So confused with armor and weapons

[Dolyngwen]

Weapons....they all seem to have the same kinda stats but one is worth 2,000 gold and the other is worth 7,000 gold, stats are different but not that much. Thinking of just going with whatever weapon is the most expensive.

Armor...if you are a fighter and have low dex full pate is fine yes? Once I put full plate on and the game said something about missing out on my dex bonus. I understand that mages, priest, etc. pretty much never wear anything, although I put some light armor on my healer...does not seem to hurt his spell casting.

Sorry, game is just so complex for me and my mind is just starting to shut down :( I'm almost to Drezen on Normal so I guess I'm doing ok. I LOVE the story.

[Samhain34]

Normal is king and Normal is the way. The good news here is that when you're playing on Normal you don't need to truly optimize. I just choose for personal taste. Take the bonus that suits you more. Don't worry too much about that dex warning.

[Cpt_Weisemann]

Heavy armour for low dex, but if you are a fighter they have armour mastery feats that automatically reduces armour penalty as they level up. At lvl 19 you can get 5 or 6 dex bonus from full plate.

[There is no Mango]

Just take it slow and learn playing the game as challenging as you want it.

For armor as a new player myself, you get AC from your dexterity bonus, or your armor, and the higher the AC of your armor, the lower the effective dexterity bonus you can use (defined by the max dex of the armor).

Some feats can improve the max dex bonus of the armor you wear (Regill default build will use that).

And then armor will have arcane chance failure which means your spells can fail which you obviously don't want.

Arcane casters will usually use mage armor anyway, and a mythic feat makes it extremely good.

The one thing to learn that I found as a new player is which AC bonus are exclusive or can be used together, the exclamation marks on your character icon or equipment show that.
AC enhancements with the same adjective/descriptor don't stack.


As for weapons, with the high AC of enemies, you really want to maximise your hit chances before anything else in the beginning.

The higher the enchantment, the better, and them some descriptions (cold iron, adamantine) allow to bypass some damage resistance from the enemy.
Begin with these 2 aspects and then slowly you will get to master other stuff too.

Take it slow ! Game is full of bugs anyway for now so consider this one a (long) training run.

Don't hesitate to respec your character and when you get the hang of it, your companions.
Leave your companions on auto leveling in the beginning to learn how they level, then later you can adjust them yourself once you get the hang of it.

[Tyzer]

You want to use Heavy armor only for character with low DEX and with class features like armor training, except that it's much better to use no armor with mage armor buff and mythic mage armor feat, which gives you 10 armor on mythic lvl6 without any penalties on dex or another AC from stats.

The best tank here is character with 1 lvl in monk, which gives you + AC from CHA/WIS and buffed with mage armor and CHA/WIS buff. You also can get 1 lvl in oracle to have your AC bonus from CHA instead of DEX and then take monk scalefist to have you doubled CHA added to your AC.

[Flip]

A few points

Armor Class (AC) is how hard your character is to hit. The higher the AC the harder the character is to hit. In order to hit high AC characters you want to increase your attack bonus, this increases your chance to hit. All these bonus (AC and Attack Bonus) are added onto dice rolls.

There are a few different Armor Class sources, different sources can stack but the same type cannot. I.e you can have AC from Dodge, AC from Armor and AC from Natural Armor stack but 2 sources of AC from armor do not stack, only the highest is used.

AC from Armor - Typically you get this from Armor and Bracers as well as some spells (like Mage Armor)

AC from Enhancements - Can get these from + armor on magic armor or from other items like rings of protection.

AC from Dex - For each positive Dex modifier you can get + 1 AC. So 18 Dex would give you + 4 AC. However, the heaver armor you wear the less AC from Dex you can get. You can see on the Armor what the max Dex bonus is. So the heaviest armor its like Dex 2, which means any Dex over 12 doesn't provide any bonus while wearing that armor. Lighter armor allows a greater Dex bonus.

AC from Dodge - You can get Feats that provide Dodge AC. This AC bonus is lost if your character is flat footed (a condition you get if you are surprised in a fight, lasts for 1 round typically). I believe this can also be increased by defensive fighting mode (and enhanced with mobility feat).

AC from shield - You get these from shields and some spells (like shield).

AC from Natural Armor - Typically you can get these from amulets, this AC armor can stack ontop of regular armor AC. But two types of natural armor do not stack.

Characters also have a Touch AC that is generally much lower than regular AC. Spells typically use either melee or ranged touch attacks to hit so they will roll against Touch AC which is why it's easier to hit high AC enemies with these attacks.

Note on stacking that stats or Attack bonus also don't stack if they come from same sources.

As for price, sometime armor in addition to it's enhancement bonus also has other properties. The material it's made with like Mithril (lower spell cast failure, lighter), Adamantine (DR) etc as well as any additional effects. Right click to bring up the details.

If you go for heavy armor your character will be slower but better protected.

As for weapons you have the following that affect it

Base Damage: i.e 1D8 for a Longsword. That means it does 1-8 damage base.

Enhancement Bonus: Magic weapons like +3 longsword give enhancement bonus to attack (chance to hit) and damage.

Additional Damage: I.e 1D6 Fire = the weapon does + 1-6 additional damage as fire per hit. There can be other effects as well.

Material: I.e Cold Iron helps bypass Damage Resistance of certain enemies.

Other effects: Read the description to show what other effects the weapon has, i.e like a chance to stun on critical, or Keen Feat etc.