"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."
I have been building a tower shield specialist and I eventually came across a GM who interpreted armor training in a bizarre manner. Rarely does dex limitation come up when a fighter uses shields and only in case of the tower shield. I have always read this ability as effecting the entire armor penalty and the lowest max dex bonus allowed. This was only enforced after I saw that when using a tower shield that the max dex bonus on the initial armor training is INCREASED when wielding a tower shield in the Tower Shield Specialist archetype. No other shield is effected by this, except for tower shields. Is there a way to get an official ruling? Also if it is true that this does not effect tower shield dex limitations why does armor training even matter when it comes to dex bonuses since the initial boosts all armor at least to a +2 dex bonus limitation and has the conditional statement that you must be using a tower shield to get the bonus? Why would this increase once per four levels and why should you even use tower shields at all when there is an alternate archetype,Armor Master, that does not have such limitations. I need a official ruling so that this can be taken over to PFS events so I know and understand what to expect at those events.
