Increasing Max Dex

[Tavar]

Are there any ways of increasing the max dex of an armor besides Mithral armor material or the Nimble Special Ability(MIC)? Please list source.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Not many. What are you trying to do? Because often there is better armor for what you want hidden in some supplement.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I think some of the armor templates from DMG 2 might increase max dex. Thistledown padding (or maybe one of the other add ons?) from Races of the Wild also helps.

There was an issue of Dragon that also had not-quite-armor templates that increased things like AC bonus and max dex for a couple 1000 GP.

[Tavar]

I'm making a Shadow Blade focused Catfolk Swordsage. Right now my Dex is 22(24 with +2 item), and it could easily go up. At this point, I'm just looking for options. I could just use a +1 nimble mithral chain shirt, and just suck up the decreased Dex to AC, but if there are ways to avoid it so much the better.

[Curmudgeon]

Beyond a certain point you're just going to exceed what regular armor can offer you. Then you get into non-armor ways of boosting your AC. These are all expensive, of course. Skip the armor and you can wear a Monk's Belt to get 1 + WIS bonus to your AC. Then you'll need to buy up your WIS, naturally. But you can benefit from castings of Magic Vestment, which wouldn't stack with actual armor enhancements.

[Tavar]

Beyond a certain point you're just going to exceed what regular armor can offer you. Then you get into non-armor ways of boosting your AC. These are all expensive, of course. Skip the armor and you can wear a Monk's Belt to get 1 + WIS bonus to your AC. Then you'll need to buy up your WIS, naturally. But you can benefit from castings of Magic Vestment, which wouldn't stack with actual armor enhancements.

Already get Wis to AC through Swordsage 2, and it only works as long as I wear armor, and if it didn't, I don't think it would stack with a Monk's belt.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Already get Wis to AC through Swordsage 2, and it only works as long as I wear armor, and if it didn't, I don't think it would stack with a Monk's belt.

Right now, the cheapest option is just a set of padded armor. In a few levels when you hit 28 Dex, there's an armor that adds +1 with no max dex but still counts as armor. There's better things to spend your +s on than Nimble.

[Curmudgeon]

Already get Wis to AC through Swordsage 2, and it only works as long as I wear armor, and if it didn't, I don't think it would stack with a Monk's belt.

Sorry; I'd assumed you were thinking about using the Unarmed Swordsage variant, which is usually interpreted to switch the AC bonus from light armor to no armor to match the Monk. After all, unarmed strike is on the list of Shadow Hand weapons.

OK, so you're stuck with light armors. There's nothing past Mithral in terms of boost to Max DEX Bonus. Glassteel (Races of Faerûn) will give the same boost and tack on a nonmagical enhancement bonus, so if you're thinking of being in an Antimagic Field a lot it's a superior (though extremely expensive) alternative.

[lsfreak]

Celestial armor from the DMG has a higher-than-average max dex, higher than mithril chain, but is rather expensive due to the flying. You may or may not be able to buy it without the flying and the extra +2 bonus if you want and also have it made out of mithril in order to get even higher max dex. I'm guessing the ruling would be 'no' on the mithril, but you could always try.

[Curmudgeon]

Celestial armor from the DMG has a higher-than-average max dex, higher than mithril chain .. and also have it made out of mithril in order to get even higher max dex.

That would be a downgrade. It's already as light as mithral, with better properties. Switching the material to mithral would be like saying you could make a diamond out of sapphire to make it harder!

[AstralFire]

We are talking about the same system where stacking half templates does not actually ever result in a dilution of blood from any of the sources.

[Tavar]

Right now, the cheapest option is just a set of padded armor. In a few levels when you hit 28 Dex, there's an armor that adds +1 with no max dex but still counts as armor. There's better things to spend your +s on than Nimble.

Can you give examples? At the moment, there doesn't seem to be much that's within my price range: granted, I'm not looking at non-armor qualities, so perhaps there is something I can spend 3000gp on.

Oh, and the highest I can find is Thisiledown Padded Armor from Races of the Wild, with a +10 bonus. Do you know where the armor that lacks a Max dex is?

[AstralFire]

Probably Twistcloth from Races of Stone.

[EnnPeeCee]

Bondleaf Wrap from A&EG also has no max dex, but costs a bit.

[Tavar]

Twistcloth seems to be the one he's suggesting. The next question: is it worth a feat to be able to apply the bonus to my touch AC?

[Chineselegolas]

Twistcloth seems to be the one he's suggesting. The next question: is it worth a feat to be able to apply the bonus to my touch AC?

Are you fighting vast hordes of things with touch attacks?, if so no point. You already have dex out the wazoo, so your touch AC is good enough as it is.
Admittedly if it is a +5 twist cloth and you are constantly fighting things using touch attacks, another +6 to you touch AC could be useful, but to be honest, don't see it paying off.