Armor enhancements - what's good?

[WarKitty]

I'm looking for armor enhancements for a melee rogue build. Two questions here:

(1) is there any way to get a max dex bonus of over 8? I'm fine with not actually having an AC bonus, but I may need something to hang enhancements on.

(2) What enhancements would you put on armor? I've never really played a melee before.

[grarrrg]

I'm looking for armor enhancements for a melee rogue build. Two questions here:

(1) is there any way to get a max dex bonus of over 8? I'm fine with not actually having an AC bonus, but I may need something to hang enhancements on.

(2) What enhancements would you put on armor? I've never really played a melee before.

First things first, I WILL be ninja'd

Gnome Twist Cloth has no max dex bonus, from Races of Stone.
Do a quick forum search for "Gnome Twist Cloth" and you'll get a lot of similar question threads.
Thread linky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170916&highlight=Gnome+twist+cloth)
and a *yoink*

Gnome twist cloth mentioned above is +1 AC/Unlimited Dex bonus/No ACP for 150gp and if you actually take the Exotic Armor Proficiency feat, the AC and enhancement bonus will apply to touch attacks as well.

As for your second question...kind of depends what you want to do.

[Aron Times]

I like the Twilight Property (+1, -10% ASF) on a mithral shirt. For 5100 gold, you get a +5 armor bonus with no armor check penalty and thus no need for light armor proficiency to wear without penalty.

That's a +1 Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt, ladies and mentlegen.

[Yorrin]

Gnome Twist Cloth is indeed good for no-Dex-cap, though bracers of armor are a viable option if you want to be considered "unarmored" but still want enchantments (they can be enchanted thanks to a sidebar in A&E that says so:smalltongue:).

I always grab a Ghost Ward enchantment on my armor (makes it count toward touch AC). Maybe Healing (and it's greater version). Those are all in MIC. Beyond that... depends what kind of foes you're up against and what your character concept is in general. There's plenty of anti-undead or anti-specific-element stuff, but it's very case-by-case.

[WarKitty]

First things first, I WILL be ninja'd

Gnome Twist Cloth has no max dex bonus, from Races of Stone.
Do a quick forum search for "Gnome Twist Cloth" and you'll get a lot of similar question threads.
Thread linky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170916&highlight=Gnome+twist+cloth)
and a *yoink*

Ok thanks!


As for your second question...kind of depends what you want to do.

Not die? Yeah, pretty much not die. Figured I'd start with fortification and work from there.

[nargbop]

1 ) Don't use traditional armor if you want to maximize DEX. Leaf armor (Arms and Equipment guide) or a shirt given Magic Vestment. Use armor made of unusual materials (mithril grants +2 max DEX, so find armor with +7 or better max DEX and make it mithril)

2 ) Death Ward and its big brother Soulfire. Wild if you're playing with wild shape.
Glamered is good if you don't always want to be obviously wearing armor.
If your DM allows custom item creation, go for some permanent effects so your caster doesn't have to spend time on it. The spell Death Ward is better than the armor enhancement Death Ward for instance.

[Andion Isurand]

Nightscale armor from the FR Underdark book has a +2 armor bonus, a +10 max dex, a 5% arcane failure and a check penalty of 0. It weighs 3 Lbs I think.

The 5% AF can be negated with the caster armor template from Dragon Magazine or the githcraft template from DMG2. (but If i was a DM, i'd say they don't stack)

[Glimbur]

Celestial Armor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#celestialArmor) straight up breaks the rules. It's mithril chain mail with more max dex than it should have. Consider adding Nimbleness for 9 or 10 max dex bonus, and the fly 1/day is cute.

[WarKitty]

Definitely a gnome twist cloth for armor, since this is an optimized dex-based build I'm expecting to start off with a +5 at level one. And with tomes+items+stat gain, that's going to go over +8 fairly quickly, and definitely over +10 as I level.

So enchantments: is it worth it to get the fortification line?

[Yorrin]

So enchantments: is it worth it to get the fortification line?

Usually not. If you absolutely want it get it on an animated buckler, so you can free up your armor for other useful enchantments. Even then you'll only really want to do that if you've got a bunch of extra cash sitting around.

[herrhauptmann]

Armor:
-Soulfire (BoED +4),
-Durable (Dungeonscape 500gp),
-Blueshine (MiC 2000gp?),
-Restful (dungeonscape 500gp)
-Retaliation/Retribution (MiC +2) Always get the armor and the amulet mixed up. Good if you expect to get hit a lot. But the BoED amulet is way better.
-Anti-impact (CWar 2000?) Half damage from whole body bludgeoning such as falling, or getting eaten. Even 'rocks fall everybody dies.' Had it in a game where the DM got fed up and tried announcing that. I asked 'how much damage' and was told 400. So I removed 200 hitpoints from my character, and used boots of 1/day dimension door to get to safety. Thank god for houserule where everyone got max hitpoints.
-There are two in MiC which boost your reflex or will saves. They can be worth it to shore up a weakness.
- +1 Armorspikes that have 'smoking' (+1 cost, Lords of Darkness)
I avoid axe/hammer/spear block. Doesn't seem worth it

Shield-
Dancing. Now you can TWF or THF while getting a shield bonus.
+1 Shieldspikes. That have 'smoking' (+1, Lords of Darkness) Why do I suggest it twice? It's that good. Miss chances are superior to high armor class. While armor and shield spikes of smoking don't stack, either one is a 20% miss chance.

[Coidzor]

Armor Augment Crystals or no?

If going with light armor, I believe you don't need restful.

Healing from MIC is very, very good, I'll echo that one.

If you decide to go into fear lock-down at all without putting levels into a PRC, then you'll want the fearful armor property that lets you intimidate as a move action. I believe it's from one of the underdark books.

[Tytalus]

If you are looking at max AC with no limit on DEX, then a Monk's Belt can be a good alternative.

Celestial Armor breaks the usual armor + DEX maximums, as has been pointed out already (+13 AC total, without enhancement bonuses).

Surprisingly often overlooked is the Millennial Chainmail [MIC], which offers the same +8 max DEX (+13 AC total, as above). Better yet, with a single feat (and a few gp for a Continual Light spell), you also get Fast Healing 3, too. Perhaps not fitting for all rogue concepts, but certainly worth considering. IMHO, considerably better than Celestial Armor.

As for enchantments, I'd look at Soulfire (+4) and Full Fortification (+5). Of course, rogues can benefit from Shadow and Silent Moves, as well as Glamered and Slick, too. Other than that, beef up the enhancement bonus for more AC.

[Hanuman]

Freedom of movement is a popular choice if you can afford the +5.

[Roderick_BR]

Gnome Twist Cloth is indeed good for no-Dex-cap, though bracers of armor are a viable option if you want to be considered "unarmored" but still want enchantments (they can be enchanted thanks to a sidebar in A&E that says so:smalltongue:).
It can? That would sabe a lot of trouble. The usual trick, a very costle one, though, is to use the bracers for pure AC bonus, then use the cloth twist to get enchancements. That obligatory +! from the cloth will be overwriten by the bracers, but you can put up to +9 in enchantments on it, not counting bonuses with flat costs (all the skill enchacing ones, and some energy resistances, for example. The skill ones are good for rogues and rangers).

[Runestar]

Think there is a nimbleness enhancement which raises the max dex cap and lowers the ACP of your armour.

Plus, arms and equipment guide has rules for adding armour properties to your bracers of armour, IIRC.

[Darrin]

Armor Augment Crystals or no?


If you have medium or heavy armor, go with the Crystal of Alacrity (3500 GP, MIC p. 195) for +5' morale bonus to movement.

If you're a frontline meatbagger that uses Power Attack a lot, go with a Lesser Rubicund Frenzy (2000 GP, MIC p. 26).

If you're wearing light armor or are one of the more fragile non-meatbag types, take the Lesser Crystal of Mind Cloaking (4000 GP, MIC p. 25) or Lesser Iron Ward Diamond (2000 GP, MIC p. 26).



If going with light armor, I believe you don't need restful.


If you need it, the Restful augment crystal is only 500 GP, and can be swapped in just before you sleep. (The Restful property in Dungeonscape is the same price, but has a -5 Listen penalty when sleeping.)

[Curmudgeon]

Skip armor entirely. You can add armor bonuses to items in the Arms (bracers, like Bracers of Armor) and Body (robes, like Robe of the Archmagi) slots; see Magic Item Compendium on pages 233-234. The costs for adding extra armor enhancements in such items are given in Arms and Equipment Guide on page 130. Not wearing actual armor means you can still add a Monk's Belt for (1 + WIS mod) extra to your AC.

As for fortification, this shouldn't be coupled with your armor. Get a Gemstone of Fortification (Draconomicon, page 83) instead, and pay an NPC spellcaster for the Limited Wish required to get it inserted into your skin (unless you've got dragon scales, in which case you omit this step).

For a Rogue, I typically recommend buying Mobility (Magic Item Compendium, page 13) as an armor enhancement which grants the feat. That satisfies one of the requirements to enter Shadowdancer (for Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight), and that plus doubling up on return for your feat investment with Spring Attack is about the only way you can justify the cost of getting into that prestige class.

[true_shinken]

I think you will need to change armor as you go along.

Start with (masterwork, if possible) studded leather, you probably won't have Dex 22 anyway. Upgrade to mithral chain shirt when possible, for +1 AC. Then I'd save for celestial armor of nimbleness. Even if you do have, say Dex 32 at level 20, celestial armor is only negating 1 out of this bonus and adding +8 in return. Plus, it gives limited flight.

If you want a lot of enhancements, using chahar-aina and dastana from Oriental Adventures is a bargain. They don't stack their enhancement bonus, but you'll get special qualities for a very low price. They are even super cheap to make out of mithril.

[WarKitty]

The idea I'm looking at is a sneak-attack based rogue, possibly merging with bard to arcane trickster for various ways to make people flat-footed. Hence I'm expecting to be in melee a lot. PF rules so there's a lot fewer crit-immune things.

[Tyger]

Celestial Armor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#celestialArmor) straight up breaks the rules. It's mithril chain mail with more max dex than it should have. Consider adding Nimbleness for 9 or 10 max dex bonus, and the fly 1/day is cute.

Celestial armor actually never says that its made of mithril. Its sort of inferred, but never stated. So technically, and by RAW, you can make a suit of Nimble Mithril Celestial Armor for maximum Dex bonus of 11. Its sketchy, but its RAW.

[hydraa]

I always considered celestial armor based on elven chain, but it states in both 3.0 and 3.5 it is on +1/+3 chainmail.

So to make it mithral would be +4000 (medium armor) or +1000 (light armor)

[NEO|Phyte]

I've always been a fan of gleaming (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/armorAndShields.htm#gleaming)/whatever the MIC version is called. +3-equiv for a 20% miss chance, immunity to sneak attack, if not other forms of precision damage, and the ability to make hide checks anywhere, since it doesn't specify that you can't use it for such? Yes please!

Rule quote on negating sneak attack:

A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach.
Not sure if sudden strike/skirmish have similar restrictions.