Light armor ability

[Feldar]

I remember seeing posts (quite recently actually) mentioning a "light" armor ability that makes armor always considered light, but I've been unable after an hour of digging through threads and searching to find those references.

Can someone please provide me with a description for this ability or a source for where it's described?

Thanks!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I remember seeing posts (quite recently actually) mentioning a "light" armor ability that makes armor always considered light, but I've been unable after an hour of digging through threads and searching to find those references.

Can someone please provide me with a description for this ability or a source for where it's described?

Thanks!Mithral does this for medium armors. It's in the DMG. Otherwise, I have no idea.

There's thistledown, feycraft, githcraft, etc, but those are mainly for things like reducing arcane spell failure and the like.

[Zanos]

Halfweight armor, from Forgotten Realms: Underdark. +3 special ability, armor is always considered light.

Not really worth it, IMO. Maybe if you were using it on thaluaad stone armor, but you could just add 3 AC outright to mithral breastplate to match fullplate and all your other penalties would be much lower(ACP, max dex, ASF, weight, etc).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you have access to magic or psionics, you could always wear +1 light armor with a bunch of special abilities and manifest inertial armor or cast the highest iteration of mage armor or magic vestments you've got. The armor bonuses to AC won't stack, but you gain (almost) all the benefits of heavy armor and none of the downsides. You have to worry about dispel attempts, but you'd have to do that with magic armor anyways, and your CL or ML to dispel a casting would be way higher than it would be for magic armor (depending on your level and what bonuses you've managed to acquire, of course).

[Feldar]

Halfweight armor, from Forgotten Realms: Underdark. +3 special ability, armor is always considered light..

Thanks, that's what I needed!

[Darg]

Halfweight might be useful if you want to wear mountain plate for some reason I can't fathom, or if you want to benefit from swordsage's AC Bonus while in full plate or something. I guess you could use it for casters that can cast in light armor.

[sreservoir]

Having it written up as a +3 special ability makes it accessible via the Armor Enhancement infusion, at least?

[Crake]

the main benefit of halfweight that people seem to be completely ignoring is the fact that your speed doesn't get reduced by wearing it, which is something you otherwise cannot achieve using heavy armor.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The psychoactive skin of ectoplasmic armor (CPsi) grants a +8 armor bonus to AC, has a +2 max Dex to AC limit, -6 ACP, 25% ASF chance, and can be donned/doffed as a standard action instead of the massive time-sink that is full plate. It weighs a total of 1 lb, does not affect your movement speed, and isn't actually armor, so a monk, psion, or low Str character could wear it with no problems at all beyond the penalties noted above.

However, it's not armor, not light armor, so it doesn't really count. It is similar, though.

[Darg]

The psychoactive skin of ectoplasmic armor (CPsi) grants a +8 armor bonus to AC, has a +2 max Dex to AC limit, -6 ACP, 25% ASF chance, and can be donned/doffed as a standard action instead of the massive time-sink that is full plate. It weighs a total of 1 lb, does not affect your movement speed, and isn't actually armor, so a monk, psion, or low Str character could wear it with no problems at all beyond the penalties noted above.

However, it's not armor, not light armor, so it doesn't really count. It is similar, though.

Holy, I thought it had a use per day limit like other ectoplasms. 3000 gp for basically at will plate that isn't armor. Makes a psionic fist that much more palatable or basically any other monk combos that can't use armor. The 61,000 gp savings some classes can get might be worth the penalties it has.

[Crake]

However, it's not armor, not light armor, so it doesn't really count. It is similar, though.


A skin of ectoplasmic armor covers you in a suit of protective armor.

When donned, it appears as a suit of silvery, ectoplasmic full plate armor.

The armor feels soft to the touch, though it immediately becomes as hard as iron at the exact spot of contact if struck with any kind of force.

A skin of ectoplasmic armor gives you a +8 armor bonus (which does not stack with armor bonuses provided by other armor, powers, spells, or effects).

You sure about the fact that it doesn't count as armor? Looks to me like it counts as a suit of full plate, requiring heavy armor proficiency to avoid the ACP applying to your rolls as normal, but the only difference being lower arcane spell failure, higher max dex, and no movement speed penalty, which, don't get me wrong, that's nice for only 3,000gp, but it looks to me like it definitely still counts as heavy armor.

[Zanos]

the main benefit of halfweight that people seem to be completely ignoring is the fact that your speed doesn't get reduced by wearing it, which is something you otherwise cannot achieve using heavy armor.
There's a tooth in Tome of Magic that does the same thing, and I believe a paladin spell and artificer infusion that do the same thing. You can also get a similar effect by increasing your movement speed. +3 is pretty expensive. Consider +4 mithral breastplate(light armor with 9 AC) vs. +1 Halfweight fullplate(light armor with 9 AC). The full plate is worse in basically every way. As I mentioned above there are niche uses for it, +1 halfweight thaluaad stone armor would give 13 AC if your DM allows thaluaad stone, but it also has 0 max dex and massive other penalties that halfweight doesn't really help with.

Halfweight could be good for some characters, but +3 is just too expensive to make it competitive with other AC solutions.


The psychoactive skin of ectoplasmic armor (CPsi) grants a +8 armor bonus to AC, has a +2 max Dex to AC limit, -6 ACP, 25% ASF chance, and can be donned/doffed as a standard action instead of the massive time-sink that is full plate. It weighs a total of 1 lb, does not affect your movement speed, and isn't actually armor, so a monk, psion, or low Str character could wear it with no problems at all beyond the penalties noted above.

However, it's not armor, not light armor, so it doesn't really count. It is similar, though.
This is wrong, the skin was changed in MIC to count as light armor, but only for class features and movement. It also doubled in cost to 6k. I guess a psion could still use it if they're okay taking a -6 penalty to all their attack rolls, strength, and dex checks(including initiative). Other than that, it's pretty useless.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You sure about the fact that it doesn't count as armor? Looks to me like it counts as a suit of full plate, requiring heavy armor proficiency to avoid the ACP applying to your rolls as normal, but the only difference being lower arcane spell failure, higher max dex, and no movement speed penalty, which, don't get me wrong, that's nice for only 3,000gp, but it looks to me like it definitely still counts as heavy armor.It says it looks like armor, but it's also soft to the touch instead of stiff, and light instead of heavy (as it only weighs 1 lb). It looks like heavy armor, but nothing in the actual effect says it's armor of any kind, nor does it say anything about other things that can be applied to armor, like materials, armor mods, magic and psionic abilities, and so on. Plus, it takes up the psychoactive skin slot, not the armor slot, so it's most certainly not armor. After all, you can wear it and armor at the same time.


This is wrong, the skin was changed in MIC to count as light armor, but only for class features and movement. It also doubled in cost to 6k. I guess a psion could still use it if they're okay taking a -6 penalty to all their attack rolls, strength, and dex checks(including initiative). Other than that, it's pretty useless.I said it was the one in CPsi, and the remade items in MIC are nerfed stupidly hard compared to their originals. I ignore the crappy revamped items in the MIC whenever possible, to the point where I often forget they exist.

[Darg]

I said it was the one in CPsi, and the remade items in MIC are nerfed stupidly hard compared to their originals. I ignore the crappy revamped items in the MIC whenever possible, to the point where I often forget they exist.

I have to agree that the light armor change was completely unnecessary, along with the new psychoactive skin rules. What it did was nerf it for a specific class that already had armor and MAD issues. It was a change that pretty much singled out monks, that would have to spend a feat getting wild talent to even use it. Pointless? No. Spiteful? Probably dislike monks.

[Crake]

It says it looks like armor

No, it says it "appears" as full plate, not that it "looks like" full plate. Now, one definition of appear can be to "seem; give the impression of being", but the more common definition is "come into sight; become visible or noticable, especially without apparent cause". Now, of course, on it's own, that could be taken either way, but all the other mentions of armor, especially the "and other armor" line, seem to make it rather clear that it is indeed armor, and, without any other rules to the contrary, it then inherits the properties of fullplate, including the fact that, despite being only 1lb, it's still heavy armor. After all, it still has -6 ACP as well, if the armor were so unencumbering, why does it have that? Even mithril has reduced ACP from it's base form.

To me, the MIC update is a BUFF, not a NERF, it goes from being heavy armor and requiring heavy armor proficiency, to being light armor, and only requiring light armor proficiency. Obviously the doubling of the cost is rough, but I think the item was clearly designed for psychic warriors above all else.

[Fizban]

There's a tooth in Tome of Magic that does the same thing, and I believe a paladin spell and artificer infusion that do the same thing. You can also get a similar effect by increasing your movement speed. +3 is pretty expensive. Consider +4 mithral breastplate(light armor with 9 AC) vs. +1 Halfweight fullplate(light armor with 9 AC). The full plate is worse in basically every way. As I mentioned above there are niche uses for it, +1 halfweight thaluaad stone armor would give 13 AC if your DM allows thaluaad stone, but it also has 0 max dex and massive other penalties that halfweight doesn't really help with.

Halfweight could be good for some characters, but +3 is just too expensive to make it competitive with other AC solutions.
Why would a character who wants AC, take a light armor at +4 enhancement over a heavy armor at +1? The light armor is one point away from it's final maximum. +5 chain shirt is +9/+4, base 9 and 13 with dex. +5 mithral breastplate is +10/+5, base 10 and 15 with dex. +5 halfweight mithral full plate is +13/+3, base 13 and 16 with dex. Full plate has a naturally +1 higher AC cap than breastplate. And filling up those dex values on the mithral breasplate unless you already happen to be a dex character, it its own exponential curve, with the maximum dex enhancement giving +3 AC at 36k. Exactly lined up for 10 dex and mithral full plate (though mithral heavy is an extra 5k).

Unless you're demanding a bunch of unspecified other +X value abilities. Does the exponential cost go up? Sure, but there's only so many AC bonus items, unless your game actually expects laundry lists of esoteric or custom +1s and 2s for cheap- and in that case why bother with the exponential armor formulas at all? Same goes for any other +X abilities, which could go on a shield, or sourced via some other item. Heck, the Illithidwrought property that reduces Halfweight's cost is a source of one of those esoteric bonus types, an extra +2 above normal at the mere cost of being a psionic creature and a +2 bonus (and still room for Nimble or Nacerous).

Halfweight also enables the full limit adamantine DR at no speed penalty, if desired instead of the +2 max AC (and attendant dex requirement) of mithral. So starting from the already specific "wants higher AC with no speed penalty," an ability which is supposed to cost, we have: people who have low dex, people who want adamantine DR, druids who need non-mithral special materials, people who are psionic, and people in games where AC primarily comes from armor and shield and can't just buy X,000gp worth of non-standard bonuses spread across multiple item slots," who can all find a use for halfweight.

The phrase "competitive with other AC solutions" makes it clear you expect some number of items that will apparently boost AC at a price that makes basic +5 heavy armor a bad idea- and once that list of expectations is shown, it becomes easy to tell which DMs are on board and which are not. DMs who agree that armored characters should progress up to +5 armor will probably not be on board.

Edit- checking up on that tooth from Tome of Magic: well sure, I can see why you're against halfweight when you're taking a 2,000gp effectively slotless item (conflicting only with this particular set of snowflake items) with the same effect as its competition. Suffice to say I find that price completely and utterly busted, and considering it comes right after the 21k or so +5 greater magic weapon 1/day (for a mere 20 hours). . . yeah no.

Also there's the rather substantial portion of people who, ya know, think heavy armor is cool?

[Thurbane]

Halfweight might be useful if you want to wear mountain plate for some reason I can't fathom, or if you want to benefit from swordsage's AC Bonus while in full plate or something. I guess you could use it for casters that can cast in light armor.

Pfft, Mountain Plate is for chumps; Mechanus Gear is superior in basically every way, but Thaalud Stone Armor (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24077640&postcount=8) is where it's really at! :smalltongue:


However, it's not armor, not light armor, so it doesn't really count. It is similar, though.

The updated version in MIC addresses this point: already addressed


It is treated as light armor for the purpose of affecting class features and movement.


There's a tooth in Tome of Magic that does the same thing, and I believe a paladin spell and artificer infusion that do the same thing.

While I am a big fan of the Tooth of Savnok, worth noting that using it automatically puts you under the influence of a vestige who, from memory, never wants you to take your armor off.

[animewatcha]

Reaching out into dragon magazine we have the reinforced ability. Adding non-magical +1 armor to armor. Can't be applied to psychoactive skin. However, it could be applied to a chain shirt, dastana, and a char-aina (I always seem to get this wrong on the spelling). Keep the dastana and the char non-magical and you will still have appropriate slots for magical items. There is also the segmented enchancement from same article that increases max dex bonus by 1 non-magically

[Zanos]

Why would a character who wants AC, take a light armor at +4 enhancement over a heavy armor at +1? The light armor is one point away from it's final maximum. +5 chain shirt is +9/+4, base 9 and 13 with dex. +5 mithral breastplate is +10/+5, base 10 and 15 with dex. +5 halfweight mithral full plate is +13/+3, base 13 and 16 with dex. Full plate has a naturally +1 higher AC cap than breastplate. And filling up those dex values on the mithral breasplate unless you already happen to be a dex character, it its own exponential curve, with the maximum dex enhancement giving +3 AC at 36k. Exactly lined up for 10 dex and mithral full plate (though mithral heavy is an extra 5k).
If we're talking about a high level character with money to burn that has exhausted their other options to improve their AC, sure, it's usable. But by the time you've exhausted enchanting your amulets of natural armor, rings of protection, armor and shield enhancements, etc. your AC should be well into the unhittable territory. A good chap even made a calculator for this here: http://www.wdtaylor.net/calculator.html

If you punch in all parameters for 10 dex and restrict armor to light, you'll find that halfweight armor isn't efficient until you have a net spend of between 20k(thaluaad stone) or 100k(full plate). Surprisingly even the nerfed skin of ectoplasmic armor is very cost efficient if you want to stick to light armor. However if you want get into obscure items like Thaluaad Stone you also have to compare against something like a chain shirt with the 2 oriental adventures cheap light armor boosters that make it a +6 AC item.


Unless you're demanding a bunch of unspecified other +X value abilities. Does the exponential cost go up? Sure, but there's only so many AC bonus items, unless your game actually expects laundry lists of esoteric or custom +1s and 2s for cheap- and in that case why bother with the exponential armor formulas at all? Same goes for any other +X abilities, which could go on a shield, or sourced via some other item. Heck, the Illithidwrought property that reduces Halfweight's cost is a source of one of those esoteric bonus types, an extra +2 above normal at the mere cost of being a psionic creature and a +2 bonus (and still room for Nimble or Nacerous).
I feel like most creatures after armor this heavy probably aren't psionic? I mean, some of this stuff, even halfweight, is gonna weigh a lot and still gonna force nonprofiency penalties. Maybe a PsyWar or something? Illithidwrought has no cost advantage if you aren't psionic. I won't go heavily into special abilities but I do think those are usually better options than a straight bonus to enhancement on your armor.


Halfweight also enables the full limit adamantine DR at no speed penalty, if desired instead of the +2 max AC (and attendant dex requirement) of mithral. So starting from the already specific "wants higher AC with no speed penalty," an ability which is supposed to cost, we have: people who have low dex, people who want adamantine DR, druids who need non-mithral special materials, people who are psionic, and people in games where AC primarily comes from armor and shield and can't just buy X,000gp worth of non-standard bonuses spread across multiple item slots," who can all find a use for halfweight.
Halfweight is treated as light armor 'in every way', so I am pretty sure you would be paying 15k for DR 1/-.


The phrase "competitive with other AC solutions" makes it clear you expect some number of items that will apparently boost AC at a price that makes basic +5 heavy armor a bad idea- and once that list of expectations is shown, it becomes easy to tell which DMs are on board and which are not. DMs who agree that armored characters should progress up to +5 armor will probably not be on board.
There are a lot of items in the game that increase your armor class before getting into some janky solution of spreading around bonuses on custom slotted items. The game designers intended for characters to have all the major AC items and upgrade them intelligently. So armor +, shield +, amulet of natural armor, and a ring of protection.


Edit- checking up on that tooth from Tome of Magic: well sure, I can see why you're against halfweight when you're taking a 2,000gp effectively slotless item (conflicting only with this particular set of snowflake items) with the same effect as its competition. Suffice to say I find that price completely and utterly busted, and considering it comes right after the 21k or so +5 greater magic weapon 1/day (for a mere 20 hours). . . yeah no.
Why don't you want martials to have nice things? :smalltongue:


Also there's the rather substantial portion of people who, ya know, think heavy armor is cool?
I agree that heavy armor is a great aesthetic, I'm a 40k fan, after all. I have a whole folder of character art that's basically just heavily armored dudes. But I don't think it's very good mechanically in 3.5 without some hackery and strange items to get it working.


While I am a big fan of the Tooth of Savnok, worth noting that using it automatically puts you under the influence of a vestige who, from memory, never wants you to take your armor off.
True; while Savnok removes the major penalty of heavy armor, the movement speed, it does nothing about class features or resting. Since you can't remove your armor without taking some big penalties, this becomes an issue. Thankfully restful armor is a flat cost of +500gp.

I think the bigger issue with the Tooth is that Savnok's influence makes you be a stubborn jerk or take penalties. However, if you have UMD or a friendly artificer, an item of Knight Unburdened will do something very similar. It lasts for 1 hour/level and is a 1st level spell, so fairly cheap on a schema.

[Thurbane]

Halfweight is treated as light armor 'in every way', so I am pretty sure you would be paying 15k for DR 1/-.

That's an interesting point. I'd never considered that before. As a DM, I wouldn't have Halfweight reduce the DR of adamantine armor, but from a purely RAW standpoint, I believe you may be correct.


True; while Savnok removes the major penalty of heavy armor, the movement speed, it does nothing about class features or resting. Since you can't remove your armor without taking some big penalties, this becomes an issue. Thankfully restful armor is a flat cost of +500gp.

I think the bigger issue with the Tooth is that Savnok's influence makes you be a stubborn jerk or take penalties. However, if you have UMD or a friendly artificer, an item of Knight Unburdened will do something very similar. It lasts for 1 hour/level and is a 1st level spell, so fairly cheap on a schema.

I looked at a (not very practical) build that could wear very heavy armor, and alleviate most of the drawbacks without relying on magic: Reducing ACP Without Gear/Magic Options (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631383)

Knight 9/Vengeance Knight 10 with the Heavy Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization feats can wear Thaalud Stone Armor with no ACP, no movement penalty, and can sleep in it.


So,

Just a bit of a thought excercise. Say I want to play a character who wears the heaviest possible armor (Thaalud Stone Armor, Mechanus Gear or similar).

How much can I reduce the ACP and other penalties (reduced movement etc.) without modifying the armor itself (no mundane mods, special material or magical properties), or relying on other gear, magic items or spells?

Ideally, just looking at class and feat based options. Basically, I'm happy to centre the build around this one thing, despite that being horribly suboptimal.

This is what I've found so far:


Dread Commando 2/4 Armored Ease 2/4 (reduces ACP by 2 then 4).
Heavy Armor Optimization feat reduces ACP 1 for heavy armor.
Greater Heavy Armor Optimization feat reduces ACP 2 for heavy armor.
Knight of the Crown 7 Armored Mobility (reduce ACP by 1, treat heavy armor as medium armor)
Knight of the Flying Hunt 2/7 Armored Ease (reduces ACP by 2 then 4).
Knight of the Lily 6 Armored Mobility (reduce ACP by 1, treat heavy armor as medium armor)
Vengeance Knight 1/3/10 Armor Training (reduces ACP by 1/3/5; also progressively provides other benefits such as halving movement penalty, make it easier to don heavy armors and able to sleep in heavy armor).



Guerilla Warrior feat reduces ACP by, but only for light and medium armor.
Nightsong Enforcer 2 Agility training (reduces ACP by 2, but only for light armor)
Ruby Knight Vindicator 5 Armored Stealth (no ACP, but for Hide only)

In terms of movement speed, without relying on magic

Champion of Corellon Larethian 7 Unimpeded Movement.
Dwarves can move at full speed in heavy armor (prefer not to be a dwarf if possible - I'd like a race with 30 ft base speed).
Knight 4/9 Amor Mastery (ignore movement penalty for medium armor at 4th, and heavy armor at 9th).

Sources: All official 3.5 and 3.0 (except psionics or incarnum, in case that matters), preferably no Dragon or Dungeon mag; no PF, third party or homebrew.

Cheers - T

[animewatcha]

If alignment restrictions are on the table like the vengeance knight, then there is vassal of bahamut.

Armor is masterwork chain shirt, but with +8 armor, +max dex, -1 armor check, 20% arcane spell failure, and no speed reduction. Proceed with reinforced augmentation, segmented augmentation, dastana shenanigans, and char-thing shenanigans.

[Feldar]

I asked for exactly what I was looking for and Zanos gave it to me.

Thanks Zanos!

[Fizban]

If we're talking about a high level character with money to burn that has exhausted their other options to improve their AC, sure, it's usable. But by the time you've exhausted enchanting your amulets of natural armor, rings of protection, armor and shield enhancements, etc. your AC should be well into the unhittable territory.
This makes it sound like you're saying that you should be unhittable even before the armor, which doesn't make sense.

A good chap even made a calculator for this here: http://www.wdtaylor.net/calculator.html

If you punch in all parameters for 10 dex and restrict armor to light, you'll find that halfweight armor isn't efficient until you have a net spend of between 20k(thaluaad stone) or 100k(full plate). Surprisingly even the nerfed skin of ectoplasmic armor is very cost efficient if you want to stick to light armor. However if you want get into obscure items like Thaluaad Stone you also have to compare against something like a chain shirt with the 2 oriental adventures cheap light armor boosters that make it a +6 AC item.
Or 21k with mechanus gear. Or 23k with dwarven stone or heavy plate. Or 19k with mechanus gear and no entropium. Back to 23k if it's competing with the Skin of Ectoplasmic armor. I would say that's a reasonable total on AC items for a character as low as 11th, definitely by 12th, so higher but still well within the end or beginning of many games. Of course a +3 enhancement isn't going to be "efficient" for characters below a certain level, but once it appears it doesn't go away- it is the best option once you can afford it. The skin just fixes middle bits: this no-dex light armor AC character goes from chain shirt, to SoEA (rather than juggling some list of wacky materials), to halfweight super armor, pretty simple.

I don't suppose there's a modifiable version of that calculator? It would be nice to plug in my fixed armor table, and more interesting if one added in various non-standard bonus items and abilities. But I've got no programing or spreadsheet wizardry.

I won't go heavily into special abilities but I do think those are usually better options than a straight bonus to enhancement on your armor.
But you just mentioned exhausting the enhancement bonuses on the armor and shield. And the AC values I'm seeing, even with defending weapons, are not unhittable.


Halfweight is treated as light armor 'in every way', so I am pretty sure you would be paying 15k for DR 1/-.
I think any DM that has the magic remove the armor's base physical benefit in this case has their priorities backwards.


There are a lot of items in the game that increase your armor class before getting into some janky solution of spreading around bonuses on custom slotted items.
So list them. That AC calculator only seems to include defending weapon, which I assume is meant to be defending armor spikes, another exploit I think it's pretty clear shouldn't work.


The game designers intended for characters to have all the major AC items and upgrade them intelligently. So armor +, shield +, amulet of natural armor, and a ring of protection.
And it still sounds like you're contradicting yourself: are you supposed to use and upgrade all the major AC items (which is how that calculator functions), or not? Because the calculator is telling me that if you want heavy AC in light armor, you should be using halfweight pretty much as soon as you can afford it. Even when allowing the wacky materials only delays the switch by about one notch.

The defending (armor spikes) is just a RAW non-standard bonus on a special slot (with a bit higher price since you get 1 lower than the total you're paying for). And even then there's a band where it stalls at +2 armor and +2 defending where the armor goes up to +3 and then +4 before the defending is increased to +3.


Why don't you want martials to have nice things? :smalltongue:
I am not amused :smallsigh:


I agree that heavy armor is a great aesthetic, I'm a 40k fan, after all. I have a whole folder of character art that's basically just heavily armored dudes. But I don't think it's very good mechanically in 3.5 without some hackery and strange items to get it working.
The reason for hackery here is the removal of speed penalties, which is not necessary. Honestly, if you're willing to let people ignore the entire defining drawback of heavy armor for 2,000gp, you might as well get rid of it entirely. At that point the penalty is openly acknowledged as only being for unimportant NPCs and lower level PCs- I think it's better to be honest and change the rules rather then hide behind a bogus item (same for pounce or moving full attacks, etc), and you can even call it more realistic if you want since the armor penalties are often considered extreme or nonsensical compared to super strength. Which is something Races of War actually did quite well: they tied the speed penalties to ACP and then let you ignore that with BAB, so the truth is that by a certain level all combat-focused characters could wear any armor with no penalty, but it looks a bit less obvious at first so the illusion is maintained.