Best Armor Enhancements

[Lemmy]

Hello, fellow gamers, I once more ask for your advice.

What do you consider to be the (overall) best enhancement to armor?

I don't mean obvious choices like Wild for druids, or Fire Resistant in a campaign against evil fire elementals, but the ones that generally the most useful in a campaign where you'll probably travel around a lot, and must be prepared to very different situations.

I suppose having more than 1 armor is doable, but the cost can be prohibitive, so if that's an option, what would be your choices?

tl;dr: What enhancements do you usually add to your armor if you know you'll face lots of different enemies and be in many different places?

[Talonhawke]

Comfort is a go to choice for med/hvy armor users.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Lemmy wrote:

Hello, fellow gamers, I once more ask for your advice.

What do you consider to be the (overall) best enhancement to armor?

I don't mean obvious choices like Wild for druids, or Fire Resistant in a campaign against evil fire elementals, but the ones that generally the most useful in a campaign where you'll probably travel around a lot, and must be prepared to very different situations.

I suppose having more than 1 armor is doable, but the cost can be prohibitive, so if that's an option, what would be your choices?

tl;dr: What enhancements do you usually add to your armor if you know you'll face lots of different enemies and be in many different places?

It depends on your build and character, and levels. For an endgame heavy armor melee type, I would recommend a +5 Mithral, Greater Slick, Greater Shadow, Full Plate of Undead Controlling, Ethereal, Greater Energy Resistant Major Fortification; major AC, nice maneuverability, lower ACP, and good luck for those big bad guys to try and actually crit you; oh, and precision damage like Sneak Attack. Plus you get to control undead, have AC affect incorporeal attacks, bonuses to Escape Artist, Stealth (that pesky stealth!), and 30 damage off of all energy based attacks. How awesome is that?

Of course, there are classes who might actually benefit more from Spell Resistance than Foritification, or Ghost Touch, etc. But you can alter those accordingly.

[boring7]

Glamer! Because the distinguished adventurer sacrifices neither protection nor style in both the dungeon and the ballroom.

Okay maybe not, but besides straight-up pluses I can't think of a single ability that I have absolutely positively wanted almost every time. I think Comfort and Glamer are the most likely to be useful regularly because no one wants to fight at -10 AC during the nightly ambush, and it looks and smells as good as it needs to no matter where you were 10 minutes ago.

Shields are another animal though, I really, really like the bashing enchantment (and the idea of fighting primarily with your shield, yes I did like Captain America what does that have to do with anything?) and the animated enchantment (Two-hand your sword while keeping the AC bonus) and arrow-deflection is probably worth it if you face ranged attacks more than ~10% of the time and Arrow-catching is too if you spend a lot of time/effort protecting squishier allies.

Anything else? I'll take another +1 or equivalent gold please.

I mean, barring a specific character build, obviously.

[Lemmy]

Those are some nice ideas.

Let's say you have 5 characters.

A Frontline Paladin
A Party Face/Support Bard
A Archery Focused Ranger (or Fighter)
A Support Cleric
A Frontline Magus

What are the generally best enhancements for characters such as these (or with similar roles)?

Besides the numerical bonus. That +5 is great for anyone.

I ask becauseright now I'm playing a Paladin and a Druid, and besides the Wild enhancement, I'm not sure what to spend my money on. And since we usually travel a lot in our campaigns, I'd want the armor's enhancements to be as universally useful as they can be.

I think Fire/Cold Resistance could be nice, since there are so many creatures with those subtypes.

[boring7]

Hmm. How much we got to play with?

Fire resistance...is probably sound. My own weird prejudice always shies away from it for mostly-outdated reasons but the truth is that fire is the most common energy damage you will run across (even a peasant can throw his oil lantern at you) and it's not THAT expensive anymore. Further, while cold is quite a bit rarer in general adventures it shows up, not to mention cold resistance pretty much makes you immune to cold-related travel hazards. That said it is a lot less important to a druid, who can cast those things as spells.

Frontline Paladin: Champion is solid since you will be smiting. Righteous is GREAT for one fight, but useless for the rest of the day, giving the same buyer's dilemma many paladins have of, "when should I smite?" A paladin LIKES being the guy in shiny fullplate, so glamered is out but Comfort is in. Like Bruce Willis' Unbreakable character the tincan paladin has a weakness towards water, so Plate of the Deep with the previous enhancements added afterwards are not a bad idea.

Shield enchantments rely too heavily on personal fighting style to make a call here, but if you do use one your reflex save is probably good enough for arrow-deflecting to be worth it.

Actually, Determination is pretty good too. If you are lucky and good, it will almost never see use, but it fires off a Breath of Life when you would otherwise be dead (or dying) in the dirt, and considering the Diehard feat is a thing that probably counts for something.

getting sleepy...going back to bed

[darkwarriorkarg]

Lemmy wrote:

Those are some nice ideas.

Let's say you have 5 characters.

A Frontline Paladin
A Party Face/Support Bard
A Archery Focused Ranger (or Fighter)
A Support Cleric
A Frontline Magus

What are the generally best enhancements for characters such as these (or with similar roles)?

Besides the numerical bonus. That +5 is great for anyone.

I ask becauseright now I'm playing a Paladin and a Druid, and besides the Wild enhancement, I'm not sure what to spend my money on. And since we usually travel a lot in our campaigns, I'd want the armor's enhancements to be as universally useful as they can be.

I think Fire/Cold Resistance could be nice, since there are so many creatures with those subtypes.

Comfort is amust... then you can sleep in it... and RP wise, it stays nice and spiffy. (you don't, but the bard should be prestigitating away...)

"In Andoran, bards sing in the shower, while getting clean."
"In soviet Cheliax, bards sing you clean!"

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

I'm not sure if it still exists, but "Called" was nice. Basically if your armor was withing range you could don it as a standard action by using a command word. It literally teleported to you and put itself on you. It's a nice BLAM effect!

[darkwarriorkarg]

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

I'm not sure if it still exists, but "Called" was nice. Basically if your armor was withing range you could don it as a standard action by using a command word. It literally teleported to you and put itself on you. It's a nice BLAM effect!

Folding plate...

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

darkwarriorkarg wrote:

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

I'm not sure if it still exists, but "Called" was nice. Basically if your armor was withing range you could don it as a standard action by using a command word. It literally teleported to you and put itself on you. It's a nice BLAM effect!

Folding plate...

Similar effect, but this was an enchantment that could be added to any armor.