Plate v. Scale Armor

[domino]

Quick backround. I'm starting a Dragonborn Paladin 1. With a 10 dex, plate armor and heavy shield, I'm looking at a -4 for practically everything that requires armor checks.

I'm wondering if dropping down to scale armor would be worth it, to get back that 2 armor check penalty, for the cost of 1 AC. I don't plan on having him do much in the way of acrobatics, outside of climbing and jumping, mostly. But, when it happens, it'd be nice to not automatically fail forever.

Also, as a Bahamut fanboy, who paints his own skin/scales silver, the scale armor would be a lot more fitting for the character shtick, but that's not entirely related to the number crunching.

 

[hong]

I'd go for scale. IME, it's certainly possible for a defender's AC to be too high.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Of the paladins that I've seen in play, the +1 to armor seems to come into play more than the penalty to skills. It's nice to have AC20 at first level.

 

[mlund]

I'd go for scale. IME, it's certainly possible for a defender's AC to be too high.

Agreed. The nice option Plate Armor gives you is to eschew the whole Heavy Shield route and use a two-handed weapon while still having 18 AC.

If, as a defender, you start pushing 20 AC at first level you're going to have problems fulfilling your battlefield role against intelligent enemies. Even if someone has -2 to hit other characters and might suffer 5 radiant damage he's still going to be well-advised to attack with 16 AC Rogue who is doing 3d8+7 every round over the 20 AC Paladin doing 1d8+4 that's giving said Rogue the flank.

When the enemies start beating up your Strikers instead of your Defender your Defender is doing his job wrong. That's the problem with "over-tanking" your Defender characters (as well as a general failing of the Core Paladin's design).

- Marty Lund

 

[Elric]

In my opinion, talk about defenders having "too high of AC" is misplaced. You can forgo too many other benefits in getting high AC, but that's a different issue.

Scale vs. Plate is -2 armor check penalty vs. +1 AC. You're going to get attacked against AC a lot more than you're going to make rolls for which this check penalty matters. Unless Str/Dex/Con skills are commonly required and the penalties for failure are quite significant, the AC bonus will be better.

 

[Mengu]

Ask your DM. In one campaign, we have a paladin with scale and light shield. -2 AC has been well worth the +4 skills in that game. The player is quite happy with the arrangement since we have physical skill challenges fairly often. In another campaign we have a paladin with plate and heavy shield. He's been out of at least one combat almost entirely because he couldn't climb out of a pit. But despite that, the extra AC seems to come into play quite often, so he is sticking with the plate and heavy shield.

You can always try scale for a level or two, and decide later. 1 point of AC is not going to make the difference between life and death. At the end of the adventuring day, just check your resources, and try to ascertain how much of a difference that point of AC would have made, and weigh it against the skill check penalty.

 

[silverwhisper]

i echo mengu's advice. it's hard to know how significant the skill check penalty would be in a given game: my DM actually makes considerable use of athletics checks--enough so that i burned a feat on skill training: athletics at 2nd lvl. i think this is ultimately dependent upon how your DM runs encounters. do you have any indications there will be a lot of athletics-focused skill challenges?

 

[Lhorgrim]

I say go for the scale armor because it matches your character concept without completely gimping your paladin.

 

[domino]

He's running a module or two or three from the Dungeon Delvers book, so I'm assuming that they're more geared towards combat than adventuring/exploring?

 

[Estlor]

I don't think there's much difference between the two that would necessitate plate armor in the heroic tier. Once you start to get into masterwork armor, things become more pronounced. Until you get into nagascale and titanscale armor, plate will continue to skew 1 higher for AC (after which they even out). But would you rather have the opportunity to have a speed of 6 and a +1 or 2 to Fortitude or a speed of 5 and resist 1, 2, or 5 all?

The beauty of your situation is you can opt for scale and better skill checks and reevaluate later after you get a feel for the campaign.