Sky Druid Armor

[Fromper]

So I'm pretty new to druids. I have a Sylph Sky Druid from the Advanced Race Guide, which loses the normal druid medium armor proficiency. I'm assuming darkwood heavy shield is the best shield I can use, but what's the best armor? This is for PFS, so RAW Paizo sources only.

[Ipslore the Red]

With special materials, dragonhide makes metal armors available to you at a cost. Depending on your Dexterity and how important mobility is to you, dragonhide full plate or breastplate may be viable, but I'd still prefer darkleaf hide armor for mobility.

[Fromper]

Remember, this is for a sky druid, so no medium armor, just light.

I was looking at leather lamellar, which seems to be my best bet. For my other characters, it's always been mithral or no special material on armor, so I don't really know the non-metal materials. I'll have to hunt through Ultimate Equipment a little and figure it out, unless there's another source I should know about.

Edit: So looking through Ultimate Equipment, I found the darkleaf material, which makes the leather lamellar weigh half as much and have no armor check penalty. It also allows more of a dex bonus to AC, but I don't care about that for this PC.

Because I dumped strength (pure caster druid, not the wild shape and dive into the front line type), I'll still have a -3 armor check penalty and slower speed due to being medium encumbered even with this armor. But I can cast Ant Haul to triple my carrying capacity, and then I no longer have that problem. For now, it'll be scrolls of Ant Haul, but I'll probably prepare and cast it once per day as a known spell starting around level 4 or 5.

[Ipslore the Red]

Darkleaf hide armor is light armor. Darkleaf is basically non-metallic mithral.

[Java Man]

Ipslore the Red wrote:

Darkleaf hide armor is light armor. Darkleaf is basically non-metallic mithral.

I can't find the reference for darkleaf dropping the armor category like mithral does, where is that stated?

[Jeff Merola]

Java Man wrote:

Ipslore the Red wrote:

Darkleaf hide armor is light armor. Darkleaf is basically non-metallic mithral.

I can't find the reference for darkleaf dropping the armor category like mithral does, where is that stated?

It doesn't. It just happens to do everything else that mithral does so a lot of people assume it must make the armor a lighter category as well.

[Ipslore the Red]

Jeff Merola wrote:

Java Man wrote:

Ipslore the Red wrote:

Darkleaf hide armor is light armor. Darkleaf is basically non-metallic mithral.

I can't find the reference for darkleaf dropping the armor category like mithral does, where is that stated?

It doesn't. It just happens to do everything else that mithral does so a lot of people assume it must make the armor a lighter category as well.

It indeed doesn't, but it doesn't have to. Darkleaf hide armor has a ACP of 0, making the nonproficiency penalty irrelevant.

[Fromper]

But hide armor is medium, so darkleaf hide armor still slows your move speed. As I said, with my dumped strength, I'll be slowed and have a -3 armor check penalty for medium encumbrance, anyway, but Ant Haul solves that.