to D&D rules.

It's not. Having gear slots at all is purely a Larian addition. A suit of full plate is just a suit of full plate armor - helmet, gauntlets, boots and all.

Normally you'd be limited to 3 powerful magical items by a mechanic called attunement. These can be worn anywhere on the body you could physically do so (even if it's a bit silly like wearing two capes and a hat with your full plate). This can be supplemented by any number of generally weaker items that don't require attunement.

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

Probably works as intended. Heavy armor is mainly a way to have characters with no or negative dexterity bonus, rather than for assuring highest possible AC.

Before you get into janky Larian homebrew magic items the basic idea is that light armor caps out at 17 AC, medium armor caps out at 17AC and heavy armor caps out at 18AC. Light armor will require 20dex (which is normally the cap) to achieve 17AC, medium will require 14dex and heavy armor will require 15str (though this circumvents most of its penalties rather than adding to the AC).

So heavy armor does ensure the highest possible AC, but penalises stealth.

The reason armor is so closely tuned in its benefit is to contribute towards the game's "bounded accuracy" design philosophy. This is absolutely not present in BG3 and leads to some... odd situations.

There's the odd feat that can interact with this, and let you get another point here and there (such as medium armor master), but they tend to be really expensive for what they do.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Black Magic:

Light Cleric with Medium Armor can reach 36 AC.

I haven't encountered this one, how does it work?

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron Raptor]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

It's not. Having gear slots at all is purely a Larian addition. A suit of full plate is just a suit of full plate armor - helmet, gauntlets, boots and all.

Normally you'd be limited to 3 powerful magical items by a mechanic called attunement. These can be worn anywhere on the body you could physically do so (even if it's a bit silly like wearing two capes and a hat with your full plate). This can be supplemented by any number of generally weaker items that don't require attunement.

Well not just Larian, gauntlets and boots are separate items in Baldurs Gate 1&2 as well.

But it is indeed more logical that if you got a full suit of armor, then that also takes up the slots for hands, feet and head as well. Though I suppose the D&D rules allow you to use those slots for separate items if you go unarmored or just have some kind of armored coat?

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Before you get into janky Larian homebrew magic items the basic idea is that light armor caps out at 17 AC, medium armor caps out at 17AC and heavy armor caps out at 18AC. Light armor will require 20dex (which is normally the cap) to achieve 17AC, medium will require 14dex and heavy armor will require 15str (though this circumvents most of its penalties rather than adding to the AC).

So heavy armor does ensure the highest possible AC, but penalises stealth.

The reason armor is so closely tuned in its benefit is to contribute towards the game's "bounded accuracy" design philosophy. This is absolutely not present in BG3 and leads to some... odd situations.

There's the odd feat that can interact with this, and let you get another point here and there (such as medium armor master), but they tend to be really expensive for what they do.

Guess that is perhaps more realistic, although the whole idea that heavy armor shuts down dexterity completely is in itself inaccurate. But I understand the reason behind it.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

Well not just Larian, gauntlets and boots are separate items in Baldurs Gate 1&2 as well.

I'm sure you're right. They weren't based on 5e (Fifth Edition rules) though anyway.

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

But it is indeed more logical that if you got a full suit of armor, then that also takes up the slots for hands, feet and head as well. Though I suppose the D&D rules allow you to use those slots for separate items if you go unarmored or just have some kind of armored coat?

It's just not covered in the rules. If you're wearing plate, you're wearing plate. If you get some boots of elvenkind and want to wear them, you just do and there's no mechanic for it. If your DM (Dungeon Master - the person who runs the game and oversees the rules) thinks it's appropriate you just handwave any issues away. You'll probably never meet a DM who does it any other way.

ETA: Just for fun, here's the text from the 5th ed. player's handbook for Plate armor:
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Armor#toc_3

Plate. Plate consists of shaped, interlocking metal plates to cover the entire body. A suit of plate includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and thick layers of padding underneath the armor. Buckles and straps distribute the weight over the body.

So, if the DM thinks you should (say) lose a point of AC for swapping out heavy leather boots for some magic leather boots you find, they technically could make an adjustment to your AC.

Like I say, I don't think anyone would ever do that though.

[Quillithe]

That's true, but I'm sure people would complain if BG 3 undid the separate armor slots of BG 1&2. Besides which there are magical items that go in the slots in 5E anyway so you kinda need them around.

[wendigo211]

There are two uncapped medium armors in BG3, one is the Yuan-Ti scale mail (AC 15+dex) you can buy from the Harper merchant in Act 2, the other is the Armor of Agility (AC 17+dex), I can't recall where I bought that one, but I think it was either the Harper merchant in Wyrm's Crossing or Dammon (Forge of the Nine) in the Lower City.

I've got a couple of AC 30+ characters in my party but the AI largely ignores them unless I send them in alone for the first round.

[OnlyOffensive]

Originally posted by Raw Master:

Originally posted by Morgian:

And even with AC 26 the enemy will hit you :)
Maybe less often, but you are far from invulnerable.

Depends, it helps a lot, but some enemies have higher accuracy, especially in tactition. Some spells also require saves from different stats, instead of armor (at least I think that's how they work). So they hit you if you don't roll good enough with your mental stats. This is why gnomes make surprisingly good tanks, since they have advantage on all mental saving throws. High dex and proficiency in it will also help for some spells.

Originally posted by Greb:

Yeah I noticed that too. I had myself a tank with a +1 Shield, Cloak of Protection, Ring of Protection, Adamant Splint armour and blah blah whatever, with the feat to reduce damage by -3 which stacked with the armours -2 so he had -5 damage from most mundane sources, which stacked really well with Stone Skin...I think he had something like 25 AC with all of that, something like that.

The enemies would just straight up ignore him and focus on easier targets, lol. I realise that Goad is a thing but enemies just save against it lol, and those Fighter gauntlets that give them a disadvantage against techniques is found in Act III which is rough going.

The biggest benefit it felt like he gained from all of that was being able to pretty much drop from 5 HP falls without taking any damage lol. Maybe even 10 HP falls if Stoneskin was active! :ImGhost:

Then along comes Astarion with his Armour of Agility and Medium Armour Feat and he's got like 22 AC or something now, and is more geared for straight up DPS than being a damage soaker. It's not fair!

Even some Medium Armours look more tanky than actual Heavy Armour lol, like the Half Plate or whatever which looks like a set of typical plate gear. What gives? Gah!

Are they even any Heavy boots or gauntlets in the game? I swear I haven't seen any, it's like the devs were afraid of having people feel left out so they just made everything Medium at most.

I'm definitely going to experiment with AC tank, I'm considering maybe going a gnome for advantage on mental saving throws, which helps against a lot of magic, as does dex actually, which is another advantage of dex tank.

For the issue of who they focus, I haven't had an issue yet, since I keep the health of my group fairly even and high. We will see if they change targets once my AC gets more pumped.

Yea enemies hit you... not like we have shield/blur/mirror image, divination wizard school which is absolute nuts, i mean sometimes they should hit you i guess

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

That's true, but I'm sure people would complain if BG 3 undid the separate armor slots of BG 1&2. Besides which there are magical items that go in the slots in 5E anyway so you kinda need them around.

Please don't get me wrong, I think the slot system is fine! Of all the (many) changes made, this one is one of the most readily explainable and justifiable. A few of them (genuinely a few, the ones that break any semblance of balance) are... less of a hit with me, let's say.

I was just pointing out that these systems aren't taken from D&D rules.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

That's true, but I'm sure people would complain if BG 3 undid the separate armor slots of BG 1&2. Besides which there are magical items that go in the slots in 5E anyway so you kinda need them around.

Please don't get me wrong, I think the slot system is fine! Of all the (many) changes made, this one is one of the most readily explainable and justifiable. A few of them (genuinely a few, the ones that break any semblance of balance) are... less of a hit with me, let's say.

I was just pointing out that these systems aren't taken from D&D rules.

That's fair - that basically helmets don't have armor not because they specifically don't in D&D but because they don't really exist separately at all non-magically.

[Fringehunter7719]

Exactly.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron Raptor]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

Well not just Larian, gauntlets and boots are separate items in Baldurs Gate 1&2 as well.

I'm sure you're right. They weren't based on 5e (Fifth Edition rules) though anyway.

Originally posted by Galvanized Iron:

But it is indeed more logical that if you got a full suit of armor, then that also takes up the slots for hands, feet and head as well. Though I suppose the D&D rules allow you to use those slots for separate items if you go unarmored or just have some kind of armored coat?

It's just not covered in the rules. If you're wearing plate, you're wearing plate. If you get some boots of elvenkind and want to wear them, you just do and there's no mechanic for it. If your DM (Dungeon Master - the person who runs the game and oversees the rules) thinks it's appropriate you just handwave any issues away. You'll probably never meet a DM who does it any other way.

ETA: Just for fun, here's the text from the 5th ed. player's handbook for Plate armor:
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Armor#toc_3

Plate. Plate consists of shaped, interlocking metal plates to cover the entire body. A suit of plate includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and thick layers of padding underneath the armor. Buckles and straps distribute the weight over the body.

So, if the DM thinks you should (say) lose a point of AC for swapping out heavy leather boots for some magic leather boots you find, they technically could make an adjustment to your AC.

Like I say, I don't think anyone would ever do that though.

Interesting, thanks!