Just taking a gander at the equipment list, who really benefits from medium armor? That speed penalty is absolutely fatal. Anyone with 12 or less dexterity should definitely be in heavy armor, and anyone with 18 or more should definitely be in light. If you're at 14 or 16 you could eke out a couple more points of AC from medium armor, but at the loss of 1/3 of your speed, would that ever be considered worth it? Is it only used on low dex characters who lack heavy armor proficiency?
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Medium armor made of mithral doesn't have a speed penalty and is even light enough that you can sleep in it without getting fatigued.
As stated, there are a lot of classes that do not get heavy armor proficiency. Those classes may want medium armor.
Anyone whose armor proficiency caps at medium and isn't a Dex class? That's quite a lot of classes (Clerics, Oracle's, Inquisitors).
If you're shooting purely for higher armor, sure, but we're still only talking a couple of points for that speed drop. I'm not sure if it's normally worth the trade-off.
It is a couple of points on your flat-footed AC. Unless you have Uncanny Dodge, that can be a problem.
Even if you're not rocking Mithral, the speed penalty isn't really a big deal anyway, and can be remedied by many, many things.
Certainly better than using a Feat on better armor proficiency.
If you are moving faster than normal, it is fine. Barbarians seem like a prime example with their +10 speed and medium armor proficiency. Then, you go to 'normal', and still have that extra AC.
And if we are talking about mithral, then a mithral breastplate is even preferred by dex users who don't have 32 dex or above (by whatever sources).
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The speed drop may not matter to your character, and can be further ignored depending on the style of game you play. In a classic "dungeon crawl", a few points of AC is usually way better than some movement, especially when the rooms and hallways are within a 40ft charge range. If you're fighting in open fields, why don't you have a mount or a ranged weapon?
The difference of 10ft isn't always pronounced, but for many games combat ranges are in that sweet spot to make it noticeable. This is largely the case for Paizo's APs, modules, and PFS scenarios, so if you're mostly playing with those I can see why it may seem to be a bigger deal to you than it may be to others.
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Just taking a gander at the equipment list, who really benefits from medium armor? That speed penalty is absolutely fatal. Anyone with 12 or less dexterity should definitely be in heavy armor, and anyone with 18 or more should definitely be in light. If you're at 14 or 16 you could eke out a couple more points of AC from medium armor, but at the loss of 1/3 of your speed, would that ever be considered worth it? Is it only used on low dex characters who lack heavy armor proficiency?
The speed penalty is inconvenient, not fatal. And it doesn't exist at all for a dwarf.
The mithral breastplate is the best possible medium armor and does not slow you down at all unless it pushes you over your light load limit.
Mithral breastplate is basically the best armor in the game if you're a high Dex character. +6 Armor bonus, +5 Max Dex, only -1 ACP, and speed of 30. If you have 20 Dex, you'll have a +11 to your AC and that's not including any enhancement bonuses. Now, most of the other Medium armors leave quite a bit to be desired.
The mithral breastplate is the best possible medium armor and does not slow you down at all unless it pushes you over your light load limit.
Which can easily happen with min-maxing Dex monkeys that nuke their Strength.
Choose one armor trick option (light, medium, heavy, or
shield). You can perform armor tricks in combat when
wearing the appropriate armor option.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You can use any armor tricks related to the
chosen armor option if you meet the trick’s prerequisites
and are proficient with any armor that you use as part of
the trick.
Special: You can gain Armor Trick multiple times.
Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new armor
Many of these armor tricks originated in Andoran and are
employed by various branches of the Eagle Knights, who
highly value the greater protection provided by medium
armor but want to retain f lexibility and agility in combat.
Armor Focus, which is a prerequisite for two of these
tricks, can be found on page 16.
Acrobatic Sit-Up (Mobility, Acrobatics 5 ranks): You have
developed the ability to recover from a fall and attack an
opponent in a single fluid movement. Whenever you are
prone, you can make an attack against a single foe and stand
from prone without provoking an attack of opportunity
from that foe. Make a single melee attack against one
target without the normal penalties for attacking while
prone. If you hit your target, you can immediately stand
from prone (normally a move action) without provoking
an attack of opportunity from that target for doing so. Any
other target that threatens you can still make an attack of
opportunity against you. If your attack fails, you provoke attacks of opportunity from all threatening foes and
cannot stand until your next turn.
Heavy Versatility (Armor Focus, Armor Trick [Heavy
Armor]): You take advantage of all the defensive capabilities
your armor can offer. You can treat medium armor as
heavy armor for the purpose of which armor tricks you
can perform in it.
Light Versatility (Armor Focus, Armor Trick [Light
Armor]): You are so comfortable in your armor that it
seems lighter than it is. You can treat medium armor as
light armor for the purpose of what armor tricks you can
perform in it.
Roll into the Blow (Mobility): You keep your wits about
you when attacked and can turn the situation to your
advantage. Once per day when you are hit by an attack of
opportunity, you can lunge toward your attacker, throwing
it off-balance. The attacker takes a –4 penalty on all melee
attack rolls until the beginning of its next turn. You can
use this ability a second time each day when your base
attack bonus reaches +4, and an additional time per day for
every 4 points of bonus you accrue thereafter.
Versatile Armor (Combat Expertise): You can adjust
how you present yourself and maneuver in your armor to
maximize your speed and mobility or to maximize your
defenses. While using your armor for speed, your movement
is not affected by your armor and its armor check penalty
and armor bonus to AC both decrease by 2. While using your
armor for defense, your armor’s check penalty increases by
3 and its armor bonus to AC increases by 1. Adjusting how
you use your armor is a move action, and the adjustment
remains until you change it, take off your armor, or lose
your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).
Combat Expertise as a feat tax sucks, but there it is.
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Mithral breastplate is basically the best armor in the game if you're a high Dex character. +6 Armor bonus, +5 Max Dex, only -1 ACP, and speed of 30. If you have 20 Dex, you'll have a +11 to your AC and that's not including any enhancement bonuses. Now, most of the other Medium armors leave quite a bit to be desired.
Mithral celestial plate is the best armor in the game insofar as I'm concerned.
Mithral breastplate is basically the best armor in the game if you're a high Dex character. +6 Armor bonus, +5 Max Dex, only -1 ACP, and speed of 30. If you have 20 Dex, you'll have a +11 to your AC and that's not including any enhancement bonuses. Now, most of the other Medium armors leave quite a bit to be desired.Mithral celestial plate is the best armor in the game insofar as I'm concerned.
Not if keeping a 30 foot move without use of magic, or being a barbarian, is part of your character design religion.
It is also used by Role players whose characters would fancy those types of armor and don't care about stats ...
It is also used by Role players whose characters would fancy those types of armor and don't care about stats ...
The OP however pretty much established his interest as a CharOp thread.
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If you have the Endurance Feat, you can sleep in Medium Armor. You can't sleep in Heavy Armor, and if you are woken up for combat, putting on your heavy armor takes longer than most combats last, and you can't even put on your heavy armor properly without an assistant.
There is a kind of Medium Armor, the Armored Coat, that can be donned and doffed as a Move Action. That can make a huge difference.
Its not perfect but many of my characters have a set of armor that they wear as their pyjamas. If they're wakened in the middle of the night their AC will be lower but hopefully still be hugh enough to be somewhat useful
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It's important not to just look at the end-game armors characters want. Most characters will go through several suits of armor over the course of their careers and if a game only goes to level 8 or so (which is not uncommon), they may well spend half to 2/3 their career wearing armor other than their goal armor. Stepping stone armors like scale armor and banded armor are important even if very few characters want to wear them their whole life. They will wear them at level 1, 2, and 3. Maybe even longer depending how the loot falls. (I have a battle cleric in a pathfinder adapted Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign who is still in banded armor at 6th level--he's not about to sell the boots of speed he found or his +1 adamantine sword in order to get fullplate even though he wants to get some as soon as he can afford it).
Medium armor users:
A. Mithral medium armor (generally agile breastplates): A late game solution for high dex characters with medium armor proficiency. Fighters with high dex, paladins, rangers, etc with moderately high dex.
1. Also a late game solution for characters who don't necessarily have enough dex to max it out but who value the mobility it affords. Barbarians are the classic example here.
B. Regular medium armor.
1. A stepping stone for low level users of heavy armor. The classic fighter starting with a suit of scale armor or chainmail is the prime example.
1.b. A stepping stone for strength based maguses who don't have heavy armor proficiency...yet.
1.C. A stepping stone for most of the characters in A. who don't have the money for mithral medium armor...yet.
1.D. A stepping stone for fighters who value mobility and have armor training to let them keep their movement in medium armor but not heavy armor...yet.
2. For characters who don't have heavy armor proficiency and don't care enough to/can't afford to spend the feat. A lot of clerics, oracles, inquisitors, and barbarians fall into this category.
3. For Inquisitors who don't have the dex to take advantage of even mithral medium armor but want to benefit from ignoring any on-save effect when they make a fort or will save.
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Medium armor useless?
Are you crazy?
Almost every single character I have wears medium armor unless they have no dex at all & start with heavy armor proficiency (or are an arcane spell caster with no way to reduce spell failure).
Mithral kikko armor has an ACP of 0 and mithral breastplate with armor expert trait has a ACP of 0. Neither reduces your speed. You can sleep in them. You don't need proficiency in them because you can easily get the ACP to 0. And the amount of dex it takes to max out the dex isn't too hard to reach, and has a little adjustment because of breastplate vs kikko.
Ultimately I haven't had a single character end up in light armor once they could afford mithral.
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I'd guess that Mithral Breastplate is probably the most popular armor in the game.
Just taking a gander at the equipment list, who really benefits from medium armor?
Anyone who can afford mithril or boots of striding and springing or boots of haste or fighters with very high dex (it can happen)? Barbarians who can afford a miner loss of speed?
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Unless you have an insanely high DEX, or are a monk or arcane caster. Then you are best off with a haramaki or for monks, bracers.
Bracers are an atrocious deal for most of the game since mage armor is far, far superior until ~25K for a +1 to your AC is a good deal.
And mage armor is usually dirt cheap. Even potions at 50gp a pop are a pretty good deal.
Unless you have an insanely high DEX, or are a monk or arcane caster. Then you are best off with a haramaki or for monks, bracers.Bracers are an atrocious deal for most of the game since mage armor is far, far superior until ~25K for a +1 to your AC is a good deal.
And mage armor is usually dirt cheap. Even potions at 50gp a pop are a pretty good deal.
Bracers should be. IF they weren't, there'd be no reason at all to wear real armor.
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Unless you have an insanely high DEX, or are a monk or arcane caster. Then you are best off with a haramaki or for monks, bracers.Bracers are an atrocious deal for most of the game since mage armor is far, far superior until ~25K for a +1 to your AC is a good deal.
And mage armor is usually dirt cheap. Even potions at 50gp a pop are a pretty good deal.
True, but upgrading to bracers should be done before getting the ring up to +5 (Probably somewhere around 11-13).
Bracers +5 cost 25k vs 18k for upgrading the ring from +4 to +5, HOWEVER, the upgrade from +5 to +6 is only 11k, to +7 is 13k, and then to +8 is 15k. In addition, the cost of Mage Armor is low, but it's not nothing either. (And has to be put on actively which is minor a negative.)
My Druid has a pearl of power just for sharing the Wizards extended mage armor each day.
In my group we buy the pearl of power for the wizard, but same difference.
My Druid has a pearl of power just for sharing the Wizards extended mage armor each day.In my group we buy the pearl of power for the wizard, but same difference.
seems like the difference between how home and PFS games are handled...
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As mentioned before, Mithril Breastplate is the order of the day for many characters. There are some vlasses that bypass the movement penalty for heavier armors, though.
- Barbarians and Bloodragers beast through it with speed bonuses.
- Core Fighters (ech) have Armor Training to keep up.
- Travel Domain lets you move faster too.
- Longstrider is on soms class lists, but there's always a wand and some UMD.
- Oracles have plenty of ways around this, including the movement bonus from the Flame mystery.
- Vigilantes can get talents that allow them to bypass armor check penalties and speed restrictions for medium/heavy armor And have a speed boosting talent.
- Many others that I'm sure I missed.
Honestly, I've come to view the speed penalty of armor to serve less as a punishment and more as a solvable puzzle.