A few newbie questions


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


So, we've decided to embrace Pathfinder instead of D&D5 for the next few years - thanks in part to the replies I got from you guys a few months ago. Much house-ruling lies ahead, but we're all happy with what we have so far.

So, just a few questions if anyone can help.

1) Quite a few players want to play a Conan/Jack Sparrow/Wyatt Earp character without armour. I could just give out Bracers AC2 to everyone at first level, but I'm exploring alternatives. What archetypes offer unarmoured potential? I can see there's Savage Barbarian, Geisha Bard, Kensai Magus, there's an elf Magus that's unarmoured I think, the Eccleistheurge Cleric... Does anyone know of any other ones? Monk, Wizard, Sorcerer obviously, but I'm thinking of combat roles.

2) Is there any option anywhere for trading out the standard Ability Score increases for any other benefit as D&D5 does?

Many thanks if you can help.


I don't know how DND5 trades out ability score increases since I have never played it so I can't answer that.

In unearthed arcana there was a variant rule that got you a base defense bonus based on the BAB progression of your character. This replaces armor so if you use it and you also tend to follow WBL then I would give out less loot. If you dont follow WBL then don't worry about the less loot suggestion.

This a link to it
Here is how I would decide what bonus each class gets. You might want to add in some extra armor bonuses if they are getting hit too much. I would not help the d6 castser out with this, but that is up to you.
Armor Proficiency
None...................................Column A
Light.................................. Column B
Light and medium.............. Column C
Light, medium, and heavy.. Column D


Sadly, being unarmoured is in general a hard thing to be while retaining a high AC. It requires specific builds to do, though they do excel in their areas (some builds can get even higher AC than most armoured characters). Though AC isn't everything, I would say that hp is way more important for your survival.
About Jack Sparrow: He's a character that exists in a world with guns. In Pathfinder, guns makes armour less valuable and favours DEX (since they target touch). What I'm saying is that Jack Sparrow wouldn't suffer from not wearing armour that much, in Pathfinder.
You could also look into giving them some kind of DR, instead of AC.


Ah, I dimly remember the UA rules - thank you, Wraithstrike.

I was thinking more in terms of existing PF archetypes that allow unarmoured characters, as it seems weird that a Dumas-style musketeer gunslinger or swashbuckler would be wearing armour.

I'm not at all bothered about WBL - I'll give them all Bracers if I have to. I just wanted to see if there was some kind of a system fit. Savage Barbarian has Conan or Red Sonja covered, I guess.

I suppose Ecclesitheurge has the Final Fantasy White Mage covered too.

Anything else I've missed?


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If pretty much everyone wants to be unarmored, just make clothes enchantable at the same cost as armor. No reason it shouldn't be anyway.

Though, the Musketeers did wear armor. Light armor, at least. As do many swashbuckley piratical sorts. Studded leather and chain shurts barely slow you. Mithral chain is as good as wearing cloth for mobility.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Even failing that, silken ceremonial armor is barely armor at all. :)


Sorry, I just don't see the musketeers and Jack Sparrow are wearing 20 pounds of studded leather. It's an image thing. I'd sooner just give out Bracers. And the only armoured gunfighter I can recall is Ned Kelly.

And thanks, Kalindlara, your help was instrumental in converting the group to PF. We've bought lots of hardbacks and are considering subscriptions.

Silver Crusade Contributor

MAJT69 wrote:

Sorry, I just don't see the musketeers and Jack Sparrow are wearing 20 pounds of studded leather. It's an image thing. I'd sooner just give out Bracers. And the only armoured gunfighter I can recall is Ned Kelly.

And thanks, Kalindlara, your help was instrumental in converting the group to PF. We've bought lots of hardbacks and are considering subscriptions.

You're very welcome. :)


So you have a few problems, all of them with your own perceptions.

Classes that lose armor are not naturally better without it. The geisha bard is not better off for losing all of its armor proficiency. It's even more of an NPC class, for that very reason. Most of the others that gain some kind of AC boost are just trying to make up for the AC lost by going naked.

In real life gunslingers didn't wear armor because it's heavy and hot and you needed to shell out a fortune for something that would actually be able to stop bullets. Oh, and the helmets that came with the armor are murder on peripheral vision. In Pathfinder gunslingers don't wear armor against other gunslingers because guns ignore armor in their first range increment. And in the era of gunslingers, everyone had a gun.

That leather vest Jack Sparrow wears? Probably armor, since it doesn't have any other function. Hide Shirt, if I had to guess. Conan also wears armor sometimes, depending on the version you're talking about. During the "Wild West" people were manufacturing bulletproof (well, resistant) vests with multiple layers of silk. Supposedly Wyatt Earp was an early user.

So there's a few solutions. One is class defense bonus, which I think someone linked upthread. The other is the Haramaki and Silken Ceremonial armor (incredibly light, no max dex, no ACP, no ASF). Another is a monk dip for Wis to AC. You can worship Arshea and have giant morning orgies to get your Charisma as an armor bonus to AC. You can ignore AC and focus on DR, miss chance, healing, other defenses or ways to mitigate the damage in general.

People who want to play Jack Sparrow/Conan/Wyatt Earp might want to realize that a purely faithful conversion of them is going to suck. Jack Sparrow has no solution to anything above zombies (and fails once he fights anything harder). Conan lives in a world of limited magic, spells are much more limited (like AD&D wizards with only one a day). Wyatt Earp is a human, living in the real world with real world limitations. You better believe that Jack Sparrow would buy the best armor that didn't limit his ability to run away. Conan would (and did in one of the movies I thought) buy whatever armor he felt he needed. He usually runs naked because he started as a thief by trade and didn't want that ACP. Wyatt Earp probably did wear his equivalent of armor and if thrown into a world with different armor would probably wear that.

Silver Crusade Contributor

I think what Bob3 is getting at is that the system isn't really designed for no-armor - so you'll have to adjust for that manually, whether through items or subsystems - and that the tropes of other media aren't something Pathfinder does well. These are valid points. :)

Also, note that refluffing can serve you well. This guy? He's wearing leather armor. The iconic barbarian in the Core Rulebook is wearing hide armor. That's not even light armor. So sometimes, the stats can reflect one thing... while the image reflects another. :)


I didn't really ask for that, thanks. Thanks for the response but it doesn't really help.

I'm sorry if I didn't explain myself well-enough and muddied the waters by using specific examples.

I asked:

a) are there any unarmoured archetypes I may have missed, and

b) is there anything in the vast amount of PF rules that allow for swapping out ability score improvements?

I don't have a complete knowledge of all the variant options in dozens and dozens of PF books so I was hoping those people who did could tell me if I'd missed anything.

I haven't really read the Mythic rules yet so for all I know there might be something in there.


Kalindlara wrote:
Also, note that refluffing can serve you well. This guy? He's wearing leather armor. The iconic barbarian in the Core Rulebook is wearing hide armor. That's not even light armor. So sometimes, the stats can reflect one thing... while the image reflects another. :)

I dunno really, Kalindlara. The iconics seem to be drawn for 'rule of cool'. Amiri seems to be wearing patchwork armour on legs and arms, and other iconics like the Oracle are depicted wearing robes when there's no reason that their class wouldn't be wearing armour. Likewise Seltiel and the gunslinger character are wearing clothes, not armour.

It looks cool and the art is beautiful but it's clearly not intended to depict the armour described in the Core rules.


So, yeah, that's another problem. The iconic Oracle, in bikini and robe, is wearing studded leather. The iconic Barbarian, with the midriff baring, is in hide armor. Summoner in bulky full body robes? Leather armor. Leather bustier on the Gunslinger? Studded leather bustier. You can assume that art and description do not meet, personally I'm going to assume that it's all lots of refluffing (especially since there's no way you can tell what those robes are made of or how heavy they are).

So to answer your questions:

a. I think there's an unarmored warpriest archetype (and any archetype that's a pseudo-monk has something similar) and since you mentioned Kensai there's also the Duelist prestige class it takes its power from.

b. Not that I know of.


A. Sacred Fist Warpriest is the only notable one that I'm aware of. Oracles can run a no-armor build roughly as effectively as a Monk (three of their mysteries have an option to add Cha to AC, though theirs replace Dex and stacks with armor). Duelist Canny Defense is a thing, but the Duelist is miserable.

Mythic's Archmage Path has an ability called Enduring Armor, which grants 3+Tier as a Force-effect armor bonus. However, that one's designed for arcane casters, so while it makes the Kensai hilarious it doesn't do much to help most combat classes.

There are a handful of other items that grant AC but they tend to be big-ticket pieces.

Houseruling is probably your best option, to be honest. Reflavoring can also work fine, as others have covered. Or enchanted clothing, which the rules kind of sort of allow for.

B. is a clear no. You could whip something together, but the ability score increases are, natively, really really valuable so it'd be hard to trade them in.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
a. I think there's an unarmored warpriest archetype

Thank you

Silver Crusade Contributor

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MAJT69 wrote:
Bob Bob Bob wrote:
a. I think there's an unarmored warpriest archetype
Thank you

Also note that if the PC wants to wield a weapon, this feat may come in handy. They'll need a deity with that favored weapon, though.


That sounds good, thanks Kalindlara.

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