Dexterity, Heavy armor, How it work?

[9th_Rodriges]

How does the Armor Class Bonus from Dexterity work when wearing heavy armor? Does it make sense to raise dexterity above 10 if your warrior/paladin will wear heavy armor?

[ExcaliburV]

Light Armor: You get your dex bonus, no cap.
Medium Armor: You get your dex bonus to a maximum of +2
Heavy armor: You do not get your dex bonus at all.
Shields: +2 on top of whatever your AC is.

Originally posted by 9th_Rodriges:

Does it make sense to raise dexterity above 10 if your warrior/paladin will wear heavy armor?

Yes and no. For purely AC purposes, maybe not. But good heavy armor is expensive and you probably won't get full plate until the mid-early game. So having some dex for the medium armor you'll have to start with could be good foresight. On top of that, Dexterity also determines your initiative bonus and adds to a lot of skills.

You can get away with a 10 dex, but having a 12 or 14 if you can afford it isn't a bad call either.

[Gaius]

No.

Heavy armor doesn't receibe bonus from STR.

Medium armor receive up to +2 (meaning dex 14 is still useful).

Light armor and robes receive bull DEX bonus.

[Rhawkas]

The only reason you would increase your dex as a heavy armor fighter/cleric/paladin is if you had nothing else to increase instead and wanted to try and boost your initiative bonus and attacks with dex weapons.

[Farsha]

Usually if you go heavy armor Dex becomes your dump stat.
Lot of classes need 2 high stats and at least 14con.
So dumping Dex to 8 really helps that.
STR paladin for example you usually want max STR at least 16 CHAR and 14 CON.
That means dumping 2 stats to 8. Usually DEX and INT.

[9th_Rodriges]

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

Light Armor: You get your dex bonus, no cap.
Medium Armor: You get your dex bonus to a maximum of +2
Heavy armor: You do not get your dex bonus at all.
Shields: +2 on top of whatever your AC is.

Originally posted by 9th_Rodriges:

Does it make sense to raise dexterity above 10 if your warrior/paladin will wear heavy armor?

Yes and no. For purely AC purposes, maybe not. But good heavy armor is expensive and you probably won't get full plate until the mid-early game. So having some dex for the medium armor you'll have to start with could be good foresight. On top of that, Dexterity also determines your initiative bonus and adds to a lot of skills.

You can get away with a 10 dex, but having a 12 or 14 if you can afford it isn't a bad call either.

Thanks for the reply.
I understand that heavy armor is good, it will appear a little later. But I'm not in a hurry.
The character is supposed to have a shield and some kind of mace or other weapon that works on the strength.

[Zaris]

Not clear now. Normal heavy armors have no dex bonus but depending on the developer there will be maybe unique / rare armors later on with 1-2 dex bonus (Icewind Dale 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Solasta - some or all of them had that).

[Meowella]

Unlike tabletop, the fact that you have both a melee and a ranged equipped at all times means you might consider having a Dex on a Fighter (no warriors in this game anymore) if they're not handling skills.

You want someone to handle Dex, Int, Wis and Cha skills with a 16 in the stat for best chances - Rogues or Rangers can handle both Dex and another stat (for rangers it'd be wisdom) so 3 chars cover 4 skill groups for you. This means your Fighter is free to have Str 16 Dex 16 Con 14 and be equally adept with a polearm or a bow).

[Farsha]

Originally posted by Zaris:

Not clear now. Normal heavy armors have no dex bonus but depending on the developer there will be maybe unique / rare armors later on with 1-2 dex bonus (Icewind Dale 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Solasta - some or all of them had that).

Main thing of heavy armor is, if you dump your DEX, you are not getting minus to AC.
Unless the armor as you say is not really special and gives you some other great advantage.
Lot of hybrid characters can't really afford bot STR and DEX in 14-16 range as they need some other stat to work well.

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by Meowella:

Unlike tabletop, the fact that you have both a melee and a ranged equipped at all times means you might consider having a Dex on a Fighter (no warriors in this game anymore) if they're not handling skills.

You want someone to handle Dex, Int, Wis and Cha skills with a 16 in the stat for best chances - Rogues or Rangers can handle both Dex and another stat (for rangers it'd be wisdom) so 3 chars cover 4 skill groups for you. This means your Fighter is free to have Str 16 Dex 16 Con 14 and be equally adept with a polearm or a bow).

Skills aside, you also generally want your warriors to have decent saves. I wouldn't want a fighter with 8 wis. I'd much rather just use throwing weapons and stick to strength.