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mooseofshadows
2007-01-01, 10:00 PM
This may be a stupid question, but I've never thought about till recently...

Can you dual-wield with improved two-weapon fighting and full plate armor? The armor drops your Dex to a level that would be below the requirements for the feat, hence my concern. Any insight?

Matthew
2007-01-01, 10:03 PM
Yes. Your Dexterity does not actually drop. You are just limited in the amount you can add as a Dodge Bonus [i.e. your Dexterity Bonus remains the same for everything you do in Body Armour, including Ranged Attacks, with the exception of how much it contributes as a Dodge Bonus. This is strictly a mechanical rrule to prevent people stacking a high Dexterity Bonus with the heaviest Armour they can find].

Dhavaer
2007-01-01, 10:10 PM
The only thing that's limited is the Dexterity bonus to AC (not a Dodge bonus, they're different). You still get the full effect of your Dexterity for ranged weapons, Weapon Finesse, Reflex saves, etc.

AtomicKitKat
2007-01-02, 03:54 AM
Touch Attacks and Initiative still use your regular Dexterity bonus, I think. I could be wrong about the first though.

Matthew
2007-01-02, 04:38 AM
The only thing that's limited is the Dexterity bonus to AC (not a Dodge bonus, they're different). You still get the full effect of your Dexterity for ranged weapons, Weapon Finesse, Reflex saves, etc.

Heh, heh. That's true, I'm just used to thinking of them as synonymous because anything that denies you your Dexterity Bonus denies your Dodge Bonus.

You know, now that I think about it, it's a bit strange that you still get to add your full Dexterity Bonus to Reflex Saving Throws regardless of Armour. It makes sense in some situations and not in others.


Touch Attacks and Initiative still use your regular Dexterity bonus, I think. I could be wrong about the first though.

Hmmn. I suppose you could read it to mean that:



Touch Attacks

Some attacks disregard armor, including shields and natural armor. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#attackRoll) (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn’t include any armor bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#armorBonus), shield bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#shieldBonus), or natural armor bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#naturalArmorBonus). All other modifiers, such as your size modifier (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#sizeModifier), Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#deflectionBonus) (if any) apply normally.


Personally, I wouldn't be inclined to, but maybe there's some other information I am missing.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-01-02, 07:34 AM
I would say that touch attacks use your restricted dex bonus. Just because the ghost can ignore your armour to attack you doesn't mean you can ignore your armour to defend yourself. Armour restricts your dexterity bonus, the two-weapon fighting feat requires a dexterity score of 15. That's probably a good way of thinking with it.

You can use two-weapon fighting in full plate but it's a pretty stupid idea. Full Plate might give you +9 armour class (+1 dex +8 armour) but if you're got the 15 dex for two-weapon fighting you'll be better of improving it to 16 dex on level up and going with a breastplate. You'll only be getting +8 armour class (+3 dex +5 armour) but you'll be getting a higher touch armour class and have less armour check penalty if you want to swim.

Mithral Fullplate however is a different kettle of fish and is a decent idea. If you're DM'll let you get some Oriental Adventures Great Armour (there must be a merchant somewhere willing to do special imports) that's decent heavy armour for a two-weapon wielder. Partial Armour from Oriental Adventures also makes high dex medium armour workable as well.

TheOOB
2007-01-02, 07:54 PM
All and armors max dex bonus does is affect how much of your dex bonus can be applied to AC.

Max Dex Bonus still affects your AC vs touch attacks, remember that you don't technically have a seperate "Touch AC" stat, but rather touch attacks just ignore, natural and armor(including shield) bonuses to AC, your dex bonus to AC(modified by your armor if applicable) remains unchanged.