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Hi, all. Quick question about the "acrobat" rogue from the APG.
The rogue's "expert acrobat" ability reads as follows:
Expert Acrobat (Ex) An acrobat does not suffer any armor check penalties on Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth skill checks while wearing light armor. When she is not wearing armor, she gains a +2 competency bonus on Acrobatics and Fly skill checks.
My question is: does this mean that a rogue acrobat in a chain shirt and a heavy steel shield will not incur an armor check penalty from the shield? Obviously, my question stems from the fact that the verbage says that the rogue "does nto suffer any armor check penalties while wearing light armor," but does not limit that statement to armor check incurred by the armor itself.
What I'd like to do is build a rogue which can use a heavy shield (after taking the proficiency feat, of course) without harming his Acrobatics and Stealth mods.
Legit? Yes or no? Thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
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it seems to be legit. However you may find a few DMs who won't allow this. This is most likely an overlooked aspect of the archetype rather than deliberate design.
But like i said looking at it from a strict rules point of view it seems like you can use the shield without penalties to your acrobatics.
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I would expect most to give Armour CHeck Penalty when using a shield. The effect intends to be similar to a Bards when it comes to Arcane Failure penalty which mentions armour and shields specifically.
Course, technically, you can argue that by RAW you can use a shield with no penalty because the Expert Acrobat suggests that while wearing light armour you suffer no penalties to those skills period.
But RAI would suggest that the Light Armour applies no penalty. Otherwise essentially you could wear Padded Armour and say 'hey look, I am wearing Light Armour, so I no longer get penalties to XYZ skills, right? Great, I am now putting on this set of Full Plate armour OVER my light armour' afterall, the skill only states you need to wear the armour, not that it must be really using it.
Same with suffering a status effect that gives a penalty to your rolls, the fact you wear light armour does not make you immune to that
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I would expect most to give Armour CHeck Penalty when using a shield. The effect intends to be similar to a Bards when it comes to Arcane Failure penalty which mentions armour and shields specifically.
Course, technically, you can argue that by RAW you can use a shield with no penalty because the Expert Acrobat suggests that while wearing light armour you suffer no penalties to those skills period.
But RAI would suggest that the Light Armour applies no penalty. Otherwise essentially you could wear Padded Armour and say 'hey look, I am wearing Light Armour, so I no longer get penalties to XYZ skills, right? Great, I am now putting on this set of Full Plate armour OVER my light armour' afterall, the skill only states you need to wear the armour, not that it must be really using it.
Same with suffering a status effect that gives a penalty to your rolls, the fact you wear light armour does not make you immune to that
@ Asteldain: If we're going to talk RAW, you can't wear full plate over padded armor. By RAW and RAI, those two items occupy the same body slot.
Also, the Expert Acrobat ability says that you do not suffer armor check penalties to those skills. It could not be interpreted as offering protection from any other kind of penalty.
@ Sigil: It does seem a tad loophole-ish, and might be an oversight. But by RAW, I read it that way, too. It's definitely not abuse-able, and really... being able to sneak effectively while carrying a large piece of wood is no less realistic than being able to sneak effectively while [/i]wearing a metal shirt made of chains[/i]. : P
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Very true, my fault for overlooking base rules (I was thinking along the lines of you could wear two items giving the same benefit but not stacking) and also forget the very obvious Armour Check penalty specification.
I still believe if they wanted to include shields they would have specified it, but I believe by RAW you could indeed use a shield without penalty
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To switch gears slightly from rules to practicality, remember that a rogue is not proficient with shields and will therefore apply the ACP of a shield to his attack rolls - despite leaving it off of his skills. So if you want a shielded rogue, get a masterwork buckler/light shield or a mithral heavy shield; they don't have an ACP at all so it all becomes a moot point.
Expert Acrobat only affects your Armor Check Penalty. Nothing else.
Which is also why the ability is worthless the moment you can afford a mithral chain shirt.
And while you didn't ask about any build advice, I'd refrain from dumping your Strength to a 7. In addition to carrying capacity, lots of poisons deal Str damage. Dump charisma instead, and take the Student of Philosophy trait to use Intelligence for Bluff/Diplomacy.