Should Elven Chain armor have the "exotic materials" effect for no AC penalty?

[Just Another Gamer]

Just a quick thought. Eleven Chainmail has a always been a popular choice for spellcasters; great defense while not interfering with casting. As a bonus, no proficiency required!

They get most of this in BG3 except that, as medium armor, it limits you to +2AC from dex bonus. The description matches that idea well: "The weight of the interwoven steel rings is offset by clever elven craftsmanship - rustling against your undershirt, the mail feels like you're wearing a cloud."

Giving Elven Chain the "Exotic Materials" effect such that you can get your max AC bonus from dexterity seems sensible based on its typical premise and also the mithral chain from LOTR that helped to inspire it.

Still seems a little too weighty at 18 pounds but that's a lesser quibble.

Thoughts? Thank you.

[WuTaNiSt]

No. You're already getting medium armour protection without needing proficiency & without impacting spellcasting - that's already great news for a squishy. Give it uncapped dex to AC & it becomes a complete no-brainer & pretty much outright best in slot for rogues not getting proficiency from a multiclass.

Also on a practical level a non-metagamey caster probably wouldn't make best use of uncapped dex anyway - if you're pumping your casting stat to 20 & con to 14 or 16 you're not likely to have a sky-high dex anyway. You could toss them the gauntlets but at that point you're investing pretty heavily in making it work.

[Oozy Monster]

Originally posted by Just Another Gamer:

Just a quick thought. Eleven Chainmail has a always been a popular choice for spellcasters; great defense while not interfering with casting. As a bonus, no proficiency required!

They get most of this in BG3 except that, as medium armor, it limits you to +2AC from dex bonus. The description matches that idea well: "The weight of the interwoven steel rings is offset by clever elven craftsmanship - rustling against your undershirt, the mail feels like you're wearing a cloud."

Giving Elven Chain the "Exotic Materials" effect such that you can get your max AC bonus from dexterity seems sensible based on its typical premise and also the mithral chain from LOTR that helped to inspire it.

Still seems a little too weighty at 18 pounds but that's a lesser quibble.

Thoughts? Thank you.

I was also disappointed that it didn't have the same exotic materials feature of the other medium armors. It's not all bad, though. It gives advantage to dex saves and a +2 to initiative, so it's still good if you're not getting the alertness feat and want to a better placement in turn order. And it isn't terribly expensive, so I usually find it worthwhile to pick up early in Act 3 for Gale or Wyll while I hoard the good stuff.