I had a question regarding the Fighter's Armor Training Class feature.
Namely, does it also apply to shields, or simply to actual armor?
Thank you.
From my understanding of this, it is only for armor and not shields. The class feature states:
Armor Training (Ex)
Starting at 3rd level, a fighter learns to be more maneuverable while wearing armor. Whenever he is wearing armor, he reduces the armor check penalty by 1 (to a minimum of 0) and increases the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor by 1. Every four levels thereafter (7th, 11th, and 15th), these bonuses increase by +1 each time, to a maximum –4 reduction of the armor check penalty and a +4 increase of the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed.
In addition, a fighter can also move at his normal speed while wearing medium armor. At 7th level, a fighter can move at his normal speed while wearing heavy armor.
Since it specifically mentions medium/heavy armor and your speed. No shield that exists in Pathfinder, so far, reduces your speed for carrying it.
So I'd say no it doesn't count for shields.
it applies to total armor check penalty and maximum dex bonus. speed is based on armor and encumbrance.
Pretty sure it is only for armor, that said I easily houserule it to work without armor as long as the fighter isn't completely naked and unarmed. Stacking with shield remains a bad idea though.
If you allow armor training to affect shields to the full extent and then deduct it from armor as well, I can see it being unbalanced. But what is the problem with adding the penalties from shield and armor and then deducting armor training? It just doesn't seem that big of a deal to me.
I agree with Mella that it doesn't apply to shields, only armor. And Mynameisjake in making it affect shields would be very unbalanced.
nobody here said stacking with shields is a good idea, but I can't see a reason why it shouldn't reduce the total armor check penalty so you can wield a shield with a reduced armor check penalty if you have a high enough armor training.
Also like I said I do not think it should be needed to actually wear armor for the benefits to kick in.
I bet you a troglodyte burrito that in the next FAQ armor training works by adding the penalties for armor and shield and deducting the benefit from that total.
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nobody here said stacking with shields is a good idea, but I can't see a reason why it shouldn't reduce the total armor check penalty so you can wield a shield with a reduced armor check penalty if you have a high enough armor training.
Also like I said I do not think it should be needed to actually wear armor for the benefits to kick in.
I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?). Letting any excess apply to the shield penalty isn't game-breaking.
The dex bonus should go to the armor first, but raise up the shield cap if raising the armor doesn't do anything. Example, say full plate with a +1 max dex, and a tower shield with a +2 max dex, and a total bonus of +4 to max dex. Take armor to +5, you've still got the tower shield cap, which seems rather annoying, and makes the tower shield less than useful to a Fighter. Take armor to +4 (inc 3) and shield to +3 (inc 1), and you've got a fairer use of the class ability, while still keeping some restriciton.
I'd say it does apply to shields as shields are armor. They are listed under armor and provide a armor bonus. So to me that makes them armor. Armor training applies to armor. Simple as that in the way I read it.
Now it says nothing about stacking so stacking doesn't apply. So you take the total bonus and apply the bonus to the ACP. For max dex only the tower shield has a max dex on it so that max dex increases by the armor training bonus. Since you take the worst max dex bonus it doesn't really mean much. So say you had armor training 2 and padded armor with a tower shield. You have the max dex of +10 for the padded and +4 for the shield meaning you take the +4 for the shield. Or if you had full plate at +3 you'd take that instead of the +4 for the shield.
I like the idea of a Spartan inspired fighter wearing studded leather and a heavy steel shield having no ACP penalty with level 3 armor training.
I'm of the opinion that it wouldn't apply to shields. In one sense shields are armor, but really they are shields. They don't provide an armor bonus, its a shield bonus, and the AC and max dex bonus mechanics work slightly different with shields. Plus, I think the intent of the Armor Training ability is to allow fighters to be more maneuverable in heavier armors, not so much so when in light armors with heavy shields.
Really though, I don't think its much of a big deal for what most people would want to do. A Mwk heavy steel shield has no max dex bonus and an AC of -1. Big deal if -1 AC is negated.
The problem I do see is when you factor in Tower Shields. Now most fighters won't use a Tower Shield because of the extra -2 to attacks, but some fighter types focus way more on AC than attacks. How do you factor the +2 max dex bonus for tower shields then if Armor Training applies? Does it apply to the Tower Shield or the armor? If it applies just to the armor, then the Tower Shields will override it. If it applies to both, then shouldn't the AC penalty reduction apply to both? And if thats what happens, then you are looking at potentially reducing the AC by a full 8 (Mwk Full Plate goes from -6 to -1, Mwk Tower Shield goes from -10 to -5.) And that does seem a bit out of place.
So really, aside from Tower Shields, the only benefit of allowing Armor Training to stack with shields is potentially negating the -1 AC penalty for heavy shields (assuming its going to be a mwk shield). And that won't even come into play unless the fighter is wearing chainmail or heavy armor, or mithral versions of such armor. And really, a darkwood shield negates the AC for a shield entirely, so if thats so important a fighter can get that instead. But I think it does raise issues with Tower Shields that cannot easily be resolved.
I'd say it does apply to shields as shields are armor. They are listed under armor and provide a armor bonus. So to me that makes them armor. Armor training applies to armor. Simple as that in the way I read it.
emphasis mine.
Shields do not provide an armor bonus. They provide a shield bonus.
If shields provided an armor bonus, then they would not stack with armor.
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Treantmonk is correct. The reason that shields provide a "shield" bonus rather than an "armor" bonus is because two "armor" bonuses wouldn't stack.
However, shields ARE armor. I have several arguments for this.
1. Where do you find shields in the equipment chapter? There is a weapons section, and an armor section. Shields are found in the armor section. shields do not have a bold Shields subsection. There is not a separate chart for shields, they are just in the Armor chart.
2. Shields have Armor Check penalties, and in the case of tower shields, a Maximum Dex Bonus.
4. Shields contribute to you Armor Class.
3. Where do you find the rules for magical shields? Once again, you find them under Magical Items, Armor. Shield enchantments prices are found in the Armor table. In fact, The price to enchant a shield with a "+_" bonus is the same as it is to enchant any other piece of armor with that same bonus.
You may be thinking "Aha, I have you now! In Magical Items, there is a separate chart for what specific enchantments can be applied to shields!" Look at the Specific Armors and Specific Shields charts. Almost every enchantment on them is shared by both charts. The only reason some enchantments are available on one and not the other is that they don't make much sense for that particular piece of equipment. While a Slick suit covers you, aiding in escape artist checks, a Slick shield wouldn't have that kind of coverage and wouldn't really work. An animated suit would be more like a curse, but an animated shield could be helpful.
While this time there is a bold Shields section it is small and exists for only one reason. You can Shield Bash with a shield, and that has a few rules. The rest is there only because is was logical to put it there seeing as how we were talking about shields already.
4. From a purely logical position, A shield is a type of armor. It exists to protect you.
Ultimately, the GM will enforce their own opinion. However it is clearly logical to me that shields are a type of armor, and Armor Training should apply somehow. Should it apply individually to a suit and also a shield? Should it apply to the total Armor Check and dexterity penalty? I think I side with the latter. Ask your GM.
^^ Agreed.
Honestly to use a tower shield and full plate requires a strength of 18, how high can you really raise your dex without being either med-heavy encumbered or just plain useless? Oh my AC is god like, well your damage and cmb is crap so we are going to IGNORE YOU. The money spent to make armor light can honestly be spent elsewhere for better benefits.
Sorry about the necro but Guntank actually can use the Armor like that. They are a dex based class which people naturally have points of STR into for their heavy armor. I currently have one with Mithral Fullplate and Tower shield (because Mithral towershields already exist in the magic armor listing) that has more dex than my armor training allows. 22 DEX and +5 max (Full plate has +6 max tower shield has +5, as our GM treated shields as armor because they are). I also still do good damage output and have a padded cmd, culverins can be used with towershields (they have been in real life). Those kinds of builds are hardly overpowered and anyone who thinks mundane fighting classes are overpowered have never had/been with a high level spell caster before. You still deal with a larger ACP than any shield would normally give you and larger than most armors give you after armor training. You still cant use your left hand for anything besides the shield, so balance of game mechanics isn't an issue, its just balancing your character on those ledges.
Sorry about the necro but Guntank actually can use the Armor like that. They are a dex based class which people naturally have points of STR into for their heavy armor. I currently have one with Mithral Fullplate and Tower shield (because Mithral towershields already exist in the magic armor listing) that has more dex than my armor training allows. 22 DEX and +5 max (Full plate has +6 max tower shield has +5, as our GM treated shields as armor because they are). I also still do good damage output and have a padded cmd, culverins can be used with towershields (they have been in real life). Those kinds of builds are hardly overpowered and anyone who thinks mundane fighting classes are overpowered have never had/been with a high level spell caster before. You still deal with a larger ACP than any shield would normally give you and larger than most armors give you after armor training. You still cant use your left hand for anything besides the shield, so balance of game mechanics isn't an issue, its just balancing your character on those ledges.^^ Agreed.
Honestly to use a tower shield and full plate requires a strength of 18, how high can you really raise your dex without being either med-heavy encumbered or just plain useless? Oh my AC is god like, well your damage and cmb is crap so we are going to IGNORE YOU. The money spent to make armor light can honestly be spent elsewhere for better benefits.
FYI treating shields as armor for the purpose of armor training is against both RAW and RAI. There is a fighter archetype that has an ability which specifically gets around this(it explicitly lets them apply their armor training to their tower shield instead).
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That archetype, which is quoted just a couple posts up, actually heavily implies that Armor Training does apply to shields.
To reiterate-
"At 3rd level, a tower shield specialist gains armor training as normal, but while he employs a tower shield, the armor penalty is reduced by 3 and the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor increases by 2. The benefit increases every four levels thereafter as per standard armor training; if the tower shield specialist is not employing a tower shield, the benefits to armor training revert to the normal bonuses."
That also seems to support the idea that the benefits of Armor Training are applied to your total ACP.
I've always interpreted the ability as applying to shields, both RAW and RAI.
it applies to total armor check penalty and maximum dex bonus. speed is based on armor and encumbrance.Armor and encumbrance are two separate and overlapping factors. Encumbrance will reduce your speed no matter how well you are trained, if you are encumbered sufficiently.
So if I'm reading that right, encumbrance only applies to speed in heavy(ier) armor, or does it apply to MD and ACP and completely override armor/shield's ACP and MD?
Also excuse ignorance but what does RAI stand for? (I know what it means, but not its phonetic meaning.)
That also seems to support the idea that the benefits of Armor Training are applied to your total ACP.
I've always interpreted the ability as applying to shields, both RAW and RAI.
I would agree it only applies to combined ACP if it weren't for how I have yet to see a calculating character sheet with an armor training slot (which implies that you manually change both the armor and shields base ACP as per the ability not after you add them together) and that there is a minimum ACP of 0 which means you can quick math the armor's ACP to -1 and leave the shield at 10 so it still comes out to a total 9. Instead you move them both down to 0 and 6, based on what I'm seeing.
And in either case, you take the lower MD and apply the bonus and it will still be lower than the other MD after the training has been applied.
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For my 2 cents, it is armour only. It specifically calls out that it boosts the max dex and lowers the penalties "of his armour." Not of his armour and shield.
If we start thinking of shield also counting as armour, a lot of classes become quite silly.
I personally think RAI AND RAW are the same here.
Shields are listed under armor in the CRB. The Tower Shield Specialist specifically refers to Armor Training working "as normal" but with increased benefits when used in conjunction with a tower shield, which would seem to imply that shields are, in fact, affected by it. What, exactly, becomes "silly" if shields are a type of armor?
I also believe that RAW and RAI are the same, which to me means that Armor Training counts towards your total ACP from both your suit of armor and shield, and that if your shield has a Max Dex, that too is affected by Armor Training.
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Tower shields have a Max Dex bonus. If the Tower Shield Specialist's Armor Training doesn't effect his tower shield then it doesn't actually do anything, because the tower shield itself has a max Dex cap of two.
Also, just look at the entry in Ultimate Equipment. The Tower Shield's stats include a line that says: "Armor Type: Shield". So... shields are a type of armor, pretty unequivocally. That's probably why they're listed under Armor in the CRB.
I'll go with the interpretation supported by the CRB, where shields are a type of armor and the Tower Shield Specialist's class features actually work.
Since Balance was briefly mentioned above, I can't see any balance issues with allowing this to apply to shields. Unless if the fighter was using a tower shield, it only costs 257 GP to get a heavy shield with no ACP, which becomes irrelevant as early as level 3-4. And most shields don't have a max dexterity limit.
If the fighter IS using a tower shield, he still won't be able to get rid of the -2 penalty to attack rolls or come close to mitigating the massive -10 ACP. If he's going that route, it would be superior to just take the Tower Shield archetype instead.
In other words, I see no problems with allowing armor training to apply to shields. Whether it's intended to do so by RAW can be read either way.
it applies to total armor check penalty and maximum dex bonus. speed is based on armor and encumbrance.Armor and encumbrance are two separate and overlapping factors. Encumbrance will reduce your speed no matter how well you are trained, if you are encumbered sufficiently.So if I'm reading that right, encumbrance only applies to speed in heavy(ier) armor, or does it apply to MD and ACP and completely override armor/shield's ACP and MD?
Also excuse ignorance but what does RAI stand for? (I know what it means, but not its phonetic meaning.)
No, you're not. to figure out your speed, you make two checks.
Check 1. state your type of armor, light, heavy, and medium, and see if you have armor training to negate the speed penalty.
Check 2. Total the entire weight you are carrying, weapons, armor, backpack, kitchen sink, etc. Check the weight categories for your strength rating.
Step B. Apply the worst result of the two checks above.
I got the speed penalty thing, I was asking if wearing heavy armor means you ignore being medium encumbered if your MD and ACP is better than medium encumbrance.
I don't need to look at the equipment book when the core book tells me it isn't armour and it's separate.
Also it does do something
It allows a tower shield specialist to gain a boost to his armour bonuses and lower the penalties ON HIS ARMOUR so long as his tower shield is out. The rules are clear.
So lets assume for best case scenario that our fighter is wearing banded mail, after armor training and tower shield training, any further armor trainings become useless since we don't increase the MD of the tower shield? That really makes more sense of an interpretation to you, limiting the fighter to an effective 14 dex when he gains armor training well past a +2 bonus? Oh I know, ill just drop my towersheild so I have dex again, oh wait, now ive just lost everything I sacrificed weapon training for.
The rules are clear, max dex is based on the lowest value as determined by what armor the character is wearing, if its a +2 because of a toweshield and a chain shirt, then at level 16 its now +6 because +2+4=+6. The only real discrepancy is where ACP factors in and a -3 ACP at level 16 fighter really doesn't seem wrong at all when that's what the fighter does, especially a tower shield specialist. By RAW its debatable because of bad wording but RAI definitely supports this.
Either way, when ever you actually have to face a check with your towersheild out, you can just put it on your back and then make the check so a fighter still doesn't have to worry, and regular shields can be laughed at.
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I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?).
Because Mithril full-plate, and eventually Celestial Plate will get you a better AC, and at high levels DR 3/- means very little while 2-5 AC does.
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Also it does do something
It allows a tower shield specialist to gain a boost to his armour bonuses and lower the penalties ON HIS ARMOUR so long as his tower shield is out. The rules are clear.
Yes, the rules are clear. The Tower Shield Specialist's Armor Training increases the Max Dex bonus allowed by up to +6 while wielding a tower shield, which will only make a difference if it applies to the shield since tower shields have a Max Dex of +2.
I don't need to look at the equipment book when the core book tells me it isn't armour and it's separate.
Yes, the CRB, where shields are listed as armor multiple times. They're in the armor section of the book (starting on page 149), they're described under a section titled "Armor Descriptions" on page 150, they inflict an Armor Check Penalty, the time and action(s) used to equip them are listed in table 6-7 "Donning Armor" and described in the "Getting Into and Out of Armor" section on page 153. On page 93, it talks about how you use Craft (Armor) to make shields. Page 461 starts the "Armor" subsection of magic items, which is where one goes to find shields. Page 463 lists spell resistance as a property that can be placed on shields; page 464 describes the spell resistance property: "This property grants the armor's wearer spell resistance while the armor is worn. The spell resistance can be 13, 15, 17, or 19 depending on the armor worn".
So when I take all that, and I see that other core product line books like Ultimate Equipment provide me easy little descriptors that list shields as a type of armor, and I see that Tower Shield Training on the Tower Shield Specialist works as normal but offers an increased Max Dex cap which can only have any effect if it applies to the tower shield, it really is easy to see that, as you put it, "the rules are clear" and shields are a type of armor affected by Armor Training.
^ I also have yet to find a place where armor and shields are listed separately, CRB, AA, UE, or the paizo and d20 sight.
Because Mithril full-plate, and eventually Celestial Plate will get you a better AC, and at high levels DR 3/- means very little while 2-5 AC does.
I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?).
Is it me or is adamantine actually garbage except for low levels and you'll never get a low level character who can afford adamantine fullplate.
Because Mithril full-plate, and eventually Celestial Plate will get you a better AC, and at high levels DR 3/- means very little while 2-5 AC does.
I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?).
I'm just curious, but do STR fighters normally even get enough DEX to fill out the max DEX on a mithril plate with armor training (+7)? This does matter with Celestial Plate, since it can't technically be enchanted any further than +3 iirc.
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I'm just curious, but do STR fighters normally even get enough DEX to fill out the max DEX on a mithril plate with armor training (+7)? This does matter with Celestial Plate, since it can't technically be enchanted any further than +3 iirc.Because Mithril full-plate, and eventually Celestial Plate will get you a better AC, and at high levels DR 3/- means very little while 2-5 AC does.
I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?).
I generally only see this happen with TWF and archers, who need the mithril as much for the weight reduction since their STR isn't being pumped as for the Max Dex bump. It would be relatively hard for a STR fighter to actually hit his Max Dex cap if he's combining Armor Training and mithril.
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I generally only see this happen with TWF and archers, who need the mithril as much for the weight reduction since their STR isn't being pumped as for the Max Dex bump. It would be relatively hard for a STR fighter to actually hit his Max Dex cap if he's combining Armor Training and mithril.
True - but that's only a fighter issue. And frankly - most STR fighters who start the game with a 12dex trade away Armor Training for an archetype, and at high levels will still have a 18-20dex. without trying too hard.
This does matter with Celestial Plate, since it can't technically be enchanted any further than +3 iirc.
I thought that was a PFS only ruling. *shrug* And really high level stuff is moot there anyway.
I'm just curious, but do STR fighters normally even get enough DEX to fill out the max DEX on a mithril plate with armor training (+7)? This does matter with Celestial Plate, since it can't technically be enchanted any further than +3 iirc.Because Mithril full-plate, and eventually Celestial Plate will get you a better AC, and at high levels DR 3/- means very little while 2-5 AC does.
I would go with this interpretation. Even at max level, it's only a -4 check and +4 max dex bonus, which isn't enough to fully negate adamantine full plate (and why wear anything else?).
Either way, as you'll see with my necro post, there are other options for filling out that DEX: Guntank (gunslinger archetype)