Is the Lightly Armored feat ever a good option?

[Greywander]

The crux of the issue here is that every class either already has light armor proficiency, or has an alternative way of boosting their AC to light armor levels or better. Mostly, this means Unarmored Defense or Mage Armor. I just can't see justifying spending one of your precious ASIs to pick this up, ever.

A while back, I wrote up a homebrew feat meant to address both Weapon Master and the armor feats in general. It's a half feat that lets you pick a fighting style, and depending on the style you pick you also get some proficiencies. The relevant one here is the Defense style, which I have giving both light and medium armor proficiency. My logic was that there was never a point in giving just light armor, so you might as well skip straight to medium armor. (The Defense style doesn't give shield proficiency though, you'd need the Protection style for that, so it's still somewhat competitive with Moderately Armored if you want both medium armor and a shield.)

The only reason I can see in getting Lightly Armored is if you're also grabbing Moderately Armored and don't have light armor proficiency. Even then, though, I'm having trouble seeing how this is worth two ASIs (technically one, I suppose, since they're both half feats), especially when you could go straight to medium armor and shields with a single level dip. Perhaps if multiclassing wasn't allowed? Otherwise, multiclassing seems like it would almost always be the better option. Or playing a race with armor proficiencies.

[Alcore]

I like the old feat heavy approach so one free feat at first level often has this feat in use. Normally? You would be right. Mage armor does not last forever and more militant campaigns might favor a wizard with redundant armor on.

[Willie the Duck]

I suspect the reason it exists is one part in case you are playing in a game with feats but not Multiclassing (or just a hard or soft ban on dipping just for armor proficiency), and one part for basic inclusion/symmetry -- in other words, they wanted to include Moderately and Heavily Armored feats, and if they did but didn't include a Lightly Armored one, it would be missed (regardless of how often it was actually chosen).

[Sigreid]

A stepping stone to medium or heavily armored if you don't want to or can't multi-class your wizard.

[Eldariel]

Well. Vuman with Lightly Armored has:
+2/+1 stats
+1 Skill Prof
Light Armor Proficiency


Meanwhile, races with natural Light Armor Prof:
Hobgoblin:
+2/+1 stats
Darkvision
Saving Face: +#ofAllies to save/attack/ability check 1/SR
Martial Weapon Proficiencies
Light Armor Prof

Githyanki:
+2/+1 stats
+1 language [in addition to Gith and Common], +1 skill/tool
Light Armor Prof, Medium Armor Prof
Martial Weapon Profs
Gith Psionics: Mage Hand on level 1, Jump on level 3, Misty Step on level 5


I think it's pretty obvious that Vuman with Light Armor Prof falls behind pretty hard. Thus it's really hard for me to ever recommend the feat.

[Luccan]

I was gonna take it to boost AC on a wizard both by evening out an odd Dex score and making it unnecessary to cast or prep Mage Armor. I really wanted to play up my School of Conjuration focus, so being able to prep an extra conjuration spell seemed worth it. My Int was high enough I wouldn't need to boost it until level 8 anyway. I doubt it's ever an optimal choice from a pure numbers perspective, though. Maybe on a non-Draconic sorcerer, for spells known reasons.

[Dankus Memakus]

I've used it on a few mages at low levels to save spell slots. It's not incredible nor is it trash. I think it has a small niche it fits into.

Edit: so many typos

[SLOTHRPG95]

Well. Vuman with Lightly Armored has:
+2/+1 stats
+1 Skill Prof
Light Armor Proficiency


Meanwhile, races with natural Light Armor Prof:
Hobgoblin:
+2/+1 stats
Darkvision
Saving Face: +#ofAllies to save/attack/ability check 1/SR
Martial Weapon Proficiencies
Light Armor Prof

Githyanki:
+2/+1 stats
+1 language [in addition to Gith and Common], +1 skill/tool
Light Armor Prof, Medium Armor Prof
Martial Weapon Profs
Gith Psionics: Mage Hand on level 1, Jump on level 3, Misty Step on level 5


I think it's pretty obvious that Vuman with Light Armor Prof falls behind pretty hard. Thus it's really hard for me to ever recommend the feat.

Playing as a monstrous/extraplanar race can have a social cost in many campaigns, or might even be banned. Unless you find yourself in a more cosmopolitan environment like Sigil (or always have Disguise Self up), a Githyanki is at best getting a lot of strange looks in the tavern.

To OP: I've only seen it taken in a Gritty Rest context, since blowing all/most of your spell slots at T1/T2 to keep Mage Armor up on your Wizard seems like an inefficient use of your spellcasting. If your Dex is odd to begin with, you're not even losing a point of AC by taking Lightly Armored instead.

[Segev]

Part of the issue, I think, is that mage armor is actively better than all light armor and than 20-40% of medium armors (depending on your dexterity). As is the Draconic Sorcerer's scaly hide. The monk is actually the only class that has an AC-boosting alternative to calculate their AC that is potentially worse that isn't already proficient in light armor: barbarians do get to add their con mod to their AC if they're not armored, but they can wear medium armor, which means that they need to have (dexterity mod + con mod) exceed 5 to generally benefit from that over just wearing armor; monks need wisdom 16+ to match sorcerers or wizards in AC, and wisdom and dexterity both at 16+ to outdo medium armor.

So Lightly Armored on a monk can make him not need to have a high Wisdom...if he's willing to forsake save DCs on his stunning strike and any subclass features that call for saves. And even then, Lightly Armored will only increase AC by 1 to 2 points. +2 to Dexterity will always increase the AC of somebody who isn't wearing armor by 1 point. Heck, a Monk with odd Dexterity and odd Wisdom gets 2 points of AC out of splitting his ASI between them, and increases a lot more, than if he took Lightly Armored.

Then again, Lightly Armored is a half-feat that can increase your Dex by 1, so you could get 2 or 3 points of AC out of it.

I could see it being useful to a Sorcerer, primarily. With an odd Dexterity score and sharply limited spells known, a non-Draconic Sorcerer could get a +3 to AC from taking the feat and wearing Studded Leather. That would put him on par with the Draconic Sorcerer's AC boost from his scales subclass feature.


So... it's niche - arguably only 1, maybe 2 classes really get use out of it - but it's not useless and the fact it CAN be useful coupled with the completeness of having a feat for all three kinds of armor is probably worthwhile.

[Toadkiller]

There is this impulse here to think that if something doesn’t benefit how one plays the game then it’s bad and should be removed or “fixed”. For a lot of this stuff it appears that the game developers see it differently. It appears they see it as a case where there is a wide range of ways to play the game and they should provide for that best they can manage.

A case could be made for a player that wants to play a class that doesn’t get light armor but wants their character to be able to use it. So they made a way for that to work. There would be more effective ways to get the AC, as mentioned above, but that might not be what someone wants to play. Quite a few players aren’t looking for the most effective build, they are looking to play the character that’s in their head.

[Segev]

There is this impulse here to think that if something doesn’t benefit how one plays the game then it’s bad and should be removed or “fixed”. For a lot of this stuff it appears that the game developers see it differently. It appears they see it as a case where there is a wide range of ways to play the game and they should provide for that best they can manage.

A case could be made for a player that wants to play a class that doesn’t get light armor but wants their character to be able to use it. So they made a way for that to work. There would be more effective ways to get the AC, as mentioned above, but that might not be what someone wants to play. Quite a few players aren’t looking for the most effective build, they are looking to play the character that’s in their head.

All well and good to add ways to permit such things, but if your "vision" is of a leather-armor-wearing monk, spending a feat to wear armor that sets you to 11+dex mod when taking off the armor would give you likely at least 1, if not 2 or 3 more points of AC, is just plain bad. Not sub-optimal, but anti-optimal.

If the goal is to have that as a "look" or a "concept," then whatever enables them to do it should cost little to nothing, or should give them something truly worth the cost to buy the ability.

Maybe an extra bullet point with something like, "When hit by an attack while wearing light armor, you may use your reaction to add 1 to your armor class until the start of your next turn; this may cause the hit to become a miss."

This actually makes light armor useful even to wizards and draconic sorcerers, though probably still not really worth the feat, but it also makes those who pick up light armor via the feat a little better with it than those who don't. (Those who get it via class are still better off, in most cases, just taking medium armor.)

Kind of rolling a hypothetical "Light Armor Master" into the Lightly Armored feat.

But if it's just for a "look?" I'd let the monk or draconic sorcerer wear the leather armor and mechanically treat it as not being there if that is better for them.