Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 josh-hill May 08, 2010 9:34:31	i want to build a few things. namely a barbarian that wears no armor and a rouge / fighter that wears little. the barbarian dosnt wear any for flavor and the rouge cant because it affects his disable device check. thing is i dont want to let the team down with a rubish build. can barbarians survive without armour? how should i build him?
#2 Centauri May 08, 2010 9:42:56	As long as you take all the mechanical and in-game penalties associated with the armor and people who look at him can tell he's a tough to hit as if he were wearing armor, then you should be allowed to describe him as not really wearing armor.
#3 kuonji May 08, 2010 10:40:48	i want to build a few things. namely a barbarian that wears no armor and a rouge / fighter that wears little. the barbarian dosnt wear any for flavor and the rouge cant because it affects his disable device check. thing is i dont want to let the team down with a rubish build. can barbarians survive without armour? how should i build him? The mention of Disable Device leads me to believe you are playing 3rd/3.5.  If this is incorrect then disregard my advice. Armor check penalty does not apply to Disable Device.  Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble are however modified.  If DD is your only concern, don't sweat the armor issue for the fighter/rogue.  Honestly though, with leather armor you have no penalty and even with a Chain Shirt you are only at -2 (eventually -1 with masterwork/magical armor).  Since a rogue is generally a high Dex class, you will get more benefit from light armor anyway since it won't limit your Dex modifier as applied to AC. What flavor are you considering for your barbarian?  I'm curious as to his background. For both options you can fix the armor issue somewhat with magic items.  This however takes time and money to get all the necessary items.  Bracers of armor, ring of protection, etc, can get you to an ok level of AC.
#4 josh-hill May 08, 2010 11:24:07	im playing pathfinder wich is essentialy 3.5. thanks for the help with the rouge. i made him a low dex build as i had to share out the points so much. i think chainmail will suit him fine. hes sort of a mechanicaly minded enginer that is great with traps / locks but isnt particulary dexterous and sacrifices his sneak attacks for brute power. there is also a sneaky halfling rouge so he needs to be good at fighting. the barbarian is based off of the miniture im using for him www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/goldar/lat... hes from a tribe of human barbarians. you can see he is wearing a little armor but none of the ones in the book just dont suit him. i might see if i can get him some magic amulets and bracers though.
#5 kuonji May 08, 2010 12:19:46	I'd say you could easily call what the barbarian is wearing medium armor and not worry about it at all.
#6 Macarius May 08, 2010 17:38:50	If you are playing pathfinder, then you are seriously posting in the wrong forum.
#7 Mad_Jack May 10, 2010 2:14:57	I'd say you could easily call what the barbarian is wearing medium armor and not worry about it at all. Agreed. He's wearing a heavy shoulder plate, chest straps, bracers, greaves and thick fur/leather skirt...I'd say it adds up to at least hide armor.  As far back as 1st Ed., both as a DM and player, I've been using what I call the "Fluff Armor equation" with my (or my players') characters... It's basically a loose set of guidelines for placing where the line of believability is drawn as far as a character's visual image differing from the in-game gear listed on their character sheet. -If they're basically naked, but they have some sort of leather gear,i.e, leather bikini or codpiece = leather armor -If they have anything leather even vaguely resembling armor on (single pauldron, bracers, one greave, etc.) = hide armor -If their outfit contains at least a vague amount of chainmail (chainmail bikini, one chainmail sleeve, etc.) = chain shirt -Any actual functional chainmail (chain half-shirt, chain skirt, or two chainmail sleeves...) = chainmail -If their outfit contains at least a metal plate or two (metal pauldron, bracers and greaves, some bit of scale armor) = scale armor -Several metal plates or a plate somewhere on the torso (bracers/greaves and a pauldron, gorget/helmet and codpiece) = half plate -Anything actually resembling functional metal armor on the torso (i.e., a breastplate, gorget and girdle/codpiece, whatever) = plate As an example, my 4E ranger is wearing hide armor on her character sheet, but what she wears in-game is really barely leather armor - she's dressed more like a cowboy wearing a cloak instead of a duster. Although they're not really "armor" per se, she's wearing bracers and boots, and has leather pads running down the front of her thighs from her belt and tied to her legs like a gunslinger's holsters, to which are strapped six of her handaxes so she can Quickdraw them. Her only "real" armor is basically a light leather breastplate, like the top half of the  Xena, Warrior Princess outfit, worn over regular shirt and soft leather breeches. I'm perfectly comfortable calling her outfit "hide armor" on my character sheet. As far as the Pathfinder fighter/rogue is concerned, I wouldn't worry about it too much - if he's mainly taking rogue levels for the non-Dex skills, armor's not going to hurt him at all. Do they still have mithral armor in Pathfinder? Unless they've changed it (I haven't read the Pathfinder rules), your character should be able to wear a mithral chain shirt with only a -1 armor penalty which will be only a minor inconvenience.
#8 Ogiwan May 13, 2010 9:40:20	Agreeing with Macarius (BTW, you're missing an H after the C. ) that you're posting in the wrong forum. We may have Pathfinders here, but the bulk of us are 4e or 3.5 'nilla. Ummmm isn't there an 1,100 gold mithril shirt that has booku dex....cap-thingie (wow, i forgot what it's called...) and no armor check penelty?
#9 dogbackward May 14, 2010 14:17:30	If you're not playing Society, you could ask your DM to allow you to use the Class Defense Bonus variant rule from Unearthed Arcana. Basically, it allows you to gain a bonus to AC that doesn't stack with armor, based on the type of armor you could be wearing. It starts at +2 per "weight" of armor you have proficiency in (+2 for light, +4 for medium, +6 for heavy) and increases by +1 per 3 levels. So, your Rogue/Fighter would get +6 AC (+1/3 levels), and your Barbarian would gain +4 (+1/3 levels). This does stack with a shield bonus as well, though I don't think either a rogue or a barbarian would be messing with one anyway. This doesn't stack with armor, but overlaps, so you can still wear magic armor to gain the special abilities. Your magic armor's enhancement bonus wouldn't add to your AC though, since it's part of the armor's bonus. This won't work if you're playing Pathfinder Society, since they don't allow the book, but if you have a lenient DM and a non-Official game, it should be fine. And you can find the rules in the d20srd if nobody has the book.
#10 Man_in_the_Funny_Hat May 15, 2010 11:52:37	How far should flavor go?  RIGHT past the point where the RULES tell you to stop - and it should keep moving without a moments pause.
#11 tsukinousagi May 16, 2010 9:36:40	Flavour is like sugar in your coffee. Just because you want 4 tablespoons doesn't mean it's a good idea Some ideas work, ans some do not. And experience is in knowing what does not I suppose.